most toxic environments on the planet. The process of cooking pseudoephedrine pills — over-the-counter cold medicine — into a powerfully addictive drug known in the states under street names like crank, crystal, zip or hillbilly heroin produced lethal by-products. For every pound of the manufactured drug, six pounds of toxic waste was created. Tony saw drains in the floor, the concrete bleached white around them, and knew these men were simply dumping their poisonous leftovers like benzene, hydrochloric acid, and sodium cyanide into the sewer system.
Studying his surroundings, he realized he was inside the brick ice house behind the brothel. He wondered why he’d been grabbed. Had he been double-crossed by his “old pal” Ray Dobyns, or was the con man a victim, too? Was Tony just a gringo kidnapping and extortion victim of a Mexican gang? Or was his capture related to CTU’s pursuit of Richard Lesser?
Most of all, Tony wondered if Fay Hubley was safe back at the hotel.
There had been an accident on the freeway. A jackknifed truck was now sprawled across three lanes. All traffic going the same direction as the LAPD prisoner transport vehicle and its escorts was at a standstill.
Fortunately Jack Bauer, in the lead vehicle, received a timely warning from the pilot of the police helicopter providing aerial surveillance. He steered the convoy off the highway at the next ramp, before they got tangled up in the bottleneck. They were only a few miles from CTU Headquarters, so rather than risk the choked main streets, Jack directed the three-vehicle caravan through a lightly traveled industrial area where the traffic consisted mostly of trucks and commercial vehicles.
The streets were congested around the freeway ramp, but as soon as the convoy reached Clark Street they made up for lost time.
Glancing at his watch, Jack cursed the delay. Back at Central Facilities, Detective Castalano insisted Jack ride in the lead vehicle along with a uniformed driver and a fully outfitted member of the LAPD Special Weapons and Tactics team. His logic made sense. Jack would have to get the parade through CTU gate security, and that would be easier if he were at the head of the convoy. But Jack felt he was losing valuable time. If he’d ridden in the same vehicle as the prisoner, he might have gotten an early start on his interrogation.
But at least the LAPD had supplied enough men to get them to CTU safely, even though resources were stretched because of the Silver Screen Awards ceremony scheduled for that evening. Beyond the armored van Jack rode in, there was a second armored vehicle containing two SWAT team members bringing up the rear — both members of the D Platoon of the Metro Division. Sandwiched between the two vans was an LAPD prisoner transport truck containing Detective Castalano, his partner Jerry Alder, two uniformed officers and the prisoner, Ibn al Farad. Above, a police chopper monitored their movement and directed them around obstacles.
But Jack was still not sufficiently satisfied with the security arrangement. Before they left the Central Facilities, he insisted on tagging the prisoner as an added precaution. While Castalano and Alder located an ankle bracelet and attached it to the young man, Jack removed one of the stems on his wristwatch. Unseen, he rested his hand on the suspect, pinning the tiny transmitter to the collar of Ibn al Farad’s white jumpsuit, effectively double- tagging him.
At the time Jack though he might be overcautious— even paranoid — when he double-tagged the Saudi national. But since the sudden traffic jam on the highway, his suspicions had returned. So far they appeared to be unfounded.
As they rolled past the intersection of South Brad-bury Boulevard and Clark Street, the convoy moved out of an area of chain link fences and truck parks, entering a two-lane canyon flanked by block-long rows of flat, two- and three-story industrial buildings. Noting their location, Jack opened his cell phone, intending to contact Nina for an update on tracking down a reference for the “old man on the mountain.” Instead Jack was thrown against his shoulder harness when the driver slammed on the brakes. A long trailer truck had backed out of a garage, directly in the path of the convoy. Tires squealed, but there was no collision.
“Stupid son of a bitch could have killed us!” cried the policeman at the wheel. While Jack retrieved his fallen cell, the driver rolled down his window to yell at the trucker.
“Once a traffic cop, always a traffic cop,” grunted the tactical officer in the backseat.
Still stooped over and fumbling for his phone, Jack heard the voice of the chopper pilot on his headset. “Code Red. Code Red, there are men on the roof. Repeat—”
But Jack wasn’t listening. He’d spied the driver’s open window and cried out. “No! That glass is bulletproof. Don’t expose—”
Almost simultaneously Jack heard the sonic boom and the thwack of the bullet as it struck the driver in the throat. Hot blood sprayed the window, coating it. Two more shots ricocheted through the vehicle. A grunt, and the tactical officer slumped forward in his seat, left eye dripping from its socket. More bullets riddled the vehicle, chipping — but not penetrating— the bulletproof glass. Jack stayed close to the floor, realizing that reaching for his fallen cell phone was the only thing that had saved him.
“Officers down,” he shouted into his headset. “We are under fire. Officers down. Repeat, officers down.”
A voice crackled in his ear — the chopper pilot, but Jack could not make out his words. Outside, he heard the chatter of automatic weapons and guessed the helicopter was under attack.
Still on the floor of the cab, Jack reached out and closed the passenger side window. More shots bounced off the reinforced windshield. Jack pocketed the cell phone and took a deep breath. Then he leaped into the backseat. More shots struck the window, cracking the windshield down the middle.
Jack landed next to the SWAT team officer. Like the driver, the man was gone, his Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun still in his hands. Jack pried the weapon loose, collected a pair of XM84 stun grenades from the dead man’s vest, looted clips of gore-soaked ammo from his belt. The voices on the police net had reached panic level, screaming into Jack’s ear. Lifting his head above the seat, he scanned the vehicles behind him.
The armored van bringing up the rear sat with its doors hanging open. Though protected in their bullet- resistant van, the tactical officers had attempted to respond to the attack. Now they both lay in the street, rivers of blood pooling around them on the hot pavement. So far, the prisoner transport vehicle did not seem to have been breached, though the driver was hunched, unmoving, over the steering wheel.
Jack flipped onto his back. Sprawled across the backseat, he scanned the rooftops. He could see armed, masked, black-clad figures on the edge of the buildings. They were on both sides of the street, four on each building, eight in all — then a ninth rose into view. The man held a dull gray tube on his shoulder, aimed the weapon at armored transport.
“Frank!” Jack screamed into his headset. “If you can hear me, get out of there now—”
Trailing fire and hot smoke, the shoulder-fired antitank missile slammed into the prisoner transport vehicle. Jack watched helplessly as the blunt tip of the shape-charged projectile punched a hole into the side of the truck, filling the vehicle with a fiery jet of molten plasma. The interior of the cab lit up like a strobe light as the windows and doors blew out. The dead driver was flipped like a rag doll over the steering wheel and into the street.
The echo of the blast had not yet faded when a half-dozen men burst out of the doors of the trailer truck that had veered into their path. Jack heard footsteps pounding as the men ran past his van, heading toward the shattered transport. Jack knew they were after the prisoner — to rescue Ibn al Farad or silence him forever. Either way, Jack had to stop them.
He set the weapon to its sustained fire setting, took a deep breath and toggled the door. As soon as it opened, Jack tumbled to the street, rolling under the van. He aimed the MP5 at three men clustered around the door to the transport, squeezed the trigger. The weapon would spew bullets as long as the trigger was depressed.
Two figures danced as hot steel shells ripped them apart. Jack saw their weapons clatter to the pavement — an M-16 A2 assault rifle and a Remington M870 shotgun.
Slithering across the hot, oily pavement, Jack moved to the other side of the van. He rolled out from under the vehicle, tossing a non-lethal stun grenade into a second knot of men. The explosion sent the men reeling. One figure turned, aimed a shotgun. The MP5 bucked in Jack’s hands and he stitched a bloody path up the man’s torso.
Three men emerged from the smoking interior of the shattered transport truck — two attackers dragging a stunned Ibn al Farad between them.
Jack took aim, but before he could squeeze the trigger, a steel-toed boot crashed against his head, knocking him aside. Jack bounced off the van with a hollow thud; the weapon flew from his grip.
