Lesser’s eyes narrowed. He pointed his finger. “Now you’re trying to trick me. But you can’t.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “You don’t understand how I’ve been changed. Transformed. Only one man understands.”
“Hasan?”
Lesser sat back in his chair, fingered a button on his shirt. “Even you’ve heard of him. All of you people in your government cubicles, your marble matrixes, your subversive multinational corporate castles — Hasan already has you quaking in your military-industrial complex boots. He’s the real deal, the prophet, the savior, he’s—”
“The Messiah? Is that why you’re working for him?”
Lesser smirked. “I don’t work for Hasan. I serve him. Just like you’re all going to serve him. Like everyone is going to serve him. All of this you serve now, it’s nothing, vacant and pointless. All of human life, all of it, is a blink in cosmic time. You, me, everyone, we live in the past, the constant, continual past. Hasan is the future—”
“Whereas you don’t have a future, Mr. Lesser.” Chappelle leaned back, causally folded his arms. “You’ll be seventy before you walk out of a federal penitentiary, unless we drop you in the general population with cartel members, mob assassins and the like. You may last a week, but it won’t be a pleasant seven days.”
Lesser’s smirk vanished. His face clouded, brow furrowed in thought. Chappelle waited, hoping Lesser would bargain for a shorter sentence in exchange for cooperation. Finally, Lesser spoke.
“I guess I have no choice.”
Chappelle nodded, pleased he’d broken through.
“Goodbye, Mr. Chappelle,” said Lesser. In one fluid motion, he ripped the top button from his shirt, slipped it into his mouth, and bit down.
8:16:03 P.M.PDT Terrence Alton Chamberlain Auditorium Los Angeles
Teri Bauer winced. Carla Adair was squeezing her hand so tightly her fingers were turning purple. Between moans, Carla took deep, noisy breaths through her mouth, just as she’d been taught to do in her Lamaze classes. Finally, she released Teri’s hand.
Carla’s labor pains began shortly after the auditorium was taken over. Nancy Colburn, in her fringed flapper dress, who had given birth herself just two years before, had helped Teri lift the armrests of the plush blue seats for Carla to lie across them. Their old boss, British producer Dennis Winthrop, had covered the pregnant woman’s gown with his formal evening jacket.
“It’s the adrenaline,” whispered Nancy. “The fear she’s feeling is inducing labor.”
“Christ,” hissed Dennis.
Now Carla was propped on her elbows, face flushed, brow sweaty. Chandra Washington was about to tear off a section of her violet wrap dress, then spied a white silk scarf someone had left on his seat. She picked it up and used it to mop Carla’s brow.
Pieces of elegant outfits were strewn all over the theater. During the crowd’s vain race for the exits, stiletto mules and strappy sandals had been kicked off, satin wraps and beaded handbags had been dropped, jewelry had been ripped away. Teri noticed a single diamond earring with a platinum setting, a broken necklace of rose gold.
Teri closed her eyes and tried to calm down by picturing Kim at her cousin’s. But then the inevitable questions came. How much had her daughter seen of the awards show? Were the terrorists broadcasting scenes from inside? Was Kim watching now? Was she scared?
Carla moaned again.
Teri opened her eyes and glanced at her slim, jeweled watch. “The pains are coming closer together,” she told Chandra.
“We need a doctor,” whispered the young woman.
Carla heard the exchange, her face was twisted with pain. “I don’t want to lose my baby,” she rasped.
“You won’t,” Teri assured her. “I won’t let that happen.”
Carla laid back again, her shoulder-length auburn hair fanning out against the blue velvet theater seats.
“Gary and I cleared out the second room last month,” she murmured, meeting Teri’s eyes, “we got it all ready…you should see the wallpaper. It’s this beautiful sunrise yellow…and the baby furniture. it was delayed so long we thought maybe the baby would come before the furniture…but it came two days ago.” Sweating and tearful, she sobbed in a tiny voice, “I want to go home.”
She watched silently as ten armed men with black headscarves wrapped around their faces moved around the auditorium, lapping the aisles in slow circles. The rest of the terrorists — and Teri had counted over twenty of them during the initial assault — were nowhere to be seen.
When the terrorists had first taken over the auditorium, they’d emptied the mezzanine, forcing everyone down to the ground floor where they could be guarded with a single perimeter sweep. Soon after, the masked men had led four women into the room. Teri had recognized one as the beautiful young usher who’d escorted their party to their theater seats.
All of the women had changed out of their evening gowns and swathed themselves from head to toe in black robes. Members of the audience had gasped when they’d seen what else the women now wore— bricks of plastic explosives strapped to belts around their waists. With beatific smiles on their faces and push-button detonators clutched in their hands, the women had moved into position, one in each corner of the room.
When the audience first realized that suicide bombers had been placed among them, a second burst of panic had ensued, put down with more shots fired into the air, more pistol whippings.
After that, Teri had witnessed dozens of brutalities and strange little dramas. Cowards tried to broker deals for their own lives. Heroes tried to protect those near them without regard for their own safety. But the most memorable act of courage was still to come.
“I’m so thirsty,” Carla murmured, her eyes closed. Teri could see the woman’s lips were dry and she was having difficulty swallowing.
Dennis Winthrop stood up. “There’s a pregnant woman here!” he cried. “She’s going into labor. She needs a doctor!”
Two masked men immediately confronted him. One man slapped him across the face, but his British pluck remained. He refused to back down, just stood in front of them, waiting for an answer. Finally, he told them, “If you can’t get this woman help, at least get her some water.”
One of the men had replied to his demand in perfect English. “If you want water, come with me. The rest of you remain here and make no trouble.”
That’s when Nancy jumped to her feet. “I’m going too,” she declared, a crusader in flapper fringe. “I can bring back water for everyone.”
The masked men said nothing, simply pushed the pair forward with the barrel of their submachine guns. With worry, Teri and Chandra had watched them go, until they were lost in the crowd.
Ten minutes went by, then twenty, but Dennis and Nancy had not returned. Not for the first time Teri began to ask herself where Jack was. She checked her watch again, wondering whether he knew what was happening in the auditorium and what he and his CTU team would do once they found out.
“Where’s Nancy? And Dennis?” Chandra fretted. “When are they going to come back with the water?”
Teri’s heart nearly stopped when she heard muffled but clearly audible sounds of gunfire from somewhere behind the stage. There were two short bursts from an automatic weapon, then nothing more.
“Teri?” rasped Chandra, her eyes wide with fear.
Willing her hands to stop shaking, Teri checked her watch again. “They’ll be here soon,” she assured the young woman. “Soon.”
A ring of shadows now surrounded the brilliantly lit auditorium. The power had been cut in a twenty-twoblock radius, but the Chamberlain didn’t need the grid to continuing glowing like a torch in the night. Its own generators
