“Why are we here?” Pizarro asked.
“To see her,” Stella whispered, pushing the door wider.
Alone in the uniform room, a ten year old girl sat at a metal table, her back to the open door. She did not notice their presence because music from an MP3 filled her ears. Humming along with a tune by Hilary Duff, Pamela Sheridan scribbled in a coloring book, crayons littering the table top.
“What is this about, woman?” Pizarro said doubtfully.
“I told you. My roommate, Lilly, is a waitress at the banquet tonight. She gave me a ride to Bix’s garage earlier today, told me some sob story about how she was stuck for a babysitter and planned to stash the kid in this closet for the evening…”
“And this helps us how?” Balboa demanded.
Stella rolled her eyes. “Hold the rug rat hostage, and I guarantee you Lilly Sheridan will do anything you ask. To save that kid, she’ll plant those bombs herself if she has to.”
Morris O’Brian was glued to the television screen. Five minutes before, he’d watched Don Driscoll open the back door to admit the six-man hit team. Once inside, Driscoll led the urban punks down three flights of stairs to the subbasement.
Now Morris watched as Jack Bauer, a Glock cradled in his right hand, slipped through that same door and locked it behind him. Driscoll and the hit team were trapped in the cellar. Morris knew those men wouldn’t be leaving, unless it was feet first.
Switching to the security camera in the stairwell, Morris watched as Bauer crept down the steps, paused on a landing. To Morris, Jack seemed to be listening to the whispered words of the hit team as they moved toward the security room.
Bauer glanced up at the camera, then reached around a thick pipe to retrieve the device he’d hidden there earlier. Jack slipped the AN/PVS–14 night vision goggles over his head, adjusted the straps, then fitted the monocular image intensifying unit over his left eye.
When Jack looked up again, his elaborate night vision gear reminded Morris of a half-human cyborg from a science fiction novel.
In his right he still clutched the Glock. Jack raised his left, palm open.
At the prearranged signal, O’Brian cut the electricity. Regretfully, his television screen went dark, too. He reasoned the cameras wouldn’t pick up much without the lights anyway. Morris sighed. He might be blind, but so was the hit team.
“Good luck, Jacko,” he muttered.
Immediately, Morris felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, blinked in surprise.
A woman loomed over him, her complexion bone white, with a foamy crown of blacker-than-black hair topping her high forehead. Sharp cheekbones accentuated large eyes, but her face was dominated by a wide, scarlet mouth. In her ubiquitous black blouse and slacks, Nina Myers reminded O’Brian of the Angel of Death from the stories about the 1918 influenza epidemic his grand mum told him.
“What are you doing here?” Morris demanded. His
tone was sharp — he was still rattled by the drama unfolding in the basement. “Nice to see you too, Morris,” Nina replied, hand on her hip.
“How… How did you get here?”
“Actually, I took a cab from the airport.”
“I… I didn’t mean to ask how you got here,” Morris stammered. “I meant to ask why you’re here.”
Nina’s scarlet lips dipped into a pout. “Alberta Green sent me. She’s shutting down the operation. This investigation is over, effective immediately. I’m here to supervise the deactivation…”
Morris slumped in the chair, absorbing the news. Nina pushed her hair back. “Look, I need to see Jack right away.”
“Sorry, love, you’ll have to wait,” Morris replied with a crooked grin. “I’m afraid Agent Bauer’s rather busy right now.”
The desserts were dished up, the coffee served. The second round of after dinner speeches, including the keynote address by Senator David Palmer, was about to begin.
Evelyn Ankers interrupted Lilly Sheridan at table six and send her to the beverage pantry to fetch pitchers of distilled ice water for the speaker’s podium.
As she crossed the crowded banquet hall, the cell phone in Lilly’s skirt pocket vibrated. She waited until she was in the wings and out of sight to before answering, lest the authoritarian banquet manager catch her on a personal call. Finally Lilly reached a quiet alcove near the rest rooms and reached for the phone. Along with the cell she pulled someone’s business card out of her pocket. Lilly immediately checked the caller’s number. As she feared, the call came from her daughter.
“Pamela, I told you not to call me unless—”
“Shut up and listen for once, Lilly. I have a gentleman here who wants to speak with you.”
“Stella? Is that you? Where’s Pamela? What’s the mat—”
A man’s accented voice interrupted her. “Lilly Sheridan, listen carefully. We have your daughter. She’s safe as long as you follow our instructions.”
Icy hands seemed to squeeze the breath out of Lilly’s lungs. “I don’t understand. Is this some kind of sick joke—”
“It’s no joke, honey.” Stella again. “We’re here in the uniform storage room where you stashed your kid. Pamela’s safe. It’s up to you to see that she stays that way. Here, talk to your mom, cuddle bunny.”
Lilly strained to hear over the noisy crowd. “Mom. I’m scared. Aunt Stella is acting weird and—”
“That’s enough,” Stella Hawk interrupted. “In a couple of minutes, a guy’s going to show up in front of the kitchen door. He’ll be pushing a serving cart with flowers on it. That’s Carlos. He’ll tell you what to do.”
“Stella, why are you doing this?”
“Shut up, Lil. I can’t stand it when you whine.”
Stella hung up.
Trembling, Lilly lowered the phone, leaned against a pillar to keep from falling down. She twisted her head to face the kitchen door, but saw no one pushing a flower cart. Fumbling to put away her phone, Lilly realized she was clutching something in her left hand — Jaycee Jager’s business card. She stared at the number scrawled on the back, her mind racing. Jager was Stella’s boyfriend. Could he have something to do with what was happening? Somehow she didn’t think so, but Lilly realized Jaycee might know something.
Crouching out of sight behind the coffee station, Lilly quickly punched in Jaycee’s number.
When the lights went out, Jack heard the gang’s cries of alarm. He listened while Don Driscoll tried to calm them, insisting the power failure was just a glitch.
But it was their leader, the man called Wildman, who finally restored order. Despite his outlandish appearance, Wildman seemed to know what he was doing. That was unfortunate. Jack assumed that when the lights failed, the gang would panic, maybe scatter. He could easily gun them down one by one. But since they stuck together, the hit team had a better chance of stopping Jack before he got them all.
Bauer crept down the remaining steps. With the night vision equipment, he could clearly see the men in the corridor — white blobs in a field of green, twenty feet away. Their guns were drawn, and they had formed a defensive circle. Jack was willing to wait for a better shot, because it would be difficult to take them down now.
Then Jack saw Don Driscoll reach into his pocket. When his hand came out again, the man was clutching a flashlight pointed in Jack’s direction. Like it or not, the time for Jack to strike had come.
Aiming with both hands, Jack stepped away from the wall and fired. The first shot took out the man with the shotgun. He tumbled to the concrete floor. The second shot slammed into the man with the Raiders cap, threw him backwards in a gush of blood. His fall left a man in a hooded jacket exposed, and Jack shot him next. The man reeled but didn’t go down, so Jack shot him again.
The man with the cornrows stepped behind Don Driscoll. Jack paused, unwilling to risk hitting his pit boss. He shifted his aim and took down the other three hit men in quick succession, each with a tap to the head.
