5. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11:00 A.M. AND 12:00 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
On the ground, the silencer digging into his temple, Jack had no time to make a move before the final gunshot.
When it came, Jack felt no pain. Instead, the pressure against his skull simply fell away.
Jack instantly realized he hadn’t been shot. The blond man lurched backward, onto the fire escape, one limp hand brushing at the quickly spreading red stain on his blue shirt.
As Jack pulled his weapon, a second bullet caught the blond man in the throat. The blond dropped his gun, and his body pitched against the metal railing. Limply, without a sound, he fell headfirst into the street below.
Glancing around, Jack saw Tony Almeida, Glock still in hand. Tony walked over, helped Jack to his feet.
“Jack, are you—”
“I’m fine,” Jack said hoarsely.
Tony stepped back, holstered his weapon.
Jack closed his eyes, took a breath. With every move, he was battered by waves of dizziness. Ignoring the pain, he opened his eyes, reholstered his own Glock.
Tony stepped to the fire escape and peered over the railing. “Sorry, Jack. I know you wanted one of them alive.”
“Forget it,” Jack rasped. “Let’s find out what they were up to.”
It took them less than a minute to find the bomb. It was planted at the base of the microwave communications array — a digital clock connected to a two-pound bundle of C–4.
Jack crouched low, fighting a wave of nausea. “I can defuse this,” he said.
Tony pulled him away. “You’re in no condition to do this. Let me handle it.”
Before Jack could protest, the cell phone went off in his pocket. He answered, “Bauer.”
“It’s me, Jack-o,” Morris said. “Where have you run off to?”
“I’ve been… busy,” Jack said.
“I have news,” Morris continued. “Both good and bad.”
“Okay,” Jack said while he watched Tony use a gravity knife to sever the wire that led from the explosive charge to the timer. Tony then opened the back of the clock and removed a small battery. Immediately, the numbers stopped flashing and the digital face went dark.
Jack quietly exhaled.
“Are you there, Jack?” Morris demanded. “It’s not polite to ignore a man who’s called you.”
“I’m here,” Jack replied wearily. “What have you got for me? The good news.”
“I’ve broken through Brice Holman’s security firewall,”
Morris declared with a hint of pride. “The contents of the Director’s computer are yours to peruse.”
“Good work, Morris. What’s the downside?”
The memory’s been wiped clean. Holman’s cache is empty. And get this… According to the computer log, the memory was wiped this morning at six twenty-one a.m.”
“Then there’s a mole in CTU New York. Maybe more than one. We checked the entry logs. We know Brice Holman was never here today. That means somebody else deleted those files.” Jack paused, rubbed his aching temple. “How about the laptop I brought you?”
“I’m afraid all Fredo Mangella was doing was convert-ing currency. Dollars into euros. Millions of them. It was all on the up-and-up.” Morris frowned. “Might be a dead end, Jack.”
“No,” Jack insisted. “It’s important, but I don’t know why. Not yet. We’re still missing a piece of the puzzle.”
“I’ll keep looking, but all I see are recipes and payroll records. You won’t believe what an executive chef earns!”
“Listen, Morris. One more thing. Tony Almeida has a device for you to check out.”
Morris sighed. “Now what would that be, boss? A computer? Another laptop?”
“A bomb,” Jack replied.
After swallowing two cups of black coffee and three Advils, Jack felt considerably better. Tony had gone back to finishing his work on the security system, and Morris had taken the explosive device to the blast-proof room for further examination.
Now Jack was sitting behind Brice Holman’s desk, waking his computer out of hibernation. The firewalls were down and Holman’s computer cache was empty, as Morris had said.
Jack moved to the nonsecured files Holman kept, and ran a search using keywords
Then he found the draft of an e-mail to Judith Foy.
Holman had never finished or sent the message, but the e-mail mentioned “our friends at the FBI” and “Jello and Rollo,” obviously code names.
Jack punched the intercom and summoned Layla Abernathy.
“I want you to contact Andrew McConnell,” he told her the moment she walked in.
“The Director of the local FBI office?”
“That’s right. I want you to ask him if any of his agents are involved in an investigation of the Warriors of God, Imam Ali Rahman al Sallifi, or the compound at Kurmastan.”
Layla nodded. “Anything else?”
“Don’t be upset if you don’t get any answers. Just report back to me. I want to know what McConnell says, word for word. His tone, his attitude, his inflection.”
“If you want all that, why can’t you talk to him yourself?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” was Jack’s only reply.
Layla left Holman’s office with a stiff stride. She could understand Jack Bauer’s being unhappy with the present situation, but she didn’t like being kept in the dark. Brice had kept her that way for weeks, and she’d had enough of it.
She didn’t care for Bauer’s manner, either. He was obviously a gung-ho, Type A, goal-oriented alpha male. The kind of guy who’d roll over anything or anyone who got in his way.
Layla had made some discreet inquiries about the man and wasn’t surprised to discover that Bauer had a reputation for being a loose cannon. Strangely, however, not one of Layla’s contacts had characterized him as political. Apparently, for Jack Bauer, career advancement wasn’t a high priority.
That impressed Layla, along with the man’s reputation for being one hell of a field agent. He was also tight with Richard Walsh at Langley, which Layla knew would pretty much absolve him of most Agency sins.
On her way down the hall, Layla accidentally bumped into one of Jack’s cronies. She froze when she saw the explosive in his hand.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
“No worry, luv,” Morris O’Brian said with a smile. “It’s inactive. I could crack it against the wall and absolutely nothing will happen.”
Layla shook her head. “Well, do me a favor. And
Morris grinned and punched the bricks of C–4 with his fist. “See? Perfectly harmless.”
Giving Morris a wide berth, Layla headed back to her desk. “My god,” she murmured. “These L.A. guys are
