Dani screamed, and the two women struggled. Layla was petite, but better trained. In a few deft moves, she had the girl pinned to the ground.
“Give me that phone,” Layla demanded. “I can’t let some moody adolescent jeopardize innocent lives.”
Suddenly a shadow fell over the women. Layla looked up, just as a foot lashed out and struck her temple.
Without a sound, Layla toppled to the ground and stayed down. Dani slid out from under her, looked up at the newcomer.
“Mr. Holman!” she cried. “You’re alive.”
Brice Holman stumbled, then slumped to the ground.
“Barely,” he grunted, clutching his belly. Dani saw black blood seeping through his shirt.
Dani threw her arms around Holman. He touched her arm reassuringly, then stared at the still form on the ground.
“Judy warned me,” he said to the unconscious Agent Abernathy. “She was sure you were a mole. I thought it was Rachel Delgado, but I guess Foy was right…”
Then Holman grunted and clutched his gut with both arms. “Won’t be long now,” he rasped.
Another figure entered the clearing. Holman looked up, into the barrel of Jack Bauer’s Glock.
“Who are you?” Jack demanded. “What did you do to Agent Abernathy?”
Dani hurled herself between the two men. “This is Mr.
Holman. The man who helped me!”
Bauer lowered his weapon. “I’ve been searching for you all day.”
“You’re Jack Bauer? From the Los Angeles unit?”
Jack nodded.
“Forgive me if we don’t shake hands. I’m holding my guts in place at the moment.” Holman winced again.
“Listen, we have to talk, Bauer, and fast. I don’t have much time…”
“I’ll call the paramedics,” Jack said. “There’s a medical unit hovering around here somewhere.”
Brice Holman took his cell from Dani Taylor’s hand and offered it to Jack. “Use my phone.”
13. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7:00 P.M. AND 8:00 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
Flickering flames still rose from the ruined town. In the debris-strewn streets, helicopters idled and armed silhouettes moved through the billowing smoke. Down in the valley, the shadows deepened — the sun would set in an hour or so.
Jack used mini-binoculars to watch the medical team move among the mobile homes. Following his GPS signal, they were making their way up the hill to perform triage on Director Brice Holman. After personally examining the man’s ravaged abdomen, Jack didn’t think they would make it in time.
Sprawled on the ground, head cradled in Dani Taylor’s lap, Brice grinned, but the amusement never touched his pain-ravaged eyes.
“Turns out a pitchfork can kill you as dead as a nine-millimeter,” he grunted.
Also on the ground, Layla Abernathy groaned and stirred, but her eyes didn’t open. Jack ignored the traitor.
He had secured the woman’s wrists and ankles with flex ties, so she wasn’t going anywhere.
Brice Holman’s intense gaze locked with Jack Bauer’s.
“Twelve trucks, Bauer. All of them with the Dreizehn Trucking logo,” Holman said ominously. “Between eighty-five and a hundred fanatics aboard them. If the forces are divided equally… Hell, you do the math, Bauer. I’m too damned tired. But I have lots of intelligence inside that phone. The access code is Bin 666 Charlie seven — that’s the word
Jack nodded. Holman relaxed, slumping against Dani Taylor. The teenager had never left his side, even when Bauer exposed the deep puncture wounds and tried—
vainly — to staunch the bleeding.
“Listen, Bauer, these trucks are packed with deadly cargo. Guns. Ammunition. Explosives. Maybe chemical and biological weapons, too. One truck left the compound early this morning. The rest later, maybe the early afternoon. They fanned out in all directions…”
Holman winced against the pain. When he spoke again, his voice was weaker, his tone more urgent. “You’ve got to stop them. Send out a nationwide bulletin, alert all Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Track them down. Use satellites. Raid truck stops and diesel fuel dumps — whatever it takes.”
Holman groaned, and fresh blood stained the bundled cloth he clutched to his guts. “It’s up to you now, Bauer.
There’s no one else who can stop these terrorists. Nobody but you.”
Bauer nodded. “I’ll stop them, Holman. I swear it.”
The medical team arrived at that moment. They dragged a protesting Dani aside, then began to work over the man.
Bauer stepped to the edge of the hill and tugged Holman’s cell out of his pocket, dialed up CTU New York.
“O’Brian here.”
“It’s Jack, Morris. Prepare to receive data.”
“Ready.”
Jack punched in Holman’s security code, located the intelligence cache, and pressed the send button.
Behind him, Jack heard Dani sobbing. A paramedic appeared at his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Agent Bauer,” the woman said softly. “We did what we could, but Director Holman lost too much blood. He’s gone…”
Morris O’Brian downloaded the contents of Brice Holman’s cell phone. After opening the files in his briefcase computer, he copied the data, bundled it with the information retrieved from Judith Foy’s cell, then forwarded complete data packages to the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley; FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.; and CTU Los Angeles for further analysis.
He also sent them the cleaned up audio of the mad, rant-ing speech by Ibrahim Noor, which was picked up from Holman’s cell phone and processed at CTU New York.
Then Morris went to work analyzing the photographic images shot by Deputy Director Judith Foy at Newark Lib-erty Airport that morning.
Thanks to Chloe’s alarmingly titled e-mail — a false alarm as it mercifully turned out — Morris had been able to retrieve Agent Foy’s intelligence data, which had been sent as an attachment.
Now Morris worked with the surveillance photographs on his screen, using the CTU known-terrorist database to analyze facial features for a match. Within fifteen minutes, he’d come up with a potential equivalent.
He called up the personnel file of the known terrorist and his alias and made a closer comparison. Suddenly Morris’s angular face broke into a grin of triumph.
“As the old lady at the church bazaar said—
“Pardon me?” Peter Randall called from the next station.
“Never mind, back to work,” Morris said. “Nothing to see here, mate.”
Morris placed the two photographs side by side for a final eyesight comparison. “Got you,” he whispered.
