approximately two minutes. After that, you’ll have about a minute to make your descent before we’ll have to pull up.”
Bauer nodded. “Do it.”
Adrenaline feeding his veins, Jack slipped a new clip into the Glock, then tucked the weapon into its holster.
The few doubts he had burned away as he focused on the details, inspecting the fast-rope on the chopper. Because it wasn’t anchored to the ground, the fast-rope had to be thick, heavy, and long to prevent it from being jerked around by the tremendous down draft from the rotors.
This rope looked good. It was at least fifty millimeters in diameter and it was more than one hundred feet long—
more than sufficient for a descent.
Gloves were essential in a descent like this, otherwise friction could strip his palms raw. Fortunately there were gloves and knee pads among the chopper’s stores, though Jack could find no helmet — not even a hockey- style head protector like the ones he’d worn in Delta.
“Bauer, we’re beyond the last overpass and dropping now. Get ready to move,” Captain Fogarty warned in Jack’s ear.
Jack inhaled, his heartbeat slowing as he took control of his breathing and his impatience, focused on his actions.
The chopper’s sudden descent made his stomach lurch. He ignored the discomfort, clipped a deadweight to the end of the rope, and tossed it through the open door. The cord quickly unspooled to a length of sixty feet. He locked the winch, slipped the gloves over his hands, and seized the thick cable.
Jack could see the truck now, its shape outlined by four dim lights on top of the trailer.
“Go! Go now,” Fogarty cried.
Still clinging to the rope, Jack stepped out of the helicopter. He dangled for a moment, the rotor blades throbbing above, the traffic roaring below, the pilot’s voice lost in the howling maelstrom.
Buffeted by the merciless downdraft, Jack waited for the chopper to line up over the vehicle. Then the rope began to spin. Without hooks or a safety harness, there was nothing to hold Jack to that lifeline but the strength of his grip. Now the wild movement threatened to throw him off. And the spinning would only get worse the longer he hung there.
Captain Fogarty swooped low and positioned the chopper directly over the speeding truck. Still twisting in the wind, Jack aimed his feet at the swaying silver trailer far beneath the soles of his boots.
Finally, Jack eased his grip on the rope and began the descent…
Inside the rumbling trailer, the members of the Warriors of God cult heard the rotors beating over their heads. Farshid Amadani — the Hawk — felt three pairs of eyes watching him expectantly, waiting for him to issue a command.
“Have they found us, Hawk?” one man asked, his voice trembling with emotion.
“They found us at the stadium, my friend. It was only a matter of time before they tracked us down,” the former mujahideen replied, his tone resigned.
The throbbing intensified as the helicopter descended upon the rumbling truck. Inside the trailer, the air was hot and suffocating, tinged with the chemical taint of explosives.
“Turn out the lights,” the Hawk commanded.
In a moment, the interior of the cavernous trailer was plunged into darkness. Amadani used a dim emergency flashlight pulled from his black utility vest to climb the stacked crates of C–4. He moved with caution, careful to avoid the crisscrossing detonation cords.
In the dull glow of the crimson light, the Hawk unlocked the roof hatch and cracked it. The slipstream whooshed around his ears, filling the stuffy trailer with a blast of fresh air.
Peering through the hatch, the Hawk saw the belly of the helicopter above him, a long rope dangling down. He frowned when he spied a single man in a blue battle suit hanging from the door. Amadani quickly closed the hatch before the other man spotted him.
“We are about to be boarded,” the Hawk warned.
The men cried out.
“Remember we are warriors! Martyrs for the jihad!”
Amadani bellowed, his fierce words drowning their laments.
“I shall swat this flea,” the Hawk said. “You will follow the
The men nodded. Grim-faced, they began to arm the explosives.
Still perched on the crates, the Hawk touched the pocket of his combat vest. He considered using his cell to inform Ibrahim Noor that they’d been discovered, that this truck would not be in position to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn and provide the necessary diversion for Noor’s final, devastating strike. But he didn’t make the call. Why should he? Noor and his foreign allies were monitoring the situation from a secure location, and they would know he and his men had failed. Any call he made now might be tapped and traced by their enemies.
Clutching a USP Tactical in his scarred hand, the Hawk muttered a final prayer for himself and his warriors. Then he opened the hatch…
Jack Bauer landed with a bruising crash, facedown on the top of the speeding trailer. Battling the relentless slipstream, he hugged the ridged aluminum while he brought his legs up under him. He climbed to his feet the same way he used to mount a surfboard, using his arms for balance.
But instead of smelling a cool ocean breeze, Jack choked on hot exhaust fumes belched by the cab’s twin stacks. He lurched forward, through the smog, toward the cab and the man behind the wheel. The roof had evenly spaced ridges, and they helped Jack maintain his balance as he stumbled to the front of the trailer.
Meanwhile the truck rolled down the center lane at a good clip, cars, buses, and other trucks flowing around it.
Over Jack’s head, the staccato beat of the whirling rotors intensified when Captain Fogarty pulled up and banked over the Hudson. In seconds, the helicopter was no more than a dark silhouette against the glistening skyline.
Jack planned to smash his way into the passenger com-partment and take out the driver. Once he gained control of the vehicle, he could swerve away from the tunnel and its traffic, neutralize the other terrorists in a remote location — or simply drive the whole damned rig into the Hudson River if he had to.
He’d almost reached the cab when Jack heard a clang.
A roof hatch opened directly in front of him, and a figure emerged clutching a handgun. Jack recognized him immediately, from the surveillance photos Morris had forwarded to his PDA — Farshid Amadani, a.k.a. the Hawk.
Before the terrorist could take aim, Jack launched himself at Amadani. The velocity of Jack’s charge carried them both over the edge of the trailer. They landed on top of the cab with a loud crash; a roof light shattered under the Hawk’s battered spine. Jack, who was cushioned from the fall by the other man’s body, heard Amadani gasp, smelled his sour breath.
Jack groped for the weapon, his fingers closing on the man’s wrist. The Hawk fought, refusing to release his handgun. He sank his yellow teeth into Bauer’s shoulder and bit down. Jack howled and slammed his right fist into the man’s abdomen, his left still clutching the man’s wrist.
Amadani cried out and pushed Jack aside. Together they rolled off the roof of the cab and slammed onto the engine’s hood.
Still grappling, Jack was on the bottom now. The hot metal scorched his back. The noise battered his ears. Jack glimpsed the startled face of the driver, the USP Tactical waving at him through the windshield as the men struggled to control the weapon.
