pick the lock, and he would be inside. But he was forced to wait a few minutes while a chain-smoking, anorexic-thin woman finished walking her poodle. She did at last, flout-ing the pooper-scooper law by leaving the dog’s dump at the base of a fire hydrant. As soon as the woman’s stick legs disappeared around the corner, Jack moved.
With stealthy smoothness, he climbed the fence and dropped into the dimly lit alley. Hidden in the shadows, Jack used his Tac Five, CTU’s version of a Swiss Army knife, to begin probing the lock. Before he even touched it, the steel door opened.
“
The pudgy woman took a step backward when she saw the stranger looming in the doorway. Jack raised his hands to calm her.
“
The woman smiled, and Jack knew she’d accepted his lie, believed he was an employee for one of the wealthy residents, too.
“
“
MetroCard in hand, the woman hurried through the cast-iron gate, heading toward the subway entrance on Broadway. Jack stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
He walked down a long corridor with peeling green paint on the walls, fluorescent lights buzzing above. A freight elevator stood at the end. Beside it was a door to the stairs. He took the steps, avoiding the chance of a security camera inside the elevator.
The staircase felt wider than his living room back in Los Angeles, with marble steps and brass railings that shone dully. Jack’s footsteps echoed as he climbed. At the eighth floor, he opened the door a crack and checked the hallway.
Empty.
Jack left the stairwell and searched for apartment 801.
There were only four apartments on this floor, and he found Tobias’s quickly, placed his ear against the darkly polished mahogany. The television was on, a car commercial, then the channel changed — someone was inside.
Jack considered knocking but rejected the idea. Instead, he drew out his Tac tool and went to work on the lock.
Eleven seconds later, the tumblers fell into place and the lock clicked. Jack pushed through and closed the door behind him. He stood in a large, well-appointed foyer. The lighting was muted, the walls paneled with dark wood. An antique table held an abstract sculpture. Jack pressed his spine to the wall, drew the Glock from its holster. Clutching the weapon with both hands, he moved to the next wall and peered down a long hallway lined with framed oil paintings.
He was about to move when his eyes were drawn to an object that had been carelessly tossed on an elaborately carved end table — his own Glock, taken by the Albino that morning, at the restaurant. Jack shifted the weapon he’d borrowed from Morris to his right hand, slipped his own gun into the empty holster with his left.
Jack moved cautiously down the hall. The television continued to blare from the living room — now it was turned to the Serbian News Network. Hearing the familiar language made Jack pause. He waited for the channel to change again, but minutes passed and the somber Serb anchor continued to drone her monologue.
The realization made Jack consider something almost impossible. Memories came over him. He flashed back to the war in Bosnia. His Delta Force missions. Operation Nightfall.
Jack remembered the stories of
Jack peered around the corner, into the living room. The furnishings in here were sparse — Danish modern — sitting on a parquet floor. A sliding glass door looked out on a balcony and the park beyond. At only the eighth floor, Tobias’s view of Central Park was basically a sea of treetops.
Across the park, the windows of Manhattan’s East Side skyscrapers glowed like stars above a dark, leafy sea.
On a table, a desktop computer displayed financial news. A large-screen TV mounted on the wall was still tuned to Serbian television, and Jack spied the satellite dish attached to the balcony’s railing.
Finally, he saw the Albino. The man was lounging in a chair of cream-colored leather, legs crossed, clad in a silk robe. His white hair was damp from a shower, and he appeared to be dozing off — then Jack saw the hypodermic needle clutched in his pale hand.
Jack slipped past the man, searched the kitchen and dining room, and found no one else. Glock raised, Jack returned to the living room and boldly entered.
“
The Albino’s colorless eyes opened wide, not with confusion but recognition. He moved to rise, and the robe’s lapels parted, revealing a small black tattoo of a snarling dog on his milky chest. That’s when Jack knew for certain: Erno Tobias, the Albino, was the Pale One.
As the brutal war criminal got to his feet to move forward, Jack took aim above the kneecap, avoiding the artery, and fired.
Howling, Erno Tobias dropped back into the chair. He clutched his leg to stanch the bleeding. Still shocked by the attack, the Albino looked up, and their eyes met.
“Remember me?” Jack asked.
Morris O’Brian watched the screens, where real-time images out of Atlantic City displayed the firefight at the Ali Baba Casino from several different angles.
He tapped his keyboard, moved the mouse, and the speakers came to life, broadcasting chaotic radio transmissions from varied sources.
“… Shooter on roof. Return fire…”
“… We have multiple victims inside the casino. Need medical teams…”
“… He’s taken a hostage. Bring in the sniper…”
“Officer down! Officer down!”
Peter Randall stood at Morris’s shoulder, watching the screens in rapt attention. The phone rang and Morris grabbed it.
“O’Brian.”
“It’s Jack. I’m inside Erno Tobias’s penthouse.”
“Was the little bugger at home?”
“Affirmative,” Jack replied. “I’m about to have a talk with him. But first I want to send you the contents of the Albino’s computer.”
Morris frowned. “Another data dump?”
“A large one.”
Morris fed Jack the access codes for a large cache in the CTU database. “Everything you send, I’ll copy and forward on to the analysts at Langley.”
“Have the police found any more trucks?” Jack asked.
“There’s mixed news on that front. Rutland, Vermont’s been hit. A truck bomb went off at a factory. We don’t know how bad it is yet, but authorities anticipate many casualties…”
Morris heard Jack exhale.
“But there’s good news, too,” he added quickly. “The New Jersey State Police and the local SWAT team stopped a truck outside a large casino in Atlantic City. The bomb’s been neutralized, but several armed terrorists escaped into the casino. The firefight’s still under way.”
The silence on the other end of the line was heavy.
“Have you learned anything from Mr. Tobias?” Morris asked.
