my wife, my daughter, to ever think of me that way…”
Jack’s eyes drifted, his expression haunted.
“Twenty-four hours then,” Layla said. “I’ll give you that, Jack Bauer. We’ll see if it changes my mind.”
Her phone rang and she put it on speaker. “Abernathy,”
she answered.
“Morris here. I need you in Station One, to help monitor a situation. I believe we’ve located the last truck.”
“I hope you can hear me, Tony, because I’m about to go in.”
Judith Foy warily approached the garage door of the old warehouse. She limped a little — hoping it would add to her cover story. She shifted the heavy metal box in her hand, then knocked on the boarded-up garage.
Silence. The place seemed to be as abandoned as it looked.
Foy knocked again, harder this time. She kicked the door for good measure, though her sneakers didn’t make much of a sound.
She was about to knock a third time when a spy hole opened in the middle of the big door.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice demanded.
“Klebb. Sonya Klebb,” Foy replied.
She flashed the dead woman’s passport, too fast for the observer to notice the crude job she’d done replacing the picture of the dead woman with her own driver’s license photo.
“I am a chemical engineer with Rogan Pharmaceuticals,” Foy continued. “Soren Ungar sent me.”
There was a long pause. Foy was about to speak again when a different voice, deep and booming, emerged from the spy hole.
“Where is Dubic?”
“Dead,” Foy replied. “We were attacked on the road. I think a gang was trying to rob us. Our car was struck by another vehicle. I was hurt. Dubic more so. Before he died, he told me where to go, made me promise to deliver the package here, to this address.”
“I see. And do you have the package?”
“I do,” Foy replied, displaying it.
On the other side of the garage door, she heard activity.
Then a rumbling sound as the door partially rose.
“Inside, quick,” a black youth said, gesturing to her.
Beyond the door, the interior was pitch-black, and Judith could see nothing. She stepped inside anyway, heart pounding in her chest.
Another rumble of machinery, and the door closed behind her. Then brilliant spotlights ignited, blinding her. Someone snatched the package out of her hand; other hands frisked her.
They were obviously looking for a weapon. She had none, and when they found her passport and Dubic’s cell phone, they ignored them. She hoped they hadn’t broken the phone circuit, but she couldn’t check now.
“Is that the aerosol dispenser?” Ibrahim Noor demanded.
“Yes, yes it is,” an accented voice replied. “I can install it in less than an hour.”
“Do it,” Noor commanded.
Judith blinked against the light, strained to see through her tears.
“Why did you come here?” Noor asked. “Who sent you?”
“I told you. Dubic—”
“If Dubic told you to come here, he would have given you the remote control to open the door. All of my men have it. Dubic knows our security. Anyone stupid enough to bang on our door is either a neighborhood addict or a cop.”
“No! Dubic must have forgotten. He was very injured.
He could hardly speak—”
“You are a fraud. An impostor,” roared Noor. “Take her.”
Strong hands seized her arms. Judith struggled, then yelled out the panic phrase: “
Someone punched her in the face, and the lab’s bright lights faded.
From his position among the branches of a century-old oak, Detective Mike Gorman shifted the sniper rifle in his grip, then aimed his night vision binoculars at the trailer truck three hundred feet away.
The vehicle sat in the middle of Schenley Plaza, once the grand entrance to the 456-acre conservancy, now used as a parking area for county rangers and concession employees. The truck had arrived sometime between mid-night and four a.m., when a sharp-eyed Allegheny County Parks Department ranger recognized the vehicle from a Federal government alert sent out to local authorities.
Two men slept in the cab. The driver’s window was open, his arm hanging out. The guy in the passenger seat slouched so low, only the top of his New York Mets ball cap showed above the dashboard.
For thirty minutes, Gorman and his partner, Chuck Romeo, had observed the sleeping targets, fearing they would awaken and drive away at any moment. So far they’d been lucky, but luck never lasted long — just one lesson Gorman had taken away from the McKee’s Rocks mess.
“What are we waiting for?” Gorman said into his headset.
“A biohazard team with a tent,” his boss, Captain Kelly, advised. “Once it’s in place, we can move.”
Gorman glanced across a grassy clearing at his partner, perched in a tall maple tree. He was sure Chuck was staring back at him. Then Romeo’s voice crackled in his headset.
“A biohazard team? Is there something you’re not telling us, Captain?”
“Relax, boys,” Kelly said. “Just do your job and the Feds will do the rest.”
More baffled than alarmed, Gorman lowered his binoculars and shifted the fourteen-pound M24 sniper rifle into position. The composite stock against his armored shoulder, he peered through the infrared scope.
Placing the ball cap in the center of his crosshairs, Gorman once again adjusted the instrument for wind speed, temperature, humidity, and distance. Gorman knew he had only one shot. It had to be on the money. He wasn’t going to mess up again.
Minutes passed. Then Gorman heard the sound of an engine. He watched in disbelief as two white panel trucks rolled into the plaza and halted just inside the gate.
“I thought the road had been cordoned off to traffic,”
Gorman hissed.
“It’s the biohazard team. They’ll be ready to go in two minutes.”
Gorman glanced through his scope again. His target was still snoozing, but the driver had shifted position.
“I think my mark’s awake,” Chuck Romeo warned.
“Do not fire,” Captain Kelly commanded. “I repeat. Do not fire until I give the command.”
“Son of a—” Gorman stifled his curse, remembering that everything he and the others said was being taped —
just like McKee’s Rocks.
