Jack recognized a number of familiar faces from the financial pages of the news and the TV business channels. There was a California aerospace tycoon, a Seattle software titan, a maverick oil wildcatter from Texas with a big stake in alternative energy sources, a deputy assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, and a Manhattan real estate magnate, to name a few.
He caught glimpses of them as he, Sandoval, and Bass made their way through the grand hall and down a corridor leading into the east wing. Their progress was brisk but without urgency to avoid attracting any undue attention. All the in- house personnel, guards, staffers, and service persons, moved at a similar pace; only the guests lounged, ambled, or lingered.
The trio bypassed a cordon of security guards before arriving at the grandiose anteroom outside Cabot Huntington Wright’s office suite. Marion Clary still occupied her post at the reception desk, glancing up as the visitors entered and greeting them with a warm smile as she recognized them.
She said, “Good afternoon, or good evening, I should say. One loses track of the time out here.”
She looked down at an open ledger on her desk, scanning the entries. A frown creased her smooth, shining forehead as she looked up with mild vexation and puzzlement. “I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to have you gentlemen down in my appointment book—”
Bass interceded. “This is a special matter, Marion, one that’s come up rather suddenly. It’s somewhat urgent. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“It’s all very strange to me but if you think it’s important—”
“It is. Is Mr. Wright in?”
Her face showed signs of strain. “I’m afraid he’s away from his office.”
Jack stepped forward, a pleasant smile masking inner urgency. “Actually it’s Mr. Oliver we’re interested in. May we see him, please?”
Marion Clary said, “Brad Oliver? He left here some time ago.”
“I’m sorry to trouble you, but do you know where he went?”
“No, I don’t. But he certainly was in a hurry.”
Jack and Sandoval exchanged glances, Jack wondering if he looked as crestfallen as the other did.
Marion Clary went on, “Yes, he rushed right out of here. Probably one of those little minor emergencies that always seem to come up during a conference and has to be fixed immediately if not sooner.”
She reached for her desk phone. “Shall I have him paged for you?”
Jack said, “No, don’t do that!” The receptionist was somewhat taken aback by his sudden burst of vehemence and he added quickly, “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.”
Sandoval and Bass had already stepped off to one side for a quick, low-voiced exchange. Bass got out his handset and started talking into it.
Marion Clary fretted. “I’m quite sure I don’t know what all the fuss is about.”
Jack assumed a cheeriness at odds with the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Just one of those little emergencies you were talking about.”
Sandoval was giving him the high sign, gesturing for Jack to join them. Jack said, “Excuse me.”
He went to the others. Bass’s handset fell silent as a crackling transmission ended. Bass said, “That was the gatehouse. Brad Oliver signed out and drove out of here a half hour ago. Like a bat out of hell, the guard said.”
Jack was out of words for the moment. He had nothing to say. Neither did Sandoval. Don Bass looked from one to the other. “Tough break, fellows. Looks like you missed him. Gee, if you’d just contacted me ahead of time, I could have picked him up and held him till you got here!”
17. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 P.M. AND 8 P.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME
Brad Oliver had had a short run.
Sandoval said, “This is one of those good news— bad news situations. The good news is that we don’t have to tell our bosses that Oliver got away from us. The bad news is that he’s dead.”
Jack Bauer said, “If that is Oliver down there.” The two CTU agents stood in front of the Mercedes, which was parked on the shoulder of the road about twenty-five yards away from a gaping hole in the guardrail on the east side of the roadway.
The hole was several car lengths wide. It was bracketed by the twisted ends of a severed rail section. They had corkscrew shapes and were bent back so they thrust out into the empty air over the chasm.
This ordinarily empty stretch of Rimrock Road now bustled with lively activity.
A hundred-yard length of the east lane with the hole in the rail had been blocked off at both ends by patrol cars from the county sheriff’s department. The two-way, two-lane road had been turned into a one- lane, two-way road in the area where Oliver’s car had gone off the cliff.
Deputies with baton flashlights stood at opposite ends of the closed lane directing traffic. Southbound vehicles were temporarily halted at the north end to allow northbound vehicles to pass the accident site, then northbound vehicles were halted at the south end to allow some of the southbound vehicles to go on their way. The direction alternated every few minutes. The stop- go system caused vehicles to collect at both ends, creating a mini traffic jam.
A complicating factor was that everybody who drove by wanted to gawk and rubberneck at the spectacle, even though there was nothing much to see except the hole in the rail. Deputies shouted at the drivers of creeping vehicles, telling them to “Keep it moving! Keep it moving!”
Jack said, “Funny how an accident can draw a crowd even out here in the middle of nowhere. Before Oliver went over the side, there probably wasn’t a car coming along this way more than once every five or ten minutes. Now it looks as busy as Main Street.”
Sandoval said, “If it was an accident.”
“And if that’s Oliver.”
The sun was behind western peaks, leaving the eastern slopes thickly shadowed with purple- blue gloom. Flashing lights on top of the police cars created a kind of carnivallike atmosphere. Most of the civilian vehicles had their headlights on. Emergency flares had been placed on the pavement at both ends of the closed east lane, throwing a lurid red glow in their immediate vicinity.
The closed lane and surrounding shoulder were reserved for parked patrol cars and their complement of officers who now stood around surveying the damage — all except those handling traffic control chores.
Sandoval’s CTU ID card had placated the deputies who tried to shoo away the Mercedes and its accompanying SUV with the backup crew when they first arrived at the site and pulled over at the side of the road. The backup men stood grouped around their vehicle, doing what everybody else at the scene was doing; namely looking down over the edge into the gulf below.
It was a long, long way down. Vertical cliffs alternated with angled wooded slopes, stepping down for many hundreds of feet to the bottom of a rocky chasm. A handful of small fires lit the shadowy murk at the foot of the precipice. They looked like candle flames when seen from Rimrock Road. Other lights twinkled in the same general area, the lights of police and emergency vehicles that were gathered at ground level. They had to stand off some distance away from the fires because the car had fallen where the road below did not reach.
Jack said, “We’ll have to go down there and take a look at the body for ourselves, even though it may be burned beyond recognition.”
Sandoval said, “There’s ways of identifying a burned body.”
“But not immediately. It buys time.”
Sandoval raised his gaze from the chasm to look Jack in the face. “You think Oliver pulled the old switcheroo and had someone else’s body thrown off the cliff in his car?”
Jack shrugged. “Who knows?”
“He didn’t have much time to pull off a tricky fast one like that.”
“He had time enough to evade us.”
“Yeah, I don’t like that angle myself. It smells of a tipoff.”
