enjoying it so much that I hate to see it end.”
Noone sighed. “But all good things must come to an end. If it’s any consolation to you, Chief — and I’m sure that it’s not — you can go to hell knowing that in a very short time you’ll have lots of company when Sky Mount and all its lovely creatures go up in flames. I only regret that you won’t be here to see it.”
He added, “Die hurting, Chief.”
Don Bass laughed out loud, a genuine guffaw at the bizarre turns of fate and reversals of fortune that could occur to a man not in a lifetime, but in a handful of seconds. He experienced an explosion of mirth that left him grinning from ear to ear. Larry Noone arched an eyebrow, surprised by the other’s outlandish reaction at the point of death. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from Bass at the finish but it wasn’t this. He shrugged it off. “Hysteria. The mind is going. This will be a blessing for you, Don.”
Bass said, “Buddy, you’re about to find out how right you are.”
“Oh really—?”
Larry Noone didn’t live long enough to find out the truth of his words. He fell forward facedown to the floor, stone dead. The back of his head had been shot away by the burst of rounds Jack Bauer put into it at point-blank range, disintegrating the rear half of his skull as if it had been scooped out and exhibiting the gooey gray matter that remained.
Jack stood slumped against the doorframe, leaning against it for support. He let his gun hand fall to his side, holding the still smoking SMG that he’d used to liquidate Larry Noone.
Jack said, “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I saw you running out the side door of the mansion and played a hunch that I’d better follow you and see what’s what.”
Don Bass said, “Lucky for me that you did.”
“Luck is the difference between hanging and not hanging. I know.”
“You heard everything?”
“Enough.” Jack Bauer glanced at a wall clock.
“Five minutes to two. Time enough for you to tell your gate guards to open up and let Garcia’s tac squad in.”
24. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 A.M. AND 3 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME
Ernie Sandoval said, “You wrecked the Mercedes, you SOB.”
Jack Bauer said, “Get Garcia to buy a new one.”
“He just might, after this one is all wrapped up.” Don Bass chimed in,
“Hell, I’ll buy you one.”
Sandoval said, “You can’t afford it.”
“The Masterman Trust can. Let them pick up the tab.” Jack nodded in agreement. “That’s the spirit.” The trio were walking briskly side by side down the main corridor of the mansion’s east wing. Bass had a set of keys in hand that would open the anteroom doors and the door to Cabot Huntington Wright’s inner sanctum, but as it turned out they weren’t needed. The anteroom door was unlocked. The room was dark, but light outlined the closed door to Wright’s suite of offices.
A platoon of Orlando Garcia’s tac squads augmented by an equal number of Inspector Cullen’s ATF agents were swarming the estate, securing the grounds, mansion, and all- important subsurface levels where the BZ grenades and plastic explosives lay, defanged for the moment but very much a potential and potent threat until the moment that agents took possession of them, and that moment was right now.
Jack Bauer’s focus lay elsewhere, on the dozen quick paces it took him, Bass, and Sandoval to cross the anteroom to Wright’s private door. His hand was on the knob, and to his surprise it turned freely and he opened the door and stormed in, the other two at his heels.
Jack said, “You left your door unlocked, Mr. Wright. Careless of you.”
Cabot Huntington Wright was at the opposite end of the room, standing behind his desk, stuffing folders of documents into a briefcase that stood open on his desktop. He froze at the trio’s entrance, lifting his gaze from what he was doing to the intruders who’d had the audacity to invade his domain.
He looked away first, oddly abashed to be taken in such a manner. His hands were hidden behind the lid of his attache case, which stood upright.
Jack’s hand flashed inside his jacket, coming into view with a pistol that he held pointed at Wright. Wright raised his arms in the classic hands-up position, obscuring but not hiding the white armband circling his dark-suited left arm.
Bass said, “The white brassard! That clinches it.”
Jack circled around the desk, still covering Wright. Wright’s hands were empty of everything but foldered documents but Jack was taking no chances. He said, “It’s already clinched. It was clinched when Chappelle notified Garcia that he’d found the leaker — and the person to whom he’d leaked.”
Sandoval had given Jack a quick update on the way to Wright’s office. Ryan Chappelle had discovered that a member of his CTU/L.A. staff had passed the word about Brad Oliver’s imminent arrest. A survey of regional division headquarters’ phone logs had unearthed the culprit, one of Chappelle’s top aides. The leaker had confessed when confronted but claimed he had no other motive than to curry favor with the ultra-rich and powerful Cabot Huntington Wright by giving him a friendly heads-up to prepare him for the embarrassment and disruption that would result when Wright’s confidential assistant Brad Oliver was arrested by CTU agents for violating the national security.
The leaker’s true motive would eventually come to light in the exhaustive investigation to which he’d be subjected. What was key was the identity not of leaker but of leakee. Chappelle tried to notify Jack Bauer to alert him to the identification but he’d been unable to reach him while Jack was otherwise engaged.
Chappelle had finally swallowed his pride and relayed the information directly to Garcia, enduring the humiliation of having to admit to a longtime rival that one of Chappelle’s own was the guilty party. The facts were too vital to withhold, and Chappelle put the potentially career-damaging revelations in Garcia’s hands, oblivious of how the hierarchs on the seventh floor at Langley might put a black mark in Chappelle’s record book because of the dereliction of a trusted aide.
Chappelle was a patriot, and Jack had never doubted that ultimately he would do the right thing and disseminate the information where it would do the most good. But timing is everything, and Jack was heartened that Chappelle had acted sooner rather than later — for later might have been too late.
Jack Bauer now had the guilty party in hand and there was a standard operating procedure for the way things are done no matter how big the culprit is. Jack set the process in motion.
He said, “Please stay where you are, Mr. Wright, and keep your hands up. You’re about to undergo what’s sure to be a novel experience in your life: being searched for a weapon.”
Wright affected a wry smile. He’d never quite lost his composure from the moment the trio barged in to confront him, but he had lost some of his color, the skin blanching and paling under his deep tan. Now the pallor was starting to fade and the color was returning to his cheeks.
Jack gave him a pat-down frisk, feeling around him for a concealed weapon. Jack was taking nothing for granted; for all he knew Wright might have a weapon on his person. It was that kind of a case.
Sandoval searched Wright’s briefcase while Jack searched Wright. Wright said, “Don’t you want to search, too, Don?”
Bass shook his head. “I’m private, I don’t have jurisdiction. They do. You belong to the United States government now.”
Jack said, “If not for a little bit of luck it might have been the other way around.” He finished his search, said, “He’s clean.”
Sandoval said, “Nothing in his briefcase but documents.”
“I’m sure the analysts will be interested in them.”
Wright said, “I’m sure. May I put my hands down now, gentlemen? I confess that the posture is becoming
