“Drop it!” he yelled. Nina, standing, leaned in behind him.
Jack steadied his aim, expecting the gunman to spin around in surprise, which would give him a clear shot. Instead the Greater Nation soldier half-spun, pressing his back against the wall and pulling his prisoner close, minimizing his exposure. Surprised, Jack adjusted his aim, favoring the wall to take out the back of the man’s head. He exhaled and prepared to squeeze.
“Jack.”
The voice came from behind Jack. He threw himself against the opposite wall, mirroring the militia soldier, and looked back down the hall. Lzolski was there, but someone had an arm wrapped around her neck and a gun to her head. Like the other milita man, this one huddled low behind his captive. Even so, Jack recognized him.
“Give it up, Frank.”
“We’re the ones with the prisoners, Jack,” said Frank Newhouse.
“But nowhere to go,” Jack said. He swiveled his gun to bear on Brett Marks’s number two man. “We’ve got Brett. We’ve got Ramin. We’ve got you, too. You just don’t know it, yet.”
“I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” the other soldier yelled.
Jack stayed cool. Newhouse was formidable. He’d given the SEB team the slip and he’d gotten the drop on Lzolski. “Tell him we get the idea, Frank.”
Frank Newhouse smiled over Lzolski’s shoulder. “Thing is, I think he means it. Why don’t you take a walk into that garage there and let us go.”
“Bauer,” Lzolski said apologetically.
“Your call, Jack!” Paulson shouted from the doorway.
“Good little soldier,” Frank mocked. “Obedience without question.”
Sirens wailed in the distance, which must have been LAPD’s idea of “coming in quiet.” Their arrival changed the nature of the standoff, and Frank New-house understood that immediately. “Shoot them!” Newhouse yelled.
A gunshot filled the hallway behind him. Jack squinted, ready to take Newhouse down even if he had to take off Lzolski’s ear to do it. But Lzolski seemed to lunge toward him suddenly, her eyes wide as she charged the barrel of his gun. Jack shoved her aside, but by that time Frank Newhouse was gone. Jack raced after him, passing the entrance as two rounds chipped the doorframe behind him. Three more rounds whined past his ear and he tucked and rolled, finding cover behind a car. He came up searching for a target, but found none.
Frank Newhouse had escaped again.
There was no such thing as a good visit from Ryan Chappelle. The Los Angeles District Director never appeared with good news. Thanks and congratulations, in his view, were the stuff of e-mail. Bad news and ass- chewing, however, deserved a personal touch. Chappelle prided himself on being one of America’s watchdogs, even if his territory was the junkyard of bureaucracy. Growing up as the runt of the litter in Detroit, he’d learned to get tough fast. Knowing he’d never be the fastest or the strongest (or even the smartest), little Ryan had learned to work the system. He grew up a Pistons fan watching Isiah Thomas and Bill Lambier win games. They had skill and power he’d never have. But the younger Ryan Chappelle couldn’t help but notice that the team owners were short, round, balding men. Most of them probably couldn’t even bounce a basketball, but they
It was, of course, these same fence jumpers and door thumpers who usually caused the problems Ryan Chappelle had to fix, and this was why the terrierlike District Director appeared at Kelly Sharpton’s door at 8:34 sporting a look that would have curdled milk. “What the hell is Jack Bauer doing?” Chappelle demanded. This was his hello.
Kelly sat up straighter in his chair. He’d been staring at his blank computer screen, as though by will alone he could conjure up the words that had long since vanished.
“You heard?”
“Of course I heard!” Chappelle fumed. “You think I’m not going to hear about it when my agents requisition local law enforcement without authorization, raid private property without a search warrant—”
“Actually, he got an arrest warrant—”
“—and get into firefights in Beverly Hills?” the Director said, steamrolling over Kelly’s comment. “I thought we sent this guy to Siberia. No wait, if we’d done that we’d be at war with Russia!” Chappelle’s words and anger had carried him into the office, where he now passed like a small tiger in an even smaller cage. “Where the hell is Walsh?”
“Washington D.C.,” Kelly said. “Testifying.”
“Testifying? Oh, the NAP Act. God, I wish they’d just pass that thing and move on.” Chappelle didn’t bother to notice Kelly roll his eyes. The District Director continued. “Anyway, I want you to tell Bauer that he’s going in front of the review board the minute he gets in — before he even changes his damned shirt but after I tear him a new asshole.” Kelly, whose own anger at Bauer had diffused over the last hour, felt obligated to fill in for Jack’s mentor Richard Walsh, in defending him. “He did get the guy. We’ve got Marks in the building. And you heard about the terrorist lead?”
“I don’t care if he got Elvis—” Chappelle pulled up short enough to choke on his own words. “Terrorist lead? What lead?”
Kelly tapped his screen and the display lit up with CTU’s internal report on Ramin Rafizadeh. “It’s not all clear yet, but basically the Greater Nation had a lead on a terrorist squad on U.S. soil. They were going after it themselves. Jack discovered it, and it led right back to this guy, Ramin Rafizadeh. Jack was after him for a while until we heard that he was dead.”
Chappelle smiled. “Right, we busted Bauer for that case.”
Kelly nodded. “Well, get this. It turns out Jack was right. The Rafizadeh father did know where his son was and the son was — is — alive. Jack just rescued Ramin from the Greater Nation and he’s going for the father now.” Sharpton checked the chronometer on his computer. “Should be there already.”
Chappelle rubbed his hand across his balding head. He never liked any statement that included the sentence “It turns out Jack was right.” He sighed. “All right, when Bauer checks in give him to me. We have this Marks guy?”
“Holding room two.”
“How’d he get hold of intel on terrorists in the U.S.?”
Kelly had been wondering that himself. “We don’t know. But these guys are pretty well-financed. Most of them are rednecks, but their upper ranks are filled with a lot, and I mean a lot, of ex-military officers, Special Forces, like that. They have money and they’re passionate about their cause.”
“Yeah, well I’m passionate about my cause and I
Chappelle started to walk away. Kelly chewed the inside of his cheek before saying, “Yeah, well, that’s an issue. ”
Chappelle said over his shoulder, “What, there’s no space left on the booking sheet?”
“No,” Kelly said, “I think he did report them to us.”
Chappelle’s shoes squeaked on the tiled floor and stopped. He turned around. “What do you mean?”
“Marks told Jack that he had passed on his tip. We can’t find any record of it anywhere.”
“So, he’s lying,” Chappelle said. “Bad guys lie.”
“Except. ” Kelly hesitated. He realized there was no way for him to describe what he’d seen on the Attorney General’s computer without exposing himself.
“Except what?” Chappelle said.
“I may have a little information that suggests the Attorney General knew about the tip but didn’t pass it on. And I also got a clue that the AG’s office may have their own man inside Greater Nation.”
