one arm. He marched straight past the analysts terminals and down the hall to the holding cells. There was a guard outside number two, where Marks was undoubtedly resting uncomfortably. There were also guards posted outside number three, where Ramin had been ensconced, and also number four, where Nazila and her father had been put. But to Jack’s surprise, there was also a guard outside number one. He thought he knew who was in there.
He reached number four and told the guard to open up. The guard glanced worriedly at the bundle under Jack’s arm. “Oh, get off it, I’m the one who brought them in. I’m not going to hurt them now. Step aside.”
The guard hesitated, but then moved out of the way.
Number four was bigger than the other rooms, and better furnished. There were a couch and a reclining chair, and the walls were painted a soothing, if uninspired, gray. Number four was more of a debriefing room than an interrogation chamber.
Professor Rafizadeh lay on the couch and Nazila sat cross-legged in the chair. As the door opened she got to her feet. When she saw that it was Jack, her face turned purple with anger. “What are we doing here? You said —”
“Just questions,” he said, holding up one hand both to show sincerity and to block her progress. “You are not suspects. Neither is your brother. I told you that before.”
“But we can’t leave,” Nazila pointed out.
“Not yet,” he admitted.
Professor Rafizadeh had risen slowly to a seated position. He rubbed his temples slowly, then the bridge of his nose. “Isn’t that the definition of a prisoner?”
“Ramin—?”
“He’s fine. Look, I need help right now,” Jack said. He set the books and papers onto the one small table in the room. “I need these translated and understood. I think they are important.”
Rafizadeh took his glasses off, wiped them, and replaced them. He stood up and leaned over the table, reading through the lines. He nodded in understanding, then turned to Jack and peered over the top of his spectacles. “I can read them.”
“Why should he help you!” Nazila said, advancing on Jack. “You’ve done nothing but bring us misery!”
Jack waited a beat. “Well, I also saved your father’s life. And your brother’s life. And right now I’m trying to save a lot of other lives.” He told them about the apartment and the bomb materials.
“Oh, please, not this terrorist story again,” Nazila said. She paced back and forth. “Why are you focusing on Muslims? It seems to me you have your own brand of terrorists right here with this Greater Nation or whatever it is.”
Jack sat down on the couch. Though she was spitting venom at him, Jack had nothing but compassion for her. He was angry, too, somewhere down in the dark chambers of his thought where he kept his anger when it served no purpose; angry because she had lied to him. But his compassion was closer to the surface. When he spoke, he spoke softly, the natural roughness of his voice softened to verbal caress. “Look, I’ve told you. You are not suspects in anything. But you move in certain circles, and you have to realize that you may have heard things that mean nothing to you, but could help us crack our case. It’s the same with your brother. He’s not wanted, but he was in Lebanon, right?”
Nazila hesitated, then nodded.
“Right. He may have heard something that is trivia to him, but a lead for us. So please, be patient. You both said to me that if there were real terrorists here, you’d love for us to catch them. Well, here’s your chance to help.” He turned to the professor. “Can you read those lines?”
Rafizadeh stroked his gray beard. “Well, of course I can read them. Anyone who reads Arabic can read them. But am I right in guessing that your translators didn’t know what they were?”
Jack nodded.
“They are lines from three famous poems. Part of a collection called the ‘Hanged Poems.’ ”
Jack felt a rush of relief and gratitude sweep through him. “Hanged poems. That sounds bad.”
“They are called that because it is believed they once hung inside the Kaaba in Mecca, though of course that is no longer the case. They are old, from the fifth century. They are lines from the most famous three of the seven — the Poem of Imru-ul-Quais, the Poem of Antar, and the Poem of Zuhair.”
Nazila had dropped herself back into the chair and crossed her legs and her arms. She occupied herself with casting irritated glances from Jack, to her father, and back to Jack again.
“So the guys who lived in that apartment were copying poems?” he said aloud. To himself, he began to wonder if the chemical tests had been in error.
Nazila said aloud what he was thinking. “Maybe your other tests were a mistake. Maybe these guys were just college students after all.”
“They did not copy whole poems. Parts of poems. Lines of poems, not the complete text.” The professor lifted pages and set them aside, examining each page to confirm his observation. “Yes, yes. Just lines.”
“College students,” Nazila said in an I-told-you-so voice. “Taking notes.”
“Well, yes, there are a few notes here, along with the text. Did your translator tell you that?” Professor Rafizadeh asked.
Jack stood up. “No. What notes?”
“Numbers, along with the text. Sometimes just scribbles, but often a number written over a word.”
Nazila had stood up when Jack stood. She went to stand beside her father, and her dark eyes went to the page in his hand. “Oh,” she said.
“Oh what?” Jack asked. “What scribbles? What numbers.”
Professor Rafizadeh put down the paper, which Nazila promptly picked up. As she studied it, her father said, “Agent Bauer, this is not my area of expertise, but I would say that what you have here is a message of some kind.”
“A message,” Jack repeated. “You mean a code?”
Rafizadeh shrugged. Jack had to admire his serenity. He had just been kidnapped and threatened with death, and nearly killed in the crossfire between the militia and CTU. Yet here he was, stroking his beard gently, reading ancient texts, and talking to the man who had ruined his life six months ago. Few, under those circumstances, would be able to control themselves, yet Rafizadeh seemed completely at peace.
“I can tell you,” he said at last, “that the lines as they are presented make no sense. They are from three different poems, but the lines are jumbled together. The topics differ, even the themes are different. From a literary point of view, there is no purpose to them.”
“Then why would they use them?” Jack asked. Why use the poems in some kind of code if—”
“Because the message isn’t in the poems,” Nazila said. “The poetry is just the key. This is a Hill cipher.”
“Hill cipher?”
“A code,” she said. “Not that complicated, but you have to know the source it uses for reference. It just transposes numbers and letters using some other source as the key.” Jack’s eyes shifted onto Nazila in surprise.
“Maybe,” she said, her eyes jumping from page to page. Then they lifted and settled firmly on Jack Bauer. “If you let all of us, including my brother, go.”
Juwan hadn’t seen the car, but he’d felt the impact rattle his head so that it nearly came off his shoulders. In the same instant his vision was overwhelmed by a huge white blur that scraped his skin, and he realized that the air bag had inflated. It began to deflate almost instantly. Juwan was practically standing on his brake pad. He slammed the car into park, though he wasn’t sure it was still running anymore, and unbuckled his belt.
The other car had rammed into the passenger side.
Juwan was able to open the driver’s side door and get out, standing on wobbly legs. He just had the presence of mind to reach back into the car and lift the copies he’d made. He stuffed them back into his breast pocket and stepped away from the car. He looked around. He was on a quiet side street in D.C. The other driver had knocked his car sideways, so that he was pointing from sidewalk to sidewalk. A few heads poked out of windows to see what had happened.
Juwan shook his head to clear the cobwebs out of his vision. The other car, a black Bonneville, was still connected to his side of his vehicle. People were getting out of both the driver and passenger sides of the Bonneville. They were two men.
