“Should I have this taken care of?” asked the man.
“No, don’t be ridiculous, she’s a U.S. Senator,” Quincy said. The man shrugged. People were people, and they all died about the same no matter what their title. “Besides, everything is going the way I expected it to.”
Jack resigned himself to defeat. He couldn’t get Chappelle to release Ramin Rafizadeh. He toyed with the idea of breaking him out of prison, but discarded the effort as too drastic. He had no idea what those codes said, and he’d feel stupid sacrificing his whole career in return for a grocery list or a fundamentalist Islamic diatribe about the sins of the United States.
He walked down to holding room four and entered, his face downcast. “Look, I’m sorry. I argued my best, but they want to hold him for a day or two, just to—”
“Jack, forget that,” said Nazila. He was so annoyed with Chappelle, he’d failed to notice her mood. The blood had drained from her face and her voice shook. “I mean, get him out, but I’ll tell you what this says. I have to…”
“Naz, what is it?” he asked, his senses suddenly heightened.
“According to these notes, the terrorists plan to assassinate the President tomorrow. Right here in Los Angeles.”
10. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 P.M. AND 1 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Despite the rallying cry of 9/11 and the media’s spotlight on interagency cooperation, it was often still difficult to bring law enforcement and intelligence communities together. The CIA and the FBI were like schoolyard rivals who had fought for so long it was habit. The National Security Agency had acted as an independent agency for its entire life, and simply did not know how to play well with others. Homeland Security was the new kid who wasn’t sure how to fit in.
Still, there was one way to get them all talking together, and it began with the phrase, “There is a plot to kill the President tomorrow morning.”
Jack Bauer, Kelly Sharpton, and Ryan Chappelle sat in CTU’s video conference room as various monitors lit up around them. Jack saw station chiefs from the CIA and the FBI. The Attorney General was there, as was the National Security Agency’s Deputy Director. So was the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security. Benjamin Perch, head of the Secret Service, was there of course, and Jack was relieved to see the face of Richard Walsh appear on one of the screens. Having Walsh in the meeting gave him a boost of confidence.
Since the threat was directed at the President, it was Benjamin Perch of the Secret Service who ran the meeting. “Thank you all for attending on such short notice,” he said in a deep bass. “This appears to be an urgent matter, so this is going to be a bit informal. You all know as much as I do: the Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles has uncovered what it considers to be a credible threat to the President. I am going to turn this over to Jack Bauer at CTU.”
Ryan Chappelle fidgeted in his seat. He disliked allowing anyone else to take charge of a meeting he attended; when that person was Jack Bauer, he felt like a passenger on a runaway bus.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I’ll keep it short. We have evidence that a fundamentalist terrorist cell has been operating in the United States for at least six months. An hour ago we discovered an apartment in West-wood that contained traces of bomb-making materials and bunk beds suggesting at least eight members of the cell. We also discovered coded messages suggesting the terrorists plan to attack the President tomorrow morning in Los Angeles.”
As concisely as he could, Jack described the Greater Nation militia, the leads they had given, and the evidence he had compiled. He explained Professor Rafizadeh’s credentials and Nazila’s skills. The minute he was finished, the questions began.
“How long have we been tracking this terrorist cell?” demanded the Attorney General.
Jack felt Kelly Sharpton bristle. He had trouble hiding his own bewilderment. He and Sharpton both knew that the Attorney General already had a man inside the Greater Nation, one who clearly knew as much about the terrorists as they did. Jack gave a mental shrug. There was a game to play here, and he could play it if necessary.
“Well,” Jack growled with a glance at Chappelle, “we caught hints of them about six months ago, but the trail went cold and we thought it was a false alarm. Recent events”—
“Any leads on where the cell members are now?” asked Perch.
“No,” Jack admitted. “All our information is less than twenty-four hours old. The leads on the actual attack are less than an hour old. We are cross-checking everyone who lives in the apartment building, and we’re running the apartment’s security videos through visual recognition software to see if anyone comes up.”
“Likelihood?” asked Walsh, who spoke in a shorthand Jack could appreciate.
“Low,” he replied. “The security cameras are erased and reused every forty-eight hours. But we’ll check anyway.”
There was a slight pause, then the deputy from the NSA, Margaret Cheedles, said, “Look, I respect the work Jack Bauer and CTU have put into this, but doesn’t it seem a little far-fetched at this point to sound the alarms?”
No one else answered, so Jack said, “I’m not sure what you mean, ma’am.”
“Well, you say this cell is communicating through codes left in poetry?”
“Yes, ma’am. Our working theory is that different members of the cell used the apartment at different times. To avoid electronic surveillance, and a possible raid, they left notes for each other through something like a Hill cipher, using the poetry as a foundation.”
“Okay,” Cheedles said, “but don’t fundamentalist Islamists consider all poetry prior to Mohammed heretical? Why would they use it?”
“My expert tells me that these poems earn a certain amount of respect because they were once present in the Kaaba,” Jack replied. “Besides, they had to use something, and they couldn’t use the Koran itself. That would have been heretical.”
“We’re off track here,” said Henry Rutledge, representing Homeland Security. “None of us is an expert on Islamic fundamentalism or literature.”
“Agreed,” said Richard Walsh.
“And I have to say the whole process has me confused,” added Cheedles. “I’ve seen the Greater Nation mentioned in the daily security briefings, but never with this much of a presence. Aren’t they a low-level threat? How would they have gotten so much information?”
“They are better funded you might expect,” Jack replied. “And their leader is sharp.”
“I agree with Agent Bauer,” said the Attorney General. Kelly fidgeted again, but Jack was grateful to get support from any quarter. “Assuming they exist, these terrorists have had at least six months of planning time without being watched. Something went haywire back then and the trail went cold. If some nutcase militia that wants to take the law into its own hands picked up the ball we dropped, I say we say thank you, take the ball back, and start to run our own plays.”
“I understand the concern, and I agree that CTU should continue to investigate,” said Perch. “But there’s one important part of this whole threat that everyone is forgetting.”
“What?” Jack asked.
Perch shrugged. “The President isn’t going to
“Nice work, Jack,” Ryan Chappelle drawled. “Really nice work in there.”
The video monitors had all died down. Their last lights had burned into Jack’s brain the looks of annoyance on each person’s face. The one that had bothered him most was the look on Walsh’s face. The tough veteran was far
