too disciplined to show any real reaction, but in his stony face Jack read a deep disappointment.
“That’s going to really enhance CTU’s reputation,” Chappelle continued in a voice thick with sarcasm. “Not to mention your own.”
Jack glared at him. “At least I spend my time out there fighting credible threats instead of arresting our own people.”
Chappelle sneered. “Credible threats? Is that what you call it when some mysterious group no one’s ever seen uses poetry to plan an attack on the President in a city where he’s not even going to be? No wonder we demoted you, Bauer.”
Jack let Chappelle have the last word, then leave the conference room. He couldn’t care less for Chappelle. He felt humiliated for stumbling in front of Walsh.
Jack felt a hand pat his shoulder. Kelly Sharpton had remained behind. “Happened to me once,” he said. “I had done a threat assessment for a visit from the President of China, right about the time the Fulon Gong was active. I gave this whole presentation on Fulon Gong members in San Francisco and how they were likely to try something here. It wasn’t till the end of my presentation that one of my own people mentioned that we’d already arrested the local Fulon Gong members.”
“Great,” Jack said, “so we’re both a couple of asses.” He sat down on the tabletop. “Look, I think you and I agree that something’s going on here. This cell pops up every few months and somehow gets swept aside. This Frank Newhouse is some kind of wild card out there doing who knows what. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to keep looking into this.”
Kelly grinned. “Who says I was going to stop. Let me work on the Frank Newhouse angle.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You get a little lust in your eye when you mention him and the Attorney General. What was the story there?”
“Not sure it’s worth telling at this point,” Kelly said. “Let’s just say that the AG tried to strong-arm someone and I helped them out, and I’m not done with the payback yet.”
“Strong-arm. ” Jack murmured. He generally avoided cluttering his mind with politics that did not involve his work, but some current events had a direct impact on him. “The New American Privacy thing?” he asked. “Was it about the Senate vote?”
Kelly nodded.
Jack scratched his head. There were too many pieces to this puzzle, and he was starting to worry that two different jigsaws had been mixed together. He made a mental list of the absolute connections: Greater Nation and Frank Newhouse; Frank New-house and the Attorney General; Attorney General and NAP Act; Greater Nation and terrorist clues; terrorist clues and threat to President. The stories seemed to spin off in two different directions.
“Okay,” he said, “do you have anything to chase down with Newhouse?”
Kelly nodded. “There’s an old address in the file. At least it’s somewhere to start.”
“That’s more than I’ve got with these terrorists,” Jack admitted.
“No it’s not. ” Nina Myers stood in the doorway of the conference room with an enormous grin on her pixie face. “You are going to want to make out with me when I show you this.”
“I’m a married man, Nina,” Jack said.
“Married to your work.” She laughed. Jack felt a pang. He hadn’t called his wife since last night. He felt a second pang when he realized that he hadn’t even
“What’ve you got?”
Nina strutted forward and handed him a printout.
On one side of the page was a photocopy of the driver’s license they’d picked up from the lease on the apartment building. On the other side was a mug shot and a rap sheet from LAPD. The name on the driver’s license was Richard Brighton. The name on the mug shot was Julio Juarez.
“Am I not the sexiest woman alive at the moment?” She grinned.
And the truth was, she was right.
Debrah Drexler closed her office door and gathered herself. She had a few minutes before her next appointment, and once her afternoon started it was a long slide down to a red-eye flight. On days like this, she found it advantageous to grab a minute or two of private time.
She was grateful that she’d been able to help Kelly. The man had stuck his neck out for her (again) and nearly gotten it chopped off this time. She made a mental note to find some way to repay Sela Gonzales, and another note to promote Juwan Burke. She hadn’t gotten all the details yet, but she understood that someone had smashed up his car and chased him onto Pennsylvania Avenue before giving up.
Worry still gnawed at her. She had stopped the AG from blackmailing her, it was true. But if he was using strong-arm tactics on her, who else was he after? What else was he planning? She and the Senate leadership had already made their rounds of calls, and everyone was still on board. Unless something drastic happened, the NAP Act would go down to defeat in the Senate, and the Congress would, at last, slow the erosion of civil liberties.
Debrah Drexler rubbed her hands together, mentally pushing the issue aside. She was worrying too much. There was nothing left he could do. He’d played his hand and lost.
She opened her door and went on to her next item of business.
The door to Ramin Rafizadeh’s room opened and two uniformed security guards stepped inside. “You’re free to go,” one of them said briskly. “We’ll escort you outside.”
He stood and walked unsteadily into the hallway, where his sister and father greeted him with hugs. “Is it…is it over?” he asked, clearly unconvinced.
“I think so,” his father said. “At least for us.”
The guards led them down the hallway and past the main room. Nazila caught a glimpse of Jack Bauer sitting at a computer. He was absorbed by some information on the screen, and she slowed her footsteps to study him. It was the first time, she realized, that she had been able to look at him when he was working on something other than her. She saw in the hunch of his shoulders, the intensity of his gaze, and the rapt look on his face, that he was consumed by his work; he had entered a state she could only call passion. She could never decide how she felt about him, not six months ago, and not six hours ago. He seemed truly worthy of both hatred and love, and she had not been able to choose between them. Now, from a distance, with his attention directed elsewhere, she made her choice. “God bless you,” she whispered.
Kelly Sharpton insisted on visiting the address himself. Although he wasn’t a field agent anymore, he was field trained and certified. Before leaving CTU, he visited Jessi Bandison, who had remained at her desk long after her shift had expired.
“Kelly, I’m sorry—”
“Forget it,” he shut her off. “I pulled you into something that was way over your head. It’s my fault, not yours.” As he leaned against her workstation, he rested his hand on the countertop so that it touched hers. “I’m also sorry about snapping at you earlier. I was under a lot of time pressure and I didn’t explain myself well enough.”
“Okay,” she said, her face burning.
“I know you’re way past your shift and you’re probably exhausted, but could you stay a little longer. I need intel on an address and you’re the best.”
She smiled, but her face burned even hotter. He scribbled down the address of a condominium on Wilshire Boulevard. “Call me in my car,” he had said.
Now his cellular buzzed. He pressed the Bluetooth earpiece in his ear. “Sharpton,” he said.
“It’s Jessi. The condo is owned outright. There are no loan papers on it. According to the tax assessor’s office and the condominium’s community council, the place is owned by a Patrick Henry.”
A few minutes later he pulled into the condominium, one of several dozen that formed a “condo canyon” along Wilshire Boulevard just to the east of Westwood and UCLA. It was a posh building. The circular drive curved under the building structure and there a valet waited to take the SUV Kelly had signed out. The lobby was two
