another, trying desperately to make sense out of their own confusion. Chappelle alternately scolded Bauer and took calls on his telephone from his bosses in Washington, D.C.
He’d been wrong. Somewhere in the process he’d taken a wrong turn. He tried not to think about the panic and tragedy he’d caused. He was useless if he let his mistakes paralyze him; he had to forget the fact that he had put the entire country on high alert and had caused the death of an Air Force pilot.
Jack also had to put aside his fatigue. He hadn’t slept in almost forty hours, and he’d been pushing himself hard for over a day without rest. But there was no time to rest — he had to think!
Chappelle returned from another phone call to berate Jack further. “You’re being suspended, Jack, pending an investigation into your handling of this disaster!”
Jack shook his head. “We have to assume they’re still here in Los Angeles. The flight to Kansas was a mistake. They obviously wanted to send us on a wild goose chase, that’s why they parked the van there. Which means they’re probably still in Los Angeles planning something.”
Chappelle punched a fist into his palm in frustration. “Jesus, Jack, don’t you get it. You’ve blown it, you’re off the goddamed case.”
“No, no, they’re doing something here, in Los Angeles, with the EMP,” Jack said. “We’ve got to figure out what it is.” Jack suddenly remembered the code that Professor Rafizadeh had translated. “Wait a minute! The code! The plan that Nina called fake! It said they were planning to kill the President in Los Angeles tomorrow.”
“Right, and Barnes isn’t even going to be in Los Angeles tomorrow,” Chappelle snapped. “Let’s not waste time.”
Once again, Kelly Sharpton weighed in as mediator, but this time he was on Chappelle’s side. “Jack, what can they do? There is no way for them to launch that device nineteen miles into the air. Every flight is grounded—”
“Thanks to you, Bauer,” Chappelle added.
Jack ran to the nearest computer and called up a Domestic Security Alert. CTU always got access to any security issues in its area, including the travel schedules of VIPs. The itinerary showed that the President would be finishing a banquet in San Francisco, then heading down to San Diego on Air Force One. “Every flight will be grounded except Air Force One.”
Suddenly, finally, a piece fell into place for Jack. He remembered the briefing they’d received on the EMP devices. The plan, like a jigsaw puzzle, suddenly came into focus. He didn’t have all the pieces yet, but he understood the design.
“You’re right,” he said, “he’s not going to be in Los Angeles. But he is going to be
Chappelle’s lip curled in disgust. “Jack, you’re just reaching now. It’s pathetic.”
Kelly said, “Jack, I just said, they can’t launch it.”
“They don’t have to launch it,” Bauer insisted.
“The EMP still works, its range is just limited. It’ll still reach Air Force One if it’s flying overhead.”
Chappelle backed away. “I’ve heard enough here. Jack, you’re off the case. Officially. You are not to take any action at all. Is that understood?”
“Chappelle, you have to contact the Secret Service. At least reroute Air Force One—”
“Are you insane!” Chappelle yelled so loud that every head in CTU turned toward them. “You just shut down an
Chappelle stormed away, leaving the people behind him in awkward silence. Jack looked at them, and few would look him in the eye. Jack felt defeated for one of the few times in his life.
The phone rang, breaking the spell and sending everyone back to busywork. Jessi Bandison handed the phone to Jack. “Tony Almeida.”
“Bauer,” Jack said.
Tony Almeida said, “You’re not going to believe what I found.”
Tony Almeida had been working hard. Once he found the unobserved exit out of Cal Tech, he set Jamey Farrell to work her magic. She and her team of analysts had gone back into the records, calling up traffic cameras and security footage anywhere and everywhere in the vicinity of that street. Using scraps of footage, Jamey had built a very basic scenario for the Ready-Rooter van:
After midnight the night before, the van was spotted heading east away from Cal Tech. A minute later it was on a side road headed north, into the hills above Pasadena. The area had no traffic cameras, so there was a gap of nearly an hour. Then the van showed up on the same security camera heading in the other direction. At that point, CTU lost them. Jamey was widening her search during that time period, trying to reacquire its travel path.
With no other leads, Tony had followed the van’s path into the hills. He knew he was on to something: this area was much too desolate for a Ready-Rooter van to have any reason to take this route. He used basic logic to plan his cursory search: the van had been out of pocket for one hour. Driving at a fairly fast clip, Tony drove into the hills for thirty minutes, then he turned around and stopped. He was sitting in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, looking down on Pasadena and the hilly land between the San Gabriels and the Santa Monica ranges. There was nothing but sagebrush and fire roads here, and way too much ground to cover by himself. He’d need a team and daylight.
Tony started his car again and headed back down the road. As he drove he had a thought: he’d gone too far. The driver came up here to do something, and in Tony’s experience “something” always took longer than a few minutes. Figuring twenty minutes each way as a maximum, Tony shortened the search area he would recommend to CTU for tomorrow morning.
He was so lost in thought that he barely saw the coyotes. They were scrawny brown and gray phantoms skittering across the edge of his headlights. Their eyes flashed demonlike in the lamp glare. They scattered off to the brush, but they didn’t run away. That was odd. Coyotes were scavengers and cowards — the only reason they would resist their flight instinct was if…
Tony stopped the car and turned out the lights. It was dark now, but he could still see the coyotes, ghosts in the darkness. They crossed the road again. A few seconds later he heard yapping and snarling.
Almeida grabbed his flashlight and jumped out of his car. Drawing his gun, he ran across the road and into the brush. Most of the coyotes scrambled away from the flashlight beam and the sound of his footsteps, but one big male stood its ground, fur raised up and teeth bared. Tony fired one shot into the air, and the crack of the discharge stole the coyote’s courage away. It yelped and ran off with the others.
Tony probed the ground all around with his flashlight beam. The circle of light fell across a large patch of broken ground. The earth had been upturned and then patted down in an area about fifteen feet wide and ten feet long. The coyotes had been digging and scratching at it, and Tony now saw what they’d been fighting over.
A human hand, partially mauled, was sticking up from the earth.
Tony Almeida’s news struck Jack like a blow to the stomach. Eight bodies. He’d discovered eight bodies buried in a shallow grave in the hills above Pasadena. In the dark, looking at bodies buried for nearly a day, Almeida couldn’t be sure, but he thought they looked Middle Eastern, either Arab or Persian.
Kelly had stood by Jack, even after Chappelle’s tirade. Like everyone else in CTU, he knew Bauer had made the wrong call, but Kelly had led men in battle, and led investigations, too. He understood that the only way to get things right was to act, and sometimes the wrong actions were taken. Good leaders learned from their mistakes and overcame their deficiencies.
He was as shocked by the news as Jack was. “Someone killed them. Newhouse?”
“But why?” Jack asked. “Why would he bring them into the country and then not use them? And if there’s no terrorist attack, why bring them into the country?”
Kelly shook his head. “We still haven’t sweated Farid. He’s in a holding cell down there.” He jabbed a bandaged thumb down the hall. “I’m probably not very intimidating right now with my Band-Aids on.”
“I’ll do it,” Jack said.
Before he could get up, Jessi called over to him. “Jack, Nina.”
Jack picked up the phone. “Nina, what’s going on?”
“William Binns.”
