the money.”
Ayman’s phone rang and he plucked it out of his breast pocket. “Hey…
Jack hadn’t driven more than five blocks when his phone
rang. “Bauer.”
“Agent Bauer, you are not obeying the rules.”
The connection was crystal clear and the voice perfectly recognizable. “Go to hell,” Jack said to the man who had threatened his daughter.
“It isn’t my afterlife you should worry about. I told you not to continue your investigation. Yet you seem to be going somewhere.”
“What are you talking about?” Jack growled.
“I am talking about the fact that you are heading west on Santa Monica Boulevard.”
Jack jerked the wheel and pulled to a stop slantwise, the tail end of his SUV half blocking the right lane.
“Ah,” the caller said. “That’s better.”
Jack slammed his fist down onto the dashboard. Was it a tail? He hadn’t picked up any cars, and unless someone had CTU under surveillance, there was no way this mystery man — Jack could only assume it was al-Libbi — could know what he was doing. There had to be a bug of some kind. Jack instinctively ran his hands over his arms and touched the bruise at his elbow. He looked around his car for a moment, then opened the door and jumped out. He started walking west.
“Uh-oh, you’re moving again, “the caller said. “I want to make this clear to you, Agent Bauer. Your daughter has been infected with a virus. There is a cure, but I guarantee you that the only person who has it is me. If I see you leave your office, you will never hear from me again and your daughter will die.”
Jack stopped walking. The techs had screwed up somehow. There was a bug on him or in him somewhere. The caller was tracking him as he walked down the street. On a whim, he raised his hand and flipped a bird to the buildings around him. No reaction.
He returned to his car, ignoring the drivers honking at him, and climbed back in. Angry, he backed into traffic and whipped around in the middle of the street, heading back to the office.
Twenty minutes after putting the screws to Willow, Mercy was back at the Federal Building where she’d met Jack Bauer. The crowds had swelled in the last two hours. She’d heard on the police band that there were in excess of ten thousand people. Protestors were now pressed right up to the edge of the permit zone like kids with their toes just outside the door of their big brother’s room. The outer edge of the crowd had pushed back nearly three full blocks in all directions, a swelling sea that undulated and splashed up against the island that was the Federal Building.
Mercy inched her car up Federal Avenue, which had shrunk down to a narrow aisle in the center of the street with police cars, paramedic trucks, and ambulances parked and double-parked all the way up to Wilshire Boulevard. She spotted an open space and double-parked next to another slick-topped car with the government “E” on the license plate. She got out and wove her way through small crowds of police officers taking breaks from their time on the line.
Willow’s laid-back style of speech had been to Mercy’s advantage. When he had called his friend Frankie Michael-mas, there had been no hint of nervousness in his voice, and in a few moments Mercy knew what Frankie looked like and where she was. She and a few of her friends had gathered in Sepulveda Park on the south side of Federal Plaza and across the street. Sepulveda Park was so crowded that the grass had disappeared. Finding a single person would be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles, but Willow had kindly arranged to meet Frankie at the drinking fountain next to the soccer field.
Across the street and half a block up, right in front of the Federal Building, protestors were chanting protest slogans.
Mercy couldn’t make out the words but the sound suggested that it was something like “One-two-three-four, there’s no G8 anymore!” She wondered why protesters always resorted to childlike rhythms. Were they as naive as children? Or were they smart enough to know that the best messages were simple messages?
Over here in the park no one was chanting. This felt more like a sit-in, or even a picnic, than a protest. Twenty- and thirty-something Caucasians mingled with short, dark-haired men and women with Latin and Incan looks. Mercy thought wryly that the whole scene appeared as if someone had laid a J. Crew ad over the top of a Benetton ad. She passed through clouds of clove and marijuana and smiled at the image of a couple of uniforms barging through ten thousand people to arrest someone for possession of a baggy with two grams of pot. No one person, she thought, made the laws, but the
Mercy reached the drinking fountain. There was a young woman standing there, her eyes scanning left and right, looking right past Mercy. She was short and broad but fit, like a gymnast, and wore her curly hair long and (Mercy suspected) artificially blond. She wore a ruby-red stud in her left nostril. These details matched Willow’s description, so Mercy said, “Frankie Michaelmas?” and held out her badge.
Frankie’s searching eyes focused in sharply. Mercy exercised Gladwell’s
Frankie didn’t say anything.
“Detective Mercy Bennet, Los Angeles Police Department. You and I need to have a word.” Mercy had learned long ago not to ask permission. Asking permission gave the subject the feeling she could object, and Mercy was beginning to suspect that she had very little time left for objections.
“I’ll give you a few words. How about fu—”
“That’s cute,” Mercy interrupted, her voice intentionally thick with sarcasm. “I’ve never heard that before. I want to talk to you about the Earth Liberation Front.”
A few of the people standing around them were now staring at Mercy, but none of them looked hostile. Mercy guessed that none of them were Frankie’s friends. In fact, based on her tough grrrl appearance, Mercy suspected that she didn’t want any of her friends to meet Willow, and therefore had brought no one to this meeting spot.
“Willow sold me out,” she said with a shrug. “I should have figured. But you’re barking up the wrong tree, you know?”
Mercy took a step closer. She wasn’t used to being taller than her subjects. It was a good feeling. “I know that you told Willow something big and violent was going to happen here. I want to know what it is.”
Frankie pushed her bleached blond hair back on her head. “Well, if you find out, will you tell me?”
“I figure your friends in the Earth Liberation Front already did.”
Frankie smiled. “I’m not a member of the Earth Libera—”
“—not a member of the Earth Liberation Front,” Mercy mocked. Supporting information was filling out her first impression of Frankie Michaelmas. The “fuck you” attitude wasn’t exactly a false facade, but it wasn’t the foundation of her personality, either. Mercy decided that Frankie floated on a wide but shallow sense of self- esteem.
“I didn’t think you were dull enough to try that crap with me,” she said disdainfully. “The ELF doesn’t keep a membership, so technically no one is a member. But I’ll tell you this.” Mercy leaned even closer, until her chin nearly touched Frankie’s forehead and she had to look down to see her. “You can all talk about how you’re not members of the same club when you’re serving time together. Because I’m taking you into custody, and the minute something bad happens, you’re an accessory.”
Frankie’s eyes dimmed just a bit, but she straightened her back and said, “Like you’re going to arrest me here, in the middle of all this? I don’t think so.”
She spun and pushed her way through the crowd.
Mercy smiled and followed.
