“You know him?”
“Well, he’s a neighbor,” the woman said as though all neighbors should know one another. “He travels quite a bit. South America most of the time, I think, but I see him outside sometimes when I walk Honeybear.” She tugged affectionately at her dog’s leash.
“Ever notice anything unusual about him?”
“Not until now,” the woman replied dubiously. “May I have my phone back?”
“Almost.”
Sandy Waldman came back on the line with the name of Bernard Copeland and a list of interesting items, only a few of which Mercy absorbed in that moment, because just then two unmarked police cars rolled up, one of them passing the house and pulling to a stop three doors down, the other stopping short. The cops inside were uniformed.
“Tell me what you want them to do and I’ll radio it to them,” Waldman said. For a jerk, he was a pretty efficient cop, she decided.
“Approach when they see me move, one goes to the back and the other goes in with me. He’s inside.”
“Ten-four.” A moment later, one of the unmarked cars rolled away to go around the block. Mercy knew he’d keep in contact with the other via radio.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Mercy said, handing back the phone. She walked down two doors, forcing herself to remain calm and steady, then made a hard left turn and crossed the street at a fast pace. The cop on this street put the radio to his mouth, then hung it up and exited quickly, hurrying up beside her and nodding. Together they strode up the steps to the door, and the officer kicked it in with one stomp of his boot.
Mercy let him enter first, since he was armed, but she knew almost immediately that there would be no gunfire.
Seldom Seen Smith, a.k.a. Bernard Copeland, was lying on his living room floor in a pool of blood.
“Radio for an ambulance!” she shouted. Mercy rushed forward while the uniformed officer began to clear the house while simultaneously making the call. Mercy heard the other officer enter from the back.
She knelt beside Smith, who was facedown. The back of his skull looked like hamburger meat mixed with clumps of hair. He was breathing, but barely.
“Copeland!” she said to him. “Copeland, can you hear me?” He didn’t answer. “Smith!” she yelled. “Seldom Seen Smith!”
His eyelids fluttered and then stopped at half mast. “Smith!” she repeated. “This is the police. An ambulance is on its way.”
She moved into his line of sight. His eyes focused on her for a moment and his breathing quickened. His mouth worked noiselessly.
“Take it easy,” she said. It seemed unsafe to move him, even though the pool of blood near his lips made his breathing wet and raspy. “We’re getting you help.” She knew without asking that Frankie Michaelmas had done this to him.
His mouth worked harder, and this time he succeeded in making small, moist, guttural sounds. He spoke words rather than sentences. “You,” he rasped. Then, “Infected.” Mercy didn’t know what he meant, but a sudden weight pressed against her stomach when he managed to add, “Hours. Only.”
His mouth worked desperately again. He closed his eyes and they remained closed; he coughed, spraying droplets of blood onto her knees. Copeland gathered himself and managed a few more words. No, one long word. “An…ti… dote.” Then he coughed again and pushed out another fearful word. “Gone.”
One uniformed cop walked back into the room. “All clear—” But Mercy held up her hand. Copeland continued slowly. “She…use… it. Terror. Vander. Bilt. Anti. Dote. She…use… it. Terror.” The sounds ebbed until they were only weak rasps. Copeland opened his eyes. His right hand moved along the floor, sliding until it reached the edge of the pool of blood. Reaching clear hardwood, his dragging fingers drew dark red lines. His hand stopped, then he drew three numbers—13, 48, 57. His hand stopped moving and his eyes closed. His lips quivered and, weak and thin as the meowings of a kitten, he spoke another phrase. Mercy couldn’t quite make it out. It sounded like a foreign name. “Uma,” like the actress, then something about a “ghetto.” Then he stopped making sounds altogether.
Mitch Rasher walked into the President’s suite at the Century Plaza. “We’re back on,” he said.
Barnes looked up from the security briefing he’d been reading. “What about the riots?”
“It’s going to look bad on the evening news,” Rasher warned him, “but the streets are getting back to normal now. By the time you have your meeting tonight, they’ll have everything cleared up.”
“And security is tight up there? Nothing’s been leaked?”
“No, sir. Tight as a drum. Shall I confirm with the other side?”
Barnes considered. He’d been looking forward to this meeting. He always enjoyed cutting through the red tape and slicing right to the heart of the matter. The riots, had they continued, would have made a meeting impossible and given the protestors a victory, though they’d never have known it. But, if Rasher felt the riots had burned themselves out, well…
“Let’s do it,” Barnes commanded.
Jack walked into CTU headquarters just shy of four-thirty. His entire body ached; the rush dialysis had taken more out of him than he cared to admit, and he felt as if that police wagon had landed on top of him. But he had no intention of slowing down.
He walked through CTU’s main floor and up to Henderson’s office, his face scratched from the struggle with the police, his eyes red from OC spray, and his shirt torn. He ignored the stares from the analysts as he reached the top of the operation chief ’s office.
“Is there any word on Kim?” he asked without saying hello.
Henderson shook his head. “National Health Services hasn’t called.”
Jack gritted his teeth. The virus, he told himself. The vaccine.
Tony Almeida and Nina Myers were already in Henderson’s office, along with Jessi Bandison.
“Okay, are we on top of Farrigian?” Jack asked. He had called ahead to tell them what he’d learned from Turkel.
Henderson replied. “He turned up dead. We found him in his warehouse with a bullet in his brain.”
Jack didn’t waste a moment’s grief over a small fish eaten by a bigger one. “Inventory?”
The Chief of Field Operations shrugged. “We have people looking, but no one knows for sure.”
“So we know it’s explosive. But a bomb? A rocket?” Jack thought aloud. “A stationary bomb would be difficult. I can’t imagine him getting it into a location, and a roadside bomb would make a lot of noise, but what would his target be? You have all these world leaders traveling separately.”
“It’s ETIM,” Nina said. “They want China. The Chinese Premier is here to make his case to the G8.”
“It’s going to be hard to figure out his plan if we don’t know the weapon,” Jack said, his tone edged in frustration. “Turkel seemed to think it was tonight. Do we have the G8 itinerary?”
Jessi Bandison called the schedule up on Henderson’s computer screen. A timetable appeared showing the whereabouts of the principals in the G8 at any given time during the summit. All eight heads of state would be attending a function at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
“But the Chinese Premier won’t be there,” Henderson pointed out. He jabbed his finger at a box on the screen that stated the Premier’s location for that evening: in his suite at a separate hotel. “Al-Libbi wouldn’t attack then, like we said.”
Jack studied the schedule. Something was bothering him. “Why is he staying indoors?”
“What do you mean?”
Bauer ran his finger along the column for every other day and night. “His schedule is packed. He has events every day and every evening, especially evenings. The only blank spots are for sleep and some time during each day, but no rest at all the other evenings. Only this one.”
Tony saw where Jack was going. “You think he has a rendezvous planned?” Jack was already sliding the screen over to President Barnes.
“Well, look who else doesn’t have anything planned in that slot.” He smiled at the others. “I’d say these two have a meeting of their own scheduled. We just need to find out where it is. Let’s go over the facts we know and see how they fit.”
