“The crowd is huge. You’ll never get here in twenty minutes.
“Jack, this is L.A. You can get anywhere in twenty minutes.”
He did not think of himself as a man of action. He was a man whose circumstances had imposed the need for action upon him. He had committed acts of violence, and planned to commit more such acts very soon, but he did not adore violence as did some others with whom he had worked. Unfortunately he could not denounce violence, either. Violence was a tool, and at times a very useful tool indeed, and he had long ago sworn to use any and all tools necessary to satisfy his ambitions.
He was lying across the bed of his room, studying the lines in the ceiling created by uneven plastering. The lines reminded him of aerial maps of the Fertile Crescent. The beige plaster served as desert, the rough patches were arid mountain ranges, and the long cracks wound their way across the landscape like overtaxed rivers.
His room was sparse. He didn’t care — he spent very little time there. He had roomed in the best hotels in the world, and also spent nights in tents under desert skies or in jungles, and they were the same to him; strategic locations from which to plan his assaults on the powers aligned against him.
When he had begun his crusade, he had fought in the name of “his” people. They were his adopted people, of course, and he acknowledged that. But it made them no less his own, and he had poured all his energies into protecting them from occupiers and colonialists. The fight, back then, had been personal. As the years passed, the fight had grown, until now he saw himself as a crusader fighting for worldwide justice.
He smiled in spite of himself. He was self-aware enough to know that the image of the crusader existed only to satisfy his ego. Still, that did not make it untrue.
His mobile phone vibrated. He recognized the number. It belonged to someone sympathetic to his cause, someone well placed and therefore useful. He picked it up. “Yes,” he said calmly.
“The Feds are getting involved.”
He felt nervousness tighten his stomach, but he forced himself to relax. “Well, they intended to be here all along. After all, you are a ‘Fed,’ too.”
“Part of a standard security team. These guys are looking for someone specific.” The man on the phone recited a description.
“That could be anyone,” the man in the hotel said.
“Which means it could be you. You make the call, I’m just passing on the information.”
“These ’guys’ to whom you referred. You know them?”
“Only by reputation. The point man is Jack Bauer. He’s the one looking for you.”
“And how close do you suppose he is to finding me?”
“Not very. But they have some kind of lead.”
“I see,” said the man in the hotel room. “Well, let’s learn a little more about Mr. Bauer. We may have to pay him a visit.”
Jack had cruised by the Teen Green assembly and waved to
Kim when his ear bud chirped.
“Jack, Tony. You’re not going to believe this.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I think we got something.”
“Al-Libbi?”
“No, but a lead. How fast can you get to the southwest corner of the building?”
“They say you can get anywhere in L.A. in twenty minutes.”
“Well, make it faster. There’s something you’ll want to see.”
Jack turned on his heel. He had almost reached the northeast corner of Federal Plaza, putting him as far as possible from his destination. The fastest way to reach the far side would be to cut diagonally through the plaza itself. But looking over the heads of the still-growing mobs of protestors, he saw a line of uniformed riot police assembled along the perimeter of the building itself. So far the protestors had stuck to the script and stayed fifty yards away from the police line.
Jack decided that rushing toward that line of grim officers would cause a riot long before he had a chance to flash his badge.
He headed west on the Wilshire sidewalk, blading his way through the crowd. This was no easy task, as the number of protestors was swelling by the minute. The G8 summit was scheduled for opening statements and photo ops at eight-thirty, and the protestors were mustering for action. Placards were sprouting like angry weeds all over the place, and some of the crowds, relatively normal in their dress before, had now changed into costumes. Jack elbowed past a Grim Reaper wearing a sign that said globalization kills.
He neared the northwest corner and cut across the grass as close to the forbidden concrete plaza as he dared, then headed south. His phone rang again, but this time the screen read Home.
“Hey,” he said, not slowing his pace.
“Hi, how’s everything there?” his wife, Teri, asked.
“Crowded,” Jack grunted. “You wouldn’t believe the line to get coffee.”
“Are you sure she’s going to be okay?” Teri said worriedly. She had asked that question, in that same tone of voice, ten times since last night.
“She’ll be fine.” Jack wedged his elbow between two pale-faced grad students with uncallused hands whose matching T-shirts bore pictures of Che Guevera. “The student advisor is keeping them away from the front of the pack. If things get out of hand, they’ll be far enough away.”
“Plus she’s got you with her.”
Jack suspected that a mother’s definition of “with” didn’t include being separated by ten thousand political activists and platoons of anxious policemen. “I promise she’ll be fine,” was all he could say.
He heard soft static on the telephone. “Jack, are you okay?”
“Me? Of course.”
“You’ve just got your work voice on.”
“It’s just the crowd,” he replied. “It puts me on edge a little.”
Teri’s voice lightened. “Relax a little. You’re not saving the world today, just taking care of your daughter.”
“Saving the world is easier,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Jack hadn’t been off the phone for more than sixty seconds when his ear bud chirped again. “Tony, I’m here,” he said. “What am I looking for?”
“I see you,” Almeida said from inside the command center. “Turn to your four o’clock and move to the street. Look south on Veteran Avenue. Hurry!”
Jack made a quarter turn to his right and slid through the crowd to the curb. Veteran Avenue, one of the streets bordering the Federal Building, had been closed off for security reasons and a barricade had been set up half a block down. A line of protestors had formed at the barricade, where police were doing cursory searches to ensure that no weapons got through, and most people, once they passed the police line, hurried toward the building. Jack looked just in time to see one man moving in the opposite direction. “Blue T-shirt, long sleeves, dark hair,” Jack described.
“You’ve got him.”
Jack sped up to a jog. “Who am I chasing?”
“The FRS thinks it looks an awful lot like Muhammad Abbas.”
Jack broke into a run. “Can you get sound?”
“We’re angling the shotgun mikes.”
Muhammad Abbas, Palestinian refugee turned Lebanese parliament lap dog for the PLO, turned arms-dealing middleman. Abbas had been a functionary working in the shadows of real power brokers in the Middle East for twenty years. He had, in fact, served as the factotum for one particular terrorist: Ayman al-Libbi.
“I’m at the police barricade,” Jack said, his breath coming shorter. He couldn’t see beyond the barricade and the crowd waiting for approval to move past it. He looked around urgently, spotting a cement trash can. He jumped on top of it and looked over the crowd, spotting the blue T-shirt near a red Toyota Camry with the door open. There
