“No time to be tired,” he said, switching freeways and heading east. After a moment, he said, “You need to promise me something. According to the workup we got from NHS, you become contagious once you see lesions that open up. You’ve got to—”
“I’ll do what I have to,” Mercy said. “But as long as I’m not a danger to anyone, I’m staying on this case.”
Jack smiled. “I always did like your attitude.”
“You just like girls who can kick ass like that girl from
Jack was glad to be driving so he could focus on the freeway. “You said you didn’t want it,” he said evasively. “You said—”
“I know about me and what I want,” Mercy interrupted. “We’re talking about you, now. I just want to know where it came from. I’m a detective, remember? I want answers. Was it just guy stuff, the need to have another woman? If it was, just tell me, ’cause I’m one of the cool chicks. I get that. I won’t be part of it, but I get it.”
Jack had to laugh in spite of himself. She really was one of the most centered people he’d ever met. “It wasn’t just an itch I have to scratch,” he said. “I promise. And I promise I’ll tell you, but right now I want to focus on this.”
These last words were spoken as they pulled up at CTU’s Los Angeles headquarters.
CTU was a whirlwind of activity. Although the attack on the President and the firefight up at Mountaingate Drive had been hidden from the public and the media, the intelligence community was in an uproar. CTU was screaming at the CIA for its shoddy information on Marcus Lee. The CIA was screaming at the Chinese for not disclosing more. Everyone was screaming at National Health Services to provide more information on this unknown virus that had suddenly become the single most important issue in the entire world.
Jack blew through it all like a torpedo cutting through a whirlpool. Nina Myers shouted to him that his prisoner was in holding room two, and Jack was there in no time.
Frankie Michaelmas was sitting in a bare metal chair designed to do nothing for her comfort. Her shoulder had been heavily bandaged and her ankle was wrapped in a brace. Her face was pale from loss of blood, but a medic whispered to Jack that she was stable and coherent.
As Jack walked in, Frankie smiled at him. “You’re the guy who broke my ankle. Did you get Ayman?”
Jack didn’t bother to answer.
“You didn’t get him,” Frankie concluded. “You’d have a different look on your face if you did.”
“You’re going to tell me who else knows how to create the vaccine,” Jack said. He checked his watch. “You’re going to tell me that in the next three minutes.”
Frankie shook her head, her blond curls matted to her forehead. “That’s my leverage, man. You think I don’t know the shit I’m in? I’m not giving away my only card.”
“You don’t have leverage,” Jack said. “You’re involved in a plot to kill the President of the United States. You’ve aided and abetted wanted terrorists. You’re going to be put in a hole. The only thing you might negotiate is how far down we drop you.”
Frankie looked at him, and Jack had to admit that she was cool. Whether it was desperation or pure fortitude he didn’t know yet, but she played the game with force. “How’s your daughter?”
Jack felt animal rage leap inside him, but he didn’t let it show.
“The joke of it is that Bernie never would have let her die. He figured if he exposed her, then you’d have her checked out by someone and they’d know the virus was real. He was going to send you the vaccine no matter what. Fucking wimp.”
“You don’t have that weakness,” Jack said.
She put aside the compliment. “He liked to pretend there were lines you didn’t cross. But that’s bullshit, right?” She wasn’t looking for confirmation. Jack could see that whatever lines there might be, she’d crossed them long ago. “You do what you do to get what you need, and that’s it. That’s why the terrorists are so effective. No boundaries. That’s what I kept telling him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Someone else knows how to make the vaccine. Tell me who it is.”
“Amnesty. A plane ticket to anywhere I want. Five hundred thousand dollars.”
“Life in prison instead of the death penalty,” Jack offered, neither knowing nor caring if he could actually deliver.
“Amnesty. A plane ticket. Money,” she repeated.
Jack checked his watch. “Just over a minute.”
“I’ve read up on all this interrogation stuff,” Frankie said. “I know what you guys can do, but you don’t have time. Hell, you look more sleep deprived than I do. What are you going to do, make me stand up for the next ten hours? Okay, then the President will die. You don’t have time for any of that psychological shit you guys do.”
Jack nodded. “You’re right.”
He punched her hard right on her bandaged shoulder. Frankie screamed in agony. He waited for her to stop screaming. As her cries turned to sobs, she started to say, “What the—? What the—?” and he kicked her broken ankle. She screamed again.
As soon as he thought she could hear again, Jack leaned in close. “No boundaries, Frankie. No lines I haven’t crossed. Wait till I start working on the healthy parts of you.”
He sat back. “Before he died, Copeland scrawled three numbers on the floor. Thirteen. Forty-eight. Fifty- seven. Tell me what they mean.”
Frankie sobbed and glared at him.
Jack continued calmly. “He also tried to say something. A name like Uma and the word ’ghetto.’ Tell me what that means. Tell me what the numbers mean.”
Frankie grinned almost maniacally through her pain. “He was always so goddamned corny.”
“Tell me.”
“Amnesty. A plane ticket. Mon—”
Jack leaned forward and rested his hand on her shattered shoulder. He could feel bones and meat move unstably beneath the bandages. She gasped wordlessly and shuddered uncontrollably. Jack leaned in again, but this time he noticed something at the edge of her bandages. He’d thought it was a laceration of some kind, but it wasn’t. It was purple, like a bruise, but raised and spotted like a weird rash. Or a lesion.
She coughed. “The fast strain,” she sputtered.
“Jack!” came over a hidden loudspeaker.
He didn’t need to be told. He was already halfway out. Jack slammed the door behind him and checked his arms and hands. No blood. Was the virus airborne from inside a human body?
Jack hurried around to the observation room where he found several CTU agents, including Nina, Tony, and Christopher Henderson, along with Mercy Bennet, watching Frankie decompose. That was the word for it. Her skin seemed to simply split open as though invisible claws had torn at her shoulders and neck. She vomited blood two or three more times.
“Get NHS here immediately,” Henderson ordered. “Get plastic over that door.”
Jack looked at Mercy and knew what she was thinking. This was going to happen to her. And he felt a hand squeeze his heart when he knew that the same thing would happen to Kim if he failed.
Ayman al-Libbi lay on the couch of the safe apartment. Despite the best efforts of the U.S. government, he had maintained a few friendships in America over the years— maintained them mostly because he did not ask favors of them. Until now. But
