17. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 P.M. AND 12 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Of all the times Christopher Henderson had wanted to hit Ryan Chappelle, this was the hardest to resist.
“You authorized this whole goddamned thing without telling me!” Henderson yelled so loud that the thick glass of his office could not completely muffle it.
“Don’t yell at me,” Chappelle shot back. He was exhausted and frustrated from dealing with a frayed and angry presidential staff for the last hour, while at the same time overseeing the security lockdown that kept an entire nation from knowing its president had been exposed to a violent hemorrhagic fever. “I’ll have you working postal routes searching for stray anthrax.”
“This is bullshit!” Henderson continued. “How can I do my job as Director of Field Operations when you have my people running clandestine missions behind my back.”
Chappelle had just informed Henderson of Jack’s operation linking the eco-terrorists to Ayman al-Libbi.
Chappelle sniffed arrogantly. “It was need-to-know. Besides, if you want to blame someone, blame Bauer. He bypassed you. Better yet, blame yourself. Aren’t you one of the reasons he’s here in the first place?”
“So Jack wants to run a secret operation and you give it your stamp of approval? Jack’s job is to think outside the lines. I thought yours was to stick to the rule book.”
Chappelle laughed; it was a thin, unpleasant sound. “You know what I notice? How everyone thinks it’s great to have a loose cannon like Jack Bauer around…right up until the loose cannon rolls over their toes. Sharpton liked Jack, too, and now he’s dead. Don’t be surprised if someday you find yourself regretting that Bauer’s around.”
Jessi sat at her desk, staring at her computer screen. She was supposed to be analyzing downloads from security and traffic cameras within a five-mile radius of two addresses, and running the facial recognition systems to see if any cameras had picked up their movement. But she knew she wasn’t doing a good job. Her focus was gone. No, it wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t here, either. It was with Kelly Sharpton.
“Jessi, are you on it?” Jamey Farrell appeared at her side. “You look lost.”
“Um, no, yeah, I’m good,” she replied. “Sorry. I’m on it now.”
But she didn’t notice the picture sliding by her of the slim man with dark hair leaving his apartment. If she had, it might have saved more than one life.
A clerk was locking the front door of the Earth Cafe as Jack, Ozersky, and Mercy Bennet jogged up. Jack put his hand on the glass door just before it closed. “Hang on, it’s just after eleven,” he said, pointing at the sign that indicated closing time was eleven-thirty.
The clerk, a dark-haired twenty-something girl with a nose ring and a very flat stomach between her T-shirt and her low-slung men’s trousers, pushed on the door again, a look of panic in her eyes. “We’re closing early. Sorry!” She shoved at the door and Jack relented. He watched her lock the door and then hurry behind the counter and into the back room.
“Slackers?” Ozersky wondered aloud.
“She’s pretty anxious,” Mercy said.
“You guys walk back to the car,” Jack ordered. They all turned around and retreated to the sidewalk. Mercy and Ted continued, but as soon as they were out of sight of the doorway, Jack turned and sprinted toward the rear of the cafe. There was a small parking lot in back, but it wasn’t well lit. Jack stuck to the shadows and reached the back of the building in no time. He touched the back door gently, feeling it locked. There was a small window above and to the right of the door. Jack hopped up onto a blue Dumpster that stank of coffee grinds and rotting vegetables, balanced himself on the edge, and looked in the window.
The window offered a view of the cafe’s kitchen. Jack saw the nose-ringed clerk and another employee, a young man with short hair and a goatee, standing with their backs to the kitchen counter. In front of them were two men facing away from Jack. They were small, wiry men with dark skin. They both held guns. They appeared to be asking questions. The two clerks looked terrified.
Jack pulled out his phone and sent a text message to Mercy: “Distraction ASAP.” He jumped down, landing softly, and waited.
A moment later glass shattered at the front of the store. The girl inside screamed and one of the men shouted in Farsi. At that moment, Jack kicked in the door. His kick blew through the bolts, and the door swung open. The men inside were fast. They had turned toward the sound of breaking glass, but when they heard the door crash, they whirled around just as quickly, weapons ready. Jack dropped to one knee as bullets sped over his head. He double-tapped, and one of the men crumpled inward and fell on his face. Bullets from the other man’s pistol chipped the asphalt around Jack, who calmly shifted his muzzle over and double-tapped again. The second man was falling before the two clerks thought to scream again.
Jack jumped to his feet and ran forward, kicking the weapons away from the fallen assailants. Both men were dead.
“Are you all right?” Jack asked. The two clerks were pressed as far back against the counter as possible, terror and shock and relief all visible in their eyes. “I’m a Federal agent. Are you all right?”
They nodded. The girl said, “Who… who are those guys?”
Mercy and Ted rushed in, weapons drawn. “Clear,” Jack said. “Can you call CTU?” Ozersky nodded. Jack turned to the girl with the nose ring. “Did they ask you any questions?”
She nodded, almost unable to take her eyes off the two corpses. “Um, yeah. They were asking us about Pico. They said they’d kill us if we didn’t help them.”
“Pico Santiago. We want him, too,” Jack said. “Do you have any idea where he is? Do you know him well?”
The young man, who’d yet to speak, nodded. “I do. We’ve worked here for a couple years. Is he in trouble?”
“Not if I can help it. How well do you know him?” Jack’s own body was still adrenalized from the gunfight, but he forced his voice to remain calm and firm. “We need to find him. He’s not at home. We think he’s afraid of these guys and he ran off somewhere. Do you know where he’d go?”
Jack saw the kid hesitate, his eyes settling on Jack’s gun. He had that same look on his face Jack had seen on some of the protestors that morning, though it seemed a lifetime ago. He spoke irritably, “Yeah, I’m the government and I want him, too. But here’s the difference between us and them. They want him dead, and I want to keep him alive. So tell me.”
The young man straightened up. “He was working here tonight, but he just took off. Said something had come up and he had to get out of town for a while.”
“Did he say where out of town?” Mercy queried. “Would he take a plane somewhere?”
The kid shook his head. “No, dude, that’s not what he means. Pico’s into outdoor stuff, like me. He went up into the mountains to hike.”
“Give me his cell number.”
“He doesn’t use one,” the kid said. “He says the microwaves fry your brain.”
“Up in the mountains where?” Jack asked.
“Dude, it could be any—”
“Somewhere he knows,” Jack said, growing impatient. “Somewhere he’d feel comfortable and safe.”
The kid snapped his fingers. “Temescal Canyon. That’s his favorite spot, and you hike back there past the waterfall,
you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Do any of his other friends know about that place?”
“Lots of people know about it. Yeah, Pico’s got some other friends he hangs with up there. Gina’s been up”—he pointed to the nose-ringed girl, who nodded—“and I’ve been up there with Pico and that freak girl he used
