by. Jack had chosen the latter, and so far it had worked. He slipped out the back door of the thrift shop with Ramirez trailing him. The sirens had died out, though the police were surely out in force looking for them. He had to get out of here, not only to retrieve the package Teri would leave him, but to put distance between himself and his previous location. The more random his movements, the more chaotic they seemed, the harder he would be to track down. The police would look for patterns, follow leads, try to establish a path that Jack was following. He knew, because that’s what he would do if he were on the hunt. He had to avoid the trap of falling into just such a pattern.
The alley was dark and lined with large metal Dumpsters that stank of food from nearby restaurants. The alley itself smelled of urine. Jack kept to the sides, ready to melt into the deeper shadows at the first sign of approaching headlights. During the day, he would have walked in the open, trying to appear as natural as possible. But at one o’clock in the morning, anyone walking down an alley would attract attention, so it was better not to be seen at all. Five buildings down, the alley intersected a side street, a residential strip with cars parked at the curb. He turned right and walked quickly down the sidewalk, checking the windshields of the cars.
“What are we doing?” Ramirez asked, swiveling his head like an owl as he looked nervously about him.
“Looking for a car with a permit.”
“Why?”
Jack spotted one, a dark blue Nissan Maxima with a white and gray tag hanging from the rearview mirror. The permit suggested a resident, and a resident was most likely someone who wouldn’t come out to look for his car until seven or eight o’clock. By that time, Jack would have ditched this car for another.
Next, he searched the ground and found a head-sized rock on someone’s front lawn with the word “Serenity” carved into it. The rock was nestled into a cluster of morning glories now closed up for the night. Jack plucked the rock out of the garden and, without hesitation, heaved it through the back seat window. Immediately the car’s alarm blared, the tone and rhythm of the alarm changing every three or four seconds.
Ramirez panicked. “What the fuck! Someone’s going to hear!”
Jack’s expression showed his annoyance. “When was the last time you heard a car alarm at night and came running outside?”
Ramirez realized that Jack was right, of course. He reached inside the car, careful not to cut himself on broken glass, and opened the back door. A moment later he had the driver’s door open. Lying down across the seat, Jack reached underneath the dash and, in a few seconds, stopped the alarm and hot-wired the ignition.
“Get in.”
Ramirez got in and Jack drove off. A block away, they passed a black-and-white police car cruising in the opposite direction.
Megan Wallen spun around on her swiveling stool in the med lab at UCLA’s Medical Center. As she completed a full circle her knees came around and bumped the counter where the tests were being run.
“Ouch. Damn!’ she said, picking herself up. “Stupid. Kill myself while killing time.”
Nights at the lab got long, even when there were a lot of tests to run. She got through most nights trading e-mails and IMs with Tim and Martina or doing med school homework, but Martina was out of town and Tim was working, and her eyes were bleary enough from tests. She didn’t feel like reading.
The lab phone rang, making her jump. It had been a quiet night, except for one test brought down from the ER, and in the silence the phone sounded demanding.
“Lab, this is Megan,” she said.
“Megan Wallen, right? This is the security desk up in the lobby. Listen, there’s someone here who says they need to see you. Wants you to come up.”
“Me? Who?”
“They, uh, they say it’s a surprise.” The caller’s voice dropped. “Look, I don’t want to ruin things, but I got a clown here with way too many balloons. Can you just—”
A surprise? Balloons? She wondered if it was a prank of Tim’s. “I’m coming.”
Still rubbing her hip, she opened the door and walked down the hall. Behind her, the door closed slowly, pushing gently toward the frame by the spring in its hinge. But before it closed completely, someone walked out of the stairwell and calmly stopped the door. The figure slipped into the lab and walked up to the same counter that Megan had just vacated. On the counter stood a vial of blood that read “CHAPPELLE, RY.” The intruder reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an identical vial, also filled with blood. Carefully, carefully, he peeled the recently applied label off the original vial and put it on his new one. Then he dropped the new one into the rack, took the original, and left.
Megan returned a few minutes later, carrying a bunch of metallic “I’m Sorry” balloons and a mystified look on her face. She wondered what Tim had to apologize for. She figured she’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, she had blood work to run.
Tony had just finished reviewing data on three names that were likely aliases for Encep Sungkar. The new guy Seth had done good work, including providing rationale for eliminating four other names. He was relieved — the odds could have been much worse. He was so engrossed in his review that he didn’t notice Jamey standing over him until she cleared her throat.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” he said, rubbing his eyes. It was getting late.
“What’s up is Jack Bauer,” she said. “Did you know he called here?”
Tony stared at her blankly.
“Oh, crap, let me start again,” Jamey said. “Did you know Jack Bauer broke out of jail and then called here?”
Tony sighed through clenched teeth. “Oh, shit. Did anyone get hurt?”
Jamey shrugged. “The news isn’t all in, but there was a riot at the jail, so I’m sure some of it was ugly. Word is that Jack cut a guard across the forehead. The other word is that he stopped some inmates from escaping after he went over the wall.”
Tony stood up, the sleep suddenly gone from his eyes. “Unbelievable, unbelievable,” he muttered. “Are we on it?”
Jamey sat on the edge of his desk and put her hands in the air in a universal sign of perplexity. “Search me. Chappelle’s out of commission and Henderson seems to be in watch-and-wait mode. He sent George Mason over to liaison with the marshals. But—” she stopped, scrunching up her face in an unhappy look but saying nothing.
“But what? Come on, I don’t have time—”
“Tony, we should have been on this one. I mean, it’s Jack Bauer. The guy friggin’ never even read the rule book. But kill a guy for no reason? Come on. And we never even looked into it. Shouldn’t we do some homework?”
Tony rubbed his temples vigorously enough to wear holes in them. Jamey was right. It had been weeks since Jack had shot that Tintfass character, and with the exception of some cursory cooperation with the Federal prosecutor, CTU had had almost no involvement. That was Chappelle, of course. The man was a bona fide tool and hated Bauer. He probably relished the thought of Bauer behind bars. But that wouldn’t have stopped Bauer from digging deep into the story, and it shouldn’t have stopped them.
“Okay,” he said. “But I’ve got a problem. I’m on a lead that might be important. Jemaah Islamiyah is in our neck of the woods.”
Jamey was quick. “That Southeast Asia thing is tomorrow,” she said.
“It’s tomorrow. I’m sure they’re going to hit the meeting, but I don’t know how and I’m only just learning who. I need to stay on it. You should dig into it, though.”
“Any suggestions on where to start?”
“At the beginning,” Tony said.
