24 Declassified: Chaos Theory

need, but no sense yet of how to achieve his goals. The world was indeed a puzzle, and he was convinced that it must be broken in order to be rebuilt. But the means had escaped him, even him, brilliant as he was, until now.

The truth was, he had not considered violence until that moment — until the moment word came that his family had been shot in Chiapas while protesting the neglect of the government. He had spent his time in the gang, but that was an alliance born of necessity. He hadn’t reveled in those violent acts the way the others did. Still, violence was a tool and, like any tool, in the proper hands it could work.

Rafael was speeding up a lonely stretch of the interstate near the Buttonwillow/McKittrick exit when he committed himself to violent acts. And having done so, his mind leaped immediately to the consequences, the actions and investigations of the police, their means and patterns of tracking and trapping him. Every life, as complicated as it might seem to the person living it, was a pattern, a set of actions evolving out of the past and moving into the future along predictable lines, with predictable connections, just like the cube. If he was going to remain beyond their reach, he would have to break those patterns. Now.

Rafael stopped the car, right there on that empty stretch of road. He left the keys in the ignition, his cell phone on the seat, and his wallet in the glove compartment. Wearing only the clothes on his back, he walked up into the hills, and Jorge Rafael Marquez was never seen again.

Zapata ended his jog in the Larchmont area, a fortress of affluence just west of downtown, besieged on all sides by the lower classes. On the way, Zapata had dropped his Ossipon identification, credit cards, and cell phone in various trash bins. He was now naked before the informational world, but he’d been there before, and it did not bother him. Besides, he had other contacts and different associates. Zapata cooled down from his jog by walking. When he came to a pay phone outside a 7–Eleven, he stopped.

6:38 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

“Emil Ramirez,” Jamey Farrell read aloud. “Arrested on Federal charges of embezzlement and murder. What would Jack want with him?”

Tony studied the data sheet on Ramirez. “Alliance,” he muttered, reading a list of known business contacts for Ramirez. The shootout at U-Pack came back to him. “There was a truck with the word Alliance on the side. What was the name of the guy?”

“Vanowen,” Seth said. “He’s the other corpse in the hotel room. He’s not going to be answering any questions.”

Tony snapped at him. “Follow the connections. Jack hooks up with this Ramirez and busts him out of jail. Jack turns up with Ramirez at an arms trade with Vanowen. I doubt it’s a coincidence. Jack was climbing the ladder. Ramirez to Vanowen. Vanowen to. who?”

“Whoever shot him, you can get on that,” said Nina, now back in the office.

Chris Henderson had sat at the table, practically sulking. Finally he said, “Why don’t we have more information on these guys?”

“I don’t know,” Jamey said.

“Right. So how was Jack conducting some kind of operation without any intel at all? It seems like we’re filling in huge blanks with big assumptions about Jack.”

Nina said, “You still think Jack has just gone to the dark side? He didn’t kill Tintfass!”

Henderson shrugged. “Tony’s theory. I just think it might be possible. You and I both know that Jack has always had one foot on the dark side anyway.”

Nina fixed her eyes, catlike, on the Director of Operations. “You’re pretty quick to go to the worst-case scenario on this. Is it something personal?”

Henderson’s ears turned pink. “What do you mean, personal?”

“I just wonder if the rumors are true. Jack dropped your name to Internal Affairs over some misappropriation—”

“Go to hell!” Henderson exploded, slapping his open palm on the table. He was halfway out of his seat as though he was going to lunge at her. “I don’t give a damn about any rumors. I’m doing my job with a clear head. You’re the one who’s thinking of Jack as a goddamned hero without a shred of evidence.”

He looked at the others, challenging them one by one. No one said anything about the rumors. But after a pause, Tony said, “I’m not willing to assume Jack’s just turned rogue. There’s a reason for all this. So, assuming you don’t mind that we continue, I’m going to find it.”

6:42 A.M. PST UCLA Medical Center

It does not take much to make a disguise. Thick-rimmed glasses, so the eyes focus on the glasses rather than the face. A hat, but not pulled down to hide the eyes, just sitting atop the head to change its shape and hide the hair. Celebrities whose faces appeared daily on televison and in tabloids got away with it. Jack Bauer, whose name was known to few and whose face had not been broadcast by the news during the escape, certainly managed it.

He abandoned Peter’s car in a public parking structure in Westwood and walked a mile to the medical center. He strode right through the lobby, past the security guard, and up to the information desk.

“Ryan Chappelle, please? He was admitted last night.”

“Five-thirty-four,” said the plump Asian nurse at the desk. “But you’ll need to check in before seeing him. Visits are restricted.”

Jack nodded and went to the elevators. A short ride brought him to the fifth floor, where the elevator doors opened onto a circular desk and a sleepy attendant. “Morning,” he said, smiling as she yawned.

“Ah, morning, sorry,” she replied.

“I’d like to visit room 534,” he said innocently. “They told me I had to check in?”

“With the guard.” The nurse nodded, pointing down the hall.

Jack was happy to see that 534 was out of view. He walked down the corridor, turned a corner, and then went straight up to the uniformed guard sitting by room 534. The man was sleepy, but the purposefulness of Jack’s stride brought him to attention and he stood up, grabbing a clipboard.

“Help you?” he asked.

Jack nodded. “I hope so, they told me I had to see you.”

He glanced at the clipboard, which made the guard look down, too. Jack popped him in the throat with the webbing between his thumb and index finger, gagging him. Then he kneed the man in the groin, doubling him over. Jack wrapped an arm around the guard’s throat and squeezed until he went limp. Jack glanced down the hall. No one came. No one had heard.

He pulled the unconscious guard into the room and used his own cuffs to shackle the man to the sink in the bathroom, then closed the door.

Ryan Chappelle looked like a naked mole rat on life support. His skin was pale in the fluorescent hospital light, and he seemed smaller than usual lying in the railed bed. “You picked a goddamned terrible time to get sick,” Jack muttered.

Jack wasn’t sure of his next move. His knowledge of medicine was rudimentary, and if the medical team here couldn’t bring Chappelle out of his coma, he couldn’t imagine how he could do it. But then the medical team wasn’t as desperate as he was, and in his experience desperation counted for something.

A doctor walked into the room, a woman with a tired, heavy look on her face. “Oh,” she said in surprise. “Have you seen the guard?”

“He’s around,” Jack said, glancing at her name tag. “Are you his doctor?”

“Czikowlis.” She nodded. “Who are you?”

“I work with him,” Jack said evasively. “And I need him to wake up right now.”

The doctor smirked. “Yes, that would be nice. I wish that worked on all our patients.”

“It has to work on this one,” Jack insisted. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Coma,” Dr. Czikowlis responded. Maybe it was her long night, but she took an instant dislike to this visitor, coming so early in the morning and asking so many insistent questions. “It came on suddenly. I’d. you work with him?”

Jack read her tone and guessed that she had some vague awareness that Chappelle worked for the government. He played on it. “Yes, ma’am. I hope you understand that I can’t show you any kind of ID. But we work in the same unit.” He lent a vague, clandestine-sounding mystery to his words.

Dr. Czikowlis nodded. “I guess. To be honest, I’m not sure what to do. Apparently it came on suddenly. It’s