Risdow was examining proformas on a business proposition, but he kept one eye on Zapata. He wasn’t suspicious; he was fascinated. He did not consider himself Zapata’s friend — if he gave the matter any thought at all, he’d have guessed that Zapata had no real friends. Friends were connections, and connections caused patterns, and Risdow knew enough to know that Zapata abhorred them. In fact, he was sure that this was the last time he would see the anarchist. They had had a peripheral connection on a previous event, when the middlemen Zapata was using had brought Risdow in to finance the operation. Something about Risdow had attracted Zapata — Kyle suspected it was his complete lack of compunction— and the anarchist had shown up at his door two years later, planning to crash an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico and allowing Kyle to profit from the cleanup effort. Now there was this. To be honest, Kyle wasn’t even sure why Zapata had brought him in this time. But he did know that Zapata abandoned his colleagues soon after the job, and he expected the mysterious anarchist to vanish forever.
At the moment, though, Zapata was answering his cell phone and then listening with consternation. A moment later he hung up and stood perfectly still, staring at the wall.
“Something?” Kyle asked.
“Franko didn’t finish the job,” Zapata said simply. “He was interrupted by another gunman.” “A gunman? Or a cop?” “That is what I was considering.” Zapata continued to stare at the wall, but what
he saw was a complex network of nodes and lines, each connected to each. “Not a cop,” he said at last. “Franko said he never identified himself and just came in shooting. The police don’t behave that way.”
“Maybe it was nothing to do with you.”
“Maybe.” But Zapata felt a tug in his chest, a little twinge of anxiety. He considered abandoning his current project and leaving the country. But he saw no way in which the authorities could follow a path to his intentions. Even if, by the slimmest of chances, Smiley Lopez could point to him in some way, the MS–13 leader had no reason to cooperate with the authorities.
“Still, fortune favors the prepared mind,” he murmured, quoting Louis Pasteur. He had created an escape plan during his last adventure in Los Angeles (a riot; his involvement had gone totally unnoticed by the authorities) but had not needed to use it. He thought, with a quick update, the same plan would work perfectly well. “Kyle, I need a map of the city streets.”
Felix Studhalter wasn’t a permanent resident of Los Angeles. He’d rented a house in Los Feliz, but only for a month or two while he conducted business. According to CTU’s intelligence, he mostly moved heroin but had recently pursued the crystal meth craze. He’d been convicted once and served a few years in state prison, but had been paroled. Now he was back in business, if the LAPD was to be believed. They were simply waiting for him to make his next move.
Nina and Tony weren’t going to give him the opportunity.
Nina knocked on the door of the rented bungalow and smiled when Studhalter answered. He was about forty, with puffy cheeks and a little too much skin around his neck. “Mr. Studhalter?” she asked pleasantly.
“Who are you?” he asked casually.
She stepped into the room, and he immediately tried to slam the door on her. She shouldered it back open and charged in. Studhalter was no fighter. He turned and ran through the half-empty, rented living room and into the kitchen, where he met Jack Bauer, who’d just kicked in the back door.
The drug dealer stopped and raised his hands. “Arrest me, what the fuck. I haven’t done anything.”
Jack motioned him back into the living room where both Nina and Tony waited. “Back so soon?” Nina asked. “What’s this about?” Studhalter demanded. “You guys can’t be cops.”
“Sit down.” Jack pointed at the couch, and Stud-halter obeyed. He was nervous, but not panicked. He was an ex-con, and prison held no unknowns for him. He was also smart enough to know his place in the world. “This ain’t about me,” he said. “No way this is about me.”
Jack nodded.
As Jack interrogated Felix Studhalter, another car drove up in front of the house, and Nina saw Peter Jiminez exit. She met him on the walkway. “Isn’t this overkill?”
Peter worked his swollen jaw. “Henderson wants me to take this guy back to CTU. He thinks there might be more we can get out of him once Jack’s done”
“You’ve heard of the phone,” Nina said.
“You two are supposed to check out the Pacific Rim Forum site. He says he wants someone with more experience.” Jiminez looked miserable. “I’ve got years doing protective services with Diplomatic Security and he thinks I don’t have the experience. So I get stuck with prisoner transport.”
Jack walked out a moment later. “He’s all yours,” he said to Nina. “He’s cooperative enough. And this can work. He’s never met the Ukrainians before, and he’s supposed to arrange a meet with them. I’m playing him and making the call now.”
“Change of plans,” Nina said, pointing at Peter.
“I’m taking him in,” the young agent explained.
“Okay,” Jack said. He didn’t spare more than a quick glance at Peter. He had liked Jiminez well enough, and he was aware that he’d become a kind of father-figure to the younger man, but he had time for neither hero worship nor shattered expectations at the moment.
Nina had no desire to get in the middle of the dispute, so she went back inside.
“Jack,” Jiminez started. “Look, I was pissed before, you could tell. I even went in to Henderson to bitch about you. He set me straight. I’m sorry, man, I just — you know, I have a lot of respect for you, and to take a shot like that right after I’d, I mean, smashing the car and everything—”
Jiminez was stumbling over his words. Jack choked back his frustration. The kid was saying something nice, and if several sessions of marriage counseling had taught him anything, it was to listen when the other person said something nice. “Thanks, Peter. Thanks for getting me out of that police car.” He shook Peter’s hand.
Jack went to his car and got in. He had Studhalter’s mobile phone with him, and he dialed the number the drug dealer had given him.
“Yeah?” said a rough, accented voice on the other side.
“Hey, this is Studhalter,” Jack said. “Give me Sergei.”
“When do you want to meet?” said the other man, obviously Sergei.
“Now. I want to move the stuff now, too.”
Pause. “You’re in a hurry now, all of a sudden?”
Jack let his answer come naturally, not rushed and defensive. “I have some buyers in Okahoma City. The sooner I get to them, the more money I make.” “Okay. Come to me. If the feelings are good, we’ll go for a ride.” Sergei gave him an address in Santa Monica, and Jack hit the road.
He hadn’t driven for more than a few minutes when he realized there was another call he needed to make. Probably it was a call he should have made hours earlier, but he had forgotten. The conciliatory conversation with Jiminez had reminded him. He dialed.
“Hello?” Teri’s voice was inquisitorial. This was a number she did not recognize.
“Ter, it’s me.”
“Jack.” He couldn’t tell if that sound in her voice was anger or relief. Maybe it was both. “What’s—?” “I’m good. It’s all good now. Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
And suddenly she was crying on the other end of the line. He did not interrupt her. A moment later her sobs subsided, and she said amid her tears, “God, I was so scared last night, I’ve been so scared, and all the time keeping this secret—”
“I know, I’m sorry, I really am,” he said, meaning it. It hadn’t been fair to expose her to danger. He’d already asked too much of her by just going under cover in prison. He’d told her, of course, but then he’d insisted that she maintain the secret. That hadn’t been hard — Jack’s work wasn’t well known to their friends and neighbors, and he traveled enough that a three-week absence, while unusual, wasn’t suspicious. But she’d slept every night with images of him in prison. “But that part’s over. The police know that I was undercover.”
“So you’re coming home?” she asked hopefully. “Kim hasn’t seen you in—”
“Today, later. But I can’t yet. I still have work to do.”
Even before she spoke, he sensed the change in tone. It was as though the word
