“You listen to the weatherman. You listen to the newsman. You’d better listen to the traffic man. Traffic has a memory, it has a rhythm all its own. It might as well be a living thing.”
At the moment, that living thing was sick. Paralyzed, in fact. Or maybe a better metaphor was that all its arteries were clogged.
Spitz sat at his computer screen, flipping from traffic camera video of various congested areas (which was all of them) and grid overlays that showed the entire network of freeways and surface streets. Most of them now flashed red, meaning they were jammed. Six different spots showed a starburst indicating a SigAlert — a major accident that caused a disruption of traffic service.
“Huh,” he said as the big picture caught his attention. It wasn’t unheard of to have six large accidents in the greater metropolitan area, but something about these six accidents intrigued him: the 405 Freeway at the Sepulveda Pass; the 101 Freeway at Cahuenga; the 10 Freeway just before the 110.
Darren Spitz called his supervisor.
The helicopter came in low, swooping over the hoods of cars stretched on for miles. Jack saw it coming and got out of his car, leaving the keys in the ignition and the engine running.
“Hey!” yelled the driver behind him, but Jack ignored the call.
He jogged around and between the unmoving cars until he reached the edge of the freeway. There was a small park nearby and the helicopter made for it. Jack followed, and a few minutes later he ducked low beneath the propeller blades and slid into the passenger seat.
“Staples Center!” he yelled, and the chopper rose into the air.
“Game time, baby,” Chico D’Amato, the corner man, said. He tapped his fists onto the top of Jake Webb’s gloved fists. “You ready for this?”
Jake Webb had never felt so ready in his life. He’d trained hard for the last four months. He’d hit his weight exactly, and then spent the last forty-eight hours bulking up on carbs and protein, a long-standing tradition among fighters who got to weigh in a day or two prior to the actual fight. He now weighed a good seven pounds more than his officially listed weight. He felt strong and he felt fresh.
Jake knew he was at his peak. He also knew that he matched up well against both Salvatore Silva and Ben Harmon. It didn’t matter to him which one of them came away with the champion’s belt tonight. He’d come after him and he’d take it. All he had to do was get through Kendall, who didn’t look to offer him much of a problem.
“Your grandpa picked up his tickets,” Chico told him. “He’s out there. You gonna win for him?” Chico was an old hand at the fight game. He locked his eyes on Jake’s and was content with the fire he saw there.
“I’m gonna win for him,” Jake replied.
“Let me tell you what this boy’s gonna do,” Chico said. “He’s gonna fight with a lot o’ heart. You got to weather the first few minutes of the round. My guess is he’ll fight tough then. Don’t panic if he roughs you up, just stay in the pocket, keep your chin down. His ground game is good but it ain’t great, so if he takes you down just stay calm. You watch, come the end of that round, his heart’s going to go out a little bit. Doubt’s gonna creep in. That’s when you finish him.”
“That’s when I finish him,” Jake repeated like a mantra.
Zapata saw the four uniformed cops gather at the end of the corridor that led from the outer circle of shops and concession stands and into the seating area. He looked the other way and saw four more cops there. Once or twice, the police officers glanced casually up to his area, but they weren’t searching. They were checking the Chairman and then glancing away.
The anarchist felt a pang in his chest, but he did not know if it was anger or fear. Could those policemen be here for the Chairman? Zapata looked across the arena to the entry corridors over there. No police officers. No police officers anywhere except near the Fed leader.
Casually, Zapata stood up and pulled out his wallet, checking his cash as though contemplating a trip to the hot dog stand. He walked to the nearest corridor and said “Excuse me” as he slid past the police officers. These men had no idea who he was or what he looked like, but there was no doubt in Zapata’s mind that if these men had been told to come here, Agent Bauer was not far behind. Zapata went to a concession stand and bought a pair of binoculars. Then he walked around the wide circular hallway that girdled the Staples Center until he came to the far side of the arena. He climbed the outer stairs until he was up in the nosebleed seats on that side. Entering the seating area, he looked around for someone who seemed to be
sitting alone, a muscled twenty-something in a T-shirt that said “Tap Out” on it. Zapata showed the young man his ticket. “Don’t ask,” he said. “Just trade with me.”
The man in the “Tap Out” shirt looked suspiciously at him. “I find out that seat’s taken, I’m coming right back here.”
“Deal,” Zapata said. The man shrugged, took the much better ticket, and left. Zapata sat down in his new seat, as far from the Chairman as possible, and raised the binoculars to his eyes.
Agent Bauer could surround Chairman Webb with as many police officers as he wanted. It wouldn’t matter.
At that moment, the entire arena darkened and deafening music blared. The fights were under way.
23. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 6 P.M. AND 7 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
It was not every day that a helicopter dropped out of the sky and landed on the narrow plaza on the north side of Staples Center. This chopper touched down lightly and Jack Bauer jumped out, running low under the prop wash.
A moment later he reached the entrance. A large crowd still hovered outside, composed mostly of latecomers and fight dilettantes who didn’t care about the undercard fights. Jack pushed past them, ignoring cries and complaints. At the glass doors he flashed his badge.
“Okay,” the teenage ticket taker said, waving him through. The metal detectors shrieked as Jack entered the Staples Center, but he flashed his badge again and the cop posted there let him pass.
Peter Jiminez reached the Staples Center on a motorcycle, the only mode of transportation that had any chance of maneuvering in the paralyzed city. He left the bike in a motorcycle parking spot directly across from the entrance, jogged across the street, and got himself in much the same way Jack had.
Peter’s heart was pounding. Bauer was a formidable opponent, and to hunt him would be dangerous. But Peter had one advantage: Jack had no idea that Peter was the hunter.
Christopher Henderson opened his office door and looked down on the bullpen with its network of analysts’ computers. What he needed to do now, he couldn’t do from his own computer terminal. He walked downstairs and passed by Jamey Farrell’s workstation. “Are you seeing that slow crawl data from server four?” he asked her.
Jamey lifted her head up from the screen. “Hmm? Oh, yeah, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
Henderson looked dubious. “I’m going to check it anyway.”
“We can have the techs do it,” Jamey offered. “Or one of us.”
Henderson smiled as warmly as he could manage. “Let’s see if the old field hand can still work the fancy machines. I don’t get much of a chance to be a computer whiz.”
Henderson walked up the hallway to one of the tech rooms that housed CTU’s massive servers. At certain times of day, techs and analysts turned this room into Grand Central Station, but at the moment it was empty and quiet. Henderson opened a panel that gave him direct access to the server’s memory cards. specifically, memory cards that had to do with phone logs. If he accessed these memory cards from another terminal, the system would
