Mark Kendall listened as the announcer officially declared him the winner. He heard people around him say words like “comeback” and “championship” and “lucrative contract.” He stood there and let tears of joy stream down his face.
Jack raced out the exit into nighttime Los Angeles illuminated by streetlights. Zapata was across the street already. Jack saw him hop onto a motorcycle and race away. Jack tucked the handgun under his useless left arm and stuck his hand in his pocket. He’d searched Peter’s body before leaving it and found the motorcycle key. Hoping his luck would hold out, he followed Zapata’s footsteps to the same parking area and saw another motorcycle. Hopping on, he started the engine. This was how Peter had gotten through traffic. And this was how Zapata had planned to escape.
By the time Jack drove onto the city streets headed for the freeway, Zapata was out of sight. He needed help. Keeping his right hand on the handlebars, Jack forced his left arm to work. Blood poured down his wrist and onto his mobile phone, but he dialed anyway.
“Jack!” It was Tony Almeida. “We just got back and heard what’s happening at the Staples Center. Are you —?”
“Get a chopper in the air!” he shouted over the rushing wind. “Zapata is trying to escape on a motorcycle.”
Jack wondered at Zapata’s escape plan. It didn’t make sense. Criminals had tried motorcycle escapes many times before in Los Angeles. No matter how fast they outran police cars, no matter how cleverly they used traffic congestion to block the black-andwhites, they couldn’t outrun the eye in the sky. It was stupid, and Zapata wasn’t stupid.
Jack got on the 110 Freeway headed north. It was as bad as before, although now in the darkness the stalled freeway looked like a river of orange and red lights.
“Chopper’s up,” Tony said. “We’ve got them. and you. You’re behind him. We’re trying to get units rolling, but this traffic—”
“It’s his plan. He did it. We need to keep the chopper on him. Tony, there’s more. Peter Jiminez tried to kill me. I don’t know why. I had to kill him.” Jack hung up and kept riding.
Tony and most of CTU were on the monitors, watching a feed relayed from an LAPD helicopter. The chopper had been up in a minute and already had its spotlight shining on Zapata’s motorcycle, which zigzagged and swerved around the cars essentially parked on the freeway.
Zapata reached a spot on the 110, just before that freeway hit the 101, where a strip of greenery, trees, and a fence separated the freeway from the surface streets. Zapata slowed down and then stopped.
“Is he giving up?” Nina asked.
On the monitor, they saw Zapata dismount, walk over to the shrubbery and pull out something long and metallic. He turned and looked upward at the LAPD chopper.
“RPG!” Tony yelled.
Zapata paused and took a breath, then fired the rocket-propelled grenade straight up, striking the side of the helicopter. The chopper instantly transformed into a ball of flame, for a split second lighting the freeway like a miniature sun. The shocked faces of the drivers imprinted themselves on Zapata’s retina. He liked it.
The roar of the other motorcycle came on him too suddenly. He ran for his own bike, but just as he kicked it into gear, Jack Bauer roared up behind him, sacrificing the bike and himself as he rammed Zapata. The anarchist catapulted off the bike and into the dirt and grass. Bauer hit the ground hard, blacking out from the pain in his left arm. But he managed to hold on to his gun. By the time he stood, several minutes had passed.
Zapata had crawled through the shrubs and into a hole that led under the fence. Jack followed.
CTU Headquarters was in chaos. Phones were ringing, data were pouring in, and the teams were struggling to keep up with it.
Nina, Tony, Chappelle, and Henderson were gathered in the conference room.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Nina said, examining one note. “Authorities at Staples Center say they have the body of Peter Jiminez. What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know what Peter’s been up to,” Henderson said.
Tony had been holding a phone to his ear. “Jack again.” He listened, his eyes widening in surprise. “Are you —? Okay, we’ll do it.” He spoke to the others. “Jack killed Peter. Jiminez was trying to kill him. Jack doesn’t know why.”
“He couldn’t have been working for Zapata,” Nina said. “What was he doing?”
Chappelle glowered. “Chris, have the analysts run checks on Peter’s phone logs. Let’s see who he’s been talking to.”
Henderson nodded.
On the far side of the fence, Jack worked his way gingerly down into a barranca filled with brambles. Now and then he stopped to listen. Over the random sounds of honking horns from the freeway back beyond the fence, he could hear Zapata out there somewhere, crawling away. Then the sounds stopped.
Jack hunted him slowly, methodically. But he guessed what Zapata was doing. After a moment, he turned back the way he’d come. The barranca was
dark, but in the gloom Jack recognized the spot where he’d slid down into the ditch. Zapata was there, just crawling out of the brush. “Nice try,” Jack said. The anarchist shrugged. “Doubling back is too predictable, but it was all I had left.”
Jack looked down at him. Zapata was bruised and beaten, but even so, he looked too normal to have caused so much trouble. “You missed the Chairman,” Jack said.
Zapata nodded. “A shame, too. It would have been interesting to see the infrastructure of this company collapse. Oh well, sometimes events are unpredictable after all.” The anarchist’s bruised face smiled at Jack. “You, for instance. You’re quite a tool for your government. A loose cannon, right? A maverick. Unpredictable.” He nodded appreciatively.
“Not really,” Jack said. “The truth is I’m pretty predictable.” He shot Zapata in the head.
About the Author
JOHN WHITMAN is the author of numerous books and projects, including the “Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear” series,
