man’s pant leg. He kept his hand firmly over the rapist’s mouth until his sobs subsided. “So listen to me, you sick little piece of shit. You tell me who else did this to little children. That geek down the hall?”
Frank whimpered but shook his head.
“Then who?”
“I don’t know!” Frank sobbed again. “It wasn’t a club!”
Don raised the pen again.
Frank pressed himself back against the bed. “Col
lins!” he squealed. “Father Collins! I heard him…”
He hesitated, terrified of angering Biehn further. “He said something once to me. About Aaron. Kind of… of a joke.”
Biehn’s face softened into agony. “A joke. Is he here?”
“He doesn’t live here, I swear.” Frank gave him a mid-Wilshire address for Father Collins.
“Who else?”
“Dortmund. That’s it. That’s all I know about. And Mulrooney. I know he had heard about them from other parishes. That’s all I know. You have to believe me.”
Biehn heard the terrified sincerity in his voice. “I do,” he said. He reached past Frank and grabbed the pillow off the bed. He stuffed the pillow over the priest’s face, jammed the weapon into the pillow, and fired.
Nina Myers shook hands with Millad Yasdani at his front door and said, “Thanks for your time, Mr. Yasdani. I’m sorry to bother you so late.”
“I suppose,” the man said wearily, “you have to do your job. I’m sure you can understand that it’s hard not to take it personally.”
Nina adopted a remorseful, world-weary pose that usually appeased the offended in these cases. “I guess so. But I hope you know that we don’t mean anything personal by it.”
“We’re not all terrorists,” Yasdani stated. He pointed back over his own shoulder at his comfortable, middle- class house in El Segundo, south of Los Angeles. His wife was still in the living room, thoughtfully sipping some of the tea she’d made for Nina. “Do we look like terrorists?”
Yasdani moved his head so that he caught her eye again. “You know that ninety-nine percent of the Muslim world is peaceful, don’t you?”
“Mr. Yasdani, I am not out to stop Muslims. My job is to stop bad guys. The bad guys I’m trying to stop happen to be Muslim. That’s the end of the story.”
“But you come to my house at night,” he pointed out, his voice straining just a little. “To interview me. Because I’m a Muslim.”
“Because you attend the same mosque as some of the people we’re looking for. You’re not a suspect, I told you that already. You and…” She checked her notes again. “You and Abdul Ali. You’re sure you don’t know him?”
Yasdani shook his head. “It’s a big mosque. And he sounds Arabic, maybe Iraqi. Most of my friends are Persian.”
“Is it common for Persians and Arabs to attend the same mosque?” Nina asked. She had a degree in Middle East studies, so she already had a fairly clear idea of the answer, but Yasdani seemed to be a thoughtful man, and she was curious about his perspective.
Yasdani’s nose twitched, a sign Nina had recognized during the interview as an indication of annoyance. “If his name is Ali, he is probably Shi’a, like me. So yes, we would go to the same mosque. But that doesn’t mean we are best friends. You do under stand that we are not all alike, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Nina said amiably. “Thank you again.”
Nina turned and walked back to her car, disappointed and frustrated. She’d known this would be a dead end. Millad Yasdani was exactly what he appeared to be: chief information officer for a small insurance company, who lived in El Segundo with his wife and three children, and happened to be a Muslim. The only reason he’d shown up on her radar at all was that he drove a long way to go to a mosque in Los Angeles. It was a pathetic lead, but with the Three Stooges in jail not talking, she was reduced to chasing pathetic leads until they’d stewed for a while.
Her other lead, Abdul Ali, was no better. No criminal record, no suspicious activities, no political affiliations. He was hardly even an active member of the mosque where the Three Stooges belonged. But he traveled a lot, and according to the State Department, he’d visited several Muslim countries in the past few years. Again, a pathetic lead.
Nina got into her car and pulled away from the curb, thinking about the weak trail she was following. Jack Bauer popped into her thoughts. She wasn’t sure what to make of him, yet, but she always appreciated the direct approach, so she could only applaud what he’d tried with Abu Mousa. Unlike Chappelle, who missed the subtlety and simply assumed that Bauer was a mindless thug, Nina had understood Bauer’s tactic immediately. Mousa had been comfortable. It seemed clear to her that everything they’d done to him had been worked into the equation. Bauer had tried to shake him up a little. She wasn’t sure it had worked, but at least Jack had tried. On the way to Yasdani’s house, Nina had made some calls and dug up a little more information on Jack Bauer. He was, indeed, an interesting one. She hoped he stayed around CTU. She knew some people who might be very interested in getting close to him.
Jack turned the borrowed Ducati motorcycle into the Killabrew, a bar on Carter Street in Lancaster. He’d had to hustle to make it on time. He hoped the RHD detective they’d borrowed the bike from didn’t mind the wear and tear he’d just put on the engine.
Mark Gelson had given them one name — a biker mechanic named Earl “Dog” Smithies. Dog was definitely the kind of character a wannabe like Gelson would hang around. That is, Dog’s rap sheet full of misdemeanors, and his one four-year stint for mayhem was significant enough to impress Gelson but not hard-core enough to scare him away. The fact that Dog lived out in Lancaster added to his mystique. To a Malibu celebrity like Gelson, Lancaster— a former boondock turned suburban sprawl perched in the desert flatlands north of Los Angeles — was far enough away to seem dangerous and exotic, but still close enough for him to get home by bedtime.
Jack walked into the Killabrew just before ten o’clock, which was perfect. They’d managed to scare up Dog’s parole officer, who told Driscoll that Dog usually shut his garage up and was in the bar by ten. Jack wanted to be there before him. Jack had already been wearing jeans, and his plain black work shoes passed for boots in the dim bar light. Driscoll had an old NASCAR T-shirt in his trunk. It was musty and wrinkled, which didn’t please Jack but added to the effect. In moments he’d transformed himself from a CIA field agent to a scruffy barfly.
He sat at the bar and ordered a beer. There was some kind of electronic keno game at one end of the bar and a television at the other. The bartender was a thick, heavy woman with a wide face that accounted for every year of her life in blemishes and wrinkles. But she smiled jovially under thin wisps of blondish hair, and she handed Jack his Bass Ale with a friendly nod.
Dog Smithies showed up a minute later. He was big everywhere. Big hair tumbling down from under an oily Harley-Davidson baseball cap. Big beard exploding from the bottom and sides of his face. Big chest, big arms, and a very big gut spilling over the top of his jeans. Big voice, too.
“Aaaaaggh,” he sighed loudly as he eased himself onto a bar stool. “Thanks, Gabs,” he added as the bartender brought him a glass full of beer. He drank. “Shit, that’s good.” Dog behaved like a man in his own home. He eyed the two or three customers in the Killabrew, including Jack, before calling out, “Which one o’ you guys rides the Ducati?”
Jack waited just long enough to seem surprised at the question, then said, “Who’s asking?”
“Me. Didn’t you just see my mouth movin’?” Dog rose without an invitation and moved down to the stool next to Jack, resettling himself noisily. “That’s a nice bike,” he said. “Who you gotta blow to get a bike like that?”
Jack thanked Driscoll silently. He’d have thought of some way to strike up a conversation with Dog, but the RHD detective had formed this plan the minute they’d learned Dog’s occupation. One of his fellow detectives was an avid motorcycle rider, and Ducati was considered one of the best bike makers in the world.
“It’s who you know, man,” Jack answered. “You know the right people, they just give you stuff. Really, you
