have been sitting on their asses since then? Hell, one of our guys just got confirmation that Abdul Rahman Yasin came back into the country!” Harding’s eyes opened as wide as saucers. “That’s right. One of the terrorists from back in ’93.” Chappelle didn’t bother to mention that the “guy” he was referring to was a cowboy from the CIA. His fledgling unit could use all the credit it could get. “If you want us to keep trying to stop terrorists on a shoestring budget and no real access to the big decisions, fine. But you get what you pay for.”
He stood up and walked away from the screen, leaving Harding tripping over himself to respond.
Chappelle’s fingers shook from the sudden adrenaline dump. He wasn’t out there dodging bullets or facing down international terrorists. But there were many kinds of unsung heroism, and some of the most important battles were fought in little beige rooms by men like Ryan Chappelle.
Driscoll had tried three times to call Jack Bauer, but the calls went directly to voice mail. Though he was a detective with over ten years, Harry had no idea what to do with the information he’d received. Mulrooney’s political affiliations within the Catholic Church had nothing to do with the current case, as far as he could tell. And the CIA (Jesus, had he really just called a CIA operative in Rome?) had no information on Mulrooney’s involvement in any child abuse scandals.
There was a part of Harry Driscoll that wanted to be done. No one could say he hadn’t played his role, put his career on the line, risked his neck. He should go home and sleep for a few hours.
But he couldn’t. Maybe it was the Catholic in him. He was guilted into staying on the case.
Oddly, it wasn’t the terrorist angle that was haunting Harry as the clock leaned toward four o’clock. It was Biehn, especially his face as he described the horror of his son being abused. While Biehn was alive, his righteous indignation had struck Harry as melodramatic. Now that he was gone, the silence was far more offensive than his antics. No one now was speaking for that kid who got abused.
“Damn,” Harry said to the empty building. “Hell and damn.”
He stood up and grabbed his jacket.
The 405 Freeway had merged onto Interstate 5, and Jack was now heading through the city of Santa Clarita. He left the 5 and turned onto one of the many roads that led into the hills. A hundred years ago the roads and homes built up here would have seemed like a world away from the city of Los Angeles. But the suburbs had crept steadily northward into the mountain valleys, and the dirt roads had been paved over. Jack followed one of these roads away from the residential streetlights and out into the hills, where a lonely one-story ranch house squatted at the top of a small rise. A garden of motorbikes seemed to have sprouted in the dry ground around the house. A porch light was on, and another light somewhere in the back of the house, but all was still.
The Harley made enough noise to wake the dead, so Jack didn’t even try stealth. He roared up the S-shaped road to the top of the rise and then idled the engine as he rolled to a stop a few yards from the front door. He climbed off the bike and slid the helmet off his now-sweaty head. He pulled the package out of a pack strapped to the seat and climbed the steps.
He reached the top step to find a shotgun in his face.
Amy Weiss dreamed that church bells were ringing, which was odd because she was in a grocery store, not a church. The church bells became cash registers that wouldn’t stop ringing up her yogurt, and then telephones ringing at the cashier’s stand, and then she was awake and it was just her telephone ringing shrilly at a ridiculous hour of the morning.
“Uh-huh,” she groaned, having fumbled for the phone.
“Amy, it’s Josh Segal.” She struggled to remember who that was. She dredged up a recollection that Josh Segal was the assistant metro editor, and often got stuck on the night desk. “I need you up and at ’em.”
“My dad said ‘up and at ’em,’ every morning for twelve years,” Amy said. “Don’t use that phrase, please.”
“Either way, you need to get up. You’re slated to have that interview with the Pope this morning, aren’t you?”
“Interview. Yes. In, oh, five hours or so. Trust me, it doesn’t take that long to do this hair.” She yawned again, wanting to be sleepy, but sleep was fading away. Her reporter’s instincts were tuned in to the excitement in Segal’s voice.
“Drag it out of bed, Weiss,” the assistant editor said. “There’s been some serious stuff you need to be up on when you meet with him.” Amy listened as the editor described, in as much detail as the police would allow, the violence that had taken place at St. Monica’s.
“Jesus, and they’re still holding the conference tomorrow, uh, today?” she said, now fully awake and pulling clothes out of her drawer.
“That’s what they’re telling us. The police haven’t given any motive for the murder of this Father Giggs. They’re not releasing the name of the intruder killed later that evening. We’ve been on the phone with a public relations person for the archdiocese, but we’re getting a hundred variations of ‘no comment.’ ”
“You think the Pope’s going to tell me anything more than what you’re getting from the archdiocese? I’m just doing a puff piece on the conference.”
“You just graduated to the crime beat. I figure our article on the attacks will be a hell of a lot more interesting with a quote from the Pope in it. So get up and—”
“—at ’em. Bite me,” Amy said genially, and hung up.
Jack had spent several minutes facedown in the dirt beside the porch with the shotgun pressed against the back of his neck. He had thought about taking the gun away from the bearded, beer-gutted biker, but this was no time to make trouble. He tolerated the biker’s boot in the small of his back while someone went in to clear things with Dean. Finally, he was let up. Jack looked at the biker, who was grinning out of the hole in his bushy brown- white beard, still lazily holding the shotgun in Jack’s general direction.
“You want to point that thing somewhere else,” Jack said, “before it accidentally gets shoved up your ass.”
“Ha!” the biker said. “You give that a try someday. Come on.”
He led Jack into the house. It stank of beer and farts and mildew that had been around much longer than the bikers. The living room was gloomy, lit by only a seventies-era table lamp and a small fluorescent in the kitchen. There were two couches and a tattered easy chair, the latter occupied by a big man with the kind of huge, uncut arms that indicated genetic size. The man, probably in his late forties or early fifties, still had a barrel chest pushing his T-shirt to the limit. CTU had been able to dig up only one mug shot, but that had been enough. Jack recognized Dean Schrock.
“I heard you was a fat guy,” Dean said.
Jack shrugged. “Had to lose my gut. My cousin had a heart attack. My age, too.”
“So, what,” said the biker with the shotgun, “you eat bean sprouts and salads? Shit, we really doin’ business with this dipshit?”
“I’m the dipshit with the shit you need,” Jack said. “Besides, looks like every pound I lost was your gain, so shut the fuck up.”
The biker gave Jack a fuck-off look, but Dean laughed. “Anyway, I made calls when I got here. I knew who to expect.”
Jack shrugged, but inwardly, he knew what Dean meant. The bartender at the Killabrew had been Smithies’s middleman, so having her under the Federal thumb had made impersonating Dog easy, despite the difference in their appearance.
“You heard from Peek?” Dean asked.
“Peek,” Jack knew, was the nickname of the biker the Fresno police had picked up. From what he had confessed, his job had been to ride in early and meet with Farrigian.
“Nah,” Jack said. “He told me to meet up here.”
Dean and the fat biker exchanged glances, and Jack knew that Peek’s absence had put them on edge. “You
