visitors-only spots for several hours. What the hell was she doing back here?
Michael kept up a steady barrage of gunfire, his silenced.40 caliber semi-automatic puncturing the Acura the detective had been driving. The detective had managed to scramble around to the far side of the car for cover, and he wasn’t sure if he had been hit or not. Michael had started to advance, but the man squeezed off a few rounds that kept Michael down.
Still, he couldn’t wait much longer. Seconds were ticking by, and when enough of those seconds had passed the police would come, and he couldn’t allow that for many, many reasons. “Go,” he ordered the man in the passenger seat. It was Pembrook, the best of his small security detail. Pembrook bolted toward the Acura, even as the detective fired again. Pembrook flinched and dropped to one knee, but kept firing. Silenced rounds shattered the glass.
Pembrook stood and fired. Michael saw the rounds shatter the window, saw Collins shudder and go limp. “Stop!” he yelled.
Pembrook halted at his shout, confused. “Get the body!” Michael yelled. “Get the body!” Pembrook started forward again, but now sirens wailed in the distance. The detective’s gunfire had awakened the residents. “Forget it!” Michael yelled, causing Pembrook to stutter once again. Seeing Michael dive back into the car, Pembrook scrambled back to the Chrysler.
Nina tested the doors of the warehouse but found them locked. She started to walk the wall, looking for a window or other entry, but as she neared the corner, she heard the door open behind her. She pressed herself against the wall and listened.
“…you have to get it out. I did what you asked,” said Diana Christie. She sounded near to panic.
“It’s not me, I told you,” said a voice Nina assumed belonged to Farrigian. “I’ve got nothing to do with that.”
A car roared by, drowning out part of Christie’s response. “…one I know,” she was saying. “Please.”
“You did what they asked. Go home. I’m sure they’ll be in touch.”
Nina heard the door close and footsteps walk away. A moment later a car door opened and closed, and Diana Christie drove away.
“What the hell is that all about?” Nina said quietly. “And who is she working for?”
The sun was rising as Jack finished planting the armed C–4 along the base of the dam as Barny had directed. He resented every moment of it as much as he resented the weight of the plastic explosives strapped to his back. After placing the last brick and activating the detonator, he turned back toward the dirty slope where Dean waited.
The hike back took a few minutes, made longer by the smarmy grin on Dean’s face as Jack trudged back up the slope.
“Well, I gotta say that made this more fun than I expected.” The biker laughed. “I had time, I’d try to figure out who you are and how you got on to me, but I figure I’ll find out soon enough. When you disappear, more cops are bound to sniff around.”
“They’re around now,” Jack bluffed. “Wait a few minutes.”
“Nah.” Dean brushed off the attempt. “They’d have come down on us the minute we strapped a bomb on your back. You’re alone. Why, I got no idea. But I’ll take it.”
“Can I blow him up now?” Barny asked. Dean shook his head. “Go down and make sure he did it right. I don’t trust him.”
Barny nodded and trotted down the slope, followed by one of the other bikers. Jack glared at Dean’s grinning face. “It was too easy,” Dean noted.
Barny came back after a few minutes, puffing and sweating. “He tried to fuck us. He disabled the receivers on all the detonators. I fixed it, but I had to use the delayed fuse. The bombs will detonate about five minutes after we send the signal.”
Dean nodded. “Dump him in the reservoir.”
13. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 6 A.M. AND 7 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Pope John Paul woke suddenly, but gently, as he always did. He liked to think it was the peace of God, though in his heart he could not be sure. It had been his career-long secret weapon, this ability to wake up gently, but immediately, with a mind focused on the affairs of the day. That morning, he woke up with the Unity Conference, and all it represented, clearly in mind. He understood, as so few seemed to, what was at stake. East and West were headed for a reckoning of tragic proportions. Someone needed to blunt the impact of the collision, bring the two sides together with a handshake rather than a clenched fist.
Jack punched the closest biker in the face. The man staggered back, and Jack kicked him hard in the chest, sending him sprawling down the slope.
“Blow him — oh,” Dean said, the grin falling off his face.
Jack had known it from the minute they allowed him to walk back up the slope. They couldn’t detonate the bomb on his back when he was standing right among them. But they would scatter, and they were already trying. He had to get to Barny and his cell phone. Jack lunged at the fat biker, tripping him. But huge, viselike hands grabbed him, dragging him backward. Jack didn’t resist. Instead he spun and traveled with the pull, tucking his chin and ramming his forehead into Dean’s chest. He followed it with a knee that connected with Dean’s groin. The big man doubled over like he was hugging Jack. Jack grabbed his hair at the temple and twisted it, peeling Dean’s head away, and headbutted him again, this time in the face. He felt teeth give way.
But he couldn’t stay with Dean. Barny had the phone that would trigger the bomb on his back. He spun and jumped down the slope. Barny, fat and slow, was just getting to his feet. He was holding a cell phone in his hand, his fingers fumbling at it, when Jack reached him and leaped, landing with both feet hard on Barny’s back like a surfer atop his board. Barny grunted and his arms sprawled out, but he managed to keep his grip on the phone. Jack hopped from Barny’s back and landed hard with one foot on the biker’s right wrist. Barny howled but managed to press his thick thumb on the send button just before Jack crouched down and tore the mobile phone out of his clutched hand.
Harry Driscoll had been sitting on the curb on Ross-moor Avenue for nearly twenty minutes. He was in a daze. Twenty-plus years on the force, and this was only the second time he’d been in a firefight. The first time, Jack Bauer had saved his ass. This time, Harry had the funny feeling that Bauer was somehow the cause of it.
Though he was built like a fireplug and tough as iron, Harry hadn’t joined the force out of machismo. He was no cowboy and had never wanted to be. He believed in justice, and wanted to keep his streets safe. He had been very satisfied with the role of a beat cop, and then been elated to move up into the ranks of detective, where he could pursue the criminals he knew were out there. His promotion to Robbery-Homicide, the elite unit in LAPD, had been one of the most gratifying moments of his life. He preferred rooting out the bad guys through solid detective work, and though he wasn’t afraid to face danger, he’d never lusted for the thrill of bullets whizzing around him.
During the last twenty minutes there had been squad cars, ambulances, and other detectives. He had answered their questions the way dazed witnesses and victims often answered his: distantly, hollowly, as though the incident had happened to someone else.
But one thing kept going through Driscoll’s mind, even while he finished answering their questions, even while the forensics guys worked on the cars and examined Father Collins’s corpse. Why had one of the gunmen shouted,
