Henderson, he just shook his head reproachfully and took a seat in the conference room. He didn’t know if there was going to be a debrief and he didn’t care. He hadn’t slept in a while, and since yesterday evening he had nearly been blown up twice and shot at twice. The phrase “third time’s a charm” drifted through his mind in a very unsettling way.
There was some activity around Jack while he sat. Someone put a bagel and some coffee in front of him. Jamey Farrell had taken charge of the stack of C–4 and was examining it. Christopher Henderson was on the phone with the Santa Clarita police and the
L.A. Sheriff, talking through the firefight and explosion that had left more than a half-dozen people dead near Castaic Dam.
Jack had lost his cell phone, so he dialed home from one of CTU’s landlines. Teri answered on the first ring.
“Jack?” she asked worriedly.
“Hi, it’s me,” he said.
“Were you home at all last night?” Teri said. “Or did you leave early?”
“Not home. I’m sorry,” he said. Hearing Teri’s voice was like a tonic that relaxed his muscles. But the effect was not beneficent. As he relaxed, his guard dropped, and the fatigue seemed to sink into the marrow of his bones. “You wouldn’t believe the night I’ve had. It was like being in Delta again.”
“I thought that kind of night ended with Delta,” she replied. The reproach in her voice made Jack wince. “Is it over now?”
In his mind’s eye, Jack saw Dean engulfed in a fireball. “Should be.”
“Do you want to come home and have breakfast?”
Driscoll listened to the woman on the phone talking. “…I’m not annoyed at the early hour, Detective Driscoll. I’m annoyed that you won’t listen to the facts.”
“I’ve listened to your facts, ma’am,” Driscoll argued into the receiver. “You won’t listen to mine.”
“You don’t have any,” the woman said gently.
Driscoll had to admit that he was most annoyed at her calm and rationality. She — her name was Patricia Siegman — was clearly accustomed to dealing with anxious investigators eager to receive data on their cases. She was currently handling Harry with an aplomb he would have admired, if only she were using it on someone else.
“You have a witness who was shot. I understand that, but something like sixty percent of the criminal forensics we conduct are shootings. We have a backlog, and I have two coroners out.”
“But this is important—” “—and I’ll get to it today, Detective. I’ll get to it by noon. I can’t do any better than that.”
Driscoll checked his watch. She was doing him a favor, he knew. A five-hour turnaround was ridiculously efficient. But somehow it wasn’t enough for him.
Jamey Farrell hadn’t performed integral calculus since college, but she found herself dusting off her equations as she measured the bricks of C–4 that Jack Bauer had brought in. As soon as she’d measured the bricks, she took their average and scribbled it on a sheet of scratch paper.
Then she went down to the closet that currently passed as CTU’s evidence locker. The crate they’d confiscated from Sweetzer Avenue was easy to find— it was just about the only item in the closet. Huffing and griping to herself, Jamey loaded it onto a small mover’s cart and pushed it back up to the computer bay she’d commandeered as a work space. The crate still contained the C–4 they’d found. Looking at the real deal, Jamey was struck by how obvious it was that some of the plastic explosive had been missing. In real life the box looked much emptier than it had on video. Just eyeballing the crate told her that one could fit much more C–4 inside.
She frowned but continued working. Her next job would be to measure the volume of the C–4 Bauer had brought in, and then estimate how much (if any) was missing. She had a sinking feeling that no one was going to like the answer she came up with.
Jack pulled into his own driveway and parked his car. He flipped down the vanity mirror and took a good look at himself. He’d splashed water on his face at CTU, but he still looked dirty, sweaty, and bruised. There were circles under his eyes the size of gym bags.
Jack didn’t relish the idea of keeping secrets from Teri. Given free rein, he’d have explained to her every cut and bruise. But much of the information about his job was classified, and though he told her everything he could, the result still left holes, and those holes became gaps in their relationship. Better to come home clean and happy, and avoid the need for stories altogether.
He walked in the door and entered a world entirely disconnected from the last few hours. In this world, bacon sizzled on a frying pan, channel four was broadcasting local news and traffic alerts, and Teri Bauer was trying to get Kim out of the bathroom.
“It’s not that bad, Kimmy. Just come on!” She smiled at Jack as she saw him, then rolled her eyes, pointed to her chin, and mouthed the word
“It’s huge!” Kim Bauer wailed from behind the bathroom door. “It’s a volcano.”
“It’s stress,” Teri said. “Last night was tough on everyone because of Aaron. Let me put some cover-up on it.”
There was a pause, followed by a soft click as Kim unlocked the bathroom door. Teri threw her arms around Jack, kissed him, and said, “Eggs on the table. Teen crisis in the bathroom.” She paused. “Did you know about Aaron Biehn?”
Jack nodded. “I heard.” “I want to know about it. After she’s gone.” Teri vanished behind the door.
Jack went into the kitchen and sat down at the small table there. The scrambled eggs were a little cold, but he didn’t care. He felt as though he hadn’t been home in weeks. While he ate, he listened to the news, simply because it sounded so wonderfully mundane: traffic on the I–10, a fight between the mayor and the city council. These were the crises most people faced. And they seemed to Jack as trivial as a pimple on the chin. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He finished the eggs and decided that he would take a nap for a few minutes.
15. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 A.M. AND 9 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Jack stretched out on the couch in his living room and pushed the cushion under his head. And then his cell phone rang.
“Bauer,” he said unhappily.
“This is Jamey Farrell over at CTU.”
“If this is about paperwork or reports, I’ll come in and answer questions in a couple of hours,” he grumbled, his eyes still closed.
“Nothing like that,” she replied. “It’s about the plastic explosive you brought in.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do we care if some is still missing?”
Jack opened his eyes. “What makes you think it’s missing?”
“I just analyzed the crate, and the volume of each brick of C–4. Even accounting for the bricks you dealt with,
