“We’ll see. Go.”
They came in behind their gunfire, keeping Jack’s head low. The cathedral echoed with loud, angry cracks of firearms. Driscoll tried to return fire, but Jack guessed what they were up to. He whirled around to the far side just in time to see the other man burst through the door. Jack squeezed three times, and the attacker stumbled as though he’d tripped over something. He did not get up again.
John Paul, terrified out of all sense, started to stand up. Jack tackled him, fearful that he might crush the old man but short on choices. Driscoll tried to cover them. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the detective fire and then fall like a rag doll. The two security men fell back again.
Jack felt John Paul tremble beneath him and heard the man whispering something in Latin.
“Stay still,” Jack whispered. “They’re not gone. With this much gunfire, I promise you someone is on the way.”
Cardinal Mulrooney sat on his bed with his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth slightly. He was terrified. He’d had no idea of this. None. It wasn’t his fault.
Those phrases kept repeating themselves in his mind.
Nina Myers slammed down the phone, then clipped her pancake holster to her belt as she ran for the door, with Henderson right behind her.
Michael was out of time and he knew it. He could already hear sirens wailing. Bauer didn’t have to defeat them, just hold them off until help arrived. The elaborate plan had failed. All three of their suicide bombers had failed. Michael thought now only of escape.
“You’re right, Gelson,” he said. “Time to go.”
Jack knew they were retreating and he wanted to give chase. He knew instinctively that Michael was the man he’d been looking for: the man behind the plot, and the man who could lead him to Yasin.
He scrambled over to Driscoll. “Harry, you with me?” The detective answered weakly, “Unfortunately, yeah.” His eyes lost focus, then returned to Jack.
“All in all, can’t say I’m happy I called you, Jack.”
“Can’t blame you.” Jack examined Driscoll’s wounds. They were not good. His right arm might never work again, and the second wound had punched a hole through his lower left abdomen. “You hear those sirens?” They were loud now.
“Like music.”
“Help is on the way. But the bad guys are leaving. I’m not letting them go.”
Driscoll managed a thin smile. “That’s Jack Bauer, all right.” He lifted his gun. “Go.”
Jack launched himself toward the door and burst into the courtyard just in time to see three figures slipping over the wall. Jack fired, the rounds tearing holes in the adobe, but he was certain none of them found their mark.
Jack sprinted after them and was over the wall in a second, carried by pure adrenaline. By the time he got to the street, they had disappeared.
Michael and Pembrook guided Gelson into the car Michael had waiting on the street. It was a blind, totally legal and registered to one of the two false IDs that Michael had worked so hard to create for himself.
As soon as they were inside, Michael eased into traffic. Sirens wailed around them, but they were just one of many cars trying to get through the congested downtown area.
None of them spoke. Michael was astounded at how suddenly and completely his carefully laid plan had turned into a failure. Not just a failure. An utter disaster. He had to get to a safe place and reassess, figure out how to recover from this debacle. And he thought he knew just the person to help him.
Jack returned to the chapel as the adrenaline dump wore off, making him feel suddenly old and heavy. Uniformed officers were swarming the area, along with the LAPD SWAT unit he’d once belonged to. The Pope was gone, whisked away by whatever remained of his Swiss Guards.
Jack showed the cops his ID and gave them what description he could. Gelson was easy, but in the middle of the gunfire he’d never gotten a great look at Michael or the other man; their faces were accompanied by flashes of light and gunfire. He had a feeling that he should recognize one of them. Paramedics rushed in, and he directed them toward Harry Driscoll and Dan Bender. Three of them started working on Harry Driscoll immediately. Their urgent voices told Jack that the situation was dire.
He had just sat down, nearly collapsing under the weight of his day, when Christopher Henderson and Nina Myers rushed in. Henderson went immediately to the officer in charge while Nina checked on Jack.
“You’re not hit?” she confirmed.
“Nah,” he said, sitting in one of the church pews. “I figured the five-story fall and the concussion were enough.”
“Glad you didn’t overdo it.” She paused, looking for something to say, and settled on, “Is this what working with you is going to be like? Because if it is, I’m going to have to bring my A game every day.”
Jack shook his head. “Not funny. People are dead, and an old friend just got shot up.”
“And you saved the Pope,” she replied sharply. “More people would have died if you hadn’t pushed this case, and you know it.”
“We didn’t get them,” Jack said.
“We know who they are. Gelson at least won’t get very far, not with a face that recognizable.”
“We didn’t get the planner, and we didn’t get Yasin.”
“Jack, you saved the
Ryan Chappelle walked onto the scene. Jack saw him before he saw Jack, because Chappelle’s eyes were drawn first to the carnage. He shook his head and talked with Christopher Henderson. With each passing word from Henderson, Chappelle looked more and more unhappy. Finally, Henderson pointed Jack’s way, and Chappelle walked over to him.
He stared reproachfully at Bauer. Clearly there was a lot he wanted to say, but for once he seemed to have the presence of mind not to speak. In fact, he was reviewing the teleconference he’d had with the joint subcommittee and wondered what they would say about the unknown agent who got things done, if only they were standing in the middle of all this bloodshed. At last, he said simply, “I’ll need a full report on this.”
Nina’s phone rang. She answered, listened, and said, “No shit. I’ve got Bauer here,” and handed him the phone.
“Agent Bauer? This is Dr. Siegman over at the coroner’s office. I hear that a whole lot went down and you’re going to keep us busy down here.” Jack had no response to that, so Siegman continued. “Listen, I guess it may be too late for this, but some of our techs down here were playing with this receiver embedded in the deceased.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Well, you know it’s not a purely passive receiver. It’s more like a cell phone receiver. It sends out a locator signal every fifteen seconds or so. I guess so that you can detonate it from far away.”
Jack thought of the one Barny had strapped to his back. “I’m familiar with them.” “Well, if it’s like a cell phone, my guys figure that it can be traced.”
Jack thought of Mark Gelson riding in a car somewhere with Michael. “Dr. Siegman, that is the very best thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood morgue.”
It had always been the ace up Michael’s sleeve, that he knew where Yasin was staying. The information had come to him by accident, and he had only intended to use it as a bartering chip if he was caught by the authorities. But he knew that he would only have been able to strike a bargain if he was caught before the attempt on the Pope. Now that so many had died, and with not one but two attempts against the Pontiff, he knew the Vatican would scuttle any deal he tried to make.
