The redhead popped the trunk of a black Mercedes with an electronic key. The older man reached inside, pulled out an attache case. Rising cautiously from behind the car, Jack traded the risk of being seen for a better look inside the trunk. In the dull white glow of the boot light, Jack saw a missile launcher, its twin steel launch tubes gleaming dully. Then the trunk closed, and Jack ducked down again, breathing in the humid night air.
“You know what to do,” said the silver-haired older man, his brogue less pronounced. “After tonight, don’t contact us again.”
Arete took the attache case, turned his back on the pair to confer with his crew. The two men strolled away, to lean against the Mercedes while they observed the discussion. Jack thrust the Glock in his belt, then reached into his charcoal-gray jacket to retrieve his CDD communicator.
The speaker at Nina Myers’s workstation crackled. “It’s Jamey. I’ve got Jack Bauer on the line.”
“Put Jack through my speakerphone. I want you to listen in, too, and patch Milo in if you can.”
Nina waved Tony Almeida and Ryan Chappelle over to her cubicle. “It’s Jack.”
“Jack? What happened? Are you all right?” Ryan asked with practiced sincerity. In an urgent whisper, Jack summarized the events of the past hour. He told them about Hensley murdering the marshals, the shoot-down of the airliner, Arete’s escape, the rendezvous in Tatiana’s parking lot, the two Irishmen and the missile launcher inside the trunk of their car.
“That’s… well, that’s quite a story Jack,” Ryan said doubtfully. “Can you back any of this up.”
“Not yet,” Jack replied. “But I intend to secure a vehicle and follow the Mercedes wherever it goes. Once I have the missile launcher and the men in custody, we can sort this out.”
“What about your prisoner?” said Ryan. “You can’t just let Dante Arete get away.”
“I’m sending CTU a positioning signal so Jamey can pinpoint my location.”
After a few seconds, Jamey spoke. “Okay, I’ve got Jack on my monitor. I’m overlaying a grid map of the area now.”
“Forget about me, Jamey,” said Jack. “I want you to activate the tracker.”
“Are you sure you want to do that, Jack?” Tony protested. “The chemical battery is only good for about twelve hours.”
“Hopefully that’s all the time we’ll need. Do it, Jamey. I need to know that the tracker is functioning properly.”
A moment passed while Jamey transmitted the signal. Jack risked a peek at the gang revival meeting. It was breaking up. Dante Arete and the tattooed man climbed into a white SUV, lingered for some further conversation. “Hurry, Jamey. I need that tracker now.”
“I have him. He’s less than twenty meters from your position,” said Jamey after too long a pause. “But we have a problem, Jack. The distance between here and New York is causing a twenty-two-second real-time delay in the satellite relay.”
“We’ll have to live with that,” said Jack. Next he read off the license numbers on the Mercedes, then on Dante’s SUV to Jamey. “See if you can dig up any useful information from those plate numbers. The SUV is probably stolen. But we might find out something useful about the other vehicle.”
Ryan spoke up. “What are
“I’m going after the missile launcher inside that Mercedes.”
“Jack! Wait,” cried Chappelle. “What about your prisoner? What about the FBI? They’re going to be asking a lot of questions soon—”
But the line was dead. Bauer had ended the conversation.
Face flushed, Chappelle turned on Nina. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded. “If we lose Arete we lose any chance we have of cracking this case.”
“We’re not going to lose Arete,” Nina assured him. “The medical team that examined Dante Arete after capture embedded a sub-epidermal tracker under his flesh. We can trace every move he makes for the next twelve hours.”
“That’s fine,” said Ryan. “But right now Dante Arete is only part of the equation. We need to know more, so I want you to find out everything you can about FBI Special Agent Frank Hensley. And I want that information on my desk in one hour.”
Jack ended the call when he saw Arete close the door to the white SUV and the big man with the shaved head climb behind the wheel. A moment later, the white Explorer backed out of its parking spot. The other members of Arete’s Posse remained behind, watching as their chief sped away.
Jack slipped a wire from his shoe, worked it into the keyhole near his head. It took less than ten seconds for him to pick the lock, but he paused— worried that the interior light might alert the others to his presence.
Instead, Jack watched as the Columbia Street Posse drew mini Uzi submachine guns with the stocks removed, slid thirty-two-round extended magazines into the breech, then slipped the loaded guns under their long coats. Weapons concealed, the four headed for Tatiana’s front door.
The two Irishmen watched them go, then climbed into the black Mercedes — the young one behind the wheel, the older man in the passenger seat. The finely tuned engine purred to life.
Time had run out.
Jack popped the Camaro’s door, rolled into the front seat, and quickly closed the door again. Rather than risk being seen, he crawled under the dashboard and worked in the dull glow of the streetlight outside. First he carefully unscrewed the steering wheel cover, revealing the guts of the ignition system. He tore away frayed wires, stripped them to expose enough metal to cause a spark.
Outside, Jack heard the Mercedes engine purr as the vehicle rolled past him. “Come on, come on,” he hissed.
Suddenly the car’s interior went completely dark as the glow from the streetlight was blocked. Jack looked up.
Surrounding the Camaro, a group of pissed-off punks stared down at Jack. Scruffy, hostile, and more than a little inebriated, they had been bored and looking for action. They had found some. One of the youths grinned and juggled a butterfly knife, another slapped a stout nightstick in the palm of his hand.
“What the fuck are you doing in my coupe?” growled a dark-skinned man with dangling braids and a lightning-shaped tattoo on his right cheek. Cornrows crisscrossed his scalp.
Jack swallowed hard as he watched the black Mercedes speed away.
3. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 P.M. AND 12 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
Jack stared through the windshield at the dozen hostile faces surrounding the car with what he hoped was a neutral, nonthreatening gaze. The black Mercedes was gone, the missile launcher stashed in its trunk still a threat to innocent lives. Yet Jack was compelled to thrust that dilemma aside for the moment.
Rather than challenge the youths and risk a fight he might be able to avoid, Jack placed both hands on the steering wheel to convince the men he was unarmed. “Look, I can explain this. My name is Bauer. I’m a Federal agent—”
“You’re a fuckin’ Fed?” cried the big man with the lightning tattoo. He smiled, revealing a gold front tooth. “All the more reason to bust your head for trying to jack my ride.”
“Look,” Jack continued. “Just let me go and we can work this out—”
Someone ripped the door open. Strong hands moved in on Jack to strike him. He guessed that only two or three men were actually assaulting him. The rest of the group stood back and watched, shouting encouragement and enjoying the show.
The men on Jack slapped at him. Jack stayed in the car, didn’t resist — not yet. Instead he tucked his head in his chest and curled up on the seat into a defensive ball, protecting his soft spots — along with the Glock in his belt. His left arm covered the shoulder holster where he’d slipped the dead marshal’s gun after he’d lost his own. He
