by John Whitman
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press his thick thumb on the send button just before Jack crouched down and tore the mobile phone out of his clutched hand.
6:04 A.M. PST Los Angeles
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, Get the body! Get the body!
6:05 A.M. PST Castaic Dam
Jack stomped on Barny’s head. He looked back up the slope, but none of the other bikers was in sight. His fingers tore at the backpack that had been strapped so tightly to his chest. They’d lashed the two shoulder straps together across his chest—a simple bind that wasn’t meant to stop him indefinitely, just make it hard enough to undo without them seeing his struggles. He bent down and fished through the pockets of the now-motionless biker until he found a small folding knife. Flipping it open, he cut through the bindings and slipped the backpack off, hurling it from him and dropping flat, using Barny as cover.
But the bomb he’d been wearing didn’t go off. The digital timer hadn’t even started counting down.
Instead of relief, Jack felt a sickening pit open in his stomach. Jumping to his feet, he ran down the slope to the base of the dam and checked the first brick of plastic explosives. The digital timer on its face was counting down, the tenth-of-a-second digit flashing so fast it looked like a flickering 8.
Barny hadn’t triggered the bomb on his back. He’d set off the explosives on the dam. Jack had less than five minutes to stop it.
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6:08 A.M. PST Los Angeles
“You can’t call it off,” Yasin told Michael over a mobile connection. “They will not find out in time. There are too many fail-safes and backups in this operation.”
Yasin could afford to be calm. Michael could not, but he forced himself to sound relaxed anyway out of a sense of professional competitiveness. “None of the backups will work if the event itself is canceled. You can only push me so far.”
“I know,” Yasin agreed. “That is the reality of all blackmail. You know the power I have over you. You, not I, will decide whether it’s worth it or not to follow my orders. But remember, I lose nothing by exposing the ones you try so hard to protect. I will do it willingly. And if you quit, you will lose them, and also the chance to kill a common enemy. The choice is yours.”
Yasin dropped off. Michael was walking along Olympic Boulevard toward a bus stop. He had ditched the car and stripped off his black shirt, and wore only a fitted athletic T-shirt and his dark pants. He and Pembrook had separated.
Michael thought, just for a moment, about bolting. He had an escape plan, of course—a false identity, an open ticket to Venezuela, a small house there. Not really a life, but a place to bivouac. This carefully laid plan was fraying at the seams.
But his faith was too strong. Professional though he was, Michael was also a devout Catholic. A true Catholic. And though he despised Yasin for other reasons, the man was right in saying that they shared a common enemy. Michael had committed himself to destroying that enemy, and he would do so at any cost.
6:10 A.M. PST Castaic Dam
Jack couldn’t just pull the detonators. The triggers were not elaborate, but Barny had been clever enough to give each one a contact trigger—if the detonators were simply pulled out, a small wire still buried in the plastic explosives would trigger the brick. Pulling out the wire while the detonator was in place would have the same effect.
Disarming the detonator itself proved to be simple enough. Either Barny’s knowledge did not extend to fail-safes and redundancies, or he hadn’t had time to incorporate them. Jack’s explosives training was not extensive, but he’d learned to both arm and disarm basic explosives while in Delta. That knowledge came in handy now as he careful removed the blast cap from each detonator. The process wasn’t complicated, but he had to move slowly to prevent having the two brass connections touch. He finished the first one and saw that the digital counter had run down to 3:57.
And he had six more to go.
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6:11 A.M. PST Castaic Dam
Dean stumbled backward among the control rooms west of the dam, still spitting out bits of his own teeth and blood. One of his gang—Doogan, he thought, but his head was reeling, too—was running next to him, but the others were scattered. They’d seen Barny go for the trigger that would blow that Federal motherfucker to little pieces.
Dean was almost to his bike, and his head was clearing, when he realized that he hadn’t heard an explosion of any kind. “Doog,” he said through swollen, bloody lips, “Less get back there.”
6:12 A.M. PST Castaic Dam
Jack wasn’t going to make it. He’d disarmed all but two, and the last timer had read 1:30.
Jack sprinted toward the second to last bomb, took a deep, steadying breath, and disconnected its blast cap. Without a current and a small charge to set it off, the plastic explosive was now just so much molding clay.
Forty-five seconds left. Jack sprinted toward the last bomb, wondering if he might make it . . . but even as he reached it, he knew the answer, and he kept on running, reaching the far end of the dam and driving himself up that slope until he reached the height of the dam more than four hundred feet above the gulch, and threw himself to the ground.
Behind and below him, hell erupted. A sound that reminded him oddly of a lion’s roar rent the air, and in an instant dirt was raining down on him, and dust filled the sky. The blast was powerful enough to make the solid earth beneath him tremble. With clods of earth still raining down, Jack leaped to his feet and ran back to the edge of the slope. A huge chunk of the dam was gone, as though scooped away by a giant hand. Water spurted through weak points in the wall in a half-dozen places. None of the newly made springs was very large, but erosion would loosen the dam further. Someone else would have to take care of that.
Jack hurried along the top of the dam, running gingerly over the weakened portion, then leaning into a full sprint as he headed back toward the maintenance sheds. His usual speed was not there because he was still carrying a stack of explosive bricks, but he was fast enough to reach the far side just as Dean’s Angels came stumbling down the slope to his left. Jack dropped to one knee, letting them descend and pass, then he ran among the sheds. One of the bikers must have spotted him because he heard a howl from behind, but he didn’t stop. He ran through the sheds and back to the bikes. He paused for only a second, to hang his backpack off the backseat of Dean’s bike. Then ran to his own bike and, as fast as he could, lashed the stack of plastic explosives onto the seat behind him. Then he hopped on the Harley and started it up.
A bullet whined a few feet over his head. He spun the bike around, sending a spray of dirt and gravel behind him. He cou
ldn’t hear any more reports over the sound of his engine, but he thought he heard the hiss of more rounds falling and passing to the left
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and right. He felt a faint thud in his lower back and knew that a bullet had found its way into the stack of plastic explosives. The bricks had dispersed the bullet’s force, so it hadn’t penetrated his skin.
Jack raced down the access lane and onto the main road, knowing that they would give chase. He hurtled down the road for almost a mile before he found a good blind turn in the road, traveled past it, then turned and stopped in the middle of the road. He took Barny’s cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open and pressed the menu buttons until a list of recent calls appeared. Two numbers appeared, one after the other, over and over again, and Jack knew that they were dry runs for the receivers attached to the detonators.
Just then, Dean and his bikers came roaring around the corner, not a hundred yards away. They saw Jack, and Dean’s eyes lit up brighter than the early morning sun. Jack highlighted one of the two numbers and pressed send.
Nothing happened. Dean was now fifty yards away.
Jack scrolled down to the other number, held up the phone as though it were a talisman, and pressed send again.
It took a microsecond for the signal to flash from the phone to the nearest cell site to the receiver. When that fraction of a second ticked away, Dean and his bikers vanished inside a ball of fire.
6:30 A.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles
“. . . after last night’s disturbances, Your Holiness,” said Cardinal Walesa, “I don’t see how we can possibly continue.”
Walesa was speaking in Polish, and John Paul answered him in kind. “All the more reason, Your Eminence, all the more reason.” In truth, John Paul was somewhat rattled by the violence that had rocked the cathedral all evening, but he refused to let it show.
He was sitting in the front room of his bedchamber, surrounded by his closest advisors. Cardinal Mulrooney was also there. It was Mulrooney who spoke next.
“Your Holiness,” he said in delicate English, “I can only guess what His Eminence has said, but I suspect he’s urging you to postpone the Unity Conference. I am afraid I must agree.”
“Postpone, yes!” Walesa said, seizing on the word. “Postpone but not cancel. That is the word for it.”
Cardinal Rausch from Germany, an old and dear friend from John Paul’s days as a cardinal, put his own hand over the Pope’s. “It might be best, Your Holiness. No one would question the reason. The media would be sympathetic.”
John Paul looked for help from an unlikely source—Father Martino, his press secretary. As a calculating politician, John Paul had made use of Martino many times, but he did not have much affection for the man. Now, however, he thought Martino might come in useful once again. “Father Martino, what are your thoughts?”
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Martino, perennially out of favor, was surprised to be consulted. He looked wide-eyed from cardinal to cardinal before stammering, “Well, Your—Your Holiness, on the one hand, His Eminence Cardinal Rausch is correct. The media would write a sympathetic story—”
“There!” Rausch said, patting John Paul’s wrist. “You see?”
“—but, on the other hand,” Martino continued, “on the other hand, the Holy Father has made a great effort, in many public statements, to define the importance of this first Unity Conference. If . . . if he were to stay, despite recent events, the media would talk about it for days. It would be a media coup.”
The small congregation of cardinals murmured disapprovingly, and a few scoffed openly. Rausch turned pink. “These aren’t ‘recent events.’ We’re talking about murder! Right here!”
“But the conference will not be here,” John Paul said firmly. “And murders take place every day, all around the world, in the name of religion. We must not be deterred.”
He dismissed them with a nod. Only when they were gone did Giancarlo materialize out of the shadows. “Your thoughts, Giancarlo?”
The capable protector deliberated a moment. “My thoughts are always for your safety, Holy Father. My advice is obvious.”
“And yet we cannot always do God’s work and be safe.” Giancarlo shrugged. “The cardinals agree with me.” John Paul waved his words away. “Rausch is too
good a friend. His fear is for the flesh, when his mind should be on the church’s mission. Mulrooney never supported the conference. Wait for me a moment, Giancarlo.”
The Pope was too old to kneel comfortably, so in private he would pray in a comfortable chair. He did so now. His eyes closed gently, but the lids and lashes flickered ever so slightly like the tiny flashes of electricity pulsing in a radio. The security man was sure that the Holy Father was receiving some signal from heaven. Giancarlo had watched this many times. In these moments, the old Pope seemed both intimately vulnerable and utterly intangible, a holy relic that could not be harmed. Giancarlo, however, knew that was not true.
The old man sat there for more than a moment. Several minutes passed, but Giancarlo did not move. Though he felt like a traitor, he prayed that the Pope would open his eyes and decide to postpone the Unity Conference. Neither he nor the police could find any connection between the violence at St. Monica’s and the Pope himself, but the murder was far too close to home for his own comfort. The prudent thing was to return immediately to the Vatican, where all the power of the church was assembled to protect the Holy Father.
Five minutes passed, then ten. Giancarlo stood, motionless. In his early years, in moments like these, he had said Ave Marias. Lately, though, he had taken to repeating to himself the poem “On His Blindness” by John Milton (even if Milton was a Protestant). It ended with the line, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
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Finally, the Pope’s eyes opened slowly and peacefully. He looked at Giancarlo with his keen eyes. “I will go forward, Giancarlo. If some violence should occur, will you be there for me?”
Giancarlo’s expression, like his faith, never wavered.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 A.M. AND 8 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
7:00 A.M. PST Los Angeles Department of Coroner Forensic Sciences Lab
Harry had been down Mission Road, where the coroner’s office was located, many times during his career. But there was something creepy about this trip, because he didn’t usually follow right behind the bodies. He felt like a scavenger circling a carcass.
But he couldn’t help it. As if being shot at wasn’t enough motivation, Harry was obsessed with the driver’s last words: Get the body!
What kind of assassins shot you up and then wanted to keep the remains? What was it about the body? Something telltale about the rounds? No, there were plenty of rounds in and around Harry’s
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car, which now looked like Swiss cheese. To make sure he was dead? Probably not. Get the body already assumed Collins was dead.
It had to be evidence. The killers assumed that Collins was in possession of something incriminating and they wanted it. If that was true, then this case was turning into something much larger than a widespread child abuse ring. Whoever was involved was willing to kill to keep their secrets.
Harry’s driver—a uniform who’d offered to give him a lift, thinking he was heading toward Parker Center—pulled into 1104 North Mission and stared white-faced at the building that housed the city’s dead.
“You think they order lunch in?” the uniform said. “Who’d deliver?” “They get plenty of deliveries,” Harry said as he got out.
He showed his badge to the clerk at the front desk and waited until a coroner’s assistant came out. In a city the size of Los Angeles, the coroner’s office was open twenty-four hours a day, but even they had their off-peak hours. The man who appeared was young, with big curly hair that had been fashionable when Harry was this kid’s age. The coroner looked sl
eepy, and was obviously just finishing the night shift.
“You’re the detective?” he asked lazily. “Driscoll,” Harry said, flashing his badge. “I’m on the case with a body being delivered right now.” “Jason Keane,” said the other. “Can we help with something? I mean, besides the obvious.” “I just want to have that body examined as soon as possible. Like, immediately,” Harry underscored,
a little dubious of the mop-headed kid’s attention span. “Can you start now?”
Keane shook his head. “I’m not the guy. Just the assistant. The coroner left early because it was slow.”
“And the morning guy—”
“Called in late,” Keane said. “’S why I’m stuck here at almost quarter after.”
Driscoll frowned. “Sounds like government work to me. Who’s his supervisor?”
7:13 A.M. PST Culver City
Marwan al-Hassan had finished the morning salaat and was sipping tea in his brother’s breakfast nook. His left arm hurt, but he didn’t care. The day he had committed himself to was now at hand, by the will of Allah. Not only would the pain in his arm vanish, but he would be gathered into paradise. And he would strike a blow against the infidels. Such a blow! Perhaps not the greatest blow, but a decisive one, like the stab of a dagger that leaves no great hole, but penetrates deep.
Yasin had explained to him the importance of the blow, especially to deal it here, on American soil. The fear it would cause, the chasms it would create between their enemies, would be significant. Marwan would be a hero, and his name would be praised.
Marwan decided to make another cup of tea.
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7:16 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Jack hadn’t felt this tired in a long time. There was a part of him that wanted to be pissed off at Christopher Henderson, or Ryan Chappelle, or both, for not providing him the backup he needed up at Castaic. Where had the surveillance been? Where was the cavalry?
