by John Whitman
Jack drew his gun and moved inside. He really didn’t expect to find anything, since the Greater Nation had been there before, but he preferred to enter any room with a gun in his hand if he could.
He was in a one-bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen on his left, a dining table beyond that, and a living room, bathroom, and bedroom ahead. There was nothing on the walls and minimal furniture, causing Jack to reach three conclusions in sequence as he moved down the hall. First, that the Greater Nation had stripped the place; but that wasn’t true because there were a few items left. Second, that he was in a typical college dorm, where cinder blocks and plywood served as bookshelves; but that didn’t feel right, because it was missing the posters and Ansel Adams or museum art reprints that were typical of college students. Third, that whoever lived here had no interest in creature comforts.
The living room was decorated only with a futon, a few bookshelves, and a desk that, by the telltale signs of stray wires and plugs, had been stripped of its computer. Jack glanced into the bedroom, where he found four sets of bunk beds crowded into one small room.
The bathroom was bare except for a thin sliver of soap left in a bone-dry soap dish in the bathroom. Even the medicine cabinet was empty. Jack opened and closed it, then stared at the mirror as though he might see the remnants of some previous reflection.
Jack went back into the living room. The desk was bare, but he guessed that the occupants had used a laptop computer there—there was a data port in the wall and a generic mouse pad sitting on the desktop. The drawers were empty, as far as he could tell, but he would leave the real investigation to forensics.
He activated his cell phone and called in. “Get me Sharpton,” he said to the operator.
“I’m sorry, Agent Bauer, he’s unavailable,” the receptionist replied.
“What do you mean unavailable? Get him out of the toilet and—”
“No, sir, he’s...he’s been put on disciplinary leave.”
What the—? Jack wondered. What had happened in the last forty minutes? “Where’d he go? I need to reach him. Is he on cell phone?”
“N-no, sir, he hasn’t left the building. He’s still with Mr. Chappelle.”
Jack’s felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. On disciplinary leave but not left the building was longhand for “under arrest.” Kelly Sharpton was in some kind of trouble.
“Okay, Nina Myers or Paulson,” he said. He’d worry about Sharpton when he had time.
After a series of clicks, Nina Myers picked up. “Another party?”
“Same party, different host,” Jack said. “I need a rundown on the tenants for this apartment. And I need a forensics team over here right away. Also...” He scanned the room, trying to think of anything else he might need at the moment. His eyes skimmed across the spines of the books, spines with writing that flowed up and down like an elegant scribble. Oh, shit, he thought. “And also, I need someone who can read Farsi and Arabic.”
10:20 A.M. PST Westwood
The name on the lease was Richard Brighton, a perfectly normal-sounding name until CTU’s computers chewed it up and spit back exactly nothing. No Richard Brighton registered at USC, no Richard Brighton attached to the social security number written on the lease. Landlords were required to take photocopies of driver’s licenses. Nina had a copy faxed to CTU.
“I’ve got a photo of him. If this guy’s name is Richard Brighton then I’m Jessica Simpson,” Nina said.
“Can you run face recognition?” Jack asked.
“We will, but the photo’s not good. It’ll take a while.”
“Okay, get going, and tell the forensics guys to hurry up. Hey, what’s up with Kelly Sharpton?”
There was a pause as Nina swiveled away from her phone, then swiveled back. “He’s not in his office.”
“I know. I heard he was in some trouble.”
“I don’t know anything about it. You want me to check?”
“No, stay on this. Just curious.”
10:27 A.M. PST Senator Drexler’s Office, San Francisco
Debrah dialed CTU Los Angeles to give Kelly an update on the information he wanted.
“Special Agent Sharpton, please,” she said, calling from her private line.
“I’m sorry, he’s unavailable,” said the operator.
“He’ll take my call. Tell him Dee from D.C.—”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but Mr. Sharpton is unavailable for any kind of telephone call. He can’t be interrupted right now.”
Debrah paused. It could be anything, of course. Kelly worked in a counter terrorism unit, for chrissakes. He could have been called out on an investigation, or in a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for all she knew. But she did know. She guessed with the inerring talent of politicians who sniff out danger that Kelly Sharpton was not in a meeting, not on an assignment. He was in trouble. She hung up.
10:29 A.M. PST Zachary Taylor Park, Arlington, Virginia
Juwan Burke hated being an errand boy. Star running back for his high school football team, second string receiver and academic all-American at Alabama, commencement speaker for the political science department, he was used to carrying much heavier and more important loads. He couldn’t complain out loud, though—partly because this was how the system worked but mostly because all of Senator Drexler’s support staff had both seniority over him and resumes that equaled his. Drexler was one of the most popular up-and-comers in the party, and everyone with plans for advancement wanted to get there riding on her coattails. Burke knew he’d go farther making lunch runs for Drexler than he would writing policy for half the representatives in Congress.
This wasn’t a lunch run, he knew, but what exactly it was, he didn’t know. He’d just gotten a call from the Senator herself telling him to get to Zachary Taylor Park over in Arlington by one-thirty, where he’d be met by a dark-haired woman named Sela Gonzales. She’d been given his description and she would find him.
He pulled into the parking lot at the park right at the bottom of the hour. At one-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon it wasn’t crowded, although he saw a mother pushing a stroller and a groundskeeper picking up trash.
Juwan had never been to this park and he didn’t know where the stream was, but water always flowed downhill so he followed the slope of the grass toward a line of trees. He found a path readily enough. It led down to the water, a small stream flowing east and south toward D.C., reminding anyone who cared to notice that D.C. had once been a swamp. He’d barely reached the water when he noticed a woman hurrying toward him. She was small, wearing a dark blue business suit. Her hair was glossy, like black satin, and her face was aquiline. She was not pretty, but she was striking. This became more apparent the closer she got, especially when Juwan noticed her sharply hooked nose. Juwan just had time to admire her bright eyes, like burning black coals, before she threw herself at him and kissed him full on the lips.
It wasn’t often that a strange woman threw herself into a man’s arms, even for a former college football star like Juwan. He was understandably surprised, but he wrapped his arms around her automatically. When he finally remembered to return her kiss, though, he felt the lack of passion in it. The woman continued for a few seconds, then pulled away just enough to press her nose affectionately to his. But when she spoke, she was all business. “So if anyone’s watching, we’re lovers,” she explained.
“Uh, okay,” he said. “What else are we doing here?”
“I have documents in my jacket,” she said. Then she laughed as though he’d said something charming. “You have to photocopy them and get them back to me in—” she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, checking her watch at the same time. “Twenty minutes. The file needs to be back in its place by two o’clock.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Here.” She kissed him again, her hands groping his back, even probing inside his suit jacket and running her hands along his chest. Breaking off from the kiss, she smiled sincerely for the first t
ime. “Nice build.”
“I ...played football,” Juwan said lamely.
“Okay, find a copy place and be back here in twenty minutes.”
“Where are the documents?” Juwan asked.
“It’s in your coat already,” she said, patting his chest again. Only then did Juwan feel the file folder pressed between his dress shirt and suit jacket. This woman was either a nutcase or a spy. Either way, Juwan decided, this was definitely not another lunch run.
“Nineteen minutes,” she reminded, tapping her watch.
10:41 A.M. PST Westwood
Jack stepped out onto the tiny, unserviceable balcony to get out of the forensics team’s way. They were dusting down the entire apartment, pulling up as many fingerprint samples as possible. Jack assumed they’d find a lot of Greater Nation prints, since Marks had already admitted that his people had visited the apartment, but he hoped to find additional prints as well.
There was a second reason he’d stepped out onto the balcony. He didn’t want anyone on the team to see his anxiety. The truth was, Jack’s heart was pounding harder now than it had during the firefight this morning. He thought his ribs would crack under the constant barrage of his heart against his chest. He needed to find solid evidence here. He was tired of conjecture, and he sure as hell was tired of looking like a fool at CTU. First there were terrorists, then it was all a big mistake, then there were militia men who knew about the terrorists, then there were no terrorists again, but Jack has to rescue innocent Iranians from the militia. Then it turns out a dead man is actually alive, and he has heard a rumor about terrorists, and the militia men know about an apartment. It was enough to drive a man insane, except that Jack was just too damned stubborn to go insane.
And the truth was, he hadn’t even begun to tackle the mystery of Frank Newhouse. Why the Attorney General’s office would have an undercover agent inside a militia group baffled him, especially when CTU followed policy and informed other departments, including the FBI and Justice, of any investigations that involved domestic terrorism. Jack had no doubt whatsoever that the proper authorities had been informed, since it was Ryan Chappelle’s job to pass on the information. Chappelle might be an ass and a bumbler when it came to field work, but he pushed paper with the best of them.
In Jack’s mind, there was a more important question than why the AG had inserted his own people: why hadn’t Newhouse identified himself? The jig was up the minute Jack had raided the Greater Nation compound. And there was certainly no reason to keep up pretenses at the Culver City house, when Jack had rescued Rafizadeh. Not only had he not unmasked himself, he’d actually fired shots at Jack when he gave pursuit. Jack didn’t take kindly to people shooting at him; if that guy really was an undercover agent, once this was over, Jack planned to take him outside and go round and round with him until the man explained himself.
Jack pulled his mind away from Newhouse. That was for later. He needed to focus on the task at hand. He stepped into the room, where five agents studiously dusted down surfaces, picked through the few belongings with tweezers, and ran a blue light over everything to expose biological tracings.
“Hey, something over here!” someone called from the bathroom. Jack hurried over to where a man in a surgical mask was swabbing sections of the counter and testing them in a portable scanner. He held a cotton swab under the scanner’s sensor. A light on the side of the scanner had turned from red to green. “Traces of nitroglycerine. A little C-4, too. Someone was in here making a bomb.”
“I’ve got something,” said another tech from the living room.
Jack spun around and went back to the room, where the tech was thumbing through a book with gloved hands. This was Peter Ren, one of CTU’s language experts specializing in the Middle East. He held up some scraps of paper inside the book. Jack looked at them, but they were also written in Farsi, which looked to him like so many elegant designs drawn along the page.
“Well?”
“It’s poetry. Really old-fashioned poetry, I think,” Ren said, perusing one scrap of paper and then another.
“You think?” Jack said sharply. He began to feel a small knot twist itself in his stomach. He sensed something with that sixth sense of experienced fighters. His enemy was out there somewhere, in the dark, unseen but near. The discovery of bomb making had increased his anxiety.
“Well, it’s just scraps. It doesn’t really make any sense.” Peter Ren looked at Jack helplessly. “I’m a translator, not a scholar. I didn’t even know that Muslims wrote poetry like this anymore.”
“What makes you think it’s important? Maybe it’s junk.”
Ren held out the scraps of paper he was holding. “Then there’s a lot of it. I’ve got eight pages right here, and there are twenty or thirty more stuffed into another book. Look, if you really want to understand this stuff, you need someone who can do more than just translate the words. You need someone who understands medieval writing. I can call in, find someone for us.”
Jack laughed, but the sound was miserable. “Don’t bother. I know just the person.”
10:55 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles, Holding Room 1
“Who are you working for, Kelly?”
“I work for you.”
“You’re lying.”
Kelly Sharpton and Ryan Chappelle had repeated that conversation, in different variations, six times during the last half hour. The variations usually came in the form of expletives and, once, a commentary on Kelly’s parentage. Chappelle had also found different ways to ask the question, but it always came down to the same thing: assumption of guilt, gigantic leap to conclusions, and a question based on the conclusion, followed by Kelly’s denial.
Kelly sat in the metal chair behind the metal desk. Chappelle had, for some reason, saved him the humiliation of handcuffs, but the smaller man kept the two big uniformed guards in the room. Kelly spent most of his time, during Chappelle’s questions, wondering if he could take out both security guards and the District Director before anyone outside noticed.
“Kelly,” Chappelle said, switching from bad cop to good cop with all the grace of a dog standing on its hind legs. “There’s nowhere to hide from this. Jessi has already told us you told her to hack into the DOJ system. We know from Justice that someone went in and deleted all the AG’s files. That’s the Attorney General! We’ve done a keystroke log on your computer, and we know you futzed around in terminals over there. Why?”
It was a simple question, and there was a simple answer. Of course, Kelly refused to speak it. He had no intention of getting Drexler in trouble. He’d risked his career to save her, and if he was going to go down in flames, taking her with him would do nothing but make his crime an exercise in futility.
“That’s all you’re going to do, sit there?” Chappelle said. Standing, he was for once taller than Sharpton and seemed to enjoy the perspective. “The FBI will be here in an hour. You can talk to them.”
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 11 A.M. AND 12 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
11:00 A.M. PST Zachary Taylor Park, Arlington, Virginia
Thank god for Kinkos, Juwan thought as he hit the brakes and screeched to a stop at the edge of Zachary Taylor Park. He jumped out and ran down the grass slope to the water’s edge.
“That took too long,” she said.
“Fast as I could,” he gasped. He reached into his coat to grab the files.
“Kiss me,” she said, throwing herself at him again. He was more prepared this time, and caught her in his arms and kissed her. Again, it was a movie kiss, full of force but empty of passion. He was vaguely aware of her hands on his body, just as before. When they separated, he felt an empty space where the files had pressed against his abdomen.
“You’re really good at that,” he said, knowing that the documents were now hidden under her own coat.
“You should see me fake an orgasm,” she said. “Bye.�
��
She turned and walked along the path without ever looking back at him.
Juwan hurried back to his car. The copies he’d made were on the carpet, half-stuffed under the passenger seat. He hadn’t even had time to read them, but at a glance he could tell the pages contained someone’s biography.
He left Arlington and was on his way into D.C. when his mobile phone rang. He popped his earpiece in and said, “Burke here.”
“Juwan.” It was the Senator herself. Juwan straightened in the driver’s seat like a pupil at his desk when the teacher walks in. The Senator didn’t call him very often.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Listen, you know that lunch I sent you for? Have you picked it up yet?”
Juwanwasasmart man, andbynow he wascatching on to the clandestine habits of the others involved in this errand. To him it seemed as ridiculous as a spy movie, but he wasn’t in charge, so he replied, “Yes, that lunch. I got it and I’m on my way back to the office.”
“Good. There’s someone who’s really hungry for it. Starving, maybe. Hurry.” She hung up.
That’s when the Pontiac Bonneville slammed into him.
11:15 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Jack arrived at CTU with the the stack of papers and the two books in which they’d been hidden tucked under one arm. He marched straight past the analysts terminals and down the hall to the holding cells. There was a guard outside number two, where Marks was undoubtedly resting uncomfortably. There were also guards posted outside number three, where Ramin had been ensconced, and also number four, where Nazila and her father had been put. But to Jack’s surprise, there was also a guard outside number one. He thought he knew who was in there.
