24 Declassified: 01 - Operation Hell Gate

by Marc A. Cerasini

  Shells of abandoned cars littered this stretch of road, along with various parts from a variety of models—seats, bumpers, slashed tires, steering columns. Chop shop heaven, he assumed, which explained the clientele when he finally reached Tatiana’s. Jack watched his fugitive walk down the middle of the deserted street, toward the neon brilliance of the bustling tavern. Old-school rap music spilled through the door as a young olive-skinned man with strong Italian features stumbled outside wearing baggy jeans and a muscle T-shirt, climbed aboard a Harley, and revved it up. In a cloud of dust the chopper roared out of the parking lot, past Dante Arete and up the street.

  Jack was forced to duck behind the skeletal remains of a gutted Lexus to avoid the headlights. Next to the automobile shell, a cracked, rusty engine block sprouted weeds. Dante Arete’s gaze followed the motorcycle, his eyes lingering on the darkened street long after the chopper was out of sight. Finally, Arete turned when shouts came from the shadows. Out of the mass of parked cars, a group emerged. Jack counted five Hispanic men, all in their early to mid-twenties, all clad in baggy denim and loose blue buttoned-down shirts worn open over white muscle Ts. Blue bandanas were worn in various styles—as headbands and kerchiefs. And each had a coil of bloody thorns tattooed around his neck.

  The group had all the markings of a street gang— the same style clothing, the same color bandanas and tattoos. Jack’s stint with LAPD SWAT had given him enough of a primer on the basics: the hand signals, the postures, the tags, the colors. From his proximity to JFK, Jack knew he was still in Queens. The Latin Kings were known to be the most active gang in that borough. But this crew approaching Dante Arete wasn’t sporting the trademark five-pointed crown on their body tattoos or clothing.

  Los Angeles had been awash in gang activity for decades. The Bloods and Crips alone had made the city the drive-by shooting capital of the world. Still, those drug-dealing gang-bangers had active “sets” or chapters in almost every state in the country; and although they were predominantly black gangs, many other ethnic groups had adopted their names and colors out of sheer recognition if not direct affiliation.

  Jack might have guessed these young men were part of a Crips crew from the blue bandanas, but Crips didn’t favor tattoos, and the identical tattoos around their throats looked more like something out of the Mexican Mafia—a group that had begun in the California prison system decades ago and had since claimed members all over the country. That gang also favored the color blue, but its symbols of MM, La Eme, a “13” and three dots, were nowhere in sight.

  Four of the group were also wearing long dark blue dusters, unbuttoned and flapping in the night breeze. The coats were out of place on a warm night in late spring, unless one wanted to hide something—like an automatic weapon. Suddenly one of the group, a stocky, powerfully built man with a shaved head, called out to Dante using his gang tag—

  “Apache, mi hermano!”

  He moved forward, catching Dante in a bear hug. The two men slapped each other under the glow of a streetlight as the other young men formed a protective circle around them.

  “Ese, Apache! Ese!”

  “Hasta la muerte, guerrero!”

  That’s when Jack knew. These men were members of the Columbia Street Posse, Dante’s nonaligned Brooklyn-based gang. Jack darted across the street, slipped into the parking lot, and dived behind the first car he could reach—a Z28 Camaro Coupe repainted a metallic green with a white racing stripe. Quietly he stepped between vehicles until he was less than a dozen feet away from Arete, near enough to hear their conversation clearly.

  “I’m lucky to be here at all, guerreros,” Arete said. “I thought I was gonna die in that stinking airplane.”

  Shaved Head laughed. “It wasn’t luck, Apache. The Paddies really came through for you tonight.”

  Cautiously, Jack raised his head to peer through the car’s spotless windows. Two men stepped into the light. Respectfully, the Posse parted. The newcomers were impeccably dressed in tailored summer-weight suits. Jack guessed the younger of the two—a fiery redhead with the florid face of a drinker—was in his mid-thirties. The other man was at least a decade older, broad-shouldered, with sharp features and steel-gray hair.

  Dante Arete eyed the pair. “You bastards shoot good,” he said.

  The redhead grinned. When he spoke, his Irish brogue was thick. “Got a present for you, Apache. For all yer troubles.”

  The redhead popped the trunk of a black Mercedes with an electronic key. The older man reached inside, pulled out an attaché 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 attaché 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.

  10:41:14 P.M.EDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  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 you going to do, Jack?”

  “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 ha
d 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.”

  10:59:26 P.M.EDT The parking lot of Tatiana’s

  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.

  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 P.M. AND 12 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  11:04:12 P.M.EDT The parking lot of Tatiana’s

  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 would need both weapons soon. Then he felt and heard a crack. Someone had swiped at his head with a bat or stick. It was a glancing blow, or he would have been dead instead of seeing stars.

  The men dragged Jack out of the vehicle and dumped him onto the pavement. He rolled, dodging kicks, to their frustration. Finally the big man with the lightning tattoo bent down to pry his arms apart. Jack kicked him in the groin with all his strength. A scream cut the night and Jack lashed out again, seizing a handful of the man’s long braids. He used them to drag his head down and strike it against the pavement, stunning him into silence.

  Jack backed against the car and rose, Glock in hand. Most of the crowd scattered then, ducking behind cars or fleeing into the street. But five men stood their ground, whipped out guns of their own. If they’d fired just then, Jack would have been a dead man. Instead they began to wave their weapons around in an absurdly threatening manner, hurling insults and threats.

  “You want to start shooting, mother—”

  “Hey man, go ahead, you pull your trigger and we’ll pull ours—”

  “You gonna die, asshole, ’cause you don’t know who you’re messing with—”

  They were untrained, unskilled, not particularly bright, but they made a lot of noise. Punks, not professionals, but they had him outgunned five to one. Jack knew from experience standoffs like this never lasted long. Someone always got impatient or scared or stupid or all three. And no matter how the situation ended, someone was bound to end up dead.

  Jack had to break the impasse, the only way he knew how. He raised the Glock and aimed.

  11:08:36 P.M.EDT Tatiana’s Tavern

  Georgi Timko knew the four men were trouble the moment they walked into his tavern.

  Up to that time, it had been a quiet night, by Tatiana’s standards at least. Some fists were thrown early in the evening, but the tussle was dealt with by Alexi, the bar’s three-hundred-pound bouncer and veteran of the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Both Olga and Beru were making nice tips from eager young men who tucked dollar bills into their skimpy G-strings, whether they were dancing on stage or serving drinks on the floor. The pool tables were both crowded, and the clientele—mostly bikers from a Queens “motor club”—were generally behaving themselves while consuming copious amounts of beer.

  Icing on the cake for Georgi this night—the satellite broadcast had just ended and the Bulgarian soccer team, heavily favored in the match, had lost to the Armenians—which meant a big payoff for Georgi, who almost always bet on the underdog. He’d brewed some tea in his private samovar in celebration.

  Then, eight minutes ago, the men in the long blue coats arrived and spoiled Georgi’s evening. They’d come through the door silently, not speaking to anyone, not even one another. They ignored old toothless Yuri, who always sat by the entrance nursing his beer, hand extended to anyone who entered in the hope someone would spot him another one.

  Without even a glance at Beru, who swayed topless on stage to some mindless hip-hop song, the men sat down together in one of the booths along the wall. With a professional eye, Georgi noted that’s exactly the place he would have chosen. From that booth the men could watch the crowd at the pool tables and keep a watchful eye on Alexi near the cash register, and Nicolo drawing beers behind the bar.

  Olga sauntered over and tried to engage the men in a little flirtatious banter, but failed to elicit more than a mumbled demand for a pitcher and four mugs— another bad sign.

  Now the men had finished their beers and were stirring. They stood when Georgi rose from his chair behind the bar to fill his teacup at the steaming samo
var. As the men approached him, Georgi turned his back to them as he sweetened his tea. He could feel their eyes watching him, and the base of his spine tingled—one of the many danger instincts he’d acquired as a juvenile delinquent in his native Ukraine thirty years ago.

  In those days the dangers were the police or the KGB—a branch of the Soviet intelligence apparatus directed against Western espionage, but always eager to imprison a fellow member of the Soviet brotherhood for dealing in U.S. dollars, which Georgi and his peers in the mob did on a regular basis—how else was one to grow prosperous in a Soviet state were the national currency was worth less than the paper it was printed on?

  Fortunately for Georgi, America was fertile ground for the kind of criminal enterprises he’d practiced in the old Soviet Union. So when the Iron Curtain rose and the KGB files were opened to the public, certain information Georgi had provided to the secret police came to light. That information proved damning to Georgi’s rivals in the Ukrainian Mafia, many of whom were sent to Siberia. A few others—particularly nasty sorts, in Georgi’s estimation—ended their lives facedown in a filthy prison shower, a KGB officer’s bullet placed behind their ear, solely on the evidence he had provided.

  Unfortunately, those men had relatives, friends, and criminal associates. When the truth was revealed, many sought revenge—and so Georgi was forced to emigrate in a hurry.

  Here in America, he was able to start anew in a less economically repressive world. In America the police were much less of a problem, and a fascist organization like the KGB nonexistent. There were, of course, dangers. But here in America, here in Georgi’s adopted country, that danger came courtesy of four young gangsters wearing dusters on a warm summer night.

  Georgi shot a glance at Alexi. The bouncer seemed prepared, his beefy hand poised to reach for the bulge in his safari jacket.

  Well, I certainly hope he’s ready, Georgi mused, though at times poor Alexi is a little slow.

  Georgi always had a soft spot in his hard heart for veterans of the Afghan war, though he despised Russians in general. Only now, at this tense moment, did it occur to him that his compassion might cause his death this night.