Tony chugged his drink, tossed the empty bottle into a garbage can and crossed the dusty street.
“It’s Lesser, all right,” said Dobyns. “He’s upstairs on the third floor. He’s not even hiding. The bartender spilled when I slipped him an Andrew Jackson.”
“Is he alone?”
Dobyns nodded. “Come on. The faster you find him, the faster I get my money.”
Tony hesitated. As tactical situations went, this whole set up stunk. He was heading into an unknown environment armed with only the Gerber Mark II serrated combat knife in his boot. On the other hand, Lesser was small potatoes and had no clue anyone from the U.S. government was looking for him, and he was not a violent felon. He was, in fact, a computer nerd. Plus Dobyns had nothing to gain and everything to lose if the deal fell apart.
“Lead the way.”
Dobyns grinned and pushed through the screen door.
The interior was dim and nearly empty. Behind the bar, a squat bartender nodded at Dobyns, then went back to watching the jai alai match on the television above the bar. At a corner table far from the door, two middle-aged men were partying with two young prostitutes. The men were hang-dog drunk, the women clinging. Two more women sat in the corner, gossiping and polishing their nails. They looked up when the door opened, but when they saw Tony was with Dobyns, they returned to their conversation.
“The stairs are back here.”
Dobyns led Tony across the bar to a narrow hallway. Beyond the single rest room another door opened into a stairwell. A trio of leaping silver-gray fish, stuffed and lacquered, were mounted above that door, which gave the brothel its name, El Pequeños Pescados—“Little Fishes.”
Dobyns, in the lead, squeezed through the narrow doorway and slowly lumbered up the steep staircase to the second, then third floor.
Through another door, another narrow hallway flanked by peeling wallpaper, a floor of stained, avocado-green linoleum. From somewhere behind a wall, a man grunted, a woman laughed.
They went to the wooden door at the end of the hallway. Dobyns knocked twice. “Come,” a muffled voice called from within. Dobyns winked at Tony and opened the door.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn, but Tony could see two computer monitors flickering brightly, a figure seated in a chair facing them, his back turned to the door. Computers and components were scattered about on tables and chairs, even on the floor.
Dobyns opened his mouth to speak; Tony silenced him, stepped over the threshold.
“Richard Lesser? I need to speak—”
Tony never saw the truncheon that came down hard on the back of his head. Mercifully, he never felt the blow, either.
That pain, and more, would come later.
10:34:09 A.M.PDT LAPD Central Facilities, Los Angeles
Jack Bauer observed the suspect through a one-way mirror. The Middle Eastern youth was locked in an interrogation room in the LAPD’s Central Facilities. Routine prisoners were taken to one of the city’s jails and booked there. But celebrity criminals—or soon to be celebrity, as was the case with this man—were often brought here because the press had not yet tumbled upon the existence of cells and interrogation rooms in what was basically a garage and repair facility a block away from the Los Angeles bus station.
The interrogation room was dim, the man pinned in a single column of bright white light as he sat immobile on a restraining seat, staring straight ahead, arms and legs shackled. His torn, bloodstained clothing had been collected as evidence. Now the killer wore virgin white overalls, white tube socks sans shoes. He’d been scrubbed clean, too. Blood samples and bits of human flesn had been collected from his skin, from under his fingernails, from between his teeth. His raven-black long hair was still damp.
Detective Frank Castalano stood at Jack’s shoulder, his partner Jerry Alder a discreet distance away.
“I might have called you in even if this wasn’t personal, Jack,” Castalano was saying. “This man’s a Saudi national. He’s been talking jihad, praising Allah, and claiming he was doing the will of a terrorist named Hasan. When we ran his fingerprints, his education visa gave him away, and his name turned up on a Department of Homeland Security memo as a person of interest.”
Jack took the file from Castalano’s hand, flipped through it.
“His name is Ibn al Farad, twenty-two years old,” Castalano continued. “His father is Omar al Farad, a millionaire vice president of the Royal Saudi Bank of Riyadh and a Deputy Minister in the government. He sent Ibn to America to study at the University of Southern California, but the boy vanished a year ago. The Saudi Arabian Consulate is looking for this kid and they may get word of his capture at any time...”
Jack’s studied the suspect. “So now Ibn al Farad has resurfaced, this time as the suspect in a heinous multi-murder.” Bauer shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Has he given any sort of statement?”
Castalano frowned. “He was ranting when we caught him, babbling in the helicopter, and chattering all the way down here to the interrogation room. But as soon as we started asking real questions, taping his words, the suspect stopped talking.”
“You say he spoke of a man named Hasan,” said Jack, recalling that same name had cropped up in the past twenty-four hours in connection with the fugitive Richard Lesser.
“He kept referring to this Hasan as ‘the old man on the mountain.’ Claimed that’s what he was doing driving like a madman all over the San Gabriels— trying to find the old man.”
Bauer frowned. The reference to the old man on a mountain jogged something in Jack’s brain, but he could not isolate the memory thread and gave up. “You said he was high on some drug?”
Castalano showed Jack the vial he pulled out of the wrecked Jaguar. “I thought it was methamphetamine, dyed blue for street marketing, maybe a gang marking. But it’s not meth, which might explain the color.”
Jack held the vial up to the light and his frown deepened. “This is a new drug called Karma,” he said hoarsely. “This stuff makes meth look like NoDoz.”
Jack handed the vial back to Castalano. “Did he have anything else on him? A murder weapon? A copy of the Koran?”
“He had a note. It’s in Ibn al Farad’s own handwriting—we matched it with university records. But the note doesn’t make much sense, it just seems like ravings scrawled when this guy was under the influence.”
Castalano opened another file, showed Jack the handwritten document now sealed in a Mylar evidence bag. The handwriting alternated from tiny and cramped to expansive, the language lapsed between
English and his native Arabic.
“Crazy stuff,” muttered the detective.
But from what Jack could understand from scanning the man’s writings, it was not all that crazy—not to a newly converted Muslim fanatic who claimed to have experienced a powerful vision of the afterlife, as Ibn al Farad did in this document. The man also vowed to purge the Islamic world of the satanic and pervasive influence of American culture.
Could that have been the reason why Hugh Vetri and his family were murdered? Because he made movies?
Much of the document was unreadable and Jack gave up trying. Perhaps CTU’s Language and Document Division could make more sense of it.
Bauer turned his back to the prisoner, faced Detective Castalano.
“Frank, I need to move Ibn al Farad to CTU Headquarters for a thorough interrogation. As a suspect in a homicide, there are limits to the means the L.A. police can use to break him. But as the obvious perpetrator of the brutal terrorist act, the assassin of Hugh Vetri, a prominent and influential U.S. citizen, CTU can push his interrogation to the limit using methods you don’t want to know about.”
He could see the war behind Castalano’s eyes. “Believe me, Frank,” Jack continued. “I can break this man, but not here. Police methods are inadequate in the face of this man’s fanaticism.”
Castalano’s features darkened. “A couple of years ago, the loss of basic civil liberties you’r
e talking about would have scared the hell out of me...But that was before I saw the horrors in Hugh Vetri’s home this morning.”
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The detective paused, thought of that van full of innocent kids, thought of his own. He swallowed hard. “If the Chief of Police signs off on the transfer, then this bastard’s yours. But I’m going with you, Jack. I’m going to sit in on this man’s interrogation and I’m going to hunt down any accomplices he names, no matter who they are.”
10:49:12 A.M.PDT La Hacienda Tijuana, Mexico
Fay Hubley heard a sound in the hall outside the door of her hotel room. Heavy footsteps, then whispering. She quietly saved her work, put the computer to sleep and slipped out of her chair. Silently she crept across the room. Remembering Tony’s instructions, she placed her ear against the door rather than open the peephole—a move that only served to alert anyone lurking outside that the room was occupied.
Fay held her breath, listened for a long moment. She heard nothing. Relieved, she took a step toward the bathroom. The knock exploded like thunder in the tiny room and the noise made her jump.
What do I do? What do I do?
Tony had told her that if someone knocked, she was to pretend she wasn’t there, that the room was empty. With the chain lock in place, even with a key, it would be difficult for someone to get inside without making a whole lot of noise and attracting undue attention.
Fay stifled a gasp when she noticed she’d neglected to fasten the chain lock after Tony left with Dobyns. The knock came again. Louder and more insistent this time.
Fay remembered the gun Tony had given her, telling her to have it in her hand if anyone tried to gain entry to the room. There’d been two Glocks hidden in their van outside and he’d brought one of them up, shown her how to fire it—but she had told herself the entire time she didn’t want to fire it, never intended to, wouldn’t have to. So she’d shoved it beneath a pillow on her bed.
Now she’d have to choose—run for the gun or fasten the chain.
The chain. That’ll be enough, she told herself.
Practically leaping to the door, she fumbled with the metal links, barely got it fastened into place before the door reverberated from a powerful blow that knocked her backward. The frame splintered, the lock and chain gave way, and the door flew open.
Fay opened her mouth to scream, but the first of three men was too fast. His hand closed over Fay’s mouth, even as he dragged her to the bed. Two other men followed the first one into the room, slammed the broken door behind them.
She struggled helplessly, her muffled cries reaching a frenzy when the man’s rough hands fumbled under her blouse, groped her soft flesh.
10:57:59 A.M.PDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Jamey Farrell had finished updating the Lesser file with information she culled from her conversation with Fay Hubley. Now she was ready to analyze the CD-ROM disk Jack had given her. But when she turned away from the monitor to retrieve it, she found Ryan Chappelle silently hovering over her shoulder.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
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“I was looking for Jack Bauer,” said Chappelle. “Have you seen him?”
“He was in his office a half an hour ago. I’ve been busy since.”
Chappelle made a sour face. “So you have an analysis of the virus for me?”
Jamey blinked. “Excuse me?”
“An analysis of Lesser’s Trojan horse. I promised the Cyber-Division Headquarters in Washington that I’d have something for them today.”
“If that’s what you wanted, you probably shouldn’t have sent Milo—our encryption expert—to Mexico on a wild goose chase.”
Ryan’s frown intensified. “So you’re saying you can’t do it?”
“I’m saying I’m the head programmer. Mayhem-ware is not my specialty.”
“Well contact Division and get someone—pronto. We need to know what systems and programs the Trojan horse targets, and what it does.”
“But—”
“Now, Jamey.”
Ryan turned and walked away. Jamey cursed under her breath. What was she supposed to do now? Pull an expert out of her butt?
Jamey was about to make what she knew to be a futile call to the Cyber-Unit in D.C. for help, when she suddenly remembered the name of someone who might be available to do the job on short notice. Jamey opened her Filofax and flipped through it. She found the name and phone number she was searching for on the first pass.
Lifting the receiver, Jamey punched up an outside line and dialed the number of Doris Soo Min.
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 DAYLIGHT TIME
11:03:17 A.M.PDT LAPD Central Facilities, Los Angeles
Jack Bauer opened his cell phone, tapped the speed dial with his thumb. Nina Myers answered on the first tone.
“Jack? Ryan was just in my office, he’s looking—”
“Listen, Nina, I don’t have much time. I just sent you a data dump from the LAPD Central Facilities computer. Cache 32452.”
He heard Nina tapping the keyboard. “Got it,” she said.
“That file contains everything we know about a Saudi national named Ibn al Farad and the multiple murders he committed last night—”
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Nina’s breath caught, and Jack knew she’d opened the crime scene folder.
“Listen, Nina. Ibn al Farad claims to be a disciple of Hasan. He may have even had personal contact with the terrorist leader.”
“If this is true, this man is our first real lead—”
“There’s more. The suspect was under the influence of Karma when he was captured. The LAPD recovered a vial of the substance from the car he’d totaled.”
“Then the DEA was right,” said Nina. “The drug is on the street.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I think something else might be going on.” Jack stroked his temple with his thumb and index finger. His head was beginning to throb again. “I’m bringing the suspect in for interrogation. I should be there in thirty minutes.”
“I’ll get things ready on this end.”
“One more thing.” Jack paused, gulped down two Tylenol capsules. “Detective Frank Castalano told me that after Farad was captured, he used an odd phrase several times. The old man on the mountain, or maybe the old man in the mountains. Find out what that means, if anything. Check our current databanks. Check MI-5, Interpol. And search the historic databanks, too.”
“I’ll do that myself,” Nina replied. “Do you need Chet Blackburn’s tactical squad to escort you back to headquarters?”
“There’s no time,” said Jack. “The Saudi Arabian Embassy probably knows the police have Ibn al Farad. His father is a powerful and wealthy man. I want to stay one step ahead of his lawyers. We’re out of here in two minutes.”
“Understood.”
11:14:27 A.M.PDT Ice House Tijuana, Mexico
Tony tasted metal, smelled cat piss. A persistent roar battered his eardrums as air rushed over him, as if he were trapped inside a wind tunnel.
He opened his eyes and saw a dirty ceiling, faded industrial green paint peeling. The only illumination came from a shaft of sunlight pouring through a small, barred vent in the roof. He moved his head and felt a lance of pain jab the base of his neck. Tony tried to massage the area, discovered his hands were cuffed behind his back. He shifted position—a move that caused sluggish agony as blood slowly returned to his numb arms, wrists and hands. His feet, at least, were not shackled, but his boots were gone. So was his combat knife, the empty sheath still strapped to his calf.
Using his legs and shoulders, Tony sat up, a move which caused black jets of agony to explode behind his eyes. He’d been sprawled on an uneven wooden floor, now he’d propped himself up against a stack of packing crates. In the corner, an ancient box spring, stripped down its metal innards, leaned against the dirty brick wall. The rusty metal was bu
rned black in some places, scorched white in others. Tony realized its purpose and shuddered.
He took a deep breath and found that the stench was worse sitting up. A chemical reek was carried by a blasting hot wind that rippled his long hair, now half freed of its ponytail. A sharp smell like nail polish remover burned his nostrils, mixed with an eye-stinging blast of ammonia. Tony wanted to cover his
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mouth, but it was impossible. Not only was he bound, but his fingers had swollen like sausages. When he could finally move them a few moments later, he found he’d been shackled with old-fashioned metal handcuffs that were too small, too tight. Recreational cuffs for the kinky set, most likely a prop from the brothel where he’d been snatched.
Tony heard voices speaking Spanish, lolled his head to the side. Peering between boxes, he saw three men working around a bank of identical white kitchen stoves where a dozen clear glass beakers bubbled with fluids. Vapors rose, filling translucent plastic tubes with dark brown sediment. The tubes, the beakers, were connected together with duct tape and wires.
He realized with alarm that he was inside an illegal methamphetamine lab—one of the largest he’d ever seen. Most illicit labs could fit into a large suitcase, and cost only a few hundred dollars up front to obtain the parts. But this lab was churning out the stuff like an assembly line.
Two of the three men were clad in blue plastic Tyvek suits, rubber gloves, oversized galoshes on their feet in lieu of chemical-proof environmental boots. They wore air filters around their noses and mouths, carpentry goggles over their eyes. The third man, thin to the point of emaciation, was wrapped head to toe in black plastic garbage bags, wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s hat on his head. Behind the gauze veil he wore a vintage World War II gas mask.
Industrial strength fans on tall metal stands did their best to clear the toxic miasma of cooking chemicals out of the air, but Tony knew every breath he took in this place was deadly. Methamphetamine labs were among the most toxic environments on the planet. The process of cooking pseudoephedrine pills—over-the-counter cold medicine—into a powerfully addictive drug known in the states under street names like crank, crystal, zip or hillbilly heroin produced lethal by-products. For every pound of the manufactured drug, six pounds of toxic waste was created. Tony saw drains in the floor, the concrete bleached white around them, and knew these men were simply dumping their poisonous leftovers like benzene, hydrochloric acid, and sodium cyanide into the sewer system.
24 Declassified: 03 - Trojan Horse Page 9
