24 Declassified: Cat's Claw 2d-4

by John Whitman

  Jack looked at Mercy and knew what she was thinking. This was going to happen to her. And he felt a hand squeeze his heart when he knew that the same thing would happen to Kim if he failed.

  8:31 P.M. PST West Los Angeles

  Ayman al-Libbi lay on the couch of the safe apartment. Despite the best efforts of the U.S. government, he had maintained a few friendships in America over the years— maintained them mostly because he did not ask favors of them. Until now. But now was a critical moment for him, a make-or-break moment as they said in the United States. So he had called in a very old debt from years ago in Jordan, and now he and Abbas were settled into a condominium that could not possibly appear on even the longest security watch list.

  Abbas brought him a cup of tea. Ayman nodded. What would he have done all these years without Muhammad? Tonight was only one of a dozen times over the years that Ay-man had survived because Muhammad was at his side. His devotion was absolute.

  As he placed the tea on the coffee table, Muhammad slid his eyes over Ayman’s face and body. It was not the first time Ayman had noticed this, nor was it the first time he wondered if the source of Muhammad’s devotion was something more than mere friendship. Such things were abhorred in fundamentalist Islam, of course, but one heard whispers of it. Many young men who had spent their youth studying in a madrassa had experienced the subtle approach, the too-long lingering look of another youth who could not or would not give voice to his urges. Ayman, who had long ago turned secular and cynical, now recognized such urges as the inevitable result of the separation of the sexes.

  Ayman waited until Muhammad’s eyes had slid off his body, then he said, “I’m going to call them.”

  Muhammad stopped, halfway into the seat across from the couch. “Are you sure? It’s almost as risky as dealing with the Americans.”

  “This is a time for risks,” Ayman said. He propped himself up as Muhammad handed him the phone. Ayman entered a long distance number he thought he’d never use again.

  A gruff voice answered, and the terrorist said in Arabic, “This is Ayman al-Libbi. Let me speak to him.”

  There was a pause.

  “Not too long,” Muhammad warned. “The Americans will hear.”

  Another voice got on the line, a voice Ayman had not heard in many years. It was a powerful voice in the Iranian Ministry of Defense. “This is not Ayman al-Libbi speaking,” the man said. “Ayman al-Libbi is a dead man.”

  “Inshallah,” al-Libbi said, falling back on the religious expressions of his youth, “you will find it in your heart to breathe life back into me.”

  “You are an infidel now,” the Iranian said.

  “I am an infidel who holds the life of the President of the United States in his hands.”

  “You are a fool to say these things on the telephone.”

  “We are two fools then, because you will listen.” Quickly, Ayman summed up his situation. “I have the Cat’s Claw virus. I have the Dragon’s Blood vaccine. I can save or destroy the American President. I can deliver the virus and the vaccine to you. In return, I need support here in Los Angeles.

  I know you have people here, even if the Americans don’t know it.”

  “Do others know how to create the vaccine?” asked the Iranian man.

  “Three others.”

  There was a long pause. “You have our interest. But we must consider this. Wait for our call.”

  8:53 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Ten fewer minutes that Kim had to live. Ten fewer minutes that the leaders of two of the great powers had to live. Ten minutes closer to the violent, hemorrhagic death for Mercy Bennet.

  Jack forced such thoughts from his mind as he stood in CTU’s conference room with Mercy Bennet. CTU staff had covered the door to the holding room, sealing in the gruesome scene, and NHS would arrive any minute. In the meantime, CTU had been locked down in case the virus had some spread outside the room. Jack didn’t think how he’d caught the virus, but he’d voluntarily locked himself into the conference room. Mercy, without explaining herself to anyone, had joined him.

  “We need to figure out what those clues mean,” Jack said. “Copeland may have been insane, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what he was doing when he left them.”

  Mercy nodded, her face settling into a calm, distant look as her detective’s mind began sorting through facts. “He was trying to help. He didn’t want the virus spread randomly. Whatever those clues mean, they have something to do with stopping the virus.”

  Jack wrote them down on the dry erase board. “Thirteen, forty-eight, fifty-seven. Is there anything in common?”

  Mercy considered. “They’re not prime numbers. There’s no even spacing between them. They’re all double digits.” She wasn’t forming a theory, just listing observations.

  Jack rubbed his temples. He felt himself starting to wear down, but he’d been here before. His will was strong even when his body was not. “Frankie said something. Something about Copeland being ‘corny.’ ”

  “He was,” Mercy said. “That whole Monkey Wrench Gang thing is corny. So is Seldom Seen Smith…”

  They looked at each other. Jack voiced their mutual thoughts. “Is there a connection? You did all the research on this Monkey Wrench thing. Is there a connection between those numbers and that whole story?”

  “Not that I know of,” Mercy admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. I bet it’s worth searching Copeland’s house again.”

  Jack nodded. “We need to go there right now.”

  “But CTU’s locked down.”

  Jack gave her a look of disappointment. As though a little thing like a lockdown was going to stop him.

  15. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 P.M. AND 10 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  9:00 P.M. PST Vanderbilt Complex

  President Barnes watched his Chinese counterpart closely as Xu, in turn, watched the doctors and technicians from National Health Services at work. From the moment they’d arrived, the NHS personnel had been hard at work constructing an airlock made of plastic tenting over one of the two Plexiglas barricades. Now, as the airlocks were finished, four doctors dressed in full biohazard gear entered and the barricade slid up to allow them entry.

  The four doctors trod cumbersomely over to the two world leaders and immediately started to draw blood.

  “Mr. President, my name is Dr. Diebold. I am going to draw a blood sample to confirm whether or not you’ve been exposed.” The doctor spoke through a microphone built into his squarish plastic headgear.

  Barnes nodded. “How much do you know about this virus already?” he asked.

  Barnes could see the doctor’s frown through the clear plastic face screen. “Enough to know what it can do, sir. Not enough to stop it. Not yet.”

  Barnes turned to Xu and flashed a smile as the other doctor drew blood from the Chinese leader. “Quite an evening, eh?” he said breezily.

  “Astounding,” Xu said, his eyes like thin pencil lines behind his glasses. “I am surprised the terrorists could strike so close.”

  Barnes, who had been briefed on all the recent events, was ready for that one. “I’m surprised, too. Of course, if a man can work for Chinese intelligence for years as a double agent without being noticed, I suppose anything can happen.”

  The American President smiled at the Coke-bottle eyes as the Chinese leader’s face, for once, became readable. Barnes knew he would hear no more about this.

  9:10 P.M. PST Santa Monica

  Getting out of CTU had not been difficult. The unit had a lockdown mode for security crises, and avoiding that would have taken some doing. But a hastily slapped-together quarantine was no problem for Jack.

  Jack followed Mercy’s directions to the house on Fourteenth Street. Jack expected to find squad cars in front and police tape girdling the house. Instead he found that the entire house had been tented, and the houses on either side of Copeland’s had been evacuated.

  “NHS is
taking this seriously,” he said.

  They got out and walked up to the front of the house, where a uniformed officer and a harried-looking man in a burgundy sweater holding a clipboard met them.

  “I’m sorry, the house is off-limits,” he said. “Nothing to worry about, just some asbestos cleanup, but the city—”

  Jack showed his identification. “We know what’s going on. We need to get in.”

  The man stepped back, shaking his head. “I’m from NHS. If you know what’s going on, you don’t want to go in there.”

  Mercy started past him. “I’m the one who made the first call. I don’t think there’s contamination inside. He didn’t keep the virus here. Even if there is, I don’t care.”

  “Why don’t you care?” the NHS man said.

  “Because I’ve already been exposed. Now you’re wasting my time.”

  The man’s reaction was visceral. He recoiled from Mercy as she walked up to the door. She turned to Jack. “You want to stay out here just in case?”

  Jack considered. Mercy knew more about Copeland than she did. If there was evidence to be found, she was better suited to find it. And he’d be no good to anyone if he infected himself. He hefted his cell phone, indicated he would wait for her call. “Go,” he said.

  9:13 P.M. PST Bernard Copeland’s Residence

  The front of Copeland’s house included an airlock similar to the one she’d seen at the Vanderbilt Complex. She entered it and then strode into the house.

  It was dark. She felt around the walls until she found the light switch and turned it on. The house was very much as she’d left it, except that Copeland’s body had been removed and only the bloodstains marked where he had lain.

  There was a certain symmetry to Copeland’s death, and to Frankie’s, she thought. Copeland wanted to be a terrorist for a decent cause, and had been murdered by a more pragmatic, if cold-blooded, killer who understood that terrorism was inherently indecent. Frankie, in turn, had been destroyed by the very weapon she tried to usurp for terrorist purposes. Maybe there really was justice in the universe. But no, there would be no justice unless they uncovered Copeland’s secrets and replicated the vaccine, which meant justice relied, as it did so often, on the determination and stubbornness of fallible mortals like her.

  Mercy thought justice ought to choose better champions.

  Thirteen. Forty-eight. Fifty-seven. The numbers had no relation to one another that she could figure out, nor could the analysts at CTU find a connection. So their relationship had to be in connection with something else. An address. Most of a phone number? Something…

  Mercy wandered the house, soaking in her impressions of Copeland. The house was meticulously kept, befitting a scientist and researcher. Copeland had planned his viral attack on the President with the utmost care. He had even created a contingency plan for dealing with investigators like Jack and Mercy. He was a planner, he was exacting. He was also careful. His operators were fragmented, few of them knowing the whole picture. So she guessed that the numbers were a combination to a safe or a code of some kind. Copeland would keep information (meticulous) but he would hide it (careful).

  And he was corny.

  There was a moment in Mercy’s investigations when her thinking fell into a groove, when her mind seemed to find the right element, and all of a sudden all extraneous items were redacted. Gone. Leaving only the answer before her, clear and distinct.

  The book. It was that book with the stupid title. Mercy searched the bookshelf in the hallway but found nothing. She found a den with a television and two bookshelves packed with titles. Still nothing. She ran upstairs to Copeland’s bedroom, and she found it. An old, nearly faded copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, sitting on his night-stand. The pages were permanently curled upward by a hundred rereadings. Mercy opened it and saw notes scribbled on the first page, and the second, and the third. Some of the scribblings were illegible, others seemed to be short phrases or incomplete thoughts that Copeland had set down and forgotten.

  Mercy flipped to page thirteen, and smiled.

  9:30 P.M. PST West Los Angeles

  Al-Libbi’s phone rang. He opened the connection without saying a word.

  “You should praise Allah, my friend. Only a moment ago you went from being on our death list to being our most desired ally.” It was the voice from the Iranian ministry.

  “If it is the will of Allah,” Ayman said, not really caring if Allah had anything to do with it, as long as he had a home. “Now, to deliver the package to you, I will need some help…”

  9:32 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jessi tapped on the glass door of Christopher Henderson’s office. Henderson looked up unhappily; it had been a long day and he was looking forward to a moment’s rest. He’d just sat down for a few minutes, rubbing his eyes. NHS had all but taken over CTU to evaluate the threat of the virus. He’d just gotten word from Dr. Diebold that the station had tested negative, and that all personnel were cleared.

  “Do you have a minute?” Jessi asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I didn’t get a chance to talk to Jack Bauer,” she said. “And I haven’t seen any of the updates because the NHS wouldn’t let me near the computers—”

  “It’s all clear now,” Henderson said.

  “I was just wondering if Jack…if anyone’s heard from Kelly Sharpton.”

  Henderson sat back. “Jack didn’t—? No one told you?”

  “Jack sent me back here with the prisoner earlier. That’s the last thing I heard from either of them.”

  Henderson stood up. “Jessi, I’m sorry. There was a fire-fight. Sharpton went with Jack. He was…Jessi, he was killed.”

  Jessi felt all the life go out of her legs and she nearly fell. “Are you — are you sure?”

  “Jack was with the body when he called in. He was— Jessi, I’m sorry. I heard you were close with him.”

  Jessi felt the tears start coming. She turned and walked out of Henderson’s office.

  9:35 P.M. PST Venice, California

  His name was Todd Romond, and he was getting the hell out of Los Angeles.

  “Gone too far, it’s gone too far,” he muttered to himself over and over again as he stuffed clothes haphazardly into a red wheeled suitcase. There was a redeye from LAX to JFK, and he planned to be on it. In New York he could take up with some friends and disappear for a while. His New York friends were old friends, from before his Earth First! days. No one could trace him there.

  Someone knocked, and Todd nearly jumped out of his skin. He ran to the door as quietly as he could and peeked through the spy hole. It was only Mrs. Neidemeyer. He opened the door and looked down on her four-foot, ten-inch frame topped with wisps of white hair. She was wearing a pale blue dressing gown.

  “Todd,” she said in her deceptively frail-sounding voice. Todd, a sometimes delinquent tenant, had heard how determined and persuasive that voice could be. “Your car is blocking the drive. The tenants will complain.”

  “It’s only for a few minutes, Mrs. N,” he promised. “I’m almost out of here. Please excuse me.” He closed the door.

  “Well, be sure it’s moved!” she called a little sharply.

  He’d be sure. He had more incentive than she did. All she cared about was making sure Junior Merkle didn’t honk his horn and shout when he got home at three o’clock in the morning after playing drums in whatever band he was part of. Todd, on the other hand, was trying to stay alive.

  Frankie had done it. She’d contacted terrorists, real terrorists, not people who spiked trees and chained themselves to bulldozers, not people like him. She’d always campaigned for their group to learn how real terrorists operated, but real terrorists blew up babies and old women. All Todd had ever wanted to do was see the rain forests survive his lifetime. He’d been willing to do a lot to make that happen, even shake the government to its own tangled roots.

  Todd was an MIT graduate and had come this close to a Fu
lbright scholarship. He could certainly see the writing on this wall. Smith (Todd had thought of him as Smith rather than Copeland from the minute he adopted the nom de guerre) had dropped out of sight, and his house had looked like a crime scene until the big plastic tent was dropped over it. Frankie had called him less than three hours ago. All she had told him was that she was in charge now, she had backing from powerful friends, and she would get them all out of this. But Todd had listened carefully, and he guessed what she wasn’t telling him. She’d thrown her lot in with murderers and terrorists, and she had given them the vaccine. Todd was sure of it — why else would they work with her?

  For Todd, it was only a small leap into the mind of the terrorists: now that they had the virus and the vaccine, they would begin to wonder who else knew how to make it, and conclude that that person should probably stop breathing very shortly.

  Todd was one of three people who knew how to create more vaccine. He had no intention of waiting around until the police made a connection between him and Dr. Bernard Copeland, and he certainly was not going to wait for the terrorists to blow him up. He finished packing and rolled his suitcase into the small living room. He stopped to make two phone calls, dialing and speaking quickly.

  There was another knock. “Todd?” Mrs. Neidemeyer called.

  Todd sighed. He swung open the door. “Mrs. N, I told you it’d be a minute. I was just—” he stopped cold. Mrs. Neidemeyer was not alone.

  9:45 P.M. PST West Los Angeles

  It should have taken ten minutes on surface streets to run south from Santa Monica to Venice, but an accident on Wilshire Boulevard slowed their progress. Jack tapped the side of the car impatiently until at last they were past the accident and rolling. Mercy shook her head. “This has got to be the only city where you can find a traffic jam at ten o’clock at night.”

  They turned down Lincoln Boulevard and crossed Colorado, then Pico, and soon they were in the beach community of Venice.

  The first name on the list was Todd Romond, his information scribbled on page thirteen. An MIT graduate and an expert on the behavior of viruses, he had discontinued a lucrative grant with a dominant pharmaceutical company to become a tour guide organizing eco-vacations in Costa Rica. He was also one of three people who had helped Copeland mutate his virus and develop a vaccine.