by John Whitman
24. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 P.M. AND 8 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
7:00 P.M. PST Staples Center Basement
“What the hell—?” Jack said, wincing through the pain in his shoulder.
“That’s where you’re going,” Peter predicted. He put the gun to Jack’s head. Jack jerked his head out of the way as the round went off, sounding like a cannon right next to his ear. He bucked his hips and Peter lost his balance, flying off. Ignoring the pain in his arm, Jack rolled on top of Peter, catching the barrel of Peter’s gun in his right hand. Jack smashed his forehead down into Peter’s face.
7:01 P.M. PST In the Cage
Mark, underneath Jake Webb, tried to cover his face with his huge forearms, but Webb’s punches were like pile drivers smashing through. He heard the crowd chanting, “Spider. Spider!”
Up in the stands, Zapata smiled satisfactorily. It was all going exactly as he’d predicted.
In the cage, Mark heard them chanting Webb’s nickname again, and all his thoughts came in slow motion. They were chanting for Webb. as though he was the one fighting for his family. They should be chanting for him. They should be chanting for that little girl back home who lived in pain, and that woman who hurt for her baby girl. They should be chanting for him because he loved them so much and all he wanted to do was save her.
And in that moment he remembered again the thing he had learned the day she was born. His strength and his power and his huge heart, they were all given to him for one reason only: to protect that little girl, to keep her safe so she could grow up in the world. That was a father’s job, that’s what a father did, sacrifice himself for his little girl. And that’s what he would do.
Mark Kendall bucked his hips up into the air so powerfully that all 239 pounds of Jake Webb went flying off. Kendall turned over and, like an avalanche, fell on Webb with elbows and knees. Webb absorbed four or five strong shots, then kicked Kendall away and stood up. The two giants squared off.
7:02 P.M. PST Staples Center Basement
Jack landed two more headbutts, turning Peter’s face into bloody pulp. Half blind, Peter reached up with his free hand and clawed at Jack’s face. With one hand on the gun and the other arm out of commission, Jack had no way to stop Peter from tearing at his face and eyes. He tucked his chin and turned away, collapsing on the gun so Peter’s arm was stuck beneath him. Then, with the gun arm trapped between the ground and his body, Jack spun and landed an elbow in Peter’s face. Jack felt Peter’s front teeth collapse into the back of his mouth.
7:03 P.M. PST In the Cage
The round had ended. Kendall staggered over to his corner. His face felt stiff and his cheeks had swollen up, obscuring his vision.
“How bad’s my face?” he asked as he sat down for a few seconds. “Don’t worry,” Kominsky said, “you weren’t handsome to begin with. Listen.”
Kendall realized he was still hearing chanting. but now the crowd was calling out, “Mountain! Mountain!”
“That’s for you,” Kominsky said. “Go earn it.”
7:04 P.M. PST Staples Center Basement
It took Jack a minute to crawl to his feet. He was weak. Blackness crept in at the edges of his vision, then faded, then crept in again. He was holding Peter’s gun in his hand. Peter was lying at Jack’s feet, his face a bloody mess.
Suddenly Peter twitched, rolling for Jack’s gun, which was on the floor. Even battered, he was fast. He almost got the weapon off the ground when Jack fired three rounds into his back.
7:05 P.M. PST In the Cage
In the third and final round, Jake Webb came at Kendall hard. But Kendall didn’t feel the blows anymore. He lunged forward, catching Webb in a bear hug and lifting him off the ground. Then he slammed Jake onto the mat. The crowd cheered.
7:06 P.M. PST Staples Center
Up in the stands, Zapata watched in bewilderment. Mark Kendall was going to win the fight. He was on the verge of destroying his opponent. Zapata could not recall ever being so completely and utterly wrong before. He had miscalculated. He had not factored in some important variable. Some butterfly had flapped its wings somewhere and, chaos-like, had changed the course of his carefully laid plans.
A moment later it was over. Jake Webb, caught underneath Kendall and subjected to his vise grip, surrendered and tapped his hand to the mat. The referee jumped in, calling the fight, and Mark Kendall leaped to his feet, roaring in triumph.
Zapata fumed. He had never felt humiliation before, he had never felt embarrassment. He could not walk away from this mission. He was determined to finish. He would not be defeated by a has-been professional fighter and a stubborn government agent.
The anarchist left his seat and half walked, half ran the circuitous route to the far side of the arena. He ran to the planter near the concession stand and started to dig. Out came the package he had buried there. Inside was a short-barreled 9mm semi-automatic pistol. He had meant to use it to aid his escape if necessary. But now all he wanted was to complete his plan. He passed an exit onto the street and could have escaped, but he continued down the corridor toward his target. He was vaguely aware that he’d succumbed to pride, but he didn’t care. Unpredictability was the essence of chaos theory, and he was surely acting unpredictably.
Most of the spectators were still in the arena, cheering the next round of fighters. Zapata arrived at Webb’s section just as the Chairman was leaving, on his way to go make sure his grandson was all right.
Ten yards away, Zapata raised the pistol and fired.
Johan, the bodyguard and driver, had seen the motion and lunged in front of his boss. Three rounds embedded themselves in his chest and he fell. Zapata aimed at the Chairman again.
A bullet tore through the side of Zapata’s neck, taking a thin strip of flesh. Zapata screamed and gagged. He saw Jack Bauer coming out of the stairwell moving unsteadily, aiming his firearm with one hand as the other hung limply at his side. The pain of the gunshot wound brought Zapata back to reality. Idiot, he thought. He dropped his weapon and ran.
Jack ran after him, pausing only to see that Chairman Webb was unhurt. People were screaming now. Inside the noisy arena no one had heard the shots, but the few spectators who were in the hallway to buy food had scattered. Jack ignored them. He wanted Zapata.
7:20 P.M. PST In the Cage
Mark Kendall listened as the announcer officially declared him the winner. He heard people around him say words like “comeback” and “championship” and “lucrative contract.” He stood there and let tears of joy stream down his face.
7: 24 P.M. PST Staples Center
Jack raced out the exit into nighttime Los Angeles illuminated by streetlights. Zapata was across the street already. Jack saw him hop onto a motorcycle and race away. Jack tucked the handgun under his useless left arm and stuck his hand in his pocket. He’d searched Peter’s body before leaving it and found the motorcycle key. Hoping his luck would hold out, he followed Zapata’s footsteps to the same parking area and saw another motorcycle. Hopping on, he started the engine. This was how Peter had gotten through traffic. And this was how Zapata had planned to escape.
By the time Jack drove onto the city streets headed for the freeway, Zapata was out of sight. He needed help. Keeping his right hand on the handlebars, Jack forced his left arm to work. Blood poured down his wrist and onto his mobile phone, but he dialed anyway.
“Jack!” It was Tony Almeida. “We just got back and heard what’s happening at the Staples Center. Are you—?”
“Get a chopper in the air!” he shouted over the rushing wind. “Zapata is trying to escape on a motorcycle.”
Jack wondered at Zapata’s escape plan. It didn’t make sense. Criminals had tried motorcycle escapes many times before in Los Angeles. No matter how fast they outran police cars, no matter how cleverly they used traffic congestion to block the black-andwhites, they couldn’t outrun the eye in the sky. It was stupid, and Zapata wasn’t stupid.
Jack got o
n the 110 Freeway headed north. It was as bad as before, although now in the darkness the stalled freeway looked like a river of orange and red lights.
“Chopper’s up,” Tony said. “We’ve got them. and you. You’re behind him. We’re trying to get units rolling, but this traffic—”
“It’s his plan. He did it. We need to keep the chopper on him. Tony, there’s more. Peter Jiminez tried to kill me. I don’t know why. I had to kill him.” Jack hung up and kept riding.
7:30 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
Tony and most of CTU were on the monitors, watching a feed relayed from an LAPD helicopter. The chopper had been up in a minute and already had its spotlight shining on Zapata’s motorcycle, which zigzagged and swerved around the cars essentially parked on the freeway.
Zapata reached a spot on the 110, just before that freeway hit the 101, where a strip of greenery, trees, and a fence separated the freeway from the surface streets. Zapata slowed down and then stopped.
“Is he giving up?” Nina asked.
On the monitor, they saw Zapata dismount, walk over to the shrubbery and pull out something long and metallic. He turned and looked upward at the LAPD chopper.
“RPG!” Tony yelled.
7:34 P.M. PST 110 Freeway
Zapata paused and took a breath, then fired the rocket-propelled grenade straight up, striking the side of the helicopter. The chopper instantly transformed into a ball of flame, for a split second lighting the freeway like a miniature sun. The shocked faces of the drivers imprinted themselves on Zapata’s retina. He liked it.
The roar of the other motorcycle came on him too suddenly. He ran for his own bike, but just as he kicked it into gear, Jack Bauer roared up behind him, sacrificing the bike and himself as he rammed Zapata. The anarchist catapulted off the bike and into the dirt and grass. Bauer hit the ground hard, blacking out from the pain in his left arm. But he managed to hold on to his gun. By the time he stood, several minutes had passed.
Zapata had crawled through the shrubs and into a hole that led under the fence. Jack followed.
7:39 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
CTU Headquarters was in chaos. Phones were ringing, data were pouring in, and the teams were struggling to keep up with it.
Nina, Tony, Chappelle, and Henderson were gathered in the conference room.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Nina said, examining one note. “Authorities at Staples Center say they have the body of Peter Jiminez. What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know what Peter’s been up to,” Henderson said.
Tony had been holding a phone to his ear. “Jack again.” He listened, his eyes widening in surprise. “Are you—? Okay, we’ll do it.” He spoke to the others. “Jack killed Peter. Jiminez was trying to kill him. Jack doesn’t know why.”
“He couldn’t have been working for Zapata,” Nina said. “What was he doing?”
Chappelle glowered. “Chris, have the analysts run checks on Peter’s phone logs. Let’s see who he’s been talking to.”
Henderson nodded.
7:45 P.M. PST 110 Freeway
On the far side of the fence, Jack worked his way gingerly down into a barranca filled with brambles. Now and then he stopped to listen. Over the random sounds of honking horns from the freeway back beyond the fence, he could hear Zapata out there somewhere, crawling away. Then the sounds stopped.
Jack hunted him slowly, methodically. But he guessed what Zapata was doing. After a moment, he turned back the way he’d come. The barranca was
dark, but in the gloom Jack recognized the spot where he’d slid down into the ditch. Zapata was there, just crawling out of the brush. “Nice try,” Jack said. The anarchist shrugged. “Doubling back is too predictable, but it was all I had left.”
Jack looked down at him. Zapata was bruised and beaten, but even so, he looked too normal to have caused so much trouble. “You missed the Chairman,” Jack said.
Zapata nodded. “A shame, too. It would have been interesting to see the infrastructure of this company collapse. Oh well, sometimes events are unpredictable after all.” The anarchist’s bruised face smiled at Jack. “You, for instance. You’re quite a tool for your government. A loose cannon, right? A maverick. Unpredictable.” He nodded appreciatively.
“Not really,” Jack said. “The truth is I’m pretty predictable.” He shot Zapata in the head.
About the Author
JOHN WHITMAN is the author of numerous books and projects, including the “Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear” series, Zorro and the Witch’s Curse, and, most recently, the trading cards for “24 Day 3.” He is a 4th-degree black belt and defensive tactics instructor in Krav Maga, the official handto-hand combat system of the Israeli military, has trained in protective services and defensive tactics in both the United States and Israel, and has served as an instructor of U.S. law enforcement agencies and military anti-terrorist units.
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