24 Declassified: Cat's Claw 2d-4 Read online

  The speedboat came closer. Jack stuck his gun over the edge of the cockpit and fired, but they were blind and wild shots that wouldn’t slow these assassins down. Mercy was on the dock and Ozersky was undoubtedly running to some sort of position, but it would be tough for them to acquire targets from where they were. The gunfight must have awakened the entire harbor, but it would take minutes for anyone to respond effectively, and Jack was sure he had only seconds.

  Jack cast about desperately for an idea. Spying the stern of the boat, he saw a silver pan attached to the railing. He knew from his trip to Catalina Island that the silver pan was a barbecue.

  Gunfire slapped against the fiberglass. They’d be able to board soon. “Does this boat use a propane tank? Do you have a stove down below?”

  “What? Yes!” Sarah said, holding her arms over her head and pressing her head to the deck.

  “Stay here,” he ordered. Jack slid along the cockpit floor, scraping knees as he did, and dropped down into the cabin. He fumbled in the dark until he found a flashlight in a cubbyhole above the stove. By its light he spun open the gas valves on each of the four burners. Gas hissed out into the cabin.

  Jack crawled back onto the deck. The speedboat was ten meters away. Jack emptied his magazine at them, and they ducked low.

  Now, he thought. Jack grabbed Sarah Kalmijn and dragged her over the side of the boat away from the assassins. They both fell into the freezing water of the harbor. Jack held his breath and clamped a hand over Sarah’s mouth and nose. He refused to let her drown. Kicking away from the boat, he swam under water as long and as far as he could.

  3:40 A.M. PST H Basin, Aboard At Last

  Eshmail Nouri was the first aboard the sailboat, a fresh magazine in his Glock pistol. Two of his three men boarded with him while the third stayed in the speedboat.

  It had been a bad night for Eshmail. As far as he was concerned, their cell had been wasted. Years of patience and tolerance had been abandoned in the blink of an eye. Eshmail had lost good friends and excellent operatives at every step. Even when his people succeeded they ended up dead! He hated the American government more than ever.

  It had been a bad night, but he would make the Americans pay. Nouri stuck the muzzle of his pistol down into the cabin and opened fire. Too late did he hear the hiss and smell the gas. A ball of fire engulfed him, his colleagues, the sailboat, and the motorboat, and his bad night was over.

  3:42 A.M. PST H Basin

  Jack came to the surface and gasped for breath as the fireball dissipated and the boom rolled out over the waters of the harbor.

  “Jack!” Mercy called. “Jack!”

  “I’m okay!” he called out. “I’ve got her.”

  Jack swam to the sound of Mercy’s voice. By the time he and Sarah reached the dock, Ozersky was there, too. Sirens wailed in the distance and people, mostly live-aboards, were gathering.

  “This is Sarah Kalmijn,” Jack said as Mercy pulled him out of the water. “She’s going to take us to Copeland’s notes so we can re-create the antiviral medicine.”

  Mercy held up a towel she’d pulled off someone’s boat. Jack took off his coat and wrapped himself in the towel. He was soaked, freezing, exhausted. But he was not going to give up now.

  “Come on, we have to hurry.”

  3:45 A.M. PST National Health Services, Los Angeles

  The phone in Chappelle’s hand rang and he answered. He’d driven over to Health Services to be with the President when the call came in. The phone had been attached to a speakerphone so Barnes could hear from inside the bio containment unit.

  “I’m here,” Chappelle said.

  “As are others, I’m sure,” al-Libbi said smugly, “so I’ll be quick. What have you decided?”

  Chappelle looked at Barnes for final confirmation. The President nodded. “We agree,” Chappelle said. “The five will be released immediately.”

  “Perfect,” al-Libbi replied. “Go to the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Colby. Assuming the five are actually released in the next few minutes, and assuming I get confirmation, you will find a package there.” The terrorist hung up.

  Chappelle picked up a different phone. “Henderson, send Almeida and Myers. Olympic and Colby. Go, now!”

  Barnes, on his side of the plastic shielding, squeezed his hands together so hard the knuckles turned white. He looked at Mitch Rasher, and then at Chappelle. “Once this is over, we’re going to use every means at our disposal to kill that man.”

  3:52 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  CTU was as quiet as it would ever get, with most of its field agents out on assignment and half the analysts sleeping in their chairs from sheer exhaustion.

  One person was still up. Jamey Farrell sat in her seat, analyzing data signals from Ayman al-Libbi’s phone. His trick was simple, as the best tricks usually are. His cell phone bounced around various satellites, being rerouted so that its point of origin, if it could be tracked at all, took time to find. And of course he never stayed on the phone that long.

  But each time he’d called, Jamey had narrowed her field of search. She knew he was in Los Angeles somewhere, so the signal had to bounce off a local cell station first. On his first call, she’d figured out that he was not in West Los Angeles anymore. On his second call, she knew he was calling from somewhere south of downtown.

  He had just called a third time, and she had him. He was at the Los Angeles International Airport. Smiling to herself, Jamey called Jack Bauer.

  22. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4 A.M. AND 5 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  4:00 A.M. PST H Basin

  Jack listened to Jamey Farrell speak, and then he knew what he had to do.

  “Mercy,” he said. “You and Ted take Sarah to Santa Monica Airport. Get the documents to National Health Services. I’m going to get Ayman al-Libbi. He’s at LAX. Sarah, do you have a car?”

  She nodded. “But the keys were on the boat.”

  “I’ll hotwire it. Just tell me where it is.”

  She pointed out a Toyota Prius. Jack got in and drove away.

  Mercy was feeling light-headed. “Ted, you should drive if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure,” he said. They got in the car and drove off before the police arrived. There’s going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork, Mercy thought.

  “You okay?” Ozersky asked.

  “No,” she admitted. “I don’t know how much time I have left. It was, what was it? One o’clock in the afternoon.”

  Sarah, in the backseat, sat back and pulled her arms in and away from Mercy. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

  Mercy nodded. “When your guy kidnapped me. I escaped, but I got exposed to the virus. So did your lovely Frankie Michaelmas. I spilled all kinds of the stuff, I guess. She got the faster one. I’ve still got… oh, what, nine hours left to live.”

  “I want to go home,” Sarah said, her voice trembling. “I don’t want to be any part of it. I don’t want to be around you when you become contagious.”

  Mercy wrapped her arms around her body, feeling her joints ache. “Thank you for your sympathy.” She looked at the CTU agent. “Ted, you okay with this?”

  Ozersky shrugged. “I like your style, Mercy. Always did, even when I was undercover. How can I say no?”

  Ozersky hadn’t looked at her when he spoke. Maybe it was just because he was driving, but she didn’t think so. She had the distinct impression that he hadn’t wanted to reveal too much. And it suddenly occurred to her that maybe she’d fallen in love with the wrong CTU agent.

  Ted Ozersky’s thoughts were on Mercy. Probably too much on Mercy, he decided. And he was right. If he’d been paying more attention, he might have noticed the black Mazda that followed them out of the marina and onto the freeway.

  In the early hours, the drive from Marina del Rey to Santa Monica Airport was ten minutes. Santa Monica Airport serviced small planes, mostly private planes and a few charters.

  The airport made ex
tra income by renting out some of its spare hangars and mechanics sheds to other businesses. One Hollywood screenwriter actually used a spare shed as his office, swearing that he got more work done because no one thought to come bother him down there.

  Now just after four o’clock in the morning, the LAPD detective, the CTU agent, and the eco-terrorist drove down the main lane, past a pub called the Spitfire Grill, and pulled up in front of one of those sheds. Without ceremony they exited and hurried over to the shed.

  “I don’t have a key,” Sarah warned. “Copeland actually owns a plane here somewhere, but I never got very involved in this stuff.”

  “I have a key,” said Mercy. She drew her gun and fired rounds into the door until the bolt shattered. She kicked open the door.

  The room inside was tiny, but it reminded her of Cope-land: neat stacks of paper, file cabinets with labels on them, maps rolled into orderly scrolls.

  “Hurry, please,” Mercy said.

  Sarah went to the file cabinet, pulled out a folder, and held it up. “That’s it?” Mercy said. “That’s it,” she repeated, this time answering her question. They’d been running all night, killed people, watched people die, and now all of a sudden here it was, plain as day.

  But then her knees lost all their strength and she fell to the ground. Ozersky rushed forward but Sarah stepped back, gasping, “Don’t touch her! Don’t! Look!”

  She was pointing to the football-shaped bruise that had appeared on Mercy’s neck. Ozersky did not back away, but he stopped moving forward, his hand hovering near her.

  Mercy felt her skin until her fingers found the bump. “Oh,” she said. “I thought…I thought twenty-four hours…”

  Sarah shook her head. “It depends on the person. Maybe you had the weaponized virus, and it just took longer to replicate.” She backed away further. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I can’t stay here. You’re becoming contagious…”

  Mercy felt like all her joints had suddenly become flaked with rust. They didn’t want to move. And her head was on fire. She smiled weakly at Ted Ozersky. “Willow. What a stupid name.”

  “It worked,” he said without much conviction.

  “Go,” she pushed her hand through the air. “Get that file back to your people.”

  The CTU agent said, “I’m not just going to leave you here.”

  “You’re not going to get sick,” she said. “Get that stuff where it can do some good. But do me one favor.”

  “What?”

  “Send Jack Bauer. I need to see him.”

  If she’d been any stronger, she’d have noticed the look of pain on Ozersky’s face. But he nodded and hurried out of the shed.

  4:20 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  “I know he’s in there,” Jamey Farrell said to Jack over the

  phone. “But I can’t put you belly to belly.”

  “I can.”

  Jessi Bandison was standing beside her. The girl’s face was drawn and sad, but otherwise she looked ready to work. “I thought you were leaving,” Jamey said.

  “There’s work to do, right?” Jessi said. She sat down at the terminal next to Jamey and called up a window she’d already prepared. “I tapped into the LAX security cameras. Let’s see if we can’t find him sitting somewhere.”

  4:21 P.M. PST LAX

  “I haven’t heard back from your people,” Ayman al-Libbi said. He was sitting in his car on the third floor of the LAX parking structure, talking on his cell phone. He had the window rolled down to keep the car from getting too stuffy. “I know two of them are dead, but I don’t know about the other.”

  “We just had contact from one of our people,” the Iranian voice said. “They’ve been released.”

  “Good. I hope now that you see my worth.”

  “You did not really deliver the antivirus to the Americans, did you?”

  The terrorist rolled his eyes. “Of course not! The package they have is a surprise. They’ll probably defuse it, but one can always hope.”

  “Hi there.” Ayman al-Libbi looked up to see the blond man standing beside his car. He didn’t have time to react as the fist smashed into his face and everything turned black.

  Jack hit al-Libbi four or five more times, though he knew the bastard was unconscious and unable to feel it. Still, it made him feel better, and that’s all he could ask. Opening the door, Jack dragged the terrorist’s limp body from the car and searched him, removing a Springfield.45. He also found exactly what he was hoping for: two glass vials in the terrorist’s breast pocket. He hoped they were what he thought they were. He used al-Libbi’s shoelaces to tie his hands, then dragged the unconscious man over to his own car. It would have been easier to drive the car around the corner to that spot, but the thought of al-Libbi’s face and knees getting scraped along the concrete did not displease him. As soon as he had the terrorist stuffed in the trunk, he called CTU.

  4:27 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  “Jack got him!” Jamey Farrell yelled.

  CTU staffers erupted in cheers. Even Henderson, exhausted as he was, joined in.

  “And he thinks he’s got the antivirus for the President, for both of them.”

  More cheers.

  Henderson said, “Call Chappelle over at National Health Services. Tell them what’s going on. I want a whole team of squad cars to meet Jack wherever he is and escort that virus at high speed.”

  4:29 A.M. PST National Health Services, Los Angeles

  Ryan Chappelle was so happy when he heard the news, he forgot for a moment how much he hated Jack Bauer. When the information was relayed to the President, the entire NHS laboratory burst into cheers of gratitude. Even Premier Xu smiled and clapped his hands.

  Chappelle was so happy, in fact, that when Jack Bauer’s old telephone rang, he didn’t think what it might mean as he answered.

  4:31 A.M. PST 405 Freeway Northbound

  When the line of police cars pulled Jack over he was expecting them. He pulled over on the side of the freeway, which was all but deserted at that ungodly hour. One of the uniformed cops said, “Sir, we’ve been told you have an item that we need to pick up and take to National Health Services.”

  Jack nodded. He carefully removed the two vials from his pocket and handed them to the officer. “Did they tell you what those are?” He knew that the administration and Chappelle had worked hard to keep the crisis a secret.

  “No, sir,” the officer said.

  “Then let me just tell you that those two little glass bottles are probably the most important things in the world right now. Take good care of them and get them to NHS as fast as you can.”

  The cop took them gingerly. “Oh,” Jack said, “and I have a prisoner in the trunk. I didn’t have anywhere else to put him. Can you spare a cruiser to get me to CTU with my prisoner?”

  Jack’s phone rang. “Bauer.”

  “It’s Chappelle,” the Division Director said morosely. Leave it to him, Jack thought, to spoil a happy moment. “Listen to this.”

  Before Jack could reply, Chappelle activated a recording.

  “This is Muhammad Abbas. I know that you have captured Ayman al-Libbi. You must know something. I have been inside the airport with vials of the virus. I have actively spread the virus among three groups traveling on three airplanes. If you release Ayman al-Libbi, then I will tell you which three airplanes and you can stop them. If you do not, you will find this disease spreading across your country. This is my leverage. I do not care if you trace my call.” He even left his cell phone number.

  No. No, no, no. Not after everything he’d done to catch this son of a bitch. “He could be bluffing,” Jack said of the recording.

  “He could be. How would we know? They did have the virus. He could have done it.”

  “Goddamn it!” Bauer roared. The cops looked at him anxiously, but he waved them off. “You want me to let him go? There’s no guarantee that he’ll tell us afterward.”

  “You have a better idea?” Chap
pelle asked.

  “No,” Jack thought. “Wait. Yes! I have one more idea. But I can’t pull it off until al-Libbi and Abbas are together. I’ll call you back.”

  Jack opened the trunk. Ayman al-Libbi was conscious. His face was bruised and his lip was swollen, but otherwise he seemed whole. He even seemed a little smug. “Has Muhammad Abbas called you yet?” he asked as Bauer helped his bound prisoner out of the car.

  “He just did,” Jack said grimly. “I think you’re bluffing.”

  “It’s always possible,” the terrorist said with a twinkle in his eye. “You strike me as one to gamble. Hold me and find out.”

  “Unfortunately,” Jack said with just a hint of threat in his voice, “it’s not my decision. If we release you, where do you want us to take you?”

  “Santa Monica Airport,” Ayman al-Libbi said in his best American accent. “And make it snappy.”

  4:45 A.M. PST National Health Services, Los Angeles

  Ted Ozersky hurried through the glass doors and flashed his badge three times to Secret Service agents before finding Dr. Diebold. “This is it,” he panted. “The documents from the man who caused all this.”

  Dr. Diebold grabbed the files and began thumbing through them. “Page Celia,” he called out, and someone paged Celia Alexis. “Interesting, interesting,” he said, reading the notes. “We never would have found this out in time.”

  Celia appeared in the hallway and Diebold handed her the file. “Look at this. There’s a resin in a tree down there that contains a linking molecule. It creates adhesion between the virus and whatever antivirus we want to use. We’d never have discovered it.”

  Celia was both excited and concerned. “We can replicate this, but not in time. It will take hours to get samples of this resin up from Brazil. The source is Croton lecheri. The resin is Sangre de Drago.”

  “Dragon’s Blood,” Diebold translated. “Well, the sooner we start, the sooner it’ll be done.”

  4:55 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles