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

  Henderson saw the text message come through and jumped on the phone immediately. “Tony, it’s Henderson. Don’t pick up that package.”

  “Already done,” Almeida replied. “I thought this was for the President—”

  “We found the antivirus. Get rid of whatever that is before it explodes. And I need you to do something for Jack right away.”

  23. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5 A.M. AND 6 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  5:00 A.M. PST National Health Services, Los Angeles

  President Barnes watched as Dr. Diebold hurried into the bio containment unit, followed by another doctor. Each held a syringe in his hand. “If you would please, sir, and quickly,” Diebold said, indicating that Barnes should roll up his sleeve.

  As soon as he did, Diebold jabbed the syringe into his arm and squeezed the liquid into his body gently and evenly. He withdrew the syringe, daubed the blood from the needle prick, and sighed with relief.

  Barnes waited, but Diebold said nothing. “What, that’s it?” the President said. “No fanfare? No trumpets? No choirs of angels?”

  Diebold shook his head. “In this business the cure is as silent as the disease, sir. But we checked it out. You’ve just been injected with an antivirus specifically engineered to go after this virus, bond with it, and render it inert.”

  Barnes rolled down his sleeve and turned to Xu Boxiong, who had also just been injected. He held out his hand and Xu shook it. “Whatever we may say about each other and our countries in the time ahead,” Barnes said, “I want you to know personally that I thought you handled this like a man.”

  The Chinese leader nodded. “It is these times that show us our character, isn’t it true?”

  5:12 A.M. PST En Route to Santa Monica Airport

  Jack’s phone rang for what must have been the fifteenth time

  in the last few minutes. It was an extension at CTU. “Bauer.”

  “Bauer, it’s Ted Ozersky.”

  “Did you deliver the package?”

  “Yes, and they say they can work with it, which is good news. But that’s not why I’m calling. Mercy is still at the Santa Monica Airport.”

  “I’m headed there now,” Jack said, “but for a totally different reason.”

  “Jack, she’s dying.”

  “The virus? But you just said they could create the antivirus…”

  “Not in time. She made me leave her. She’s contagious now. I’ve asked NHS to send in a bio containment unit, but they’re cordoning off the airport for some reason.”

  “I’m the reason,” Jack said. “I mean, al-Libbi is the reason, but I’m taking him. Damn it!” Jack smashed his fist down on the steering wheel, breaking a section off. “I’ll get to her, Ted.” He hung up. And though he should have spent the last few minutes of his drive focused on the last shreds of a plan, he did not. He thought about Mercy Bennet, and what he had done to her, and what she had done for him, and he knew that the scales were not balanced there.

  CTU had given him the location of the meet. It was a private hangar that had, apparently, belonged to Bernard Copeland. Jack pulled up next to the hangar, got out, and opened the trunk. Al-Libbi looked more put off by being placed in the trunk, but he’d get over it. Jack hauled him to his feet. He looked the terrorist in the eye and found nothing staring back at him. Jack didn’t often wonder what made men like Ayman al-Libbi tick. They were evil and needed to be squashed.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he promised.

  Al-Libbi laughed. “But not today, I guess.”

  “We’ll see.” Jack looked across the tarmac to a distant building. Mercy was over here somewhere. She was dying. And he was here, doing his job. That should make him feel good, that he was doing his job, but somehow al-Libbi ruined even that small reward.

  Finally another car drove up, a black Mazda. Abbas got out. He waved to them, then hurried over to the hangar and pressed a button to open its huge door. As the door rolled aside, Jack saw a small Learjet. Abbas motioned them over.

  Jack grabbed the terrorist by the arm and escorted him across the tarmac and stopped just outside the hangar.

  “Cut him loose,” Abbas ordered. Jack complied, using a small folding knife to slice through the shoelaces that had bound the terrorist.

  “This is what will happen,” Abbas said. “I will tell you the name of one of the compromised flights now, and you will let Ayman go. I will tell you the second flight as we taxi down the runway. I will radio the third to you as we leave American air space. These terms are not negotiable.”

  “You know, it’s a shame you came all this way and didn’t get what you wanted,” Jack said to al-Libbi.

  “Agree to the terms!” Abbas called.

  Jack continued to address al-Libbi. “You didn’t kill the President. You didn’t do much for your friends in ETIM. Hell, all you did for your Iranian friends is give us a chance to wipe out a cell they had here.” He smiled. “You don’t even have the virus.”

  Al-Libbi glared at him, a little uncertain as to Jack’s purpose.

  “Let him go,” Abbas demanded.

  “Name the flight,” Jack said, suddenly focusing.

  Abbas named a Chicago-bound flight. Jack snapped open his cell phone and relayed the information. He shoved al-Libbi forward and followed a few steps. He continued, “I mean, you can’t tell me these Iranian friends you’ve made, that they want you back just because you got us in an uproar. There had to be something tangible to give them. I would have thought the virus was a good start.”

  “Don’t speak to him,” the terrorist told Abbas.

  “Oh,” Jack said ironically, “but then you do still have a sample of the virus, don’t you?”

  “Let’s get to the plane, Muhammad!” al-Libbi said, spinning Abbas around.

  “You have it because you infected your friend there!”

  Muhammad Abbas stumbled. “Wh-what?” he gasped.

  “It’s true,” Jack said, inching forward. There was still a wide gap between him and them, but he did not want them getting too close to the airplane. “One of the Iranians told me before he died. He said Ayman was bragging about it, and that you were too blind to realize it.”

  Abbas stared at his companion. “Is this true?”

  Al-Libbi rolled his eyes. “Look at him. He is American. They lie. To us, to themselves, to everyone! You are an idiot if you believe his lies.”

  “And you are an idiot if you think the Iranians would take him back if he didn’t have something to offer.”

  Muhammad Abbas stared at Ayman, his eyes examining his entire body. Ayman al-Libbi, who for years had felt only rage and, in later years, felt nothing at all, now felt suddenly naked. Abbas, who had known his every quirk, his every habit, now sized him up.

  “You did it, Ayman,” Abbas said with a sense of heavy, sad recognition. “You gave them my death so that they could…could harvest this virus inside me.” The look of pain that molded itself to Abbas’s face was staggering in its depth. “You meant what you said. It really is only about the money.”

  Ayman al-Libbi held out his arms wide. “Muhammad,” he said. Then he lunged at his colleague and pulled Abbas’s gun from his belt. He fired three rounds into the man, then turned on Jack. But Jack had already rolled away. Al-Libbi ran for the Learjet.

  Jack ran forward and knelt beside Abbas. The terrorist’s eyes were wide open, his breath coming in gasps like a fish out of water. “Tell me the flights,” Jack said. “Tell me the flights and he doesn’t win.” Jack patted Abbas’s cheek. “Tell me the flights and you die together, the way it should be.”

  Abbas blinked and whispered six words. Three airlines and three cities. It was enough. CTU could figure out the rest.

  The Learjet’s engines whined as it taxied out of the hangar. Jack watched the jet make the turn and head toward one of the small runways. At the same time, Jack saw Tony Almeida appear out of the hangar, carrying a long tube in his arms. Jack knew what it was, and as Ton
y approached, he saw it more clearly: the RPG–29 that al-Libbi himself had bought in the United States. As he reached Jack, Tony took a new rocket and primed it.

  “Thanks for getting it,” Jack said.

  “Just shoot him,” Tony replied.

  The Learjet was still taxiing, but hurrying away. Jack hefted the RPG up to his shoulder and took aim. “Clear behind,” he said calmly. He pulled the trigger. The armor-piercing RPG hurtled through the space between them and ripped through the jet’s hide. The jet exploded, fire bursting out of every window and seam in the plane.

  24. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 6 A.M. AND 7 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  6:00 A.M. PST Santa Monica Airport

  Jack didn’t wait to see what happened next to the plane. He jumped in his borrowed car and raced to the shed number Ted had told him. He burst inside and found Mercy lying on the floor. Two lesions had appeared on her face. She looked weak, and a trickle of blood came down from her nose.

  “There’s a bio containment team on its way,” Jack said. “They’ll get you out of here.”

  “I think…,” she said, “I think it’s too late.”

  “We’ve got to try.”

  She shrugged. “Please do. I’d like to live. I just don’t think it’s what’s going to happen.” She pushed herself to a seated position, and Jack saw more lesions on her chest. “You know, that word Copeland was trying to tell me. It wasn’t Uma ghetto. I read his files. It’s uña de gato. Cat’s Claw. I was close, anyway.”

  “You were amazing. For the entire day,” Jack said. He leaned toward her, but he did not approach too closely.

  “Nah, I’ve been braver since then,” she said. “Look over there.” She was pointing at a desk across the small room, closer to him than to her, where his jacket lay. “That’s my jacket.”

  She nodded. “I took it at the harbor. It’s still wet. But look in the pocket.”

  Slowly, already knowing, Jack slid his hand into the pocket and pulled out the vial of antivirus. “I didn’t want you to think I’d lost it. I know how important it is.”

  He was holding the vial that could save her. But it could also save someone else. And somehow Jack was not surprised that Mercy had lain there dying, all the time holding on to the very substance that could have saved her.

  “Mercy, I’m sorry. I was saving it for—”

  “For your daughter. I know.”

  “Mercy.”

  “It’s okay, Jack,” Mercy Bennet said. “Really. Really, it’s okay. You said earlier that you’re sometimes wrong, but they are never right. You are not wrong now. You are doing the right thing.”

  She slumped back down and coughed. When her hand came away from her mouth, it was covered in blood. “Jack, go now. I don’t want you to see me looking like that.”

  “I can’t leave you.”

  “If you do me one favor, do this one. Let me do this the way I want to. Take that to your daughter. It’s the right thing to do.”

  Despite her request, Jack waited a few more minutes. The bio containment team arrived, and although there was little they could do for her, at least she wasn’t going to die alone.

  Jack turned and ran out of the shed. He jumped into the borrowed Prius and raced home. Traffic was getting heavier, but he managed to get there in record time. If Copeland’s timetables were correct, he might have a little time to spare. But he would never know.

  Jack parked the car in front of his house, dug the spare key out of its current hiding spot, and opened the door. The house was quiet. Jack hurried to the bathroom and took a first aid kit out of the closet. There was a small syringe there. He filled it with the antivirus and walked over to Kim’s room. He sat down at her bedside gently and felt her forehead. She was feverish, but he could see no lesions yet.

  He had exposed her to danger. He hoped never to do that again.

  While she slept, he injected her with the antivirus. She would live now. He kissed her on the forehead.

  He walked out of Kim’s room and stumbled down the hall. At last he allowed the exhaustion to take hold of him. As he did, Teri came out of their bedroom, yawning. She looked at him, at his exhausted face. For a moment she looked on the verge of being angry at him for being out all night. At the last second she changed her mind and reached out, bringing him toward her with a hug. She would never know exactly what he did, or what might have been had he not done his job, but she could do this for him.

  He softened into her hug. He thought of his bed, and sleep.

  His phone rang. Teri did not release him. He eased himself gently out of her arms and did not look at her as he lifted the phone.

  “Bauer.”

  About the Author

  JOHN WHITMAN

  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 hand-to-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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