24: Deadline (24 Series) (11 page)

Chase studied the two mechanics. “Let me guess,” he said. “Roker told you that whichever one of you kicks my ass gets my job, am I right?” That Frank and Josh didn’t immediately reply told him he was correct. He shook his head. “Look, guys. You need to find another place to work. Big Mike’s gonna get you killed one day. Sooner or later, the deSalvos are gonna run out of uses for him and they’ll put him down. You get caught in the cross fire, you really think he’ll look out for you?”

Frank hesitated, shifting his weight. “You shouldn’t talk about Mr. Roker like that. It’s disrespectful.”

Chase’s tolerance broke. “He’s an idiot. Tell him I said that, and that I’m keeping the wheels as my severance pay.”

“Wrong answer!” shouted Josh, and he rocked off his heels, bringing up the crowbar as he came in toward Chase. In the same moment, Frank took a clumsy swing at Jack that hit only air.

Chase slipped away from the attack and sent a short, sharp punch right into Josh’s face. The mechanic recoiled, but he seemed only slightly dazed. From the corner of his eye, Chase glimpsed Jack put a vicious chopping blow across Frank’s throat and follow it through with a left cross. Blood glittered darkly as Frank coughed out thick gobs of spittle.

Josh came at Chase again, this time swinging the crowbar like it was a sword, trying to catch him about the head and shoulders with the hooked end. “You’re such a tough guy!” spat the mechanic. “Come at me now, man! Come on!”

Reflexively, Chase tried to grab at the crowbar and force it away, but he used his bad hand without thinking. He couldn’t close the grip in time and the improvised weapon raked over his skin and drew blood. Josh lunged, now jabbing with the point as if he thought he could stab Chase with it. He backed off as Josh kept coming.

Nearby, Jack and Frank were trading blows as the bigger man tried to drag Bauer into a choke hold, failing to get a grip on the other man. Chase heard a sickening crack as Jack shot out a hard kick at Frank’s shin and broke bone there. The stocky mechanic gave a strangled moan and fell to one knee.

It was time to end this before someone inside the diner saw them and decided to call the police. Josh’s mistake was to overextend with one of his stabbing motions and Chase grabbed the crowbar, this time with his good hand. He yanked it toward him and Josh lost his balance, staggering forward. Chase led him into a head-butt that sent the mechanic down to the ground in a crumpled heap. Still gripping the crowbar, Chase came around in time to watch Jack use an elbow strike to crack Frank in the face and put him in the dirt.

A sliver of white bone was protruding from the leg of Frank’s trousers, and he gasped as he clutched at it. Jack helped himself to the mechanic’s cell phone and crushed it beneath his boot. He nodded at the broken leg. “That’ll heal. You’ll be able to walk okay in a couple of years. Ten months if you’re motivated.”

Chase pointed the crowbar’s head at Josh as the other man tried to get back up. “Stay,” he said “Be smart for once in your life.” He used the point to puncture the Pontiac’s tires and then tossed the crowbar into the long grass.

Jack gave him a look as they got into the Chrysler. “Is this Roker guy going to be any more trouble?”

“Nah.” Chase shook his head and started the car. “You’re carrying enough of that for both of us, right?”

*   *   *

Jorge Kilner winced as he walked through the field office, the bandage around his right calf pulling tight with each step he took. He had another wrapped over the palm of one hand and a couple of adhesive dressings on a couple of small cuts on his face—all the marks left behind by his brief and dangerous sojourn as Jack Bauer’s unwilling driver. Falling from the moving car had ruined his coat and now Kilner wore a raid jacket with the FBI crest on the chest and the initials of the bureau emblazoned on the back. Other agents in similar clothing looked up as he crossed the room, none of them willing to meet his gaze. Everyone had heard about the car chase through Chelsea and the stolen helicopter, despite attempts to keep a lid on the information, and by now Kilner’s part in the whole sorry mess had to be an open secret from here to Miami.

He scowled as he made his way toward the conference rooms. Some of the civilians who had been at the heliport were milling in an anxious little knot in a waiting area near the coffee machine, and as Kilner walked by them a man in a business suit sprang to his feet.

“Are you an agent?” he demanded.

Kilner’s lips thinned and he said nothing, just pointed at the jacket he was wearing.

The businessman launched into a tirade about how it was unfair to hold him here when he was a very important executive with a major corporation, who had a very important meeting with another major corporation in Baltimore that he was going to miss because of the FBI’s “interference.”

He looked up as Dell emerged from a side corridor, walking an older man out. “Thank you for your cooperation,” she was telling him. “If you’ll just wait here, we’ll get you a ride home and…”

The businessman turned on Agent Dell, immediately dismissing Kilner. “Finally. Look, I need to get out of this place. Can you just assume I saw what these people saw and leave it at that?”

Dell’s dark eyes flashed. “Sit down and wait,” she retorted, with the kind of tone someone might use on a poorly disciplined dog. “You’ll get your turn.” She glanced at Kilner. “Still with us?”

“More or less.” They walked away, leaving the businessman fuming. “You get anything useful?”

Dell jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “The old guy was in Korea and he offered to come with us to find Bauer. Said he had skills.”

“He can take my place. I think Hadley will can me for getting caught up with him.”

Markinson called out as they approached the open door to the briefing room. “Could go either way,” she offered.

“How so?”

“Soon as we got back here after securing the site, Hadley was dragged into a meeting with Special Agent Dwyer and the ASAC. If you listen real hard, you can hear O’Leary tearing him a new asshole even through the soundproofing.” She sipped at a plastic cup of water. “But did you not think of actually
stopping
the car, Agent Kilner?”

“No,” he said hotly. “That never occurred to me.” He glanced between Markinson and Dell. “I
tried
to bring him in. I really did. But you’ve seen Bauer’s file. He’s not exactly the compromising type. He wouldn’t listen.”

Markinson raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve changed your mind about shoot-on-sight, then?”

“I never said that.”

“Well…” Dell perched on the end of the table. “However it happened, we need a new plan, and we need to mail it to two hours ago.”

“Anything on his contacts?” Kilner asked.

“No, Bauer’s too smart to reach out to any of his known associates on the East Coast.” Dell shook her head. “Beyond that? Maybe.”

“That woman he worked with at CTU, O’Brien?” began Markinson. “We should bring her in, see what she knows.”

Dell shook her head again. “Agent Franks and his team are on her. She’s gonna be in cuffs soon enough, but we won’t get a look in.”

“Huh.” Markinson looked Kilner up and down. “So the medics said you’re okay? No lasting injuries?”

“Just to my reputation.”

“Not only
yours,
” said a voice from the doorway. The three of them turned to see Hadley standing there, his expression rigid and cold. “We’re all going to share in the blowback from this.” None of them had heard him enter.

Hadley advanced into the room, and for a second Kilner thought the man might actually be gearing up to take a swing at him. “It was a hard call,” he said. “I stand by what I did.”

The lead agent glared at Markinson and Dell. “Give me the room,” he demanded, and the two female agents left without a word. Hadley closed the door behind them and rounded on Kilner. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Given what he knew of the man’s reputation, Kilner had expected Hadley to explode with rage, but instead his tone was even and icy. “I already gave my statement while the paramedics were checking me out,” he told him. “With all due respect,
read that
. You’ll see I had no choice. Bauer had a gun on me the whole time.”

“Not all the time,” Hadley corrected. “Not when he was shooting up a public street and firing on federal agents.”

Kilner’s temper flared. “Remind me again what
you
were doing during that high-speed pursuit,
sir
?”

Hadley ignored the jibe. “What did he say to you, Jorge? What did you talk about?”

“He told me he would blow a hole in my leg if I didn’t do what he wanted,” Kilner retorted. “Apart from that, Bauer wasn’t that chatty. Then he forced me out of a moving vehicle.”

“You had a chance to stop him and you didn’t take it. Explain that to me.”

The younger agent shook his head. “You’re wrong. I
did
take that chance. I tried to reason with him. Bring him in without any bloodshed. But he wasn’t listening.”

“Bauer shot first,” Hadley insisted.

“After you sent in a tactical unit with all guns blazing.”

Hadley eyed him. “You don’t get to tell me how to run this operation.” He pointed at the cuts and bruises on Kilner’s face. “Looking at all that … Agent Kilner, given your recent injuries I’m wondering if you should stand down and call it a day.”

“No,
sir,
” Kilner said defiantly. “I’m on for the duration.”

The other man’s manner started to slip. “You think he’s some kind of hero, don’t you? Jack Bauer, the man and the legend? I mean, we’ve all heard the rumors about him, right? The Palmer assassination, the meltdown scare, the whole Starkwood thing. There’s enough covert ops ghost stories about Bauer to fill a damn library.” Hadley advanced on him. “But you know what I think? I think Jack Bauer is a relic who belongs in the dark ages. He’s some kind of deep-black, dirty-tricks killer. He’s the
worst
of us, Kilner. No compunction, no conscience, no right to be roaming free.”

“You’re wrong,” said Kilner. “You don’t know what he’s had to sacrifice. You don’t know him.”

“And you do?” Hadley held his gaze. “Jason Pillar, a man who saved my life in the Gulf War and then again when I got home, is dead today because of what Bauer has done! Pillar went after Bauer, and he was killed as a result! That’s who he is. That’s what he leaves behind wherever he goes!”

Kilner shook his head. “Bauer isn’t responsible for Pillar’s murder. While I was being debriefed, I heard about a leak from the Secret Service. There’s a rumor it may have been Charles Logan who shot Pillar. The man he was working for!”

But Hadley wasn’t hearing him. “You want to remain on this detail, fine. But from this point onward you are going to do only what I tell you to, and only when I tell you to do it, is that clear?” He didn’t wait for Kilner to reply. “The ASAC has agreed to give me the resources we need to expand the search outside the state of New York. I’m going to bring Jack Bauer down, and you would be advised not to hinder that process any more than you already have. Are we clear?”

Kilner opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, Agent Dell came back into the room at a run, holding a sheet of printout in her hand.

“We got a hit,” she said breathlessly. “The chopper that Bauer hijacked.”

“Where?” snapped Hadley.

“Someone found it abandoned in the middle of a field off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, near Greensburg. Called it in to the local sheriff’s office.”

Hadley snatched the paper from her hand. “We’re certain it’s the same helo?”

“Bell Long Ranger,” Dell said with a nod. “It’s gotta be him.”

“The Penn Turnpike takes you right into Pittsburgh,” offered Kilner, thinking it through. “But Bauer doesn’t have any active contacts in that city.”

“That we know of,” said Hadley. He looked up at Dell, suddenly animated. “Get me a map of that area, and I want to talk to the local law. Tell Markinson to contact the Tactical Aviation Unit, we’re going to need an aircraft if we want to get out there.”

Dell hesitated. “If he left it in plain sight, he has to know we’d find it.”

Hadley agreed. “But not before dawn. We may have caught a break here. Let’s not waste it.”

The other agent left, and Kilner found himself alone with Hadley again. “He’ll be long gone,” ventured the younger man. “This may even be a deliberate attempt at misdirection.”

Hadley didn’t bother to look up at him. “Agent Kilner, you’re more than welcome to stay here and keep telling anyone who listens why we’ll never catch our fugitive. But within the hour I intend to be wheels-up and on my way to whatever flyspeck airstrip is closest to Greensburg.”

07

Chase drove on into the evening, taking them out and away from the interstate and on toward Cedar Creek. The tree line grew dense and the other traffic on the road tailed off. After a while, he started to count down mile markers until they passed the head of an unfinished track peeling off the main road.

Jack shot a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one was following them as the Chrysler bounced off the tarmac and onto the dirt path. The track was barely visible from the road, half-concealed by overgrown bushes that clattered against the flanks of the silver car as it passed deeper into the darkness. “Not an easy place to find,” Jack offered.

“Not unless you know where to look.” Chase nodded and flicked off the Chrysler’s lights, easing off on the gas. “That’s deliberate. The guy we’re gonna see … He doesn’t like to draw attention. He doesn’t like…” Chase paused, thinking about it. “Well.
People,
really. He doesn’t like people that much.”

“Tell me again why we’re out in the middle of nowhere?”

Chase kept his eyes on the path ahead. “I’m taking you to meet Hector Matlow. Calls himself ‘Hex.’ He’s a bit of a shut-in but he’s good at what he does. The deSalvos used him to set up all their cyber-crime stuff, crooked online gambling sites and porn hubs, the whole nine yards.”

“You mentioned that name before,” said Jack. “Local hoods?”

Chase nodded. “Your garden-variety scumbags. Nothing to write home about.”