Jack jumped to his feet and ran forward, kicking the weapons away from the fallen assailants. Both men were dead.
“Are you all right?” Jack asked. The two clerks were pressed as far back against the counter as possible, terror and shock and relief all visible in their eyes. “I’m a Federal agent. Are you all right?”
They nodded. The girl said, “Who… who are those guys?”
Mercy and Ted rushed in, weapons drawn. “Clear,” Jack said. “Can you call CTU?” Ozersky nodded. Jack turned to the girl with the nose ring. “Did they ask you any questions?”
She nodded, almost unable to take her eyes off the two corpses. “Um, yeah. They were asking us about Pico. They said they’d kill us if we didn’t help them.”
“Pico Santiago. We want him, too,” Jack said. “Do you have any idea where he is? Do you know him well?”
The young man, who’d yet to speak, nodded. “I do. We’ve worked here for a couple years. Is he in trouble?”
“Not if I can help it. How well do you know him?” Jack’s own body was still adrenalized from the gunfight, but he forced his voice to remain calm and firm. “We need to find him. He’s not at home. We think he’s afraid of these guys and he ran off somewhere. Do you know where he’d go?”
Jack saw the kid hesitate, his eyes settling on Jack’s gun. He had that same look on his face Jack had seen on some of the protestors that morning, though it seemed a lifetime ago. He spoke irritably, “Yeah, I’m the government and I want him, too. But here’s the difference between us and them. They want him dead, and I want to keep him alive. So tell me.”
The young man straightened up. “He was working here tonight, but he just took off. Said something had come up and he had to get out of town for a while.”
“Did he say where out of town?” Mercy queried. “Would he take a plane somewhere?”
The kid shook his head. “No, dude, that’s not what he means. Pico’s into outdoor stuff, like me. He went up into the mountains to hike.”
“Give me his cell number.”
“He doesn’t use one,” the kid said. “He says the microwaves fry your brain.”
“Up in the mountains where?” Jack asked.
“Dude, it could be any—”
“Somewhere he knows,” Jack said, growing impatient. “Somewhere he’d feel comfortable and safe.”
The kid snapped his fingers. “Temescal Canyon. That’s his favorite spot, and you hike back there past the waterfall,
you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Do any of his other friends know about that place?”
“Lots of people know about it. Yeah, Pico’s got some other friends he hangs with up there. Gina’s been up”—he pointed to the nose-ringed girl, who nodded—“and I’ve been up there with Pico and that freak girl he used to date.”
“Freaky girl?” Mercy asked.
The man nodded. “Yeah, Frankie something or other.”
“Thanks,” Jack said. To Mercy and Ted, “Let’s go.”
They left the kitchen for the dining area. Behind them, the girl shouted, “Hey, what about these guys!”
Jack ignored her. If those were the last bodies he left behind tonight, he’d be lucky.
If the decision were Eshmail Nouri’s to make, he would have strangled Ayman al-Libbi, left his body in a Dumpster, and gone back to the 213 Lounge he owned and managed just off Wilshire Boulevard. He was tempted to disobey orders and do it anyway, but that was just his independence talking. Eight years living in the United States, living and playing as an American, had given him a veneer of rebellion. But it was thin and did not seep into his heart, which had been with the Ayatollah Khomeini and was with the ayatollahs still. He would do as he was ordered, even if he thought it was stupid.
And it was stupid, in his professional opinion. The ayatollahs had seen fit to plant Nouri and his compatriots in the United States long before the Americans had increased their watchfulness. Of course, after 9/11, Nouri himself and each of his companions had been questioned, but he had already been in the country for years; he was careful to communicate infrequently with the rest of his cell, and often only through handwritten letters that could not be traced. He was indistinguishable from the thousands of Iranians who had emigrated over the years.
Which was his point. Nouri understood that he was a valuable asset. His entire cell was a precious weapon kept hidden by the ayatollahs and, if Allah willed it, they would someday come forth to strike a blow against the Americans. He knew the ayatollahs had tried to build other cells in recent years, but almost all had failed, thanks to American intelligence. To risk one of the few well-placed groups at the whim of Ay-man al-Libbi, who had by all accounts become a useless infidel, seemed reckless.
Not seemed reckless, was reckless, based on the evidence. Mahmoud and Ali should have called in by now, whether they had obtained additional information from the target’s friends or not.
Eshmail did not yet know about the virus or CTU. All he knew was that at long last his cell had been activated. They were to kill three people, one of whom was already dead, and another who would soon be eliminated.
Still, he wished he could kill Ayman al-Libbi when all was said and done.
Jack stopped the car in the dirt lot where the paved road ended. There was one car, a silver Volvo, already parked there.
“Could they be ahead of us again?” Mercy said as they got out.
Jack drew his gun and walked over to the car. “It’s still warm and ticking.” There was a moon out, but it had been a long time since Jack had hunted anyone by moonlight alone. “We should take flashlights. Have either of you been up this trail before?”
“I have,” Ted said. “It’s hiking, not mountain climbing, but parts of the trail are tough. The waterfall is about two miles up.”
“We could call the sheriff ’s mountain rescue unit,” Mercy suggested.
“Do it,” Jack said. Mercy got on her phone and went through 911.
“Their ETA is more than twenty minutes for the helicopter,” she said after a moment. “No one’s going to get here any sooner.”
“Let’s see what we can do until they get here,” Jack said, stopping to reload the magazines for his SigSauer. He popped one magazine into the handle and racked the slide. “Let’s go.”
18. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 A.M. AND 1 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
“Moving at last,” President Barnes said.
Dr. Diebold, still wearing the biohazard suit, nodded. “Yes, sir. The containment tube is complete. It will take you straight down to the hazmat vehicle. You and the others will ride to National Health Services. We have a bio containment unit there.”
Carter nodded. “Advance teams have already cleared the facility, sir.”
Barnes turned to Xu Boxiong. “Sir, after you.”
Xu bowed and smiled. There was nothing like a crisis, Barnes thought, to turn acquaintances into friends or enemies. If either country’s security had botched this up, the other leader would have been at his counterpart’s throat. But both countries had screwed this pooch. They were in it together in every way.