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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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
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 extra 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.