“You have a better idea?” Chappelle 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.”
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.”
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
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?”
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?”