“Sure,” said Emmerick. “You’re talking about a whole town full of felons, guys I spent the past twenty years trying to lock up. Now they’re free again and up to no damned good.” He shook his head. “It’s pushing the same rock up the same hill all over again.”
Leight snorted. “Don’t get your underwear bunched, Sisyphus. We’ll lock them up again, maybe forever this time.”
Emmerick peered through the dust-flecked window.
“Watch. He’s turning again.”
“Great. This road looks worse than the last one.”
“Lay back, but don’t lose him.”
“I’ll try, but it’s too bad the packages separated into two Hummers. It would have been better if Foy could have come with us. We could have traded off. It would have been harder for them to make us.”
Emmerick didn’t reply. Back at the airport, he hadn’t been able to ID the man who’d been traveling with the Hawk, and that bothered him. Fortunately CTU Agent Judith Foy was there to tail the unknown man, while he and Leight had stayed with the Hawk.
Up ahead, the black Hummer made its turn and suddenly sped up, trailing a cloud of dust. Doug Leight hit the gas, swerved the Saturn onto a narrow road.
Emmerick held on. The road was so pitted, it rattled the fillings in his mouth. He looked ahead; the Hummer crested a low hill between two rows of trees, and vanished from sight.
“Hurry. Don’t lose him.”
The Saturn crested the hill a moment later — and Emmerick saw the Hummer. The huge vehicle had come to a dead stop. It sat in the middle of the road, just over the rise.
“Holy shit!” Doug Leight cried, slamming on the brakes.
The Saturn skidded to a halt, not six inches from the Hummer’s rear bumper. The billowing cloud of dust that trailed the Saturn rolled over it. When it settled, Emmerick saw a large, brown van had pulled up behind them. He glanced at the trees bordering the road on both sides — no escape there.
“We’re boxed in,” he said, reaching for his weapon.
Before he could pull it free, the Saturn’s windows blew inward.
A hail of automatic weapons fire ripped through the vehicle’s thin aluminum skin. Gaping holes appeared in the doors, the roof. Headlights shattered in a shower of sparks. The hood flew open, and bullets pinged off the engine block.
In the front seat, the two FBI agents were struck dozens of times by the flying bullets, their bodies convulsing as they died. The invisible attackers continued to fire, bursting tires and blowing off a hubcap.
Finally, the volley ceased. In the sudden silence, three men in camouflage fatigues carrying AK–47s emerged from the trees and approached the shattered car.
An engine gunned, and the Hummer that carried the Hawk sped away. The brown van slammed into the Saturn’s rear bumper and pushed the smoking car down the hill, through a wooden fence, and into a muddy pond.
Wild ducks scattered. The car hissed when it hit the water, steam billowing up from under the hood. It gurgled and bubbled in the muck, then finally slipped beneath the pond’s brackish green surface.
The man with the gold teeth and two others burst through the office door. One man wore a waiter’s uniform and clutched an Uzi. The other wore kitchen whites and gripped a meat cleaver. They stopped dead when they saw Fredo Mangella slumped in the leather chair.
The Albino released the woman. Sobbing, she stumbled to the desk and dropped to her knees beside the corpse.
“This bastard killed your boss,” the Albino rasped.
Jack didn’t say a word. Instead, he focused his attention on the Glock, and the laptop beside it.
“Son of a bitch,” Gold Teeth snarled, cuffing Jack across the face with the butt of the police special. Jack stumbled, but didn’t go down. The urge to strike back was strong, but Jack resisted it, biding his time.
“Petey, go downstairs and lock the front door,” Gold Teeth said, eyeing Bauer. “Me and Dom will take care of this bastard.”
The man with the meat cleaver left, and Jack eyeballed Gold Teeth. “I saw you in the cab. You tried to kill me today. Why? Who paid you?” Jack demanded.
“Time for me to go,” said the Albino, scooping up Jack’s Glock. “I have an appointment elsewhere.”
“Hey, wait a minute, Whitey,” Gold Teeth said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“My business was with your boss,” the Albino said. “I don’t deal with underlings.”
The waiter with the Uzi frowned, eyes on the Albino as he headed for the door. Gold Teeth grabbed the man’s arm—
And Jack lashed out. With his left, Jack backhanded the Uzi out of the waiter’s grip. Then he stepped in with a right hook, crushing the man’s throat. The waiter bounced off the wall and went down, gagging and gasping for breath.
Jack snatched the laptop off the desk and bolted for the door.
“Stop him,” the Albino cried.
Gold Teeth blocked his path, but Jack didn’t stop.
Crouched low, he slammed into the man. Together, they went through the door and over the restaurant’s balcony railing.
Jack was on top when they hit a table, smashing it. Crystal shattered, china broke, silverware flew. Jack flipped over, and lost his grip on the laptop. It slid across the hardwood floor.
Gold Teeth did a somersault, too, and landed beside him.
Jack knew the man was hurting, but Gold Teeth didn’t give up. He lunged as Jack scrambled across the debris-strewn floor, fumbling for the computer.
The kitchen doors parted and Petey returned, armed with his meat cleaver.
Jack gripped the laptop with both hands and brought it down on the back of Gold Teeth’s head. The man grunted and went limp. Jack looked up to see Petey charging.
Then the Albino started shooting and the dining room exploded in a shower of shattering glass as the massive front windows came down in a deadly hail. Jack rolled under a table as razor shards rained down around him.
Petey was struck, a two-foot icicle of glass piercing the top of his skull.
The Albino shifted fire, peppering the ceiling. The racing plane lurched on the wires, then one wing dipped.
Jack knew he was doomed unless he moved.
Tucking the laptop under his arm, he dived through the broken window. The suspended antique airplane came down a split-second later, smashing the tables and sending broken chairs and shattered china rolling onto the sidewalk.
Ears ringing from the noise, Jack stumbled to his feet, tightened his grip on the laptop, and took off. He wanted to go back for the Albino, but he was unarmed now, and he suspected the computer and its contents were more important.
As sirens wailed in the distance, Jack hailed a cab. On the ride back to CTU, his cell phone went off. Jack checked the number, took the call.
“Hi, honey,” Teri Bauer chirped.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Jack closed his eyes. The adrenaline was still pumping; he struggled to control his tone, make everything sound all right. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”
Teri laughed. “It’s only been a day, but it’s nice to know you’re missing me already.”
“I am.”
“Listen, Jack, I know it’s early, but I wanted to call anyway. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“I’m up,” Jack replied. “It’s actually not that early here.”
“Oh, of course, that’s right. The time difference. Well, Kim wanted me to ask a favor. She wants a Coldplay poster from the MTV store. Apparently it’s in Times Square.
That’s where they do their live TRL shows — at least that’s what Kim told me. You’ll do that, won’t you?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Jack glanced at the passing traffic, exhaled at the idea of something so normal, so easy. Buying a poster to make his daughter happy. He smiled. “Anything I can get for you?”