“March,” Lassiter said.
The others on the bluff were surprised to see Lassiter emerge from the brush leading a stranger out at gunpoint. Slim followed a few paces behind in Lassiter’s wake.
Jack Bauer’s expression was grim, glum, resigned. He marched with his hands held up.
“Look what Slim found,” Lassiter said.
“Bauer!” Carlson gasped, shaken.
“He belongs to you?” Lassiter asked.
“He’s CTU! He almost got me at the lab! And at the police checkpoint! What are you doing here, Bauer? Where’s Lewis?”
“Lewis sends his regrets. He’s unavoidably detained by a slight case of death,” Jack Bauer said.
“One of the deputies he shot lived long enough to shoot him but not before Lewis mentioned the meeting on the bluff,” Jack lied. Why tip his captors to the fact that the Blancos were hot on their trail? He might be able to exploit that information for some kind of advantage, no matter how minor.
“He’s alone — I checked,” Lassiter said.
Jack Bauer turned to Max Scourby. “I see you’re in the middle of this, Counselor. Looks like you traded in your observer status for a more active role.”
Scourby couldn’t resist the opportunity to show off. He loved the limelight. “What could I do?” he asked. “The good Dr. Carlson was so impressed with my defense of Rahman Sayeed that he sought me out. He had the secrets and I have the connections.”
“You’re wasting time palavering,” said the ever-sour, hard-bitten Varrin. He spat on the ground not far from Scourby’s elegant footwear. “Lewis is dead. No more reason for us to be sitting around here waiting for him. Kill this one and be done with it. Let’s move out.”
“Allow me,” Lassiter offered.
Jack Bauer spun, breaking clear and dashing up a rise toward the edge of the bluff.
Lassiter’s 9mm was already drawn and leveled. He fired, shooting Jack in the back. Jack lurched under the impact, stumbling forward a few staggering steps.
Lassiter fired again. Jack spasmed as another slug tagged him in the center of his back. He pitched forward, falling facedown on the edge of the rise.
Lassiter strode up to him slowly and deliberately. He stood over him looking down. “And one in the head to finish it,” he said.
He pointed the pistol downward and fired.
He put a foot on Jack’s shoulder and push-kicked the body. Jack Bauer tumbled over the edge of the rise, rolling downhill and falling into a ditch out of sight. Lassiter turned, smiling thinly, cradling the smoking pistol in his hands.
“That’s cold, Lassiter,” Teed said. He meant it as a compliment, and that’s how Lassiter took it.
“I hate cops,” Lassiter said. “Feds I hate even more.”
21. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 A.M. AND 8 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME
An interruption of shouts from the men watching the approach sounded from below. The bunch on the bluff trooped to the southern edge to investigate the cause of the clamor.
A van stood at the base of the hill near the bottom of the road where it leveled out on the ground. A man in a black cowboy hat sat behind the wheel holding a white flag out the window. The flag of truce consisted of a white blouse tied to a broomstick.
Varrin’s gunmen on the ground ringed the van, pointing guns at the newcomer.
Varrin leaned over the edge, cupped a hand beside his mouth. “What the hell’s all the noise?”
One of the men from below shouted back, “It’s Pardee. He wants to talk.”
The announcement produced no small consternation among those massed on top of the bluff.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Varrin said, speaking to himself.
Adam Zane turned to Max Scourby. “Who’s Pardee?”
“Foreman for the Blancos. He’s Torreon’s top hatchet man,” Scourby said.
Varrin drew his gun. “I’ll talk to him with this.”
Scourby considered the matter. “Maybe we should see what he wants. What harm could it do?”
“Plenty,” Varrin said. “He’s a slippery bastard, like his boss.”
“So much more reason for us to find out what he’s all about.”
Lassiter stepped forward. “I’ll get my rifle, I can pot him from here.”
“He’s got a white flag, Lassiter,” Pablo Obregon said.
Lassiter shrugged. “So what?”
“You’re a mad dog, Lassiter. You don’t care who you bite,” Diablo Cruz said.
Lassiter eyed him coolly. “Not particularly, no.”
Scourby was thinking out loud. “If Pardee wants to talk he must have a pretty good reason. What can we lose by hearing him out? We can always kill him later. My curiosity’s piqued,” Scourby said. He reached a decision. “Send him up.”
“You’re the boss,” Varrin said, his flat, curt tone implying his disagreement. He called downhilclass="underline" “Is he armed?”
“We checked him for weapons and the van is empty!”
“Tell him to come up.”
“What?”
“Tell him to come up, you deaf bastard!”
“Okay!”
The van drove up the incline, trailing a thin cloud of dust. It crested the rise and leveled on top of the bluff. Pardee halted the van, switched off the motor.
He was in his fifties, with broad sloping shoulders, a thick middle, and spindly legs. He wore a high-crowned black cowboy hat and a belt with an ornate oversized engraved fancy buckle.
The black hat was tilted far forward; the brim just missed obscuring his eyes. His eyebrows were pointed in the middle. He had curly black sideburns and an eyebrow mustache. He wore a string tie with a silver bolo.
The white flag of truce was propped up on the seat beside him. It consisted of an off-white, long-sleeved satiny blouse. The sleeves were knotted to the broomstick.
Pardee looked over the assemblage, a wall of hostile faces. “Quite a coalition. You folks holding Sunday morning services?”
“Say your say, Pardee,” Varrin said.
Pardee turned his face to the lawyer. “Morning, Mr. Scourby. You’ve sure been keeping us hopping lately.”
“That’s what comes of tying into things outside your usual line of work,” Scourby said.
“Like that meth lab of ours you blew up yesterday?”
“A reminder to keep out where you don’t belong. But you didn’t come up here to talk about that, Pardee.”
“No, sir, I didn’t, and that’s a fact. As you can see I come up here bearing a white flag of truce.”
“Torreon suing for peace? You want an armistice, is that it?”
“Not hardly,” Pardee said, chuckling. “You better look at this here flag of truce. Especially you, Dr. Carlson.”
“I speak for Carlson,” Scourby said. “What’s so all-fired important about it?”
Pardee handed him the white flag. “Here, see for yourself. It’s a blouse. Belongs to Miz Carlson. She was wearing it last night.”
Carlson stepped forward, his expression unreadable. “That’s true — it is Carrie’s blouse, the one she was wearing today…There’s blood on it. What have you done with her?”
Pardee made a placating gesture. “Don’t get yourself in an uproar, Doc. It’s nothing, just a couple of scratches. She’s a feisty lady — full of spirit.”
“Why show it to us?” Scourby demanded.
“Proof that we got her. She’s okay. In a safe place. But she ain’t gonna be safe for long if you don’t start cooperating.”
“Say what you mean, man!”
“Smart lawyer like you, I don’t got to draw you a picture. We know what you’re up to with the doc and Mr. Zane here. We want half.”
Varrin laughed, spat. “Half? Is that all?” Scourby asked.
“Torreon ain’t greedy,” Pardee said.
“The hell he’s not,” Varrin fired back.