Lassiter was Tony Almeida, a CTU/L.A. agent working under Jack’s command.
Jack Bauer had approached the problem of the Ironwood kills with a two-pronged attack: from the inside and the outside. Jack was the outside man, operating more or less in the open. It made him a target, but that was one way to get fast action. The enemy knew who he was and they could take their best shot at him. He made himself a lure to flush them out from their hiding places behind the black curtain of secrecy. It was a great technique as long as he didn’t get killed.
That was only one-half his strategy. Tony Almeida was the other half. He had been working undercover, from the inside. “Lassiter” was an assumed identity, one that Tony Almeida had used to great effect in the past. Lassiter had a well-earned reputation in underworld circles as a professional gun, a killer for hire. A cover identity that had proved extremely useful in penetrating that shadowy interzone where the secret worlds of terrorism and organized crime met and mingled.
As Lassiter, Tony was able to circulate freely among gun-runners, drug gangs, underworld enforcers, mercenaries, and similar members of the phantom legions of the subterranean half world.
Jack Bauer knew that Annihilax preferred to recruit local talent from the area where he was operating: thugs, thieves, whores, safecrackers, hackers, killers, and so on.
Expendables all. Once the job was done, Annihilax eliminated the underlings, leaving a clean slate. No witnesses, no accomplices able to furnish incriminating evidence or testimony. Annihilax’s true identity would be safe from exposure.
Lassiter was another kind of lure. The hired killer with a solid gold reputation was dangled in the overheated gangland milieu of the Southwest underworld to see which big fish would go for the bait. And wind up hooked and netted. With Varrin and the Blancos at war, a stone killer such as Lassiter would not be a free agent for long. Nor had he been.
Lassiter made the rounds, frequenting the dives and gangland haunts where such criminal enterprise was conducted. Making moves, making waves. It had not been long before Varrin had approached him to undertake some contract “work.” From there things had taken their inexorably murderous, treacherous course.
Tony Almeida explained, “I was playing both ends against the middle. Varrin hired me. Once I learned that his enemy was the Blancos, I contacted them to make a deal to double cross Varrin and his masters. It wasn’t until today that I learned that Varrin’s boss was Max Scourby, the celebrated criminal lawyer.”
“In his case, the term criminal lawyer couldn’t have been more appropriate,” Jack said. “Think Torreon got wise that Lassiter was more than just a hired gun?”
“I doubt it,” Tony said. “He figured that if I’d sell out Varrin, I’d do the same to him. Besides, I’d served my purpose. Varrin and his gang were wiped out. This way, Torreon didn’t have to pay me. He doesn’t need Annihilax to tell him to be a vicious SOB.”
“Too bad you didn’t put a bullet in Carlson’s brain during the shooting.”
“Things were kind of frantic at the time. Besides, I know where they’re taking Carlson and Zane: Mission Hill. It’s a mansion Scourby set up. Filled with all kinds of computer hardware and transceivers where Carlson can do his thing.
“Adam Zane wants a demo before he buys. Scourby’s dead, but that won’t change a thing as far as Zane’s concerned. He’ll still want a demo. Marta Blanco and some of the gang went there earlier today to take it over. That’s where we’ll find Carlson and Zane.”
“That’s where we’ll go, too,” Jack said.
“We can take the car they left behind for Brazos.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Jack Bauer took out the cell phone he’d taken from Ferney. “Why ride when you can fly?”
Mission Hill was a modern-day mansion done in Spanish colonial style. It occupied a splendid sprawling estate in the western heights of the Hill. Its neighbors were also mansions and none too close. The grounds were bordered by a ten-foot-high whitewashed adobe wall. Landscaped grounds featured patios, pavilions, gardens, hedges, lawns, and flower beds, all honeycombed with flagged paths and walkways.
At the center of the estate was a mansion three stories tall. Its roof was covered with orange ceramic tiles. They were overlapping, creating the impression of the scales of a fish or reptile. The structure was made of thick whitewashed stone walls. The second-floor windows had balconies. Ground-floor windows were caged with elaborate black wrought-iron grillwork.
An anomalous note was the rooftop ridgeline. The rooftop bristled with an elaborate array of antennas. In the center of the roofline was an old-fashioned bell tower. It was flat-roofed and square-sided, with arches opening in all four sides. The bell tower’s flat roof was crowned with a massive satellite dish aimed at a forty-five-degree angle to the sky.
What had been a drawing room on the ground floor had been transformed into an electronic nerve nexus. It was equipped with massive computer consoles, instrument boards, oscilloscopes, beam shapers, modulators, wideband signal frequency generators, amplifiers, resonators, transmitters, and the like. A cockpit of sophisticated electronic hardware.
Consoles and equipment cabinets lined the walls. Heavy-duty electric cables had been laid down, connecting to trunk lines that extended outside the lab room. The hardware pulled so much power that it required a special generator all its own to meet the demand. The generator was located outside on the patio, housed in a special outbuilding.
Torreon Blanco, Stan Rull, and two pistoleros escorted their “guests” into the hardware room. The pistoleros exited. Dr. Hugh Carlson was a prisoner. A valuable catch but a captive all the same. He’d been relieved of the metal attaché case containing the all-important PALO codes. Torreon Blanco was now in possession of them.
Adam Zane’s status was somewhat more equivocal. He was a man with a vast store of funds at his disposal and a powerful organization at his command. He preferred to travel light and fast, but that massive organization was behind him and could wreak tremendous havoc should any harm befall him.
Adam Zane radiated a distinct aura of displeasure. He carried himself stiffly. His thin lips were tightly pressed. Knots of muscle the size of walnuts stood at the hinges of his jaws.
He’d submitted earlier to the indignity of a personal search that yielded no weapons. He carried none, except for the most potent weapon of all, the mass of gray matter housed inside his skull.
Torreon Blanco said, “Allow me to introduce you to our hostess. Senor Adam Zane, this is my sister, Marta Blanco.”
Marta Blanco wore a red blouse, black slacks, red boots, and a gun. Her top was a short-sleeved, military-style tunic, scarlet, with epaulets and gold buttons. High-waisted matte-black slacks that were tight in the hips with wide-cut, flaring legs tapering at the ankles, where she wore high-heeled ankle boots the same shade of red as her blouse.
A holstered gun was belted around her waist. No small-caliber lady’s gun, this sidearm, but a big-caliber, long-barreled revolver.
“How do you do, Senor Zane. A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said.
Zane took one of her red-nailed hands and kissed it Continental style — an air kiss in the traditional manner, his lips not quite touching her flesh. “I wish I could say the same, Senorita — or is it Senora?”
“Why not Marta?”
“Marta it shall be. I must express my regrets regarding the nature of our meeting, which somewhat undercuts the pleasure of your company. I’m sure you understand. An employee of mine has been senselessly murdered, I have been hijacked…”