Jack and Tony had descended to the ground at the base of the hill. The copter touched down in an open field. The CTU agents climbed aboard and the copter soared upward.
A short time later the aircraft was hovering over the Mission Hill mansion. The fenced-in grounds below were a scene of frantic action. Like an overturned anthill. Blanco guards were running this way and that along the paths. They didn’t know what to do or where to go first. Their confusion was compounded by the fact that they were under siege, not just from above, but also on the ground.
Jack Bauer had also put in a call to Vince Sabito. A torrent of obscene abuse directed at Jack poured out of the phone. Vince Sabito vented until he paused for breath. Jack managed to get a few words in edgewise — enough to get Sabito listening.
“This is the showdown. The Blancos and Carlson are forted up at Mission Hill,” Jack said.
“Mission Hill? That’s Scourby’s place,” Sabito growled.
“Not anymore. Scourby’s dead and so is the Varrin gang, massacred by the Blancos. Torreon and company — and Carlson — are at Mission Hill. If you move fast you can bag them all.
“Unless I get there first,” Jack said. He broke the connection, cutting off Sabito in mid-squawk. He’d thrown in that last crack about getting there first just to irritate Sabito and goose him into moving out fast.
Jack had also contacted Deputy Wallace Ross. “This is the big one. Bring out the big guns. You’ve been waiting to clean up on the Blancos — now’s the time.”
The results were plain to see from way up in the middle of the air. FBI agents and sheriff’s deputies were besieging Mission Hill. Their vehicles surrounded it on all sides.
Sabito had apparently gotten those reinforcements he’d requested from Albuquerque, including an entire FBI Tac Squad in an armored war wagon.
Mission Hill was the scene of a battle royal. From above, gun smoke clouds bobbed around inside and outside the walls like floating cotton balls.
Ron Galvez brought the helicopter close to the central bell tower whose flat roof was topped by the satellite dish aimed at a forty-five-degree angle at the sky. A couple of Blanco riflemen were in the bell tower shooting at the helicopter.
The passenger side door of the cockpit was open and Jack Bauer hung by a safety harness half out of the cockpit, wielding an M–16. Tony Almeida crouched behind him and to the side, working an M–4 carbine.
Jack snapped a succession of three-shot bursts through the open arches into the bell tower, spraying the riflemen with gunfire. They spun and whirled under the fusillade.
One dropped to the floor, inert. Another flopped sideways out of an open arch, falling off the tower to come crashing down on the orange ceramic-tiled scaled roof. He broke some tiles and sent them skittering down the side of the slanted roof. He rolled, following the same trajectory. He fell off the edge of the roof and dropped three stories to land flat on the ground-level patio.
“Take out that satellite dish,” Jack shouted. He and Tony unloaded on the transceiver, sieving it. Here was where he could have used a grenade launcher, Jack thought.
Bullets raked the flat roof and sides of the bell tower, stitching them. Jack poured more slugs at the base where a bundle of black cables fed upward into a box at the hub of the rear of the dish. His clip emptied. He ejected and slapped in a new clip, locked and loaded, and resumed firing.
Tony Almeida was a sharpshooter. He squeezed off tight bursts into the base of the dish where neat little framework steel feet helped anchor the dish into place. The dish wobbled shakily.
A prolonged burst from Jack’s weapons severed the bundle of cables loose from where they fed into the hub box. Tony shot off the foot he’d been working on. The dish swayed, off-balance. It leaned backward, teetering precariously for an instant.
Jack and Tony sprayed some more slugs into the dish, ventilating it, shoving it backward by main force.
That did it. The dish leaned farther backward and tipped over, falling downward. It broke free from its remaining stanchions and pitched off the side of the bell tower, plummeting to the ground.
In Moosejaw, North Dakota, Silo 14, the phantom force from outside that had taken control of the control panel suddenly loosed its iron grip of control and ceased to exist.
As soon as they realized that the big board was once again under their control, the two missile techs went to work disarming the bomb.
The red lights on the board turned green, alarms fell silent. The danger was ended.
The FBI Tac Squad commandeered a fire truck and charged the Mission Hill main gate, using it as a battering ram. The wrought-iron grille gates flew apart with little resistance. The front of the fire truck plowed into the delivery truck parked on the other side of the gate, hitting it broadside. The fire truck’s progress slowed.
The driver stomped the gas pedal and the fire truck lunged forward, bulling the delivery truck backward, sliding it sideways across the lawn. The gate was forced and Tac Squad members poured through it, charging into the Mission Hill grounds.
Jack Bauer motioned to pilot Ron Galvez to drop closer to the roof of the mansion. Galvez shook his head no. Jack was insistent, motioning vehemently.
Galvez worked the controls, hovering six feet above the roofline to the left of the bell tower. He had trouble holding the machine steadily in place.
Jack Bauer slung the M–16 over his shoulder. He unfastened the safety strap and jumped out of the cockpit to the roof.
He hit hard and slipped on the ceramic tiles, knocking some of them loose. His feet worked, seeking purchase. Jack succeeded in draping himself over the rooftop ridgeline, lying facedown across it at right angles, his middle in the center.
Galvez lifted up the chopper. The downdraft battered at Jack. It eased as Galvez guided the helicopter off to the side and away.
Jack got his feet under him and rose up into a low crouch. Like a tightrope walker he crossed the roofline to the bell tower, stepping through an archway to the tower floor. The dead body of one of the riflemen lay sprawled on his back on the floor. A square open hatchway accessed a flight of stone stairs.
Jack unlimbered his M–16 and held it leveled at waist height, pointing the muzzle down toward the interior recesses of the shaft. He climbed down the stone stairs, descending toward the bottom of the bell tower.
Things were out of control in the electronic arena on the ground floor. Adam Zane decided he’d had enough. He broke and ran toward the front of the building, holding his hands in the air, shouting, “Don’t shoot! I surrender—”
Torreon Blanco drew his gun and shot Zane in the back. Zane lurched, almost falling. He recovered his balance and moved ahead, advancing slowly, laboriously, as if he were wading through hip-deep water.
Torreon fired again. Zane pitched forward, falling on his face. “I hate yellow bellies,” Torreon said.
“What’s your plan?” Marta demanded.
Torreon brandished his gun, fist-pumping it in the air. “We’ll go down shooting!”
Marta nodded. “That’s my brother — you’re some kind of hombre!”
Torreon grinned, showing lots of teeth. Behind him, Hugh Carlson eased out of his chair facing the instrument board and began sneaking toward the rear of the room and the sunny patio beyond.
When he got clear of the masses of electronic equipment and saw daylight he broke into a run. His footfalls slapped the tiles, catching Torreon’s attention. He spun around, gun in hand, arm extended as he drew a bead on Carlson’s retreating back. “Another deserter—”