The front door led to a tiny office with a desk covered in stacks of manila folders and invoices like ramparts of a castle. An old lady sat behind the desk, punching numbers into an old beige calculator that rattled off sums and spewed out tape. She looked startled to see someone walk through the door.
“Hi,” Jack said in his friendliest manner. “Is Bas around?”
She didn’t stand up, but she stopped banging on the calculator. “The owner hasn’t been around much, lately. Not since we got that big client.”
“You know where we can find him?”
The lady shrugged and started losing interest. “Probably there. Mr. Holcomb takes the work seriously.”
“Where would that be?”
“The mosque down in Inglewood.”
As the two men walked out of the office, the old woman reached for the telephone and dialed.
“Clarissa?” Mr. Pembrook said by way of answer.
She replied in a whisper, even though she knew the visitors were gone. She wasn’t used to espionage. “Yes, sir. You asked me to tell you if anyone came around the office looking for Mr. Holcomb. Two men just did.”
Pause. “Did they say who they were?”
“No. No, and I didn’t think to ask. Is everything all right? Do we owe money?”
“No trouble, darling. Probably old friends. What did they look like?”
Clarissa described them. “A blond man, nice-looking I guess, about as tall as you. The other man was short, a black man. Looked like a weight lifter. I told them Mr. Holcomb was over at the Inglewood mosque. Do you know if he’s there?”
“I can’t say I know for sure,” Pembrook replied.
“I hope I didn’t lead them astray. Are they old friends of your partner’s?”
“Oh, yeah,” Pembrook said. “They’re old friends, all right. Thanks, Clarissa.”
Pembrook hung up his cell phone and leaned back in his chair, trying to breathe away the tightness in his chest. He wasn’t as good at this as Michael. And, somehow, he hadn’t expected it to go this far. The master plan had been beyond him: all Michael had ever asked of him was to act as backup muscle, which he’d been doing since their days in Special Forces.
They’d bonded back then, not just over a shared love of violence, but over religion. They were both Catholics, and both shared similar views of certain church activities. They’d been friends ever since, and although he had a small landscaping business he shared with Bas Holcomb, his real job flowed from Michael’s security work for the church.
Now Pembrook called Michael with a trembling hand. “You know what’s going on?” He detailed his conversation with the assistant at his company. “We’ve got to disappear.”
“That was true no matter what happened today,” Michael said. His voice was steady. “Have we sent them on their way?”
“Yes, they’re on their way to the mosque. They have Holcomb’s name, too. I have to say, I’m scared shitless, but that was a good idea. It’s a deflection and an early warning system all built into one.”
“You can thank my Arab friend for that. He seems very good at twists and turns.” “As long as none of the twists turn back on us,” Pembrook prayed. “Amen,” Michael said. “Anyway, pack. Tonight we’re both getting out of here.”
16. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 A.M. AND 10 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Nina Myers decided that she had a love-hate relationship with Jack Bauer already. She liked his no-nonsense, name-taking, ass-kicking style, except when he turned it on her. She had a strong lead with this Diana Christie anomaly, and she knew it. He’d made a mistake in brushing it aside, in brushing her aside, and that pissed her off. Like a schoolgirl, she’d gone from admiring him to despising him after a single moment of neglect. She was aware of that, and it made her even angrier.
She left CTU and got into her car, laying the address to the NTSB agent’s apartment on the passenger seat. She was going to confront Diana Christie on her own… but somewhere in the no-BS zone in her brain, she knew that she was doing it not because it was her job, but because Jack Bauer had spurned her. That made her angriest of all, and she planned on taking it out on Diana Christie.
“What I’m looking for is a reason not to pull your funding and scrap the Counter Terrorist Unit right here and now,” said Senator Armand from Mississippi.
It was not the best way to start a video conference, and Ryan Chappelle could feel sweat dripping down his sides beneath his dress shirt.
“That wasn’t a rhetorical question, Director,” Armand added into the silence that followed. “I’m sorry, Senator,” Chappelle said. “I was gathering my thoughts. May I speak freely?”
Several of the senators and congressmen on the Joint Subcommittee on National Security chuckled. Armand himself grimaced. “I prefer it to ankle licking, Director. Let’s cut the bullshit and speak truth to power.”
Chappelle nodded. “Because bad things are happening right now, and more bad things are on the way.”
“Bad things?” Armand leaned forward, as though trying to push right through the monitor from three thousand miles away. “You sound like my four-yearold.”
“If you want more details than just ‘bad things,’ Senator, then give us the funding we need,” Chappelle retorted. “Right now I’ve got three analysts, which is currently okay because I have only two working computer terminals. Only four or five field agents. You have more aides on your staff than I have agents to protect the western United States. So until you give me funding, all you get is ‘bad things.’ ” Take that, you pompous son of a bitch.
Another committee member, Malpartida from Texas, responded. “That’s the safe reply, Director. You aren’t fully funded yet, so we shouldn’t expect results. I get it. But what you have done, so far, is drag your agency into the murder of a priest and several other killings. This is all very public for an agency that is supposed to be covert.”
Chappelle had been ready for this, and he’d been practicing the reply for an hour, wanting it to sound crisp but not rehearsed. “We are not operating in Somalia, Congressman. We’re not operating in Angola or Sarajevo. We’re in downtown Los Angeles. We are not going to be able to hide everything we do.”
“But what you do seems to involve murders and shootings, not stopping terrorists!” Armand broke in. “I’m getting off-the-record reports about shootings in the hills, people getting blown up on motorcycles. Is this how you’re running things?”
“No, sir,” Chappelle said, ready for this as well. “That wasn’t one of my people. That’s an operative on loan from the CIA. His case crossed ours. CTU can’t be held responsible for his actions.”
“What the hell was he doing blowing people up?” Armand drawled.
Chappelle explained the Castaic Dam incident to the best of his knowledge, doing his best to highlight
Bauer’s maverick personality and independence from CTU. When he was done, Representative Malpartida spoke up. “I hear you. He’s a loose cannon. But are you saying he single-handedly stopped these terrorists or bikers or whatever from blowing up a dam?” The CTU Director hadn’t seen the trap until too late. “Uh, well, nothing is that simple, but—”
“But?” Malpartida persisted.
“—yes, sir,” Chappelle said reluctantly.
The Congressman snorted and half-spun in his chair, glancing left and right at the other assembled politicians. “Forgive me, gentlemen, but it sounds to me like we don’t just need more funding, we need men like this agent!” He looked at Chappelle through the monitor. “Can’t be held responsible for him? Damn, sir, it sounds like you should be begging to get some of the credit for putting him on the case!”