Driscoll said, “You know the connection. Biehn said that whoever kidnapped him also knew about the terrorist, Yasin’s his name, right?” Jack nodded. “So the kidnapper takes Biehn, who was shadowing Collins. Same kidnapper has knowledge of some terrorist thing connected with Yasin. You got to figure that the same terrorist tried to kill me when I went after Collins.”
“We need that autopsy,” Jack said.
We need our own forensics team, Nina thought. Add it to the list.
Not that Santa Monica PD’s team was bad. But even if they did everything by the book, there would be bureaucracy. Information would have to flow up the chain at the local PD, then back down through the Federal agencies. And by that time it might be too late.
These guys hadn’t even treated her like a colleague. The fire truck and black-and-white that arrived together on the scene had first treated her like an accident victim, then the cops had briefly put handcuffs on her when they realized a bomb had gone off, and then they had ignored her when someone checked her credentials through the State Department.
Now one of the forensics techs, a tall, ugly man with lanky black hair and pockmarks, approached her with a quizzical look on his face. “Ma’am, a question?”
“Fire away,” she said. “What have you guys got?”
“Well,” he said, then stopped. He furrowed his brow, creating deep lines above his pockmarked cheeks. Finally, he asked, “Was the victim… was she holding anything when the bomb went off?”
Nina tried to think back. At first her memory was fuzzy, but then she recalled Christie dropping her handgun. Her right hand had been empty. Her left arm had been in a sling. “No. Not unless she was hiding something in the sling on her arm. Why?”
The tech’s quizzical look deepened. “Well, only because the explosion… well, the explosion looks like it happened right where she was standing. Was she wearing a bomb?”
Nina shook her head. “I guess she might have been. I didn’t see anything big on her. But my brain is pretty banged up.”
“Okay, thanks,” the tech said, but he left looking even more perplexed.
Nina took out her cell phone, thankful that it still worked, and dialed the number for Jack Bauer. He answered quickly. “It’s Nina Myers,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m headed back to CTU. Are you there?”
“Santa Monica. I’ve got news for you. I went to see Diana Christie to talk to her about her and Farrigian.”
“What did she say.”
“She blew up.” Nina described her brief, explosive encounter with the NTSB investigator. She was gratified when Bauer said, “It sounds like Ramin. You may have been right. Are we running a background check on her?”
“I’ll do it. But you know this thing is getting crazier, right? Yesterday she was the one pushing for an investigation. Then last night she sends us on a wild-goose chase. Today she blows up.”
Jack agreed. “This whole thing is convoluted. Someone set it up that way.”
“Yasin?”
“Has to be. But there’s someone else. Someone on the front line who can move around without arousing suspicion. And they planned so that we’ve spent the last twelve hours running after everything but their target.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I’m done playing. I’m going to go ask some people some hard questions. Starting with that weasel of an arms dealer.”
Gary Khalid lifted his demitasse with a trembling hand. He couldn’t get it to stop shaking. Anyone watching would have laid the blame on the four triple espressos he had drunk. But it wasn’t so. Khalid was excited and terrified and ready to get out of the country. He dared not return home. Considering the fact that the priest’s body was in the hands of the authorities, it was only a matter of time before the police uncovered their carefully laid plan. And eventually, Yasin had assured him, they would reexamine the history of Ghulam Meraj Khalid.
“I already gave you the best example I can, sir,” Chappelle said. He was disciplined enough to keep the fatigue and annoyance out of his voice. If they thought redundancy and tedium could wear him down, they had seriously underestimated Ryan Chappelle. “But let me do so again. Right now I have agents spread thin all over Los Angeles, running from place to place because I don’t have manpower to chase down several leads at once…”
Jack sped back to Farrigian’s warehouse with a grim look on his face. He was sick of being bounced around. He was going to ask questions and keep asking until he got answers.
“…drafted other agencies into our pursuit of terrorists,” Chappelle said into the video monitors.
“Isn’t that positive?” a Congresswoman asked. “Multiagency involvement means greater pooling of knowledge, doesn’t it?”
“And a greater chance of leaks, or worse, ma’am,” Chappelle said. “And different agencies have different agendas, and different command structures. Even if the people themselves are good, we won’t know what kinds of bureaucracies they’ll have to deal with.”
Harry Driscoll felt his bones start to ache. He was getting too old for this sort of work. Pulling allnighters and getting shot at, that was a young man’s work. But this next job, at least, was specially designed for an old veteran like him.
He walked into the coroner’s office to find Patricia Siegman waiting for him. “I know I promised you noon, Detective, but we’re doing the best we—”
“Step into my office, please,” he said, and half dragged her into the men’s room before she could resist.
“Look and listen,” he said. He was short enough for them to see eye to eye, but he was twice as broad. “I’m with LAPD but I’m doing work with a government unit. They believe terrorists are going to make some kind of attack today. Now. But they don’t know what. I think this guy was involved somehow, I don’t know exactly. I think this autopsy could give us an answer, so I need you to move some other stiff off the table and put my guy on it or people may die and it’ll be your fault.”
“…terrorists are out there,” Chappelle concluded with just the right hint of righteous indignation. “You all believe that, or this meeting would never have been called. We don’t know where they are exactly, but I do know we have the resources to root them out, if we commit those resources to action. If not, they will hide in convenient places, waiting for convenient moments, and then they will strike.”
Yasin had moved, as was his habit these days. He’d spent a short time in the San Fernando Valley, and now he was headed toward the suburbs near the airport. He doubted the authorities had any idea of his location, but even with the simple changes he’d made to his appearance, someone might recognize him. It was better to be unpredictable.
He was impressed with how well this more elaborate plan was working. ’93 had been simple, but ineffective. Yes, there had been headlines, but they had succeeded only in angering the Americans, not terrorizing them. This plan had required much more subtlety, much more planning, but so far it had worked. Yasin was not blind to the fact that Federal agents were scouring the city, but he had foreseen that possibility, and, through Michael, he had set up intricate avenues and mazes to lead them here and there. So far, so good. Allah was willing.