While the reunion took place, the coyote crossed the enclosure to a rusty faucet sticking out of the ground next to the ramshackle hut. He slipped a canteen from his belt, turned on the tap, and filled the aluminum container. Moving quietly past the others, he jumped into the dark trailer.
“Where is he going?” the man with the sunglasses asked, finally breaking the embrace.
“We were not alone,” the other man replied. “There are more people inside the truck. A banker, his wife, and their child. He’s a businessman… former businessman… fleeing a financial scandal in Mexico City.”
The man with the sunglasses moved between the others, to peer into the darkened trailer. He saw a man in a tailored suit, now dirty and travel worn. The man’s eyes were large and nervous, his tie loose around a flabby neck. He squatted on the metal floor, a prominent gut hanging over his belt. A woman rested on her knees beside him. With the hem of her dress, the woman was brushing dirt off the pudgy face of a five-year-old girl, still sluggish from sleep. The man and wife viewed the armed men warily, while pretending indifference.
While the man with the sunglasses watched, the coyote offered the family his canteen. The businessman waved it away, still staring at the strangers through the open door. The woman took a few sips, then helped the little girl quench her thirst.
Sunglasses sneered. “This flesh smuggler had specific instructions. He was very well compensated to ferry you and your men across the border. Only you and your men.”
The other nodded once. “He told me this… this banker paid more money than we did. He said if he was leaving anyone behind, it was us. In any case, it was too late to haggle. I thought it best to deal with the problem on this end…”
“And so we shall,” Sunglasses said. Stepping back, he raised his right hand and gestured the two bodyguards forward.
“Use your weapons. Deal with them,” he commanded.
Before anyone could register shock, the two men raised their AK–47s and threw the safeties. The woman inside the trailer jumped at the sound. The coyote whirled to face them.
The quiet desert suddenly erupted with the chattering bark of twin assault rifles. The long, sustained sound seemed magnified by the trailer’s hollow interior, echoing back at the shooters in waves of booming sound. Only when the banana-shaped clips were empty did the men stop firing. The abrupt silence was nearly as jarring as the explosion of noise that preceded it.
The man with the sunglasses turned his back on the carnage, focused his mirrored stare on one of the men who’d opened the gate.
“Bury them in the desert,” he said.
Then the man with the sunglasses turned and led the newcomers to the dusty mobile home.
3. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 P.M. AND 3 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
The woman beside him stirred. Jack Bauer opened his eyes, instantly alert. A dark cloud was spread across the pillow beside him; and then he remembered.
He’d drifted off, gazing at the ebony hair of Stella Hawk, but thinking — and dreaming — of his wife. It was a vision from a long time ago. He was surfing a shimmering aqua ocean, the sun-washed beach gleaming white. Teri sat on the sand, laughing with her art crowd friends around a small bonfire, her body taut in a wetsuit, waiting for Jack to give her that promised surf lesson. He did… and, later that night, they’d made love for the first time.
Jack lay motionless for a moment, clinging to the vanishing threads of his deeply satisfying dream — only to feel the memory slip away, along with the feeling of contentment it brought him.
He raised his left arm to check the time. In the dim light filtering through the shuttered blinds he almost believed he could still see the faded circle around the third finger of his left hand. Jack immediately shifted his gaze to the illuminated face of the MTM Spec Ops watch. It was just after two o’clock in the afternoon. Forty-two days and seven hours since he’d last been with his wife.
In the beginning, Jack believed this undercover assignment would allow him time to visit his family — a weekend here and there, at the very least. Los Angeles was just a few hours away from Vegas by car, even quicker by plane. And Christopher Henderson agreed that an occasional visit would not jeopardize the success of the mission.
During the first two months, Jack had made several trips to see his family. But each homecoming proved more difficult than the last. There was a world of difference between Jack Bauer, loving husband and father, and the dangerous, violent double-life of Jaycee Jager. To his dismay, Jack discovered that he could not easily bridge that gap. After playing the role of Jager twenty-four hours a day, for weeks on end, shifting personas proved difficult. The last time he’d been home, Jack actually felt alienated from his own family. Instead of the respite it was supposed to be, life in his own home seemed to sap more of Jack’s energy than his undercover existence at the Cha-Cha Lounge.
So Jack stopped going home, warning Teri that he would be “overseas” for an extended and as yet undetermined period of time. Of course, his wife accepted his explanation. She always did. Teri had learned to accept the nature of his work and no longer asked questions.
Jack secretly worried that if she knew the truth, she’d be as relieved to see him go as he was to be gone.
By his side, Jack felt Stella move again. She wrapped her warm, naked body around his. The woman’s knee curled and he felt the platinum bells circling her ankle tickle his calf. Holding him close, she sighed and muttered something in her sleep. He noticed her bright pink lipstick was smeared from their quick, passionate coupling.
He’d brought Stella up to the tiny suite of rooms that doubled as Jaycee Jager’s home and his office. As soon as the door had closed behind them, she’d thrown herself at him, her physical demands insistent and unconstrained. He’d surrendered, knowing she would be more pliable to his questioning after their tryst.
Jack hadn’t heard from Jaycee Jager’s volatile girlfriend in over a week, but he was impressed with the woman’s timing. Stella was connected to the underbelly of this city; and, thus far, her knowledge had proven accurate and useful. Now he was hoping she’d gotten wind of Hugo Bix’s scheme to peddle classified technology to lowlife gambling cheats. Why should she know? Because before Jaycee Jager had rolled in from KC, Stella Hawk had belonged to Bix.
Jack had already planned to grill the woman when their paths crossed again. If she hadn’t shown up today, he would have sent Curtis over to the Babylon to fetch her. But she had shown up… and now that Stella had her “afternoon delight,” as she put it, it was time to collect some answers.
Jack sat up and ran his hands through his hair. He pulled the sheets aside and slapped Stella’s naked bottom. “Wake up, doll. I gotta get back to work.”
The woman’s eyes flew open and she squealed in protest.
“Get up or I’ll give it to you again.” Jack forced a grin, and she moved out of his way.
“Cut it out, Jaycee!” Stella cried, rubbing her tender flesh. “I’ve got a show tonight and I hate wearing that damn body makeup.”
Despite her protests, Stella’s luminous eyes laughed and her generous mouth was smiling. She sat up in bed, not bothering to cover her nakedness. Her wanton behavior came as no surprise. Stella had once told Jaycee that strutting completely nude on stage five nights a week had pretty much annihilated any shred of modesty she may have possessed, but Jack doubted she’d ever had a shred of modesty. The woman he’d gotten to know was the most uninhibited female he’d ever met.