Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked around. Dr. Megan Reed was under the open flap of the tent, discussing the logistics of today’s demonstration with Corporal Stratowski. From under the brim of an oversized Air Force-blue hardhat, fluttering strands of reddish-blond hair framed her freckled face. The headgear seemed incongruous, clashing with the project head’s summer suit and high heels.
Near the pair, Phil Bascomb was busy running a diagnostic on the control panel, and the others had gathered at the water station, soothing their parched throat.
Tony looked up. Steve Sable was almost finished connecting the last power cable. He’d be climbing down the ladder in a minute or so. Now was the time.
Tony casually leaned against the hot metal, right next to the ladder — really a series of metal bars screwed into the steel structure. He quickly drew a wrench out of his pouch, slipped it over one of two metal bolts that held the fifth rung from the bottom in place. The tower had been erected only a few hours ago, and Tony expected the bolt to be looser than it was. In the end, he had to use both hands to break the seal. After that, it took only a few seconds to loosen the screw enough to fail the moment it was tested.
He’d barely slipped the wrench back into its pouch when he heard Sable’s boots on the ladder. Tony stepped down and waited, feigning a yawn. As a final touch, he wrapped his foot around the power cable Sable had just connected.
The moment Sable put his weight on the loose rung, it gave way with a metallic clang. Still clutching the rails, Sable’s body bounced against the ladder. He grunted, the wind knocked out of him, and his grip on the rail slipped. He would have landed hard, but Tony was there to catch him. Tony eased the man to the ground in one smooth motion.
“Are you okay, Steve?” Tony said in mock alarm.
“Sure, sure,” Sable wheezed. Sitting up, he pushed Tony away. “Just let me catch my breath, Alvarez…”
Tony looked around, satisfied it had happened so quickly, no one even noticed. Sable checked himself out. Tony yanked his foot, disconnecting the power cable at the top of the tower. It dropped down, coiling around them like a dead snake.
“Son of a bitch,” Sable cursed. “Who the hell put this tower together, the Army Corps of Engineers?” Then he spied the end of the power cable he’d just attached and cursed again.
“Don’t worry. I’ll fix it,” Tony offered.
But Sable stumbled to his feet. “I’ll reconnect the damn thing. I broke it,” he said, obviously trying to save face. A moment later, Sable was moving up the ladder again, the end of the fallen line strapped to his belt. This time he carefully avoided the defective rung.
Tony stepped back, watching the man climb. When Sable reached the halfway mark, Tony strolled over to his computer, sitting under the limited shade of a wooden packing crate open on one side. Pretending to check the power grid, Tony slipped his fingers into a secret compartment in the side of his PC, found the data cable stored there. He plugged the cord into a jack in the cell phone he’d lifted from Sable’s pocket.
Tapping the keys, Tony called up a hidden program embedded in the computer’s engineering software. Before Sable was finished reattaching the power line, Tony had completely downloaded the cell phone’s memory, including all the numbers stored in the directory and calling log. As Tony saved the data in a hidden file for examination later, he smiled, remembering how he’d picked up the skill he’d practiced so well today — and it wasn’t from CTU’s cursory training.
During his misspent youth on the South Side of Chicago, Tony had been a devoted Cubs fan, but he never had the cash for game tickets. After riding a crowded el for an hour, however, he always had enough pilfered money to buy tickets at Wrigley Field for himself and his younger cousin, and even a few snacks. It was a smooth operation, and he was never too greedy, stealing just enough to get by and returning the wallet without his mark ever catching on.
The petty thefts were a sin, and his pious grandmother would have beaten him silly if she’d found out. She never did. By the time CTU got around to training him in the art of picking pockets, Tony discovered he could teach his class a few things.
“Okay, Tony, I’m coming down,” Sable called from the top of the tower.
Tony pocketed the man’s cell and sauntered back to the base of the ladder.
“Good job,” Tony said, patting the man’s back with one hand, while slipping the cell back into Sable’s pocket with the other.
“Yeah,” Sable said, squinting up at the microwave emitter. “Now let’s power it up and see if this baby actually works.”
Max Farrow lay on his back in the holding cell, his throat a jagged slit. Clotting blood pooled on the green linoleum floor, caking his hair and arching outward like an obscene halo. Mouth open, jaws slack, the man’s dead eyes, wide and seemingly startled, stared at the fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling. Farrow’s left arm was twisted and lay under him, his right was bent at the elbow. In that fist, Farrow still clutched a blood-stained splinter of orange fiberglass, a shard from the shattered chair.
Farrow was alone in the room. Don Driscoll, Curtis Manning, and Jack Bauer observed the grim tableau through the two-way mirror, like it was some macabre museum display. Jack’s eyes roved the scene, seeking clues. Don Driscoll stammered at his side.
“Ray Perry was supposed to be watching him, Jaycee. I gave him the orders myself. I don’t know what the f—”
“Where’s Perry now?” Jack asked, cutting the other man off.
Driscoll shook his head. “The guys are looking for him, but he ain’t turned up yet. I… I think he ducked out last week to bang some chick over at Circus, Circus. Maybe that’s where he is now…”
Driscoll’s voice trailed off, his eyes still glued to the corpse on the other side of the glass. “Hell of a way to die…”
“What?” Jack demanded.
“I said that’s a hell of a way to die,” Driscoll replied. “Suicide, I mean…”
Jack and Curtis exchanged glances, neither convinced the death was a suicide.
“When you find Ray Perry, I want to see him. Immediately,” Jack said through gritted teeth.
“You got it, Jaycee.”
Then Driscoll tapped the glass. “What do we do about him.”
“I’m going to seal the room for now. Nobody comes down here until I say so. Nobody…”
“Why don’t I have the guys dump this stiff in the desert. Nobody will be the wiser—”
“No,” Jack shot back. “I’ll deal with the problem my way…”
Don Driscoll raised his arms in mock surrender. “Whatever you want, Jaycee.”
In his mind, Jack had already decided to summon a CTU forensics team to examine the scene and perform an on-site autopsy, even if their arrival aroused suspicion among the staff. He’d find some way of explaining it all. Right now he only suspected Farrow’s death was homicide. Before he could make his next move, he had to know what really happened, because if Max Farrow was murdered, there was a traitor in his ranks. And that traitor had to be weeded out as soon as possible, before the turncoat did more damage.
4. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 3 P.M. AND 4 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
The streets surrounding Mesa Canyon, a sun-washed residential development on the outskirts of Las Vegas, were deserted. Paul Dugan parked his Dodge Sprinter right outside the gate of Compound One, on the corner of Smoke Ranch Road and North Buffalo Drive. He opened the truck’s door, and immediately knew why. With nothing but concrete and sand all around, there was no shade, so the residents had taken refuge from the punishing heat and relentless sun inside the air conditioned comfort of their mock adobe townhouses.