Peering through his mini-binoculars, Jack realized the smoke rose from the smoldering wreckage of the Boeing 737 sprawled across the scorched and pitted runway. Beyond the hazy curtain he could see the hangars.
Jack lowered the binoculars in time to see movement out of the corner of his eye. He immediately dropped the chopper lower, so he was skimming the desert at less than fifty feet. He glanced over his shoulder, spied the object streaking toward his aircraft on a plume of white smoke.
He waited until the last possible moment before he twisted the controls and spun the helicopter out of the path of the Stinger hand-held ground-to-air missile. Jack had timed his dodge just right — the sudden turn came too late and too fast for the missile’s homing system to compensate. The Stinger struck the desert in a yellow flash.
Then Jack saw another plume of smoke ahead of him, two more to either side. He found himself pinned in the middle of a three pronged missile attack. No matter which way Jack turned, the Little Bird would be blown out of the sky.
The only way to go was down.
Jack cut power, pushed the chopper into a dive. At fifty feet, it took less than a second for the chopper to strike the sand. The impact bent the landing struts, and the helicopter teetered precariously on shattered legs. Jack spit blood, then released his safety belt.
Before the Little Bird tumbled onto its side, Jack dived out of the cockpit. Landing feet first, he sprinted for any cover he could find. Legs pumping, he did not look over his shoulder, even when he heard the chopper’s whirling rotor blades bite into the ground, then shatter.
Their homing devices attracted by the still-spinning rotor, all three Stinger missiles struck the helicopter. The explosion caught Jack Bauer in its fiery grip. Helpless, the CTU agent was swept up like a grain of sand in a sandstorm.
21. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 A.M. AND 9 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
Ryan Chappelle received an urgent call, a tip from a former colleague now working in the Department of Defense. Face taut, Chappelle listened to the disturbing news with angry disbelief. More than anything, he was puzzled by the government willingness to flush four highly trained and immensely valuable assets down the toilet—five, if one were inclined to count the troublesome Morris O’Brian.
After ending the conversation with his colleague, the Regional Director of CTU, Los Angeles, attempted to speak directly with the President, only to be told the Commander in Chief was “in conference.” He tried the Vice-President and ran into another wall.
Frantic now, Chappelle tried calling the Secretary of Defense, and to his surprise the man accepted his call.
“How can I help you, Director Chappelle?” Secretary Thompson asked in his Tennessee drawl.
“I wanted to inform you that we have four CTU Agents inside of Groom Lake right now,” Chappelle replied.
A moment of silence followed the declaration. “There are a lot of people at Groom Lake, Mr. Chappelle. Good people.”
Chappelle knew that when the Secretary of Defense casually demoted him from “director” to “mister,” Ryan was in trouble. Still he persisted.
“I’m asking you to call off the B–52s, Mr. Secretary. Give my men a chance to deal with the situation before you resort to drastic action.”
Another moment of silence. “I would like to help, but—”
“Secretary Thompson, these are very capable agents. One of them is the very best field agent in our Unit. I believe that even though they may be outnumbered six to one, my agents can and will resolve this situation.”
“Excuse me for a moment, Director Chappelle.”
Promoted again, Ryan thought hopefully.
He held on the phone for almost five minutes. When Secretary Thompson returned, he seemed irritated.
“All right, Director. Noon is our new go time. That means CTU has a little less than four hours to show us your stuff. If those pilots don’t get the proper code phrase by noon sharp, I will give the order to bomber command to flatten that base. It will be Rolling Thunder all over again—”
“Code phrase, sir?”
“It’s a randomly generated phrase created by our computer and disseminated over a secure channel. We’ll send the phrase directly to you through a secure server.”
“One more thing, Mr. Secretary,” Chappelle said.
“Son, don’t you know when to quit.”
“No sir, I don’t. Not when the lives of my agents are involved.”
“What is it, Director?”
Ryan wasn’t completely sure, but he thought he sensed a new hint of respect in the Secretary’s tone. “I need to speak with my agents in the field,” Chappelle replied. “I want to alert them about the time frame they are facing. To do that, the Air Force needs to stop their jamming for a few minutes.”
“I’ll talk to General Boyd. The jamming will be lifted for five minutes, commencing at exactly 0900 hours — that’s nine o’clock, civilian time. Good enough?”
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”
After the loss of his escape plane, Jong Lee established a new command center in Hangar Five, where he could personally watch over the only functioning aircraft left on the entire base. The Blackfoot stealth helicopter figured prominently in Lee’s original plan. That piece of advanced hardware was even more important now that the situation was in flux.
“It was not an attack,” Lee declared. “One helicopter means a reconnaissance mission, not an all out assault.” Jong’s thin lips curled into a smile. “It gives me hope that the Americans have been shocked into paralysis.”
“It is mysterious,” Captain Hsu noted. “The Americans have positioned satellites over our heads. I have seen the contrails of high-altitude spy planes as well. They know much of what is going on here. Why send a reconnaissance helicopter?”
“Have you dispatched men to the crash site?” “Yes, sir. Woo and two men are on their way now.”
A runner arrived, dispatched from the flight tower across the tarmac. With the phones jammed along with everything else, Lee had to resort to nineteenth century-style communications between his units.
“Yizi reports that the jamming continues,” the man said after saluting. “She has not communicated with the base in Mexico since the initial message was sent.”
“Tell her to keep trying. If the curtain of jamming parts, I want her to be ready to send and receive messages at a moment’s notice.”
Tony Almeida spent a long, torturous hour crawling face down through a shallow ravine outside of Hangar Six. His filthy sweat pants clung to his legs and sand filled his sneakers. Though he was covered with grease and grit, the hot morning sun broiled the skin on his back and sent rivulets of sweat rolling down his flanks. He moved slowly to avoid discovery — Tony knew he was being hunted, he’d seen the men fan out across the base. They’d found other hostages, hiding in hangars or in bunkers, but so far he’d managed to elude them.
Finally, he was within sight of the side entrance. The door was locked, but Tony had rigged it so he could open it without a key, back when he was spying on Steve Sable. Risking detection, Tony rose and sprinted across the final stretch of sand. He made it to the door in seconds, yanked it open and ducked inside.
The dim interior of the hangar’s forgotten storage room was at least fifteen degrees cooler than the air outside, and Tony was out of the direct sunlight — a double blessing. He was exhausted and thirsty, and the burn marks on his chest and legs throbbed, an ever present reminder of the torture he’d endured at the hands of the late Dr. Sable.