“You sold to someone. Give me those names. And don’t say the bikers,” he warned, gouging another hole in Farrigian’s forehead.

272

“Aah! I did sell to them. I was told to. But some I sold to this other guy who was in charge. I don’t know his name, I swear I don’t!” he added in a panic as Jack aimed the sights at a fresh spot. “He was American. He never let me see him, but he talked like an American. He only wanted a little for himself. The rest he said to sell to Dog and Dean.”

“How did he know them?” Jack asked.

“Don’t know. They weren’t the same type, that’s for sure. And they didn’t know my guy at all. They kept talking about Mark or Mike or something, but that definitely wasn’t the guy who arranged the whole thing.”

“What was he going to do with it?”

“Are you kidding me?”

Jack wasn’t kidding. He cut another red line across the arms dealer’s forehead. But he doubted Farrigian could answer his question. The mastermind behind the C–4 had gone to great lengths to keep the authorities busy with other problems. There was no way he would tell his master plan to the likes of this.

“What did you to do Diana Christie?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even meet her. I made you guys when you came last time. I didn’t trust you, but you weren’t my problem, you were Dean’s, so I sent you to him. Guys want to pay me to keep my mouth shut, they pay me, right? Otherwise it’s the law of the jungle. When she came back, the boss man was here to meet her, not me. Did they kill her?”

“Eventually,” Jack said. “Oh, man, look, none of this is my thing. I just buy and sell, you know?” Jack asked how much C–4 the mysterious leader

had kept for himself. Jamey Farrell would have been pleased when Farrigian said, “About ten pounds.”

10:40 A.M. PST Culver City

Marwan al-Hassan had one more act to perform before leaving for the Unity Conference, a sort of purification ritual. Slowly, carefully, he slid his left arm out of its sling. Then he began to unwrap the bandage that covered his arm. It took several minutes, and every movement was painful, but he forced himself to continue until the bandage was gone. His forearm looked sickly and pale, but under long sleeves it would not be noticeable. There would be pain, but the pain was a small price to pay for the glory that was to come.

10:59 A.M. West Los Angeles

Jack’s phone rang. “Harry, what’s happening? Are

you at the coroner’s office?”

“Yeah, and you need to get down here. Now.”

“They did the autopsy?”

“Yeah, but you need to see this to believe it.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 A.M. AND 12 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

11:00 A.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Security for the Unity Conference was subtle but efficient. Guests passed through two sets of metal detectors in the lobby and took a specially designated elevator to the top floor, where Swiss Guards dressed in elegant black suits politely relieved all guests of their unnecessary bags and coats. As they did, a hidden camera snapped a high-resolution photo of their faces and a computer matched it against a predetermined guest list. Guards surreptitiously passed swatches of chemically treated cloth over some part of each guest, and the swatches were casually passed back to a coatroom that had been turned into a laboratory. The swatches were examined—one that turned black indicated the presence of explosive agents.

The man who called himself Abdul al-Hassan passed casually through all this security, even patiently allowing the Swiss Guards to probe his arm sling. The only moment of trouble he had was walking through the second metal detector, which, unbeknownst to him, was set at a higher sensitivity. The detector made no sound, but a single light went off on the far side of the metal frame, and a young man in Armani smoothly gestured for al-Hassan to step to the side.

“Do you have any metal on you, sir?” he asked in lightly accented English.

“Metal?” al-Hassan said. “No. The other detector didn’t—”

The young man smiled. “They are temperamental sometimes.” He held up a metal wand. “May I?” Before al-Hassan could respond, he began to wave the handheld detector over the attendee. The wand hummed steadily until the guard passed it over alHassan’s arm.

“Ah,” he said. “I broke my arm. There is a metal plate in there.”

The guard nodded. He gently fingered the cloth sling again, and then waved al-Hassan through.

“Can you believe the security here?” said a woman who appeared suddenly beside him.

Marwan al-Hassan knew immediately that this was a Jew. Only his training kept the look of disdain off his face. “Necessary, I suppose.” He turned away from her.

“Well, no need to be rude, Mr. al-Hassan,” the woman said. “Are you saying you don’t remember me?”

Marwan looked at her calmly, but he felt his heart

276

pound against the side of his neck. Could he be undone so quickly? “I’m sorry?” “Amy Weiss.” The woman laughed. “I interviewed you on Thursday about the conference.” “Ah, of course,” he said apologetically. “I’m so sorry. The last few days have been very hectic.”

“I’m sure,” Amy Weiss said. “That’s just twice now, after I did that story on your peace efforts after the ’93 bombing.”

Marwan fought the urge to squeeze her neck until her head popped off. “We all have our failings,” he said sweetly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

11:11 A.M. PST I–10 Freeway

Boo McElroy had never picked up his room as a kid, so now he was stuck picking up trash on Interstate 5. Boo (his real name was Bradley, but no one called him that) didn’t have the vocabulary to use the word irony, but that’s what he felt. He’d always told his mom she could go stuff herself every time she tried to get him to clean up. He was a tough kid, independent, doing his own thing.

Until he got caught robbing a 7-Eleven, his third robbery since turning eighteen. Now he was serving a year in county, and working off some of that time wearing an orange vest and raking up trash along the freeway with a crew of cons.

He couldn’t believe how much shit people tossed out of their cars. Come on, he tossed a bottle or can now and then, but his own personal shit couldn’t amount to much. It was all these other bastards who treated the city like it was a toilet.

He used his poker to jab a can and then lift it up into his trash bag. He moved on and saw a large canvas bag. It was his size and half covered in dust and leaves. It looked full. Well, hell, he thought, no way was he picking up that big thing. They couldn’t make him—

He stopped mid-gripe and blinked. He used his poker to push aside some leaves.

There was a cold, gray hand sticking out of the bag.

11:14 A.M. PST Los Angeles Department of Coroner Forensic Sciences Lab

Jack saw Harry Driscoll waiting outside the door of the forensics lab.

“What couldn’t you tell me over the phone?” Jack asked, slightly annoyed.

“Inside,” Harry said. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. You have to see it.”

Jack followed Harry inside, where they were both greeted by a woman in a lab coat who introduced herself as Dr. Siegman. She looked astounded and fascinated and was clearly eager to get back to the autopsy room. Outside, they donned surgical masks, then entered.

The naked corpse of the priest lay on the examination table. Its left arm had been cut open and splayed out.

278

“This is why we wanted you to come down,” the coroner said. “Look at the arm.”

Jack approached the table and looked at the sickeningly butchered arm. The bone was exposed, but along the bone there was a steel plate, around which had been packed strips of what looked like very wet putty.

“C–4?” Jack asked. Siegman shrugged. “That’s not my field, but from what the detective tells me, that may be the case.”

Siegman picked up a probe and used it to push aside some of the dead tissue. “Look how it’s designed. A plate like this is normally used to brace a badly broken bone. But this one is a lot weaker. And look how the explosives are packed in there. I think if this were to explode, all this metal would go flying outward.”

“Show him the receiver,” Harry said.

Siegman used a pair of tongs to lift a small circuit. “Again, not my field, but if this is an explosive, I’m guessing this is a receiver.”

The ramifications of what he was seeing were instantly clear to Jack. Father Collins had turned himself into a human bomb. Jack’s knowledge of ordnance wasn’t strong enough to estimate the power of the blast, but he’d just seen what a brick of C–4 could do to a packed earth wall.

The small room seemed eerily silent with the three of them staring at the mutilated corpse. Finally, Harry Driscoll said something to break the dead quiet. “This is the most twisted thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’ve heard of suicide bombers, of course—”

“It’s not that far off,” Jack cut in. “Either way, the bomber is going to die. This delivery system—”

“Delivery system!” Dr. Siegman gasped, horrified. “This is a human being!”

But Jack was beyond her sense of morality, assessing the threat. “It’s not as efficient as a suicide vest. You can pack that with more C–4, and use nails, bolts, other stuff to make yourself a claymore mine. But this would be undetectable.”

“There’s that metal plate, though,” Harry pointed out.

Siegman was finding the same page Jack was on. “It wouldn’t matter. Most metal detectors aren’t set to go off when they find that density of metal. The plates are made that way. And even when they are, what would the security guard do, ask you to open your arm?”

“Was the transmitter on him?” Jack asked.

They searched through the few possessions that had arrived with the corpse, but found nothing of interest. “It might be anything,” Jack said. “A cell phone. The keyless entry on a car. Anything.”

“He wasn’t going after anything when I arrested him,” Harry said. “Man, he played that cool. But I guess if you’re willing to have a bomb planted in your arm, you can handle a few questions from a cop.”

Jack stepped back from the corpse, as though the physical distance might lend him mental perspective. The discovery lent him a small sense of relief— whatever Collins had been planning to do, it clearly wasn’t going to happen now. And at least now they knew why Driscoll’s attackers had wanted to reclaim that body. But it also raised a hundred questions, and at least a dozen of them were urgent. What had been the intended target? Who had helped him with

280

the horrific surgery? Was there a connection between Father Collins, the human bomb, and Father Collins, the child molester? Other questions swirled around in Jack’s brain. He needed to organize them.

“Background check on Collins,” he said out loud, reciting the first thing he needed. “We need to know who this guy was. This has got to be the C–4 missing from the—oh, damn.” A depressing thought struck him. He looked at Siegman. “I don’t suppose there’s ten pounds of the stuff in there.”

Siegman looked at the arm. “I can give you an exact weight in a little while,” she said, “but no way. Whoever did this did it well, but there’s no ten pounds. They did this well. Look, there’s a sterilized wrap around the explosive, so it doesn’t break off and start moving around in the body and get reactions from the immune system. But I guarantee you, this guy was feeling even this amount. He must have been in some serious pain. The human body doesn’t like a lot of foreign objects invading it.”

Jack felt some of the energy drain out him, and he tried to put a mental stopper in the leak. It had been a long night, and he still couldn’t catch up to the plastic explosives, or the actual plot. Every time he caught up with some of it, more seemed to be missing.

11:33 A.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jamey had long ago given up any thought of going home, so it didn’t bother her when Jack Bauer called. “I need everything you can get me on Sam Col

lins, a priest at St. Monica’s in Los Angeles, and I mean everything, including his medical records. He had surgery on his arm recently and I want all that information as well.”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll tell you how much money he got from the tooth fairy,” Jamey said. She started typing.

11:35 A.M. PST Los Angeles Department of Coroner Forensic Sciences Lab

Jack hung up and turned back to Dr. Siegman. “Doctor, I’m assuming that this was done with the man’s cooperation, yes? There’s no way this was done without his knowledge?”

Siegman looked startled, as though she hadn’t even considered the possibility. “Well, I guess it’s possible, once someone’s under, but what doctor would do that? Besides, you’d have to be a complete idiot. There’d be a lot of discomfort.”

Jack nodded his understanding and moved on. “Harry, we’ve got to figure out what the motive is, and the target. You know the Pope is in town, right?”

“Yeah, half our unit is assigned to it this week. He would be the obvious target. But a priest kill the Pope?”

“Maybe he’s a renegade,” Jack said. “Someone was telling me just recently about a group of people called schismatics who—”

“Yeah, they don’t think there’s been a real Pope since Vatican II,” Dr. Siegman said. “Usually very orthodox Catholics.”

282

“Are you Catholic?” Jack asked. “Me? I’m Jewish. But my sister married a Catholic, and he’s a schismatic. Family dinners are murder.”

Jack felt all the pieces fall into place. If Jamey came back with information connecting Collins to the schismatics, then he had his target and his motive. It was possible—although he felt the stretch here—that this Catholic renegade had contacted Yasin to learn how to plan the attack. Mercenary work wasn’t Yasin’s style, but he might be unable to resist a chance to help strike a major symbol of Western civilization like the Pope. If that was the case, then they might have nipped this whole incident in the bud.

Jamey Farrell called back a moment later and gave him a preamble. “I don’t think this is what you wanted to hear.”

Harry eavesdropped on the conversation, but Dr. Siegman returned to her examination of the bullet-damaged receiver.

“What I want to hear is that the priest was part of a renegade sect that hated and opposed the Pope and wanted him replaced. It’d also be like whip cream on top if, say, Yasin’s phone number appeared a few dozen times in Collins’s phone logs.”

“How about a guy so squeaky clean you could eat off his stomach. This guy, Collins, was a friggin’ saint.”

“He was a child-molesting monster,” Jack replied.

“Well, not according to any record of him anywhere that we can dig up. Grew up in Orange County, went to a Catholic high school where his grade point average was exactly that—average. Served as Vice President on the student council, played on the baseball team. College at Pepperdine. Seminary school after that. His name is listed on the boards of about fifty charitable organizations. I can’t even find a friggin’ parking ticket on this guy.”

“He can be all that and still hate the Pope,” Jack said.

“He could,” Jamey retorted, “or he could be cochair of something called the Eternal City Project, which raises money for underprivileged Catholic kids to go to Rome and see the Pope. Not to mention having received a meritorious service award from the Council of Bishops, which was presented to him by, um, yeah, the Pope himself two years ago.”

“Jesus,” Jack muttered, no pun intended. “All this is so much easier if he just hates the Pope. That would explain my target. Without that, I have no idea why a priest turned himself into a human bomb.”

“All that motive could still be hidden under this stuff,” Jamey pointed out. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“By the way,” Jack asked, “is there any way at all, any possible way, that you were off in your calculations, and that the box of C–4 was missing only a pound or so?”

“No way. If that thing was packed full, then ten pounds is missing.” She paused. “You saying there aren’t ten pounds where you are?”

“Yeah.”

“This case just won’t die, will it?” she asked.

“Medical records?”

“He checked into Cedars-Sinai a month ago after a car wreck. I have all the records from that surgery online.”

Jack thanked her and hung up. He was aware that Harry Driscoll and Dr. Siegman were staring at him,

284

but he ignored them. He had to think, and his insights were coming few and far between. He wished he’d had at least a few minutes of sleep when he’d been home—not for his own comfort, but so that his brain would have had time to reset. Maybe it’d be working better now.

“Okay,” he said at last. “This is what we have to go on. There is roughly ten pounds of plastic explosives out in the open. Some fraction of that is here, in Father Collins’s arm. The rest isn’t enough to do any huge damage to any buildings or important structures, so we can rule out that sort of terrorist attack.

“Father Collins apparently had no motive to murder anyone, and was working toward becoming the next Mother Teresa. But we know that’s not true because he stuck a bomb in his arm. I’m going back to the office to start working on this.”

“Mr. Bauer?” Dr. Siegman said, holding up the tiny electronic device. “This might interest you. You should take it and have it double-checked, because I might be wrong about this thing.”

“It’s not a receiver?”

“Oh, it’s definitely a receiver. But unless I’m mistake, there’s also a little timer built into it. A kind of fail-safe, maybe.”

“A timer.”

“Set to go off at five-thirty today.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 P.M. AND 1 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

12:00 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Rabbi Dan Bender had to admit that he was enjoying himself. It had been years since he’d attended a truly splendid party, and the reception that preceded the official start of the Unity Conference was nothing if not splendid. Clerics and holy men from a number of religions were in attendance—not just rabbis, imams, and Christian clergy, but also a few Sikhs, Hindus, and Buddhists. The Dalai Lama had been invited, but was unable to attend due to illness.

Although he tried not to appear obvious about it, he searched the crowd for Father Collins. He didn’t like the man, but for reasons obvious to himself, Bender felt it very important to know the man’s whereabouts.

286

He could not find Collins, which concerned him very much. But he did spot Abdul al-Hassan who, quite out of character, was standing by himself near a tall indoor plant in a large pot. Bender sidled over to him. “I’ve never known you to avoid a crowd, Abdul, at least not when you thought you could turn it into an audience.”

Abdul turned on him sharply, and for the briefest of moments, Bender thought he saw real hatred in the Muslim’s eyes. But the emotion, whatever it was, vanished in a flicker. “Well, I suppose I am just trying to hold back,” he said quietly. “This is the Christians’ affair, after all. It would not be good to step on toes.”

Bender laughed. “What, haven’t you read the brochure? This event is for all of us.”

“It is a political stunt for the leader of the Crusaders to appear to be the leader of us all,” al-Hassan said simply.

Bender hesitated. “Are you in an especially bad mood, Abdul?”

Marwan hesitated. He knew his brother shared that view—he’d heard him speak against the paternalistic approach taken by the Christian Pope. Had he said something wrong? “No, why?”

Bender shrugged. “There’s an edge in your voice. I hope everything is all right.” “Fine,” Marwan said, thinking of what was to come. “I am absolutely fine.”

12:06 P.M. PST Mid-Wilshire Area, Los Angeles

Go back to the beginning.

Jack remembered hearing that somewhere, though he couldn’t recall where. The truth is that he had been picking up his investigative skills in a sort of on-the-job training program. His training with LAPD SWAT, and in Delta, and with the CIA, had much more to do with field operations than mystery solving. But someone somewhere had once told him that when the clues start slipping out of your mental grip, go back to the beginning.

“What’s the earliest event?” he said aloud, alone in his car. Driscoll was trailing him. “If we count it, there’s the airline bombing that Diana Christie was working on. No,” he corrected, “there’s the timeline Farouk gave me. The purchase of C–4 out of Cairo and its shipment to the U.S. When was that?

“Six weeks ago, he said,” Jack answered himself. “Then the airline accident or bombing, whichever it is. Four weeks ago. Yasin arrives in Los Angeles four days ago. I question Ramin yesterday, and the house blows up.”

Jack was still reciting the timeline of events as he pulled his car up to CTU’s nondescript building and walked inside. He caught the attention of Nina Myers, Jamey Farrell, and Christopher Henderson and motioned them toward the conference room. They followed, and he began to repeat his timeline so far, this time writing it on a whiteboard in the almost-bare room.

Jamey Farrell shook her head. “You missed something. Nina arrested the Sweetzer Three. That was

288

two days ago. One day before you went to Ramin’s house.” Jack nodded and crammed that onto the whiteboard above Ramin.

“Well, that’s a thing to think about,” Christopher Henderson mused. “Yasin—assuming it’s Yasin we’re talking about here—didn’t care at all about the three Muslims we captured with a load of plastic explosives. But the minute you questioned Ramin, he blew the place up.”

“Maybe he couldn’t get to them when they were arrested,” Nina suggested.

Jack saw where he was headed. “Could be. But he was ready and waiting for Ramin. That bomb was planted long before we got there. Not these three, though. Why not?”

“They’re too important to kill?” Henderson proposed.

But Nina was headed in the other direction. “No. They weren’t important enough.” Her eyes met Jack’s, and both realized the other was thinking the same thing.

“They don’t know anything,” Jack said first. “They were meant to live, so we would waste time on them. They were the first decoy, just in case we were on the trail of the C–4.”

“So the airplane, then,” Nina wondered. “Where does that fit in? If Christie was right, then they blew it up. Why?”

“Something about Ali, the guy in the seat,” Jack said. “You did a thorough background on him?” Nina crossed her heart. “Trust me. Nothing in his past. Squeaky clean.” “Like Collins,” Jack said. He paused, then said,

“Forget his past. What was his future? Where was he going?”

Jamey Farrell blushed. “I never looked for that. Give me a minute.” She hurried out of the room.

12:15 P.M. PST En Route from St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Michael rode shotgun in the Cardinal’s car, but his mind had leaped five miles and more than an hour ahead.

Almost, he thought. Almost there.

After so much work, only a short time to wait, and then the heresy of Vatican II would be eradicated.

12:16 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jamey Farrell reentered the conference room with a look of pure embarrassment on her face. “It was there all the time,” she said meekly. “If only I’d thought to look.”

“What is it?” Jack said, although he thought he already knew.

“Abdul Ali was arriving in Los Angeles to attend several meetings. The most important one was the Unity Conference. He was scheduled to meet with the Pope.”

290

12:18 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Giancarlo swept the reception hall as he planned to do several times in the next hour or more prior to the arrival of the Holy Father. Every precaution had been taken, of course, but he did not feel right unless he had personally walked every inch of the area. In order to better mingle with the crowd of eighty or ninety clerics in the hall, he was dressed in the black robes of a priest, and, if necessary, he could speak eloquently on various theological topics. But at this moment he avoided all conversation, simply smiling and tipping his head to anyone who made eye contact with him.

Another “priest”—actually one of his Swiss Guards in a similar disguise—approached him and said quietly in Italian, “There is a telephone call for you. It may be urgent.”

Giancarlo bowed and turned, gliding out of the room. In the hallway outside, he opened a nondescript door that led to a separate room filled with video monitors. In this room, there was no attempt to hide security. Four men in body armor and wearing automatic weapons slung over their shoulders waited with professional patience, while three others watched the video screens intently.

One of them handed a headset to Giancarlo. He slipped it over his head and said in English, “This is the Chief of Security, may I help you?”

“This is Federal agent Jack Bauer,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I’m concerned that there may be an attempt on the life of the Pope.”

12:25 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jack admired calm, and the man on the other end of the line sounded almost serene. “I see,” he said. “I am aware that my people have already vetted this call, but can you tell me what agency you’re with?”

“Well,” Jack said, almost smiling at the complex answer to such a simple question, “I am in a special capacity with the State Department.”

“You are CIA,” the man, Giancarlo, interpreted.

“I’m currently working with a special counterterrorism unit on a domestic case. It’s led us to believe that there may be a plot for suicide bombers to assassinate the Pope.”

Giancarlo allowed himself the faintest flicker of a smile. “Be assured, sir, there is no way for a suicide bomber to get anywhere near His Holiness.”

In the most straightforward way that he could, Jack described the hunt for the C–4, the horrific discovery of the bomb planted inside Father Collins.

As Jack ended his story, the security man seemed nonplussed. “That is startling,” he said without inflection, “but I don’t understand. You say that you have found the C–4, and that you have stopped this suicidal priest. Do you think the Holy Father’s life is still in danger?”

Jack explained their theory about Abdul Ali. “We’re not sure if we’re right about Ali. And if we’re right, we’re not even sure if the priest was a replacement for Ali, or if they were both supposed to be there. But I thought you should know.”

Giancarlo said, “Thank you. I will inform His Holiness, but I fear that without solid proof, he will

292

not cancel this conference. He has committed himself to see it to the end.” Jack sighed. “Let’s just hope the end doesn’t come too soon.”

12:30 P.M. PST Santa Monica Boulevard

Gary Khalid’s hands still shook, but he was starting to feel better. He had one more hurdle to clear—an enormous hurdle, to be sure, but only one. He had to stop by his hiding place. He had decided to leave Los Angeles for good, but first he had to pick up his secret travel bag with cash and identification that would carry him through this crisis. He was smart enough not to hide the bag in his own home (but, he thought wryly, not smart enough to keep the travel bag with him at all times). The bag was, in fact, in the last place anyone would look for him.

Maybe they aren’t looking for me yet, he thought. But even so, that was the best time to run. He would go to Venezuela, where he would be out of reach of the U.S. authorities. From Venezuela, he could make his way back to Pakistan, and from there to the Northern Provinces, or maybe to Afghanistan, where the Taliban were building a truly Muslim community.

But first he had to get that bag.

12:33 P.M. PST Beverly Hills, California

Nina had volunteered to track down the doctor who’d done surgery on Father Collins. She felt the need to pursue this most morbid aspect of the case, having watched Diana Christie blow up. Nina was not a big fan of emotion, and she would have slapped anyone who suggested she needed a good cry, but she suspected there would be some sort of catharsis in confronting the actual procedure.

David Silver was the surgeon of record who had repaired Collins’s broken arm. A few phone calls had located him at his Beverly Hills office, on Camden Drive just north of Wilshire. Inside the office, she leaned over the counter where the receptionist sat, and surreptitiously showed her identification. “It’s urgent, I’m afraid,” she said softly but firmly.

“We’re already backed up by forty-five minutes,” the receptionist pleaded.

“Let’s round it out to an hour,” Nina replied, and pushed through the door to the back offices. The receptionist, flustered, guided her to Dr. Silver’s office, where she sat. The doctor himself appeared a moment later. He was young, with dark brown hair. He was also about five foot two, and he was already forming a helicopter pad on the top. He had a habit of making a wet, sucking sound at the corners of his mouth every few breaths. A catch on paper, Nina thought, but in real life, he was catch and release.

“Can I help you?” he asked, looking more than a little concerned.

Nina introduced herself and then dove right in. “I am interested in a patient of yours from several weeks

294

ago. Samuel Collins, a priest, who had a broken arm that you set.” Nina’s voice was casual and her posture relaxed, but her right hand never strayed far from the Glock 17 at her hip under her jacket.

Dr. Silver chewed his lip. “A priest? Collins . . . that doesn’t ring a bell.” He pressed the intercom. Nina tensed. If there was going to be trouble, it would happen now. “Marianna, can you look up records for a Samuel Collins? Broken arm.”

He looked up. “I usually remember all my patients. Certainly recent ones, and I think I’d remember a priest, but . . .”

The buzzer sounded. “Dr. Silver, did you say Collins? I don’t have a Sam Collins anywhere. We don’t have a patient with that name.”

“Thank you.” He looked at Nina. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what to say.”

Nina’s bullshit meter wasn’t going off. This guy didn’t feel like a con man, and there was nothing about his operation that raised red flags. But she wasn’t giving up yet. “Cedars-Sinai’s records indicate that Collins had surgery at that hospital almost four weeks ago, on Tuesday the twelfth. You are listed as the surgeon. Can you tell me where you were that day?”

Silver looked shocked. “Am I in trouble?”

“That depends on where you were.”

Silver’s eyes went up and to the left, which told Nina he was accessing some visually remembered memory. “The twelfth? I could check my calendar and—oh! The twelfth. That’s easy. I was at my place in Jackson Hole. We were there all week.”

Now it was Nina’s turn to look perplexed. “You can prove this? Are there witnesses?”

Silver said, “Yeah. My wife, my twin daughters, the caretaker who watches the place when we’re not around, Hank the fly fishing instructor . . .”

“I get it,” Nina said, standing up. “Thanks for your time.”

12:40 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jack was still pacing back and forth, deciding that he had to go over to that Unity Conference himself, when Nina called back.

“You can forget Dr. Silver. He wasn’t even in town when this operation is said to have happened. He has a ton of witnesses.”

“We have to run them down, though,” Jack said into the phone.

“Trust me,” she answered. “This is a nerdy Jewish doctor in Beverly Hills. He’s not blowing up anyone.”

Jack put her on speakerphone and addressed Jamey and Christopher Henderson. “So now we’re saying someone doctored his records and basically faked an operation. A conspiracy can only go so wide before leaks start happening, and the only leak we’ve ever found here is back in Cairo, and then Ramin. Everyone else has stayed pretty quiet. Are we now saying there’s a doctor out there who has something against the Pope, did these operations, faked records, and has flown under our radar?”

“This case is getting weirder,” Henderson said.

No one spoke for a minute, until Harry Driscoll cleared his throat. He’d been there the whole time,

296

but he’d faded into the background, whether out of fatigue or frustration, Jack didn’t know. “Who says it has to be a doctor? I mean, a real doctor? Collins wasn’t planning on staying alive, right? So if the operation wasn’t perfect, who cares?”

“That doesn’t help much, though,” Nina said over the phone. “It widens our pool, it doesn’t narrow—”

“Start with the suspects we have,” Driscoll suggested. “Could one of them have done it?” Jack shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Jamey, can you—” “Already doing it.” She had dragged a laptop into the conference room. Henderson frowned. “No wireless networks are allowed in here.”

Jamey shrugged. “With all respect, I will absolutely follow that rule when you get more than two working computers in here. In the meantime . . . hmm.”

“Something?” Jack asked.

“Well. Yeah.” She looked up. “I just ran Nina’s original list of suspects against any information on medical school, medicine, etcetera. You know who graduated from medical school before moving here?”

“Who?”

“Gary Khalid.”

12:48 P.M. PST Sweetzer Avenue, Los Angeles

Gary Khalid drove up the street in a borrowed car, but he didn’t see anything unusual. If someone was watching the house, their countersurveillance skills were much better than his meager talents. It couldn’t be helped. He had to get inside his house. He cruised his neighborhood several more times, searching for he knew not what.

Though he gave the appearance of an affable, simple man, Khalid was highly intelligent. At a certain point, he realized that he was being foolish. The way the Americans worked, if they had figured out his involvement in the affair, they would have ransacked his house by now. And if they were lying in ambush, they would have pounced on him long before now.

Still, he pulled his car to the end of the block and waited. He had waited many long years to strike a blow against the Zionists and Crusaders. He could wait another hour.

12:57 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jack finished reviewing the records on Khalid’s education in Pakistan. Like so many clues, they had been right in front of him, but they’d meant nothing until he knew what to look for.

Khalid had not only finished medical school in Islamabad, he had practiced as a surgeon and served as a doctor in the army.

298

“Last night this was in his favor,” Jack said to no one in particular. “Educated, capable. Didn’t fit the profile of a terrorist. Now it puts him right back in our sights.”

He looked at Christopher Henderson. “Do you know what all this tells me?”

Henderson shook his head.

“It tells me we’re not ready for this,” Jack admitted. “It tells me these guys can come here and make us chase our own tails and do whatever they want. We’d better catch up.”

Henderson noted with a slight smile that Jack now said we, but he said nothing.

Jamey Farrell hung up a telephone. “LAPD sent a car to Khalid’s residence for us. No one’s home. They searched, didn’t find anything unusual. He may have already run out on us.”

“I would if I were him,” Jack said. “He must have cut Diana Christie up pretty quickly and horribly to turn her into a bomb. He probably panicked.”

“Yeah, but he’s not out of the country yet.”

“Mexico’s only a couple hours away.”

“But he wasn’t ready for it,” she pointed out. “I mean, how could he be? This thing with Diana Christie had to be last-minute, because you didn’t even know she’d come along until last night. So she went to that meeting and they ambushed her, did . . . whatever”—Jamey shuddered—“and then sent her off. So maybe after that, Khalid decides it’s time to get out of town.”

“If I were him, I’d just get in the car and go,” Jack said. “But he’s not you. He’s a guy who’s been inter

viewed at bunch of times and passed with flying colors. He probably feels like he’s safe.”

Jack was impressed. “You should do fieldwork,” he said.

“Nah, I’m not a big fan of getting shot at,” she said.

Jack phoned Nina Myers, who was en route, and filled her in. “But he’s not home,” Jack said finally. “So if you have any ideas . . .”

“I do,” Nina said. “Unless you need me at the conference, I’ll go get Khalid.”

“Who said I’m going to the conference?” Jack replied.

Nina just laughed, and hung up.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 1 P.M. AND 2 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

1:00 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

“You really think there’s still a threat?” Driscoll asked. “I mean, didn’t we stop the guy?”

“The missing C–4,” Jack said by way of explanation. “And the fact this whole damned thing is never-ending, and I can’t seem to get my hands around it. It’s like these guys make a religion out of being devious.”

“Yeah, instead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we got the bomber, the stooge, and the plastic explosives.”

It was a bad pun, and Driscoll would have forgotten he’d even said it except that Jack suddenly stopped, his eyes growing distant. “Threes,” Jack said. His eyes focused again, and he looked at Driscoll in astonishment. “Ramin said that. That Yasin would do things in threes. There are going to be three attackers and we’ve only got one.”

“How can you be sure?” the detective asked.

“I’m not,” Jack said, suddenly animated. “But I bet if you check with Dr. Siegman, she’ll say that there was just about enough missing C–4 to create two more bombs like the one in Collins’s arm. Three bombers. And there’ve been three areas to investigate: the bikers, the Sweetzer Three”—saying the word itself was almost like the click of a puzzle piece—“and the Unity Conference.”

“Don’t forget the child molestation thing.”

Jack shivered—it was not forgettable. “But that wasn’t one of Yasin’s plans. In fact, that’s where it all started to go wrong for them,” he pointed out. “Think about it, Harry. Where would we be if Don Biehn hadn’t come along? I’d have stopped a two-bit biker thug, and maybe I’d have followed that lead to Castaic Dam. CTU would have kept the Sweetzer Three on ice, and figured they’d bagged all the C–4. We’d be sitting on our butts right now while Collins was getting ready to blow himself up. We need to get over there.”

1:05 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Michael said the Ave Maria to himself in Latin, the only way that it should be said, as he followed Cardinal Mulrooney through the reception at a polite distance. He glanced at his watch. The Cardinal

302

had to leave soon of his own accord. If not, Michael would make him leave.

In Michael’s mind, Mulrooney ought to be in line for the papacy. Not because he was an especially moral man, but because he, like Michael, could see the false path down which the church had traveled these past forty years. They were few and far between in the church. Michael had to admit that. But Jesus had only a few followers when he started to spread the word. The true word of God could not be contained. By the will of the Lord, Michael would strike a blow against the heretics. There were several among the cardinals who were secret leaders of the schismatic movement. Several of them stood a decent chance of becoming Pope after John Paul was blown to hell.

It hadn’t been easy, that first meeting with Yasin. In another time and place, Michael would have killed the man and rejoiced at it. But Yasin had come to him with evidence of the church’s secret sin—the unwholesome appetites of some of its priests, who preyed on the children in their care. Michael knew of it, of course. He was in charge of security, and more than once he had acted as the intimidating presence in the background while a kindly priest convinced a child or a parent to keep quiet and allow the incident to drift into the past. The priests, meanwhile, were always moved to a new diocese to avoid any further unpleasantness.

Somehow, Yasin had known of this. Maybe a guilty priest had confessed, or an abused child had found his way to him. Michael didn’t know, and never would. But Yasin had shown him several letters, and video footage that a priest had taken of one of the . . . incidents. The evidence was damning.

Even so, Michael would never have let himself or the church be blackmailed, until he realized what Yasin was proposing: the assassination of Pope John Paul II. And, better yet, an assassination that Michael could blame on the Muslims, who were more than willing to take credit for it. For Michael, it was a wondrous triptych: the death of the heretical Pope; the awakening of Christians to the threat of Islam; and the ability to escape unsuspected. All he had to do was agree to work with Yasin.

It had seemed easy, all those months ago. And, in fact, it had all gone smoothly until just a few days ago. Yasin had warned them that the Federal government might track the crate of C–4, so they had created a red herring with three fundamentalist Islamists who, while totally innocent, fit the profile the Americans feared. Then, for good measure, Michael had used a very strong contact within the schismatic movement to create another false trail with the Hell’s Angels. And, finally, there was the real plot. These three channels had worked to confuse and befuddle the Federals. Yasin had called it, jokingly, his unholy Trinity. Michael had not appreciated the humor.

There was a buzz throughout the room, and Michael heard a voice whisper into his earpiece: “His Holiness is arriving.”

The crowd parted, as though unseen hands were separating them. Reluctantly, Michael felt that will and moved with Mulrooney to one side. A set of tall doors opened inward, and the Pope entered, followed by four or five cardinals who had traveled from Rome. There was no music, no pomp of any kind, in fact. John Paul eschewed it. But the wizened old man entered with such understated authority that one

304

could not help but feel a sort of tremble in the air, as though music was playing somewhere. “The song of an invisible choir,” some writer had described it. Michael grimaced.

The Pope stopped a few feet into the room, raised his hands, and spoke a short blessing. “May God in all his graciousness bless the attendees, and the purpose of this conference. Amen.” By long-standing agreement, he had kept his prayer neutral and, therefore, to Michael’s way of thinking, vacuous.

As soon as the Pope had finished, a line formed to greet him. As Cardinal of the host city, Mulrooney was among the first, and soon he had knelt before John Paul and kissed his ring. As he stood, he canted forward and whispered, “Your Holiness, please forgive me. Something urgent is calling me back to St. Monica’s.”

John Paul looked up at him with those piercing eyes. “Very well, Your Eminence.” As Mulrooney tried to disengage himself, the Pope held his hand in a viselike grip. “God alone decides our destinies, Your Eminence. May you see the true path he has set for you.”

Then he let go.

1:19 P.M. PST En Route to the Four Seasons Hotel

“There’s got to be someone!’ Jack said, feeling frustrated.

“You’ve got the whole list in front of you, Jack,” Jamey Farrell said through his cell phone. “I’m running everyone through every database I can find, but it’s not like the Vatican’s people haven’t done this. This list has been vetted by everyone all the way up to God!”

Jack tried not to let his frustration spill over onto Jamey Farrell. She wasn’t the cause of it. He was pissed that he’d interviewed Gary Khalid—sat in the man’s house, in fact—and never realized he was a prime suspect. The other side was kicking his ass on his case, and he was tired of it.

There has to be someone, he wanted to say again, but repeating himself would just cause tempers to flare. They were all working on no sleep. He had to gather himself before they got to the hotel. He needed to be sharp.

“Keep checking,” he said. He gave her the contact information for Carlos at the National Security Agency. “Call him. He’ll give you a hard time, but ignore it. Ask him to run everyone through every source he’s got.”

“You want me to ask a guy I’ve never met to run a hundred people through everything everywhere?”

“Unless you have a better idea,” Jack said. “I’m getting desperate.” He thought of the fail-safe implanted into Collins, set for five-thirty. He was guessing he didn’t have that much time.

1:21 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Pope John Paul spent a moment with each person who had come to the conference. The truth was, as far as he was concerned, this was the conference. There would be a roundtable discussion tomorrow,

306

and several symposia on various topics, led by clergymen with impressive credentials from around the world. But this was the real victory—to get these people of various faiths, fundamental and progressive, into one room together, to discuss the need for religious tolerance . . . that was an act of God all by itself.

John Paul glanced over the shoulder of the American televangelist who was speaking to him, and saw a bearded imam partway down the line. He thought he recognized the man and dragged his name out of memory: al-Hassan. He’d read the man’s book. It had been an unforgiving but insightful critique of the West’s view of Islam. Exactly the sort of man John Paul needed at his side. He was eager for al-Hassan to make his way forward.

1:23 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Jack pulled up to the valet stand at the Four Seasons. He and Driscoll flashed their badges and hurried into the elegant lobby. There was a trim, well-dressed man standing by the elevators, and Jack approached him. “Federal agent Jack Bauer,” he said in a low voice. “I need to get up to the conference.”

The man studied Jack’s credentials carefully, and did the same with Driscoll’s. He also looked into Jack’s eyes, as though trying to read something else there. Then he muttered into the mic in his sleeve. Finally, he stepped aside, and Jack entered the private elevator that rose to the hotel’s penthouse.

When the elevator door opened, he was greeted by a thin, unimposing man, but Jack’s instincts told him this was a man to be reckoned with.

“Your credentials, please,” he said. Jack and Harry both complied. When Giancarlo had examined them to his satisfaction, he escorted them down the hallway—not the reception room, but the adjacent security office.

“Giancarlo,” Jack said as soon as they were inside, “I don’t know how to impress on you the urgency—”

“You have already impressed this on me,” the other man said in finely accented English. “My job is the security of His Holiness, and I have told him already my opinion.”

“Then let’s get him out of here,” Jack said. “Drag him kicking and screaming if you have to—”

Giancarlo’s look was reproachful. “Clearly, that cannot be done. The Holy Father has committed his life to this peace effort.”

“And we’re all in the business of making sure his life is long enough to see it through. Look, let’s make it simple. Just pull the fire alarm or something. Have someone get sick. It doesn’t matter how, just get the Pope out of that room.”

Giancarlo looked at Jack with sympathetic eyes. “I admire your desire, but I cannot do it. His Holiness has expressly forbidden anything that will damage the peace effort.”

“Goddamned martyrs.” That was Harry Driscoll, muttering under his breath. He realized he’d spoken aloud only when everyone looked at him. He shrank back as much as a two-hundred-pound man could. “Just thinking out loud,” he apologized, but Jack knew he was right.

The serenity of Giancarlo was starting to annoy

308

Jack. The Vatican man said, “It is odd, isn’t it, that in our line of work we give our lives freely, but we call the sacrifices of others selfish.”

Jack replied, “Because when we die, it doesn’t turn the politics of the world upside down.”

1:30 P.M. PST West Los Angeles Police Station

Detective Mercy Bennett looked at the note attached to the file on her desk. She buzzed her captain. “Hey, Cap, what is CTU? I have a note here to call them.”

The captain made a low, quizzical noise, trying to remember it himself. “Oh, yeah. Counter Terrorism Unit, or something like that. New protocol. Anything we get that might involve religious fundamentalists, we send them a Post-it note.”

“Religious fundamentalists?” she asked.

“Really, we’re talking about Islamic nutcases who want to blow themselves up,” the captain said in his own inimitable style. “But we can’t say that on the record. Anyway, just buzz them with the info.”

Mercy shrugged and redialed. It took several rings for someone to answer. “Jamey Farrell.”

“Mercy Bennett, LAPD,” she said. “Listen, I got word to call you guys. We picked up a body earlier. We haven’t done forensics on it, but we ran prints. The deceased is Abdul al-Hassan.”

There was a pause. “Um, okay. Anything else?”

“That’s it. I was just told to call.”

1:32 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jamey Farrell put down the phone and went back to her database. She was so focused on her searches that she nearly forgot the message as soon as she’d hung up. Just in time, she grabbed a pen and scribbled the name on the back of some other notes. Someday they’d need receptionists and lower-level staff for that sort of thing.

1:33 P.M. PST Sweetzer Avenue, Los Angeles

Khalid decided he’d waited long enough. There had been no activity on the street. For all he knew, the police might be combing the city for him, but they weren’t looking here. This was Khalid’s old mail route, and he knew every car that parked here regularly. Nothing was out of order.

Khalid got out of his car and walked down the street toward the house where Mousa and the others had lived. The three men were more complicit than they let on, of course, but much less than the authorities had suspected. In the end, they were dupes, enjoying the thrill of living on the edge of danger but really knowing nothing of what went on. If they’d known the crate had contained explosives, they probably would have run screaming like girls.

Gerry walked up to the Sweetzer house and opened it with a key hidden under a rock in the garden. He ducked under the police tape still strung across the porch and opened the door. He was sure the authori

310

ties would not have taken his bag. It was well-hidden, and the documents and cash inside were in a secret compartment.

Khalid walked through the living room and toward the bedroom when he heard the female voice behind him. “Hello, Gary.”

1:40 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Jack moved through the reception hall, every sense heightened, as though he might be able to hear or smell a bomb. There was still a substantial reception line waiting to greet the Pope, and he walked along it casually. It was a surreal moment, imagining that one of them was a human bomb.

“Jack Bauer,” said someone in line. Bauer, who had been looking at hands and bodies, focused on a face and recognized Amy Weiss, the

L.A. Times reporter. He remembered her as fairly new back when he was on SWAT, the kind of journeyman who did all the legwork but got only a “contributed” line at the bottom of the articles.

She was canny enough not to mention his profession when he was in plainclothes. “Amy,” he said. “You’ve become enlightened, I guess.” He pointed to the religious leaders all around her.

She laughed. “Well, I do write the truth for a living,” she said. “But I still do it for the papers. I just got to interview the Pope, so I was given an invitation to the reception.”

Amy’s voice was light, but her eyes were staring into Jack, and he was instantly on his guard. He could practically read her thoughts: murder at St. Monica’s, Pope’s reception, LAPD undercover. She’d have flipped if she’d known he was now with the CIA.

“Are you enjoying it so far?” he asked.

“I love standing in line!” she joked. “But yeah, I have to tell you, I talked to him this morning, and he’s committed to this. He believes it will save the world.”

“He’s definitely committed,” Jack agreed, still glancing around.

“Is there something I should know about?” she asked casually.

“No,” he said. “But if you wanted to go powder your nose for a couple of hours, that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

Amy’s face went pale.

1:43 P.M. PST Sweetzer Avenue, Los Angeles

Nina had proned Khalid out, putting his face in the carpet, and did a cursory search. As she reached to cuff one of his wrists, he spun quickly. He was much stronger than his lanky frame indicated. She tried to jam her knee into his neck, but she lost her balance and fell back. He tried to jump her, but she kicked his shin and he staggered back. She leveled her weapon, but didn’t try to shoot him.

He ran.

312

1:45 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Jamey was coming up with nothing. It was a stupid assignment anyway. There was no way the Vatican’s security people had missed anything in the backgrounds of these guests.

She sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. As she brought her knuckles away from her face, her eyes focused on the note on the back of the papers. Abdul al-Hassan.

“Oh shit,” she said.

1:46 P.M. PST Sweetzer Avenue, Los Angeles

Nina vaulted over a backyard fence three houses down. Khalid was taller and maybe faster, but he wasn’t nearly as stubborn as she was, so she caught up to him by the fourth backyard and dragged him off the fence. Before he could use his size and strength against her, she kicked him in the groin while he was down. He curled up into a ball and she stomped on his ankle. He screamed, and she stomped on his elbow, too.

1:48 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Only two people left, Marwan thought. It would have been unbearable, to stand in this line to greet the spiritual leader of the Crusaders; unbearable, if not for the fact that the Pope would soon be dead, and he himself would be in Paradise.

The room’s length away, Michael reached into his pocket for the keyless entry remote control that he had not surrendered to the valet.

1:49 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Jack’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “Bauer,” he said formally, although he knew it was Jamey Farrell.

“Abdul al-Hassan!” she blurted out. “He’s an impostor.”

“What do you—?”

“They found his dead body dumped off the freeway this morning. You’re looking for Abdul al-Hassan.”

Jack snapped the phone shut. He scanned the crowded room for Giancarlo and hurried over to the Swiss Guard. “The bomber is Abdul al-Hassan. Which one is he? We need to know now!”

To his credit, Giancarlo did not waste words or motions. He spoke quickly in Italian to his security office. Unseen cameras whirred around the crowded room. Giancarlo touched a hand to his ear as he listened. His eyes went wide. “The bearded man. With the Pope!”

They bolted forward together.

314

1:51 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Michael watched Marwan al-Hassan, smiling pleasantly, take the hand of the Pope. Gingerly, according to plan, al-Hassan put his left hand atop their clasped grip. It was only in that moment that anyone might have noticed his shriveled left arm.

Michael pointed the keyless remote toward them and . . .

. . . a body came flying across his field of vision, tackling Marwan away from the heretical Pope. People screamed and scattered away from the sudden violence. Black-suited Swiss Guards materialized out of nowhere to surround John Paul.

Michael hesitated to trigger the bomb. If Marwan could get close enough . . .

1:52 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Jack tried to take al-Hassan all the way to the floor, but the man was as hard to hold as a cat. He shook free of Jack and tried to claw at him, screaming something in Arabic and surging toward the wall of black suits surrounding the Pope.

Jack grabbed him from behind. He’s a bomb, Jack thought. He’s a grenade. Get him out of here.

Jack lunged toward a set of French doors to his left and crashed through them, al-Hassan in tow. The human bomb spun toward him and scratched at his face. He was not a human being, he was an animal. But Jack was not so different from him. He dug a thumb into al-Hassan’s eye and raked his fingernails across the terrorist’s face, scooping out flesh. Al-Hassan screamed.

Jack didn’t know how powerful the bomb would be, so he had to get rid of al-Hassan now. He pushed the man up against the balcony wall and hefted him over. Al-Hassan, suddenly terrified, grabbed hold of Jack’s arm and pulled him off balance.

1:55 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

It’s lost, Michael thought. Time to get rid of the evidence. He pressed the button, but nothing happened. Marwan had fallen out of range. Michael ran forward with the rest of the astonished crowd.

In that same moment, Jack had the briefest sensation of falling, then he hit water. Striking the swimming pool after a two-hundred-foot fall at thirty-two feet per second was better than hitting a concrete floor, but not by all that much. The breath went out of him. He and al-Hassan were both under water. The terrorist kicked at Jack, getting a foot in his face and using it to push off.

Jack was about to swim after him when al-Hassan disappeared behind light and turbulence. Jack felt himself lifted up and out of the water as the sound of the explosion enveloped him like a bubble.

316

1:59 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

There was chaos in the hall. A wedge of Swiss Guards had surrounded the Pope and were driving their way through the crowd, out into the hallway, toward the safe room.

Less professional people might have called it a panic room but Giancarlo did not prefer that term. It was a room with reinforced doors and windows, stocked with supplies, where they could hold out for hours if necessary. They moved toward the room in a herd, radios blaring in their ears, Giancarlo shouting instructions. It was all well-planned and well-executed, but even for men of their expertise, this sort of thing did not happen every day.

None of them, not even Giancarlo, noticed in that moment the inclusion of an additional member. Rabbi Dan Bender had slipped into the panic room with them.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 P.M. AND 3 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

2:00 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Somewhere in the last few seconds Jack’s world had turned from water to concrete. He was lying on his side on a hard surface, but he was soaking wet, and he felt like someone had jammed their thumbs into his ears.

He sat up. Al-Hassan had exploded. That much made sense. He’d killed himself and no one else. That much was right with the world.

But Jack felt no sense of relief. Three bombers. He was right about that. Collins had been one. Al-Hassan had been number two. Where was the third?

Jack staggered to his feet just as shocked bystand

318

ers from the hotel lobby came out to help him. He pushed them aside and, soaking wet, lumbered toward the doors. The Swiss Guards would be evacuating the Pope. He had to make sure they knew what to watch for.

Jack reached the elevators, but the Swiss Guard stationed there was gone. He pulled out his cell phone, but it was dead. Either the water or the explosion or both had killed it. He needed to find Giancarlo, but he didn’t know their escape protocol. Would they barricade in, or exfil immediately?

As Jack stood there for a moment, dripping pinkish water onto the lobby tiles and trying to collect himself, Harry Driscoll appeared out of an opening elevator.

“Jack!” he yelled. “Are you—Jesus, I can’t believe it!”

“Where’d they go?” he asked.

“They’re evacuating everyone,” Harry said, guessing at Jack’s line of thought. “If there’s a third bomber, they won’t find him. They’re driving everyone away from the Pope. How did you live through that?”

It was only then that the reality of the last two minutes occurred to Jack. He’d just fallen two hundred feet into a pool and then been concussed by a man who exploded not ten feet away from him.

Jack’s knees weakened. His hands shook momentarily. He would have been excused, he thought, if he’d just passed out. But he didn’t. His knees firmed up. He willed his hands to stop shaking. There was work to be done.

“I need your phone.” He called CTU and got Christopher Henderson because Jamey was on the phone with someone from the NSA. “Christopher, get me in touch with Giancarlo, the head of the security team.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Christopher said. “Every line we have just lit up like a Christmas tree. No one over there is answering anything, I’ve got—”

Jack hung up on him. A car. They would move the Pope out of the hotel the moment they thought the ambush was over. Jack hurried to the parking lot with Driscoll dragging along in his wake.

2:07 P.M. PST Safe Room, Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

“You are uninjured, Holy Father?” Giancarlo said.

John Paul felt dizzy, not from injury, but from the rush and chaos of the last few minutes. Sharp though he was in mind, he was an old man in body, and his frail heart was racing under his brittle chest. “I . . . I’m not injured. Was there . . . I heard an explosion.”

Giancarlo nodded. “There was an attempt on your life. We are secure for the moment, but we need to move you. Are you able to travel?”

“By the grace of God,” the Pope said. “And you, Giancarlo.”

And Jack Bauer, the Swiss Guard thought. He was a good man, to have sacrificed himself like that.

“Prepare to move,” Giancarlo said into his microphone. “Bring the cars around.”

320

2:10 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Nina Myers half dragged Gary Khalid into CTU, ignoring the shocked looks of the skeleton crew of analysts and computer techs, ignoring even Christopher Henderson’s astonished face.

She led Khalid, who limped and whimpered behind her, into an empty room down the hall and pushed him onto the bare floor.

“Now you and I are going to talk,” she said. “And believe me, the only way you’re leaving this room, ever, is if you tell me everything you know.”

2:11 P.M. PST Safe Room, Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

Advance men told Giancarlo that the hallway was quiet, and the delivery doors were clear. He gave the signal, and the Pope’s retinue moved out of the safe room and straight to the service elevator.

2:13 P.M. PST Four Seasons Delivery Dock

Jack waited by the delivery dock, not knowing but guessing it to be the most logical point of exfiltration.

“You’re a friggin’ mess,” Harry Driscoll said.

“You want a prettier partner, take up ballroom dancing.” Harry’s cell phone rang. Jack handed it to Harry, who handed it right back. “Your people.”

“Jack,” Jamey said. “We got Khalid. Nina is questioning him now.”

“Good.”

“Also, I’ve got news for you. Your guy at the NSA works miracles. He’s got a possible for you.”

“Go,” Jack said. He thought he heard a car approaching.

“Daniel Bender, a rabbi. The records that exist for him are all on the up-and-up, nothing to indicate any sort of questionable activity. But you’d expect that or he wouldn’t have been invited.”

“So?” Tires squealed. To his right, the service elevator bell chimed.

“So, he doesn’t seem to exist prior to 1996. There is plenty of information on him after that, but nothing beforehand. Your guy Carlos noticed that.” There was a hint of professional jealousy in her voice.

“Well, it’s something,” Jack said, a little enthusiastically.

“There’s more. Your NSA guy tracked his communications. He sent an e-mail to his brother, a rabbi in Jerusalem. The e-mail was some kind of apology. I’m sending you a picture of Bender.”

The elevator doors opened. The phone bleeped, and Jack pressed the text message button. A picture of a jovial, round-faced man appeared.

“Okay, thanks.” Jack stood up and made himself as obvious as possible as he walked toward the crowd of black suits that emerged. Instantly, guns were pointed in his direction, and he was ordered to freeze in four or five languages.

“Giancarlo,” he said, searching the compact group.

“Dio mio,” Giancarlo said, stepping forward. “Bauer? That was very impressive.” He said some

322

thing in Italian, waving the phalanx of security men, with the Pope somewhere in the middle, toward the three Ford Broncos that were pulling into the dock. “I want to thank you for—”

But he never finished. Jack looked over his shoulder at one of the men in the phalanx. He shoved past Giancarlo and dove at the man’s knees, taking him down heavily. “Go, go, go!” he shouted.

Giancarlo reacted instantly. The quick-moving phalanx doubled its pace. Some of them shoved the Pope into the middle car. They had all vanished in an instant, and the cars were peeling away.

Jack felt the man struggle; he was big, looking fat but feeling solid. Jack rolled, and came up on top of him. He straddled the man and punched him once in the face, but before he could strike him a second time, the man bucked his hips and grabbed at Jack’s hands, rolling him over and reversing their positions.

“Wait, wait!” the big man yelled.

Driscoll came up behind and clipped him with the butt of his handgun. The big man winced and glared at Driscoll, yelling, “Stop! I’m with you!”

Jack back-rolled away. His gun was gone, but he readied himself to lunge. It was Dan Bender; Jack recognized his face from the photo he’d just seen.

“I’m on your side!” Bender claimed. “Talk,” Jack demanded. “Keep your finger on the trigger, Harry.”

Bender wisely did not move, but he waited a moment to catch his breath. “You’re Jack Bauer, with the CIA. My name is Dan Bender. I am Mossad.”

“Bullshit,” Jack said.

“The truth,” Bender replied. “I am Mossad stationed here in the United States. I was assigned to observe the conference. We got wind that there might be some trouble. We weren’t sure that your services were prepared to handle it.”

“Well, we were,” Jack said. “At least, so far. How can I believe you?”

“Who do you think it was who put you on the trail of the C–4 in the first place?”

That was good enough for Jack. He still called in Bender’s name, and they waited while Henderson routed it through various channels, but Jack was already sure. His original tip on the C–4 had come from the Israelis. Having worked with them before, Jack knew they were talented enough and arrogant enough to want to follow the trail on their own.

After a few minutes and a return call, they let Bender rise to his feet. “To be honest, we weren’t sure you guys were aware enough to believe there’d be an attack on U.S. soil,” Bender said. “We figured the lead on the explosives would get lost in the bureaucracy.”

“1993 was a wake-up call for us,” Jack said. “We know they’re out there. I followed the trail from Cairo back to Los Angeles. We had separate agencies working it. Did you know about the suicide bombers?”

“No idea,” Bender admitted. “I’m about all the resources we have here at the moment. There’s a lot going on back home, from Gaza all the way to Baghdad.”

“This is so far over my pay grade,” Driscoll muttered.

324

“That was nice work,” Bender said. “I saw you go over the wall; that had to be the end of you. You ought to be Israeli.”

“Or a cat,” Driscoll added. “Can we find somewhere else to stand?”

“I don’t think they’re done,” Jack said to Bender. “I think there’s one more bomber.” He explained his theory of the three attackers.

“We should get over to St. Monica’s,” Bender said. “Those Swiss Guards are good, but they don’t get enough practice. They should have carved me out of their group much earlier than they did. If something else is going down, they might not be ready for it. Hey,” he added. “How did you ID me?”

“You sent an e-mail,” Jack said. “Some kind of apology to your brother. We thought it was a goodbye note before your suicide.”

Bender laughed. “Funny how the little things trip you up. My brother’s a real rabbi. One of the most righteous men I know. I was apologizing for giving the rabbis a bad name.”

2:26 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Maybe, if the cameras had been installed, Nina would have gone a little lighter. As it happened, there were no security cameras in the room that would eventually become a holding cell, so she was free to do her worst on Gary Khalid. She had handcuffed his wrists and ankles, and she spent her time walking around his prone body. Every time she circled around to his feet, she walked on the ankle she’d broken a short time earlier.

Gary himself suffered two kinds of torment. One was the physical pain, which was growing worse by the moment. The other was psychological: to be under the control of a woman, of all things. It was ludicrous. Humiliating.

He had held out for several minutes already, but in the end, Khalid was no hero. He felt the bones grind in his ankles, and he knew that he was done.

“You performed the operation on Father Collins?”

“Yes.”

“And the guy who pretended to be Abdul al-Hassan.”

“Yes, I did.”

“How did you kill Diana Christie?”

Khalid explained quickly. He didn’t know Farrigian well. From what he understood, Farrigian had told the people Khalid worked for about her, and they’d set a trap. Khalid had been brought in to work on her. It had been brutal and quick. They’d captured her and anesthetized her, then planted the bomb in her arm.

“Was she told to give that false lead on purpose?”

Yes, Khalid sobbed, ashamed but unwilling to bear any more pain. His employers had set up a separate attack, hoping that if the authorities were following the C–4, they would travel in that direction. The NTSB agent had been used to validate that plot.

“How many people did you operate on aside from Christie?”

Khalid hesitated, but only until Nina rested her toe on his broken ankle. “Four. But there were

326

only supposed to be three. One of them blew up accidentally.”

Abdul Ali. None of them understood how it happened. He was the first recipient, and he had been done early on so that his arm would have plenty of time to heal. He had come into Los Angeles for work and to prepare for the conference, but something had caused the receiver in his arm to trigger the detonator. The whole plane had gone down, and they had needed to find a replacement.

“Who was the replacement?”

“I don’t know. Really!” he pleaded when she raised her foot. “I didn’t know any of them. All I know is that one of them had no idea he was involved. They created credentials for me at Cedars and I went in to do the operation. He had no idea what had happened to him. The other two were part of the plan.”

“Tell me about them.”

“One of them was a Muslim. The other was American. He looked kind of familiar to me, but I don’t know where from.”

Nina crouched down beside him. “I need more than that, Khalid,” she said sweetly.

He looked up at her in fear and hatred. “I don’t know any more. I didn’t know them. I never knew their names.”

“Tell me who you worked for. Who hired you to do this?”

“It began with Yasin,” Khalid admitted. “But years ago. He got the idea to deliver a bomb this way, and he told me he wanted me to do it. I moved here, to the U.S., to be ready. And then one day I got the message to start the work.”

“Did Yasin come here to coordinate it?”

“I didn’t work with Yasin after that,” Khalid answered. “There was someone else. A non-Muslim.”

“What non-Muslim?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know. Yasin approved him. I didn’t ask any more than that.”

Nina tried to think of who was left. There were no non-Muslims on her original suspect sheet. She decided to call Bauer.

2:31 P.M. PST Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles

After flashing his badge, and with some additional help from Harry Driscoll, Jack had managed to scrounge a change of clothes from the hotel management. He was dry, but that was the best that could be said for him. Every muscle in his body was sore; every bone felt bruised. It occurred to him with great irony that he had recently told Christopher Henderson that he enjoyed overseas work with the CIA because that’s where the action was.

Driscoll’s phone rang again as he was dressing, and he listened to Nina debrief him on the Khalid interrogation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jack had hoped that Khalid himself was the mastermind behind the whole plot, but that was not the case.

“We know there’s a third bomber out there, based on clues and the leftover C–4,” Jack said. “You can’t get any more information out of him?”

“I’ve already leaned on him,” she replied blandly. “He’ll go into shock soon.”

“Keep at it. We need to know who the final bomb is.”

328

“Agreed, but the Pope is safe, isn’t he? If he’s at St. Monica’s, surrounded by his people, he’s as safe as he can be.”

2:43 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Michael admired and hated Yasin with a passion that rivaled his love for the true church. Yasin had built backup after backup into his plan, and it was working now to perfection. Of course, it had been Michael himself who executed that plan, but the brainchild had been Yasin’s. Michael had always assumed that, once the Pope had been killed, he himself would find Yasin and kill him, to eliminate the threat of any future blackmail. Now he wondered quite honestly if he was up to the task.

A few moments later, the Pope’s retinue arrived at St. Monica’s. Michael had arrived seconds before, and he was already posting his own security people all around the cathedral. As the three black Broncos appeared, and the Pope, shielded by his men, was hustled into the great chapel, Michael shook hands with Giancarlo.

“That was quite a scare,” he said.

“More than a scare,” Giancarlo said. He turned to speak to several of his Swiss Guards, then he turned back. “We will be here for only an hour. I have radioed to the Vatican’s private airplane. It is being prepared now. We will head to the airport and get back to Rome.”

Michael made himself look perplexed. “Do you think there is more danger?”

“I don’t know,” Giancarlo admitted, “but as the Arabs say, ‘Trust God, but tether your camel.’ After what has happened here in the last twenty hours, the safest place for us is St. Peter’s. In the meantime, is the entire facility secured?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

2:50 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

A new arrival entered through a small door in the north wall of the cathedral grounds, a door that should have been locked and guarded by Michael’s men, but it was not. He closed the door quietly and stepped behind a small bird-of-paradise. As planned, a plastic bag lay there. He quickly slipped on a black suit similar to the kind worn by the plainclothes Swiss Guards. In just a few minutes he was ready.

This would be a good end, a final part to play.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 3 P.M. AND 4 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

3:00 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

“I would like to be alone for a moment, Giancarlo,” John Paul said. “Except for Cardinal Mulrooney. Please ask him to come.”

Giancarlo could not fully honor that request. He refused to leave the Pontiff unguarded. But he ordered his men to guard all the doors to the cathedral, and they had left him alone at the altar. Despite the pain in his knees, John Paul knelt at the altar and put his head in his hands.

What, what, O Lord, was he to do with such hatred? That someone would blow himself up to stop him from holding a peace conference was, to him, practically inconceivable. He had gone out of his way to invite diverse opinions and represent all possible sides of the argument. And still it was not enough.

“Your Holiness?”

John Paul looked up to see Mulrooney, tall and lean and hawkish, standing over him. “Your Eminence. Please, sit with me.”

Mulrooney sat, and for a moment, John Paul knelt beside him in silence. Finally: “Giancarlo spoke with an American agent. Do you know the man actually carried the explosives inside his body?”

“Horrible,” Mulrooney whispered.

“It may surprise you to hear me say this, Allen, but I believe our differences to be petty. In the face of this sort of unspeakable hatred, the schism in the church is meaningless.”

Mulrooney shifted ever so slightly.

“It’s true,” John Paul said. “We must get past them if we are to survive. What unites us is greater than what divides us. A war is coming, and we must prevent it.”

“I support you, Your Holiness. But why are you telling this to me?”

“Because I know you are a leader of the schismatics.”

The statement hung there in that sanctified air. “Your Holin—”

“Please do not waste my time or yours by denying it,” John Paul said. “You believe I am a heretic. A traitor to the church.”

Mulrooney felt the blood rise into his cheeks. This damned old man had done it to him again, looking so frail but then challenging him so directly. “This really can’t be the best time to discuss this . . .”

332

“What better time?” the old man said. “The world is entering a religious war, my friend. How will we help if we are at war within ourselves?”

Mulrooney realized where the Pope’s thoughts were leading him. “I was not there, Your Holiness, but I was told the bomber was a Muslim, not a Catholic.”

“He was neither,” John Paul said. “Whatever he was, whoever he worked for, he was not a man of God. Men of God reject violence. That will be all, Your Eminence.”

3:10 P.M. PST Outside St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Jack, Harry Driscoll, and Dan Bender pulled up to the cathedral and got out. “Are you really expecting trouble here?” Driscoll asked. Jack laughed. “There’s been nothing but trouble here.”

At the front of the cathedral, they were met by one of the Swiss Guards. He detained them briefly until a radio call to Giancarlo cleared them.

The chief of the Swiss Guards met them in the courtyard. He shook Jack’s hand with both of his and said, “I did not have time to thank you properly before. You saved his life. Millions will thank you for it.”

“I think there’s one more bomber. And we still haven’t found out who is transmitting the signal.” He explained the design of the bomb found in Father Collins. “Someone set that bomb off, probably someone at the reception itself, since they would have waited until the bomber was next to the target.”

“No one from the reception is here,” Giancarlo said. “We’ve evacuated the entire cathedral except for our people.”

“You have a plan for evacuating him from here?”

“Yes,” Giancarlo said simply. “In approximately an hour. Come with me to the library. Tell me what you know.”

3:15 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Michael walked around the outside of the chapel. There was a guard there, one of the Swiss Guards from the Pope’s retinue. Michael smiled and nodded to him. “I am making my rounds,” he said simply. “To check security.”

“Giancarlo does the same,” the man replied.

Michael smiled again and whipped his hand across the man’s neck. The small blade sliced his throat like butter. The man gurgled once, his eyes staring wildly, then he fell on his face.

Michael moved on to the next one.

334

3:19 P.M. PST Library at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

“The problem is not knowing the source of the threat,” Giancarlo said as Jack finished his debrief.

“Well, ultimately it’s Yasin, but he’s got someone here working for him,” Jack said with both determination and weariness in his voice. “I’ve been chasing them down all night. Whoever set this up has run me around in circles. But I’ll come across them eventually.”

3:21 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

John Paul sat in silent meditation for quite some time, searching his soul for some answer. He was aware of his own arrogance, to think that he could solve problems that had plagued the world for hundreds of years. But if not he, then who?

He heard footsteps approaching. At first he ignored them, assuming they were a guard checking on him. But the footsteps stopped, and after a few minutes the Pope was drawn out of his meditation. He looked up. There was a man sitting in one of the pews, smiling. He was dressed like a Swiss Guard, but John Paul knew that he was not.

“Who are you?” the Pope asked.

“My name is Mark Gelson.”

3:28 P.M. PST Library at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

“I talked with my headquarters on the way over,” Jack continued. “All we know of the third bomber is that he is probably Caucasian. The problem is, we don’t have any Caucasian suspects at all on our suspect list. Not unless you can think of anyone, Harry.”

“This bomber poses a danger,” Giancarlo agreed. “I’m just not sure—”

“I can’t think of anyone,” Harry mused.

“Me neither.”

“Unless it’s Mark Gelson,” Harry finished.

That brought Jack up short. “Gelson? He’s no one.”

Giancarlo looked at them both. “Do you mean Mark Gelson, the American actor?”

“Yeah, but it—”

“He is a schismatic,” Giancarlo said. “He belongs to a sect of Catholicism that rejects everything and everyone that came out of Vatican II. His father actually founded the sect. They’re about twenty thousand strong in the United States. We’ve had Gelson on our watch list for several years.”

3:31 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

“He was a good man, my father,” Gelson was saying. “What you did broke him. He never wanted to cause

336

a schism and form the Tridentine Society, and hated himself for it. But you gave him no choice.”

John Paul had the urge to run, but it had been years since he had run anywhere. Besides, he abhorred the idea of an inelegant death. “My son,” he said, “there are many who disagree with parts of Vatican II. The Society of St. Pius X, for instance. But they do not resort to violence. There are cardinals in the Vatican itself who share the schismatic view, but they try to voice their opinions within the church.”

“How much good does it do them?”

“To kill over matters of religion, this is the problem with the world. Our enemies twist their religion and use it as an excuse to kill. We must not do the same.”

Gelson laughed. “The history of the church is the history of killing those who stray and refuse to rejoin the fold. I don’t see why you should be any different.”

“And you would take your own life along with mine?” “I was ready to,” Gelson said. “But now I don’t have to.”

“What of your reputation?” John Paul asked.

Gelson laughed again, this time bitterly. “My reputation. Yes, I am putting at risk my reputation as a broken-down former action hero who talks about blowing people up when he’s drunk. I’ll risk it.”

“Still, you will be known as a murderer.” “Among those I love, I’ll be a hero. The man who killed the heretical Pope.”

3:40 P.M. PST Courtyard at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Jack and the others followed Giancarlo across the courtyard. “I’m sure the Holy Father would like to thank you in person. First let me enter the chapel to see if he has finished his medi . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Something?” Jack asked.

“My men.”

Giancarlo bolted forward, with Jack and the others racing behind.

They burst into the chapel to see two men standing over the Pope. Jack recognized Gelson immediately. The other man looked familiar to Jack, but he had no time to dwell on it as the man raised his gun to the Pope’s head.

“No!” Giancarlo shouted. His own weapon was out immediately and he fired, knocking Michael off his feet. Gelson jumped back, terrified by the loud noise. Jack and the others surged forward. Michael was not dead. He sat up and steadied his semi-automatic again. By the time he squeezed the trigger, Giancarlo had thrown his body over the Pope.

Jack stopped and put Michael in his sights, but gunfire erupted all around him. He fired as he dove for the cover of the church benches. More security men, the same ones who had attacked him last night. He hoped Driscoll and Bender had found cover.

Why would Mulrooney’s security team try to kill the Pope?

Schismatics. The single word came to him, then

338

disappeared as he sat up and fired toward a man at a side door. The man fell away and did not reappear.

Jack glimpsed Bender, still standing in the open, pouring rounds at Michael. He knew what the Mossad agent was trying to do. If he kept Michael’s head down, the man might not be able to shoot at his target.

It worked, but Bender paid a price for his bravery. Bulky and exposed, he was an easy target. A few seconds after he fired, red flowers blossomed on his chest and he fell to his knees.

By that time Jack was up and vaulting over the pews. He saw the security chief fire point-blank toward the Pope, and he assumed the Pontiff was dead, but he kept moving and firing. The assassin went down again, and then crawled for cover. He was wearing some kind of body armor. Gelson squealed and ran toward the altar, with Michael close behind him. Bullets still burned through the air all around.

“Driscoll! Left side!” he yelled, and turned to the right, firing at any angle from which bullets seemed to come. The return fire ceased as the security men retreated.

Jack grabbed Giancarlo. The Swiss Guard was heavy and lifeless as Jack dragged him off the Pope, who cowered beneath, covered in blood. “Are you hit!” he yelled.

“It’s his blood,” John Paul said. “His blood!”

“Driscoll?” Jack called out.

“Here,” Harry called from behind him. “But I caught one.” Jack turned. Harry was holding his gun in his left hand. His right arm hung limp and loose at his side.

It was swelling hugely from the biceps down, where a bullet had torn away most of the muscle and shattered the bone.

“Jack,” Driscoll said, “I think they’re coming back.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4 P.M. AND 5 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

4:00 P.M. PST Courtyard at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Pembrook and Wittenberg were still alive. Gelson, too, but Gelson wasn’t much of a fighter.

“What are we doing?” Gelson whined. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“He’s not dead,” Michael snarled. “That damned bodyguard shielded him. He’s not dead!”

“It’s too late,” Gelson said. “It’s all gone to hell.”

“Wittenberg, far side. Go in when you hear the gunfire. Pembrook, with me.” Wittenberg nodded and hurried around the corner of the building.

“He got Aimes and Duvaine on the move,” Pembrook said. “He’s better than us.”

“We’ll see. Go.”

4:01 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

They came in behind their gunfire, keeping Jack’s head low. The cathedral echoed with loud, angry cracks of firearms. Driscoll tried to return fire, but Jack guessed what they were up to. He whirled around to the far side just in time to see the other man burst through the door. Jack squeezed three times, and the attacker stumbled as though he’d tripped over something. He did not get up again.

John Paul, terrified out of all sense, started to stand up. Jack tackled him, fearful that he might crush the old man but short on choices. Driscoll tried to cover them. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the detective fire and then fall like a rag doll. The two security men fell back again.

Jack felt John Paul tremble beneath him and heard the man whispering something in Latin.

“Stay still,” Jack whispered. “They’re not gone. With this much gunfire, I promise you someone is on the way.”

4:03 P.M. PST Cardinal’s Residence at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Cardinal Mulrooney sat on his bed with his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth slightly. He was terrified. He’d had no idea of this. None. It wasn’t his fault.

Those phrases kept repeating themselves in his mind.

342

4:04 P.M. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Nina Myers slammed down the phone, then clipped her pancake holster to her belt as she ran for the door, with Henderson right behind her.

4:05 P.M. PST Courtyard at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Michael was out of time and he knew it. He could already hear sirens wailing. Bauer didn’t have to defeat them, just hold them off until help arrived. The elaborate plan had failed. All three of their suicide bombers had failed. Michael thought now only of escape.

“You’re right, Gelson,” he said. “Time to go.”

4:06 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Jack knew they were retreating and he wanted to give chase. He knew instinctively that Michael was the man he’d been looking for: the man behind the plot, and the man who could lead him to Yasin.

He scrambled over to Driscoll. “Harry, you with me?” The detective answered weakly, “Unfortunately, yeah.” His eyes lost focus, then returned to Jack.

“All in all, can’t say I’m happy I called you, Jack.”

“Can’t blame you.” Jack examined Driscoll’s wounds. They were not good. His right arm might never work again, and the second wound had punched a hole through his lower left abdomen. “You hear those sirens?” They were loud now.

“Like music.”

“Help is on the way. But the bad guys are leaving. I’m not letting them go.”

Driscoll managed a thin smile. “That’s Jack Bauer, all right.” He lifted his gun. “Go.”

Jack launched himself toward the door and burst into the courtyard just in time to see three figures slipping over the wall. Jack fired, the rounds tearing holes in the adobe, but he was certain none of them found their mark.

Jack sprinted after them and was over the wall in a second, carried by pure adrenaline. By the time he got to the street, they had disappeared.

4:08 P.M. PST Main Street, Los Angeles

Michael and Pembrook guided Gelson into the car Michael had waiting on the street. It was a blind, totally legal and registered to one of the two false IDs that Michael had worked so hard to create for himself.

As soon as they were inside, Michael eased into traffic. Sirens wailed around them, but they were just one of many cars trying to get through the congested downtown area.

344

None of them spoke. Michael was astounded at how suddenly and completely his carefully laid plan had turned into a failure. Not just a failure. An utter disaster. He had to get to a safe place and reassess, figure out how to recover from this debacle. And he thought he knew just the person to help him.

4:11 P.M. PST Chapel at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Jack returned to the chapel as the adrenaline dump wore off, making him feel suddenly old and heavy. Uniformed officers were swarming the area, along with the LAPD SWAT unit he’d once belonged to. The Pope was gone, whisked away by whatever remained of his Swiss Guards.

Jack showed the cops his ID and gave them what description he could. Gelson was easy, but in the middle of the gunfire he’d never gotten a great look at Michael or the other man; their faces were accompanied by flashes of light and gunfire. He had a feeling that he should recognize one of them. Paramedics rushed in, and he directed them toward Harry Driscoll and Dan Bender. Three of them started working on Harry Driscoll immediately. Their urgent voices told Jack that the situation was dire.

He had just sat down, nearly collapsing under the weight of his day, when Christopher Henderson and Nina Myers rushed in. Henderson went immediately to the officer in charge while Nina checked on Jack.

“You’re not hit?” she confirmed.

“Nah,” he said, sitting in one of the church pews. “I figured the five-story fall and the concussion were enough.”

“Glad you didn’t overdo it.” She paused, looking for something to say, and settled on, “Is this what working with you is going to be like? Because if it is, I’m going to have to bring my A game every day.”

Jack shook his head. “Not funny. People are dead, and an old friend just got shot up.”

“And you saved the Pope,” she replied sharply. “More people would have died if you hadn’t pushed this case, and you know it.”

“We didn’t get them,” Jack said.

“We know who they are. Gelson at least won’t get very far, not with a face that recognizable.”

“We didn’t get the planner, and we didn’t get Yasin.”

“Jack, you saved the Pope. Not everyone gets to do that.”

Ryan Chappelle walked onto the scene. Jack saw him before he saw Jack, because Chappelle’s eyes were drawn first to the carnage. He shook his head and talked with Christopher Henderson. With each passing word from Henderson, Chappelle looked more and more unhappy. Finally, Henderson pointed Jack’s way, and Chappelle walked over to him.

He stared reproachfully at Bauer. Clearly there was a lot he wanted to say, but for once he seemed to have the presence of mind not to speak. In fact, he was reviewing the teleconference he’d had with the joint subcommittee and wondered what they would say about the unknown agent who got things done,

346

if only they were standing in the middle of all this bloodshed. At last, he said simply, “I’ll need a full report on this.”

Nina’s phone rang. She answered, listened, and said, “No shit. I’ve got Bauer here,” and handed him the phone.

“Agent Bauer? This is Dr. Siegman over at the coroner’s office. I hear that a whole lot went down and you’re going to keep us busy down here.” Jack had no response to that, so Siegman continued. “Listen, I guess it may be too late for this, but some of our techs down here were playing with this receiver embedded in the deceased.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Well, you know it’s not a purely passive receiver. It’s more like a cell phone receiver. It sends out a locator signal every fifteen seconds or so. I guess so that you can detonate it from far away.”

Jack thought of the one Barny had strapped to his back. “I’m familiar with them.” “Well, if it’s like a cell phone, my guys figure that it can be traced.”

Jack thought of Mark Gelson riding in a car somewhere with Michael. “Dr. Siegman, that is the very best thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood morgue.”

4:38 P.M. PST 405 Freeway

It had always been the ace up Michael’s sleeve, that he knew where Yasin was staying. The information had come to him by accident, and he had only intended to use it as a bartering chip if he was caught by the authorities. But he knew that he would only have been able to strike a bargain if he was caught before the attempt on the Pope. Now that so many had died, and with not one but two attempts against the Pontiff, he knew the Vatican would scuttle any deal he tried to make.

It had not been as hard to track Yasin as the Arab liked to think. Yasin had visited the United States several times to strike the bargain with Michael and Gelson, and each time he had met them at a different location, but always within an hour’s time of the phone call. Michael had simply triangulated the area, which was somewhere near the airport. On subsequent occasions, and with some trial and error, he had staked out various arteries into the area and was able to follow Yasin to Playa del Rey.

Michael drove there now in the silent car, with Pembrook lost in thought and Gelson rubbing his left arm, which had suddenly become an alien object attached to his body. He wanted it off.

“We need to get to your doctor,” Gelson said for the tenth time. “He needs to get this thing out of me.”

“Khalid is either dead or in prison,” Michael said. “But we can ask Yasin. He is the contact.”

They exited the 405 and drove on surface streets down into the suburb of Playa del Rey, between the airport and the ocean.

348

4:43 P.M. PST Cardinal’s Residence

at St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

“Yeah, I got ’em,” Jamey Farrell said to Jack Bauer on the phone. “At least I think I do. We’re making some assumptions here. Specifically, what I have here is a cellular signature very similar to the one emitted by the one the coroner dug out of the body. If that’s them, then they are headed down by the airport.”

“Trying to get on a plane,” Jack said from St. Monica’s. “No, more like going to ground. They’re in Playa del Rey, it looks like.” “Got it. Let me know when you have a definite location.”

Jack hung up and turned his attention back to the questioning of Cardinal Mulrooney. He’d been too exhausted to handle it himself, so he’d turned it over to Nina.

“. . . as I’ve said, I had no idea, none, that this was going to happen. It’s horrific,” the Cardinal was saying, now indignant after being asked for the fourth time.

“But it looks like the guy in charge was your security chief, Mr. Mulrooney—”

“Cardinal Mulrooney. Or Your Eminence.”

“Okay, Mr. Mulrooney. You hired him. He worked directly for you.” “Many people work directly for me. I can’t be held responsible for all their actions, too.” Nina added, “And he was a schismatic. You also are a schismatic, is that true.”

“No!” Mulrooney said. “Not when you ask like that. I have expressed my unhappiness over some of Rome’s changes. But that doesn’t mean I joined a cult.”

“Mr. Mulrooney,” Nina said confidentially, “frankly, it’s not going to look good for you. The leader of your church, a man with whom you have had strong political disagreements, is attacked while in your care, by your security guards. That’s a lot of circumstantial evidence.”

Mulrooney stiffened. “I am in God’s hands. And I want my lawyer.”

4:47 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Harry Driscoll could hear the paramedics working around him. He had the vaguest sensation of some kind of mask over his face, and he could hear watery breathing that must have been his own.

But he didn’t feel pain, and something told him he would never feel pain again. He thought back to the beginning of his troubles, standing at the door of Don Biehn’s home. He hadn’t wanted to open that door. Part of him still wished he hadn’t, but that was water under the bridge, now. Doors open; we move through them. That was how life worked.

Though his eyes were closed, Driscoll saw a new door appear before him. When it first appeared, Harry was filled with dread. He did not want to approach it. But the door came inexorably closer, and the nearer it came, the less Harry feared it. It was, after all, only a door; and Harry was a detective. Opening doors was his job.

350

The door opened, and Harry Driscoll stepped through.

4:55 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Jack was watching Mulrooney walk away of his own free will. If Jack had had his way, the Cardinal would have been wearing handcuffs. Not for the assassination attempt—Jack thought he was lying, but who knew?—but for the children who had been molested. He was sure Mulrooney had been complicit there. If it were true, Jack thought he ought to be destroyed.

One of the paramedics stepped into his field of vision. “Sir, I’m sorry. Your partner, Detective Driscoll. He just died. I’m sorry. We tried.”

Jack grimaced. Losing Driscoll was a blow, not just to him, but to decency in general. There was no way that Harry Driscoll should die and Mulrooney should walk away. Then he suddenly thought of something he could do to point justice in the Cardinal’s direction. As he did it, Nina’s cell phone, which he was holding, rang.

“Playa del Rey,” Jamey said. “1622 Reina Avenue.”

“Good.” All the fatigue fell away as Jack jumped to his feet. He was going to end this once and for all.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 5 P.M. AND 6 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

5:00 P.M. PST Playa del Rey

Yasin heard the knock on the door and reached for his gun. He was in the upstairs room of the house, in the back; the room that made for the quickest getaway. He was inclined to simply bolt—no one in the entire world had reason to knock on this door—but something about the gentility of the knock kept him from fleeing. He figured it was a salesman of some sort, and he would ignore it. But to make sure, he walked as quiet as a cat to the front part of the house and peeked through the curtained window at the top of the stairs, which gave him a view of the porch below.

“Oh, shit,” he growled. He always liked swearing

352

in English better than Arabic. This knock he could not ignore.

Yasin hurried downstairs and opened the door. They stood at his threshold like the three wise men of the Christian tale, or maybe like the three parts of the Catholic god that Yasin found so blasphemous. How could Allah be divided into three parts?

“Get inside,” he said, and closed the door behind them. When they were inside, he pointed his gun at them. “What are you doing here? I won’t even ask how you found this place. What are you doing here?”

Michael ignored the gun and sat down on the couch. The house was sparsely furnished, but there were a few pieces of furniture and some pictures to avoid curious questions. “It all went sideways,” he said. “The Pope is still alive. Your man, al-Hassan, got blown up but no one else did. We tried to kill the Pope back at St. Monica’s but some government agent stopped us.”

Yasin closed his eyes deliberately, then opened them after a moment. “I told you not to underestimate the Federal agents. They are not always brilliant, but some are tenacious.”

Michael didn’t need to be reminded of that. “We need a way out, and you are our best chance.”

Yasin scoffed. “I can’t help you. If you’ve ruined things this badly, I may have trouble myself getting out.” There were ways. The border with Mexico was porous. That was how he had reentered the United States several times after 1993. But he did not relish these alternate routes. “You must have set up your own exit plan.”

“I did,” Michael said. “But it involved confusion and misdirection because of al-Hassan and Collins and Gelson.”

“And I want this out now,” Gelson demanded, holding up his left arm and revealing, for the first time, the wicked scar from his operation. “I was willing to trade my life for the heretic’s, but that chance is gone. I want this out.”

Yasin ignored Gelson. Gelson, though he was in his fifties, reminded him of the young suicide bombers from Gaza, so eager to prove their religious faith, so willing to give their lives. They were useful fools.

Superficially, Yasin was calm and collected. He offered them water and some leftover Chinese food. He suggested they sit down. But the wheels in his head were spinning. How could he get rid of them? How could he escape? He was sure his window of opportunity was growing narrower by the second.

“Tell me what they know,” Yasin said.

5:13 P.M. PST St. Monica’s Cathedral, Downtown Los Angeles

Amy Weiss was not allowed inside the cathedral, though she’d tried several times to sneak around, over, and under the crime scene tape. Finally she’d given up, and stood outside the tape at the entrance to the cathedral, making note of who came in and out.

To her surprise, she saw a uniformed officer walk out the front door carrying a plastic bag. He scanned the crowd until his eyes fell on her, and he hurried forward.

354

“Ms. Weiss, this is for you. Jack Bauer left it.”

Amy took the parcel, plastic bag and all. It appeared to be a journal of some kind. She just barely made out the name scribbled childishly along the spine. It read “Aaron Biehn.”

5:18 P.M. PST Playa del Rey

Jack should have waited for a backup team. That was just common sense. But he had been chasing this killer for twenty-three hours without stopping, and he felt that if he stopped now he would simply fall apart.

So he jumped out of the car before Nina had a chance to stop completely and charged the house on Reina Avenue. He just had time to glimpse Nina run around to the back before he kicked open the door with a violent crash.

Yasin moved faster than Jack expected. Before the door hit the wall, Yasin was rolling over the back of his couch while Jack fired rounds that vanished into the pillows and couch frame. Gelson practically screamed. Michael, too, rolled out of Jack’s line of fire. The last man rose to a squat and aimed, but by that time Jack had pumped three rounds into his chest and face, and he crumpled.

Jack dove to his right, into a hallway, as both Michael and Yasin fired back, shattering the door’s small plate-glass window. No more shots came, and Jack knew that both men were on the move. He heard footsteps thump upward. Yasin, or Michael? Jack decided he didn’t care, and gave chase.

Fourteen steps went up to the second floor. Jack leaned around a corner and then pulled back as rounds discharged and four holes popped into the wall at his back. Jack stuck his hand around the corner and fired without looking. Then he rolled into the hallway and sprinted forward as a door slammed shut at the end of the hall.

Nothing for it now but to finish, he thought, kicking that door inward. Suddenly, there was Michael, his semi-automatic in Jack’s face. Michael pulled the trigger as Jack grabbed the gun and moved it. The round discharged and Jack felt heat blossom under his hand, but he held on, and the sting was already fading as Jack jammed his own gun into Michael’s neck.

Michael’s eyes went suddenly wide, and strangely sad. He whispered in disbelief, “I thought God was on my side.”

Jack said, “Everybody thinks that.” Michael tried to grab for the gun, and Jack pulled the trigger.

5:21 P.M. PST Playa del Rey

Nina jammed her knee into Yasin’s crotch and felt his grip on her gun loosen. He’d surprised her as she came in through the back. She had grabbed his gun and he had grabbed hers, and for a moment they had been locked in a silent struggle, until her knee struck him and she was able to tear her gun free.

She backed up a step, tapped, racked, and cleared as she’d been taught . . . but the jammed round wouldn’t clear. Yasin stood straight up, so Nina

356

kicked him again. Instead of trying to clear her weapon, she punched it, muzzle first, into Yasin’s face. She grabbed his gun from his hand just as he lunged forward to put her in a bear hug. She braced herself with one foot back to stop him from going down on her, then calmly put the muzzle of her confiscated gun in his side and fired twice. The gun clicked dry on the third trigger pull.

She was just pushing Yasin’s now lifeless body away from her when she saw Gelson stick a gun in her face.

5:23 P.M. PST Playa del Rey

Jack swept down the stairs, his muzzle leading the way, then pulled up short. Mark Gelson was there, standing behind Nina Myers, who looked much more pissed than terrified. Gelson was behind her, holding a gun to her head with his right hand, with his left arm wrapped around her neck.

“I’ll kill her,” Gelson said. He was panicked, out of his league, and he knew it. “I put a fucking bomb in my arm, you think I won’t shoot her?”

“I think you’d probably miss,” Jack said. “You’re a screwup, Gelson. You got talked into paying for this debacle. You even got talked into blowing yourself up.”

“I didn’t get talked into it. I volunteered. I’m willing to die if I have to.”

“Then you won’t mind blowing up in a minute. We took the receiver out of Collins. It had a fail-safe. It was going to blow up at five-thirty whether it received a signal or not. It’s probably the same with you.”

This caught Gelson by surprise. At the same moment, Nina snatched at the gun, pulling the muzzle away from her head. Her other hand came up and caught it as well, and she snapped it out of his grip. Before he could react, she elbowed him in the stomach, then in the face, and the former Future Fighter dropped like a rock.

“He’s not really going to explode, is he?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I don’t even know if he has one. And I think Jamey can jam it now that she has the signal. But let’s stand over here just in case.”

Other cars were arriving, and Christopher Henderson walked in behind a flood of uniformed officers.

“Yasin is dead,” Jack said.

“Nice work,” Henderson replied.

“You can thank Nina for that. She got him.”

Jack felt the heaviness return to his limbs. He hadn’t slept in forever. Had he been going nonstop for twenty-four hours? He walked outside to the sidewalk and sat down on the curb. He put his head in his hands and heaved a huge sigh.

He was, in fact, sitting in the same position he’d been the night before, when Christopher Henderson met him at Ramin’s devastated house. Henderson sat down next to him, not talking for a while. Finally, he said, “After a day like this, Jack, I get it if you don’t want to sign on.”

“I’m signing on.”

“What?”

Jack lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t look at Henderson, though; he looked down the

358

street at the row of suburban houses. “We weren’t ready for this, Christopher. Any of it. Not your organization, not the CIA. They had it all planned out and we were nearly blind.”

Henderson nodded his head yes and then no. “We did all right in the end. You did.”

Jack disagreed. “No offense, but CTU would have quit a day ago. I probably would have figured we were done after Castaic. You know the only reason we kept going? Don Biehn. His vendetta made the connection between Yasin and the church. We would have been blind without it. We need to do better.”

“You ready to help us?” Christopher said. Jack stood up and stretched. “Yeah. Just promise me I’m not going to have any more days like this.”