PROLOGUE

CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles Four days ago . . .

“Hello, Jack.”

A shadow fell across Jack Bauer’s desk. He looked up from the report he’d been reading, into the eyes of District Director George Mason.

Jack stood, rubbed his chin. “Good to see you, George.”

Mason’s thin lips tightened. “I’ll bet.”

“How are things in Tacoma?”

Mason set his briefcase on the floor. “Oh, you know, Jack. It’s about as far from real Washington as you can get. Makes a guy feel lost, out of touch. Banished, if you know what I mean. And all because of the ‘Company’ he keeps.”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “So you’re lonely, George?”

Mason smirked. “I still have friends. Oh, and by the 2

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way—Teddy Hanlin sends his regards. And so does his partner, Seth Campbell.”

Campbell wasn’t actually working with Mason any more. The corrupt CTU agent had been caught taking bribes. He was now serving a ten-year sentence in a Federal penitentiary. Jack was the one who’d put him there.

Mason’s mention of him now was a clear tell. He wanted Jack to know exactly why he’d barged into Jack’s office late on a Friday afternoon: payback.

Jack hid any reaction to Campbell’s name, simply closed the report on his desk with a sharp sweep of his hand.

Mason’s crafty eyes darted to the desk, then back to Jack. “You’ve been reading the weekly operational review, I see.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you, George?”

“Then you know CTU’s New York division will be activated in three days.”

Jack nodded. “It only took six years.”

“Things move slower on the East Coast,” Mason said.

“The situation there is . . . political.”

“Right. The Agency’s political. This is news?”

“I mean it’s more so there than here. Brice Holman has been running investigations out of the Agency’s regional office for the last three years. Now he’s finally getting his own Manhattan-based CTU Operations Center and a full staff. But there are apparently some jurisdictional disputes, turf wars. A lot more toes get stepped on. But I don’t have to explain about toes getting stepped on, do I?

Not to you?”

Mason slid Jack’s overflowing in box aside and settled on the edge of his desk. “I’ve got a job for you, Jack. Wash-C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E

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ington—the real Washington—ordered me to dispatch an operational consultant with solid managerial experience to oversee activation of the East Coast Division—”

“Hold on, George. That kind of assignment is way above my pay grade. I thought Bill Buchanan out of Seattle was handling this.”

“He was, until a pair of his agents defused a bomb at the base of the Space Needle this morning.”

Jack blinked. “That wasn’t in today’s threat report—”

Mason chuckled. “You won’t hear about it on the evening news, either. No sense in causing panic.”

Bauer’s features darkened. “You mean no need to alert the public to the danger of terrorism, so that when the day comes that we can’t prevent an attack, the citizens won’t be prepared to deal with it?”

“Yeah, Jack. That, too.” Mason laughed. “God, relax, Bauer. The bomb was planted by some eco-green fringe group protesting logging or something. They’ve already been caught.”

“Good.” Jack folded his arms. “Then Buchanan can go to New York.”

Mason shook his head. “Unfortunately, with a procedural review of the situation, coupled with the drafting of an after action report, Bill is stuck in Seattle for the next few weeks. That means you’ll take Manhattan.” Mason smiled.

Jack’s phone rang. He ignored it.

“Don’t worry, Jack. I won’t send you alone. I can spare Almeida. I’d like to give you Jamey Farrell, too, but since Milo Pressman transferred to Langley, we’ll need her here.

You can take O’Brian instead. You two worked well in 4

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Las Vegas, and you’ll need a guy like Morris because any major glitches will most likely be technical—”

“Listen, George—”

Mason silenced Bauer with a raised palm. “This should be an easy assignment. You’ll show Brice Holman the ropes in New York, help him organize his staff and set up protocols to interact with the other divisions and agencies—”

“Why me?”

“I want you to liaise with the other authorities in the region,” Mason purred, ticking them off with his fingers.

“I’m talking about the New York City Police Department, the Office of Emergency Management, the DEA, the local branches of the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Smooth over any problems and—”

“Smooth over problems?” Jack cut in. “I’m the last person you should be sending for that. The last time I had contact with the New York branch of the FBI, I exposed one of their agents as a traitor and neutralized him.”

“Which is why you’re the perfect man for this job.”

Mason tightened the knot on his tie. “It shows the other guys we mean business.”

Mason picked up his briefcase and set it on Bauer’s desk. “The codes, protocols, and operational drives are here. Agent Holman and his staff are expecting you to arrive first thing Tuesday morning. Enjoy your weekend with Tracy and your son—”

“It’s Teri. And I have a daughter.”

“Like I care. You’re going to New York, Bauer. Your flight leaves Monday.”

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

7:00 A.M. AND 8:00 A.M.

EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

7:00:02 A.M. EDT

New York, New York

Jack Bauer glanced at the World Trade Center, rising above the rooftops of Lower Manhattan. The weather was clear this Tuesday morning, the June sunlight gleaming against the two identical skyscrapers of glass and steel.

In the driver’s seat to his left, CTU Agent Tony Almeida turned the Dodge minivan onto Hudson’s slow parade of traffic. The taxis, buses, SUVs, and luxury sedans were all heading downtown, toward Tribeca, the Financial District, or the Jersey delivery system known as the Holland Tunnel.

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As their minivan slowed to a crawl, Jack continued to stare at the twin towers. Back in ’93, the bombing of those buildings—by a blind Muslim cleric and his insane flock—had been the impetus for creating CTU.

Ironic, thought Jack. One of the last major urban areas to get its own CTU Operations Center is the very city that was attacked by terrorists. Doubly ironic because no one wants it. Not the FBI, not the DEA, not even the local authorities . . .

Just one month ago, the senior Senator from New York had argued that the presence of CTU was redundant in a city where even the NYPD had its own overseas operatives countering terror threats.

Sure, at its inception, CTU had been granted special powers by Congress, among them the ability to conduct counterespionage and counterterrorist operations on U.S.

soil, against U.S. citizens if necessary—a mandate the CIA had never before been given. But Jack knew it would take months, maybe even years, before CTU’s New York operations would be effective. He didn’t know what his superiors expected him to accomplish by sending him here—

“Bloody hell!” Morris O’Brian blurted from the backseat.

Tony had slammed on the minivan’s brakes, and Morris’s steaming hot Starbucks had sloshed over his hand.

“Seven o’clock in the bloody morning, and traffic is already snarled. This town is worse than L.A.”

Jack peered through his passenger-side window. Workers were already crowding the sidewalks. A young Hispanic C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E

7

bicycle messenger, wearing a red “Tri-State Delivery”

Windbreaker, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, pedaled along the curb beside them. The messenger could have sped up, Jack noticed, but he didn’t. Just kept pace with them for some reason.

“Look at these people. It’s a beautiful, sunny day, and not a convertible in sight,” Morris went on. “What’s the matter with them? Are they vampires?”

Tony smirked into his rearview. “Maybe they’re afraid of pigeon droppings.”

The cab that had swerved in front of them to score a fare now raced away. Traffic flowed faster and another taxi slipped in front of them.

Jack lifted his chin, pointed. “The building’s three blocks ahead, on the right.”

Tony nodded and continued in the right lane.

CTU’s New York offices occupied the top three floors of a ten-story office building. Jack unhappily surveyed the scene. Unlike CTU Los Angeles, which was located in a remote, industrial section of the city, the Manhattan offices were on a teeming city street, surrounded by bustling businesses.

The United States Customs Service was practically across the street. On the next block, a curved modern office building housed an international advertising agency.

Behind CTU, a massive UPS complex sprawled across two blocks. Beyond that, the West Side Highway and the Hudson River both flowed with traffic.

There were people piled upon people passing through this area on any given day, and Jack knew that any one 8

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of them could pose a threat. With their headquarters so vulnerable, CTU New York was going to have to spend energy just covering its own back.

A horn blared behind them. In the rearview, Jack noticed a black Lincoln Continental cutting off another car in order to slip in right behind them. Traffic was flowing faster in the other lanes, but he stayed behind them instead, hugging their bumper. The driver wore a Lakers cap pulled low. His eyes were invisible behind mirrored sunglasses.

Jack frowned at the Lakers cap, glanced out the side window again, at the messenger on the bicycle. The young Hispanic male was still keeping pace with them, occasionally glancing over.

Jack looked ahead. The yellow cab in front of them drove right by an attractive businesswoman, trying franti-cally to wave it down. The cabbie ignored the fare. Why?

His on duty light was illuminated. And there was no one riding in the back of his taxi—at least that Jack could see.

It could be nothing, Jack told himself, but the hairs on the back of his neck told him otherwise. He kept one eye on the cab. Glanced again at the Lincoln behind them. The bicycle messenger beside them.

Tony and Morris were still chatting back and forth, oblivious to anything out of the ordinary.

Then the taxi in front of them abruptly stopped. It didn’t swerve toward the curb for a fare, just hit the brakes in the middle of the street. Tony instantly hit his own brakes, lurching them all forward.

“Bloody hell!” Morris cursed again as his hot coffee spilled.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E

9

That’s when Jack saw it—the skinny messenger dumped his bicycle and rushed their vehicle, hand reaching into his canvas shoulder bag.

“Down on the floor now!” Jack pulled the Glock from his holster, popped the door, kicking it open, right into the assassin. The man flew backward and stumbled against the curb.

Jack dived, crouching, from the minivan as the front windshield shattered, showering Tony with safety glass.

Two holes drilled through Jack’s empty seat. Then the rear window exploded inward.

Crouching low, Bauer leveled the Glock at the man on the ground. “Don’t move!” he commanded.

The man on the sidewalk pulled his hand out of the canvas bag, freeing the .45. He rolled to aim—Jack shot him in the face.

Another pop, and a bullet whizzed by Jack’s ear.

He spun and glimpsed the shooter, crouching in the backseat of the cab that was blocking them. The big, bald white guy grimaced, showing gold front teeth.

Jack leveled his weapon, fired. The cab’s back window shattered, but the squealing tires were already rolling onto the sidewalk. The vehicle sped away, scattering confused and screaming pedestrians before lurching back onto the street, in front of a parked city bus.

An engine gunned behind him, and Jack turned to find the Lincoln driver trying the same move as the taxi.

“Stop the car now!” Jack shouted.

The Lincoln tore off the passenger door as it sped around the Dodge. The maneuver gave Jack a clear shot at the driver. He took it. The gun bucked in Jack’s hand. The 10

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window spiderwebbed, and the driver’s shoulder exploded in a haze of blood, muscle, and bone.

The driver was thrown forward, head striking the steering wheel. The Lincoln careened into a magazine kiosk and came to a halt.

Jack was beside the vehicle in seconds, Glock clutched in both hands. He checked the backseat, but no one else was in the car.

The driver’s sunglasses and Lakers cap were gone now, and Jack recognized the man. He yanked the door open, dragged him out of the car, and slammed him down on the sidewalk.

“Who told you I was in New York?” Jack demanded, shaking the man by the lapels of his jacket. “Talk, De Salvo. Who tipped you off? Who set me up?”

The man’s eyes were glazed with pain. He tried to laugh, coughed blood instead. “Go to hell, Bauer, you lousy son of a . . .”

His head lolled. Jack knelt over him and checked for a pulse, found none. He quickly searched the dead man, came up with a wallet and tucked it into his own pocket.

Tony rushed over, holding his weapon. He stared at the dead man. “Who is he?”

“Was. Angelo De Salvo. His two older brothers master-minded the Hotel Los Angeles robbery.”

Tony whistled. “No wonder he wanted you dead.”

Sirens warbled, drowning out the street noise as three NYPD squad cars converged on the scene. Jack and Tony holstered their weapons and displayed their IDs. While the police circled them, both CTU agents glanced down C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 11

the street, at the building that housed the Unit’s New York headquarters. The place was still as a grave.

“I don’t get it,” Tony quietly said to Jack. “A firefight a block away, and no response from CTU?”

Jack frowned at his destination. “Looks like it’s time to light a fire under these people.”

7:48:17 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

Jack Bauer leveled a cold gaze on the New York agent who met him at the elevator. She wore a pinstriped suit with a questionably short skirt and stacked heels. Her black hair was caught in a long, smooth ponytail. She had an olive complexion and large, dark, slightly almond-shaped eyes, with features that suggested Middle Eastern heritage. She introduced herself as Layla Abernathy.

“I need to meet with Director Brice Holman.” Bauer’s voice was less than friendly. “Now.”

“Oh yes. Of course!” Agent Abernathy appeared mo-mentary flustered, her gaze darting from Jack to Tony to Morris. But her composure returned inside of five seconds, and she matched Jack’s hard stare. “Brice should be here any minute. I called his cell several times. I’m sure he’ll check in soon—”

“That’s not good enough,” Jack cut in. “I left specific instructions that all CTU personnel were to be present when I arrived this morning.” He took a step closer. “Where is Brice Holman?”

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Layla Abernathy frowned. “I think he’s in New Jersey.”

Jack exchanged a glance with Tony, then asked Agent Abernathy, “What’s he doing in New Jersey?”

“I don’t know,” Layla replied. “That is, I’m not sure. I’m not even supposed to know about—”

“What’s his exact location? Be specific.”

Abernathy took an uneasy breath. “Have you ever heard of a place called Kurmastan?”

7:50:31 A.M. EDT

Hunterdon County, New Jersey Stretched out on his belly in a field of tall grass, Special Agent Brice Holman, newly appointed Director of CTU’s New York Operations Center, gazed down at the tiny hamlet of Kurmastan.

Dubbed “Meccaville” by the farmers and horse breed-ers who lived around it, Kurmastan was primarily populated by men who’d converted to Islam in state and Federal penitentiaries, along with members of their families who’d also converted.

Ignoring the sun beating down on his head, the forty-five-year-old agent checked his watch, rubbed the sweat from his eyes, and went back to peering through a pair of digitally enhanced micro-binoculars.

Before coming to this rural field, Holman had reviewed almost two years of satellite surveillance on this small religious settlement. But those pictures failed to capture the dilapidated seediness of the place.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 13

A dozen clapboard houses sat within the dusty compound, along with seventeen rusty mobile homes, all of them centered around a communal dining hall made of cinder block. A dirty boulevard ran through the center of town. One end was dominated by Kurmastan’s only visible source of income—a factory that turned recycled pulp into cardboard boxes.

The other end held a house of worship, by far the most luxurious structure in the place: prefabricated steel with a resin facade sculpted to look like a Middle Eastern mosque, complete with a metal-framed minaret.

The mosque was no surprise to Holman because the settlement had been founded by Ali Rahman al Sallifi, an Islamic cleric with ties to radical elements in Pakistan and Egypt—and it had been on CTU’s watch list since the agency was established.

Unfortunately, most of the “watching” of Kurmastan had been done by satellite. Things had changed about a month earlier, when Brice Holman’s own boss, the Northeast District Director, ordered any active investigation of this compound to cease. The unit had limited resources, Holman was told, and they were needed elsewhere.

Holman privately disagreed. Just before he’d been ordered to stop investigating Kurmastan, a well-connected activist group had begun loudly leveling “profiling”

charges on Executive Branch agencies, and Holman suspected the decision to give Kurmastan a wide berth was at least partly political.

Deciding to have a look for himself, Holman had driven out to the compound, watching it for an entire weekend.

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During that time, he encountered an FBI agent who’d also been watching the place, and had received a similar command from his own boss in Washington.

It wasn’t unusual for FBI surveillance units to trip over CTU in the field. Agents occasionally even shared information, sidestepping the current “wall” between agencies.

When Holman met Jason Emmerick of the FBI, that’s exactly what had happened. The two agents silently agreed to disregard the law prohibiting them from swapping intel.

All by themselves, they connected the dots on “Meccaville,” and a frightening picture began to emerge.

Both men had observed military-style exercises, including weapons training and obstacle courses. There was suspicion of stockpiled armaments and chatter between residents of the compound and parties in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Holman and Emmerick came up with a plan to continue watching the “Meccaville” compound, in violation of their superiors’ directives. And surveillance chatter soon suggested something was about to go down. Something big.

Unfortunately, the agents were still lacking hard evidence to prove it.

Today, with luck, they would finally get that evidence.

According to recent chatter inside the compound, a

“package” from Canada was expected to arrive at Newark Airport. Holman and Emmerick believed the arrival of this “package” was the key to setting off whatever powder keg the men inside this compound had primed.

An hour earlier, two African-American males had left this compound to “pick up the package.” One of the men C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 15

was bald; the other wore his hair in long cornrow braids.

Both were in their early thirties, clad in blue suits.

Holman recognized the bald man as a former gang-banger from Jersey City. His name was Montel Tanner, or at least it used to be. Holman didn’t know what Tanner called himself now that he’d found religion. The other man, with the cornrows, Holman hadn’t seen before.

Each of these men had slipped behind the wheel of a brand-new black Hummer and took off. Jason Emmerick and his partner took off, too, tailing the two Hummers.

Holman was so certain something major was about to happen, he’d finally briefed his own CTU Deputy Director, Judith Foy, on their rogue operation. Now Judy was on board, too, and due to hook up with Emmerick and his partner at the airport to aid in the surveillance.

Meanwhile, Holman had positioned himself on a hill above the compound. He’d been staked out here since the wee hours of the morning. As a breeze rippled the grass, stirring his black tangle of hair, he lowered his micro-binoculars and shook his canteen.

Empty.

Thirsty and hot, Holman was about to return to his vehicle for a refill when a flash of sunlight off chrome caught his eye. He zoomed his binoculars in on the factory. The loading bay doors stood open, and a semi rolled out.

In itself, this wasn’t unusual. At four that morning, a truck had departed the factory, full of flattened cardboard boxes. One had left at five as well, also packed with paper.

Adhan came next—the call to prayer—sung from the 16

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mosque’s metal-frame minaret by a young African-American man in denims and a Yankees T-shirt.

The truck leaving now looked like the others Holman had seen: a Mac sleeper cab hauling a steel trailer, the logo for Dreizehn Trucking painted on its side. But when Holman glimpsed the interior of the cargo bay, he didn’t see flat stacks of cardboard boxes. Instead, Holman saw bunks. Six of them lined the walls. He spied movement.

There were men inside that trailer; he counted at least eight. One had an AK–47 resting across his knees.

Before Holman could get a picture, an arm inside the truck slammed closed the steel doors. The truck continued rumbling toward the compound’s gate, sped through and toward the rural route beyond.

Holman cursed, rising quickly, and left his hiding place, creeping through the tall grass, back to his van.

That’s when he heard a woman scream.

7:55:46 A.M. EDT

Kurmastan, New Jersey

Yesterday evening. That’s when they’d grabbed Janice Baker. Around six-thirty p.m., they’d put a hood over her head before dragging her away. She had a clue where she was because the men hadn’t taken her far, and they’d traveled by foot.

It sounded like her abductors had carried her into their compound, then down a flight of stairs. There they’d tied her up, ignoring her muffled demands to release her, to turn her over to the sheriff for trespassing.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 17

Gasping for breath under the thick material, Janice had struggled against the ropes that bound her to the hard chair.

Finally, she’d heard a door slam and was left alone. The place was damp and quiet. Like a grave. When the forty-year-old stay-at-home mother had first smelled the scent of freshly turned earth, she’d gasped, her panic rising.

Did they lock me in a cellar? Or toss me into a hole?

Are they planning to bury me alive?

With effort, she’d tamped down her fear. Why put me in a hole? she’d wondered. Why not just call the sheriff and have me arrested?

Janice had been cross-country jogging for years along the same rural trails, long before Kurmastan existed. The men of the town had complained several times to her about trespassing. The first time they caught her, she hadn’t even realized she’d strayed onto private property. They cursed her out, but let her go.

The second, third, and fourth times were just like today—she’d chosen to disregard the no trespassing signs and jog where she pleased. Men of the town saw her, yelled from a distance, cursed at her, but she ignored them. If they caught her, what could they do? Call the sheriff? Fine her fifty dollars tops?

When she’d been spotted the evening before, however, she was stunned by what had happened next. Soon after a few men yelled at her, two of them had set a trap.

They’d jumped out of the brush and dragged her to the ground.

They didn’t find her easy prey. Janice had managed to kick one man in the groin. He was a big African American who looked like a football player, but her blow slowed him 18

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down. She’d also managed to rake her fingernails across the other man’s face, right before he’d put the hood over her head.

They’d left her tied up for hours and hours. She’d lost track of time, hadn’t slept much, and now she was hungry and thirsty. When she heard a door open, she felt a mixture of terror and relief.

“Who’s there,” she demanded. She tried, and failed, to sound fearless. “I demand you let me go!”

Janice heard footsteps, felt strong hands fumbling with the knot around her neck. Someone was untying the hood.

Good. Maybe they’ve finally called the sheriff. Maybe now they’re going to let me go!

The hood was ripped off her head. Still tied to the chair, Janice was dazzled by harsh light from a naked light bulb that dangled from the ceiling. The room had earthen walls shored up with untreated logs—a root cellar? There was a small vent near the ceiling—bright sunlight slipped through. She squinted, realizing it was morning. They’d held her here all night!

The stranger who’d torn off her veil remained behind her, out of sight. A minute went by, then another. But the man didn’t say a word. He didn’t untie her, either.

“What are you doing?” Janice asked.

There was silence for another minute. Then came a quiet murmuring in another language. It was crazy, but Janice thought the man was praying.

“I demand you release me!” she cried. “This is kidnap-ping! Don’t you realize that? Let me go this instant!”

Without a word, the man stepped around the chair to C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 19

stand in front of her. Janice Baker’s eyes went wide when she saw the machete in his hand.

Once again Janice Baker screamed.

7:58:46 A.M. EDT

Just outside Kurmastan

Hunterdon County, New Jersey At the sound of the bloodcurdling scream, Holman had tensed and begun snaking on his belly, moving as close to the compound as he dared. Using his binoculars, he continued to scan the area for any sign of violence. Any sign of the woman who’d screamed.

But he saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few male residents were talking casually outside the mosque. Two females strolled out of the cinder-block dining hall, chatting with each other as if nothing was wrong.

He listened for more screams, but now heard nothing more than the birds chirping in the trees.

Holman knew he hadn’t imagined that scream, and he knew how dangerous some of the men in Kurmastan could be—many of them were lifelong criminals with rap sheets as long as a bureaucrat’s career.

Part of him wanted to charge through the front gate, find out what had happened. But that would compromise the investigation. They’d probably call the local sheriff and accuse him of trespassing. Holman couldn’t even begin to consider explaining his rogue operation to a local official.

Seething, he carefully moved away from the compound 20

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again, backtracking to his van. He retrieved water and an energy bar, and then returned to the hill to continue his surveillance of the compound. At noon, he was scheduled to leave the area and hook up with Emmerick at a nearby motel, where they’d compare notes and plan their next move.

Holman needed to brief Emmerick about that tractor trailer he’d seen with armed men in bunks inside. And Emmerick needed to brief him about that “package” from Canada.

Until then, Holman would continue to keep his eyes open for any sign of that woman, whose terrified cry kept playing through his head.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

8:00 A.M. AND 9:00 A.M.

EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

8:05:48 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

“This is wrong, Agent Bauer,” Layla Abernathy declared.

“You have no authority to do this. I’m sure Director Holman will be here any minute. Why can’t you just wait to hear his explanation?”

Jack Bauer’s features darkened. “You’ve called the Director. Repeatedly. And so have I. Brice Holman either can’t respond, or refuses to—”

“Yes, but—”

“And you’ve tried to locate the Director using the GPS

chip in his phone, correct?” Jack interrupted.

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Layla frowned. “Apparently Holman deactivated it.”

Jack clenched his fists, trying like hell to maintain his composure. “The Director and his deputy are unreachable, your guards downstairs say your exterior cameras are of-fline, and someone tried to assassinate me and my team on the street outside. You do see a problem here, don’t you, Agent Abernathy?”

They were standing at the computer console on Brice Holman’s desk, inside the Director’s corner office. Jack had powered up the man’s computer, only to find it double password protected. He now intended to break into his system.

Jack punched the intercom. “O’Brian, report to Director Holman’s office.”

Jack faintly heard his own voice amplified inside the massive threat room. He stood up straight and faced Agent Abernathy. “You mentioned a place,” he said.

Layla nodded. “Kurmastan. It’s a seventy-five-acre compound in New Jersey populated by an Islamic religious group—most of them prison converts. Ali Rahman al Sallifi runs it. He’s a radical cleric who sought political asylum in America after he was expelled from Egypt.”

Jack blanched. “Our government granted asylum to this guy?”

“The Imam received political support from several powerful individuals. The Saudi Arabian Ambassador made a personal appeal to the President—probably because he didn’t want al Sallifi and his followers stirring up unrest in his own country.”

Jack briefly closed his eyes. He liked to believe elected C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 23

officials had the best interests of its country’s citizens at heart. But when a Federal agent had to ask himself what side his own President was on, it was a bad day.

“By far the Imam’s biggest sponsor is New Jersey Congresswoman Hailey Williams,” Layla continued. “She’s a close advisor to the President. Anyway, six years ago, the Imam established a community called Kurmastan, then renamed his flock the Warriors of God.”

“Warriors of God.” Jack folded his arms. “So now it’s a paramilitary organization?”

Layla nodded. “A core group of Middle Easterners live inside the compound with the Imam, but most of the people in Kurmastan are former prison inmates converted by the cleric’s followers. Some of the clerics minister to the prisons in New York and New Jersey. Others are inmates themselves.”

“And these activities are permitted?”

“Under the banner of religious freedom, the Warriors of God openly recruits new members through various social service organizations, including the prison system,” Layla replied, yanking a file from the drawer.

“Why hasn’t CTU launched a full-scale investigation?”

Layla raised a dark eyebrow. “The District Director of the Northeast Region nixed it.”

Jack processed that bit of information, and he had to admit, he wasn’t all that surprised. The District Director for the Northeast was Nathan Ulysses Wheelock.

Wheelock hadn’t worked his way up through the Agency, served in the military, or done fieldwork of any kind. The man was a political appointee of the current Adminis-24

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tration; and his wife—before she’d retired to write legal thrillers—had been a civil rights attorney with a client list that included high-profile anti-defamation organizations.

Jack faced Layla Abernathy. With Brice Holman and his Deputy Director, Judith Foy, out of the office, Abernathy was the ranking agent in New York. He wanted to get a handle on her.

“You’re Iranian, aren’t you, Agent Abernathy?” Jack asked pointedly. “Did I recall that correctly from your file?”

Layla glanced away, obviously uncomfortable. “I was born in Iran, but I left with my mother before I was two years old. I don’t remember anything—”

“But you speak Farsi?”

She nodded. “My stepfather saw to that. At one time, he was the U.S. Associate Ambassador to Iran. Back in the seventies, he knew the Shah—”

“Your father was Richard Abernathy.”

“My step father. He married my mother after my real father was executed by the thugs in charge of Iran. With the help of Canadian friends, my mother came to America.

And just for the record, I’m also fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and German.”

Jack fell silent a moment, regarding her again. “So why are you posted here? With your security clearance and lin-guistic skills, you should be on the fast track at Langley, or in a job at the DOD, maybe even the White House.”

“I’m not interested in listening to Iranian intelligence chatter from thousands of miles away or analyzing the speeches of its current ayatollahs. I made that very clear C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 25

on threat of resignation, frankly. I want to do fieldwork, Agent Bauer. And my language skills are just as valuable here in New York, where hundreds of languages are spoken—”

The door opened and Morris O’Brian entered. “You called, boss?”

“What’s the status on security?” Jack asked.

An hour ago, Bauer had hit the roof when the guards downstairs had told him the exterior cameras weren’t working, which was why they’d never noticed the firefight on the street. Jack had dispatched Morris to fix the problem.

“I’ve got the system up and running now,” Morris replied. “It was just a little glitch, really. I left Almeida behind to establish a network that integrates the cameras in the lobby, the parking garage, and the roof with Security Station One.”

“How long will that take?”

“I could do it in fifteen minutes. Tony should be done in an hour or so. Once the network is established, we can watch everything on the monitors.”

Jack leaned close to Morris. “How about that other matter?”

O’Brian fished the bloodstained wallet out of his jacket, handed it back to Jack. “It’s a fake ID,” Morris said.

“Angelo De Salvo was living under the alias Angel Salinas, in an apartment in the Bowery. He worked for Fredo Mangella, an international restaurateur who owns four-star dining spots in Paris, Madrid, London, Rome, and here in New York. Mangella has an office above Volaré, his eatery on Mulberry Street.”

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Bauer nodded. “Good work. Now I have another job for you. This one’s urgent. I want you to crack the security on Director Holman’s computer.”

Morris’s eyes went from Jack Bauer to Layla Abernathy and back again. Then he dropped into the Director’s chair.

“This might take a little time,” he warned.

“Just do it,” Jack replied. He faced Abernathy. “You have something to show me?”

Layla nodded. “These files contain security briefs—

summaries of just about everything we’ve got on Kurmastan, up until the District Director shut down the investigation.”

Jack accepted the thick file, leafed through it. Inside, he found photographs and reams of surveillance reports—

two years’ worth.

“Let’s find a conference room to review this,” he said.

8:31:58 A.M. EDT

Parking garage

CTU Headquarters, NYC

A pair of utility workers blithely strode down the ramp, into the restricted parking garage ten floors beneath the CTU offices.

In the lead, a slight African-American man, in a blue Con Edison uniform under an oversized yellow vest, carried two large steel toolboxes. Under black-rimmed, bottle-thick glasses too large for his narrow face, the man’s dark brown eyes appeared wide and alert.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 27

The other man was tall and blond, with a flat face, ghost-blue eyes, and Slavic features. His neck seemed too thick for his uniform, and the sleeves were rolled up around his burly arms. He carried a circle of electric cable over one shoulder, a hazard vest slung over the other. This one was in the middle of a story.

“. . . so I told the bitch I couldn’t pay her rent this month because I lost two large at OTB . . .”

The smaller man snorted. “Serves you right, putting your cash down on the ponies. What did your woman say to that?”

Both security guards stepped out of the glass-enclosed hutch and approached the utility workers.

“She said if I want the honey, I gotta feed the bear,” the blond man replied. “Can you believe that? And you know what I said?”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a CTU guard interrupted.

“You’re not supposed to be down here—”

The blond man dropped his hazard vest, leveled the hidden 9mm USP Tactical at the guards. The silencer took care of the noise, muffling the gunshots in the low-ceilinged garage.

The first bullet caught the guard in the throat. The second blew the back of the head off the other man.

“So what did you say?” asked the slight black man, pushing up his thick glasses.

“I told the bitch that I’d rather go bear hunting,” the big blond replied, lowering his weapon.

The black man set down his boxes, moved into the bul-letproof hutch, and jumped behind the computer console.

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The big blond dragged the corpses out of sight behind a parked car.

Footsteps sounded, and the blond man paused, drawing his weapon again. He immediately relaxed when he saw the man in the CTU uniform striding quickly down the ramp.

“Have the cameras been deactivated?” the newcomer asked.

The black man stuck his head out of the hutch. “I don’t think they were functional. But if they were, they aren’t now.”

The newcomer in the CTU security uniform moved toward the blond. The blond man took the badge and name tag off one of the murdered guards and handed it to the newcomer.

“Come on,” the black man said, retrieving his steel boxes. “The access shaft to the roof is over here.”

The newcomer in the CTU uniform took over the security booth. He watched through the Plexiglas while his partners used electric screwdrivers to open a steel hatch in the wall. The blond man waited while his smaller partner crawled inside.

A moment later, the smaller man stuck his head out. “The cameras might not be working, but everything else is.”

“Can we get to the roof?” the blond man demanded.

“The ladder goes to the top, but there are security systems and laser eyes on every floor. I’ll have to disable them one at a time, all the way to the roof.”

The blond man sneered. “Then you better get started.”

“It’s a bitch, man,” his partner griped. “We could be C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 29

here all morning. It’s gonna take us forever just to get to the roof.”

The blond glanced at his oversized watch. “You don’t have forever. The job has to be done in the next two hours.

I suggest you get started.”

Both men climbed through the hatch, and the blond pulled it shut behind them, leaving the screws in a pile on the concrete floor.

8:50:03 A.M. EDT

Central Ward

Newark, New Jersey

“Foy, you still on them?”

“I got ’em,” replied Judith Foy, Deputy Director of CTU

New York. Behind the wheel of her silver Lexus, she’d been tailing the shiny black Hummer since it exited the airport’s short-term parking garage.

On the other end of the comm was FBI Special Agent Jason Emmerick. He and his partner were now tailing the second Hummer. Each vehicle carried a part of a “package” that had arrived that morning on a flight from Montreal. The “package” had turned out to be two Middle Eastern men.

“I know the man I’m tailing,” Emmerick informed her.

“He’s an Afghani, goes by the name Hawk. I’ve got no ID

on the man you’re tailing. Contact us when your mark arrives at his destination.”

“Roger.” Judy continued following her black Hummer 30

2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

to a blighted area of downtown Newark. In University Heights, the vehicle circled a sprawling Federal housing project—a breeding ground for the type of crime that had made the name Newark synonymous with urban violence since the 1967 riots.

Despite her experience, Agent Foy felt uncomfortable cruising these mean streets. A thirty-eight-year-old Caucasian woman behind the wheel of a Lexus was not a common sight in the Central Ward, where police cars were scarce, graffiti and gang markings everywhere. Even with the car’s tinted windows, young men in gang colors, hanging out on every other block, watched her car with predatory eyes. Judith Foy recalled a DEA assessment that came across her desk last year which claimed this section of Newark was the crack cocaine capital of the Northeast.

Foy was a Jersey girl, too, though she hailed from af-fluent Bricktown on the state’s southern shore. That safe, cozy little community was nothing like this blasted strip of urban blight.

She’d gone into the CIA right after graduate school. Her first assignment with the Agency had been in the Middle East. After eight years, she’d come back to the United States. Then the Agency had sent her to New York, to work with Brice Holman.

For the past three years, while red tape was being cut to allocate a fully staffed threat center, she and Brice had been the CIA’s entire counterterrorist operation in New York.

She’d come to know and trust Brice. He had twenty years with the Agency, ten in the field. He had good in-C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 31

stincts, and he’d always had her back. So when he came to her with this rogue operation, she didn’t hesitate to back him. If Holman thought something bad was going down today, then it was. Violation of protocol was a small price to pay for stopping what could be another WTC bombing.

As Agent Foy rounded a corner, deftly avoiding a bunch of kids playing in the middle of the street, she saw the Hummer speed up as it raced down the block. She applied the gas, too, and easily kept them in sight.

“Yeah, I’m following you, genius,” she muttered. “What are you going to do about it?”

The Hummer left the projects, moved into an area of decrepit warehouses and shuttered businesses. The vehicle was about half a block ahead of her when it swerved around a lumbering garbage truck, into a narrow alley.

Agent Foy sped up, but by the time she reached the al-leyway, the Hummer had vanished. The narrow street occupied a space between two tall brick buildings that had once housed factories or warehouses. The industry was long gone, and the crumbling buildings were abandoned.

With a resigned sigh, she steered the Lexus into the cramped alley. The road surface was ancient cobblestone, and her tires rumbled so loudly, she feared for her suspension. Finally, she reached the opposite end of the alley and emerged onto a street lined with crumbling apartment buildings.

She spotted the Hummer at the end of that block, waiting at a stop sign for another garbage truck to rumble by.

“Got you,” she whispered triumphantly.

Agent Foy stepped on the gas and pulled onto the street, 32

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intent on catching up to the Hummer. Her concentration was shattered when she heard a squeal of tires burning pavement. Her head jerked to the right, just in time to see the rusty grille of a GM pickup barreling down on her.

She pushed the gas to the floor, but it was already too late. The truck flew out of the hidden driveway, slammed into the passenger side of her Lexus. Foy threw up her arms just as the air bag deployed, smashing her backward in the seat. Shards of safety glass rained down on her, then the hood popped and she heard the angry hiss of steam.

The truck continued forward, slamming her car against the telephone pole. Wheels spun, pressing the Lexus until the frame bent, then snapped. Finally, the truck’s front tire popped and its engine stalled. Smoke began to pour from under the hood. After the deafening crash, the quiet was eerie.

Over the hiss of steam from the truck’s ruptured radiator, Agent Foy heard a door open, feet striking the pavement. Next came the sound of another vehicle approaching and skidding to a halt.

She peered through a gap in the wreckage. The black Hummer was back. The driver of the GM pickup that had hit her—a teenager wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the number 13 emblazoned on the back—dived into the Hummer through an open window. Then the Hummer sped away, the teen’s legs still dangling out the window.

Agent Foy tried to move. With one arm pinned by the air bag, she unbuckled her seatbelt with her free hand.

Most of the pressure on her abdomen vanished, but when she took a deep breath, bruised ribs ground together, and she cried out in a rattling gasp.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 33

Every move a Herculean labor, she reached into her torn blazer for her cell phone. Hands slick with blood, she managed to press the speed dial button.

CTU Director Brice Holman’s cell rang three times, before she was connected to his voice mail. From somewhere on the street she heard cries, then a face appeared at the window. The man wore a red ’do-rag over a retro Afro, a pair of gray city sanitation overalls.

“Jesus, lady, you okay?”

“I’m pinned,” she replied weakly.

“Don’t try to move. An ambulance is on the way.”

She tried to reply, but waves of nausea and dizziness suddenly overwhelmed her. Desperate to report to someone, Agent Foy placed a second call, this one to CTU

Headquarters in Manhattan.

8:55:57 A.M. EDT

Bilson Avenue, Central Ward

Newark, New Jersey

Paramedic Darnell Peasley saw the accident scene as soon as he swung his ambulance around the corner. “Damn,” he said. “It’s a bad one.”

A silver Lexus was wrapped around a telephone pole; a faded red pickup truck had smashed into it. Smoke poured from under both hoods.

Darnell noticed a sanitation truck had stopped at the scene. Two workers were waving at him. A third was poking his head through the Lexus’s window.

“The cops are here,” said Darnell’s partner, Luis. He 34

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pointed through the windshield as Darnell parked his ambulance next to the sanitation truck.

Darnell was relieved to see the patrol car rolling toward them. Sometimes he and Luis had to wait for the police to arrive at scenes like this, which meant they remained inside their locked ambulance until the cops finally did show. On streets like Bilson Avenue, a paramedic took his life into his hands if he did anything else.

Two cops emerged from their car, and a police van was just arriving as Darnell popped his door and ran forward, clutching his medical kit.

“She’s pinned!” called the sanitation worker, standing next to the Lexus.

“What about the truck driver?” Darnell asked.

“Punk ran away,” one of the other sanitation workers cried. “Hopped into a black Hummer with tinted windows and took off.”

“You got a license number for that?” the older cop demanded, showing attitude.

“I got the first couple of numbers,” replied the black sanitation worker, mopping sweat off his forehead with his ’do-rag. He avoided eye contact with the white cop, directed his comments at Darnell and Luis.

The older cop and his partner immediately hauled him to their van for a statement. Darnell moved to climb into the twisted car. A third policeman tried to help.

“Anything I can do?” the cop asked.

The officer was young and white and earnest.

“I’ll call when I need you,” Darnell replied. “Now get out of the way and let me get this done before the Fire Department gets here and takes over.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 35

The policeman quickly gave Darnell space.

That line always works, the paramedic mused. Cops and firemen got no love for each other.

He pulled a pair of disposable gloves out of his kit and slipped the white latex over his brown hands. Then he touched his fingers to the woman’s throat.

The pulse was strong, but she was unconscious and probably in shock. He pushed the red hair away from her forehead and saw the bloody gouge where the rearview mirror had caught her. He slapped a pressure pad on the wound to stop the bleeding.

“How she doin’?” Luis called.

“Probably a concussion,” Darnell replied.

He thought for a second that he’d heard a tiny voice—

the car’s radio? Darnell inspected the Lexus interior, spied the woman’s purse on the dashboard, the bloody cell phone in her hand. He gently slipped the device from her limp fingers and dropped the phone into the bag he’d retrieved.

In the purse, Darnell spotted a digital camera.

“Yo! Luis!” he called, tossing the purse to his partner.

“Take her stuff so it can go with her.”

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

9:00 A.M. AND 10:00 A.M.

EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

9:02:11 A.M. EDT

Secure Conference Room

CTU Headquarters, NYC

Jack Bauer checked his watch and tossed the file onto the conference table.

“I’ve heard enough about Kurmastan,” he said sharply.

“You still haven’t told me why Director Holman and Deputy Director Foy are missing. Or why Holman’s computer is locked so tight not even Morris O’Brian can break through.”

The woman lowered her eyes. “I really don’t know—”

“You’re lying,” Jack said evenly. “You’re hiding something—maybe something your bosses did or are doing.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 37

Layla’s dark eyes stared at the floor.

“You can’t protect them, Agent Abernathy,” Jack said quietly. “If you try, you’ll only go down, too.”

The woman glanced away, tightly folded her arms. Then she met Jack’s gaze.

“Well,” she began, “I think maybe I’m the reason there are so many security protocols on Brice Holman’s computer.”

Jack drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Go on.”

“Six weeks ago, I was assigned to help open this office, but I found Holman’s activities to be overly guarded.”

“What do you mean? Be specific.”

“He’d disappear without explanation—and then with explanations that began to sound suspect. So two weeks ago, I got curious and cracked his files. I couldn’t break the copy protection program or download anything, but I got a pretty good look. Brice believes a terror attack originating from Kurmastan is imminent. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing it to protect the country.”

“Why didn’t he issue an alert?” Jack asked. “Talk to Langley?”

“I told you before, Agent Bauer. Holman was ordered to halt all surveillance on Kurmastan. And because I violated his computer, I’m afraid I may be the reason Brice doesn’t trust the staff assigned to him now.”

“He figured out you broke into his system?”

Layla nodded. “The next time I tried to gain access, he’d erected all kinds of new security barriers. I think my actions made him paranoid.”

The conference room’s intercom buzzed. “I’d better take this,” she said.

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“Put it on speaker,” Jack commanded. He noticed her eyes flash with annoyance, but she did what Jack asked.

“Abernathy here.”

“This is Peter Randall in Communications. I just received a strange call from Deputy Director Foy’s cell.”

Layla leaned forward. “Where is—”

“This is Special Agent Jack Bauer from CTU Los Angeles,” Jack interrupted. “What did the Deputy Director say?”

“That’s what’s strange, sir,” replied Pete Randall over the speakerphone. “Agent Foy didn’t say anything. There was silence, followed by the sound of a siren. Finally, I heard voices, then the line went dead.”

Jack and Layla exchanged looks.

“Did you trace the signal?” Jack asked.

“That’s standard procedure,” the comm tech replied.

“But the call was so short we can’t triangulate.”

“I’ll be right down,” Jack replied, ending the call. Then he snatched the receiver and dialed Brice Holman’s office.

On the eighth ring, O’Brian picked up.

“What do you bloody want?” O’Brian barked. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“It’s Bauer.”

“Oh. Hello, boss,” Morris said smoothly.

“I need you at the comm station. Now.”

Morris groaned. “Can’t Almeida handle it? I’ve got my hands full with the locks on the Director’s computer. This Holman person is nearly as devious as you are. Needless to say, I haven’t quite cracked it—though I’m close.”

“It can wait,” Jack replied. “I need you to trace a cell C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 39

phone signal. The call didn’t last long so there might not be much of a trail.”

Morris snorted. “Child’s play compared to this, Jack-o.

I’ll be there on the double.”

Agent Abernathy led Jack down a flight of steel steps, onto the floor of the Operations Center. There were no offices, only workstations inside cubicles. When they arrived at the communications station, Morris was already there.

He stood beside a lanky, thirty-something technician with a receding hairline and nervously blinking eyes partially obscured behind small, round glasses.

Jack extended his hand. “Peter Randall? I’m Jack Bauer.

Have you retrieved the memory cache of Deputy Director Foy’s call?”

Randall nodded. “I have, sir, but the call lasted less than two minutes, so triangulation will be difficult, even if we can isolate her digital trace inside the phone company’s transmitters.”

“You have signature protocols, correct?” Morris asked.

“Of course. Each member of this unit has intelli-signatures unique to them embedded in their cell phones.”

Jack knew the answer to the next question, but asked anyway. “Have you tried to locate Foy using the GPS chip in her cell?”

The comm tech frowned. “She deactivated it, sir. I can’t imagine why.”

“I can.” Jack glanced at Layla. “She didn’t want CTU to know where she was.”

“I think I’ve got something,” said Morris.

Jack peered over his shoulder, at the high-definition 40

2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

monitor. Morris tapped a few keys and a map of New Jersey appeared, the telecommunications grid superim-posed over it.

“Deputy Director Foy’s call came through a forwarding station in this little town here.” Morris tapped the screen.

“Pissant. Pissant, New Jersey.”

Peter Randall cleared his throat. “That’s Passaic, O’Brian.

Passaic, New Jersey. It’s an American Indian word.”

Morris squinted theatrically. “I must be going goggle-eyed. I swear it says Pissant.”

“Get on with it, Morris,” Jack said tightly.

“Anyway, from the forwarding station in Passaic, I traced the signal back to communications grid A–NE 8804.

That’s right here—” Morris tapped the screen again.

“Newark,” Jack whispered. He faced Layla.

“Retrieve the patient admission records from all the hospitals around Newark, see if anyone fitting Agent Foy’s description has been treated in the past hour. Contact the Newark Police Department and the city morgue, too . . .”

“On it,” Layla said, punching keys.

Jack laid a hand on Morris’s shoulder. “I’m leaving for an hour, to check on that other matter,” he said quietly.

“The one that delayed us this morning.”

“Bugger,” Morris murmured. “Don’t you want backup?”

Jack shook his head. “Not from this office. You and Tony hold down the fort until I get back. I’ll be in touch if I run into problems.”

Morris frowned. “Careful, Jack. I understand New York can be a very rough town.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 41

9:39:20 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

“Agent Almeida? I have the system schematics that you requested.”

Tony nodded, his gaze fixed on the monitor. “Yeah, thanks,” he muttered. “Put them on the desk.”

“Agent Almeida?”

It took a moment for the voice to penetrate his concentration. Finally, Tony looked up, to find a young woman with dark, curly hair and wide, oval eyes standing over him. She offered Tony a nervous smile.

“I just wanted to say . . . if you need anything . . . anything at all, I’ll be in the next cubicle.” She pointed to her workstation with a thumb over her shoulder. “My name’s Delgado, Rachel Delgado. Like I said, call me. If you need me.”

The woman wore black slacks and platform shoes. Her tight, white blouse had a low neckline, showing more than ample cleavage. Tony shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Ah . . . thanks.”

As she walked away, Tony watched her swaying hips—

until Rachel Delgado glanced over her shoulder and caught him peeking.

Tony quickly shifted his gaze—then the computer beeped, and it was back to work. He grabbed the schematics that Ms. Delgado had brought him and looked them over. In a few minutes, he’d isolated the problem, which turned out to be a glitch with the physical system and not a software issue.

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Tony stood, hung his jacket over the back of the desk chair, along with his shoulder holster and the Glock inside it. Then he rolled up his sleeves and used a screwdriver from the console kit to open the access panel behind the computer.

The guts of the system revealed, Tony began to physically reroute the entire network through a different set of servers by reconnecting several dozen ports to ultrahigh bandwidth links.

9:49:55 A.M. EDT

Mulberry Street

After a short cab ride, Jack Bauer exited the taxi on the corner of Canal and Mulberry. At the teeming intersection, he considered his next move.

It was clear to Jack that someone at CTU New York had tipped off De Salvo and his crew. They knew about Jack’s arrival in the city, and enough of his schedule to set up an ambush in the middle of Hudson Street in broad daylight.

Or did the leak originate somewhere else, out of the Tacoma office, perhaps? Jack decided to have a long talk with George Mason after this was over.

Angelo De Salvo had harbored a deep grudge against Jack—for good reason. Jack had led the siege in L.A. that had ended with the deaths of De Salvo’s father and two brothers.

Angelo hadn’t been with his family during that take-down, but he was a career criminal with a long rap sheet.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 43

He was also a hunted man, and according to O’Brian’s research, De Salvo’s alias—Angel Salinas—never had more than nine hundred dollars in his bank account. So there was no way he could have paid for the services of professional hit men.

So who had helped him mount this morning’s ambush?

De Salvo was dead now, but whoever had helped him was still very much alive. Jack intended to find the source of the payoff money. He would start with the dead man’s employer, Fredo Mangella.

Jack walked down Mulberry Street, the main drag of New York’s shrunken Little Italy. The street was narrow but clean and colorful, with century-old brick buildings of six and eight stories, housing Italian restaurants, cafés, and gourmet pastry shops at street level. There were iron streetlamps and sidewalk tables with Campari umbrellas, but few tourists were around at this hour of the morning.

Most of the pedestrians were Asian, heading toward the streets around Mulberry, which belonged to Chinatown, a large area of Lower Manhattan that had grown even larger over the years with the influx of Asian immigrants, reduc-ing Little Italy to no more than a few blocks.

Morris had provided an exact address for Mangella’s chic new eatery, but Jack found the place difficult to miss.

Volaré sat halfway down Mulberry, inside an old building that obviously had been gutted and reconstructed with a two-story-high facade of glass framed by gleaming chrome.

The restaurant wasn’t open, but Jack spotted a tall man entering through the front door. He wore sunglasses and 44

2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

a dark suit, had a pallid complexion, and wore his white-blond hair long, just past his shoulders.

Jack watched the place a few more minutes from across the street. Then he moved to enter the restaurant.

Volaré’s interior was large and airy, with a ceiling high enough for an authentic Italian racing plane from the 1930s to be suspended above the perfectly placed tables.

On the ground floor, double doors to the kitchen were set in a shiny chrome wall beside an Art Deco chrome-plated bar. Jack spied an upper balcony with silver rails and a spiral staircase that flowed down to the main dining area.

There were no tables on the balcony, only a single door at the end of it.

For a moment no one appeared. Then a smiling woman exited the kitchen. “How can I help you?” she asked.

Elegant and waiflike, the thirty-something woman spoke with an unidentifiable European accent.

Jack forced a smile. “My name’s Jack Bello, of Gardenia Cheese in Vermont. I was wondering if I could speak with Mr. Mangella about sampling our excellent product?”

For the briefest second the woman glanced at the door on the balcony. “I’m afraid Mr. Mangella is quite busy.

Perhaps—”

“I’m only in town for the day, and I just need a moment of his time,” Jack insisted.

The woman’s smile faded, but she relented. “I’ll see what I can do. Wait here, Mr. Bello.”

She turned on her heels and walked through the kitchen doors. Jack immediately moved through the dining room and ascended the spiral staircase. He crossed the narrow C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 45

balcony and paused at the door. Carefully he tried the knob, but it was locked. Then Jack pressed his ear against the door. He heard voices inside.

“The changeover has been made,” a man said. “I’m catching a noon flight to Milan, out of JFK.”

Jack strained to hear the other speaker’s reply, but the second voice was so soft and raspy, he couldn’t make out the words.

“Don’t worry,” the first man said. “I’ll stay in Europe indefinitely. My assets here will lose their value after this, so I don’t anticipate returning—”

A harsh cry rose from the dining room. “Hey, what the hell are you doing up there?”

Jack looked down and saw the bald man with gold teeth, the one in the cab who’d tried to murder him this morning.

The urge to shoot him was strong, but Jack had to play it smart. He was here for information, not revenge. So he tamped down his rage.

But the cold play was blown anyway. Gold Teeth recognized Jack, too.

“Dominick! Petey! We’ve got trouble,” he cried, reaching for the police special tucked in his belt.

Jack quickly turned and slammed his shoulder against the locked door. It broke inward, and he stumbled across the threshold into a tiny office with a cherrywood desk and Tiffany lamps.

Jack scanned the room for an escape route. There were no windows, only another door on an adjacent wall. Standing by that door was the pale man with the white-blond hair and the dark suit—the man Jack had spotted enter-46

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ing the restaurant a few minutes ago. His sunglasses were gone now; his strangely pinkish eyes blinked in surprise.

Behind an open laptop, an extremely portly man struggled to his feet, face flushed with outrage. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

Jack shifted his gaze to Fredo Mangella behind the desk. “My name is Jack Bauer. I’m an agent in the Counter Terrorist Unit. I need to speak with you—”

Jack heard clanging footsteps, as several men surged up the spiral staircase. He leveled his Glock at Mangella.

“Call your men off,” he demanded. “I’m not here to arrest you. I just want to ask you some questions.”

Fredo Mangella remained silent, considering Jack’s words. There was slight movement, a drawer opening.

Then a weapon appeared in the fat man’s hand.

Jack shot Fredo Mangella twice in the chest. As the restaurateur dropped back into his chair, the standing white-haired man pulled a .45 and aimed it at Jack.

Before he could fire, the door next to him opened, striking the Albino’s arm. His .45’s barrel dropped as the woman who’d greeted Jack appeared. She stepped forward, preventing Jack from getting a clean shot, then screamed when she saw the guns, screamed louder when she saw Mangella’s corpse flopped in the chair.

Jack heard the shouting voices of Mangella’s men. He slammed the broken door shut with a spinning kick, then pressed his back against the wall next to it.

“Don’t move,” he cried, trying again to draw a bead on the Albino.

But Jack couldn’t shoot. The pale man had curled his C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 47

long arm around the woman’s throat and was using her as a shield.

“Pull the trigger and she dies,” he rasped, his .45 back up. “Throw your weapon onto the desk and step away from the door or you’ll die, and then she dies.”

Looking into the Albino’s ghostly eyes, Jack knew the man wasn’t bluffing. He tossed his Glock on the desk beside the laptop and raised his hands.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

10:00 A.M. AND 11:00 A.M.

EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

10:00:06 A.M. EDT

Rural Route 12

Hunterdon County, New Jersey

“Hang back, Leight, I don’t want them making us.”

For ninety minutes now, FBI Agent Jason Emmerick had been driving across the Jersey countryside, his twenty-six-year-old partner, Douglas Leight, at the wheel of their white Saturn.

“We’ve been following this Hummer since it left the airport,” complained Leight after they hit another bone-jarring bump. “If they didn’t make us, they’re blind.”

They were off the highway now, surrounded by trees C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 49

and plowed fields, wooden fences and cows. The rural road was narrow and dusty and in disrepair.

“It may not matter, either way,” Emmerick said. An African American in his late forties with a lean, strong build, Emmerick was clad in pressed khakis and an Izod shirt, a navy-blue blazer over it. He reached into the blazer, his hand brushing the butt of his weapon as he pulled out a pack of Juicy Fruit. “Now that their precious package has arrived from Montreal, I don’t think these guys will be changing plans.”

“Well, they must know we’re tailing them,” said Leight, his sandy eyebrows knitting beneath his light brown crew cut. “And I think they’re leading us on a wild-goose chase.”

“They may know we’re tailing them, but they’ve got a destination. This is the way to Kurmastan,” Emmerick replied, shaking out a stick of gum and unwrapping it. “And if this Hummer isn’t going there, it may take us to someplace new, which means it’s someplace we should know about.”

“Yeah,” Leight grunted. “Like the Slurpee counter at the 7-Eleven.”

“Okay, so they stopped at a convenience store,” Emmerick snapped the stale stick of gum and popped it into his mouth. “Get over it. Everybody’s got to take a piss sooner or later. Even terrorists.”

Leight gripped the steering wheel. “I just wish I’d had the chance to grab a hot dog. I haven’t eaten since last night.

Good food, too—Val’s a great cook. You should take me up on my invite, come on over for dinner some night.”

“You two are getting married next month, aren’t you?”

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“Right, but it’s the honeymoon I’m looking forward too.” Leight grinned. “You’re invited. Remember?”

“To the honeymoon?”

Leight smirked. “You wish. You got the invitation, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I’ll check with Bettina. She’s got her hands full lately. Our au pair went back to Ireland, and now she’s trying to take care of the twins and her keep her freelance business going. And, by the way, for future reference, the

‘terrible twos’ aren’t a myth. Want some gum?” Emmerick held out the pack.

Leight took a stick. “So this guy we’re tailing. You said his name’s Amadani. But you didn’t know it was him we were waiting for, right?”

“Right.”

“Yet you recognized him?”

Emmerick nodded. The second he saw Amadani at bag-gage claim—five-eleven male, late forties, gray hair, scar on his left cheek—he’d ID’d him.

“You mentioned an alias, too,” said Leight.

“Yeah,” said Emmerick. “Amadani’s an Afghani who fought the Soviets as a boy. That’s where he got his nick-name—‘the Hawk.’ A few years back, he was convicted for selling a million dollars’ worth of black market ciga-rettes with phony tax stamps out of a warehouse in Wayne, New Jersey. He hooked up with our boys in Kurmastan during his prison term. After he was paroled, he skipped the country. Since then, he’s turned up in Madrid, Hamburg, London. And every time he appears, a terror attack follows inside of a week.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 51

Leight’s eyebrows rose. “And you know all that how?”

“Because I busted him, just like half the other punks in Kurmastan. You’ve only been my partner for what, eight months? I had a whole life before I took on your sorry rookie ass.”

Leight cracked the window, spit out his gum. “Forgot,”

he said. “I don’t like Juicy Fruit.” He glanced at Emmerick. “Those guys in Kurmastan, they really bother you, don’t they?”

“Sure,” said Emmerick. “You’re talking about a whole town full of felons, guys I spent the past twenty years trying to lock up. Now they’re free again and up to no damned good.” He shook his head. “It’s pushing the same rock up the same hill all over again.”

Leight snorted. “Don’t get your underwear bunched, Sisyphus. We’ll lock them up again, maybe forever this time.”

Emmerick peered through the dust-flecked window.

“Watch. He’s turning again.”

“Great. This road looks worse than the last one.”

“Lay back, but don’t lose him.”

“I’ll try, but it’s too bad the packages separated into two Hummers. It would have been better if Foy could have come with us. We could have traded off. It would have been harder for them to make us.”

Emmerick didn’t reply. Back at the airport, he hadn’t been able to ID the man who’d been traveling with the Hawk, and that bothered him. Fortunately CTU Agent Judith Foy was there to tail the unknown man, while he and Leight had stayed with the Hawk.

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Up ahead, the black Hummer made its turn and suddenly sped up, trailing a cloud of dust. Doug Leight hit the gas, swerved the Saturn onto a narrow road.

Emmerick held on. The road was so pitted, it rattled the fillings in his mouth. He looked ahead; the Hummer crested a low hill between two rows of trees, and vanished from sight.

“Hurry. Don’t lose him.”

The Saturn crested the hill a moment later—and Emmerick saw the Hummer. The huge vehicle had come to a dead stop. It sat in the middle of the road, just over the rise.

“Holy shit!” Doug Leight cried, slamming on the brakes.

The Saturn skidded to a halt, not six inches from the Hummer’s rear bumper. The billowing cloud of dust that trailed the Saturn rolled over it. When it settled, Emmerick saw a large, brown van had pulled up behind them. He glanced at the trees bordering the road on both sides—no escape there.

“We’re boxed in,” he said, reaching for his weapon.

Before he could pull it free, the Saturn’s windows blew inward.

A hail of automatic weapons fire ripped through the vehicle’s thin aluminum skin. Gaping holes appeared in the doors, the roof. Headlights shattered in a shower of sparks. The hood flew open, and bullets pinged off the engine block.

In the front seat, the two FBI agents were struck dozens of times by the flying bullets, their bodies convulsing as C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 53

they died. The invisible attackers continued to fire, bursting tires and blowing off a hubcap.

Finally, the volley ceased. In the sudden silence, three men in camouflage fatigues carrying AK–47s emerged from the trees and approached the shattered car.

An engine gunned, and the Hummer that carried the Hawk sped away. The brown van slammed into the Saturn’s rear bumper and pushed the smoking car down the hill, through a wooden fence, and into a muddy pond.

Wild ducks scattered. The car hissed when it hit the water, steam billowing up from under the hood. It gurgled and bubbled in the muck, then finally slipped beneath the pond’s brackish green surface.

10:03:37 A.M. EDT

Volaré, Little Italy

The man with the gold teeth and two others burst through the office door. One man wore a waiter’s uniform and clutched an Uzi. The other wore kitchen whites and gripped a meat cleaver. They stopped dead when they saw Fredo Mangella slumped in the leather chair.

The Albino released the woman. Sobbing, she stumbled to the desk and dropped to her knees beside the corpse.

“This bastard killed your boss,” the Albino rasped.

Jack didn’t say a word. Instead, he focused his attention on the Glock, and the laptop beside it.

“Son of a bitch,” Gold Teeth snarled, cuffing Jack across the face with the butt of the police special. Jack stumbled, 54

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but didn’t go down. The urge to strike back was strong, but Jack resisted it, biding his time.

“Petey, go downstairs and lock the front door,” Gold Teeth said, eyeing Bauer. “Me and Dom will take care of this bastard.”

The man with the meat cleaver left, and Jack eyeballed Gold Teeth. “I saw you in the cab. You tried to kill me today. Why? Who paid you?” Jack demanded.

“Time for me to go,” said the Albino, scooping up Jack’s Glock. “I have an appointment elsewhere.”

“Hey, wait a minute, Whitey,” Gold Teeth said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“My business was with your boss,” the Albino said. “I don’t deal with underlings.”

The waiter with the Uzi frowned, eyes on the Albino as he headed for the door. Gold Teeth grabbed the man’s arm—

And Jack lashed out. With his left, Jack backhanded the Uzi out of the waiter’s grip. Then he stepped in with a right hook, crushing the man’s throat. The waiter bounced off the wall and went down, gagging and gasping for breath.

Jack snatched the laptop off the desk and bolted for the door.

“Stop him,” the Albino cried.

Gold Teeth blocked his path, but Jack didn’t stop.

Crouched low, he slammed into the man. Together, they went through the door and over the restaurant’s balcony railing.

Jack was on top when they hit a table, smashing it. Crystal shattered, china broke, silverware flew. Jack flipped C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 55

over, and lost his grip on the laptop. It slid across the hardwood floor.

Gold Teeth did a somersault, too, and landed beside him.

Jack knew the man was hurting, but Gold Teeth didn’t give up. He lunged as Jack scrambled across the debris-strewn floor, fumbling for the computer.

The kitchen doors parted and Petey returned, armed with his meat cleaver.

Jack gripped the laptop with both hands and brought it down on the back of Gold Teeth’s head. The man grunted and went limp. Jack looked up to see Petey charging.

Then the Albino started shooting and the dining room exploded in a shower of shattering glass as the massive front windows came down in a deadly hail. Jack rolled under a table as razor shards rained down around him.

Petey was struck, a two-foot icicle of glass piercing the top of his skull.

The Albino shifted fire, peppering the ceiling. The racing plane lurched on the wires, then one wing dipped.

Jack knew he was doomed unless he moved.

Tucking the laptop under his arm, he dived through the broken window. The suspended antique airplane came down a split-second later, smashing the tables and sending broken chairs and shattered china rolling onto the sidewalk.

Ears ringing from the noise, Jack stumbled to his feet, tightened his grip on the laptop, and took off. He wanted to go back for the Albino, but he was unarmed now, and he suspected the computer and its contents were more important.

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As sirens wailed in the distance, Jack hailed a cab. On the ride back to CTU, his cell phone went off. Jack checked the number, took the call.

“Hi, honey,” Teri Bauer chirped.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Jack closed his eyes. The adrenaline was still pumping; he struggled to control his tone, make everything sound all right. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”

Teri laughed. “It’s only been a day, but it’s nice to know you’re missing me already.”

“I am.”

“Listen, Jack, I know it’s early, but I wanted to call anyway. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“I’m up,” Jack replied. “It’s actually not that early here.”

“Oh, of course, that’s right. The time difference. Well, Kim wanted me to ask a favor. She wants a Coldplay poster from the MTV store. Apparently it’s in Times Square.

That’s where they do their live TRL shows—at least that’s what Kim told me. You’ll do that, won’t you?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Jack glanced at the passing traffic, exhaled at the idea of something so normal, so easy. Buying a poster to make his daughter happy. He smiled. “Anything I can get for you?”

“No, honey. Just bring yourself home in one piece.

Okay? Stay safe.”

“I’ll try,” said Jack. “Things here . . . they’re a little . . .

disorganized. But I won’t forget Kim’s poster.”

“Great,” said Teri. “I have to get going, but how’s New York otherwise? Did you go to any nice restaurants yet?”

“Actually,” said Jack, “I just came from one.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 57

10:42:41 A.M. EDT

Central Security Station

CTU Headquarters, NYC

When he finished rerouting the security links, Tony Almeida closed the panel and rebooted the system. While he waited through the startup procedures, Tony popped the top buttons of his black cotton shirt to cool off. Then he began the laborious process of enabling all the new network connections he’d just established, one link at a time.

Alarms. Motion sensors. Elevator overrides; all had to be restarted. While he worked, Tony unconsciously rubbed the ragged scar across his chest.

The “program enabled” icon appeared, and soon Tony had real-time images on all twelve security monitors. He observed the parking garage, the lobby, the elevator shaft, the roof, the fire escape through an array of cameras.

“Mr. Almeida?”

Rachel Delgado was there, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. Tony’s shirt still gaped, and the woman’s eyes widened when she saw Tony’s scar.

“My god,” she cried. “Did that just happen?”

Tony flushed, closed his shirt. “No,” he muttered, buttoning quickly. “It, uh . . . happened a couple months ago.

Down in Mexico.”

Rachel looked away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. You were working behind the console, and it looked like an electrical burn, so I thought . . .”

“It is an electrical burn,” Tony replied.

Rachel suddenly remembered the containers in her 58

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hand. “I brought you some coffee,” she said. “I didn’t know if you liked it black or with cream, so I brought one of each.”

“Thanks,” Tony said, accepting the black. “Sit down.

Join me.”

“Okay,” Rachel said, glancing at the workstation. “Wow, you have everything running again.”

“Almost everything.”

“Is that Con Ed guy on the roof helping you?” Rachel asked.

Tony’s eyes were on the monitor. He’d seen the man in a blue utility worker’s uniform, too, just before the guy had moved out of camera range.

Tony punched up the digital control panel for the roof camera. Using his mouse to move the lens from side to side, Tony scanned the black tarred roof. Soon he spotted the man again—he was wearing a Con Edison uniform.

“He looks busy,” Rachel observed.

The man’s back was turned. He was crouched at the base of one of CTU’s microwave towers, tinkering with something impossible to see.

Tony frowned. He’d established the network connection to the motion detectors on the roof two minutes ago. Why hadn’t those detectors gone off, sounded an alarm that someone was on the roof? He checked the circuit and got a

“network connection lost” message.

Adrenaline pumping, Tony checked the alarm system and received the same warning. Someone had sabotaged the system as fast as he’d gotten it running.

“What’s the matter?” Rachel asked. “You look upset.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 59

Tony jerked his head at the monitor. “The Con Edison guy on the roof. He’s an intruder.”

Rachel rose abruptly, spilling her coffee on the concrete floor. “Oh my god. What do we do?”

Tony reached for the phone.

10:51:23 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

Jack Bauer had just returned with the laptop under his arm. He went directly to Brice Holman’s office, where Morris was still trying to crack the security on the Director’s computer.

“Almost there, Jack-o,” he promised.

Jack’s cell warbled. He dropped the laptop on the desk, reached for the phone in his pocket.

“Bauer here.”

“It’s Tony. We’ve got an intruder on the roof.”

Jack’s gut turned to ice. “You’re sure?”

“He’s dressed like a utility worker,” Tony replied. “But he didn’t get up there by accident. I think he climbed up the maintenance hatch, deactivating the security systems as he went along. I’m down here establishing new links; he’s up there cutting them.”

“Do you know his precise location right now?”

“He’s at the base of the microwave tower on the southwest corner of the roof. I can see him because I still have visuals.”

“The intruder didn’t disable the cameras?”

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“He couldn’t, Jack,” Tony explained. “They’re digital Wi-Fi and operate independently, with their own power source. The cameras have no wires to cut, no power source to disconnect. He probably doesn’t have a clue he’s being watched.”

“Listen Tony,” Jack said. “Don’t mention the intruder to anyone, and don’t set off any alarms. I don’t want to spook this guy. I want him alive, for interrogation.”

“Roger, Jack.”

“Keep this line open, we’ll talk when I get to the roof.”

“Okay.”

Jack closed the phone.

“What intruder?” Morris asked.

“Never mind,” said Jack. “Give me your weapon.”

Morris slipped the Glock out of its holster. “Take it. I hate the damned things. I’m only packing heat because it’s regulation in the field.” Morris looked around the office.

“If you want to call this the field.”

“Stay here and keep doing what you’re doing,” Jack said, checking the weapon. “And when you’re done with that computer, get started on the laptop.”

Jack slipped out of Director Holman’s office, Glock in hand.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Morris grumbled. “Guns flashing, intruders all over the place, and no one tells me a bloody thing . . .”

Jack moved quietly and quickly along the balcony of the Operations Center, careful to keep the Glock low. He found the door to the staircase, and used the universal code key Layla Abernathy had given him to enter the restricted area.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 61

The stairwell was well lit, and stank of fresh paint and industrial-strength cleaning fluid. Jack took the steps two at a time, his heels echoing hollowly in the cavernous space. He led with the Glock, clutched in both hands.

Jack paused at each landing, wary of ambush. So far, however, the stairwell remained deserted.

Finally, he reached the door to the roof. Jack flattened himself against the wall and slowly turned the knob, pushing the door open a few inches. Warm air and bright sunlight flooded through the crack, filling the stairwell. From below, Jack could hear street sounds. With one hand, he drew his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Tony,” he whispered.

“I’m here.”

“Where is the intruder now?”

“He’s still at the microwave tower, but he’s not crouching anymore. I think he’s packing up to leave.”

“Roger,” Jack whispered. “Stand by.”

He put Tony on hold and used his CTU phone’s GPS

as a compass, determining that the southwest corner of the roof was through the door and to the right. Then Jack tucked the cell into his pocket and slipped through the door, stepping cautiously onto the roof. The rubber insula-tion felt spongy under his feet, but Jack was grateful the material muffled the sound of his footsteps.

He moved to the right, until he saw the steel microwave tower, its multiple dishes framed by the gleaming World Trade Center towers in the distance. He crept to a massive air-conditioning system, and ducked behind an aluminum vent.

From his position, Jack had a good view of the micro-62

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wave tower, right down to its concrete base. But there was no sign of the intruder.

“Damn,” Jack grunted.

He flattened himself against the air conditioner, snatched up his phone again. “Talk to me, Tony—”

“He’s moving, Jack. He’s headed to an access hatch on the northwest corner.”

Fixated on his target, Jack closed the phone, raised his head over the edge of the air-conditioning unit. Looking to the northwest, he spotted a slight African-American man with black-framed glasses, wearing a blue uniform, walking toward an outhouse-sized structure projecting from the flat roof. The man carried two metal toolboxes in his hand, a bundle of wire over his narrow shoulders.

Jack took off at a run, circling power units and a sky-light to reach a point where he could intercept the intruder.

Then, lifting his Glock, Jack stepped into view.

“Halt,” he cried. “You are in a restricted area. Drop the boxes and get down on the ground now.”

The man’s eyes were wide behind his thick glasses. He immediately dropped the boxes—then he took off, sprint-ing to the fire escape twenty yards away.

“Stop or I will shoot,” Jack warned, stepping forward.

The man sped up. Jack dropped to one knee and aimed.

At the last second he lowered his Glock, firing at the man’s moving legs.

But just as Jack pulled the trigger, the man stumbled.

Instead of hitting his knee, the 9mm bullet caught him squarely in the back of the head. The man went limp, his shattered lenses tumbled over the edge of the building as C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 63

his corpse hit the roof with a muffled thump, his head inches from the ledge of the fire escape.

Bauer cursed.

Glock pointed at his victim, he cautiously approached.

Jack didn’t need to check the man’s pulse to know he was dead. The back of his head was blown out, blood and brain matter splattered on the roof. Jack holstered his weapon, bent down, went through the man’s pockets, but found nothing—not even a wallet.

Still crouched, he turned the dead man onto his back.

On the man’s forearm, Jack noticed a tattoo of a stylized number 13. He searched the front pockets of the man’s uniform, frowned when he came up empty again.

Then he remembered the steel boxes. Jack rose and turned, his back to the fire escape. He took one step, and a bright flash exploded in his head. He never saw the blow coming. His legs buckled and he crashed to his knees.

Despite the sharp stab of agony that rattled his skull, Jack fought to stay conscious, until a vicious kick to the side of his head sent him sprawling.

A blond man in the Con Edison uniform stepped off the fire escape, rubbing his fist. He glanced at his dead partner, then drew his weapon. The silencer was still attached to the muzzle, and he placed it against Jack’s bloodied temple.

Moaning, Jack coughed. “If you kill me, you’ll never get off this roof alive.”

The blond man chuckled, pushed the silencer until it gouged Jack’s flesh.

“Shut up and die,” he said.

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

11:00 A.M. AND 12:00 P.M.

EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

11:00:16 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

On the ground, the silencer digging into his temple, Jack had no time to make a move before the final gunshot.

When it came, Jack felt no pain. Instead, the pressure against his skull simply fell away.

Jack instantly realized he hadn’t been shot. The blond man lurched backward, onto the fire escape, one limp hand brushing at the quickly spreading red stain on his blue shirt.

As Jack pulled his weapon, a second bullet caught the blond man in the throat. The blond dropped his gun, and C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 65

his body pitched against the metal railing. Limply, without a sound, he fell headfirst into the street below.

Glancing around, Jack saw Tony Almeida, Glock still in hand. Tony walked over, helped Jack to his feet.

“Jack, are you—”

“I’m fine,” Jack said hoarsely.

Tony stepped back, holstered his weapon.

Jack closed his eyes, took a breath. With every move, he was battered by waves of dizziness. Ignoring the pain, he opened his eyes, reholstered his own Glock.

Tony stepped to the fire escape and peered over the railing. “Sorry, Jack. I know you wanted one of them alive.”

“Forget it,” Jack rasped. “Let’s find out what they were up to.”

It took them less than a minute to find the bomb. It was planted at the base of the microwave communications array—a digital clock connected to a two-pound bundle of C–4.

Jack crouched low, fighting a wave of nausea. “I can defuse this,” he said.

Tony pulled him away. “You’re in no condition to do this. Let me handle it.”

Before Jack could protest, the cell phone went off in his pocket. He answered, “Bauer.”

“It’s me, Jack-o,” Morris said. “Where have you run off to?”

“I’ve been . . . busy,” Jack said.

“I have news,” Morris continued. “Both good and bad.”

“Okay,” Jack said while he watched Tony use a gravity knife to sever the wire that led from the explosive charge 66

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to the timer. Tony then opened the back of the clock and removed a small battery. Immediately, the numbers stopped flashing and the digital face went dark.

Jack quietly exhaled.

“Are you there, Jack?” Morris demanded. “It’s not polite to ignore a man who’s called you.”

“I’m here,” Jack replied wearily. “What have you got for me? The good news.”

“I’ve broken through Brice Holman’s security firewall,”

Morris declared with a hint of pride. “The contents of the Director’s computer are yours to peruse.”

“Good work, Morris. What’s the downside?”

The memory’s been wiped clean. Holman’s cache is empty. And get this . . . According to the computer log, the memory was wiped this morning at six twenty-one a.m.”

“Then there’s a mole in CTU New York. Maybe more than one. We checked the entry logs. We know Brice Holman was never here today. That means somebody else deleted those files.” Jack paused, rubbed his aching temple. “How about the laptop I brought you?”

“I’m afraid all Fredo Mangella was doing was convert-ing currency. Dollars into euros. Millions of them. It was all on the up-and-up.” Morris frowned. “Might be a dead end, Jack.”

“No,” Jack insisted. “It’s important, but I don’t know why. Not yet. We’re still missing a piece of the puzzle.”

“I’ll keep looking, but all I see are recipes and payroll records. You won’t believe what an executive chef earns!”

“Listen, Morris. One more thing. Tony Almeida has a device for you to check out.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 67

Morris sighed. “Now what would that be, boss? A computer? Another laptop?”

“A bomb,” Jack replied.

11:28:05 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

After swallowing two cups of black coffee and three Advils, Jack felt considerably better. Tony had gone back to finishing his work on the security system, and Morris had taken the explosive device to the blast-proof room for further examination.

Now Jack was sitting behind Brice Holman’s desk, waking his computer out of hibernation. The firewalls were down and Holman’s computer cache was empty, as Morris had said.

Jack moved to the nonsecured files Holman kept, and ran a search using keywords FBI, DEA, and ATF. At first dozens of interagency alerts came up—practically all of them were Most Wanted List updates, Amber Alerts, or government releases. Jack filtered them out.

Then he found the draft of an e-mail to Judith Foy.

Holman had never finished or sent the message, but the e-mail mentioned “our friends at the FBI” and “Jello and Rollo,” obviously code names.

Jack punched the intercom and summoned Layla Abernathy.

“I want you to contact Andrew McConnell,” he told her the moment she walked in.

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“The Director of the local FBI office?”

“That’s right. I want you to ask him if any of his agents are involved in an investigation of the Warriors of God, Imam Ali Rahman al Sallifi, or the compound at Kurmastan.”

Layla nodded. “Anything else?”

“Don’t be upset if you don’t get any answers. Just report back to me. I want to know what McConnell says, word for word. His tone, his attitude, his inflection.”

“If you want all that, why can’t you talk to him yourself?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” was Jack’s only reply.

11:33:16 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

Layla left Holman’s office with a stiff stride. She could understand Jack Bauer’s being unhappy with the present situation, but she didn’t like being kept in the dark. Brice had kept her that way for weeks, and she’d had enough of it.

She didn’t care for Bauer’s manner, either. He was obviously a gung-ho, Type A, goal-oriented alpha male. The kind of guy who’d roll over anything or anyone who got in his way.

Layla had made some discreet inquiries about the man and wasn’t surprised to discover that Bauer had a reputation for being a loose cannon. Strangely, however, not one of Layla’s contacts had characterized him as political. Ap-C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 69

parently, for Jack Bauer, career advancement wasn’t a high priority.

That impressed Layla, along with the man’s reputation for being one hell of a field agent. He was also tight with Richard Walsh at Langley, which Layla knew would pretty much absolve him of most Agency sins.

On her way down the hall, Layla accidentally bumped into one of Jack’s cronies. She froze when she saw the explosive in his hand.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

“No worry, luv,” Morris O’Brian said with a smile. “It’s inactive. I could crack it against the wall and absolutely nothing will happen.”

Layla shook her head. “Well, do me a favor. And don’t, okay?”

Morris grinned and punched the bricks of C–4 with his fist. “See? Perfectly harmless.”

Giving Morris a wide berth, Layla headed back to her desk. “My god,” she murmured. “These L.A. guys are all loose cannons . . .”

11:34:55 A.M. EDT

CTU Headquarters, NYC

Morris opened the door to Brice Holman’s office without knocking, bounced the bomb onto the desk in front of Jack.

“What have you learned?” Jack asked.

“At first, nothing,” Morris said with a shrug. “Only that 70

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the C–4 was manufactured in Hungary, and that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to build this thing. The bomb is right out of the anarchist playbook. Except for one little thing.”

“Okay.” Jack swung around in his seat. “Explain.”

Morris sat down across from Jack. “Simple timer, two bricks of military-grade C–4, right?”

Jack nodded.

“Wrong,” Morris declared. “Watch this.”

Morris took one of the pasty, gray-white bricks of plastic explosives in his hand and broke it in half. He opened the two sections like a pomegranate, and displayed the insides to Jack.

“Is that a rock?” Jack asked.

“A pebble, actually,” Morris replied. “From a New Jersey beach no doubt. The other brick has one tucked inside of it, too.”

Jack rubbed his chin. “That doesn’t make any sense.

Stones make lousy shrapnel. Nails are better. And with half the C–4 gone from each brick—”

“More than half,” Morris replied. “The explosive potential of this device is fairly weak. In fact, this thing couldn’t do much more than bring down the microwave tower where you found it. That would put CTU New York out of action for a day or two, no longer.”

“That makes no sense,” Jack replied. “Why take all that trouble to sabotage the communications array? With a bigger bomb, the same two men could have destroyed this entire complex.”

“It’s obvious they didn’t want to do that. They wanted CTU operational. It’s the communications and satellite system they wanted disabled—”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 71

The intercom buzzed, interrupting them.

Jack answered. “Yes?”

“It’s Tony. We just received a security alert from Langley. We’re to increase the threat level at headquarters to Code Red immediately. Specifically, we’re to pay particular attention to our communications infrastructure.”

Jack and Morris exchanged glances.

“Anything else?” Jack asked.

“Well, I put in a back-channel call to Jamey Farrell in L.A. She told me there’ve been three attacks on CTU satellite facilities—in Boston, New Haven, and Pittsburgh These attacks were successful. The comm systems ar down at all three units—”

Morris cursed.

“That’s not all,” Tony continued. “I just checked the City of New York’s emergency response system and found out that the Fire Department was summoned to FBI Headquarters fifteen minutes ago. Apparently there’s been a

‘fire’ on their roof.”

Morris met Jack’s gaze. “What do you want to bet someone took out the Agency’s satellite capabilities?”

Why satellites? Jack wondered. What is it the enemy doesn’t want us to see? Are we even looking for the thing they’re so eager to hide?

A sharp knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” Jack called.

Layla Abernathy entered. “You were right, Special Agent Bauer. I spoke with Mr. McConnell personally and he blew me off.”

“What did he say, precisely?” Jack demanded.

She glanced at her notepad. “I’ll quote him: ‘The Fed-72

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eral Bureau of Investigation cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.’ End quote. Then Director McConnell added a personal aside.”

“Go on.”

“The Director said that Frank Hensley was a personal friend of his, and that he would rather burn in hell before he shared information with Special Agent Jack Bauer of CTU.” Layla Abernathy raised an eyebrow.

“So much for cooperation among the agencies,” Morris muttered.

Jack frowned and glanced away from Agent Abernathy’s curious gaze. I knew Operation Hell Gate would come back to bite me on this assignment. “McConnell stated that Kurmastan and its citizens were part of an ‘ongoing investigation.’ Is that correct?”

Layla nodded.

“Was that before or after you used my name?” Jack asked.

Layla frowned. “After, sir.”

“He’s lying,” Jack declared. “The FBI’s investigation is as dead as CTU’s. McConnell is just trying to throw us off by feeding us misinformation—or he already suspects some of his agents are involved with Brice Holman’s rogue operation and he wants to cover their asses.”

Morris shook his head. “With the satellite system down on the East Coast and the FBI keeping us at arm’s length, we’re effectively on our own.”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “What else is new?”

The intercom buzzed again. Jack answered, putting it on speaker.

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 73

“Special Agent Bauer? This is Rachel Delgado, Security. I wanted to let you know that I’ve located Deputy Director Judith Foy. She’s been injured in the line of duty. A traffic accident, according to the police. Right now, she’s a patient in Newark General Hospital.”

Jack watched Layla. She remained composed, but her expression had fallen. She was obviously upset.

“Thank you Ms. Delgado,” said Jack, disconnecting. He met Layla’s gaze. “I’m dispatching Special Agent Almeida to Newark,” he told her. “I want Tony to interrogate Deputy Director Foy as soon as possible.”

Layla nodded. “I want to go with him.”

“No,” said Jack. Then he softened his voice. “I’m sorry, Agent Abernathy. I need you here. But I’d like you to send another agent. Someone you trust. Someone who knows New Jersey.”

11:46:29 A.M. EDT

District Congressional Office Flemington, New Jersey

“Congresswoman Williams? Are you ready for your eleven forty-five?”

“Yes, Melinda,” Hailey Williams replied over the intercom. “Send him in.”

The slender, African-American Congresswoman adjusted the gray blazer of her tailored, pinstriped suit. As her office door swung wide, she rose from behind her desk to greet the man striding into the room.

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Hailey frowned, expecting a black man named Montel Tanner. Montel was the usual liaison between herself and Ali Rahman al Sallifi. In fact, it had been Montel who’d called her the day before, promising another lucrative donation to her upcoming campaign in exchange for a small favor.

Hailey had been only too happy to agree to the meeting.

Her campaign coffers were alarmingly low these days, her expenses increasingly high, and she knew al Sallifi was a man who could be counted on for financial support.

Hailey had helped al Sallifi in the past, and she was more than willing to do so again. Yes, one reason was the money. Hailey was no stranger to hardball politics—and she was certainly no saint when it came to running her campaigns. But she did honestly believe in al Sallifi’s work with prisoners.

Sure, Hailey appeared to be living a charmed life now: married to a prominent public defender, a graduate of Howard University, two graduate degrees from Princeton.

But she was far from a child of privilege.

Hailey was the third daughter to a single mother, whose father had died at the hands of guards in a state penitentiary, and three of her cousins had done time in prisons.

To Hailey, prisoners were lost souls in need of guidance, and she firmly believed that once someone had served his or her time, that person deserved an unprejudiced chance to begin again.

She had proudly defended Ali Rahman al Sallifi, his Warriors of God organization, and its rural New Jersey Kurmastan settlement precisely because they held the C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 75

same outlook that she did when it came to these lost souls of society.

Hailey had never actually examined the group’s specific religious teachings. As an agnostic, she personally wasn’t interested—although she did recognize and respect that any religion was a form of philosophy that could be very helpful in turning around certain troubled men and women.

For her, it was enough to know that the group was a religious-based organization that gave the state’s ex-cons direction, focus, and a halfway home after they left their prison lives. Montel always assured her of that. In fact, Montel had been very pleasant to meet with from the start.

That was another reason she was a bit taken aback to find a different sort of man greeting her today.

His manner was very cold. And his skin was so very pale. The whiteness of it looked almost unnatural to Hailey, quite off-putting, but she hid her reaction and extended her hand.

The Albino ignored it. Instead, he simply dropped his large briefcase down on the edge of her desk and opened it. There was computer inside. He tapped a few keys, and the screen came to life. The Congresswoman noted that the satellite system quickly located a remote wireless connection and locked on to it.

“Ibrahim Noor sent me,” the man began, speaking in a thin, raspy voice.

“Noor?” Hailey Williams said, frowning. “Not Ali Rahman al Sallifi?”

A tight-lipped smile of regret spread across the man’s 76

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ghost-pale features. “I’m afraid the Imam is quite busy with his clerical duties. Ibrahim Noor is handling political matters these days.”

“I see.”

Hailey sank back into her chair, waiting while the albino man stooped over the portable computer, long fingers drumming the miniature keyboard. Finally, he straightened up, turned the computer so it faced the Congresswoman.

“The site for the Palm Bank of the Cayman Islands is displayed,” he said. “Please punch in the password to your account.”

The woman’s jaw dropped. “How do you know about that account?” she demanded, half rising from her chair again.

“Just enter the password, please,” he repeated.

With a frown, the Congresswoman punched in the numbers. Her balance and a list of transactions came up immediately.

“Don’t go messing with my account,” she warned.

The man smiled again. “Ibrahim Noor has a proposal for you. He wants you to cancel your appearance with Reverend Ahern this afternoon.”

“But . . . I don’t understand . . . my meeting with the Reverend was precisely to smooth things over for the Warriors of God. It’s been members of Reverend Ahern’s congregation who’ve been complaining about activities at Kurmastan—”

“Ibrahim Noor desires to meet with the neighboring group personally,” said the Albino. “What he does not desire is further publicity about Kurmastan.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 77

“But publicity is the point!” Hailey argued. “My meeting was supposed to be covered by the local press. I was hoping to use it as the kickoff for my reelection campaign.

To show my support for diversity. Tolerance. Why should I give up on it?”

“For money,” the Albino said flatly. “A quite substantial amount of money, wired anonymously to your account.

Money no one will ever have to know about. Not the Federal Elections Commission, not the Treasury Department nor the IRS.”

Hailey frowned, considering this. “Why would Mr. Noor make such an offer? Surely there are strings attached.”

The Albino shook his head. “It is a gift, truly. We only ask that you stay away from Reverend Ahern, and not join him on his visit to Kurmastan. Send your sincere regrets instead. In return, we offer you this token of our friendship—

one million euros.”

“Euros!” The Congresswoman shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I’d rather be paid in U.S. currency.”

The man tossed his blond mane in an almost effeminate gesture of disdain. “In time you will thank Ibrahim Noor for his generosity and foresight.”

Hailey narrowed her eyes. “Now why would I do that?”

The Albino offered her a thin smile. “Because in two weeks, Madam Congresswoman, a sheet of toilet paper will be far more valuable than United States currency.”

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11:57:41 P.M. EDT

Security Station One

CTU Headquarters, NYC

“Sorry, our satellite bandwidth is all tied up right now.

Have a nice day.”

Morris hung up the phone.

“Was that the FBI?” Jack asked.

“The Drug Enforcement Agency. Something about a cocaine shipment coming ashore on Fire Island. They wanted us to track it for them.”

“Then the local DEA has lost satellite capabilities, too.”

“Apparently.” Morris touched his finger to his chin.

“You know, Jack-o. None of these agencies are really thinking. If the situation was critical, they could always appropriate bandwidth from the civilian broadcast stations in the area. Practically all of them use the most powerful microwave tower in the city.”

Jack sat up, alarmed. “Where?”

“Top of the World Trade Center, Jack.”

“Can you tap into the WTC security system from this console?”

Morris shrugged. “Sure.”

“Get to work.”

While Morris keyed in the protocols, Jack summoned Layla Abernathy.

“Contact the Operations Control Center of the World Trade Center. Ask them if they’ve authorized any maintenance work near the microwave tower—specifically workers from Consolidated Edison.”

C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 79

Five minutes later they were scanning the streets around the twin towers for Con Edison trucks and men in blue uniforms.

“I’ve got nothing, Jack. Nobody on the streets. Nobody on the roof of the North Tower, where the antenna is located.”

“Try the security cameras inside the maintenance shafts and freight elevators,” Jack commanded.

Layla returned, and Jack faced her.

“The OC center at the World Trade Center has authorized no work on or near the microwave tower,” she told him. “No one from Con Edison has passed through their security checkpoints today, either.”

“Then who are these guys?” Morris replied, jerking his head at the monitor.

On screen, two men in Con Ed blue entered a freight elevator, accompanied by a man in a Port Authority policeman’s uniform.

“The enemy,” Bauer said grimly.

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

12:00 P.M. AND 1:00 P.M.

EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

12:07:41 P.M. EDT

The Flemington Traffic Circle Flemington, New Jersey

The silver BMW entered the roundabout, then took the first exit onto New Jersey Route 12 west.

Cruising at sixty miles per hour, the Albino considered his short and expensive interaction with Congresswoman Hailey Williams.

As predicted, the woman eagerly accepted the deal we offered her. And why not? She’s a politician—a whore for money—like the rest of her ilk.

Meanwhile, he slipped a disposable hypodermic needle C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 81

out of a black bag on the floor. Holding the needle high, he pressed the plunger until a tiny bit of golden fluid pearled at the tip. Then he thrust the needle into his forearm, chewing his lower lip as he pushed the steroid and stimulant cocktail into his veins.

If only I’d learned this simple fact earlier in life, he mused, shaking back his long white hair. I wasted years as an assassin, only to find that buying a politician is so much easier than killing one.

His heart began to race and sweat beaded his brow.

The veins on his neck and forehead quivered. The Albino clutched the wheel and stepped on the gas.

On the road back to Kurmastan, he noticed the many outlet stores for which Flemington was noted, each a huge, gaudy temple dedicated to consumerism. They sold designer shoes, designer coats, furs, jewelry—even designer foods.

His thin lips stretched into a tight smile.

This will soon end. In another year, the average American will be content to eat garbage, live in a cardboard box, and wear rags on his back.

Slipping into the fast lane, the Albino tossed the used needle out the window and reached for the cell in his pocket. He punched speed dial on an international exchange. It took a moment for the connection to be made.

“Ungar Financial, LLC, Geneva,” a woman said in a coolly efficient voice.

“I must speak with Soren Ungar,” the Albino rasped.

“Erno Tobias calling.”

“I’ll put you through immediately, sir.”

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12:39:51 P.M. EDT

North Tower

World Trade Center

Jack Bauer stood inside a stairwell on the 110th floor of One World Trade Center.

He wore the Con Edison uniform taken from the intruder he’d killed on the roof of CTU, blood from the fatal head wound hastily cleaned. Jack had to roll up the sleeves to hide the fact that the shirt was too small. The collar was still damp, and he fidgeted uncomfortably.

A steel door to the roof was in front of him. Beside him, Layla Abernathy used a digital photo of the dead man’s tattoo as a model, drawing a stylized 13 on Jack’s bared forearm. Jack knew about the number 13 tattooed on members of the multinational prison gang MS–13. But this tattoo wasn’t a regular 13. Its design included a five-pointed star inside the bottom loop of the numeral 3 that suggested the star and crescent symbol of Islam.

Jack watched Layla sketch, wishing Tony had his back instead of a novice like this woman. But Tony was in Newark, and Layla was the only person he trusted from the New York office, so Jack had brought her along. While she worked, Jack lifted a cell phone to his ear.

“Where are they now, Morris?” he asked.

“The copper’s pacing on the other side of your door,”

O’Brian replied from the security console at CTU. “The men in the utility company uniforms are at the base of the tower, climbing onto a ladder.”

“Is the Port Authority cop real?”