24 Declassified: 03 - Trojan Horse (12 page)

“I’m going after them,” Jack said slowly, hoping Frank could read his lips. “I’m going to get the men who did this. Do you understand me, Frank?”

Castalano nodded. Beside him, his partner’s eyes were etched with pain, his breath came in choking coughs.

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“I’ll get them, Frank. I promise.”

Jerry Alder jerked convulsively, and Frank took his partner’s hand. “It’ll be okay, Jerry, hang on.” His partner settled back, face ghastly white.

When Castalano looked up again, Jack Bauer was gone.

11:46:32
A
.
M
.PDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Nina Myers’s initial search of United States intelli
gence service databases yielded little of value. After several false leads and dead ends, she finally located Federal Bureau of Investigation files pertaining to a secret inquiry conducted at the behest of the Governor of New Hampshire.

The FBI was asked to determine if a nationally famous landmark called the Old Man of the Mountain—a stone formation featured on the state seal and the official New Hampshire quarter issued by the U.S. mint—had been destroyed by vandals or terrorists in 2003. The FBI, with the help of geologists, eventually concluded wind and water erosion and the winter/summer freeze and thaw cycle had been the true culprits and the case was quietly closed.

Within fifteen minutes, Nina had completed a search of all current intelligence databases and came up empty. Then she recalled that Jack had requested a search of CTU’s historical archives. It was an odd directive, considering the negligible amount of useful information a search of that particular database usually yielded. And yet, in working with Jack for the past several years, Nina had discovered that Special Agent Bauer’s instincts were often on the mark— another factor that made the man such a dangerous and unpredictable adversary.

On Jack’s cue, Nina called up the link to the historical archives and typed in the phrase “old man in/on mountain.” To her surprise she immediately received a hit. The phrase “Old Man on the Mountain” turned up in a scholarly paper published in 1998 by Dr. A. A. Dhabegeah, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The title of the dissertation jumped out at Nina:
Hasan bin Sabah and the Rise of Modern Terror
.

Hasan! A name regularly turning up in terrorist chatter over the past several months. A shadowy figure CTU had been tracking without success.

Nina called up the PDF file and paged through it. With each click of the mouse, the loose threads of the past few months slowly began to come together. Jack had been correct. Clues to their present mystery lay in the past.

Minutes later, a three-toned chirp broke Nina’s concentration. She snapped up the receiver. “Myers.”

“Nina!” The voice was breathless, excited.

“Jack, what’s the matter?”

“The convoy was ambushed, shot to pieces. The attackers grabbed Ibn al Farad.”

“Terrorists?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack replied. “They were using NATO small arms and equipment. Their tactics were straight out of the Special Forces training manual.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m driving an unmarked LAPD van, in pursuit of the suspect’s vehicle. Before we left Central Facilities, I planted a locator on Farad. I’m tracking his signal right now with the GPS device in my watch. The vehicle

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Farad’s riding in is approximately three blocks ahead of me. I’m giving his kidnappers plenty of space so they think they got away clean.”

Jack gave Nina his location, speed, and direction. “In case of trouble, I want the Tactical Unit on alert and ready to move at a moment’s notice.”

“I’m on it,” Nina replied, instantly alerting Black
burn’s unit via computer.

“Listen, Jack. I found a reference to the Old Man on the Mountain—in the historical archives, just like you said.”

Nina heard tires squeal, Jack curse. “Give me the facts in shorthand. I’ve got my hands full right now.”

“The Old Man on the Mountain was a Muslim holy man in the eleventh century. His name was Hasan bin Sabah—”

“
Hasan.
That can’t be a coincidence.”

“This Hasan was something of a heretic. He went to war against the whole Muslim world. But he only had a small cadre of followers, so he could never win a battle against the armies of the Persians, the Syrians, the Turks. He needed a force multiplier, so he resorted to terrorism. Hasan was, in fact, the world’s first terrorist.”

Jack grunted. “If the enemy you oppose outnumbers you, strike terror into their hearts and they will retreat.”

“I’m not up on my Sun Tzu,” said Nina. “Or is that Machiavelli?”

“Neither,” said Jack. “I was quoting a man named Victor Drazen.”

“There’s more,” Nina continued. “The historical Hasan brainwashed his followers by drugging them with hashish, then spiriting them to a garden filled with plants, perfumes, wine and beautiful women who fulfilled their every desire. After hours of bliss, they were drugged again and awoke in Hasan’s presence. He told them they had glimpsed Paradise, and if they died for his cause they would spend eternity there. Because hashish was used to brainwash them, these followers came to be known as
Ashishin
—assassins. Using these suicidal fanatics, Hasan bin Sabah carried out a wave of political murders from Syria to Cairo to Baghdad.”

“That explains the Karma,” said Jack. “Hasan must be using the new drug to brainwash his killers. Ibn al Farad was caught with vials of the stuff. That could mean that Hasan is somewhere in this city right now, winning new converts right under our noses.”

“It sounds . . . well it all sounds so crazy,” Nina said doubtfully.

“No,” Jack replied. “It makes perfect sense.”

11:56:43
A
.
M
.PDT La Hacienda Tijuana, Mexico

Milo crossed the deserted lobby, tapped the bell on the green Formica countertop. He waited a moment but no one showed so he clanged the bell again. Still the inn was quiet, the only sound the constant swish of the ceiling fan.

“Guess everyone’s out to lunch or having a siesta,” muttered Milo. He decided booking a room could wait. Better if he hooked up with Tony Almeida and Fay Hubley right away.

Milo headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. He fully expected to be stopped by the manager at any moment, but Milo reached the second floor

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without seeing another human. Room six was at the end of the shabby hallway. He knocked once, and the door swung open.

Though it was almost noon on the sun-washed streets outside, the room was dark, the curtains drawn. Milo slowly peeked his head into the dark
ness. “Hello...Tony? Fay? Is anyone here?”

He stepped over the threshold, fumbling for the light switch. He found it, switched it on and off but nothing happened. He cautiously took another step, his eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the dark. Glass crunched under his shoe, and Milo realized he’d stepped on pieces of a smashed light bulb.

“Hello?”

Milo saw the window and yanked the curtains open. A wall a few feet outside the door blocked most of the sunlight, but enough streamed in for Milo to see Fay’s computer network had been set up and was still running, though the monitor had been placed in hibernation mode.

Finally, Milo noticed light streaming from around the door to the bathroom. Over the constant hum of the feeble air conditioner, he listened for running water. He walked up to the door, placed his ear against it. “Tony? Fay?” he called.

Milo touched the brass doorknob, turned it. The bathroom door swung open. There was no window in the bathroom, but the tiny space was lit by fluorescent lights on either side of the cracked mirror. There was no bathtub, but the shower curtains were drawn.

He was about to leave the bathroom when Milo noticed brown spots on the white tiled floor...Lots of them. The big splotches weren’t brown, really. More like a dark red. The trail led to the shower. With trepidation, Milo slowly drew the plastic curtains aside.

Fay Hubley lay in the corner of the shower. Milo knew she was dead. There was no way she could be alive. Not after what had been done to her.

Gagging, Milo whirled, stumbled out of the bathroom and into the powerful grip of a brawny giant in a T-shirt and black leather vest. The man had long sandy-blond hair in a ponytail, a raggedy beard and shoulders as wide as a sports utility vehicle. Milo struggled and the man tightened his grip. Then Milo cursed—only to be silenced when the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun was shoved against the side of his head. When the intruder spoke, his breath stank of stale beer.

“Don’t make a sound, kid, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off.”

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 PLAC
E
BETWEEN THE HOURS OF
12 P.M. AND 1 P.M.
PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME

12:00:01
P
.
M
.PDT Abigail Heyer’s estate Beverly Hills

The famously wealthy enclave of Beverly Hills was bounded by Robertson Boulevard on the east, Olympic Boulevard to the south, and the communities of Westwood and Century City on the west. Palm-lined streets and palatial mansions dominated the landscape, but all was not glitz and glamour inside this exclusive neighborhood.

An army of housekeepers and service personnel were also a part of this community—albeit a practi
cally invisible part who cooked, made beds, washed clothes, cleaned pools, drove limousines, cut lawns, and nursed the children of the pampered show business elite.

At the moment, Lon Nobunaga was grateful for the service industry’s relative obscurity in this realm of the high and mighty. That, and a lack of vigilance by a member of Abigail Heyer’s security personnel, had allowed the tabloid photographer to climb a power pole that overlooked the front yard and driveway of the actress’s sprawling, Moorish-style mansion. Abandoning his car several blocks away, Lon, clad in his fake Pacific Power and Light overalls and ID tag, lugged a metal case containing his photographic gear to the front gate of Ms. Heyer’s estate.

“I’m here to check the power grid,” he’d told the guard. Without checking Lon’s ID—he had a fake in case—and without searching the toolbox in his hand, the guard simply nodded and swung the steel gate open. It was so easy Lon nearly chuckled. He knew that a second and third line of defense secured the three-story mansion, the patios and pool behind the house. But Lon didn’t need to get anywhere near the residence to snap the photo he was after—not when he could plainly see the driveway that led to the front door from atop this power pole. Not when he had his trusty Nikon D2X and fourteen different lenses to go with it.

Like most professional photographers, Lon was a recent convert to the digital realm. He’d chafed at the limitations of early digital cameras and stuck to the tried and true. But the technology slowly improved until Lon could find no fault with the newer models. Now he shot his pictures, selected the best, cropped and edited them, and then sent them via e-mail to the Sunset Strip offices of
Midnight Confes

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sion
magazine. His checks were direct deposit, and cleared in his account in less than twenty-four hours. It was fast, efficient, and best of all Lon didn’t have to see his boss Jake Gollob more than two or three days a month.

For the past fifty-five minutes, Lon had pretended to work on the circuit box at the top of the pole. Meanwhile he listened to the all-news radio network, which broadcast Silver Screen pre-show updates every twenty minutes or so. He learned from the broadcast that Abigail Heyer’s plane had landed at LAX about an hour before. The newscaster mentioned Ms. Heyer’s tireless work on behalf of children trapped in the conflict-torn regions of Bosnia, Croatia, Chech
nya, Daghrebistan. He added that her work with the United Nations focused the world’s attention on the plight of orphans around the world. But there was no mention of the woman’s pregnancy, which meant that no photographers or television crews had gotten anywhere near Abigail Heyer at the airport.

If the rumors of her impending childbirth were true—and his boss Jake Gollob was almost never wrong—then Lon’s photograph of the suddenly pregnant movie queen would be a major scoop. It would probably make the wire services, too. That meant money in the bank for Lon, and a happy boss at
Mid
night Confession
magazine.

Lon put the pause on his dreams of wealth when he spied a flurry of activity near the front gate. The guard was on the phone, nodding. Another security man rushed to the estate’s entrance. A Rolls-Royce with tinted glass windows rolled through the gate, followed by a black sedan with bodyguards.

Lon tore off his headset and fumbled for his Nikon.

Crouching low behind the circuit box, he pointed the lens at the Rolls as it halted near the front door of the three-story mansion. He began snapping photos as soon as the driver climbed out and opened the back door. Though the interior of vehicle was dim, he hoped the digital camera pierced the shadows for a decent shot, but almost immediately the view was blocked by a security man—a tall giant with white-blond, short-cropped hair who looked like a KGB man in a 1980s political thriller. Lon stopped snapping when he knew all he was getting was the guard’s broad back.

Finally, after a few long moments, Abigail Heyer climbed out of the backseat with help from the driver and security man, who took her proffered hands. She was very pregnant indeed, almost as big as she was in the movie
Bangor, Maine
, where the star played a working-class single mother struggling to unionize her low-paying workplace. Lon let out a breath, not realizing he’d been holding it. Then he snapped away, getting close to twenty usable shots by his own estimation, before the woman entered the front door and vanished from sight.