24 Veto Power (32 page)

“Is all this centralized somewhere?” Jack asked.

“Supposed to be, but the security office isn’t working. They had some kind of technical trouble. All we got are these right now.”

“Do they show you everything?”

“Every parking level, all the entrances, but not the office floors.”

“Can you toggle through the parking areas?”

Darryl sat down at his desk and pressed a button on one of the screens. The image began to change rapidly. “It’s four cameras on every level, and six parking levels, so—”

“Wait!” Jack said. “Go back one.”

Darryl flipped back. They were looking at P6, the lowest parking level. Like all the security cameras, this one angled down, and showed a driving lane bordered by parking slots and thick support pillars. Peeking out from behind one of these pillars, Jack could just make out the back of a white van.

“Where’s that camera?”

“It’s on the southwest side, near the elevator. If you go down the elevator, you’ll make a left.”

“How about if I walk down the driving ramp?”

“Seriously? Then it’s straight ahead.”

Jack drew his gun.

“Goddamn,” Darryl breathed. “Aren’t you supposed to be calling for backup or something like that?”

“I wish I could,” Jack admitted. “But you can. You just watch those cameras. The minute you see or hear anything, call it in. Got it?”

“Okay.”

“One more thing. Do you have a flashlight?”

A few minutes later, Jack took the elevator down to P5. For the first few seconds, he allowed himself to feel the full measure of his anger. Goddamned idiot! He’d been Marks’s dupe from the beginning, from the very goddamned first day! Kelly hadn’t said so, but it must have occurred to him, as it had to Jack, that Marks might have pegged him as an undercover agent from the minute he infiltrated the Greater Nation. If Marks was working with Newhouse and Newhouse had the right sources, he would have known about Jack’s mission
and
about his demotion, which meant he would have known about the Rafizadehs and the aborted terrorist theory. The militia leader had used that theory, and Jack’s own desire to redeem himself, to build his terrorist cover story. He’d given Jack a gift, exactly what he’d wanted, and Jack had fallen for it.

By the time the elevator dinged open at P5, Jack had cooled himself down. He left the elevator, weapon drawn, and jogged quickly across the parking lot until he came to the downward-sloping ramp that led to P6. It was a short drive but a long walk, especially as Jack now moved slowly and carefully. The ramp circled around and leveled out on P6. Jack reached the bottom and pressed himself up against a support column. He listened, but there was no sound. He slipped out from behind his cover and trotted down the lane. Straight ahead, about fifty yards off, he could see the support column and the tail of the white van. Jack slowed as he approached, looking around every few seconds. The parking level was empty except for two or three cars. Parked near the white van were two older model cars—a 1969 Chevy Nova and a 1967 Camaro.

Jack reached the white van and leaned against the pillar. No sound or movement came from inside. Jack crept along the side of the van—which still had its sign saying Ready-Rooter—and peeked in the passenger window. No one there. He slipped to the back and tested the door. It was unlocked. He opened it, pointing his pistol, but the back of the van was empty.

Jack knew that Newhouse and Marks wouldn’t take the elevators. The security guards would see them. He jogged over to the elevators and found the staircase next to them. Six parking levels plus forty-four floors, plus the access way to the roof. Fifty floors was a long way to climb.

At least he wasn’t carrying a bomb...

12:27
A
.
M
. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

“It’s been a long night,” Ryan Chappelle said. “Let’s send all nonessentials home.”

Kelly hesitated. “I’m not sure we can do that. We’ve still got investigations going...”

Chappelle flapped his hand in annoyance. “What can’t wait? The Iranian bodies will be there in the morning. The Swenson girl is in the hospital. Your two prisoners might as well be released.”

“The EMP devices are still out there.”

“Yes, but you don’t have any leads on them.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, we do.”

Ryan Chappelle looked at Kelly first in surprise, then in annoyance, then in something on the borderline between mild curiosity and complete dread. “Where’s Jack Bauer?”

12:30
A
.
M
. PST Century City

Jack climbed the stairs as quietly as he could. According to the emergency exit diagrams, there were three other stairwells in the building, but he was betting on this one. It was closest to the vehicle, limiting the distance they had to carry their device, and closest to the elevators in case they needed another exit.

He reached ground level before he started to lose his breath. He’d been up for well over forty hours and he’d been moving nonstop for more than twenty. He felt wide-awake thanks to the adrenaline, but his body wasn’t performing at its peak. By the tenth story he was moving slower, the air rattling in his chest as he breathed. He scolded himself to keep motivated. Time was he could hump thirty kilometers with a forty-pound pack before breakfast. Now a few hours without sleep were leaving him weak as a—

Scuffing sounds drifted down the shaft toward him. Someone was moving up above. He listened a little longer, noticing that the scuffing sounds had a rhythm to them: scuff, scuff, stop; scuff, scuff, stop. Someone was lifting something heavy along the steps, then stopping to rest.

Jack hurried his pace, but he moved in rhythm with the scuffing sounds—two big steps and a pause, two big steps and a pause, covering a stairwell in two legs with this pattern.

12:45
A
.
M
. PST Century City

Fifteenth floor. Jack could see them. Leaning out over the stair rail and looking up, he could see the shoulders and arms of two men. They would move a few steps, then stop for a minute. Jack hurried along, using their sounds as cover, and gained two more flights on them. He was close enough now that he could hear them whispering to each other.

“Jesus ...damn... christ!” one of them hissed. “This is ridiculous!”

“Complaining doesn’t make it any lighter.”

“The elevator’s right here!”

“And so’s the goddamned camera!”

Jack didn’t recognize their voices. He guessed they were two more of Marks’s militia, a couple of leftovers he’d been saving for his coup de grace.

“Why can’t we set it off here?”

The second one seemed more annoyed by his partner than by the long climb. “Didn’t you listen? Something about all the metal. It absorbs the electricity or something. It makes the range less.”

“It’d still do something.”

“Okay, then you tell Commander Marks.”

“Tell me what?”

Jack bristled. That was the voice he was waiting for. Marks was there. He two-stepped the last flight of stairs quietly, under cover of the conversation, and came around the last stairwell to see two men in blue coveralls standing on the stairs, one above and one below the source of their complaining. It was a metal tube, shaped oddly like a torpedo standing on its end. The torpedo was strapped to a wooden base. A small control panel was built into the side of the device. Beyond the two men, Jack saw Brett Marks.

“Freeze!” he yelled. He laid his gun sights over Marks’s chest.

Instead of freezing, one of the men drew his own gun and fired. The gunshots rang like thunder in Jack’s ears. But the stairs ruined the militia man’s aim and his shots went high as Jack dropped down and returned fire.

“Don’t drop it!” Brett Marks yelled, obviously worried about his EMP device. “Get it up here!”

Jack leaned over the railing to look up again. Marks was looking down, his gun ready. He fired as Jack threw himself back against the wall. The rounds sped down the shaft into oblivion.

Jack knew he had to stop them soon. If they reached the roof, they could close off the door and hold it against him. Keeping his back to the wall, he spiraled up the stairs, faster now that he wasn’t worried about stealth. The militia men moved slowly, weighed down by their burden. Jack reached the next flight and saw them. Marks leveled his weapon but Jack was ready—he fired, causing Marks to duck for cover. Then Jack paused for aim and put a round through the chest of one of the militia men. He gagged and went down.

The other militia man panicked. Jack saw him reach for the EMP. For a moment, Jack thought the man had lost his grip. Too late, he realized what the man was doing.

So did Marks. “No!” he yelled.

Jack swung his weapon onto the man in the coveralls, who put one hand on the metal railing to maintain his balance while his other hand grabbed a switch and pushed it. Inside the EMP, something thumped like an explosion muffled by walls. At the same time, an intense blast of light blinded Jack, followed by a blood-curdling scream. Jack stumbled backward, panicked that he’d be blind when Marks came at him with another round of gunfire. He blinked, trying to clear the white flash from his sight.

When he opened his eyes, he saw no white flashes. In fact, he saw nothing but darkness.
Complete
darkness, blackness devoid of any light whatsoever. The stairwell lights had all gone out.

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
1 A.M. AND 2 A.M.
PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

1:00
A
.
M
. PST Century City

Jack was blind. This wasn’t the darkness of nighttime. He was in the deep darkness of tunnels and spaces un
der the Earth, where no light ever shone. He flapped his hand in front of his face but saw nothing, not even the sense of movement.

Jack fumbled in his pocket for the flashlight he’d borrowed from the security guard. The flashlight’s battery and wiring were too small to gather up the energy from the EMP, which meant it should still work. He felt for the switch and slid it forward, grateful when the beam shot out like a lance to touch the stairs in front of him. Jack started forward again. Half a flight up he reached the EMP device itself. The torpedo-shaped object was now burned black and the metal had buckled. Beside the platform lay the man in blue coveralls. His skin looked wrinkled and crisp, as though he’d been cooked from the inside out. Jack knew very little about EMPs, but he guessed it wasn’t wise to be too close to the device when it went off, especially if your hand was touching a conductor like the metal guard rails.

A gunshot rang out, followed instantly by a sting like a sharp burn across the top of Jack’s hand. He dropped the flashlight and leaped backward into the darkness, landing badly on the stairs and stumbling backward onto the flat of a landing until his back hit the wall. Two more rounds shook the walls, and Jack heard the bullets chip the concrete steps near the flashlight.

Quietly, he crept forward. He grabbed the light in a quick movement and switched it off, then jumped away as more rounds whined and chipped the concrete around him. Flecks of cement stung his face.

“Give it up, Brett!” Jack roared up the shaft. “Your EMP is done now. There’s nothing left!”

“There’s always freedom!” Marks yelled back. Jack tried to locate him, but couldn’t. The militia leader’s voice echoed off all the walls, directionless. “All in all, I think I’ll stay out of jail.”

Jack crept up the stairs, trying to stay quiet, and to move under Marks’s voice when he talked. He was sure Marks was doing the same thing—otherwise he wouldn’t have talked at all.

“You did better than I thought, Jack. I don’t know how you found out about Century City.”

“I always said you militia assholes were redneck idiots,” Jack replied.

“What does that say about the CTU agent we strung along for six months?”

Jack felt his blood boil. He’d tried to get a rise out of Marks, but Marks had turned the tables on him. He tiptoed up a few more steps, reaching the next landing by feel. Marks didn’t speak for a moment, but Jack risked another few steps, so quiet he couldn’t hear himself walk. He counted steps until he reached the next landing, floating like a ghost in the darkness. He listened but heard nothing. He must be near the top now. He hadn’t heard a door open, so he knew that Marks must be close by.

“You get lost, Jack?” Marks called.

But the voice was practically in Jack’s ear! He’d climbed up right next to the militia leader and neither of them had realized it. Jack fired twice.

The muzzle flash illuminated the landing. Jack got the briefest glimpse of Marks’s shocked face in the lightning-brief strobe. Marks returned fire. Jack felt a round tug at his shirt near his ribs. He stumbled away, firing twice more blindly. He heard footsteps run up the stairs.

1:09
A
.
M
. PST CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

“Everybody just calm down!” Kelly Sharpton yelled. He was standing in the abyss. All around him seemed like primordial chaos—darkness filled with cries of surprise, indignation, and terror. He gathered himself. “Calm down!” he roared in a deep, commanding voice.

The chaos subsided into mere darkness. Kelly heard people shuffling around him. He knew that Jessi was close by, and Nina Myers. But he couldn’t see anything.

“It’s obviously a blackout,” he said into the void.

“Why haven’t the backup generators kicked in?” Ryan Chappelle replied. “We’re supposed to be immune to power outages from the city.”