Death Angel (26 page)

Carlson had achieved the theft by himself. But he needed help on the getaway. And to eliminate threats along the way. He’d made alliances. Potent allies who could make things happen. His elaborate machinations, spread across the years, had stirred suspicions. Especially in the last year.

Perhaps because he was so near to his goal, he’d rushed
things, becoming careless in his haste and eagerness. Naturally the first to suspect had been those who worked most closely with him. His colleagues.

Dr. John Yan had been the first. He’d made the mistake of failing to dissemble those suspicions. Carlson had caught Yan checking up on him, snooping. Yan didn’t know that Carlson knew. That signed his death warrant. Carlson alerted his allies that Yan was on his trail. They assured him they’d take care of it.

Enter Varrin. Carlson knew nothing of the man personally, had never met him.

He preferred it that way and that’s how it had to be. For Carlson’s associates, Varrin was the go-to guy for assassination. Soon after, Yan dropped dead on the tennis courts. It looked like a heart attack. He’d been poisoned with an untraceable drug that counterfeited the symptoms of a heart attack.

Yan had communicated enough of his suspicions about Carlson to his close friend, the INL’s venerable savant Dr. Hamilton Fisk. Fisk’s clumsy fumbling attempts to follow up on the late Yan’s efforts stood out like a neon sign to Carlson. Carlson passed the word to his associates and Fisk was the next to die.

The inevitability of it was comforting, reassuring. Knowing he could depend on his allies to do their part in enabling his great work of stealing the PALO codes.

Several months passed before murder once more came into play. It was the result of Carlson’s own clumsiness. In his eagerness to finalize his tasks, he’d cut corners, gotten sloppy. He’d downloaded a chunk of the encoded codes (disguised as Perseus test data) onto Freda Romberg’s computer, parking it there for temporary safekeeping.

She’d discovered the anomaly but hadn’t realized its significance. She’d made the mistake of bringing it to Carlson’s attention—never suspecting that he was the culprit. She’d
planned to report it to Rhodes Morrow. Carlson had to act fast.

His newfound mastery over the computerized scanner readers had proved invaluable, allowing him to stealthily enter the Snake Pit when she was alone in it and activate the robot arm that had swatted her like a mosquito.

Doctoring the scanner reader data erased all cyber traces that he’d been in the tank at the time of Romberg’s death.

But SECTRO Force guard Ernie Battaglia had seen Carlson in the vicinity near the time of death. If he should put the facts together, the results could be uncomfortable indeed for Dr. Carlson. The associates had seen to Battaglia, removing him from the game board by a convenient fatal hit-and-run accident.

The death of Rhodes Morrow introduced a troubling new variable, however. Carlson had nothing to do with it. Neither had his associates, or so they claimed, and he had every reason to believe them. They were baffled, mystified, upset, and alarmed by a murder they hadn’t arranged.

It meant only one thing: an unknown player had entered the game. It could only be assumed that the mysterious newcomer’s goal was identical to that of Carlson and associates: to possess the priceless PALO codes. Prodding Carlson and company to accelerate their timetable and get clear before the opposition party’s efforts should upset the apple cart and doom the master plan.

Only in this last day had the cryptic and homicidal opponent tipped his hand with Peter Rhee’s murder, the botched poison needle assassination attempt on Jack Bauer, the killing of Harvey Kling and the Parkhursts, the failed kidnap attempt on Sylvia and Kendra Nordquist, and the vanishment of Carlson’s wife, Carrie.

The associates had learned that the explosion of ultraviolence had been carried out by the Blanco gang. Carlson knew nothing of the Blancos, had never even heard of them.
But he knew trouble when he saw it. And so did the associates. The roof was coming down on all their heads, and they had to make their move before it was too late.

Tonight was the night. The firestorm was a help, a godsend, with its chaos and confusion to the authorities.

One of the associates had alerted Carlson that the net was fast closing around him. He made arrangements to put a previously laid escape plan into motion. The associate arranged to be on the scene to facilitate Carlson’s getaway. That was needful. Carlson was a killer but no gunman. He needed help with the wet work.

Bauer and Hickman were getting too close. Their elimination would remove two deadly threats and enable the escape plan. Carlson set about turning the Snake Pit into a death trap. His control of the scanner reader system allowed him to arrange for his associate to enter the LRF building through a side door, unobserved and undetected by the OCI watchdogs.

Now that the final curtain was near, Carlson had the freedom to indulge a long-cherished dream: the degradation and destruction of Dr. Glen Nordquist. For over a decade he’d chafed under Nordquist’s domination, silently enduring his supercilious attitude, his smugly superior contempt, his slights, sneers, and slurs.

Here was his opportunity to revenge himself on Nordquist and he’d taken it. He hacked into Nordquist’s computer to crash it with the insulting HELLO, STUPID message.

Confronting his nominal superior, he’d told Nordquist the facts of life, boasting of his achievement in running rampant over the OCI snoopers and stealing the PALO codes.

He’d done his best to bash out Nordquist’s brains with the portable keyboard as a blunt instrument, finishing the job by strangling him with his bare hands.

His associate entered the scene, surreptitiously admit
ted into the LRF by a side door manipulated by Carlson from a control room computer. The associate took care of SECTRO Force guard Harry Stempler, herding him at gunpoint into a stairwell and shooting him dead.

Carlson used the remotes to deactivate the blockhouse’s scanner reader, sealing the front door. The associate showed himself at the structure’s rear door, luring Jack Bauer and Gabe McCoy into the Snake Pit. Carlson operated from the cockpit of the control room, trapping Bauer and McCoy in the Pit and turning an energized Medusa against them. His associate exited the building by a side door.

McCoy died under the laser’s sizzling ruby beam. Bauer had somehow gotten lucky, tricking Carlson into shooting it into a mirrored metal shield that turned the ray against its source, slaying Medusa.

Carlson took it on the run, snatching up the attaché case containing the PALO codes and exiting the blockhouse building. The associate had already been at work, shooting Hickman dead. Consequently no one stood on guard in the LRF to thwart Carlson’s escape.

Carlson exited via a side door that he’d preset to allow him to flee through it without registering on the scanner reader. He went into the parking lot, got in his car, and drove out through the main gate.

A short but nerve-racking ride across Corona Drive delivered him to the west portal and the happy discovery that his crimes were as yet undiscovered, allowing him to exit the badge-holders-only road and South Mesa without incident.

He drove to a secluded spot on the Hill where a getaway car awaited. He got rid of everything that identified him as Dr. Hugh Carlson, all his documents and credit cards, even his cell phone, shedding them like a snake sloughing off a dry, dead skin.

He pocketed the credentials so carefully prepared by his associates, the paperwork and plastic cards that certified him in his newly assumed identity of Jason Endicott.

He got into the new car registered to Endicott, placing the attaché case with the PALO codes on the seat beside him. That priceless storehouse of secrets would remain within his sight and reach.

He drove off, pointing the car west toward the rendezvous site of Bluecoat Bluff. He couldn’t get there directly, because of the fire. He had to follow a wide-ranging and circuitous course with many lengthy detours before he finally found himself heading westbound on Ridgefoot Drive, weaving and winding toward the intersection with Highway 5 that would take him to the meeting place.

Where he drove right into the roadblock manned by Deputies Alvarado and Merritt.

Carlson was confident his assumed identity would withstand the Sheriff’s Department’s scrutiny. In the spectral cyber world of paper profiles and bureaucratic databases, Jason Endicott was as real as any other of the numberless identities who existed in the system as a set of programmed vital statistics.

Carlson wrapped that thought around himself like a comforter and clung to it for sanity’s sake.

A set of headlights appeared south of the crossroads, driving northbound on Highway 5. They belonged to a car that slowed to a halt at the roadblock at the intersection.

Jack Bauer and Orne Lewis got out and went to meet the deputies.

5:02
A.M
. MDT
Intersection of Highway 5 and
Ridgefoot Drive, Los Alamos County

Dawn was breaking, a gray dawn thanks to the smoke hazing the sky. The sun was an orange ball floating in dun-colored murk. Long, thin, black streamers of smoke stretched vertically across the eastern horizon.

The patrol car sat at an angle in the center of the crossroads. Carlson’s car was parked on the east shoulder of Highway 5, north of Ridgefoot Drive. Lewis’s car stood in the northbound lane of Highway 5 south of Ridgefoot Drive.

Jack Bauer and Orne Lewis and Deputies Alvarado and Merritt stood in a knot on the pavement between the patrol car and Lewis’s car.

Dr. Hugh Carlson sat in the backseat of the patrol car,
slumping down so that the top of his bowed head barely showed above the top of the front seat.

Jack and Lewis were showing their credentials to the deputies. Alvarado examined the CTU and CIA ID cards and returned them to their owners. “The suspect fits Carlson’s description,” he said. “A general description that fits several thousand men in this area. He’s driving a different car and his ID holds up. Headquarters said it checked out okay.

“Just between us, we may have overstepped our authority in holding him, especially if he is who he says he is. But what with the urgency of the BOLO, we figured it was better safe than sorry.”

“You did the right thing,” Orne Lewis said. “Better to err on the side of caution. If it is the wrong man, we’ll go to bat for you with your bosses to make sure there’s no comeback.”

“Thanks, we appreciate it.”

“What’s this Carlson wanted for, anyway?” Merritt asked.

“A couple of murders out at the lab, for starters,” Jack Bauer said. No point in elaborating on the details. “There’s one way to find out for sure. Let’s have a look at him.”

The foursome crossed to the patrol car. The man in the backseat was sitting slumped low as if trying to shrink into himself. He turned his head away to the side.

Lewis rapped a knuckle smartly on the window. The detainee started, almost jumping out of his seat.

“Bingo,” Lewis exclaimed triumphantly. “That’s him, all right. That’s Carlson.”

Jack Bauer breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness that Carlson had been stopped in time. But what of the PALO codes? Had he managed to pass them along to an accomplice?

“Outstanding work, men,” Lewis was saying to Alvarado and Merritt.

Carlson seemed to have partly recovered from his shock. He sat upright in his seat looking straight ahead. Staring into space.

Jack Bauer’s cell phone rang. It was Debra Derr at OCI. She’d be glad to hear the news about Carlson’s apprehension. Besides, he might need her to help keep Sabito off his neck. “Bauer speaking.”

“Jack, this is Debra Derr. This is important. Is Orne Lew is with you?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t trust him, Jack. Something’s wrong. The gate guards here reported that they logged in Lewis at a little after one
A.M.
He came in a short time after you did. But the guards in the main building front entrance didn’t log him in until one-forty
A.M.
Where was he during that time? And what was he doing?”

Jack’s face froze. He fought to assume a breezily conversational tone as he spoke into the cell: “That’s right, Vince, we’re here at Ridgefoot Drive and—”

Lewis had drawn his gun—a fast draw. He took a few steps back so he could cover Jack Bauer and the deputies.

The lawmen were taken aback by Lewis’s action. “Hey! What’s this!” Alvarado demanded.

“A double cross,” Jack said disgustedly.

Lewis arched an interrogative eyebrow. “Who was that, OCI? I was wondering how long it would take for them to put together the missing time factor—”

Merritt reached for his gun. Lewis shot him twice. Merritt fell writhing to the pavement.

Alvarado made a try, and before his gun could clear the holster Lewis put a bullet in him. Alvarado hit the pavement not far from Merritt. A hole above his left eyebrow marked where Lewis’s shot had tagged him.

When the shooting started, the cell phone dropped from Jack Bauer’s hand, which plunged toward the gun in his
shoulder holster. He couldn’t beat a drawn gun and he knew it. Lewis swung the smoking pistol back to cover Jack. Jack froze.

“The picture’s falling into place now,” he said. He wondered how many shots he could take and still bring it to Lewis.

He thought he might be able to make it if he were shot in the torso and not in the head. He knew he was going to have to find out.

Merritt wasn’t dead. He lay on his side writhing on the pavement. Lewis glanced down and put another bullet into Merritt.

Orne Lewis was one of Carlson’s associates. Not the only one but a key one. They’d been working together for a long time.

“I’m the missing piece of the puzzle,” Lewis said cheerfully.

Why didn’t Lewis just burn down Jack Bauer and be done with it? Jack could guess the answer to that one: ego.

Most traitors have a kink inside them. Something psychological. They’re not in it for the money, although that’s a good way to keep score. The act of betrayal—betrayal of friends, coworkers, family, country—satisfies a deep-rooted psychological need within them. A rage to get even with an oblivious world that’s failed to recognize their worth as superior human beings and insists on treating them as just one of the crowd.

Lewis would have to boast of his achievements in treachery. It was no fun unless someone else knew how smart he really was, no matter how short-lived the confidant.

Jack Bauer wanted to get Lewis talking. To buy some time, precious time. Maybe something would turn up.

He knew he was going to go for his gun. Knew he was going to take some slugs from Lewis’s weapon. He could only hope that willpower would keep him alive long enough
to see the job through. It could be done, he knew. Had been done. He’d seen men who were technically dead on their feet live long enough to put the blast on their killers.

“Why?” Jack Bauer asked.

“For the money,” Lewis said. “I’ll be fabulously rich. But that’s not all of it, of course.”

“No, it never is.”

“America is over, Jack. It’s not a country anymore, it’s a corporation—a busted corporation. The empire is in retreat all over the world. I don’t need to tell you that, you see the same reports I do. Time to sell out while somebody’s still buying. Time to sell while the dollar is still worth more than something to wipe your ass with.”

Lewis’s gun was pointed at Jack’s middle. It never wavered. Lewis used his free hand to open the back door of the police car. “Get out,” he said to Carlson without looking at him. Never taking his eyes off Jack.

Carlson got out of the car. “Thanks for pulling me out of the hole—”

“You have the codes?” Lewis said.

“Yes, they’re in the car.”

“Get in it and get out of here. Drive up to the bluff. We’ve already lost too much time. Mustn’t keep the almighty Adam Zane waiting.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be up directly. I’ve just got a few loose ends to tie up here. Get moving, Carlson—go. Don’t cross in front of me, you dolt, go behind me. Don’t block my shot on Jackie boy.”

Carlson went to his car. He walked unsteadily, stiff-legged, with exaggerated care, like a drunk. He made a wide detour around the bodies of the two deputies sprawling in the road.

He got in his car. He started the car, stepped hard on the gas. The wheels spun, kicking up dirt from the shoulder. Jack was watching for an opportunity but this wasn’t
it. Lewis never wavered while holding him under the gun. Carlson swung the car onto the pavement and drove away, red taillights dwindling as he went north.

Orne Lewis said, “I knew that time factor would trip me. The delay between the time I was logged in through the main gate at INL and the time I entered the building. It was a calculated risk. Necessary, and it paid off. Took them long enough to tumble to it.

“Carlson left the side door in the LRF open for me. I got there just in time. Time enough for me to get rid of Stempler the guard. I showed myself in the Snake Pit to lure you and McCoy inside. I’ll give you your due, Jack. You beat the laser. I didn’t stick around to witness your triumph.”

“You killed Hickman, Lewis. That explains the contact wounds from being shot at point-blank range. Only someone he trusted could have gotten that close to him.”

“Oh, now you think of that. You’re a day late and a dollar short, Jack. Yes, I killed him. That opened the way for Carlson and me to exit through the side door. He got into his car and drove out the main gate, I went around to the front of the building and was logged through at the front entrance. As if I’d just shown up.

“I don’t mind telling you I had some bad moments there worrying that the time factor would be noticed in time to unmask me. But I had confidence in the inefficiency of OCI. They didn’t let me down.

“You getting that tip on Adam Zane was a mixed blessing. Naturally it would have been better for all concerned if it had never surfaced. I decided to stick to you. Closely. That way I could run interference if you arrived in time to intercept Zane. Luckily you didn’t. Those hirelings at the field were low-level gunmen of no importance. They didn’t know I was working for the same side as them.”

“What side is that?” Jack Bauer asked.

“The winning side.”

“T. J. Henshaw?”

Lewis laughed. “Hardly. Henshaw has nothing to do with it. He’s just another billionaire gone bust—so many of them around these days, don’t you know. But the Wind Farm is in foreclosure. Not even guarded. It made a convenient secret landing field for Zane. We refueled the gas tank with aviation fuel so he could refill and take off from the spot.

“You ruined that. I let you do it so as not to blow my cover. Good thing I did. It paid off by putting me in the position to free Carlson. Ah, well…There’s more than one way out of the country.”

Jack knew with a sudden flash of insight why Lewis didn’t just kill him and be done with it. Lewis was enjoying this. He was a sadist. He reveled in the cat and mouse toying with the victim. Jack Bauer laughed.

“What’s so funny? I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humor, Jack. You can die laughing.”

“I’m laughing because you outsmarted yourself. You freed Carlson and you let him get away with the codes. That leaves you holding the bag. An empty bag. A prize chump. What does he need you for? He can cut you out of the payday. You’ve done your part. You’re expendable, too.”

“Nice try, Jack, but it won’t work. It’s not set up that way. Carlson still has plenty to worry about. The Blancos, for example.”

“Where do they fit in?”

Lewis frowned. “Damned if I know. There’s some third party involved. Someone else after the codes. He—they—hired the gang. For a while they were more of a help than a hindrance. They killed Morrow, Rhee, and Kling. They kidnapped Carrie Carlson and tried to snatch Nordquist’s wife and daughter.

“Why? For leverage. The Blancos—rather, the unknown principal behind them—was in the dark about who was stealing the PALO codes. He knew something but not
enough. Snatching Carrie Carlson and the Nordquist ladies showed he was hedging his bets, was unsure whether Carlson or Nordquist was the one they wanted.”

“Then the Blancos have Carrie Carlson?” Jack asked.

Lewis shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“Where does that leave Carlson?”

“Where does that leave Mrs. Carlson, you should ask. In a most unenviable position, I’d say.”

“He won’t deal?”

“He can always get another wife, but there’s only one set of PALO codes.”

“If he’ll burn his wife, he won’t hesitate to do the same to you.”

“He can’t, Jack. I’m part of the package. Carlson can’t just sell the codes to Zane and waltz away. Zane needs Carlson and the codes both. Adam Zane’s not one to buy a pig in a poke. He wants a surety that he’s buying the real thing. A little demonstration. Nothing major. Just an atomic incident in the States far enough away from here not to do any damage but too big to ignore. I’ll be around for that demo and afterward, too. I’ve helped arrange it.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“I can’t resist the urge to show off a little. I’m only human.”

“That’s a matter for debate.”

“We all like to be appreciated for our cleverness. Who better to brag to than you? You won’t live to tell about it—”

Jack Bauer laughed again. Not that he saw anything funny in the situation. But because he wanted to attract Lewis’s attention to himself. Because of something he’d seen. Merritt wasn’t dead. He’d moved. Not just reflex-action twitching, but with purpose and stealth.

“Goodbye, Jack—”

Merritt had fallen with gun in hand. He lay on his side, legs curled. He couldn’t raise himself up but he had enough
left to raise his gun hand off the pavement and shoot at Lewis.

Lewis jumped like he’d been goosed. Slugs tore the air around him, missing him.

Jack took advantage of the distraction to throw himself to the side, taking cover behind Lewis’s car and drawing his gun at the same time.

Lewis shot Merritt. He dashed behind the patrol car just before Jack reached up from behind Lewis’s car to throw a few shots at him. They exchanged gunfire.

Lights appeared in the north, coming southbound down Highway 5. Moving fast. Carlson returning? Police? Or some innocent civilian riding unknowing into the shootout?

Jack ducked down, peering under the car to see if perhaps he could take a shot at Lewis’s feet and legs. If he could shoot the other’s feet out from under him, he could finish him off when he hit the pavement—

But Lewis was too smart for that. He was crouching behind the patrol car where a rear tire shielded his lower body.

“You talk too much, Lewis,” Jack said. “You were so busy enjoying your little game of cat and mouse that you talked yourself into the deathhouse. Give it up. Cut your deal now and you can save yourself from being executed for high treason and murder.”

The vehicle was closing fast. Its high beams flicked on. It was a big black van.