24 Declassified: 01 - Operation Hell Gate Page 17

  Tony nodded. “More than possible, but I’m not sure it has anything to do with the threat we’re facing right now.”

  “But if it does?”

  Tony rubbed his jaw, itchy from the crop of stubble that had sprouted overnight. “Right now Milo Pressman and a Cyber Unit are setting up shop at the Green Dragon facility. They should be able to crack the computer security codes. The data will be ours in a few hours. If a bio-attack is imminent, we’ll find out all the details—hopefully before it happens.”

  9:52:50 A.M.EDT Near the Brooklyn Promenade

  Coughing, hungry for fresh air, Jack and Taj put their backs against the cold steel manhole cover and pushed upward until they slowly moved it aside. Jack climbed out first and sprawled on the sidewalk. Blinking against the sudden daylight, he turned and reached back to help Taj out of the darkness.

  They emerged on a quiet, shady street with tall granite apartment buildings on either side. Jack read the street sign: Grace Court. From a canopied apartment entrance a half block away, a uniformed doorman gaped at them.

  Taj eyed the doorman as he rose. “Come, we must move before we attract more attention.”

  “Where are we going? What about the attaché? Don’t you need it?”

  The man’s narrow face grimaced. “It’s too risky to retrieve the case now. We must proceed to the safe house.”

  Jack nodded. “Will Tanner be there?”

  “Perhaps,” said Taj.

  After escaping the rats and the flood, Jack and Taj had moved through the sewer system until they were blocks away from Atlantic Avenue. Even now they could still hear the sirens blaring, but the noise, the chaos, the death seemed far away from this peaceful, sun-washed block.

  At the end of Montague Street, Taj guided Jack through a shady park entrance and around a flagpole. A sign told Jack they had arrived at the Brooklyn Promenade. They entered a concrete strip of public space built over the busy Brooklyn/Queens Expressway. The Promenade offered a panoramic view of the East River and Lower Manhattan beyond. Behind them were rows of pricey townhouses and apartments. Roaring up from directly beneath was the steady noise of rush hour traffic.

  Beyond the raised Promenade, the Brooklyn piers jutted into the East River, its muddy water dotted with tugboats, barges, and pleasure craft. Then came the banks of Manhattan Island. Beside the green expanse of Battery Park rose the granite buildings of the

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  Financial District. At its heart stood the gleaming, massive twin towers of the World Trade Center. The towers dwarfed everything around them. Reflecting the bright June sky, the golden sun danced across their mammoth glass facades.

  Taj touched his arm. “We cannot linger here, Mr. Lynch.”

  The Afghani gestured for Jack to follow him. They walked the length of the esplanade until they reached the last bench. Beneath a nearby guardrail, cars and trucks moved on the expressway below.

  “There is a cell phone hidden under that park bench,” said Taj. “With it we can speak with our associates, summon transportation. The phone is to be used only once.”

  Several dog walkers passed them, along with a woman pushing a stroller. The bench was empty, its wooden surfaces covered with scratchffiti. Jack sat down. Taj kept watch. “The phone is taped under the seat, Mr. Lynch.”

  Jack stooped over, reached under the seat and felt around. “I can’t find—”

  A garrote made of strong hemp dropped over Jack’s head and closed around his throat. He grabbed for the thin cord, his fingers digging into the flesh of his own neck. The noose only tightened.

  As Jack’s breathing was cut off, Taj loomed over him. Jack felt hot breath on his cheek as a voice hissed in his ear.

  “If you were really Shamus Lynch, you would know I am not Taj, but his brother, Khan Ali Kahlil. Remember the name for it is the last you will ever hear ...”

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  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 A.M. AND 11 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  10:00:00 A.M.EDT Green Dragon Computers, Los Angeles

  “All in all it’s a pretty shoddy operation. The technicians didn’t even bother to take out the old bathroom pipes in the ceiling before they set up shop. And yet they went through all the trouble of glassing in this computer room and installing air-conditioning and high-tech scrubbers. What were they thinking?”

  Mickey Chen couldn’t keep the disdain from his voice as he lumbered to a chair and settled in. At five-foot-nine and close to three hundred pounds, Mickey managed to fill the tiny workstation, forcing Milo into a corner.

  “Just look at that mess up there.”

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  Milo followed the man’s gaze to the broken plaster over his head. Through that ragged hole and several others, he saw a web of crisscrossing rusty pipes.

  “What about explosives? Booby traps?”

  Mickey shook his head. “The CTU bomb squad’s been here and gone.” He laid a meaty arm over the monitor screen. “She’s a sweet baby, this one. You gonna give her a go?”

  “Oh, you first. Be my guest,” Milo replied.

  Mickey had a habit of referring to all computers in the feminine form. Jamey Farrell said it was because a computer with a girl’s name was the closest the Hawaiian programmer was ever going to get to a romance.

  The glass doors hissed. A short, curly-haired brunette entered the computer room, bringing in her own briefcase computer. It contained the decryption programs she would need to bypass or overcome the mainframe’s security and download the data.

  Mickey grinned at Danielle Henkel. “About time you showed. This little lady was getting impatient.”

  “Blow it out your ass, Mickey,” said Nell.

  “Speaking of an impatient lady, I have to make a phone call before we get started.” Milo pulled out his cell, tried to get a signal.

  “Not in here, dude,” said Mickey. “This room is shielded.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.” Milo walked to the door.

  “Don’t expect us to wait for you,” called Mickey. “Me and this little lady have been waiting too long for this night.”

  Mickey swung around in the chair and began tapping the keyboard to probe the computer’s security system.

  On the other side of the glass wall, the temperature was much warmer, but at least Milo could acquire a signal. Turning his back on the others, he called up Tina’s number from his directory and pressed send.

  Milo placed the phone to his ear, but the sound of the first ring was drowned out by the hiss of a gushing spray, followed by shrieks of confusion, terror, and agony.

  Milo turned, gagged, dropped his cell.

  Inside the glass-enclosed computer room, Pyrex tubes inside the “rusty pipes” in the ceiling ruptured the moment Mickey Chen tried to gain access to the data without first entering the proper security code. But it was not water pouring down on Milo’s colleagues. Mickey had inadvertently triggered the computer’s real firewall—a downpour of scorching acid. While Milo watched helplessly, the caustic chemical shower rained down on Mickey Chen and Nell Henkel, burning great smoking pits in their living flesh.

  Mercifully the screaming stopped almost as soon as it began. A white chemical mist instantly filled the computer room as the acid fumed. Inside the haze, flashes of sizzling electricity erupted as thousands of volts of electricity crackled through the computer room. The searing, melting bodies flopped in an obscene dance before they toppled to the gouged and pitted concrete.

  Somewhere in his horrified mind, Milo deduced that the caustic chemical was probably hydrochloric acid, an excellent conductor of electricity. A shower of the stuff would effectively fry the circuits along with anyone tampering with the computer before any data could be recovered.

  Choking back the hot bile that rose in his throat,

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  Milo watched as the chemical soup continued to cook away flesh, muscle, hair—until nothing remained but twitching, smoking mou
nds of flesh and bone.

  10:00:01 A.M.EDT Brooklyn Promenade

  Jack’s vision fogged as oxygen deprivation scrambled his brain. Though weakening, he continued to claw at the noose around his throat and struggle against the man who loomed over him. But the Afghani’s full weight was on Jack, pinning him to the bench. Ali Kahlil grunted with the effort as he pulled the noose tighter.

  Jack could not break the man’s grip, so he tried a desperate bid to fool his assassin. Abruptly Jack ceased struggling, went limp. After a long moment the pressure of the noose and the man’s weight eased slightly—enough for Jack to suddenly shift position and push upward with all his strength.

  The top of Jack’s head slammed into Khan’s jaw with a satisfying crack. Jack saw stars, felt a sharp pain, but he knew the Afghani was hurting more. Khan Ali Kahlil attempted to choke him again, but Jack managed to get both hands around the cord. Though the rough hemp ripped the palms of his hands, the rope no longer strangled Jack. Now the dog was controlling the leash, and Jack used his weight to throw Khan Ali Kahlil backward, against the aluminum guardrail. He felt the man’s ribs crack, heard the Afghani howl.

  Khan Ali Kahlil still gripped the garrote, and that was his mistake. Younger, stronger, and better trained, Jack recovered immediately. Now he used his own weight to press Khan against the rail while he pummeled the man with his elbows, the backs of his arms. Finally Jack seized the Afghani man’s wrist and twisted out of his grip. The bones in Khan’s forearms twisted, then snapped. He howled and released the cord. An elbow to his face shattered Khan’s nose, sending black blood cascading down the front of his loose cotton shirt.

  Jack could easily finish the man, but he needed Khan alive and as cooperative as possible. He whirled, pinned Khan’s good arm behind his back.

  “Surrender,” Jack cried, pressing the man against the Promenade’s aluminum guardrail. “Tell me what your brother is doing with the Lynch brothers and Felix Tanner. Tell me where the missile launchers are hidden. Cooperate and I can guarantee the President of the United States will grant you immunity from all past crimes.”

  Eyes bright, Khan ceased struggling as he seemed to consider Jack’s words. He grinned behind the ooze of blood that gushed from his flattened nose. “I will help you.”

  Jack stepped back, released the man. “Listen to me, Khan Ali Kahlil. I know that you’ve made a life for yourself here. Don’t throw it all away for a struggle that is not yours, for a dying cause—”

  Khan lashed out, slamming Jack’s jaw with a balled fist. The blow was meant to crush his throat, but Jack saw it coming and dodged it. Khan turned and jumped over the guardrail. Jack made it to the fence in time to see the man land headfirst on the roadway forty feet below, in the path of rushing traffic. Horns blared, brakes squealed, a woman screamed.

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  Jack looked away, stumbled to the bench where he’d almost lost his life. The flesh around Jack’s throat was raw, his palms gouged and sticky with blood. He stared at the wounds. As the adrenaline drained out of him, his hands began to tremble uncontrollably.

  He felt weak and nauseated. He thought of his wife, Teri, his daughter, Kim—now almost a teenager. Who would take care of his family if he had died here, a wanted fugitive three thousand miles from home, hunted by the FBI?

  Glancing up, Jack’s gaze traveled across the river and up the gleaming glass walls of the World Trade Center. Those towers, the city around them—it all seemed so massive and permanent. Was this city, this country really in mortal danger? Could this enormous city, this entire nation, ever really be hurt by a haphazard cadre of individual terrorists? As he gazed at those twin towers, so solid, so substantial, the concept suddenly seemed absurd. Yet Jack knew from experience the kind of acts such men as Taj and Khan Ali Kahlil and the Lynch brothers were capable.

  Jack reached for his cell phone to check back with CTU. With Khan Ali Kahlil dead and his brother Taj missing, Jack had run out of options. Then remembered he’d given the phone, ID, PDA, and even his .45 to Caitlin—and right now he didn’t even know where she was.

  10:19:45 A.M.EDT Aboard the Manhattan-bound R Train

  A battered Liam immediately left the scene of the lethal explosion. Delivery was impossible, and he still clutched the silver attaché case. The first time he’d made a delivery to Taj, several weeks ago or more, Shamus told him that if something happened and he couldn’t make the delivery, he was to return the case to the Lynch brothers’ Green Dragon store in Forest Hills. With no other plan, Liam now followed those same instructions.

  Unfortunately, the blast and subsequent rupture of a water main had forced the closure of the 2 and 3 train routes, so it took him nearly forty-five minutes to walk across downtown Brooklyn to the nearest working subway, the Manhattan-bound R train.

  Now, as he sat in a corner seat in the crowded subway, the attaché case on his lap, his sister Caitlin’s words from the night before came to mind. Was this delivery on the up-and-up? If it was, then why did the police, the FBI, raid Kahlil’s store? Was Taj some kind of crook?

  And what if I’d been inside when the FBI charged the building? Liam thought. Then I’d be dead, too. What is in this case that’s so bleedin’ important that it had to be delivered in the middle of the night? Am I carrying what the FBI and the police were looking for?

  Liam fingered the case, noting for the first time that one of the clasps had already been broken and hung loose—probably by the fall onto the subway tracks. He touched the other latch and it sprung open. Liam paused, looked around.

  If the case was full of money or cocaine or something, he didn’t want anyone else in the packed subway to notice. But everyone was minding his own business, reading the paper or dozing or listening to music on their Walkmans so he decided to risk it.

  Taking a deep breath, Liam opened the case.

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  Inside he found sponge packing material and a black plastic device lying in a formed depression. Long and thin, the black plastic object seemed innocent enough. Liam touched it, picked it up. On the smooth unbroken surface he saw a serial number, a plug-in port of some kind, and nothing else. Obviously the object was just what Shamus said it was, some bloody part for a computer.

  Liam placed the device back into the depression, lifted the sponge packing. Under it he saw two black squares, each the size of a pack of coffin nails. They were completely covered with electrical tape. More tape held the squares to the side of the case. Liam figured it was just more packing material. He closed the case and leaned back with relief.

  In another hour or so he’d be in Forest Hills. He could return the case to Shamus, go back to The Last Celt and catch some zeds at last...

  10:34:40 A.M.EDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Jamey was following Nina Myers’s sole lead—the identity of Felix Tanner. Using state, federal, and local databases, banking information, tax records, and corporate registers, she found some interesting connections.

  For one thing, according to tax records from the Lynch brothers’ Green Dragon franchise, most of the shop’s income was generated by a vaguely worded contract Griffin Lynch had signed with Prolix Security, the firm taken over by Felix Tanner.

  Even more interesting, with some electronic digging Jamey also discovered that Wexler Business Storage— the company that owned the SUV that had served as Dante Arete’s deathtrap—had only two clients renting space in their Houston Street storage facility. One was Green Dragon Computers of Forest Hills, the other firm was Prolix Security of Manhattan.

  Jamey grinned as she added the intelligence to her electronic data log.

  Let’s see Nina Myers accuse me of “sloppy performance” now!

  10:59:56 A.M.EDT Montague Street, Brooklyn

  Following the homing technology embedded inside his digital watch, Jack located the narrow-band beacon signal constantly broadcast by his CTU-issue Personal Digital Assistant. There was a lot of interference, and sometimes he stumbled into blind spots and lost the signal,
but Jack knew that Caitlin must be close or he would not be receiving the signal at all.

  Along a trendy, upscale commercial area on tree-lined Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, the signal became very strong. As Jack wove his way through throngs of late morning shoppers, the watch began to emit tiny beeps—a warning that he was within fifty yards of his PDA.

  Jack scanned the busy street, noticed a small café tucked between a bakery shop and an antiques store. A few tables, shaded by umbrellas, were on the sidewalk in front of the café. Jack spied Caitlin sitting at one of them, a cup of coffee untouched at her arm. Her head was down, her eyes red from crying, her skinny arms wrapped around her.

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  Jack crossed the street, moved among the tables. Caitlin looked up just then, blinked in disbelief, then launched herself out of the chair and clasped him tightly.

  “Jack! Oh, Jack! Mother of God, you scared me. I thought you were dead, sure!”

  Jack held her close, felt the young woman tremble in his arms.

  “Did you see my brother? Did you see Liam?” she asked, frantic.

  “Don’t worry. I know Liam never made it to Kahlil’s store, they told me so. I’m sure he’s safe, Caitlin. We just have to find him before anyone else does . . .”

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  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 A.M. AND 12 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  11:09:56 A.M.EDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

  Nina Myers jerked, snapped back to reality by the insistent three-tone ring. She looked away from the computer monitor, punched the button for the speakerphone. “What is it Jamey?”

  “I have Jack on the line.”

  Nina snatched the receiver. “Jack. My god. It’s been close to six hours since . . .” She took a breath. “After the reports coming out of Brooklyn, Ryan was ready to write you off. Did you make contact with Taj Ali Kahlil?”

  “Only his brother, Khan. He’s dead now. So is everyone else, thanks to that FBI raid. I’ve hit a wall.”

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