24 Declassified: Collateral Damage 2d-8 Read online

  making them easy targets in the darkness.

  Crouching between the hollow of two gnarly trees, Jack counted seven pursuers, all armed. One man had long dreadlocks streaming down his back. Another had a jewel-studded eye patch over his left eye and carried an Uzi. For a long time, Jack just watched them while they checked behind the wall he’d hopped, and the trees that clustered there.

  Finally, the men fanned out, moving in a loose formation deeper into the park. Within a few minutes, they moved right past Jack’s hiding place without spotting him.

  Jack smiled.

  As the men continued on, a straggler hung back, gripping his.45 nervously in sweating hands. When he finally passed Jack’s position, Bauer rose up behind him.

  One hand covering his victim’s mouth, Jack slid the bayonet between his ribs and deep into the man’s heart.

  The man bucked in Jack’s arms, groaned under his hand.

  Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp. Silently, Jack lowered the corpse to the grass, then bolted for the shadows under the next line of trees.

  “Hey, over there!” someone called.

  For a split second, Jack thought he’d been spotted. Then he heard the boom of a.45. In the muzzle flash Jack saw a bearded man, his toothless mouth gaping in surprise.

  One gunman with a flashlight moved in, played his beam on the corpse.

  “Damn it, Tyrell, you shot some bum!”

  The shooter kicked the corpse. “How was I s’posed to know he was some lame-ass homeless dude?”

  “The smell, bro.”

  The men snickered.

  Eye Patch silenced them. “Tanner wants this guy. Keep looking,” he growled, gesturing with his Uzi.

  They crossed West Drive, a curved, four-lane road that was closed to traffic at this late hour. Then the group moved into a shallow valley. Here, beyond a path lined with wrought-iron benches, a baseball field was a gray patch in the moonless night. Jack continued to stalk them.

  “Where’s Jackson?” Eye Patch demanded when they reached the edge of the ball field.

  The others shrugged. “Maybe he got lost in the dark,”

  Dreadlocks said.

  “Maybe,” the leader replied.

  By his tone, Jack could tell the man was wary.

  “You two, circle the field and meet me at those rocks over there,” the leader commanded.

  The pair crossed the field until they were out of sight.

  The other three, including Dreadlocks, headed for a tumble of rocks overlooking the field.

  Moving through the shadows like a death-dealing ghost, Jack followed the trio. When they arrived at the boulders, the men discovered a narrow passage with stone steps leading to the top of a low hill. Eye Patch climbed the stairs first, the others watching his back. Then the second man entered the narrow staircase.

  Before Dreadlocks could hit the stairs, Jack struck again. Seizing the man’s hair, he yanked his head back and slashed the M9 blade across his throat, cutting so deeply the vocal cords were severed along with the carotid artery.

  With a gurgling choke, the man pitched forward, blood spraying the rocks.

  Jack hopped over the corpse and dropped to one knee.

  He aimed and hurled the bayonet at a second man at the top of the stairs. The blade tumbled end over end and struck his broad back, sinking to the hilt. The man went down, but not quietly.

  Eye Patch heard his comrade’s death howl and raced back to the stairs. He loomed over Jack, a dark silhouette against the night.

  The Beretta jerked in Jack’s hand; the sound suppressor coughed. The bullet struck the leader in the forehead. The Uzi tumbled from the dead man’s grip, and he rolled down the stone steps.

  Jack heard a shot, and a bullet pinged off the rocks beside his head. He grunted as sharp splinters struck his face. Jack crouched low, snatched the Uzi from the ground, and bolted up the stairs.

  A second shot rang out, ricocheted off the rocks.

  At the top of the steps, Jack found himself at the foot of an ornate, wrought-iron bridge. He heard footsteps gaining on him.

  Instead of crossing the bridge — and making himself an easy target — Jack jumped over the railing and dropped twelve feet to the riding path below.

  He landed with a grunt, his knee striking a fallen branch. Still clutching the Uzi, Jack rolled onto his back.

  Above him, his pursuers ran to the middle of the span, their shoes clomping on the wooden surface.

  Jack aimed the Uzi and opened fire.

  In the hail of 9mm bullets, men jerked and sparks struck off the wrought-iron rail. With a double thump, the last of the hunting posse hit the wooden deck.

  Pumped with adrenaline, Jack lay for a moment, catching his breath. Then he heard sirens, far away, but getting closer.

  Time to go.

  Jack cast the empty Uzi into a clump of trees and stumbled to his feet. Face bleeding, knee throbbing, he limped toward the brightly illuminated mid-rise apartment buildings along Central Park South.

  A few minutes later, Jack emerged from the trees at Fifty-seventh Street. Several cabs were lined up near the posh hotels, on the opposite side of the four-lane boulevard. Gratefully, Jack hailed one.

  Using the edge of the Hawk’s utility vest to wipe the blood and sweat from his face, Jack climbed into the backseat and gave the Sikh driver the Hudson Street address for CTU Headquarters.

  The man nodded. “Yes, sir. Right away,” he said, not at all surprised to find a bleeding man, wearing a black combat vest, crawling into his cab at two fifty-one in the morning.

  21. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 3:00 A.M. AND 4:00 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  3:00:46 A.M. EDT

  Acorn Street

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Claudia Wheelock was dreaming of her two young children, scampering barefoot in front of her along the sand.

  The Martha’s Vineyard setting was achingly familiar, a beloved island where her family had spent so many long, lazy summers. Just ahead was her father’s oceanfront shingle-style cottage. She was moved to tears, seeing him there again, relaxing on the wide, wooden porch, just as he had when he was alive. And her mother was nearby, laying out a luncheon of freshly made lobster rolls and sweet lemonade.

  In her early forties now, Claudia was still a strikingly beautiful woman, with a fit figure and short blond hair.

  Her flaxen-haired children reflected that golden beauty as they ran ahead of her, giggling as they darted in and out of the white-capped surf. Claudia laughed, feeling the joy and luster of this moment, expecting all good things to be waiting for her and her children at the end of their little stroll—

  Then came the crack of thunder.

  The noise was sudden, almost deafening, and it completely shattered Claudia’s safe, idyllic vision. Another boom came, this one strong enough to shake the walls of her sister’s Federal-style row house on Beacon Hill.

  Now Claudia was fully awake. For a moment, she lay staring at the ornamental tin ceiling, wondering if she’d dreamed the noises. But she could still hear the tail end of the last report. The rumbling echoed for several seconds through the narrow cobblestone streets before dissipating completely.

  Claudia rose quickly, parted the guest room’s lacy curtains, and peered outside. The night sky was clear, though suffused with a strange red glow. Then Claudia heard movement in the hallway. The night had been humid and warm, and she was wearing only a flimsy tank top and underwear. She quickly threw on a short, white terry-cloth robe.

  Before she opened the door, something possessed Claudia to fish in her suitcase for the item her husband had pressed upon her last year, when an unbalanced fan of her novels had begun aggressively harassing her with e-mails and phone calls. The small handgun was there, still in its case. She checked to see if it was loaded, then slipped it into the pocket of her short robe.

  When Claudia opened the door, her brother-in-law was already standing in the hallway, and her s
leepy-eyed sister was peeking out of their master bedroom door.

  “I think I heard a bomb going off,” Claudia said.

  “A bomb?” Roderick practically sneered. “Don’t be ri-diculous, Claudia. A gas main probably ruptured or an old steam pipe cracked, nothing more than that. This is real life after all, not one of your thrillers.”

  Claudia was about to remind Roddy that she wrote legal thrillers, and the only explosions that occurred in her novels were in the courtroom. But instead she kept her mouth shut, knowing she’d be wasting her breath. As Associate Dean of Humanities at Harvard University, Roderick Cannon held all works of popular fiction beneath contempt.

  Besides, thought Claudia, things were already strained between them. They’d spent much of the previous night’s dinner arguing about her husband’s new job as Northeast District Director for the CIA’s Counter Terrorist Unit.

  Roderick insisted on focusing on CTU’s old directives.

  He kept bringing up the Unit’s supposed trampling of constitutional rights, illegal wiretaps, and alleged use of torture.

  Her brother-in-law refused to acknowledge that Claudia’s husband was an agent of change, that Nathan Wheelock was working toward expurgating any CTU personnel who favored such practices. In the past year, since he’d taken the position, Nathan had abolished all racial and religious profiling within his command, made certain that his people placed wiretaps only on domestic calls to known terrorists overseas, and forbade any agent under his authority to engage in torture.

  Claudia was very proud of her husband’s progressive policies. She herself had been a high-profile civil rights attorney before quitting to raise her children and write best-selling legal thrillers, and she was in the perfect position to help keep her husband’s career objectives on track, ensuring the civil rights of any suspect or prisoner were treated as a CTU priority.

  The law was on Nathan’s side, too, of course, and it helped that the current Administration was in Nathan’s corner. It was only a matter of time before Claudia’s husband would be elevated to a much higher position within the Agency. Then Nathan’s regional policies could be implemented nationally, through every district and division of the CTU organization.

  But Claudia’s arguments fell on deaf ears. Roddy’s mind was already made up. CTU was a useless, fascist organization that should never have been created, period.

  Obviously sensing another argument in the works, Claudia’s sister Gillian stepped out of the bedroom. “Since we’re all awake,” she chirped brightly, “I’ll turn on the telly and see if we’ve had a minor quake.”

  Claudia winced at Gillian’s use of British idiom. Since marrying an Englishman, she’d been suppressing her Boston accent, as well.

  Downstairs, her sister put on a pot of tea while Claudia tuned into WHDH, the NBC affiliate in Boston. Her timing was perfect. After a few seconds of one of those ubiquitous M*A*S*H reruns, the show was interrupted by a “breaking news” interstitial, then a somber-looking announcer appeared on screen.

  “We’ve just received word here at the studio about a massive explosion in the center of Boston. It appears the blast has collapsed a portion of Interstate 93 between Cambridge Street and Boston Harbor.”

  “The Big Dig,” Roddy grumbled, plopping down at the kitchen table. “A monument of excess and corporate corruption—”

  “I thought the Dig was a government project,” Claudia corrected.

  “In America, government and business are one and the same thing. Instruments of arrogant avarice.” He imperiously waved his hand. “The superciliousness of your American officials never ceases to astound me.”

  “You know what, Roddy? You can always go back to England—”

  “Here we are!” Gillian forcefully chirped, setting the teapot down between them. “It’s chamomile. It won’t keep us awake—”

  Another blast, much louder than the previous one, shook the windows. Roddy jumped to his feet, sending a china cup tumbling to the floor.

  “Roddy, do be careful! You’ve broken a piece of our good—”

  Another blast shattered the kitchen window. Gillian screamed. Claudia pushed her sister away from flying shards of glass. Other windows in the neighborhood had broken, too. They could hear cries of shock and surprise.

  “I’m going to investigate,” Roddy declared.

  “No, wait,” Claudia urged. “Stay here until we know more. This could be a terrorist event.”

  “Now you’re being absurd,” Roddy replied. “Obviously your husband’s right-wing fantasies have clouded your mind.”

  Outside, a red glow continued to spread over the predawn sky. Sirens wailed. On television, the news anchor’s running commentary about the troubled history of the Big Dig was suddenly interrupted when someone off camera slipped him a sheet of paper.

  “We’ve just received word of a second explosion. This one at Harvard Medical School—”

  “My god!” Gillian cried.

  Roddy stormed off before Claudia could stop him. Both women were relieved when they heard him climb the stairs, instead of going to the front door.

  “We have raw video feed coming in of the initial blast at the Big Dig,” the anchor said.

  On screen, a massive hole in the center of town was spewing fire like a live volcano. Buildings around the site had collapsed, some of them burning. Though horrified, the sisters could not turn away from the screen.

  Outside, a police car raced down narrow Acorn Street, lights flashing. They heard popping sounds, like fireworks going off. Then the sound of a car crash.

  Roderick appeared in the kitchen again. He was dressed in khaki pants and a golf shirt. “Here,” he said, handing a phone to Claudia. “I found your phone on the dresser.

  Your cell’s been ringing nonstop.”

  Claudia took the phone. It wasn’t ringing now, but she had three missed messages in just the past five minutes.

  She was about to call up the latest one when her cell went off in her hand.

  “Where are you going, Roddy?” Gillian cried, nearly hysterical.

  “Out. To see what all this ruckus is about.”

  “No, you can’t—”

  “Hello,” Claudia said into her cell.

  “Claudia, thank God you’re safe,” said her husband.

  “Of course I’m safe. A little rattled, maybe—”

  “Listen, a terror alert has just been issued for the Boston area.”

  “I knew it,” Claudia said.

  Outside, the fireworks got louder, and closer.

  “We got the word in earlier this evening, from an un-trustworthy source, frankly,” Nathan Wheelock continued.

  “But it appears the agent in question was correct.”

  Roddy stormed out of the kitchen. Gillian wrung her hands.

  On television, the announcer warned: “The Mayor has just issued a command that all citizens of the Boston area are to remain inside their homes. Let me repeat that…”

  “Roddy!” Gillian cried, rushing to the front door.

  “Truck bombs, Claudia,” Nathan Wheelock said. “At least two of them, possibly as many as four—”

  “We heard a number of explosions,” Claudia replied.

  “Now it sounds like fireworks outside—”

  “Those aren’t fireworks,” Nathan cried. “They’re gunshots.”

  On the television, the anchor took another piece of paper and visibly paled. “We’ve just received another bulletin. Armed gangs are roving the streets around Boston Commons and the Beacon Hill area. All citizens in those neighborhoods are advised to lock their doors and take shelter in basements or attics—”

  Claudia heard a fusillade that seemed to fire off right outside their door. She heard Gillian scream. Claudia closed the phone and bolted to the entranceway. Gillian was standing in the door, clutching her head.

  Outside, someone was facedown on the pavement, blood pooling around a shattered skull. It took Claudia a moment to realize it was Roderick. Another
form was crumpled on the sidewalk, a youth with long hair and a brown beard, wearing tie-dyed pajamas.

  Claudia dragged her sister’s arm, yanked her backward, then shut and locked the door. Another round of shots rang out, one of them puncturing the stout oak and shattering a mirror in the hallway.

  On the other side of the door, they heard shouts and screams — and more shooting. Claudia dragged her sister deeper inside the house just as someone slammed a shoulder against the front door.

  Frantically searching for a place to hide, Claudia opened the closet and pushed her sister inside.

  “Keep quiet, no matter what you hear,” Claudia commanded.

  She’d just closed the door on her sister when Claudia heard a crash, then heavy boots tramping on the polished hardwood floor. She slipped her hand into the robe’s pocket, touched the butt of the small handgun — but she was afraid to pull it free. She wasn’t all that sure of her aim, but mostly she didn’t want to provoke the man.

  A burly African American appeared in the hall. He wore dirty overalls and a skullcap. In his beefy hands, he clutched a double-barreled shotgun, which was pointed at the ceiling. His eyes appeared wild, like he was drugged.

  “What do you want?” Claudia asked as gently and calmly as she could. The lawyer in her took over. If I can just remain rational, negotiate with him, get him to talk to me, then it will be all right…

  “I want to help you,” Claudia assured him. “What can I do to help you?”

  The man blinked, his eyes beginning to focus. He looked down at Claudia’s long, tanned legs. His gaze moved upward, over her trim figure, attractive face, and golden, sleep-tousled hair. Finally, he met her sky-blue eyes.

  “Please, just put the gun down…” Claudia urged.

  Claudia held her breath, feeling a moment of triumph as he did what she asked. He’s putting the gun down! He’s actually leaning it against the wall!

  “Good,” Claudia murmured on a released breath.

  “That’s good.”

  The man stood there, unarmed now. But he still hadn’t said a word.

  “You don’t want to hurt me, do you?” Claudia cooed.