Jack Bauer tightened the tourniquet with a yank. The Albino grunted, chewed his lower lip. The crimson flow from the ghastly wound in his leg slowed, but didn’t stop.
Jack knew Erno Tobias could easily bleed to death if he wasn’t careful.
Too bad.
“The generals thought you were an urban myth,” Jack said, tugging on the electric cord wrapped around the man’s arms. “But the Bosnian refugees I spoke with all swore you existed. They’re the ones who named you Ice and Snow.”
Bauer had addressed his captive in Serbian. Hearing his native language spoken by an American enemy seemed to throw the former assassin off balance, which was exactly what Jack wanted. Bauer also hoped the Albino might slip and say something he might not in his adopted tongue. So far, that hadn’t happened.
Time to step up the pressure.
Jack faced the man. “After Victor Drazen was killed—”
The Albino spat on the hardwood floor at Jack’s feet.
“Murdered, you mean—”
“Neutralized,” Jack cut in. “The NATO forces seized his records, and there you were. No name, just a description.
Odreðeni cˇlan—the Albino. Another document called you Odreðeni cˇlan bled ubica. The Pale One…”
Jack saw the hunted look in the man’s pink-rimmed, colorless eyes and knew he was wearing the Albino down.
“You were a member of Drazen’s Black Dogs,” Jack continued, gesturing to the man’s tattoo. “We wondered why every moderate politician who worked for peace ended up dead. Then we discovered it was you who assassinated them.”
“They were traitors! Corrupt internationalists who allowed violent invaders to flourish inside our borders. You can pretend the refugees were innocent, that they didn’t invade our towns, murder Serbs, burn our churches. You can pretend, but I know the truth—”
“And now you’re helping those same ‘violent foreigners’
sow destruction in America.”
The Albino smiled though his pain. “I would call that irony.”
Jack slapped him hard, then knelt down and spoke softly into his ear. “That’s ancient history. Let’s talk about your current operation. Why are you helping Noor?”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The Albino snorted, licked blood off his lip. “Now you have them in your backyard. Let’s see how you like it—”
Jack fought the urge to strike him again. Instead, he grinned coldly. “You blew it, Tobias — or whatever the hell your name really is. Even at the restaurant in Little Italy, I had no idea who you were, where you were from. But when I ran into that Serbian hit team at the World Trade Center, I started to get the picture. The people at Kurmastan are just pawns. Someone else is pulling the strings.”
Jack grabbed a handful of the man’s white hair and yanked his head back. “Who are you working for?” Jack yelled. “Who’s pulling the strings and why?”
Jack released the man and the Albino hung his head.
“I hurt,” he said softly.
Jack’s fists clenched. He thought of the Black Dogs, all the murders, rapes, and carnage they’d committed in Serbia. He thought of Kurmastan and those trucks of death, rolling down America’s highways now.
“If you don’t tell me what I need to know,” Jack promised, “the pain is going to get a whole lot worse.”
The phone rang. Morris O’Brian’s eyes never left the monitor as he snatched the phone off its cradle.
“O’Brian.”
“It’s Tony.”
“Ah, the prodigal son.”
“Listen, Morris, we found the Thirteen Gang’s headquarters. It’s located at 1313 Crampton Street, Newark—”
“1313?” Morris interrupted.
“Yeah.”
“You’re serious?”
“Listen, we found something else, too.”
Morris winced. On the monitor, three Atlantic City police officers had just cut down a terrorist who’d ignored repeated commands to drop his weapon.
“What… what did you find?” Morris asked, turning away from the bloody sight on the screen.
“We don’t exactly know,” Tony replied. “There’s some kind of laboratory or drug factory or something inside the Crampton Street warehouse, which is supposed to be abandoned. A garage door opened up and Judith Foy shot a couple of surveillance photos. But we have no way to analyze the images on this end.”
“Can you send them along? Or is Deputy Director Foy still worried about leaks?”
Tony sighed. “I’ve convinced her the leaks have been plugged, but we don’t have a PDA. I can send the images to you through my cell phone, but they’re bound to lose some resolution.”
“I know. Wish our technology was better. Maybe in a few years—”
“Morris! We don’t have a few years.”
“We can enhance the digital images on this end, Tony, make your pictures as good as new. Just send them along.”
O’Brian gave Tony a phone number to use for the data dump. After he hung up, Morris faced Peter Randall.
“We’ve got some intelligence coming in. It will be dumped in cache twenty-two. Digital images. I’m rather swamped here. Can you analyze them?”
“Sure, I’ll be glad to, Mr. O’Brian,” Randall replied.
“I’ll do the work at Security Station Two, if you don’t mind. Less distractions…”
“Good lad,” Morris murmured, his eyes drifting back to the live feed of the firefight in Atlantic City. But as soon as Peter Randall was gone, Morris reached for the phone.
“A name,” Jack Bauer demanded.
“It will do you… no good…” The Albino’s voice was weak. He let out a moan of agony, blood streaking his pale face. “You can’t stop… what’s about to happen.”
“A name.” Jack coolly dug the kitchen knife deeper into the man’s ravaged wound.
The Albino cried out, perspiration beading his forehead.
“A name.” Jack probed even deeper, hitting bone.
“NOW!”
“Soren Ungar!” the Albino blurted out. “His company, Ungar, Geneva, LLC, is the real owner of Rogan Pharmaceuticals.”
“And it was Rogan that provided the drugs that drove the men and women of Kurmastan mad?” Jack hissed, twisting the blade.
“Yes!” the Albino shouted.
Jack yanked the knife back, dropped it on the hardwood floor. “Why?” he asked.
The Albino shook his head.
“Talk!”
The Albino was breathing hard. “Before I tell you,” he gasped, “I want a pardon. Signed by your President. Forgiving all my past crimes.”
Looming over the man, Jack shook his head.
“You’re an international war criminal. A fugitive from justice. They want you at the Hague. It’s out of our government’s hands—”
“You can fix this!” the Albino insisted.
“I can’t, and I won’t,” Jack replied. “No bargains.”
To Jack’s surprise, the Albino actually shrugged under his bonds.
“As you Americans are fond of saying, you can’t fault a man for trying,” he said. A strange smile lifted his lips, and then he bit down hard. Jack heard a crunch, and Erno Tobias choked. When he opened his mouth, black blood poured from his throat.