Repeat, the area is clean.”
Jack exhaled, yanked away the headset, and dropped it on the tarred roof. Christopher Henderson slapped his back.
“Good job, Jack.”
Jack nodded, still numb.
Tony called out to Jack. “Morris is on the line.”
Jack waved him off. “Take a message.”
Tony listened for a moment, one hand on his ear. “It’s the latest casualty report, Jack. Eleven hundred and fifty-eight, so far. Those figures are expected to rise.”
Jack groaned, turned away.
Layla moved, too, far away from the others. In the center of the roof, she oriented herself, then faced Mecca.
She threw up her hands, then folded them across her breast as she began to mutter a prayer.
Henderson tugged off his sunglasses, stared. “What’s she saying?” he whispered.
“The Salat al-Janazah,” Jack replied. “The Muslim prayer for the dead.”
Henderson blinked. “I didn’t know Agent Abernathy was one of the Faithful, did you?”
Jack smiled. “Yeah. I did.” He faced his boss. “You’d be wise to appoint Judith Foy the new Director of CTU New York. And I’d recommend Layla for the number two spot.
She’s young, but—”
Henderson silenced Jack with a raised hand. “There isn’t going to be a CTU New York, Jack. Not after this mess.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“The orders have been issued from on high,” Henderson informed him. “Walsh and the President are in agreement on this.”
“But what happened here proves the need for a CTU presence.”
“Security was compromised from the start,” Henderson replied. “The division was infiltrated before it even opened.
The political meltdown over this hasn’t even begun yet.”
Henderson shook his head. “CTU will continue to guard the rest of the country. But from now on, New York City is on its own.”
The man curled his long arm around Jack’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Jack, you have enough on your plate with Los Angeles.”
Jack stepped away, processing everything Henderson had said. With the mention of L.A., he suddenly remembered his wife and daughter, realizing in a rush how much he missed them. He pulled out his personal cell phone, noticed a text message from Teri. A reminder.
Coldplay poster. MTV store.
Don’t disappoint your daughter.
He smiled.
“How about breakfast?” Henderson called to him. “On me. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten in a day.”
Jack glanced at his watch. “Fine, Christopher, but after that I’m heading uptown.”
Henderson looked at him askance. “Sightseeing?”
Bauer shook his head. “Just keeping a promise.”
About the Author
MARC CERASINI’s writing credits include The Complete Idiot’s Guide to U.S. Special Ops Forces and Heroes: U.S. Marine Corps Medal of Honor Winners and several projects for Tom Clancy, including creating the bible for the Clancy Power Play series, writing the YA action/adventure thriller The Ultimate Escape for Clancy’s NetForce series, and writing a major essay on Clancy’s contribution to the technothriller genre for the national bestseller The Tom Clancy Companion. Among the movie tie-in novelizations Marc has written are Wolverine: Weapon X, based on the popular X-Men series, the USA Today bestseller AVP: Alien Vs.
Predator, based on the motion picture from 20th Century Fox, as well as five original novels based on the Toho Studios classic “Godzilla,” and co-authored (with J.D. Lees) a nonfiction look at the film series, The Official Godzilla Compendium. Marc’s other credits include the book 24: The House Special Subcommittee Investigation of CTU, which he co-authored with his wife, Alice Alfonsi, and the previous 24 Declassified novels Operation Hell Gate, Trojan Horse, and Vanishing Point.