With the headset, Jack was able to shut out the ambient noise from the people around him — to concentrate on “Agent Ferrer’s” words and the noises around him. Immediately Jack heard the hollow sounds of the terminal as background to Ferrer’s voice, and he knew the impostor really was somewhere inside the terminus. While moving toward the central clock, Jack decided to see how much the impostor really knew.
“Have you heard how the airport raids have gone?” asked Jack. “Did they stop the attacks in D.C., LA, Chicago…here in New York?”
Ferrer was silent for a moment, then he dodged the question.
“I’m not sure we should be discussing this on an unsecured line.”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
“How close are you, Special Agent Bauer?”
Jack could hear impatience — and perhaps suspicion — in the man’s tone. Meanwhile Jack slipped between knots of people until he saw the blond man’s back. The impostor was only a few yards away now, still talking on his cell. In his Brooks Brothers suit, an attaché case in his hand, the impostor looked more like a stockbroker than an assassin, but Jack knew looks could be deceptive.
“I’m almost there,” said Jack, stepping behind the man and slipping his weapon out of its holster. With the gun still behind his jacket, he shoved the barrel of the.45 into the blond man’s ribs. “In fact, I’m right behind you,” said Jack.
The blond man lowered the cell, whirled to face Jack. “Hey, dude,” he cried. “At least say excuse me when you bump into—”
The man saw the gun in Jack’s hands, only partially hidden in the folds of the jacket. He backed away.
“Good try, Bauer,” the voice said in his ear. “But apparently you were stalking the wrong man.”
“Where are you?”
“Look up. Check on your friend.”
On the mezzanine Jack saw Caitlin, face pale. Beside her, a tall man with dark skin and bleached blond hair clutched her arm. Despite his Western clothes, Jack recognized him from the files on his PDA.
“Omar Bayat,” Jack whispered.
“You recognize me,” Bayat replied. “I should be flattered.”
“Let her go. Take me hostage, instead,” Jack insisted.
“I’m not looking for a hostage, Mr. Bauer. I just want to get out of here without you following me.”
“That’s fine. What do you want me to do?”
“There’s a mailbox about fifty feet away. Do you see it?” Bayat asked.
“I see it.”
“I want you to walk over to that box and drop your cell phone and weapon into it.”
“If I do that, what do I get in return?”
“I’ll let this woman go, after I’m out of the station. Otherwise I’ll kill her on the spot with my bare hands, and no one in the crowd will be the wiser.”
Jack hesitated.
“You know I can do it, Bauer. Move to the mailbox now or she dies.”
“I’m going,” said Jack. He was ten feet from the mailbox when the blond man Jack had accosted by mistake returned — with two New York City policemen in tow.
“He’s the one!” The blond man pointed out Jack. “He pulled a gun on me!”
Members of the crowd around Jack heard the blond man’s statement and moved to get out of the way. Jack used the crowd to shield himself as he turned and ran in the opposite direction. As he raced through the mob of commuters, Jack heard Omar Bayat laughing over his headset.
“Wait, Bayat. Let her go,” Jack cried. “She can’t hurt you now and neither can I.”
“She goes with me, Bauer,” Bayat replied. “A man named Griffin Lynch is anxious to meet her.”
Jack heard the hiss of dead air. “Son of a bitch!”
“Halt!” a voice barked. Jack heard screams and glanced over his shoulder. The policemen were still chasing him. One of them had his weapon out. Luckily, the man couldn’t get a clear shot because so many civilians were in the way. Jack continued to weave in and out of the crowd until he burst onto Forty-second Street.
Traffic was heavy, but moving. Along Forty-second Street, there were cars and trucks as far as the eye could see. Jack looked around, looking for a way out. At any moment, the policemen were going to emerge on the street, where they might just get a shot at him.
Then, across the street, Jack spied a burly man sitting astride an idling Harley-Davidson motorcycle, an American flag waving on a short staff above the rear wheel. The bike was all chrome and rumbling engine.
Perfect, thought Jack. Despite the traffic, he ran into the street, darting between moving cars. A taxicab driver refused to brake for him, so he rolled across the yellow hood. Landing on his feet beside the biker, Jack caught the man’s long ponytail, yanked him off the motorcycle.
Before the man could stumble to his feet, Jack gunned the engine and sped away, racing down the sidewalk. Pedestrians scattered as he shot down the pavement for more than a block. Finally, confronted by a knot of tourists gathering under the awning of a hotel, Jack swerved back onto the street.
Using his headset, Jack made contact with CTU. Chappelle answered the call. “Let me put you on speakerphone, Jack.”
“The man who assumed Agent Ferrer’s identity is really Omar Bayat, Taj Ali Kahlil’s associate and the leading exporter of terrorism for the Taliban government in Afghanistan.”
“How do you know, Jack?” Ryan asked. “Did you capture him? Neutralize him?”
“No,” Jack replied. “Bayat managed to get past me and grab Caitlin. He’s holding her now. Is the tracer inside my watch working?”
“Perfectly,” said Jamey Farrell. “I’m tracking Caitlin’s every move. Good thing you gave her your watch in case anything went wrong.”
“Where is she right now?” Jack asked.
“In a van, moving uptown on Third Avenue. The van’s at Fifty-seventh Street, moving into the right lane. I think it’s probably going to cross the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, into Queens. ”
“We’d better not lose track of Caitlin,” said Jack. “Right now, she’s our only connection to the terrorists. Without her we don’t know where they’re hiding or what they’re up to.”
23. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 P.M. AND 8 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
The speakerphone at Ryan Chappelle’s workstation buzzed, interrupting him. Tired and cranky, Ryan punched the button. “Yes?”
“It’s Nina. I just spoke with Roger Tyson, Deputy Director of the National Transportation Safety Board.”
Ryan snickered. “Don’t tell me the airport raids hit the news? Does he want to apologize for doubting our intelligence?”
“News of the raids has been suppressed so far, but Deputy Director Tyson did hear about them through bureaucratic channels. He called us with a warning.”
Chappelle sat up. “A what?”
“This afternoon a chartered CDC flight took off from Atlanta. It’s carrying bio-hazardous materials— samples of the deadly 1918 influenza strain—”
“Why the hell weren’t we told? CTU should have received the same security report as the other agencies!”
“The flight was mentioned in the daily DSA security alert, but no one here at CTU made the connection. We should have received a second alert when the aircraft left the ground, but we were shut out.”
Ryan frowned. “What do you mean shut out?”
“It was Hensley,” Nina replied. “According to Tyson, the alert was issued directly to the FBI. Apparently Hensley convinced his superiors to keep CTU out of the loop on alerts until Jack Bauer is apprehended and interrogated. He’s convinced them that until that happens, the entire unit is compromised.”