“My friends call me Doris.”
Nina picked up her bag. “Follow me and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team.”
Jamey was at her workstation processing the hourly reports when Milo Pressman appeared at her shoulder. “Hey, check it out.”
She followed Milo’s gaze. “My God. Is CTU recruiting at elementary schools now?”
“Quick, pretend to be looking at the monitor,” whispered Milo. “I think they’re headed this way.”
By the time Nina and Doris arrived, Milo and Jamey were seemingly swamped in the sea of intelligence data. “Sorry to interrupt your work,” Nina said without a trace of irony. “I want you to meet—”
“I’m Doris. Hi.”
“Milo is our security systems specialist, Jamey is our head programmer. You’ll be working with them for the duration of this assignment.”
Milo and Jamey exchanged looks. Nina crossed to the auxiliary workstation and powered it up. “Jamey, could you send all of the encrypted data we’ve recovered from the memory stick to station six, so Doris can begin her preliminary evaluation?”
Jamey frowned. “Jack put everything that has to do with the Arete case on Level Four security clearance…”
“No problem. I’m assigning Doris a Level Three security code.”
Behind Nina’s back, Milo made a face at Jamey.
“You got to be kidding me,” Jamey protested. “I didn’t get a Level Three clearance code until I worked here for over six months.”
Nina rose to her full height, looming over the seated Jamey. “Do you feel threatened? I understand if you do. But not to worry, the situation is only temporary. Just until Doris cracks the code.”
Milo watched Doris sit down in front of the keyboard. Inside of a minute she began isolating data, separating the wheat from the chaff. He scratched his sparse goatee. “At the speed she’s working, that won’t be very long…”
Dante Arete stared down the muzzle of Special Agent Hensley’s weapon, eyes wide, lips beaded with sweat. Jack Bauer’s grip around his throat tightened.
“What the hell are you doin’, man?” Dante croaked, wide eyes staring at Hensley. “This ain’t what we talked about. This ain’t part of our deal.”
Jack dragged Arete against him in a bear hug, spoke in his ear. “What deal? Tell me what deal you made with Hensley.”
“Shut up, both of you,” said Hensley.
Arete ignored Jack, glared at Hensley. “You kill me and the whole deal’s flushed, man.”
Bauer moved backward, dragging Arete with him, until his spine touched the walls of the pressurized cabin. He risked a glance out the window. The ground was coming up fast, Jack could see cars on the highway, busy residential streets with people on them.
“Shoot now and you’ll puncture the fuselage, depressurize the cabin,” Jack warned.
Hensley shrugged. “We’re almost on the ground. I’ll risk it.”
The engine’s whine became more pronounced as the aircraft decreased its speed. Turbulence buffeted the airliner, and the motion rocked Hensley on his feet, foiling his aim. Fearfully, Arete struggled against Bauer’s tightening grip, but Jack held him firm. A moment later, Hensley steadied himself, his aim true. “Like I said, Bauer. When the wheels touch the pavement, Arete’s mine.”
From the corner of his eyes, Jack saw a flash outside the window. Hensley saw it, too. A bright orange object rose toward the airplane from a cluster of low, featureless concrete buildings.
Jack threw Arete to the cabin floor as a brilliant yellow ball of fire lit the windows on the starboard side of the airliner. Interior alarms sounded and emergency oxygen masks dropped from their ceiling compartments as the aircraft lurched and the interior lights winked.
Then came the noise of the blast, deafening as the shock wave shattered the windows. The interior of the cabin suddenly mimicked the inside of a dryer running full blast. Papers, cups, cushions, magazines, napkins — anything not nailed down flew about the cabin or was sucked outside.
Jack heard the engines straining to keep the aircraft aloft. Then they cut out and the wheels slammed onto the runway, too hard for the landing gear to support the impact. Tires blew, steel snapped, and the landing gear folded. The burning aircraft teetered to port, then the belly hit the concrete and skidded along, trailing a torrent of hot white sparks.
Tony’s land line warbled. He reached across his desk and grabbed the receiver. “Almeida.”
“There’s a Marine Corps captain checking in at the security desk and asking to see Ms. Myers. But the Chief of Staff is not responding to my call.”
“Nina’s in the middle of a video conference with Bill Buchanan from the Seattle office,” Tony replied. “I’ll be right there.”
Tony locked down his computer and headed off to the security desk. On the way, he stopped by Jamey’s area and picked up the latest printout on the mysterious memory stick, which he stuffed into the folder under his arm. He glanced at it first, disappointed to find they had discovered next to nothing in the past two hours of “expert analysis.”
At the security desk, Tony discovered that not all Marines are created equal. This particular captain had blond hair caught in a ponytail, a killer figure in a dress blue uniform, and clear blue eyes to go with her two silver bars.
“Captain,” said Tony, offering her a smile with his hand. “I’m Agent Almeida, head of intelligence here at CTU.”
Nearly as tall as Tony, the woman met his openly appraising gaze as she took his hand in a firm grip.
“I’m Captain Jessica Schneider. Commander of the Special Weapon Analysis Unit in South Korea.”
Her name jarred his memory cells, but the context eluded him. “Welcome to Los Angeles. Come with me and I’ll bring you up to speed.”
As they moved through the busy command center, Captain Schneider took in the setup while Tony deciphered the ribbons and service pins that adorned her uniform. “First Marine Division,” Tony observed. “Looks like you and I ate some of the same dirt.”
A half smile crossed her full lips. “You’re a jarhead?”
“Ex.”
“You’re missing all the fun, then.”
Tony discerned a slight Texas drawl, another clue he felt was important, but he had yet to make the connection. They arrived at the cyber-analysis section. Tony ran his key card through the lock, opened the door. “We actually have lots of fun here at CTU, too.”
Tony offered Captain Schneider a chair, then slid the latest report on the memory stick under her nose. “This is what we’ve got, so far.”
Captain Schneider opened the folder, leafed through it. She lifted two photographs of the object and studied them closely. After a moment, she reached into her pocket and donned delicately framed reading glasses. “And you found this memory stick where?”
“At LAX, this morning,” Tony replied. “It was attached to an array of tubes in the hands of a suspected terrorist. The device looked like a shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile launcher. Unfortunately we lost both the terrorist and the device when the group self-destructed to avoid capture.”
Captain Schneider closed the file. “This data stick you recovered is a component in the most advanced handheld anti-aircraft missile launcher developed to date by the hostile regime in North Korea.”
Tony was impressed. “You’re sure.”
“I’ve seen one before. The launcher, not the memory stick.”
“On the DMZ in Korea?”
Captain Schneider’s blond ponytail bobbed when she shook her head. “On the Texas/Mexico border. About eight weeks ago, the DEA grabbed a launcher in a narcotics raid. The system is highly advanced. It has been code named Long Tooth by the Pentagon. The launcher has twin firing tubes and a computer programming system that interfaces with the missiles themselves. Unfortunately no missiles were recovered so we don’t know their capabilities as yet. ”