“How did the Marine Corps find out about it? The DEA isn’t known for sharing intelligence with the military.”
“I found out through a…personal contact. I know someone on the House Intelligence Oversight Committee.”
Tony Almeida closed his eyes a nanosecond, stifled a groan. “Your father — he’s Congressman Roy Schneider of Texas?”
The Captain nodded. To cover her discomfort, she changed the subject. “Have you retrieved any data from the memory stick?”
“It’s encrypted. We have an expert on North Korean software trying to crack it now. No progress to report.”
Captain Schneider felt it, just then. The instant chill. One mention of her father and there it was: clipped words, tense posture, guarded look. Amazing how fast he shifted, she thought. While she was not surprised by the CTU agent’s reaction, she was more than a little disappointed that he had so easily — and predictably — made the same assumptions as everyone else. No matter how hard she worked, no matter what she accomplished, every time her colleagues discovered the identity of her father, they immediately assumed that she had attained her rank and position through nepotism rather than merit.
Captain Schneider rose, tucked the file under her arm. When she spoke, she added frost to her own voice. “Agent Almeida, I’d like to meet this expert of yours, see for myself how the decryption is progressing.”
Jack’s first sensation was pain. His ribs felt bruised. Something warm and sticky had trickled from his head to the side of his face. He heard a crackle. Without moving a muscle, Jack slowly opened one eye to find a live wire dangling from a shattered panel near his head. When he glanced down, he saw the steel bracelet was still clamped to his wrist, but on the other end of the chain was a pair of empty cuffs, the key missing from his pocket. Jack took a deep breath and almost gagged on the thick smoke he’d thought for a moment was just his hazy vision.
The aircraft’s interior emergency lights were still functioning, the fuselage tilted at an odd angle. Jack realized that he’d been thrown into a corner and the airline seat had broken loose from its mount and covered him. Squinting through his eyelashes, he saw Arete standing near an emergency exit. He was having trouble opening the door. The impact of the crash probably had jammed the hatch.
Stumbling through the smoke, the pilot emerged from the forward compartment, fumbled for the handgun at his belt. Arete froze, unarmed and helpless. Then a shot boomed loud, followed by another. The pilot was thrown back, into a bulkhead — dead before he hit the ground. Frank Hensley emerged from the shadows, reloading the Glock.
He looked at Arete. “Where’s Bauer?”
“Why the hell should I help you, amigo? You were gonna shoot right through me.”
“Don’t be a jackass,” Hensley replied. “I was bluffing. Talking tough. You should know all about that. Anyway, I just shot that pilot to cover your ass.”
Arete rubbed his wrist where the cuffs had chafed him. Then he kicked the stubborn emergency hatch. “Bauer’s over there, man. Under that goddamned chair. It don’t matter anyway. We ain’t getting out of here alive…”
Hensley glanced in Jack’s direction, spied Bauer’s legs sticking out of a pile of wreckage. He pulled latex gloves and a handkerchief out of his pocket, donned the gloves, and carefully wiped down the Glock with the handkerchief. Then he shifted the Glock to his left hand, drew his service revolver with his right, and approached Bauer.
Through his half-closed eyes, Jack had been watching Hensley. But playing dead in a burning aircraft was no longer an option. He had to act. When Hens-ley hauled the chair away, Jack grabbed the live wire above him and shoved the still-sparking tip against Hensley’s left arm. The FBI agent yowled and jumped backward, simultaneously discharging the revolver and letting go of the Glock. The shot missed Jack, who was already rolling away, snapping up the Glock before diving behind the cover of upended seats.
“Kill him, man!” Arete was frantic. Over the crackling fire and popping steel, they heard the distant sound of sirens. “You better waste him fast. If he starts talking—”
“Shut up!” Hensley spied Jack a moment later and opened fire.
Arete kept clutching his head and moaning. “I don’t wanna die here.”
Pinned, Jack looked around for an exit, saw one not five feet away — through five feet of open space. He’d have to get there, release the lever, and hope it wouldn’t jam before Hensley had time to hit him. Jack figured his chances were less than ten percent, but he had no choice.
Suddenly the broken aircraft lurched again, setting off a series of explosions from somewhere outside. The force of the successive blasts rocked the airplane and bounced its inhabitants around. Two things happened next: Hensley was jerked against a table bolted to the floor. He flipped over it and struck his head, his service revolver tumbling to Dante Arete’s feet. And the jammed hatch that wouldn’t budge for Dante a few moments before burst open, filling the choking compartment with cool night air.
Arete didn’t hesitate. He snatched Hensley’s weapon and jumped through the exit. Jack cried out, stumbled to his feet. Still clutching the Glock, he bolted for the same exit, stopping in the doorway to see Arete’s heading. Then he turned around and tried to find Hensley, but the smoke had become too thick.
In the choking darkness of the fuselage, he bumped into the corpse of one of the murdered Federal agents. Jack reached into the man’s jacket, found a loaded Browning Hi-Power and some extra ammo.
Jack had to make a choice and he knew it. He gave up trying to find Hensley. Instead he climbed out of the shattered aircraft and took off across the tarmac, in pursuit of the fugitive Arete.
Milo Pressman sat at his workstation, located between Jamey Farrell’s cubicle and the auxiliary computer station where Doris had set up shop.
Milo had been complaining for hours, to anyone who would listen, about being called back to work and away from his girlfriend. Apparently the whole mess was a relationship wrecker, or so he told Jamey Farrell.
“Look,” said Jamey. “Either she understands what you do or she doesn’t.”
“Tina used to understand. Now she doesn’t.”
Milo’s pocket sent out ringtones of a Green Day download. Of course it was Tina. The cell phone conversation quickly degenerated into an argument. Jamey and Doris heard every word on Milo’s end. He hadn’t bothered trying to make the call private.
Jamey decided to fill in some blanks for Doris.
“Of course I’m not with some other woman,” Milo told his girlfriend.
“No,” whispered Jamey. “But your tongue was sure hanging out when Tony introduced you to Captain Schneider.”
Doris pushed up her large glasses with her index finger. “What’s a girl like that got that we haven’t got?”
Jamey shrugged and smiled. “Blond hair, rich daddy, and a sexy drawl that makes men drool.”
Doris smiled back and shook her head. “Barbie in a uniform. Hardly seems fair.”
“Agent Hensley! Agent Hensley!”
Sirens wailed, emergency lights flashed. In the distance, a massive aircraft hangar burned, orange flames licking the black night sky. A firefighter cupped blackened hands around his mouth and called out for Hensley one more time.