“Hopefully from a discreet distance.”
“You know how that goes,” Alder replied.
Castalano cursed. It was his case, but he was losing control of it. Bad enough Jack Bauer convinced him to turn over the victim’s computer. Though Castalano knew he would get an analysis of the computer’s hard drive and history faster from CTU than from his own department, it was a double bind — Jack or his bosses could also withhold information from the LAPD in the name of “national security.”
“Christ, Jerry,” Castalano moaned, “with so many squad cars and guns around here, the odds for a capture instead of a kill are looking as bad as a Vegas slot machine. And the fucking air dispatcher warned me that word was getting out about the church bus full of kids the perp ran off the road.”
“That was bad,” Alder replied. “But it gets worse.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Nina Vandervorn of TV News Nine just phoned the chief,” Alder said. “The station has got footage of the police cars in front of Vetri’s house, the ambulances coming and going. Says she’s running with the footage on the noon news—”
“Shit.”
“We can’t keep this buried much longer,” Alder warned.
“Noon is a couple of hours away,” Castalano said, his mind racing. “If we can snatch up this asshole in the Jag, we might solve our case. Go ahead and get permission to schedule a news conference for eleven o’clock. We might have our man by then. Either way, we’ll control release of the information—and steal Ms. Vandervorn’s thunder.”
Jack Bauer opened his eyes the instant Teri’s hand touched his shoulder. He didn’t need to check his watch to know he hadn’t slept long. His hair was still damp from the shower, and his head still throbbed.
Teri stood over him, the cordless phone in one hand. “Sorry to wake you, Jack. It’s Nina Myers.”
Jack sat up, took the phone. He held the receiver to his naked chest until Teri exited the bedroom. Then he put the phone to his ear.
“Nina?”
“What are you doing, Jack?” Nina cried. “Ryan Chappelle flew back from D.C. on the red-eye and hit the roof.”
“I don’t follow.” Jack rubbed his injured arm, now stiff from sleep.
“The raid at Utopia Studios. It was supposed to be a clandestine operation. Now it’s on the morning news.”
“Jesus,” Jack groaned.
“I talked to Chet Blackburn. He told me you took off with some Los Angeles detective. Something personal. Does that computer the Cyber-Unit brought in have something to do with it?”
“Yes.”
“Needless to say, I kept those facts from Ryan. He’s angry enough as it is.”
“Thanks, Nina, I’ll explain everything when I get there.”
“You’d better fly.”
Jack glanced at his watch. “Give me half an hour.”
Nina sighed. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I owe you, Nina.”
“Yes, Jack. You do.”
5. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 A.M. AND 10 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
When CTU’s head programmer, Jamey Farrell, arrived at her workstation to start the day, she was surprised to find Milo Pressman at the diagnostics platform. Milo was a network and encryption specialist and head of CTU computer security. Snapped up by CTU just out of Stanford University, he had soulful eyes, black, curly hair, and still wore the earring he’d acquired in graduate school.
Petite, wiry, and Hispanic, Jamey was only two years older than Milo, but as a divorced single mother of a toddler son, she often felt more like a decade older in maturity. Case in point: Milo never arrived early for work, yet here he was, downloading the memory from a Dell desktop.
“Welcome home, stranger. Back so soon?” Jamey said, dropping her purse.
Pressmen sat back in his chair. “Miss me?” he teased.
“No,” Jamey declared, popping the lid on her Star-bucks. “It was nice not having a man around the house. When did you get back?”
“I took the red-eye from Washington last night. Flew in with Ryan Chappelle — first class. He gave me a ride back to headquarters with him, too.”
“Ohhh, I’m impressed.” Jamey’s tone implied she wasn’t.
“Come on, Jamey. Cut the guy some slack. Chappelle’s not so bad. Looks to me like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Jamey waved his comment aside. “You’ve been in Washington too long. You’re talking like a bureaucrat.”
“Langley’s in Virginia.”
Jamey sipped her French Roast — cream, triple sugar — while she eyed Milo’s set up. “What’s all this?”
Milo shrugged. “Found it wrapped in plastic on the table. The directive clipped to it said Jack sent the PC over for analysis. Arrived this morning, according to the manifest.”
“You need any help with that?”
“I got it under control,” Milo replied. “Where’s Fay?”
“She’s in the field with Tony Almeida. Down in Mexico looking for some guy named Lesser.”
Milo gaped. “Richard Lesser.”
Jamey looked up. “How did you know?”
“Let’s say I’m not surprised. I knew ‘Little Dick’ Lesser at Stanford. He was a total asshole then. Called himself the Goddess Silica’s gift to programming.”
“The Goddess Silica?”
Milo shrugged. “Some gaming shit. Let’s backtrack a bit…Did you say Fay’s looking for Lesser in Mexico?”
“It’s all in the daily update. Red file seven.”
“Who’s got time to read the update? I just got here after two weeks at the Puzzle Palace, and another week spent almost entirely in an emissions-proof and windowless cave at Foggy Bottom. I haven’t slept for twenty hours. Anyway, I’ve—”
Suddenly Milo was on his feet. “What the hell? I just got an unknown virus warning.”
Jamey heard the warning tone a moment later, and nearly dropped her coffee. “Where did it come from?”
“I was downloading the memory from this desktop and my security protocols went crazy. How long has it been since the archives were updated?”
CTU’s computer security archives stored a copy of every worm, virus, spyware, and adware program released onto the World Wide Web as soon as it made an appearance. The ongoing collection and analysis of computer “mayhem ware” as Milo dubbed it was one of CTU’s mandates, and the Cyber-Unit’s most important tasks. Jamey was scrupulous about updating the system at least twice a day and Milo knew it.
“Listen, Milo…I updated the archives last night at nine o’clock, before I went home. You can see the update log right on the screen.”
“Calm down. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Can you isolate it?”
“W00t!” cheered Milo “I already have.”
Milo stroked his keyboard as he quarantined the virus in a secure file, assigned the data a PIN, then dispatched it to the archives. He kept a copy isolated in his own system, too, for analysis.
While Milo was hunched over his computer, typing away, Jamey lifted Jack Bauer’s directive from the top of a ball of clear plastic wrap the Dell had been swathed in.
“The virus is in one mother of a file — a Trojan horse. It’s hidden inside a movie download,” said Milo.
“That makes sense,” said Jamey. “This computer belongs to Hugh Vetri. He’s a movie producer.”
“Cool,” said Milo. “How did you know?”
Jamey waved the directive under his nose. “Because I actually read this memo past page one.”
Milo blinked. “This download. The file’s called Gates of Heaven. Isn’t that the name of a new movie?”