Nina’s breath caught, and Jack knew she’d opened the crime scene folder.
“Listen, Nina. Ibn al Farad claims to be a disciple of Hasan. He may have even had personal contact with the terrorist leader.”
“If this is true, this man is our first real lead—”
“There’s more. The suspect was under the influence of Karma when he was captured. The LAPD recovered a vial of the substance from the car he’d totaled.”
“Then the DEA was right,” said Nina. “The drug is on the street.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I think something else might be going on.” Jack stroked his temple with his thumb and index finger. His head was beginning to throb again. “I’m bringing the suspect in for interrogation. I should be there in thirty minutes.”
“I’ll get things ready on this end.”
“One more thing.” Jack paused, gulped down two Tylenol capsules. “Detective Frank Castalano told me that after Farad was captured, he used an odd phrase several times. The old man on the mountain, or maybe the old man in the mountains. Find out what that means, if anything. Check our current databanks. Check MI-5, Interpol. And search the historic databanks, too.”
“I’ll do that myself,” Nina replied. “Do you need Chet Blackburn’s tactical squad to escort you back to headquarters?”
“There’s no time,” said Jack. “The Saudi Arabian Embassy probably knows the police have Ibn al Farad. His father is a powerful and wealthy man. I want to stay one step ahead of his lawyers. We’re out of here in two minutes.”
“Understood.”
Tony tasted metal, smelled cat piss. A persistent roar battered his eardrums as air rushed over him, as if he were trapped inside a wind tunnel.
He opened his eyes and saw a dirty ceiling, faded industrial green paint peeling. The only illumination came from a shaft of sunlight pouring through a small, barred vent in the roof. He moved his head and felt a lance of pain jab the base of his neck. Tony tried to massage the area, discovered his hands were cuffed behind his back. He shifted position — a move that caused sluggish agony as blood slowly returned to his numb arms, wrists and hands. His feet, at least, were not shackled, but his boots were gone. So was his combat knife, the empty sheath still strapped to his calf.
Using his legs and shoulders, Tony sat up, a move which caused black jets of agony to explode behind his eyes. He’d been sprawled on an uneven wooden floor, now he’d propped himself up against a stack of packing crates. In the corner, an ancient box spring, stripped down its metal innards, leaned against the dirty brick wall. The rusty metal was burned black in some places, scorched white in others. Tony realized its purpose and shuddered.
He took a deep breath and found that the stench was worse sitting up. A chemical reek was carried by a blasting hot wind that rippled his long hair, now half freed of its ponytail. A sharp smell like nail polish remover burned his nostrils, mixed with an eye-stinging blast of ammonia. Tony wanted to cover his mouth, but it was impossible. Not only was he bound, but his fingers had swollen like sausages. When he could finally move them a few moments later, he found he’d been shackled with old-fashioned metal handcuffs that were too small, too tight. Recreational cuffs for the kinky set, most likely a prop from the brothel where he’d been snatched.
Tony heard voices speaking Spanish, lolled his head to the side. Peering between boxes, he saw three men working around a bank of identical white kitchen stoves where a dozen clear glass beakers bubbled with fluids. Vapors rose, filling translucent plastic tubes with dark brown sediment. The tubes, the beakers, were connected together with duct tape and wires.
He realized with alarm that he was inside an illegal methamphetamine lab — one of the largest he’d ever seen. Most illicit labs could fit into a large suitcase, and cost only a few hundred dollars up front to obtain the parts. But this lab was churning out the stuff like an assembly line.
Two of the three men were clad in blue plastic Tyvek suits, rubber gloves, oversized galoshes on their feet in lieu of chemical-proof environmental boots. They wore air filters around their noses and mouths, carpentry goggles over their eyes. The third man, thin to the point of emaciation, was wrapped head to toe in black plastic garbage bags, wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s hat on his head. Behind the gauze veil he wore a vintage World War II gas mask.
Industrial strength fans on tall metal stands did their best to clear the toxic miasma of cooking chemicals out of the air, but Tony knew every breath he took in this place was deadly. Methamphetamine labs were among the most toxic environments on the planet. The process of cooking pseudoephedrine pills — over-the-counter cold medicine — into a powerfully addictive drug known in the states under street names like crank, crystal, zip or hillbilly heroin produced lethal by-products. For every pound of the manufactured drug, six pounds of toxic waste was created. Tony saw drains in the floor, the concrete bleached white around them, and knew these men were simply dumping their poisonous leftovers like benzene, hydrochloric acid, and sodium cyanide into the sewer system.
Studying his surroundings, he realized he was inside the brick ice house behind the brothel. He wondered why he’d been grabbed. Had he been double-crossed by his “old pal” Ray Dobyns, or was the con man a victim, too? Was Tony just a gringo kidnapping and extortion victim of a Mexican gang? Or was his capture related to CTU’s pursuit of Richard Lesser?
Most of all, Tony wondered if Fay Hubley was safe back at the hotel.
There had been an accident on the freeway. A jackknifed truck was now sprawled across three lanes. All traffic going the same direction as the LAPD prisoner transport vehicle and its escorts was at a standstill.
Fortunately Jack Bauer, in the lead vehicle, received a timely warning from the pilot of the police helicopter providing aerial surveillance. He steered the convoy off the highway at the next ramp, before they got tangled up in the bottleneck. They were only a few miles from CTU Headquarters, so rather than risk the choked main streets, Jack directed the three-vehicle caravan through a lightly traveled industrial area where the traffic consisted mostly of trucks and commercial vehicles.
The streets were congested around the freeway ramp, but as soon as the convoy reached Clark Street they made up for lost time.
Glancing at his watch, Jack cursed the delay. Back at Central Facilities, Detective Castalano insisted Jack ride in the lead vehicle along with a uniformed driver and a fully outfitted member of the LAPD Special Weapons and Tactics team. His logic made sense. Jack would have to get the parade through CTU gate security, and that would be easier if he were at the head of the convoy. But Jack felt he was losing valuable time. If he’d ridden in the same vehicle as the prisoner, he might have gotten an early start on his interrogation.
But at least the LAPD had supplied enough men to get them to CTU safely, even though resources were stretched because of the Silver Screen Awards ceremony scheduled for that evening. Beyond the armored van Jack rode in, there was a second armored vehicle containing two SWAT team members bringing up the rear — both members of the D Platoon of the Metro Division. Sandwiched between the two vans was an LAPD prisoner transport truck containing Detective Castalano, his partner Jerry Alder, two uniformed officers and the prisoner, Ibn al Farad. Above, a police chopper monitored their movement and directed them around obstacles.
But Jack was still not sufficiently satisfied with the security arrangement. Before they left the Central Facilities, he insisted on tagging the prisoner as an added precaution. While Castalano and Alder located an ankle bracelet and attached it to the young man, Jack removed one of the stems on his wristwatch. Unseen, he rested his hand on the suspect, pinning the tiny transmitter to the collar of Ibn al Farad’s white jumpsuit, effectively double-tagging him.