Collateral Damage - Marc Cerasini [22]
"Okay," Jack said while he watched Tony use a gravity knife to sever the wire that led from the explosive charge to the timer. Tony then opened the back of the clock and removed a small battery. Immediately, the numbers stopped flashing and the digital face went dark.
Jack quietly exhaled.
"Are you there, Jack?" Morris demanded. "It's not polite to ignore a man who's called you."
"I'm here," Jack replied wearily. "What have you got for me? The good news."
"I've broken through Brice Holman's security firewall," Morris declared with a hint of pride. "The contents of the Director's computer are yours to peruse."
"Good work, Morris. What's the downside?"
The memory's been wiped clean. Holman's cache is empty. And get this... According to the computer log, the memory was wiped this morning at six twenty-one A.M."
"Then there's a mole in CTU New York. Maybe more than one. We checked the entry logs. We know Brice Holman was never here today. That means somebody else deleted those files." Jack paused, rubbed his aching temple. "How about the laptop I brought you?"
"I'm afraid all Fredo Mangella was doing was converting currency. Dollars into euros. Millions of them. It was all on the up-and-up." Morris frowned. "Might be a dead end, Jack."
"No," Jack insisted. "It's important, but I don't know why. Not yet. We're still missing a piece of the puzzle."
"I'll keep looking, but all I see are recipes and payroll records. You won't believe what an executive chef earns!"
"Listen, Morris. One more thing. Tony Almeida has a device for you to check out."
Morris sighed. "Now what would that be, boss? A computer? Another laptop?"
"A bomb," Jack replied.
* * *
11:28:05 A.M. EDT
CTU Headquarters, NYC
After swallowing two cups of black coffee and three Advils, Jack felt considerably better. Tony had gone back to finishing his work on the security system, and Morris had taken the explosive device to the blast-proof room for further examination.
Now Jack was sitting behind Brice Holman's desk, waking his computer out of hibernation. The firewalls were down and Holman's computer cache was empty, as Morris had said.
Jack moved to the nonsecured files Holman kept, and ran a search using keywords FBI, DEA, and ATF. At first dozens of interagency alerts came up — practically all of them were Most Wanted List updates, Amber Alerts, or government releases. Jack filtered them out.
Then he found the draft of an e-mail to Judith Foy. Holman had never finished or sent the message, but the e-mail mentioned "our friends at the FBI" and "Jello and Rollo," obviously code names.
Jack punched the intercom and summoned Layla Abernathy.
"I want you to contact Andrew McConnell," he told her the moment she walked in.
"The Director of the local FBI office?"
"That's right. I want you to ask him if any of his agents are involved in an investigation of the Warriors of God, Imam Ali Rahman al Sallifi, or the compound at Kurmastan."
Layla nodded. "Anything else?"
"Don't be upset if you don't get any answers. Just report back to me. I want to know what McConnell says, word for word. His tone, his attitude, his inflection."
"If you want all that, why can't you talk to him yourself?" she asked.
"You'll see," was Jack's only reply.
* * *
11:33:16AM. EDT
CTU Headquarters, NYC
Layla left Holman's office with a stiff stride. She could understand Jack Bauer's being unhappy with the present situation, but she didn't like being kept in the dark. Brice had kept her that way for weeks, and she'd had enough of it.
She didn't care for Bauer's manner, either. He was obviously a gung-ho, Type A, goal-oriented alpha male. The kind of guy who'd roll over anything or anyone who got in his way.
Layla had made some discreet inquiries about the man and wasn't surprised to discover that Bauer had a reputation for being a loose cannon. Strangely, however, not one of Layla's contacts had characterized him as political. Apparently, for Jack Bauer, career advancement wasn't a high priority.
That impressed Layla, along with the man's reputation for being