Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [26]
Captain Schneider detached the memory stick from the data port it had been plugged into. She placed the device inside a static-free Mylar envelope and headed back to the Cyber Unit.
When she was gone, Tony confronted Nina.
"What are you doing giving Captain Schneider a spot on the Crisis Team? She's not an agent; she's a computer engineer. Captain Schneider doesn't have any field experience and she isn't even a member of CTU."
"We needed her expertise," Nina replied, still staring over Doris's shoulder at the images crawling across the HDTV screen.
Tony shook his head. "I don't accept your explanation. What does Chappelle have to say about all this?"
Nina rose to her full height, faced Tony Almeida. "Ryan Chappelle is on a conference call to Washington. He's working to control the damage, which is pretty important right now. That means he has no time to monitor the Crisis Team, so he left that task to me. In case you've forgotten, Jack left me in charge, too, so I'm handling the situation. My way."
* * *
12:11:18 A.M. EDT
Tatiana's Tavern
Georgi Timko cradled his friend's head in his bloodstained hands. Jack ripped away the ragged flannel shirt to check the downed man's wounds. Jack could see the man had taken three shots — to the chest, the shoulder, the abdomen. The shoulder wound was not life-threatening. It was impossible to tell how bad the abdominal wound was, but the largest injury was a sucking chest wound. When Jack tried to plug the hole and allow him to breathe, the man gasped, choked on the blood that shot up from his flooded lung and flowed from his mouth.
The man was doomed and Jack knew it. But at the behest of the heavy-set man, whose piercing gray eyes both commanded and pleaded, Jack went to work, applying every first aid skill he'd acquired in fifteen-plus years of service in the Army, and later in the elite, anti-terrorist organization Delta Force. Jack managed to staunch the flow of blood, but the wounded man's eyes glazed over.
"Alexi, stay with me," Timko urged, shaking him.
"We have to move him," said Jack.
Together they lifted the man and placed him on a table.
"I need more light."
Timko ducked behind the bar and returned with a battery-operated lantern. Jack carefully rolled the man on his side to check for exit wounds. There were two. One, as large as a tennis ball, had taken out part of the man's spine.
The man on the table gasped in distress, opened his eyes, and thrashed about on the table. Despite his wounds, he fought with great strength.
"Alexi, Alexi! Keep looking at me. Stay with us," Timko urged.
He calmed when he saw Timko bending over him. Alexi coughed, then slumped back onto the blood-soaked table.
"I'm here, Alexi," Timko assured him, his eyes damp as he took the man's hand and squeezed it.
Alexi looked up at Timko and managed a smile. He closed his eyes and muttered in Russian. "I can hear the helicopter. They will be here soon to take me away..."
A minute later, Alexi was gone.
"I'm sorry," Jack said quietly.
Timko nodded as a tear escaped his eye, lost its way in the stubble of his unshaven cheek. "Alexi was a decent man...for a Russian pig."
Jack studied the dead man's naked hide, crisscrossed with old scars. Someone had used a knife to inflict deep wounds that had shredded the flesh on his abdomen and chest. Jack knew that type of cut was meant to cause the most agony a human could endure. He looked up, met the heavy-set man's stare with his own.
"This man. He fought in Afghanistan," said Jack.
Georgi looked away. "Don't be absurd."
"Scars don't lie," Jack replied. "This man was tortured by the mujahideen."
"Who are you? What do you want from me?"
"My name is Jack Bauer. I'm not from around here. I'm in town for a