Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [5]
Jack knew his hearing had returned when he heard the roar of a Boeing 727. Its wheels skidded onto the tarmac of runway seven, on its fuselage the familiar red and gold National Express banner.
Jack stood and showed the prisoner the device. "What is this?"
The captive smirked, and one of the agents cuffed him with an angry backhand. Jack quickly stepped between the two. "Enough," he said simply. He slipped the mysterious object into his overalls and searched the prisoner's pockets. He found a butterfly knife and a wallet, which contained over a thousand dollars in cash, credit cards issued in several names, and a New York State driver's license with a Brooklyn address. Jack held the picture up next to the captive's head for comparison. They matched.
Jack tried to key his headset, only to discover he'd lost it in the explosion, or the fight. "Raise Tony Almeida on the horn; tell him to get me all the information he can on a Dante Arete out of New York..."
"Can't raise him, sir," said one of the agents. "Almeida is off the net."
Leaving the two agents with the prisoner, Jack jogged around to the front of the power shed. Ahead he saw the hollow shell of the Explorer, burning too hot to approach. Black rubber flowed like water from the melted tires; the human occupants were unrecognizable. Farther ahead, the white maintenance van in which they'd arrived was still smoking, a bullet hole the size of a baseball had tattooed the grill.
Two CTU tactical assault vehicles were just rolling up behind the smoldering white van. A five-man assault team bailed out of each vehicle before they came to a complete stop. Jack glanced at the digital display on his watch, surprised that less than one hundred seconds had elapsed since the first shot was fired.
Jack exhaled with relief when he saw Tony standing next to the open bay of the disabled van. Agent Blackburn was next to him, his helmet off, leathery brown skin gleaming with perspiration. Only then did Jack see the figure sprawled halfway out of the van. One of the agents had been struck by a stray bullet. Jack recalled the meaty sound, saw that a river of blood had poured out of the van from the agent's shattered helmet. He raced forward until he was close enough to stare into Gina Costigan's shocked, dead eyes.
"Son of a bitch..."
Tony turned at the sound of Jack's curse.
"Call for a medivac," Jack told him.
"We did. It will be here in less than a minute. But it's too late, Jack. She's gone..."
Bauer leaned against the wrecked van, its stilled engine hissing and popping as it cooled. He sucked in the desert air as the adrenaline that had pumped through his body finally drained away, leaving him weak, thinking of Gina's husband, her daughter...then of Teri and Kim.
"What have you got?" Tony was there, in front of his face.
Jack looked up, eyes bleak. "A prisoner named Dante Arete, and a piece of plastic..."
* * *
Ninety minutes later, the point team for CTU Los Angeles sat around the table in the briefing room. A brunette with a face of sharp angles and a large, expressive mouth, Nina Myers, Jack's wisp-thin Chief of Staff, brought the group up to speed on the man Jack had apprehended at LAX.
Nina was a machine — dependable, efficient, methodical. Single, in her thirties, she had come to CTU with a reputation as a gifted intelligence analyst and a respected authority on domestic and international counter terrorism policy. She was one of the few people Jack had ever met whose level of intensity and commitment appeared to match his own. Unlike Jack, however, who saw the importance of encouraging and protecting underlings, Nina managed staff by being blunt. Jack rationalized this as "directness" born of earnestness. Maybe he cut her some slack because she was so damned good at what she did, maybe because she