Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [7]
A three-toned ring interrupted his thoughts. Jack answered the briefing room phone, listened for a moment, then slammed down the receiver.
Nina met his eyes. "What's wrong?"
"There's an FBI agent at the security gate with two federal marshals in tow. They're here to claim custody of Dante Arete."
"They can't do that!" Tony threw up his hands. "We haven't even told the other agencies about this operation yet. How the hell did the FBI find out?"
Jack glanced back at the monitor, then rose. "Tony, Nina. Intercept our visitors, stall for time. I'm going to talk to Arete right now."
Almeida folded his arms and shook his head. "Come on, Jack. Get real. How long do you think we can stall them?"
Jack stared at Tony, his voice soft steel: "As long as you can." He strode to the door, jerked it open. Ryan Chappelle blocked his path. The Regional Director of CTU locked eyes with Jack, who looked away.
"Hello, Jack..."
"Ryan, I've got to go..."
"You've got to stay right here, Special Agent Bauer," Chappelle said evenly. "We're going to sit down together and wait for Special Agent Hensley of the FBI to be escorted in." Chappelle looked over Jack's shoulder. "The rest of you can go back to your stations. Now."
As they filed out, Nina gave Jack a sidelong glance, Tony Almeida couldn't hide his disgust.
"That's okay," said Milo Pressman, glancing at his watch. "I'm off duty as of an hour ago."
Jamey Farrell paused at the door, searched Jack's face for some sign of what to do.
"Get back to work, Jamey," Chappelle commanded, impatient with what he saw as the Loyal Staff act. He'd seen it before where Jack's people were concerned, and he didn't like it. When the petite woman was gone, he closed the door behind her. Then Ryan Chappelle turned to find Jack Bauer in his face.
"You can't let the FBI take Arete away from us." Jack's voice was soft but tight. "At least not until we interrogate him."
"It's out of my hands."
"Ryan, I lost an agent today. She was twenty-eight years old..."
"A tragedy." Ryan turned from Jack, brushed his fingertips along the conference table. "The good news for you is I won't hold you accountable, even though I recommended that we hold off on the action you took until further voice tests could be made on the phone tip."
"There was no time, Ryan. You know that. And you know we paid a high price for Arete. We can't just give him up without a fight."
Chappelle sat down, leaned back, and opened his arms. "We're all on the same team, Jack. Think of it as a gesture of interagency cooperation."
Almost imperceptibly, Jack winced. "Cooperation's been a one-way street with the Bureau since day one. You know that, Ryan."
"Maybe this gesture will change things."
But Jack knew letting go of Dante Arete would change nothing. The current Administration had intentionally erected an impenetrable wall between the various governmental law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They were not allowed to share intelligence, even if it involved the same suspects, the same crimes. The CIA had allowed CTU to be created as an experiment in getting around those dangerously constraining walls, but they only seemed to grow higher. These days, interagency cooperation was not only rare, it was illegal. While Jack bristled under the limitations of what he saw as an absurd policy, the pragmatic and ambitious Ryan Chappelle chose to adapt.
Chappelle was the new model for a career bureaucrat. A product of Wharton's MBA program, he'd come up through assistant positions in the Agency; no field work, no military or police training, which made him suspect in Bauer's mind. Post-Cold War Washington had already taken the teeth out of its intelligence communities, making the language of give-and-take and compromise and political correctness the terms of survival in the current