Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [99]
"Where are you?"
"Look up. Check on your friend."
On the mezzanine Jack saw Caitlin, face pale. Beside her, a tall man with dark skin and bleached blond hair clutched her arm. Despite his Western clothes, Jack recognized him from the files on his PDA.
"Omar Bayat," Jack whispered.
"You recognize me," Bayat replied. "I should be flattered."
"Let her go. Take me hostage, instead," Jack insisted.
"I'm not looking for a hostage, Mr. Bauer. I just want to get out of here without you following me."
"That's fine. What do you want me to do?"
"There's a mailbox about fifty feet away. Do you see it?" Bayat asked.
"I see it."
"I want you to walk over to that box and drop your cell phone and weapon into it."
"If I do that, what do I get in return?"
"I'll let this woman go, after I'm out of the station. Otherwise I'll kill her on the spot with my bare hands, and no one in the crowd will be the wiser."
Jack hesitated.
"You know I can do it, Bauer. Move to the mailbox now or she dies."
"I'm going," said Jack. He was ten feet from the mailbox when the blond man Jack had accosted by mistake returned — with two New York City policemen in tow.
"He's the one!" The blond man pointed out Jack. "He pulled a gun on me!"
Members of the crowd around Jack heard the blond man's statement and moved to get out of the way. Jack used the crowd to shield himself as he turned and ran in the opposite direction. As he raced through the mob of commuters, Jack heard Omar Bayat laughing over his headset.
"Wait, Bayat. Let her go," Jack cried. "She can't hurt you now and neither can I."
"She goes with me, Bauer," Bayat replied. "A man named Griffin Lynch is anxious to meet her."
Jack heard the hiss of dead air. "Son of a bitch!"
"Halt!" a voice barked. Jack heard screams and glanced over his shoulder. The policemen were still chasing him. One of them had his weapon out. Luckily, the man couldn't get a clear shot because so many civilians were in the way. Jack continued to weave in and out of the crowd until he burst onto Forty-second Street.
Traffic was heavy, but moving. Along Forty-second Street, there were cars and trucks as far as the eye could see. Jack looked around, looking for a way out. At any moment, the policemen were going to emerge on the street, where they might just get a shot at him.
Then, across the street, Jack spied a burly man sitting astride an idling Harley-Davidson motorcycle, an American flag waving on a short staff above the rear wheel. The bike was all chrome and rumbling engine.
Perfect, thought Jack. Despite the traffic, he ran into the street, darting between moving cars. A taxicab driver refused to brake for him, so he rolled across the yellow hood. Landing on his feet beside the biker, Jack caught the man's long ponytail, yanked him off the motorcycle.
Before the man could stumble to his feet, Jack gunned the engine and sped away, racing down the sidewalk. Pedestrians scattered as he shot down the pavement for more than a block. Finally, confronted by a knot of tourists gathering under the awning of a hotel, Jack swerved back onto the street.
Using his headset, Jack made contact with CTU. Chappelle answered the call. "Let me put you on speakerphone, Jack."
"The man who assumed Agent Ferrer's identity is really Omar Bayat, Taj Ali Kahlil's associate and the leading exporter of terrorism for the Taliban government in Afghanistan."
"How do you know, Jack?" Ryan asked. "Did you capture him? Neutralize him?"
"No," Jack replied. "Bayat managed to get past me and grab Caitlin. He's holding her now. Is the tracer inside my watch working?"
"Perfectly," said Jamey Farrell. "I'm tracking Caitlin's every move. Good thing you gave her your watch in case anything went wrong."
"Where is she right now?" Jack asked.
"In a van, moving uptown on Third Avenue. The van's at Fifty-seventh Street, moving into the right lane. I think it's probably going to cross the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, into Queens..."
"We'd better not lose track of Caitlin," said Jack. "Right now, she's our only connection to the terrorists. Without