24 Declassified: Operation Hell Gate

11. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 A.M. AND 8 A.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

After Jack Bauer had entered Kahlil’s Middle Eastern Foods, the night’s events finally caught up with Caitlin. Alone for the first time, she tried to make sense of what was happening, think through any options.

Caitlin wondered why her brother had not yet arrived at this destination. Had she and Jack missed Liam somehow? Had he delivered the attaché to Taj before they arrived, and was on his way back home to Queens? If so, her unsuspecting brother was heading into the waiting arms of a spitting mad Shamus Lynch, still bound and gagged in the dingy room above the pub.

What if Jack Bauer doesn’t come back? she wondered. What am I supposed to do then?

Jack had ordered her to surrender to the police if he did not return within two hours, but that was something she would never do. She and her brother had overstayed their visas and were illegal aliens. Caitlin didn’t even have a bloody green card — Donnie Murphy was paying her off the books — and there would be hell to pay if the Immigration and Naturalization Service ever caught up with them. If Caitlin were to turn herself in to the authorities, and Jack Bauer was telling her the truth about Shamus’s ties to terrorism, then she and her brother would be tainted by association. And if Liam had done something illegal by delivering that case to Taj, then her brother might be facing criminal charges, trial, and imprisonment.

At best they would be branded undesirable aliens and deported back to Northern Ireland. Though Liam would probably end up in the Londonderry Home for Boys. Caitlin was too old to be housed by the state and would end up on the streets. With no job, no home, no skills to speak of, Caitlin was about as useful as a leaky teapot. What future could she have in Ireland?

No, I’ll never go to the police, no matter what happens.

Caitlin chewed her thumbnail, sweating under the increasing intensity of the early morning glare. Despite her proximity to New York harbor and the Atlantic Ocean beyond, there was no cool morning breeze off the water to stir the still air. The temperature was rising along with the humidity. In the front seat of the car, the sun beat down on Caitlin until heat became intolerable.

She opened the windows, but was unwilling to leave the car or even step outside. Instead, Caitlin searched the backseat for something to fan herself. That’s when she noticed the black, late-model sedan parked across busy Atlantic Avenue, in front of a four-story brick building that housed an Arab meat market. Though the driver’s eyes were shielded behind dark sunglasses, observing the man through the back window soon convinced Caitlin he was watching her.

Caitlin wondered how long he’d been there, if he’d seen Jack enter the Middle Eastern deli. Less than two minutes later that question seemed to be answered when an identical vehicle rolled slowly past her car with another man in a dark suit and sunglasses behind the wheel, trying hard not to stare at her. Shifting nervously in her seat, Caitlin looked around and immediately spied a third vehicle parked across Atlantic, this one along Clinton Street. Then a fourth vehicle pulled up behind the first one. Two men sat inside, behind tinted glass. One of them was speaking into a microphone strapped to his shoulder.

Caitlin began to panic.

Whoever these people were — friend or foe — they were arriving in greater numbers. More alarming, they seemed to be surrounding Kahlil’s store and her car. Now Jack Bauer’s story about Shamus’s involvement with international terrorists did not sound so ridiculously far-fetched. Suddenly, Caitlin felt like an animal sitting in a trap about to be sprung.

Though Jack had ordered her to stay put and wait at least two hours before leaving the car and turning herself in to the police, Caitlin’s instincts warned her of immediate danger. With shaking hands she stuffed Jack Bauer’s belongings into her bulging shoulder bag, rolled up the windows, and stepped out of the car. Stamping a foot that had fallen asleep, Caitlin draped the heavy bag over her shoulder and used the keys Jack left her to lock the car door.

Adopting what she hoped was a casual manner, Caitlin used the reflection in the car’s windows to adjust her hair, her clothing. Then she turned on her heels and strolled away from Atlantic Avenue. With each step she felt — or imagined she felt — suspicious eyes on her back.

In her initial panic, Caitlin sought only escape. She walked quickly down Clinton Street, passing century-old brownstones fronted by iron gates and high sandstone stairs. But after several blocks, her steps slowed. Caitlin thought of her brother. It wasn’t a given that he’d come and gone already. He might still be making his way to Kahlil’s, or he might already be inside. Either way, Liam would likely face the imminent danger she was fleeing unless she did something to find and stop him.

Ashamed of her sudden cowardice, Caitlin stopped and checked her watch. By now two hours had passed since Jack went inside the market. He was sure to come out any minute, she decided, as she turned around and headed back toward the car. She was still two blocks away from Atlantic Avenue when Caitlin found the way suddenly barred. She watched while half a dozen vehicles blocked off the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street. Meanwhile an army of NYPD officers moved down every street in an effort to cordon off the surrounding blocks of all traffic.

Stumbling forward, Caitlin could just make out the front of Kahlil’s market between two black vans. She stared while two men swathed in black body armor and helmets dragged a struggling Afghani out of the store and pinned him to the sidewalk, where they cuffed his hands behind his back.

“Miss?”

Caitlin jumped, startled. A tall, broad-shouldered New York City cop stared down at her. He offered Caitlin a reassuring smile, even as he blocked her path. “Sorry, miss. You’ll have to go another way,” the young policeman said. “There’s a law enforcement action in progress and traffic is blocked from here.”

“But my car—”

The policeman nodded sympathetically. “This whole thing might be over in a few minutes. Then we can get you to your car.”

Caitlin nodded, but did not move. Instead, she stared at the drama unfolding less than two blocks away. The cop’s eyes followed her gaze and they both watched as an Afghani man in traditional dress was dragged away by the two men in assault gear. Meanwhile other armored men moved forward, to aim what appeared to be short-barreled shotguns at the basement window. Caitlin saw white letters emblazoned on their uniforms: FBI.

With a blast and a gust of smoke, one man fired into the building. Even from this distance Caitlin could hear the sound of breaking glass — then the muffled explosion. Before the noise of the first detonation faded, another man fired a grenade through the delicatessen’s plate-glass window.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Caitlin whispered.

As shards from the shattered window rained down on the sidewalk in a silver shower, the armored assault team charged into the market, weapons raised and ready.

Jack threw his left arm across his face, buried his nose and mouth in his shirtsleeves to ward off the choking CS gas quickly filling the hot, grimy basement. Jack knew from experience that a cloud of chemical smoke tended to rise, so he remained on the ground, crawling across the floor to reach the dark form crumpled in the corner.

The older man was sprawled on his back, clothes smoldering from the heat of the explosion he’d absorbed. His frayed suit was in tatters, gore staining the shabby fabric from head to toe, and the man’s head lolled to one side, jaw shattered. When Jack finally reached him, the man’s blackened eyelids opened and their gazes met. He gripped Jack’s hand, crushing it with the last of his strength as he tried to gasp out a final word. The sound rattled in his throat and he lay still, fingers limp. Jack fumbled at the man’s throat for a pulse, found none.

“Dammit!” Jack knew from the flash and the force of the grenade’s concussion that the FBI was using military-type CS gas grenades, in clear violation of federal law enforcement guidelines. They were the same devices the Bureau had used during their ill-fated siege at Waco. According to a still-classified government report Jack had read, those grenades had contributed to the fire that had swept the Branch Davidian compound almost as soon as the assault began.

Eighty people had perished at Waco, including a dozen children that the FBI was supposed to have been rescuing. The fires had been fed by that military-type tear gas — a gas with incendiary properties when used in a confined space like the Branch Davidian compound or the basement of a Brooklyn tenement.

So what was the FBI doing using the same type of incendiary tear gas canisters? Did they really want to botch another raid? Either the FBI was refusing to learn from its previous fatal blunder, or someone was out to kill Taj and his comrades, not capture them.

But even that scenario didn’t make sense to Jack. Wasn’t FBI agent Frank Hensley using Taj, along with the Lynch brothers, to carry out his scheme? So why wouldn’t Hensley try to protect his accomplices? Why would Hensley let Taj die if the Afghani terrorist still had a role to play? The only thing that made sense to Jack was the notion that Taj and his men had outlived their usefulness and had to be disposed of before they talked to the wrong people. But if that was the case, then why the frantic delivery of the attaché case, unless it contained another bomb like the one that killed Dante Arete, but meant to kill the Afghanis?

Jack’s head was spinning, as much from the mystery he was trying to solve as from the gas. The only two people who could answer Jack’s questions were Taj Ali Kahlil and Special Agent Frank Hensley. The FBI agent was out of reach, so Jack’s only choice now was to stick close to Taj.

Suddenly Jack felt a crushing grip on his forearm.

A wet cloth was slapped onto his shoulders. He looked up to find Taj standing over him. The man had a cloth wrapped around his own nose and mouth to block the gas. He gestured for Jack to do the same.

From the floor above, Jack heard a stampede of booted feet followed by several shots. A long burst from an assault rifle ended with a howl, then a body struck the floor with a solid thump. The smoke in the claustrophobic basement intensified. Now the smell of burning wood mingled with the CS gas fumes. Face wrapped, Jack stood with Taj and an Afghani youth — perhaps fifteen — gripping an Uzi in his trembling hands.

The rickety door opened and another Afghani emerged from the billowing smoke. This man was short but powerfully built, perhaps fifty years old or older. He wore a turban, loose trousers, and a robe. An AK–47 assault rifle was slung over his arm, its muzzle bumping the low ceiling. The newcomer locked eyes with Taj and the men embraced. With whispered words spoken in Pashto, Taj held the man close, and Jack realized he was witnessing a farewell. Finally the man turned, yanked the rifle off his shoulder, and vanished once more into the billowing clouds of tear gas.

Jack grabbed Taj by the arm. “They’re using CS gas,” he cried over the chaos. “This whole building could burn.”

“We are leaving now,” Taj replied. “We must retrieve the attaché case immediately or all our sacrifices will be for nothing.”

“Forget the case. I need to see Tanner,” croaked Jack, choking back a cough.

“The attaché first, Mr. Lynch. Then I shall take you to Felix Tanner.”

Nina Myers emerged from Jack Bauer’s office and walked to the head of the metal stairs. Below, the Mission Center was a hive of frantic activity. She watched the action in silence, contemplating her next move.

Nearly every member of the Crisis Management Team was preoccupied. Tony Almeida and Jessica Schneider were interrogating the prisoner Saito, and with Milo Pressman and half of CTU’s Cyber Unit dispatched to the Green Dragon Computers store in Little Tokyo to crack their mainframe, pretty much every analyst was doing double duty. They were stretched too thin as it was, and things were about to get worse.

“Listen up,” Nina called in a loud voice. “I’m starting a second Threat Clock—”

Shock and disbelief greeted the news. Nina continued to speak over the noise.

“This second Threat Clock is a countdown. Zero hour is five p.m. Eastern Daylight Time — nine hours and thirty-six minutes from right now.”

“What about a briefing,” someone called from station six.

“It’s on a need-to-know basis right now, which means I’ll need a second Crisis Management Team immediately. I expect all daily and hourly logs to be kept up-to-date, even if it means triple duty. All shifts are to remain in position until further notice — no one’s going home.”

Nina ignored the moans of protest, knowing full well some of her staff had been on duty for more than twelve hours already. She’d been working fourteen hours straight herself.

“Station managers will inform their staff and rearrange duties accordingly. The new team leaders are to assemble for a briefing in thirty minutes.”

The young Afghani led Jack and Taj to another basement room. As they stumbled through choking smoke, staccato bursts of gunfire continued in the store above them. At one point an armed Afghani pushed past Jack and pounded up the stairs. More gunfire erupted.

The youth kicked through a door, into a corner room where a wide hole had been dug into the dirt floor. Jack followed Taj to the edge, peered into the dark pit but could not see the bottom. A rope dangled over the center of the yawning chasm.

Without hesitation, the youth thrust the Uzi into his sash and jumped for the rope. He caught the thick hemp, hung for a moment, then climbed down.

“Go!” barked Taj.

Jack leaped, caught the rope. Fingers digging into the rough hemp, Jack wrapped his legs around the swinging cable and lowered himself into the dim abyss. Jack wondered how far he had to go, then perceived a bright glow under him. The young Afghani had switched on a bank of naked light bulbs that had been strung through a narrow earthen tunnel. The walls were supported by the same untreated wood used to make the partitions under the store, and Jack smelled freshly turned earth. This told him that Taj and his men had fashioned this escape tunnel themselves.

Jack’s feet touched the dirt floor and he let go of the rope. Taj landed in a crouch at his side a moment later.

“Through here!” The youth hurried forward, toward the far end of the earthen pit where a narrow crawlspace had been cut into a solid stone wall. Following the man’s lead, Jack squirmed through the hole, to emerge into a cool dark space, pitch black. His labored breathing echoed off distant walls, as if the chamber he had entered was large.

“Come!” called the youth.

“I can’t see anything,” hissed Jack in reply.

Jack heard a click as the youth tripped another bank of electric bulbs, blinked against the sudden glare. As his vision cleared Jack was amazed by his surroundings. “What is this place?”

“The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel,” said Taj. “It was built in 1844 by the Long Island Railroad, but the tunnel was sealed up in 1861, during America’s Civil War.”

Jack marveled at his surroundings. The smooth walls were made of chiseled stone, the curved ceiling towering eighteen feet above his head. Though no tracks remained, Jack could believe that trains had once moved through this shaft because the tunnel was more than twenty feet wide.

“How far does this go?” Jack asked, staring down the dimly lit shaft.

Taj shrugged. “Only about two thousand feet— roughly five blocks. The rest of the shaft is completely filled, but there are many side tunnels no one knows about.”

“How did you find this place?”

“The tunnel was rediscovered in the 1980s, and the city government had electricity installed before sealing the tunnel off again. Now the shaft is inspected once or twice a year, but we have obscured our tracks and the authorities suspect nothing.”

“So you’ve been using this tunnel for a long time?”

“Several years, Mr. Lynch. Like you, we have been planning this event for a long time.” Then Taj smiled. “Our work ends soon, Mr. Lynch.”

What event? What plan? Jack was straining to ask. “Your patience is commendable. You must bear a great hatred for America,” he said instead.

Taj faced him. “When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the chieftain of my clan greeted the agents of the Central Intelligence Agency as the protectors of our tribe. The Americans provided us with the weapons we needed to fight the Russians—”

“Stinger missiles, you mean?”

Taj nodded. “At the start of the invasion, Russian HIND helicopters dominated our skies, slaughtered our people. Then the CIA brought us shoulder-fired missiles. They were the arrows we used to bring the Russian vultures down. After the Stingers came, the Russians feared us.”

“What went wrong?”

“Someone from my clan — a renegade, an outcast I later murdered with my own hands — this man provided intelligence to the Soviets. The Russians used that knowledge to seize the CIA weapon shipments, capture American agents. After that, the CIA stopped trusting my chieftain, and they stopped supplying weapons to my clan.”

Taj’s expression darkened. In the dim lighting, his eyes seemed to burn with hatred. “Then the Spetsnaz came—”

“Soviet special forces?”

Taj nodded. “They hunted down our clan leaders, ran them to the ground like dogs and blew them up in their caves. They came to our settlements, raped our women and murdered our children, stuffing their mouths with forbidden pork so they could never, ever sit at the table with their God. And it was not enough for the Russian demons to destroy my people, they also ravaged the land, slaughtered our goats, and poisoned our wells.”

Taj paused, working his jaws under his sallow skin. “In time, we dealt with the Soviets. We butchered them. Drove the infidel from our lands and brought jihad to their homeland. Now I have come to America, to New York, to deal death to America, to take my revenge on the great power who left us defenseless in the face of our enemy.”

A sudden burst of gunfire echoed through the tunnels, reaching their ears.

“We have to move now,” said Jack. “If you know about this tunnel, the FBI will know about it, too. They’re going to follow us.”

“No,” Taj replied.

“But—”

“Keep silent and listen, Mr. Lynch.”

A moment later, they all heard the roar of a muffled explosion, then the crash of tons of masonry. Jack knew the century-old building that housed the delicatessen had been blown up by the men inside.

The young man grimaced, blinked back tears. Taj clapped his hand on the young man’s shoulder, squeezed it.

“Inshallah,” Taj whispered. “You must be strong,” he reminded him. “This is what God demands of us. Who are we to question Him?”