24 Declassified: Operation Hell Gate

1. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 P.M. AND 10 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

The steady drone of the jet engines suddenly changed pitch. Jack opened his eyes, instantly alert, surprised he’d slept at all. He sat in an airline seat next to Dante Arete, the fugitive still chained to his arm by a pair of nickel-plated steel bracelets. Two federal marshals sat across the aisle, in another cluster of chairs. The younger marshal’s seat was back, he slept mouth open and gently snored. The older man — perhaps forty— was awake, though hardly alert as he sipped bottled water and leafed through a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated.

As for Special Agent Frank Hensley, there was no sign. He’d entered a separate compartment shortly after they’d lifted off from LAX and hadn’t reappeared since. Jack suspected there was a bunk in the forward compartment, and Hensley had taken advantage of the hours to get some sleep.

Hensley reminded Bauer of an army, safely ensconced in a fortified town surrounded by the enemy. Instead of waiting for the inevitable attack, an aggressive commander would dispatch pickets to prick his foe into premature action. Hensley’s barbs — fired at Jack, at CTU, even at Ryan Chappelle — seemed to be timed to divert attention from the psychological defenses Frank Hensley had erected to keep the world at bay.

Jack sat up and stretched as much as the handcuff on his wrist would allow. Then he looked around. The FBI aircraft was not laid out like a commercial airliner. There were no rows of airline seats, only clusters — about a dozen in all. Some chairs were set around affixed tables, others were placed along the fuselage, near the windows. There were no air stewards, either. They’d been replaced by a stocked refrigerator, a coffeemaker, and a microwave oven.

Jack glanced at his watch, already set to Eastern Daylight Time. He discovered he’d slept for nearly thirty-five minutes — the longest interval of rest he’d had in the last fifteen hours. Bauer leaned forward, rubbed his face. Then he checked on his prisoner. Dante Arete had curled up into a ball and had fallen fast asleep as soon as the FBI aircraft was off the ground and the “fasten seatbelt” lights went dark. Jack shook him awake, and Arete immediately demanded to go to the bathroom. Still cuffed together, Jack escorted the prisoner to the head, then used it himself. Even in the tight confines of the restroom, the two men did not exchange a word.

When they returned to the cabin, Jack was surprised to find Hensley had reemerged. The FBI agent sat at one of the tables with the two Federal marshals, who had roused themselves into a semblance of vigilance. Hensley looked up when Bauer and his prisoner entered, then went back to punching data into his PDA. The wall, Jack noted, was still in place. Either Hensley was the most professional law enforcement agent he’d ever met — or something else was going on behind his half-lidded eyes.

“Strap in. We’re landing in five minutes.” Hensley commanded, wand poised over the tiny PDA screen.

Jack pushed Arete into a seat near a window, then strapped his prisoner down. After his own belt was fastened, he gazed out the window. Far below, Jack could see the winking lights of the Borough of Queens spread out before him, a muted golden glow against a purple-black evening sky. Jack’s stomach lurched as the aircraft dipped sharply, then leveled off as it began its final approach. A high-pitched whine, then a thump, signaled the deployment of the landing gear. The flaps dropped and the aircraft slowed drastically.

Jack watched out of the corner of his eye as Hensley unsnapped his seatbelt and stood up to stretch. The marshals ignored him, gazing out the window or straight ahead. Hensley turned his back to the others, reached into his jacket to carefully tuck the PDA into his suit pocket. When his hand came out again, it was clutching a Glock 19, the semi-compact version of the standard 9mm recoil-operated composite handgun, undetectable to weapons scanners. In one smooth motion Hensley disengaged the safety, cocked the striker.

Then he turned and pointed the weapon at the larger of the two marshals.

The man saw the Glock, and his mouth opened in surprise. Then the noise of a gunshot reverberated throughout the cabin. The dead marshal jerked spasmodically as the back of his head blew out, but the safety belt kept him erect in the chair. Gore splattered the beige plastic panel behind the corpse, splashed to the floor in thick black drops.

Shocked, the other marshal stared up at Hensley while Jack reached for his P228. Bauer had just slipped his own gun free of its holster when Dante Arete punched him full in the face with his free hand. Jack reeled when he felt the hot sting on his jaw. The SigSauer flew from his hand and bounced across the floor. Bauer felt Arete’s hands groping for his throat — ineffectively because of the handcuffs that hobbled his movement. As Arete continued trying to strangle Jack, Bauer released his safety belt, pushed himself out of the seat, and slammed the heel of his hand under Arete’s jaw. The man’s head snapped backward.

Meanwhile, with a bored expression on his face, Hensley shot the second marshal in the forehead before the young man could even draw his service revolver. Then he swung around to train his weapon on Jack Bauer — only to find the CTU agent hiding behind Dante Arete’s body, his arm locked around the helpless prisoner’s throat. With a muttered curse, Hensley dropped the Glock on his empty chair, drew his own FBI service revolver, and aimed it at the two men.

“Don’t shoot, man,” Dante Arete whined, free arm extended to ward off destruction. “Don’t fucking shoot me.”

“Listen to your prisoner,” hissed Jack. “You’ll have to put a slug right through Dante to get to me.” As he spoke, Jack eyed his gun on the floor, too far away to do him any good.

Hensley’s neutral gaze turned poisonous. “You crack me up, Bauer. What makes you think I care about the life of the punk son of a bitch who murdered my partner?”

Jack watched apprehensively as Hensley tightened his grip on the trigger…

“I can carry my own luggage, thank you very much!” The young woman charged past the security escort who’d met her at the airport and chauffeured her to CTU headquarters. She also ignored his call as she pushed through the double glass doors.

The young woman was gangly and too thin, her legs lean and muscular under a purple micro-mini and black tights. Her oversized Doc Martens clip-clopped on the unpainted concrete floor as her long, skinny arm hauled a bulky Pullman behind her. Strapped to the back of her “Nasicaä—Valley of the Wind” T-shirt was a pink Hello Kitty pack containing a personal computer, a cell phone, an MP3 player, and a PDA. A large black messenger bag dangled from her small shoulder, swaying with every bold step she took.

Seeing her barreling forward, the guard quickly stepped around the security desk and blocked her path. “Stop right there, miss. You need a pass to go in there.”

“I’ve got time to get a security pass, but no time to find a place to sleep? Jeez, I mean, what’s the rush? At least let me check into a hotel!”

The young woman’s head seemed large for her wispy frame. Her pale features and wide mouth were hidden behind a silky curtain of long, straight black hair, parted only by dark-framed glasses too large for her tiny face. Behind the oversized lenses were wide, curious, almond-shaped eyes. Her only makeup was black eyeliner.

The young woman tapped her giant shoe impatiently while the guard verified her CTU identification and administrative transfer from the D.C. office. Finally he snapped her picture with a digital camera mounted on the desktop, then handed her a small plastic ID badge with a magnetic strip that allowed her access to some but not all areas of the CTU facility.

When she was officially checked in, the young woman kicked her American Tourister into a leaning position. Then she yanked it along, rolling it behind her as she marched into the center of CTU’s busy command center. Technicians and analysts scurried about, ignoring her as they raced from station to station.

“Hey! I need to speak with the person in charge, please.”

Nina Myers heard the cry and left her workstation.

“Can I help you?”

The girl released the Pullman and blew an errant lock of hair away from her face. She offered Nina a bony hand sheathed with smooth, ivory skin. “My name is Dae Soo Min. Someone around here is supposed to know I’m coming.”

“You’re the software expert?”

The young woman nodded. “If it’s made in Korea I can hack it.”

Nina could not hide her surprise. She had expected someone older, with more experience. Perhaps an ex-military type, a veteran of the North/South Korean demilitarized zone — or an adult, at the very least. Dae Soo Min looked to be about seventeen and was acting much younger.

Nina shook the woman’s hand. “Hi. I’m Nina Myers, Ms.—”

“My friends call me Doris.”

Nina picked up her bag. “Follow me and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team.”

Jamey was at her workstation processing the hourly reports when Milo Pressman appeared at her shoulder. “Hey, check it out.”

She followed Milo’s gaze. “My God. Is CTU recruiting at elementary schools now?”

“Quick, pretend to be looking at the monitor,” whispered Milo. “I think they’re headed this way.”

By the time Nina and Doris arrived, Milo and Jamey were seemingly swamped in the sea of intelligence data. “Sorry to interrupt your work,” Nina said without a trace of irony. “I want you to meet—”

“I’m Doris. Hi.”

“Milo is our security systems specialist, Jamey is our head programmer. You’ll be working with them for the duration of this assignment.”

Milo and Jamey exchanged looks. Nina crossed to the auxiliary workstation and powered it up. “Jamey, could you send all of the encrypted data we’ve recovered from the memory stick to station six, so Doris can begin her preliminary evaluation?”

Jamey frowned. “Jack put everything that has to do with the Arete case on Level Four security clearance…”

“No problem. I’m assigning Doris a Level Three security code.”

Behind Nina’s back, Milo made a face at Jamey.

“You got to be kidding me,” Jamey protested. “I didn’t get a Level Three clearance code until I worked here for over six months.”

Nina rose to her full height, looming over the seated Jamey. “Do you feel threatened? I understand if you do. But not to worry, the situation is only temporary. Just until Doris cracks the code.”

Milo watched Doris sit down in front of the keyboard. Inside of a minute she began isolating data, separating the wheat from the chaff. He scratched his sparse goatee. “At the speed she’s working, that won’t be very long…”

Dante Arete stared down the muzzle of Special Agent Hensley’s weapon, eyes wide, lips beaded with sweat. Jack Bauer’s grip around his throat tightened.

“What the hell are you doin’, man?” Dante croaked, wide eyes staring at Hensley. “This ain’t what we talked about. This ain’t part of our deal.”

Jack dragged Arete against him in a bear hug, spoke in his ear. “What deal? Tell me what deal you made with Hensley.”

“Shut up, both of you,” said Hensley.

Arete ignored Jack, glared at Hensley. “You kill me and the whole deal’s flushed, man.”

Bauer moved backward, dragging Arete with him, until his spine touched the walls of the pressurized cabin. He risked a glance out the window. The ground was coming up fast, Jack could see cars on the highway, busy residential streets with people on them.

“Shoot now and you’ll puncture the fuselage, depressurize the cabin,” Jack warned.

Hensley shrugged. “We’re almost on the ground. I’ll risk it.”

The engine’s whine became more pronounced as the aircraft decreased its speed. Turbulence buffeted the airliner, and the motion rocked Hensley on his feet, foiling his aim. Fearfully, Arete struggled against Bauer’s tightening grip, but Jack held him firm. A moment later, Hensley steadied himself, his aim true. “Like I said, Bauer. When the wheels touch the pavement, Arete’s mine.”

From the corner of his eyes, Jack saw a flash outside the window. Hensley saw it, too. A bright orange object rose toward the airplane from a cluster of low, featureless concrete buildings.

Jack threw Arete to the cabin floor as a brilliant yellow ball of fire lit the windows on the starboard side of the airliner. Interior alarms sounded and emergency oxygen masks dropped from their ceiling compartments as the aircraft lurched and the interior lights winked.

Then came the noise of the blast, deafening as the shock wave shattered the windows. The interior of the cabin suddenly mimicked the inside of a dryer running full blast. Papers, cups, cushions, magazines, napkins — anything not nailed down flew about the cabin or was sucked outside.

Jack heard the engines straining to keep the aircraft aloft. Then they cut out and the wheels slammed onto the runway, too hard for the landing gear to support the impact. Tires blew, steel snapped, and the landing gear folded. The burning aircraft teetered to port, then the belly hit the concrete and skidded along, trailing a torrent of hot white sparks.

Tony’s land line warbled. He reached across his desk and grabbed the receiver. “Almeida.”

“There’s a Marine Corps captain checking in at the security desk and asking to see Ms. Myers. But the Chief of Staff is not responding to my call.”

“Nina’s in the middle of a video conference with Bill Buchanan from the Seattle office,” Tony replied. “I’ll be right there.”

Tony locked down his computer and headed off to the security desk. On the way, he stopped by Jamey’s area and picked up the latest printout on the mysterious memory stick, which he stuffed into the folder under his arm. He glanced at it first, disappointed to find they had discovered next to nothing in the past two hours of “expert analysis.”

At the security desk, Tony discovered that not all Marines are created equal. This particular captain had blond hair caught in a ponytail, a killer figure in a dress blue uniform, and clear blue eyes to go with her two silver bars.

“Captain,” said Tony, offering her a smile with his hand. “I’m Agent Almeida, head of intelligence here at CTU.”

Nearly as tall as Tony, the woman met his openly appraising gaze as she took his hand in a firm grip.

“I’m Captain Jessica Schneider. Commander of the Special Weapon Analysis Unit in South Korea.”

Her name jarred his memory cells, but the context eluded him. “Welcome to Los Angeles. Come with me and I’ll bring you up to speed.”

As they moved through the busy command center, Captain Schneider took in the setup while Tony deciphered the ribbons and service pins that adorned her uniform. “First Marine Division,” Tony observed. “Looks like you and I ate some of the same dirt.”

A half smile crossed her full lips. “You’re a jarhead?”

“Ex.”

“You’re missing all the fun, then.”

Tony discerned a slight Texas drawl, another clue he felt was important, but he had yet to make the connection. They arrived at the cyber-analysis section. Tony ran his key card through the lock, opened the door. “We actually have lots of fun here at CTU, too.”

Tony offered Captain Schneider a chair, then slid the latest report on the memory stick under her nose. “This is what we’ve got, so far.”

Captain Schneider opened the folder, leafed through it. She lifted two photographs of the object and studied them closely. After a moment, she reached into her pocket and donned delicately framed reading glasses. “And you found this memory stick where?”

“At LAX, this morning,” Tony replied. “It was attached to an array of tubes in the hands of a suspected terrorist. The device looked like a shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile launcher. Unfortunately we lost both the terrorist and the device when the group self-destructed to avoid capture.”

Captain Schneider closed the file. “This data stick you recovered is a component in the most advanced handheld anti-aircraft missile launcher developed to date by the hostile regime in North Korea.”

Tony was impressed. “You’re sure.”

“I’ve seen one before. The launcher, not the memory stick.”

“On the DMZ in Korea?”

Captain Schneider’s blond ponytail bobbed when she shook her head. “On the Texas/Mexico border. About eight weeks ago, the DEA grabbed a launcher in a narcotics raid. The system is highly advanced. It has been code named Long Tooth by the Pentagon. The launcher has twin firing tubes and a computer programming system that interfaces with the missiles themselves. Unfortunately no missiles were recovered so we don’t know their capabilities as yet. ”

“How did the Marine Corps find out about it? The DEA isn’t known for sharing intelligence with the military.”

“I found out through a…personal contact. I know someone on the House Intelligence Oversight Committee.”

Tony Almeida closed his eyes a nanosecond, stifled a groan. “Your father — he’s Congressman Roy Schneider of Texas?”

The Captain nodded. To cover her discomfort, she changed the subject. “Have you retrieved any data from the memory stick?”

“It’s encrypted. We have an expert on North Korean software trying to crack it now. No progress to report.”

Captain Schneider felt it, just then. The instant chill. One mention of her father and there it was: clipped words, tense posture, guarded look. Amazing how fast he shifted, she thought. While she was not surprised by the CTU agent’s reaction, she was more than a little disappointed that he had so easily — and predictably — made the same assumptions as everyone else. No matter how hard she worked, no matter what she accomplished, every time her colleagues discovered the identity of her father, they immediately assumed that she had attained her rank and position through nepotism rather than merit.

Captain Schneider rose, tucked the file under her arm. When she spoke, she added frost to her own voice. “Agent Almeida, I’d like to meet this expert of yours, see for myself how the decryption is progressing.”

Jack’s first sensation was pain. His ribs felt bruised. Something warm and sticky had trickled from his head to the side of his face. He heard a crackle. Without moving a muscle, Jack slowly opened one eye to find a live wire dangling from a shattered panel near his head. When he glanced down, he saw the steel bracelet was still clamped to his wrist, but on the other end of the chain was a pair of empty cuffs, the key missing from his pocket. Jack took a deep breath and almost gagged on the thick smoke he’d thought for a moment was just his hazy vision.

The aircraft’s interior emergency lights were still functioning, the fuselage tilted at an odd angle. Jack realized that he’d been thrown into a corner and the airline seat had broken loose from its mount and covered him. Squinting through his eyelashes, he saw Arete standing near an emergency exit. He was having trouble opening the door. The impact of the crash probably had jammed the hatch.

Stumbling through the smoke, the pilot emerged from the forward compartment, fumbled for the handgun at his belt. Arete froze, unarmed and helpless. Then a shot boomed loud, followed by another. The pilot was thrown back, into a bulkhead — dead before he hit the ground. Frank Hensley emerged from the shadows, reloading the Glock.

He looked at Arete. “Where’s Bauer?”

“Why the hell should I help you, amigo? You were gonna shoot right through me.”

“Don’t be a jackass,” Hensley replied. “I was bluffing. Talking tough. You should know all about that. Anyway, I just shot that pilot to cover your ass.”

Arete rubbed his wrist where the cuffs had chafed him. Then he kicked the stubborn emergency hatch. “Bauer’s over there, man. Under that goddamned chair. It don’t matter anyway. We ain’t getting out of here alive…”

Hensley glanced in Jack’s direction, spied Bauer’s legs sticking out of a pile of wreckage. He pulled latex gloves and a handkerchief out of his pocket, donned the gloves, and carefully wiped down the Glock with the handkerchief. Then he shifted the Glock to his left hand, drew his service revolver with his right, and approached Bauer.

Through his half-closed eyes, Jack had been watching Hensley. But playing dead in a burning aircraft was no longer an option. He had to act. When Hens-ley hauled the chair away, Jack grabbed the live wire above him and shoved the still-sparking tip against Hensley’s left arm. The FBI agent yowled and jumped backward, simultaneously discharging the revolver and letting go of the Glock. The shot missed Jack, who was already rolling away, snapping up the Glock before diving behind the cover of upended seats.

“Kill him, man!” Arete was frantic. Over the crackling fire and popping steel, they heard the distant sound of sirens. “You better waste him fast. If he starts talking—”

“Shut up!” Hensley spied Jack a moment later and opened fire.

Arete kept clutching his head and moaning. “I don’t wanna die here.”

Pinned, Jack looked around for an exit, saw one not five feet away — through five feet of open space. He’d have to get there, release the lever, and hope it wouldn’t jam before Hensley had time to hit him. Jack figured his chances were less than ten percent, but he had no choice.

Suddenly the broken aircraft lurched again, setting off a series of explosions from somewhere outside. The force of the successive blasts rocked the airplane and bounced its inhabitants around. Two things happened next: Hensley was jerked against a table bolted to the floor. He flipped over it and struck his head, his service revolver tumbling to Dante Arete’s feet. And the jammed hatch that wouldn’t budge for Dante a few moments before burst open, filling the choking compartment with cool night air.

Arete didn’t hesitate. He snatched Hensley’s weapon and jumped through the exit. Jack cried out, stumbled to his feet. Still clutching the Glock, he bolted for the same exit, stopping in the doorway to see Arete’s heading. Then he turned around and tried to find Hensley, but the smoke had become too thick.

In the choking darkness of the fuselage, he bumped into the corpse of one of the murdered Federal agents. Jack reached into the man’s jacket, found a loaded Browning Hi-Power and some extra ammo.

Jack had to make a choice and he knew it. He gave up trying to find Hensley. Instead he climbed out of the shattered aircraft and took off across the tarmac, in pursuit of the fugitive Arete.

Milo Pressman sat at his workstation, located between Jamey Farrell’s cubicle and the auxiliary computer station where Doris had set up shop.

Milo had been complaining for hours, to anyone who would listen, about being called back to work and away from his girlfriend. Apparently the whole mess was a relationship wrecker, or so he told Jamey Farrell.

“Look,” said Jamey. “Either she understands what you do or she doesn’t.”

“Tina used to understand. Now she doesn’t.”

Milo’s pocket sent out ringtones of a Green Day download. Of course it was Tina. The cell phone conversation quickly degenerated into an argument. Jamey and Doris heard every word on Milo’s end. He hadn’t bothered trying to make the call private.

Jamey decided to fill in some blanks for Doris.

“Of course I’m not with some other woman,” Milo told his girlfriend.

“No,” whispered Jamey. “But your tongue was sure hanging out when Tony introduced you to Captain Schneider.”

Doris pushed up her large glasses with her index finger. “What’s a girl like that got that we haven’t got?”

Jamey shrugged and smiled. “Blond hair, rich daddy, and a sexy drawl that makes men drool.”

Doris smiled back and shook her head. “Barbie in a uniform. Hardly seems fair.”

“Agent Hensley! Agent Hensley!”

Sirens wailed, emergency lights flashed. In the distance, a massive aircraft hangar burned, orange flames licking the black night sky. A firefighter cupped blackened hands around his mouth and called out for Hensley one more time.

Others took up the call, their loud voices followed by the stabbing beams from a half-dozen flashlights, columns of light that cut through the smoky darkness. Deep inside the wreckage of the aircraft, someone coughed.

“Over there! He’s alive,” yelled a firefighter.

A stocky man in a gray pinstriped suit pushed past the emergency workers swathed in asbestos, splashed through the fire-retardant foam that surrounded the shattered fuselage. Feet slipping, he climbed onto the broken wing and crawled through the emergency hatch, into the cabin. “Frank! Is that you? Are you in here?”

“Over here,” a voice called weakly.

“You can’t go back there,” a fireman called. “There still fuel in those wings. It’s a miracle this aircraft didn’t explode on impact.”

Special Agent Ray Goodman ignored the man. “Frank! Talk to me, Frank,” he yelled again.

One of the firemen pointed. “I think someone’s moving over there.”

Minutes later, Goodman and the firefighter carried Frank Hensley out of the wreckage. Hensley hung limply between the two men until they reached an ambulance. Immediately, paramedics placed Hensley on a stretcher, slipped an oxygen mask over his face. The FBI agent swallowed air in great gulps. Agent Goodman loomed over him.

“What the hell happened, Frank?”

Hensley shook his head. “Don’t know…A missile, I think. ”

“It was a missile, all right,” Goodman interrupted. “What happened to Dante Arete? The marshals, they looked like they’d both been shot.”

Hensley nodded. “It was that CTU agent, Jack Bauer. Somehow he…he must have smuggled a Glock aboard. As the pilot was making the final approach, Bauer just started shooting. Killed the marshals. ”

Hensley gasped like a fish out of water. A paramedic steadied him but he pushed the emergency worker away, struggled to rise. “When the plane hit the ground, Bauer shot the pilot, too. Then he helped Arete escape…”

“Steady, Frank.”

“You don’t understand,” Hensley moaned behind the oxygen mask. “That man has got to be stopped— caught. Dead or alive. Jack Bauer is a traitor and a murderer and he’s got to be stopped. ”