24 Declassified: Operation Hell Gate

2. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 P.M. AND 11 P.M. EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

“The FBI aircraft ferrying Jack Bauer and suspect Dante Arete to New York City crashed upon landing thirty minutes ago.”

Shocked, disbelieving voices erupted in the command center. Nina Myers had just descended the metal staircase leading to Jack’s glass-enclosed office. She’d gathered personnel to update the Crisis Management Team on their boss’s situation. Among the group stood Tony Almeida, Jamey Farrell, and Milo Pressman. Doris and Captain Schneider stood on the sidelines listening.

“As yet,” continued Nina Myers over the chatter, “there has been no official word on what occurred. Unofficially, I believe the airliner was shot down as it landed at JFK, perhaps to prevent Dante Arete from talking to authorities. Firefighters and emergency service personnel have only just reached the crash site. Burning debris started a major fire inside a nearby hangar, which impeded rescuers from reaching the scene—”

Jamey’s face turned ashen. “So we don’t know if there are any survivors.”

“No word yet. ”

“Jack is carrying that new CDD satellite communicator. I can try to raise him,” Jamey offered.

“Let’s give it a little time. We’re supposed to be observing radio silence. Let’s follow protocol. Jack’s in the field. Let him contact us.”

Jamey chewed her lip. “Maybe I should activate the tracker.”

Nina nodded. “Start the protocols, but don’t transmit the signal until you get the order. For the rest of us — be advised that the Threat Clock has been pushed ahead three hours to Eastern Daylight Time.” She glanced at her watch. “That makes it 10:05:52. Synchronize your chronometers, station clocks, and personal timepieces.”

“What do we do until we hear from Jack?” Tony asked.

“If we hear from Jack?” whispered Milo.

“For starters, I want everyone to monitor all the communications coming out of New York City,” said Nina. “That means emergency radio, police bands, fire and medical services, the traffic bureau, city and county government security frequencies — the works.”

The staffers began to return to their stations. Milo heard his cell go off in his pocket. He checked the caller ID, groaned inwardly. No doubt another tearful voice message from Tina.

“One more thing,” called Nina. “CTU is now in an official lockdown. No one leaves this building until the current crisis has been resolved…No exceptions.”

Milo cursed, opened his cell phone, and began to toggle to Tina’s stored number. Jamey Farrell reached out and snapped the lid closed.

“We have a situation on our hands, Milo. Get busy. You and your girlfriend can kiss and make up some other night.”

The tavern was called Tatiana’s — a seedy dive situated at the end of a dead end street in an industrial section of Queens. A cinder-block building with thick, glass-brick windows, Tatiana’s was trimmed with electric-blue neon and topped by a skylight and a satellite dish. Its litter-strewn parking lot was crammed with a mixture of pimped-up SUVs, tricked out high-performance cars, Harley-Davidson hogs, and, oddly, a late-model black Mercedes with New York plates.

Tatiana’s was the epicenter of activity in this lonely area of urban blight, and it was Dante Arete’s destination after escaping Federal custody. Running from the chaos at the airport, Arete had slipped through JFK’s perimeter fence, crossed a busy highway, and passed through a neighborhood of run-down two-story row houses. Finally he entered a forsaken industrial area of concrete, grime, and graffiti — the last of which appeared to be gang tags. Small factories and automotive repair shops lined either side of the potholed street, occasionally interrupted by a long stretch of chain-link fence capped by barbed wire or an abandoned building shuttered tight.

An unseen shadow in the warm, close night, Jack Bauer had stalked the fugitive’s every step. Though he wasn’t certain where he was in relation to Manhattan, Jack knew he was still close to JFK because, every two minutes or so, airplanes roared low overhead as they made their final approach. Soon Jack would activate the GPS system embedded in his CDD communicator and determine his exact location. But Jack couldn’t risk stopping for any reason. Dante Arete was moving fast, and Jack was determined to shadow him until he reached his final destination.

Shells of abandoned cars littered this stretch of road, along with various parts from a variety of models — seats, bumpers, slashed tires, steering columns. Chop shop heaven, he assumed, which explained the clientele when he finally reached Tatiana’s. Jack watched his fugitive walk down the middle of the deserted street, toward the neon brilliance of the bustling tavern. Old-school rap music spilled through the door as a young olive-skinned man with strong Italian features stumbled outside wearing baggy jeans and a muscle T-shirt, climbed aboard a Harley, and revved it up. In a cloud of dust the chopper roared out of the parking lot, past Dante Arete and up the street.

Jack was forced to duck behind the skeletal remains of a gutted Lexus to avoid the headlights. Next to the automobile shell, a cracked, rusty engine block sprouted weeds. Dante Arete’s gaze followed the motorcycle, his eyes lingering on the darkened street long after the chopper was out of sight. Finally, Arete turned when shouts came from the shadows. Out of the mass of parked cars, a group emerged. Jack counted five Hispanic men, all in their early to mid-twenties, all clad in baggy denim and loose blue buttoned-down shirts worn open over white muscle Ts. Blue bandanas were worn in various styles — as headbands and kerchiefs. And each had a coil of bloody thorns tattooed around his neck.

The group had all the markings of a street gang— the same style clothing, the same color bandanas and tattoos. Jack’s stint with LAPD SWAT had given him enough of a primer on the basics: the hand signals, the postures, the tags, the colors. From his proximity to JFK, Jack knew he was still in Queens. The Latin Kings were known to be the most active gang in that borough. But this crew approaching Dante Arete wasn’t sporting the trademark five-pointed crown on their body tattoos or clothing.

Los Angeles had been awash in gang activity for decades. The Bloods and Crips alone had made the city the drive-by shooting capital of the world. Still, those drug-dealing gang-bangers had active “sets” or chapters in almost every state in the country; and although they were predominantly black gangs, many other ethnic groups had adopted their names and colors out of sheer recognition if not direct affiliation.

Jack might have guessed these young men were part of a Crips crew from the blue bandanas, but Crips didn’t favor tattoos, and the identical tattoos around their throats looked more like something out of the Mexican Mafia — a group that had begun in the California prison system decades ago and had since claimed members all over the country. That gang also favored the color blue, but its symbols of MM, La Eme, a “13” and three dots, were nowhere in sight.

Four of the group were also wearing long dark blue dusters, unbuttoned and flapping in the night breeze. The coats were out of place on a warm night in late spring, unless one wanted to hide something — like an automatic weapon. Suddenly one of the group, a stocky, powerfully built man with a shaved head, called out to Dante using his gang tag—

“Apache, mi hermano!”

He moved forward, catching Dante in a bear hug. The two men slapped each other under the glow of a streetlight as the other young men formed a protective circle around them.

“Ese, Apache! Ese!”

“Hasta la muerte, guerrero!”

That’s when Jack knew. These men were members of the Columbia Street Posse, Dante’s nonaligned Brooklyn-based gang. Jack darted across the street, slipped into the parking lot, and dived behind the first car he could reach — a Z28 Camaro Coupe repainted a metallic green with a white racing stripe. Quietly he stepped between vehicles until he was less than a dozen feet away from Arete, near enough to hear their conversation clearly.

“I’m lucky to be here at all, guerreros,” Arete said. “I thought I was gonna die in that stinking airplane.”

Shaved Head laughed. “It wasn’t luck, Apache. The Paddies really came through for you tonight.”

Cautiously, Jack raised his head to peer through the car’s spotless windows. Two men stepped into the light. Respectfully, the Posse parted. The newcomers were impeccably dressed in tailored summer-weight suits. Jack guessed the younger of the two — a fiery redhead with the florid face of a drinker — was in his mid-thirties. The other man was at least a decade older, broad-shouldered, with sharp features and steel-gray hair.

Dante Arete eyed the pair. “You bastards shoot good,” he said.

The redhead grinned. When he spoke, his Irish brogue was thick. “Got a present for you, Apache. For all yer troubles.”

The redhead popped the trunk of a black Mercedes with an electronic key. The older man reached inside, pulled out an attaché case. Rising cautiously from behind the car, Jack traded the risk of being seen for a better look inside the trunk. In the dull white glow of the boot light, Jack saw a missile launcher, its twin steel launch tubes gleaming dully. Then the trunk closed, and Jack ducked down again, breathing in the humid night air.

“You know what to do,” said the silver-haired older man, his brogue less pronounced. “After tonight, don’t contact us again.”

Arete took the attaché case, turned his back on the pair to confer with his crew. The two men strolled away, to lean against the Mercedes while they observed the discussion. Jack thrust the Glock in his belt, then reached into his charcoal-gray jacket to retrieve his CDD communicator.

10:41:14 P.M.EDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

The speaker at Nina Myers’s workstation crackled. “It’s Jamey. I’ve got Jack Bauer on the line.”

“Put Jack through my speakerphone. I want you to listen in, too, and patch Milo in if you can.”

Nina waved Tony Almeida and Ryan Chappelle over to her cubicle. “It’s Jack.”

“Jack? What happened? Are you all right?” Ryan asked with practiced sincerity. In an urgent whisper, Jack summarized the events of the past hour. He told them about Hensley murdering the marshals, the shoot-down of the airliner, Arete’s escape, the rendezvous in Tatiana’s parking lot, the two Irishmen and the missile launcher inside the trunk of their car.

“That’s… well, that’s quite a story Jack,” Ryan said doubtfully. “Can you back any of this up.”

“Not yet,” Jack replied. “But I intend to secure a vehicle and follow the Mercedes wherever it goes. Once I have the missile launcher and the men in custody, we can sort this out.”

“What about your prisoner?” said Ryan. “You can’t just let Dante Arete get away.”

“I’m sending CTU a positioning signal so Jamey can pinpoint my location.”

After a few seconds, Jamey spoke. “Okay, I’ve got Jack on my monitor. I’m overlaying a grid map of the area now.”

“Forget about me, Jamey,” said Jack. “I want you to activate the tracker.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, Jack?” Tony protested. “The chemical battery is only good for about twelve hours.”

“Hopefully that’s all the time we’ll need. Do it, Jamey. I need to know that the tracker is functioning properly.”

A moment passed while Jamey transmitted the signal. Jack risked a peek at the gang revival meeting. It was breaking up. Dante Arete and the tattooed man climbed into a white SUV, lingered for some further conversation. “Hurry, Jamey. I need that tracker now.”

“I have him. He’s less than twenty meters from your position,” said Jamey after too long a pause. “But we have a problem, Jack. The distance between here and New York is causing a twenty-two-second real-time delay in the satellite relay.”

“We’ll have to live with that,” said Jack. Next he read off the license numbers on the Mercedes, then on Dante’s SUV to Jamey. “See if you can dig up any useful information from those plate numbers. The SUV is probably stolen. But we might find out something useful about the other vehicle.”

Ryan spoke up. “What are you going to do, Jack?”

“I’m going after the missile launcher inside that Mercedes.”

“Jack! Wait,” cried Chappelle. “What about your prisoner? What about the FBI? They’re going to be asking a lot of questions soon—”

But the line was dead. Bauer had ended the conversation.

Face flushed, Chappelle turned on Nina. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded. “If we lose Arete we lose any chance we have of cracking this case.”

“We’re not going to lose Arete,” Nina assured him. “The medical team that examined Dante Arete after capture embedded a sub-epidermal tracker under his flesh. We can trace every move he makes for the next twelve hours.”

“That’s fine,” said Ryan. “But right now Dante Arete is only part of the equation. We need to know more, so I want you to find out everything you can about FBI Special Agent Frank Hensley. And I want that information on my desk in one hour.”

10:59:26 P.M.EDT The parking lot of Tatiana’s

Jack ended the call when he saw Arete close the door to the white SUV and the big man with the shaved head climb behind the wheel. A moment later, the white Explorer backed out of its parking spot. The other members of Arete’s Posse remained behind, watching as their chief sped away.

Jack slipped a wire from his shoe, worked it into the keyhole near his head. It took less than ten seconds for him to pick the lock, but he paused— worried that the interior light might alert the others to his presence.

Instead, Jack watched as the Columbia Street Posse drew mini Uzi submachine guns with the stocks removed, slid thirty-two-round extended magazines into the breech, then slipped the loaded guns under their long coats. Weapons concealed, the four headed for Tatiana’s front door.

The two Irishmen watched them go, then climbed into the black Mercedes — the young one behind the wheel, the older man in the passenger seat. The finely tuned engine purred to life.

Time had run out.

Jack popped the Camaro’s door, rolled into the front seat, and quickly closed the door again. Rather than risk being seen, he crawled under the dashboard and worked in the dull glow of the streetlight outside. First he carefully unscrewed the steering wheel cover, revealing the guts of the ignition system. He tore away frayed wires, stripped them to expose enough metal to cause a spark.

Outside, Jack heard the Mercedes engine purr as the vehicle rolled past him. “Come on, come on,” he hissed.

Suddenly the car’s interior went completely dark as the glow from the streetlight was blocked. Jack looked up.

Surrounding the Camaro, a group of pissed-off punks stared down at Jack. Scruffy, hostile, and more than a little inebriated, they had been bored and looking for action. They had found some. One of the youths grinned and juggled a butterfly knife, another slapped a stout nightstick in the palm of his hand.

“What the fuck are you doing in my coupe?” growled a dark-skinned man with dangling braids and a lightning-shaped tattoo on his right cheek. Cornrows crisscrossed his scalp.

Jack swallowed hard as he watched the black Mercedes speed away.