24 Declassified: 08 - Collateral Damage Read online

  He was about to move when his eyes were drawn to an object that had been carelessly tossed on an elaborately carved end table—his own Glock, taken by the Albino that morning, at the restaurant. Jack shifted the weapon C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 219

  he’d borrowed from Morris to his right hand, slipped his own gun into the empty holster with his left.

  Jack moved cautiously down the hall. The television continued to blare from the living room—now it was turned to the Serbian News Network. Hearing the familiar language made Jack pause. He waited for the channel to change again, but minutes passed and the somber Serb anchor continued to drone her monologue.

  The Albino speaks Serbian . . .

  The realization made Jack consider something almost impossible. Memories came over him. He flashed back to the war in Bosnia. His Delta Force missions. Operation Nightfall.

  Jack remembered the stories of Odreðeni cˇlan bled ubica—the Pale One.

  Could it be . . .

  Jack peered around the corner, into the living room. The furnishings in here were sparse—Danish modern—sitting on a parquet floor. A sliding glass door looked out on a balcony and the park beyond. At only the eighth floor, Tobias’s view of Central Park was basically a sea of treetops.

  Across the park, the windows of Manhattan’s East Side skyscrapers glowed like stars above a dark, leafy sea.

  On a table, a desktop computer displayed financial news. A large-screen TV mounted on the wall was still tuned to Serbian television, and Jack spied the satellite dish attached to the balcony’s railing.

  Finally, he saw the Albino. The man was lounging in a chair of cream-colored leather, legs crossed, clad in a silk robe. His white hair was damp from a shower, and he 220

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  appeared to be dozing off—then Jack saw the hypodermic needle clutched in his pale hand.

  Jack slipped past the man, searched the kitchen and dining room, and found no one else. Glock raised, Jack returned to the living room and boldly entered.

  “Led pa Sneg! ” Jack shouted, addressing the Albino as “Ice and Snow,” the name the Pale One’s victims had given him.

  The Albino’s colorless eyes opened wide, not with confusion but recognition. He moved to rise, and the robe’s lapels parted, revealing a small black tattoo of a snarling dog on his milky chest. That’s when Jack knew for certain: Erno Tobias, the Albino, was the Pale One.

  As the brutal war criminal got to his feet to move forward, Jack took aim above the kneecap, avoiding the artery, and fired.

  Howling, Erno Tobias dropped back into the chair. He clutched his leg to stanch the bleeding. Still shocked by the attack, the Albino looked up, and their eyes met.

  “Remember me?” Jack asked.

  11:53:46 P.M. EDT

  Security Station One

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  Morris O’Brian watched the screens, where real-time images out of Atlantic City displayed the firefight at the Ali Baba Casino from several different angles.

  He tapped his keyboard, moved the mouse, and the C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 221

  speakers came to life, broadcasting chaotic radio transmissions from varied sources.

  “. . . Shooter on roof. Return fire . . .”

  “. . . We have multiple victims inside the casino. Need medical teams . . .”

  “. . . He’s taken a hostage. Bring in the sniper . . .”

  “Officer down! Officer down!”

  Peter Randall stood at Morris’s shoulder, watching the screens in rapt attention. The phone rang and Morris grabbed it.

  “O’Brian.”

  “It’s Jack. I’m inside Erno Tobias’s penthouse.”

  “Was the little bugger at home?”

  “Affirmative,” Jack replied. “I’m about to have a talk with him. But first I want to send you the contents of the Albino’s computer.”

  Morris frowned. “Another data dump?”

  “A large one.”

  Morris fed Jack the access codes for a large cache in the CTU database. “Everything you send, I’ll copy and forward on to the analysts at Langley.”

  “Have the police found any more trucks?” Jack asked.

  “There’s mixed news on that front. Rutland, Vermont’s been hit. A truck bomb went off at a factory. We don’t know how bad it is yet, but authorities anticipate many casualties . . .”

  Morris heard Jack exhale.

  “But there’s good news, too,” he added quickly. “The New Jersey State Police and the local SWAT team stopped a truck outside a large casino in Atlantic City. The bomb’s 222

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  been neutralized, but several armed terrorists escaped into the casino. The firefight’s still under way.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was heavy.

  “Have you learned anything from Mr. Tobias?” Morris asked.

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” Jack said, and the line went dead.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

  18 19 20 21 22 23 24

  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE

  BETWEEN THE HOURS OF

  12:00 A.M. AND 1:00 A.M.

  EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

  12:00:20 A.M. EDT

  Near 1313 Crampton Street

  Newark, New Jersey

  “For a gang-banger’s crib, this place seems pretty dead,”

  Tony said.

  He and Judith Foy were on the stoop of an abandoned building on the opposite side of the street. Their surveillance had revealed a complete lack of activity at the Thirteen Gang’s headquarters.

  “Usually these places have a lively nightlife,” said Tony.

  “Punks coming and going. Women. Parties. The occasional gunplay. This crib’s way too quiet.”

  224

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  Tony shook his head. He’d even paced the block twice, looking for any signs of life. But all the doors and windows along this blighted block were boarded up and covered with graffiti—including the massive garage door on the empty warehouse at the end of the block. There was not even a crack dealer in sight, and no car had driven down this street in almost thirty minutes.

  “You’re sure this is the right place?” Foy asked.

  Tony shrugged. “Priests tend not to lie. And the one I talked to wasn’t afraid of me. He could have just sent me away with no information.”

  “Still, he could have—wait a minute.” Foy gripped Tony’s arm and pulled him back, into the shadows.

  “That Hummer at the end of the block,” she whispered.

  “I think I recognize it. From Kurmastan.”

  Tony saw it, too. The black vehicle had swung onto Crampton Street two blocks away. Now it moved slowly toward the row house with the red door. Judith Foy gripped the digital surveillance camera, hoping to snap pictures of the Hummer’s passengers.

  What happened next surprised them both. Instead of continuing down the block, the Hummer cut a sharp left at Peralta Storage, the supposedly abandoned warehouse on the corner. The garage door that seemed to be boarded up tight began to rise. Bright fluorescent light streamed out of the interior of the warehouse. Tony spotted equipment, holding tanks, men in white lab coats.

  Though the angle wasn’t good, and they couldn’t see very deep into the garage, Foy managed to snap a few pictures. Meanwhile the Hummer rolled into the hidden C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 225

  space and the door closed behind it, plunging the block into darkness once more.

  Crouched in the shadows, Tony and Judith exchanged puzzled glances.

  “What’s with the lab equipment?” Foy whispered. “Do you think the gang’s manufacturing crystal meth?”

  Tony shook his head. “I’ve seen meth labs before and they’re not that complex. There’s a state-of-the-art research lab inside that supposedly deserted building.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “What the hell are they doing?
”

  12:13:12 A.M. EDT

  Eighth Floor, Beresfield Apartments Central Park West

  New York, New York

  Jack Bauer tightened the tourniquet with a yank. The Albino grunted, chewed his lower lip. The crimson flow from the ghastly wound in his leg slowed, but didn’t stop.

  Jack knew Erno Tobias could easily bleed to death if he wasn’t careful.

  Too bad.

  “The generals thought you were an urban myth,” Jack said, tugging on the electric cord wrapped around the man’s arms. “But the Bosnian refugees I spoke with all swore you existed. They’re the ones who named you Ice and Snow.”

  Bauer had addressed his captive in Serbian. Hearing his native language spoken by an American enemy seemed to 226

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  throw the former assassin off balance, which was exactly what Jack wanted. Bauer also hoped the Albino might slip and say something he might not in his adopted tongue. So far, that hadn’t happened.

  Time to step up the pressure.

  Jack faced the man. “After Victor Drazen was killed—”

  The Albino spat on the hardwood floor at Jack’s feet.

  “Murdered, you mean—”

  “Neutralized,” Jack cut in. “The NATO forces seized his records, and there you were. No name, just a description.

  Odreðeni cˇlan—the Albino. Another document called you Odreðeni cˇlan bled ubica. The Pale One . . .”

  Jack saw the hunted look in the man’s pink-rimmed, colorless eyes and knew he was wearing the Albino down.

  “You were a member of Drazen’s Black Dogs,” Jack continued, gesturing to the man’s tattoo. “We wondered why every moderate politician who worked for peace ended up dead. Then we discovered it was you who assassinated them.”

  “They were traitors! Corrupt internationalists who allowed violent invaders to flourish inside our borders. You can pretend the refugees were innocent, that they didn’t invade our towns, murder Serbs, burn our churches. You can pretend, but I know the truth—”

  “And now you’re helping those same ‘violent foreigners’

  sow destruction in America.”

  The Albino smiled though his pain. “I would call that irony.”

  Jack slapped him hard, then knelt down and spoke softly into his ear. “That’s ancient history. Let’s talk about your current operation. Why are you helping Noor?”

  C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 227

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The Albino snorted, licked blood off his lip. “Now you have them in your backyard. Let’s see how you like it—”

  Jack fought the urge to strike him again. Instead, he grinned coldly. “You blew it, Tobias—or whatever the hell your name really is. Even at the restaurant in Little Italy, I had no idea who you were, where you were from. But when I ran into that Serbian hit team at the World Trade Center, I started to get the picture. The people at Kurmastan are just pawns. Someone else is pulling the strings.”

  Jack grabbed a handful of the man’s white hair and yanked his head back. “Who are you working for?” Jack yelled. “Who’s pulling the strings and why?”

  Jack released the man and the Albino hung his head.

  “I hurt,” he said softly.

  Jack’s fists clenched. He thought of the Black Dogs, all the murders, rapes, and carnage they’d committed in Serbia. He thought of Kurmastan and those trucks of death, rolling down America’s highways now.

  “If you don’t tell me what I need to know,” Jack promised, “the pain is going to get a whole lot worse.”

  12:23:47 A.M. EDT

  Security Station One

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  The phone rang. Morris O’Brian’s eyes never left the monitor as he snatched the phone off its cradle.

  “O’Brian.”

  “It’s Tony.”

  228

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  “Ah, the prodigal son.”

  “Listen, Morris, we found the Thirteen Gang’s headquarters. It’s located at 1313 Crampton Street, Newark—”

  “1313?” Morris interrupted.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Listen, we found something else, too.”

  Morris winced. On the monitor, three Atlantic City police officers had just cut down a terrorist who’d ignored repeated commands to drop his weapon.

  “What . . . what did you find?” Morris asked, turning away from the bloody sight on the screen.

  “We don’t exactly know,” Tony replied. “There’s some kind of laboratory or drug factory or something inside the Crampton Street warehouse, which is supposed to be abandoned. A garage door opened up and Judith Foy shot a couple of surveillance photos. But we have no way to analyze the images on this end.”

  “Can you send them along? Or is Deputy Director Foy still worried about leaks?”

  Tony sighed. “I’ve convinced her the leaks have been plugged, but we don’t have a PDA. I can send the images to you through my cell phone, but they’re bound to lose some resolution.”

  “I know. Wish our technology was better. Maybe in a few years—”

  “Morris! We don’t have a few years.”

  “We can enhance the digital images on this end, Tony, make your pictures as good as new. Just send them along.”

  O’Brian gave Tony a phone number to use for the data C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 229

  dump. After he hung up, Morris faced Peter Randall.

  “We’ve got some intelligence coming in. It will be dumped in cache twenty-two. Digital images. I’m rather swamped here. Can you analyze them?”

  “Sure, I’ll be glad to, Mr. O’Brian,” Randall replied.

  “I’ll do the work at Security Station Two, if you don’t mind. Less distractions . . .”

  “Good lad,” Morris murmured, his eyes drifting back to the live feed of the firefight in Atlantic City. But as soon as Peter Randall was gone, Morris reached for the phone.

  12:56:18 A.M. EDT

  Eighth Floor, Beresfield Apartments Central Park West

  New York, New York

  “A name,” Jack Bauer demanded.

  “It will do you . . . no good . . .” The Albino’s voice was weak. He let out a moan of agony, blood streaking his pale face. “You can’t stop . . . what’s about to happen.”

  “A name.” Jack coolly dug the kitchen knife deeper into the man’s ravaged wound.

  The Albino cried out, perspiration beading his forehead.

  “A name.” Jack probed even deeper, hitting bone.

  “NOW!”

  “Soren Ungar!” the Albino blurted out. “His company, Ungar, Geneva, LLC, is the real owner of Rogan Pharmaceuticals.”

  230

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  “And it was Rogan that provided the drugs that drove the men and women of Kurmastan mad?” Jack hissed, twisting the blade.

  “Yes!” the Albino shouted.

  Jack yanked the knife back, dropped it on the hardwood floor. “Why?” he asked.

  The Albino shook his head.

  “Talk!”

  The Albino was breathing hard. “Before I tell you,” he gasped, “I want a pardon. Signed by your President. Forgiving all my past crimes.”

  Looming over the man, Jack shook his head.

  “You’re an international war criminal. A fugitive from justice. They want you at the Hague. It’s out of our government’s hands—”

  “You can fix this!” the Albino insisted.

  “I can’t, and I won’t,” Jack replied. “No bargains.”

  To Jack’s surprise, the Albino actually shrugged under his bonds.

  “As you Americans are fond of saying, you can’t fault a man for trying,” he said. A strange smile lifted his lips, and then he bit down hard. Jack heard a crunch, and Erno Tobias choked. When he opened his mouth, black blood poured from his throat.

  “No!” Jack cried.

 
His body jerking spasmodically, the Albino’s eyes rolled up in his head, then he fell forward, hanging loosely from the chair. Jack felt for a pulse, but found nothing. He yanked back the man’s head, reached into his mouth to find the poison capsule. Jack was stunned.

  C O L L AT E R A L D A M A G E 231

  How did I miss it? How? I searched him . . .

  Jack quickly discovered that the toxic chemical had been stored inside a hollow tooth. The second the poison hit the man’s system, he was dead.

  Jack stumbled back, dropped into a leather chair. He still needed more information, but now at least he had a name.

  Soren Ungar.

  Jack rose and crossed to Erno Tobias’s computer. He’d already forwarded the information stored there to Morris O’Brian. Now he began searching the files himself, looking for some clue to what was really happening, something that would lead him to an endgame . . .

  12:59:50 A.M. EDT

  Security Station Two

  CTU Headquarters, NYC

  After entering the security code that allowed him access to cache twenty-two, Peter Randall opened the file Tony Almeida had forwarded to CTU. It contained three digital images, which needed little enhancement. Two of the pictures clearly showed Ibrahim Noor’s secret bio-weapons laboratory. The black Hummer rolling into the garage obscured much of the scene in the third picture.

  Not good, Randall thought. He called up several older files from the CTU database, searching for photos that would make a good match. He selected three pictures of a Cleveland methadone lab busted by the DEA in 1996.

  232

  2 4 D E C L A S S I F I E D

  The Ohio lab was also housed inside a brick warehouse, the surveillance photos were taken at night, and with a little Photoshop tinkering, Randall even placed the black Hummer into the third image.

  The photos would not stand up to close scrutiny, but Randall gambled they wouldn’t have to.

  In the mess going on now, no one will pay attention to a simple meth lab, he decided.