24: Deadline (24 Series) (19 page)

“
We?
” she shot back. “I’m not part of this.” She looked around desperately. “I have to get out of here … I have to…” The woman’s voice trailed off to nothing. “Oh god. Trish and all the others, they’re still on the bus. Oh god oh god…”

Jack took a second to make sure that they hadn’t drawn any attention. They seemed to be in the clear for the moment, the fight having taken place in a shadowed corner of the motel parking lot out of sight of the main street. He wiped his hands down on Brodur’s clothes and then dumped him in the bed of the pickup, dragging a loose tarp across to cover up the corpse.

The woman watched him work, kneading the grip of the gun. “I’m Laurel,” she offered, finding her jacket on the ground and gathering it up. She wasn’t pointing the gun at him anymore.

“Jack,” he replied. “You’re not from here.”

She gave a derisive snort. “I don’t even know where the hell
here
is.” She looked out toward the street, and Jack could sense she was weighing her chances.

“You want to run, I won’t stop you,” he said. “But you’ve got to know the odds aren’t good on your own.”

Laurel looked back at him, and disgust crept into her expression. “So you’re gonna do what,
look after me
?” Other men had clearly used that line on her before, and with the worst of intentions.

Jack pushed aside how much Laurel reminded him of Kim and shook his head. “You go out there, they’ll catch you. They’ll make you tell them who killed that creep. And I don’t want anyone asking questions about me.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Then the revolver went into her jacket pocket and Laurel gave him a measuring look. “You got anything to eat?”

*   *   *

“Yeah, that’s the fella,” said the waitress. Her name was Margaret and she seemed distracted, her gaze drifting away every few seconds to the small handful of other customers who still remained in the diner and the county cops who were milling around out in front of the place.

“You’re sure about that?” said Kilner, holding up Jack Bauer’s ID photo.

“I said yeah, didn’t I?” Margaret glanced between Kilner and Hadley. “He was a decent tipper. Look, I don’t wanna be rude or nothing, I mean I do my civic duty and all, but you boys are making my customers nervous.” She jerked a thumb at the diner’s sparse clientele. “Around here, the federal government don’t got the best of reputations, if you catch my drift.”

“Yes, I’m sure all those welfare dollars your state sucks out of Washington, DC, are a real burden,” Hadley replied briskly. “Look, ma’am, I don’t have any interest in the local truckers bucking their taxes by using agricultural diesel instead of regular.” He jabbed Bauer’s picture with a finger. “However good a tipper he was, this man is a wanted killer. Is that clear?”

Kilner watched the color drain from Margaret’s face. “
Whoa
. For real?” She blinked. “So the other guy was, what? His victim? His accomplice?”

“The other guy,” Hadley repeated. “You got a security camera over there. Where’s the recorder it’s attached to?”

“Ain’t one,” she told him, lowering her voice so no one else would hear her say it. “It’s just for insurance, y’know? A fake.”

Hadley swallowed an angry reply and walked away a few steps. Kilner frowned. “I’d like you to talk with Deputy Roe. We’re going to need a full statement from you and a description of the other man you saw here tonight.”

“Is he, like, one of them serial murderers?” Margaret seemed to take a kind of glee from asking the question.

Before he could frame any kind of answer, he saw Dell enter the diner and beckon them over. Kilner followed Hadley, sensing the frustration in the other FBI agent. So far, the helicopter had given them nothing they didn’t already know and none of the locals canvassed by Sheriff Bray’s deputies had seen hide nor hair of Jack Bauer. The diner was their first real lead, but so far it was proving to be tantalizingly vague.

Bauer had stopped here to eat and made one, maybe two phone calls. Around half an hour later, another man had arrived and they had talked before leaving together. That was the sum total of information that had been gleaned, and Hadley was pulling at the leash like an angry pit bull, becoming more aggravated with each passing hour at the very real possibility that their quarry would leave them behind.

But Dell’s expression, her sly grin, made Kilner reevaluate that thought.

“Tell me you’ve got something that’s worth a damn,” said Hadley.

“I may well have,” she replied, guiding them back out the doors and into the chilly evening air. “Remember when we arrived there was a police cruiser already here? And paramedics too?”

Kilner had to admit, he hadn’t registered the latter. “I thought they were here for the canvassing.”

“Nope,” said Dell. “Local dispatcher got a nine-one-one call around the same time that Todd Billhight phoned in about the helicopter. Turns out a friendly trucker did the good Samaritan act for two chumps who’d taken a beating and got dumped by the highway.”

“What does that have to do with our fugitive?” said Hadley.

“Bauer’s BOLO was on the dash of the cruiser sent out to give them a once-over. One of said pair of chumps saw it and opened his mouth about it. The deputy took it upon himself to bring them back here.”

“Did he now?” Kilner saw the flash of a wintry smile, there and then gone again, on Hadley’s lips. “Show me.”

In the back of the ambulance were two younger men, and they were very much the worse for wear. One of them, the skinnier of the two, had the beginnings of a nasty black eye and the bigger of them had a leg in a splint and a swollen, reddening throat.

Hadley flashed his badge at the paramedic standing with them, cutting him off as he tried to say something about needing to get to proper medical attention. He held out his ID to the pair and glared at them. “Special Agent Hadley, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Oh shit.” The shorter one said the words before he was even aware of it.

That earned him a hard look from his friend. “Josh!” he rasped. “Shut up.”

Kilner held up the photo of Bauer. “You know this person?” The way the short one reacted, he knew the man did. “Where did you see him?”

“Look,” said the man with the busted leg. “I gotta get to a hospital. Can we do this on the way or something?”

Hadley came over and examined the man’s injury. He made a face. “That looks nasty. Bauer do that to you?”

“Who?”

“This man,” said Kilner, showing the picture again.

“Frank…” began Josh, a pleading tone in his voice.

Kilner evaluated the situation; he knew bottom-feeders when he saw them. These two guys were at best wannabe mooks who had the misfortune of crossing paths with Jack Bauer and his mystery companion. Maybe they’d mistakenly tried to roll them, or maybe there was more to it. But instinct told him that Josh and Frank here were little more than collaterals, people caught in the wake of Bauer’s escape more than involved in it.

Hadley seemed to come to the same conclusion. “This man is very dangerous. I need to find him and whoever is with him. Now, you can tell me what you know, or I can drag you both into holding for the next ten hours and you can live with however much those breaks and bruises are hurting. Because no one is going to the hospital unless I say so. Clear?”

“That’s the guy,” Josh blurted. “He got the drop on—”

“
Shut up!
” shouted Frank. “Stop. Talking.
Asshole
.” He winced at pain from his leg. “Okay. Okay. He’s right, that guy, what’d you call him, Bauer? He’s the one that busted me up.”

“Why?” said Dell.

“We were just here for the car,” Frank said between gasps. “Like, a repo.”

At Hadley’s urging, they described a silver Chrysler 300 with Pennsylvania plates, and Dell stepped away to contact the NY office and get the license running through the database.

“Who was the driver?” Kilner demanded. “The man Bauer was meeting?”

“Charlie Williams,” said Josh after a moment. “Car didn’t belong to him, he took it. That’s all,” he insisted. “We were gonna get it back.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah. So, can we go now?”

Hadley nodded distractedly and strode away to where Bray was talking to one of his men. “Sheriff? I need those two idiots arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting a known federal fugitive. I want you to lean on them hard, and get me full statements when you’re done.” He didn’t wait for a reply, and started toward the parked SUV.

Bray shot Kilner a surprised look and then called after the other agent. “And just what are you gonna be doing?”

“I have a name and a vehicle. I’m going to find both.”

*   *   *

Chase awoke as a rolling burn spread down his arm along the tracks of his nerves. He gritted his teeth and levered himself up to a sitting position, fingers briefly touching the butt of his Ruger semiautomatic among the pile of his jacket before gripping his scarred wrist. In the semidarkness of the motel room, the web of blemishes and pockmarks around the place where his wrist had been severed were invisible—but Chase knew them intimately, like the streets where he had grown up. Lines of fish-belly-white scarring that would never take on color, never tan in the sun, a reminder that would stay constant for the rest of his life.

“Jack?” he whispered. The seat by the window was empty and Chase frowned. He was alone in the room, listening hard. Had Jack stepped out for some air? That had to be it.

The pain alternated between slow, sullen throbs and random jolts that made his arm twitch. It had been a long time since it had hurt this badly, but then it had been a long time since Chase had used his bad hand to throw punches. A pang of self-loathing settled in on him even before he committed to the act of reaching for the pill bottle. With motions that had become almost reflexive muscle memory, Chase popped the plastic cap and dry-swallowed a single tablet. He kneaded the flesh of his arm, as if by doing so he could work in the effects of the painkiller a little quicker.

Shadows moved by the window. He slipped behind the room’s only easy chair and drew the Ruger, taking aim at the door.

The latch clicked and the door opened slowly, until it reached the stop where the cupboard was wedged in the way. “It’s me,” said Jack, and he slipped into the room. Chase rose, but he kept the gun at hand as he realized the other man wasn’t alone.

A woman, her features lost in the dimness. She balked at the sight of the pistol and froze.

“It’s okay,” Jack told him, and he closed the door, switching on a bedside lamp. “This is Laurel. We’re helping her.”

Chase gave the woman a look. A little younger than him, she looked strung-out and fearful. Her face was dirty and scratched, as if she had been knocked down.

“You said you had something to eat,” she began.

Jack nodded toward a bag on the dresser—inside were snacks, bottles of water and sodas they had looted from a gas station vending machine back along the highway. Laurel helped herself to a 7 Up and a stale sandwich, demolishing it hungrily.

“Waifs and strays now?” Chase said irritably. “What the hell, Jack?”

“This is Chase,” Jack told the girl. “He’s okay.”

“Not right now,” he shot back. “Who is this?”

“Laurel,” said the girl. “Laurel Tenn.” Chase noticed how she had positioned herself close to the door in case she need to make a run for it, and by the way she held her jacket close to her, she had something hidden in its folds. A weapon, most likely.

Jack sighed and went to the sink in the small bathroom cubicle. “Brodur, that biker from before? He was going to kill her.” He ran his hands under the taps, and rivulets of red streamed away down the plug hole.

“Not for starters,” Laurel added, with a grim look in her eyes.

Chase’s lips thinned. “So you got in the way.” The blood on Jack’s hands was answer enough as to the thug’s fate.

“You’d have done the same.” Jack returned and took a bottle of water for himself.

No, I wouldn’t
. Chase wanted to say those words.
I wouldn’t put us at risk.
But then he realized that all the years in the wilderness after leaving Valencia behind hadn’t hardened him as much as he wanted to believe they had. It actually made him a little angry to see that he was still that same man, deep down. He hadn’t changed, and neither had Jack Bauer.
What kind of idiot does that make me?
He frowned. “This is a complication.”

“Hey!” Laurel glared at him, talking around a mouthful of bread. “Don’t speak about me like I’m not in the room!”

“You’re right,” Jack agreed. “But there wasn’t a good alternative.”

“Never is.” Chase sat down on the bed and blew out a breath. “Fine. She stays here until we go. Then she’s on her own.”

“I’m not the only one in trouble,” Laurel insisted. “Trish and the others…” She faltered over the name. “Look, you know what these Night Ranger pricks are doing here, right?”

“Human trafficking,” said Jack, and Chase’s eyes widened.

But the woman was shaking her head. “That’s only a part of it. I mean, I heard things … I saw things. But you never believe that kinda crap, do you?” She seemed to deflate. “Not until it’s too late.”

“Since when are biker gangs involved in the people smuggling game? It’s not their bag.”

Jack gave Laurel an encouraging nod. “Tell him what you told me.”

She swallowed the last of the soda. “These guys … recruiters … they go looking all around for folks who are down on their luck. Not just girls. Workers. A lot of them. They offer good money, short-time jobs, out of state. No tax, cash in hand, all quiet.”

“And you believed that?” said Chase. “You had to know it would be something illegal. At
best
.”

“I know!” she retorted. “Everyone on that stinking bus knew that! But when you’re drowning, you take the first rope you’re thrown, right?
Right?
”

He gave a reluctant nod. “No argument there.”

Laurel was silent for a long moment before she spoke again. “But then I got cold feet. I wanted to run, Trish and I tried to run, she got caught…” The woman took a shuddering breath. “They didn’t want me and Trish for just
work,
though. Some, but not us. And the other girls.”