24: Deadline (24 Series) (33 page)

Using calculated three-round bursts from the SMG, he aimed for headshots on his targets, putting them down before they could gather their wits and offer up any kind of adequate defense. Jack let his thoughts drop briefly into a feral, hunter’s mind-set where there were only targets, only enemies to be dispatched with clinical, cold-eyed detachment. In this moment, he was a soldier again, and he knew this kind of war.

A biker with a heavy SPAS-12 shotgun dodged out of his arc of fire and tried to draw a bead on him, but Jack had his range and shot him as he rose up from behind a dust-caked display rack. He fell into cover behind a thick concrete stanchion and swept the space around him, finding more targets and ending them before they could combine their forces to engage en masse.

Jack’s eyeline crossed the parked van and he met Laurel’s gaze, the young woman down low near the wheel well. She was shocked and relieved all at once at the sight of him, but he could see she understood that the danger was still far from over. Then Laurel turned away, a flash of guilt on her face, and Jack followed her look.

Chase was nearby, sprawled on his back, his sightless eyes open and staring up into the dimness. An ugly red halo surrounded his head and neck, and Jack felt his moment of disconnection fall away as he saw his former partner’s body lying where it had fallen. The anger that had powered Jack through so many confrontations surged again, the raw need for vengeance running through him like octane fuel.

“Rydell!” he snarled. “I’m coming for you!”

*   *   *

The biker heard Bauer shout his name and he snorted with laughter. If he was going to call him out like this was some Old West showdown, then Rydell was more than happy to oblige. It didn’t cross his mind that his men were falling all around him, that perhaps Jack Bauer was a kind of opponent that he had never faced before. That wasn’t important to him. Sticks was bleeding out his last where the man had gutshot him at close range, and Rydell didn’t think to consider that. It was beyond him to wonder how many of the Night Rangers had fallen in the chaos of the past few hours.
He
was all the mattered,
he
was the club, the last of the original founders and the mind and will at the heart of it all.

In that moment, Rydell didn’t care if it all came down around him, if every dirty cent, every bloodstained dollar the MC had made went up in smoke. All he wanted was Bauer dead, right here,
right now
.

Shouting his fury, Rydell walked out with the big Desert Eagle raised high and started firing, releasing shot after heavy-caliber shot toward the pillar where Bauer was hiding. Chunks of masonry blew away into fragments and dust, the thunder of the hand cannon booming back across the echoing interior of the derelict building.

Bauer broke away and sprinted, shooting from the hip as he powered toward a heap of junked chest freezers. Rydell felt the burning agony of a bullet as it creased the meat of his thigh, ripping open a long, bloody furrow, but he kept on firing, and one round finally found its mark.

A .50-caliber round hit Bauer square in the chest and blew him back off his legs with the shock of it. Rydell watched him go down in a crumpled heap.

But not dead.
Not yet
. Rydell advanced, limping on his injured leg, ignoring the blood soaking through the denim of his jeans. He was going to finish this.

*   *   *

The transition from running to being flat on his back seemed to happen instantly. Jack felt the impact in his torso like the kick from a bull, and now as he tried to right himself, pain erupted across his chest in a wash of fire. His lungs were filled with knives as he struggled to take a breath, tasting iron in his mouth. The MP5/10 was gone.

Digging deep, Jack found the energy to roll onto his side. He could smell the hot odor of burned plastic from the bulletproof vest under his jacket, where the kinetic energy of the big bullet had been translated into heat as it flattened itself against the armor.

Rydell was stalking toward him, leaving a trail of crimson as he crossed the floor. The biker’s allies were either dead or dying. It was just the two of them now.

“Shoulda stayed out of my business, asshole!” shouted Rydell, raising the Desert Eagle.

Through the pain, Jack couldn’t manage an answer. His fingers snaked around the grip of the semiautomatic in his belt and he let the gun speak for him instead. Before Rydell could react, Jack fired low from where he lay half-prone, and struck the other man with two shots that tore through his shin bones.

Rydell bellowed in pain and buckled, coming down hard against the concrete floor. He stopped himself from falling all the way, jamming the Desert Eagle into the ground as a prop to support his weight.

Another man might have given up and let himself drop, but the biker didn’t have it in him to quit, even if there was no other option. Rydell spat hate at Jack and lurched back, swinging his arm up to let off the last round in his magazine.

Jack fired again before Rydell’s finger could tighten on the trigger. The single shot went through the middle of the biker’s jawbone and blasted a mess of dark fluids out across the blood-streaked floor. Rydell’s body sagged under its own weight and fell forward.

*   *   *

It took an age for Jack to get back to his feet, and with every action aching, every move sending jolts of pain all through him, he reached up and pulled at the tabs holding the heavy armor across his chest. The constricting bulletproof vest fell from his shoulders and he felt like he could breathe again, even though it was still an effort to suck in air without flinching from the pain. He looked up, his gaze crossing the dark rafters overhead, then away.

“Jack…” called a voice. He ignored it.

Holstering his pistol, Jack limped toward the van, halting just short of it to drop into a crouch next to Chase’s body. A turbulent mix of emotions swelled up inside him as he reached for the dead man. Gently, he brushed his fingers over his friend’s face and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, the words coming out low and broken.
I never wanted this for him
. Jack’s sorrow echoed in his thoughts.
I needed his help and he never questioned it.

And look what it cost him.
Nina’s ghost was there once more, and if he closed his eyes, Jack knew he would see her standing there, silently accusing him.
More death, more revenge … Is it ever going to be enough?

What happens when you have no one left, Jack?

“Jack, watch out!” Belatedly, he realized Laurel was calling out his name.

“Bauer!” A shadow fell over him and he looked up into Hadley’s eyes. The FBI agent had his weapon drawn and aimed at his head.

*   *   *

With the melee over, the mess of the gunfight was no longer an issue, and the contractor could concentrate on the endgame. There had been a moment when it seemed as if the biker would make the assignment a moot issue, but Bauer had dealt with the criminal in short order. Even wounded, he was still a lethal adversary, and never one to take lightly.

The face behind the sniper scope split in a smile. Experience had proved that point on more than one occasion. Slowly, so as to move in total silence and ensure no one below was alerted, the contractor eased up the handle and opened the rifle’s well-oiled bolt, revealing an empty chamber. Gloved fingers felt for and retrieved a single hand-loaded .308 Winchester cartridge from a vest pocket. Like every round the contractor fired, this one had been prepared individually—bullet head, powder, case and primer, all made ready to the exacting standards of a professional killer.

The cartridge dropped into the chamber and the bolt was locked. Leaning into the rifle, the contractor’s index finger settled lightly on the knurled trigger. A breath was taken, half-released, held.

*   *   *

Jack rose slowly to his feet, holding his hands out to his sides. “You get what you came for?” he asked.

“How are you still breathing?” Hadley asked, his eyes narrowing. “What gives you the
right
to survive, Bauer? Good men perish all around you, but you sail on, untouched.”

Jack’s gaze dropped. “Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself that question.”

“Did you kill Jason Pillar?” spat the agent. “Did you make it happen?” He didn’t wait for a reply, and Jack knew that no matter what answer he gave, it would be the wrong one. “I know about you and what you did to Charles Logan! I know exactly what you are, Bauer! This country is on the verge of war because of what you have done! Men like you, you’re not fit to walk the streets with normal people. You’re a
weapon
. A menace.” He shook his head. “Terrorists, criminals like these bottom-feeders…” Hadley indicated the corpses of the bikers. “You’re more of a risk to this country than any of them!”

“He saved our lives…” managed Trish, hanging back with Laurel and the others. “He came back for us.”

“Get out of here,” Hadley warned them. “
Go!
” His shout was enough to make them run for the doors, but Laurel remained, frozen to the spot and unable to look away.

Jack held up his hands, wrist to wrist. “Are you going to arrest me, Agent Hadley? That is what you’re here for, right?”

Hadley snarled and took aim, pointing the muzzle of his gun at Jack’s forehead. “It’s too late for that. Somebody has to put an end to you.”

“Hadley, stop!” Behind him, Kilner drew his own weapon. “I can’t let you do this. Stand down, now!”

“He won’t,” Jack told the other agent. “He can’t go back with me alive to talk. Dead, he gets to make up whatever the hell story he wants. Isn’t that right?” He let his hands drop. “So do it, then. Shoot me.” Jack made a pistol-to-the-head gesture with his fingers. “Put me out of your misery.”

*   *   *

What happened next was so fast, when he looked back on it over the days that followed, Kilner would find it hard to break it down into individual moments.

Bauer turned his back and took a step, as if he was going to gather up the body of his friend, Edmunds.

Hadley shouted for him to turn around, and the senior agent’s last fraction of reserve broke.

Kilner surged forward and grabbed Hadley’s arm, pulling him aside, struggling to stop the man before he could cross a line there would be no coming back from.

And then they all heard the crash of a single gunshot, from high up in the rafters of the tumbledown building. They saw Bauer twist sharply, jerked around like a marionette, and then collapse against the side of the van. A bloom of fresh, bright blood grew on his chest. The woman, Laurel, screamed.

Shocked rigid, Kilner watched the light go out in Bauer’s eyes as he crashed to the ground. “Shooter!” he shouted, aiming out into the shadows. Had they missed one of the Night Rangers hiding in the darkness, waiting for the opportunity to open up on them all?

But a second shot did not follow the first, and then there was a hissing sound as a black cable descended from above them. Laurel ran to Jack’s fallen body, and as Kilner watched, a figure in tactical gear came down the cable with almost balletic ease, the spindly form of a sniper rifle across their back.

He knew the shooter was a woman before the hood fell back from her head; the figure was too lithe and balanced for a male. Kilner saw a pale, hawkish face framed by short black hair. In one hand she held a silenced P99 pistol, and with the other she drew the sniper rifle around to aim it from the hip.

“Get away from him,” she told Laurel. The accent was American, but Kilner couldn’t be certain if it was learned or natural. The inflection seemed off. “You’re not on my list, but that will change if you get in my way. Anyone moves, they die.” Hadley shifted and she pointed the pistol at him. “Was I unclear?”

“Who are you?” Hadley spat. “You shot him…”

“Call me Mandy. That’s as good a name as any. And yes, I did just kill Jack Bauer.” She moved to the fallen man and gave him a once-over. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Kilner hesitated, aware that the woman had the rifle trained on him. “You’re not one of Rydell’s people…”

She smiled thinly. “No. I’m a little out of their price range.” She looked at Laurel. “You. Pick up his body and put it in the back of the van.”

Warily, the woman did as she was told, dragging Bauer up. Tears streaked her face. “You bitch.”

“I’ve heard that alias before,” Hadley said quietly. “The Heller kidnapping. The Palmer assassination. You’re wanted in connection with both those crimes. You’re a contract killer.”

“Still talking about those, huh?” Mandy pursed her lips. “It’s just business, understand? Don’t interfere and you won’t get hurt.”

And now it came to Kilner in a rush. “At the field office … there was chatter from the Secret Service about the Russians having their own beef with Jack … Did they send you?”

“Does it matter?” Mandy walked around to the front of the van and tossed the rifle inside. “You wanted Bauer gone … he’s gone.” She opened the driver’s-side door. “My employers want proof, though. Don’t do anything as stupid as trying to follow me.” The van’s engine rattled into life, and the vehicle slewed around before bouncing out through the wrecked doors and into the rainy night.

Hadley jogged after it, falling short as Kilner came up beside him. Markinson came running. “Is it over?” she asked. “I saw Bauer…”

“It’s over now.” Kilner’s jaw hardened and he holstered his gun, reaching instead for his handcuffs. He grabbed Hadley’s wrist before the other agent could react, and hooked the metal loop around it. “Thomas Hadley,” he said, his tone firm. “I’m relieving you of operational command of this assignment. You’re under arrest pending a full investigation into your actions tonight.”

“You can’t…” Hadley’s denial seemed weak; it was as if all the man’s energy had suddenly been drained from him.
He’s lost,
Kilner thought,
and he knows it.

“You’re done,” said Kilner. “Markinson, take his badge and his sidearm.”

The woman nodded and disarmed Hadley. “Shit. What a mess.”

Kilner looked back and saw Laurel and the other women gathered at the door of the bus. Their expressions were a mix of grief and elation, but there was hope there too, for the first time.