Within twenty-four hours a nightmare will be unleashed that could cause the death of untold millions and devastate a great nation. It's a plot being carried out by the unlikeliest of allies. A powerful mole within the deepest reaches of U.S. Intelligence has secretly conscripted the very criminals he's been charged with investigating -- former IRA terrorists, Latino and Asian gang members, Middle Eastern assassins and others -- creating one of the most insidious terrorist networks law enforcement has yet to take down.
One man stands between the destroyers and the death tide: Jack Bauer, lone wolf operative for America's brand-new elite Counter Terrorist Unit. But he's three thousand miles from the CTU command center without backup in a strange city, New York. He's been artfully set up and is being hunted by the FBI for the murder of two of its agents. And time's almost up . . .
The following takes place between the hours of 9 P.M. and 10 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
9:04:52 P.M. EDT
The sky over Queens, New York
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 asthe 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...
Marc Cerasini's writing credits include The Complete Idiot's Guide to U.S. Special Ops Forces and Heroes: U.S. Marine Corps Medal of Honor Winners and several projects for Tom Clancy, including creating the bible for the Clancy Power Play series, writing the YA action/adventure thriller The Ultimate Escape for Clancy's NetForce series, and writing a major essay on Clancy's contribution to the technothriller genre for the national bestseller The Tom Clancy Companion. Among the movie tie-in novelizations Marc has written are Wolverine: Weapon X, based on the popular X-Men series; the USA Today bestseller AVP: Alien Vs. Predator, based on the motion picture from 20th Century Fox; as well as five original novels based on the Toho Studios classic "Godzilla", and co-authored (with J.D. Lees) a nonfiction look at the film series, The Official Godzilla Compendium. Marc's other credits include the book 24: The House Special Subcommittee Investigation of CTU, which he co-authored with his wife, Alice Alfonsi.
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