24: Deadline (24 Series) by James Swallow Read Free Book Online

frowned.
    But maybe I am, thought the agent as he walked back to his car and dropped into the seat. Should have kept my mouth shut in the briefing. It was clear to him that Special Agent Hadley was gunning for Bauer, and by daring to express doubts about the man’s guilt, Kilner had already put himself on the outs with the other agent before the manhunt had even begun. Why else had Hadley ordered Kilner to take a car out to the hotel if not to get rid of him?
    He drummed his fingers on the dash and thought about crossing the street to go check on the apartment upstairs. Would Hadley give him a hard time for doing that? Kilner felt conflicted about the whole damn thing.
    Instead, he reached into the Ford’s glove compartment and found a pair of short-frame binoculars there. Turning in his seat, he raised them and scanned the windows of the Hotel Chelsea, counting up the floors and across, searching for Bauer’s apartment. After a moment, he found it, catching sight of the broken window. He wondered about what had gone on up there. The preliminary scene-of-crime report talked about a rifle bullet that had been dug out of the wall, most likely the same round that had cut through Renee Walker and mortally wounded her.
    Kilner shook his head. It was no way to die, and even as he knew that Jack Bauer had broken the law in his quest to take revenge for Walker’s killing, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would have done any different in the same circumstances.
    That was still at the front of his thoughts when he saw what looked like the edge of a shadow moving inside the sealed apartment.
    *   *   *
    Jack considered the money and the Barrett passport. It wasn’t enough. He needed more hardware if he was going to make his flight from the city a reality. He had no gun, no communications, no vehicle.
    Mulling it over, Jack considered that he was being presented with two options. The first had the lowest level of immediate risk, but it would take time and the clock was against him. He could sneak back out of the hotel and start walking, find a way off Manhattan and if his luck held, be lost in back-roads country by late tomorrow. But to do that ran the risk of being recognized at every turn. The NYPD had his face, and it wouldn’t be long before the FBI decided to tell the world he was a hunted man, and then there were whatever hostile resources the Russians were mobilizing against him.
    The second option was extremely risky, it was high impact and it relied on striking fast before his pursuers could solidify their grip on the city.
    In the end, he reflected, it’s not really a choice at all.
    He edged to the window in the apartment’s living room and dropped low, looking carefully over the ledge to see down into the street. A black car had joined the NYPD cruiser across from the Hotel Chelsea’s entrance, and Jack didn’t need to see the bumper to know that it would have federal plates.
    He stood up. Across the room was a bookshelf full of volumes about cookery and travel guides belonging to the apartment’s owner. The books had been removed one by one and given a cursory search, then piled in a heap back on the shelf. A colorful city guide to Montreal was among them, and Jack walked slowly across the room to get it. He made sure that he passed in front of two windows as he did so, before snatching up the book and bending its spine back against itself.
    The evidence team from the FBI had gone through everything, including the books, but theirs had been a cursory evaluation done under pressure of time, and not truly thorough. Hardly surprising, given the chaos that had affected the city over the past few hours. Another team would probably come back to conduct a deeper sweep in the next day or so, but by then it would be too late.
    Jack peeled away a loose section of the cardstock cover and used his fingernails to pinch the end of a tiny micro-SIM card lodged there, the same kind of memory card used in millions of