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

guns, and they had been cleared to use them if they saw fit. Hadley’s standing orders had been given the green light by District. Bauer was to be considered armed and extremely dangerous.
    To the left, the apartment was open plan, the living area stretching all the way to the far wall, the space broken up by low tables, bookshelves and other furniture. Three of the six agents fanned out in that direction, the man with the Remington the last to enter, pumping the slide to chamber a fresh round as he did so. To the right was a kitchen area and a door leading to a narrow balcony, and beyond that a short hall down to the bedroom and the bathroom. One man moved into the kitchen, the other two proceeded down the hallway.
    The bedroom door was already open. “Jack Bauer!” shouted the agent who entered first. “Show yourself, now!” He stepped aside as his teammate came up with him, and moved into the bathroom. The second man spun in the other direction, finding a large walk-in closet in the corner of the room.
    With the MP5/10 aimed chest-high, the second agent reached to pull open the louvered door of the closet. His gloved fingers were on the brass handle when the doors splintered. Jack burst through the thin wooden slats and struck the FBI agent in the face with the flat of a cast-iron skillet he’d snatched from the kitchen.
    The agent’s head snapped back, the unexpected impact bouncing his skull off the inside of his helmet. His nose shattered and blood streamed from his nostrils. Dazed, the agent sagged to the floor and struggled to remain conscious.
    Jack didn’t stop to make sure the first man was out of action. If he didn’t act with speed, it wouldn’t matter one way or another. Dropping the skillet, he bolted across the room and met the other agent as the first man was coming back out of the bathroom, calling, “Clear!”
    “Not exactly,” Jack retorted, and landed a crippling punch in the agent’s throat. The man’s cry for help was choked off and Jack shoved him back into the bathroom, using one hand to push aside the MP5/10. He had the momentum and he used it to slam the agent’s head down against the toilet cistern, then kicked at his opponent’s legs to rob him of what little balance he still had. Clad in body armor, a helmet rig and tactical vest, the FBI agent moved slower than Jack, and in the confined space of the apartment’s bathroom that small edge was all that Bauer needed.
    He tripped the man into a fall that sent his head ringing off the rim of the sink and the agent fell limp, collapsing into a heap.
    In the same second, the small can of deodorant Jack had stuck inside the kitchen’s microwave oven reached a point of critical combustion, and with a flat concussive chug, the oven door blew off its hinges. A ball of orange fire puffed out, immediately setting off the smoke alarm.
    The agent in the kitchen reeled, catching the heat of the improvised explosive across his back. He swore, falling against the balcony door, and scrambled to bring his submachine gun around to bear.
    One after another, a half-dozen small black cylinders came flying out of the bedroom, clattering off the walls and the wooden flooring. Jack tossed flash bangs and smoke grenades he had pulled from the belts of the other agents, and then threw himself aside as they went off in a staccato ripple of thunder.
    A dense white fog filled the apartment, taking visibility down to almost nothing. Jack heard the other agents calling out, cursing and shouting for help.
    Pulling a discarded T-shirt across his face as a makeshift mask, Jack surged forward, and the man in the kitchen stumbled into him as he tried to feel his way back into the room. Along with the grenades, Bauer had snatched a pistol-shaped X2 Taser from the agents he had neutralized, and he used it to quietly put the other man down.
    In the smoke, the other three agents were calling out to one another. “What the hell?” said one voice, high and tight with