A/N: Hey people
A/N: Hey people!! Remember me? ;-) Yes, I know, it's been a while... However, I still exist, and I'm writing. Slowly, though. There's so much life going on right now that I don't always have the energy to sit down with Tony, Michelle and Jack.. But at least I do do it after all ;-). So... because I've been missing all of ya, I've decided to unveil the prequel to my next story, which I have about 62 pages written of so far. I can't promise you the updates will be in close succession, but what I can promise you is a thrilling ride that you will want to stay on :D.
"Blowback" is told from Tony's POV if he's in a scene and from Jack's POV when Jack is 'in the lead'. I'll take artistic liberty in the scenes where they interact. Tony and Michelle don't appear in the prequel yet, but trust me, this will eventually be more about them than about Bauer ;-).
Almeida is God:D
I hope this fic is yet more mature than the previous ones, but the final verdict is in your hands. Please review the story as it is posted.
Thanks and enjoy!
JA
Disclaimer goes as usual: I do not own 24, the characters from the show are copyright FOX Entertainment. However, the story is a product of my own imagination.
Hood Mountain Regional Park, Santa Rosa, California
The heat coming from the flames engulfing the forest was almost unbearable. The wildfire had long ago taken on a life of its own, sweeping through the dry woods like a hungry dragon. The flames grew stronger with every bush they ate, grew taller with every tree trunk they climbed, turning the forest into one giant fireplace. Seen from afar, in the cloudless California summer night, the fire seemed to be the only living thing. The animals had fled in panic, if they could, and no human being, save the firefighters, would purposefully enter the burning kingdom of the unpredictable monster. Its many hands glowed in the prettiest shades of yellow and orange, ripping the darkness apart, yet there was nothing pretty in the destructive force that came with them. The black smoke rising towards the sky seemed to swallow the full moon like a hungry wolf at one moment, only to spit it out and then re-engulf it moments later.
Every so often, a helicopter would roar by and drop its payload of water onto the burning forest, in an attempt to tame the monster. Away from the edge of the fire front, bulldozers and chainsaws worked noisily. Firefighters, tree loggers and other helpers, cut trees, dragged wood and burned bushes along a creek to create a firebreak, a fuel-free channel through the woods as a cut off point for the fire. The flames weren't their only enemy; time and wind were just as crucial.
Two men stood by a pickup truck. One of them was bent over a map of the area that lay on the truck's hood, the other, the strike team leader, was talking to his two-way.
"Copy that," he said into the radio. "Keep us posted. Over." He then joined his map-reading colleague. "Winds unchanged. Situation seems stable."
"Good. Once we flood the creek, who knows, we might get lucky."
"Yeah. And we might get rain tomorrow night."
"Good. 'Cause the residential areas in the East are right around the corner."
Both men looked thoughtfully at the giant fireball.
"This is probably what Hell looks like," the team leader noted.
Just then, a man, barely in his twenties, came running from the direction of the burning woods. He wore a hardhat and carried an axe in his hands. Tools were hanging from a tool belt around his waist, but he was dressed in plain clothes rather than in a firefighters overall. He ran up to a group of lumberjacks working on cutting down a tree and called, "Ray!"
Two men turned their heads in response. One had been cutting down the tree and the other was helping two other men carry an already felled tree trunk out of the way.
"Which one, Josh?" the tree cutting Ray called.
The answer was directed at the other Ray, the larger of the two. "Keagan. I need your help, come on!"
"Excuse me," Ray Keagan said in a deep voice. "Mack, can you take over?"
"Sure."
Mack laid down his axe and took Ray's place, then Ray let go of the tree. Running to Josh, he readjusted his hardhat, his blue eyes blinking underneath it for a second in the light from the equipment around them. He ran one large, rough hand over his normally blond hair that was now ash-white.
"What is it, Josh?" he then asked, running to meet the young man. Standing in the white beam of Josh's flashlight was the stern, sweaty face of Jack Bauer.
"I found a body in the woods. I can't move the trunk on my own."
"A dead body?"
Josh was already running. Cursing inwardly, Jack began to sprint, too. He followed Josh towards the burning trees for a quarter of a mile or so, then Josh led them away from the fire, to an area that had burned previously but was now under control, the fire that had destroyed it, extinguished.
"Over here!" Josh yelled, and that's when Jack saw it. A male body was lying face down on the ground, a charred tree trunk lying across his back. Jack knew with one glance that the man couldn't possibly still be alive.
"Here, help me move this!" Josh gestured to the tree trunk.
Jack nodded, and as he approached, without hurry, he understood why Josh wanted so badly to extract the dead body. The metal blade of the man's axe was still tucked in his tool belt, and the remains of his hardhat were partly burned into his head.
"He was one of us," Jack stated.
"Are you going to help me or not?" Josh asked, his hands already underneath the tree trunk, ready to lift it. "That fire might come back this way, you know."
"Sorry." Jack crouched, breathing through his mouth to avoid smelling the complex stench that was rising from the grilled flesh, acrid and sweet at the same time, metallic from the burned blood, sulfuric from the scorched hair, charcoal like from the charred skin. He grabbed the other end of the trunk.
"On three. One, two, three." They tossed the tree trunk to the side, freeing the body. "Let's turn him."
A strong wave of odor rose into their nostrils as they turned the body to its back. Blocking it out, Jack focused on the facts before him. The body couldn't have been lying there long. It hadn't yet begun to decompose before the fire consumed it. The face was burned almost beyond recognition, but even Jack, after as little time as he'd spent working with the men in the area, recognized the drop-shaped nose piercing and the triangular earring in the man's right ear. "That's Tom," he stated evenly.
Josh pressed both hands to his eyes and nose, and turned his head away from the sight. Jack used the moment to take a 360° look of the surroundings. Thirty yards to the side, he spied a canister burned black. He glanced at Josh, whose eyes opened at that moment.
"He must have died fighting the fire," Josh said in a shaky voice, returning his eyes to Jack rather than Tom's body.
Jack glanced to his left for a split second, letting out a faint, "Yeah." Then, he added, "Let's move him out of here," already grabbing Tom's legs.
Josh hesitantly took hold of Tom's wrists.
"Ready?" Jack asked like a father might do before letting go of his son's bicycle for the first time.
"Hold on." Josh turned his back to the body, then took hold of Tom's forearms again. "Now I am."
Jack smirked slightly. "Ok, let's go."
--
While Josh followed the beam that the light on his hardhat shone onto the ground in front of them, Jack kept looking around. The trees in this area seemed to have burned hotter and he was almost sure that the canister he'd seen had been the source of the fire. But why would Tom start the fire and then let himself get killed in it? It doesn't add up. Arsonists usually like to be seen fighting the fire, they like to watch it burn.
Maybe something went wrong.
Something sure did go wrong, but was it accidental?
They hadn't walked fifty yards when Josh suddenly whined, "Ray, wait, set him down."
"Why?" Jack questioned as they laid Tom's body down to the ground again. Josh ran into the scorched bushes and seconds later, began to vomit.
Never seen a dead body... How different life would have been if I hadn't.
But then he yanked that thought out of his head. You wanna pity yourself some more or you wanna take the opportunity you got?
Throwing a glance at Josh, Jack shifted his position so he could crouch between Tom's body and Josh. He took off his gloves and began to run his hands down what was left of Tom. It was a weird feeling, that of charred flesh. The black surface came off if he pressed too hard, so he tried to keep his touches as gentle as possible. He didn't know what he was looking for, except that he wanted to see if his instincts were still working. Another glance at Josh, and then Jack's fingers felt something that couldn't have been caused by the fire. The two holes in the man's chest were bullet wounds, gone straight to the heart. Jack felt inside one wound for the bullet, and indeed, in the midst of the hardened flesh, the tip of his index finger met with metal. That explains it. Now it makes sense.
Hearing the coughing sounds coming from Josh had stopped, Jack wiped his hands on his workpants and put his gloves back on. Then footsteps approached and he looked up at Josh. "Feeling better?"
"No," Josh replied sincerely, "but we should probably go on. The last thing I want is to get trapped in a fire circle. And we're not even firefighters."
Jack couldn't have agreed more. The kid shouldn't be here. He took the corpse by the ankles. "Grab his arms."
Josh did.
"Go."
Apart from the cracking sound of the branches underneath their shoes, nothing moved or made a sound around them, the ground and the trees seemed dead. And yet, the smoky smell in the air gave away the proximity of the fire which was very much alive.
"Josh," Jack said some thirty steps later.
"What?"
"If you want to go home, they will understand. Technically, this really isn't your job."
"It's not your job, either. And yet you do it."
The difference is, I can take it. "That's because I have nothing to lose. You do."
"I dunno, Ray. Our jobs depend on these woods. And the fire squad can use all the help they can get."
"It's not worth risking your life." Jack paused a few moments. "The daybreak is nearing. You haven't slept in 24 hours. You need to go home, rest for a while. Then, if you feel up to it, you can come back, the fire will still be there, I'm sure. If you really want to help, you can still do it later."
"Thanks, Ray, I'll consider it."
A cracking sound from their left was the only warning the tall tree gave before it broke in the middle.
"Watch out!" Jack yelled, letting go of Tom's body and jumping into Josh, pushing him out of the way of the falling tree.
The charred trunk landed on Tom.
Jack rolled off Josh's body and back onto the ground. "You ok?"
The size of Josh's eyes must have doubled in that second. He had stopped breathing. His face had a distraught look. He was silent for many seconds, his eyes jumping from the half of the tree that was still standing to the upper part that now lay three feet away.
Slowly, he began to breathe again. His eyes fixed on Jack. "You saved-"
"You're welcome," Jack grunted, squeezing Josh's shoulder. Then he got up and stretched a hand out to Josh. "Let's go. We're leaving Tom here. It's too dangerous."
Josh nodded, yet at the same time, a weak "But-" escaped his mouth.
"No," Jack said in a definitive voice. "He's dead. There's nothing we can do for him. They can come back for him when it's safe. Right now, I want to get you back to the others, alive. Understood?"
It took Josh some time to nod, but then he wordlessly reached for Jack's hand and stood up.
