CHAPTER FOUR
Hour Two
5:00-6:00
Jack went down the hospital alone as soon as he'd heard Micah Andreas was out of surgery. He was told it was a simple bullet extraction procedure but that the danger was internal bleeding. The point was that he was awake and Jack was going to talk to him and find out where Danni was.
It had been so long since he'd thought about her. They'd dated all through their final year of high school. Saying goodbye to her when he went to the army was the hardest thing Jack had ever had to do. At least up until that time. She was his first love and now he might have to kill her. That's my life, Jack thought to himself. In his career he'd had to kill too many friends for the sake of his job. He'd lost family and colleagues so murdering his high school sweetheart would just be the icing on the terribly depressing cake.
He parked at the hospital and went inside. The nurse at the front desk directed him to Micah's room. There was a police officer standing guard out the front of it, hospital protocol, and after a quick talk to Jack he let him on through.
Jack picked up a chair and turned it around, straddling it. The sound of the movement caused Micah to open his eyes.
Micah narrowed his eyes. "You're the one who shot me." he said wearily.
"Mr. Andreas, my name is Jack Bauer." Jack told him. "I'm an agent with the Counter Terrorist Unit."
"I won't tell you where she is." Micah said immediately.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Danni?"
Micah looked slightly put off. "You call her Danni." He sighed. "She doesn't let most people do that."
"You're right, I am looking for her." Jack told him. "Give her up and I can probably cut you a deal."
"No." Micah told him.
Jack watched the man for a moment. "You love her?" Jack asked.
"Not like that." Micah told him tiredly. "She saved my life."
Jack understood. "You owe her."
"I'm going to die, Agent Bauer." Micah admitted. "I'm bleeding into my stomach; they can't stop it. Why should I take her down with me? What good would it do?"
"It could save Los Angeles. We know you're planning to set off a bomb on the President's visit to the city tomorrow." Jack informed Micah.
"I assumed as much when you shot me." Micah said. Then he smirked jadedly. "But I'll tell you this; LA is safe unless they find her."
"They?" Jack asked. "You mean Maliqe Shiraz and Al-Haeq."
"Yes." Micah sighed. "Maliqe and my brother are who you should be searching for."
"Your brother?" Jack asked.
"Rahjid Andreas. My elder brother." Micah explained. "He's Maliqe's right hand man and he has it in for Danni."
"Why are they after her?" Jack inquired.
Micah was silent and closed his eyes. Jack leant in closer to him. "We know about the bomb. We know that it needs a chip to be activated and that this chip is out there. What's Danni's involvement?"
Micah opened his eyes. "She has the chip." He admitted. "If they find her with it they will kill her. And it won't be quick; they punish those that betray."
"Where is she?" Jack asked more urgently.
"She's not a terrorist." Micah said confidently. "She was to trade the chip for payment. She tricked them; hid the chip. Maliqe is not one to be played a fool. He was furious about having to trust a woman when we first hired her."
"Where is she?" Jack asked again in a hushed but extremely serious voice.
"She won't admit she needs help." The heart monitor beside Micah began to beep as he started to breath heavily. His voice became wearier as a doctor rushed into the room. "Help her...help her..."
The doctor pushed Jack out of the way but Jack leant over to Micah's head and spoke as clearly as he could. "Micah, I promise you I will help her. But you have to tell me where she is."
"Shepp...ard" Micah muttered.
"What?" Jack leaned in closer.
"She...Sheppard." Micah said again.
"Sheppard?" Jack repeated. It took him a second but he knew what that meant. It was odd how his memory of that time in his life was getting better by the minute as he kept thinking about his time with Danni. Jack turned back to Micah but his eyes closed and the heart monitor began to beep one, long, monotonous tone.
Jack backed away. The doctor looked up at him. "He bled into his lungs. There was nothing we could do." She glanced up at the clock. "Time of death; five-o-nine pm." The doctor turned off the monitor and turned towards Jack. "Who's Sheppard?" she asked to an empty room. Jack had already gone.
He hurried out of the hospital to use his cell phone. He rang Chloe. "Chloe, its Jack. Micah Andreas is dead." He reached his car and climbed in. "I need you to search for any properties in LA under the name Grace Sheppard."
"Okay." Chloe said. "And who the hell is that?"
"She's Danni's mother. She died a few years ago but I need you to check if there is any residence in her name." Jack waited on line while he heard Chloe tapping away at her computer.
"Alright, I have a house belonging to a Grace Sheppard. It's only about five minutes from the hospital. Sixteen, Ark Street." Chloe told Jack.
"Thanks." Jack hung up his phone and sped out of the hospital.
xxx
Danni took two aspirin and went to lie on her couch. She was worried about Micah. She couldn't go back to that hospital. The cops would be all over it. The house she was in was under her mother's maiden name, Sheppard, so she figured she'd be safe for awhile.
Pulling the chip out of her pocket, Danni fiddled with it in her hands. She was dead if Maliqe found her with this little thing. She'd ruined his plan. Although, that had always been her plan. If Jack hadn't come barging through the door firing away it may have worked. She would've gotten on the plane and been on her way to New York. But that flight was leaving at six. It was after five; she was never going to make it. And she wouldn't be able to anymore. As soon as Jack remembered Danni, her face would be plastered all over everywhere. From what she'd read on Jack, he was the best agent at CTU and came highly recommended by President's Wayne and David Palmer.
Danni closed her eyes to get just a few moments to recover when she faintly heard a door open. It took her a minute to realize that familiar squeak as her own back door and sat bolt upright. Someone was in her house. Her gun was sitting on her desk in the other room so she moved swiftly off of the couch to retrieve it. She'd reloaded it when she got home so she held it in her hand and headed towards the back door. She reached it and it was wide open. There was no one to be seen.
"Betrayal is a sin." A bitter voice said from behind her. Danni turned fast. Rahjid was pointing a gun at her head.
"He's got you doing his dirty work for him now, huh?" Danni retorted.
"I was more than happy to oblige." Rahjid told her, taking a step towards her. "Gun down, Danielle." He smiled. Danni swallowed and dropped her gun. "Good. Now, the chip?"
Danielle smirked. "How long did it take before you knew it wasn't there?"
"If the police hadn't barged in when they did you'd have been dead before you left that house." Rahjid told her. "Maliqe was never going to let you leave."
"Ah, just like I was never going to give him that chip." Danni smirked again. "It's a shame he's a terrorist; we're perfect for each other. Conniving, devious, and we both hate you."
"Shut up." Rahjid spat, rearranging his grip on his gun. "You were lucky just to get out of there. You're a loose end, Danielle."
"Then why did he pay me?" Danni asked genuinely curious. If he planned on killing her, what was the point?
"It was two million dollars. Maliqe finds that kind of change in his car." Rahjid almost laughed. "It'll sit in a bank, collect interest; we show up in a few years and take it back. It's just good business."
"What about Micah?" Danni brought up. "You abandoned your brother. He's dying, did you know that?" She was glad to see this affected Rahjid at least in a minute way. She saw a flash of fear, or perhaps worry, glaze over his face. "And you left him behind."
"Regrettable. But Micah knew the dangers of this work when he signed on." Rahjid recited.
Danni snapped. "He did not! He was a kid when you got him into this! He didn't know what he was doing! This is your fault!"
"Shut up!" Rahjid yelled. He rushed up to Danni and grabbed her by the back of her hair. He pushed his gun into her throat. "I loved my brother."
"Not as much as you love kissing Maliqe's ass." Danni said. Then she suddenly broke out in laughter. Perhaps because she knew that Rahjid was going to kill her.
Danni heard a gun fire and didn't feel any pain. She always assumed that's what death was like. But when Rahjid hunched to the floor and started screaming, grabbing his calf in pain, Danni realized she wasn't the one who'd been shot. Her eyes drifted up and she saw someone at the end of the hall lowering a gun. Jack Bauer was standing in Danni's doorway.
