Chapter 4
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN 10:00 A.M. AND 11:00 A.M.
"I said, tell your people to drop their weapons, and let my homeboys in!"
Three of the men holding them captive were the same people they'd arraigned barely three hours ago. Indeed, one of them, Shelly 'Snoop' Nathan was the suspect in twenty of the homicides the Bell gang had carried out. It was hard to believe that this five-two black woman who weighed barely a hundred and ten pounds was responsible for so many cold-blooded executions. But Jack had no doubt that she would have no problem upping the body count in a heartbeat.
All four of the shooters maintained blank expressions, but the leftmost one - the youngest- looked down for a moment. Jack would've been a little more intrigued by this, except that he saw his brother-in-law on the ground. He was face up, and he was bleeding from his shoulder (they had all been wearing vests since the siege began; whoever had shot him had apparently figured this out)
Jack stared at the leader of the hoodlum horde and did something unusual. He have a little half-smile. It looked like a smile one would have at the end of a very long day.
Not that Goldblume would know about the long days that Jack has had.
"No," Jack told him. "You seem to forget that this is a police station. From the look of things, you have about a dozen guns, probably stolen from the cops you're holding hostage. You're going to kill us no matter what we do. If everyone else keeps fighting, I at least get to know that you're all going to die too."
"Tough, huh?" The man who was the leader seemed to be about five feet behind the others. Jack didn't recognize him from the last couple of months work, but the fact that he was here was a good sign that he probably wasn't going to be reasonable.
Snoop even chuckled. "I'm already looking at the needle," she said. "What they gonna do, kill me twice?"
Jack had a feeling that this was going to happen. Rationality does not prevail when you're talking to a dead woman.
Jack gave that funny little smile again. "That can be arranged."
"So what exactly is the plan?" Goldblume interrupted. "You going to line us up against the wall right now or are you going to pretend you're after something? Don't tell me you need orders to blow our collective brains out?"
The lieutenant seemed more brash than was necessary, given the circumstances. Then again, he had more of a relationship with some of these esteemed citizens than Jack or anyone else did. And apparently he recognized the man giving the orders - about Jack's height, Latino, and a lot heavier than anyone else in the room.
"What's this about, Slim Sam?" Goldblume asked. "Since when do you hobnob with the Bell crew? Last I heard, you two were at war over Jefferson Avenue."
"Remember all those times in bad movies had brothers saying they were going to stick it to the man, but never told you who that man was?" Slim Sam replied. "Turns out, they were all misquoted. It's 'men', and we've actually narrowed down who they are."
"So you've decided to go after us. Real original." Goldblume replied.
This time, Nathan laughed. "Don't flatter yourself. I've been rousted by every cop in this state. You really think we have a relationship?"
Certain things were beginning to come together in Jack's head. "So you thugs who only get together in lockups decide to unite your forces against cops, because- why exactly?"
"You know, that's the problem with you cops. Always have to know why." Nathan's voice got icy. "Because we say so, that's why."
With a sense of horror, Jack realized what a great terrorist Snoop Nathan was. She probably hadn't questioned a single one of Marlowe Bell's decisions. She'd have no problem strapping dynamite to her chest, and walking into a supermarket. Reasoning with her was something he couldn't do.
"If that's the case, why are we still alive?" Goldblume demanded.
"Don't worry," Slim Sam told them. "You won't be much longer."
At which point, Jack Bauer did something strange, and completely out of character. He did not fire off several headshots. He did not kneecap anyone. He did not roar orders, of even give a harshly delivered threat.
He shrugged, dropped his weapon, and said, "Fine. You win."
Goldblume looked at Bauer like he was insane. "Jack, what are you doing?"
"What I have to." Jack unclipped the radio from his belt, and raised it to his lips.
10:06:18/10:06:19/10:06:20/10:06:21
Nadia Bauer took aim at another hoodlum in the street and fired.
Normally, Nadia didn't enjoy killing. Technically, she still didn't, though there was a certain satisfaction in what she was doing now. As she grew up in Latin America, she had come across more street gangs, thugs, and narco-terrorists than she could even recollect, and that was when she was growing up in an orphanage, never mind when she finally got into the spy game.
As she looked at each and every one of the hoods shot, and all she could see were the murderers of her youth, who ran free along the streets of her home, doing whatever they liked to whoever they liked – drive by shootings were hardly even a blip on the radar. Kidnappings were all the rage, and a daily occurrence.
It was pitiful when it happened to your homeland.
But it wouldn't happen here.
Nadia would kill every last one of them herself before that happened.
"To all officers. This is Jack Bauer. The holding cells have been taken by the inmates, and over a dozen of your fellow police officers have been captured. They demand that you all lower your weapons, and let the invaders outside take the precinct."
Nadia stopped dead, not even firing at the next killer in her crosshairs. Someone else had gunned that one down, but Nadia had not even noticed.
Was Jack insisting that everyone in the building surrender? What had they done to him? And how many of them would she have to kill to get him back?
"However," Jack continued, "considering how well meek compliance created a giant whole in the skyline across the river, lock off this floor, and kill anyone who tries to leave. Never forget."
Slim Sam had even smiled at Jack for the opening of his broadcast. Even the psychotic Snoop Nathan grinned.
Then Jack finished. No one was smiling anymore, except for Bauer.
Bauer tossed the radio to one side, aiming it, he hoped, just right – so that it landed on the transmit button – and looked right at Snoop Nathan. "You get to die early, you cock-sucking little bitch."
With a crazed roar, Nathan fired.
10:09:37/10:09:38/10:09:39
Outside, Sydney watched the CTU team cut through the mob outside the police station. It was sort of like a World War I battle – large groups of people rushing the enemy lines, only to be gunned down by automatic fire. The way most of the hoods had gathered in one large mass in the middle of the street, the only way Syd could describe it was "bloodbath."
However, there was only one problem that she could find … she hadn't heard anything from the inside of the precinct since her team arrived.
Ten minutes of peace and quiet from Jack has got to mean either the end of the world, or its approach.
Marshall had said much the same thing, only he babbled on for a bit over the zombie apocalypse.
"Marshall, do you have anything yet?"
"Got it! I think," Marshall told Sydney. "Well, kinda got it. We've got audio – "
"Marshall," Sydney cut him off, "just tell me what the hell is going on in there!"
"Well, there seems to be a constantly transmitting radio inside the station. It's flooding the frequency, actually. Um, hear, let me play it for you."
To all officers. This is Jack Bauer. The holding cells have been taken by the inmates, and over a dozen of your fellow police officers have been captured. They demand that you all lower your weapons, and let the invaders outside take the precinct.
"However, considering how well meek compliance created a giant whole in the skyline across the river, lock off this floor, and kill anyone who tries to leave. Never forget."
Followed by a gunshot.
Sydney Bristow didn't know what to think first – that her brother-in-law was almost certainly a dead man, or that he was a skill manipulator.
"It's good to know that Mr. Bauer can still piss people off," Marshall said.
There was the sound of struggling in the background, and another three gunshots. There wasn't a single sound from Jack during this entire time, which Syd didn't know how to evaluate that- good or bad. On one hand, she could never see Jack Bauer going down without his teeth in someone's throat. On the other, someone could have just blown his brains out and be done with it.
"No Snoop!" someone barked. "We need him alive. For now."
"Um, Syd," Marshall interrupted, "we have a live audio from inside the place now."
"I don't know what kind of cop you are," one of the speakers was saying, "but I know you must have some serious game. You managed to find our snipers in a matter of minutes. And I know for a fact the cameras in this station can barely give you a black-and-white picture."
It was clear that they were talking to her people, but Sydney didn't think that she'd like what was coming.
"What does that have to do with anything?" That was Jack's voice.
"You're going to turn this precinct into a soundstage," Whoever was speaking was expecting nothing but obedience. "Broadcast all over the Internet."
"Why? You're going broadcast our murders to the world?" Goldblume this time. "You just told us we didn't matter."
"You don't. Alive. Somehow I think the sight of the good guys taking over a New York Police Station might rate a few minutes on YouTube."
"Complete with an execution," Goldblume had to know what he was saying.
But Syd blinked a moment. The Good Guys taking over a New York Police station? I guess reality, filtered through a webcam, is easily warped.
"You know what they say about making an omelet," the thug actually sounded cheerful. "Goes great with roast pork."
"From what I know about you, Mr. Bauer, your first wife died in a situation much like this," the speaker told them. "Care to go two for two? I'm sure that we can find her somewhere in the building."
It was taking all of Sydney's willpower to keep from rushing into the station, guns a-blazing. Never mind all that would accomplish was add another body to the pile. There had to be some kind of strategy here, something that she couldn't see without video.
"You're going to help make this station camera-ready, or this time you get to see your wife go first."
Jack said nothing for a long moment. "If you think that you could hunt down my wife, find her, and kill her in this building before you all die, painfully, you have another thing coming?"
"Oh? You think your cops are gonna save her?"
"No," Jack said, his voice ice cold. "If you're lucky, the cops may save you from her."
10:16:18/10:16:19/10:16:20/10:16:21
Jack had never encountered Slim Sam or half the people in this station, and the people holding them hostage probably never been able to match his name and face, and certainly they had no idea who he was married to then or now. This meant one of two things, either they had managed to google him over the last five minutes (unlikely, because the internet connection was down) or someone in the station had sold them out, probably before they'd even set foot in the precinct.
If they had, Jack and the rest of his people were in a whole new mess of trouble. He thought that there was a way that they could escape this threat, maybe even without any further loss of life. Who were these people?
Whoever they were, they may have known his name. They may have known his history. They may even know who he was married to. But despite all of that, Jack was certain of what thing.
They had no fucking idea who they were dealing with...
If they were, they would never have let him near the webcam.
Marshall blinked at his computer a few comes, as his screen was filled with the image of Jack Bauer. He blinked a few more times. "Uh, guys. Uh – guys!" He fumbled for the communications button and snatched it up. "Guys! I've got Mr. Bauer! I've got Jack! He's sending us part of the feed from the webcam! We have eyes inside the station. Repeat, I've got eyes on Jack! Is this cool or what? Ha!"
Sydney, back in New York, smiled, and took up the radio. "Great, Marshall. Can you send us the feed?"
"Sure. Already sending it."
"Marshall," came Nadia's soft controlled voice. "Send the feed to my iPhone, please."
Sydney winced. She knew that tone of voice. It was something that Nadia and her husband shared. When they got quiet, bad things were about to happen. Mostly to people who deserved it.
"Nadia, don't move without us. I'm serious."
"Jack may be willing to die to protect the officers in the station, but that doesn't mean that I'm about to let him do it."
Sydney sighed, and then blinked. She caught a glance at the video screen. Michael Vaughn was lying on the ground, blood all around him, starting to clot and turn black. The webcam quality was such that she couldn't tell if her husband was dead or alive.
She clicked on the radio once more. "Nadia," she said, her voice mirroring her sister's, "let me get back to you."
Maybe it was a family trait, Syd thought.
"Unfortunately there's only one way in or out of holding," Agent Wallace, CTU's point man told her. "We've got only four guards to work through. I'm guessing cutting the power or using smoke grenades is out?"
"We need the element of surprise for as long as possible," Sydney reminded her. "Which is why I'm going to run point on this one."
She was gratified that no one tried to argue otherwise; she would've been ready to pick a fight if they did. Buchanan had trained them well. "Give me two minutes, then we breach."
10:22:46/10:22:47/10:22:48
By now, CTU had to have access to everything that was going on in this station. Jack might have been able to do more, but even though these people were criminals, they were not idiots.
"You've done enough," Snoop clearly didn't know wifi from a walkie-talkie, but right now, she had a gun on him. He wasn't going to give her an excuse to try and come a quarter of an inch closer to his head with her new gun – an AK-47.
Jack could only draw one conclusion from the appearance of the assault rifle: someone had gone down to evidence, and took several of the guns confiscated from this morning's raid. They didn't need
I hope like hell these people are talkers. "It's ready," he told her.
"It better be. We find out you're just sending this out to a dead feed-" Slim Sam started.
"You'll kill me twice, I get it," Jack looked straight at him. "Your public awaits."
To his mild surprise, neither Sam nor Snoop made any effort to do the talking. Instead, they both gestured towards a third person who until now had just been holding an automatic and hadn't said two words. Jack didn't recognize him, and Lt. Goldblume didn't seem to either. He was tall, black with a beard and a mustache, and wearing something that bore a striking resemblance to a kofi.
"My name is ultimately unimportant, as are the names of the people beside me. What is important is where we are." The speaker looked around. "This is the fifteenth precinct. For decades, the men and women in this station house, under the guise of law and order, have suppressed people of this community, because they had the misfortune of being born with a different color skin than theirs. Were this any other nation on any other country, the international outcry would be held so far and wide that some of kind of change would have taken place. Instead, it doesn't even rank the level of interest of an op-ed in the New York Times. Even the so called heroic President of the United States would rather deal with threats from extra-terrestrials rather than those from the state he represented in the Senate.
"Americans have had clever words for this, war on crime, war on drugs. It's a war on minority America and they know it. And if they intend to consider it war, we must do so in kind. Approximately twenty minutes ago, after heavy fire, people who have been considered the enemy by white America have taken citadels throughout the state of New York. The station that we are broadcasting from is one of four that we have taken possession of."
If this guy was a terrorist, he was doing a damn lousy job of taking credit for his accomplishment. Which probably meant, whoever he was, he was even lower on the totem pole than Jack thought he was. He was admitting that he was part of a network, but that in itself meant nothing; gangs had to have this level of connection just to function in the twentieth-first century.
"And now the blood of the lion will be shed," The speaker gestured towards Jack. He didn't know if this was symbolic or not, but he had no intention of going gently. He had his hand out, and someone handed him a collapsible knife that looked like it opened up into a full kukri.
He smiled at Jack. "Any last words before the sentence is carried out?"
"Yes," Jack told them. He took a deep breath and roared, "Breach the walls now, Sydney!"
It took an entire second for the terrorist to figure out he had been had. By the time the meaning of Jack's words had computed, all hell had already broken loose.
First, the walls exploded with breaching charges – the front door exploded in, crushing the guards, and the walls on either side of the door had also blown in.
Jack had flung himself backwards in a roll, while bringing his hands over his ass, and then his feet, and coming up to his feet.
After that, things happened incredibly quickly. Snoop decided to just kill them all, and fuck sorting them out. Unfortunately, all Snoop's experience with firearms was small caliber weapons, and she had clearly never fired an AK-47. The blast from the first round hit one police officer, but the recoil practically threw her into the wall, causing her to empty half her load into the already ragged ceiling.
Slim Sam swung up his weapon to attack the storming CTU officers, but Goldblume tackled him. Had Sam really been Slim, he might have been able to control the weapon, but he wasn't graceful enough and ended up just keeling over. Goldblume had no intention of allowing this guy to get up again, and he retaliated by putting a bullet in his brain.
The man who Jack had escaped seemed to recover quickly, and swung for Jack with the knife. The lead CTU officer put three bullets in the man, and Jack dove for his weapon. He secured the terrorist, and found his pulse. He would live.
Goldblume kicked the AK away from Snoop. "Some girls really shouldn't play with guns," he told her.
"You mean like this, Mr. Po-Lice?" Snoop suddenly seemed to be carrying a derringer, which had to come from the station, because no respectable thug would be caught with a weapon that small. "Shotgun or pistol, bullets get you all the same."
"That gun has two shots. There are four of us here. You can do the math."
"Only going to need one. Doesn't matter what happens next."
"It ain't for you." And suddenly Snoop swerved and put a bullet between the eyes of Jack's prisoner. Before Jack or Nadia could react some trigger man from the riot squad, who had apparently arrived moments earlier, put two in Snoop's chest.
"Hold your fire!" Jack didn't even wait for his savior to finish reacting before rushing over to Snoop. "Who do you work for?"
Snoop fixed Jack with a look. "H..how's my h..hair?" And with that non sequiteur, the most powerful hitter in Marlowe Bell's crew breathed her last.
The station was under CTU's control, but no one was naive enough to believe the threat was over.
One of the people in CTU body armor tapped Jack on the shoulder, and he sighed, standing up. "Jack Bauer, of –"
For the first time in recent memory, Jack was caught off guard when the body armored shooter kissed him.
Nadia broke the kiss and took off her helmet. "Don't ever let yourself get kidnapped again."
Jack gave her a small smile. "I'll remember that."
Another tactical officer was already kneeling by Vaughn. Jack didn't even have to guess who it was, especially when Sydney raised her head and screamed, "Medic!"
10:34:26/10:34:27/10:34:28/10:34:29
Michael Vaughn was Medivaced away from the police station, even though the wound probably wasn't fatal, but Vaughn had lost a lot of blood since getting hit, and getting him to a hospital was going to be difficult, since half the centers in the city were on overload from the injuries of the rioting, which was only partly under control. Sydney made it a point of order to Buchanan that she would not give him an iota of support until Vaughn treated, and fuck the people who were bleeding to death in the street.
"Sydney," Jack said, as she watched the helicopter fly past the buildings, "Vaughn's going to be fine. Can I get an update on Kim? Where is she?"
Sydney winced. This wasn't going to be fun.
"So you sent my daughter into the middle of a hot zone with Chloe and your friend as her only backup?"
Considering how many times he'd sent other people to make similar decisions, you'd think that Jack would be less pissed than he was sounding.
Nadia touched Jack's arm. "Don't tell me that you don't think she can't take care of herself."
Jack blinked at her, and then gestured to the station and the street, which was only slightly cleared of bodies. "Between you, me, Sydney and Vaughn, we have over twenty years of experience kicking ass and taking names for the CIA, and we were almost killed by street thugs. I'm not sure I would go in with a tactical team."
"Even with her special qualifications?"
Jack hid his wince. Ever since the incident with the X-Files crowd, Kim had been different. And possibly unable to be killed.
He took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. "Have we at least heard back from them?"
"The last time I talked with her, I told her we were going to have to go dark," Sydney told him.
Jack sighed. "Get in touch with her now. We are in for a shitload of trouble, and it's beginning to look like that you just sent her back into the center of it."
"All right, I'll get in touch with Buchanan. He can probably spare the manpower." Sydney told him. "What's left to handle here?"
Considering that they had practically had to slaughter whatever Rainbow Coalition that had been holding the station hostage, the next step was to start going through the comms that they had liberating from the bodies, and try and get any kind of information about this Brother Jamal. Jack was willing to bet all of the money in his pocket that he was just another ghost.
"One more problem," Jack whispered, glancing around the police on the street, "there's a mole inside the police station. These prisoners got out of their cells and had AK-47s brought to them."
10:40:06/10:40:07/10:40:08
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS
"I think I know why there's no rioting," Kim Bauer said, "I don't think anyone could get there to riot."
Chloe had been right when she said there was no rioting in Washington Heights; she had, however, not accounted for the outgoing and incoming traffic that had seized New York when the riots had started, and showed no signs of dissipating, even after it was brought under control. They were also lucky the windows to their Hummer were shatterproof, and that their tires were bulletproof because even the most quiet section of the city seemed filled with bombs bursting in air. Kim had also lost count of the number of pedestrians she had to swerve around.
All in all, they had been lucky to arrive at their destination within an hour, and with their vehicle somehow still intact. Now they could afford to worry about such relatively minor concerns as trying to find the needle in the haystack that was the warehouse. Chloe had been trying to narrow it down for the last hour, but even the greatest connections in the world can't survive in a moving vehicle.
Will took a look at the massive warehouse district and sighed. "Shall we just knock on every door and duck?"
Chloe grimaced. "Hey, I'm just tech support. I'm not going in there, and right now I really don't feel like risking a live I spent a considerable amount of energy saving."
Will blinked. "Was that almost a compliment?"
"Don't get used to them." Chloe looked down at her laptop and nodded. "Got it. Nineteen of the calls that they came from this area could be traced to within or just outside a single building. "75 Brook Road, one block from here."
"And what do we have to worry about as far as guards?" Kim asked.
"According to satellite and infrared, there's nobody there, inside or out."
"In the middle of the work day? Have we heard anything from CTU about backup?"
"They're scattered all over the city. Nearest unit is still ten minutes out."
"And no one's in there. What the fuck," Kim put in her headpiece and readied her weapons. "Give me five minutes to get in, and see if the Western Front is really as quiet as it appears."
"You're getting to be as bold as your father," Chloe told her.
"Thanks."
"That wasn't a compliment, either. Just go."
Kim got out of the vehicle, and began to walk to the warehouse. She tried not to draw attention to herself, but she was a white girl in the middle of one of the blackest sections of the city. The streets weren't quite as deserted as Chloe had said, but none of the four people who passed by were wearing gang colors.
To Kim, this made even less sense than a building with no guards in what was supposed gang central the last couple of weeks. Of course, it was possible that all of them had been part of the riots across the city but, like her father, she wasn't buying that all of this was random rage against 'the man'. It was too organized for that.
When she got to the building, another thing struck her as wrong. A lot of the warehouses had been vandalized or tagged and generally looked like the portrait for urban blight. Not 75 Brook Road. The windows were unbroken, no graffiti on the walls, the paint job was unblemished. And while half the buildings had their doors just hanging on the hinges, her target building had a brand new lock on the door. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to secure this place. So why were there no guards?
Kim decided to be a little more subtle, and walked around back. There weren't any guards there, either, but the entrance was just as locked. Though she wasn't as good as her aunt or her father at breaking locks, she had been an apt pupil of them. It took her less than a minute to break it and open the door.
And less than ten seconds to realize why this building was empty.
"Chloe, tell CTU to get their ass down her now."
"Why?" Chloe demanded. "Is there anybody in there? Are you in trouble?"
"Nobody's here, but I'm definitely in trouble," Kim replied. "Tell Buchanan that we need Hazmat."
There were six bodies in the building, all clearly deceased. And all of them looked like they were rotting from the inside out.
10:48:36/10:48:37/10:48:38/10:48:39
It hadn't taken them that long to figure out who the rat was in the precinct. Convincing Lt. Goldblume of it was another story.
"I've known Joseph Armstrong for fifteen years; I can't believe he's dirty," Goldblume told the assembled former agents.
"We checked his bank accounts," Sydney told him slowly. "There have been a series of payments to his accounts over the last six months, totaling over three-quarters of a million dollars."
"The man asked to be transferred here three months ago," Jack told him. "You know how many people willingly transfer to your precinct?" He didn't even have to ask that question. "We need to talk to him. Now."
"You think he's still here?" Goldblume found this harder to believe than the fact that Armstrong was corrupt. Taking graft was considered de rigueur for New York cops. Staying around in the same station with the same policemen you just tried to have slaughtered took a level of coldness that even some terrorists didn't have. Nina Myers and Irina Derevko had, but Jack didn't think telling the lieutenant this would serve as much comfort.
"Agent Castle intercepted him on our alert. Told him we needed to talk to him. We've got him in interrogation."
"He didn't even try to run?" Goldblume didn't seem to buy this either.
"He seemed pretty adamant. Hasn't even asked what this is about yet." Nadia told them.
Goldblume reflected for a moment. "I know what you're going to do next. But I want five minutes with him first." Before any of them could object to this argument, Goldblume looked at them. "He was in my station. I think I'm entitled to talk with the man who nearly got me killed."
Goldblume didn't sound angry or disconnected. He just sounded curious. That probably did more to convince them that this might be viable. Of course, because they weren't fools they made sure the lieutenant left his gun at his desk.
Before they went in, Goldblume saw something in the mirror that shook him a little. Despite everything that had happened in the last two hours, Armstrong was resting his head on the table. That did more convince him that the man was behind this than the money in his bank account.
One of the rules of Homicide - a guilty man left alone in interrogation goes to sleep.
When Goldblume entered, Armstrong looked up. The two just stared at each other for a few seconds before the older man broke his gaze. "I'm glad it's you," he told him.
They didn't have to have the interrogation. The guy was willing to spill. This never happened at CTU. What kind of world were they in?
Goldblume just shook his head. "You were my rabbi when I came on the job. You told me I was doing you a favor."
"You were," Armstrong shrugged. "You just weren't the only one who was helped." Armstrong shook his head. "Thirty years on the job, locking up the scum of the earth, watching some PD turn them loose on a technicality. Watching the hoods get younger, all the good cops getting older. I was so tired of the noise and the blood, and nothing to show for it but a badge and a shitty pension."
"So you sold out the lives of eight of your fellow officers for $750,000," Goldblume looked like it was taking all his energy to stop from snapping his neck. "I could've been killed; didn't that mean anything to you?"
"Those cops were going to get killed no matter what," Armstrong told him quietly.
"And that makes it okay to sell out your badge?! Jesus Christ, Joe!" Goldblume looked like he was about to start pummeling Armstrong, and Armstrong had yet to offer any resistance.
"About four months ago, I see the same doc for my annual checkup. He needs to run some tests, which leads to more tests, which is a long way of saying I have pancreatic cancer." Armstrong looked at Goldblume. "I have a wife and three kids, and I have nothing to support them on. I was going to get myself killed for my life insurance, but lucky me, someone presented me with an opportunity. I knew I was selling my soul, but fuck, it was probably bought out for a lot less years ago."
Goldblume sat back down as if he'd been gutted.
"I've got maybe three months left to live, and I'm told the last few weeks will be in more excruciating pain than you and your friends could ever inflict on me. I'm not going to ask for immunity from prosecution or any kind of leniency. I'll give up everything I know on one condition." He took a deep breath. "My family needs to be taken care of, especially after this. Don't touch the money til they can be protected. Can you do that?"
Goldblume got up as if he had been fatally wounded, which essentially he had been. He walked outside, and looked right at Jack and Sydney. "Get this bastard out of this station fast."
"We're not quite ready to-"
Goldblume cut Sydney off. "The second he owns up to this, he will not be able to leave this station alive. Get him out of here. Now."
Sydney got on the phone to tell Buchanan to prepare for an urgent transport. In the meantime, Jack decided to see if there was anything he could squeeze out of Armstrong before they had to move them.
When he entered the interrogation room, the man looked even more tired than he had before his exchange with the lieutenant. "Who is Brother Jamal?"
"It's an alias. The bastard thought it would give more street cred, and he was pretty sure that a lot of gangstas wouldn't take orders from if they knew who he really was."
"You knew him before."
Armstrong swallowed. "This wasn't the first riot I was in, you know," he told them slowly. "In '96, I got an assignment from the Corrections Department to work upstate. The OswaldState Correctional Facility. My second year there, the inmates overran one of the units I was guarding. Held me and six other people hostage for three days. The only reason I survived was because I got beaten up so badly, they traded me to make sure I didn't die on them"
"He's in the system already. What is his name?"
"Hameed Khan," Armstrong told them. "He was a member of the Islamic Brotherhood."
Jack scoffed. "And he made a deal with you even though you were a white guard at the place that held him prisoner?"
Armstrong managed a particularly ghastly smile. "I have a feeling that's exactly why he made the deal."
"How do we find him?" Jack asked.
"Oh, I have a feeling you'll be hearing from him soon enough."
And at that moment, Nadia walked in the door, looking pretty shaken up. "What's wrong?" Jack demanded.
"I just got off the phone with Chloe. Kim may have located one of the hideouts that this guy Khan has been using."
"Is she all right?"
Nadia took a deep breath. "There are a lot of dead bodies there, and based on the intel, it's looking like they were the victims of some kind of biological agent." She swallowed. "There's a real possibility that Kim may have been exposed to it."
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