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March 2
08:32 pm
The Ophelia, North Atlantic Ocean
Back in his cabin, Jack pops the floor of the locker back into place and closes its door.
Then, stepping back over to the nearest bunk, he retrieves the items he deposited on the lower bed just a moment ago. He stuffs the sat phone, USB cable and laptop into his messenger bag and carefully slides into the denim jacket Jim gave him, making sure his shirt and the jacket cover the Sig Sauer already tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Finally, after taking a moment to catch his breath, he drapes the bag over his right shoulder and heads out the door.
None of the news programs he and Edwin had been able to find this afternoon had given him any new details about the current political situation in the U.S. As with the previous two reports, there had been no mention of his name or of Renee's murder. Nor had there been mention of Meredith Reed, Dana Walsh's video or his data card.
Captain Tucker hadn't been much help when he stopped by the infirmary to check on him, either.
He's been anxious to get to the laptop so he can try to get more information but in the meantime, he spent most of his time in the infirmary considering the situation.
It struck him, as he rested on the exam table, his tired eyes absently searching the ceiling above him, that whether it was Logan or Pillar or President Taylor herself, they must've destroyed both pieces of evidence before Taylor's change of heart.
It was a thought that distressed him. It meant that, in all likelihood, Kim never received his message, which leaves Chloe's account and whatever details the various authorities and the press may supply as the only explanations his daughter will ever hear for why he won't be coming home. That understanding almost led him to immediately head back to his quarters to use the sat phone to call her. But by the time he managed to sit up, logic kicked in and all the reasons he can't make that call stopped him from carrying through with the urge.
He'd also realized that if the evidence has been destroyed, Taylor is in her current predicament because of her own short-sightedness.
While contemplating that, he'd also come to the conclusion that the probability of Congressional hearings and federal charges could actually be a good thing for President Taylor, since going that route may pre-empt any decisive action against her or the U.S. by the UN Security Council for her part in that day's events.
He's no expert but in his head the least drastic move he can see the council undertaking, at least in regard to President Taylor, is the issuing of a formal reprimand. Or, if they decide to hold not just President Taylor but the entire U.S. government accountable for the president's decisions that day – something he thinks is unlikely – they could go so far as to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice.
One of the boldest moves may very well result in the involvement of the International Criminal Court, though Jack doubts Congress and the AG will let it get that far. If it does, it'll open up a whole can of worms he can see them all wanting to avoid.
The U.S.'s relationship with the ICC has been precarious since its formation and though the U.S. is not subject to ICC jurisdiction, they are subject to the Security Council's recommendations and they will be expected to cooperate. And though the ICC's mandate mostly limits their jurisdiction to transgressions such as crimes against humanity, genocide, acts of aggression and war crimes, he can still see how this particular case may be one that stretches that mandate to its limits.
After all, letting one country's leader go unpunished for purposefully arranging the death of another country's leader would be bad enough. But when that assassination is carried out in a third country and that leader covers it up… Well, letting all of that stand with impunity could be setting a dangerous precedent and he can't imagine the council not wanting to take steps toward a firm ruling on the situation.
Yet depending on how Congress and the Attorney General choose to handle the situation, the case against Taylor at least – even if somehow determined to fall under the ICC's jurisdiction – could be deemed inadmissible in spite of whatever desire the Security Council may have to bring it to resolution themselves.
It's a complicated situation and so much factors into what could eventually happen. Not the least of which is proof.
And when it comes right down to it, it isn't just Taylor that concerns him.
He reaches the nearest set of stairs and, already breathing hard, he glances down. Two flights. That's all he has to manage. Normally, it wouldn't be an issue for him but considering how he's felt every time he's negotiated the same distance between his quarters and the infirmary, he already knows this journey is going to pose more of a problem than it should.
And going down is always the easy part.
Shifting the messenger bag on his shoulder, he grabs onto the railing and starts down the steep stairwell.
By the time he's descended to the main deck, a sweat has broken out on his face, his heart is pounding, his breathing is even more labored and he is gritting his teeth against the pain in his left shoulder and chest. But at least the dizziness isn't nearly as overwhelming anymore.
He'd initially told Tucker that he intended on working in exchange for the passage, but Edwin is right. He's barely able to navigate a couple flights of stairs much less act as a deckhand right now.
When he finally pushes open the heavy steel door and exits the base of the superstructure, he steps out onto the main deck on the starboard side of the ship. The moment the chilly night air hits his face, he finds himself stopping to draw a few deep breaths of it, savoring the salty tang of the fresh ocean air.
Glancing toward the bow, he finds his view nearly completely obstructed by large shipping containers – which are, at least on the starboard side, stacked five and six high in rows that spread from the railing inward with narrow passageways between them. He's sure the port side reflects the same matrix.
Just beyond the edge of the soft, yellow-orange light provided by the superstructure and the dim lights along the shafts of the cranes, he spots a couple of crew members talking at the base of a stack of containers. He squints into the distance and makes out shifting, glowing pinpricks of light that tell him at least two more crew members are lingering and smoking cigarettes further down in the darkness. None of them seems to be at all interested in his arrival on deck.
Shifting his eyes to the stern, he scans the area, finding more stacks of containers, though much fewer in number. He also spots a group of heavy-looking steel drums lashed down to the deck and tethered to the railing nearby. After a quick glance at the night sky, he moves toward the drums, finding just enough space between them that he can slip in among them.
He looks at the nearest barrel. Even if he could manage to climb up onto it, the light of the laptop will likely be visible to anyone passing by or standing watch on the bridge. Glancing down to assess his other option, he finds the deck beneath his feet is noticeably wet.
He crouches down to press his fingertips against the cold deck. Lifting his hand to his nose, he inhales and decides that the cold liquid beneath his boots is just sea water. Gingerly, he sits down in the cramped space, his back toward the railing and resting against a drum, the cold water seeping into his jeans. He pulls the laptop out of the bag. A moment later, using what slivers of light make it through the spaces between the drums, he has the sat phone attached to the laptop and is trying to access to the internet.
He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, waiting for the connection to establish. It takes longer than he'd like and he struggles to stay awake while the minutes pass.
One of the things that's been bothering him since the first radio broadcast is Meredith Reed – or rather, the lack of mention of her in any of the news reports. Even if Logan or Pillar confiscated the evidence from her he can't imagine she'd be staying quiet about the video she saw unless they're still holding her in custody or someone managed to convince her not to come forward. Given that the president needs her to support her claims, he can't think of a reason for Taylor or her people to do that.
The lighting of the screen finally changes, drawing Jack's attention back to it. At last, the connection has been established and the laptop is ready for him to proceed.
He stares at the screen, hesitating. In the back of his mind is the nagging understanding that not only is this no longer his problem, there's not much he can do about it right now even if it was. Or even if he wanted to – which is a question he's not ready to fully explore just yet.
Then he reminds himself that Taylor's future isn't the only one hinging on supplying proof of her claims. Without evidence of his complicity in everything that happened, there's a good chance Suvarov could still get away with it all – and that includes not only Hassan's murder but Renee's as well.
It's that understanding that drives him to finally enter the query.
He stares at the screen and frowns, forced to wait again for the response. He'd forgotten how slow this kind of connection can be and as he waits, he begins to second-guess his decision to do this instead of collapsing into bed the moment Edwin switched out the oxygen tanks and left his cabin.
Tilting his head back to rest against the steel drum behind him, he stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. He is tired. No, not just tired. He's reached the bone-deep, soul-deep weariness of a stage that exists beyond tired, beyond stressed, beyond drained. It flows through him, encases him. And the brief naps he's managed in the infirmary yesterday and today haven't been nearly enough to remove even the top-most layer of fatigue from his body.
He'd slept long enough last night to descend into another dark and devastating dream that had far too much basis in reality; a dream that lasted just long enough to drive him awake in a panic. It had taken a while for his body and mind to finally calm enough to allow him to fall asleep again; once he did, more disturbing dreams came to wake him. The cycle continued throughout the night, leaving him just as drained and exhausted this morning as he'd been when he dropped onto the bed last night.
He shifts his eyes to the stars blanketing the sky above him, taking in their brightness while listening to the sound of the water and breathing in the night air. After a few moments, he can feel a few of the muscles in his body relaxing for the first time since… probably since he fell asleep on his sofa, little Teri at his side.
And then his eyes fall closed for a moment too long. The result is another flittering reminder of why he'd chosen trying the laptop over crawling onto the bottom bunk in his quarters.
They are together again.
She is standing in front of him in Laitanan's garage, insisting that she was fine, adamant that he not pull her out of the operation, her eyes guarded and annoyed but fiercely determined.
Then she is in a corridor at the FBI after he'd stepped off the elevator with Sunny Macer, asking him if he was okay, her expression on the edge of relief, her eyes wide with hope. An instant later, after he told her he'd been infected with the prion virus, he'd seen the disbelief and worry flow into her and… there was something else there, something he wasn't sure in that moment that he wanted to see but would later take comfort in.
He pries his eyes open and sighs.
He discovered years ago that one of the drawbacks of having trained his brain to retain as much detail about things as possible for his work is that it also holds on to details of things he doesn't intend to. Things that bring him pain, things that haunt him, things he'd rather forget. So while a razor-sharp memory has been vital to his job and in countless instances has been the key to his survival, it's also been brutal on his conscience, his sanity and his emotional state.
The memories of Teri that were so painfully vivid in his mind's eye, stuck with him for so long after her death, popping up with unpredictable frequency to remind him, torture him.
Memories of Audrey have lingered, too.
And the nightmares…
Not just about Teri and Audrey but about other things he's seen and done. About China. About things long past but evidently not forgotten no matter how hard he's tried.
…the nightmares have lasted years.
Even when enough time has passed that he thinks they've finally abandoned him, something will happen to start them up again. He wonders if he has the same thing to look forward to with Renee, wonders how long she will haunt him like this.
Deep down, he already knows the answer. Like Teri and Audrey and Curtis and Carl and Ryan and Bill and David Palmer and so many others before her…
Forever.
He swallows hard, feeling the emotion crowd his throat and his head begin to ache. On a level all too close to the surface, he understands that the sense of guilt and grief will never fade entirely and that the memories will haunt him for the remainder of his life. However long or short that may be.
Blinking slowly, he sighs as he stares at the stars, barely aware of the shiver that passes through him.
He's so tired of it all. Tired of the loss. Tired of the pain. Tired of having his life fall apart after he's fooled himself into thinking he's reached a point where it might actually be okay again. Tired of feeling like he should've – could've – done more for the people he's cared about and lost.
The light from the laptop screen changes in the darkness and he blinks hard. The tears had just been beginning to form.
He shifts his eyes to the screen to see that the front page of the current edition of the New York Courier is at last displayed. Brows knit together, he scrolls down, skimming the main news headlines, knowing he'll be coming back to the articles for details soon enough. He's nearly at the bottom of the page when a headline catches his eye.
Courier Mourns Reporter
His gut tightens and before he even glances below the byline he instinctively understands why Meredith Reed hasn't been out there, screaming what she knows to anyone who will listen.
Meredith Reed is dead.
He only needs to skim the first few sentences of the article to confirm it.
From the details in the article, he sees she died yesterday. One day after he gave her the evidence. For a brief moment, he wonders if Logan and Pillar, or even Taylor herself, had her killed to keep her quiet. They'd been willing to do the same to him, after all. But he quickly realizes that by the time she died, Taylor had already come clean.
The rest of the article, written by the editor, Gary Klausner, is mostly a professional biography. If Reed managed to speak with him before she was detained, he made no reference to their conversation. Nor did he address the rumors regarding her romantic connection to Hassan nor any attempt to silence her by President Taylor.
He scrolls back to the top of the page and clicks on the obituaries section, his hand fidgeting impatiently at his side, fingers starting to stiffen a little in the cold. When the page finally loads, he quickly scrolls down the alphabetical list to find Reed's name, wanting to see what, if anything, he can glean from her obituary.
Just as he is about to click on her name, he spots a name a few lines above hers that catches him off guard.
Pillar, Jason L.
His brows knit together.
What the hell?
He clicks on Pillar's name. When the page appears on the screen, Logan's lackey smiles back at him from a crisp black and white professional photo. Scanning the obituary, he discovers that Pillar died the day before Reed, the same day he'd nearly killed him. The obituary doesn't list a cause of death; it merely states that it was unexpected.
As he returns to the previous page, he considers how it might have happened. He knows it could've been a shootout with the authorities as they tried to take him in or it could've been suicide, but he wouldn't be at all surprised if Logan had something to do with it.
When the list of obituaries is back on the screen, he clicks on Meredith Reed's name and a few moments later, with her smiling visage before him, he reads what details her obituary holds.
Though neither the front page article nor the lengthy obituary give a cause of death, the itch at the back of his mind still leads Jack to suspect that it wasn't natural. He backs up to the previous page, intent on returning to the front page articles to see what else he can learn. But when the list of current obituaries is in front of him again, he stops.
There's another name that will be on the list.
He stares at the screen for a long moment, fingers hovering above the keyboard while he works the muscles in his jaw and his gut twists itself into a knot.
After a moment of fighting it, he gives into the need to scroll further down.
And there it is.
His chest aches as he stares at her name.
Walker, Renee.
He clicks on the name, shivering again as he waits for what feels like an eternity for the page to load.
Chloe. Chloe would be taking care of it. Or maybe, maybe Janis Gold if she even knows about it yet. Or… or perhaps there had been family after all. Maybe, in spite of what she said, Renee had loved ones out there. But as much as he wants it to be true, as much as he wants to believe Renee hadn't been as alone as she seemed to feel she was, his gut tells him otherwise.
When the page in front of him finally changes, he finds that not only is there no picture of her but also that her obituary is less an obituary and more a short blurb.
He can't help but think she deserves so much more.
Walker, Renee – Age, 36. Private funeral arrangements pending. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
The guilt resurfaces to squeeze his throat.
Thirty-six…
Yet another detail he hadn't known about her.
He doesn't know why – maybe it was her position at the Bureau or the way she held herself or maybe it was everything he'd seen in her eyes during his all-too-brief time with her – but he hadn't realized she was that young. In fact, he'd never once even wondered about her age.
Now, however, his brain makes connections without his permission.
Two years older than Teri when she died. Two years younger than Audrey when he last saw her. Just a few years older than Kim is now.
Far too young to be gone.
I am so sorry, Renee, he tells her silently, his eyes trained steadily on her name, You didn't deserve this. You deserved a long life. And a chance to be happy again.
He forces himself to look away just as her name begins to blur in front of him. He stares through a space between the drums at the high white wall of the superstructure as he tries to push it all down again.
Anger, grief, guilt, regret.
Jack works the muscles in his jaw, feeling the weight of the loss even more than before.
He shouldn't have done this. He could've checked the internet tomorrow. Or the day after that, for that matter. Other than satisfying his need for answers, there is no urgency in any of this.
He should've gone to bed the moment he got back to his cabin.
He should've just stuck with the search on Meredith Reed and the current political mess.
With that last intention in mind, he draws a sharp breath through his nose and forces himself to once again lock down the emotion.
When he returns his attention to the laptop, he clicks on the link that will take him back to the front page of the Courier so he can read through the articles. Before he can bring it up again, however, he loses the satellite.
