Drop, pt. 3
Monday, 23rd of October, 2018, 04:40 pm
40 miles out of Forthville / The Pentagon

"Jack, you need to get ready to get off... now", Chloe repeated. A cold shiver ran down her back as she didn't hear him answer. "Jack?"

He sat in the cockpit, silently resting his elbows at his thighs and was looking at the instruments. But although he didn't even dare to look away from his piloting duties, his thoughts were actually far, far away.
Not even Chloe's voice, constantly asking for him, could get him back to reality right now.
Everything on the autopilot was already set. Speed, the last correction of heading, the rate of descent that he'd need to hit exactly the middle of the seven mile radius. He had set a timer in accordance with Chloe's and the Air Force's instructions, when to initiate the descent mode on the autopilot.

03:44 minutes until the top of descent.

"Jack?", she asked again.

His mind was far, far away.
He had guessed that he'd be thinking of Renee, when time would come, but he didn't.
Instead, Audrey found her way back into his thoughts. And right now, he felt even guiltier for his decision not to return to Washington to be there for her than for steering this plane to Forthville. She was completely alone, facing the wrath of the Andersons.
Jack looked again at the phone receiver in front of him. Any other word that he and Chloe were talking, Vice President Page, Colonel Tusker and Miles Anderson and his father would also hear.
He would have given anything to be on a secure line just with Chloe right now, to tell her the truth about Miles Anderson- that this man was murderer and should be removed from office, along with his father. That Audrey wasn't safe right now, being with him.
But he didn't have that secure line. He didn't even have an idea how to act against the Andersons if he were at a safe line with Chloe. The only possible thing was to bring Miles Anderson to justice by testifying against him in court.

After another look at the instruments - everything was still in order - Jack leant back and closed his eyes for a short time. Testifying in court would mean that he'd face justice himself, too.
The presidential reprieve that he had had up to now- he was sure that Anderson senior would do anything to revoke that.

He took a deep breath and checked the instruments once again. Everything alright. The heading was exactly aligned with what it should be. Even the clouds had cleared up.
The timer told him 02:35 until start of the descent.
Jack looked towards the horizon, where he saw a little mountain chain rising. Was that already the place where this plane would go down? At the moment he could barely guess how far the distance to the place of detonation would be. From above here those approximately 40 miles looked strangely different compared to how the looked like, from the ground.

"Jack, are you ready to initiate descent in two minutes?", Chloe asked him again.

This time, he did answer. "Yes.", he sighed, looking at the phone in front of him. What were the Andersons thinking right now? Were they happily awaiting the moment when he'd jump out of this plane, awaiting to send someone to that place, to kill him?
Every one of those things sounded throughout possible to him.
"Chloe, am I on track? Any changes?", he asked her.

She had been coordinating the routing with Lieutenant Colonel Whittingstall of the Air Force, all the way long.
"Everything's perfectly on track. No corrections necessary." The wind prognosis had been perfectly right. He was on track better than anyone had thought - and that even without help of the flight management system computer. "Initiate the descent in one minute 50 seconds from now.", she said, and added, "and then get of that damn plane as fast as you can."

Jack inevitably had to give a weak smile to her words. She was worrying about him, he could hear it even up here. "I will.", he said to her, not sure if he'd just lied to her.
"Thank you, Chloe."

For one or two seconds he waited, if she'd answer. But she didn't. Unnecessary politeness was not Chloe's way of being.
He reached out and grabbed the satellite phone, as he heard a ringing.

At the Pentagon, one minute later

"What the hell was that?", Secretary Anderson asked, hearing the beep in the line.

"Captain Bauer ended the call.", Sergeant Hernandez, Tusker's analyst, explained.

"Why?", Miles Anderson stammered. This had come so abrupt that all of them were quite stunned. No final words. No goodbye.

Tusker tried to think of some explanations. "Maybe he's getting ready to jump.", was his only possible explanation.
"Anyway, we'll see it in a few seconds on the radar screen if he's about to descend.", he said, but even he was overcome by a strange feeling right now. Would Bauer really start the descend, on time, as agreed?
Any second of delay would move the center of the explosion for about 150 yards away. Ten seconds delay and it would be a whole mile. One minute delay and the center of the detonation wouldn't even hit the seven-mile radius around Forthville any more- which would mean that that the enemy headquarters wouldn't be immediately taken down by the explosion.

A few minutes ago, it had been out of question that this plane would go down exactly where they wanted it to go down.
But suddenly - hearing the continuous beep on the other end - they were all staring at the radar picture, awaiting what would happen.
A cold shower crept along Harry's spine, as he watched the timer count the seconds down.

Anyone in here was reminded again, how helpless they actually were.

Onboard flight G1Z, one minute earlier

Jack had just grabbed the phone, to switch off the receiver once more and talk to Chloe - no matter if the Andersons were listening, too - about the truth, that Miles Anderson had tried to murder his own wife. There was a big chance that even if he'd jump off this plane, he'd not survive all the long way until testifying in court.
And initiating a court trial was the one and only thing he could still do for Audrey. He owed her that.

In the same moment, he had heard the ringing of another phone.
He had looked over to the co-pilot, where it had come from. It wouldn't stop ringing.
Finally, he leant over and found that the co-pilot had another sattelite phone, the same like his own, in one of the pockets of his flight suit.

At first, he had stared at it.
It still rang.
An unknown number.
But he had the feeling, that this call could only be meant for him.

As he picked it up, part of him prayed it would be Chloe- but the thought was ridiculous. She couldn't even know there was a second phone on this plane.
And the thought was wrong anyway, because a totally different voice called for him, as he picked up.

"Jack?" It was Renee.

He froze in the middle of his moves, unable to answer.

"Captain Bauer?", another voice asked for him, right in the next second. That distinct russian accent he would have recognized again at any time. It was the general himself.

"Yes.", Jack replied. It wasn't conscious to him how strange his voice sounded. "I'm listening."

"Captain...", the General started out, "...I had to make a quite shocking discovery."
They both needn't say that he was talking about Jack's routing to Forthville.

"We are both soldiers... on our missions.", Jack answered. He wanted to hang up. He didn't want to hear the general's voice. He didn't want to hear Renee's voice. It awoke feelings inside him that he had been repressing hard, during the past half hour.
He was so close to close to hanging up, but yet he couldn't do it. Instead, he asked the general, "How do I even know she's still alive and that was not only a trick of you?"

Jack heard a scream in the background, as the General tore Renee to him, grabbing her by her hair. "Go ahead and convince yourself."

An indescribably big lump was in his throat, as he heard Renee on the other end of the line. She was breathing rapidly and hard... he didn't dare to think about what the general's men had already done to her.
"Renee..." as he spoke her name, his voice was shaking.

"Jack...", she cried, "is it true... what they are telling me?", she stammered, "that you're about to come here with...?" She found no words for the real happenings- that he was coming on a plane with two armed bombs, about to blow up the place where she was right now.

Jack buried his face in his hands. He didn't know what to answer- finding words to say 'I'm going to kill you'.
"Yes.", he whispered. He could no longer hold back the tears. "Renee, I..." he looked up and found the timer in front of him. Starting the descent was already overdue.
Hesitatingly he reached out for the button on the autopilot panel, where it said 'altitude preselect', activating the descent mode.

The autopilot gently lowered the airplane's nose below the line of horizon, starting a shallow descent.

"Renee... I'm so sorry.", he began, but his voice broke, in the middle of the sentence.

She took the great burden off him, to apologize for failing to save her. Instead, she silently told him, crying, "just make this be over."

"Descent was initiated right now.", Sergeant Hernandez spoke. He typed in a few commands and on the screen appeared a new prediction where the plane would come down.
"Three seconds late. That makes about 400 yards difference in location.", he said and added, "negligible"

"Thank god.", Secretary Anderson exhaled, expressing the relieve of everyone in the room. As the clock had counted down and had become overdue they had already been worried that Bauer might have changed his mind.

"Sir, I have an incoming call from Mrs. O'Brian", Hernandez silently said to Colonel Tusker. "She wants to speak with you and the Secretary."

"Patch her through.", Tusker hurriedly commanded.

Hernandez was already doing so.

"Mrs. O'Brian?", Secretary Anderson answered the call as highest-ranking person in the room.

"Mr. Secretary.", she began, hurriedly, "I just found out about a second connection to the airplane. I'll give you a read-only connection." She sent a link over to Hernandez' screen.

Soon after, they heard the General and Jack talk.

"I want a voice recognition for all persons involved.", Tusker silently said to Hernandez.
Spellbound, they all listened on.

"just make this be over.", Renee's words resounded inside Jack's mind. He could just so well feel how she was doing right now.
He had been to the same point, years ago, in China.
She had been constantly mistreated over months now. She knew that nobody was coming to get her out of there. For her country, officially she didn't even exist as a person any more.
He had been at the exact same place.
Sometimes he had also wished that it would 'just be over' and could understand her words just too well right now.

He didn't want to promise anything any more. He had failed so often up to now that promising her to make it 'be over' seemed the same wrong as actually doing what he was doing here.
"It will be over", he silently said to her. He couldn't keep his composure.

In the background, Jack heard how the general gave some commands in Russian.
They put the phone on speaker.
Renee cried out once more, as the General grabbed her by her hair.

"Captain Bauer", the general spoke. "You might believe that all of this is over once this plane crashes... but it's not."

Again Jack heard some russian commands. Renee screamed a loud 'no' in the background.
Powerlessly Jack listened to what was happening there. Uncontrolled rage boiled up inside him. "What are you doing there, you bastard!?", he hissed at the general.

"Captain", the general began, laughing sarcastically, "it will never be over." He emphasized the word 'never' even specially, referring to Jack's and Renee's conversation from before.
"You have got one last chance to make this all not happen.", the general continued, "make a 180 degrees turn and spare the lives of my soldiers."

Renee was struggling in the background. She was screaming and shouting at her tormentors, sometimes in English, sometimes even in Russian.

"What are you doing you bastard?", Jack hissed once more. He checked on the autopilot once more to make sure that he was still on course towards the general's headquarters. Everything as planned.

"Captain Bauer, this is my one and only warning to you.", the General spoke, giving some more commands in between, "I'm going to cut of Ms. Walkers fingers one by one, every two minutes."

Oh my god, Tusker murmured, upon hearing Renee's screams and cries of pain. The general not only threatened with it - he did it.
In his office, the four of them listened to Jack, shouting back at the general.

As he glanced sidelong, he realized that even the Andersons were horrified by what was going on.

"Sir, we have a result on the voice recognition.", Sergeant Hernandez told him, pointing at his screen.

It spat out three names- Jack Bauer (Captain, US Army, active), Renee Walker (FBI, deceased May 2018) and at last the name of General Aleksandr Petrovsky of the Russian Army, unhonorably discharged about one year ago.

It was the first time they found out, who the head of the enemy forces was.

Tusker showed the picture and name also to Secretary Anderson.
"Do you think Bauer will break?", he asked, still hearing Renee scream of pain in the background.
"Hard to say.", Tusker answered. He was disgusted by what he heard. He was even shocked by Jack's reaction. He didn't show any sign of giving in, no matter what they seemed to do to Agent Walker. Either he was really heartless after all or he was withstanding the worst kind of torture of all. Right now, Tusker wasn't so sure which one of these options it was.

"Send this over to the White House.", Secretary Anderson told him, pointing at the picture of General Petrovsky.
Then, he stepped away from he speaker of the phone. He was disgusted by what he heard, too.

Jack shouted back at the General, just as loud as Renee was screaming of pain. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!", he roared, "STOP THIS!"
He knew that it was of no use. Helplessly he sank back into the pilot's seat, checking the instruments for a last time. The altimeter showed 8,000 feet and counting downwards. That meant he was only 24 miles out any more. Five minutes to go.

The general took the phone away from Renee's vicinity. Her cries of pain got more silent and his voice louder again. "I told you, Captain Bauer. This is not my decision- it was yours."

Jack was devestated. He buried his face in his hands. "It'll be over soon.", he murmured, more to himself than to the general.

But the Russian officer had heard it. "It will not be over, Captain.", he answered, "as I told you."
Then he started to laugh, "even if you crash with that plane... I'll give you one promise now:" he held the microphone of the phone close to his mouth, "I am here, in a bunker, 50 meters below surface and even if you die, I promise you-" he took a deep breath, "this" - looking at Renee - "will continue."

"You damn son of a bitch", Jack tonelessly replied. He heard how the general's men agin took Renee's hand, to repeat it all over again. That the general was in a bunker- and would survive the blast - he hadn't thought, up to now. It changed everything.

Jack felt his hand, in which he held the phone, trembling.
He had only one chance to do something good for Renee- without any more words he hung up, ripped the battery out of the phone and smashed it into the far corner of the cockpit.
I'm sorry, Renee, he murmured, looking at the smashed pieces of the satellite phone. They wouldn't have a reason to harm her any more than necessary, if he wasn't seeing it or listening to it.

Hurriedly he grabbed the parachute and fastened it's harnesses around his thighs and chest, while running to the rear of the plane.

"The F-18s report Captain Bauer left the aircraft half a minute ago.", Sergeant Hernandez reported to Tusker, the Secretary and his Chief of Staff. "The jets are now leaving the blast zone."

Thank god, Tusker thought.
He glanced over to the Andersons.

Anderson senior looked at Hernandez' screen and had meticuously noted the position where Bauer had jumped off the aircraft.

.
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Thank you all for reading so patiently up to here...
I think the action-part is over... not it's time to get back to the drama again...
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Anyway- tell me what you think about it up to now!

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Thanks for reading,
yours,
amacma