-24-
Nina slotted the phone into her belt clip, and glanced around the room at the agents busy working. Every fluorescent light bulb in the room was turned on, and Nina was positive she looked terrible under the harsh conditions. When the phone was secure she walked over to what had become Jack's desk, and began reading through any and all papers on the desk. She sat in his chair and rifled through the maps, which had gained more and more detail as they narrowed down the grid. She was annoyed that they hadn't made any progress whilst she'd been asleep, but the logical side of her reminded her that that wasn't exactly possible.
She passed the maps off to the side and moved on to the next sheet. It had four numbers at the top, and a note scribbled on it, 'Last call b4 bedtime' across the top left hand corner. She smiled, now recalling the four tones she'd heard before he hung up. They'd been translated to 0945, and written in large figures across the top of the paper, along with the letters and possible combinations, none of them made any sense. At the bottom of the sheet, Jack had written 'Time' followed by several heavily punctuated question marks, the same conclusion she had thought of, although presumably the agents had run a list of words for him just the same.
Nina wondered if the time meant nine hours and forty-five minutes from the call, or nine-forty five am. She had a feeling it was more likely the latter than the former, although she wasn't sure why. She glanced across the room to see Copell talking with the tech guys at the other end of the room. She stood and made her way over, wanting to see where the tracking vans were, taking the sheets of maps with her.
The maps were of a business area of the city, very little traffic, and high buildings. The odd store, a small pharmacy, Starbucks, two on every corner, the odd apartment building. As a rule no one lived there, except Nina knew that truthfully people worked each night until the early hours, sleeping in their offices. The area was low crime too, protected by high priced security systems and security guards. There was one building in the area that was actually a CIA centre, but Nina wasn't authorised to give the FBI agents the address.
Copell hadn't had the luxury of ninety minutes of sleep. He, like Jack had been awake for the last twenty-four hours, and was most exhausted, he had a layer of stubble across his skin, and bags under his eyes. It took him a while to notice Nina's approach. "What have you got?" she asked him, as he wrenched his neck and then tapped the tech agent's screen, much to the guy's annoyance.
"We got six vans in the field, but there's little we can do until he calls again." Copell was on coffee patrol, gesturing with a mug she hadn't noticed as she came over. Nina glanced down at her phone, hoping that it would ring just because she looked at it, but it didn't. She leant onto the back support of a nearby chair, and watched video footage of the inside of each van on each of six little monitors. In the centre was a display of the city grid with flashing dots where the vans were.
Nina tapped the chair. "The numbers," she began, attracting Copell's attention, "I don't think that they're a word, I think it's a time, this morning." Copell nodded, not taking his eyes off the tracking equipment. He let a few seconds pass and took a sip of his coffee before he made any reply. "Jack was thinking along the same lines."
Nina nodded, she'd seen the scribbles on the paper. Nina noticed her own mobile on the counter where she'd answered all the calls to the hotline from, she hadn't even realised that she didn't have it on her. She shrugged her shoulders and ran a hand across her shirt. She had a bag in the boot of her car, a spare change of clothing, and some other things, for when she went to the gym at work. It would go a long way towards making her feel more alert. She walked over to her phone and considered who to call, she couldn't very well go back to CTU, but her car keys were here, and she couldn't think of a single agent who didn't have enough seniority to feel insulted by being asked to come and collect her keys so they could collect something from the boot of her car.
She flipped open the phone and found her address book, scrolling through all the extensions of her subordinates, she eventually flipped the phone shut and resigned to the fact that she'd be in her uncomfortable clothes all day.
They'd narrowed the search down to six city blocks, which was only fifty or so skyscrapers, and Nina placed the paper on the desk in front of the hotline phone. She grabbed her mobile and called the CTU general phone line, not entirely sure who was posted in right now. "CTU, this is Jamey."
Nina cringed at Jamey answering the phone with her first name, it wasn't exactly wrong; it was just something that she'd never do. "Jamey, I need you to get me the exact addresses of all the businesses in a city district." Nina took the satellite photo off the top of the pile and found the map, matching up the streets in her mind. She gave Jamey the names of the streets that bordered the area, and hung up, asking her to get back to her as soon as possible.
-24-
Nina put the now warm bottle of iced tea in the bin, placing it down gently to avoid it smashing. She glanced down at her watch again, as though another thirty seconds worth of sleep mattered when she'd already left him to sleep for just over an hour. Nina walked across the room to what had become both her and Jack's desk, and collected a copy of the satellite photo she'd been working on with Jamey. Over the phone Jamey had told her the names of the companies that owned the buildings together with those that rented the large amounts of space. There were probably nearly a thousand names on Jamey's list over at CTU, and Nina was considering ways of getting a computer print out, or connection to the data, but right now she had to wake Jack.
She did exactly as he'd done, turning the light on in the main room so she could walk down the corridor to the room she'd left him to sleep in, as he'd left her. Nina hadn't really let her mind wander from the case for the last hour, but now as she considered waking Jack she wondered how they should react to this huge pivotal change that had occurred in a few seconds an hour ago. She knew it was girlish, but she felt almost elated that Jack was attracted to her, and that he wanted to have something with her, at the same time she also realised that they still had time to go back and pretend this hadn't happened, and whilst she was terrified of that, she was almost worried at how they would change now that they had this thing that she couldn't define yet.
Nina opened the door to the office where Jack was sleeping, and saw him roll over in the shadows on the couch. All of a sudden a wave of nausea washed over her and she couldn't walk into the room. She was so nervous, and she swung herself round the doorframe to lean against the wall in the corridor. She took several deep breaths and pressed the back of her head against the wall, the wood made a soft thud. She was terrified to wake him, not wanting to hear him say anything about the last few minutes that they'd spent together.
She didn't think twice about grabbing the phone from her belt clip when it rang. "CTU this is Myers." sprung from her mouth before she realised that it wasn't her phone, which she didn't do until the five familiar tones beeped out across the line.
Her panic morphed into a slightly more business application as she considered running back to the other room to check on the tracking vans. Nina hadn't shut the door, and glanced along into the next room. Everyone had snapped to life, and she could hear Copell and Johnson giving orders so she settled down a little.
"So, I thought we'd go for a quick fire round..." began the sickly voice that Nina wondered if she'd heard in her sleep.
"A quick fire round?" she asked, templing her fingers to her forehead.
"You know, lots of questions, short answers." the voice clarified.
Nina sighed and increased the pressure of the support her thumb gave the phone. "Okay, shoot." Nina had had a few hours without speaking to this guy, and she'd forgotten how creepy it made her feel.
"Favourites." He began, almost like a quizmaster at a question round. Nina scowled at her fingers and flicked her thumb under the nails of each finger of her free hand. "Drink?"
"At the moment I'd go with tequila." Nina smiled to herself. "Normally I'd drink a cosmopolitan, or even just tomato juice."
"Food?"
Nina thought this was the most tedious line of questioning she'd ever endured, and that included hours of testing terrorist resolve, she resisted the urge to groan as she answered him. "Steak."
She felt hungry just thinking about one; he evidently did too, and let out a hungry groan. "How do you like it cooked?" he mumbled, and she wasn't sure that she'd heard him.
She answered anyway, "Rare, can't chew it otherwise, and it loses all of its flavour."
"They say that the French turn their noses up at anyone who asks for their steak to be well done." He said down the phone. Nina glanced up from her study of the floor in the dark to see Jack in front of her. She glanced over at the door to the other room, nobody was looking at them, and if they were, they probably wouldn't be able to make out their shapes. She placed a hand on his chest, which he held in place with his own. "It's true, they do." she told the man on the telephone.
Jack watched her, as she talked. Nina found that she couldn't hold his line of vision for more than a few seconds before she began to get overheated, and dropped her line of sight to her hand on his chest. "What about colour?" he asked her.
"Colour?" Nina was surprised, although in the inane questions sweepstakes she presumed the worst was still to come.
"Green."
"Children's book?" She was right.
Nina let out a sigh, "Cat in a hat." she replied, almost ashamed, unable to think of another children's book. Even though she was watching her hand, she felt Jack's fingers caress it before she saw them. When she glanced up at his face she saw he was smiling at her, an almost devious grin.
"Movie."
Nina was loathe to let out the fact that she was a closet sci-fi fan, "Starship Troopers." she said quietly.
'Dave' heard her and prompted her to explain what it was about. "Giant Killer Bugs." Jack's grin widened and became less sinister. 'Dave' evidently found it funny too as he laughed into the phone.
"Book?" he asked her. This one was a little harder, you couldn't put a book on in the corner of the room and glance over it from time to time, Nina couldn't remember the last time she'd had enough free time to read one. She racked her brain, and eventually recalled one she'd seen on a coffee table somewhere, possibly one of her friends apartments, "Alice in the Looking Glass."
'Dave's voice, if possible began to sound even slimier. "You know, maybe one day you and I should get together, I think we have similar tastes," he suggested.
Nina shut her eyes whilst she answered. "You expect to be a free man when this is over?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice level and avoiding the sensation in her gut that told her this wasn't in the manual, and he might hang up on her.
"When this is over, I expect everyone to know of me, and no one to know who I am, like the perfect superhero." He said, his tone decisive and arrogant, even as though it had been his 'mission-statement' or objective in doing all of this.
There was a long pause when Nina had no idea what to say. She looked up at Jack hoping to be prompted in some way by him. It didn't take long for their social bomb maker to speak up, "Piece of music?"
The phrasing told Nina he wanted some classical music. Another thing she rarely had time for, but she was a fan of the 'cellists Rostropovich and Yo- Yo Ma, and although recently her appreciation had been satisfied with CDs, she was able to answer. "Any of the Bach Cello concertos." She said.
Jack raised his eyebrow at this, unable to hear the second side of the conversation, the statement seemed bizarre; when taken out of context.
"What about sport?" He asked her. Nina couldn't answer this one, she wasn't sure if this was watching or playing, of which the former would be Australian football, a fandom that had tied over from her college years, the product of a triple major and then continuing because of her choice of career. She didn't have time to participate in team sports very often. The most she'd managed was a three-legged race at her nephew's sports day, but that was six months ago now. She asked him to clarify it for her.
"I don't really take part in sport." She replied, once she realised his question. "I run, do yoga, exercise to keep in shape..." she answered the question as best she could. Jack's hand ran down her arm, he stroked her forearm for a minute, and then held her shoulder. Jack was getting ever so slightly bored, and a little frustrated, he wasn't taking part in the conversation, all he could do was be a comfort to Nina.
As with previous phone calls, 'Dave' abruptly ended the conversation, simply saying goodbye as the though the last phrase was a perfectly normal ending to a phone call, and hung up. Nina held the phone to her ear for a minute, and then ended the call and let her arm drop.
Jack moved his hand from her shoulder to roll his cuffs up, and they began walking back to the operations centre. They didn't talk until he was satisfied with the organisation of his shirt. "Is that the first call you've gotten from him?" he asked.
"Yeah." Nina waited for him to walk through the doorway before they continued on. "I was on my way to wake you." she commented, and they headed towards the tracking controller, who was sitting in front of his massive monitoring system, and Copell and Johnson whose voices seemed a little more strained at the moment.
"Anything?" Nina asked the two agents as they came to rest in front of them.
Johnson looked across at Copell, who gave him the same, withering, look back, and then stalked across the room. Johnson sighed, looking down at the floor as he spoke. "He's moved."
Nina slotted the phone into her belt clip, and glanced around the room at the agents busy working. Every fluorescent light bulb in the room was turned on, and Nina was positive she looked terrible under the harsh conditions. When the phone was secure she walked over to what had become Jack's desk, and began reading through any and all papers on the desk. She sat in his chair and rifled through the maps, which had gained more and more detail as they narrowed down the grid. She was annoyed that they hadn't made any progress whilst she'd been asleep, but the logical side of her reminded her that that wasn't exactly possible.
She passed the maps off to the side and moved on to the next sheet. It had four numbers at the top, and a note scribbled on it, 'Last call b4 bedtime' across the top left hand corner. She smiled, now recalling the four tones she'd heard before he hung up. They'd been translated to 0945, and written in large figures across the top of the paper, along with the letters and possible combinations, none of them made any sense. At the bottom of the sheet, Jack had written 'Time' followed by several heavily punctuated question marks, the same conclusion she had thought of, although presumably the agents had run a list of words for him just the same.
Nina wondered if the time meant nine hours and forty-five minutes from the call, or nine-forty five am. She had a feeling it was more likely the latter than the former, although she wasn't sure why. She glanced across the room to see Copell talking with the tech guys at the other end of the room. She stood and made her way over, wanting to see where the tracking vans were, taking the sheets of maps with her.
The maps were of a business area of the city, very little traffic, and high buildings. The odd store, a small pharmacy, Starbucks, two on every corner, the odd apartment building. As a rule no one lived there, except Nina knew that truthfully people worked each night until the early hours, sleeping in their offices. The area was low crime too, protected by high priced security systems and security guards. There was one building in the area that was actually a CIA centre, but Nina wasn't authorised to give the FBI agents the address.
Copell hadn't had the luxury of ninety minutes of sleep. He, like Jack had been awake for the last twenty-four hours, and was most exhausted, he had a layer of stubble across his skin, and bags under his eyes. It took him a while to notice Nina's approach. "What have you got?" she asked him, as he wrenched his neck and then tapped the tech agent's screen, much to the guy's annoyance.
"We got six vans in the field, but there's little we can do until he calls again." Copell was on coffee patrol, gesturing with a mug she hadn't noticed as she came over. Nina glanced down at her phone, hoping that it would ring just because she looked at it, but it didn't. She leant onto the back support of a nearby chair, and watched video footage of the inside of each van on each of six little monitors. In the centre was a display of the city grid with flashing dots where the vans were.
Nina tapped the chair. "The numbers," she began, attracting Copell's attention, "I don't think that they're a word, I think it's a time, this morning." Copell nodded, not taking his eyes off the tracking equipment. He let a few seconds pass and took a sip of his coffee before he made any reply. "Jack was thinking along the same lines."
Nina nodded, she'd seen the scribbles on the paper. Nina noticed her own mobile on the counter where she'd answered all the calls to the hotline from, she hadn't even realised that she didn't have it on her. She shrugged her shoulders and ran a hand across her shirt. She had a bag in the boot of her car, a spare change of clothing, and some other things, for when she went to the gym at work. It would go a long way towards making her feel more alert. She walked over to her phone and considered who to call, she couldn't very well go back to CTU, but her car keys were here, and she couldn't think of a single agent who didn't have enough seniority to feel insulted by being asked to come and collect her keys so they could collect something from the boot of her car.
She flipped open the phone and found her address book, scrolling through all the extensions of her subordinates, she eventually flipped the phone shut and resigned to the fact that she'd be in her uncomfortable clothes all day.
They'd narrowed the search down to six city blocks, which was only fifty or so skyscrapers, and Nina placed the paper on the desk in front of the hotline phone. She grabbed her mobile and called the CTU general phone line, not entirely sure who was posted in right now. "CTU, this is Jamey."
Nina cringed at Jamey answering the phone with her first name, it wasn't exactly wrong; it was just something that she'd never do. "Jamey, I need you to get me the exact addresses of all the businesses in a city district." Nina took the satellite photo off the top of the pile and found the map, matching up the streets in her mind. She gave Jamey the names of the streets that bordered the area, and hung up, asking her to get back to her as soon as possible.
-24-
Nina put the now warm bottle of iced tea in the bin, placing it down gently to avoid it smashing. She glanced down at her watch again, as though another thirty seconds worth of sleep mattered when she'd already left him to sleep for just over an hour. Nina walked across the room to what had become both her and Jack's desk, and collected a copy of the satellite photo she'd been working on with Jamey. Over the phone Jamey had told her the names of the companies that owned the buildings together with those that rented the large amounts of space. There were probably nearly a thousand names on Jamey's list over at CTU, and Nina was considering ways of getting a computer print out, or connection to the data, but right now she had to wake Jack.
She did exactly as he'd done, turning the light on in the main room so she could walk down the corridor to the room she'd left him to sleep in, as he'd left her. Nina hadn't really let her mind wander from the case for the last hour, but now as she considered waking Jack she wondered how they should react to this huge pivotal change that had occurred in a few seconds an hour ago. She knew it was girlish, but she felt almost elated that Jack was attracted to her, and that he wanted to have something with her, at the same time she also realised that they still had time to go back and pretend this hadn't happened, and whilst she was terrified of that, she was almost worried at how they would change now that they had this thing that she couldn't define yet.
Nina opened the door to the office where Jack was sleeping, and saw him roll over in the shadows on the couch. All of a sudden a wave of nausea washed over her and she couldn't walk into the room. She was so nervous, and she swung herself round the doorframe to lean against the wall in the corridor. She took several deep breaths and pressed the back of her head against the wall, the wood made a soft thud. She was terrified to wake him, not wanting to hear him say anything about the last few minutes that they'd spent together.
She didn't think twice about grabbing the phone from her belt clip when it rang. "CTU this is Myers." sprung from her mouth before she realised that it wasn't her phone, which she didn't do until the five familiar tones beeped out across the line.
Her panic morphed into a slightly more business application as she considered running back to the other room to check on the tracking vans. Nina hadn't shut the door, and glanced along into the next room. Everyone had snapped to life, and she could hear Copell and Johnson giving orders so she settled down a little.
"So, I thought we'd go for a quick fire round..." began the sickly voice that Nina wondered if she'd heard in her sleep.
"A quick fire round?" she asked, templing her fingers to her forehead.
"You know, lots of questions, short answers." the voice clarified.
Nina sighed and increased the pressure of the support her thumb gave the phone. "Okay, shoot." Nina had had a few hours without speaking to this guy, and she'd forgotten how creepy it made her feel.
"Favourites." He began, almost like a quizmaster at a question round. Nina scowled at her fingers and flicked her thumb under the nails of each finger of her free hand. "Drink?"
"At the moment I'd go with tequila." Nina smiled to herself. "Normally I'd drink a cosmopolitan, or even just tomato juice."
"Food?"
Nina thought this was the most tedious line of questioning she'd ever endured, and that included hours of testing terrorist resolve, she resisted the urge to groan as she answered him. "Steak."
She felt hungry just thinking about one; he evidently did too, and let out a hungry groan. "How do you like it cooked?" he mumbled, and she wasn't sure that she'd heard him.
She answered anyway, "Rare, can't chew it otherwise, and it loses all of its flavour."
"They say that the French turn their noses up at anyone who asks for their steak to be well done." He said down the phone. Nina glanced up from her study of the floor in the dark to see Jack in front of her. She glanced over at the door to the other room, nobody was looking at them, and if they were, they probably wouldn't be able to make out their shapes. She placed a hand on his chest, which he held in place with his own. "It's true, they do." she told the man on the telephone.
Jack watched her, as she talked. Nina found that she couldn't hold his line of vision for more than a few seconds before she began to get overheated, and dropped her line of sight to her hand on his chest. "What about colour?" he asked her.
"Colour?" Nina was surprised, although in the inane questions sweepstakes she presumed the worst was still to come.
"Green."
"Children's book?" She was right.
Nina let out a sigh, "Cat in a hat." she replied, almost ashamed, unable to think of another children's book. Even though she was watching her hand, she felt Jack's fingers caress it before she saw them. When she glanced up at his face she saw he was smiling at her, an almost devious grin.
"Movie."
Nina was loathe to let out the fact that she was a closet sci-fi fan, "Starship Troopers." she said quietly.
'Dave' heard her and prompted her to explain what it was about. "Giant Killer Bugs." Jack's grin widened and became less sinister. 'Dave' evidently found it funny too as he laughed into the phone.
"Book?" he asked her. This one was a little harder, you couldn't put a book on in the corner of the room and glance over it from time to time, Nina couldn't remember the last time she'd had enough free time to read one. She racked her brain, and eventually recalled one she'd seen on a coffee table somewhere, possibly one of her friends apartments, "Alice in the Looking Glass."
'Dave's voice, if possible began to sound even slimier. "You know, maybe one day you and I should get together, I think we have similar tastes," he suggested.
Nina shut her eyes whilst she answered. "You expect to be a free man when this is over?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice level and avoiding the sensation in her gut that told her this wasn't in the manual, and he might hang up on her.
"When this is over, I expect everyone to know of me, and no one to know who I am, like the perfect superhero." He said, his tone decisive and arrogant, even as though it had been his 'mission-statement' or objective in doing all of this.
There was a long pause when Nina had no idea what to say. She looked up at Jack hoping to be prompted in some way by him. It didn't take long for their social bomb maker to speak up, "Piece of music?"
The phrasing told Nina he wanted some classical music. Another thing she rarely had time for, but she was a fan of the 'cellists Rostropovich and Yo- Yo Ma, and although recently her appreciation had been satisfied with CDs, she was able to answer. "Any of the Bach Cello concertos." She said.
Jack raised his eyebrow at this, unable to hear the second side of the conversation, the statement seemed bizarre; when taken out of context.
"What about sport?" He asked her. Nina couldn't answer this one, she wasn't sure if this was watching or playing, of which the former would be Australian football, a fandom that had tied over from her college years, the product of a triple major and then continuing because of her choice of career. She didn't have time to participate in team sports very often. The most she'd managed was a three-legged race at her nephew's sports day, but that was six months ago now. She asked him to clarify it for her.
"I don't really take part in sport." She replied, once she realised his question. "I run, do yoga, exercise to keep in shape..." she answered the question as best she could. Jack's hand ran down her arm, he stroked her forearm for a minute, and then held her shoulder. Jack was getting ever so slightly bored, and a little frustrated, he wasn't taking part in the conversation, all he could do was be a comfort to Nina.
As with previous phone calls, 'Dave' abruptly ended the conversation, simply saying goodbye as the though the last phrase was a perfectly normal ending to a phone call, and hung up. Nina held the phone to her ear for a minute, and then ended the call and let her arm drop.
Jack moved his hand from her shoulder to roll his cuffs up, and they began walking back to the operations centre. They didn't talk until he was satisfied with the organisation of his shirt. "Is that the first call you've gotten from him?" he asked.
"Yeah." Nina waited for him to walk through the doorway before they continued on. "I was on my way to wake you." she commented, and they headed towards the tracking controller, who was sitting in front of his massive monitoring system, and Copell and Johnson whose voices seemed a little more strained at the moment.
"Anything?" Nina asked the two agents as they came to rest in front of them.
Johnson looked across at Copell, who gave him the same, withering, look back, and then stalked across the room. Johnson sighed, looking down at the floor as he spoke. "He's moved."