"He moved?" Jack growled, "What do you mean he moved?"
"He's no longer in any of the six grid regions we narrowed it down to from the previous call." Johnson explained, "the vans were able to widen the search area back to half a sector, but there's a ninety-five percent chance he's not in that either."
Jack rubbed a hand across his chin, scratching his palm against his fingers. He took a moment to survey the room, the agents at work, all of whom seemed occupied, Nina and Johnson were the only ones watching him.
"What do you want us to do Jack?" she asked him, taking a step towards him when he didn't answer immediately.
Nina's proximity made Jack a little more focused. "Johnson, I want those vans repositioned in less than five minutes, and call the LA field office, I want at least another two vans out there, and I want you guys to see about setting up some kind of criss-cross network with them, can you do that?" Johnson turned away to do his job, and Jack and Nina headed into the centre of the room, he spoke quietly to her, "When he next calls we're going to have to aim for two minutes, they're going to have to use the satellite to get a sector grid via satellite, and that'll..." he glanced over at her, realising that she knew all this, "Anyway, I wasn't checking but that last call was probably more than two minutes, so we need you to keep him talking like last time."
Nina breathed a relieved sigh as she perched herself on the edge of the desk, and she closed her eyes in thought. Jack did the same by her side, resting his hand on top of hers in the narrow gap between the two of them, far out of sight. "You okay?"
"Yeah." she replied, quickly without thinking about her answer, "did you get any sleep?" she asked concerned.
Jack muttered his answer, putting in as much thought as Nina had to hers, he had a higher point for starting up their conversation. "If it makes you feel..." he paused here, "nervous, anxious, invaded to talk to him about yourself, remember, it doesn't have to be the real you on the line there, you can always act like someone else. It has to be your voice on the end of the line, it doesn't have to be the real you." He looked up at her face with open concern.
"I know," his expression didn't alter. "I know." She said a little softer, they held each other's gaze for a moment before Jack let it go, nodding and glancing around the room, then eventually settling his vision on the television set which was barely audible from their position.
The 24 hour news broadcast flashed up with the time in military format, and Nina's mind suddenly flipped to the digits at the end of the phone call. "Zero-nine-four-five," she recited, to give him a reference point for her conversation. "I agree with you, it's a time until the next bomb." Earlier in the evening she'd done some mental calculations. "We're either looking at quarter to ten, or eleven thirty. I don't know exactly why, but I'm thinking the first one."
Beside her Jack nodded, "Covering the first one, we'll know if we're proven wrong." He pointed out.
"True." she mumbled, and allowed herself to look over at him for a second. Jack caught her movement in his peripheral vision, and rubbed her hand gently, interlocking his fingers with hers. It was meant as a comforting gesture, but Nina couldn't help but flinch as his wedding ring made contact with her hand. The metal of the ring wasn't cold, but the mental sensation was.
Jack didn't notice, "I had a hunch he was planning something for the morning, the sporadic nature of the calls in the night, he wanted to tire us out."
It took Nina a moment to respond, slightly fazed by his hand. After a few moments Jack became concerned and she snapped up, nodding to illustrate that she agreed. "It's all part of his game." Jack commented, and with one final pat of her hand, sat down in the chair.
-24-
"Jamey," Nina didn't bother with the pleasantries as her subordinate answered the phone. "Have you gotten absolutely all the names of the companies in that grid I gave you?"
"Yeah, I've only just finished." Replied the young tech agent, Nina could hear the slapping of chewing gum in between syllables. "Where are you? Do you want me to have them sent over?"
"No," Nina said casually, "Put them on the CTU public server, I'm using an FBI access."
"Okay." Jamey said, Nina heard a few quiet slaps, either bubbles of gum bursting or keyboard types. "It's done." Jamey replied after a few seconds of silence. "Named t-u-b-i-t-f-oh-one." Jamey recited.
"What?" Nina wanted to clarify it, even though she'd written the name down.
"Like CTU, FBI and ATF zero-one, first file." Jamie grumbled.
Nina chose to ignore her tone. "Thanks Jamie." She told her, and the hung up. In front of her the computer let out a harsh modem tone, indicating it was connected to the internet, and Nina typed in the address to the CTU website, one of the many branches of the DOD's central website. She was prompted for her badge and access number, which she inputted, and the computer took a while to log her in.
"Hey." Jack stood behind her, leaning down and taking her cup of coffee. He paused for a moment to feel the warmth of the liquid with in and then took a sip.
Nina's similar greeting was decidedly less casual. "I was drinking that." She objected.
"I'll get you another cup." Jack dismissed her objection. "What have you got?" His eyes gesturing her towards the screen just as the page changed.
Nina turned her attention back to the computer, and clicked onto a separate page that loaded decidedly more quickly than the last. It contained several files that were available from a general computer without having to call the CTU satellite guys. Nina quickly found the file Jamey had put in for them, and opened it. "I asked Jamey to compile this for me an hour ago, its a list of all the companies with buildings in the grid we thought we'd narrowed it down to. Little use it is now..." She tapped the screen and used the mouse to click on a building. A list of companies with the relevant floors or room numbers appeared, and Jack leant further over her to read the screen, putting down her coffee mug at the same time.
Nina snatched it up quickly, taking a sip of what was now half a mug of coffee. "It might still be useful." Jack muttered, "If we get a second sector, which my hunch is will be a residential area, we can get an employee list and cross check it with who lives where." Nina nodded.
"Well there's too much data here to print off, so if we do eventually get a match on residential area we'll have to pull in a few CTU agents to do the ground work." Nina commented, leaning back and sipping her coffee.
Jack placed his hands on the arm supports of Nina's chair, his head wavering over hers, the overwhelming smell of coffee in his nostrils. "Are we okay?" he asked her quietly.
"I think so." Nina replied, moving her mouse over to a sky scraper. This time the list had a scroll bar by the side, and it was evident that there were more than a hundred large companies inside this building.
"We need to talk, but right now..."
Nina interrupted him, he didn't need to justify himself, she understood why they couldn't talk about it right now. "I know, Jack." She tilted her head back to see the tip of his chin, "But thanks anyway." Jack leaned down and smiled at her, he gave thought to kissing her, but knew he couldn't.
Nina smiled at him quickly before she returned to the computer screen. "Jamey colour coded all the company categories..."
"Isn't there a CIA agency in this grid?"
"Yeah, its probably listed in here, that's why I thought we'd have to call in someone from CTU to do the work up..."
"Right, right." Jack nodded, and intercepted her coffee cup on its way back to the table. "You don't suppose he's planning on blowing up the building?" He commented, "That he knows where it is?"
"I think he likes the publicity." Nina commented, after a thoughtful pause. "During the last conversation..."
"I heard the tape."
"...Right, well, during the last conversation, he said something about being well known, a superhero, if he did choose to destroy 'The Agency's headquarters, the media coverage would be avoided, very little information would be released."
Jack nodded, he was more inclined to go with Nina's impressions of him, she was after all, the one that had spoken to him. "Also, they're security is bound to be tighter than ours."
"Yeah." he muttered. He drained the last of the coffee cup, "Well, I'm going to check in with CTU, and I will bring you another cup of coffee, but don't get used to it." He whispered the last few words conspiratorially.
She nodded and scanned the list of companies, checking for any that were involved in security, defense work, anything similar, and may have hired ex- military, explosives experts or otherwise.
-24-
Five tones, "Hello Dave." Nina said, glancing over at agent Johnson, and then down at the timer. It had started, and she needed to keep him for two minutes.
"I've got another question for you before I'll tell you where my next piece is."
"Okay." Nina urged him on, sitting down on one of the chairs that had been for the hotline operators, and fiddling with the annoying hairs at the nape of her neck.
"What do you look like?" he asked.
"What?" Nina glanced over at Jack, and then at Copell, who both had the same quizzical looks that Nina had on their faces, Jack seemed slightly alarmed.
"Well?" Nina couldn't stay silent for much longer, she was worried he'd hang up, and they needed to get at least two minutes again on this call.
"Um...I've got brown hair..." she didn't know what to say, describing yourself wasn't exactly a required CTU skill.
"Is it short? Long?" Nina raised her eyebrows.
"Short....uh...blue eyes?"
"How tall are you? Your build?"
"Um, five foot seven...medium build..." Across the room Jack snorted. Nina raised an eyebrow at him and he smirked back in response. "Small...small build..." she changed her opinion, deciding that whilst it wasn't important that 'Dave' know the distinction, now wasn't exactly a time when her own dietary concerns were important.
"What about your skin? Your dress size?" Nina glanced over at Jack, confusion on her face, before replying to his question. She took another look at the clock. It had been nearly forty seconds since the call began, and she guessed she could flood some of that time with inane information about her self.
She took a deep breath, "I've got pale skin, I'm a size three, I weigh a- hundred-and-ten or so pounds, my hair's doesn't reach my chin, my eyes are a pale blue." She punctuated every statement with a few moments silence, allowing her to think of another thing to tell him, she could have made it all up, but she couldn't think of enough true statements to describe herself, let alone falsify all of them.
"I'm not entirely sure what my shoe size is, but..." She paused whilst she took her shoe off, the insole was worn, and she couldn't make out the size, across the room she heard Jack snort again, "...no, can't tell from this pair..."
The clock again during her next pause, she needed at least another fifty- five seconds. "What else is there? Oh, clothing!" She looked down at her creased skirt and rumpled shirt, "well I'm partial to black, at the moment its a skirt and suit shirt..."
"Okay, Nina I think you've earned it." Dave interrupted.
"I have?"
"Yeah, on the city ordinance map the bomb's somewhere in pages 24 and 25." He said.
Nina went silent and looked around the room at the agents, Copell was gesturing to several, presumable to get them to drive to a gas station and pick one up. "I'll presume you got my earlier message." Dave commented.
"Earlier message?" Nina inquired, she had presumed he was talking about the telephone beeps, but she wanted to check.
"Now, now, Nina." every time he said her name she felt insulted, "If your guys are on the ball, you should know what I'm talking about." He spoke in a kind of sing-song-y voice.
A few seconds later the four tones played again, and then he hung up. "Time?" Nina asked as he hung up. "Twenty three more." called out the tech, "But we got a sector grid. And the trackers aren't that far away, by the time he calls again..."
Jack stood up, and walked to stand between Nina and the tech agent, "He's not going to call again."
"He's no longer in any of the six grid regions we narrowed it down to from the previous call." Johnson explained, "the vans were able to widen the search area back to half a sector, but there's a ninety-five percent chance he's not in that either."
Jack rubbed a hand across his chin, scratching his palm against his fingers. He took a moment to survey the room, the agents at work, all of whom seemed occupied, Nina and Johnson were the only ones watching him.
"What do you want us to do Jack?" she asked him, taking a step towards him when he didn't answer immediately.
Nina's proximity made Jack a little more focused. "Johnson, I want those vans repositioned in less than five minutes, and call the LA field office, I want at least another two vans out there, and I want you guys to see about setting up some kind of criss-cross network with them, can you do that?" Johnson turned away to do his job, and Jack and Nina headed into the centre of the room, he spoke quietly to her, "When he next calls we're going to have to aim for two minutes, they're going to have to use the satellite to get a sector grid via satellite, and that'll..." he glanced over at her, realising that she knew all this, "Anyway, I wasn't checking but that last call was probably more than two minutes, so we need you to keep him talking like last time."
Nina breathed a relieved sigh as she perched herself on the edge of the desk, and she closed her eyes in thought. Jack did the same by her side, resting his hand on top of hers in the narrow gap between the two of them, far out of sight. "You okay?"
"Yeah." she replied, quickly without thinking about her answer, "did you get any sleep?" she asked concerned.
Jack muttered his answer, putting in as much thought as Nina had to hers, he had a higher point for starting up their conversation. "If it makes you feel..." he paused here, "nervous, anxious, invaded to talk to him about yourself, remember, it doesn't have to be the real you on the line there, you can always act like someone else. It has to be your voice on the end of the line, it doesn't have to be the real you." He looked up at her face with open concern.
"I know," his expression didn't alter. "I know." She said a little softer, they held each other's gaze for a moment before Jack let it go, nodding and glancing around the room, then eventually settling his vision on the television set which was barely audible from their position.
The 24 hour news broadcast flashed up with the time in military format, and Nina's mind suddenly flipped to the digits at the end of the phone call. "Zero-nine-four-five," she recited, to give him a reference point for her conversation. "I agree with you, it's a time until the next bomb." Earlier in the evening she'd done some mental calculations. "We're either looking at quarter to ten, or eleven thirty. I don't know exactly why, but I'm thinking the first one."
Beside her Jack nodded, "Covering the first one, we'll know if we're proven wrong." He pointed out.
"True." she mumbled, and allowed herself to look over at him for a second. Jack caught her movement in his peripheral vision, and rubbed her hand gently, interlocking his fingers with hers. It was meant as a comforting gesture, but Nina couldn't help but flinch as his wedding ring made contact with her hand. The metal of the ring wasn't cold, but the mental sensation was.
Jack didn't notice, "I had a hunch he was planning something for the morning, the sporadic nature of the calls in the night, he wanted to tire us out."
It took Nina a moment to respond, slightly fazed by his hand. After a few moments Jack became concerned and she snapped up, nodding to illustrate that she agreed. "It's all part of his game." Jack commented, and with one final pat of her hand, sat down in the chair.
-24-
"Jamey," Nina didn't bother with the pleasantries as her subordinate answered the phone. "Have you gotten absolutely all the names of the companies in that grid I gave you?"
"Yeah, I've only just finished." Replied the young tech agent, Nina could hear the slapping of chewing gum in between syllables. "Where are you? Do you want me to have them sent over?"
"No," Nina said casually, "Put them on the CTU public server, I'm using an FBI access."
"Okay." Jamey said, Nina heard a few quiet slaps, either bubbles of gum bursting or keyboard types. "It's done." Jamey replied after a few seconds of silence. "Named t-u-b-i-t-f-oh-one." Jamey recited.
"What?" Nina wanted to clarify it, even though she'd written the name down.
"Like CTU, FBI and ATF zero-one, first file." Jamie grumbled.
Nina chose to ignore her tone. "Thanks Jamie." She told her, and the hung up. In front of her the computer let out a harsh modem tone, indicating it was connected to the internet, and Nina typed in the address to the CTU website, one of the many branches of the DOD's central website. She was prompted for her badge and access number, which she inputted, and the computer took a while to log her in.
"Hey." Jack stood behind her, leaning down and taking her cup of coffee. He paused for a moment to feel the warmth of the liquid with in and then took a sip.
Nina's similar greeting was decidedly less casual. "I was drinking that." She objected.
"I'll get you another cup." Jack dismissed her objection. "What have you got?" His eyes gesturing her towards the screen just as the page changed.
Nina turned her attention back to the computer, and clicked onto a separate page that loaded decidedly more quickly than the last. It contained several files that were available from a general computer without having to call the CTU satellite guys. Nina quickly found the file Jamey had put in for them, and opened it. "I asked Jamey to compile this for me an hour ago, its a list of all the companies with buildings in the grid we thought we'd narrowed it down to. Little use it is now..." She tapped the screen and used the mouse to click on a building. A list of companies with the relevant floors or room numbers appeared, and Jack leant further over her to read the screen, putting down her coffee mug at the same time.
Nina snatched it up quickly, taking a sip of what was now half a mug of coffee. "It might still be useful." Jack muttered, "If we get a second sector, which my hunch is will be a residential area, we can get an employee list and cross check it with who lives where." Nina nodded.
"Well there's too much data here to print off, so if we do eventually get a match on residential area we'll have to pull in a few CTU agents to do the ground work." Nina commented, leaning back and sipping her coffee.
Jack placed his hands on the arm supports of Nina's chair, his head wavering over hers, the overwhelming smell of coffee in his nostrils. "Are we okay?" he asked her quietly.
"I think so." Nina replied, moving her mouse over to a sky scraper. This time the list had a scroll bar by the side, and it was evident that there were more than a hundred large companies inside this building.
"We need to talk, but right now..."
Nina interrupted him, he didn't need to justify himself, she understood why they couldn't talk about it right now. "I know, Jack." She tilted her head back to see the tip of his chin, "But thanks anyway." Jack leaned down and smiled at her, he gave thought to kissing her, but knew he couldn't.
Nina smiled at him quickly before she returned to the computer screen. "Jamey colour coded all the company categories..."
"Isn't there a CIA agency in this grid?"
"Yeah, its probably listed in here, that's why I thought we'd have to call in someone from CTU to do the work up..."
"Right, right." Jack nodded, and intercepted her coffee cup on its way back to the table. "You don't suppose he's planning on blowing up the building?" He commented, "That he knows where it is?"
"I think he likes the publicity." Nina commented, after a thoughtful pause. "During the last conversation..."
"I heard the tape."
"...Right, well, during the last conversation, he said something about being well known, a superhero, if he did choose to destroy 'The Agency's headquarters, the media coverage would be avoided, very little information would be released."
Jack nodded, he was more inclined to go with Nina's impressions of him, she was after all, the one that had spoken to him. "Also, they're security is bound to be tighter than ours."
"Yeah." he muttered. He drained the last of the coffee cup, "Well, I'm going to check in with CTU, and I will bring you another cup of coffee, but don't get used to it." He whispered the last few words conspiratorially.
She nodded and scanned the list of companies, checking for any that were involved in security, defense work, anything similar, and may have hired ex- military, explosives experts or otherwise.
-24-
Five tones, "Hello Dave." Nina said, glancing over at agent Johnson, and then down at the timer. It had started, and she needed to keep him for two minutes.
"I've got another question for you before I'll tell you where my next piece is."
"Okay." Nina urged him on, sitting down on one of the chairs that had been for the hotline operators, and fiddling with the annoying hairs at the nape of her neck.
"What do you look like?" he asked.
"What?" Nina glanced over at Jack, and then at Copell, who both had the same quizzical looks that Nina had on their faces, Jack seemed slightly alarmed.
"Well?" Nina couldn't stay silent for much longer, she was worried he'd hang up, and they needed to get at least two minutes again on this call.
"Um...I've got brown hair..." she didn't know what to say, describing yourself wasn't exactly a required CTU skill.
"Is it short? Long?" Nina raised her eyebrows.
"Short....uh...blue eyes?"
"How tall are you? Your build?"
"Um, five foot seven...medium build..." Across the room Jack snorted. Nina raised an eyebrow at him and he smirked back in response. "Small...small build..." she changed her opinion, deciding that whilst it wasn't important that 'Dave' know the distinction, now wasn't exactly a time when her own dietary concerns were important.
"What about your skin? Your dress size?" Nina glanced over at Jack, confusion on her face, before replying to his question. She took another look at the clock. It had been nearly forty seconds since the call began, and she guessed she could flood some of that time with inane information about her self.
She took a deep breath, "I've got pale skin, I'm a size three, I weigh a- hundred-and-ten or so pounds, my hair's doesn't reach my chin, my eyes are a pale blue." She punctuated every statement with a few moments silence, allowing her to think of another thing to tell him, she could have made it all up, but she couldn't think of enough true statements to describe herself, let alone falsify all of them.
"I'm not entirely sure what my shoe size is, but..." She paused whilst she took her shoe off, the insole was worn, and she couldn't make out the size, across the room she heard Jack snort again, "...no, can't tell from this pair..."
The clock again during her next pause, she needed at least another fifty- five seconds. "What else is there? Oh, clothing!" She looked down at her creased skirt and rumpled shirt, "well I'm partial to black, at the moment its a skirt and suit shirt..."
"Okay, Nina I think you've earned it." Dave interrupted.
"I have?"
"Yeah, on the city ordinance map the bomb's somewhere in pages 24 and 25." He said.
Nina went silent and looked around the room at the agents, Copell was gesturing to several, presumable to get them to drive to a gas station and pick one up. "I'll presume you got my earlier message." Dave commented.
"Earlier message?" Nina inquired, she had presumed he was talking about the telephone beeps, but she wanted to check.
"Now, now, Nina." every time he said her name she felt insulted, "If your guys are on the ball, you should know what I'm talking about." He spoke in a kind of sing-song-y voice.
A few seconds later the four tones played again, and then he hung up. "Time?" Nina asked as he hung up. "Twenty three more." called out the tech, "But we got a sector grid. And the trackers aren't that far away, by the time he calls again..."
Jack stood up, and walked to stand between Nina and the tech agent, "He's not going to call again."