8:26 P.M. Wednesday
Matt DeVincentis, the counteragency specialist, had his arms folded across his chest and was sitting there looking at reports he'd probably committed to memory just to make sure he had them right. Mark Holden, one of our more senior agents, was going over the tertiary objectives list. Lex, Paula and Kevin were getting ready for operation services. These were the members of Team Alpha who weren't paying any attention to me at all, because they already knew what to do.
My cell phone rang and I set my headset on the desk so I could answer it. "Agent Frederick, go ahead."
Jason was on the line, speaking with an uncertain clarity. The more he spoke, the more unsettled I became. If what he was telling me was correct, while the nation went to war, Los Angeles would be the battleground of our war. Why hadn't I considered the possibility that the Code Fives might attack while the nation was devoted to another cause? I mentally cursed myself.
"Initiate preparations and keep me posted," I told him, hanging up briskly.
"What was that about?" Matt asked me. "Orders coming in?"
"It wasn't business," was all I said, letting the statement drop.
"Okay, so you just normally talk like this at home, too?"
"Drop it and leave it, Agent," I warned him in a low tone.
He looked at me almost like he was hurt, but I didn't care. I went back to my panel.
Well I can't ever really believe
No one was sent to get me
All of my intense dedication went to studying a map of probable hot spots that Lex had uploaded for me just a few moments before. I was team leader and furthermore in charge of all base operations until I was told otherwise. My only objective was to ensure that CTU ran smoothly and our targets were achieved. But my second duty kept calling me as all commitments do. I set my jaw and tried to focus on the international war, rather than the war at home.
Understandably, that didn't work too well. My hands gripped the sides of my console and finally I just couldn't look at it anymore. It was all just lines and dots and markers and notes and what did it all mean?
And I feel like I'm being erased
No one got left here
I'm all alone
No one was sent to get me
Jason sat in front of the map trying to make some sense out of it. A marker was placed at all the relevant locations. The distance between CTU and San Marcos was the most prominent but also the least useful note in his mind. He kept thinking that if he stared at it long enough, some sort of pattern might emerge. The absoluteness of going to war kept holding on to his brain.
Derek stood up, walked over to another console, and activated the security systems. In the event of an invasion, an assault on headquarters was highly probable. If the door had crashed in right that second he wouldn't have been in the least surprised. He was beginning to think there was no surprise, only being more stunned.
I'm all alone
No one got left here
But I'm fine
No one got left here
"Is she coming back?" he asked Jason offhandedly. "Are any of them?"
Jason paused a moment.
"I don't think so, D. Not when it's like this."
Derek fell momentarily silent, then just nodded to himself, knowing he was powerless in that one respect, but not powerless in any other. That was what was going to matter today: the balance of power.
I can't even breathe when I see
The pictures sent without you
MSNBC, CNN, Fox News were playing back the same footage on all of our monitors, sound bites from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's initial statement. That damn one-liner over and over again as if I didn't already know the war was going on. I looked to Matt and asked him to pull up some initial plans while Beta and Delta were already preparing for their own orders.
"Tony, we need somebody at Division," I yelled across the floor.
"I'm on it," he replied. "George, how do you want to play it?"
Mason: "We've got connections to the other government agencies, we'll just play it by ear." He looked decidedly uncomfortable with the fact that although we had some of the best counterterrorism specialists in the country in this office, the only thing we could do was wait and react.
I feel like I've been erased
No one got left here
As they were debating this I turned to Matt, who was making notes on counteragency operations. Before he came to CTU – and he worked here when I got here – he already had a work history in some other department. He also has a reputation for having seen a lot of things and understanding their intracacies. It made me feel comfortable working with him.
"What do you think is going to happen?" I asked randomly.
"Me? It's not for me to say," he told me, shrugging slightly. "In my experience, you never know."
"Lie to me."
I'm all alone
No one was sent to get me
"I can't lie to you."
I nodded, turning my gaze away from him back onto the main floor, quoting softly to myself. Another one of my nervous habits is racking my eidetic memory for somebody else's words and constantly using them as a defense mechanism. Any time I get really scared, I repeat to myself some inspirational quote in hopes of shaking the uneasiness that settles around me.
This time it was French literature: "When man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own."
Maybe if I kept saying it, I'd believe it.
I'm all alone
No one got left here
As Team Beta went out with their first orders of the day – a security examination – I settled my headset on, clicked on to the appropriate frequency, and waited. Nothing was supposed to happen. It seemed bizarre waiting and planning when the outcome you wanted was absolutely nothing, but in this business somehow things always worked out in the end.
I hoped that I could say the same for Code Black back home. Maybe there would be a way for me to get out and still arrive in time to help them, to lead them as I had said I would. Maybe someone could cover for me. But as uncertain as the situation was right now, I knew that was a strategical and logical impossibility.
I'm so sick of this terrible instinct
It's so hard now
Just to find you
"They're obviously not all just taking a bunch of flights to invade," Chloe was saying. "I mean, that's possible for, I don't know, backup, but they've got to be here already."
"Hopefully in half a year we've put some dents into them," Lan said, nonplussed. "How didn't we notice? They've just been here and we didn't get to them?"
"No use blaming ourselves," Jason cut in. "Besides, it's not like we can check every British tourist. By the time we get to a threat assessment…"
Derek interrupted gravely. "… it's already too late."
So sick of this terrible instinct
I can only find you
With Tony's team gone, CTU's in-house ranks had thinned out considerably. Paula was running op-serv, or operational services, for them and I had asked her to provide me with audio. They would be out in the field for hours, looking for the slightest security risk or something that didn't sit right. Of course, we all knew that the best agents can spot a problem in anything and everything, making it that much harder to set apart real threats.
Jack put down the phone. "Team Delta, we have a situation!"
But I'm fine
No one got left here
"What's going on?" Mason said even as the team began forming up.
"The INS is executing a raid on a possible terrorist residence and they want some backup."
I looked to Lex. "Lex, take op-serv on Delta."
"Got it. Bringing op-serv online now."
With a nod, I called across to Jack, "You're clear."
He nodded, then looked back to me for a moment. "I want you with me on this one."
"Me?"
"Yes. Let's go. I could use you here."
I wasn't going to disobey. Behind me, Mark put his hand on my shoulder. "We've got it covered," he said. I handed him my headset, popping in an earpiece as a replacement, then circled around Lex to my workstation and grabbed my gun, still in its holster, out of the bottom right desk drawer. Clipping my holster on, I rushed over to join Jack and the departing team.
"What are you thinking?" I said to Jack as I formed up.
"That things never come out like I think they do."
