His head throbs in time to his heart as he pushes through the glass doors, hardly a glance to the security guard, who lets him pass.
Ops Center is a place without time – the steady stream of different shifts wending through the building give the impression not of the typical nine-to-five bureaucracy but of a never-ending swarm of disturbingly orderly suits.
Not tonight. The swarm moves at full pitch, people rushing in every direction grasping whatever they hold in their hands as if it were the holy grail – files, computer discs, bits of unrecognizable technology, even severed electrical cords that seem to have been put to some dubious use.
And at the center of it all, Kendall. His face has taken on an odd shade of burgundy, interrupted by at least two cobalt-colored veins visibly throbbing on his forehead.
He addresses Jack loudly, from across the room, without preamble.
"I want you to come and look at this."
They wind their way through the several sets of security monitors leading down to the holding cell. The scene inside is no less grisly for being expected. Four guards, two shot cleanly, once in the chest and once at the temple, point blank by the looks of it. The other two were less lucky: crude weapons fashioned from electrical wires (now garrotes) and shards of what was once a plexiglass wall. The fourth was also treated to the edge of the steel bed before he slumped against the wall.
Jack studies them with unblinking eyes, one hand at his chin; perhaps it would tremble if he moved it from there.
Perhaps it would not. Death, even in its messiest forms, is something he's become accustomed to.
He shifts to one side, making room for a photographer, already busy cataloguing the positions of the bodies.
"How did he exit the building?"
"Well, he's your prisoner, Jack. I thought maybe you could tell me that."
"Since it was your investigation, I thought you might have discovered that fact by now."
An exceptionally brave (or exceptionally stupid) techie breaks the silence. "They exited through the air shaft."
"They?"
"Yes, Jack, they. Your prisoner managed to smuggle a friend in to join him."
He can't tell whether it's the too-quick dinner or the too-brief scotch that makes his stomach lurch. His mind is already groping for an explanation, and he doesn't think she was with me will go over well.
This he thinks.
"That's ridiculous. That air shaft is more well-guarded than the entrance to this building."
This he says.
"Someone gained access to the shaft by disabling the cameras and sensors, then entered the cell, murdered the agents, and escaped with the prisoner," the too-helpful techie pipes up again.
"So, apparently, it wasn't well-guarded enough." Clearly, Kendall hasn't had quite enough of his stare-down.
"Someone with access had to disable the failsafe systems along the shaft. Have you checked the system logs?"
"It may surprise you, Jack, that I already thought of doing that. And I don't think you're going to like what I found." He retrieves a single sheet of paper from those strewn on the console behind him, passing it to Jack as if it were an indictment.
Beneath the jumbled fragments of code and half-formed input commands, he reads a single name.
William D. Tippin
"Tippin?"
"You provided him with cover, Jack. Did it occur to you to check background?"
"Yes. Just as I assume it occurred to you before you hired him as an analyst."
Kendall snorts. "We've dispatched a team to bring him in. He will be held at a nearby facility while awaiting transport to Camp Harris for interrogation."
"There's no reason to transport him to Camp Harris without even a preliminary investigation."
"Jack, are we not standing in the same room?"
He gestures at the floor, and Jack's uncomfortable stomach reminds him they are holding their little pissing match over four fresh corpses. It's time to leave; as the room heats up with bodies and electronics he can smell the stench of drying blood.
"I'm going to have Marshall re-run the computer logs. I want to see every record of access in the last six hours before we draw any conclusions." He's in motion before he begins the sentence, finishing it on his way through the heavy doors; their weight drowns out Kendall's response.
******
He meets her fifteen feet into the entrance corridor, her walk quick and precise, her eyes full of flashing anger, even though her makeup cannot quite hide their red tinge. A part of him wants to wrap his arms around her and smooth her hair; the other part of him, shaped by years of distance and reserve, is not quite sure how.
She does not give him time to speak.
"Dad, we need to find out why they've accused Will."
"I'm working on that right now." He settles for grasping her arm, just above the elbow, steering her gently around to follow his lead. "I've had Marshall pull all the computer logs. Are you aware of anyone who might have access to Will's personal belongings?"
"I've been going over and over that – I can't think of anyone. He practically lives at my place, especially now that he's dating Francie, and you know I've taken every security precaution – I still have the bugkillers I was using to avoid SD-6--"
"Um, Agent Bristow?" They've rounded a corner, straight into Marshall.
"Yes?"
Both their heads snap toward him in unison. Jack never realized she'd inherited that trait from him.
"Oh, uh, sorry, I mean Mr. Bristow, though I guess you can listen, too, Agent -- Sydney, it was just that kind of needed to speak with—"
"What is it, Marshall?"
"Well, sir, it's just that I've been working on the video images to see how the cameras were disabled – it was a pretty good trick, you know, I didn't design the encryption myself or anything, but still—"
"Marshall—"
"We have a video."
"What?" Again, in unison.
"Well, like I said, I was going back over the cameras, and the interior cameras were disabled – I mean, lights out kind of disabled, you know how it is at the end of that movie The—"
"Marshall!"
"Well, but the outside cameras were on a different system – the feeds were disabled, but whoever did it didn't destroy the equipment itself. So I was able to work from the internal images stored in the camera and extrapolate – well, extrapolate might be the wrong word, it's really more like when you—"
"Marshall!"
"I can show you the video."
Sydney beats both of them to the end of the hallway, leaning over Marshall's cluttered workspace, already staring at one of the many monitors along the wall. How she knows which one to use is a mystery, probably a result of the fact she has far more patience with Marshall than Jack ever will.
Marshall sits sideways in the chair, perched on its edge, punching commands into the keyboard with his typical nervous energy.
"Okay, there." The screen Sydney has been staring at lights up, the blurry image resolving itself into one of a man and a woman climbing into a car. The blonde man is easy to pick out, but the woman—
"Now, you can see him, but her – now this is a neat little trick. Re-direct the image and overlay with one from the other camera, and then you get – voila!"
Sydney's hands slip from the rounded edge of the desk, just as Jack's hand convulses, gripping the back of Marshall's seat. His daughter's voice comes in a choked whisper, like the shock of a child learning that daddy betrayed her.
"Francie?"