Hi again and thanks to everyone for reading and especially for reviewing. I can't help it, reviews just make me happy.
Just to clear up some confusion before it happens (someone mentioned this in a review of an earlier chapter). Tony and Michelle's youngest child is named 'John'. Tony nicknamed him 'Dess', short for 'Dessler', his middle name. Michelle is the only person who calls him 'John', so when the story is looking at a situation from Michelle's point of view, the child will be referred to as 'John'. Hope that helps.
Now, on with the story.
Chapter 10: Manhunt
By the time anyone realized that Tony was missing, he was on a plane heading north. They had driven about a half hour from Tony's office to a private airpark where Hutchins had a small jet waiting. He warned Tony that his men were still watching Sophie's school and if he made any false move, Hutchins would instruct them to grab her. Hutchins had found Tony's weak spot and planned to exploit it for all it was worth. He reminded Tony quietly about his associate's predilection for little girls and watched while Tony tried unsuccessfully to hide a grimace. Tony walked silently onto the plane keeping his head down as he had been instructed.
The CTU office was a flurry of activity. The senior staff had been briefed and reports were coming in every few minutes. Phone records indicated that Tony had received a short call just a few minutes before his secretary saw him get on the elevator. The call came from Hutchins' cell phone. Unfortunately, that didn't help them to identify Hutchins location. Agents were canvassing all of the airports and train and bus depots hoping that someone would remember seeing either Tony or Hutchins. The state police had set up road blocks on major routes out of the city. The Coast Guard was stopping and searching private yachts leaving the LA area.
Adam was trying to identify all of the cars that left the garage attached to Tony's office building. Most of them were identified as belonging to people who worked in the building. They were tracking down a few of the others. Of interest, a black limousine with tinted windows had left the garage during the time in question. The license plate on the limo was a fake. The tag actually belonged to a Volvo station wagon whose owner had reported the plate stolen a day earlier. Adam also found a police report from around 10am in which the owner of the Ride Away limousine service reported that one of his new limousines had been stolen.
The most disturbing report came from the team that was watching the house where Yuen's men were hiding the arms shipment. The team first tried to make contact with the terrorists by telephoning the house. They tried twice without success. Finally, an agent dressed like a lineman from the electric company walked up on the rickety porch and rang the bell. The house was an end unit of a set of row houses. The houses were all dilapidated, but this one was even more so than the neighbors. It seemed that the neighbors made some attempt to keep up their property. This one had peeling paint on the porch and window frames along with two upstairs windows that were broken and boarded up. The agent waited for a minute or two and then rang again. At that point he walked down off the porch and looked in through a window into a small messy room littered with pizza boxes and beer bottles. The room had little furniture but did have a television. Nothing seemed amiss in this room.
The agent walked around the back of the house and knocked on the back door. Again there was no answer so he began looking in windows. To the left of the back door, was a window to a small bedroom. This room was also sparsely furnished with only a desktop computer workstation on top of a small desk and a mattress on the floor.
The glare of the late afternoon sun made it difficult for the agent to see in the window. He repositioned himself and he cupped his hands around his eyes to get a better view. "Morrison," he said over his two way radio, "Get some men back here. I think we have probable cause to enter the dwelling."
"What did you find, Lance?"
"It looks to me like we've got a body in the back bedroom."
Morrison called DuBose and a team secured the house and then entered it. They found the bodies of the six men that had unloaded the arms shipment at Warner Enterprises. Each had been shot twice at close range while he slept. Based on the number of beer bottles in the front room, the men were probably all pretty drunk and may have even passed out when they finally went to bed. Hutchins had probably walked quietly from room to room putting the gun to each man's head and then firing twice. He had likely used a silencer to prevent anyone in the neighboring row house from hearing him.
The discovery of the six bodies was particularly unsettling to Hammond and DuBose. The fact that Hutchins had killed them and left the arms behind meant that Yuen knew he had been set up. He obviously killed these men to keep the feds from getting to the rest of his cell. He was willing to sacrifice the arms to keep the cell safe. Hammond quickly issued an APB for Hutchins. He also had the teams watching Tony's family and Bob Warner move in closer; they no longer needed to hide. They needed to be as close to their charges as possible. He instructed DuBose to call Chung Yee from South Korean intelligence again. This time he was to instruct Chung to arrest Yuen. Finally, Hammond hastily called a press conference. He decided that the best way to find Hutchins and, hopefully, Tony was to get their pictures out via the news media. He would explain to them that Hutchins was a drug dealer with ties to a Korean terrorist and that he had kidnapped a government agent. He hoped that by splashing their pictures on every media outlet he could find that someone might remember seeing them.
While the press conference was being arranged, Hammond called Michelle back to keep her abreast of what was happening. He warned her that the press conference would take place within the next hour and that she might want to notify Tony's family before they had to see it on television. He offered to send agents to talk to Tony's parents in person if she preferred. Michelle had pulled herself together since Hammond had talked to her less than an hour earlier. She was no longer Michelle Almeida, wife and mother; she was Agent Dessler again. She was the tough, no nonsense, quick thinking federal agent that Hammond had met over a decade ago. She would talk to Tony's parents, she told him, but asked that he have an agent stationed with them to keep them updated on the status of the investigation. This was not an unusual request and Hammond granted it without hesitation.
Hammond also confirmed for Michelle that he would be moving her and the children to a safe house. He directed her to pick up Sophie at the regular dismissal time. She would be escorted by the CTU team that was watching her house and they would direct her to the safe house.
Michelle got off the phone with Hammond and made the necessary phone calls. The most difficult call to make was to her in-laws. They were stunned by the revelation that Tony had been forced to work for the CIA again and the thought that he had been kidnapped was terrifying to them. Michelle put the best possible face on the situation and made sure Tony's parents knew that CTU was doing everything possible to get him back alive.
The next call Michelle made was to Jack who admitted that Tony had talked to him about this mission. He and Tony had discussed it several days ago and it all seemed to be going well. He also knew of his father-in-law's involvement and was happy to hear that Hammond had put protection on him.
Jack, like Michelle, knew that the odds of getting Tony out of this alive were poor at best. After ending his conversation with Michelle, Jack stood up and walked down the hall and into Chase's office. Chase glanced up from what he was doing and knew immediately by the look on his father-in-law's face that something bad had happened.
"Jesus, Jack, what's wrong?" Chase asked almost afraid to hear the answer. "Is Kim alright? The kids? Kate? Jack what's going on?"
"It's Tony." Jack said blankly. He dropped into a chair across from Chase's desk and related the entire story to him.
Chase shook his head as Jack stood and started walking out of his office as abruptly as he had walked in. "Where are you going?" He asked.
"I'm going home to tell Kate so she doesn't hear it on the news. After that I'm going to CTU."
"Why are you going to CTU? Last I heard you didn't work for them anymore."
Jack smiled. "Because I don't trust Hammond. I want to make sure that he is making an all out effort to find Tony."
"You don't think DuBose will make sure of that? He and Tony have been friends for years."
"Jeff is a good guy and he's competent, but if Hammond puts any pressure on him to limit the investigation, he'll cave. I just want to be there to make sure that doesn't happen."
Chase stood and grabbed his jacket and laptop. "Then I'm going with you. I'll go home and tell Kim and then meet you at CTU. I don't intend to let Hammond sacrifice Tony. And who knows," he added, "maybe they can use an extra pair of hands at CTU."
Tony sat on the airplane high above the west coast of North America knowing that it was very unlikely that he would be freed by his captors or rescued by the CTU. He wondered if anyone even realized that he was missing yet. He knew that Rita would question why he had missed his 2 o'clock appointment, but also knew that he had acted so strangely over the last few weeks that she might just write it off as part of his new, bizarre behavior. Michelle might question it when he didn't come home that evening, but that would be hours from now. Besides, considering how he left home this morning, he thought as he glanced down at his hand and his missing wedding band, she might not think it so strange that he didn't come home. It might even be tomorrow before she started to wonder where he was. By then he would be far away and, very possibly, dead.
The thought didn't scare him; he wasn't afraid of dying. He was more concerned with what he was leaving behind and regretting all that he would miss. He would be leaving Michelle to raise three, no, actually four children. His years with her had been so wonderful but they had also been short. He had looked forward to raising their children and eventually growing old together. He imagined them together watching their children graduating from college and getting married and having children of their own. Now it was all just a dream, a sad but beautiful dream that would likely never be fulfilled.
He thought about his children; their whole lives ahead of them but with no father to lead them through life's most difficult moments. Sophie and Joe would remember him, but Dess wouldn't. At least Dess would have pictures of Tony holding him, the baby that Michelle was carrying, the one that wouldn't be born for another four months wouldn't even have that. Tony thought about that child, he didn't even know the sex of the child and he and Michelle hadn't discussed a name yet.
Thinking about his children caused Tony to begin worrying about Sophie again. He had to know that she was safe. He had resigned himself to the fact that he was going to die and he felt confident that Michelle was strong enough to deal with that. He was concerned, however, that if they killed Sophie as well that Michelle would not be able to cope with that loss. "Mr. Hutchins," Tony said in a mild voice. "I know I'm not in a position to ask questions, but I have to know if my daughter is safe."
Hutchins stared coldly at him, "She's safe for now along with the rest of your family. If you keep cooperating, you won't have to worry about them." He looked away at the thick, puffy clouds that filled the sky and said nothing more.
Brad Hammond ended his press conference and returned to the CTU situation room. All of the major players were there getting constant status updates from their teams. DuBose ended a phone call just as Hammond entered the room.
"What's the latest?" Hammond asked.
"You're not going to like this one." DuBose warned him. "That was South Korean intelligence. They can't find Yuen."
"I thought they had an agent who had infiltrated Yuen's company."
"They do, but remember, with the time difference, it's the middle of the night over there. Yuen left his office at about 7pm in Seoul and went home. They weren't keeping a 24 hour surveillance on him. They watched his house until about 10:30. All the lights were out and that is the time he usually goes to bed. The team left and planned to resume about 5:30 in the morning. When we told them to arrest him, they went into the house and no one was there." Jeff paused. "Chung has his people watching all of the airports, train stations and all the rest of the means of escape, but Yuen probably has a several hour head start on them. He could be out of the country by now."
Hammond rubbed his forehead. "Do we have any good news, people?" He called out to his staff.
"I might have something." Adam said hopefully. "A grounds keeper at a small, private airpark about a half hour out of the city thinks that he recognizes Tony from the pictures we circulated. He said he was dressed in dark clothes, which is accurate according to what Michelle told you, and walked with his head down onto the plane. He was with an Asian man, but the grounds keeper couldn't identify the other man."
"Do we have any information on the plane they got on?"
"The only plane that left the airpark during the time in question was a small Learjet. They filed a flight plan for Portland, Oregon but we've talked to all of the airports in and around Portland. None of them have a record of the flight landing. In fact, we have talked to air traffic control all over the west coast and east as far as Denver and no one has talked to a flight using the call sign of the Learjet and no one is reporting having a flight on their radar that isn't communicating."
"So what does that mean?" Brad asked.
Adam speculated, "It's possible that the groundskeeper at the airpark is wrong and he didn't see Tony."
"But the Learjet took off and hasn't been seen or heard from since. How does that happen?" Brad queried.
"The pilot probably turned their transmitter off and they could be flying low so they are below radar. It's possible to do, especially if you know the route well."
"Alright, that seems to be our only lead right now, so keep on it." Brad turned and looked at Baker, "Is Almeida's family in protective custody yet?"
"Michelle got to the safe house with the kids about 15 minutes ago." Baker answered.
"Put a double layer of protection on that house. We can't take any chances with the family."
"I already did that." Baker assured him.
Hammond thanked him and looked around. Everyone was working hard and following up every possible lead. No one had even mentioned going home. They all knew how serious this was. For some of them Tony Almeida was a friend and one-time coworker and working to ensure his safety was of utmost importance. Others didn't know Tony, but had heard of him in the context of the nuclear and bioterrorist attacks of several years ago. They, too, worked tirelessly to save him out of respect for his service to his country. Brad squeezed his eye shut for a moment. No matter how hard they all worked he feared that it wouldn't be enough. Everyone in front of him was hoping to see this end with a triumphant rescue, but Brad knew too well that it was far more likely to end with a flag-draped casket being removed from a military aircraft.
The thing that bothered Brad was that he wasn't sure which he was more concerned with: Tony's safety or the public relations nightmare that would ensue if Almeida was murdered. He certainly didn't want Tony dead, but dying in the line of duty was just a given for Hammond. He always assumed that he would be killed on the job, especially when he was undercover in the Soviet Union. He did feel a little guilty that Tony really wasn't a CIA agent any longer, but that little clause in his pardon gave Hammond an out and made it easy for him to push away any guilty feelings that crept in.
No, Brad knew that if Tony died, he was going to be neck deep in shit. Tony had become something of a folk hero when he was playing fugitive in Argentina. Michelle was on all of the talk shows and the American people fell in lover with her. She was able to get sympathy from every corner of the country. When Tony was pardoned and came home, it was the stuff movies are made of, the beautiful couple reunited, now a family with an adorable little girl. The whole thing made Brad sick to his stomach. The problem was that those same people were going to demand an investigation into why a civilian, who had no real training in undercover work, was sent into such a potentially dangerous situation. There would likely be senate subcommittee investigation and he would be compelled to testify. His career would be ruined. He would be forced to resign. Of course, he would still get his pension, but what would he do with his life. His entire adult life had been consumed by the CIA. He didn't have friends or hobbies, he didn't want to travel. He had intended to work as long as he could; now it was all falling apart and he found himself blaming Tony.
Hammond shook his head and looked at DuBose. "Could today possibly get worse?" He asked.
As if on cue, a voice behind him said, "Gee, Brad, I'm sorry you're having a bad day."
Brad knew the voice immediately and turned toward it. "Jesus Christ, Bauer. Oh, and Edmunds, isn't this a treat! What are you two doing here? Who let you in? I thought this was a secure building. I accepted your resignations years ago, so get the hell out of here."
"We just wanted to stop by and see if you needed any help." Jack told him.
"The way it works, Jack, is if I need you, I call you. I don't remember calling you, so again get the hell out and take junior here with you." He said gesturing toward Chase.
"Let me rephrase that, Brad. We want to make sure that you are doing everything possible to find Tony and to bring him home in one piece. I know what it's like to run this kind of investigation and you can always use two extra hands. Chase and I can work on non-classified stuff." Jack looked down. "Look, Tony's my friend, I just want to know if ... if he doesn't make it out of this alive that I did everything I could. Let us help."
"Alright," Brad sighed. "You two can stay. I think Adam has some work that needs follow up. See him." Jack and Chase exchanged wry smiles.
It was getting late and Michelle was trying to tuck her children into bed for the night. Somehow it wasn't going quite as well as she would have liked. John, who wasn't a good sleeper even in his own crib, was fussing angrily as Michelle tried to make him sleep in a crib he wasn't used to. She had brought all of his favorite stuffed animals and his blanket and she read him his favorite story, but it wasn't working. She found herself rapidly losing patience and finally just kissed him and put him into the crib crying. Michelle was at the breaking point, her nerves completely frazzled and she decided that the best thing for both her and John was for him to cry himself to sleep. She hated to do that, but felt she didn't have any choice.
She took a deep breath as she closed the door and turned her attention to Sophie and Joe. If it was frustrating to listen to John cry, it was actually more difficult to deal with Sophie and Joe who were obviously confused by the whole situation. Without notice they had been taken from their home and Michelle was offering them little in the way of explanation. They were full of questions: Why were they staying here? Where was Daddy? When would he get there? Who were all of the men and women who were in and around the house and why didn't they ever smile?
Michelle answered their questions as best she could without alarming them. Joe seemed satisfied with the answers, but Sophie wasn't. She seemed to sense that something was wrong and hung close to her mother. She was a happy and fun-loving child much like her father but at times she would become serious and overly mature for her age, like Michelle had been as a little girl.
"Daddy didn't kiss me goodbye before he left." Sophie told Michelle while she was being tucked into bed.
"Sophie, I know Daddy kissed you when he dropped you off at school." Michelle said to her.
"But he always gives me extra kisses and a great big hug if he has to go on a trip. I get a morning kiss and a bedtime kiss for every day he's going to be gone. He didn't do that this time." She pouted.
"Daddy didn't know he wasn't going to be with us tonight, Sweetie. This all happened suddenly." Michelle told her. "Your father loves you with all of his heart, Sophie. Don't ever forget that no matter what happens. If he could be with us tonight, he would be." Michelle turned away from Sophie and swallowed hard, trying to compose herself. She pretended to adjust the covers on the bed.
"When I say my prayers tonight, I'm going to pray that Daddy comes home soon so I can give him a big kiss. Is that a good idea, Mommy?"
Michelle could barely contain herself. "Oh, yes, Sophie. That's a very good idea." She whispered as she kissed her daughter good night and turned out the light.