Title: Short #4
Author: thecrystalkey
Summary:Fourth in a series of shorts covering some of the time not shown in episode 1 of Day 5. Jack/Chloe friendship.
Spoilers: Season 5 of 24
Disclaimer: Nothing in '24' is mine, especially not the characters that appear or are mentioned here. Also, none of the dialogue you actually recognize is mine. It all belongs to Twentieth Century Fox, Real Time Productions and its creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran.
Working with Jack was nerve-racking, Chloe reflected as the guy at the barricade, FBI or secret service, checked her ID and eyed the inside of the van. It was just as well that it was full of what looked like official equipment for Jack and the kid to hide behind. Jack hadn't introduced them but he was being, mostly, nice to the kid; so they'd probably known each other already. Or Jack knew his mom, at least; since she was calling his cell phone. Jack always did have a soft spot for kids.
Finally they were in the parking garage, and the only agents in there had disappeared into the stairwell. She breathed out a sigh of relief and twisted to face behind her.
"We're clear."
She pulled her laptop out as Jack brought himself and Derek out of hiding, hacked into the wireless network being used by the agencies present to coordinate their efforts, logged onto the CTU system remotely and pulled up the interagency deployment grid.
"Can you get a wireless access point from down here?"
"Yeah, I'm reading the agents transponders. I can track their locations to within three feet." She started pulling up the information she knew he'd want. And some she thought she should share anyway because it supported her 'this is crazy' theory. "Jack, there are a 167 agents in and around the location. 25 of them in Wayne Palmer's apartment alone."
"I know." He sounded completely calm. "That's why we better hope this is going to be the last place they're going to be looking for me."
Hope? Try pray, Chloe thought as she watched Jack test the comm. equipment. This is never going to work. I'm going to jail for accessory to murder. Probably aiding and abetting a fugitive. We're both going to jail.
But because it was Jack (well, that and it was their only plan), she knew she'd go ahead with it. Also, he'd go ahead without her and then he'd definitely get caught. Now was not the time for that to happen. He would have handed himself in already if he'd thought it would make a difference.
At least they probably won't hand him over to the Chinese. Dead President trumps dead Consul. Though you would think, with the number of people Jack had actually killed, that they could find something to arrest him for that he'd actually done.
"Ok," he held out what looked like an earplug with a pin in it to her. "This is a field ops communication unit. All you need to do is put it in your ear and we're set to go."
She put it in her ear and looked at Jack, her lips pressed tightly together. He looked cool and confident and, even though he always looked that way, it reassured her. Then he saw something out the window and had Derek shut off the flashlight. She saw the agent opening his car trunk and knew what Jack was going to do as he opened the door and slid out.