Well, we had some typical GA chapters lately, but that one's gonna be typical 24...
He was nervous, when he picked up the receiver of the payphone. It was a payphone at a gas station just a few miles out of Seattle.
Everything had worked as planned up to now. He had found a branch of the bank, got some money from a bank official who was obviously used to strange clients withdrawing money from their numbered accounts. Ten years ago, he would have probably bound that man to his chair and started to question him who else his clients were – not knowing that he'd be one of them himself, one day.
He had bought two guns from a pawn shop, a used car and some clothes and stuff that he needed for his getaway. A black bag with everything he needed lay on the back seats, as he was driving out of the city, going east, to find a quiet place to cross the border. He felt the holster on his belt and the second one around his right ankle. They gave him a feeling of safety which he had missed for quite a while.
But the longer he drove, the more he realized that if he ever wanted to call Chloe and ask her about Kim… and Audrey… he had to do it now, as long as he was still here. All the traces of his re-appearance had to stay in Seattle. Once he left, he needed to cut all the ropes.
Nervously he waited. Was the number still correct? It was one that she had installed for him – only for him – when she had helped him fake his death.
That was three years ago. Nobody kept a secret line open for three years, or would she? The number was re-routed through numerous servers, to her phone.
He was relieved when he finally heard it ring.
Pick up the phone, he prayed, leaning against the wall on the backside of the gas station, to have a look who was coming. He was here all alone. Except for his car, there was nobody around. Not many cars on the highway, either. A woman with two children was gassing up her car, he could see that in the reflection on the windshield.
"O Brian"
Finally hearing her voice made him jump.
"Chloe" he stammered, and for a moment he didn't know what to say. I'm okay? Stop searching? How is Kim? Audrey? He regretted already that he had called. He should have just disappeared, fuck his wish to know about them.
Chloe wasn't less surprised. She sat at her desk, in CTU, surrounded by people. "Hang on", she murmured, stood up and made her way to one of the server rooms, where she could speak freely. It also gave her a few moments to think about what to say to him. Her heart was pounding like mad.
"Where are you", she finally said.
"Not important. I'm out."
"How did you get out?" She still couldn't believe to hear his voice.
"They said they were doing a prisoner exchange."
"When did that happen?" She wondered that CTU hadn't been informed at all. Above all, she wondered why she hadn't found it out earlier. She had several channels through which she was monitoring all governmental activities around Jack or any case in which his name would appear.
"It didn't happen at all, I fled.", he hissed, looking over his shoulder. He knew that nobody was here, but yet he felt watched, "I heard that they were about to exchange me to Xian Lei Zen."
"What?!", she almost shouted. That was a famous name which she knew very well. A high Chinese government agent who had miraculously become a human rights activist and had changed sides. It was one of their most valuable sources of information.
Jack got confirmed what he'd been thinking all the way long. "Our government would have never gone through with that, I'm sure.", he said, leaning against the wall again, "I guess this would have turned out into a two-sided long range execution."
He had seen situations like these before. A government had no interest in getting their defectors back. They just wanted to see them dead.
Actually, it all made sense. It had made sense to him in the second he'd heard the name of Xian Lei Zen for the first time, when one of Cheng's men mentioned it, as they were still on the ship.
The US government was seeing him as a liability. They weren't sure if he had talked – and swear to god, he had not – but they wanted to make sure he wouldn't. "I'm nowhere near as valuable as Xian", he said, "I took my chances and fled, when I got the chance."
"Where are you?", Chloe asked again.
In that moment, somebody came into the server room. She thought of hiding, but that wouldn't work out in that small space. It was Nadia, the new analyst.
"Unimportant." Jack screwed up all his courage to ask the question he'd been waiting for "How's Kim? And Audrey?"
She would have needed hours to tell him everything. Nadia came over to her.
"Steve, can you send me two hard disks down which fit in the A7 RAID system?", she said, putting on her best fake smile for Nadia.
Jack realized that she couldn't talk. "Shall I call you back?", he asked.
"Yeah, call me back when you have them… an hour would be okay." She desperately needed to tell him a few things and she hoped he wouldn't go completely go dark before she'd get the chance to talk to him once more. "It's important", she added, insistently, before she hung up.
Jack put the receiver back on the phone. Important. That word resounded in his head.
Actually, he was wondering if he should call her back at all. She had confirmed all his suspicions, that the exchange against Xian would have never happened. It had been the only way to save his own life to get off that ship when he had the chance to.
He went back into his car. Important, she had said. What did she want to tell him? He had just wanted to hear that Kim and Audrey were okay, but he still didn't know.
Motionlessly, he sat in the driver's seat. He had to leave from here. It was not safe to stay around the phone that he'd used to call her with. If anybody had tracked their call, they'd know now that he was in the Seattle region.
For a moment he thought of not calling her back at all. Audrey and Kim were safer if he didn't know where they were. Because he didn't know if he could fight the urge to see them again forever.
He grabbed the bottle with painkillers, which Teddy had given him, and took one.
Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital, stood at the label.
He could as well go back into the city. It would be easier to find a phone there and wipe out his traces.
Finally, he restarted the engine and joined the highway again, back into the city.
A small roll of money lay on the passenger seat, when he settled into his seat and took the throwaway payphone which he'd bought not long ago. He was at the parking lot in front of the railway station, actually one of the best places to make the phone call to Chloe. It was crowded, and in the middle of the city center. No matter if somebody traced him back here, they would never be able to draw any conclusions where he'd go next.
This time, Chloe answered much faster. And she already seemed to be in the server room. "Jack?", she said.
"I'm here. How are Kim and Audrey?" That was all he wanted to know.
"Kim is fine, Jack. She's doing her Bachelor in IT at Berkely", Chloe said, breaking the good news to him first. From time to time, Kim even called her, if she needed help with some special tasks.
Jack was surprised to hear that. But above all, relieved. "That's great", he tonelessly said. God, he was proud of his little girl. She had grown up into a great woman… she'd make her way, without him. "And Audrey?"
Chloe hesitated. "Jack, I don't know how to tell you this.", she said. She never thought that it would be her, who'd have to tell him. "She…"
Jack felt his pulse speeding up. "What, Chloe?!", he hissed, having a hard time to control his emotions. His heart was pounding like mad.
"She got in a car crash." Her voice almost let her down, as she continued, "In China. She went there, looking for you... She's… gone." She couldn't say the word dead. She just couldn't, though everyone else around here did. But what she'd found out in the past forty minutes made her doubts grow.
The phone slipped out of his hand. It landed somewhere, in his lap, Chloe's voice calling out for him, again and again, but he didn't listen.
Immovably he sat there.
It felt like somebody had ripped his guts right out of his chest, showing it to him, squeezing it and throwing it into the dirt. He was used to pain, but that one was harder to bear than any torture.
Audrey.
Gone.
Looking for him.
Dead.
Chloe hoped that nobody would come in. She knew that she had to give him time. There were other things that she needed him to know.
"Jack", she said again, hoping that he'd hear it.
He sat there, unable to move and unable to cry though he felt like breaking into tears.
"Jack, there's more.", Chloe said, hoping he'd hear it.
He grabbed the phone, saying "What?", like he was spitting it into her face.
"I checked Xian Lei Zen."
He didn't want to hear it. "I don't care, Chloe."
"You better do, Jack!", she hissed back, "Listen: I found his release documents, for the exchange. You were right. He should have been exchanged four days ago in L.A. It was a DoD mission."
Why DoD?, she heard him say, in between two silent sobs. "Why didn't the CIA or CTU handle that?"
"I don't know yet, Jack, the mission paper doesn't say your name. It just says that he should have been exchanged for two US citizens."
Jack froze. One more? He had never taken into consideration that there could be another prisoner in Cheng's hands. It totally changed the balance between his and whoever's life against the one of Xian Lei Zen. "Who is it, Chloe?"
"I don't know.", she silently said, hoping he'd be able to put the pieces together. "We never got her body, Jack. They said she burned to death in the car."
Audrey.
The other one could be Audrey. Her life was important enough to be weighed against Xian Lei Zen. Especially if her father lobbied for it.
"Jack?", Chloe said. "Jack?"
"So she could have been freed four days ago.", he tonelessly said. The thought of her, dying, was unbearable. But the thought of her, being in Cheng's hands was even worse. And the thought that him running away from Cheng might have cost the only chance on getting her back was killing him.
They didn't even know yet if it was her or not. But he could put the pieces together. Her body had never been found… she was probably in Cheng's custody. DoD was organizing a rescue mission and only Heller knew who the subject was.
"I need to talk to Heller", Jack said, feeling his stomach cringe. It was time to go to his account.
.
.
Jack will meet Audrey again... i swear