Fic: Eternal Father, Strong to Save (Chapter 9)
Eternal Father, Strong to Save (Chapter 9)
Author: thecrystalkey
Summary: Jack Bauer has been framed for the murder of a navy petty officer. Local NCIS calls in the best of the best, Jethro Gibbs.
Spoilers: Season 5 of 24, Season 2 of NCIS
Disclaimer: See Chapter List.
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Jack crouched below and to one side of the ground floor window that Chloe had earmarked for his entry point, glad he’d chosen to wear dark colours the day before. By staying low, silent, and unmoving he could remain undetected here for as long as he needed. Always provided no one got too close to his position. Chloe had picked this spot because it was out of the way and unlit. Jack could think of barely a handful of people he’d ever worked with who would have taken the placement of the outdoor lights into account when directing him to a point of ingress while working off satellite feeds and blueprints.
The former CTU agent was waiting for Chloe to give him the go-ahead for the ‘break’ part of this break and enter. The window was the kind that opened out from the bottom and had, as far as Jack could tell from a quick glance into a darkened room, a simple lock. It would be a tight fit but given the weight he’d lost recently there was no doubt that Jack could make it through. Easy. Except that nothing ever was and those goddamned patrols weren’t giving him even the ten seconds he needed to jimmy the lock. Chloe, watching them from above via the satellite, would let him know when the coast was clear.
He was burning with impatience but managed to stop himself from making any comments that Gibbs might use as an excuse to throw Chloe back into a holding cell. Jack was just thankful at this point that Command-and-Conquer boy wasn’t running this. He’d have taken whatever help he could get, of course, even if meant being arrested on stepping foot out of this compound, but that conversation had made him wonder why in the hell a man as supposedly competent as Gibbs had a guy like that on his team.
Maybe this McGee was new, even Chloe hadn’t had any experience with reading satellite feeds when she’d first started and she’d been hired directly to Tactical when they’d had a separate IT unit. Still, Jack was glad to have someone of known competence and experience handling the tech end of this mission.
“Jack,” the analyst’s soft voice broke into his thoughts, “you should be clear to move in another minute or so. I’ll count down at 30 but I thought you should know that Agent McGee’s managed to break their radio encryption. He’s monitoring their comms now. They don’t seem to suspect anything yet but at least now we’ll know if and when they do.”
Jack didn’t acknowledge the communication, doing so here and now could very easily compromise his position, but he knew that she knew that and didn’t expect an answer. He waited.
“You’re go in thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight…” the familiar voice counted down the seconds and Jack prepared himself to move, which basically consisted of trying to relax tense muscles so that he could move smoothly and quietly when the time was right, and sliding free the lockpick kit he never left home without anymore. “…three, two, one. You have thirty-seven seconds, give or take, until the next patrol is within visual range.”
Jack was deep into working on the lock before she ever finished speaking. He didn’t check his watch, it was a given that she’d count down on the ten second mark; her subtle way of telling him to get in or get gone ASAP.
“Thirty seconds,” she announced.
Jack cursed to himself, in his head. It would have been safe enough to talk quietly with the area clear but his mouth held the pick he’d intended to use on the window lock while he drew his knife. He hadn’t noticed until he’d tried to slip the pick into the crack between the window frame and the window. The damn thing had been painted shut on the outside. Jack wondered as he chipped the paint away whether it was a deliberate security measure or sloppy painters. Given how easily the paint came off under the blade of his knife it was the latter but it was still time he couldn’t really afford to spend at this point.
“Twenty seconds,” Chloe stated, still in her calmest professional tone.
Finally the seam at the bottom of the frame was clear of paint and it seemed, since Jack got his lockpick tool all the way through the tiny space there, that it hadn’t been sealed the same way internally. It only took about five seconds to actually trip the latch and pull the window open. It creaked as Jack pulled it open, though the current necessity for silence made it seem more like a shriek to the former CTU agent. He waited a moment, taking a deep breath and waiting for Chloe’s voice to warn him that someone was coming running at the noise. Instead she announced, “ten seconds. You’d better hurry, Jack.”
He wrenched the uncooperative window open to its full extension by brute force, and managed, by feeding one arm up first, to get his head and shoulders past the sill. He got a grip on the inner wall and pulled his hips and legs through, letting gravity help him once his center of balance was over the sill. He pulled his feet in as Chloe began to count down from five and managed to pull the window shut before she reached one.
“I’m in,” he rasped, before she could ask. He lay panting for a moment, taking stock of any new injuries and putting away both the lockpicks and the knife. He’d lost skin in a few new places on that scramble through the window but nothing seemed to be bleeding. When his eyes were properly adjusted to the semi-dark of the room, Jack moved.
There was no window in the door to the room. Jack listened at the door for the telltale sounds of movement immediately outside the door. He heard distant voices rising and falling in the cadences that marked an argument to his experienced ears, though he couldn’t make out any details. There seemed to be no one in his immediate vicinity. Chloe would warn him of anyone she saw from overhead but you didn’t live through as much as Jack Bauer had without learning to double-check what you could.
The former agent opened the door a short ways, careful to make as little sound as possible, and peered through the narrow gap. Jack could see that the black SUVs he’d noticed before were parked next to a van that fit the description he had of the one Mike had been bundled into downtown. They must have brought him straight here after he’d escaped before, unwilling to risk that the defense consultant might have compromised the location of his previous prison.
Between Jack and the vehicles were three tables, set at angles to each other. One held computer equipment, multiple workstations though only one was currently in use; another held weapons and ammunition laid out in neat lines. The central table, which a group of five was gathered around, held papers and a laptop. This group had been the source of the distant argument, Jack could see the four men were disagreeing vehemently with the one woman in the short skirt standing with her back to the former agent.
Her profile seemed familiar but Jack couldn’t place it. It was only when she turned that he recognized her face. The assassin named Mandy. It was the work of a second to get a photo of her on his cell phone. He snapped images of each of the men around the table as well before pulling back and easing the door closed.
“Chloe, I’m uploading photos of what looks like the command group. Run them on every available database,” Jack ordered. “I recognized one of them. She’s an assassin, first name Mandy. She was issued a presidential pardon several years ago so her details should be on file but she probably wasn’t telling the truth when she gave them to us.”
“Copy,” she answered.
Something pinged on her laptop and she typed the commands to bring up the series of images from Jack’s phone. They were faces, slightly blurred but not enough to give her trouble. A few keystrokes set the images processing until they were crisp and clear.
“I’ve got them,” Chloe informed him. “I’m cleaning them up to run facial recognition. I’ll let you know if any of the others get a hit.”
“Copy,” he acknowledged. “I’m changing position to look for Mike.”
The analyst’s eyes assessed the satellite feeds even as she set the facial recognition software running. “You’re clear for 50 yards in every direction. The command group is southwest of you and I’m picking up another grouping - much smaller - to the northwest, near the wall. It looks like there are three or four of them but, Jack? You should know, I think I’m getting interference from some of the cargo containers. Be careful.”
“Copy that,” Jack acknowledged softly.
Chloe watched the former agent begin to move on the screen, watching the path ahead of him to make sure it was clear.
“Some?” Gibbs asked.
Chloe muted her mike. “It’s weird. It’s not every container and it’s almost random. It’s at a really low level, too. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it except that some of the signals start fading when they got too close to a few of the cargo containers.”
“What might cause that kind of interference?” Buchanan asked.
“Does it matter?” Kate asked.
“Yes,” Chloe and McGee chorused.
“If it’s electronic,” McGee continued, “boosting the satellite signal might cut through it. If it’s some kind of heat shielding…”
“Either way they’re hiding something,” Gibbs concluded. “And that makes me want to know what.”
“If we can figure out what’s causing it, it could give us an idea of what they’re hiding,” Buchanan suggested. “Chloe?”
“We need to boost the signal,” Chloe informed McGee.
“Right,” the young agent agreed.
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Jack moved through the maze of cargo containers stacked one and two high. His gun, silencer on, was out and ready - his right hand and the weapon down by his thigh. He moved slowly for the combined reasons of stealth and weariness. He’d been up now for 36 hours, barring a few catnaps while waiting for intel. His body was demanding consideration in spite of the adrenalin once again coursing through his system.
Judging by the quality of the silence in his ear, Chloe had muted her end of the connection. That was neither unusual nor particularly worrying. She had a roomful of people to deal with back there; it would only distract him to hear her half of those conversations. She’d pass on anything he needed to know and she’d keep an ear on him.
All of Jack’s attention was on his current surroundings; on keeping his movements silent and on listening for anyone nearing his position. Chloe would warn him of any danger she saw coming but she’d already told him that something was interfering with her infrared scanner. Not that he wouldn’t have been alert in any case; nobody was infallible and better careful than dead. The former CTU agent was also keeping track of his direction - making sure that he was moving towards the other heat signatures instead of going in circles.
“Jack,” Chloe said quietly in his ear, “I’m seeing…something ahead of you. It could just be a glitch but, be careful.”
Just then he heard the telltale sound of feet scuffing in the dirt. A moment’s listening told him it was no more than one set. After a moment’s thought, Jack tucked his gun away. Silenced or not, it would still make a certain amount of noise and the argument still going in the corner might not entirely mask it. Better to make no noise at all since he had the warning.
Jack took a deep breath and stepped around the corner, coming face-to-face with a very surprised armed man. He had the hostile in a silencing throat-lock before the other man could cry out, much less reach for his weapon. As the other man semi-successfully fought his hold, Jack tried to hook a foot around his opponent’s ankle. The former black ops soldier grunted as he fought to get a decent grip on his squirming enemy. When he finally got the hold he wanted on the man’s jaw. He grunted again with the effort as he snapped the hostile’s neck with one quick, harsh movement.
He took the opportunity to regain his breath as he began to relieve the corpse of potentially useful items. There was a 0.45 caliber pistol along with two extra clips, an unfamiliar laminated ID badge, assorted keys on a key ring, and a thin leather wallet with some cash and an unmarked white plastic card with a magnetic strip on the back. When he was done, Jack contemplated the body and his surroundings for a moment before quickly and efficiently stripping the military-olive jacket and pants from it. He pulled the slightly too-small clothes on, his own black t-shirt blending well enough not to need changing, and stowed his own clothes back in his bag before he began retracing his route dragging the body behind him. There was a spot nearby where some of the containers had been stacked no more than two feet apart. Their placement created a shadowed alley that was perfect for hiding an average size body, alive or dead. He’d noted it for his own possible use when he’d passed it earlier.
Once he’d concealed the dead body, he began to move towards his target with a bit more speed. The adrenaline from the fight had kicked his systems temporarily into higher gear and discovery was only a matter of time now that there was a body on the ground. He hadn’t been far from his goal when he’d run into the hostile. Now he just hoped like hell that Mike was with this second group of heat signatures. Otherwise he was going to have to search every damned little nook and cranny in this place and that would take time he didn’t have.
Moments later, Jack paused as Chloe urgently informed him that he was nearly on top of the heat signatures he’d been searching for. He stayed still for several moments, listening, and heard the scuffing of boots up ahead - he couldn’t tell how many from the sound - and the creak of shifting leather, probably a holster. A man, closer to his position, coughed weakly ending with a quiet groan.
Jack dropped low and moved around the side of the container, ducking his head briefly around the corner when he reached the far end of it. A fraction of a second was all it took for him to get a snapshot of the situation ahead of him.
There was a small open space up ahead, bounded loosely on four sides by cargo containers which consequently blocked that area from view from the rest of the warehouse. It was essentially a holding pen. There was a drafting table set up at the centre of the open area. Slumped over the table was a familiar figure. Legs shackled to the legs of the chair on which he sat was Mike Seldler. The other man was working at the table - his movements slow and pained. The dried blood and the bruises visible on the side of his face gave mute testimony as to why. Leaning against the containers farthest from Jack was an armed guard, watching Mike with bored disinterest.
Jack retreated a few yards, far enough away not to be overheard by those ahead of him when he contacted NCIS. There was something missing with his picture of the situation ahead. Chloe had said there were three or four heat signatures and she would have told him if that had changed.
“Chloe, do you still have me on infrared?”
“Yeah, Jack. You’re a little faint but you’re there. We’re working to boost the satellite signal.”
“Good. But we may not need it much longer. I found Mike. He’s injured but he’s alive and conscious.” He heard the analyst’s soft sigh of relief but ignored it. “I can see one guard and Mike from my current position. Mike’s in the centre of an open space ahead, his should be a stationary signal.”
“Got him,” she stated, ruining her air of total confidence a moment later by adding, “I think.”
“Good.” Jack ignored her addendum as irrelevant. Odds were good that she had the right person and they’d all know for sure soon enough.
Surrounded by armed hostiles in overwhelming numbers, stealth and speed were their only hope for a successful escape. Mike’s injuries would slow them down on foot and, even if Jack did manage to take the guards down silently, discovery was only a matter of time once he’d gotten his former colleague free. The DOD engineer was presumably working on something for his captors and they would be checking on his progress regularly. Once he’d made his move, there would be no stopping until they were clear of pursuit. Any other strategy would get them caught or killed. Jack remembered what he’d seen of the warehouse’s layout so far and began to form a plan.
“Chloe, I need you to transfer the satellite feed to my phone. I have a plan.”
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