“Enough to cheat your way to a luxurious lifestyle. if you’re playing fifty or hundred dollar slots and didn’t get too greedy,” O’Brian interjected.

  Tony’s dark eyes narrowed. “You’re saying the chip inside this device came out of Groom Lake?”

  Henderson nodded.

  “Obviously the guy who was arrested using this device knows where he got it?” Tony demanded. “Why not pump him for the information?”

  “Funny thing about that,” Henderson replied. “The cheat’s name was Dwayne Nardino, a small time racketeer out of Reno. Within hours of his arrest, Nardino was bailed out of jail—which cost someone close to fifty thousand dollars in cash. It was an amount they were willing to lose, because Nardino was discovered behind the wheel of his car the next morning, with two thirty-eight caliber slugs in the back of his head.”

  “Obviously someone didn’t want Dwayne talking out of turn,” Nina Myers said softly.

  Henderson’s movements became more animated, his gray eyes seemed alive for the first time. “Here’s the interesting part. Two years ago the Drug Enforcement Agency identified Dwayne Nardino as a major distributor of Rojas cocaine. The DEA even has surveillance photos of Nardino meeting with the brothers at their hacienda in Colombia . . .”

  “It’s clear that someone at Groom Lake is peddling classified technology,” said Jack. “Any theories about who or why?”

  Henderson placed the palms of his hands on the table, his gaze sweeping everyone seated there. “The why is simple. They did it for money. The theory we’ve come up with is that someone on one of the research teams at Groom Lake, or maybe someone in supply or the classified material disposal unit, has a big-time gambling problem. In order to pay off a large debt, we’re guessing this person passed along classified technology adapted for criminal use. Of course, once a syndicate has their claws into someone who can provide such technology, their debt would never be wiped clean. The mob would naturally squeeze them to supply more and more gadgets, until there’s no juice left.” Henderson’s narrow face flashed a humorless smile. “And that’s how we’ll nail the bastards.”

  Pushing away from the table, Henderson strode to the front of the room. “We’re going to use a two pronged investigation to plug this technology leak.” He held up two fingers. “That’s two teams, working at separate locations toward a single goal. One team will operate in conjunction with an undercover agent planted inside of Groom Lake. This agent will be working on one of the research teams conducting experiments at the testing range.”

  “Need a volunteer?” Nina asked.

  “Agent Almeida will coordinate all surveillance activities with Ms. Farrell and Ms. Soo Min, who will monitor activities from here,” Henderson replied.

  “And the second team?” Jack asked.

  “We’re placing a three-member team undercover, right in the middle of a crooked casino in Las Vegas,” he declared. “One agent will impersonate a mob lieutenant—that’s you, Jack. Your cover story is that you’re on the payroll of Kansas City mobster Gus Pardo. It’s Pardo who owns the Cha-Cha Lounge.”

  Jack folded his arms. “I can tell you now, there’s no way this will fly. What if someone contacts Pardo and asks questions?”

  “Gus Pardo will vouch for you and your team, to anyone who asks. Even his own lieutenants.”

  Morris O’Brian scratched his forehead. “Why would this criminal help us?”

  “Simple. We own him.” Again, Henderson smiled. “Pardo’s college-aged son was arrested for cocaine possession in South America. He’s facing hard time in one of the worst prison systems in the world. If Pardo cooperates, he’ll see his son again, compliments of the U.S. State Department. If Pardo screws us, his kid rots in a Peruvian jail for the rest of his short, miserable life. Naturally, we’re convinced Pardo will cooperate . . .”

  Jack blinked. “What am I supposed to do at this casino?”

  “Loan shark. Launder money. Load the dice and water the booze,” Henderson replied. “The one thing you will not do is catch professional cheats. We want the word to get around Vegas that the Cha-Cha Lounge is an easy mark. Sooner or later someone using classified technology to run a scam will walk through the doors, and we’ll have them.”

  “And the rest of my team?”

  “While you’re watching the dealers, croupiers and pit bosses, Curtis Manning will provide overall security. Meanwhile Morris O’Brian will be up in the catwalk monitoring the customers using CTU’s best surveillance equipment. The next time a cheater shows up with classifi ed technology, we’ll be ready.”

  Jack frowned, surprised at the sheer audacity of Henderson’s plan.

  “The Director’s approved a three month operation. I’ll petition to renew for another three if we come up empty . . . but I don’t expect us to come up empty. Get creative, if you have to, but get results. In the next twelve weeks, I want at least one solid lead to take back to the Director. During that time, Jack, you and your team will be surrounded by a criminal element that is completely unaware of your true identities and motives. As far they’re concerned, you’re mobsters working for Gus Pardo’s Kansas City crime syndicate, dispatched to Sin City to operate his casino . . .”

  Henderson paused. “You all know what that means. This is deep cover. If anyone feels they are not up to this assignment, see me after the meeting.”

  Jack Bauer sat in silence, processing. He felt Christopher’s hands on his shoulders. “Relax, Jack. How many agents get an all-expenses-paid assignment in Las Vegas?”

  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 P.M. AND 1 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME

  12:00:04 P.M. PDT The Cha-Cha Lounge, Las Vegas

  The holding room was located three levels below the gaming floor, in the casino’s deepest subbasement. Yet even here the clatter of coin and the jangle of fi ve hundred clicking, ringing slot machines penetrated the insulated brick walls and seeped through the cheap soundproof ceiling panels—an incessant carnival buzz that rose and fell like a demented organ grinder’s squeeze box.

  Jack Bauer closed his ears to the noise and barely registered his dismal surroundings; gray, unpainted walls, avocado-green phone without a press pad or dial, a steel fire gate that led to a concrete corridor, and a windowless steel door that led to the tiny holding cell behind the one-way mirror.

  Jack approached the glass. He studied the man on the other side, absorbing every detail of the stranger’s clothing, physical characteristics, and mannerisms.

  Though the man wore a bland, relaxed expression, he’d been alone in that locked room for fi fteen minutes and he was still perched on the edge of a Cha-Cha Lounge-orange fiberglass chair, as if he were going to bolt the moment the door opened. Occasionally he’d gingerly touch his face, and Jack noticed a fresh bruise under his left eye.

  Jack pegged the man’s age as well into his fourth decade, though he tried to appear younger. His sandy brown hair—disheveled from the rough treatment he’d received at the hands of “casino security”—was white-gray under a clumsy dye job. His addict-thin body was clad head-to-toe in denim, the faded blue jacket torn at the sleeve, buttons missing from his shirt. A crumpled cowboy hat lay on the concrete fl oor next to the man’s scuffed leather boots.

  “What’s his name, Driscoll?” Jack asked the casino’s pit boss. “Where’d he come from?”

  Don Driscoll had the strength of a bull and the face of a bull dog, but the manner of a fastidious cat. With meaty hands, he adjusted the lapels of his bright orange sports jacket.

  “Midnight Cowboy calls himself Chester Thompkins. Says he’s a truck driver. He’s got a North Carolina commercial license to prove it. Of course, that don’t mean squat—’specially not with that South Jersey lilt tucked in the back of his throat.”

  Driscoll was born and raised in Atlantic City, so he would know.

  “Did he have anything else on him?” Jack asked. “Drugs? A weapon?”

  Driscoll shook his dark head, his perfectly pomaded hair didn’t move. “Just the gimmick, Jaycee.”

  The pit boss used Jack’s alias because that was the only name he knew. Driscoll also believed J. C. “Jaycee” Jager was using this low-rent, off-the-beaten track casino as a front to launder mob money and pull a little loan sharking scam on the side.

  “Where’s the device?” Jack asked.

  “Morris is examining it now.”

  “What about his wallet?”

  “Curtis took it. He’s running a make on the guy.” Driscoll chuckled. “My bet, it’ll come back light, if you know what I mean. The Lone Ranger had over forty Gs in his wallet. Ill-gotten gains, says me.”

  “Who spotted the scam?”

  “Chick Hoffman, the croupier at table fi ve.” Driscoll displayed pride. “The roulette table was reset yesterday and the balance was good. Then along comes Jon Voight here, who’s betting careful and winning big. Been here since nine-thirty in the AM. Hoffman got suspicious—naturally, ’cause I trained Chick myself.”

  “Did Hoffman fi nd the device?”

  Driscoll frowned. “Nah. It was Morris, up in the catwalk. Chick couldn’t scope the scam, but he tripped the silent alarm anyway. O’Brian used X-rays or heat vision or some magic crap to sniff it out. The gizmo was in the guy’s jacket. There were wires in his sleeve, a laser lens hidden behind the cuff button.”

  Driscoll rubbed his clean shaven jaw. “When we established for certain that he was cheating, I had security snatch him up and bring him down here. I saved him for you.”

  Jack dragged his eyes away from the man behind the mirror, faced Driscoll. “Tell Hoffman there’ll be an extra grand in his envelope at the end of the day. There’ll be a couple of Gs in your envelope, too.” Bauer forced a half-smile. “Good work, Driscoll.”

  The pit boss brightened considerably. “Thanks Jaycee.”

  “Do you want me to stick around and help break this bunco rat?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’m going to handle it myself. Do me a favor and find Curtis. I need to know what he dug up on this guy.”

  “Sure thing, boss. Right away.”

  Driscoll paused when he reached the fi re door, one hand poised on the push bar, he seemed to be gathering his thoughts. “It’s good what you’re doing, Jaycee. It’s the right thing.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack’s tone was prickly.

  Sensing his annoyance, Driscoll talked faster. “It’s good to finally make an example, Jaycee. That’s all I meant. Things were getting sloppy around here, across the board. The croupiers, the dealers, the Eyes in the Sky, even the goddamn cocktail waitresses. And the word’s out, you know? Sorry, but for nearly three months now, ever since you came on board, this casino’s been drawing grifters like a cesspit draws fl ies.”

  Driscoll’s watery gray eyes drifted to the man behind the mirror. “Nailing that bastard, dealing with him without the law . . . It’ll send the right message to the right people. After this, nobody’s gonna think Jaycee Jager is an easy mark. Nobody.”

  Jack fixed a cold stare on Don Driscoll. “I came here from Kansas City to make my mark. And that includes making this dive profi table. That’s what I’m going to do, no matter what it takes, no matter who I have to take down in the process.” Jack shifted his gaze back to their cheater. “Now go find Curtis and send him down here. I’m going to need some muscle to take care of this son of a bitch.”

  The pit boss practically stood at attention. “Right, Jaycee. I gotta get back to the fl oor anyway.”

  The steel door clanged behind the pit boss and Jack was alone. Staring at the man behind the glass, he steeled himself for what might happen next, what he might be compelled to do.

  The phone rang. Jack snatched the receiver off its cradle.

  “Jager,” he answered, pronouncing the name Yah-ger.

  “It’s Morris, Jack,” the man said, but O’Brian’s Cockney accent would have been recognizable without the I.D. “I’ve had a look-see at that little gizmo your drugstore cowboy had in his tuck. It’s the real deal. Just what we were lookin’ for. That guy in the cell’s our fi rst lead . . .”

  Jack’s focus suddenly sharpened. The investigation into technology leaks at Groom Lake had been stalled for weeks, despite the resources expended—not to mention the difficulty of placing an inside man at the base without the United States Air Force knowing about him.

  “What does he have, Morris?”

  “A little black box, with a predictive roulette computer inside.”

  Jack frowned. “That’s no big deal. They’ve been around since the early 1980s. Computers have been used to rip off casinos from the Riviera to Atlantic City.”

  “Ah, but this particular beast is smarter than the average bear. It’s the Einstein of predictive computers.”

  Jack could envision the smug grin on Morris O’Brian’s face.

  “Get to the point, Morris.”

  “As you know, predictive computers use lasers to scan where the ball is in relation to the wheel, and then asks the computer to predict the section of the wheel where the ball will most likely land. Most predictive computers increase the probability of winning to say . . . one in three, or thirty-three percent. Good but not great. You can still lose your shirt with those odds. But the little bugger I’m holding in my hand is much better than that. Maybe as good as ninety percent, or better.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I watched the security tapes, Jack, and I’ve tested it myself,” Morris replied. “It’s that good. And that’s not all. The software . . . it’s cribbed from the new, improved Patriot Missile system.”

  “How did that help him cheat?”

  “The point of the Patriot system is to hit an incoming missile with a missile you fired. That’s like hitting a flying bullet with another flying bullet. Measuring the speed of a steel ball on a roulette table is child’s play to this software.”

  Jack stared at the man inside the cell. “Do you think this guy built it?”

  Morris chuckled. “Our boy Thompkins? Hardly.

  Frankly, I’m surprised he learned how to use it.”

  “So where did he get it?”

  “Actually, predictive computers are readily avail

  able from certain unscrupulous types, for a rather punishing outlay—say fifty or sixty grand. I haven’t seen one this good, however, so I’d bet it’s worth a couple of hundred thousand on the open market. When I’m through testing it, I’m going to take it apart and we’ll know more.”

  “Do it quick,” demanded Jack.

  “Yes, yes, but it’s a shame though.” Suddenly Morris’ tone brightened. “The good news is that once I dissect this, I can reverse engineer it. Build us both a pair and we could clean up, make us a fortune.”

  “I don’t gamble.”

  Morris chuckled again. “Au contraire, Jack. You gamble every minute of the day.”

  Jack ignored O’Brian’s talk show psychology. “Right now, as a matter of national security, we need to know where Thompkins bought this device and who made it.”

  “That’s the long and short of it. I leave that job to you, my friend . . .”

  Jack hung up just as the fire door opened. Curtis Manning entered, drew a sheaf of papers from the pocket of his bright orange Cha-Cha Lounge sports jacket.

  “I gave him a drink of water, took the fi ngerprints off the plastic glass and sent it back to CTU,” Curtis said, handing Jack the top page. “He’s not who he says he is.”

  While Jack scanned the pages, Curtis spoke. “His real name’s Max Farrow. Currently he’s wanted for the assault of his ex-wife and his stepdaughter in New Jersey, where he’s a convicted rapist. He also has one felony and a variety of misdemeanor convictions that are gambling-related. Got himself banned from the Atlantic City casinos for passing bad dice, counting cards, fi shing in the dealer box—you name it.”

  “And the rape conviction?”

  “Sentenced to five years, paroled in two,” Curtis said. “Farrow bailed out of a halfway house in Passaic last year, probably to avoid that state’s sex offender registry, which is public record. At least one member of the victim’s family has vowed revenge . . .”

  Jack stuffed the rap sheet into his black leather jacket. “Unlock the holding cell and wait here.”

  The man didn’t look up when Jack Bauer entered.

  Instead he shifted in his seat and appraised the newcomer with a sidelong glance. As Jack circled the chair, Farrow thrust out his long legs to block his path. Bauer’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Instead he stepped around the man, turning his back on his prisoner for just a moment.

  Max Farrow leaped out of the chair and lunged at Jack, hands outstretched and reaching for Bauer’s throat.

  Jack was ready. He effortlessly sidestepped the clumsy charge, then grabbed the man’s wrist with his left hand. He stepped around Farrow, twisting the man’s arm behind him. Farrow was thin, but he was sinewy, and his resistance was substantial. Using leverage, Jack applied even more pressure, until the pain was enough to drop Farrow to one knee.

  Bauer attempted to rattle the man further by raising his voice. “You want to hurt me?” he shouted. “Is that what you want? You want to hurt me?”

  With his right hand, Jack reached into his leather jacket. When it came out again, the hand was circled by a carbon steel knuckle duster. With soft rubber surfaces to grip the hand and protect the wearer, the high-tech version of the old brass knuckles hugged Bauer’s right fi st like a glove.

  Farrow saw metal and his eyes went wide. “What are you gonna do to me? I have rights! You can’t hold me prisoner! You have to turn me over to the cops, you bastard!”

  He’d made demands, but Farrow’s panicked voice was anything but commanding.

  “You’re going to tell me a story, Max.” Jack voice was a hoarse whisper. “You’re going to tell me where you got that computer in your pocket.”

  “No way, asshole. I’m not a rat—”

  Jack brought his brass fist down on the man’s chin, cutting the sentence short.

 

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