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2020-11-04
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Like A Fallen Constellation

Summary:

"Do you want to leave the room? Then at least allow for the possibility that there are moments when rules need to be broken."

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Like A Fallen Constellation
by Brittany Thespis Frederick

If I could fall another way
I’d be far from where I lay
You’re the one who’s always there
Take a piece away from me
Watch my color fade to gray …
- Krome, “Chair on a Wire”

Part I: Echo Fading

Counter Terrorist Unit

Los Angeles, 6:02 AM

Nina took the stairs in double-time to the ground floor of CTU, her gaze flitting from the double doors of the building to Tony, who once again sat calmly at his desk like she’d told him to take five rather than do his job. She cleared the last stair and looked toward the doors, where she could see two people approaching. The way they moved immediately labeled them as members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Neither appeared too welcoming – one of them tall, with the gaze of a laser; the other one slightly shorter, her face set impassively. What was more unsettling to Nina was that someone hadn’t mentioned the sudden visit from people she would rather not have to deal with.

“You didn’t tell me the Bureau sent people,” she hissed.

Tony shrugged. “I must have forgotten to tell you.”

“Yeah, well, what else have you forgotten to tell me, Tony?” Nina said more than a little sharply as she moved to intercept their new visitors. She ignored the look Tony shot at her back, concentrated only on appeasing the crusading G-men. Frankly, her run-in with Mason was about as much bureaucracy as she wanted to deal with. She faked a smile as she met the two FBI agents in the middle of the room.

“Nina Myers, CTU chief of staff,” she said, extending a hand.

The female agent accepted it; Nina checked her handshake. Firm, just long enough, with definite eye contact. “Agent Stark Patrick,” she said, “this is my partner, Agent John Doggett.” Down to business; Nina figured the two obviously weren’t green. The FBI had the courtesy to send veteran troops. She sighed. “I’ll brief you on what we’ve got, but we’re up in the air at the moment.”

“That’s to be expected, a situation of this magnitude.”

“Glad you see it that way,” Nina said as she turned and started leading the agents back toward where the action was happening. She decided against mentioning anything told to her in Jack’s confidence, wherever Jack was at this moment. She didn’t know she could trust these two; she didn’t know they weren’t working against her. Paranoid, maybe, but she always erred on the side of caution. “So where do you work exactly?” she tossed over her shoulder.

Doggett’s voice was even and imposing. “The X-Files.”

Nina paused, “The ... paranormal?” Okay, maybe they were basement workers after all. She’d heard stories about a cadre of FBI agents chasing little green men with badges and guns, saying that the sky was falling. They certainly didn’t look like they did that, but appearances were often deceiving. Tony was certainly proving to be a knife in her back. “How’d you get the assignment?”

“We’ve had our share of time in criminal investigations,” Patrick explained as if she’d heard it all before. “And we were available.”

Available, or expendable? Nina wondered as she walked back over to Tony, who still looked restless. She decided to return his favor. “Tony, would you brief these agents on the Palmer operation?”

Tony looked surprised. “But shouldn’t you…”

“Do it, Tony,” Nina said coolly, “I’ll be in the office.”

She left Tony flustered as she headed back up the stairs and threw open the door to Jack’s office. She hoped he wouldn’t mind her borrowing it for a moment. Quickly, she logged on to his computer and the CIA database; she wouldn’t want their uninvited guests to see her doing what she was about to do on the floor. A few more moments and she stared the dossiers of the pair in the face, trying to decide what to do with the information. Until Jack returned, she was on her own, and she didn’t want to be the cause of more alarm. He’d already tried to pin the keycard scandal on her already. She hoped he’d learned his lesson, but truthfully he was only doing what the evidence told him. Nina shot a glance down onto the floor. They were still distracted.

Agent Patrick’s record looked erratic, but mostly straight: She had ditched a career in Criminal Investigations to reteam with her partner after his involuntary reassignment to the X-Files section. Before that, she was named as the next rising star. The same went for her partner, who had been assigned to find Fox Mulder and then was damned to the X-Files by what looked like political disfavor. Nina shut down the database and took a deep breath. It could be worse.

She headed back down the stairs.

On the floor, Stark shot her partner a glance as Tony pulled information up on his terminal. “This is crazy. I can’t even believe Kersh gave us this assignment.”

“First, it wasn’t Kersh, it was Follmer, and what’s so crazy about it?” Doggett asked her. “We’ve dealt with assassination before. It’s not all about aliens, Stark.”

“It’s the CIA.”

“And since when did you ever make that a qualifier, Ms. Tolerance?” he pointed out. “What do you want, cloaks and daggers? Welcome to the real world.” He glanced up, “Hold on, she’s comin’ back.”

Nina approached, “Did you get all the details?”

“We’re ready.” Stark took a deep breath, “Do you know when Agent Bauer will be back?”

Nina shot Tony a burning glance.

It was now worse.

Part II: Razorblade Armitage

Division, 6:04 AM

_______________________________________________________________________

Always, what does that mean?

Forever, what does that mean?

It means we’ll manage

And in the meantime I create

Don’t question her

Tricky, “Christiansands”

“Liz, you’re telling me even you don’t know where he is?”

“George, I wouldn’t be here if I did.” Liz took a deep breath,

still holding the Deputy Director’s skeptical gaze. “He’s gone. Nina doesn’t know, she called Teri, Teri doesn’t know. He’s in trouble, George.”

Mason exhaled. “He’s been nothing but trouble tonight, Liz.”

“I know that, but this time it’s not him,” she continued, perturbed, arms folded across her chest as her heart pounded. “He needs our help.”

“Even so, where would we start?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t stand here and do nothing. I want authorization to go after him.” She stared at the floor for a moment, deciding how much of the truth to reveal. “George, Jack is my closest friend in the world. You can’t ask me to not chase him. If you don’t want to be involved anymore, fine, but let me decide when to put myself on the line, please.” Her eyes implored him, “You owe me anyway.”

The truth was, Mason personally didn’t owe her – Division did. Liz carried certain amounts of clout with them, and that was why her appointment to her current position had been so easy – because they trusted her. She needed Mason to trust her again. After a moment, he nodded. Before he could verbally commit, his pager went off. He checked its face, and his mood darkened considerably. He shot Liz a glance, “Let’s go. Apparently, the FBI’s finally gotten off their ass.”

She stared, “Great,” she mumbled. “You want me to handle it?”

“See what you can do,” was all the instruction she received.

So Liz drove back to CTU from Division and stormed through the double doors, trying to muster up consternation she didn’t have. Since being called in six hours ago in the dead of night, her biggest concern was her best friend and boss, who was out somewhere in the line of fire. Compared to that, the FBI’s bureaucrats paled. She stalked over to the assemblage and made immediate eye contact with Nina, as if to ask what in God’s name happenened in the twenty minutes she had been gone from the building.

“Agent Patrick, Agent Doggett, this is Liz Rycoff, our Chief of Technology,” Nina said by way of explanation. “Liz, do you have a moment?”

Nina lead her out of earshot of their new ‘allies.’

“What the hell is this?” Liz asked point blank.

“Tony told them Jack’s not here,” Nina protested, “now they want to know when Jack’s going to be back. They’ll want to know what he’s doing. Shit.” She ran a hand through her hair, “Help me out here, Liz.”

“I talked to Mason, and he’s given me some rope,” Liz admitted, not wanting to push her administrative favor. “I’ll see what I can do. Someone’s got to keep chasing Jack.”

Nina held her gaze, “We’ll find him.”

“I know.” Liz’s voice broke a little, “I know we will.”

“Keep me posted,” Nina finally said. “And good luck.”

“Thanks. Give ‘em hell,” Liz said by way of encouragement before she snatched the keys to a CTU vehicle off the board, turned and headed back out of the building. Nina’s last status update, given right before Liz had gone to see Mason, said that Teri had last reported Jack as being with her at Saint Mark’s ER, a mere ten-minute drive. She would start there and work forward.

She checked her gun before she got into the car.

Part III: Power Play

Counter Terrorist Unit

Los Angeles, 6:17 AM

“CTU, Farrell.”

“Jamey, it’s Liz. I need you to do me a favor.”

“You got it.” Jamey crossed back over to her workstation and sat down at the keyboard, still eyeing the two FBI agents who had now put Nina in a rather cross position. “What’s the deal?”

“I grabbed one of the portable receivers on my way out. I want you to route it to your phone. You’re going to have to be my eyes and ears out here. I need to know what I’m doing out here and what they’re doing in there.”

Jamey glanced over, “Well, right now they’re crucifying Nina,” she said even as her fingers flew across the keys.

“What?” Liz was edgy today. Who wasn’t?

“Hang on, I’ll see if I can get you audio.” Cell phone carefully held inconspicuously, Jamey strode over toward the huddle of officials and waited for a break in the action, as if she had to ask Nina an important question. They weren’t arguing yet, but the two FBI agents were definitely suspicious. “You don’t know where he is?” Doggett was saying. There could not have been more skepticism in his voice if he tried.

“Agent Bauer is in the midst of a personal emergency,” Nina reiterated. Her voice had gone from welcoming to flat and assertive.

“And this isn’t an emergency?”

“Do you want to argue the point or act on it?” Nina said. She’d finally had enough; she’d never had much patience for bureaucracy. Jamey tapped her lightly on the shoulder and leaned in, “I’ve got Liz on the phone, so I’ll let you know if she feeds me something. Can I go check on the status of that keycard?”

“Yeah, go ahead. We’re done in forensics.” Nina gave her a slight smile before glaring at the FBI agents and heading for the massive wall screen where all the current information on the Palmer hit was displayed. She said nothing else to the agents, leaving them to follow. As they walked, Doggett glanced over at his partner.

“Don’t you know someone in the CIA?”

“Matt Callan, Langley Operations,” Stark said with a nod, “But that’s across the country.”

“Well, usually we are, too, save Roberts’ little retirement party. You want to call him?”

“He’s an operative, he won’t have jurisdiction over an L.A. unit. His clout only carries over there. And J.T.’s retirement party aside,” she added, referring to the reason she’d been in L.A. – J.T. Roberts, an old friend who had worked on both Carnivore and Swordfish cases with her when she was involved with the Cyber Crimes Task Force, had decided he finally had gotten to the end of his rope as an FBI agent – “this is definitely the real deal.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“I did, remember?” she chided him lightly as she followed Nina. He smirked. “Yeah, you’re definitely my partner.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Back at her desk, Jamey pulled up what work Milo had done on the keycard Jack had gotten from Walsh just before his death (which she still couldn’t believe). Watching the FBI agents peruse the wall screen, she picked up her phone and hit a button for an unused line she’d assigned the receiver to. “Looks like Nina took care of it,” she explained to Liz, “They’re gearing up to get started.”

“They’ve been there for ten, fifteen minutes,” Liz said as she drove on. She hated wasted time. “Okay, I’m going to go talk to the head of security at Saint Mark’s and see if he said anything to Jack, if there’s anything on the cameras. Contact me if you hear anything.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks, Jamey.”

“No problem. I’ve got to finish this keycard.”

“Milo didn’t cut it?”

“Not by the looks of it,” Jamey sighed. “You can deal with that later.”

“I will,” Liz said right before Jamey hung up. She swung into the Saint Mark’s ER parking lot and immediately jumped out of the car, gun carefully concealed. A flash of her badge at the front desk got her some reference to “another agent” and an audience with Claude Davenport, Chief of Hospital Security. When she told him who she was, he was more than a little surprised.

“So you know Jack Bauer?”

“I work for him. He hasn’t checked in. I doubt he’s still here, though.”

Claude shook his head. “No, neither is his wife or the man she was with. They all left after not too long.”

“Together?”

“No, Bauer was on his own, and he left before them.”

Liz paused. “Okay, do we have this on the tapes?”

“Yeah, we should. I’ll take you up there.”

“Thank you.” Inwardly, Liz’s stomach turned. Jack was out there on his own. She’d hoped at least that maybe he’d started out with Teri, that he wasn’t completely alone. She knew that Teri didn’t know where he was now, but as a friend who’d seen how hard the Bauers were working to repair their marriage, she really didn’t want to see them torn apart again. It had been hell for Jack, and it had been hell on her, too, to see it happen. Where in God’s name could he have gone to?

Davenport lead her to the hospital’s south security room, one of two in the complex, where he loaded the tapes of the last hour. Liz surveyed Jack carefully; nothing initially out of the ordinary. And then the random phone call, and he was out the north corridor and gone. She cringed in the blue glow of the monitors; whatever that phone call had been, it had sent him running. By the way in which he handled himself, she figured it was probably bait. Meaning that these terrorists knew a whole lot more than she thought they did.

She glanced at Claude, “Can you get a copy of this sent to CTU?” Then she paused. Jamey could extract the data easily. She hit the third speed- dial button on her phone.

“What’s up?” Jamey answered on the first ring.

Liz moved to one of the security computers and called up the time index that they needed. “I’m at Saint Mark’s. I’m going to upload the security tape to a computer and have it sent to you. Take a look at it. Make sure Nina sees it, too. Everybody probably should.”

“What’s on it?”

“Jack gets a phone call, and a few minutes later he disappears without a trace,” Liz glossed over the point as she sent the data to Jamey’s CTU e-mail account. “It’s sending now. Have the analysts break it down – no, wait, do it yourself. Something tells me this is personal, Jamey.”

“Okay.” Jamey paused, a little shaken. “I’ll let you know.”

She hung up, and Liz turned back to the security chief. She was going to say something else when a hospital security staffer burst into the room and said that they’d found Janet York dead in her recovery room. With that name and the word dead in the same sentence, Liz was halfway out of her chair and following the security chief as he rushed for the elevator and once on the appropriate floor, the particular room. It was already being supervised by one of the medical examiners on staff, and it was to the M.E. that Liz addressed her pointed question.

“What happened here?”

“Someone suffocated her. More than likely, they applied pressure to the mask and she died.”

The attending doctor blurted out, “But the only person in here was her father.”

“That’s not her father,” Liz said flatly, “Fathers don’t kill their own children when they’re going to recover. Okay, where was the last place we saw him?”

Davenport paused, “With Agent Bauer and his wife.”

Liz blinked. Jack left alone, the other two on their way. So Teri was in the car with a murderer. She immediately grabbed her phone and called Jamey, who she told to give her directly to Nina.

“Nina, Liz needs to talk to you, she says it’s an emergency.”

“Liz?” Nina picked up the phone, “Do you know anything?”

Liz reiterated what she had just learned, telling her she had the tapes sent over to Jamey and everything about Janet York’s death. “Did you tell Jack that’s not York?”

“No, I couldn’t reach him, so I called Teri.”

“So Teri knows that the person in the car with her is not Alan York.”

“She…” Nina paused, “Oh, my God.”

“At least she knows,” Liz said.

“What can we do?”

“I don’t know if we can do anything,” Liz admitted, her voice soft with the weakness. “We don’t know where they’re going, let alone Jack. I’ll call Mason and see if I can set up a trace, but I’d need to know at least the make of the vehicle, license plate would be best.”

“I’ll put someone on it,” Nina said before handing the phone back to Jamey. “You can do this, Liz,” she added to her friend even as she headed back into the heart of the storm. Quickly, she delineated to the two FBI agents as much as she could possibly tell about the developing situation without revealing that which she knew in confidence and without entangling Jack’s personal crisis in the larger picture. She was taking a risk saying anything at all, but truthfully, she hoped maybe someone could make sense of all the confusion and pain she was feeling.

Stark took this in, “Can you open a terminal for me?”

“Certainly, why?” Nina even then started to lead the agent in the right direction, a small glimmer of hope at the back of her mind.

“Because I was a former member of the Cyber Crimes Task Force, for Swordfish and Carnivore,” Stark explained. Her partner cut in, “So in other words, she can probably find what you’re looking for.”

The two of them, Nina and Doggett, stood on either side of the chair as Stark’s fingers flew across the keyboard and she processed the information just as quickly. When the CTU database yielded nothing, she went to her other semi-legal recourse: hacking, this time into other major databases she could think of. It was a flurry of code and things the people around her, with the exception of probably Jamey, could not understand. She went through database after database, looking for something that might tell her anything about the vehicle now carrying Teri Bauer to her own doom.

“Got it.”

“What?” Nina said, leaning in closer.

“I checked the police database, in case they might have gotten in touch with the police,” Stark said, looking at the listing on her screen, “and they were pulled over for speeding more than an hour ago.”

“Before they got to the hospital.”

“Yeah, but the officer momentarily arrested Alan York, or whoever this guy is, and he got the make and license plate of the vehicle for paperwork purposes.” Stark quickly wrote down the information on a Post-It note and then glanced at Nina, “What do I do with the information?”

“Jamey, get Liz on the line,” Nina immediately called.

Jamey picked up the phone and hit the line button even as Stark joined her at her workstation. “Liz, we got it,” she explained quickly before handing the phone over to Stark. The FBI agent took the phone and relayed the information. When she was back on the phone, Jamey couldn’t hide her relief. “So what happens next?”

“I’m at Division now, I take this to Mason,” Liz explained, “and we hope Mason can hunt murderers as well as he hunted Jack.”

Part IV: Dark Side of the Glass

Division, 6:20 AM

_______________________________________________________________________

Mason was waiting for Liz when she breezed through front security and directly into his office. Her de facto superior for the time being no longer glanced at her with wary eyes, but with firm support, the kind that passed between allies on a mission. Without words, she handed him the notepad on which she’d written the information given to her from the FBI agent at CTU. He glanced at it, then lead her into a sub-room, where a workstation was already set up, explaining in a clipped, brief rush.

“We’ve set up a relay system, same as we did during lockdown, but we’re not using a helicopter – too conspicuous,” he read her mind, “we’re using the security network all across the state. CHP, local police, anything that has a camera or a satellite, something we can bounce data off of. Starting with the area around Saint Mark’s, calculated travel time, working outward.”

Liz left his side and moved closer to the techs operating the ornate station, examining the data process. Nothing fruitful so far. Watching her, Mason could almost feel the tension rippling in the air with every move she made. He knew that her relationship with Jack went deep, deeper perhaps than the relationship he had with Nina, though he and Liz had never crossed the invisible line between friends and lovers. He’d never seen this happen between them, though, and the degree of her reaction was startling. “Liz,” he reminded her gently, “there’s nothing else we can do right now.”

She nodded, though she didn’t look at him, eyes locked on the green monitor. “Come on, Jack, please,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, that last word a pleading prayer that made Mason feel regret for the way he’d tried to use them against each other before. She kept begging, which was like Jack letting go of a case – it just didn’t happen. “Don’t do this, don’t leave me here.” Mason finally put a hand on her shoulder, and she silenced her prayers, but her eyes were glassine. He looked into them – where was she?

And after a moment, she slipped away from his grasp and left the room entirely. Standing there speechless, he thought he heard her crying. He closed his eyes. It was obviously some other sound. Liz Rycoff never shed any tears. And she couldn’t be crying for Jack Bauer, not when Jack was still out there somewhere … or at least that’s what they believed.

Back at CTU, the sun shone no brighter.

Stark paced the floor, cell phone in hand, call on the second ring. Considering who she was calling, that was bad news. Finally, she heard someone pick up.

“Matt, it’s me,” she said in a breathless rush, impatient.

“Stark? Are you okay?” her old associate queried, confused.

“Yeah, listen, we’ve thrown in with the CIA again,” she continued, trying to be funny as she gave her friend the condensed briefing on the Palmer case in between strategies that usually involved rousting the help of Terri Lowell or Jackson Haisley. She’d finished all that very quickly, and took a deep breath. “So talk to me.”

He took a breath of his own. “Okay,” he said, “though I wish if you were going to mess with the other side of the country you’d at least get me a plane ticket.”

“How about home plate for the next Orioles game?” she bribed him, and then reminded him, “We haven’t got much time, Matt. I need you now.”

“I’ll get on it,” he promised, “You’ve searched the networks?”

“Already, and we’ve got a trace up,” she explained.

“Then we’re ahead of the game this time, my friend,” he said, and the rest of the exchange was decidingly positive before they hung up. Stark spun around, her partner still standing there with slight amusement at how manic, how intense, she could get in times of crisis. “What’d he tell you?” Doggett queried even as she crossed back over to him. Stark ran a hand through her hair, “He said he’d get on it. Knowing Matt, that means the calvalry isn’t far behind.”

Doggett allowed himself a smirk, “I wonder if Jackson ever learned to play better pool.”

“Doubt it,” Stark said, “but that still doesn’t get us anywhere.”

She’d turned away and was walking back toward Jamey and Nina when her partner suggested the last two resources she had: “Call Roberts or Stanley.”

She spun, almost laughing. “Yeah, John, I’m going to call a guy who just yesterday decided he didn’t want anything else to do with this and tell him to get himself in here. And God knows where Stanley is, he’s off with his daughter, let him be, all right?” He nodded silently and she went back to panic mode. No battle fought, no battle lost. They’d learned how to give and take over seven years, especially where she made up for connections he didn’t have. She tossed her phone at him, “Just let me know if Matt calls back.”

Nina leaned into Jamey’s personal space, “Check in with Liz.”

When Jamey picked up Liz’s receiver, all she heard was random crying. Jamey and Nina locked eyes, knowing what that meant. Nina nodded gently toward the phone, “Call Mason. And give me the phone.”

The District Director picked up, and Nina immediately asked, “George, anything yet?”

“Nothing yet, Nina.” Mason glanced back into the other room, “But I think Liz has lost it.”

“Yeah, uh, we just tried to call her and we figured that out,” Nina said. “We’re running out of time. What do we do?”

“Nina, I don’t know what else we can do. Our best answer is his best friend, and she’s in there having the only nervous breakdown I’ve ever seen her have.” Mason closed his eyes, hoping he was dreaming. “Just pray, Nina.”

Part V: Silent Nation

Division, 6:42 AM

_______________________________________________________________________

Forever may not be long enough for my love

I have a will but I’m lost inside your time

If you could, would you come with me to the other side?

My faith and love is like blood, I spill it freely…

Forever may not be long enough for this love

- Live, “Forever May Not Be Long Enough”

Only the numbers kept her held together.

Palmer’s day started at seven … in fifteen minutes. Jamey was through approximately seven layers of the Baylor keycard. The first three digits of her official CTU identification number were five-seven-four. Birthdate: September 12, 1966. If she thought about anything other than numbers, Liz Rycoff lost control. Because – and how many people had told her this? Tony, once, very vaguely (they didn’t speak much), and probably Mason, and maybe Walsh, and probably a few others. Jack hadn’t, he appreciated her as she was, nor had Nina, because Nina simply understood – she took the job personally. Right now, that was a hot knife in her spine.

Damn the numbers. It wasn’t about numbers. If she got impersonal, that was when she became careless, arrogant – like the people they were raging against. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do it to herself and more importantly, she wouldn’t do it to Jack. She’d sooner take the bullet meant for him and go down the way of honor.

She could never classify her relationship with Jack into a category, not like so many people had classified the relationship between Jack and Nina. She’d been a friend of him and his family for years, and she was deathly loyal to him – he was like the brother she hadn’t had the time to appreciate having (and her blood brother did remind her of that, but their parents had been dead, so she was almost forgiven). It had gotten to the point where they practically spoke in code. She didn’t want to lose it. She didn’t know what would happen to her if she did. She had gotten used to counting on him, always having him there, having a piece of him inside her heart. It was on that she called now.

What was that big piece of advice he’d given her when they were both stuck in a lockdown a while back, the one they kept tossing back and forth between themselves?

Evil always lives, but love always prevails.

“George, I need CTU on the phone now, and another line to the chief of Palmer’s Secret Service detail.”

Mason glanced at her, then actually went to do as she’d asked. “You got it. So …” and here he paused, “You okay?”

“I don’t really have time to care anymore,” she muttered as she took the phone and tapped over to CTU, where Nina was waiting for her. “Here’s how we’re going to play it. The polls open in fifteen minutes. I want someone on standby here at Division and somebody sent over with the Palmer detail. Who’s available?”

“Tony, but do you trust him?” Nina said, the last half of the sentence kept quiet.

Liz nodded. “He’ll have to do, I need Jamey to coordinate. Get him on the move now.” She related the plan to Palmer’s Secret Service Chief, hung up on the man (who was surprised but took the idea in well), and then stood there holding the phone trying to make her next move. She thought of the chess games she always lost to Jack and tried not to lose this time. “Okay, I want someone on standby, because the data’s going to keep coming, and we need someone to chase it…”

Mason signaled her and Liz moved the phone.

“We’ve got a hit,” he said, and she glanced at the screen as he quickly wrote information down, then handed her a Post-It note. She took the piece of paper, scanned it, and then stared at the phone.

“Take it, Liz,” Nina made up her mind for her over the phone line. “You’re his best hope.”

Liz nodded. Paused, breathed, and then snapped back into the game. “Get Tony ready to go, I’ll be there to get him and run him by. You run the unit, keep Jamey on the open line here with George. Everyone keeps me in the loop with the earpiece. Got it? Great.” She slammed down the phone and reached for her car keys, heading out of the Division building. Another chase. How many more were there? But she was coming.

Tony was ready and waiting (if surprised and/or perturbed) when she skidded into the CTU parking lot and didn’t bring the car to a complete stop. If anything, he seemed quite disturbed that she’d placed her confidence in him. He knew the hard rules of Liz Rycoff’s trust and they’d not so much as previously spoken over coffee in the unit headquarters. But, as she told him frankly, he was all they had. And she had to find their missing leader. For once, Tony understood the rules weren’t the same anymore. He didn’t have much to say except that their FBI cohorts were now in the game themselves, coordinating with Nina, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they, too, showed up with the Palmer team.

Liz told him he’d have to beat them to the punch. Those were the last words of advice he got. But he understood she wasn’t all there. In fact, she was dangerously close to being not there at all. He headed into the building, met up with the waiting security chief, and decided this time he wasn’t going to come off as the rogue in the CTU machine. She was gone before he could tell her that. And she’d left Tony to make his own rules.

“Jamey, give me a briefing on our Bureau friends,” Liz called from the car.

“They’re working with Nina, but I think they’re planning to head out.”

“That’s what Tony said. Have them back him up. We’ll need someone else to follow Teri if we can hit that car, but pull someone from the building. I want our people on this first.”

“Right.” Jamey paused, “Do you think this is the real thing, Liz?”

“Jamey, for all I know right now, everything up until this moment has been a total and complete lie. Keep one thing in mind."

"What?"

"Evil always lives, but love always prevails."

"Who said that?"

"Jack said it to me not long after we first met." Liz glanced at her reflection in the rear-view mirror, wiping away mist, "And it's my hope he's going to tell me it again, when all this is over. If we believe anything less, we're lying to ourselves."

Part VII: Fragments

En Route, 6:46 AM

There’s no rest on a bed of nails

You’d better mind all that you have isn’t eternal

Broke it all on a selfish fall, yeah

I’ve been around, I’ve seen a thing or two

I was there right beside you

You’re looking down like you never do

Black sun, I’ve got no patience for you

Brand New Immortals, “Black Sun”

Four minutes, and then: another weapon.

 

 

Liz dialed CTU and placed a request for Nina, who answered the

phone immediately. “Nina, you said when you called Jack you couldn’t reach him, right?” she inquired as she headed in her friend’s last known direction.

Nina didn’t waste a breath. “Yeah, his phone was off.”

“Okay, well, if his phone’s turned off, how the hell is this mysterious guy speaking to him?” Liz queried, then tapped her finger against the hard device lodged in her ear and hit on it. “Could he be wearing an earpiece?”

“It’s possible,” Nina said, as if to add, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? That we can do what we’re doing with you right now? Calibrate it to the frequency and get in touch with him?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Liz agreed, “But it would be hard work to find the frequency. And even if we could, whatever we say to him, this guy will hear it, too.”

“Not necessarily,” another voice piped up in the background, and the phone was shifted to Agent Patrick, who explained, “Earphones have a very limited range. It may have one primary frequency, whatever this guy is listening to, but we could shoot for something close enough for Agent Bauer to hear, far enough to slip it under the radar.”

“Are you sure? I won’t hang the lives of my friend and his daughter on guesswork.”

“I once worked with the CCTF, we learned all manner of technology, I’m certain of it,” Patrick continued, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Liz nodded, “Work with Agent Farrell, but I still need your partner to hook up with Senator Palmer’s advance team. One of my agents is already there.”

“We’ll contact you when we’ve got it.”

Stark hung up the phone and waved over Doggett, who was already gathering material to take with them to Palmer’s headquarters. “I’m not going with you,” she said, and then held up a hand to stop his surprised question, explaining that she had to stay and work on this new hunch. As he always did, Doggett put his trust in her.

“I’ll call you from there,” he said, then hugged her goodbye and turned and walked out of the building. It was a short drive from the CTU complex to the hotel where Palmer was residing, longer than the drive to the hospital, longer than to Division, but not longer than half an hour. When he got there, he was introduced both to the security chief and CTU’s own point man, Tony Almeida.

“What have you done so far?” Doggett inquired as he fell into step with the younger man from CTU.

“As much as we can do,” Tony said, “We’ve gotten the entire family fitted for Kevlar and we’re rigging some audio-visual equipment. Secret Service is taking charge of the layout. I don’t know what else we can do, Agent Doggett.”

“Have you screened everyone within reason? Palmer’s staff, event staff?”

“We thought he’d already done that.”

“Well, then you haven’t done all you can do, Agent,” Doggett said, checking his watch, “And we haven’t got much time to do it. Everyone has to be vetted.”

“Even his aides?” Tony was still skeptical.

Doggett nodded. “Everyone lies.”

Division was an entirely different place. Mason monitored everything on the data station screen, plotting the data in hopes of unlocking some secret plan. He had been updated by Jamey on the plan to crack the frequency of Jack’s earpiece and contact him covertly, and he realized it was the best hope they had. He asked for Liz’s frequency and then dialed her. She seemed surprised, to say the least.

“George, I didn’t think you’d need to contact me.”

“Change of plans, Liz,” Mason shrugged. “Listen, if you’re really going to do this, if you’re right and you can get a hold of Jack, I want you to watch your back, okay?”

“We know what we’re doing.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t, but chances are no matter how well you slip this in, this guy is going to hear it. I want you to avoid mentioning your identity, anything vital, you know that. What you don’t know is I’m making this a one-shot opportunity.”

“George…”

“Liz, the more you talk to Jack, the more this guy can catch on, and you don’t want to blow it all to hell,” Mason countered. “Catch him once, confirm he’s alive, feed him what you can, and cut and run while you’re still unknown. That’s an order.”

Liz sighed. “All right. Do they have the frequency yet?”

“They’re working on it. Trying some sort of override pulse to see if they can give Jack the opportunity to respond to you without having this guy hear what he says.” Mason sighed, too. “I know it’s harsh, Liz, but we don’t have a choice.”

“I know.”

There was silence on the line. Neither party knew what to say. This silence lasted for another ten minutes until the codebreakers finally came through. Liz was once again handed off to Agent Patrick at CTU, who explained the delicate mechanics of the whole situation.

“We’re going to run you under a frequency just a bit lower than the given one,” she began, “beginning with sending a pulse over the line via computer that will calibrate the two devices to the same frequency. After that, there’s a two-second delay before we can try an override pulse. Once you get that second pulse, you’re going to have a thirty-second window at the most.”

Liz nodded more to herself, “When?”

“As soon as you’re ready.”

“Stand by. You should hear a tone, and after the delay, another tone.”

Liz pulled her vehicle over to the side of the road, put her hand to the hard plastic material, and waited. She heard one brief low tone, counted three and a half seconds off in her head, and then heard another. Without provocation, she just started talking.

“Jack, it’s me.”

“Liz? How the –“ Her old friend was taken aback.

“Trick of tech, we don’t have much time,” she explained hurriedly. “Listen, I’m on my way to you right now. We’ve got people looking for Teri.”

“Why?”

“The man with her is not Alan York, the real one is dead.” Over Jack’s obscenity, she continued, “Tell me what’s happening, Jack, where you’re going. I can help you.”

“He’s sending me back to CTU.”

Liz checked her watch, “My God,” she muttered, then realized she had very little time left. “I’ll be there waiting,” she said quickly, “Stay safe, Jack. I have to go.”

“All right. Liz, semper praevus livet,” were his last words.

As she pulled back onto the main road, she smiled and cried at the same time. Semper praevus livet. Evil always lives … but love always prevails. Then she dialed CTU back. Mason had come to the same conclusion, tracking Jack’s movement. He was headed for CTU, and she had very little time to beat him there. She spun the car around and headed back the way she came.

“Liz, what did he tell you?” Nina asked.

She paused.

“Liz, what did he say?”

“This guy’s sending him to CTU.” Liz exhaled, “According to Mason, he’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I can be there in ten. We need to be ready.”

Nina was silent, “We will be.”

“Nina…” Liz paused, “You realize that if he becomes a danger to us all, we have to take him out.”

“I know.” Her voice was shaky, “We’ll be ready.”

And then there was silence that couldn’t be penetrated even if anyone had still had left the strength to try.

Notes:

This orphaned work was originally on Pejas WWOMB posted by author Brittany Thespis Frederick.
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