Sunday, December 24, 2006
When Fiction Meets Reality - Pt. 21
Day Five.
Sunday morning went by peacefully. Jack checked in with CTU to get an update on the surveillance set up at Heyes' place and was informed not much activity had been reported just yet. Three men and a woman had been seen going in, only 2 of the men had come out again, Heyes was inside with whoever had been there when Jack rolled by the building, a man and a woman. He requested the photo of the woman to be sent to his PDA and to be kept updated if there were any changes.
When the photo arrived, Jack went to see Lettis, found him home with a major hangover, but he did recognize the woman in the photo as being the one who had ‘enlisted' him.
"For as far as I can remember, that's her." he said to Jack.
Jack thanked him for his help and went back to Kiefer's place.
He found Kiefer and Tony in an animated discussion about baseball and the Chicago Cubs.
He knew they were Tony's favourite club and after yesterday evening, he figured Kiefer was pretty fond of them as well. As he didn't care for baseball all too much and knew nothing about the Cubs, Jack kept himself busy elsewhere. He called Kim and spent almost half an hour on the phone with her. She tried for a while to get him to tell her who he was protecting, but he danced around the question until she gave up. She ended up handing the phone to Teri and Jack stayed on the line with her for a few more minutes.
"So, who are you protecting?" Teri asked.
"Promise you won't tell Kim?"
"I promise."
"Kiefer Sutherland."
"You're kidding?" Teri exclaimed.
"Oh my god, she'll die if she finds out."
"I know, why do you think I'm asking you not to tell her?"
"What kind of a guy is he?" Teri asked, "In real life I mean."
"If I had to describe him in one word, I would say he's passionate. In everything he does."
"Did you know he owns a recording studio?"
"Yes I know. Kim told me about it. And he's got a sheepdog and he supposedly has this immense collection of Gibson guitars."
"You can drop the ‘supposedly', I've seen them."
"And the dog?"
"She's a doll." Jack replied, "But she's vicious when it comes to protecting her master. She helped me nail this guy yesterday morning."
"Really? How is it going? Do you have any idea when you'll be done?"
"As soon as I've made the arrests honey. I think we found them but I've got the place under surveillance to make sure we get everybody when we move in, I don't want to make any mistakes on this. I can't guarantee I'll be home tomorrow, but I sure hope so."
"So do I. I miss you. We both do."
"I know honey, and I miss you too."
"Kim's calling, I have to go."
"Okay, I should probably go too. Give her a kiss for me will you?"
"Sure."
"I love you."
"I love you too Jack. Come home."
"I'm working on it baby."
She hung up and Jack stayed at the kitchen table a while longer, letting his emotions sink again. He couldn't let them interfere with his job, so he had to bottle them up inside. When he returned to the living room, Kiefer and Tony were still discussing baseball.
"So you're telling me Sammy Sosa gave you these cups?" Jack heard Tony ask.
"The Sammy Sosa?"
"Absolutely." Kiefer replied with a big smile.
"He's a fan and when he found out I like the Cubs, he came to a talkshow I was invited to and he gave me the cups and a jersey."
"What? You have one of his jerseys? I don't believe you."
"Well then let me prove it to you." Kiefer said as he pushed up.
He went down the hall into his bedroom and came back a moment later with a Sammy Sosa Chicago Cubs jersey.
"Oh my god." Tony exclaimed.
"He even signed it."
"He sure did." Kiefer smiled, "On the spot."
Tony's eyes were glued to the shirt, he couldn't believe he was actually looking at a genuine one and everything else around him disappeared. Kiefer looked at him in amusement until he realized Jack was looking at the both of them and he turned to meet Jack's eyes.
"You don't care much for baseball do you?"
"Nope." Jack said flatly.
"Tony, I'm going over to CTU."
"What for?" Kiefer asked suspiciously, "I thought you said there was nothing new."
"I have the burden of paperwork along the side."
"I see. How long will you be?"
"I have no idea, depends on how much I can concentrate. I have to work out a schedule for the surveillance teams as well and see about getting a few more analysts on it."
"That might be hard on a Sunday."
"No such thing as Sundays in our line of work."
"I'll call you if there's anything." Jack said to Tony who simply nodded.
"And I'll leave you boys to discuss those Cubs in peace."
"Now I see why you're doing this on a Sunday." Kiefer chuckled.
Jack grabbed his jacket and left, nodding to the surveillance team halfway down the block. The drive to CTU was quiet on a Sunday, there wasn't much traffic and he reached the main gate in no time, got waved through security at the sight of his badge and parked just outside the main entrance. He swiped his badge at the security station and was waved through there as well. Milo was seated at Jamey's station, his feet propped up on the desk, a phone cradled under his ear, chatting lightly with someone. Data flashed across three different windows on his screen and even though he didn't seem to be paying attention to it, Jack knew better. Milo had an excellent eye and if anything weird came up, he would spot it at once. Jack went over to his own workstation and fired up his computer, logged on and brought up the program he needed to work on.
He started working on his report, Chapelle would bust his ass if he didn't make one, so he started with that, getting it out of the way.
He titled the document "Preliminary Report" and summarized the events of the past 4 days, elaborating only on the incident at the studio because that had been a breakthrough in the investigation.
After he was done, he saved it and sent a copy to Chapelle.
When he looked up, he saw Milo still on the phone and when he checked his watch, he noticed he had been there almost an hour already, so he decided to interrupt Milo's call. He needed to talk to him and wasn't going to wait until he was done chatting. If he had been on the line for more than an hour already, who knew when he was going to end the call.
"Milo, do you have a minute?" Jack called just loud enough.
Milo turned in his chair, looked at him and promised the other to call back in a bit. He put the phone down and pushed up, made his way over to Jack's station and sat on the edge of it.
"Yeah?"
"Is there anything new on those calls made to Lettis' phone?"
"Nothin' boss." Milo said.
He didn't work for CTU on a regular basis, but he was well known and much appreciated for his computer knowledge and his speed and accuracy, and whenever they called him in, he addressed everybody as ‘boss'.
"Do you have any idea if someone ran the visitors at Heyes' place through face recognition?"
"Dunno boss."
"Can you do that?"
"Sure thing."
"Want me to do that now?"
"If you can."
"I'll get right on it."
He pushed off the edge of Jack's desk and walked back to Jamey's.
"Milo?"
"Yeah boss?" Milo asked, turning back to Jack.
"Try to keep the phonebill down a little."
"I'll try boss."
"Thanks."
He turned and went back to his station, pulled up the files from the surveillance on Heyes' building and started up the face recognition program. Jack wondered for a moment why that hadn't been done yet, but he supposed it was simply due to the fact no supervisors were on site. Information was gathered and passed on, sent to CTU for further analysis or reference, but it wasn't up to the teams out there to make sure someone actually processed that information. That was up to him.
It took him over two hours in all to get through the pile of paperwork that was already waiting for him. He was glad he decided to come do that today, the place was nearly empty and nothing had distracted him from what he was doing.
He sat for a moment, thinking everything over, trying to determine if he was overlooking something. Trying to tie all the pieces together and put an end to this. Everything looped back to Bonney and Heyes and they had Heyes under surveillance right now. For as far as he was concerned, all angles had been covered and there was nothing more that could be done at that point.
He checked in with one of the teams guarding Sarah and her mother. All was quiet, the girl was home and the place was secure.
Next Jack checked in with the team at the hospital. There was no change in Princeton's condition, he was still in intensive care, stable but not out of the danger zone yet.
"Jack?"
It was Milo and the sound of his voice told Jack it was important, so he told the agent to keep him posted and hung up after what he hurried over to Milo.
"What have you got?"
Milo pointed to the screen.
It showed a picture of a man, displaying his personal information on the right.
"What about him?" Jack asked, not seeing what was so important.
"Hang on."
Milo switched screens and brought up a different file, showing the same man. The information was completely different though, the name, age, education, employers, nothing matched. Most importantly, at the bottom of the page a red text blinked on and off ‘Deceased'.
"Mercenary." Jack whispered softly.
His eyes scanned the text again. The man was a navy seal by the name of John Kendrick, killed in the line of duty.
But apparently, he was pretty much alive and still active.
"You may very well have found the source, Milo." Jack said quietly, "Good work."
"Thanks boss." Milo said, shrugging off the compliment.
"Send this to my screen will you."
"You've got it." Milo said after having tapped a few keys.
"Thanks."
"How long have you been here?" Jack asked suddenly.
"Since Jamey called me yesterday."
"I'll call Jamey back in to take over from you."
"I'm okay boss. I'm on top of this."
"You may very well be Milo, but I'm calling Jamey in anyhow. If you feel up for it, you're welcome to stay, but I want Jamey to give you a hand."
"Won't say no to a helping hand." Milo agreed.
Jack went back to his station and called Jamey, asking her to come back in and help Milo. She didn't argue and told him she'd be there in about half an hour. He told her to take her time and hung up.
Then he turned to the information on his screen.
He compared both files and called one of the analysts, requesting an in-depth investigation of both profiles. The man set to work and Jack did the same on his side, concentrating on the first file, the one that was most likely the real one, be it not for the ‘Deceased' stamp at the bottom of it. He went over the Navy Seals records and mission logs and pulled up Kendrick's complete military file. If this was the guy behind all of this, there had to be something that linked back to Kiefer.
Something … anything.
A soft touch to his shoulder startled him and when he looked up, he saw Jamey's worried face.
"What's wrong Jack?" Jamey asked as soon as she had his attention.
"Nothing." Jack said, "Why should anything be wrong?"
"Didn't you hear us calling?"
"No I didn't. Why were you calling?"
"I think we have something."
"Already?"
"I've been working on it with Milo for the past hour." Jamey said, her frown deepening.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"An hour?" Jack exclaimed, "I didn't even know you were here."
He checked his watch and realized he had lost himself in those military files for almost two hours, oblivious of everything around him.
"Why do you think I'm asking if you're okay?"
"I'm fine. What did you find?"
"Let me show you." Jamey said, turning back to her workstation.
"These came up when we widened a few of the search criteria." she explained on the way over.
Jack saw three pictures on the screen.
The first thing that hit him, was the fact the pictures were all taken at the same location … outside the Fox studios.
Jamey tapped a few keys and used the mouse to select and enhance part of the first picture, making it as large as the screen.
There were several people in the picture, but those of interest to them were in the first place Kiefer and in the second place, Bonney, Heyes and Kendrick. Heyes was at work, holding people back while Kiefer signed autographs for them. Bonney was on one side of Heyes, Kendrick on the other and if Heyes dropped his arms, both of them would have a clear path.
"Print that." Jack said dryly.
"Any idea when these were taken?"
"Yeah, just over a month ago." Milo replied.
"Where did you find them?"
"On some fansite."
"Which fansite?"
"A forum named Kieferland. It's a bunch of crazy women spending their lives talking about the man." Milo replied with a smirk.
"Sounds like they've got nothing better to do than to drool over him all day long."
"Where do these originate?"
"One of the women on that board spent a few hours outside the studios waiting for him to show up and her boyfriend took the pictures."
"Nice guy." Jack chuckled, "Where was he? On the other side of the street?"
"There were more, closer by, but I didn't think you would be interested in those."
"No, you're right."
"What about the other ones?"
Jamey showed him the other two pictures and the last one froze Jack's heart. It showed the unknown woman, the woman who hired Lettis, standing next to Kiefer. He had his arm around her, posing for a picture.
"That's their practise run." Jack said quietly, more to himself.
"What?" Milo asked.
"It's their practise run." Jack repeated, "To see how easily they could approach him."
"He's a sitting duck."
"What do you mean?" Milo asked.
He was brilliant with computers, but when it came to real action, he didn't know anything.
Jack grabbed the pictures Jamey had printed off and laid them out on the desk, across the keyboard.
"Look. See this picture right here? Heyes is holding people back, but Bonney and Kendrick have a clear path to get to Kiefer if Heyes drops his arms. In this one, Heyes is all but in their way and in the third one; the woman is only inches away from him. He's got his arm around her for crying out loud. If she pulls out a knife, she can cut his throat before anybody could stop her."
"He'd be dead before anybody realized what the hell happened."
"Do you think they were planning on killing him outside the studio?" Jamey asked.
"From the looks of this?" Jack asked, looking her squarely in the eye, "It sure looks like it."
"Now what?"
"Well they can't pull that off anymore with Heyes having been compromised." Jack thought out loud, "He won't show up for work after what happened on Friday. Besides, Kiefer leaves the studio with me and I don't let him get out of the car, so they won't be able to get to him like that."
"Maybe this was their initial plan and they were forced to drop it when Fox got him a driver. Maybe Princeton's attack was already a contingency plan."
He pondered that idea for a moment, thinking out loud, tapping his fingers against his chin.
"Where else could they strike?"
"Would that award show be their contingency plan B?" Jamey asked.
"Probably." Jack agreed, still deep in thought.
"But that leaves us with more than 2 weeks to plan our defence. They might not have given it away that easily, unless they did it to distract the attention from the real attack."
"When was that threat about the awards delivered Jack?" Jamey asked.
"On Thursday."
"That's the day we were involved isn't it?"
"That's right. Why?"
"How could they possibly know CTU got involved? Didn't they drop the letters off at Lettis' place and then call him when he had to slip them under the door?"
"I don't think Lettis delivered that one."
"We could check on the tapes."
"Get on it."
Milo punched up the files from the surveillance cameras again and after a short search, Thursday's file came up. Jack saw why the sidewalk had been empty when he got to the door, the man crossed the sidewalk from the curb and back to it, which probably meant he had come by car. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell who it was. All Jack could say for sure, was that it hadn't been Lettis.
"Could you get the files from Cal Trans?" Jack asked, "I want to see what car he got out of."
"Thursday?" Jamey asked, "I'm not sure I'll be able to get it."
"Try it."
"Okay, I will."
She set to work at once and Jack went back to his station, taking the pictures with him.
"Milo?"
"Yeah boss?"
"Where did you say you found these pictures?"
"On a forum named Kieferland. They were posted under the Kiefer encounter subject."
"Kieferland?"
"Yeah, that's right, just Google it."
"Google it?"
"Yeah, go to Google's main page and type it into the search bar."
"Okay, so you meant ‘search for it on the internet'."
"That's right boss."
"Next time, use plain English Milo, I'd appreciate."
"You crack me up boss. Everybody uses that word now."
"Well I don't. When did a brand name become a verb anyway?"
"Beats me, that's just the way it is."
"Fine, thanks."
Jack punched up an internet page and hit the search button, typed the name Kieferland into the search bar and hit enter.
"Milo, I've got several ones. Which one is it?"
"Should be the first."
Jack clicked on the link and waited for the page to load. He wandered around the site for a moment until he found the subject Milo had told him and he clicked to enter the topic. The page opened and allowed him to read without needing to register, which was a good thing, and he went over the account of the encounter. Nothing special had happened, Kiefer had come out and he had taken his time to sign autographs and pose for pictures. There had been no trouble at all.
It made Jack decide this had to have been some kind of practise run.
He checked through the rest of the pictures, but as Jamey had said, there wasn't anything interesting in them, at least not to their investigation. He closed the site and went back to Jamey's station to check on her progress.
She wasn't getting anywhere for the time being, the amount of data was impressive since Thursday and it would take a lot of time to get through it.
"Call a few people in to help you on anything you need."
"Okay Jack, don't worry."
"Milo?"
"Yeah boss?"
"This guy Kendrick, did he stay there?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, thanks."
Jack returned to his station and printed off the file on Kendrick. He would take it with him to study it some more, maybe something would come up later, maybe Tony would catch what he hadn't. And maybe Kiefer would be able to shed some light on it.
Once the file was printed, he put it in a folder and headed out.
His head was clouded and he drove slowly, carefully. It didn't make any sense.
Kendrick had to be connected to Kiefer somehow. Unless Kendrick wasn't the brains of this operation.
The fact he spent the night at Heyes' place made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end, it meant he was deeply involved in this, hopefully the brains, but possibly not.
He checked in with the surveillance team and sent them Kendrick's file.
Sunday morning went by peacefully. Jack checked in with CTU to get an update on the surveillance set up at Heyes' place and was informed not much activity had been reported just yet. Three men and a woman had been seen going in, only 2 of the men had come out again, Heyes was inside with whoever had been there when Jack rolled by the building, a man and a woman. He requested the photo of the woman to be sent to his PDA and to be kept updated if there were any changes.
When the photo arrived, Jack went to see Lettis, found him home with a major hangover, but he did recognize the woman in the photo as being the one who had ‘enlisted' him.
"For as far as I can remember, that's her." he said to Jack.
Jack thanked him for his help and went back to Kiefer's place.
He found Kiefer and Tony in an animated discussion about baseball and the Chicago Cubs.
He knew they were Tony's favourite club and after yesterday evening, he figured Kiefer was pretty fond of them as well. As he didn't care for baseball all too much and knew nothing about the Cubs, Jack kept himself busy elsewhere. He called Kim and spent almost half an hour on the phone with her. She tried for a while to get him to tell her who he was protecting, but he danced around the question until she gave up. She ended up handing the phone to Teri and Jack stayed on the line with her for a few more minutes.
"So, who are you protecting?" Teri asked.
"Promise you won't tell Kim?"
"I promise."
"Kiefer Sutherland."
"You're kidding?" Teri exclaimed.
"Oh my god, she'll die if she finds out."
"I know, why do you think I'm asking you not to tell her?"
"What kind of a guy is he?" Teri asked, "In real life I mean."
"If I had to describe him in one word, I would say he's passionate. In everything he does."
"Did you know he owns a recording studio?"
"Yes I know. Kim told me about it. And he's got a sheepdog and he supposedly has this immense collection of Gibson guitars."
"You can drop the ‘supposedly', I've seen them."
"And the dog?"
"She's a doll." Jack replied, "But she's vicious when it comes to protecting her master. She helped me nail this guy yesterday morning."
"Really? How is it going? Do you have any idea when you'll be done?"
"As soon as I've made the arrests honey. I think we found them but I've got the place under surveillance to make sure we get everybody when we move in, I don't want to make any mistakes on this. I can't guarantee I'll be home tomorrow, but I sure hope so."
"So do I. I miss you. We both do."
"I know honey, and I miss you too."
"Kim's calling, I have to go."
"Okay, I should probably go too. Give her a kiss for me will you?"
"Sure."
"I love you."
"I love you too Jack. Come home."
"I'm working on it baby."
She hung up and Jack stayed at the kitchen table a while longer, letting his emotions sink again. He couldn't let them interfere with his job, so he had to bottle them up inside. When he returned to the living room, Kiefer and Tony were still discussing baseball.
"So you're telling me Sammy Sosa gave you these cups?" Jack heard Tony ask.
"The Sammy Sosa?"
"Absolutely." Kiefer replied with a big smile.
"He's a fan and when he found out I like the Cubs, he came to a talkshow I was invited to and he gave me the cups and a jersey."
"What? You have one of his jerseys? I don't believe you."
"Well then let me prove it to you." Kiefer said as he pushed up.
He went down the hall into his bedroom and came back a moment later with a Sammy Sosa Chicago Cubs jersey.
"Oh my god." Tony exclaimed.
"He even signed it."
"He sure did." Kiefer smiled, "On the spot."
Tony's eyes were glued to the shirt, he couldn't believe he was actually looking at a genuine one and everything else around him disappeared. Kiefer looked at him in amusement until he realized Jack was looking at the both of them and he turned to meet Jack's eyes.
"You don't care much for baseball do you?"
"Nope." Jack said flatly.
"Tony, I'm going over to CTU."
"What for?" Kiefer asked suspiciously, "I thought you said there was nothing new."
"I have the burden of paperwork along the side."
"I see. How long will you be?"
"I have no idea, depends on how much I can concentrate. I have to work out a schedule for the surveillance teams as well and see about getting a few more analysts on it."
"That might be hard on a Sunday."
"No such thing as Sundays in our line of work."
"I'll call you if there's anything." Jack said to Tony who simply nodded.
"And I'll leave you boys to discuss those Cubs in peace."
"Now I see why you're doing this on a Sunday." Kiefer chuckled.
Jack grabbed his jacket and left, nodding to the surveillance team halfway down the block. The drive to CTU was quiet on a Sunday, there wasn't much traffic and he reached the main gate in no time, got waved through security at the sight of his badge and parked just outside the main entrance. He swiped his badge at the security station and was waved through there as well. Milo was seated at Jamey's station, his feet propped up on the desk, a phone cradled under his ear, chatting lightly with someone. Data flashed across three different windows on his screen and even though he didn't seem to be paying attention to it, Jack knew better. Milo had an excellent eye and if anything weird came up, he would spot it at once. Jack went over to his own workstation and fired up his computer, logged on and brought up the program he needed to work on.
He started working on his report, Chapelle would bust his ass if he didn't make one, so he started with that, getting it out of the way.
He titled the document "Preliminary Report" and summarized the events of the past 4 days, elaborating only on the incident at the studio because that had been a breakthrough in the investigation.
After he was done, he saved it and sent a copy to Chapelle.
When he looked up, he saw Milo still on the phone and when he checked his watch, he noticed he had been there almost an hour already, so he decided to interrupt Milo's call. He needed to talk to him and wasn't going to wait until he was done chatting. If he had been on the line for more than an hour already, who knew when he was going to end the call.
"Milo, do you have a minute?" Jack called just loud enough.
Milo turned in his chair, looked at him and promised the other to call back in a bit. He put the phone down and pushed up, made his way over to Jack's station and sat on the edge of it.
"Yeah?"
"Is there anything new on those calls made to Lettis' phone?"
"Nothin' boss." Milo said.
He didn't work for CTU on a regular basis, but he was well known and much appreciated for his computer knowledge and his speed and accuracy, and whenever they called him in, he addressed everybody as ‘boss'.
"Do you have any idea if someone ran the visitors at Heyes' place through face recognition?"
"Dunno boss."
"Can you do that?"
"Sure thing."
"Want me to do that now?"
"If you can."
"I'll get right on it."
He pushed off the edge of Jack's desk and walked back to Jamey's.
"Milo?"
"Yeah boss?" Milo asked, turning back to Jack.
"Try to keep the phonebill down a little."
"I'll try boss."
"Thanks."
He turned and went back to his station, pulled up the files from the surveillance on Heyes' building and started up the face recognition program. Jack wondered for a moment why that hadn't been done yet, but he supposed it was simply due to the fact no supervisors were on site. Information was gathered and passed on, sent to CTU for further analysis or reference, but it wasn't up to the teams out there to make sure someone actually processed that information. That was up to him.
It took him over two hours in all to get through the pile of paperwork that was already waiting for him. He was glad he decided to come do that today, the place was nearly empty and nothing had distracted him from what he was doing.
He sat for a moment, thinking everything over, trying to determine if he was overlooking something. Trying to tie all the pieces together and put an end to this. Everything looped back to Bonney and Heyes and they had Heyes under surveillance right now. For as far as he was concerned, all angles had been covered and there was nothing more that could be done at that point.
He checked in with one of the teams guarding Sarah and her mother. All was quiet, the girl was home and the place was secure.
Next Jack checked in with the team at the hospital. There was no change in Princeton's condition, he was still in intensive care, stable but not out of the danger zone yet.
"Jack?"
It was Milo and the sound of his voice told Jack it was important, so he told the agent to keep him posted and hung up after what he hurried over to Milo.
"What have you got?"
Milo pointed to the screen.
It showed a picture of a man, displaying his personal information on the right.
"What about him?" Jack asked, not seeing what was so important.
"Hang on."
Milo switched screens and brought up a different file, showing the same man. The information was completely different though, the name, age, education, employers, nothing matched. Most importantly, at the bottom of the page a red text blinked on and off ‘Deceased'.
"Mercenary." Jack whispered softly.
His eyes scanned the text again. The man was a navy seal by the name of John Kendrick, killed in the line of duty.
But apparently, he was pretty much alive and still active.
"You may very well have found the source, Milo." Jack said quietly, "Good work."
"Thanks boss." Milo said, shrugging off the compliment.
"Send this to my screen will you."
"You've got it." Milo said after having tapped a few keys.
"Thanks."
"How long have you been here?" Jack asked suddenly.
"Since Jamey called me yesterday."
"I'll call Jamey back in to take over from you."
"I'm okay boss. I'm on top of this."
"You may very well be Milo, but I'm calling Jamey in anyhow. If you feel up for it, you're welcome to stay, but I want Jamey to give you a hand."
"Won't say no to a helping hand." Milo agreed.
Jack went back to his station and called Jamey, asking her to come back in and help Milo. She didn't argue and told him she'd be there in about half an hour. He told her to take her time and hung up.
Then he turned to the information on his screen.
He compared both files and called one of the analysts, requesting an in-depth investigation of both profiles. The man set to work and Jack did the same on his side, concentrating on the first file, the one that was most likely the real one, be it not for the ‘Deceased' stamp at the bottom of it. He went over the Navy Seals records and mission logs and pulled up Kendrick's complete military file. If this was the guy behind all of this, there had to be something that linked back to Kiefer.
Something … anything.
A soft touch to his shoulder startled him and when he looked up, he saw Jamey's worried face.
"What's wrong Jack?" Jamey asked as soon as she had his attention.
"Nothing." Jack said, "Why should anything be wrong?"
"Didn't you hear us calling?"
"No I didn't. Why were you calling?"
"I think we have something."
"Already?"
"I've been working on it with Milo for the past hour." Jamey said, her frown deepening.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"An hour?" Jack exclaimed, "I didn't even know you were here."
He checked his watch and realized he had lost himself in those military files for almost two hours, oblivious of everything around him.
"Why do you think I'm asking if you're okay?"
"I'm fine. What did you find?"
"Let me show you." Jamey said, turning back to her workstation.
"These came up when we widened a few of the search criteria." she explained on the way over.
Jack saw three pictures on the screen.
The first thing that hit him, was the fact the pictures were all taken at the same location … outside the Fox studios.
Jamey tapped a few keys and used the mouse to select and enhance part of the first picture, making it as large as the screen.
There were several people in the picture, but those of interest to them were in the first place Kiefer and in the second place, Bonney, Heyes and Kendrick. Heyes was at work, holding people back while Kiefer signed autographs for them. Bonney was on one side of Heyes, Kendrick on the other and if Heyes dropped his arms, both of them would have a clear path.
"Print that." Jack said dryly.
"Any idea when these were taken?"
"Yeah, just over a month ago." Milo replied.
"Where did you find them?"
"On some fansite."
"Which fansite?"
"A forum named Kieferland. It's a bunch of crazy women spending their lives talking about the man." Milo replied with a smirk.
"Sounds like they've got nothing better to do than to drool over him all day long."
"Where do these originate?"
"One of the women on that board spent a few hours outside the studios waiting for him to show up and her boyfriend took the pictures."
"Nice guy." Jack chuckled, "Where was he? On the other side of the street?"
"There were more, closer by, but I didn't think you would be interested in those."
"No, you're right."
"What about the other ones?"
Jamey showed him the other two pictures and the last one froze Jack's heart. It showed the unknown woman, the woman who hired Lettis, standing next to Kiefer. He had his arm around her, posing for a picture.
"That's their practise run." Jack said quietly, more to himself.
"What?" Milo asked.
"It's their practise run." Jack repeated, "To see how easily they could approach him."
"He's a sitting duck."
"What do you mean?" Milo asked.
He was brilliant with computers, but when it came to real action, he didn't know anything.
Jack grabbed the pictures Jamey had printed off and laid them out on the desk, across the keyboard.
"Look. See this picture right here? Heyes is holding people back, but Bonney and Kendrick have a clear path to get to Kiefer if Heyes drops his arms. In this one, Heyes is all but in their way and in the third one; the woman is only inches away from him. He's got his arm around her for crying out loud. If she pulls out a knife, she can cut his throat before anybody could stop her."
"He'd be dead before anybody realized what the hell happened."
"Do you think they were planning on killing him outside the studio?" Jamey asked.
"From the looks of this?" Jack asked, looking her squarely in the eye, "It sure looks like it."
"Now what?"
"Well they can't pull that off anymore with Heyes having been compromised." Jack thought out loud, "He won't show up for work after what happened on Friday. Besides, Kiefer leaves the studio with me and I don't let him get out of the car, so they won't be able to get to him like that."
"Maybe this was their initial plan and they were forced to drop it when Fox got him a driver. Maybe Princeton's attack was already a contingency plan."
He pondered that idea for a moment, thinking out loud, tapping his fingers against his chin.
"Where else could they strike?"
"Would that award show be their contingency plan B?" Jamey asked.
"Probably." Jack agreed, still deep in thought.
"But that leaves us with more than 2 weeks to plan our defence. They might not have given it away that easily, unless they did it to distract the attention from the real attack."
"When was that threat about the awards delivered Jack?" Jamey asked.
"On Thursday."
"That's the day we were involved isn't it?"
"That's right. Why?"
"How could they possibly know CTU got involved? Didn't they drop the letters off at Lettis' place and then call him when he had to slip them under the door?"
"I don't think Lettis delivered that one."
"We could check on the tapes."
"Get on it."
Milo punched up the files from the surveillance cameras again and after a short search, Thursday's file came up. Jack saw why the sidewalk had been empty when he got to the door, the man crossed the sidewalk from the curb and back to it, which probably meant he had come by car. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell who it was. All Jack could say for sure, was that it hadn't been Lettis.
"Could you get the files from Cal Trans?" Jack asked, "I want to see what car he got out of."
"Thursday?" Jamey asked, "I'm not sure I'll be able to get it."
"Try it."
"Okay, I will."
She set to work at once and Jack went back to his station, taking the pictures with him.
"Milo?"
"Yeah boss?"
"Where did you say you found these pictures?"
"On a forum named Kieferland. They were posted under the Kiefer encounter subject."
"Kieferland?"
"Yeah, that's right, just Google it."
"Google it?"
"Yeah, go to Google's main page and type it into the search bar."
"Okay, so you meant ‘search for it on the internet'."
"That's right boss."
"Next time, use plain English Milo, I'd appreciate."
"You crack me up boss. Everybody uses that word now."
"Well I don't. When did a brand name become a verb anyway?"
"Beats me, that's just the way it is."
"Fine, thanks."
Jack punched up an internet page and hit the search button, typed the name Kieferland into the search bar and hit enter.
"Milo, I've got several ones. Which one is it?"
"Should be the first."
Jack clicked on the link and waited for the page to load. He wandered around the site for a moment until he found the subject Milo had told him and he clicked to enter the topic. The page opened and allowed him to read without needing to register, which was a good thing, and he went over the account of the encounter. Nothing special had happened, Kiefer had come out and he had taken his time to sign autographs and pose for pictures. There had been no trouble at all.
It made Jack decide this had to have been some kind of practise run.
He checked through the rest of the pictures, but as Jamey had said, there wasn't anything interesting in them, at least not to their investigation. He closed the site and went back to Jamey's station to check on her progress.
She wasn't getting anywhere for the time being, the amount of data was impressive since Thursday and it would take a lot of time to get through it.
"Call a few people in to help you on anything you need."
"Okay Jack, don't worry."
"Milo?"
"Yeah boss?"
"This guy Kendrick, did he stay there?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, thanks."
Jack returned to his station and printed off the file on Kendrick. He would take it with him to study it some more, maybe something would come up later, maybe Tony would catch what he hadn't. And maybe Kiefer would be able to shed some light on it.
Once the file was printed, he put it in a folder and headed out.
His head was clouded and he drove slowly, carefully. It didn't make any sense.
Kendrick had to be connected to Kiefer somehow. Unless Kendrick wasn't the brains of this operation.
The fact he spent the night at Heyes' place made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end, it meant he was deeply involved in this, hopefully the brains, but possibly not.
He checked in with the surveillance team and sent them Kendrick's file.
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