24: Deadline (24 Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the West Side. Get out there and check in on the location, just in case.”
    “In case of what? The Evidence Response Team have already looked the place over.”
    “Still,” Hadley insisted, pushing past him to walk away. “Go check in. That’s an order.”
    *   *   *
    As the traffic crawled along Second Avenue past Stuyvesant Square, Jack shrank deeper into the threadbare hoodie he had found on the backseat of the stolen Toyota. Rush hour was always a pain in the ass, but New York City’s grid of streets conspired to make it a special kind of hell. Lines of cars and vans inched forward in fits and starts, and drivers leaned on their horns within a heartbeat if someone failed to go with the flow. He watched a pair of cab drivers in the lane alongside moving in lockstep, conducting a raucous argument back and forth out of their open windows. Now and then, a police siren would pulse out a whoop of noise, and in the rearview, Jack saw blue-and-white cruisers forcing their way through the gridlock, sometimes mounting the sidewalk in order to slip past.
    The metallic rattle of a helicopter passed overhead and he resisted the urge to peer out and take a look. It would only take a single frame for a mobile camera or static monitor to capture his image and flag it. Jack had stopped to rub a dash of black grime on his cheeks before getting in the car, a broken asymmetrical line that looked accidental but would actually be enough to slow down any facial recognition software that did catch sight of him. It was a stopgap measure, though, and it wouldn’t work against a human observer.
    His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. He felt exposed, pinned in place inside the steel box of the car. Even now, his hunters could be vectoring in on this location. Snipers in the buildings across the street, gunmen in the vehicles trailing him. Every person out there was a potential threat, every window a place for a shooter to fire from.
    Jack became aware that the two cabbies had fallen silent, their voices replaced by the mutter of a radio. Other cars around him were doing the same, turning up the volume, rolling down their windows so everyone could hear. He leaned forward and snapped on the Toyota’s dashboard radio, and the same voice was there on every station he found.
    Allison Taylor, the first female president of the United States, was addressing her nation in a live broadcast. “ My fellow Americans, ” she began. “ It is with a heavy heart that I must speak to you this evening. A situation has arisen that I cannot, in all good conscience, allow to progress any further. At this hour, I am formally resigning my position as your president and stepping down from my post as commander-in-chief. I am passing that grave responsibility to my vice president and trusted friend, Mitchell Heyworth. ”
    Jack listened to her voice, imagining Taylor as she stood there before the lectern, her words issuing out across a room full of stunned, silent reporters. He tried to make sense of his own feelings toward the woman. His anger at her actions was still raw and harsh, and it was hard to separate it from the churn of emotion that seethed in the wake of Renee’s death.
    That Jack respected the office of the president was without question—it was ingrained in him, and on some level, he would always be the good soldier—but he also knew full well the terrible responsibilities it demanded from those who held that lofty post. Jack thought of David Palmer, a man of strong character and high ideals who had struggled to execute his terms in the Oval Office with honor and courage, and of his brother Wayne who had done his best to follow David’s example. Others, like Noah Daniels and James Prescott, had been driven to make dangerous choices and pay for their consequences. Today, Allison Taylor would learn that price as well.
    “ When I leave this room I will remand myself to the attorney general for questioning, ” she was saying. “ A grave