24 Declassified: 03 - Trojan Horse Read Online Free

quickly therewould havebeennotimefor Faytoget her navel pierced—yet a delicate silver dragonfly now swung on a thin chain that dangled from the woman’s navel ring.
    Tony looked away before Fay noticed his stare. Man , he thought, the quiet ones can really surprise you.
    5:46:01 A . M .PDT Utopia Studios
    They’d made it inside the abandoned studio, only to be stopped by a hail of gunfire. Now Jack Bauer and Chet Blackburn huddled back to back, between the concrete wall and a dumpster in one of Utopia Studios’ large sound stages. Armor-piercing rounds battered the metal container with enough force to pierce the steel and ricochet like mad inside the dumpster.
    “They’re cornered. They’re not going anywhere. Why the hell didn’t they just give up?” Blackburn cried over the noise. Under his faceplate, the man’s dark skin was shiny with sweat.
    “They brought guns,” said Jack. “They figured they had to use them.”
    Jack hunkered down, wiped the stream of blood that leaked from his nose. He yanked off his helmet, wondering why the communicator had stopped working. He discovered that the transmitter inside the liner had been shattered by the same round that had grazed his headpiece a moment before.
    “Try to reach Angel One,” Jack said, spitting crimson. “Find out what’s happening on the other side of that wall.”
    Cautiously, Jack poked his head out. Across fifty feet of sound stage cluttered with movie props—everything from ornate period furniture to grandfather clocks, fake laboratory machinery, even a suit of armor—Jack saw another steel door that was still sealed. His movement attracted a short crackle of fire. As Jack ducked back behind cover, metal rounds splattered against the wall, spraying the two men with shrapnel and dust. Jack grunted. A shard of hot metal had pierced his battle suit, burning a hole into his left arm at the biceps. Jack swallowed bile, ignored the fiery sting.
    “Angel One’s team should have been through that door by now,” Jack told Blackburn.
    “They can’t get through,” Blackburn replied. “That door’s been welded shut to protect the lab from this kind of raid. The DEA has taken the lab, captured the big fish, too. Now they’re looking for another way to reach us.”
    “They better hurry,” said Jack.
    Blackburn eyed the stain on Bauer’s arm. “You know we can’t sit here and wait. We move or we die.” Then a wry smile appeared. “You know, we could go out the way we came in. These guys are only goons and they aren’t getting away. We could wait them out, or come back in with more muscle.”
    Bauer shook his head. “Let’s finish this now, before someone gets hurt. How many shooters did you spot?”
    “I counted two,” Blackburn replied. “One at three o’clock. Another one’s lurking over there near that suit of armor, or he was a minute ago.”
    Now the man could be anywhere. They both knew it. Jack shook the shards of broken transmitter out of his Kevlar assault helmet, slipped it on. Jack lowered the cracked visor, then he and Blackburn checked their weapons.
    “Let’s go,” Jack said.
    They rolled away from one another, emerging in a sprint on either side of the pockmarked dumpster. Jack aimed the G36—at air. His prey had vanished.
    Chet Blackburn was luckier. His man rose up from behind cover and opened up with twin .45s. Hispanic, mid-twenties, the cholo wore athletic gear, white sneakers and enough bling to open a jewelry store. He clutched the handguns in a sideways gangsta grip, too—a tactic impressive in a drive-by shooting but hardly effective in this situation.
    Blackburn stood his ground as the first two shots warbled past his ears, winced when the third round nicked his body armor and tore away a chunk of battle suit. Then he fired twice. His first shot struck the shooter between the eyes, snapping his head back. The second entered under the man’s chin, blew away the top of his skull. The dead man flopped to the