“You’re cursed, Jack. Everything you touch, one way or another, ends up dead.”
Even hours later, the words still echoed in his mind, a sick, sinking feeling in his chest. He’d left Heller’s beach house some time ago, finding himself aimlessly wandering along the shore, letting the sound of the crashing waves fade out of the soundscape, thoughts filling his head instead. It was early, he’d only passed one jogger with a cheery golden retriever trailing him. It was funny, after nearly two years of imprisonment, the solace didn’t bother him at all.
Cursed.
As though every horrific thing that had ever happened to him was his fault. His fault when all he cared about was trying to do the right thing, trying to keep people safe, trying to do his job. He’d just spent twenty months keeping silent for the good of the country, and that was the thanks he got? He’d thought that being angry would make him feel better. That after finding Heller, telling him he had no right, no right, to say that to him, that it would affirm to him his place in the world, the feelings he was entitled to have. Yet even after exploding, after getting everything off of his chest, Jack still felt an uncomfortable chill. Mainly because he couldn’t deny that what Heller said was true, that he too was afraid that if he was there for Audrey the way he wanted to be, she would suffer the same demise everybody else close to him had. That perhaps it was a miracle in and of itself that Audrey was alive after going on a rampant search for him, so maybe he shouldn’t push his luck and let her heal on her own. Although, he knew that Audrey would probably heal better with him around.
He thought about the horrors he’d seen today alone. The bomb in Valencia. Killing Curtis. Killing Fayed. Finding Audrey completely and utterly battered. Finding out his own father and brother had been responsible for most of what had happened today, and even what had happened the day the Chinese took him. It filled him with such disgust, confusion almost, as to how the hell things ended up like this when Jack had made it clear many years ago that he wanted nothing to do with them. When he thought of his father and his brother, he thought of nothing but greed, nothing but selfishness, nothing but a lack of humanity.
His father, in particular, came to mind. Phillip Bauer had never been the warmest father. Jack figured it out at a very early age that his father had had no interest in raising him, nor Graem. But because Graem had vowed so hard for his affection, Phillip had paid slightly more attention to him. When Graem had proudly proclaimed that he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and work in the business, they’d grown closer, with Phillip oh-so proud to have a successor to the Bauer family name. Jack, meanwhile, had rejected the world of business and wealth entirely, wanting to find independence, meaning, and freedom, in his life. So off to the military he’d gone and whatever small chance there’d been of his father establishing some kind of relationship with him had disappeared too.
At this moment, Jack realised exactly what made the thought of his father so angry. It wasn’t just that he was living a life fuelled only by an excessive desire for wealth and power. It was the fact that nothing else seemed to be going bad for him by comparison. His wife and now one of his sons were dead, hell, the latter being due to his own hand, but being someone that clearly didn’t care, it didn’t count. It didn’t count the way Jack’s dead friends and family did. All Jack had ever wanted to do was keep people safe and serve his country, yet instead of being rewarded, he'd been plagued with negative consequences left and right. People he cared about had died, he’d battled addiction, and he’d been left to the wolves by the very government he’d sworn to serve. And worst of all, Kim had very much suffered the same stroke of bad luck. She’d lost her mother, had every romantic relationship marked by tragedy in one way or another, and lost her trust and faith in her own father too. Almost as though he’d passed on whatever the hell was wrong with him to her.
It just didn’t add up. How the hell had his father managed to stay so clean, avoid trouble with the law, and avoid making enemies with connections that surely would have killed him. Meanwhile, despite only doing what the government asked him to, he’d been caught up in legal scandals with undercover ops, had ended up indirectly killing the people he loved and cared about just because an old foe had decided to resurface, had even been fired from CTU at one point. There had to be something at play here. Maybe he secretly had some large team of bodyguards and criminals checking his every move, keeping his reputation and criminal record intact. But even then, it wasn’t just that he got it easy, that success and wealth seemed to come to him so naturally. It was almost like for every good thing he got, Jack suffered ten times worse. No, it had to be something bigger, something Jack couldn’t even fathom. It couldn’t be physically possible for this to be some orchestrated plan to make sure he suffered and Phillip Bauer didn’t. There would have to be dozens of people involved, watching his every move, leading him to believe things were okay and snatching that faith from him like a cruel person would do to a child with a toy.
For a minute he joked to himself that it was some form of divine punishment. After all, an omnipotent god could surely be capable of doing all the running around and planning he’d just described. And although he’d never once paid attention in the Sunday School classes his father had forced him to attend, he was sure there was a bible verse there somewhere about curses, right? Wouldn’t that be a perfectly convenient explanation for everything, that high above the Earth, there was a god penalising him while praising his father? At this point, after losing so many people, and suffering so much, maybe he could accept that as an answer.
But that begged new questions, like why the hell God had chosen his father of all people. What could he have possibly done to get this kind of special treatment? Surely there was some kind of deal involved, signing his soul away, perhaps? It all sounded so ridiculous, he couldn’t believe he was even entertaining the thought of his father making a deal with the devil. Yet somehow it made sense. Or if not the devil, his logical mind could at least accept the idea of his father having connections to people in higher places. But again the question of ‘who?’ did. He needed a name, he needed an answer. If someone had gone out of their way to make his life a living hell, he at least deserved the right to know who they were.
His phone buzzed, breaking his train of thought. Seeing Chloe’s name on the caller ID, he picked up.
“Hey, Chloe…”
“Hey, um…I’ve got some of your stuff and a spare computer if you want it. Kim took most of it when you, uh, ‘died’, but if you want to swing by…”
“Yeah, sure.” He had to clear his throat, still not quite used to talking. “Text me the address.”
They kept the conversation at her house short, he congratulated her on her pregnancy and thanked her for holding onto his things, even if there were very few of them. But it was obvious that she and Morris were exhausted, having been awake as long as Jack had. He managed to find a hotel room for the night, drawing from a private bank account he’d kept his money in during his time in hiding. In the morning he’d start looking for apartments, start trying to find a way to call Los Angeles home again.
Despite the racing thoughts in his mind, Jack fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The accusations made by Ramirez had sparked the angry flame in him once again. It was simply another reminder that he was destined to suffer and to be punished. He decided to use that as motivation to find answers. But it wasn’t going to be easy. People who made the kind of deals that would have gotten his father where he’d gotten or made Jack’s life a living hell wouldn’t be found so easily. CTU could do some digging, maybe. But he was sure they were still cleaning up the mess from the incidents of yesterday. And besides, he wasn’t exactly employed there anymore anyway. So he figured he could do his own research with a cup of coffee and the slightly lukewarm breakfast he’d ordered from room service. Better than the gruel he’d eaten for two years on end. Somehow the idea of the devil had come back to his mind. It was entirely outlandish and unfounded, but then again, he could easily say the same about the bullshit he’d gone through in the last twenty-four hours alone.
For the sake of entertaining this delusion, he started searching for some kind of lore about the devil and curses. It all seemed so…ancient. Like it couldn’t possibly be relevant or true in this day and age. Immediately Jack told himself that the endeavour was just stupid and that maybe he should focus his energy on getting a permanent place of residence and some form of ID back. After all, Jack Bauer had still been ‘dead’ the day of the Sentox attacks and probably presumed dead for the twenty months that followed. As one final attempt at finding something that could give a basis for this theory, he started to search for ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Los Angeles’. One of the first things that came up was an advertisement for a nightclub called LUX, with mentions of parties and events hosted by a man named Lucifer Morningstar, who Jack presumed to be the owner. Nightclubs always tended to have something going on behind the scenes, be it drug deals, prostitution, money laundering, gangs, or any other kind of criminal activity. So maybe the owner of a nightclub could be someone his father dealt with. The photos of the club looked quite exclusive and expensive, maybe he was just as money-centric as his father. But, Jack realised, the man clearly looked younger than his father, possibly even than him. Even if he considered the possibility of plastic surgery, it didn’t quite add up.
Maybe there’d been a previous owner? This man’s father maybe?
Upon searching further for ‘Morningstar’, for histories of the club and its owners, Jack couldn’t find very much, indicating to him that it wasn’t that old. It was probably a dead end. Still, Jack’s instincts told him that something about this man was worth investigating. Even if he had nothing to do with his father, he could still be part of something else insidious. Especially with a name like ‘Lucifer’. Surely it wasn’t his legal name, right? Eyeing the clock, it was about midday. He figured he could maybe ask Chloe to look into him if she wasn’t busy. At least, assuming she was back at work. CTU didn’t have a very generous leave policy, what with their jobs being so essential and critical in unpredictable emergencies, so he figured that she was, no matter how much or how little sleep she’d had.
But at the same time, Jack felt like the best way to investigate this, investigate something that was very much about him and his life, was to do it himself.
The nightclub would certainly be busy later in the night, but Jack figured he might be able to catch Lucifer if he went during the day. After a brief stop-off to find some slightly nicer clothes, he slipped into the club early in the afternoon, not surprised to find it empty. Cautiously, he walked down the staircase into the main area.
“Ah, so you’re here for a deal.”
Whipping his head around, Jack found himself staring at Lucifer Morningstar. His eyes widened. He swore nobody was there.
“Well…at least I’m assuming you are.” Lucifer furrowed his brow. “Nobody tends to visit me during the day unless they want to make a deal with me.”
“What kind of deals do you make, exactly? Drugs? Money?-”
Lucifer scoffed. “Whoever referred you clearly didn’t do a very good job of selling me. I help people fulfil their deepest darkest desires in return for an unspecified favour.”
‘Desires’? It sounded like a load of crap, like he was hiding something, like it was some bizarre metaphor. Maybe he was high, maybe he was crazy. Didn’t sound like drug slang to him. But Jack’s eyes fell to a small plastic bag containing white powder on the bar counter. Maybe Jack could get what he needed out of him in a different way.
“I don’t know what the hell your angle is, but I’m pretty sure that’s cocaine. I’m a federal agent.” Well, not technically right now, but the threat still stood.
He turned to where the bag was. “Oh, did I forget to put that away?”
“I can have you walking out of here in handcuffs or you can tell me exactly what the hell it is you do.”
Lucifer laughed through his nose. “If you’re talking about ratting me out to the LAPD, you’re not going to get very far, I’ve got connections.”
“Connections? So you admit to bribing cops?”
“Not that kind. I work there.” He said proudly.
Jack began to think more and more that this was just a waste of his time. Clearly, there was something very wrong with this man. Or this was some metaphor. Or perhaps, he was simply seeing Jack’s frustration and egging him on for the sake of fun.
“Forget it. You can’t help me.”
He stormed off, making his way back up the stairs.
“Well, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what it is you want from me. Believe me, whatever it is you desire, I can give it to you. I know you came here for a reason.”
Stopping in his tracks, Jack turned to face him. “I don’t believe you. You’re just doing this to take advantage of me. You’re lying, you don’t want to help.” As he moved to walk up the stairs, he gasped, finding Lucifer inches away, pushing him against the railing of the balcony.
“I am many things, but I am not a liar.” At that moment, his eyes flickered, shifting from a dark brown to a fiery red. It had to be a trick of the light, Jack told himself. A leftover hallucination of all the drugs the Chinese pumped him full of. “Now, why exactly are you here?”
Instinctively, Jack went to shove him away, kick him, use any kind of move to defend himself. But looking into this man’s eyes, he couldn’t deny that he seemed genuinely interested in helping him, or at least curious enough to know Jack’s intentions and troubles.
“I think you made a deal with my father, Phillip Bauer, and cursed me.”
He hummed in thought. “Phillip Bauer…Bauer…ah, yes, I remember him. Greedy bastard he was. I certainly remember promising him wealth and status. But he repaid that favour a long time ago for me. I borrowed a yacht of his for a party.” A wry smile crept across his face. “Anyways, you think I cursed you. Not possible. I don’t do curses. But I’m curious, why do you think you’re cursed?”
Jack still couldn’t quite comprehend his father interacting with someone so…animated. And he was more of a country club person, not a nightclub goer. But somehow Jack felt as though this man wasn’t as insidious as he’d envisioned. The logical questions of Lucifer’s age and the timeline of events aside, he believed him. He seemed like so long as everything was tit-for-tat, he didn’t hold grudges or have any hidden intentions. His eyes fell to the fully stocked liquor shelf behind the bar. He motioned towards it with his head.
“Pour me one of those and we’ll talk.”
Lucifer didn't seem to have any answers as to why he had suffered so much. Although annoyed, being validated by somebody else and told that yes, what had happened to him was truly atrocious, made Jack feel a little better. He wanted to investigate Lucifer a little more though. He wondered whether somebody somewhere had suffered as a by-product of one of his deals. And besides, he still couldn’t figure out how Lucifer could look so young but was apparently alive and old enough to have made deals when his father was in college. Nor could Jack shake the pair of red eyes that had stared him down. Could it be possible that this really was something beyond human comprehension? Jack called Chloe, explaining what he’d found out today, and she, the logical person she was, had wanted to answer those questions too.
They found themselves alone in CTU, save for a few skeleton staff, and an impatient Morris, who wanted to go home yet was still intrigued by the situation. Looking through all records of ‘Lucifer Morningstar’ and running facial scans, they found thousands of photos, many dated several decades ago with long gaps of absence between. He looked identical in each one, with no sign of ageing, no sign of a change in appearance aside from the clothes. The only explanation was that this man was immortal, but that couldn’t possibly be true, right?
“Maybe the photos are doctored? Maybe he or one of his associates hacked the government databases and changed the dates on the photos, uploaded a bunch for a prank or something.” Morris offered.
“That’s probably the most logical answer, after all, he can’t possibly still be alive and look like that.” Jack pointed to the man’s face on the screen.
Chloe’s face was screwed up in thought. “Or maybe…maybe he can.”
Jack and Morris turned to her, confused. Surely she of all people couldn’t be suggesting what they were all thinking.
“I’ve seen something like this before.” She sighed. “I used to waitress at this diner when I was in college. Every day there was an older man who sat in the same booth, he had a notebook with him, and all day, different people would come and go. When I’d walk past the booth, I’d overhear him talking about ‘tasks’ and ‘deals’. I thought he was part of a gang or something. Never got his name. A-anyways. I went back there maybe... ten? Fifteen years later after a college reunion?” There was an unusual, shaky quality to her voice. “A-and he was still there. Same booth. Same face. Hadn’t aged. I investigated the hell out of him but I could never figure it out. I couldn’t tell anybody either because they would have thought I was insane. But the point is, maybe looking into this guy could kill two birds with one stone.”
He nodded. “Give me the address of the diner.”
“Wait. Before you go. I remember there was a passphrase everybody had to say. Something about a pastrami sandwich.”
Morris looked at her, bewildered. “You remember it? After all this time?”
“I had to hear it multiple times a day, every day I worked there. Trust me.”
When Jack arrived, he immediately felt eerie about the surroundings. It wasn’t in the middle of nowhere but something about this place felt isolated, detached from reality almost. Gazing around the red booths, an older man in the corner, his head tipped as he wrote something down. He stood and observed for a moment, waiting for the woman sitting across from him to leave. A waiter walked past, filling up his coffee cup. Jack walked over slowly, sliding into the empty booth seat.
“I hear the pastrami sandwich is good here.” He said, quietly.
Catching a glimpse of the man’s face as he looked up, he felt his breath catch in his throat. It was a face he’d seen before, albeit several years ago, but Jack couldn’t deny it was the face of George Mason. Jack walked over, desperate to get a closer look.
“George?”
The man looked at him blankly.
“George?” He hardened his voice. “George Mason. How the hell did you-?”
“I think you’ve mistaken me for somebody else.” He said, his blue eyes piercing into Jack’s.
“I-“
“What’s your name and what are you here for?”
Jack remembered the task at hand, why he was here. George Mason couldn’t possibly be alive. He’d watched the plane go down into a perfect nose dive, something that couldn’t have happened if he’d discreetly parachuted out. And besides, he’d been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. He couldn’t possibly be sitting in front of him.
“My name is Jack Bauer. I’m not here for a deal. I’m here because I think you made a deal with somebody else that ended up cursing me.”
He looked just as confused as Lucifer had. “I don’t curse people, Jack. People tell me what they want, and I give them a task. If they do the task, they get what they want, but if they don’t, they don’t. It’s simple.”
“What if somebody asked you to curse me and they did whatever ‘task’ you gave them?” It didn’t seem right that his father would have specified that Jack suffers. He was too selfish to even have him at the forefront of his mind.
The man paused. “I suppose. But I don’t remember anything like that. Do you know who might have made a deal with me?”
“Phillip Bauer. I-I don’t know when but-”
His fingers flipped the pages quickly as though he were skimming the text at a thousand words a minute. He smirked, stopping on a page.
“Oh, this guy. Yeah, I remember him.”
“I want success, I want money, I want to be swimming in it. I want people to know who I am. I want an empire.”
The man stared at the young, blonde business school student. He hated guys like these. Unfortunately, he’d agreed to this job and had to fulfil the request. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try and deter this guy from achieving it. A selection of tasks appeared in his mind, ranging from very doable to near impossible. When people asked for things so selfish, so entitled, he always liked to opt for tasks that showed a judgement of character, that showed just how far one was willing to go for their own selfish desires.
“Your task is to kill your first wife.”
“But I’m not married.”
He met Phillip’s eyes. “Well, then you’ve got some work to do. Let me know how it goes.”
“This is ridiculous. You’re telling me if I find some woman, convince her to marry me, and I kill her, I’ll get what I want?”
“Exactly.”
“How am I supposed to enjoy being rich if I’m in jail for murder?”
The man laughed. “Just don’t get caught, then.”
As soon as Jack heard him say what his father’s task had been, he felt his stomach turn. His mother had died suddenly in her sleep, apparently of a heart attack, when he was young, his brother even younger. It was one thing that his father had married her under such pretences, it was another to have had not one, but two, children with her, only to take their mother from them.
“So you’re the reason my mother died?” He said roughly.
“No. Your father is. There were no strings attached. He didn’t have to do it, and yet, he did. I’m sorry, but it was his choice. I only had a limited number of tasks I could choose for him. I figured that was as hard as it could get.”
He sighed. “Great. So my father made two deals to get rich, and neither you nor Lucifer claim to have cursed me in any way.”
The man raised his eyebrows. “Lucifer? As in Lucifer Morningstar?”
“You know him?”
“He’s the one that gave me this ability. I made a deal with him saying I wanted to do favours for people the same way he did, in exchange for my identity. I wanted to disappear.”
“And he just let you go off granting favours?”
“Not quite.” He tapped at the book. “It only works if I record in here. And they have to do the task to earn the favour first, not later.”
Jack realised that there were still so many gaps in his knowledge, things he needed more detail on. And there was only one way to find out everything once and for all.
“You’re coming with me then.”
“Where?”
“A little nightclub called LUX.”
They arrived back at the club during the day, finding Lucifer and a man Jack swore had a striking resemblance to Wayne Palmer. He was fighting for his life in an induced coma. It couldn’t possibly be him. Still, he felt a chill. After all, it was the second doppelgänger he’d seen today.
“Oh, you’re back, and you’ve brought…him? Long time no see. How’s my job working out for you?”
“Lucifer, who are these people?” Amenadiel asked.
“Right.” He pointed at Jack. “This one thinks he’s cursed,” he turned to the man beside him “and this one is who I like to call my mini-me.”
Amenadiel rubbed his forehead with his hand. Why did his brother’s explanations for things have to be so vague? Jack took the initiative to explain what had happened, what he’d learnt, and what he was trying to find out.
“I mean…I’ve never heard of a human being cursed, at least not in this day and age. It makes no sense. Father didn’t give you that ability, and if this man’s been doing favours since…?”
“1943. That was when I got the book.”
“1943, then if it was his doing, I’m sure we would have seen someone in a similar situation by this point. I…I don’t know, I’m sorry. But what’s happened to you can’t surely be just a series of coincidences. I’m convinced your father’s deal had something to do with you and your daughter’s suffering, Jack. As to the specifics…” He trailed off sorrowfully.
Lucifer huffed. “Well, somebody better figure this out because if it was neither of us, then I’m ready to go get answers from Dad.”
“Jack.” Amenadiel turned to him. “You said your father made two deals for the same thing, right? Why would he have done that? If he knew the man was promising him riches, why would he seek out Lucifer?”
“He didn’t kill my mother until a few years after my brother was born. Maybe he couldn’t get the timing right for killing her and got impatient. I’m sure he was well-off before she died. That has to be it.” He shrugged. “Either he was impatient or just extra greedy, insurance maybe if the first deal didn’t work out.”
“Hang on.” The man started. “My ability to make deals with people only works because of you, Lucifer. It’s a product of your power. So in a way it’s like Lucifer granted Phillip the same deal twice, just with different conditions. Have you ever done that directly?”
Lucifer thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Well…no. If I grant someone their truest desires, why would they have a need to come back for more?”
“Then that’s it.” Amenadiel stated. “It’s not that the deals individually were bad, it was their combined effect. God works with balance. If someone managed to manipulate the system and get this much out of it, especially considering how far they went to get it, He had to offset it somehow.”
“Then why not punish him directly?” Lucifer said. “It’s hardly fair that his son and granddaughter have suffered because of it.”
“Because he can’t interfere, Lucifer. You were given this ability by him, he can’t obstruct free will, and he can’t cancel any of your deals. But he had to do something about it. Part of his myster-“
His brother tutted. “After what this man and his daughter have been through, don’t you dare try and convince me it was part of father’s ‘mysterious ways’ bullshit.”
The dots started to connect in Jack’s head, and he couldn’t possibly believe any of it, but unfortunately couldn’t come to any other conclusion. “So wait…you really are the devil? Your father is God?”
“In the flesh.” He smiled. “I can assure you whatever you’ve heard about me isn't true. Nor him. He’s not nearly as fair as you humans have made him out to be.” His voice softened, and Jack felt more inclined to believe this man, his mind opening to the idea. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Jack. Nothing that’s happened to you or your daughter is your fault. You were a victim of a very devious person’s endeavour for wealth. And I apologise for my part in it.”
“I thought by giving him that task I could make him think twice.” The man said sombrely.
“Speaking of.” Amenadiel said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “We’ve been talking about Phillip Bauer, but where exactly is he?”
“Dead.” Jack said.
Amenadiel’s eyes widened.
“Hey, I didn’t kill him.”
He concentrated his face in thought. “Then I think your problem has already been solved, Jack. If Phillip’s desire was to be rich and powerful, he can’t exactly be that if he’s dead. If you think of the deals like contracts, then they're basically null and void. There’s no more balance for father to offset.”
As the words washed over him, Jack felt a weight lift in his chest. The logic held up. If his father wasn’t actively seeking such power, nor had he specified for that power to be passed down in some kind of family legacy, then he couldn’t be forcing God’s hand to punish Jack or Kim in return. Or any future generations of eldest children for that matter. After all, Graem had gotten off nearly scot-free. While he’d died by their father’s hand, he certainly hadn’t had to suffer the hardships that Jack had.
“Still, we should make sure.” Lucifer said. “After all, I think after what you’ve been through, Jack, you shouldn’t have to live with this kind of horrific apprehension any longer. So Jack…” He smiled, turning to look him in the eyes. “What is it you truly desire?”
When Jack looked back at him, everything seemed to fall silent. The voices of torment in his head faded, leaving only the sound of his breathing. It was as though he could sense the very depths of his soul, speaking to him, helping him to understand what he truly wanted.
“I want my life back. And I want my daughter, and any future descendants of me to have theirs too.” The words fell with such ease from his mouth, and he felt tears prick the back of his eyes, knowing just how long he’d been yearning for this.
“Consider it done then.” With Lucifer’s words, he knew it was assuredly true.
“I wonder if anybody else has tried to pull this kind of thing.” Jack asked. “Whether someone’s asked you both for the same thing on separate occasions and ended up screwing somebody else over.”
Lucifer walked over to where the man stood, picked up the book and closed his eyes. He opened it to Phillip Bauer’s record, finding the ink there had turned red.
“If anybody else has done the same thing, their name and record should be red too.”
The man’s eyes widened as he turned the pages, occasionally settling on a page with similarly transformed writing.
“If I had known giving you this ability would have done such a thing…” He sighed.
“We’re going to have to fix this.”
Lucifer nodded in agreement.
“Wait, I just realised something. Don’t I owe you a favour now?”
“Technically, yes. But you’ve just helped me to realise that there may be more people out there who have suffered unfairly, or been ‘cursed’ as you put it by somebody else’s selfishness. So consider the debt repaid.” Lucifer said earnestly.
Jack walked out of LUX feeling relieved, as though things were truly looking up. But there was still a question of practically knowing for sure. He wondered if there’d be some kind of sign or if it would be more gradual. Maybe he could go buy a lottery ticket, he joked to himself.
Suddenly, his phone rang, the number unknown to him.
“This is Jack Bauer.”
He heard the person’s breath hitch on the other side of the phone.
“Dad?”