Read 24 Declassified: Head Shot (2009) for Free Online Page B

features. He looked up at Jack, Neal, said, “Don’t! Don’t kill me!”
    Jack and Neal exchanged glances. Neal said, “What’s all this talk of killing? Nobody mentioned killing but you.”
    Jack chimed in, “You’re the one with the knife.”
    Lobo said, “I was scared, I didn’t know what I was doing!” He rubbed and chafed his right wrist and forearm. “You like to busted my wrist when you kicked it, mister. It hurts awful bad.”
    Neal was unsympathetic. “You’re lucky you didn’t get shot pulling a stunt like that. Anyway, the hand’s still working. I don’t see that anything’s broken.”
    Jack said, “You pulled that knife quick enough.”
    Lobo said, “To defend myself. I thought you were some of Them.” The way he said “Them,” you could practically hear it being capitalized.
    Jack said, “Them?”
    “The devil men!”
    Neal scoffed, “That crazy talk won’t buy you anything. You’re sane enough, so talk sense. And make it quick.”
    A shift came over Lobo’s features, firming them with stubbornness. He looked down, not looking Jack or Neal in the face. He muttered, “I know what I saw . . .”
    Jack said, “What did you see?”
    Lobo looked up now, staring Jack in the face, studying him. He blinked repeatedly, his watery eyes glimmering. He came to a decision. “Nope. You ain’t one of Them.”
    Jack pressed, “One of who?”
    Lobo stared Neal in the face, coming to a quick conclusion. “And I know you ain’t one of Them. You got a mean face, but not as mean as they got.”
    Neal said, “Who’s Them? Damn it, man, speak out plain!”
    Lobo said, “Them devil men.” Tension fled from his face, his expression sliding into slack- jawed relief. “Huh! Maybe you ain’t going to kill me after all?”
    Jack said, “We’re not killers.”
    Lobo pointed out, “You got guns.”
    “To defend ourselves. Like you with your knife. You’re not a killer. You just wanted to protect yourself. Against the devil men.”
    Lobo grinned, bobbing his head in agreement. “That’s right! Now you got it. So can I have my knife back?”
    Neal said, “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
    Jack said, “You don’t need a knife, Lobo. We’ll protect you against the devil men.”
    “So you say. But it’s easier said than done. They got Satan’s power working for them.”
    “Remember the Psalm, Lobo: ‘I will fear no evil.’”
    “You would if you seen what I saw. That’s why they want to kill me.”
    “What did you see?”
    Lobo shook his head, sadly. “Can’t tell.”
    “Why not?”
    “If I do, they’ll have to kill you, too. Nobody is safe who knows the truth.”
    Neal, fighting down impatience, said, “We’ll take our chances.”
    Jack said, “They’ll want to kill us anyway for siding with you, Lobo. So you might as well tell us. The more we know, the better we’ll be able to help.”
    Lobo tilted his head to the side, as if listening to unheard voices. “You may just have something there . . .’Course, bad as they are, the devil men ain’t the worst. Oh no.” He leaned forward, with an air of one about to impart some great truth. “It’s those hog-faced demons you really got to worry about!”
    Neal, dangerously calm and soft-spoken, said, “Hog- faced demons, is that right?”
    Lobo nodded vigorously. “The gospel truth. The devil men, they look just like us. Like anybody, only more mean- faced. That’s how they can walk among us. Two of Them have been dogging me all day, back in the hills. That’s where I live, all by myself, in a little hidey- hole I got fixed back up there.” He gestured toward the sandstone formations. “Ain’t nobody can find me in the rocks if’n’ I don’t want ’em to, devil men included.
    “But I got hungry. I ain’t had nothing to eat for two days. There’s a hole under the fence that I slip right through sometimes at night. I sneak up in back of the kitchen here and raid them Dumpsters for what I can find. Lawd! The food that