Things to know before you read: Wayne Palmer is President. Jack is no longer with Audrey. Bill is head of CTU. Chloe and Morris are together.
CHAPTER ONE
Hour One
4:00-5:00
Jack Bauer walked into the boardroom and spied Director of CTU, Bill Buchannon, with a stern look on his face. Jack knew that look; it meant something serious was going on. Although Jack had surmised as much when he'd received the phone call that morning from CTU asking him to come in. All he'd been told was that his 'skills were needed' and to get down to headquarters ASAP.
Bill directed Jack to a chair at the end of the long boardroom table. The pair was along in the room, which was unusual unless it was a highly sensitive operation that Jack would be working on.
"Thanks for coming in, Jack." Bill began, taking his place at the head of the table. "Sorry to call you in on such short notice but we really need your help."
"What's going on?" Jack asked, leaning forwards in his chair.
"President Palmer called me an hour ago; there's been a threat on Los Angeles." Bill said with a sigh. He'd become used to saying that phrase he knew that it had lost its sting. And the fact that Jack barely flinched as he heard it only confirmed Bill's thought.
"What kind of threat?" asked Jack; eager to get involved.
"Intel is still coming in but as far as we know it's been linked to the terrorist group Al-Haeq." Bill turned and clicked on the screen behind him. It showed the pictures of a Middle Eastern man meeting with different groups of people. "This is Maliqe Shiraz. We believe he's the head of the organization. He escaped from an Iraqi prison five years ago and all our sources say he came to the states illegally within the last two years." Bill slid a file across the table to Jack.
"Is he in the database?" Jack asked with a furrowed brow as he looked through the file.
"No. There's no record on him." Bill admitted. "Chloe's searching everything we have. But since we have more speculation than facts right now we've been advised to keep it quiet."
Jack closed the file and rested his hands on top of it. He looked up at Bill. "What do you need me to do?"
"President Palmer was scheduled to do a press tour of L.A tomorrow morning and he'd like to continue under that illusion for the public's sake. He'll be boarding Air Force One at approximately eleven o'clock tonight and I'd like to have something positive to tell him."
"I'm still not clear on what you need me to do." Jack asked quizzically.
"Al-Haeq is a well known terrorist group in their own country." Bill clicked a button on the remote control and the images changed on the scream behind him. "Their weapon of choice is home-made chemical bombs activated by a microchip like this." The screen showed the image of what Bill was speaking about. "From what we've discovered, the chip and the bomb are kept in two separate locations; the bomb can't detonate without the chip to activate it."
"Where's the chip?" Jack pressed.
"That's where you come in." Bill told him. "All we know for sure is that Maliqe does not have the chip in his possession."
"Which means he more than likely has the bomb." Jack inferred.
"That's the assumption we're running with." Bill confirmed. "And if we're correct and Maliqe is planning this attack for tomorrow; then sometime between now and then he will be receiving the chip. You're here to make sure that doesn't happen."
"What's our first move?" Jack asked. The pair of them both knew in that moment that Jack had silently agreed to this mission.
"Maliqe's last known residence was abandoned some months ago. We had a team do a sweep and they found the charred remains of a computer half buried in the backyard. Most of the data we managed to pull off of the hard drive was corrupted, but we did recover an address in the East Village." Bill retrieved another piece of paper from the stack in his grasp and handed it over to Jack. "Assemble a team and get down there ASAP."
"Yes sir." Jack collected the sheets of paper of the file together, stood up and walked purposefully out of the room.
xxx
In another part of town, Danielle Carter was stepping out of the shower into her bathroom. She wiped her hand over the fogged mirror and stared at her reflection. She pulled her fingers through her damp hair and silently judged the colour she'd just dyed it. Formally a mousey brown, Danielle's hair now gleamed a dark red, almost purplish colour. She wrapped her it loosely in a towel and went into her bedroom.
Danielle changed into a pair of dark denim jeans and a white tank top. She let her hair down to dry in the air and set about picking up the clutter in her bedroom. She re-made her bed and tossed her dirty clothes in the hamper. Danielle then picked up her old high school yearbook that she'd been glancing through the night before and replaced it on the bookshelf against the wall. She'd gone to bed remembering the prom and how much fun she and her date had that night. Feeling her room was clean enough, Danielle headed downstairs to the kitchen.
Just as she was finishing preparing her afternoon coffee, the phone rang. Danielle answered it, knowing who it would be before she'd even picked it up.
"Maliqe?" she said expectantly into the phone.
"Do you have it?" Maliqe answered back sternly.
Danielle sighed. "Yeah." She wandered over to her desk and opened the top drawer, pulling out a small plastic case. Inside this case was a microchip. "I've got it."