6:00pm to 7:00pm

6:00pm - Los Angeles, California, USA.

A van drove across a busy freeway. The driver looked in his rear-view mirror nervously at the men sitting in the back. There were three men back there; two of them obviously only henchmen, and the third was sitting with a laptop in front of him.

"It's ready to transmit, Karsen," one of the henchmen said, as he connected some wires up to the back of the laptop.

Karsen, the man at the laptop, picked up a headset and put it on. He tapped some keys and heard a dial tone. He dialled a number and there was a ringing over the line.

Acting CTU Director Gary Jennings's phone started to ring.

"CTU, Jennings," he answered. For a moment there was only silence over the phone. "Hello?" Jennings said uncertainly. He initiated a trace of the call on his workstation.

"I'd like to report a crime," the voice said slowly.

"What? Call LAPD for that," Jennings said impatiently. He looked at his screen; the trace had not found any results yet.

"I'd rather talk to you," the voice continued, still speaking very slowly and calmly. "There has been a murder, several in fact. The bodies are in a house in Burbank. The address is Angeleno Avenue. The house is pretty run-down, you'll know which one it is. Good day."

A click on the other end told Jennings that the other person had hung up. He checked his computer to see if the trace had come up with anything. What he did see was very irregular. He pressed the intercom button on his phone.

"Bauer," the voice answered.

"Jack, can you come up here for a moment please?" Jennings asked.

"I was just leaving for the day," Jack replied.

"Please Jack," Jennings said.

"All right. I'll be right there."

Jack Bauer walked across the CTU floor towards the Director's office. He had been re-instated for over six months, and he did not appreciate still only being Head of Tactical, not when he used to be the Director himself. But now that was Tony's job, although while he and Michelle were on their honeymoon, technically it was Jennings's job. Jack didn't mind Jennings, he was quite by-the-book at times, but nowhere near as bad as some of the bureaucrats he had worked for.

"You wanted to see me," Jack said when he got up there. Jennings was a tall man, approaching his fifties, with occasional flecks of grey in his dark hair, and his hardened face was starting to show some lines.

"I just got a strange phone call," Jennings said straight away. "Someone reported a multiple-murder. But I think it was the murderer who called us."

"Why did that get sent to us?" Jack asked, confused. "Shouldn't that be a job for LAPD?"

Jennings shrugged. "It wasn't sent to me, they called my direct line. The even stranger thing is that I tried to trace the call, but they didn't use the phone. It was sent over an encrypted IP address; these guys know what they're doing."

"I still don't see why I need to take this case," Jack stated. "I'm just about to go home, there's at least a dozen field agents who could take this."

"Because there could be trouble there," Jennings answered. "You're the only guy I know can handle it. Please, Jack."

"Okay," Jack relented. He turned and left the office. When Jack was gone, Jennings pressed his intercom button again.

"O'Brian," the female voice answered.

"Chloe," Jennings said to the new analyst. He didn't like her, but this was a simple enough job for her. "I've sent Bauer into the field. Dispatch LAPD to Angeleno Avenue in Burbank to back him up."

"Erm… Okay then," she said nervously, and disconnected.

Jennings sighed. That girl was hopeless.

Karsen reviewed the call on his laptop. CTU had not managed to trace his IP address, he was certain of that. He picked up his cell phone and dialled.

"I've made the call," he said to the man on the other end. "The agent will be at the Burbank house in roughly ten minutes. Once he is inside I will make the next call."

Karsen listened to the reply from the man. "Don't worry, we will have him in time, but we must be smart about this," Karsen added. "My manpower for this operation is limited, I must hide both from the government and my own people if I am to be successful."

The man on the other end started to speak in more urgent tones.

"What would it achieve if we tried to take him ourselves?" Karsen replied. "No, we must play the system to our advantage. The agent will be with you shortly, my friend. I give you my word."

He hung up. Karsen was irritated with that man. Even though he had brought the man into this himself, he wondered if it was a mistake. But that man had information that was very difficult to obtain. He had had no choice, he only hoped the man would not be the weak link in the chain. If so, this operation they had spent months preparing would fail.

Turning back to the laptop, Karsen opened up a folder, and one by one opened each of the picture files inside it. Each was a close up of a brutally murdered person. However much of a liability he thought that man was, there was no denying he did excellent work.

Nick Lewis was sitting down to dinner in his suburban house with his wife and two year old daughter, when he faintly heard his cell phone start to ring in the next room. He quickly rose to get it but his wife Emma beat him to it. She walked out of the dining room with a playful smile on her face.

"Who is it?" Nick called to her nervously.

Emma came back in, looking at the display of her husband's phone. "Simon," she muttered. Nick tensely grabbed the phone from her and took it into the living room.

"Hello, sir," Nick answered.

"Lewis, I have a job for you today." 'Simon's' voice on the other end said to him without preamble.

"What sort of job?" Nick asked.

"Nothing big," Simon replied. "Just a bit of extra muscle for a minor operation we've got planned today."

"What sort of operation?"

"That's none of your concern, Lewis. Just report to me within the hour."

"Yes, sir. I will, sir." Nick hung up the phone and put it in his pocket. When he re-entered the dining room, Emma looked up at him expectantly.

"Everything okay?" she asked him.

"Yeah, that was just someone from work," Nick told her hastily. "I have to go in for a little while."

Emma's face fell. "You haven't been called into work for weeks and they do it now? We're in the middle of dinner, Nick."

Nick walked up to his wife and put his arms around her. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Emma rolled her eyes and kissed him lightly on the lips. Nick smiled and left the house. He walked down his driveway and remotely unlocked his car from five paces away.

A shot rang out and Nick fell to the ground.

The sniper that had killed him from a block away got back into his car and drive away, unnoticed. Emma heard the shot and went out to see what was happening. When she saw her husband's body, she let out a piercing scream and ran back into the house to dial the police.

Jack turned into Angeleno Avenue, and started looking for a run-down house, as Jennings had told him over his radio on the way there. Just under half way down the road, he saw a promising looking house, with a police unit waiting outside of it.

He pulled up, and got out of his car to meet them. He showed them his identification.

"Sergeant Jarrett," one of them identified himself. "We were told to stand down until you got here. From what we were told, this sounds like an act of terrorism, and that's your department."

Jack nodded. "I'll take a look inside. I'll have my radio on channel two, so I can tell you guys what I find."

He opened the front door, and walked inside. The house looked completely uninhabitable. Even though the sun was setting, there was still a moderate amount of daylight outside, but inside there was an eerie dinginess in the air, as well as a damp, rotting smell. The walls were crumbling and the ceiling looked close to caving in.

Jack walked up the stairs, carefully testing each step was strong enough before he put his full weight onto it. Once he was at the top of the landing he found the first body; a teenage girl. She was around fifteen years old, had dirty blonde hair and was wearing an old, faded jacket over a muddy shirt and worn jeans. All of her clothes were heavily stained with blood, which had originated from the deep cuts in both of her wrists. As hardened as Jack had become in all his years on the job, seeing her still-open eyes gaze blankly at the wall made him feel slightly sick. He took his radio out of his pocket.

"First body found on upstairs landing," he said in the most business-like tone he could muster. This was his job, after all, and he should not appear affected. "White teenage female, wrists slit. Proceeding to search bedrooms."

The first room he looked in was completely bare, free from both bodies and furniture. The second room contained only a bed. Its wrought-iron rails were greatly rusted and there was no mattress or bedclothes. When Jack came to the next door, he opened it slowly and the creaking echoed throughout the house. Less than two feet from the doorway was another body, this one of a young man who seemed to be of Islamic decent. His was wearing a thin light t-shirt with many holes in it, although Jack was not certain of its colour, given the darkness of the room, and the fact that it was almost completely covered in both dirt and dried blood from the slash across his throat. Just like the girl, his eyes were still open.

"Second body, Middle Eastern male, early twenties. Throat slit. So far both bodies seem to have been dead for at least a few hours if not more. The blood's dry but I don't see any signs of decay, so definitely not more than a day or two in this temperature."

There were no other rooms leading from the main corridor. Jack thought that perhaps the damage was not as severe as the report had suggested. He took out his flashlight and shone it around the room to see if there was any evidence there. He saw another door from the third room in a shadowy corner. Cautiously he walked towards it and turned the handle. When he walked inside, he could not believe what he saw.

The room was an on-suite bathroom, but every inch of the floor was covered in bodies, and the bath by the wall opposite the door was filled over the top with corpses. Jack had to lean over at least two bodies to reach the grimy toilet; he lifted the lid and retched into it. He spat the remains in his mouth into the bowl before putting the lid back down and wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve.

"Estimated between thirty to forty bodies in bathroom adjoining the bedroom at the end of the hall," he said into his radio, fighting to keep his voice from wavering. "Of the ones visible, cause of death for all seems to be stabbings or lacerations."

Jack peered through the gloom at all of them. Not one looked like they were older than twenty-five. He could see dead people of every colour, so that ruled out racial attacks.

"Agent Bauer?" a voice called from the other side of the door. A man walked into the bathroom, and instantly Jack saw a wave of disgust flicker across his face as he entered. "Officer Roland, Homicide," he identified himself, and Jack noticed for the first time that he was wearing an LAPD uniform. When he spoke, he was careful to look only at Jack, and not at anything else in the room. "Chief Hendrix sent me in to accompany you, he thought you could use a hand sorting through the… this," he finished somewhat timidly.

"Thanks," Jack replied. "I can see now why your captain thought this could be an act of terrorism. We need to get these bodies ID'ed, figure out if there was any link between them or if it was just a random slaughter."

Roland nodded, still not taking his gaze off of Jack. "Personnel at the morgue have already been notified of a possible heavy arrival."

"Good. We need to find out as much as we can before they're moved though. They've been thrown around pretty carelessly so I doubt this was a personal attack on any of them. What do we know about them? They all seem quite young…" Jack started.

For the first time since coming in, Roland looked properly around the room. Even though he looked absolutely appalled, Jack admired the fact that Roland did not vomit as he had.

"Diverse ethnicity," Roland continued. "All seem quite poorly dressed, and… oh god…"

"What?" Jack asked, looking at him.

"All of their eyes are open."

"David, are you all right? David!"

Wayne Palmer held onto his brother as he gasped for breath. The President clutched his chest and steadied himself. Eventually, his breathing returned to normal and he was able to stand up straight.

"It's nothing," Palmer replied firmly.

"David, it's clearly not nothing. I wish you would listen to me, you're not fit enough to run the country," Wayne retorted.

"Please, we've had this discussion a thousand times."

"And we'll have it a thousand more until you start to see sense. I'll be honest, I don't like seeing you like this. I know if the public knew what condition you were really in, they wouldn't be confident in your ability to lead the country."

"So what do you suggest?" Palmer asked simply. "That I give command of this country back to Prescott?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Wayne said impatiently. "You know how I feel about Prescott anyway. While you were in that coma, and when you were still recovering, it was all I could do to work for him, especially after he tried to take control of this country anyway from you."

"Water under the bridge, Wayne," Palmer said with a slight chuckle entering his voice.

"The bottom line is, you're still not fully recuperated. If, God forbid, an incident arose, I don't have faith that you would be up to it. You know I'm right, David, deep down."

Palmer sighed, unable to deny the truth in his brother's words. "Then let us pray that this country remains safe."

Jennings walked out of his office and down onto the floor. He approached Adrian Rouse, head of the communications department.

"Adrian, we heard anything from Jack yet?" he asked.

"No, sir," he replied. "But we do have the exact address of the house he's looking at." He opened a new window on his computer, which contained a street map with a red circle in the middle, indicating where the house was.

"What do we know about the place?" Jennings asked.

"Not much, sir," Adrian answered. "No registered owner for at least the last five years. Looks like it's just been abandoned."

Jennings thought for a moment. "Get in touch with someone in the police unit on sight. I had a feeling there might be trouble when I first got the call, I don't want to stay out of communication with them. Anything could be happening over there and we wouldn't know."

Jack and Roland had helped the other policemen load most of the bodies onto stretchers and taken them out of the building until there were less than ten remaining.

"Agent Roland do you copy?" said a voice on Roland's radio.

"I copy," Roland replied.

"You have a 10-47 in progress. Please step outside."

"Acknowledged," Roland said. "I'm sorry Jack, I'll be right back."

Jack nodded at him as he walked out of the room. He surveyed the room once again when he was alone. All of the bathroom fixtures were chipped and filthy, the mirror was cracked and the single window was so mucky that it would not have let in the daylight even if it was noon. Jack looked at the bodies still be to taken away, they were all in the bathtub. One man lying face up had no recognisable injury, although another body covered most of his chest. Jack lifted up the woman on top of him and saw a dozen stab marks covering his torso. As he moved the woman, a vast amount of change fell out of her pocket, making a loud clanging against the enamel of the bath, causing Jack to jump. Now that he thought about it, lots of the victims had carried change in their pocket when they had been removed, but none had any paper money or wallets. Jack realised how rough they all looked…

"Jack," he heard Roland say behind him.

"Roland, listen," Jack said as he turned around to face the police officer. "I think these people were all homeless. They look so downtrodden and dirty. I'm sure that means the murderer or murderers killed just for the sake of killing, just to amass a body count. But why?"

Roland furrowed his brow. "I don't know, it's a good theory though."

Jack suddenly noticed that Roland was looking only at the bodies in the bathtub, while previously he had been doing his best not to look at them, even when he was placing them onto stretchers. Jack took in the rest of Roland's person, and noticed his right hand was twitching, as though he were tempted to reach for his gun. Something was very wrong.

"Maybe you should radio your captain, let him know what I just said," Jack told him casually.

"Sure thing," Roland agreed, but as his right hand reached for his radio, Jack lunged at him. He twisted the right arm behind his back and grabbed his gun, before tucking it into his belt and putting Roland into a full headlock.

"What the hell, Bauer?" Roland demanded as he and Jack struggled.

"Don't play dumb with me," Jack barked. "What's going on here?"

"I don't know what you're talking ab-- ah!" he screamed as Jack grabbed his neck and started choking him.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you don't give me some answers!" Jack spat, loosening the pressure slightly in case Roland wanted to talk.

"Okay!" Roland screamed. "I've been told to treat you as a hostile, and this just proves it!"

"Who gave you that information?" Jack commanded.

"The station. I was told to take you into custody, but to wait for an opportune moment. They said you wouldn't go down without a fight."

"Well at least you got that part right," Jack said with a smirk.

Suddenly, Roland broke free from Jack's grip and swung around at him, but without missing a beat Jack shoved him with all his strength. Roland flew back across the room and hit his head on the wall, falling unconscious to the ground.

Jack cocked Roland's gun, his own was still in its holster at his side. He peered as best as he could out of the translucent bathroom window into the darkness outside and saw an entire police unit out there. He was surrounded.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

"Adrian, have you got in touch with LAPD yet?" Jennings asked.

"No, and they don't seem to want to put me through," Adrian said. He had only just put the phone down after trying once again to get in touch with them.

"What? Why would that be?" Jennings said.

"I don't know. I get the feeling they're stonewalling."

"Let me do this," Jennings suggested. He dialled central dispatch on speakerphone from Adrian's station. "This is Gary Jennings, Director of the Counter Terrorist Unit," he said when a woman answered. "Can you put me through to the police unit sent to the house in Burbank to back up one of my agents?"

"Hold for one second please," the woman told him. After a pause she started to talk again. "Sir, I have been told that the unit is handling a situation and are not to be disturbed."

"I don't care what you've been told," Jennings snapped. "We have jurisdiction on this case, put me through now, or let me talk to your superior."

"I'll connect you with the officer on site," the woman said.

As the call was being transferred, Adrian said to Jennings, " 'Handling a situation', that's what they kept saying to me. I don't buy it."

Before Jennings could comment, a man spoke on the phone.

"This is Sergeant Jarrett. Who am I talking to?"

"Gary Jennings, Head of CTU. Can I speak to agent Jack Bauer?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Jennings, Agent Bauer is indisposed. He's inside the house and we shouldn't interrupt him. We'll make sure to have him call you when he's available."

Jarrett hung up. Jennings and Adrian traded looks.

"What the hell is going on over there?" Adrian said.

"I don't know," Jennings replied. He hoped nothing had happened to Jack. If it had, it would be all his fault.

Was it a mistake? Or is somebody out to get me? thought Jack as he continued to look at the police outside waiting for him. He knew that whatever the reason, if he stepped out of the house, they would take him into custody. Meanwhile there was a mass murderer on the loose who had killed a lot of people and was definitely willing and perhaps even planning to kill a lot more. He had to escape.

There were at least 12 armed men out there. But he was Jack Bauer, he reminded himself. He could do this.

Looking around the room, he started to formulate a plan. It was by no means perfect, in fact he didn't think his odds were very good. He walked over to the bathroom sink and turned a tap on. Thankfully, the water was still working, and he splashed some cold water on Roland's face. Roland started to stir, and eventually opened his eyes.

"Hey," Jack snapped before he could say anything, and made sure his eyes were focussed and he was not dazed. "Listen to me; I am innocent, and I don't care whether you believe it or not. But I am not going into custody, I know those people, they would keep me in there, going through hours or days of bureaucracy, until they finally realised I had done nothing wrong, by which time this killer could have struck again. So you're going to help me get away."

"Go to hell, Bauer," Roland said. "I'm not helping you."

Jack smiled. "I don't need you to do anything, I just need you conscious."

He held up Roland's own gun and scooped the man up. Jack pushed Roland against a wall and patted him down to make sure he was not carrying any more weapons. Once he was satisfied, he grasped Roland in a hostage position. He roughly dragged him out of the room and down the stairs.

"And you say you're innocent," Roland sneered as they went. "What's the plan, Jack? You're gonna get away from the whole unit just because you've got me as your hostage? That'll never work."

"Shut up," Jack spat as they got to the front door.

The instant he opened the door, the air filled with the sound of a dozen guns being drawn and cocked. Sergeant Jarrett stepped forward.

"Release Officer Roland, Bauer," he called.

"First tell me what it is you think I've done," Jack yelled back at him.

"We weren't given specifics," Jarrett replied. "But they said you'd turned and we needed to take action. Now let Roland go."

Jack took a few steps out of the door, still keeping a tight hold on Roland. "Which one is your squad car?" Jack murmured to him.

"Second left from the corner," Roland replied grudgingly.

Slowly, Jack walked towards the car. The rest of the police never took their guns off of him. When they got close, Jack pushed Roland a few steps ahead of him but kept his gun carefully pointed at his head.

"Get in," Jack said shortly, indicating the driving seat. Roland got into the car, but as he closed the door another officer charged at Jack. He was too busy looking at Roland to react, and the officer was able to immobilise him. One of the others placed handcuffs on him.

"Jack Bauer," said Sergeant Jarrett with some satisfaction. "You have the right to remain silent."

7:00pm