Disclaimer: I do not own any of the 24 characters. FOX does.

The following takes place between Day 1 and Day 2 of Twenty-Four

The following takes place between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.

08:00:00 --- 08:00:01 --- 08:00:02 --- 08:00:03

C.T.U.

It is the beginning of another working day at Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles. The staff are busy, as always, checking backgrounds and collecting intel. Michelle Dessler walks in and starts up her terminal. She glances up. The glass office on the upper floor is empty. Jack Bauer's office. He's been through so much lately, she thinks. Her thoughts are suddenly interrupted by Tony Almeida approaching.

"Tony, good morning. Had a nice weekend?"

"Just another weekend," Tony keeps his head low as he passes by Michelle on his way to his own desk, Cubs mug in hand. He isn't ready to cultivate a personal conversation yet. "Has anyone run back up on last night's intel? I can't seem to find the last six hours worth of data." He feels like he's talking to himself as he punches numbers that blur into oblivion on the screen.

"I don't know. I'll check it myself." Michelle starts typing away on her keyboard immediately. How could they lose that much data? And it's still so early in the morning. Not even a cup of coffee in sight yet.

"No, no, no...stop." Tony runs his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry, I'm just...nevermind. You've got other stuff to take care of. The back up is my job." He forgot to do it. Another in a growing list of mistakes.

"Hey, Michelle? You never told me how your weekend went. How's your brother?"

George Mason's car

George Mason is driving down the highway towards CTU returning from another crap breakfast meeting at division.

He thinks: Seriously, Brad Hammond is such an idiot he'll probably strangle himself with a cordless phone one of these days.

He'd been waiting months to hear from Palmer, but now he had his cushy office job (well Oval Office job) people like George had been sent to the bottom rung of the ladder.

He arrives at CTU, parks the car and enters the building for another day of merriment. The security guard on the door says "morning"

George: "Morning Dave."

George liked Dave. He was an undemanding pleasant guy, who never asked George about crime statistics and terror threats, but about stuff like the Raiders games and the price of beer.

As he reaches CTU's main floor, George spots Tony Almeida and Michelle Dessler and wonders if the two have admitted their feelings to themselves or each other yet. Unlikely, would be his bet.

Michelle: "He's okay Tony, thanks for asking. Look, since I'm already on it, I'll just try to find out what happened, ok?"

George walks in on them: "Tony, anything fun happen, while I got my wrists slapped over a cup of decaff?"

Michelle sees George walking in and stops talking. He and his sarcastic comments all the time, she's thinking. Like they always had time to joke about things. Moments like these, she was somehow missing Jack. It was sort of easier to work when he was there. Everybody knew what they had to do and he had a way with George that nobody else dared do.

Tony shared a knowing glance with Michelle then stood from his chair to meet his boss as he walked to his office. "We're getting together the overnight tracking data as well as new intel from the borders. I'll have it on your desk in an hour. And, can I suggest you switch to regular? You look beat."

"Yeah a meeting at Division can do that to you. Oh we've got another one Thursday, they want both of us there. Some new infra-structure initiative or something." George said dismissing it with a casual wave of the hand.

Tony: "You know, I really can't make that meeting. Sorry." He really didn't have the patience to hear babble about new technology that he'd have to learn whether he liked it or not. "Anyway, that intel...why don't I go get that?" Tony didn't wait for an answer as he walked away back to his desk, back to his mug.

Michelle looks at Tony from behind her screen. He's so tense, she's thinking. But who can blame him? The job was demanding and he, well he was just too cute, she chuckles to herself. She gets up from her desk and walks over to him

Michelle: "Tony, are you ok? You seem so... absent today."

Tony: "I'm fine. Look, just because there's no terrorist threat today doesn't mean that we can sit back and relax. There's work to be done!" Tony looks up at the same time he pounds his fist on his desk and realizes he has been shouting. All eyes are on him. "Sometimes it's like trying to rescue a sinking ship around here!" Numbly, he finds his way to the men's room, the only place for peace and quiet.

Michelle is totally baffled at this reply. This roughness about Tony, it was not like him at all. At least, not normally. In fact, it was a new thing that had developed in the last few months. It takes her a few seconds, but as he walks away to the men's room, she takes a deep breath and turns to the paper shufflers around her.

Michelle: "Okay, the show is over. Everybody back to work..."

Then she glances upstairs. Mason witnessed the entire scene. Of course he did. And he's going to want to know what's happening with Tony. She quickly looks away again and goes back to her desk, sitting down and returning to her work.

Bauer house .

It's still dark inside, the shutters are down. The house seems unlived-in. There is a KEEP OUT! sign on Kim's door.

We take a look in Jack's bedroom. He's in bed, fully dressed, sleeping. A framed photograph lies on the pillow next to him, he's holding it. Between his fingers, we can make out the face of his late wife Teri on the photograph.

The townhouse of the Attorney General, Peter Mills .

The AG is getting ready for another Monday at work. His wife and children are already in the kitchen, his breakfast is waiting. He's in a good mood, he had spent most of the weekend making last changes on a new legislation and he was going to present it today. It would make it easier for the Government to get their hands on the many culprits who were scheming against the country. It would allow doing more against them and getting results faster. There was no doubt about it, it would pass. He puts on his tie and walks into the kitchen, heartily greeting his family. Then he sits down at the table and pours himself a cup of coffee.

CTU

From his desk above the CTU floor George has just witnessed Tony's outburst. He knows full well what's wrong with Tony, it's the same feeling he himself has been having, but in their position they have very little choice, orders from above mean that they have to do what they're told, regardless of how they feel about it.

Michelle suddenly stops typing. "This can't be!", she's thinking. They've got an intruder in the system. Somebody has been stealing data during the night. No wonder Tony lost the backup. She makes a few clicks and punches in some codes until she's secured the system again. Then she looks around, still no sign of Tony, so she calls up George. "We've had an intruder in the system. I've blocked them out and I'm going to update the security but I don't know how much data was stolen. Do you wanna run this by Division?"

George sighs to himself, thinking, Great. That's all I need, Division hassling me about security on top of everything else! to Michelle: "See if you can find out what was taken first. I'd rather not bring in the guys across the freeway until we have to."

Michelle: "OK. I'll let you know as soon as I find out." , she answers and hangs up the phone. She is feeling observed, but as she looks around, she notices nothing suspicious. I can't believe I'm still paranoid about our staff , she's thinking. "Everything's alright. Pull yourself together, Michelle.", she says to herself and with a sigh, goes back to work.

Somewhere in the city

A man is sitting in a car, driving downtown. He's whistling to a song on the radio. Next to him on the passenger's seat lies a bag from which the tip of a rifle barrel is protruding.

CTU bathroom

Tony stands by the sink, leaning on the wall, his face in his hands. He'd been told to talk to someone. No one would or could ever understand. But now, as he looks at himself in the mirror, he thinks talking may be better than holding it all in. What good is working non-stop in an attempt to clear your mind when you just keep going back to the scene of the crime? Tony splashes water on his face and walks back to his desk. Except he makes a stop one desk over. "Hey," it appears he has startled Michelle, "I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Michelle looks up: "Don't worry about it, it's alright, we're all still a bit tense...", she pauses, but she is glad he's come to make amends. "Listen Tony, we have a bigger problem right now. The data we lost last night, they didn't just take a walk. We had unauthorized access, somebody's been stealing data and I can't figure out who."

The words ring warning bells in his head. Not again. Not something out of this office... "Maybe it's just a glitch. Sometimes the tech's have to reroute the data because of new security codes." Tony types in an access code that should bring up all out-lying sources that have tapped into the system in the last twelve to fourteen hours.

"Okay, look, there." He points to a row of numbers popping up. "That sequence doesn't match CTU's. Our tech's don't have zeros in the first three digits. We need to run a trace but I don't think that's going to work. We'll need to see if we can figure out how it crawled in in the first place."

"Right.", Michelle answers to Tony. Oh, this is not going to be one of those days again, is it?, she's thinking. The security - her job. This intruder - her mistake, obviously. This morning was not going well. Not well at all. "OK, Tony, I'll try to track it down, at least I'll give it a try."

somewhere

Meanwhile, while Jack was at home, Kim Bauer was not where her father thought she would be. Nor did she ever have any intention of going back to school.

"What's Daddy up to these days?"

Kim shrugged her shoulders as the question was tossed at her again. She was used to her friends making fun of her dad. She didn't like it but they gave her a ride anywhere, what could she do? "Wasting away as usual. Where to today?"

"Riverside. Thought we'd go shopping." Tammy shook her stringy hair as she smiled. "We'll meet Kelly there."

"Sounds good. Let's get going." Kim couldn't wait to get her mind off of everything.

somewhere else

The man in the car pulls up in front of a building, takes his bag out and unlocks the gate surrounding the house, then walks in and takes the elevator to the top floor.

CTU
Tony decided keeping George out of the loop on this newest security breach might be a good thing for now. He sends a quick set of data to George's system to keep him satisfied for awhile then pulls Michelle off her workstation and down a corridor. "Michelle, this should probably stay between us for now, okay?"

Michelle pauses for a second before she answers. She knows she's probably going to cause Tony to lose his temper again, but she needs to say what she thinks.

Michelle: "What do you mean, keep George out of this? I don't know about that, he's gonna want information, I mean he already knows about the data being lost. He's not involving Division for now, but he needs to know what we know."

Even though we know next to nothing at this point, she admits to herself.

Tony crosses his arms. Michelle was right but after all that had transpired, he feels this should be their course of action. "I'll take the fall for this one. It's just a gut feeling but I don't think George needs to have reason to lock down CTU again. We need as much access to our inner systems for as long as possible. Last time...it was a total disaster." He tried a smile, maybe it would work. "I need to make a phone call."

Peter Mills' townhouse
The AG gets up from the table. "Alright, now. Be good, boys. Do as your Mommy says.", he says, as he gives his kids a quick tap on the head. The boys answer "Bye Daddy!" and continue eating their cereals. Peter kisses his wife goodbye, "See you tonight." "Good luck, Peter.", Helen answers. Then he walks out of the kitchen, grabs his briefcase and his car keys. "Bye!", he calls again, as he goes out the front door and starts walking the few steps towards the garage.

Suddenly, a bullet hits him right between the eyes. He collapses, hitting the ground. Somebody shouts "Call an ambulance!" Helen, followed by her boys, comes running out of the house and seeing Peter dead, screams in shock, unable to move. The previously unmentioned Nanny ushers the kids back inside the house, to spare them the sight. More people stop to see what's happening. In the panic that follows, a woman takes Mills' briefcase and slowly walks away with it.

The sniper disassembles his rifle and puts the parts back into the bag. He closes the window, walks past a dead woman with a bullet in her temple, and cautiously walks out of the top-floor apartment, into the corridor and takes the elevator down. In his car, as he drives away, he takes out his cell phone, dials a number and curtly says "It's done."

another car

Tammy leaves Kim in the car, as she stops at a remote corner, and gets out. She meets someone, and Kim can see her exchanging something with the person before she turns around and comes back to the car.

"Did you just buy drugs?", Kim asks, shocked.

"Oh come on, don't you play little Miss Perfect here. If you wanna keep getting these free rides out of school, you'll keep your mouth shut, got it?", Tammy turns on the engine and drives off.

CTU

Tony slipped into an interrogation room and shut the door behind him. The number he dialed was one he wasn't sure he should have. When the answering machine picked up, he was certain he had made a mistake. He didn't bother leaving a message on Jack's machine.

Okay, Tony, we'll play this your way, Michelle thinks as she walks back to her desk. He was right, after all. All that Division would do is send someone over and lock them down again. They really didn't need that. She looks up to the upper-floor office. George, for once, doesn't seem to observe them. As she looks at her screen, she notices the trace is finished.
trace completed. no location detected., a pop-up window informs her. "Figured as much." she says, as she's about to switch to another program to try a different approach, when a code catches her attention. Entering it in a different mask gives her a name:

Almeida, Tony.

"What?" , Michelle can't believe her eyes. No, no, no, Tony is clean, he has to be. Why would he be stealing data in such a clumsy way and then let her trace it back to him, she says to herself, but nevertheless feels her pulse rising as she sees him coming out of the interrogation room. Who did he call? Can she trust him? Of course you can trust him. It's Tony, for goodness sake! Somebody from the outside hacked in and somehow found out his security code, for sure. Tony has got nothing to do with this. Her thoughts are racing away as she quickly switches to a different window and smiles at him nervously while he approaches her on the way to his desk. Did he notice her uneasiness? She found it hard to lie to Tony, she wouldn't know what to say to him at this moment, apart from the truth.

"Hey, I just wanted to thank you for helping out on this. I know it's not easy." Tony easily let the words come out. It was true. He'd been in her place before. "Anything yet? Might as well check while I'm here." He takes a look at her screen. "Sometimes there are routing issues that make the traces hit bumps in the road. We just need to be careful is all I'm saying."

"No, it's alright, Tony, I can handle this.", Michelle quickly replies, in an effort to keep him away from her keyboard, "The trace is finished, the system showed nothing. I'm gonna try the unconventional route. I'll let you know if something pops up, okay?", she says, hoping her answer will satisfy him for the time being. She needs a chance to find out for sure what's going on.

The phone in George's - well, Jack's actually - office rings. He is informed that the Attorney General has been assassinated and sensitive documents disappeared, including the new Legislation and a disc with the newest data on the most wanted terrorists.

not far from the residence

The mystery woman gets into a limousine a couple of blocks away. The car drives off. She hands the briefcase she took off the AG to an older man in the back seat. "Thank you", he says. "You've been very helpful". He reaches over to her side and gives her a hug, then with a sudden movement, breaks her neck. As the car passes a deserted area, he opens the back door and pushes her body out onto the roadside.

Tammy's car

"Pull over!" Kim's had it. They aren't going to the mall anytime soon and she's sick of Tammy's driving. She'd rather be on her own today, anyway. It's been a bad week. "Let me out!"

"What's the matter, sweetie? Don't like coke? I know all about your little weed habit, so don't go getting on my back about how drugs are bad for you." Tammy jerks to a stop fast enough to send Kim to the side of the car and giving Tammy the chance to slip the coke into Kim's open purse.

"Forget it," Kim jumps from the car, "I'll get a cab!"

"You'll get more than that!" And Tammy cannot wait until Kim gets hers, that little goody two shoes.

Kim holds her purse tightly and watches her ride speed away. Now what? She's alone in a bad part of town. Great. Guess it's time to start walking.

CTU

George reads through the information he's been sent on the data that's been stolen. "Great, all we need; a faulty network and a missing briefcase full of intel. Could be a long one today." He sends a priority call to Division asking who the suspects are.

Bauer house

Jack wakes up, and slowly sits up in his bed. He carefully picks up the photo of Teri from the pillow and sits there, sadly staring at it.

After a while, he gets up and walks out of the bedroom, and into Kim's room. Finding that she left to school (or so he thinks), he turns to leave, when the tip of a tiny plastic bag in a slightly open drawer catches his eye. He takes it out, it's weed and some pills. "Great. On top of everything.".

They should have talked about Teri's death. They were both so wretched, but never managed to put their feelings into words. Well, apart from Kim letting him know on every occasion that she's holding him responsible for her mom's death - which, in the essence, he had to agree with. And now Kim was looking for the answers in drugs. He should have seen it coming, but he was too busy dealing with his own grief. "We're gonna have to talk when she comes back.", he decides and puts the bag back where he found it, closing the drawer. He walks towards the kitchen, passing by the phone. The light on the answering machine blinks but when he pushes the button to listen to the message, all he gets is a BEEP.

A private jet

A man in a leather seat picks up the phone. He's wearing a dark suit and his neck reveals a tattoo that reads Grace . "Are we secure?"

"Yes, it's rerouted.", a faceless employee answers.

The man in the suit dials an L.A. number.

CTU

"Tony, call for you on line 4."

Tony stared at Andre. Line 4 wasn't blinking but that's not what caught him off guard. That line was the international line left open for overseas needs. No one had that number and no one called unless it was an emergency. He picked up the phone hesitatingly, "CTU Almeida."

"Mr. Almeida, right now you are in the midst of a potential crisis. However, you have no idea just how bad it is going to get today. Keep a good head on your shoulder and your cell phone available at all times. We'll be in touch."

The call ended and Tony had no doubt it would be untraceable. He stole a glance at Michelle before heading to the IT room to take the chance he could get some lock on it before it funneled out of the system.

He was going to need help on this one. Tony knew he could trust Michelle, call it a gut instinct. He would just have to tell her everything. That and apologize ten times over for being a pain in the neck.

"Michelle, if you have a minute..." He stops abruptly as he comes to her workstation. She has pulled up his phone and email logs for the last week. "Are you checking up on me?" Tony's arms are crossed, his stance is defensive. Has he caught her being overly cautious or has he caught her trying to access something she shouldn't?

"Tony... Er... ", Michelle was caught by surprise, Why didn't I see him coming? She's nervous. An excuse, fast! Think, Michelle, think. "No, I wasn't checking up on you, I.. I mean, not only you. George wanted me to check everybody's outgoing communication of the last few days. You know, make sure everything is under control."

"Uh-huh,", Tony utters. Michelle's a bad liar. It's a wonder she got a job like this. "If you're really that interested in what I've been doing, just ask. You're going to find that I've contacted the federal prison where Nina's being held. Am I in contact with her or am I making sure they have her securely shackled? Guess we'll never know." Tony flips off the power switch to Michelle's computer. "Andre, Michelle's going to be busy backing up her files today. Can I get your help in the IT room?"

Andre, CTU's newest recruit in a long line of techies, runs to Tony's side. "The IT room? Did you get a line surge? We've been getting error messages lately. That may be to blame for the data being lost." He saw Tony's expression turn sour. "Sorry, I kind of overheard..."

"That's okay. No, it's not a line surge. I need a trace on a phone call but I need it your eyes only, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." Andre nods, takes the information, and heads for IT while Tony checks the latest intel that hopefully has come in.

Michelle watches Andre walk off. Great, now I've messed things up with Tony. Like there's not enough problems already... But I need to get the information. I have to know who to trust.

Then she remembers something and turns away from her desk, walking towards the IT. There's an empty office there from where she could get the necessary access without Tony seeing her.

In the black limo

The disc has been decoded. The man in the backseat opens up a few files, and seeing that it's working, closes them again and starts copying files to the hard drive. When it's done, he puts the disc in an envelope and slips it into the inner pocket of his jacket. He takes out his cell and dials a number.

"The package has arrived. When can we meet?... Understood." to the driver: "You have 20 minutes. Get us there."

CTU

He's making it harder on himself but he's sick of always being watched, always being looked at. Just because he dated Nina doesn't mean that he was involved with her operation. And now Michelle, of all people, is looking in on him? If she digs too far, she will find his sources and they're the only sources he's got.

Enough wallowing in self-pity. Tony logs into his email then goes online to check the AP news reports. He is stunned by the bulletin he's reading. It's not possible but it is...

"Okay, listen up people." Tony turns on the big screen TV (for lack of a better term) and uploads the report for everyone to see. "We've got a level 3 event. Attorney General Peter Mills has been assassinated at his home. Now, he was scheduled to present a new legislation to the Government today, we have to find out how this was connected to his assassination. We need to get a CSI team over to the scene immediately. Miranda will coordinate with the local law enforcement on that issue. Michelle, see what you can learn about the AG's and his wife's activities in the last 48 hours. Eventually we'll have to talk to the family, too. Okay, the rest of you know what to do. MOVE!"

08:59:57 --- 08:59:58 --- 08:59:59 --- 09:00:00