The following takes place between 9:00 am and 10:00 am

24 Day Six Redo
Written By: The Ascended Ancient

A/N: Ok, I really wasn't happy with season six. I felt the show tried to take things too far, making the situation so extreme that it became utterly unbelievable. And along the way, this crazy, twisted story fell back on reusing old storylines that had been overplayed already, not the least of which being a third nuclear threat plotline and a rehashing of the invoking of the 21st amendment from season two, albeit with a different outcome. Overall, I felt Day Six was the worst so far, and I am sincerely hoping that Day Seven is better. However, until then, I've decided to post a rewritten outline of what Day Six could've been. The few things that I liked in the season, including Jack's trauma (which will be extended over a much longer episode arc and will have a greater impact on the story), will be woven into a completely different plotline that deals with a completely different terrorist threat (the threat may seem nearly identical at the beginning, but I promise you it is going in a very different direction than the TV show went). Now, on with the story.

The following takes place between 9:00 am and 10:00 am

Events occur in real time

9:00 am – A man steps out of his house and gets into his car. Before he gets the chance to even turn the key in the ignition, a man who was hiding in his back seat reaches over and jams a hypodermic needle into his neck. The man struggles for a few moments before falling over dead. The killer quickly moves him into the passenger seat and places himself behind the wheel, driving the car out onto the road.

9:02 am – In Washington, D.C., President Wayne Palmer gathers his cabinet members for an emergency briefing. Among those present are Chief of Staff Tom Lennox and National Security Advisor Karen Hayes. Videoconferencing in are others, including Vice-President Noah Daniels and Secretary of Defense Audrey Raines. At the moment, Lennox is checking in with everyone as they await the President.

9:04 am – In Los Angeles, Bill Buchanan gets a phone call from President Palmer, who instructs him to gather his team immediately. The President wants CTU Los Angeles to quarterback this operation. When Buchanan asks what operation the President is talking about, Wayne tells him that he'll find out within the hour.

9:09 am – In the skies just off the Pacific coastline, Special Operative Cheng of the Chinese Government gets a call from President Palmer. Cheng asks if China's demands are being met, and Wayne assures him that the final preparations to finalize the deal are under way. Cheng then calls his superiors in China to relay this information. They instruct him to keep the plane just outside of US airspace until final confirmation in case the Americans try to pull something. They both agree that if the deal doesn't go through then it's not worth releasing their prisoner.

9:15 am – Geoffery Thompson, an analyst at an NSA think tank just outside of Manhattan arrives at work. His superiors inform him that today's assignment will be to work on scenarios to counter a broad-scale domestic threat.

9:17 am – The killer from the car drops the body off in a dumpster, but not before stealing the man's wallet. It contains a CTU keycard, which he immediately places into a machine to reprogram it.

9:20 am – President Palmer arrives to brief his staff. He informs them that several days ago he was contacted by a man named Abu Fayed. Overall, he is a mid level player in the network of Middle Eastern terrorists, with only a small cell at his command. However, he has already demonstrated how dangerous he is. President Palmer makes reference to an explosion at an office building in Los Angeles that was declared at accident in the official report, but was in fact an act of terrorism orchestrated by Fayed. So far they have been unable to get any leads on him, and considering his ability to penetrate and inflict damage upon a high-value target like that office building means that he is dangerous. Returning to the subject of the phone call, Wayne tells his cabinet members that Fayed claimed to be capable of carrying out a wide range of such attacks with impunity, however he only has one demand: that Jack Bauer be turned over to him.

9:26 am – In a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, Abu Fayed gives out orders to his men. He lays out a series of street addresses that are clearly his next targets. He says that if President Palmer doesn't come through and confirm the deal within the next half hour they are to launch the attack.

9:28 am – Ryland Williams, District Director of CTU, gets off the phone after confirming to Bill Buchanan that he doesn't know anything more about what's going on than he does. Going back out onto the floor of his office, he sees someone he doesn't recognize. It's the killer from the car, who identifies himself as Jacob Sanders and claims to be a new employee assigned to do some maintenance work on the servers. He produces his access card to prove it, and everything checks out.

9:32 am – CTU's full staff begins to arrive. Some of them are slow getting in; apparantly they were told that they would get a few days off after a long case they had recently dealt with. Milo Pressman is already there, he's the head of the beta shift analysts. Greg Peterson, CTU's new second-in-command, and Curtis Manning, head of field ops, have just arrived. Meanwhile, Chloe and Morris O'Brian are said to be only about five minutes out. Peterson meets with Buchanan, and Bill jokes that even though Greg has only been at the post for a little over a week he's already seen a huge amount of action, what with the incident two days ago and whatever was brewing right now. Greg insists that he's up to the challenge.

9:34 am – Back at the President's briefing, an obviously upset Audrey Raines struggles to remain calm while reiterating what Wayne has just said for clarity. Apparently, Jack killed Fayed's brother during his Special Forces days, and Fayed wants revenge. If they turn Jack over to him, not only will Fayed not make any more attacks on American soil, but he'll also hand over intelligence that will allow US forces to locate and kill Hamri Al-Assad, a very powerful Middle Eastern separatist responsible for masterminding a great deal of the terrorist and insurgent activity throughout the region. She finishes off by stating that all of that would be a remarkable result, but she didn't realize the United States government participated in assisted murder to accomplish its ends. Wayne sympathizes with Audrey; he claims that this decision isn't any easier for him. He doesn't want to see Jack die, however he accuses Audrey of being naive with her statement that this is something the US government hasn't done before. Hard choices have to be made in the interest of national security. Wayne believes that he's made the right decision, and he tells Audrey that if her emotional state prevents her from performing her duties, he'll relieve her of them for the remainder of the day. Audrey assures him that she will carry out her orders.

9:37 am – Jacob Sanders enters the server room at the district office and connects his laptop to the mainframe. He immediately tracks down some restricted files, and with a little hacking is able to bypass the security and begin to download them.

9:39 am – At CTU, Bill briefs his staff on what he knows, which isn't much. President Palmer has made CTU LA the point unit in an operation that will begin very shortly. The details haven't come forward yet, but every agency in the country is on high alert. For the moment, they need to assume the worst and plan for it accordingly. When the call comes in, Bill wants his office already on the ball.

9:44 am - After a few more minutes of debate, Wayne finally quiets all other objections to his plan, and gets most of his advisors, even Audrey, to back it. Vice-President Daniels and a few others are holdouts, and Wayne informs them politely that he'll take their advice into consideration, however he's made his decision. Lastly, he informs everyone that what has been discussed there is under the highest level of classification.

9:46 am – Outside the meeting room, Tom Lennox pulls Wayne aside for a moment and tells him that he doesn't need to convene the cabinet for everything. Wayne replies by saying that he likes to have everyone onboard with what he's doing. His brother once underestimated the danger that a cabinet that doesn't have faith in you can become, and he's not about to make that same mistake, "especially considering what's going to happen over the next twenty-four hours." Tom asks what Wayne would do if history ends up repeating itself. Wayne dodges the question.

9:48 am – Milo Pressman prepares to check out for the day now that the Alpha shift in in, but Chloe stops him. She says that they need their best people on station right now, and that includes him. For the remainder of the day, he'll be working for her.

9:50 am – Wayne returns to his office and makes a call to Bill to give him the full briefing on the situation.

9:51 am – Geoffery and his team make their preliminary report: a widespread attack in a major metropolitan area under the parameters laid out by their supervisor would result in anywhere from two to three thousand casualties, and if it was carried out swiftly enough it could be unstoppable.

9:53 am – Cheng receives a call from his government saying that the Americans have kept up their end of the bargain. He orders his pilot to set a course for Los Angeles and calls the President, thanking him for working out this excellent deal and informing him that they will be landing in LAX in thirty minutes. He then goes to the back of the plane and removes the hood from his prisoner, revealing a bearded and disheveled Jack Bauer. He informs Jack that they shall be landing shortly; his government has finally set him free.

9:56 am – Buchanan is obviously very troubled by his conversation with the President. Nevertheless, he calls his team in to brief them.

9:57 am – Fayed receives a call from Palmer telling him that everything has been set in motion. Jack Bauer will be his within the hour. Fayed then proceeds to call his men and tell them to make sure that they're in position. Phase One is almost complete, and they should be ready to carry out the attacks for Phase Two in two hours. When this is all done, according to Fayed, the people of his country, "will learn that the coward Al-Assad is not the only man they can turn to for deliverance."

9:59 am – Sanders finishes his work in the server room by opening up one of the mainframes and placing a bomb inside. It has a timer and it counting down from ninety minutes. Sanders replaces the panel on the mainframe to conceal what he's put inside and quickly leaves the room.

10:00 am

A/N: So, not much happened action wise in this one. That'll change quite soon, trust me on that one. And I know that the threat assessment included that only puts three thousand people at risk is a rather small number for a show where hundreds of thousands of lives have been at stake, but trust me: this story, in true 24 tradition, will get much, much more complicated as it goes along, and the stakes will get much, much higher.

By the way, REVIEW!!