Brian Hastings had spent the majority of his adult life working diligently towards attaining the respect, power and influence that he held as director of the New York branch of the CTU. He had assembled a staff of skilled, competent professionals to wok under him and carefully cultivated an air of aloof cool to project an aura of leadership an keep a professional distance between himself an his employees.
It was only appropriate.
For the first several months of his command of the re-established CTU, things went smoothly. Of course, they didn't have a whole lot of action, just training and Intel analysis.
Then the sky fell, bombs went off and the stress and danger ratcheted up about 10,000 notches. His staff of hundreds, as well as countless other government agencies, the NSA, FBI, CIA, to name a few, were on the case. Each and every one of them trying to stop any further terrorist attacks from a Ki Pao terrorist cell.
An who had succeeded in saving the day. The CIA and their spooks and informants? No. The FBI with their huge staff and networks? Nope. The CTU? He wished.
NO, national, possibly global Armageddon was averted by a retired grandfather and a stay at home mom. The thought made the corner of Hastings's eye twitch. It just wasn't right.
Neither was the fact that, when the crisis had passed, President Allison Taylor, a big fan of the pair, reinstated Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien to the CTU without consulting Hastings, who felt more than a little snubbed by this.
He was also unnerved. As their supervisor, he was now responsible for the two of them and frankly it was a daunting prospect. Neither was known for being a team player (outside of their own little two person team) and they were more or less a rogue force.
But they got the job done. Each of them had their own reputations and as a pair they had foiled countless terrorist attacks, not always while in the employ of any government agency. And that sort of skill tended to make people nervous. It wasn't everyday you met a couple of people you were pretty damn sure had the ability to overthrow any government with a laptop and a glock.
Not that Hastings thought they would do that, but they could. Apparently, President Taylor felt the same and decided having them on the payroll was preferable to having them wander around completely unchecked. As CTU employees, there was a chance of maintaining at least limited control over them and, failing that, they might be able to keep track of their activities, maybe take part in the ops.
After all, it would look bad if word ever got out that a pair of civilians repeatedly did the jobs of several intelligence agencies. Bad, bad press and all.
So today a rogue element was being introduced into his nice, carefully chosen staff. Bauer was to take over as head of field ops and O'Brien as lead analyst and comms operator. The last agent in charge of field ops had died in the Ki Pao attacks, but Dana Walsh was extremely, and understandably, pissed about her demotion for inexperience and the general cluster fuck she had made of the intel gathering before the recent attacks.
Dissent among the ranks was not something Hastings liked to deal with , so he'd just stand back and see how things played out. Sometimes, being a leader meant allowing your people to work things out on their own. At least, that's what he told himself, as he looked out the window of his office over the main floor below. Things were about to get interesting.
TBC…………..
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