Kind of an alternate intro to season 5 because, frankly, I would rather that Tony and Michelle and Palmer never got killed.  Some similarities but also rather different. So, needless to say, some potential season 4 and 5 spoilers abound.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, 24 doesn't belong to me. If it did…well, I can think of someone who would be a better girlfriend for Jack than Audrey…

Bill Buchanan, director of CTU, stepped on to the floor early one Tuesday morning and called everyone's attention to him. "Okay everyone, if you can, put away your current assignment. We've been getting increased chatter out of central Asia and China and I want as much manpower focused on that as possible."

Bill was nervous whenever an issue came up with China, remembering what had happened eighteen months prior. As far as he knew, that incident with the Chinese consul had caused the death of agent Jack Bauer by a secret service agent sent to turn him over to the Chinese. Jack had tried to run, got in a shootout with the agent, and Tony Almeida found his body.

Robbed of their justice, Bill feared the Chinese would reopen the issue and lay the blame somewhere else; primarily, he feared it would fall on CTU, the agency Jack was working for at the time of the attack which killed the consul.

Bill called Chloe O'Brien to him and handed her a disc. "Chloe, can you try and pinpoint the source of some of these transmissions? I know you've got a lot else on your plate right now, but you're the best systems analyst we've got and I want this done quickly and efficiently."

Chloe nodded. "No problem, I can farm some of my other work to Spencer and Jay. I'll get right on it."

SCENE

"Frank! Hey, Frank, wait up a minute!"

The friendly face turned to look at George. "Hey, George," he said amiably.

"Hey, Frank. Just wanted to say sorry. I know I promised you some work today but one of the lines broke last night, we had to make more cuts."

"Don't worry about it, George, I'll try back tomorrow. If you'll excuse me, however, I need to go talk to Alan…"

Jack Bauer strolled up to the nearest building and entered. Alan was the general supervisor of the oil fields and a good guy, if not too bright. Jack wanted to ask him about something he had noticed the last few times he had gone out to work. As he approached the office, however, he heard voices and stopped to listen.

"…friend of mine, I heard he had come out here looking for work. I was wondering if you recognized him."

Jack peered around the corner in to the office so see a burly white male with dark hair standing in front of Alan's desk, holding a photograph. It was dark and difficult to see. It looked like it had been cut from footage from a surveillance camera but it was quite easy for Jack to recognize. It was himself.

Alan took the photo and scrutinized it. Jack silently pleaded that he would not be able to make out the picture.

"Not a very good picture, is it?" Alan muttered. "I think, can't be sure, but I think it's Frank Flynn." Jack cursed under his breath.

"That's right," said the man, "that's who I'm looking for. He works for you then?"

Jack didn't hear anymore. He was moving as quickly and silently to his truck as possible, his worst suspicions of the last several days confirmed. He had suspected he was being watched but wasn't sure if he was just being paranoid. Now he was certain; he had been found.

He drove to the apartment complex on the edge of the compound and parked a few blocks from the building he stayed in. He made his way swiftly to the building and, quietly as possible, unlocked, opened, and closed the door of his apartment. Locking it with the deadbolt and chain, he turned and headed for the bedroom. He grabbed a screwdriver from his dresser and set to work on an old, non-functioning vent on the wall, removing the cover of it. Finally plying the cover completely off, he reached inside and extricated a gray messenger bag. Replacing the cover of the vent, he heard a knock at the door of the apartment. Silently, carrying the bag slung over his shoulder, he crept toward the door.

"Mr. Flynn?"

Not responding, Jack peered out the peephole in the door. It was the same man who had been in Alan's office. Not getting a response, he turned and knocked on the door across the hall from Jack's; Diane's.

Diane Huxley had made a living renting out apartments to men who worked in the oil fields for more than ten years now, since her husband had left her and their five year old son. Fifteen months ago she had rented one right across the hall from her to a Frank Flynn. He was mysterious but intelligent and caring, and very different from the rest of the men who lived in her apartments. They had been friends and then a couple. He spent as much time in her apartment as his own. Her son, Derek, didn't trust Frank but she merely attributed this to his protectiveness of his mother.

Jack watched as Diane opened the door and began talking to the man. He managed to catch the words 'left for work' and 'back later' before the conversation was over. The man thanked her and went on his way. Diane retreated back in to the apartment.

Jack continued to peer out in to the hallway for a few minutes, thinking hard. If this man knew he and Diane were together, and he just disappeared, there was no telling what could happen to Diane and Derek. He would have to take them with him. And do so without being seen. And Jack had no idea how many people were watching him.

He crept in to the hallway and knocked as softly as he could on Diane's door. She opened it and looked surprised to see him.

"Frank, what are you doing back so soon? I thought you had gone to work."

"Get inside the apartment, Diane, I'll explain in a minute." He ushered her back in the door and closed it, locking it behind him. He quickly circled the apartment and checked any windows to make sure they were closed and blinded completely.

"Frank, what's going on? You're acting really weird. Does this have to do with that man that just came looking for you?"

"It's okay," Jack soothed. "I'm just being careful. What did the man say?"

"Being careful?" she asked. "About what?"

"Please, Diane," he implored her, "tell me what he said."

She gave him a funny look before proceeding. "Nothing really, just that he was an old friend of yours and he asked if that was your apartment across the hall. He said he knocked and no one answered."

"That's it?"

"Yes. Now will you please tell me what is happening?"

"We need to leave as quickly as possible. Pack a bag for a few nights. Where's Derek."

"He's in his room. What do you mean leave? I can't just leave on a moment's notice like that, Frank."

"Mom? What's going on?" Derek had emerged from his room to see Jack and Diane arguing. Jack turned to him.

"You need a pack a bag for a few nights away, quickly. I don't have time to explain now."

"Frank, this is crazy. You need to leave until you can take the time to explain because neither me, nor my son, are going anywhere with you like this."

"Your very lives may depend on it," Jack pleaded with them. He saw Diane flash a quick look to Derek. He turned to see Derek pick up the telephone. "Put the phone down, Derek," he said gently. Derek shook his head.

"Get out of here or I'll call the police," he threatened, dialing the first number.

"Derek, please, don't make me stop you by force, because I will do it." Derek hit a second number in response. Jack reached in to his bag and pulled out a gun. Diane gave a small shriek of surprise and fear, covering her mouth with her hands. Derek's arm froze in midair as Jack pointed the gun at him. "Put the phone back on the receiver," he said calmly. Derek immediately complied. "Now come over here and sit on the couch with your mother." Derek did so, slowly. "Now, here's what is happening. There are some men after me. They found out where I live so I need to leave. If I do, however, they might use you two as a way to get to me or see if you know where I went. Therefore, you have to come with me, because I do not want anything to happen to you. Do I make myself clear?" Both nodded. "Very well. If you would like, pack a small overnight bag with a couple changes of clothes, something you can easily sling over your back."

Jack removed the battery pack from the cordless phone, knowing it was the only phone in the house. He couldn't risk either of them calling anyone on the outside. The phones had probably been tapped already. He pulled out his PDA and cell phone. There was only one person that could help him now.

SCENE

Chloe was hunched down at her computer station, her posture screaming 'don't bother me right now!' When her cell phone rang, she didn't even hear it at first.

"You gonna get that?" Spencer called from across the next station.

Chloe flipped it on in annoyance and said, "O'Brien," in a distracted and frustrated tone.

"Chloe, it's me. Are you alone?" Chloe stopped her work dead in her tracks.

"Yeah," she responded quietly, "I'm alone. What's the matter?" She had talked to Jack only three times since he disappeared and only when he was feeling depressed and wanted to know about Kim. This did not sound like one of those times which could only mean one thing: trouble.

"They've found me. Don't ask me how, but they've found me." Chloe sucked in a breath.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Upload satellite images of the oil field compound to my PDA. I need to get to a different building without being seen. There are people watching me but I don't know where they are yet."

"Hardly sounds that difficult for you," she muttered as she typed hastily at her terminal.

"It isn't. My problem is that I have a woman and her son with me. I've been living across the hall from her and we've been dating for six months. I think the people after me know that and they'll go after her."

"Got it. Alright, give me a few minutes and call me back."

"Thanks, Chloe." He hung up the phone.

Spencer was approaching Chloe's work station. She quickly keyed out of the program she was using and returned to the disk Buchanan had given her.

"Hey, Chloe," Spencer said.

"What is it Spencer?" Chloe replied in her most 'get-away-from-me' voice.

"Can you show me how to widen the parameters on this search further? I've almost got something but it keeps…"

"Ask Edgar, I'm busy," she cut him off mid-sentence. Spencer shrugged and headed towards Edgar, peering back just in time to see Chloe's screen switch to a satellite view of something, before he turned a corner.

Chloe's phone rang a couple minutes later. "You have it?"

"Yeah. Images uploading to your PDA…now."

SCENE

"Are you some kind of criminal or something?" Diane asked after Jack had hung up the phone. "The government has found you, is that it?"

"No," Jack snapped. "But the less you know about me right now, the better. I'll explain everything as soon as it's safe." He paused and glanced at his phone. "Come on." Studying his PDA and noting the positions of people in the area, he herded Diane and Derek out in to the hallway of the apartment building. "Alright, you need to go quickly and quietly and follow all of my instructions. Clear? Go."

The three left the building and entered the open air. Diane was mentally praying that someone would come along and see them and she could get help. She couldn't believe this turn of events from someone she had trusted so much.

Jack directed them in a slightly roundabout way to an old, unused power station a few hundred meters from the apartment complex. The door was locked but old and rotted. Jack easily kicked it in and guided the other two inside.

"Okay, stay low and stay quiet," he instructed, pulling out his cell phone again.

SCENE

Chloe was finishing up her report for Buchanan when her cell rang again. She quickly turned it on. "Now what do you need?"

"Schematics for the underground passages between buildings of the complex," Jack replied.

"I'm on it," Chloe replied and Jack hung up.

"I didn't know there were underground tunnels," Diane said quietly.

"Not many people do, they aren't used much anymore. There's one which will lead about a kilometer outside the grounds, across the highway and in to the trees, to a small abandoned building. No one will know about the passageways and it should be a smooth getaway from there."

Diane nodded, still deathly afraid of where he would take them and what he would do with them. He hardly seemed evil, even now, but she shuddered remembering how natural he had seemed pulling the gun on Derek. What kinds of things had Frank been involved in before they had met? Maybe Derek had been on the right track when he insisted there was no way Frank had worked on that rig up in Alaska previously.

Jack waited a few more minutes before calling Chloe back. "Got 'em?" he asked.

"Yeah. Transferring data…now. Do you need anything else?"

"This should be enough to get us out. I have a vehicle waiting there. I'll call back when we get out."

"Alright. Good luck." The phone clicked off and they were on their way once again.

SCENE

Edgar looked over to see Chloe turning off her cell phone for the third or fourth time. Wondering if something was wrong, he got up and ambled over to her.

"Chloe?"

"What, Edgar?"

"Is everything okay?"

She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. "What?"

"I noticed you keep getting lots of calls on your cell phone, I thought there might be a problem with family or something."

"No, Edgar, no problem," she snapped. "Just something I've had to deal with. Now can I please do my job?"

"Yeah, sure," he muttered and headed back to his own station. When he got there, he was accosted by Spencer.

"What was that all about, with Chloe?" Spencer asked.

"Nothing. She's just acting weird."

"Edgar, Chloe always acts weird." Spencer drawled.

"Yeah, but this is different. I feel like she's hiding something or doing something that maybe she's not supposed to be doing."

"Yeah," agreed Spencer, "I felt the same way."

"Anyway," said Edgar, "it's none of our business. I'm sure she's just having a bad day or something."

"Mmhmm," Spencer murmured, glancing in Chloe's direction as she stood up and headed towards Buchanan's office. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, he walked over and sat at her terminal. He punched a few keys and entered a few passwords and got what he was looking for. He quickly exited the program and went back to Edgar's station.

"Just as I thought," he declared. "She's been working on something on the side. Something completely unrelated to what she should be doing."

"How do you know that?" Edgar demanded.

"I looked at her file history on her computer."

"Spencer, first of all, whatever she's been doing is none of our business, second, I didn't think you had password clearance to do that."

"How can you say it's not our business?" Spencer asked, waving off the part about the passwords. "If she's not doing her job right, it could screw up the rest of us, not to mention it's affecting the level of work she's getting done. Who knows what she could be really working on?"

Edgar sighed and glanced up at Buchanan's office, which Chloe was leaving. "What was she looking at?" he asked quietly.

"Satellite images and schematics of an oil refinery or something like that, someplace a ways south of here. It looked like she's been transferring information to somebody on the outside." Spencer looked at Chloe. "I'm going to talk to Buchanan."

"Spencer, come on," Edgar said, "this is Chloe we're talking about. I seriously doubt she's doing anything illegal or against his orders."

"I'm talking to him," he insisted, and walked to the stairs leading up to Buchanan's office.

Edgar watched Chloe sit back down and fiddle with something on her keyboard. After a few moments she got back up and approached him.

"Edgar, has someone been using my computer?" Edgar glanced up at Buchanan's office and decided to tell her what Spencer did.

"I tried to stop him, I told him it wasn't his business."

"Tried to stop who, Edgar?"

"Spencer. He looked back at everything you've been doing and then went to talk to Buchanan. I told him he didn't need to worry about you but he wouldn't listen."

Edgar had never seen Chloe look so helpless as she did in the next few seconds. "Chloe? What's been going on? Chloe?" But she was already out of earshot. She hurried back to her computer and began tapping keys but to no avail. She had already been locked out of her own system. She sat there a few seconds before a hand came down on her shoulder.

"Chloe?" Buchanan was standing above her. "Shall we have this conversation out here?" he asked quietly, "or would you prefer to move somewhere more private?"

"I'm coming," she muttered. He guided her to an interrogation room, where the door was locked behind them.

"Sit." Buchanan instructed. Chloe sat. "I have a hard time believing what you were doing was wrong. I know you have a history of insubordination with CTU but it has always been for the better good in one way or another so why don't you just tell me right now why you've been transferring satellite images to an external source and we can get this cleared up right away. Then maybe you can get off with a minimal punishment." Chloe said nothing. "The longer you hold out on me, the worse it's going to be for you when this is all said and done. Well?"

Chloe sat there like a statue. She would never give up Jack, no matter what CTU and Buchanan threw at her.

"Very well. Let's start with the oil fields. What's at the oil fields?"

"Oil?" Chloe quipped.

Buchanan slammed a fist down on the table. "I swear to you Chloe, the one thing that will land you worse off than silence is sarcasm. I don't have time to do this. I am leaving you here for twenty minutes and when I come back, if you come completely clean with me, you can go back to work like nothing ever happened. If you don't…"

He was cut off by the sound of Chloe's cell phone ringing. She stiffened visibly, eyes wide.

"Take it out," Buchanan told her. She did so with trembling fingers. It was on the third ring already. "Answer it." She held it steady in her palm but refused to turn it on. It ceased ringing and then started again a few seconds later.

"Ah," Buchanan said. "So it has to do with this mystery caller of yours I take it. Spencer said you'd answered your phone several times in a short span of time. Very well," he plucked it from her grip. "Sharon will have this traced in five minutes, we are going to find out what you've been up to and God help you when we do."

SCENE

Jack shut his phone when he received no answer the second time. "Son of a bitch," he muttered to himself.

The three had reached the end of the tunnel system. All that remained was a ladder up into the building. Jack had left a car there months ago and it was undisturbed. But if Chloe was in trouble for helping him…well that changed all his plans.

He sat thinking for several moments when suddenly, he saw a movement out the corner of his eye. He raised an arm and deflected the hand that was a split second away from bringing a heavy rock down on top of his head. His reflexes kicked in and he grabbed Derek by the throat, pushing him against the wall.

"That was a stupid maneuver, kid," he growled. He ignored Diane's pleas to let her son go. "Let's get one thing straight. The only reason you're not unconscious right now is that I don't want to have to carry you, understood? The sooner you realize I'm trying to help you, not hurt you, the better off we'll all be." He let go and Derek slumped to the floor. Diane skirted around Jack and cradled her son who was more shaken than anything.

An idea sprang in to Jack's mind. An idea that just might be crazy enough to work. But it would be tricky and very dangerous if discovered. He dialed the number he had memorized eighteen months ago and prayed the right person would answer. With a click, the call connected.

"Palmer."

SCENE

Okay, I was originally going to make this a one-shot but it's taking too long and I want to post it so I took the first part as chapter 1…I'm already well underway with the second one, should expect it by the end of the weekend I hope. Lots of work though (I work in a theatre…with Pirates of the Caribbean opening…yeah, my life becomes a living hell, haha)

Tell me what you think…hopefully I can make any improvements to chappie 2 with your input!

Cheers!

Lexi