9.30am, LAX Airport – Friday
As the milder but still blistering Californian sun beamed down on Alex as he headed towards a cab, he wondered if Erin had managed to keep the news of Nina's escape from CTU. He had spent Wednesday and much of Thursday in the base hospital, and had only been able to fly back home late on Thursday. Deciding to go straight home rather than to CTU, he hoped that Jack would not be too eager for the information he craved, and he assumed that Jack would know of his early return from Tunisia.
9.40am, CTULA
Jack was in his office, working through a massive workload that came with being the Head of Field Operations. He didn't expect Alex to be rushing back to CTU after the bomb, and the only thing remotely related to Alex's visit that he had concerned himself with during the morning was checking which flight Alex was on. Looking down at the bullpen, he noticed Kim hard at work, and smiled proudly. He had wanted her to take a job at CTU so that her safety would be guaranteed, although at first she had dismissed the idea, which didn't surprise him as her mother was murdered in the building. However, he had managed to convince her that CTU was much safer than it had once been, although he knew that it was mostly bullshit. Sure, CTU was safer, but it was never a truly safe place, and Jack had learnt the hard way that noone could be trusted fully, no matter how well you thought you knew them.
9.45am, a cab on a road in Los Angeles
Alex was deep in thought as the cab, yellow like a New York taxi, made its way through the mid-morning LA traffic. He was thinking about the bomb, and couldn't decide whether to believe that Nina was involved or not, if she had known of the bomb in advance. He assumed that the dead soldier that he had found outside of the bungalow was killed in order to stop him from stopping, or at least identifying, the people who planted the bomb, but he also thought that perhaps Nina had asked them to kill the soldier, so that Alex would be out of the house before the bomb went off, allowing Nina precious seconds in which she could slip silently out of the back door. He knew that such a plan was convoluted and would have required quite a bit of forethought, but he also knew that it sounded very much like a plan cooked up by the mysterious brain of Nina.
3.50pm (9.50am LA time), Berlin, Germany
Nina snaked her way though the oblivious crowd, aiming for the building in which her terrorist career was ready and waiting for her to start again. Although she was apprehensive about returning to a life of crime, she much preferred it to the life of enforced boredom on the dusty Saharan base. She had managed to escape from the bomb without injury, and had been keen to find out if Alex was OK afterwards, although the first thing she had to do was to get the hell out of Tunisia. It had been hours later as the speedboat crossed over to Italy that she had been given news of Alex, and she was relieved that her escape plan had not seriously injured, or even killed him. She had planned it to happen during his visit because she knew he would want to keep it a secret from CTU, and as far as she knew, he could be relied upon to ensure that Jack would continue to live on blissfully unaware that she had broken her pardon. Reaching the door of the little house where the meeting was to take place, she paused and took a deep breath. Clasping the door handle gently, knowing that as soon as she walked inside that she would not be able to turn away from the life of terrorism the meeting offered, she pushed it down. Opening the door slowly, she poked her head inside, before the rest of her followed.
10.00am, Alex's house, Los Angeles
Picking up the small pile of mail that rested behind his front door, Alex looked through the pile as he walked into the living room. Chucking them onto the table, he jumped as he noticed the person sat on the couch looking straight at him.
"What are you doing here?," Alex asked, surprised.
10.15am, CTULA
Tony had been at CTU for hours, and was ready to take a break and grab something to eat. He had been working on the massive load of paperwork that was required of a Special Agent in Charge of CTU, which was an hard enough job for the usually well-experienced agents who gained the position, but Tony was younger than even Jack was when he had first become SAIC, and he was sure that it was only his relationship with Michelle that truly kept him sane.
4.30pm (10.30am LA) Berlin, Germany
Nina's meeting had gone well and, as she walked back into the sea of pedestrians, she was glad to have something exciting in her life once more. They had not given her anything to do just yet, but had given her a cell phone, a gun and new fake documents, which entitled one Sarah Berkeley to travel the world. Putting a pair of sunglasses on, she headed back to the hotel where she was staying. She had been asked to remain in Berlin for the time being, and she knew that it could be weeks before they had anything for her.
10.40am, Alex's house, Los Angeles
Sitting down next to his surprise visitor, Alex tried to work out how they managed to get into the house. Noticing the pensive look on his face, his visitor explained.
"You gave me a spare key the last time you were in Chicago, remember?," Sarah Henderson, an old friend of his who worked at CTU Chicago, spoke.
"Well, it's nice to see you, but why are you here?," Alex asked. It was indeed a nice surprise to see Sarah, who he hadn't seen for months.
"I heard about the bomb in Tunisia, and I've been here since last night. How are you doing?," Sarah replied. It had been the second explosion that Alex had been caught up in in a matter of months, and Sarah was sure that he was soon going to be a nervous wreck near any loud bangs.
"I'm fine, just a few cuts and bruises. Nina was hardly injured, herself. I think I was closer to the bomb, and that it wasn't very big. They don't know who planted it or why," Alex responded, careful to mention Nina. If Sarah had been given the same information as Jack in regards to Nina, he wanted her to believe it.
"Have you been to CTU yet?," Sarah asked. She knew that Jack was waiting for Alex's return, and that Jack knew of Alex's early journey back to LA.
"Not yet. I might go there later, but if I don't, Jack is certain to come here after work and visit," Alex replied. He didn't mind telling Jack about anything that he wanted to know, he just hoped that Jack believed that Nina was still in custody.
5.00pm (11am LA), Hotel in Berlin, Germany
Lying down on the bed, Nina closed her eyes, but wasn't intending to fall asleep. Instead, she was refreshing her memory, systematically recalling information that she had deemed useful. She had been doing this every day since before her arrest, and her technique was highly polished. Her mind was like a supercomputer, with huge stores of data saved within. This, and her ability to think multiple steps ahead, had been one of the most important weapons she had to keep herself alive.
