Chapter 6

"No, Lydia I'm not here to broke you a deal. I'm here to get you to tell me what I want to know," his eyes were fierce; staring into her confident eyes, they didn't break contact.

"What is it you want to know, Agent Manning?" her Russian accent was still strong. The smile played on her lips, this was an inconvenience, she was sure she could get out of this. She was a lot closer to escaping than she was when they had taken her into custody. Though she managed to hold her own for a while, she simply became outnumbered.

"Your going to tell me where the next bomb is going to go off, now!" as he said the word 'now' his fist hit the table. Lydia's eyes stared distastefully at the spot where he had slammed the table, her eyes followed his arm back up too his eyes.

"Am I really, Agent Manning?" Her tone was one of bored amusement, "Why don't you tell me how?"

Curtis felt the heat being raised in the room; he thanked Bill in his head for doing that. He was glad he was wearing a thin short sleeved T-shirt. Unlike Iovita who had a heavy long-sleeved jumper on, he could see the beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

"You're sweating, you're nervous. You know you don't have a choice don't you?" Curtis said. Lydia smirked at him. "You know what, Lydia, why don't I just show you," Curtis went around the table with a fiery look on his face. Lydia quickly got up, but wasn't quick enough to dodge Curtis. He pushed her up against the wall; he had the inside of his arm against her throat pushing her head further back.

"This is how you're going to tell me, Lydia. Now tell me where is the bomb," he yelled inches from her face. She flinched momentarily, but her cool smile soon returned. She looked at Curtis like she had already won the battle, and was winning the war. She was cool, calm, and collective; she was a pro who had been playing this game for years and had been preparing for this day throughout those years.

"I want a Presidential pardon, full immunity." The tone of her voice was serious and authoritative, and her amused smile never moved. She sickened Curtis; to her this all seemed like a game.

Curtis pushed harder at her throat with his arm, but then quickly released it knowing that this would do no good. He knew what Bill had said, he knew he had no choice in the matter.

Lydia turned her freed head towards the mirror, her eyes and her sickening smile bore into the people on the other side of the glass. She felt his big hands on her shoulders, they tightened, pushing her onto the metal chair. She slammed down on the chair loudly, glad that the pressure had come off of her shoulders.

Curtis went into the back room steaming. How could they let her walk free after all the things she had helped bring about today? He had lost some of his own men, but he knew what Bill was going to say.

Bill could see that Curtis was fuming. He knew Curtis didn't want to hear what he was going to say, but he could see that he already knew what needed to be said. Bill gave Curtis a knowing look, one which conveyed his dismay that Iovita was getting a pardon, and that he thought this was their only way out of this crisis. He could tell Curtis wished he didn't have to accept this, but that there was no other way. Bill cut out any feelings out of his words,

"She's getting a pardon, I've already called President Palmer, and he has agreed to it. On one condition, she tells us where the bomb is now. We're running out of time, she tells us now where the second bomb is, then when the pardon has come through she tells us where the third one is. Otherwise she's spending the rest of her life in jail." His left hand rested on his hip, and his right was pointing at Curtis to emphasis the point.

Curtis wanted to protest, but he saw it in Bill's eyes, there was no other way out of this. Curtis kept eye contact with Bill a little longer, trying to convey what he felt; he could see though that Bill felt the same. Curtis turned and opened the door; his face was stormy as he entered the interrogation room.

Iovita realized she had triumphed; her shoulders fell as she relaxed more. She could withstand an invasive medical interrogation, but she would much rather avoid it.

"Full immunity?" her voice was a mixture of amusement and relief. Curtis slightly nodded at her, the storm still brewing in his face.

"You get it, but first you have to tell me where the bomb is," his voice was surprisingly calm, but deadly serious.

"When do I get the papers?" she herself was for the first time deadly serious.

"When you've told us where the second bomb is then we give you the papers, but then you have no choice but to tell us where the third one is. You are free to go then," he stood there, his arms crossed, his eyes looking down into hers.

"No, that's not acceptable."

"You don't get a choice in what is or isn't acceptable. That is your one and only deal. If you don't tell us now, pretty soon the whole world will know, and you will pay mightily for those dead bodies," his voice and eyes were full of expression.

She didn't break eye contact as her brain worked overtime, trying to figure out her best option, trying to weigh everything up. Curtis saw the change in her eyes as she made a decision on what she was going to do.

"Fine I'll tell you where it is, but I warn you now you'll never make it in time."

"Tell me where it is now."

"1118 Whitehall City St., off the Yellowbrick Boulevard," Curtis' face dropped as she said the address, "or as you probably better know it, Divisional Training Facility, CTU Domestic Branch, L.A." Curtis didn't give Iovita a second glance, though he wanted to. He had to keep reminding himself that the job was the only important thing right now. As quick as he could he tapped in the code to open the door, and went down the hallway like a flash.

He got to the end of the corridor entering the floor he walked hastily over to Elva, who was sat at a station looking slightly lost. She wasn't using the computer as she had no use for it; her eyes were wandering around watching everybody frantically getting on with their work. When her eyes caught his she smiled, not seeing the anxious look in his face at first.

"Elva, we got an address, we got to go," he said before signalling her to follow him as he quickly headed for the car lot. She hurriedly swung her bag over her shoulder and head, and followed him quickly toward another corridor.

Before they got off the floor Curtis saw Bill going over to Chloe at the bullpen. At least the Training Facility would be expecting them now.

As they went down yet another corridor he realized that Elva was having to go twice as fast as him to keep up. He didn't realize how much smaller she was compared to him. He thought about slowing down, but they couldn't waste a second, they had to stop this attack. They pushed open the double doors that led them into the open air car lot. The afternoon sun flooded the dark corridor as they squinted their eyes adjusting to the light. The TAC team were waiting at the door for them. Curtis yelled the address at them as the door shut behind them. The faces of many of the TAC team fell; most of them had been trained there. They knew the people, they knew the stakes, and they weren't about to lose. The team got in the two black Toyotas and drove as fast as they could out onto the road.

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Bill had left Iovita with just the security guards now, he had made the call to the President and they were getting all the papers ready for the pardon. Everyone else was on the floor, which was buzzing with noise and tension. Bill was stood at the bullpen on his third call. The first one had been to the training base to warn them, he had to quickly get off the line though to call division. Division took a bit longer, he had to convince them that he was capable of running this by himself and didn't need any help or as he personally saw it hindrance from some big-shot at division. He was now back on with the ranking agent at the training facility.

"Agent Difranco, this is Bill Buchanan again from CTU L.A."

"Hello, Mr. Buchanan," replied the middle-aged, hispanic American, man. Agent Difranco was very fit, slender, and tall. His olive-toned skin and short black hair gave him a distinguished look. Difranco had worked at CTU Mexico before trying to 'settle down' a bit by taking this job at the training facility.

"Have you evacuated the building yet?"

"Mr. Buchanan, I have initiated a partial evacuation of the building."

"What do you mean you've partially evacuated the building?" Bill quickly interjected.

"Look, Mr. Buchanan, I have a building full of field agents here who don't want to do anything, but look for this bomb. It's on there soil. Know what I mean? The untrained staff and the new recruits have been evacuated, but frankly, Mr. Buchanan we need all the hands we can get. These men and women just want to do their job. I would have thought you of all people would understand that, Mr. Buchanan."

Bill sighed, he knew what Difranco said made sense, but it wasn't going to look too good if this thing went up.

"I hear you; we have a TAC team on route to your location, their ETA is about 15 minutes. With them is a Dr. Webb from NEST, but NEST won't be there for at least another 20 minutes." Bill rubbed the bridge of his nose; he knew that was too long if this was the dirty bomb. "Have you got the description one of our people sent to you of the case we believe the bomb is in?"

"Yea, we have it. The pictures are up on every available screen in the facility. No one has found any thing like it yet. We'll keep searching."

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OUTSIDE CTU DIVISIONAL TRAING FACILITY, LOS ANGLES…

In the L.A. heat the new recruits were lined up on the tarmac. A tall man who was in charge of the untrained staff was yelling out their names one by one; as he ticked them off the list he had on his clipboard.

"Brown?"

"Here, Sir," one of the young female recruits shouted back.

"Clouting?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Samra?" he shouted, but no reply was heard.

"Samra?" he shouted even louder, yet again no reply was heard.

"Sir," a recruit timidly held up his hand. The man in charge nodded at him.

""Samra went about 5 minutes before the evacuation. He was complaining of a migraine, he told me he was going to sign out, Sir."

The man in charge nodded his head at the timid recruit. He hoped Samra was alright, he was one of the best recruits they had had around here for a while. He had worked in the facility for a number of years now, and he had never seen a recruit who was as excellent at field work as Samra.

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Samra was in his car heading south, as fast as he could. He had set the timer on the bomb to give him enough time to get out of there. It was a nuclear bomb for goodness sakes; he was not going to be in the blast zone when it went off. He wasn't about to commit suicide, no way. He was heading for Mexico to lay low for awhile whilst his funds were wired into his Zurich account. He would be 2 million dollars better of by the end of this, and that, like for the past year, was what he was concentrating on.

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Chloe was busy setting up COM whilst juggling what felt like a hundred other different tasks, well six to be exact. Now someone was bugging her, ok they were just calling her name, but she knew it was Taylor, and well that was enough to bug her.

"What is it, Taylor?" she asked abruptly.

"Err, I'm just going to head over to Tech 1 to free up some of the servers, it's getting kind of overloaded," Taylor lifted his eyebrows in wonderment to what he thought was Chloe's 'up tightness.'

"No there not, Taylor, the servers are fine," her head was shaking at him, her face creasing up.

"Err, to me it looks like they are, it's getting kinda slow." He was really irritating her now, but then Milo stuck his nose in.

"Hey why can't he go and check them? We don't need the servers going down now," his eyes were trying to find safe ground in Chloe's eyes. She needed Taylor to do what he was doing, but she also needed to tell Milo something, and really could do with him being in an ok mood. Urgh, she guessed she'd have to let Milo win for once, but this was the last time.

"Fine," she huffed, "go and check the servers, but get Amy to take over what you're doing. I need someone on there, even if it is Amy." She turned quickly and sulked back to her monitor, but not before she caught Morris' eye, who looked at her questioningly. She ignored him; she didn't want to hear what he had to say right now, they all had a lot of work to do.

Now the phone was ringing, she huffed, picked up the phone and placed it in-between her shoulder and ear.

"O'Brian," she answered brusquely, expecting it to be an inside call.

"Hello Agent O'Brian, this is Miss Macy O'Connell from CTU East Coast Division's archives section. I'm returning a call to a…Mr. Buchanan." Chloe felt a bit embarrassed answering the phone so abruptly to someone at division. Why did she do that? She frowned even deeper.

"He's busy right now, we're on high alert," she tried to brush her off. Well she didn't feel that bad, they were on high alert.

"He said he wanted this information immediately," Macy persistently pushed.

"Hold on," she said pitting the receiver on the desk. She got out of her chair and moved across the bullpen to the other phone which Bill was using. She tapped him on his shoulder making him turn around. He put his finger up at her signalling for her to wait as he excused himself for a minute to Agent Difranco.

"Yes, Chloe, what is it? Bill asked holding the receiver to his chest.

"Sir, a Miss O'Connell wants to talk to you from the East Coast Division. I told her," Bill didn't let her finish.

"I need you to take that call for me, Chloe. Don't discuss it with anyone else though. Let me know as soon as I've finished, ok?" Chloe started to make a remark about how she had enough of her own work to do without being his PA., when Bill put the receiver back to his ear and turned around. She looked slightly shocked at his back and sulked back to her desk. She let the smile that was welling up in her escape; she liked the fact that Bill trusted her enough to take his calls from district, the only other person who had ever trusted her that much was, well, Jack.

"This is O'Brian; Mr. Buchanan has asked me to take your call as we are on red alert."

"Fine, Agent O'Brian, Mr. Buchanan wanted some files on a Miss Holly Carlson, these records are classified I'll remind you. I'm sending them over to you now."

"Right, thanks," she was trying to keep her concentration on both Macy and what was happening on her monitor.

"If there is anything else you need give me a call back." The line went dead. Chloe put the phone back on the hook and decided to open the file Macy had sent thinking Mr. Buchanan might want an overview when he came of the phone. The first page, to her relief, was an overview that Macy had typed up about the document which stated just the facts.

She started to scan through the page as she carried on with the rest of her work, but she soon found herself stop in her tracks as she came to reading the second paragraph. She could hardly believe she was reading this. This paragraph stated how Holly was transferred from Miami to L.A. branch.

Holly had been accused of selling information to terrorists; the SAC at the Miami branch had put her through a medical interrogation. When they came to look at the evidence properly they had found no evidence which suggested that it was Holly, but the evidence pointed to another member of staff. The case against the other member of staff was proven and they were imprisoned for treason.

Holly though had lost her temper with the SAC and attacked him. She also said she was going to sue CTU. By what Chloe saw it looked like the big shots at division had decided the best way to deal with her was not to fire her for her behaviour, but to get her far enough away from them as possible. Demoting would make others possibly doubt what she said, especially as this had been put in a highly sensitive document.

So Chloe figured that either the people at Miami were very stupid and missed the evidence against her, or Holly was stupid, an easy mark, and had very bad luck. Crazily to Chloe the second one was beginning to seem more plausible. Holly being so obviously the mole didn't make sense. The thought then passed through her mind, did that mean there another mole inside of CTU?

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The security guard in holding room 5 was getting irritated with Iovita. She had been complaining of dehydration since everybody else had left the room in a hurry. He had been ignoring her best he could, even when she started yelling at him for water. She said she was going to vomit if she didn't have any water soon. He felt happier when her words seemed to slow, but then he got a little worried she looked as if she was becoming woozy and unsteady. He still tried his best to ignore her; then he saw her eyes roll back and her body slumped in the chair. She would have been on the floor if she wasn't shackled to the chair. He found himself unable to ignore her anymore; he didn't think to get medical to her, but walked up to her as harshly as he could. He didn't want to look incapable of doing his job by calling in medical unnecessarily. He bent down to lift her head up, but Lydia was quicker, and more vastly trained. She wrapped one of the chains constraining her arm to the chair, around his neck, pinning him to the table. She pulled the chain as tight as she could, till his body stopped moving and went limp.

She had seen him put the key to the chains in his back pocket. She cringingly reached into his back pocket feeling for the key. With effort she retrieved the small key, and inserted it into the lock. She rubbed her wrists and ankles for a second, glad to have them back and free.

The guards body had slumped on the floor, she reached down grabbing his key card and the gun out of his holster. The adrenalin was running through her, but she was a professional she could keep her mind and breathing at a normal pace. The main thought going around her mind though was the hope that the plan they had arranged for such an event was running smoothly. Well she was about to find out.

She swiped the key card on the panel, and the door clicked. Her hand wrapped around it pulling it warily open. A wave of relief swept over her, as they had agreed the security guard on the outside of the door had been reassigned to another part of the building. Suddenly her ears pricked up, she could hear footsteps coming down the corridor, flats she decided - probably a man. She hid in one of the alcoves in the concrete wall, her gun drawn, ready to pounce. The man passed her, and Lydia grabbed him pressing the gun into his head, pushing him up against the wall.

"It's me," the man let out the small cry of injustice.

Lydia loosened her grip slightly turning the man around to face her.

"I've got you what you need," Taylor said in a much calmer voice.

"Good, let me see," Lydia said taking the gun out of his face. Taylor reached into his deep pockets taking out a set of car keys, a cell phone, and a tactical knife. She quickly grabbed them off of him placing the knife in the top of her trousers. She pulled her top over the knife, and put the cell and keys in her pocket.

Her eyes then intensely looked back at him, "Have you done everything else I've asked you to?"

"Yes, the security cameras have been switched off for five minutes, from here up to the underground car lot. You should be able to escape without being tracked."

"Good," she looked down both ends of the corridors to check no one else was around. It was clear. Her eyes returned to his, the gun pointed at him. "Do they suspect you?"

Taylor started to perspire heavier, he knew if he said yes she would kill him now. Gladly for him he didn't think anyone did suspect him, yet. His friendship with Milo and Amy had added a certain level of credibility to his cover. He had created a life for himself here, he'd rather not leave, but the money was what he was here for. He began to brace himself in case she decided to kill him anyway, that was always a danger in this business.

"No they don't."

She lowered her weapon, and took a step back allowing him to pass past her. Taylor relaxed as he walked past her, maybe she trusted him more than he had thought. Suddenly he felt his windpipe being constricted by her powerful arms. They were getting tighter and tighter. He could hardly hear her as she whispered in his ear, "Just relax." He had no choice but to do as she said, as everything went black.

Lydia dropped his limp body to the floor, and made a run for the exit.

There wasn't much time left.

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Curtis and Elva where closing in on the training facility. Even though they were both scared and their adrenalin seemed to be carrying them, they found themselves able to smile whilst talking to each other. In-between the essential stuff of getting COM units in, and giving instructions to their following teams, they managed to find something to talk about other than the attacks.

Ok, so, it was that they were both starving, and were discussing what they wanted to eat. It seemed silly, but Curtis preferred this to any other serious conversation they could be having right now.

Curtis swerved around the corner, and all the smiles vanished as they laid eyes on the training facility at the end of the block. All the buildings around there looked like commercial warehouses, though many of them were, it wasn't as it all seemed. Curtis was driving way over the speed limit; Elva wondered how they were going to stop. She set her eyes on the training facility, in a split second all she could see was a great white light, and one of the loudest bangs she ever heard penetrated her ears.

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