Chapter Seven
Michelle looked around in terror once the explosions stopped. After such deafening noises, there was a second of silence before the moans and wails of injured people sounded around her.
She took inventory of herself. Her arm and her leg, right below her knee, were hurting, but nothing was broken. She had some cuts and probably many bruises, but for the most part she thought she was okay. Her head was pounding, but that hurt before the explosion so she didn't think she had a concussion or anything that serious.
She took a step and stumbled. Was she really okay? She looked down and saw that she had stumbled over a person.
Oh my God! The building really just exploded! Reality was starting to set in. How many people were dead? How could they get to and help everyone who was injured?
Tony.
Oh my God, was he okay? She started scrambling around, looking for him. She saw a man under a beam nearby and wondered if it was him. She knelt down beside him, unable to clearly see the man's face, but he was wearing dark clothing, like Tony was. "Tony?" she whispered fearfully.
Her heart almost stopped. Was he dead? Tears filled her eyes and she reached down to touch him…
"Could we get some help over here?" a familiar voice yelled and Michelle whirled around in happiness. Tony!
He was holding up an injured man. "A little help?" he repeated, looking straight at her. Was it relief she saw in his eyes?
"Tony!" she yelled, her heart pounding in her chest from joy and relief, and jumped up to go help him. He had a cut beside his ear, his hair and clothes were tousled and he was covered from head to toe in dust, but he was alive!
"Michelle!" he said, his voice tight with emotion. "Look, I need you to set up a triage. And take Luke with you."
Michelle nodded and grabbed a hold of the injured man. His arm was twisted at a bad angle and he was groaning in pain. "Okay. Luke, I've got you. It's Michelle."
"Oh, and Michelle," Tony said. She stopped and looked back at him. "Call N.S.A. and have them start working on retrieving our data."
Again she nodded and went to carry it out, feeling overwhelmed by what had just happened. Focus, Michelle. Lose the emotions and focus on one task at a time.
Taking a deep breath she set Luke down on the floor carefully, shouting to people as she went by. Within minutes she had that area cordoned for triage, Edwards and Richardson working on the damage report, Sheppard checking in with local E.M.S. units, and she herself calling N.S.A. If only she could be in five places at once!
Tony allowed himself one brief moment of relief when he heard Michelle call his name. Thank God she was alive and looked okay. He looked around at the chaos. So many others were not. Someone had a flashlight and was looking underneath some beams. He hurried over to help them.
"Let me see that," he said. Paula was pinned under the beams and didn't look good at all. My God, is she dead? "Paula? Paula, can you hear me?"
She opened her eyes. "Wh—what happened?" she whispered.
Tony breathed a sigh of relief that she was still alive. "You don't have to speak. Just blink your eyes if you can hear me," Tony instructed. She blinked several times. "We're gonna get you out of there. Just hang tight. All right?"
The man who had originally been helping whispered to Tony as he stood up. "She's bad man."
Tony looked around, agreeing with his assessment. "We've got to get a crane or hydraulic lift or something in here now."
"We have to be careful," the man said. "If we pull off the wrong piece the whole thing could come down and crush her. We have to do this brick by brick."
"That's gonna take forever," Tony moaned. He ran a hand through his very dirty hair. "All right. Let's do it."
Tony had a hard time tuning out everything around him. So many people needed help and attention. While he knew that medics had to be on their way, he still felt torn to be in a million different places. He looked up from moving some bricks to see Michelle organizing people and trying to make something out of the chaos. He felt comforted by the fact that he could rely on her at a time like this. She wasn't breaking down or losing it when everyone needed her the most.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" the man who was helping Tony, whom Tony didn't even know, whispered as they worked.
"I--- I don't know," admitted Tony.
Michelle ran over to him. She had the initial damage report numbers and rattled them off to him. Her face was a mask of control, but he could tell she was shaken by the numbers as her hands were trembling. He was upset by the large number of casualties already claimed as well, and so many more could follow if they didn't get some help soon.
Michelle then she handed him a wireless phone. "Shouldn't you call George?"
"Ah, yeah." He grabbed the phone and dialed the number. Once George answered, Tony had to almost shout to be heard over the noise. "They hit us, George. They bombed C.T.U."
"Wh—what kind of damage?" asked George, sounding stunned.
"Damage reports are still coming in, but so far we've got 19 people dead, 20 wounded and seven missing." Tony ran his hand through his hair again in frustration and anguish. "Look, we're bleeding bad here, George. All of our intel on the nuke was destroyed. I mean, it's on the N.S.A. server but Paula wrote the decryption code and she's in really bad shape."
"Just do whatever you have to do to retrieve it. "
"Yeah, well, I am. That's what I'm trying to do." Did he think he was stupid? "That's why I called you. Chain of command, remember?"
"Call N.S.A. systems people. Get them on it," George ordered.
"I already did, George."
"Good."
Tony had enough. Didn't George care at all about what had just happened? Was he still that concerned with getting out of town that he could overlook the murder of all these people? "Look, when are you coming back here?"
"I-I'm not sure."
"Well, the sooner the better." Tony nodded to the men helping dig out Paula, cradled the phone in his shoulder and help them lift off an especially heavy piece.
"Look, Tony, the truth is, I may not be coming back."
What the hell is he talking about? "Why not?" he asked, breathing heavily.
"I'm not really in a position to help out."
"What are you talking about?" Why the hell wouldn't George be able to help out? Or was it willing? "Look, a nuclear device is set to go off sometime today in Los Angeles. We just lost half the people who were in a position to keep it from happening. So don't tell me you're still trying to cover your own ass!"
"Look, just deal with it, Tony, okay? Just deal with it. All right?"
"Yeah right." Tony threw the phone in anger. That son of a bitch!
"We need to try to stabilize her neck when we remove these bricks here," a man was saying and brought Tony's attention back to the matter at hand. Several others had gathered to help dig Paula out. He mentally called George all sorts of names as he went back to help.
Michelle felt like she was going crazy trying to help everyone and still set up some semblance of order. There was absolute chaos everywhere!
"No, no, not over there," she stopped two men from moving some audio equipment. "That area is being used as a triage. Move it over there," she pointed to another section of the bullpen.
Tony's phone rang and she hurried to pick it up. "Tony Almeida's line."
"Who's this?" a male voice asked, but she couldn't identify who it was with all the noise around her.
"Michelle Dessler. Who's this?"
"Michelle, this is Jack Bauer. What's going on over there?"
"There was an explosion about twenty minutes ago. Twenty-one casualties. The number's growing," she explained, covering her other ear with her hand in order to hear him.
"Why wasn't C.T.U. evacuated?" Jack asked.
"There wasn't any time," Michelle explained, closing her eyes in agony as she watched some people carry a dead man away.
"What do you mean, there wasn't enough time? What about Mason? Is he all right?"
"He wasn't here." Michelle cleared her throat and ignored the tear that fell on her cheek.
"How about Tony Almeida?"
"He's okay. He's helping the rescue workers."
"Fine. Can you handle the situation report?"
"Yeah," she frantically looked around Tony's desk for a pen and paper. "Okay, go ahead."
"I've located Joseph Wald. I'm on my way there now."
"What about Wald's crew?" Michelle asked.
"They're all dead."
Michelle paused. "Dead?"
"Just let Mason know I'm on my way to Joseph Wald's house. The address if 221 Canyon View Road in Simi Valley."
"Okay. I'll send backup," Michelle promised.
"Okay."
"Oh, Michelle, let Mason know I talked to Kim. She is leaving the city."
Michelle nodded, "Yeah, she called here too and she spoke to Tony."
"She did?" Jack asked. "What did she say?"
"I'm not sure, but I'll look into it," Michelle promised.
"Okay. Get back to me. Thanks."
Michelle hung up and went looking for Tony. He was still trying to help get Paula out.
"Tony. Tony?" she called.
She heard him coughing. "What's up?" he asked, coming towards her.
"Just got off the phone with Jack Bauer." She placed her hand on his arm to steady herself. There was debris everywhere.
"Where is he?"
"He's on his way to see Wald. He wanted Mason to know."
Tony looked around. "Yeah, well, Mason's checked out. Just get the information directly to N.S.A. All right?"
She nodded and started to turn away, then remembered. "Oh, and he asked about his daughter, Kim."
Fear filled Tony's face. "Oh, oh no."
"What?" Michelle asked.
He started looking around. "She was on her way here. Look, ah, can you check the security logs and see if she was in the building?"
Michelle nodded. Tony took her hand and squeezed it a second. "Thanks," he said and moved back to help Paula.
Tony did his best to help dig out Paula, especially since he was feeling responsible for her being in this predicament. If he had gotten to her sooner, maybe she would have been out of that area by the time the bomb exploded. He knew that was irrational of him, but he couldn't help but feel the blame.
However, despite his good intentions, he was constantly interrupted with requests. He knew Michelle was taking care of most of them, but ever since Jack's call she had about four additional priority tasks to do first.
"Tony," Harold from I.T. came up to him. "We're trying to work on accessing Paula's work, but we need the password."
Tony closed his eyes. George's password. Great, he was hoping not to have to talk to him for a while. Instead he picked up the phone attached to his hip and dialed George's numb
"Tony?" George asked. "I thought I told you to handle this yourself."
"Yeah, well, truth is, right now if I didn't have to talk to you again I'd be happy, but the I.T. people need to access the data stream Paula was working on. It's on your system so we need your password."
"My password?" George asked.
"Yeah,"
"Hendrix."
"That's with an "x"?"
"How else would you spell it?"
"Yeah, right," Tony rolled his eyes. "Thanks, George."
"Tony."
"What?"
"How's Paula doing?"
"Not so good. We're still trying to dig her out, but she's nonresponsive. Look I've gotta go."
"Okay."
Tony hung up and went upstairs to put in the password and get I.T. moving.
Michelle breathed a sigh of relief as she saw most of the injured were getting attention by the E.M.S. staff. Several were being taken out in stretchers and ambulances to local hospitals. She brushed them all off when they tried to check her out… she was going strong and didn't want to stop. She was in much better shape than most of the people here.
As she hurried by to work on the N.S.A. report from Paula's computer she watched as Tony and the rest of the men tried to get Paula free. Most of the debris was off of her, but there was still some to go. Two medics were helping them and had the equipment ready to take over as soon as she was clear.
Some time later they finally were able to get all the bricks and beams off of Paula. Tony stepped back and let the medics step in. The medics were immediately on her, taking her blood pressure and assessing her condition.
"B.P.'s 0 over 50. Get saline into her stat," the head medic ordered.
"Is she all right?" asked Tony, fearing the worse.
"She's hemorrhaging internally. The girder staunched the bleeding, but once we lifted it off, the dam broke." The medic explained as they all worked to get an I.V. into her.
"Can you stop it?"
"If we don't get to the E.R. now, she'll bleed to death."
Tony stared at Paula, knowing the worse was now a reality. The medics began to carefully turn on her on her back. Tony participated in helping to lift her to the stretcher and walk her out to the waiting ambulances.
They were almost to one when Tony heard Mason's voice. "Get a structural engineer on the phone and get him over here now. In the meantime, I have to keep people working."
George noticed them and came over. "What's going on here?"
Tony breathed deep. "I should ask you the same question, George. I thought you weren't coming back here."
"I changed my mind."
"Oh, you did? Why?" Tony couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice.
George stepped in his way. "I don't have to answer to you, so drop the attitude. How bad is she?"
"She's bad. She's bleeding internally."
George looked at the medic. "Anything you can do at the hospital you can do here, right?"
"No," the medic answered. "She needs surgery. We can't do that in the field."
"You're going to put her under anesthesia?"
"That's right," the medic confirmed.
"What are you doing, George?" Tony asked, even though he already knew.
"How long will she be under?" George ignored him and asked.
"Couple of hours."
"Then she stays here."
Tony tried to fight him, "George, we can't keep---"
"Everything we have on this nuke has been destroyed. The only intel we have left is the database that Paula sent to the N.S.A. and they didn't get the code."
"Then we'll assign other I.T. people to retrieve it."
"She's the only one that can decrypt those files and you know."
"We'll send a programmer in the truck with her to get it!" Tony tried desperately.
George yelled, "We don't have time. I need her here, and I need her lucid. Just for a few minutes. I don't care what you have to do," he said to the medic. "Can you get her conscious?"
The medic hesitated. "I can administer epinephrine. Maybe get her B.P. up temporarily."
Tony shook his head, "You're out of your mind, George."
"Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better."
Tony felt like crying, something he hadn't felt in a long time. "This girl deserves a chance to live."
George stared at the medic. "Wake her up. Now."
Tony stormed back into C.T.U. The medics and George followed him back.
Michelle watched incredibility as Paula was wheeled back in. She went up to one of the medics. "What's going on? Why is she back here?"
The medic didn't answer. Michelle looked around and saw Tony. She went up to him, but he kept walking. She wasn't put off.
"Why is Paula still here?"
"It's Mason's call."
"She has almost no chance of surviving if we don't get her to a hospital now."
"Yeah, I know."
Michelle was confused. "I thought Mason wasn't even coming back."
Tony stopped and sighed. "Well, he's back. He's trying to revive Paula long enough so she can access the information she was sending the N.S.A."
"So he's just gonna let her die?" she asked in disbelief.
Tony hung him head, but admitted, "I'm not so sure Mason made the wrong call."
Michelle stared at his back, thinking it through.
Tony went on, "I mean, Paula's the only person that can retrieve that information."
He looked up and saw Paula's bloody face on the stretcher, the medic getting the epinephrine ready. He sighed deeply and hung his head. Michelle could feel his pain, understood the horrible decision. She lifted her hand and hesitated placing it on his back to comfort him. She eventually let her hand touch him and whispered, "I'm-I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Tony."
He exhaled sharply and turned around. "It's just, I'm the one that brought her to C.T.U. I hired her."
Michelle could see he was so upset by these events. He was almost in tears. She let him talk it out. Maybe he'd feel better.
"This job is all she ever wanted to do. She never even got a chance to do it."
Michelle whispered, "She did." Her eyes strayed over to where Paula lay, and then back to Tony's. He straightened up as if ready to move on, but she didn't move. They were inches from each other and her heart rate jumped. Now wasn't the time or the place, but she couldn't move away.
His gaze was intense, but eventually he whispered, "We'd better get back to work."
Michelle nodded and moved on, her hands shaky from the tension between them.
He watched Michelle walk away and exhaled a deep sigh. Another time and another place for them. The phone in his hand rang and he picked it up. District had a lead that they needed checked out. Tony took the information and immediately decided to do it himself. He had to get out of here for a little while; besides, there weren't many choices in who could go. They were down several agents.
He grabbed his jacket, keys and briefcase. He stuffed his laptop inside and started walking out. George saw him and stopped him.
"Hey, where are you headed?" he asked.
"To follow up on a lead that just came in. There's an L.A. connection to Syed Ali." Tony leaned down at another desk and tried to find a connection cable to fit his laptop.
"Well, look, send somebody else," George said. "I need you here."
Tony found the cable and stood up. "To do what? Watch Paula die?"
"Tony, we have got to get the encryption codes out of her, or we're gonna lose everything. We can't let that happen today," George explained calmly.
Tony understood, but he didn't have to like it or stand by and watch it. "Yeah, well, like I said, you got it covered. I'm gonna follow up on this lead."
He started walking past George, but his boss followed him. 'No. You're gonna stay here, and that's an order!"
Tony stopped and turned around. "Look, there's a Middle Eastern businessman in L.A. who's had contact with Syed Ali recently. Now, Ivers and Appell are dead. Who do you want me to send?"
George stared at him for a minute, but finally said, "Be reachable. All right?"
"Yeah." Tony swirled around, unaware that Michelle had been right behind him. He looked at her, thought about saying something, but just went on his way.
Michelle sighed and tried to will her exploding headache away. She was trying to set up the network correctly, but was having an incredibly difficult time. The bomb had destroyed so much. It was frustrating to no end.
"Michelle!"
She turned around and walked towards George. He continued when she got close enough, "Can you get somebody to set up an interrogation room? We got somebody coming in."
"Who?"
"Nina Myers."
How many shocks can this day bring? Nina Myers! "The C.T.U. agent who killed Jack's wife?" she asked.
George nodded. "I need as close to maximum security as I can get. And three armed agents standing by."
He walked away before she could say anything else. While her brain was bursting with this news, she turned to make it happen. How the hell was Nina Myers involved in all this? Did she know anything about the bomb that has just gone off at C.T.U.? The nuclear bomb? Or both?
"Ms. Dessler?" a medic said, coming up to her.
"Yes?"
"We need to check you out."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but now's not a good time."
George walked by and said, without even stopping, "Let them do their job, Michelle. I need you at full capacity. You can talk on the phone while they do it, okay?"
She sighed and sat down on the desk for the medic. She started coordinating the interrogation room via phone while they checked her pulse, blood pressure, and so forth. In between calls they asked if she hurt anywhere.
How do I answer that? Everything hurts right now. She wondered."Um, not really. My wrist, a little bit. Below my left knee, and I have a killer headache."
The medic took her wrist and started feeling around it. She cringed as he moved it too far to the left. "That hurt?" he asked.
"Yeah," she mumbled.
"Well, it's not broken, but you may have sprained it. Until you get the chance to get a complete check-up from the doctor, I'll wrap it up for you." He turned to look in his case for gauge bandages. He came up with a bottle of Tylenol too. "Here, this might help."
She swallowed the pills with some water he provided, and then her phone rang again. She handed him her wrist and talked using the other hand and her shoulder. She handled the call quickly and looked around for George. He was standing nearby talking to another medic, so she called to him. He nodded to the medic and walked over. The medic working on her finished her wrist and started on her leg. She felt him clean the wound and then start to bandage it as well.
"Yeah?"
"Off-duty agents are finally arriving, and Division called," she said. "The chopper just lifted off. Nina Myers is on board."
"Good," he said. "Let's set up the mobile video unit for the interrogation then."
"Okay." She looked around and saw an I.T. tech she could use. "Laurie I need you to call downstairs. Get Bill. Have him bring up a video rack, okay?"
Laurie nodded and got on the phone. The medic finished with her leg, gave her a smile and moved off. Michelle walked down to the hallway where the interrogation rooms were to make sure everything went off without a problem. They were fine, the three armed agents waiting for Nina Myers to arrive. She gave them some quick instructions and the moved back to the bullpen.
She saw Jack Bauer talking to George. She assumed he was here to be debriefed, but wondered how he would react to seeing Nina again. The woman had killed his wife! Michelle got a very bad feeling in her stomach. This couldn't play out good.
"She's awake!"
Michelle jerked her head to where the medics stood working with Paula. She started jogging in that direction.
"You better move fast. I don't know how much time you have," the medic warned George.
George leaned over the poor girl. Michelle went over to the computer that was set up beside the stretcher. They had put it there so when Paula did wake up they could put in the encryption codes without having to run up and down to Mason's office.
"Paula? It's George Mason. Can you hear me?"
Paula moved her head slightly and looked at him. Michelle's heart skipped a beat. She looked like death itself, and when she spoke it was barely a whisper. "What happened?"
George leaned down closer to her. "We had a big explosion. Do you remember the encryption codes, Paula? You're the only one who had them."
Paula closed her eyes and tried to cough. It sounded almost like she was choking. Michelle's eyes flew to the medic, but he didn't do anything.
"Stay with us, Paula," George encouraged.
Michelle spoke up, "Paula. You were transferring files out to N.S.A. Do you remember that?"
Paula opened her eyes and looked at her. "Yeah."
"Yeah, well, the transfer didn't complete. They didn't have the source decryption key."
"The source?"
Michelle could barely hear her. "Yeah. The source key. That's right. See, normally you send it in a separate packet, but the router was destroyed. Did you make a copy of the source key before you sent it?"
Paula started gagging, but was able to say, "Yeah."
George waited until she got under control. "What is it? Do you remember?"
"Sub-volume."
Michelle said, "Okay," and whirled back to the computer. "Uh, which volume?"
George repeated it for Paula," Which-which volume? Which one? Paula, stay with us. Which one?"
Michelle went back to her. "Paula, your disk is partitioned into over fifty volumes. Do you remember which one?"
Paula was barely breathing and was gasping. The medics moved in. Michelle leaned over her face to hear, "Etudes."
Michelle went back to the computer and tried to find the volume. "Come on, come on, come on," she murmured.
"Hang in there, sweetie," she heard George say to Paula behind her.
Michelle kept looking. Where was it? Damn it!
What a minute- there! "That's it. That's it," she called.
"Great!" George said.
Michelle covered her face with her hands and listened to George speak to Paula, "Hey, you did good. What you just did is gonna save a lot of lives today."
Michelle turned around and watched the medics move the stretcher. 'The hospital, now," George told them.
They all heard the monitors on her start beeping.
Oh no! Michelle groaned, tears filling her eyes.
"She's in V-tach," the medic yelled. They started to try to shock her heart back in rhythm. They tried several times, but she continued to flat line.
Michelle closed her eyes in agony when they announced, "She's gone."
