(Ch. 8)
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The Following Takes Place Between 9pm and 10pm
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CTU-9pm
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CTU was abuzz with people. The Comm. People were running to their stations, the tactical people were getting ready. At the Agent prepping area, Jack, Curtis, Baker, and 40 other agents were getting ready.
At her station, Chloe was listening to military reports when she heard the bad news. She called up to Bill's Office. "Mr. Buchanan! There is a problem. The FedEx truck with the weapon on it was ambushed; in the truck was a nuclear weapon. This all happened in the last 15 minutes near the Hallmark Building."
"All right, Chloe. Thanks," Bill replied. He called down to the Agent prepping area and said, "Agents, I hope you are ready because we have to move fast. A nuclear weapon has been stolen. We have to get it back before the terrorists detonate it. The terrorists' hideout is in the Hallmark Building, near the edge of the city. Go now," Bill hung up and proceeded to call the President.
At the Agent area, the Agents were splitting into teams, with Jack, Curtis, and Baker as captains. "All right," Jack said, "let's go! It takes about 15-20 minutes to get there. I want someone from Curtis' team to drive instead of him. Let's go!" They all leave.
Jack saw Audrey while he was running through the halls. He stopped and gave her a long kiss. "I'll be right back," Jack smiled. "I want you to do something for me."
"Anything," Audrey replied.
Jack began to explain, "I want you to…"
Back at Chloe's station, she was working hard to maintain all the order. She was realigning the satellites, checking if the audio is working. Greg came up to her and asked, "Is there anything I could do to help?"
"No," Chloe replied, "this is all government business and you need lots of training. You have none. Why don't you just go home now, we will call you if we need any help."
Greg looked sad, then said, "Oh, ok." He then left.
"I hope I didn't hurt his feelings," Chloe muttered.
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Hallmark Building-9:13:01pm
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Jeb heard his cell phone ring and he answered it. "Report," said the distorted voice.
"We have obtained a nuclear bomb," Jeb replied.
"And when will it be ready to use?"
"I have estimated that it will be ready to use in about 15-20 minutes"
"Good," the voice replied, "You might run into some resistance. I have heard reports that CTU is bringing agents here."
"No worries mate," Jeb replied confidently. "We will kill them all. There will be no mistakes."
"I hope there will be no mistakes, or there will be major problems," the voice hung up.
Jeb gulped worriedly. He walked where his people were recalibrating the bomb. "Any problems," Jeb asked.
"Nope, no problems," a terrorist replied, "We are almost done recalibrating the bombs power to the satellite in space."
"Good," Jeb replied, "Call me when you are done. Hurry, CTU will be here soon."
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CTU-Holding-9:20:21pm
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Holding was quiet except for the weeping from Kyle Farrell. The room was dark; it smelled of stale death vomit. Kyle wondered how long he was going to stay here, he just wanted to disappear. Suddenly the door open and Audrey stepped through the room. "How long am I going to stay in here? What is that smell in here," Kyle asked. Audrey continued walking toward his table and stopped to smell the smell.
Audrey answered, "Two of our agents died here last year when CTU was attacked by terrorists; they used Nerve Gas to kill everyone. I guess they still haven't gotten the smell out of this room. The answer to your second question is we are going to release you in a couple of hours to our Division offices."
"What will happen to me then," Kyle asked, "Why are you here?"
"I will not know what will happen to you at Division," Audrey answered honestly, "I am here because Jack asked me to come here, he wanted to tell you something but he had to leave on a mission."
"I don't want to know what he wanted to say," Kyle answered angrily.
"I'm sure you will," Audrey answered. She went to the door and opened it. A lady stepped into the room.
"Wha-how," Kyle asked confused, "I saw her collapse, get carried away in a stretcher…"
"I am very much alive Kyle," Kyle's grandma, Mrs. Vasquez answered.
"What happened? Why aren't you in pain anymore?"
"This is what Jack wanted to tell you," Audrey interrupted, "We planned this out, after looking at Mrs. Vasquez's profile; we saw that she was a very good actress. Instead of injecting her with pain liquid, we injected her with health medicine…"
"I am feeling much better than before now," Mrs. Vasquez smiled, "I feel like a new me."
"…Jack has done this method before. He pretended to kill a kid of a terrorist to give him the location of a bomb, it worked. After the bomb exploded, Jack told the terrorist that his son was still alive, but then the terrorist was killed by a sniper."
Kyle looked at Audrey and asked, "Would the terrorists name happen to be Syed Ali?"
Audrey looked shocked, "How did you know…" Audrey started, then her phone rang and she answered it, "Audrey," she answered.
"We need you on the floor, we are about to reach the location of the bomb," Chloe said.
"All right, thanks," Audrey answered. She looked back at Kyle. Both Mrs. Vasquez and Kyle were hugging and talking together. 'We'll get back to the question later,' she thought to herself. She left the room leaving a guard at the door.
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Hallmark Building-9:30:21pm
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The main room of the building was abuzz with people moving in and out. Terrorists ready to defend what they were trying to do. Amidst the buzz, a voice was heard: "We are done! It is ready!"
Jeb ran up to his men and said, "Is it ready to target anything yet?" After he hears a 'yes' Jeb says, "Let's begin. We will show them why we call it the 'Death Star.'"
A terrorist types a few keys into the computer and the screen is of the city of Los Angeles, he types again and the camera shrinks to the North-eastern side of Los Angeles. He clicks his pointer on the map and drags a box around 8 of the 20 buildings. "Target set," he said. He presses the enter key. Up in space, the hijacked satellite is pointed toward Los Angeles' North-eastern side.
A small amount of nuclear energy shoots out of the satellite and hits the middle of the eight buildings. The destruction was huge; it carried the power of a small nuclear bomb. It destroyed the ones closest to impact and leveled the ones farther out. The buildings outside of the target area had minor damage to them. The terrorists readied themselves for the next blast when someone said, "CTU is here!"
"Fighting people to their stations," Jeb shouted, "You, computer people, keep blowing up buildings."
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CTU-9:38:23pm
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Bill, Chloe, and Audrey were in the Situation Room where they were waiting to speak with the President. Suddenly he appeared on the screen. "This is the President along with Mike Novick. What is the Situation?"
"We have agents on the ground at the Hallmark Building, "Bill began, "As you may or may not have heard, the terrorists have stolen a nuclear bomb and they are using it right now. They are using the power from the nuclear bomb, by using the satellite from space, to destroy pieces of the city. We have Chloe working on bringing back our satellite from the terrorists before more destruction can come." Someone came in and whispered into Bill's ear and left, "I have just received word that the entire north-eastern side of Los Angeles has been completely destroyed, everyone dead."
"What do you want us to do," the President asked nervously.
"We want you to hide in your indestructible bunker and do nothing, we will take care of everything up here," Bill replied.
"Gee, thanks," the President replied sarcastically, "how will you protect everyone if CTU will be destroyed?"
"We will hope it will never come to that, but if it happens, there are other agencies to run the cities. We will contact you later, Mr. President," Bill hangs up and turns to Chloe, "Chloe, do you have any progress for stopping the bomb threat?"
"I might," she replied, "the only way to stop this threat is to blow up the satellite. It will take awhile to do it though."
"That is not good news," Bill said, "Do what you half to do. How long will it take?"
"It will take around 15-20 minutes to get through all the anti-hacking stuff. I will get on it immediately."
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Hallmark Battle-9:45:21pm
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It was a hide and seek battle at the Hallmark Building and the terrorists had the element of surprise. But after CTU got the schematics of the building and the location of the terrorists, it became target practice. CTU deducted that the nuclear bomb was on the twenty-fifth floor of the thirty floor building. They also found out that the terrorists disabled the elevators so the agents would have to climb twenty-five floors of building and through terrorists.
Jacks group was running up the stairs to the tenth floor when suddenly they were ambushed by a group of 15 terrorists. The shooting started immediately. Five terrorists went down, bullets through their heads, but also five of Jacks agents went down, leaving him with six agents left. The terrorists had the upper hand and they knew it. They started to advance toward the group. But before they could get any shoots out, they suddenly fell dead, bullets riddled through their bodies.
Jack looked up from behind his hiding place and saw Curtis' group come up from behind the terrorists and waved. "Thanks for saving us," Jack said. "No problem," Curtis replied. Then Curtis' and Jacks group joined up and they went on.
Baker wasn't so lucky. By the time he reached Jack and Curtis' group, he was the only one left. They all went up together, getting ready to take back the nuclear bomb.
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Hallmark Terrorist Center-9:55:12
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The only people in the Center room were Jeb and ten other terrorists. They had destroyed the entire north side of the city. One person was monitoring CTU as they came closer. 'They would never get to us,' Jeb thought, 'We have our own escape route.'
Another person was monitoring the satellite to see if there were any problems. He found one. "Jeb," he shouted, "the satellite is on a program now to self destruct! What should we do?"
"Rewrite the power of the nuclear bomb from the satellite back to the bomb. Now!"
The terrorist started bringing back power of the bomb and soon he had all the power back into the bomb. The bomb was now the most powerful weapon in Los Angeles again. "Let's go," Jeb said.
As Jeb and the terrorists, carrying the bomb with them, escaped through a secret corridor, an explosion from the satellite filled the night sky.
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9:59:57, 9:59:58, 9:59:59, 10:00:00
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