this is for karivalentina, who asked me to update quickly!
enjoy! amacma

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Charges
02:10 pm LT
Thursday, 19th of October, 2018

James Heller entered the section of rooms in the second underground floor of the Pentagon alone. He didn't want to have any witnesses with him, so he sent all the guards away and only kept the ones who seemed to be newly instated. They didn't have a network, they weren't anyone's 'friends' or 'spies' yet, so he chose this to be safer when he'd meet Audrey's husband.

Colonel Tusker of the Military Intelligence Division had kept his promise and had sent him right over to the Pentagon in a helicopter. After he had personally learned that the man he had been hunting for all that time was Audrey's husband he had let the research be.
Heller now owned Tusker a personal favor after Tusker had been willing to erase all the involvement of Miles Anderson from the files of their current operation. Part of the tapes of the UAV camera were kept under wraps by now.

Heller greeted the last guard on his way. The young lieutenant saluted at the first sight he saw of the secretary of defense. That was his first time ever to meet such an influential person. The young man felt like a very important person himself as he took his keycard and opened the door to the interrogation room for the secretary.

The older man thanked him and stepped inside, alone. His captive was tightly bound to a chair in the middle of the room. A black sack covered his head. Nobody had gotten a look at their prisoner up to now. That had been part of the deal with Tusker.

Heller stepped over to him and ripped the black cloth off Miles' head.

Audrey's husband started.

He blinked his eyes, not able to see anything after the bright lights of the room hit his face.

Then he saw Heller. For a moment he was unsure whether he should be happy or afraid. There were no military-men inside the room. Just Heller. That meant for sure that he kept to the deal that he had made with his father. Otherwise the military would already interrogate him on their own, Mile thought.
This cheered him up. A little smile flit across his face. He remembered Heller's last discussion with his father.

"Miles.", Heller spoke.

"James.", Miles answered, insubordinately. "What a pleasure."

"Don't make any jokes, Miles.", Heller warned him and started to walk in circles around his son-in-law. "You're not in the position to."

But Miles just laughed. He knew his position. "Really, James?" Theatrically he made a pause, "Do you have an official arrest warrant to hold against me?"

Heller stayed silent. Of course he had none.

"Hm, James?", Miles probed.

"Miles, I don't need one to keep you here."

"Please, James, come on. We both know this is just a matter of time. How long until you think that my father is going to find out about this? He won't be very happy."

Slowly Heller was losing his good mood and his patience. He came back and built himself up in front of Miles. Angrily he looked down on the guy. "Miles, I have the tapes. YOU harassed my daughter, you slapped her, fought with her, and threatened her with a gun. I have enough to charge you with."

Miles' mood got a bit less cheerful, but he wouldn't let the old man get to much power. "James, your daughter is a cheating bitch."

Heller shot around and already wanted to punch Miles hard into the face upon hearing this.
He had already swung his fist, but stepped down in the last moment. This was not worth it. He'd not give Miles another thing to hold against him.

Miles had seen the whole action and sat there, laughing. "What now James? Wanna hit me, like I hit Audrey?", he joked, "Even if you charge me with spousal abuse, James, that will make twenty hours community service and nothing else. It's a first offence."

"Not the way that you treated her there!", Heller roared. He was really angry by now.

"How I treated HER?", Miles was now shouting, too. "She's a cheating bitch, nothing else!"

"You threatened her with a GUN!", Heller retaliated.

Miles took a deep breath and collected his thoughts again. It was of no use to argue with Heller so madly. He'd calm down and tell him the same facts that his family's lawyers had told him to say. "James", he started, "it's proven that she cheated on me. I shot at her lover who was always with her- she didn't even care to keep it a secret or to come back to me."
Miles took a deep breath. "I've got a right to fight for my wife."

"By using your fists and your gun?", Heller asked.

"I've got a right to fight for my honor. I won't let myself be fooled by any guy who comes along and sleeps with her."
Miles wanted to continue but he saw that Heller took the black cloth again to put it over his head.

Heller had enough of this. He didn't listen any more to whatever Miles would say. Hearing Audrey being called a 'bitch' hurt him. But what hurt him even more, as he left the interrogation room was, that Miles was right with every word that he was saying. Audrey had done this. She had brought disgrace on him too by getting involved with Jack Bauer again.

And now they didn't even have this man any more in custody.

Heller told the lieutenant to keep the prisoner locked away from any other persons at any cost before he left.

As he stepped back into the elevator upstairs, he wished Bauer in hell.

The Asian doctor came out of the provisional operating theatre and found a delegation with the general himself already waiting.

"How are the results?", their highest ranking officer directly asked.

The doctor pulled the bloody sterile gloves off his hands and threw them in the waste basket nearby. He looked tired after a three hour live saving action on their victim. It had not been as hard to pull the bullet out of that man who they thought to be Jack Bauer as it had been to pull these two bullets out of the female agent five months ago.
"The patient is in a coma right now. An approximately two-weeks old wound got infected not long ago and he was already close to a septic shock as he had been brought here. I removed the bullet and started an antibiotic treatment to lower the septic reaction and the fever. It can take up to three days until he wakes up."

The general went over to the door and peeked into the room through the two small glass panes. Bauer was still lying on the table, his torso was wrapped in gauze, several tubes went in through his mouth and helped him breathe.

"Can't you speed this process up?", the officer asked again, unfriendly, while the general was watching.

"Any hour we wake him up earlier can result in a severe damage and risk for an immediate stroke.", the doctor answered. He had learned not to say yes or no. If they wanted to take this risk, they would do it anyway. This treatment was not oriented to the best of the patient- but to the best for the mission.

Now the general came back. "No. Don't wake him up. We have made that mistake once with Agent Walker. I don't want that to happen a second time. We have greater plans for him.", he answered and then just left without any more words. He was drowned in plans by now.