The time passed faster than he anticipated. Their president was even a few moments early. Sukumal stood watching the fat device chiming for a moment before picking it up. He did so slowly, his eyes on Richard Dominguez and the black and white-suited men behind him. "Yes."

Gardner's voice was static-blurred but clear enough to carry to all those Sukumal wanted. "We've done as you asked. The USS Alexander was on a bearing that was bringing it slightly closer to your coast in any case but it's been ordered to head there directly. You can verify that for yourselves I assume. She'll still need a few hours to make port and I want assurances of the safety of the crew."

"Do as they're told and I have no interest in harming your crew," the huge man replied, his dark eyes still scanning the hostages. "When I have confirmation that the missiles are in our control, we will make plans to release the hostages here and you will be given the locations of all the containers of toxin."

"What about yourselves? I assume you have plans you intend to implement to get away?"

"… and I should tell you now so that you can falsely clear our path and establish an ambush. I did not kill the man who came before me to make that kind of stupid mistake."

Gardner, on the far end of the connection was silent for a moment. When he spoke it was quietly and bitterly, an unmistakable edge of defeat in his voice. "I never assumed you were a fool, just that you'd want to discuss clearing that path under your guidelines.'

"The time will come when I will choose to discuss that. For now, I will call you again when the submarine arrives. If you are lying to me, people will start dying and they will stop only when you do give us the compensation we deserve. Is that understood?"

"Very clearly. Go check with your navy." The connection clicked off at the Washington end and Sukumal smiled at the men, defeat and anger and hatred on their faces, powerless before him, all but the older, taller one whose face was resolutely pointed at the ground. "So much for not negotiating with the likes of me, hmph? A man suddenly on his knees before what he thought a weak enemy will do anything." He raised the radio again, this time not bothering to leave. "It is Sukumal. Have they begun moving?" There was a pause and then the smile beneath his mustache grew slowly and twisted. "Excellent. Excellent. How long before it arrives?"

Hearing the answers he wanted, Sukumal Mayuri felt the blood rush through his body as only had once before, the time he had killed, bare-handed the four men who had come, unarmed, to the camp outside the city where Nirmala Hassal and his troops were garrisoned; their intent had been to kill the leader housed there. He had been hired to bring food supplies to the commandeered home, when he was a man with no interest in politics as long as he kept his family alive. He had spotted the four men climbing over the fence and without thinking shouted a warning. Discovered, they had turned on him for their target instead and he'd killed all of them, two of them with one blow, before Hassal's guard's had reached the gate.

An hour later, he not only had enough funds to keep his family alive for ten years, but enough that the politics of his war-ravaged country were now of profitable interest. Sukumal smiled to himself and tossed the satellite radio in the air gently, his huge hand engulfing it as it returned from the air. He could hardly imagine that he was now the man in charge of this operation, one that had taken over a decade to plan and execute, a plan to construct a prime example of all that was corrupt in the United States of America, and then use that example as a trap for those who could (against their will certainly) make Kajananphur a nuclear power that must be dealt with, a way to leverage back against the economic sanctions placed on them for taking the country in hand. The mission was now his, his mark in history was certain, and he would now take his place as the People's Hand. Smiling once again at the men on the floor before him, he returned the satellite phone to its place on the small cabana, never glancing back, never seeing that as he'd tossed the device in the air, his large hands had brushed against the transmission switch and opened the circuit again.

The now open line did not, however, go unnoticed. Tiny, red, and almost concealed beneath a small tumble of decorative silk flowers trimming the support pole of the cabana roof, the light that indicated an open transmission peeked back at CTU Director Bill Buchanan between a clutch of small golden petals. He dropped his head again to conceal a cold and irresistible smile.

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In a basement room of a small home overlooking the Pacific, another tiny light reactivated; a woman's hand, small and dark, on its way up to cancel out the field that would have prevented the communication behind it from connecting stopped its progress. The woman it belonged to glanced behind her and looked for Kathirivan Bhakti. Yana found he was once again seated in the chair far behind them. The radio was still in his hand and in silhouette she could see his head was still pointing down toward it. She could hear nothing but he had intentionally moved out of range before. She could only assume he was remaining so for some reason and not likely a good one. Sighing, wondering what the allegedly perfect men at the other end had done wrong, she turned back to watching the radar screen in front of Patel Amrish and the display showing the positions of their navy as they followed the American submarine toward the main docks of Parresh. Whatever they were talking about, at least that part was still going as planned.

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Morris shifted his weight again, wishing he'd brought a cushion to go with all the electronic equipment. At least his ass against the concrete was the only thing that was cold. Down here at the bottom of the loading dock he was, at least, out of the wind and he was warm enough… by now even the crotch of his trousers had dried even if there was a water stain still on the expensive fabric to remind him of his ex-sister-in-law's latest bout of gleefully childish, if half-heartedly repented behavior.

He looked at his watch, thinking back and calculating the time she'd been in there. He was a quarter of the way through the life of his second battery. O'Brian closed his eyes and figured three hours or so had passed. When he opened them it was to find an icon flashing on the screen of green and blue data he had been sorting and feeding to Manning as he went through the rest of his files between calls to and from Gibson, files of names, places, dates, etc. that might help them put more of the puzzle together… and prove he had had no reason to suspect anything was wrong until the police scanner at his home went ballistic with calls to Culver City. The icon lighting up was the one that monitored the scrambling field around the Cerulean Cove. He watched it flashing for a few seconds to make sure he was sure and then tabbed the earpiece connected to his laptop. "Contact Manning," he ordered.

It took only seconds for the reply. "What is it?"

"Check your readings, Mate. They're not scrambling anything anymore, and they haven't been for ten minutes at least. My computer's telling me it's suddenly got four wireless networks available to it. If you've got people to call, you better move fast."

"We'll take care of things at this end, Mr. O'Brian. If you think this'll last, I'll send in a team to extract you to safety."

Morris thumped his head back against the thick metal door lightly and scowled, tempted even knowing it was pointless. "No way to know that. If it went down it might go back up. We don't know if this is a glitch or something maybe Chloe's done or even a trap."

Curtis sat back and drew a hand across his chin, listening and watching as around him the reports began to come in that the scrambling field around the Cerulean Cove had indeed gone down for who know how long. "All right, thank you. Oh, and that glass company, they're sending us over the specs about the mix they used to construct it and the coatings, and ways we might be able to penetrate it."

"Good… right then. Call me when you know what you're doing and I'll warn Gibson."

"Yeah." Curtis Manning stood up, Aaron Pierce following him as he walked down through the narrow confines of the van, listening at the confirmations coming in that there was no longer an electronic barrier around the building that was preventing their comm devices from working inside. The red-haired young man at the last station, wearing a headset and working four screens at once, glanced behind him at Manning's approach. "It's down and there's a transmission line coming from the building but the last signal we've back-traced on it was about seven minutes ago. We fine-tuned everything and started scanning more frequencies when we heard that man you were talking to say that the scrambling was down. We've found a low-level signal still coming from the fourteenth floor, but it's mostly background noises, a fountain, a cough once in a while, voices but not that often and we haven't found anyone yet who speaks this dialect we're picking up anyway. We haven't had diplomatic relations with Kajananphur for something like ten years. But… if we pick up someone speaking English, the audio ciphers should be able to get a clear signal right away."

"Fourteenth floor still. Hopefully, that means that they haven't moved the bulk of the hostages so we're not hunting for them all over the place." Curtis turned away from the seated man and looked back at Aaron Pierce. "What do you think?"

The older man's narrow but lined brow furrowed for a moment and then relaxed. "I think somebody in there's made a mistake. There's no point setting a trap to free people up on the fourteenth floor. They know and we know it'd take so long to reach them that the hostages would be dead when we got there and they'd likely only do that when they could carry out the rest of their plans; sending a team in blind would just add them to the body count. They're also working with a false sense of security now. They think Gardner's givin' 'em what they want. They don't think they have anything to do but wait."

Curtis stood still for a moment more and then began moving quickly toward the door of the vehicle, as soon as he drew abreast of Pierce the blond man reached out and snagged his arm. "If you're getting ready to send a team in there, I'd like to lead it. I might have left the Marines but they sure as hell didn't leave me and, no offense, these kids I'm seeing look like they could use a commanding officer with a few shaved gray hairs on him."

Manning met the pale eyes across from his own and nodded slowly. "You sure?"

"Semper Fi, Mr. Manning. Let me show our kids and those sons of bitches how it's done."

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The problem, as always, was exactly where to start. This Sukumal, unlike his talkative predecessor, seemed uninterested in engaging in conversations, even with his own men. He was standing in the middle of the room, near the volcano's pond and, strangely enough, feeding the bread from an abandoned tray of finger sandwiches to the massive white and gold koi that circled lazily and slowly under the water lilies. Buchanan stared at the absurd sight for several seconds, wondering if it gave him the edge he needed.

Psychopaths often began their reigns of terror by abusing animals, unable to empathize with their pain only enjoying the power to inflict it because unconsciously they felt they had none unless the victim was absolutely helpless in some way, an animal, a child, or unarmed and smaller. Sukumal seemed to be enjoying himself as he watched the huge fish, however, smiling even when he managed to toss one piece of bread directly into the gaping mouth of the largest of them gathering around the edge of the pond nearest him. Well, if he perhaps wasn't a psychopath, that left purely political motivations and, of course, fame at home… and the wealth that came from running a junta IF he got home. Maybe that was it. … and for now it was all he had regardless.

"I suppose you'll have your own Olympic size pond of those when you get back."

Sukumal Mayuri turned to look at the man who had spoken, the one who had been dealing with Hassal, and shrugged. "I will have the honor of serving my people. I want nothing more. If they choose to reward me, I will not dishonor their generosity."

Buchanan glanced around the room one last time, counting quietly, and tilting his head away from the giant when he did speak, pretending to stare blankly in the direction of the cabana a dozen feet or so from him, hoping to cover his efforts to direct his voice. "I'm sure they will be generous and impressed. You've achieved all this and retaken control of this room with only eight men. Hassal couldn't do that when there were almost twice as many at his disposal and there are only fifty-two of us. I'll give him credit for dividing the men and the women, that's an old trick but it's effective, especially keeping us sitting here directly apart but in view of each other, away from the door. But you're in command here now and I've been in this business long enough to know when we're facing someone who earned a job, and someone who was just took it."

Sukumal tossed the last bit of bread to the swarming, splashing fish and offered the CTU director a teasing bow. "Hassal commands as you said… commanded as you said, but he was also too interested in yammering and playing mind games with people who are tools. So you'll excuse me if I leave. We need to go kill your Mr. Bauer." He turned away from the CTU director with a grunt and walked back over to the window facing west, smirking at the sprawl of emergency vehicles and darkened buildings now surrounding the Cerulean Cove. In a few hours, he would be on his way home. In a few months, the old man was right, he would be watching his elephant drink from the finest fish pond in Southeast Asia.

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Curtis Manning bit back a smile he was afraid to unleash just yet and looked at the earnest green eyes of the young man before him with a measured expression. "You're sure?"

"I ran it through three times as soon as we recorded it. It's Mr. Buchanan."

Curtis Manning looked at the voice pattern analyses in his other hand, all of them well within normal range. Whatever stress Buchanan might have been under he might also was feeling some fairly intense relief that he had likely found a way to get a treasure trove of logistical data out to them, hence the relatively normal reading. … and it would take an incredibly sophisticated bit of trickery to fool him after all these years. "All right, good work, Evans, good work."

Print out in hand, he bolted out of the van and over to the waiting squadron of ordnance and tactical specialists, all standing in a circle around the stout and steady figure of Aaron Pierce. "Hold up; we've got intel from the hostage floor."

Pierce reached for the paper he was extending, reading over the transcript of the intercepted transmission. "Looks like Buchanan's aware there's a leak and took advantage of it."

"He knows he's feeding us. Our job is to get in there before this changes or changes much. Right now we've got two groups of hostages, divided into groups by sex and seated on the floor. We had a count on the political guests but not on the members of the press and the staff who weren't involved so we don't know how many of each. We've got nine hostiles including the man he was talking to and we can assume since they wouldn't have put hostages near the exit that the men and the women are grouped here and here if they've been placed directly apart from one another," he finished, hastily drawing two juxtaposed Xs on the diagram Evans had made as the he'd analyzed the recording. The Xs were roughly each 90 degrees from the door. "They may even be a few short of that since the man speaking said "we" when he talked about going to kill Jack."

Pierce read the statements again. "And our hostiles have had their own problems. Sounds like the one who answered Buchanan might have killed his superior officer."

"After the problems Jack and Chloe have caused them, I don't doubt it. It make sense to these kind of people, and for now, we can assume they're still alive, Martha and Cassie, too. If he'd managed to kill any of them, especially Martha, I think it's likely he would have been bragging about it." Manning glanced at the building towering over them several blocks away. He reached up to the multi-channel comm in his ear. "Contact Griffin."

"Here, Sir."

"Marcus, we have fresh intel on what's happening right now inside that building. If those kids can't hack in there within the next ten minutes, we're taking our chances being spotted going in the front door. What's their status?"

"Hold on, Sir." The next words he spoke were, of course, directed at the three young men from Cal-Tech who had been recruited from their jail cells. Not wired against Griffin's jawbone, their replies were indistinct but brief and Griffin was back in less than a minute. "Sir, he says we can get in there anytime, we just run a risk of them detecting the break in security circuit. They've got the risk down to 15 but now one of them says that he thinks he's figured out the sequence it runs the checks on, so we can take it from a 15 chance they'll see the door opening for more than three seconds to a 10 or 12 chance if we can slip in in between rounds."

"Okay, we're going take that chance. I want you to be prepared to break down operations there as soon as those doors are breached."

"Yes, Sir. One thing, Sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Permission to join the strike team, Sir?"

Manning hesitated, knowing Griffin's fondness for Jack Bauer but also that he was the senior operative at his location. "I'm sorry, Marcus. I need you to get those civilians to safety. They've put themselves in danger and done a good job for us. We're obligated to getting them out of harm's way. You'll be on the next teams we send in to do search and recovery."

"Yes, Sir. I understand. Good luck."

Manning turned back to Pierce as he folded the transcript and tucked it back into his leg pocket. "When you're in position call me. We have one more piece of information to put in place and that's whatever the hell Jack has done to that north stairwell. We'll get a couple of choppers up in the air and keep an eye on the roof. Are you ready?"

Pierce nodded, his pale eyes moving over the twenty-five heavily armed young men watching him closely. "Absolutely."

"Then get going. Call me when you're ready to cross into their view. We've got a diversion ready that's been on stand-by."

Pierce nodded and turned back to his men. "All right! This is it! Move out. Keep sharp." They turned as one, heading at a run toward the Cerulean Cove as the darkest part of the night fell over the city.

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Morris O'Brian shut the link down with a scowl and hoped Manning knew what the hell his men would be doing. He glanced up at the building above him and then up at the top of the family-run car rental agency across the street, thinking furiously about what Manning had reported as far as the three young men working on expanding the time interval that would let them open the service door for more than three seconds. He'd mentioned being able to anticipate the cycle the system checked the lock sequences on and that they were able, predicting it, to have taken 2 to 3 off the chance that the teams would be detected. Something was worrying at him now, something that the younger man's inspired bit of prognostication had inspired.

The wheels turned a few minutes more before the light dawned. Damn. Of course. It might gain them only 3 or four more percent but an eight or nine percent chance that they would be able to get in undetected was better than 15, 12 or even 10. He reached up to the comm. "Contact…". What the hell was that kid's name?

The comm unit's tiny program waited five seconds before admonishing him. "Command incomplete."

"Contact… Agh… Damn it."

"'Damn it' is not a valid contact."

"Well, then damn you!"

"Command not found. Please state a valid command."

Morris resisted the temptation to crunch the small device against the wall. He glared at the screen in front of him, and then quietly, surreptitiously, far outside his blackmailed-into-existence mission parameters, and, of course, completely illegally, entered the programming matrix of the CTU operations center and scanned the active deployment grid. It took him only moments to find the one he was on, obviously the largest deployment in the city. He narrowed it down to the positions of each individual and gave the earpiece a victorious tap. "Contact Griffin." He bit back a smile to save for later, when he was telling Melanie and Eliza and Monica about all, well, some of this (none of them at the same time, of course).

"This is Agent Griffin. Who is this?"

"This is that guy who does NOT exist across the street. I need to talk to whoever's breaking the time sequence on the security system and I do NOT have time to through channels. The lives of the team going into this hotel and maybe a lot of other people could depend on you putting me on with him right now."

Griffin hesitated, looking across the street at the downward slope of the truck ramp, and then down at the three young programmers, and finally back at the Cerulean Cove, thinking of those inside who were relying on CTU for their rescue, the Senators, the Speaker of the House, dozens of others and a man who had so recently become his teacher. This was an off-protocol field call. Those dozens of lives, maybe hundreds might be in his hands. The unidentified man across the street knew the team was coming already, the young men before him would have no way of knowing if what they were about to be told would betray them but his gut was telling him that the time had come to think on his feet, that wasting time would waste lives. Instinct overcame the rules, instinct more powerful than the voice of any superior he'd had so far. "Okay, …just hold on."

The next voice O'Brian heard didn't fill him with confidence. "Uh, this is Ito Hirokawa. Who are you?"

"Nevermind. Stop what you're doing. The program to expand that time window, forget it. All you need to do is hack the timer itself. Slow down the scanning interval across the board. Set it back about 20. Can you do that?"

"Well, geez, I'm already in there. Sure." Keys clacked over the open comm in rapid succession, followed by a snorting breath. "Crap, man, I shoulda' thought of this myself. Don't slow down one horse, slow down the race. Effin'cool."

"Just shut up and do it. How long will it take?"

"About two minutes easy, Your Highness. Chill. That it or do you want G.I. Joe again?"

Morris O'Brian slumped back against the metal doorway and ran a hand over his face as he shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, I want G.I. Joe back… and Kid, good job."

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Unconscious, gagged, and bound with rope they had found with the work ladder still in the service corridor, three men in desert camouflage lay behind the front desk of the Cerulean Cove, one bleeding from a bullet wound to the shoulder, one with a knee at an stomach-turning angle, and all marked with facial bruises that were clearly the violent imprints of human fists. Not far from them was a pile of pillaged weapons and ammunition, taken from each one as he was captured. Chloe O'Brian stood guard over them mutely, her eyes on the digital clock beside the orderly rows of room cards and message boxes, thinking how pointless it was to even look at it. They were running out of time without knowing how much they had but they had succeeded with their goal. The north stairwell was now inaccessible all the way up to the level of the hostages. They had narrowed down the avenue of anyone reaching the lobby to one doorway.

Chloe looked up when she heard two pairs of foot falls, one sharper than the others, Martha Logan's she knew without even looking. She was leading, at gunpoint, another captive before her, one whose steps were markedly unsteady. The sleeves were cut off of his uniform, one was binding his wrists, the other was serving as a gag. Going by the amount of saliva soaking it, it had been there for some time. When he lowered himself unsteadily to the floor next to the tumble of the others, Chloe saw a pair of fang-like burn marks at the back of his neck.

Martha Logan lowered the gun as he flopped down to his knees, still keeping it in her hand and standing well back. "Your sister said she'd left him behind the vending machines."

Chloe nodded and looked toward the doorway just visible under the waterfall designed stairway. Her sister and Jack stood on either side of it, having captured each of the first three men in succession as they came down to see what the problem was with the other stairwell. As Jack had hoped, each of them seemed to have assumed that the fire doors had been sealed by their own superiors to aid in capturing Jack and the others, to herd them toward a trap, an assumption all but confirmed by the looks and shrugs they had given each other when Jack had brought them over here then knocked each of them out. She looked back at the man Logan had just brought over and then up to see Jack on his way over to them. Logan raised a hand to stop him and with a tired, almost bored, expression, slammed the butt of her pistol into the side of the new arrival's head. Bauer stood in his tracks, staring blankly for a moment, then offered Martha a thin, tired smile before turning back to the doorway.

Gibson looked up as he closed on her. "Did Chloe…?"

"Martha, actually. That's the only one you left?"

Gibson didn't answer him for a moment, her eyes going to Martha Logan and widening slightly. "Alive… yeah. So, uh… it…. Martha? She's like so not what I expected."

Jack ran hand over his face and gave a tired lift of his brow. "She never is if you only know her from the news. I had to trust her with my life, with everything about her husband and she turned on him, on all she'd ever known until that day and came through. I couldn't let them kill her, not when there was a chance Chloe would get…." He leaned against the wall, exhaustion closing on him not seeing Gibson shake her head and smile.

"Let it go, Jack. Whatever exactly happened, there's not one thing my sister would have had you do differently."

He looked up then, his eyes going to the small woman across the lobby holding a gun at the bound men on the floor, "I know that and it scares the hell out of me."

"And even in the middle of this, I love hearing that because it tells me how much she means to you." She returned his sudden smile, then upended it. "And at the other end of that moral compass… time to call Morris?"

"You do it." An expression of distaste tightened Bauer's narrow mouth. He was probably figuring, and rightly, that she had developed a heartier tolerance for him over the years - even under these circumstances. Bauer's eyes went back to the south stairwell door as she reached for the comm.

"Morris?"

"Right here, Darling. I was about to call you. Team's in place."

"Fine. We're ready."

"Right. You've got two minutes and just so you know – they won't be going in blind; Buchanan's slipped out some intel out from upstairs."

"Great. Fine. Same door?"

"Yeah, and wherever all this is tied into, they shouldn't know we're coming."

Gibson opened her mouth to answer, then stopped, and in the next moment reconsidered. "Good job."

The pause at the other end of the was even longer and O'Brian's voice was quiet and tense when the silence ended. "Thanks." The words that came after that one came quickly, however, and caught her slightly off-guard. "One other thing, Cass'… I… I'm sorry." The comm went dead.

Jack looked over at Gibson as a hissed-in breath escaped her in a single huff. "Something wrong?"

"We're all going to die: he apologized."

"Little late for that as far as you're concerned."

"I don't care one way or the other, Kiddo. He showed up, cut his deal, and I just thought of him like any other snitch. Oh, by the way, if you try to go up with them once that team gets in here, I'll knock you on your pretty ass and sit on you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to my sister, especially compared to the company sitting down in the loading ramp outside."

The thin smile that had come to Bauer's face as she issued her warning faded as she finished. "That's where Morris is?"

"You were right. He didn't know it was this bad but he was involved with the people who built this place. When he found out Chloe was in here he suddenly decided he had to run my information to Curtis himself through a hardline past the interference. So if this place blows, he goes, too." From the expression on her face Bauer could tell, apology or not, that the idea bothered her not at all.

While he wanted to know more, now wasn't the time. The nightmare around them overtook his thoughts again. "Let's fall back. We don't want to be in the way." Gibson nodded and obeyed, following his movements as he began backing toward the front desk.

They were three feet from it when the door out of the south stairwell exploded open, disgorging eight men and the giant who had captured him and Chloe after they had escaped the initial round-up of the hostages. They returned fire immediately, making it behind the desk before Gibson was slammed back against the wall and dropped unmoving to the ground. Jack moved to duck down behind the counter even before Chloe screamed behind him, returning up from cover with the gun Gibson had dropped in his other hand. Only three of the men were still continuing to fire. The rest were spreading out to head for the north door, presumably having realized that the stairwell was now sealed off and they had been bottle necked all the way up to the level of the hostages, and of course, that he was to blame. Their arrival in the lobby meant that they were likely assuming, deed done, that he might now be headed for the escape the shot-open lobby door had earlier implied.

The three men firing at Jack had taken cover behind the huge curving stairwell and a concrete and steel planter directly across from him. He kept firing in both directions as he glanced quickly at the others heading for the north door, diving down behind the counter as the almost unconscious count he was keeping on both guns told him he was a few shots away from being out of ammunition in both. Martha Logan was in his face as he dropped, offering him two already loaded weapons that he took in both hands. She reached down and took another one in her own. "I can't shoot this thing other than point blank but if you give me a general direction I'll try and help."

Jack nodded. "Stay on my left and stay low. If you're visible at all be firing. Move back out from the desk a little and you won't have as far to go up to shoot over it." He watched as she scooted back, went to her knees, and the opened fire, learning quickly to adjust for the recoil but pulling down on her wrist even as the gun bucked upward. The seeking fire that had been hammering around them stopped for a moment, long enough for Bauer to look over at Chloe as she knelt by her sister against the dark blue wall, her own weapon aimed at the opening through which Jack and Chloe had originally joined them. "Chloe!"

Wild-eyed, her hair in strings around her face, Chloe snapped toward him, tears on her face. She nodded once and quickly, letting him know that her sister was still alive. Bauer turned back, raising up to fire again when a half-dozen flash-bang grenades exploded into the lobby, thrown from somewhere behind them. Before the noise had even faded Jack had tackled Martha Logan and thrown her to ground beneath him, catching sight of Chloe throwing herself over her sister as he did.

The firing over their heads continued only for as long as it took the outside ordnance and assault personnel to move fully into the lobby, taking out two of the armed men from Kajananphur instantly but finding they were out flanked by the five who had proceeded toward the north stairwell. Two of the CTU men fell to their shots as they fired across the width of the lobby, having taken cover behind more of the concrete planters that held fully grown palm trees. They were soon displaced, however, by the second squadron of men who slipped through the front doors. It was over in seconds; bodies in three different styles of camouflage lay strewn across the lobby, five of them cut down from behind as they'd headed for the blocked stairwell.

Jack Bauer lay crouched against the silence, the sequins of Martha Logan's gown biting into his hands and the side of his face. She realized before he that the danger was over, lifting her head as a half-dozen pair of black boots came into her vision. She waved back the man reaching down for Bauer and brought her arms beneath her, slowly pushing up off the floor. Jack responded without a word, sliding back and then off of her as she came to sit by his side on the ground. She gestured slowly at the men around them in CTU fatigues and then held his gaze. "It's over, Sweetheart. The cavalry's here."

Bauer stared into her eyes for a moment more before managing a smile and a weak nod of his head. He glanced at the men around them and took a deep breath, staggering to his feet by holding onto the bullet-ridden counter. He extended a hand to help her up and found a gentle hand pulling back his arm, pushing him slightly to the right. "That's my job, Jack. Should've been here before to do it."

"I'm glad you weren't. You would've gotten yourself killed long before now, you idiot." Martha pulled herself upright and into Aaron Pierce's outstretched arms. Jack turned a brief smile at them and escaped the hand Martha quickly laid on his arm to get past the small clutch of men now behind the counter, shaking off the shock and heading to where he was most needed now.

Chloe was on her feet when he reached her, having been torn between heading toward him and leaving her sister. There was a medic kneeling beside Gibson on the floor, however, opening a medical kit and shooing the others back. Chloe was back on her knees a moment later, not sure if she had collapsed or Bauer had as his arms closed around her.

They kissed with a raw need that had nothing to do with love or sex but a desire for simple proof that the other was alive and safe. O'Brian twisted her hands into the fabric of his tattered shirt and rode the moment out even as Bauer's head fell to her shoulder and his tongue tasted the nectar of the bitter sweat and oil of her skin. Only moments passed, however, before reality settled back upon them. Chloe heaved a sigh and lifted her head only to have another harsh assault begin.

"Damn it! What …? Get that light out of my eyes, you moron. I'm sorry I'm not shot for you but blind is not the substitute plan."

Already laughing, Chloe turned toward her sister, finding her in mid-swat at the startled and unappreciated medic . She leaped toward her sister and embraced her, ignoring the growling murmur of groans and curses as she returned the embrace. Jack wedged a hand in and pulled her back, suddenly aware of the pain Gibson must be feeling. "You're okay then?"

Gibson pushed her sister back with a smirk and wiped the tears from her face. "Except for being pissed at myself and sorry I missed everything." She released her sister and reached down to the hem of the sweater. "This is usually a one-man show, Jack, consider yourself lucky." She snatched the sweater off to reveal the vest beneath it, grinning when she saw the relief on the face of her sister, joined by confirmed suspicion on Jack's. She dug three compact and blunted bullets out of the Kevlar but her gaze left them narrowed onto Chloe's in the next instant, her eyebrows arching up. "You didn't think I was this… this… fat, did you?"

O'Brian snarled and struck away the last of her tears. "No, I was too busy thinking you were insane!"

Jack shifted his weight suddenly, pushing himself to his feet by way of a hand suddenly clamped over both of their mouths. "Not now, both of you." He swallowed a smile nevertheless, and kissed the top of Gibson's head before he slowly moved off.

Giggling as she watched him go, Gibson pulled her sister down as she rose to follow him, the affection in her voice carrying a tone of seriousness. "Forget the damn terrorists, any man with guts enough to shut me up with his bare hands, you better damn sight keep him, Monkey-Butt; you better damn sight keep him."

Jack found Aaron Pierce again, knowing full well in the sea of young faces who was in charge of the force now swarming over the lower floor. Martha was standing next to him, no doubt having no intention of leaving until the others were safe. Her hair was a mess, of course. Her bloodstained gown filthy and tattered and somehow, she still looked regal. Pierce was having a small bit of trouble not looking at her every few seconds as he received reports from the ordnance team already at the site of the first bomb at bomb on the lowest level. Pierce turned toward Bauer, lowering the radio as he finished the last round of reports.

"Can't imagine what it's been like in here for you, Jack. Gonna' be a hell of a debrief, but before all that – I want to thank you. This little lady told me you've been looking out for all of the people you had with you and laying the groundwork in here. These kids are gonna' learn a lot from you."

Jack's gaze dropped to the floor for a moment and then lifted as Chloe came up from behind him at tucked herself under his arm. He kissed the side of her head and was about to rest his cheek on it but she suddenly leaned forward. "I need your radio, Mr. Pierce. I did something really bad to buy us some time."

"You mean Wells Fargo? It's being handled through diplomatic channels, Miss Chloe. No need to worry. They said you gave them everything they needed to retrieve the money, too, but they've not done it yet. Had to wake a few people up but nobody's too upset."

"Really? Gee, I must be getting rusty." Chloe sighed, sharing a dim smile with Bauer as she rested her head onto his shoulder. "When can we get out of here? My feet are killing me."

"It won't be long. I promise." Bauer pulled her closer but was still taking in the extent of the force in the lobby and the swarm of men surrounding the stack of bodies they were making, the first fangs of true exhaustion sinking their teeth into his tight frame. "Aaron, what about the hostages upstairs? Are you going to be able to get a team in there before they're harmed?"

Aaron Pierce glanced at his watch and a thin smile suddenly pulled at his thin lips. "We've got that under control we think. Should start just about… now."

His timing was off slightly. A few seconds passed before what he was hinting at occurred, loudly and clearly, mostly loudly. A massive but muffled explosion reached their ears, one outside the building by a few blocks. Pierce's calm expression didn't change much except to offer a reassuring smile to Jack, Chloe, and Martha as the sound began to fade.

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The plume of fire erupting up from the twisted and scarred frame of the tractor trailer brightened the sky brilliantly if briefly, but long enough that the eight remaining men guarding the hostages bolted from their posts around the room and ran to the wall-sized windows overlooking West Century Boulevard. Bunched up against the clear surface they began after a few seconds to glance back at their charges and make a reminding wave of their weapons. Two police cars were behind the burned out and still smoldering frame of the semi-truck and more were joining them but so far were just letting it burn. To every appearance the truck had run the perimeter that had been set up and CTU had taken what they regarded as a necessary measure to stop it. At least that was the assumption. It lasted long enough for the helicopter on the opposite side of the Cerulean Cove to suddenly drop in close enough to the windows.

Bill Buchanan looked away from the direction of the explosion just in time to see a helicopter drop down from the airspace above them and he sat torn for a split second, wanting to keep safe those around him by yelling a warning or preserve even the briefest intervals of the element surprise for the attack that was imminent. He kept silent by the end of the tiny moment, trusting that his people knew what they were doing and sure, by the exacting angle of their approach, that his data had gotten through and they were attacking with a clear path of fire between themselves and the bunched hostage takers.

He threw himself down as a hail of weaponsfire erupted through the shattering windows, the sound of it overwhelming the screams of the hostages. Already seated on the floor, they gave the CTU troopers that almost perfectly clear path of fire to the group of men clustered near the far window, clear enough that two of them went with it down the opposite side of the tower as the glass shattered outward. Two of the men, however, were far enough away to escape the immediate field of fire, kept tight to avoid striking the cowering and screaming hostages. Buchanan watched them flee with a rush of anger and turned his attention back to the chopper hanging just outside the blown open window. He leapt up as soon as the firing stopped, waving at the three men brandishing sniper rifles out the side of the hovering air craft. He moved as close to the blown open window as he dared, removing his coat as he did, waving it in circles to gain the attention of the CTU agents. The closest one to his position removed his helmet and dropped it to the deck of the chopper, snagging up a pair of binoculars to get a better look at him.

Buchanan sighed with relief when he saw he had their attention. He tossed the coat aside and extended his arms before him then snapped them up into the position they would be in if he were also holding one of the rifles they were carrying. The man nearest him understood immediately. He unloaded the mostly empty clip and slapped in a full one, then waved the other men back to gain some room to build up the force he would need to throw the rifle across the 14 story void between them. It landed with a thud several feet inside the shot open window. The man who had thrown it held up a hand for Buchanan to wait and then pitched over two more full clips.

Bill moved in and snatched both the weapon and the ammunition into his hands, then moved into the center of the room. "Everyone, your attention please. Please!"

The room settled down quickly, turning to look at the armed figure who now, finally, was on their side. Bill Buchanan turned in a small circle to address them all as they came to their feet or moved to attend the wounded. "I need all of you to stay here. Obviously help is on the way and this is over but we'll need some time to get you all out of here in an organized, safe manner. Just try and relax, start caring for the wounded, and I'll have people sent up here as soon as possible."

He dropped the rifle into his hands and checked it as the crowd resumed chattering and collecting themselves. Some of the women were openly weeping. One of them had lost consciousness. Buchanan took one last look as he headed toward the door back out into the hallway and saw Speaker of the House Dominguez embracing his wife. The smile it brought to his face faded as he reached the door and slid through it, scanning the empty, blue-carpeted hallway. A few seconds later he heard a voice, an angry one, coming from the stairwell at the end of the hall, the north one, muted but loud enough to reach his ears. He raised the rifle and moved forward slowly.

When he reached the door, however, it was another matter. Rifle ready, he kicked it open and fired. The voices of the two men who had fled became louder and more alarmed as they shouted at each other. Several poorly aimed shots sailed past him from the stairwell beneath him but the voices instantly grew fainter as the sound of footsteps retreating downward began again. Buchanan stood frozen, listening carefully, determining that both men were still fleeing downward. His back against the outer wall, he descended the concrete steps with the rifle pointed downward.

He came upon the first doorway where they had stopped and, seeing what they had found, stopped himself, staring at the sight that must have vexed them and set them to shouting angrily. As much as it meant that they were trapped in here with him, it also meant that the escape route was cut off and the CTU team coming up would run no chance of being caught in a crossfire.

Around the pushbar of the lock on the inside were three bundles of white cloth, wound tightly and compactly, wound thickly enough that they were preventing the bar from being depressed and thus the door from opening. They were too thick to cut through without considerable effort and effort that would have to have been expended three times. Buchanan brushed his hands over the compact and dense bundle, staring at it curiously as the pieces quickly put themselves together and lead right to one conclusion: Jack. He and the others had blocked of the north stairwell with something as simple as binding the locks. The huge knots around them had been fashioned by winding the hotel bed sheets over and over into a dense wad that prevented the handle from being depressed.

A cold, appreciative smile on his face, Buchanan moved downward again, cornering his quarry at the door that led out to the lobby. They saw him coming this time, no longer needing to keep their gaze focused on the concrete beneath them as they charged. He dropped back as they began to fire upwards, switching the clip to a full one in under ten seconds and firing randomly at first just to disorient his prey. The deafening sounds of firing and ricochets filled the tight space with an explosion of pure noise… a clanging, numbing din that made the silence of death moments later even more profound. His ears ringing, Bill Buchanan slung his rifle back over his shoulder and slid down the wall of the stairwell, enjoying his first free breaths in far, far too many hours.

He sat for only a few minutes, however, hearing the familiar commotion of orders and footfalls out in the lobby. Of course, thanks to Jack, the only way to get there now, without cutting through a rock hard bundle of four-hundred thread count percale, was to cross over to the south stairwell and join his men from there. Pulling himself up, Buchanan gave the two dead men one last glance before jogging up the stairs to the landing and heading across the second floor.