Chapter 6

The following takes place between 9:25pm and 9:39pm MST, 4 years, 6 days after the detonation of a suitcase nuclear device in Valencia, California.

Karen gently ran her fingers through a lock of Christina's hair as she checked the toddler was still asleep. A smile crept across her face. She'd never had the chance to have children with her first husband, and by the time she met Bill, well, their age meant it was a little on the late side. Of course it hadn't bothered her, she'd loved her career, and she'd loved the freedom that had come with staying childless. But after a few days with Tony and Michelle's children, Karen was more than happy to continue being their surrogate grandma. She'd nag Tony and Michelle to bring the kids to Vermont, no matter how crazy it drove them, in fact she'd pay for the flights herself. Karen smiled again at the thought of her excitement. The more logical part of her brain reminded her that this excitement was based on the assumption the mission succeeded.

Speaking of, surely it'd be over by now? I haven't heard from him all day.

Her ears perked up as her cellphone hummed in her pocket. Stepping out from Christina's room and onto the back deck, she placed it to her ear.

"Hello?"

Jack cleared his throat. "Karen, it's Jack." She detected a hint of uneasiness in his voice.

"Is everything okay? I've been waiting to hear from Bill, how'd the mission go?" There was a pause on the other end. A hesitation. Karen felt her heart rate start to increase. "Jack, what happened?" She asked, adamantly.

"There were a lot more attackers than we were anticipating. Bill…he, uh, volunteered to stay out in the field."

After he promised me he wouldn't? After he promised me he'd just be running the mission from the FBI?

"He…he sacrificed himself to stop them from getting into the house. He died a hero." Jack continued to try to find some way of justifying what had happened. To find a way of telling Karen that yes, she's become a widow, but if not for her husband, several dozen agents would be dead, and two children would be orphans. But of course Jack knew better than anyone that no amount of padding, no amount of explaining, or reasoning, would ever ease the grief, the eternal pain that was only just beginning for Karen. "W-We lost a lot of agents today, young ones too. Without him, it would have been even worse. I'm so sorry."

She squeezed the phone with one hand, running a hand through her hair restlessly with the other.

Oh, Bill…

"Karen, you there?" Jack didn't exactly expect her to be, but asked anyway.

"Yes…yes. But, uh, otherwise, the mission succeeded? Tony and Michelle will be safe? The kids will be able to come over?" She clung to the hope of some other kind of good news coming from Jack's mouth.

"Yeah " His voice cracked, she could tell he was crying too."We've uncovered the conspirators, we're taking them back to Washington to interrogate them. But we'll get you and the kids flown to LA privately. There might be a delay with the funeral…but I'll …I'll keep you updated."

"Okay…okay, I understand." She responded weakly, squeezing her eyes shut as she hung up the phone.

—

The following takes place between 8:00am and 9:00am EST, 4 years, 1 week , 2 days after the detonation of a suitcase nuclear device in Valencia, California.

Seeing as everything was allegedly linked to Blackwater, the logical follow-up was to interrogate Cara and her boss, the founder of Blackwater, Alan Wilson back at the FBI office in Washington. As soon as President Taylor had heard the news, she insisted that the investigation was to conclude there. However, there was to be no investigation or searching of these company offices until the evidence against them was confirmed. All the FBI needed was for either Cara or Wilson to confess to any aspect of the conspiracy, and they would be given the green light. Renee Walker was now acting director of the FBI, seeing as the magnitude of the investigation findings had put a halt to the process of locating a replacement for Larry. The extra work was good for her though, a distraction from the loss. In fact, all of them had been so caught up in their work that grieving had simply been put on the back-burner. They'd called the families of the deceased, but funerals just weren't a priority right now.

Jack and Renee stood in the vestibule, observing the two criminals, each in their own holding room. He would interrogate Cara, Renee would interrogate Wilson, asking similar questions and checking if the stories corroborated later.

"How do you want to play this?" He asked.

She suspired, not meeting his gaze. "A week ago, I would have made sure you did everything by the book, I wouldn't have wanted the senate investigation to start looking into the FBI as well. But now? After everyone we've lost? I don't care what you have to do, we need that confession, to put a stop to this once and for all."

He noticed how drained her voice still sounded. Jack imagined she hadn't slept well in days, Renee had been overworking herself, in fact, he wasn't even sure whether she'd gone home or just slept at the office. He was worried about her, but he also knew that bringing it up now was pointless. Like any other field agent, be it FBI, CTU, CIA, Homeland, the job always took priority. Always.

Nodding in response, they left via opposite ends of the room.

After days spent chained, being watched with extreme caution, and only given bare necessities, Cara Bowden looked a little less put-together than her ID photo once suggested. Her red hair was knotted, makeup long since gone, and wrists sprained.

"It's over. We know Blackwater behind the entire Sentox conspiracy, what I want to know is how, and why." Jack stared her down.

She narrowed her eyes. "This isn't CTU, you can't touch me. Not without evidence. And I have the right to a lawyer."

Jack tutted, before grabbing her throat, the chair creaking as it slid across the floor to become flush with the wall. Cara gasped for air, struggling in her restraints. "I'm going to ask you one more time. Tell me the full extent of Blackwater's involvement, and I'll make this easy for you."

"G-go to Hell. I'm not t-talking until I g-get immunity."

He tightened his grip, as her eyes bulged out of her skull, skin becoming pale. Realising she wouldn't be much use unconscious, he released her with a drop. Cara wheezed as she regained her breath.

"There is nothing left for you. Innocent Americans have died because of Blackwater and every other company that follows. Immunity is not an option. You tell me everything? I'll make sure you don't get the death penalty. We already know about BXJ, about Logan and the Sentox, what I want to know, is who's left?"

Silence.

"Who's left?!" He shouted in her face.

Silence again.

Jack pulled the syringe and vial of sodium pentothal from his jacket pocket. "Nothing, huh? You sure about that?"

"Try me." Her training had given her a level of tolerance to chemical interrogation. In the event that she was captured, and without a cyanide capsule, Cara was confident she could resist giving away any critical information.

Without warning, he grabbed her pale arm, jabbing the needle into the exposed vein. His years of interrogation experience, and unfortunately his heroin addiction, had made this second nature. She hissed in pain as her skin was pierced. A few minutes passed, Cara was insistent on keeping a stern expression. If the feeling of fire in her nerves was bothering her, she didn't show it. Jack administered another dose. He should have technically waited ten minutes, but Cara was no amateur, she'd built herself up to resist this. Several minutes passed again, beads of sweat formed on Cara's temples.

Good, she's breaking.

Filling the syringe, he injected more into the same vein, the patch of skin now slightly discoloured. While she'd been trained to endure the discomfort, the doses had been spread out. Cara didn't remember exactly how much she'd been given before the pain started to bother her, but she knew it was far greater than what was currently in her system. She mentally told herself to keep resisting, that if she didn't show pain, maybe Jack would be too eager and accidentally kill her. He seemed pretty angry by this point anyways, who's to say his passion wouldn't be his downfall?

But Jack wasn't stupid enough to fall for that. If it wasn't for the thorough body search he'd ordered, Cara would have long since swallowed that cyanide. He couldn't afford to lose her. Turning his back, he rested the syringe on the table, making it look as though he was filling the syringe with more sodium pentothal. But by obscuring her vision, she couldn't see him fill the syringe with water. Her eyes widened as Jack approached her again. Within seconds, she'd begun to scream, meaning the nocebo had worked. Again, he mimed filling the syringe with the serum, and returned to Cara.

It was getting too much for her to bear, she was expecting to at least feel some part of her body shutting down, to indicate something was failing, to fill her hopes that she would die, yet the pain simply worsened. Cara was completely alert as every inch of her body burned. She wasn't dying any time soon. And Cara slowly came to understand that it really was all over. Even if she didn't confess everything, she was going to jail for the attack on Dessler and Almeida. With her and Wilson in jail, the operations were finished. The government had already taken down the political ring and BXJ, it wouldn't be long before they found evidence on the remaining divisions.

"F-fine! I'll talk." Cara breathed heavily, slumped forward in her chair. "A-all of the subsidiaries were tasked with importing a certain weapon. Starkwood…Jonas Hodges…it was his job to work with Benjamin Juma in Sangala, they were going to bring in some biotoxin, a prion variant." She was panting.

Jack still held the full syringe up. "And the others?"

"Arma Corp…they were working with North Korea…upgrading stealth technology on missiles. And Titania…they'd been developing a sarin gas variant in Berlin. T-that's it. We don't have any more divisions. You're right…about everything, Blackwater was the start of it all."

Placing the syringe on the table, Jack took a huge swig of his water bottle. Another subtle technique. Reminding her that she hadn't had a sip of water in several hours.

"Okay. That's the weapons side. What I need to know now is what the hell me, Tony Almeida, Michelle Dessler, and Chloe O'Brian had to do with it. I get Palmer was killed because he knew too much, but why us?" There was a hint of emotion to his voice. This had been eating him up for years. His friends, who'd left the country and risked their lives to save his, he owed everything to them to uncover the truth.

Cara sighed. "Blackwater had been investigating CTU for years. The most prolific combatants were all working at CTU, and being a PMC, we wanted in. We evaluated every employee psychologically, tried to figure out who would be a good fit for Blackwater. The original plan was to kill off those who would never turn their back on the government, the ones who could be objective at all times, that's why you and O'Brian were targeted."

"Original?" He squinted at her.

"Well with the disbandment of CTU, that took care of it, suddenly a big threat to our funding, our support by the US government, was gone. Getting you or O'Brian or the others was no longer a priority. But there was still one asset left, one we couldn't possibly give up on." Her voice was raspy with dehydration.

"Who?"

"Almeida. He had something unique."

Jack racked his brain trying to decipher what she meant. Tony was an all-rounder, he'd seen combat, had computer expertise, even administrative experience when he ran CTU, but he wasn't the only agent like that.

"A grudge. By being arrested for treason, he already held resentment towards the government, it would make him that much easier to manipulate. We looked for them, for years, waiting for them to be lulled into a false sense of security, to come back to the US."

His stomach lurched. Tony and Michelle had lived a plane ride away from danger for over five years. It could have been over in a split second, their determination to stay until they were sure it was safe certainly was worth it.

"So why kill Michelle? You didn't think Tony could manipulate her out of love? Get two agents out of it?" Jack doubted Michelle would ever be swayed by something he said, her leaving Tony was proof of that. But he had to know.

Cara shook her head. "Dessler was too headstrong, too righteous, a lot like you, actually. We intended on killing her, making it look like part of Logan's administration, so all that rage inside of Tony would come out. Then he'd be ours. With CTU on our side, and the weapons in play, the government would have no choice but to turn to Blackwater."

"Then you'd get your funding and the rest is history." His voice was rife with disgust, as she nodded. It was done now. The truth was out. He just hoped what Wilson said added up. Leaving the room, he clicked 'Stop' on the recording.

This enough evidence for you, Taylor?

Walking back into the main floor, he moved straight to Chloe's desk. "We've got a full confession, set up a conference call with President Taylor." Turning his head, he noticed Renee was nowhere to be seen.

She should have come out by now, did Wilson really have that much more to say?

His heart stopped when she walked out of the room, her white shirt and hands coated in blood. Renee looked beside herself, as if something had possessed her, and she was now returning to her body. She looked pale, her makeup had run from sweat. Unsteady on her feet, Jack raced over as she collapsed. She was dazed as he called her name over and over again.

"What happened in there? What'd he say?" Jack asked, desperately. "I need a medic over here!" He shouted, as Janis rapidly dialled her phone. Minutes later, two nurses came up with a stretcher, quickly taking her down to the medical ward. Full of anger and fear, Jack walked into Wilson's holding room.

If Renee looked beat-up, then Alan Wilson looked like he was on death's door. His face was mangled, coated in a thick combination of blood and mucus, spreading from his deformed nose. Bruises and grip marks coated his throat. One of his hands looked as though it'd been smashed with a hammer. Track marks coated his forearms. The suit he was wearing was shredded in some places. Jack should have seen the signs, that the grief, the fatigue, the fury, was eating away at her. He bet Wilson ignored the first question she'd asked, and that was enough to tip her over. Part of him was angry, after all, he was a critical witness. If he died, it'd be a huge loss to the investigation. But he was conscious, albeit barely. And that was enough for Jack.

"Your colleague has told me everything, tell me something useful, tell me why you did all this, or I'm going to finish what she started."

Wilson was silent for a moment. Jack began to roll up his sleeves. "C-Cyprus." He choked out, his voice barely above a whisper.

"What did you say?"

"I-it all…started with…Cyprus."

Cyprus? CTU never did any major field missions in Cyprus, not that I can remember? Unless…

Jack's mind flashed back to the day of the nuclear bomb. Syed Ali. How the US had narrowly missed starting World War Three over false pretences.

Was Wilson connected to the Cyprus recording? An associate of Kingsley's, maybe? It would explain why he worked so hard to make money off this. It wasn't just about business. It was about revenge.

Walking back into the vestibule, he clicked on the video recording of Renee's interrogation, and pressed 'Delete'.

—

Chloe had confirmed his suspicions, Alan Wilson was in fact an associate of Peter Kingsley's, and had been just as excited to profit off the falsified Cyprus recording as he was. But Jack and his friends had gotten in the way of that.

That's why he used me, that's why he attacked Tony and Michelle. It wasn't just about money, it was about getting revenge for the money I had a direct role in taking away from him all those years ago.

—

The following takes place between 10:07am and 10:15am EST, 4 years, 1 week, 2 days after the detonation of a suitcase nuclear device in Valencia, California.

Renee and Wilson were both stabilised. Taylor had been given the footage of Cara. While she didn't like what she saw, given the enormity of the conspiracy, she wasn't going to argue about his methods now. The FBI field teams had dispersed themselves to the head offices, and interstate teams had been called to do the same. Chloe, Morris, Janis, and the other analysts were already working to obtain physical evidence of transactions off the computers. But Jack knew these people would have covered their tracks well, so he personally lead the Blackwater investigation. There was no way a plan this big, this intricate, would have no trace of existing. Silently surveying the room, he found himself drawn to the wall behind Wilson's desk. Tracing the bumpy plaster with his finger, he stopped when he felt a ridge. Daylight from the nearby window revealed a subtle paint difference, part of the wall was an older eggshell, then over the ridge it was a newer pearl. Curious, Jack lightly knocked across the wall.

It's hollow.

Motioning for an FBI agent to come over, she used the barge to confirm the secret of the wall. Coughing on the drywall powder as they entered, the agent shone her flashlight to reveal a small room. Feeling across the wall, Jack found a light-switch. Flickering, the overhead lights illuminated the room.

"My God…" Jack was astounded.

Every inch of the three walls was covered in photographs, maps, newspaper articles, frenzied annotations and lines. He felt sick to his stomach when he noticed his face, his daughter's, his wife's, Chloe, Tony, Michelle, countless others.

The evidence, it was all here.