Counter Terrorist Unit Los Angeles

          George Mason was sitting at my desk staring at the paperweight I kept there. The relationship between the two of us was fairly ambiguous. I knew people didn't like him here, but my mind hadn't been made up yet. A lot of the time he came off as tough, cold and demanding. You didn't want to make him angry. But I had a sense that that wasn't all he was made of. He seemed to show some consideration and some compassion when you least expected it. And now, because he knew how much was riding on this operation, he had insisted on working with Jack to make sure it succeeded.

          Speaking of Agent Bauer, at that moment Jack dropped into what was ordinarily Lex's chair. "It's a stress reliever," he said by way of explanation of the paperweight.

          "When she grabs it or when she throws it at someone?"

          Jack just snickered, but he was establishing the land line between us and CTU, which would be the link we would use to feed him information and he would send our next orders to us via the same system. "It's been an hour since she called from the airport. They should be set up by now. I've told her to report in at least once every 24 hours, preferably more than that."

          "I don't expect they'll see much until tomorrow at the latest. It's almost nine o'clock London time, Jack."

          "I know. But one of their vices is that they don't actually sleep." He looked across to where Mason was further inspecting my desk. "You must be very bored, George."

          "Thought had crossed my mind." He pointed at the picture framed on my desk. "Isn't she a bit young to have a boyfriend?"

          "She's almost eighteen, and that's Jack Davenport." When Mason didn't get it, Jack elaborated: "He's a British actor."

          "You employ the strangest members of the CIA, you know that, Jack?"

          Jack just nodded, unable to hide a smile. "But they work."

          Just then the land line bleeped and Jack grabbed for his headset. "Bauer."

          "Jack, it's Lex. Tony and Brittany are in the British Museum meeting your source. We're across the street in the car. You want audio?"

          "Of course I want audio, give it to me," he said, making a motion for George to grab his own headset, which the senior agent did. "How long have they been in there?"

          "Only a few minutes. Contact any moment now. Stand by."

          They did, and in a few seconds static was replaced with pure silence, then sound:

          "You don't have to be nervous."

          "Of course I'm nervous, Tony, I've never done this before. Anyway, where is this guy? Find me a map."

          "No, we're heading in the right direction. Down this set of stairs, down the hall, and round the corner."

          "All right."

          At that same moment, Michelle Dessler walked over, and Jack hoped she couldn't see him roll his eyes. Even Mason looked, albeit veiled, disinterested when the new security specialist showed up, that expository look on her face that said she was probably going to restate the obvious.

          "What do you want, Michelle?" Mason asked.

          "There's a guy here from the main Agency, wants to speak to Jack."

          "Probably about this," Jack connected the dots, "what's his name?"

          "Michael Vaughn. He says he's found something."

          "Thank you, Michelle, I'll take care of it." Jack peeled off his headset and stood, saying needlessly, "George, watch the line for me."

          "Right, Jack."

          "Thank you." Jack walked away from our workstation and toward the front doors of CTU, able to spot the unfamiliar face amongst the sea of his own agents, whose names and faces he had tried and mostly succeeded to commit to memory. This Agent Vaughn carried himself with a conviction yet uncertainty. He was mostly sure of himself but something was missing. Somehow Jack thought working for the CIA might not have been this man's first choice. "Agent Vaughn, I'm Agent Bauer. You asked for me?"

          "Yes. Thank you for seeing me." The two of them shook hands. "We spoke on the phone earlier today. I'm co-handler for an agent you're working with."

          "Leticia Gallegos, yes. She's in London with Brittany Frederick's field team."

          "You have an excellent memory."

          "Only from many years of experience. Is there a problem?"

          "Not a problem, per se, Agent Bauer. New information." Vaughn handed Jack a file folder. "Before she left, my partner and I had Leticia working on tracking the disappearance of the key files for the Department of Defense." Over Jack's incredulous look, he continued. "She couldn't get that far, but we turned the investigation over to other agents at our office. They discovered the last known location of the key files before they disappeared."

          "What does this have to do with the field team? I'm running a murder investigation here, Agent Vaughn."

          "The key files were traced to England."

          "Jack!" Mason yelled, his powerful voice echoing across the room. "We've got a situation!"

          Vaughn trailing behind him, Jack bolted across the room back to the workstation as Mason unplugged the headsets and turned up the speakers so the audio could be heard in the whole of CTU. "What's going on?" he said, almost disturbed. "George, what's happening?"

          "Listen to this guy," was all Mason said. But what they actually heard was me having a controlled panic attack.

          "You're saying this is confirmed? She's definitely here?"

          "It's confirmed, Agent Frederick. The woman you know as Nina Myers is here in England as we speak."

          Tony: "Why? What does she want?"

          "She's making a trade for the key files of the Department of Defense." This from Oliver Sampson, British master spy, redeemed antihero, and CTU source. "She can get them very quickly, but she's chosen to wait it out."

          "Why would she wait? That's not at all like Nina…"

          "She's waiting because she expects that there will be resistance." Oliver paused. "English translation, Agent Almeida, she wants the key files, she's taking out world counterterrorism installations, and she's going to take as many people down with their agencies as she possibly can."

          Jack swore. "Michelle! I need backup plans for the London team, right now!"

          "She broke into CTU, now she's going for England," Mason was following the trail. "Her masters get the inside track on counter-terrorism, with the key files they tear our defense wide open, plus she gets to shoot a couple of our guys on the way. I should have caught her last year." He seemed furious with himself.

          "We all made mistakes, George," Jack cut him off. "The important thing – if Nina has a chance at our guys, we have another chance at taking her down."

The British Museum

London, England

          I took a long, shuddering breath. "My God, Nina will kill me." My gaze flicked from Tony to Oliver. Oliver was definitely a good guy to have on our side. He was just as good as Nina, except he was playing for the angels, and if we were taking on Nina, we'd need him. "What can we do? We'll need more than five CIA agents, you and some big guns."

          Oliver nodded. "I've contacted Pearse Harman, the head of CIB, a special branch of the police. He owes me a favor. He said he thought of someone that could help us, one of his staff, a man named Michael Colefield. We'll all be meeting tomorrow morning at five at this address," he continued, handing me a piece of paper. "Then I understand you've already got arrangements to get into the Counterterrorism Center."

          "That's correct."

          "Be careful in there. I can't tell yet if anyone in there has been compromised or if the CC was an unwilling conduit for Ms. Myers' operations. Until then you're operating blind."

          "What do we do until then?"

          "Try not to die."