Chapter 8
"Is this all about me cheating on you?" Jack asked. "Because if it is, grow up. Was it really that horrible?" Jack continued asking while trying to hide the anger in his voice.
"No Jack. It is not all about you cheating on me. A group of powerful people want you to be detained for a while and gave me, my family, and a friend some time to repay you for all your kindness." Kate answered calmly.
The shelving unit pulled back and in walked in the woman Jack knew as his new neighbor. The shock registered on his face and he quickly made it disappeared. "Hey Jack. You seem to remember me and you are wondering why the hell am I here? That is simple. You killed my father." She walked up to him and looked him in the eyes, "Do you know who my father was?"
Jack looked at her and tried to picture a face close to hers, and he kept coming up with nothing.
"You might know him as First Sergeant Brice Gardener."
Jack began to protest, "I did not kill him. Drazen's men did during a covert operation."
"Yes but you told Drazen about it and set the mission up to fail." She said looking him in the eyes. "You had to because you were the only one that survived and that was weird considering my father had made it through worse situations and come out with prisoners, but this time he died. You had to of sold them out."
Jack tried to begin to protest again, but he was met with a punch into the back from the woman he knew as Amber, "Shut up. No use in denying it because you know you did it, stop lying!" Amber looked at Kate, who called one of her men down through the page in her father's cell-phone.
The men came down grabbed Jack and walked him into the other room. They had already put a plastic tarp down on the floor and had a chair sitting in the middle of the room on the plastic tarp.
At the sight of the plastic tarp Jack knew he was in trouble. They planned on making this messy and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to fight them, but it was worthless the most he could do was try to kick them, and that was worthless because his legs were still tied together. They had him in the chair and there was nothing he could do. The two men walked over to the back of the room and leaned against the wall and sat back to watch the show.
Amber walked up to Jack and said, "By time I get done, you are going to tell me what happened that day."
"I'll tell you now. We went on a secret mission to stop Victor Drazen before he became a huge problem and could fly away. I chose your father and the other team members and went into Kosovo as a Delta team. We parachuted in and the two separate teams of us went to where we were supposed to be. I painted the target with the laser and the plane bombed the sight. When we were going back to the L.Z., I went in search for the others and found most of them dead. Somehow Drazen's men were able to lock on our radios, which they shouldn't have been able to do, and were able to locate us by that and they killed most of the men, they jammed our system so we could not communicate with each other or the people back in the U.S. We were running blind. I was lucky enough to get out alive. The others were not, and you know it bothered me because you have to remember me visiting your mother and telling her what happened unofficially."
"The reason why Drazen's men were able to lock on was because you gave them the information." Amber said being pissed off. She walked up to Jack and punched him in the face splitting his lip. A person could look at her and assume she was unable to do any damage, but like her father she had a slim build and the muscles she had were hidden.
Jack's head turned with the force of the punch. He spit blood out on to the tarp and looked at her, "I'm not lying." But every time he protested her she hit him repeatedly. After her hand started to hurt, she looked at one of the guys and asked, "Do you want to help me? I need to put ice on my hand for a few minutes. Stupid bastard's face is hard."
One of the men took over continually hitting Jack in the face. Blood was pouring out of his mouth, nose, and his eyebrow had a cut above it. Kate interrupted the guy and said, "One more hit, let me do it." She walked up to Jack and he noticed the diamond ring on her ring finger. She hit him in the side of the head and the ring ripped the skin open and more blood poured out onto his face.
Amber walked up to him. She looked him in the eye and he said, "I did not give them anything. I am sorry about your father, and I would love to know who sold us out so I could kill them, but it wasn't me." With every word more blood poured out of his mouth. The rusty taste of blood made him feel sick to his stomach.
"Marie should be here any moment so get whatever you want in. When she gets here, she has a complete rule over him." Kate said to Amber.
Amber walked up to Jack who head was hanging down. Blood was dripping off his face onto his bare chest. She pulled his head up by the hair and looked at him, all the pain and anger in her eyes, "Why won't you tell me the truth?"
"I already have. I'm sorry if you don't believe me, but that is the truth." Jack said looking back in her eyes and his eyes were sincere.
Amber walked over to the counter and found a bottle of ammonia setting on the counter. She walked over and took the cap off of it. She held it up for Jack to see, "Last chance before I pour this onto your arm, tell me the truth."
Jack looked at her and as earlier he said, "I already have. The people you want are probably the people you are working for."
Amber took the bottle and had one of the men pick Jack up. She poured the contents onto Jack's bleeding wrist. Jack screamed out in pain, as the ammonia was burning the cuts. He had felt the pain before, and that was only a small amount of ammonia on a small cut, this was a large amount on a deep incision. Jack's breaths were coming quickly and he was gasping as he was in a large amount of pain.
At Kate's order the man took the cuffs off Jack's wrist and put him back into the chair. Jack was holding his wrist close to his body trying to ignore the pain he was in. The other man walked up to Jack and ripped his arm away from his body and used rope to tie his arm to the chair arm and did so with the other next. When he was done, he walked back to the back and continued to enjoy the show.
Amber walked up to Jack who was still trying to block the pain out, and was still gasping for breath. She grabbed his left middle finger and said, "Unless you want it broken tell me the truth."
Jack looked at her and with the sound of pain in his voice he said, "I already have."
She pulled his finger back until she heard it break. Again, Jack screamed in pain. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on something else, but the pain from the cuts to the broken finger ran through his mind and he tried to control his breathing, but the pain over took everything.
Marie Warner walked into the room and said, "It looks like you started the party without me. Hey Jack, you don't look too happy to see me, at least not as happy as I am to see you."
Jack did not answer her, he looked up at Amber who was still standing over him and said, "I am telling you the truth." Through the pain on his face he had still the sincerity in his eyes.
She grabbed the finger she had just broken and yanked on it. He screeched in pain again. Amber looked at Marie and said, "Have fun. Please try to get the truth out of him for me."
Amber walked and leaned against the wall next to Kate. She did not take her eyes off of Jack. She was not sure if he was telling the truth or not, but she was sure he deserved what he got. Her father had died and he was still alive, something is not right there. He should have died too.
Marie pulled Jacks head up by his hair and asked, "How are you Jack?"
He glared at her, but did not answer her.
"Good. That's great. I'm peachy now. I'm free and get to get revenge on the man that tortured me a few years ago. I really could not ask for more." Kate said with a smug look on her face. "Fine enough with the pleasantries. Let's have some fun." Marie walked out of the room and returned with an air nail gun.
She walked up to Jack and pointed it at his shoulder, "This is going to hurt like a bitch." She pulled the trigger on the gun and a nail sailed out and shot through Jack's left shoulder into the chair, pinning his shoulder to the chair. Jack shrieked in pain and tried to not pass out. He was breathing heavily.
"Oops. Did not mean to pull the trigger. Did that hurt?" She said grabbing the nail head and began to move it back and forth opening the hole more. Jack screamed in pain as she did so.
She took the nail gun and pointed it at his left hand, "So were you lying to Amber?"
Jack looked at her and said, "No." His voice was quiet held the notes of the pain he was in.
She pulled the trigger on the air gun and another nail sailed through the air into his hand, pinning it to the chair. He screamed in pain as his eyes bulged in pain. He kept trying to ignore the pain, but he knew it was useless. The more he tried to block it the more painful it got. His mind was clouding over with pain and at that moment he wanted to be able to run away.
Again, Marie took the nail and began to turn it while it was still in his hand, Jack screamed in pain and than passed out. Marie smiled in delight at him.
Kate looked at her and said, "Let him rest for a bit. Dad would love to see you, have you seen him yet?"
"No. I'm starving too." Marie answered.
"Let's go get something. Amber can you stay here with him and get us when he wakes up? I'm sure Mike and Nate would like to rest some, since they have been working all day." Kate inquired.
"Yeah no problem. Why don't you give me the cell phone and I'll page you when he gets up." Amber answered back.
Kate tossed her the phone, and Kate and Marie walked back to the house with Mike and Nate in tow.
Amber looked at Jack as he slept. She wondered why he would not just tell her the truth and be done with it. It made no sense.
Tony sat at CTU and something bothered him. He had a thought when he asked Mr. Warner if he still worked for the CIA, but he was not sure what it was that led him to ask it. It was just there on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't think of it. It was irritating him. He walked into the conference room that Jim was sitting in. "Mr. Warner freelances for the CIA, and I can't think out why I found that to be important. Do you see what I am missing?"
"He freelances meaning?"
"They use his company to send funds to things like Darla and the Kosovo resistance people and other things like that." Tony answered.
"Maybe someone in the CIA or NSA is using them to pay the informants or possibly get money from the terrorist who buy the information or something like that." Jim answered.
"Possibly, but that doesn't explain why they grabbed Jack or tried to kill the others anyways." With that though Tony cursed at himself and called the hospital to check on Darla, Chase, and Kim.
When he finally got on the line with a doctor the doctor said, "Are you a family member to any of them?"
"No. I'm the director of CTU and I need to know their status. Two of them are my friends and my staff. I need to know their status though."
The doctor decided to bend the rules and said, "Ms. Bauer is still a little rocky. She lost a lot of blood, and so did Mr. Edmunds. Both of them are still not out of the dark, but if I was a betting man, I would say they will pull through as long as no major complications occur. The woman, Jane Doe, is stabilizing. She should be able to move in a few hours. I have been told as soon as they are capable you want them moved to your clinic correct?"
"Yes. If you will please, call me as soon as any of them is okay for movement and me and a team will pick them up. Until then, I want to send over five or six agents to watch them. It is important that they live." Tony said.
"No problem. We have them at the same hallway and you can post your men anywhere you would like. I'll have the nurses make a list of people who visit the other patients on the floor and your men can check the people in and out." The doctor said.
"Thank you."
Sherry had been on the phone for the last hour calling everyone she knew and just trying to get reacquainted with everything that was happening. She got a big lead, the secretary of the CIA director said that he had recently spoken with a Mr. Warner, whose daughter had recently escaped prison, and that there is a rumor that Mr. Warner has something to do with the kidnapping of the man Jack Bauer." Sherry thanked her and called David. She shared what she had found out and asked him to try to get the funding sheet for the CIA and the recent statements from both Warner's personal accounts and business accounts. Most people thought that stuff was unobtainable, but the nice thing with the new threat to America was that the President could give the go-ahead for that information to be collected off any computer system and the different agencies that have the people capable of doing it.
The President called Tony and asked him to get the information and then forward it to him. He knew he could trust Tony, and Tony knew he could trust Michelle to get the information for him. He told the president he would get her to do that as soon as possible. Tony called Michelle and told her what he needed her to do and she said it would not be a problem.
It took Michelle a half-hour to get the information without leaving a trace. She called Tony and asked him where he wanted it sent.
"Send it to me, and then to the president via his email account." Tony answered.
Tony walked across the hall and grabbed a laptop out of the tech room. He brought it back to the room and he and Jim began to study the documents that Michelle had sent them.
The President waited for the email and than called Sherry to tell her he had the information. He forwarded the documents to her and she thanked him telling him she thought she knew what she could do next. She hung the phone up and called a friend.
Jack's eyes snapped open and when she saw he was still in the chair and there was still a nail in him he closed his eyes again, hoping it was all just a dream. When he opened them again he knew he was only kidding himself with hoping it was a dream. He looked around the room and made eye contact with Amber who was sitting in the corner of the room staring at him. Jack moved a bit and grimaced in pain.
"Why won't you just admit that you set the guys up?" Amber asked staring at him.
"Because I didn't. I swear to you. I would never have done that. Why would I have taken some of my best friends in with me, when I was going to set the mission up to fail? Why did Drazen come after me and my family if I helped him? And if it was so planned how come his wife and daughter were killed in the explosion. I am truly sorry that I lived and your father died, but I cannot change what happened. I wish I knew who set us up to fail because I would personally kill them, but I don't know." Jack said sincerely.
Amber stared at him a little longer and she could not figure out if he was lying to her or telling the truth. He did not do anything that made it look like he was nervous and lying, but he was trained not to do those things.
Amber grabbed the cell-phone and paged Kate and Marie to let them know he was awake again. A few minutes later the women came in with Mr. Warner. Mr. Warner looked at Jack and grimaced as he could imagine what pain the man was in.
Marie walked up to Jack with a hammer in her hand. She held it up to him and dug the nail remover into his skin of his shoulder as she attempted to pull the nail out. As she did he screamed in pain again. When she finished she said, "See, that wasn't that bad was it?"
Jack was breathing heavily. Trying to hide the pain in his voice he said, "No I've felt worse."
"That's good news, then we can continue." Marie answered back. She grabbed Jack's left ring finger and pulled it back slowly until she felt it break.
Jack screamed in pain and started to breath heavily again. He began to count the number of broken bones; he knew he had two broken fingers, possibly something in his shoulder, a bone in his hand, and ribs.
"Ouch. That look like it hurt. You are the best torturer what do you think I should do next Jack?" She asked him. "It seems my sister already killed someone you loved, we've broken bones, put holes, and by the smell of things used chemicals. Ah, we need fire. Hold on, let me go see what I can do about that." Marie said walking out of the room.
Kate and Mr. Warner were quietly debating in the corner of the room. Mr. Warner was not so happy with all of the damage they were doing to Jack because he was not sure what the bosses wanted with him. "He will be fine. They said they need him alive and conscious other than that, they were not to specific." Kate said to ease her father's worries, she went on to say; "They will be here in a half hour so it won't matter. She cannot do to much more damage."
Marie returned with the poker stick from the fireplace up stairs. It was still heated so that the end was a glowing reddish orange color. She looked at Jack and said, "How about another tattoo." She took the poker and placed it against Jacks chest. She held it there and could smell his flesh burning, hearing him scream excited her, she turned the poker so that she left a huge burn mark on the middle of his chest.
Mr. Warner smelled the burning flesh and gagged at the smell. He tried to hold down the food he just got done eating. The smell always got to him. It smelled worse than anything he could imagine.
Jack tried to focus on something else, remove the pain from his brain, but it was not working. He had given up on trying to prevent the pain he was in from registering on his face. He was right now on the border line, ready to just give up and stop trying to fight. The memory of his daughter rushed back and at that moment he gave up. He did not care what they did to him anymore, he sort of wished for death, a painful death. All he had done in his life was kill people, and it came back to haunt him and kill his daughter, wife, and unborn child. Maybe everything he has ever done was wrong. Maybe Kate was right and he is as bad as the people he fights against. Barely coherent he said, "I'm so sorry Kim."
Kate saw his lips moving and noticed the change in his body. He no longer looked like the rough unbeatable Jack Bauer, he looked like the tired old man who is on his death bed and just realized his entire life was a lie.
Marie walked up to him and asked, "What was that Jack? What did you just say?"
Jack did not answer her nor look her in the eye. He was beaten and she knew it. At this moment everything he had done in his life had come rushing back. The face of every person he ever killed, and those who he had failed to save like his wife, and Kim. The pain he caused people, all the torture sessions and the years of pain, the double crosses and everything just rushed back and he wished he were dead. He wanted death; he had become the thing he was fighting against. To fight monsters, you need monsters, he had always disagreed with that until now.
No one spoke for a moment. They all stared at him as if he were going to repeat what he had said, but he did not. "Jack, you still with us?" Kate asked from the corner worried about the sudden calmness that had come over his body.
Sherry got off the phone from her friend and called her ex-husband, "David, you owe me big time on this one. Mr. Warner works for the CIA director Dante. They have something on the side going on. The rumor is that they use Warner's company to launder money from some terrorist organizations. Since it was just a rumor, I had my friend check on the transaction that happened last year between the organization and second wave. We originally believed that somehow Warner's daughter Marie had done it, but there was no way for her to do it. She had to be in her father's office and have all of his access codes, and there is no way she could have done all of those things, and he did not notice this large sum that was transferred to the company he did not know. My friend is looking into it some more, but he thinks that it was Dante and other business men paying for the action second wave was taking. If they had been successful a group of businessmen as well as the CIA and NSA would have prospered off it. The budgets for these organizations would have gotten bigger to help them fight terrorist. Like after 9-11 and the FBI."
"I need solid proof before I can do anything. I cannot just go in blind accusing. You were in it last year what do you know from it?" David asked Sherry.
"I was not that far in it. I knew Kingsley was involved, but I was positive he was not running things. He was not smart enough for all of that. I'm not sure who it was, but it makes sense to me." Sherry answered her husband.
"I need proof. Where is Mike Novick at? Would he have any information?" David asked.
"I don't know if he would. I think he was recruited at the last moment, but it would not hurt to ask him."
"I'll call him and see if he will come in. Maybe he will give me information."
"I have another call coming in. I better answer it, might be my friend."
"Thanks Sherry."
David Palmer hung the phone off and asked his secretary to find the number for Mike Novick. He called the Secret Service head, Erin, in and told him he was expecting Mike Novick to show up here soon and for him to escort him in.
Palmer's secretary came in over the communication system and told him, "I'm connecting you with Mr. Novick."
When he heard the line click off he said, "Hello Mike. How are you?"
Taken back by the President calling him Mike answered, "Um, fine Mr. President."
"That's good Mike. I was hoping that you would be willing to come to the White house and speak to me about something that is very important."
"Sure, Mr. President. What time would you like me to be there?"
"As soon as possible Mike. How about a half hour?"
"I'll leave now sir."
"Thanks Mike."
Mike hung the phone up and wondered why the President wanted to see him this late. Had he finally come to his senses and decide that he wanted Mike back. Mike felt bad about turning on him a few years back, but he had the country's best interests in mind. Mike was hurt that he was the only one excused from his position when Prescott had been the one who planned the entire thing from the beginning before he even had Mike recruited he knew what he wanted.
"Is this all about me cheating on you?" Jack asked. "Because if it is, grow up. Was it really that horrible?" Jack continued asking while trying to hide the anger in his voice.
"No Jack. It is not all about you cheating on me. A group of powerful people want you to be detained for a while and gave me, my family, and a friend some time to repay you for all your kindness." Kate answered calmly.
The shelving unit pulled back and in walked in the woman Jack knew as his new neighbor. The shock registered on his face and he quickly made it disappeared. "Hey Jack. You seem to remember me and you are wondering why the hell am I here? That is simple. You killed my father." She walked up to him and looked him in the eyes, "Do you know who my father was?"
Jack looked at her and tried to picture a face close to hers, and he kept coming up with nothing.
"You might know him as First Sergeant Brice Gardener."
Jack began to protest, "I did not kill him. Drazen's men did during a covert operation."
"Yes but you told Drazen about it and set the mission up to fail." She said looking him in the eyes. "You had to because you were the only one that survived and that was weird considering my father had made it through worse situations and come out with prisoners, but this time he died. You had to of sold them out."
Jack tried to begin to protest again, but he was met with a punch into the back from the woman he knew as Amber, "Shut up. No use in denying it because you know you did it, stop lying!" Amber looked at Kate, who called one of her men down through the page in her father's cell-phone.
The men came down grabbed Jack and walked him into the other room. They had already put a plastic tarp down on the floor and had a chair sitting in the middle of the room on the plastic tarp.
At the sight of the plastic tarp Jack knew he was in trouble. They planned on making this messy and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to fight them, but it was worthless the most he could do was try to kick them, and that was worthless because his legs were still tied together. They had him in the chair and there was nothing he could do. The two men walked over to the back of the room and leaned against the wall and sat back to watch the show.
Amber walked up to Jack and said, "By time I get done, you are going to tell me what happened that day."
"I'll tell you now. We went on a secret mission to stop Victor Drazen before he became a huge problem and could fly away. I chose your father and the other team members and went into Kosovo as a Delta team. We parachuted in and the two separate teams of us went to where we were supposed to be. I painted the target with the laser and the plane bombed the sight. When we were going back to the L.Z., I went in search for the others and found most of them dead. Somehow Drazen's men were able to lock on our radios, which they shouldn't have been able to do, and were able to locate us by that and they killed most of the men, they jammed our system so we could not communicate with each other or the people back in the U.S. We were running blind. I was lucky enough to get out alive. The others were not, and you know it bothered me because you have to remember me visiting your mother and telling her what happened unofficially."
"The reason why Drazen's men were able to lock on was because you gave them the information." Amber said being pissed off. She walked up to Jack and punched him in the face splitting his lip. A person could look at her and assume she was unable to do any damage, but like her father she had a slim build and the muscles she had were hidden.
Jack's head turned with the force of the punch. He spit blood out on to the tarp and looked at her, "I'm not lying." But every time he protested her she hit him repeatedly. After her hand started to hurt, she looked at one of the guys and asked, "Do you want to help me? I need to put ice on my hand for a few minutes. Stupid bastard's face is hard."
One of the men took over continually hitting Jack in the face. Blood was pouring out of his mouth, nose, and his eyebrow had a cut above it. Kate interrupted the guy and said, "One more hit, let me do it." She walked up to Jack and he noticed the diamond ring on her ring finger. She hit him in the side of the head and the ring ripped the skin open and more blood poured out onto his face.
Amber walked up to him. She looked him in the eye and he said, "I did not give them anything. I am sorry about your father, and I would love to know who sold us out so I could kill them, but it wasn't me." With every word more blood poured out of his mouth. The rusty taste of blood made him feel sick to his stomach.
"Marie should be here any moment so get whatever you want in. When she gets here, she has a complete rule over him." Kate said to Amber.
Amber walked up to Jack who head was hanging down. Blood was dripping off his face onto his bare chest. She pulled his head up by the hair and looked at him, all the pain and anger in her eyes, "Why won't you tell me the truth?"
"I already have. I'm sorry if you don't believe me, but that is the truth." Jack said looking back in her eyes and his eyes were sincere.
Amber walked over to the counter and found a bottle of ammonia setting on the counter. She walked over and took the cap off of it. She held it up for Jack to see, "Last chance before I pour this onto your arm, tell me the truth."
Jack looked at her and as earlier he said, "I already have. The people you want are probably the people you are working for."
Amber took the bottle and had one of the men pick Jack up. She poured the contents onto Jack's bleeding wrist. Jack screamed out in pain, as the ammonia was burning the cuts. He had felt the pain before, and that was only a small amount of ammonia on a small cut, this was a large amount on a deep incision. Jack's breaths were coming quickly and he was gasping as he was in a large amount of pain.
At Kate's order the man took the cuffs off Jack's wrist and put him back into the chair. Jack was holding his wrist close to his body trying to ignore the pain he was in. The other man walked up to Jack and ripped his arm away from his body and used rope to tie his arm to the chair arm and did so with the other next. When he was done, he walked back to the back and continued to enjoy the show.
Amber walked up to Jack who was still trying to block the pain out, and was still gasping for breath. She grabbed his left middle finger and said, "Unless you want it broken tell me the truth."
Jack looked at her and with the sound of pain in his voice he said, "I already have."
She pulled his finger back until she heard it break. Again, Jack screamed in pain. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on something else, but the pain from the cuts to the broken finger ran through his mind and he tried to control his breathing, but the pain over took everything.
Marie Warner walked into the room and said, "It looks like you started the party without me. Hey Jack, you don't look too happy to see me, at least not as happy as I am to see you."
Jack did not answer her, he looked up at Amber who was still standing over him and said, "I am telling you the truth." Through the pain on his face he had still the sincerity in his eyes.
She grabbed the finger she had just broken and yanked on it. He screeched in pain again. Amber looked at Marie and said, "Have fun. Please try to get the truth out of him for me."
Amber walked and leaned against the wall next to Kate. She did not take her eyes off of Jack. She was not sure if he was telling the truth or not, but she was sure he deserved what he got. Her father had died and he was still alive, something is not right there. He should have died too.
Marie pulled Jacks head up by his hair and asked, "How are you Jack?"
He glared at her, but did not answer her.
"Good. That's great. I'm peachy now. I'm free and get to get revenge on the man that tortured me a few years ago. I really could not ask for more." Kate said with a smug look on her face. "Fine enough with the pleasantries. Let's have some fun." Marie walked out of the room and returned with an air nail gun.
She walked up to Jack and pointed it at his shoulder, "This is going to hurt like a bitch." She pulled the trigger on the gun and a nail sailed out and shot through Jack's left shoulder into the chair, pinning his shoulder to the chair. Jack shrieked in pain and tried to not pass out. He was breathing heavily.
"Oops. Did not mean to pull the trigger. Did that hurt?" She said grabbing the nail head and began to move it back and forth opening the hole more. Jack screamed in pain as she did so.
She took the nail gun and pointed it at his left hand, "So were you lying to Amber?"
Jack looked at her and said, "No." His voice was quiet held the notes of the pain he was in.
She pulled the trigger on the air gun and another nail sailed through the air into his hand, pinning it to the chair. He screamed in pain as his eyes bulged in pain. He kept trying to ignore the pain, but he knew it was useless. The more he tried to block it the more painful it got. His mind was clouding over with pain and at that moment he wanted to be able to run away.
Again, Marie took the nail and began to turn it while it was still in his hand, Jack screamed in pain and than passed out. Marie smiled in delight at him.
Kate looked at her and said, "Let him rest for a bit. Dad would love to see you, have you seen him yet?"
"No. I'm starving too." Marie answered.
"Let's go get something. Amber can you stay here with him and get us when he wakes up? I'm sure Mike and Nate would like to rest some, since they have been working all day." Kate inquired.
"Yeah no problem. Why don't you give me the cell phone and I'll page you when he gets up." Amber answered back.
Kate tossed her the phone, and Kate and Marie walked back to the house with Mike and Nate in tow.
Amber looked at Jack as he slept. She wondered why he would not just tell her the truth and be done with it. It made no sense.
Tony sat at CTU and something bothered him. He had a thought when he asked Mr. Warner if he still worked for the CIA, but he was not sure what it was that led him to ask it. It was just there on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't think of it. It was irritating him. He walked into the conference room that Jim was sitting in. "Mr. Warner freelances for the CIA, and I can't think out why I found that to be important. Do you see what I am missing?"
"He freelances meaning?"
"They use his company to send funds to things like Darla and the Kosovo resistance people and other things like that." Tony answered.
"Maybe someone in the CIA or NSA is using them to pay the informants or possibly get money from the terrorist who buy the information or something like that." Jim answered.
"Possibly, but that doesn't explain why they grabbed Jack or tried to kill the others anyways." With that though Tony cursed at himself and called the hospital to check on Darla, Chase, and Kim.
When he finally got on the line with a doctor the doctor said, "Are you a family member to any of them?"
"No. I'm the director of CTU and I need to know their status. Two of them are my friends and my staff. I need to know their status though."
The doctor decided to bend the rules and said, "Ms. Bauer is still a little rocky. She lost a lot of blood, and so did Mr. Edmunds. Both of them are still not out of the dark, but if I was a betting man, I would say they will pull through as long as no major complications occur. The woman, Jane Doe, is stabilizing. She should be able to move in a few hours. I have been told as soon as they are capable you want them moved to your clinic correct?"
"Yes. If you will please, call me as soon as any of them is okay for movement and me and a team will pick them up. Until then, I want to send over five or six agents to watch them. It is important that they live." Tony said.
"No problem. We have them at the same hallway and you can post your men anywhere you would like. I'll have the nurses make a list of people who visit the other patients on the floor and your men can check the people in and out." The doctor said.
"Thank you."
Sherry had been on the phone for the last hour calling everyone she knew and just trying to get reacquainted with everything that was happening. She got a big lead, the secretary of the CIA director said that he had recently spoken with a Mr. Warner, whose daughter had recently escaped prison, and that there is a rumor that Mr. Warner has something to do with the kidnapping of the man Jack Bauer." Sherry thanked her and called David. She shared what she had found out and asked him to try to get the funding sheet for the CIA and the recent statements from both Warner's personal accounts and business accounts. Most people thought that stuff was unobtainable, but the nice thing with the new threat to America was that the President could give the go-ahead for that information to be collected off any computer system and the different agencies that have the people capable of doing it.
The President called Tony and asked him to get the information and then forward it to him. He knew he could trust Tony, and Tony knew he could trust Michelle to get the information for him. He told the president he would get her to do that as soon as possible. Tony called Michelle and told her what he needed her to do and she said it would not be a problem.
It took Michelle a half-hour to get the information without leaving a trace. She called Tony and asked him where he wanted it sent.
"Send it to me, and then to the president via his email account." Tony answered.
Tony walked across the hall and grabbed a laptop out of the tech room. He brought it back to the room and he and Jim began to study the documents that Michelle had sent them.
The President waited for the email and than called Sherry to tell her he had the information. He forwarded the documents to her and she thanked him telling him she thought she knew what she could do next. She hung the phone up and called a friend.
Jack's eyes snapped open and when she saw he was still in the chair and there was still a nail in him he closed his eyes again, hoping it was all just a dream. When he opened them again he knew he was only kidding himself with hoping it was a dream. He looked around the room and made eye contact with Amber who was sitting in the corner of the room staring at him. Jack moved a bit and grimaced in pain.
"Why won't you just admit that you set the guys up?" Amber asked staring at him.
"Because I didn't. I swear to you. I would never have done that. Why would I have taken some of my best friends in with me, when I was going to set the mission up to fail? Why did Drazen come after me and my family if I helped him? And if it was so planned how come his wife and daughter were killed in the explosion. I am truly sorry that I lived and your father died, but I cannot change what happened. I wish I knew who set us up to fail because I would personally kill them, but I don't know." Jack said sincerely.
Amber stared at him a little longer and she could not figure out if he was lying to her or telling the truth. He did not do anything that made it look like he was nervous and lying, but he was trained not to do those things.
Amber grabbed the cell-phone and paged Kate and Marie to let them know he was awake again. A few minutes later the women came in with Mr. Warner. Mr. Warner looked at Jack and grimaced as he could imagine what pain the man was in.
Marie walked up to Jack with a hammer in her hand. She held it up to him and dug the nail remover into his skin of his shoulder as she attempted to pull the nail out. As she did he screamed in pain again. When she finished she said, "See, that wasn't that bad was it?"
Jack was breathing heavily. Trying to hide the pain in his voice he said, "No I've felt worse."
"That's good news, then we can continue." Marie answered back. She grabbed Jack's left ring finger and pulled it back slowly until she felt it break.
Jack screamed in pain and started to breath heavily again. He began to count the number of broken bones; he knew he had two broken fingers, possibly something in his shoulder, a bone in his hand, and ribs.
"Ouch. That look like it hurt. You are the best torturer what do you think I should do next Jack?" She asked him. "It seems my sister already killed someone you loved, we've broken bones, put holes, and by the smell of things used chemicals. Ah, we need fire. Hold on, let me go see what I can do about that." Marie said walking out of the room.
Kate and Mr. Warner were quietly debating in the corner of the room. Mr. Warner was not so happy with all of the damage they were doing to Jack because he was not sure what the bosses wanted with him. "He will be fine. They said they need him alive and conscious other than that, they were not to specific." Kate said to ease her father's worries, she went on to say; "They will be here in a half hour so it won't matter. She cannot do to much more damage."
Marie returned with the poker stick from the fireplace up stairs. It was still heated so that the end was a glowing reddish orange color. She looked at Jack and said, "How about another tattoo." She took the poker and placed it against Jacks chest. She held it there and could smell his flesh burning, hearing him scream excited her, she turned the poker so that she left a huge burn mark on the middle of his chest.
Mr. Warner smelled the burning flesh and gagged at the smell. He tried to hold down the food he just got done eating. The smell always got to him. It smelled worse than anything he could imagine.
Jack tried to focus on something else, remove the pain from his brain, but it was not working. He had given up on trying to prevent the pain he was in from registering on his face. He was right now on the border line, ready to just give up and stop trying to fight. The memory of his daughter rushed back and at that moment he gave up. He did not care what they did to him anymore, he sort of wished for death, a painful death. All he had done in his life was kill people, and it came back to haunt him and kill his daughter, wife, and unborn child. Maybe everything he has ever done was wrong. Maybe Kate was right and he is as bad as the people he fights against. Barely coherent he said, "I'm so sorry Kim."
Kate saw his lips moving and noticed the change in his body. He no longer looked like the rough unbeatable Jack Bauer, he looked like the tired old man who is on his death bed and just realized his entire life was a lie.
Marie walked up to him and asked, "What was that Jack? What did you just say?"
Jack did not answer her nor look her in the eye. He was beaten and she knew it. At this moment everything he had done in his life had come rushing back. The face of every person he ever killed, and those who he had failed to save like his wife, and Kim. The pain he caused people, all the torture sessions and the years of pain, the double crosses and everything just rushed back and he wished he were dead. He wanted death; he had become the thing he was fighting against. To fight monsters, you need monsters, he had always disagreed with that until now.
No one spoke for a moment. They all stared at him as if he were going to repeat what he had said, but he did not. "Jack, you still with us?" Kate asked from the corner worried about the sudden calmness that had come over his body.
Sherry got off the phone from her friend and called her ex-husband, "David, you owe me big time on this one. Mr. Warner works for the CIA director Dante. They have something on the side going on. The rumor is that they use Warner's company to launder money from some terrorist organizations. Since it was just a rumor, I had my friend check on the transaction that happened last year between the organization and second wave. We originally believed that somehow Warner's daughter Marie had done it, but there was no way for her to do it. She had to be in her father's office and have all of his access codes, and there is no way she could have done all of those things, and he did not notice this large sum that was transferred to the company he did not know. My friend is looking into it some more, but he thinks that it was Dante and other business men paying for the action second wave was taking. If they had been successful a group of businessmen as well as the CIA and NSA would have prospered off it. The budgets for these organizations would have gotten bigger to help them fight terrorist. Like after 9-11 and the FBI."
"I need solid proof before I can do anything. I cannot just go in blind accusing. You were in it last year what do you know from it?" David asked Sherry.
"I was not that far in it. I knew Kingsley was involved, but I was positive he was not running things. He was not smart enough for all of that. I'm not sure who it was, but it makes sense to me." Sherry answered her husband.
"I need proof. Where is Mike Novick at? Would he have any information?" David asked.
"I don't know if he would. I think he was recruited at the last moment, but it would not hurt to ask him."
"I'll call him and see if he will come in. Maybe he will give me information."
"I have another call coming in. I better answer it, might be my friend."
"Thanks Sherry."
David Palmer hung the phone off and asked his secretary to find the number for Mike Novick. He called the Secret Service head, Erin, in and told him he was expecting Mike Novick to show up here soon and for him to escort him in.
Palmer's secretary came in over the communication system and told him, "I'm connecting you with Mr. Novick."
When he heard the line click off he said, "Hello Mike. How are you?"
Taken back by the President calling him Mike answered, "Um, fine Mr. President."
"That's good Mike. I was hoping that you would be willing to come to the White house and speak to me about something that is very important."
"Sure, Mr. President. What time would you like me to be there?"
"As soon as possible Mike. How about a half hour?"
"I'll leave now sir."
"Thanks Mike."
Mike hung the phone up and wondered why the President wanted to see him this late. Had he finally come to his senses and decide that he wanted Mike back. Mike felt bad about turning on him a few years back, but he had the country's best interests in mind. Mike was hurt that he was the only one excused from his position when Prescott had been the one who planned the entire thing from the beginning before he even had Mike recruited he knew what he wanted.