Hi Everyone! Hope you are still reading. I only got a couple of reviews on Chapter 11 and I wasn't sure if that meant that it wasn't as good as the others, that I posted in the middle of the week and no one had a chance to review or that nobody is reading any more.  (I hope it's not the last one, because I have a lot more story to go!)

Hope you like Chapter 12 better. 

Chapter 12:

Tony slowly regained consciousness and became aware of his surroundings. His handcuffs had been removed and now he was shackled by his left ankle to an iron hook in the wall. He was surprised to see some light coming in under the door. When he was first locked in the room, it was incredibly dark. Now a light in the hall seeped under the door and allowed him to see a bit. A few feet away sat a bottle of water and a bowl of rice and vegetables. Tony suddenly realized how hungry and thirsty he was. He had neither eaten nor drunk in at least 36 hours and probably longer.

He slowly tried to sit up and moaned quietly in pain as he did so. His side ached as he breathed and he knew that he had broken ribs. Pain shot through his left hand as he used it to push himself up into a sitting position. He remembered being kicked in that hand, which had been cuffed in front of him, as he tried to protect his stomach from his assailants' kicks. He eventually got into a sitting position. At first he was dizzy, a wave of nausea overtaking him. He held onto the wall and leaned forward hoping that the nausea would pass. It slowly cleared after a couple of dry heaves, which caused unbelievable pain in his ribs.

He was finally able to sit straight up and straighten his legs out. He flexed his ankles and feet and bent his knees and other than some minor pain which he attributed to bruises, his legs seemed unhurt. He reached up and touched his face. He had dried blood caked along the side of his face and below his nose and mouth. He could feel that his eye was nearly swollen shut, but his vision seemed fine. His mouth was bone dry and he could taste blood. He ran his tongue along his teeth until he seemed satisfied that they were all intact. He could tell that his lower lip was also swollen and he could feel two places where his teeth had cut deeply into his lip.

He wasn't quite ready to stand yet. He sat for a few more minutes and decided that he should probably try and eat. He reached out with his right hand and took the water bottle. His left hand hurt too much to unscrew the cap, so he held the bottle between his knees and twisted the cap with his right hand. He raised the bottle to his lips and allowed a small amount of water to fall on his tongue. He gently swished the water around and then spat it out to keep from swallowing the blood that was in his mouth. After doing this twice, he allowed himself to take small sips. Once he was sure those were staying down, he drank a little more. The water was cool, the same temperature as the room, and it felt good to drink, but made him shiver a little. He thought about using some of the water to clean the blood off his face, but wasn't sure when he would get more and didn't want to waste it.

After keeping down the water for a few minutes, he reached for the bowl. Unfortunately, the rice and vegetables were the same temperature as the water but at this point it didn't matter. Tony was ravenous and had to be careful not to wolf down the entire bowl in a few seconds. Instead he took one vegetable at a time and a little bit of rice and chewed it slowly. Considering how much his jaw and lip hurt, slowly was really the only way he could chew. He eventually pushed most of the vegetables aside and ate only the rice and tofu since they barely needed to be chewed.

He finished the food and set the bowl down. After resting with his head against the wall for a few minutes, he decided that it was time to stand up. Just as he began to stand up, the steel door on the opposite wall swung open letting in so much bright light that Tony was temporarily blinded.

"Time to get up, Mr. Almeida." Yuen said as two of his men wrenched Tony into a standing position. He couldn't help but scream in pain as they pulled him to his feet. He hated giving Yuen the satisfaction of knowing how much he hurt, but couldn't stop the scream.

The bright light from the hallway was now in the room. Along with it, Yuen's men brought a straight backed chair into the room. They conversed with Yuen in Korean for a second, obviously asking him where he wanted the chair set down. Once it was in place to Yuen's liking, the men holding Tony pushed him into the chair. One of the men adjusted the light while the other picked up a video camera. He indicated to Yuen that they were ready.

Yuen stood next to Tony and looked into the camera. "Hello, President Prescott," he said. "My name is Yuen Lim and I believe I have something of yours."

The camera panned to the right and focused on Tony. "Look at the camera and state your name for the President." He directed Tony.

"Tony Almeida" he said quietly.

"I'm not sure he heard that. Repeat it." Yuen commanded.

"My name is Tony Almeida" Tony said slightly louder this time.

"Very good." Yuen looked back at the camera. "Mr. Almeida is in relatively good health at the moment, Mr. President. I would like to return him to you this way and if you work with me, I'll do that. If not, his wife will get what's left of him back in a shoe box." Yuen paused for effect. "There are two men in a prison outside of Chicago. Their names are Huong Chin and Huong Nu. They are my sons and I want them back. Very much like the Almeida family wants Tony back. You release my sons and return them to me and provide us safe passage to a destination of my choice and Mr. Almeida will go home to his family.

"I will give you some time to think about it and make the necessary arrangements. I will contact Brad Hammond at CTU Los Angeles at 12 noon Los Angeles time tomorrow and give him further instructions as to where he can pick up Mr. Almeida or Mr. Almeida's body depending on whether you want to work with me or not." The camera panned in closely on Tony so that his battered face could be seen clearly. After another 15 or 20 seconds they stopped filming.

"I think that went very well." Yuen said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "Now email that to the president." Yuen order his men as he turned to leave.

The men packed up the camera and light. Just before leaving they pushed Tony off the chair and onto the floor. He caught himself with his swollen left hand and grimaced in pain. The men laughed as they took the chair away and locked the door behind them. They turned off the light in the hallway that had been providing Tony just the faintest view of the room around him. It was dark and silent again and Tony never felt more alone in his life.

Several hours later a group of interns at the White House sat screening the president's email. Most of the email got a canned response. A few pieces that were particularly interesting actually made it to the President's desk. Emails that were in any way threatening were forwarded on to the Secret Service for follow up. Today was no exception, the majority of the email was routine and was politely answered. There was some quiet chatter among the interns and they occasionally read an especially funny or moving email out loud to their colleagues.

Everyone in the room heard the gasp from an intern named Melissa. She had been doing this for several months and was one of the more experienced email screeners. "Oh my God! Guys come over here and see this. Somebody get Secret Service on the phone. They need to see this now. This is the CIA agent from LA that they have been looking for!"

By this time her desk was surrounded by the other interns. She replayed the video attachment for them and they were as stunned as Melissa was. Someone picked up the phone and called the Secret Service office upstairs. The email was immediately forwarded to them and after viewing it they called CTU. This was clearly a break for CTU and they were glad to get it. The video was enhanced and scrutinized carefully for clues as to where it was shot. The audio was evaluated for background noise in the hope that they could hear something that might pinpoint the location.

The enhanced video and audio was sent to the South Korean intelligence agents. The agent who had infiltrated Yuen's operation recognized the room where Tony was being held immediately. It was an abandoned US Army headquarters from the Korean War. When the Americans left, the building was apparently forgotten. It was located about a half hour outside of Seoul, but the agent didn't know the exact location. The vegetation around the building was overgrown and the road to it was only visible if you knew where it was. Tony was being held in a bunker below the building. The agent had gone there with some of Yuen's employees just a month before. Yuen used the building for storage and the men had moved some crates and equipment there. One of the crates was taken down a narrow stairway to the bunker below. The crate, with markings on it that the agent remembered was sitting to Tony's right on the video.

The South Koreans, Hammond was told, were already assembling a commando unit to storm the building. The agent told his superiors that, like any army headquarters, this one was situated in such as way as to be easily defensible. It would be hard to get into the building without being seen. Not only did they need the exact location, but they needed blue prints for the building as well.

Hammond was on the phone immediately to the Army archives hoping to get a hold of the blueprints. They were almost 60 years old at this point and he hoped they were still available. It took less than an hour for the Army to provide the exact location of the abandoned HQ building, but it would take longer to find the plans for the building.

In the meantime, the South Koreans began developing an assault plan. Now that they knew the exact location, they could fly some recognizance and get an aerial view of the building. With infrared cameras, they hoped to establish the number of hostiles inside.

It took almost six hours to find the blue prints for the old Seoul headquarters building at an archive site about two hours outside of Washington D.C. The blue prints would need to be scanned and downloaded to CTU. Scanning was easy, but the results of downloading the old blue prints were poor. Graphic enhancements were necessary that weren't available on the computer at the archives. The original blue prints would need to be flown to the Pentagon where they would have the necessary equipment.

Another three hours passed before the task was finally complete and the blue prints sent to the South Korean commandos. The assault plan was largely in place by that time and the blue prints allowed them to fine tune it. It would take them another couple of hours to put the men in place and the assault would go down just before dawn in Seoul.

At CTU the mood was cautiously optimistic. The plan looked good. Jack, who had run a number of assault operations, would have run the operation differently, but still considered the plan reasonable. He knew, though, that this type of operation depended on far more than the actual plan. Taking the hostiles by surprise was probably the most important element and after seeing the recognizance photos, Jack was concerned about their ability to do that. Jack thought they would be better off parachuting into the compound, although he realized that based on conditions it was a technically difficult jump. The South Koreans, however, had rejected Jack's suggestion. Everyone knew that if Yuen's people saw the assault team and was well armed, it would be difficult to take over the building and get Tony out alive. Jack hated being thousands of miles away. He wished he was there to help, to make sure that everything was being done to keep Tony safe. He knew how much the South Koreans wanted to get Yuen and he was afraid that in their haste to get Yuen that they would forget about the American hostage, that they would consider Tony expendable.

At the safe house, Michelle was a bundle of nerves. She had asked to see the video of Tony but Hammond refused. She had a long talk with Sophie about Tony's situation. The six-year-old obviously had figured out that her father was missing; she just didn't know the details. Michelle told her that bad men were holding Tony in another country and that there were dozens of people working to rescue him. Sophie wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and hugged her for a long time. Without letting go she finally spoke, "Mommy, what if the bad men kill Daddy?"

Michelle flinched. Even though she knew it was a possibility, she hadn't let herself think it. "Oh, Sophie," she whispered through her tears, "let's not think about that right now. Let's try to think about how happy we're going to be when Daddy comes home. For right now that's a better thing for us to think about."

Sophie let go of Michelle's neck and wiped away her tears. She sat back a bit and played with Michelle's necklace. "That's Daddy's ring." She said fingering the platinum band carefully. She reached for Michelle's left hand and ran her small finger across Michelle's wedding band. "It's the same as yours only bigger." She commented.

Michelle couldn't stop the tears that traced silently down her cheeks. She stood up to get tissues for both of them. As she sat back down, Sophie put her hand on Michelle's stomach. "Mommy, do you have another baby in you tummy?"

"Yes, Sophie, I do." She answered smiling slightly.

"It's not a big baby like Dess was." Sophie told her.

"Well the baby has a lot of growing to do, Honey. It will be big like your brother in a few months. Then it will be time for the baby to be born."

Sophie didn't ask any more questions but sat close to Michelle, holding her hand, twisting her wedding band around Michelle's finger. Kate was taking care of the boys and Michelle just sat quietly with Sophie hoping to calm and reassure her. She hated seeing the little girl so scared and having to deal with such a grown up situation. She pulled Sophie closer and prayed that the nightmare would soon be over.

Dawn was fast approaching in Seoul and the closer it came the faster the hearts at CTU were pounding. Hammond had requested real time audio on the mission but it had been denied by the South Korean government. We will keep CTU briefed, Chung Yee, Hammond's South Korean counterpart, told Hammond. So there was little to do at CTU but wait.

Jack put his feet up on the desk in front of him and sat back drinking what must have been at least his sixth or seventh cup of coffee today. He was wired and his heart was practically jumping out of his chest. He called Kate who said everything at the safe house was fine and that she and their boys were going home. CTU agents were going to bring Tony's parents in to stay with Michelle. She asked when he would be coming home. When this is resolved, he told her. She noticed that he didn't say 'When Tony's safe' and it made her nervous.

"Jack," she started, "what are the odds that Tony comes home alive?"

"I don't want to talk about that, Kate." He answered in a virtual whisper. "I'll see you when I get home, Babe. Give the boys kisses for me. I love you."

Just before dawn broke in Seoul, eight commandos dressed in camouflage moved stealthily through the dense brush surrounding the abandoned US Army headquarters building. Snipers perched in nearby trees ready to shoot the two sentries that stood guard on the roof. They needed to take out the sentries simultaneously so that neither had time to warn the other or the hostiles inside. They had the sentries in their sites and were waiting for their commander to give the signal. The air was cool and clear and it rustled softly in the trees. They were fortunate, one of the snipers thought, almost no moon tonight. He focused again on his target who was fidgeting as he walked back and forth on the roof. The commander finally gave the signal and the shots rang out in the night. Both sentries fell, one was dead instantly, the other mortally wounded but conscious, grabbed his radio to warn Yuen.

Yuen's men sprang to action. They immediately put on gas masks anticipating that the assault team would shoot tear gas canisters through the windows. They were right, seconds later they heard the sound of breaking glass and the building was filled with noxious gas. This was followed by the commandos breaking in through the doors. Yuen had run down the stairs to one of the bunkers while his men hid behind storage crates and old desks. As the commandos entered, Yuen's men jumped out and opened fire. They took the commandos completely by surprise and they had little chance to return fire. The eight men of the assault team were dead in seconds.

Tony spent much of the night in the bunker below pacing back and forth. He was too cold and in too much pain to get any sleep. He had tried, but couldn't get comfortable on the dirt floor. It was so dark in the room that he had no way of keeping track of time and had no idea what time it was. For most of the night, everything was quiet. He couldn't hear any voices or the sounds of people walking on the floor above him, so he assumed that they were sleeping. Then all of the sudden, he heard several sets of footsteps moving quickly above him and someone was pushing furniture or crates across the floor. He heard a heavy door slam and it sounded as if it was right next door. He wondered if someone was in the room next to him. All was quiet for a moment then he heard what sounded like a small explosion and several sets of heavy boots hit the floor. This was immediately followed by the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons firing. Tony leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He allowed himself to hope for a moment that someone was trying to rescue him; that he was safe and would be home with his family soon. He could almost feel Michelle in his arms and once she was there, he would never let her go again. Reality set back in and he knew that he had no idea who was doing the shooting upstairs. Anything could have happened. Yes, it could be rescuers, but it could also be Yuen's own men turning on him. It could be a rival terrorist organization. Even if it was a rescue attempt, it could fail. Rescue attempts were always risky propositions and he knew Yuen would be on the look out for one.

The sound of the weapons firing was short lived. Whatever happened, it didn't take long and was punctuated by several loud thuds which Tony assumed were bodies hitting the floor. A minute or so later, a couple of sets of footsteps came down the stairs. Tony crouched in a corner somewhat shielded by a crate in case whoever was shooting upstairs opened the door and started firing. He had tried to move the crate earlier, but it was too heavy and his left hand was so swollen and painful as to be virtually useless. He assumed that it, too, was broken. He could hear the steel door to the next room opening. The voices were muffled and unintelligible to Tony who didn't speak Korean.

The door to the bunker opened and Yuen walked in. His face was twisted and angry. "They think I am stupid!" He ranted. "They think they can send in some little assault team and surprise me. They think I can't protect myself. They killed my guards, but I killed their commandos. Now let's see if they send anyone else to come and get you." He turned and left the room slamming the door behind him.

Tony felt his body relax as Yuen left. He slumped against the crate and allowed himself to breath again. He felt sick; an assault team was dead because of him. He also knew that was likely his last chance. They wouldn't send in another assault team to meet the same fate and he knew the US government policy was not to negotiate with terrorists. There would be no more rescue attempts and no negotiation. Tony knew his fate was sealed.