The following takes place between 5 pm and 6 pm

05:00:01 --- 05:00:02 --- 05:00:03 --- 05:00:04

CTU chopper

"Into L.A.?" Terry tries to visualize the location Jack has given him. Franklin Avenue. Residential area. Not many places to land a helicopter. "Jack, I don't know. We can probably get within a mile or two based on the tail roter span. It'll take that much to be safe because of all the people." Jack clearly isn't happy.

"Terry, we've got to get closer," Kevin intervenes to prevent any escalation in tone or emotions, "Time is of the essence and can't be wasted on getting to and from this bird. What if..." He turns and fumbles with equipment behind him, "What if we repelled down? Could you get us close enough to the address to let us down on the roof?"

That's an idea. "We're about five minutes away. I think that just might work. Get the belts on and make sure they're tight."

"That's alright Terry. That should be close enough." Jack knows the restrictions of flying and landing within the city limits. He straps the belt tight and waits for Terry's signal.

CTU
Andre listens with rapt attention to Michelle. The tension has risen in her voice and Tony isn't back yet. "Catherine," he whispers across to her, "I can take the back up if you want."

But now George and Lisa enter together. All eyes are on the pair as CTU braces for another showdown.

"Listen up." George claps his hands to get attention. "We've got several operations going on at once right now. While I can't go into detail about most of them, what needs to be known will be shared. The Mills assassination is number one priority unless you are told otherwise. Lisa Elliott," he motioned to her, "has been given clearance to access our internal and external networks. She may also run operations as they apply to her specific needs. Lisa's work is related to the Mills assassination but also is very sensitive. I can't give any information beyond that. If she asks for your cooperation, give it to her. But for now, get back to work."

"Thank you," Lisa nods and holds out her hand to George. He chuckles at the gesture.

"We're beyond that don't you think?" He notices Michelle staring. "And now I need to contact Division. Hammond will want to slap someone's hand for this."

Garage

The search through Burton's pockets had yielded nothing more than change. He should go back for the car. Burton's car might have something else...

Tony makes a u-turn in the middle of the street and speeds back to the garage. Deserted as it was when he first arrived, the only other car is easy to find. Burton's body is still there which means the shooter could be around waiting. It was a chance he'd have to take.

He pulls up beside the car, exits, and enters Burton's car through the passenger's side. Inside the glove compartment is a CIA ID, badge, gun, and car registration. On the floor, a pay stub for another parking garage, this one near the railroad tracks on Bernard Street.

Tony phones Michelle, "Hey, it's me. I found a pay stub for a parking lot in Burton's car. It's on Bernard Street. What can you give me on that location?"

CTU
Michelle quickly answers Tony's call. "Uhm... I'ts in Chinatown. Tony, are you back in the garage? Get out of there now, the place isn't cleared yet. Look, I'm gonna have to call you back. I need to deal with something first." She hangs up on him.

Catherine is grateful for the little diversion that the couple of the day provided for the office. It gives her time to take a breath and calm down. She was fairly new around here, and still had to get used to people yelling at her for following protocol, while the other way round would have been logical. She turns to Andre first and says in a low voice "Thanks, that would be great." Catherine gets up from her chair and faces Michelle. "Alright, where do you want me to start?"

Michelle sighs. She was taking it out on an innocent bystander, like Tony did on her this morning. It was wrong. She tries a smile to show she was sorry and stoops over Catherine's keyboard, typing away as she speaks.

"Here, I'll open a new directory for you. Start with all recently cancelled projects, especially the classified ones, and go back in time. As far as it takes you. I know I said earlier to focus on the last ten years but that just might not be enough, so just go futher, okay?"

Catherine is glad to hear a normal tone in Michelle's voice again. "Okay, and what type of projects am I looking for?"

"Just any Government or military projects that have officially been abandoned. Make a list and send it to my directory when you're done."

Catherine nods. "Of course."

"Thank you."

Michelle then turns to Andre. "You're doing the backup?... Good, it hasn't been done for hours. Stick to it, ok?.. Okay." She takes a deep breath and walks back to her desk, sitting down and raising a hand to her eyes for a second or two, before returning to her work.

CTU Chopper

Kevin cinches his belt and joins Jack at the open edge. A thought crossed his mind that Lisa was right - LA saw more action than Sacramento could ever hope to see.

"Okay," Terry steadies the chopper, "On my count. One...two...three, down!"

Kevin follows Jack's lead downward. The roof is 15, then 10 feet below, then they hit. Terry pulls up and away as soon as the guys are clear.

Garage
He knows he should follow Michelle's advice, but somehow Tony feels like he owes Burton. The guy just took a bullet because he was passing information. Michelle was strong willed, though.

Tony makes a call to Andre. "Put me through to Lisa. Don't tell Michelle."

Andre places Tony on hold then contacts Lisa. "Line 1."

"Lisa Elliott," she's surprised by the voice on the other end, "Is something wrong? Do you want Michelle?"

"No, I need you to do something for me." Tony glances around as he moves to the back of the car. "Get sat feeds for the last 8 hours of a parking garage on Bernard Street."

"Does this have anything to do with Mills and the case?" Lisa's already trying to reestablish contact with Jackie at NSA. If this is a fishing expedition...

"A CIA agent was trying to pass information to me but was killed before he could. " Tony pops the trunk of Burton's car. "Oh man. What have we got here?" A second shot rings out before he can examine the contents closely.

"Tony? What happened?"

"Someone's still here!" Tony's down on the ground, scrambling towards Burton. What he's looking for isn't on the man. He crawls into the car, head down. The keys are still in the ignition waiting to be turned. He does turn the key and presses down on the gas with one hand, clutching to the steering wheel with the other. "Lisa, I'm bringing in Burton's car. I'll be there in ten minutes."

CTU
Michelle glances at her screen. Tony's car is in the garage now, and has a broken window, possibly shattered by a bullet, but the other car is gone. The dead CIA agent is still on the ground, lying in a pool of blood.

She picks up the phone and calls a CSI team in, and someone to pick up Tony's vehicle. Then she calls up Tony. "Where are you? What's going on? Why did you go back to the garage, Tony? Your car has been hit, you could have been shot."

"Michelle, I couldn't leave." Tony is immediately sorry he caused her to worry, even for a minute. "Burton was killed trying to pass information and I had to know if he had anything with him."

He swerves onto a main road. "I'm within a couple miles of CTU. Before the second shot, I got a look in the trunk. We're going to need evidence bags."
Catherine has begun the search. The list seems to be endless already. Some of the projects have been cancelled and restarted several times. The assignment given to her is proving to be a hard task.

She sighs a little and leans back in her chair, monitoring the process. Michelle is going to want this information ordered in some way. That's probably going to be the worst part of it...

the roof
Jack and Kevin find a door leading into the building. It's locked. "Just a minute.", Jack says and takes out a tiny toolkit. He starts working on the lock, and several seconds later, the door is open.

"Come on.", Jack motions to Kevin and they enter the stairwell. Jack looks around and at the ceiling. It's an apartment building. It doesn't seem to have surveillance cameras. They start moving silently down the hall, their backs sidewards to the wall. A small sign on the wall tells them they're on the 15th floor.

"We need the fifth.", Jack whispers and they continue down the stairs.

somewhere
Nick and Mick are now sitting in an undergound facility, checking a map and discussing something silently, while other men in navy uniforms around them are busy setting up.

Mick gets a phone call. "Yes... We've had to move to the secondary location. We've had a problem, but it's been dealt with... Yes, that has been taken care of as well... She should be in position now. We're ready. Okay."

He looks like he's about to hang up, but doesn't. "Bauer? He's not a problem." Whatever the other person said next, Mick didn't like. He suddenly looks petrified. "Okay." He hangs up and turns to Nick.

"Bauer is free. We need to find Kim again."

Apartment
The fifth floor... Kevin follows closely but takes his share of the load. There are corridors a plenty for people to hide in and no telling who could be around any corner. Jack's into this mission, the perspiration on his face tells all.

They are quickly on the tenth floor, ninth, "Jack," Kevin's voice is low. He readies his weapon and nods his head to the left where the staircase curls down. A metal clanging reverberates. A door closing? Could be nothing.

CTU
Tony jerks to a halt in CTU's main lot, jumps out, and hustles inside.

"Tony!" Lisa starts to him but he seems to not see her or is ignoring her.

Tony immediately heads for Michelle. "Hey," he puts his arm lightly around her waist, "I didn't know if I'd see you again." Then he realizes what he said. "Heh, didn't know if I'd see anything again. I need to talk to you for a minute. Without Lisa."

Michelle leads Tony away from the garage. He didn't know if he'd see her again? "I was scared.", she admits. "But now I'm relieved. What is it you want to talk about?"

Rather embarrassed from the way he entered and acted, Tony tries to sound normal though he really is apologizing. "You're going to find out that I asked Lisa to grab sat feeds from your computer to hers."

Maybe Michelle isn't too surprised after all. "This morning... I got the feeling that the trust wasn't complete between us. That's my fault. I've been aloof for many reasons but today I've acted without thinking. Michelle... I didn't want to worry you and I knew Lisa wouldn't worry. I knew she'd do as asked. Are we okay?"

"We're fine, Tony. We really are." Michelle smiles. It's an honest smile this time. She feels like she owes him an apology as well. "Uhm, listen.. This morning, with the stolen data and all, I just... I wasn't sure who to trust. I might have been a little freaked out."

She's not going to tell him what she found. Not about the code she stumbled upon, not that the data disappeared apparently using his system. She's certain that Tony had nothing to do with it, but she wants to have it checked before she tells him what it was really about. "Tony, we have a lot of work to do. Jack and Kevin are still out in the field. They might be on to something."

The apartment building
Jack listens for a moment but decides not to go after the sound. It's an apartment building, people go in and out all the time. "Keep the gun out of sight, but ready.", he tells Kevin. "We don't wanna scare anybody, alright?"

They are now on the fifth floor. They continue down the hall, to the apartment in question. Jack suddenly stops. "Codis. 51A. This is it." Jack takes a glance around, then knocks on the door. "Mr. Codis? Mr. Codis, are you in? We'd like to talk to you." No one is answering.

secondary location
Nick summons two of the guys to his desk. "We need a location on the Bauer girl a.s.a.p. Finding her is your new priority. I don't care how long it takes or where you need to go to, just find her and bring her in." The guys nod and walk out of the room.

Codis' Apartment
Kevin is against the side wall as Jack waits for an answer. "Mr. Codis," Kevin yells, "it would be best to cooperate." Should they pull the federal agent card yet? He's looking to Jack for that answer.

the apartment building
A man opens the door oposite 51A. "What's going on here?"

Jack: "Sir, please go back inside. This is a federal investigation."

The neighbor persists: "Fine, but there's no one there."

"What do you mean?" Jack has now moved away from the door and towards the man. "Sir, if you know anything, you need to tell us. We are federal agents and we're looking for Mr. Codis."

Jack pulls out his ID. The man eyes it carefully, then glances at Kevin and back at Jack, who is growing slightly impatient now. "Sir?"

The man finally decides that he's stared at the ID long enough.

"Codis disappeared on me two months ago. Just like that. The sucker owes me the rent for the last four months. If you do find him, I'd like a word with him myself."

Now it's Jack who glances at Kevin. "You surely have a key, don't you? We'd like to take a look inside."

"Nah, he had the lock changed and I didn't touch it yet. Always thought he'd come back at some point."

"Okay, you've been very helpful." Jack moves one step closer to the man, almost forcing him to back off. "If you would kindly go back in now and lock your door..."

The man rolls his eyes, but steps back inside his apartment, shuts the door and turns the key.

Jack turns back to 51A. He decides quickly and kicks at the door. Once. Twice. The lock breaks. They're inside. The place hasn't been cleared of the furniture, but the thick layer of dust seems to confirm the owner's words. It hasn't been lived in for a while. They secure the rooms. No one.

"Kevin, if Codis disappeared, there's only two possible reasons. Either he's dead, which I don't believe, or he's mixed up in something that required him to become untraceable." But they both know that they need to find him nevertheless. "Kevin, take the bedroom, I'll check here."

CTU
"Okay," Tony pulls out the garage stub and hands it to Michelle, "and this may be connected in some way. Burton was in Chinatown this morning, we know that. But, I found something in his trunk and I need to know exactly what it is." He starts heading for the exit and sees her hesitation. "I left it there so you could get a look in it's original context."

Lisa approaches quickly. "What's going on? Michelle's supposed to be doing cross-checks and Tony, you just got shot at."

"Let me take care of something and I'll be right back to fill you in."

Lisa isn't sure. "George is just starting to cooperate..."

"Then you cooperate. Please."

"Fine. But don't leave me out of the loop." Lisa gives Michelle a look. "Not where Jack's concerned."

Codis' Apartment
Kevin takes the bedroom. The bed is void of sheets and the dresser has collected dust. The nightstand, though, hasn't been cleaned. He finds an empty cup, notepad, and then opens the top drawer.

"Jack, better get in here." The remnants of a second notepad are spread out to reveal a name and phone number. Kevin immediately contacts Lisa, "Heya, got something for you."

"I'll be right there", Jack calls to Kevin. He is checking the phone in the living room. Jack picks it up and pushes the redial button. He gets an automatic voice on the other line that informs him that there is no subscriber under that number. He hangs up again and walks over to the bedroom. "What have you got?" Kevin shows him the slip of paper. "Are you running a search on it already?"

"I've got Lisa on it but she hasn't gotten back with me. She sounded distracted." Kevin overstated the last part. "This guy isn't here so... exactly why are we still here, Jack? We could get a couple of guys over here, do an evidence sweep."

He waits for a bit but Jack doesn't answer. "Jack, why was the FBI taken out? The Bureau has good watchdogs. I used to be one of them. They don't send their men out without checking things first."

Hospital where Kim is at
Heather gets up from a chair outside the room Kim had previously been in and walks over to a nurse. "Uhm.. I'm looking for someone. A girl. Kim. She was in this room and has been taken to X-ray some time ago. I haven't seen her since."

"Just a moment." The nurse checks the logs in the computer. "She has been transfered to another room. 21, on second floor."

"Okay, thanks." Heather takes Peter by the hand and heads to the elevator.

somewhere on a plane, high above the ground
Two parachutists are getting ready for a jump. We can't quite make out their faces behind the goggles. They're done strapping up and sit on a bench, waiting for a signal. One of them glances through a window. The sun is pretty low, the light is getting dim. "Perfect timing, isn't it?" he says. "Off into the sunset, like the cowboys." He chuckles.

The other one nods briefly, but says nothing.

CTU

Lisa takes the information and types into Andre's computer which is the closest. "Kevin, I'm going to put you on hold while this runs." She next addresses Tony, who is still bound and determined to leave the office. "Just don't be running an operation by yourself that's connected with today's events. We don't know how many people they've killed and we can't risk any losses."

"Yeah, I know what you can't risk losing." Tony stares her down, recalling the interrogation earlier in the day. "I need Michelle to help me collect the evidence from Burton's trunk. We'll be back in ten minutes."

Michelle walks to the car, following Tony. "Okay, open the trunk."

the plane
The altimeter in the cockpit reads 30 000 feet. "You're clear.", the pilot says after a while. The two put on their oxygen masks, then get up and take position by the edge of the plane, glancing towards the cockpit. "Okay. GO!", the pilot yells.

The one who kept silent, jumps out first, the other one follows close behind. The plane turns back as soon as they're in safe distance. The pilot radios someone: "The HALO team is out. Touchdown in approximately two minutes." He looks out of the cockpit window. In the twilight, the free falling silhouettes of the two are disappearing from his view quickly.

05:59:57 --- 05:59:58 --- 05:59:59 --- 06:00:00