24: Day 1.5

Previously in 24: Day 1.5 . . .

MATT HARPER and Nikolai were able to retrieve Marenkov but not before he was badly wounded by an unidentified shooter. Doug Mason, who was visiting his son GEORGE MASON at CTU overheard a conversation between two Russian agents and discovered they were responsible. President DAVID PALMER was paid a visit from the Russian ambassador who relayed information from the Russian President that his Prime Minister may have been involved helping ALEXI LENKOVICH sneak into the United States. Alexi managed to abduct Marenkov from the hospital using Nikolai and Matt's son Danny as hostages. Matt and a CTU team were able to retrieve Nikolai and Danny as well as Marenkov and his daughter Galina, but not before Alexi obtained the information he needed. He fled after fatally stabbing Marenkov. Just before he died, Marenkov cryptically whispered to Matt the numbers "seven, one, eight, three, two . . . "

The following takes place between 5:00 P.M. and 6:00 P.M.

5:00:00 . . . 5:00:01 . . . 5:00:02 . . . 5:00:03 . . .

Matt walked out of the house feeling about ten years older than when he entered it. At least Danny's safe, he thought. Even looking at his son, sitting in one of the CTU vehicles under the watchful eye of one of the field agents, he couldn't escape the realization that Marenkov was dead and Lenkovich had escaped, no doubt with whatever information he'd wanted from Marenkov.

Laurie was right. I put work before everything.

Shaking himself out of his brief indulgence of self-pity, Matt turned to one of the field agents. "Baker! Does my wife know Danny's safe yet?"

Baker shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Well make sure she does." Matt answered sharply. "And I want her and my son taken over to CTU immediately!"

Baker nodded before looking up to see the senior field agent, Dan McKinley leading Galina Marenkov out of the building, a firm grip on her arm. Matt immediately walked over and leaned as close to her as he could.

"Where's Alexi Lenkovich going?" He whispered coldly.

Galina, her face stained with tears didn't look up at him but only shook her head. "I don't know. He never told us where we were going." There was barely any inflection in her voice, as she'd been almost completely drained of strength.

McKinley looked at Galina suspiciously, then at Matt. "What do you think?"

"I think she's telling the truth," He glared at her. "For once. I want her taken back to CTU as well."

Matt picked up his phone and hit one of the numbers on speed dial. This wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation but he couldn't worry about that now.

"Mason."

"George, it's Matt."

"Matt! What the hell's going on?" George barked. "I've had a dozen field agents moving in on Alexi Lenkovich's safe house and next thing I know they're telling me Lenkovich got away and Marenkov's dead!"

George heard Matt sigh over the phone. "That correct, but we have Galina Marenkov in custody. I'm having her brought over here now." A pause. "George, there's something else. There was a five-digit number Marenkov said to me right before he died: Seven-one-eight-three-two. We need to cross reference that with everything we have on Marenkov."

George snorted. "Yeah, sure, Matt, let's track down this number while Lenkovich is still out there with the location of weapons."

"I don't think Lenkovich has the location." Matt answered sharply, "at least not all the information he needs. In any case, we still have Marenkov's daughter. I'll need an interrogation room set up by the time I get there."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. You can't seriously think you're gonna be the one to interrogate her. Your son was just kidnaped, and she was working with the guy's who kidnaped him. You really think I'm gonna leave you alone in a room with her."

"Danny is fine now, and we don't have time to bring another field agent up to speed. Look, George, I give you my word I will keep my cool in there with her."

"Really? Well, when you put it like that . . . no! But what I will do is let you and Tony conduct the interrogation together."

"Fine, fine. We'll be there in ten minutes. I'm having my wife and son brought over too. I'll want the doctors to take a look at Danny when he gets there."

"Great, good, see you in ten minutes." George answered curtly before hanging up the phone and turning to Tony. "Tony, Matt's bringing Galina Marenkov in here in about ten minutes. The two of you conduct the interrogation."

Tony nodded. "Got it."

"Oh, and Tony?" He added, giving a familiar sarcastic smirk. "I never thanked you for recommending Matt for a job here. He's really made the days here more interesting."

Tony gave George an annoyed look before walking off.

5:06:17 . . . 5:06:18 . . . 5:06:19 . . . 5:06:20 . . .

Mike felt it was time to break the silence. "Mr. President, you been, well . . . pretty quiet since your meeting with the Ambassador."

Palmer waited a few moments, then looked up at his chief of staff. "I keep going over the implications in my mind. Andropov basically accused his own Prime Minister of collaborating with terrorists, men who've tried to abduct a defecting arms dealer for their own gain, men who've most likely already killed several of our agents"

Mike sighed. "Well at the risk of troubling you even further, have you stopped to consider the possibility that Andropov was misdirecting our attention toward Prime Minister Rudenko? Rudenko's been an up-and-comer in Russia for the last few years and I'm sure he's accumulated a long list of enemies over the years who'd be happy to see him accused of something like this."

Palmer leaned back in his chair. "The obvious implication there would be that the Ambassador was responsible and is trying to frame Rudenko."

Mike shrugged. "It's not implausible. As Russian ambassador to the United States, it'd be at least as easy for Andropov to get Lenkovich's people into the country as it would be for Rudenko."

Palmer shook his head until a disturbing thought entered his mind. "It's also possible President Petrov knew about this since he sent Andropov to see us to begin with." Palmer's right hand, laying on the desk, clenched into a fist. "One or more of these people may have jeopardized our national security for their own political gain."

Mike leaned in closer. "Of course, this is just speculation until we can get some proof."

Palmer gave Mike a hard look. "Well, then let's get some proof. We have people working in Moscow. Find one of them suitable to this task."

Mike nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mr. President."

5:13:41 . . . 5:13:42 . . . 5:13:43 . . . 5:13:44 . . .

Matt watched his son burst into a run as his mother appeared around the corner. Lauren rushed toward him herself and hugged him Matt continued watching wistfully from a few feet away until Lauren extended him a hand, pulling him into their embrace.

"We're going to have the doctor check you both out." Matt finally said after a moment. "I'll be in to check on you in a few minutes." Matt looked up in time to see Galina, now in handcuffs, being led toward one of the interrogation rooms.

As another agent led Lauren and Danny away, Matt saw Tony approaching him. "How are they doing?"

Matt glanced back at his wife and son for a moment. "They'll be all right. Did Mason bring you up to speed?"

"Yeah." Tony nodded. "We're still cross-referencing those numbers you gave us on anything connected to Marenkov. Nothing yet. But while you were getting here, the field team was able to access some of Lenkovich's surveillance equipment. We've got logs of everything they saw."

"Yeah?" Matt looked down for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, then looked up at Tony. "I want to talk to the team before we go in with her. There's something I want them to see if they can find."

5:20:06 . . . 5:20:07 . . . 5:20:08 . . . 5:20:09 . . .

Galina barely looked up as Matt and Tony walked into the room.

"Hello, Galina." Matt said calmly. "We were never actually introduced. I'm Agent Harper. I'm the man whose job it was to bring your father in safely. This is Agent Almeida."

Galina finally raised her head and fixed an icy stare at both agents. "I come from Russia. I know how this works."

Tony folded in arms. "Do you?"

"You can interrogate me or torture me do whatever you're going to do. I don't care. I have nothing to lose now."

Matt shook his head. "I don't think that's true. I think there's one thing you still have." He waited until she was looking at him before continuing. "A conscience. You might have been angry enough at your father to suppress it for a while, but it's there"

Galina chuckled. "You're almost as deluded as Alexi."

"Am I?" Matt pulled a photo out of the folder he was carrying and placed it on the desk in front of her. "We recovered this from the logs in Alexi's surveillance equipment. This was taken at one of the stops Alexi forced your father to make on the way to getting to you. The image was magnified and enhanced, of course." The photo, showed a middle-aged black man, well-dressed, in his car, anxiously looking out the window.

"This is Paul Garrett. He was forty-four years old. He worked in a tax attorney's office for the last nine years. He had a wife named Cassie and two daughters: Valerie's fifteen and Lillian's twelve. Your father took Paul hostage at gunpoint this morning because he was desperate to get to you."

Matt never took his gaze off Galina. "While this image was taken, we were able to see your father arguing with someone on the phone, I'm assuming Alexi. Something he said to your father made him very distraught. A minute later he pulled out his gun and shot Paul."

Matt pulled another photo out of the folder and placed it next to the first one. Galina held her breath as she looked at it. On it was the same car, though a massive splatter of blood now covered the windshield. From the camera angle, she was able to see Paul slumped over the steering wheel.

"Paul Garrett didn't have anything to do with this." Tony added. "He wasn't an arms dealer. He didn't work for your father or Alexi. He was just someone in the wrong place and the wrong time. Your father was forced to kill him because he thought you'd be killed if he didn't."

"You've made a lot of mistakes, Galina." Matt said softly. "But you still have a chance to do the right thing here."

Galina held a hand up to her head, suddenly looking even more weary. "What do you want from me?"

"Who is Alexi Lenkovich working for? Who is he trying to get a nuclear device for?" Matt asked.

"He never told Alexi or me why he wanted it." She answered. "I always figured he was getting it for someone else?"

"What's his name?" Matt asked, his voice harder this time.

Galina gave Tony a glance before turning back to Matt. "Alan Paxton."

Galina didn't notice when Tony's eyes widened slightly but Matt did. "What?"

Galina gave Tony a confused look. "You're sure about that name?" He asked.

"I'm sure."

Tony gave Matt the slightest gesture to follow before walking out the door. "Tony, what's going on?" He asked as they walked away from the interrogation room. "You know that name."

Before Tony could answer, George walked up to them. "You get something from her already? That's a nice change."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, get this: She says the man Alexi Lenkovich was working for was Alan Paxton."

George's smirk dropped away. "You're kidding, right? Alan Paxton?"

"That's what she said."

Matt looked at both men. "Will someone tell me what the hell is going on? Who's Alan Paxton?"

"You heard about those agents who got busted for taking bribes?" Tony asked.

Matt nodded. "A little bit."

"There were three of them: Seth Campbell, Andy Kowalski, and Alan Paxton"

"So you're saying this Paxton guy's gone dirty?"

George shook his head. "No, see it can't be Paxton because Paxton's dead."

Matt squinted his eyes. "How?"

"About a week after the attempted hit on Palmer, Paxton was being transferred to another prison when his bus hit a fuel truck. The whole thing went up like a Roman candle. Paxton and eight other people were killed."

"And they were sure Paxton died in the explosion?"

George shrugged. "There's wasn't much left, but they were able to match up one of the bodies with dental records."

Matt's mind was already racing. "Records can be falsified."

"You might be right" Tony said. "If that's the case, it means that accident was planned. If Paxton was working for someone else and they were trying to break him out of prison and fake his death, they did a pretty good job."

"Wait, wait, wait, before we risk a wild goose chase, are we sure this girl's telling us the truth? It's not like it'd be the first lie she told."

Matt shook his head. "I don't think so. She's dealing with the fact that she was used by Alexi Lenkovich and that he just murdered her father. Frankly, I don't think she has the will to lie to us right now. Besides which, why would she pick the name of a supposedly dead agent she shouldn't have even heard of otherwise?"

George nodded. "Okay then, let me get this straight: this supposedly dead agent, who we thought was just on the take, may in fact be alive and working to help someone get their hands on a nuclear weapon." George rolled his eyes. "Who needs a cushy job in D.C. when I've got this?"

5:28:20 . . . 5:28:21 . . . 5:28:22 . . . 5:28:23 . . .

From behind his desk, Paxton nodded to Alexi as he entered the office, though his gaze darkened as he saw another man walking in behind him.

Alexi raised a hand. "This is Sergei. He's with me. I've explained the situation to him"

Paxton folded his arms and looked disapprovingly at Sergei. "Yes, you seem to be very generous with that information."

Sergei recoiled slightly but Alexi didn't flinch. "I couldn't afford to lose any more of my people."

"If you have what you instructed to get, you'll be surprised what you can afford." Paxton replied, smiling slightly. "Speaking of which . . ."

Paxton rose from his chair and walked around to face Alexi. Looking at Paxton, Alexi was reminded what an unassuming man he appeared to be. The man was forty-ish with neatly-combed hair and a clean shaven-face. He was also taller by a few inches than Alexi, making him of average height. He'd certainly have no trouble blending into a crowd. Between that and his rather stoic demeanor, Alexi wondered if the man had a background in intelligence.

Alexi sighed. "Marenkov told me everything. And he won't be telling anyone else." A cruel smile passed over his lips. "I made sure of that myself."

Paxton nodded, his face betraying no emotion. "Good. Now, where is it?"

"Marenkov had the locations of all his weapons, including the one we're looking for, on a disc. That disc is in a storage locker on 5311 Xander Bay, number 16."

"Good." Paxton pressed a button on the table. A moment later, in walked a cold-looking man with jet-black hair and a goatee. Paxton glanced at his watch. "Willem and I should be back here within the hour."

Alexi furrowed his brow. "What? I'm coming with you! You think I'm just going to let you take the disc alone?"

Paxton gave a faint sigh. "Have some common sense, Alexi. Right now, you're the most wanted man in Los Angeles. Frankly, I'd just as soon not risk being seen with such a high-profile face." He offered Alexi's glaring face a smile. "Not to worry. If all goes well, you'll soon be on your way back to Europe with enough money to buy one of those petty little countries you sold arms to."

Alexi didn't take his eyes of Paxton and Willem as they walked toward the door, two muscled men in suits emerging first and planting themselves near Alexi and Sergei. "So I'm supposed to just trust you not to screw me over?"

Paxton continued toward the door, not even looking back at him. "Yes, basically, that's it."

"And just why should I do that?" Alexi asked between his teeth.

Paxton stopped and turned his head just enough to see Alexi in the corner of his eye. "Because I've learned the hard way what greed can get you."

5:38:45 . . . 5:38:46 . . . 5:38:47 . . . 5:38:48 . . .

"Mr. President, I think we have a way to get some better information out of Moscow."

President Palmer looked up from his desk as Mike walked into the Oval Office with a folder. "What have you got, Mike?"

Mike handed the folder to the President. "The CIA has an agent named Walter Clark who's been working undercover there for the past two years. Apparently he's very good at getting senior officials there to talk to him."

Palmer looked over the paper, a detailed file on Clark, and nodded. "Good. I want to talk to him at the first available opportunity."

Mike smiled. "I had a feeling you might. I've already contacted him and told he to expect your call."

Moscow, Russia

From his bedroom window, Walter Clark looked at the trio of prostitutes at the street corner across from his apartment. At quarter to four in the morning, it finally seemed to register with them that no one was coming by to pick them up, since they were starting to walk away.

There wasn't much else to do at this hour, while waiting for the President's phone call. Mike Novick had already told him pretty much everything he needed to know, but Clark was eager for a chance to speak directly to the new Commander-in-Chief. He knew Palmer's history and politics as well as anyone but Clark had always felt a spoken conversation told him as much about someone as any file.

He answered the phone slowly when it finally rang. "Agent Clark?" A feminine voice asked.

"Yes." Clark answered calmly.

"Please hold for the President."

A moment later, David Palmer's deep but pleasant voice came through. "Agent Clark?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"I assume Mike Novick has already brought you up to speed on the situation."

Clark leaned back in his chair. "Yes, sir. This is very serious."

"We have several of Russia's highest leaders accusing each other of helping terrorists get into this country. If we accuse officials of something like this without evidence it could backfire on us, so we need you to start accumulating information on who could have done this and who would be inclined to do so."

Clark nodded. "Yes, sir, I'll start immediately. Obviously at this hour, several officials will be unreachable but a few I should be able to get through to. I'll report my findings to Mr. Novick in, say two hours?"

"Very good and be careful."

Clark smiled. "Mr. President, I've been observing Russian politics at extreme close range for more than two years. Discretion has become second nature to me."

Clark's mind raced once he'd hung up the phone with the President. Petrov would have retired to bed by this point. Clark would have to wait a few hours to talk to him. Rudenko, however,was known to work well into the next morning.

Clark leaned over his desk as he head Rudenko answer the phone. "Mr. Prime Minister?" Clark asked in flawless Russian.

"Piotr?" Rudenko asked on the other end, also in Russian. "It's good to hear from you again, my friend."

"Likewise. I wonder if I might have a moment of your time . . . "

5:51:14 . . . 5:51:15 . . . 5:51:16 . . . 5:51:17 . . .

Matt walked from the terminals Lily and Michelle were working at over to Patrick, who hadn't moved from his desk in fifteen minutes.

Matt looked at Patrick's computer screen. "Have you found anything useful in Paxton's file yet?"

Patrick shook his head. "Not particularly. The man was forty-one, single, no kids, no living relatives. He worked here for six years, another six with the CIA before that. He was a hard worker with high praise from everyone he worked under but he was distant and made it hard for anyone to get a good read on him."

Matt nodded. "Yeah. Tony mentioned some of that too. He said the guy was a bit of rising star here before he got busted." As Patrick scrolled down the screen, a name caught Matt's eye and he pointed to it. "That's who arrested Paxton?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "Tony didn't mention that."

"Yeah, that was my reaction too." Patrick paused. "You know, if he built a case against Paxton and the others, he was probably watching them pretty closely for a while. He'd definitely be worth talking to."

Matt sighed. "You're probably right. Unfortunately he'd probably hang up on me unless I went to see him in personand Mason's not gonna be inclined to let me talk to him anyway."

"Probably not." Patrick blinked. "Unless, you tell him you're following up a lead but don't tell him what it is."

Matt leaned in closer. "Look, I appreciate your enthusiasm but you're still a little new here for your boss to tolerate you sneaking around behind his back, and frankly so am I."

"Come on." Patrick whispered. "It's almost impossible to find anything on this guy. If we need to catch Paxton, don't you think talking to someone who already has would be a good place to start?"

Matt said nothing and looked up at George's office. From the window, he could see George talking to someone on the phone, probably Chappelle or Hammond. He quickly glanced back at Paxton's file again, scanning it over until he found something useful. "All right. I'll tell George I'm looking up one Paxton's old handlers at the CIA. One of them still lives here in L.A. He should be all right with that."

Sitting on a bench in a hallway outside the clinic, Nikolai had felt like something of a lost child since he was brought back to CTU. The doctor had checked him out and cleared him but that Mason fellow apparently no longer wanted him anywhere near the office. It didn't take a genius to figure out that since Natalya Tenyakova's deception, people here didn't trust him anymore, despite Harper's vouching for him.

Natalya was probably still had a great deal of explaining to do to her own superiors for the moment and was less interested in his whereabouts, not that he was eager to deal with her again. Still, having been cut off from this agency and in no hurry to return to his own, he was feeling rather isolated.

He was quite puzzled when he saw a woman with long red hair walking toward him. Instantly, he recognized her as the woman from the hospital. The one Harper had been following. What was she doing here?

"Excuse me, Agent Torumov?" She asked when she reached him.

"Yes?" He answered, standing.

"I'm Lauren Harper, Agent Harper's . . . wife"

That explains it, Nikolai thought, though he wondered why she'd been so indecisive about identifying herself as his wife. Some marital problems, perhaps?

She gave him a slight smile. "I just wanted to thank you for helping to rescue our son."

Nikolai nodded softly. This hadn't been an easy assignment. In the last eight hours, he'd been forced to watch the murder of two innocent men because of Alexi Lenkovich. Now, the man had murdered Andrei Marenkov as well and was still at large, likely with information as to the location of a nuclear weapon. It was some comfort to Nikolai that he'd at least been able to do some good today.

"I'm relieved I was able to help him." Nikolai answered solemnly. "I was quite impressed with your husband today. He is a fine agent. You must be proud."

Lauren suddenly looked somewhat uncomfortable. "Yes . . . I . . . I am."

Nikolai's speculation as to what was going on with these two was interrupted as he saw Matt hurrying down the hallway towards them.

"Matt!" He called. "Is everything all right?"

"I'm fine." He answered hurriedly. "I'm following up on a lead right now." He looked anxiously at Lauren. "Laurie, I know I said I'd check up on you and Danny--"

Lauren put a hand on his arm and offered him a faint smile. "It's all right. Go."

Matt gave each of them a nod before heading off.

Patrick swallowed as he saw Lily walking toward his terminal, a file in hand.

"Do you know where Matt is? I wanted to run something by him with those numbers he gave us."

Patrick shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "He's, um, following up on a lead."

Lily wrinkled her nose. "A lead? Where?"

"Uhhh . . . one of Paxton's CIA handlers."

Lily gave him a puzzled look. "Well that's strange. I mentioned the CIA handlers to him before. He didn't think they were worth pursuing."

Patrick continued shifting. "Well . . . m-maybe he changed his mind."

Lily face suddenly darkened as she crossed her arms. "You were always a terrible liar, Pat."

Patrick shrank away slightly.

"Where is he really going, Patrick?" She whispered harshly. "Don't make me pull rank on you."

Patrick leaned in closer. "Look. You cannot tell Mason about this, all right?"

She looked at him intently. "What is it?"

Patrick sighed. "There didn't seem to be anyone connected to Paxton that would be able to tell us anything useful about the guy. Then Matt and I got the idea of talking to the agent who arrested Paxton in the first place."

Lily shook her head in confusion. "The agent who . . . wait a minute that's--"

"I know." Patrick whispered solemnly. "That's why Matt couldn't tell Mason. He's going to talk to Jack Bauer."

5:59:57 . . . 5:59:58 . . . 5:59:59 . . . 6:00:00 . . .

NEXT: CTU desperately tries to hunt down Paxton and Alexi while Matt tries to convince an uncooperative Jack Bauer to tell him what he knows.