Burton picked up the phone in his empty office. He had sent his man away to exact revenge on Harry Ward only fifteen minutes ago. In his opinion, he could not afford to let any more of his men die, not at a time like this.
"Hello?" a man answered.
"Albert, it's Simon Burton. A man will be contacting you shortly; his name is Tyler Connick. He will request a large quantity of explosives from you. I want to make sure that you have it all ready by the time he meets with you."
"I understand, sir," Albert replied.
"I will emphasise that this man is doing a job of the highest importance, on my direct order. Give him the explosives and let him get straight to work, do not hold him up even for a second, or you will have me to answer to."
"Of course I won't, sir," Albert assured him.
"Good," Burton said. "Once I have confirmation from Connick that you have given him the explosives, I will call you again and transfer the money into your account."
Burton hung up. He knew that after Connick carried out his task, he would need to deal with what Ward would do back. Burton knew he was escalating the conflict, this was more than just killing a mercenary working for Ward. He could only hope that Ward would not move it up another step further. In the end, the most important thing was that his group emerge the stronger of the two. After all, destroying Ward was not the main goal, he was simply a distraction that needed to be dealt with. The real job was still to come.
"Come on, come on," Gary Jennings murmured as he nervously tapped his fingers on his desk. He had called the man that was holding Jack almost five minutes ago and nothing had happened yet.
Suddenly, a message came up on his PDA with a quiet beep. Jennings looked at it hopefully:
'SEND ETA ON RECOVERY MISSION, SIZE OF TAC TEAM, AND NAME OF LEAD AGENT.'
Jennings ran a hand across his head to wipe away his perspiration. He briefly considered lying to this man by telling him that the team was smaller than it really was, or it would not be arriving for a longer time than was true. Either way he would be caught off guard when the team got there, and hopefully he would be caught. But this man had kidnapped his family, and Jennings could not be sure that once he was arrested he would tell CTU where they were.
Hating himself for what he was doing, he typed a response to the man, telling him that a team of eight men was expected to arrive where he was in approximately thirty minutes, lead by an Agent Wicks. After he sent it, he continued to watch the screen.
Finally, a video feed opened. He saw his family's faces. They had all been tied up and gagged, just like the last time he had seen them. His younger son was crying; he was only eight years old. His other son seemed to be trying to look unafraid, but Jennings could see the fear in his eyes, and his wife had her head bowed and looked completely unresponsive. He was sure they did now know he was watching him.
He remembered when the kidnapper had first contacted him, three days ago. He was told that the reason they had been taken would become apparent soon. The next day he was told to place an item in a package and drop it off at a bus station. He had done that without question, even though he knew perfectly well what the man was planning to do with it. The day after that he had received another communication, this time telling him something he would need to do in the future, which he had now done. Lastly was today, when he had been the one to contact the man, simply because he could not risk anything happening to his family.
Looking at their faces now, he knew nothing had changed. He still could not risk anything happening to them, no matter what. Even if it meant Jack Bauer had to die.
The CTU field agent that had been put in charge of the mission, Agent Wicks, drove his jeep towards the location he had been given. His cell phone began ringing.
"Yeah," he said into it.
"It's Rouse," Adrian told him. "I wanted to confirm your status."
"I was told to report only to Director Jennings," Wicks said.
"Fine," Adrian snapped. "But I've been looking into the history of the factory where Jack is. It's been abandoned for six months, since then it's been broken into twice. I did an infrared sweep, and it looks like there are seven bodies inside. So assuming Jack's still alive, that means you've got six hostiles."
"All right, thank you." Wicks hung up.
Adrian cast a look up at Jennings's office. He wondered why he was being so possessive about the handling of this mission. Jennings was quite a by-the-book man, but Adrian hoped that it would not mess up this operation.
Campbell grinned as he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a switchblade. He approached Jack, who was still lying on the dusty floor. He flicked the switch on the handle menacingly, and the knife appeared.
He placed the tip of the blade on Jack's cheek "CTU's on their way, Jack," he said. "Of course that means they'll have satellites watching this place, and will be able to follow me if I try to leave. I remember all the protocols."
"What do you want me to do about it?" Jack asked weakly.
"Oh nothing," Campbell replied. "But they'll be here in about twenty minutes. That means I've only got that long to make you suffer."
"How do you know they're coming?"
Campbell chuckled. "I worked at CTU for four years. I know what they do, I know exactly how they would handle this sort of situation. I miss being a field agent, you know. Even before you arrested me, when I was forced to transfer out of Field Ops, it just wasn't the same after that. I didn't have that same enthusiasm for the job. Maybe that's why I took that bribe."
"I don't care about your reasons, Seth," Jack said flatly. "What you did was still wrong, and what I did was right."
Smiling, Campbell pressed the knife further into Jack's face until it started to draw blood. He then moved it slowly across, cutting a thin, deep gash in Jack's cheek.
"How did I know you'd say that?"
Still tapping at his keyboard, Karsen swung around in surprise when he heard the door open. He was relieved to see that it was only his surviving henchman, back from disposing of his co-worker's body.
"Did it go all right?" Karsen asked the man.
"With all due respect, sir, I know how to get rid of a body at night," he retorted.
Karsen smirked at his attitude. "As long as you didn't run into any problems."
"Sir, does Mr. Burton know that you killed one of his men?" the henchman asked nervously.
"No, he doesn't yet," Karsen told him. "But he was too much of a low-level for Burton to care very much anyway. It's hardly worth the bother."
"Well if you ask me, you should tell him before he finds out on his own."
"Thank you," Karsen barked. "Because you know it's always my policy to ask as many of my lackeys as possible for their opinions before making any major decision. I find it helps me more to identify with the common man."
"I'm sorry, sir," the man said meekly. "It's not my place."
"Too right it isn't," Karsen agreed. Not wanting to keep perusing through the files on his laptop, he slammed the top of it down. He would have to kill the other man too eventually, to cover up what he had been doing today. His survival depended on it.
A black van drove up to a warehouse. Burton's man, Tyler Connick, got out and walked up to the warehouse door, and knocked three times on the door. After a small delay, a man opened the door a crack. He was in his sixties, quite short and plump, with grey hair and a thick beard.
"Albert?" Connick asked the short man.
"Yeah, you Connick?" he questioned back.
Connick nodded, and Albert opened the door the rest of the way.
"Come in," he said quietly, jerking his head inside the warehouse. Connick followed him in.
When he walked in, Connick saw half a dozen men assembled around the floor, each loading or unloading various items into different packaging. Albert wheeled forwards a small trolley.
"Six blocks of C-4 explosives, plus detonators," Albert commented, indicating the contents of the trolley.
"Excellent," Connick appraised, picking up one of the blocks and inspecting it. "You were quick getting it together, I only called you for it five minutes ago."
"Mr. Burton contacted me personally before that," Albert informed him. "He wanted to make sure your assignment progressed as fast as possible."
"Well, thank you," Connick said, bowing his head with respect.
"It's nothing," Albert said, holding out a hand modestly. "Good luck."
Connick took the trolley outside and loaded the explosives into the back of his van. He got into the front seat and drove away. He knew where he needed to go next.
Jack had faith in CTU. He had worked alongside a lot of the men for years, and trained more than a few of them himself. He knew that they were more than a match for Seth Campbell, especially since Campbell was so convinced he knew exactly how CTU would go about their operation when he had been inactive for five years. They had revised their assault profiles considerably in that time, and hopefully they would be able to outmanoeuvre Campbell successfully.
"No, no, Jack. This won't do at all," Campbell muttered, looking down at the bloody mess that was Jack on the floor. "When CTU gets here we can't have you looking like this."
He roughly picked Jack up by the back of his shirt and with immense effort, hoisted him into a sitting position. He paused for a second, then went over to his desk and pulled out a gun, which he cocked and pointed at Jack.
"No funny business this time," he said seriously.
He took out a long length of rope and, with one hand, tied it around Jack's already bound wrists. He then threw it up and wrapped it around some railings on the low ceiling. When he pulled on the rope, Jack was lifted onto his feet. Campbell stopped pulling the rope before Jack was completely standing up, so he was left slightly slouched.
Campbell then reached into his back pocket and got a wad of black cloth, which he stuffed into Jack's mouth and sealed in place with duct tape. Apparently not satisfied with this, Campbell started to wrap the tape around Jack's head many times, until he had used most of the roll.
"There, that's better," Campbell commented with a smile. "Now that we've taken care of you, it's my turn to get ready."
He reached under the desk and retrieved a large package wrapped up in plain, brown paper. Taking this with him, he walked out of the room. Jack stood alone in the room for several minutes, unable to move or talk, barely able to breathe. The door opened again, and Jack was shocked at what he saw.
Campbell was standing in the doorway, fully dressed in a standard CTU SWAT suit. Not the type of gear that CTU issued whilst Campbell was an agent, but the uniform that the current SWAT team wore. Jack had no idea where he could have acquired one of those. Campbell took off his helmet and smirked again.
"How do I look?"
Meanwhile, Agent Wicks and his seven other men arrived one block away from the factory. He called Director Jennings.
"Sir, my men and I are ready to raid the factory," he informed him.
"That's good news," Jennings said. After he had hung up, Jennings stared at the walls, wondering if there was any way this could possibly go well for him. If this man got away, hopefully his family would be returned safely, but if he was caught, his family would be killed and he would probably be arrested for treason.
Wicks prepared his team and handed out their weapons. They all approached the factory, keeping a careful eye on the windows to make sure nobody knew they were coming.
"Ready guys?" he said to them. "Remember, our priority is to recover Agent Bauer alive. We have an estimated six hostiles inside and we don't know how well they are armed. Let's go."
Two agents placed charges on the door and blew it open. Instantly, men on the other side started to fire at them. They had automatic weapons and were hard to locate on the dim factory floor. The team fired at them; one of the men fell down dead but the others retreated further back and up some stairs, while one gave cover fire.
"Split up!" Wicks called out to his men. "Flank them. You three, take the steps on the left, the rest go up the main stairs."
The team divided and went in different directions. Wicks took four others the way the hostiles had gone. Once they were on the second floor, they saw one of the men throw something their way. It landed on the floor just in front of them, and the men threw two others. The objects started to give off a gas that quickly filled the air.
"Tear gas grenades!" Wicks yelled. "Take cover and masks on!"
All of the agents ducked down and pulled out their gas masks and put them on. But in the time it took them to do it, a hostile had come back down the stairs and killed one of the agents. Wicks quickly fired at the man in the head.
They checked the rest of the floor for anybody else but found no one. The team went up the next flight of stairs, but it was also empty. The air was clear enough now for Agent Wicks to take off his gas mask, and the other agents followed suit. They went up to the fourth floor, and the men fired at them whilst taking cover behind some crates. The agents took cover of their own behind a large piece of machinery and started to return fire. An agent was hit, but his vest stopped the bullet and he was merely knocked off of his feet. He got back up again and resumed shooting.
The three agents that had been sent up the side stairs emerged on the left, and from their angle had a clear shot at the men. After they killed the first one, the two remaining men quickly ran up the next stairs. The team pursued them and were able to kill another one on the stairs, and his body fell back down them.
The last hostile standing did not run up more stairs, but ran down to the other end of the floor. The agents went after him.
"Hartnell," Wicks said to one of his team. "Keep going up the main stairs, Bauer might be up there."
"Yes, sir," Agent Hartnell replied.
He climbed up to the higher floors, and met another agent there.
"What are you doing here?" Hartnell asked the man.
"Agent Wicks sent me up some side steps to back you up," the man answered. "I haven't found anyone else up here yet."
"All right," Hartnell said. "Let's go up to the top."
The other agent nodded. Hartnell took the lead as he reached the top floor, but when he looked back, the other agent was gone. He opened a door, and saw Jack Bauer strung up from the ceiling, looking badly beaten.
"I've found Bauer," he said into his radio. "He's in an office on the top floor. Get medical."
"Copy that," Agent Wicks responded. "The last sighted hostile's down, but if the infrared scan was right there's another in here somewhere."
Wicks took out his phone and called CTU.
"CTU, Jennings."
"It's Wicks, we've recovered Bauer. He's injured, but we don't know how badly yet. I need Rouse to do another infrared scan to check for any remaining hostiles. I have seven remaining men inside, so including Bauer there should be eight."
"Okay, good work," Jennings said nervously.
He pressed his intercom button.
"Rouse," Adrian answered.
"It's Jennings, they've got Jack safely," Jennings told him.
"Oh thank God," Adrian said with a long exhale of relief.
"Yes, but Wicks wants you to do a scan of the building to check for any remaining bodies."
"Got it." Adrian eagerly turned to his computer and initiated the scan. It took a little while to complete. "Well it's hard to distinguish between live bodies and one that have been recently killed. The best I can do to guess is that the live ones are moving around and the dead are slightly less active. So you've got eight alive and six dead."
"Thanks," Jennings said before he disconnected. He called Agent Wicks back. "Adrian says you've got eight moving bodies in there and six presumably dead."
"Well I took eight men, and one went down," Wicks counted thoughtfully. "We took down five hostiles, so everyone's accounted for. Someone must have left after the first scan was taken but before we got there."
"Yeah," Jennings agreed. "Get Jack back here a.s.a.p."
"Will do," Wicks said as he hung up.
Wicks proceeded up the stairs to check on Jack. By the time he got there, he had been cut down and unrestrained, and the medic and not yet arrived. There was a large amount of tape over his mouth, and one of the other agents already in the room was trying to carefully remove it without hurting Jack.
Eventually, they managed to peel off all of the tape, and pull out the cloth inside his mouth. Jack took a few gasps of breath, then spat out some blood that had been in his mouth.
"Campbell," he said almost straight away, although it was clearly an effort for him to talk. "Seth Campbell. Escaped… SWAT… Don't let him… get away."
Seth Campbell exited the factory door. He ran to the one of the CTU vehicles parked outside, and started thinking of a way to get into it, when an agent followed him out.
"What are you doing here?" the agent asked him, just like the other one had. This agent had removed his helmet, and he could see through the darkness that his face looked sweaty from running down all the stairs.
"Agent Wicks sent me," Campbell replied again. "He wanted me to get more medical supplies from the car."
The agent lifted his gun immediately. "I am Wicks," he said stiffly.
Campbell pulled his gun as well, and the two fired together. Wicks's bullet rebounded off the Kevlar vest, but Campbell's bullet hit Wicks in the head, and he went down. Campbell searched Wicks's body for keys to the car. When he found them, he opened the car door, started the engine, and drove away.
The medic gently helped Jack into a chair and began checking him over. The agents that were left, waiting for Wicks to radio in with news on the status of Jack's kidnapper, stood around watching. Jack sat back, breathing heavily and trying to regain his strength.
"SWAT," he muttered again, though none of the agents knew what he meant by this. Slowly, he seemed to be recovering, and was able to put words together easier.
"He was wearing SWAT gear," Jack mumbled. "Campbell was dressed like the rest of you. Tell Wicks."
Agent Hartnell took out his radio at once. "Wicks! Wicks, do you copy?" There was no answer.
"You can't let Campbell get away," Jack repeated. "He was being funded by a group. They must have wanted something from him. We need to find out what."
Some of the agents rushed out to the room to check on Wicks. The medic continued to inspect Jack.
"Nothing appears to be broken," he said. "You have some quite severe bruises though. I would recommend you get a few days' rest at home. I want you to go to the CTU clinic to get a proper check out before you're debriefed though."
Jack brushed aside what the man was saying, and tried to get to his feet. He gingerly got up, let out a short cry of pain, and had to sit back down.
As he sat behind his desk with his head in his hands, Jennings's phone started ringing.
"What? Err, CTU Jennings," he said awkwardly.
"Keep it together, Gary," Jennings heard the familiar voice of the man who was holding his family. "We don't want you losing it, for both of our sakes."
"You son of a bitch," Jennings barked. "I helped you get away, now tell me where they are!"
"Not just yet," Campbell said. "Firstly, I want to make sure I get away safely. I've disabled the tracker on my vehicle, but I'm sure CTU had satellites covering where I was, which means they would have picked up me leaving. I want you to reposition that satellite, by fifty miles in any direction."
"Okay, fine," Jennings agreed.
"Then the only matter we have to deal with is Bauer," Campbell went on.
"What about him?" asked Jennings. "I don't have the resources to give him to you myself."
"Oh I know, don't worry about that," Campbell assured him. "But I don't want him on my tail now. I'll have to live with the fact that Jack Bauer is still out there in the world, I just don't want him anywhere near me. So when he gets back to CTU, make sure he's debriefed quickly, and then force him to take a short leave of absence. A few weeks, for health reasons, trauma, that sort of thing. Given the state I left him in, that shouldn't be too hard to argue."
"I'll do what I can," Jennings told him.
"Make sure it gets done, or your family dies."
Campbell hung up. Jennings sighed, there was no way Jack would accept being taken off the case, and he did not like the fact that he was about to go up against Jack Bauer.
Jack reached the bottom floor of the factory, and the agents that had stayed behind accompanied him. The pain in his legs was beginning to lessen, judging by the fact that he had managed to walk down several storeys of a building without a great deal of help.
They saw Wicks's dead body when they went outside. Jack breathed in the cool night air, feeling as though he hadn't experienced fresh air in a long time. It somehow seemed to give him strength as he felt it fill his lungs.
"One of the CTU cars is missing," an agent informed them.
"Have you tried tracking it using the transponder?" Jack asked.
"Yes, it was disabled," the agent replied.
"Agent Bauer, we have orders to take you back to CTU," another agent added. "You can ride in the car we have left, four of us will wait until they can send us another."
"Fine," Jack said. He climbed into the back seat of the car, and they started to move.
The market square was surprisingly crowded for such a late hour. Tyler Connick watched the late night shoppers rushing about the stores. His van was parked in an alleyway adjacent to the square, hidden by shadows. He carefully watched the bar at the other end of the street, taking note of anybody new entering of exiting the building.
He took out his phone, and dialled Burton's number.
"Yes?" Burton answered.
"Sir, it's Connick."
"Ah, Tyler," Burton said, his voice picking up slightly. "Are you in position?"
"Yes, sir, I am," Connick replied. "Do you want me to strike now?"
"Have you seen any of Ward's men go into the building?" Burton asked.
"I haven't seen any I recognise, sir."
Burton sighed. "Well then it's a good thing I secured additional surveillance to monitor the place before you got there." Connick was simply not up to the same level as someone like Karsen, thought Burton. He wished Karsen had been available to handle this action. "Three men that we have confirmed work for Ward have been seen entering and not seen leaving. An extra five are still inside that are known to be informal associates of his."
"What about the others, sir?" Connick asked with substantial hesitation. "There are at least thirty people inside the bar. Some of them are women, most of these people have never done anything to hurt you, sir."
"I told you before, that is unfortunate," Burton said patiently. "But this place is a front for Ward's business. The people inside are merely collateral damage. You have my orders, Tyler. You either carry them out or you disobey. It's your choice."
Burton hung up abruptly. Connick surveyed the bar one more time. He knew what was at stake, he knew the price of defying Burton, and he knew that was not an option. Fingers shaking, he reached for the detonator that he had put down on his dashboard. He had to look away as he pressed the button.
There was a tremendous explosion and a deafening bang across the entire area. Pieces of the bar were hurtled into the air and came down outside, where dozens of members of the public were standing completely still, transfixed at what was happening. Several dead bodies were littering the streets, and others were craning over seriously injured people, trying to do what they could.
Connick silently took in the horrific scene in front of him, and reached for his car keys to restart the engine and prepare to leave. A man carrying a large grocery bag ran up to his van frantically and started banging on the window in a panic.
Not quite knowing what to do, Connick lowered his window to hear what the man had to say. The features of the man's face immediately shifted, so that he did not look the least bit worried anymore.
"I have a reply from Ward," he said calmly as he reached into the grocery bag and pulled out a gun. He shot Connick through the head, and his blood splattered the windscreen.
10:00pm