Post Day 3: Operation Wildfire

by RetiredZimon

Set between Day 3 and 4. Jack must deal with a rising threat, despite being fired from CTU and currently out of work. He is reunited with old enemies who were never discovered and faced with new challenges.

2. Part 2: Chapters 7 to 12

Previously on 24...

Jack Bauer tracks down Hamri Ali, a terrorist planning to assassinate the President.

Tony Almeida is incarcerated in prison for treason due to the events of Day 3.

Chris Loman steals documents from Audrey Raines' house with information about President Keeler's events, then begins to implement Ali's terrorist attack.

Michael Skinner of the WildFires radical group is setting up the President. After placing a tracker on him, he begins the next phase of his plan.

Episode 07: 9.00 a.m. – 10.00 a.m.

9.00.02 a.m.

Tony looked at the clock. Just one hour to go. From there he wandered outside into the yard. He looked around. In prison it was quite clear that there were several distinct groups. The Blacks were in one corner, playing basketball. The Latinos were by the benches, looking as if they were scheming something. The skinheads stood by the fencing, as if they thought if they pushed hard enough it would all over and they could escape. Tony squinted in the sun, wondering what to do. He saw an empty space over by a wall and went to sit down. He pushed the pebbles into small piles around him. Suddenly, the basketball rolled over near him. One of the black players headed over towards him, and Tony picked the ball up and threw it to him.

As he picked it up, he saw a look of anger cross the man's face. Tony looked worried, and the other basket ballers came closer to him. He stood up and backed away, but ran out of wall and stumbled. They homed in on him. The first approached him. He was call Gums.

"What you think you're doing, touchin' our ball?" He questioned. His face was inches away from Tony's face; he could feel the man's breath crashing onto his face. His blinked it out of his eyes.

"I, er, was just tryin' to pass it over to you..." He trailed off.

"We don't want no traitor touchin' our ball, do we boys?" The rest of the crowd yelled in response, gaining the attention of the other groups. Tony did not like where this way going. "You should stay away from us, traitor. Just 'cause you got the President on your side on the outside doesn't mean he can help you in here." He began to chuckle, and pushed Tony. A guard noticed.

"Hey you two, break it up over there."

Gums looked up. His bulging arms realigned into a position of innocence. "We just playin' around, ain't we Almeida?" Tony gave a brief, unconvincing nod. "I said we just playin', Almeida!" Tony looked around, knowing what was coming. Before he could think Gums' fist collided with his face.

9.03.44 a.m.

"OK Ali your time is UP!" Jack yelled through the door. He stood to one side in case Ali tried any other tricks, but Jack thought he had run out of bullets now. He had his gun at the ready. "Come out now and we can cut you a deal!"

Inside, Ali stammered. Perspiration soaked his face. How could they know? Had any incriminating evidence been left? He breathed heavily. "If you know what's going down, then you know it's too late to stop it!"

Jack faltered. He didn't know what was going down, but he had to keep up the facade. "Of course we can, there's time if you come out RIGHT NOW!"

Jack paced back and forth in front of the door. The President must have done something bad to Ali to make him hate him this much. Jack turned to look at Curtis, and gave him a subtle nod. Curtis understood the action to mean that Plan B should be put into effect, and went down the stairs. Jack was left with one of the CTU TAC team members. He looked worried, and Jack looked to his hand, and saw him to be shaking. Jack gave him a half-smile, then looked to the ground.

Chris Loman was still hiding out. He had adopted a fake name, Ian Harkiss, and was walking across a road in downtown Los Angeles. It was around ten past nine, and people were heading to work. In Los Angeles the streets are blocked up from 6:00am until around 11:00am, and it was not different this time. Loman waited patiently, and when the traffic pulled to a halt once more he cut through the cars. He paced along the sidewalk on the other side of the road. The ground was uneven and he almost faltered. Loman was scared. The plan had not gone as Ali had said. Anyway, he continued to walk. He turned down a side street to an area that looked less friendly. Where there were trees shooting from spaces in the sidewalk before, now there were drugged-up dirt bags. The buildings looked grotty and the street was cobbled, as if no-one had ever been bothered to tarmac it. Perfect. Loman smiled.

He walked further down the street and it seemed to get darker. Finally he reached a building near the end of the street. He looked past the end of the cul-de-sac, through the metal fencing that separated the road from a field on the other side. The grass was overgrown, and it did not appear to be used for anything. Loman turned to the building and knocked on the door. Whilst waiting, he looked at the signs on the window; the building must have originally been used as a hairdressers. An old, tattered sign that just about said "Mal's Hair Dressers" was visible, but the writing was worn and faded. A small section of the door slid open and Loman saw a pair of eyes looking out at him. They were almost fully black, and the left eye looked to have a scar through it. Loman considered what sort of event could have created such misfortune. The eyelids were old, the skin darkened. The right eye was half covered by the eyelid, the left eye fully visible, created a look of surprise and mistrust. After surveying Loman for several seconds, the slider was pushed shut with forceful persuasion and the door was slung open.

The man on the other side fitted the image Loman formed in his mind from looking at his eyes. He was not short, but was not standing to his full height, as if he had been sat down for all of his life. He had grey, messy hair that looked like bits of wire had just thrown on to his head. His mouth was curled and his nose was long and precarious, and as suggested by the eyelids the man's skin was saggy and looked unhealthy. After staring for several seconds, Loman said "It's Harkiss, I called earlier-"

The man cut him off. "I know what yer hear for," he said, "The name's Bloom. Come in." Bloom threw his arm behind himself and moved to the side, allowing Loman in. He stepped over the threshold and walked into the room. Bloom looks suspiciously out of the door, as if looking to see if anyone had seen Loman come in, then slammed the door shut.

"DAMMIT Ali we don't have time for this, you said it yourself!" Jack pounded the door, ignoring the throbbing pain it caused to his hand. However, he was certain that Ali would not come around. He felt useless; here was a suspect, the only man he needed to stop the assassination attempt on the President, and he was stopped by a metal door.

Correctional Officer Burns grabbed his shotgun. Behind him, many other guards followed in the line and grabbed their own. Each was kitted out with riot gear, ready to try to calm the storm that had erupted outside. The whole prison had become involved in the brawl, all because of the bastard Almeida. He ran out into the yard along with over twenty other armed guards. Burns shot into the air, trying to call attention to the prisoners, but it seemed useless. Burns pointed pairs of guards to different areas of the yard to try to calm things down, and they each set off. Some merely yelled, others threatened with guns. Burns headed up to a particularly violent looking part of the fight and tried to pull several inmates away from each other.

Tony watched what was happening from under a table. He had crawled under as quickly as he could after the fight began. So far he had been lucky, no-one had noticed him, but he did not expect it to last for long. And he daren't even consider what it might do to his sentence when it was learnt that he had been involved in the birth of the fight. He saw C.O. Burns trying to pull Gums away from another tough looking inmate. He also saw another inmate come up behind Burns with a shotgun. How had he got a shotgun? Worried, Tony glanced over to a corner and saw a guard unconscious on the floor. He yelled out Burns' name but it was too late, the inmate pulled the trigger and bits of Burns' chest covered Gums and the inmate he was fighting. Tony turned away in disgust. He heard another shot, and turned around. Were the inmates just trying to kill all the guards? However, he was shocked to see it was one of the guards – he shot Burns' killer after he saw the C.O.'s dead body. Tony's jaw dropped; surely they couldn't do something like that? He heard more shots, and saw more of the guards were following suite and also shooting the inmates. Tony, worried for his safety, headed out from under the table and found a spot further from any of the fighting.

"Hey, look't Almeida, whattya doin' over there all on ya own?" Gums yelled after noticing Tony. He stood up to his full height, but Tony stayed bunched in the corner. He knew that he could protect his vital organs better if he stayed in a ball, and that would be exactly the sort of thing he would need to do if Gums came over. And he did.

Gums began to run towards Tony, who covered his head with his hands. He raised a fist to punch Tony but never brought it down again. Tony dared to peek out from under his arm, and saw the dead body of Gums fall to one side. As he did, one of guards came into Tony's view, his shotgun still smoking from the shot he just fired into Gum's chest. Tony nodded at him, an understated gesture for saving his life. The guard nodded back, then broke out of his trance and ran back to the fighting. Heart beating, Tony stayed in his corner and looked at Gum's face, immortalised with anger.

9:17:23 a.m.

Curtis was surprised at how nicely kept the garden was. Around the back of the house was a large garden, divided into half grass, half concrete. On the concrete half, closest to the house, was a small pond with a running stream along the edge of the concrete, next to a small line of flowers. Red and yellow blossomed from the ground, and it looked wonderfully pure next to the water. There was a table with several chairs around it, situated next to a barbeque, the grill worn from use. The table was just in front of a pair of French doors that opened from the living room of the house into the garden.

In the grassed end, more flowers lined the edges and created a beautiful skirting board to the fences that surrounded the garden. Near the bottom was a large tree with branches low enough to climb upon it. From his swinging position several feet above the ground, Curtis had a good view of the garden. The rope he was climbing, which he had attached to the top of the house several moments before, was sturdy, and before climbing he had tugged on it to make sure it would not fall out. But, as he predicted, it was wedged into the draining pipe and would not come out unless a very large amount of weight was put upon it. Luckily, Curtis did not weigh enough for this to be an issue, and so he climbed. He stopped momentarily, waiting for the two other TAC team members to do the same as him. They had both swung their ropes up, and were pulling on it. They decided that the ropes were tight enough, and began to climb. Once they caught up to Curtis – one on either side of him – he nodded to them, confirming that they were ready to put Plan B into action. Curtis look one last look at the garden, surprised that a terrorist such as Jason Powell could have such a nice place, and quickly climbed the rope.

All three men reached the window at the same time. They climbed above the window, quickly enough so that they were undetected by Hamri Ali in the room they had just passed. Once above the window, they swung down to it and instantly smashed the glass, grabbing Ali's attention. The two CTU agents pointed their guns at Ali, whilst Curtis just ran towards him knocked him to the floor. As he fell the guns of the agents followed him, ready to shoot if he tried anything. Curtis grabbed the gun from Ali's hand and opened it up, confirming his suspicion that Ali had kept one bullet in there in case all else failed and he had to escape from CTU the only way possible. Luckily, Curtis had got to him before he could do anything of the sort and he handcuffed him up.

Jack heard the glass smash, then the thud of someone collapsing to the ground. He had his ear pressed against the door, and heard the tingling of Curtis' handcuffs, and he assumed that they had managed to get Ali alive. To confirm, Jack called – "Curtis?"

"We got him, Jack," Curtis said, a grin erupting over his face, "We got him."

"This the sort of thing you're lookin' for?" Bloom said to Loman. They were sat at a table in the first room in Mal's Hair Dressers, though Loman could barely tell where they were. Either Bloom was a vampire, or he just really did not like the light, because the room was near pitch-black. The only light came from a dim bulb that hung above their heads; it looked as if it may have been the same one there since Mal had inhabited the building.

Bloom whipped out a wallet, and searched through cards that he had stored in there. Eventually he came upon the one that he wanted, and pulled it out. He faced it towards Loman, holding it with thumb on top and first and second finger on bottom, making it clear that he did not want Loman to touch it. Loman squinted in the light, trying to confirm that it was, in fact, what he wanted. The card, made out for "John Smith" as an example, showed a black haired, 30-something year old man who supposedly worked for the President of the United States' Secret Service. Everything told Loman that it was perfect, exactly like all the information he had learnt told him it should look. There was a date of birth, location of origin, badge number, all the details that a Secret Service member should have. It was the perfect way of getting close to the President.

"Yes," Loman responded, "that's it... that's perfect." He smiled.

"So, you want eight of these?" Bloom asked.

"Eight, that's right."

"Give me the names, and come back in forty minutes."

Loman nodded, and received the scrap of paper Bloom pushed towards him. The scrunched up lined sheet was combined with a pencil, and Loman scribbled eight names, all fakes that had been planned months before, down. Bloom took the sheet back and Loman headed back out the door. Ali will be pleased, he thought to himself.

9:44:33 a.m.

Jack and Curtis had taken Hamri Ali downstairs and sat him down on a chair. The handcuffs were removed from one of his hands, and it was instead attached to the chair. His feet had also now been chained together. Jack pulled up a chair, and spun it around so the back faced Ali. He stretched his legs over either side of it and sat down, facing Ali. "Tell me the plan."

The phone buzzed, and Kim ran to pick it up.

"Kimberly Bauer?" The monotonous female voice on the other end inquired.

"Y... yes?" She stammered. Kim feared for the worst.

"Chase Edmunds has listed you as his next-of-kin and-"

The woman was interrupted, "What's happened?"

"Mr. Edmunds has been in a car accident; he is alright now, and has been out of surgery. If you would like to come down and see him-"

Once again, Kim interrupted the woman, and learnt the name of the hospital Chase was at, St. Thomas. She hung up without another word, grabbed Angela and headed out the door.

"We planned to assassinate the President whilst he was making his speech about rainforests, at 12pm today," Ali began. "I have someone making some fake identification making eight of my men out to be Secret Service agents, then we will get close enough to him to shoot him..." he trailed off.

"Good," Jack said, and took his foot off the hole in Ali's foot that he had just shot. Ali screeched in pain. "Now let's get you to a hospital." Happy that his quick persuasion methods had worked, Jack and Curtis took Ali to the car and drove away.

Episode 08: 10.00 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.

10:00:30 a.m.

"It's Jack," he said as he called CTU. "We've got to Ali –"

"Well finally, Jack. If we'd've had Ronnie out there..." Erin Driscoll lamented.

"Dammit Erin just listen," Jack said, angered. Here he was trying to tell her how to stop an assassination on the President, and all she does is complain about how long it's taken him. "It's going down at 12pm, when the President is making his speeches about rainforests. Ali says that they've got some man who is getting fake Secret Service IDs to get them close to the President."

"OK, Jack. I'll get a team set up."

Confused, Jack spoke before Driscoll could put the phone down. "A team? Erin, we're close enough, just get a few more guys to meet us there."

"Jack, you need to bring Ali back for questioning."

"We've got two vehicles here – Curtis and I can set off for the assassination attempt, Burton and his team can bring Ali back to CTU!"

Driscoll did not feel like arguing with Jack. And, she knew he was good at these sorts of things. "Alright Jack, I'll have Baker come and meet you with a team."

Jack hung up and slid the phone into his pocket. He turned to Curtis, who was holding Ali. "Put Ali with Burton and the team, me and you are setting off for the conference hall where Keeler is doing his speech." Curtis hopped into the car with Jack, who drove, and after Burton, Ali and the team set off, Jack and Curtis pulled away.

"...And I feel that with these new reforms we can make sure that America will not be the world's drain on oil, and we will be able to use new technology to make the world a better, safer, and greener place."

President John Keeler wrapped up his speech to a round of applause. He threw his arm in the air and waved to the press after the finished his half hour-long speech. As the applause subsided questions from members of the press fired at the President. Representatives from FOX, CNB, CTT, KRLH, everyone wanted the President to answer a question regarding his new policies to reduce the United States' carbon emissions. What they didn't know was that Keeler was merely saying what the press and the public wanted to hear; this is how to get another term in the office, he thought to himself. It was unlikely that he would actually do everything he said, but as long as he did some publicity stunts publically showing himself caring about greenhouse gases and the environment, it should be enough to sway the floating voters. Mark Kanar, Keeler's former Campaign Manager and current Press Secretary since rising to Presidency, entered the conference hall from a side door and called out to the yelling crowd – "President Keeler will not be answering any questions at this time. At 11'o'clock he will answer some short questions regarding his new policies before going on to make his speech. Thank you."

Despite the message the vultures continued to squawk, but by that point Keeler had made his way out of the side door that Kanar had just come into the room through, and was now exiting out of. Keeler collapsed into a chair. At first looking dumbstruck, he tilted his head up to Kanar and smiled. "So, Mark," he began, "What's the public's opinion on the policies?"

"Well sir, we'll need a little more time before we can calculate what the general population think, but so far we've had very positive reports. People love fighting global warming, and this is the most innovative method of reducing it that's been done... well, anywhere!"

Keeler's smile grew to a grin, happy that Kanar supported his policies. "Good," he responded, "Now let's start thinking about what sort of questions they'll be asking at 11."

Chase had taken their only car, so Kim had to get a bus. A taxi would be better, but it would be more expensive and she didn't have the time to wait around for it to come. So, Kim ran down their drive, Angela in arms, and found a bus stop just down the road. After waiting ten minutes, a bus came and she chose a stop that was a few minutes' walk from Chase's hospital. Presently, Kim was sat on the bus, a seat on the left side, bunched up near the window with Angela on her lap. You're not going to die on us, Chase, she thought, Remember what I said... I won't raise this girl for you. Angela looked up at her and smiled, unaware of what was going on. Kim smiled back at her, but it was a fake smile to please the baby. She tapped her feet impatiently, itching to get off the bus and back to Chase. An angry looking old woman in the seat in front and Kim stopped and avoided her eye.

Erin Driscoll got off the phone from speaking to Tom Baker and his team, directing them to a meeting place with Jack. She then called Jack and told him about the meeting place, explaining that he should convene with Baker there, create a plan, and then head out the conference hall. As she ended the call she looked at the time on her phone. 10:20am! She couldn't believe how fast the last few hours had gone. She typed in her home number, wanting to make sure that Maya went to school. After waiting for a few rings and receiving no answer, Erin began to worry. Suddenly Andrew Putney, one of the analysts approached her with a document that needed her signature. Then another person brought some new intel to her, and she received an important call in her office from a high ranking government agent, and before long she had forgotten all about Maya.

10:25:19 a.m.

Loman stumbled back down the cobbled street to Mal's Hair Dressers, this time equipped with a briefcase, and once again tapped on the door. As before, the hole in the door slid open and Loman gazed into the damaged eyes. This time, Bloom's response was much quicker and after only glancing at Loman he swung open the door and pulled Loman in. Not forgetting to check for any onlookers, Bloom eyed up and down the street and, after seeing no-one, slammed the door shut.

Loman walked up to the table once more. This time, there was a large machine that had been dumped on it. It looked like a complex printer that had screens and buttons on the side. Next to it was a small black case. Without saying a word, Bloom picked the case up and opened it. Inside, it was more like a book, but had plastic sheets that small pieces of paper could slide into. In this case, however, the fake Secret Service IDs had been slipped in; all eight of them with the fake names emblazoned across, including, at the front of the pack, Loman's one, announcing him as Ian Harkiss and displaying a recent image.

"Nice, very nice." Loman said. Bloom still did not say anything. After flicking through each of the badges, confirming there was eight, they all were authentically fake and that every detail was precisely correct so that anyone who did not look too hard at the badges could be thoroughly convinced, Loman nodded, confirming that they men had a deal.

Bloom stuck out his stumpy arm, palm facing upwards awaiting its reward. Loman placed the briefcase on the table and whilst he fiddled with the lock, studied Bloom's arm. Still hanging in the air as if an invisible string coming from the ceiling was tied to the end of his finger, the arm was yellowed from no exposure to light. The skin, again, was wrinkled and looked older than his eyes suggested. Loman managed to get into the briefcase and picked out five piles of money, each containing $2,000 in crisp, unmarked bills. Loman knew it was a hell of a lot of money, but it was a price worth paying to rid the world of one of the greatest liars to ever occupy the Oval Office.

After flipping through the pile to confirm the legitimacy of the money, Bloom nodded back to Loman and the transaction was complete. Bloom extended his arm in the direction of the door, still not uttering a word. Clever, Loman thought, good tactic if you think someone is taping the conversation to try to blackmail you. However, Loman and his crew had no interest in blackmailing a small-time criminal; it was more important to deal with the big-time ones.

Loman headed towards the door and, after taking one last look at the room, went out. He took the badges out from his pocket and looked at them in the proper light now that he was outside. He considered how incredible it was that Bloom could make such a wonderful forgery of such an important thing. He took a small tube-like device out from another pocket, and flipped open a lid, revealing a bright red button. After walking a short distance away from Mal's Hair Dressers, he pressed the button.

Inside, Bloom heard a buzz erupt from the middle of the pile of money. He quickly searched through them, allowing bills to fall to the floor as the pitch of the buzzing grew higher and higher. As he thought the buzzing could go no higher he found a small device with a flashing red screen. Realising what it was, he swung his arm back to throw it out the window, but it was too late and the explosion killed Bloom before he move a muscle.

By the time the explosion went off Loman was around the corner. The timer was set for ten seconds, which he found to be long enough to dissuade any attention from him being involved. No-one paid attention to the small, grotty side street. But when the explosion went off everyone stopped. People ran towards the cobbled street to see what was going on, including Loman, who feigned interest to keep up the facade. The whole of the bottom floor exploded, causing the second story to collapse down onto it, stopping any chance of Bloom surviving, even if he was stood a good distance away from the bomb. He heard people whip out phones and dial the police, and Loman slipped away before they arrived, avoiding being detected.

10:35:59 a.m.

CTU Agent Tom Baker had been called in to CTU at 10am that morning. Erin Driscoll had called him on his supposed day off and said that there was an urgent crisis and he was needed to help manage a field team. He put on his gear and by 9:20am he was out of the door, much to his wife's dismay. He sadly smiled at Emily Baker who had specially prepared a wonderful looking picnic for a nice day out on one of her husband's rare days off. He avoided her eyes and pulled the door shut behind himself. When he got outside the CTU vehicle was already there, and a team of three men accompanied Baker to the point where he and team would convene with Jack Bauer. Baker took the driver's seat and pulled away, taking one last look at his suburban house, just catching the unhappy glint of his wife's eye watching him leave.

Jack pulled up to the meeting point where Tom Baker and his team were situated. He got out of the car and walked up to Baker. They shook hands, having not seen each other for several months.

"Tom, good to see you," Jack began.

"You too Jack, you too." Baker responded.

Without wasting any time on small talk, they began to devise a plan. Whilst Curtis and the three members of the TAC team simply stood and watched, Jack and Baker talked incredibly fast for several minutes as if they were two high school girls who had not seen each other for years. In the end Curtis just about managed to understand that he and Jack would sneak up on the hostiles, trying to stop them from detecting their presence, and Baker and his team would keep a distance and only come in if absolutely necessary.

Jack checked his watch; the attack would be going down in just over an hour, so they would need to set off now. The conference hall was at least half an hour away, so Jack signalled to Curtis to get in the car. Feeling that he had made no contribution to the plan whatsoever, and rightly so, Curtis obliged. Baker also took that as a sign for him to rally his team back to the car, and as soon as the doors slammed shut the vehicles sped off.

Michael Skinner was tapping on a keyboard. He had arrived back at the President's offices about an hour ago, and was initiating the next phase of his plan. Every ten minutes or so he checked back on his PDA which had a constant image showing the President's tracker, confirming to him that he was where he was supposed to be.

Using a series of backchannels that, unless he was either the President or a very good hacker (which he was), he would not normally have been able to access, Skinner managed to get into the President's personal folders. Whilst there, he created a file from pieces of code he had stored on a memory chip. Combining the information as instructed, Skinner managed to create evidence that, if all went to plan, would implicate the President in what he and his WildFires comrades planned to do – burn down the forests surrounding Los Angeles.

It was the perfect plan, and it would make Keeler look like a fool. His recent campaign to knuckle down on carbon emissions and greenhouse gases were his plan to get re-election, but if he was seen to be involved in the purposeful destruction of hundreds of acres of forest land that would be the single biggest contribution to global warming the world has ever seen, then the President would be greatly humiliated and would have no chance of rising to re-election. Skinner allowed himself a brief grin at the brilliance of the plan before snapping it back and getting back on with the work.

10:50:50 a.m.

In their safe house, Loman handed out the Secret Service IDs to the seven other members of their group. All were American, it had been decided that that would make things a lot more convincing.

"Now you all know what we are doing here. This is it; we won't have another shot like this." The men around him nodded. All were wearing official looking suits, and wore guns at their belts as if they had nothing to hide. Several had sunglasses covering their eyes, adding to the air of mystery that surrounds the Secret Service, emphasised by their elusive name. Loman pointed to the door and the men filed out. They piled into several cars – all black SUVs – and drove away, putting the plan into place.

Kim leapt off the bus before it even pulled to a stop. To the driver's anger, as well as to that of the drivers of several other vehicles close by, Kim bolted across the street, still carrying Angela, and smashed through the front door of the hospital. She ran up to the main reception. There was clearly a line of people who looked unhappy that Kim went straight to the desk, but she was not interested.

"Chase Edmunds? Have you got a Chase Edmunds?"

The nurse looked at her sceptically. Kim was frantic, her face jerked into a worried look. The nurse managed to pull her oddly disapproving eyes away from Kim long enough to type name into the old looking computer in front of her. After several seconds, occupied by the loud whirring of the computer, there was a beep and the nurse announced to Kim – "Room 404, take the stairs, first door on your-" But once again Kim had left before anyone had finished serving her. The nurse watched her run all the way to the stairs, and then as soon as Kim fell out of view, she collapsed into the small chair behind the desk.

Jack gripped the steering wheel tighter, hoping that the harder he held it, the faster he would go. Curtis looked at his hands in shock as Jack's knuckles turned white, but Jack seemed not to notice. Flicking his vision between the front windscreen and the back mirror, checking that Baker was in hot pursuit, Jack sped down the little alleyway.

An old woman looked frightened to death as the two huge black CTU SUVs sped down the suburban road, narrowly scraping in between the cars on either side of the road. Despite having his seat belt on, Curtis grabbed the seat itself for security. They hit a speed bump and the vehicle leapt feet off the ground and seemed to glide through the air for a few seconds. Curtis' head bashed the roof but he refrained from letting Jack know; he did not want to anger him.

Jack performed a hand brake turn, skidding left onto a main road. But what he saw, he did not anticipate. The road was blocked as far as the eye could see by the morning traffic of Los Angeles, and it did not look to be breaking up any time soon. Jack smacked the steering wheel, "Dammit!"

Episode 09: 11.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.

11:00:44 a.m.

"Sorry Almeida," the sympathetic looking guard said, "Doesn't look like you'll be getting out just yet." He patted Tony on the shoulder before pulling the bars across his cell. His name was Dale. He had been called in to replace Burns after his untimely death. The riot had subsided, and the guards had managed to overpower the prisoners and those that were still alive were escorted back to their cells. "Someone'll be along soon and you'll have to tell them everything you know about the riot." Dale walked away and Tony fell onto his bed. His face screwed up in anger and he punched the wall. Immediately regretting the decision, Tony help back a yelp of pain as blood burnt through the fresh scars on his hand. He had cleaned up his face after being punched by Gums, but it still throbbed. He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror above the sink. One whole half of his face was swollen. He didn't want Michelle to see him like this, but that was better than being stuck in this jail cell for another hour. Tony wondered how long it would be until this other person that Dale had mentioned would come. Then he would be let out, surely.

Tony moved from the sink to the barred window. He was on the second level, but could still see out to the yard. The dead prisoners and guards had been grouped together in a big pile on the ground. A sheet had been placed over them, but arms and legs hung out from under it. There were several injured guards nearby with doctors stood over them, checking their eyes with torches and their reactions with hammers to the knees. But the problems faced today were physiological. Guards at prisons were accustomed to such mass murders; usually it's just making prisoners go about their daily life. Tony pulled his eyes away and felt the unfamiliar sting of tears. God, I can't wait to get out of here, he thought to himself. He sat back down on the bed and buried his face in his hands.

Kim stroked Chase's head softly. She had found him easily enough, but he was sleeping when she arrived. The nurse said that it was because of the drugs after the surgery, and he needed to get some rest. I need some Goddamn rest, Kim thought to herself, but she did not articulate her feelings. She pulled up a chair and just sat with Chase, stroking his head. She laid Angela next to Chase, and she curled up close to him. There was a large stitch across Chase's side, but Kim avoided looking at it. His face had some minor cuts and bruises, but nothing worse than he had faced before.

She continued to look at him and smiled, and still stroked his head. Kim took Chase's hand and tucked hers within it, and his warm body kept her feeling safe.

11:12:11 a.m.

Jack scowled towards the traffic as they inched forwards. Baker had just managed to swing his SUV into the road in the ten minutes it had been since Jack had made it there. The rush hour lasted all morning in Los Angeles, and Jack realised that there was not chance they would make it to the conference hall to stop the attack. Curtis tried to look away, but an awkward silence hung between them. Suddenly, a plan landed in Jack's head. He whipped out his phone and called up CTU.

"O'Brian."

"Chloe, it's Jack. We need a chopper right away." Curtis broke out of bemusement and looked in shock at Jack. There was nowhere for miles they could land a chopper.

"Where do you need it sent to?"

"As close to our position as possible." At CTU, Chloe traced where Jack was by using the on-board tracking system installed into all CTU vehicles. She found him on Los Angeles' main street and huffed. In the SUV, Jack craned his neck to glance around for a possible landing spot. "Fox Plaza. Land it on top of there."

Several towers were located in Century City, including the Century Plaza Towers, the tallest buildings outside of downtown Los Angeles. However, Fox Plaza was also incredibly tall, and more appropriate. The location of 20th Century Fox, the tower had a flat roof and Chloe saw how it was plausible for a helicopter to land on it. However, it would be hard enough to get a pilot willing to do it, never mind convincing Erin Driscoll to sign off on it.

"You know Driscoll will never go for it." Chloe said; the voice of reason.

"Transfer me through to her."

Chloe pressed a few buttons on the phone and Erin Driscoll received a call in her office. "Driscoll."

"Miss Driscoll, its Chloe. I've got Jack on the line.

"Put him through." Chloe pressed a few more buttons and connected Jack and Driscoll together. "Jack? It's Erin."

Jack quickly explained what was going on to Erin Driscoll. After he finished, there was a pause of about five seconds. Jack knew this was Driscoll trying to either think up a new way of saying no to Jack, or trying to think of another solution. He heard her open her mouth, about to speak, but she reconsidered and stayed silent. Jack pleaded his case some more.

"C'mon Erin, this is the only way we can get through the traffic to the President before the attack occurs!" He was beginning to shout by the end of his speech.

"Jack, before I can even sign off on it we need someone from District to agree, and we'll need to call someone at the Fox Plaza..."

"Then stop wasting time and get on and do all of that!" Jack knew that this meant she had actually agreed to go along with the plan. Jack was surprised, but did not ponder over the fact too long. This needed to happen as soon as possible, and Jack realised the first thing he could do to speed the process up was to hang up on Driscoll.

Erin looked at the phone as if it had just sworn at her. She was shocked that Jack had hung up so abruptly, but realised she needed to get on and do some work. Jack Bauer was a crazy bastard, but what had to be done, had to be done. She picked up the phone again and called the number for District.

"District HQ, McGill." Lynn McGill answered. He had been at District for only six months, but had proved himself prominently there. He was a rising star and after four months was promoted to Assistant Regional District Director after his experience. After proving himself at Division and serving two years as a Division Supervisor, taking over from the newly promoted Brad Hammond, McGill had worked his way up the government ladder to District. Word in the office these days suggested that he was being considered for Regional District Director; another notch on the bedpost as far as McGill was concerned.

He had worked throughout last night, hoping the night shift would earn him brownie points as far as the District bosses were concerned. It had been an uneventful night with just the one call from CTU Los Angeles about an imposter agent or something. He had received a follow-up call several hours later, a few hours ago now, confirming that everything had been sorted. In fact, his shift would be finishing in around half an hour, so unless a major crisis erupted he could get a nice afternoon nap.

"Agent McGill, it's Erin Driscoll here at CTU." She sighed, and began to try to explain the obscurity of what was happening.

11:33:17 a.m.

Jack rattled his fingers along the dashboard impatiently. They had been in the jam over half an hour and they had moved about the distance of one car forward. He yanked the handbrake up as they pulled to another complete stop. He exhaled heavily showing his discontent, but Curtis was already assured that Agent Bauer was not in a good mood. He shifted about in his seat, but saw no way out of the awkwardness.

The President was already late for his question session. He looked at himself one last time in the mirror and straightened his tie for what must have been the eighth time. Mark Kanar approached him and gently pushed him towards the door. "Mr. President, it's time."

For the last half hour they had been planning answers to the possible questions that the press might have about his new policies. However, the polls suggested that in general the population supported Keeler and his decisions, and the President hoped that many of the members of the press might just be congratulating him on such innovative and effective plans. Keeler walked through the door which took him to an outside venue. There was a long, wooden table along the front of the building he had just exited. Along it sat important members of Keeler's administration, with a space in the centre for Keeler himself to sit, and a chair on his left hand side empty for Mark Kanar to sit in. Keeler was surprised to see the seat to his right was also free; where was Skinner? Puzzled, Keeler headed toward his chair. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and smiled to the hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the table. There were many seats, and people near the back would have no chance of seeing or hearing the action. To account for this a huge screen had been drawn over the front of the building behind the wooden table and a recording of Keeler was being projected on to it, as was sound from the microphone clipped to his tie being sent to the speakers that surrounded the front of the conference hall. It was a grassed area, and the edges were lined with high rise towers. Keeler looked around and saw Secret Service personnel manning every window in each tower block. Finally he reached the chair and after waving to the crowd to quiet down, he began to point to members of the press – given priority seating at the front of the congregation – and they grilled him on his new policies.

Unbeknownst to Keeler, Chris Loman and seven of his best men were part of the Secret Service detail that had just taken over some of the locations that he had looked towards. Grouped in one tower block, six men stood in a very tight circle, hiding another of the men that held a sniper rifle. Balanced on the metal balcony of one of the tower flats, he aimed it right at Keeler's head. However, now was not the time. They had been given precise instructions as to when to shoot. As soon as he begins his speech, the words of Hamri Ali echoed in Chris Loman's head. The man in the centre slid the rifle into his jacket and stood from his crouching position. The men dispersed slightly, and whilst not moving far from the original location they looked around the crowd as if trying to dispel any possible threats.

11:40:12 a.m.

Jack felt like smashing the windscreen. He rocked backwards and forwards in his seat, finding it to be the best way to calm himself. Suddenly, he heard the glorious, familiar whirring of the sound of an approaching helicopter and shoved open the sunroof of the car. He almost leapt out, but was blinded by the near-midday sun beaming down on him. Covering his eyes with a raised right hand Jack saw the shining blue stallion of a CTU chopper swing over the top of the traffic. People on the streets nearby looked alarmed as the dangerously low chopper at first appeared to be about to crash straight into one of the Century City towers. It swept up at the last moment and hover above the Fox Plaza, finding the exact best spot to land. Momentarily mesmerised, Jack was broken away from gazing at the helicopter by a ringing of his phone. Knowing it would be Erin Driscoll, Jack motioned to Curtis to get out of the car, then turned to Baker in the car behind and gave a similar action. All six men exited their vehicles and, to the annoyance of the people in the cars behind, left them empty in the middle of the traffic jam. Jack picked up the phone.

"This is CTU-Alpha-5 to District Los Angeles HQ. Chopper is landed, awaiting arrivals, repeat: awaiting arrivals. Over." Pilot Jim Cohen touched the top of the tower with the rims of the chopper.

"Thank you, very much, pilot. Please keep us updated." Lynn McGill responded before handing up the phone. He had had one of the strangest fifteen minutes of his whole District career. Erin Driscoll called him and explained about a threat to the President (which he had not been told about beforehand, to his annoyance), then explained that he needed to sanction the landing of a CTU chopper on top of one of the tallest towers out of downtown Los Angeles. He knew Driscoll on a professional basis, and she was a by-the-book agent, suggesting that the operation was vitally important. He had hung up and proceeded to call the head of 20th Century Fox and, rather than ask permission, explain that extreme government business needed to use the roof as a landing pad for a helicopter that would be landing post-haste. Terms that like tended to either confuse or bore most people, and so that stage of the plan was successful. McGill then had to call his seniors at District and explain the situation, and after they gave it the go-ahead he then called a CTU pilot who set of immediately. The whole thing had taken some of McGill's hardest work and he was proud of himself for it. He leant back in his chair and dialled the number for Erin Driscoll who then passed the information on to Agent Bauer who would be getting in the chopper with a team of five other men. McGill had made sure to tell the head of Fox that Agent Bauer and his team needed to be let through security straight away, and had promptly sent images and a short dossier on each man.

Jack raced through the crowds of people, knocking several over in his rush to the elevator. He finally made it and, making sure the team were all close behind, pressed the button for the highest floor the elevator would go. The six CTU agents were accompanied in the lift by three office workers who Jack presumed did not need to go to such a high floor, but dare not press a button to stop the ascending box. They sped upwards and eventually reached the floor and, led by Jack, sped out of the elevator and towards a final set of stairs which took them outside to the roof. As soon as he opened the door Jack was deafened by the noise of the helicopter's blades spinning at half capacity. Pilot Cohen had been under strict instructions to keep the engine going as much as possible to allow as quick a leaving as possible. As soon as the last man hopped into the back the chopper ascended. Jack, situated next to Cohen in the passenger seat, put on a pair of ear muffs to dull the sound of engine and listened in on the pilot telling someone at District that they had taken off. Jack heard him say that they would arrive at the location in seven to eight minutes. He checked his wristwatch: that would give them less than five minutes to find the targets and neutralise them before they shot the President, which is assuming that they would not pre-emptively take him out at the first signs of trouble. He shook off the fears and watched the city of Los Angeles move below them.

11.56.12 a.m.

The helicopter finally approached the location. Coming round the back of the conference hall for surprise, Jack received a buzz on his phone. He had it routed through the ear muffs, and began to speak to Erin Driscoll.

"Jack, we've just got word that eight Secret Service personnel who no-one has ever heard of before entered the campus around fifteen minutes ago."

"That's them," Jack muttered, but probably too quiet for Driscoll to hear.

"They arrived on the west tower blocks, and are on the tenth floor."

"Got it," he replied.

Jack hung up, seeing no need to continue the conversation any longer. He leant over to the pilot and explained the situation. He nodded, and veered the chopper away from making an entrance over the conference hall, and instead went for a direct entry from behind the tower blocks.

"The policies I am instating should be in place within the next few months, thank you Ian," The President confidently responded to one of the questions. So far everything had been going perfectly. Keeler opened his mouth to say the name of another press member that would grill him when he saw a helicopter spin around the outside of one of the tower blocks. He muttered, "Oh my God," but the microphone picked it up loud and clear and it was amplified around the whole of the stadium, drawing everybody's attention to the scene at the tower blocks.

Episode 10: 12.00 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.

12.00.02 p.m.

Loman scrambled to get to the sniper rifle. Now was the only time, they had to take the shot. He shoved past one of the other men, who joined with the others in making a protective barrier around Loman to protect him from the onslaught of the Secret Service agents. The fired again and again taking down every agent that ran in their direction. The seven men took down any man that arrived before he could even straighten his blazer. By the time Loman had prepared himself there was a pile of bodies blocking the area for anyone to pass.

Jack opened the window of the chopper and began to fire his HK USP Compact at the terrorists. It was no match for Curtis in the back, firing the helicopter's inbuilt machine gun, but he knew he could take out a few men. Several of the terrorists were ripped in half by the extreme power of the machine gun, attracting Loman's attention. He glanced up and cursed; angered that he would have to rearrange himself. He grabbed the sniper rifle and smashed through the feebly wooden door to his right. Jack saw him running away and realised that he would be hard to track inside the building. Curtis had managed to kill all the other men, left in piles on the ledge. He had stopped firing and the screams and shouts from the audience below became audible. More Secret Service agents had rounded the corner as had many before then, but this time were not met with gunshots. They saw the bodies on the floor and the CTU chopper in the air and quickly assessed the situation. Jack made a snap decision, realising that his plan would be the only way to stop the man who had run away.

He slung open the door of the chopper, much to the pilot's surprise. It caused him to jerk the handles and the chopper veered towards the building, threatening to crash into it. Pilot Cohen managed to steer it back into place and as soon as it was Jack leapt onto the ledge and landed with a thud on the wooden rafters.

Jack stood up from his crouched position and, aiming his gun, headed in the same direction Loman had. The Secret Service agents realised what he was doing and began to follow him as backup. Cohen deduced that he had nothing else to do here and by the time Cutis shouted at him to find a place to land he had already begun to move the chopper away.

Suddenly able to hear again properly now the chopper was clear, Jack breathed a sigh of relief. Not fair into the room was a flight of stairs downwards. Jack quickly surveyed the rest of the room but realised that there was nowhere else to go, and headed down the stairs, followed by the squadron of Secret Service. The next floor held more questions. After reaching the foot of the staircase, Jack spotted three doors, and another flight of stairs going further down. Jack motioned to the agents behind him, ordering two to go in each door. Realising that a government agent such as Jack was in their presence, the agents decided to obey his commands. Jack took the next flight of stairs, followed by the last remaining Secret Service agent who had not gone through the doors.

Jack reached a similar set of rooms in the next flight of stairs. Suddenly he heard a shot from the floor above and, shoving past the agent behind him, made his way back up. Outside one of the rooms was the body of one of the agents. The man behind Jack gasped as he saw him, but was relieved to see that the man on the floor was still alive.

"Davis? Davis... can you hear me?" said Patterson, the man who had accompanied Jack.

"He... he shot me?" Davis sounded surprised. Realising that the man was conscious enough to talk to, Jack approached him.

"Which way did he go? C'mon, which way?" He asked, raising his voice to attract more attention. David feebly pointed towards one of the other doors, and without wasting any time, Jack leapt up and set off. After a moment's hesitation, Patterson followed. Jack burst through the door and saw two more dead agents lying on the floor. Behind them was a trap door slung wide open. Jack looked down and saw a ladder that went down to the next floor. Jack slid down the ladder, followed seconds later by Patterson.

He turned around and looked out over the balcony, and saw another rickety, metal ladder that reached all the way down to the ground. Jack could hear the faint clinks of shoes running down them, a long distance away. Jack cursed, and pulled out his walkie talkie.

Curtis had arrived in the square after Pilot Cohen dropped him off in a field close by. He felt something on his belt buzz, and picked up his walkie.

"Curtis? Jack. The final assailant has escaped down a metal ladder in the east building. Get to the bottom ASAP and intercept."

"Roger."

Curtis slid the walkie back into his belt as he began to run. Screaming crowds that still awaited the end of the President's speech did not slow him as he reached the building. Curtis saw a body slide in a narrow passageway between two of the buildings and chased after him. There was barely enough space to move, made harder by the many obstacles that lay down the path; trash cans, shopping carts, planks of wood. Curtis had the edge; he had special training that clearly the assailant did not. Curtis began to draw closer...

Jack looked down from his position of power, several flights off the ground. He saw from a bird's eye view two figures running along the thin passageway, and quickly identified them as the bad guy and Curtis. In front of him was a pipeline, and Jack made a snap decision. He grabbed hold of it and, to the surprise of Agent Patterson, flung himself down. Sliding down the pipeline, Jack came closer and closer to the assailant. He had planned the slide right and jumped off one storey before the ground, landing right in front of the guy Curtis was chasing.

Shocked, Loman stopped motionless on the spot. Before he had time to understand what had happened, Curtis tackled him from behind and knocked him to the ground. He was winded, and coughed – trying to recover air in his lungs.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief, then fell to the floor. It had been a pretty gruelling chase, but they had managed to catch the bad guy. Suddenly, a group of Secret Service agents arrived and surrounded the three men. They looked sternly down at Jack and Curtis: arms folded, eyes hidden behind glasses. Jack stood up first, brushing some dust off his jacket, allowing time for Curtis to stand up himself, and then drag the assailant up. Jack whipped out his I.D., as did Curtis, and without a word from the agents they walked away, receiving a nod as they did.

12:29:09 p.m.

Tony Almeida was feeling relieved. He had just spent the last forty minutes explaining everything he could remember about the riot that had taken place earlier that morning, and how it had escalated into such a massacre. The female interviewer, Mary Vaughan, had been very understanding, and clearly believed everything he had said. She seemed like the first person he had encountered in the prison who did not despise him, but maybe that was because she did not know what he was in for.

He had given as accurate account as he could remember, recorded by a camera, voice recorder and notepad. Finally the woman had said that she had heard enough, and nodded to a guard who was standing in the shadows at the back of the room, who then took Tony back towards his cell.

Walking past all the other inmates, Tony pushed his hands threw his hair. Pleased that it was finally over, he turned to the guard as he walked into his cell.

"Hey, when d'ya think I'll be getting outta here?" He muttered, not wishing to attract attention from other inmates.

"I dunno Mac," the guard replied, "I guess you'll find out sometime after lunch." As he walked away, Tony rolled his eyes. That would mean having to survive another meal before being allowed to leave. He slid his hands away from the bars and slouched down onto his bed, rubbing his hands through his hair again.

"O'Brian," Chloe said as she picked up the phone in between typing.

"Chloe, it's Jack," Unusually, Chloe stopped typing, eager to hear what Jack had to say. On the other end of the line, Jack was driving speedily down Los Angeles' main roads, heading for the financial district; the location of CTU. "We stopped the shooter, and we're bringing him in now. Found an I.D. badge on him, he's called Loman."

After finding the I.D. badge, Jack had deduced that Loman was the person talking to Hamri Ali on the phone when they arrived at the house downtown, who then was simply known as "L". However, there was still something Jack could not work out about the whole situation. What did Hamri Ali have to do with the forest fires threat that he had learnt about earlier in the morning. He posed the question to Chloe.

"I don't know Jack, but maybe this Loman guy knows something about it," she responded.

In the car, Jack pulled up to a red light, and glanced over his shoulder. In the backseat was Loman, with a bloodied face and a bruised eye. Jack looked over his tired-looking features, down to his handcuffed hands. In the seat next to him was Curtis, who was keeping a close eye on the prisoner. Jack turned back to see the light turning amber, then went to green. Switching his foot from the clutch to the accelerator, he headed onwards. The traffic was bad at this time of day, and movement was slow. Jack decided to take some side streets to make it back to CTU sooner. He looked out of his open window, allowing the cool air to blow over his face. He realised that Chloe was still talking to him, and snapped back to attention.

"...and there's always Ali whose still here, you could see what you can get out of him when you get back here," Chloe concluded.

"Y..yeah, that's a good idea, Chloe," Jack responded, trying to sound as if he had heard everything she said. However, he did think it was smart to see what else Ali knew. Jack glanced at Loman again, this time in the rear view mirror. Loman returned the look, glaring at Jack with a fiery anger. Jack blinked, then focused on the road again.

12.40.20 p.m.

Chloe hung up the phone just as Erin Driscoll approached her, bubbling with questions.

"Who was that? Was it Jack? What did he say? Did he get anyone alive?"

Chloe sighed and waited a long time before responding to Driscoll, knowing how much it annoyed her. She pretended to finish typing up the last sections of a document, when in fact she had started and finished a new one altogether, before turning around and looking at Driscoll. She pulled her mouth into an awkward position, slumped her arm under her chin, then began to speak.

"It was Jack, and he got one of the guys alive. He's called Loman-"

"Start working up a trace on all forms of the name..."

"Already started it," Chloe retorted before Driscoll could finish.

Driscoll sighed, annoyed at how Chloe had interrupted her, but continued nonetheless, "Got anything yet?"

Chloe spun back on her chair to face her screen again, tapped a few keys effortlessly, and spun the monitor around so Driscoll could see it. The Special Agent in Charge altered the position of the monitor so she could see the contents of the screen. It was a list of over 500 names.

"This is what you've come up with?" Driscoll questioned, clearly unimpressed.

"Loman isn't a lot to go on, Miss Driscoll. These are all the 'Loman's who are known to have been in the US within the last month, who have a criminal record. We don't even know if Loman is his real name. When he gets here we can take some finger prints and see if he matches any of them."

Driscoll sighed again, this time unhappy that, despite the amazing technology that existed today, they could not even identify a person. "Fine," she replied, then added, "did Jack say how far out he was?"

"It'll take him about half an hour to get back here, there's traffic everywhere and he's a long way out."

Driscoll walked away without saying anything else, and Chloe huffed as she went.

"...The President was not harmed the assassination attempted as a helicopter with government agents approached seconds before the terrorists could take a shot. One agent leapt from the chopper to the apartment buildings and chased down the leader of the organisation, who was taken into custody. No more information about the leader has been given at this time. Stay tuned for more on the story. This is Robin Lowe reporting for CNB News; Los Angeles."

The news story wrapped up and Kim Bauer turned off the television as it did so. After sitting with Chase for about an hour she had felt fatigue beginning to get the better of her, and so decided to turn on the television. She had been watching the preparations for the President's speech on his new policies regarding green fuels and the rainforests, and anticipating watching the speech itself, but just as it had started she witnessed the interruption by the government agents. As the unnamed agent jumped out of the chopper, courageously chasing the leader of the terrorist cell, Kim wondered what part her father played in the takedown. The unmistakeable CTU logo was blazed across the helicopter, but as usual the name of the government agency was not given. For the last fifty minutes the footage was played over and over again, and the assassination attempt took first place in terms of news stories over others which were reduced to a sentence, scrolling along the bottom of the screen.

Kim switched off the TV as the news story ended and focused her attention on Angela who had begun to whine. Chase, still unconscious, lay unaware of everything that was happening around him.

As Kim turned off the television, Michael Skinner cursed loudly in anger at it. He was still at the President's office, and had just finished setting up all the data necessary to implicate Keeler in the plan he and his superiors had set out to do.

After finishing, he turned on the television to relax for a few minutes before heading back to Sleiman, and was shocked to see the events that were unfolding on the screen. He watched as footage was played in slow motion of Keeler's face morphing from a smile to a look of terror. The camera panned across to the right and zoomed out to show a helicopter of government agents attacking a supposed group of terrorists who were planning to assassinate Keeler. Why didn't Sleiman tell me this was also happening today, Skinner asked himself.

He cursed again, then threw a mug at the screen, smashing both. A slow, almost invisible line of smoke erupted from the screen's core where the cup had collided with it and the image cut out instantly. Skinner bared his teeth at the screen, knowing that he should not have acted upon his rage but still angered and confused as to what was going on. He turned and made his way out of the room, slamming the door as he went.

12.54.59 p.m.

Jack continued down the road, occasionally glancing in the rear view mirror at Loman. He could not help thinking that something was going on. He looked directly in Loman's eyes, who again glared back at him. He looked to the side, and saw that Curtis was keeping a good eye on the prisoner. He looked back to the road, and just as he did he heard the soft thud of an elbow being forced into someone's face.

He turned all the way around, facing Loman. He saw Curtis, already unconscious, following the bumps of the road with his slackened neck. Jack turned to Loman, who grabbed his arm with his chained up hands, forcing the vehicle into the other side of the road. Jack tired to fight it, but Loman had caught him by surprise and the SUV went flying into a smaller car. The female driver looked terrified and screamed, the last thing Jack remembered before being knocked unconscious.

Episode 11: 1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.

1.02.19 p.m.

"...call an ambulance! I said someone call an ambulance!" He heard a voice yell as he returned to the world consciousness. He fluttered his eyelashes, a technique taught upon training at government agencies as the first thing to do after a crash, to stop any blood or other liquid dripping into your eyes. At first the scene was blurry, but things came into focus soon enough. As soon as he could see out of the front windshield he felt a pressure on his arm and turned to see Loman slumped between the back and front seats, in the same position as before when he successfully attempted to crash the SUV.

Jack moved his arm to feel Loman's pulse and felt a stabbing pain just as he did so. Someone in the crowd of people around the two vehicles noticed the movement and called out, "Hey buddy! Are you alright? Look, look he's moving! Are you OK?" Jack opened his mouth, and it took a few attempted before he could utter any words.

"Is... she... dead?" He panted, and pointed his finger in the general direction of the car in front. Everyone's attention momentarily moved from Jack as they all looked to the other car. A second later they all looked back, suggesting to Jack that they already knew the fate of the woman. Jack looked into the faces of those who were closest to him, but what he heard was not what he expected from looking at their expressions.

"She's alive, but pretty badly bashed up."

Jack tried to nod, but wasn't sure if it came out as he planned. Jack did not care; he was just pleased that the woman was alive. Figuring there was nothing he could do at this moment; Jack closed his eyes and waited for the ambulance to arrive.

Andrew Putney slammed out the back door of CTU. Drawing his pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, he found his lighter and heaved in. Closing his eyes to get the full sensation, he exhaled slowly, enjoying every second that the light grey air filled his insides. He had had a stressful morning, and had decided to award himself a five minute cigarette break. The back of CTU was a scummy place; the paving was uneven and there was litter everywhere, carelessly thrown towards in the direction of the dumpsters. Next to one was an upturned oil canister and Andrew went and sat on it.

Taking another puff, his attention was caught by a glint in the corner of his eye. He looked over, pushing the glasses on the end of his nose further up towards his eyes. He looked beyond their deep frames to the I.D. badge heedlessly dropped to the floor. Standing up from the oil canister, he went over and picked up the badge. He instantly recognised it, and drew in a deep breath. He cautiously held the edge of the badge and headed back into CTU, confident that the I.D. badge of the fake Jack Bauer that had entered CTU in the early hours of the morning was a promising lead that should be explored.

Chloe cursed under her breath, slamming the phone back into its receiver for the fourth time in the last three minutes. Chloe knew that in times of a crisis she spent a lot of time on the phone, but was surprised at this point to find that she currently could not get in contact with Jack. She heard the quiet footsteps of someone approaching her from behind, and after a moment's more typing, she spun around in her chair.

Stood behind her was Andrew Putney, a gleeful smile slapped across his face, with a badge in his hand that he held through a tissue. Chloe looked back and forth between Andrew's idiotic smile and the tissue-protected hand, waiting for the man to say something. Her eyebrows rose in the middle, creating an expression of question across her face. Andrew's smile dipped, and realised what he had was not as self-explanatory as he had anticipated, decided to explain his find.

"Miss O'Brian," he began, something that she hated being called, "Remember this morning when I told you Jack Bauer had been here, but we discovered that it was an alias of someone who wanted to find out about CTU's current threats?"

She rolled her eyes, obviously remembering the given event. Andrew took her movement to suggest that she did remember, and continued. "This is the I.D. badge he showed us before we talked to him."

Chloe's interest perked and she realised that Andrew was holding the badge through the tissue to preserve any possible fingerprints that could be found from the badge. She nodded at him, and he tilted the badge so she could see what was on it, no longer hidden from her view by the glare of the lights on the card's lamination.

The badge looked genuine at first glance. It was an I.D. card of a supposed "Jack Bauer" at District headquarters. However, the photograph on the card showed this "Jack" to look very different from anyone Chloe knew. The card gave an employee number, date of birth and branch I.D. Chloe soon started to notice some differences between this and a real District badge.

"You let this guy in with this badge?" Chloe asked, shocked that Andrew could make such a mistake. He waited for her to elaborate. "Look, the blue stripes down the side? They are at least twice as wide as that on a real badge! And the border around the photo should be black, not gray! The employee number is three digits longer than a real one, and the badge doesn't have the official coding signature across the back," she motioned as she spoke, "Jeez, how could you make such a mistake?"

Andrew looked back at Chloe, shell-shocked. He wandered away towards the forensics department. He was too far away to hear Chloe's muttering, "And Jack's middle name isn't Harry!"

1.20.40 p.m.

The whirring sound of an approaching ambulance filled Jack's ears and he decided to open his eyes. He saw less people than before, evidently some had somewhere better to be. The ambulance came into view, and Jack longed to know if Loman was still alive. He knew he was unable to reach him from his current position, and so decided to wait and hear the paramedic's verdict. One of them arrived and unstrapped Jack's belt. Jack saw out of the windscreen another going for the woman in the car they crashed in to. The paramedic counted to three, then hoisted Jack out of the car. He quickly carried him to a stretcher in the ambulance. It was large inside, enough room for everyone. Jack felt his stretcher being pushed further back into the ambulance to make way for everyone else.

Slowly the woman, Loman and Curtis were all brought into the ambulance. Jack looked over at Curtis; he was not in a good shape. Blood trickled down his head, and there was a large gash sliced through his head. Jack turned his attention to Loman. A paramedic was feeling his pulse. Jack waited tensely; surely they should have found something by now?

Finally the paramedic gave a brief smile, indicating to Jack that he had found Loman to be alive. The paramedic hopped out of the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors shut, causing a loud clanging noise that rattled in Jack's ears.

He ran around to the front of the ambulance and got in the driver's seat, closely followed by his partner. They set off the sirens and headed to the hospital. Jack realised that it would be even longer before he got to CTU, and he had no way of contacting them to explain what had happened. There was a medical clinic at CTU, but there were not enough facilities to deal with four patients at the same time, especially in the condition that they were in. Jack sighed, realising there was nothing he could do, and resigned to lying on the stretcher as calmly as possible.

David Palmer looked at himself in the mirror. He wore a sky blue shirt with a darker tie, and a jacket. He adjusted the tie, unable to decide whether to have it pushed all the way up to his collar or lower down, looking more relaxed. Going out into the street was still a problem, but he had insisted that this time he would not be accompanied by a battalion of Secret Service agents. This was something he wanted to do on his own.

It was the first time he had properly seen his son and daughter since the death of their mother. After he explained what had happened, everything that had happened from Wayne and Julia Milliken's affair, to Alan Milliken's death to Julia's murder-suicide, Nicole and Keith had been unwilling to see him. Viewing Palmer as a cause of their mother's death, neither of them had wanted to spend much time with him. He had been over to see Keith at his apartment, but Keith had closed the door on him. Nicole had dropped out of her Law degree, and Palmer had called her to see if she wanted to talk about it but she said that hearing his voice made her think of her mother.

For several months he had gone without seeing Wayne; bound to him by the death of their loved ones but separated through his part in Sherry's murder, with the latter taking precedent and forcing Palmer into next to no human contact. He occasionally left his penthouse suite to buy simple things from a corner shop, but he was too recognisable to lead a normal life. He spent most of his days writing up memoirs which he ended up scrapping, looking over security memos about the latest threats or occasionally going into the back garden of the suite and playing a little basketball. However, he didn't have much energy for it, and always ended up retreating inside before too long.

Palmer had got word that Nicole and Keith were living together after Nicole did not have enough money to pay for her own place. He decided that it would be a good time to go and see them, together, and managed to talk them into having lunch with him.

And so here he was. He pulled his tie down a notch, frowned at himself again in the mirror and pulled the whole thing undone angrily, decided to start again.

Chase blinked as he came into consciousness. Kim gasped as he saw him to do so, relieved that he was awake, but upset as she saw his red eyes. His sclera had been penetrated by a series of red veins that were leaking into the perfect white of his eyes. Kim turned and called a nurse in, who assured her that it was normal and was due to his earlier surgery. As the nurse left, Kim leaned in so close to Chase's face that their noses almost touched, "Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied, with a half smile. He glanced past her and saw Angela sat on the chair, who looked happy to see her father awake. She clapped gleefully and he smiled at her. Kim turned to look, then returned to Chase and asked how he felt.

"I'm alright, just a bit sore on my side," he said. She stroked his head for what felt to him like several moments. However, he considered that maybe only a few seconds had passed. As she kissed him on the cheek he asked, "What happened with that Powell guy?"

Kim looked down at him curiously. He realised that obviously she did not know what he was talking about, but she did understand that he had something to do with what was going on. "Some guys try to assassinate the President while he made his speech about an hour and a half ago. A team from CTU stopped them."

He nodded, but realised that he needed to talk to Chloe for more information. Without moving his head and alerting Kim, Chase saw that his phone was still on the glass table next to him. As if she read his mind, Kim said, "I'm just going to get a drink. Can you watch Angela?"

"Sure," he replied, as she walked out. Chase reached for the phone and despite a splitting pain where his stitches were he got it and turned it on. He dialled the number for CTU, adding Chloe's personal extension code, and called.

"CTU, O'Brian."

"Chloe, it's Chase."

"Chase!" Chloe exclaimed. The analysts quietened in the bullpen and looked over to her. As she continued, they went back to work, "What happened?"

"I was in a car crash, someone was trying to stop me getting to Powell, did you-"

She cut him off, "Don't worry about Powell. We're further on. Do you know what's happening with the President?"

"I've heard some basics..."

Chloe explained what was going on. After several moments she came to a close, "...but like Jack said, what did the WildFires that he had heard about this morning have to do with Ali and this assassination attempt?"

Chase gulped. He had a suspicion, but dared not vocalise it. "I don't know, Chloe. I don't know."

1.47.11 p.m.

The ambulance screeched into the emergency parking space at the front of St. Thomas Hospital. Immediately teams of paramedics swung open the doors and began to wheel the four patients out. Jack grunted as his stretcher bashed against the floor, and lay back as he was rushed through the main doors of the ER.

Palmer walked over to the door and opened it. Looking at himself one last time in the mirror that hung juxtaposed to it, he approved of the fact that he had decided not to wear a tie. He smiled, the first time he had done so in quite a long time. He shut the door behind him and headed towards Bistro Italia, the restaurant they had agreed to meet at and had reservations in at 2.00pm. He took the stairs to go down, feeling like a more active route.

As he reached the bottom level, he nodded to the Secret Service agent who always stayed inside the suite, guarding against any possible threats. He headed out of the door and began to walk the short distance to the restaurant.

Tony Almeida sat down on a secluded table, which in prison was the table right in the centre of the room. He made sure to find one on his own; he did not want to be grilled by any prisoners for causing all those deaths. He glanced around the room nervously, seeing that everyone's eyes were upon him. Even the guards were glaring at him, placing the blame for the death of C.O. Burns.

He tried to wipe the fears from his mind and picked at the slop in front of him. He felt sweat trickle down the underside of his arm, and clenched and unclenched his fist through nervousness. Wiping his brow, he took a swig of water.

Tony looked up again and saw a group of several prisoners heading his way. He was unsure if he was being paranoid, but knowing that they were the type that hanged around, hung around with Gums, Tony didn't bother to wait to see where they were going. He picked up his tray and walked to the exit of the canteen. He was still hungry, but could eat when he got outside. He told the officer at the door that he was hungry, emptied his tray and left, his back burning from all the eyes that scowled into it.

A nurse tapped Jack's leg with a small hammer, triggering a reflex action as expected. Jack sighed as she went through each minor test that could be done to check his health. Jack knew that he had recovered, and was in much better condition than Chase, Loman and the woman from the other car, who Jack learnt was called Teresa Brady.

She moved up to his face. He had some minor cuts and bruises, but nothing too serious. They had insisted on putting a small plaster over an open wound, but besides that he did not look worse off than during any other crisis. She looked into his eye with a bright light, encouraging Jack's pupils to dilate which, of course, they did. He sighed again, and the nurse got the picture.

"OK Mr. Bauer-"

"Agent Bauer," he corrected.

The nurse scowled. "Agent Bauer," she repeated, emphasising the new title, "you're all OK. We'll keep you in for a few hours, the police will need to come and question you about what happened."

"Look, I don't have time for that, we are in the middle of a crisis. I work for the Counter Terrorist Unit, Los Angeles branch," he flashed his badge, "and there is a very serious matter at hand..." Jack looked for the nurse's name badge, "Miss Cunningham."

The nurse looked uncomfortable, shifting side to side. "Amanda," Jack said, using the other half of the name badge to try to establish a more personal connection, "This is a very serious situation, and the life of the President could be in danger."

"What do you need?" She eventually said.

"You need to tell me; did the man in the back of my car survive? Is Loman alive?" When she hesitated, Jack became more agitated. "Tell me!"

Episode 12: 2.00 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.

2.00.05 p.m.

"Well? C'mon, is Loman alive?" Jack demanded.

"He's alive, but in critical condition," Amanda replied.

Jack cursed under his breath. "OK, never mind, thank you." She nodded. "Look," he continued," I need to get out of here. I need to get back to CTU."

"Do you have a medical facility there? I could... I could arrange for a transfer there? But I couldn't do that for any of the other patients without raising suspicion."

"That's fine, just do it for me. How long will it take?"

"Five or ten minutes?"

"OK, you're going to have to do it in two."

David Palmer strode into the restaurant and silence seemed to fall across the room. He looked down, trying to avoid anybody's eyes, but they had already seen him. Palmer walked up to the small man standing behind a counter, whose moustache-rimmed mouth was closed into a small circle.

"Reservation for three, under the name-"

"Yes, yes," the man uttered in a tinted accent, "Right this way... er... Mr. Palmer."

Palmer sighed heavily and followed the arm of the man towards a small table in the corner of the room. He took up the seat that faced away from the rest of the room, and the eyes of the other diners, and stared at the wall. While he waited for his children to arrive, Palmer studied the small cracks and areas where the plaster showed through the wall. Why had no-one bothered to clear it up? Palmer hated to see things that were not perfect. He moved his gaze over to a picture that hung on the wall. Being an Italian restaurant, it seemed fitting that the image was a sketch of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was clearly a computer-generated image, a photograph that had been turned into a sketch that would have fooled the casual viewer. The visible pixels on the tower's framework irritated Palmer, and he looked away.

The waiter approached him with a clear jug that rattled with ice as he walked. "Water, sir?"

"Alright Agent Bauer," Amanda said, walking towards Jack, "here are your release forms. Just take them to the front desk as you leave and-"

Jack was already gone.

As he turned the corner he sprinted down the steps, just bypassing the room in which was his daughter, Kim, sat next to the bed of her boyfriend Chase.

Jack bolted down the stairs and reached the front desk in a matter of seconds. Now fully recovered, he whipped out his phone and pressed speed dial 6, CTU Los Angeles. As he lifted the phone to his ear a doctor frowned at him and pointed to a sign that had a picture of a phone in between the lines of a red cross, with a warning about not having them in the hospital. Jack waved his badge in the face of the doctor, but he had already moved on, busy with a patient.

He started towards the door but was yelled at by a nurse. Remembering the documents, he launched himself towards the desk where the nurse sat, slammed the papers down in front of her and left before she had a chance to exhale. Finally someone answered the call.

"CTU, Putney," Jack was unfamiliar with the name so decided to ask,

"I need to speak to Chloe O'Brian, is she there?"

Andrew typed in some keys on the phone, causing Chloe's to ring. She picked it up and answered in a similar manner to how Andrew had.

"Chloe, it's Jack-"

Before he could continue, "Jack! Where the hell have you been? I've been calling you for the last hour..."

"Chloe look, I don't have time to explain," Jack decided to cut to the chase, "We were in a car crash, Curtis is down, so is the suspect. That leaves Ali as our only lead."

"We could have a problem there, Jack. District is taking him away for further questioning."

Jack stopped running, the first time he had done so since the nurse set him free. "When?"

"Right now, Jim Vaughn called in to see what was happening with him about a half hour ago and then he sent some guy, Ramirez, down to pick him up."

"Dammit," Jack said, "you need to stall them, Chloe."

"What do you want me to do, Jack?"

"Anything. C'mon Chloe we need to stay with him."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do." She began to put the phone down, but Jack yelled,

"Wait!" She asked what he wanted now, "You need to call St. Thomas Hospital, tell them to inform you of what happens with Loman, the suspect."

"Fine, Jack. Oh, do you want me to send a car to pick you up?"

Jack weighed up the option in his head. He could either sprint across town, reaching CTU by taking shortcuts down back alleys, or wait for a car to meander through the midday traffic of Los Angeles.

"I think I'll make it," he eventually replied, and hung up.

2.17.54 p.m.

Palmer strummed his fingers on the table. Where were they? He checked his watch again; they were almost twenty minutes late. He felt so stupid. To think how happy he was half an hour ago, it was all for nothing. After finishing off his third complementary bread roll, he stood up, straightened his jacket and casually walked out of the restaurant, watched by everyone inside.

"Ramirez!" Chloe called as she got to the Holding cell. "You can't take the prisoner away yet."

"Why not?" He snapped.

"You didn't fill out your paperwork properly." In fact, he had filled it out all perfectly. Chloe had changed the digit on one of the sign-out forms so that the prisoner's I.D. did not match his proper I.D. that was shown on the CTU document.

"What?" He questioned, shocked and certain he could not make such a mistake.

"Yep. Look. It's right here." She pointed to the spot where the mistake had been forged.

"C'mon O'Brian. This guy needs to be taken away for further questioning." He pleaded.

"Well as a matter of fact Jack Bauer is coming in right now to question him."

"Bauer? There's no way Driscoll's going to let him anywhere near Ali, she's the one who fired him!"

"Maybe," Chloe said, "you should get your facts straight before doing things." Chloe snatched the documents back from Ramirez, and continued, "Driscoll is the one who brought him back in."

Ramirez looked stunned. Still holding on to Ali's handcuffed hands, his jaw dropped open. Chloe motioned back to the Holding cell and, after a second's recovery, Ramirez took Ali back in, sat him down, and left.

Chloe heaved a deep sigh of relief, and set about convincing Erin Driscoll to allow Jack back to CTU.

Jim Farris from CTU Data Services picked up the phone. He had been given a fake identification badge for a supposed District officer, and has been asked to recover fingerprints from it. The badge was in bad condition, and had clearly been outside for a long time. The air that had been in contact with it had severely removed any chances of getting a clear match, but Jim was good at his job. Correlating the fingerprint data with the whole database of names that the United States government had to offer, he had narrowed it down to a list of eleven men.

He smiled at his good work, and called Andrew Putney up in the main CTU offices who had given him the badge.

"Andy, it's Jim."

"Oh hey, did you find anything?"

With a laugh, Jim responded, "Well, besides your fingerprints there are eleven other guys who it could possibly be. The prints were preserved well enough to narrow it down to one man."

"Ok, thanks. Send the list up to my screen."

Jim did so, and Andrew scanned through the list. None of the names rang any bells with him. He decided to filter the names through the criminal records. It took just a few moments and Andrew learnt that two of the men had been arrested; one for stealing and another for breaking and entering, but none of the men had any serious convictions. Andrew decided to take the list over to Chloe to see what she thought.

"Miss Driscoll, you know Jack is good at this type of thing, it's worth at least just giving him a chance-" Chloe attempted, but Driscoll cut her off.

"I know what he's good at. He's good at torturing people. And getting addicted to drugs. They aren't the sort of things we want associated with this office."

"Jack will be able to find out what we need, quicker than any other guy you've got here."

Before Driscoll could say anything else, Andrew Putney approached Chloe.

"I've got the fingerprint results back..."

Chloe muttered under her breath, "Perfect timing," and led Andrew away back to her station, leaving Driscoll without the ability to stop Jack from coming in to CTU.

2. 40.20 p.m.

Ronnie Lobell had been filling out forms for the past hour and a half. After returning from the unsuccessful mission with James Simons, he had been allowed two hour off to relax, then at 11.30am he had been called in for a debrief. This had taken some time as it was a complicated situation to try to explain, especially as he was only one of the few people involved in several different missions revolving around the same operation. After one hour the debrief was over and he went to have a quick lunch. He had then been called back up to the Situation Room to fill out the relevant paper work regarding the mission, which was an unbelievably difficult task when he only knew half of the story. He had spent a long time calling other agents who he hoped would know more of the story, but he had been reasonably unsuccessful so far.

Suddenly, Erin Driscoll poked her head around the side of the door. He jumped, and she said, "Ronnie, I need you to do something for me."

"Hey, if it gets me out of doing this..."

"You know Ali? The prisoner we've got? I need you to try to get something out of him. Fast. Jack Bauer is on his way over here-"

"Bauer? What for?"

"He's planning to interrogate Ali. But I don't like the sound of it, personally. If you can get something out of him before Jack gets here, and do it without physical torture, then he won't be able to touch him."

"I'm on it," Ronnie concluded, and she moved out of his way so that he could exit the room.

Jack bolted down past the back of the houses. He was just a few blocks away from CTU. He glanced at his watch, and saw that it was nearing ten to three. Much past half way through the day. He almost missed the fallen-over trash can that he leapt over just in time, setting him off balance slightly. He slowed his pace as he neared a road. Crossing quickly, Jack upped his pace to its previous level and continued on his route to CTU.

David Palmer slumped down into a sofa in his apartment just after arriving back. He took a route through a park, looking at the beautiful flowers that were just coming into bloom. They made him smile, they reminded him of better days, but before long his mind was clouded over by the present, the horrible present, and he meandered back to his home. After flicking through the television channels and finding, as he expected, that nothing that interested him was on, he decided to try to call Keith's flat.

Unsurprisingly, no one picked up the phone and after ten rings – Palmer counted – the answer machine message came up. As he heard Keith's recorded message ask him to leave one of his own, he contemplated the idea of what he could say. The beep sounded, and all Palmer could do was breath down the line before putting the phone back into the receiver.

Ronnie shut the door of the interrogation room after he entered. Ali did not move or react; he had learnt that this was the best way to deal with things. Ronnie looked him up and down, measuring up the pain that Jack Bauer had already caused him. He saw the bandage around his foot, recalling the story he had heard relating to that.

He walked up to Ali and crouched down right in front of his face.

"What's going on?" He said slowly. Ali grimaced back at him.

Jack burst through the main doors at CTU and found Chloe waiting there to let him past Security.

"Jack!" Paul exclaimed, one of the veteran guards.

"Hey Paul," Jack said, remembering that he had known the man for almost as long as he had worked at CTU.

"Look Jack, there's something-" Jack left before Chloe could finish her sentence. "Jack, what's the rush?" She questioned.

"I've got a hunch things need to be moving faster than they are right now," he replied.

2.55.28 p.m.

Jack slammed into the interrogation room. Ronnie Lobell stepped back, not knowing what to do. A look of fear erupted across Ali's face as he saw and recognised Jack from the intense interrogation he had given him earlier at the house. Jack smiled, pleased that he was recognised. It gave him the upper hand.

"Oh, I see you remember me," Jack said jokily, "I think we need another talk."

Ali gritted his teeth. "What more do I have to say to you? You stopped me; you stopped me and my men!"

"No," Jack said simply. Ali looked up at him, clearly confused. "Tell me about the rainforests."

Ali stuttered. "Wh... what rainforests? What are you talking ab-"

Jack looked back through the two-way mirror, fully knowing that Erin Driscoll was watching his every move. He then looked at Ronnie, who was sternly glaring at him. Jack spun back around to Ali. "Stop wasting my time." He whipped out his gun and shot above Ali's knee in less than a second. Blood sprayed upwards and shone in the light as Ronnie snapped the gun from Jack's hand and Driscoll bolted into the room, yelling, "What the hell do you think you are doing?"

Ali was yelling so loud Jack could barely hear Driscoll. He looked at Ali, deep into his eyes, and knew. He knew that Ali did not know anything about the rainforests, confirming Jack's worst fears. He turned to Driscoll, who seemed to have quietened, waiting to see what Jack had to say.

As Ali began to whimper, Jack said to Driscoll and Ronnie, "There's a separate threat against the President that is going down today."

3.00.00 p.m.