Chapter 2

The Following Takes Place Between 7:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M.

Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area

The first van that had left Cayuga nearly half an hour earlier had gotten into position first. Even though it was a critical part, it involved the fewest actual people-- only two terrorists were in the black van, and given the earliness of the hour, only a handful of people (other than a couple of security guards) were on hand. But right now casualties mattered far less than chaos, and this would do the job effectively.

So when the phone beeped, the driver knew what he had to do-- he waited until the liquid nitrogen was hooked up, nodded as his passenger got out of the vehicle, and then began to accelerate towards the dam.

Both the guards were somewhat surprised when the large black van came barreling down the street right at them. Only one's reaction time was quick enough for him to get out of the vehicles path. The other wasn't nearly as fortunate, and was smashed upward until he was impaled by the fence, with a broken neck.

The driver only noticed this in his peripheral vision. His main focus was on the dam directly ahead of him and as soon as he was past the guards, he floored the accelerator until he was doing eighty.

Then, in the split second before the van hit the stone siding of the dam, he hit the button that ignited the fuel.

The driver's fiery death was painful but quick. And he had done what had been asked of him -- a wall of water was now rushing out of the crevice that the he had made.

"All right, Jack," Tony said slowly. "We're all here. Now would you mind explaining to us what the hell is going on?"

"Recently, we received notification that there was a strong possibility that a group of Chinese nationals would be attempting to enter the country," Jack began.

"And they were attempting to enter through an airstrip in the Santa Susanna Mountains called Cayuga," Sydney said slowly.

Suddenly, there was a great overhang of tension in the air. "I'm guessing, um, you got the hourlies," Marshall said trying to break the tension.

"How many were there?" Michelle demanded.

"The final count was thirty-seven people." Jack said. "Our surveillance teams identified have so far matched eighteen of them from the Chinese database."

"Only seven were known terrorists," Kim spoke up, "but Marshall and I have been able to ID the other eleven as having extensive criminal records in the Far East section of the globe."

"So what you're telling us is that, on the day of a major peace conference with the Chinese, a large group of Asian nationals have entered the country with the intention of doing harm, and you and your team just sat on that knowledge," Tony's voice was getting eerily quiet.

Jack glared at him. "We didn't know anything until they started shooting at us."

Before the two of them could start shooting at each other—hopefully not literally, but she still never knew with Jack— Sydney interrupted "Where is everybody?"

"Your father and Nadia are on the surveillance teams tracking the terrorists that came into the country," Kim began. "If you want the exact locations--"

"Where is my husband?"

Jack paused. "While Dixon and Vaughn were watching the airport, the terrorists became aware of our presence," he said slowly. "Five of them broke apart from the pack and attacked us. Dixon and Vaughn are all right, but three other agents were killed. Furthermore, in order to escape, they essentially firebombed the airstrip. It's looking like another ten or twelve civilians were killed."

The expression of relief on Sydney's face was replaced by one of concern.

Tony and Michelle were starting to look pissed. "So what you're telling me," Tony said slowly, "is that your operations has already resulted in the deaths of twenty people, the airstrip has been firebombed, and we're only getting word of this through the FA-fucking-A?!"

"Tony, I realized how pissed you are, and believe when I tell you that this is not how I wanted this to go down at all," Jack began. "But Division and District made it very clear that no other units were to be drawn away from the security of the conference."

Tony arched a brow. "And now you decide to start following orders?"

"Marshall," Sydney interrupted with a sinking feeling in her chest, "the terrorists that were on the airplane, did you identify any of them as Hsu Kar-Wai?"

"Hold on a second," Marshall tapped some keys on his screen, scanning the photo ID's. Fifteen seconds later, he had an answer. "Yeah. You know him?"

"We intercepted a communication from Kar-Wai a few hours ago. It indicated that he was planning a major attack sometime today."

Bauer's jaw started to tense as he looked at Tony. "What were you saying about sharing information?"

There was a long pause as Tony got to his feet. "Jack, Syd, can you handle things for a minute?" he asked while moving.

"Tony—" Michelle said.

"First, I'm going to call District and tear them a new asshole for this dumbass maneuver," Tony said angrily, "then I'm going to have to call the President, and explain to him that they just let a major terrorist threat literally walk right into the country."

Michelle only half-heartedly tried to stop him, and Sydney made no effort at all. If anything, Syd was more pissed than Tony. She was also a little hurt-- her family had been put into harm's way, and no one had seen fit to tell her.

Then again, if I had to be informed every time Vaughn or Dad were sent on a dangerous mission, my email box would always be overflowing. "How the fuck did you let this happen, Jack?" Sydney insisted.

"You have no idea how long I railed after Division not to let us fly solo on this," Jack began.

"Jack, you don't have to explain to me about the idiocy of our superiors," Sydney said slowly. "They believe the right hand should never know what the left is doing, even if it's training a shotgun on the head. What I don't understand is why you went along with it."

"I had protocols to follow--"

"I know you, Jack," she interrupted. "There isn't a regulation in the book that you wouldn't bend until it was contorted beyond recognition. Besides which, some of the people in your unit are family, or damn close. You always go out of your way to keep those people safe. Why'd you blink this time?"

There was a longer pause as Jack considered this. "Because for the last year, APO has been able to handle everything thrown at it just fine. We've stopped Sloane and the Derevkos from destroying the planet, and everything that's crossed our paths lately, we can deal with, usually despite the crap from above."

"We the unwilling," Marshall said, looking at his computer, "led by the unable, have accomplished so much with so little, that we can now do the impossible without anything at all."

Conversation stopped as everyone turned their attention to Marshall, still staring deep into the hypnotic glare of the computer monitor. Marshall felt the attention after a while, then looked up. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? It's just that I got that in an email passed around the office lately that I…" he blinked rapidly, at a complete loss for words.

Kim tapped his arm. "Go back to work, Marshall," she said gently.

He blinked again, at a loss, as though he didn't know that he had defused a potential office dustup.

"I hate to interrupt the Monday-morning quarterbacking," Michelle said, looking up from another screen, "as well as the Tourette's interlude, but we've got another problem."

"Now what?" Syd asked.

"Someone just drove a van into the Sepulveda Dam in Van Nuys!"

"How many casualties?" Jack demanded.

"Not many, the recreation area didn't open for another hour and a half," Michelle said. "Probably fewer deaths then at Cayuga Air Strip."

Kim frowned. "Why are such low priority and casualty targets being hit?" she asked. "There's no method to this madness."

"Have we got confirmation that the van is somehow connected to one of the vehicles that was carrying the Chinese hostiles?" Jack asked.

"I don't know yet. I'm still coordinating with LAPD."

"We need eyes on the ground." Sydney said. "Michelle, where's our nearest field team?"

"Baker and Lobell are probably the closest ones."

"Call them and get them out there," Jack said. "I'll get in touch with the surveillance teams, see if they've still got a twenty on any of the vans that left Cayuga Air Field."

"How long will it be till you and your team can be back in LA?" Sydney asked.

"I think we're about finished up here." Jack said. "We can probably be back in about ten minutes."

"All right. Michelle, tell Tony that as much fun as it is to shit on Driscoll we've got more important priorities now." Sydney sighed. "We'd better be able to get back on track fast."

7:13:19/7:13:20/7:13:21/7:13:22

The Congressional delegations did not receive the same kind of elaborate motorcade that the President did. If the Speaker of the House, and some of the Senate and House leaders had been part of the trip, they would have each gotten elaborate vehicles to carry them to the Western White House. As it was, some of the more important ones, like Heller, received their own limo. For the majority that remained, they would ride in luxury cars, in twos and threes.

The majority of the representatives engaged in the kind of faux chatter that usually precedes an elaborate event of political importance. However, one-- a two-term Congressman from the fourteenth district of Illinois -- remained deliberately aloof from the conversation. Some of the people who knew him better would know that this was a façade, but the majority of the senior representatives thought that he was distant and aloof-- or, in the case of one very old Senator, 'uppity'.

When the vehicle finally reached its destination, they had to cross through the press room. Most of the politicos stopped and gave a few comments to the press, but the man from Illinois gave a constant stream of 'no comment', and walked in.

"You can't keep treating the media as your enemy, Congressman," the President's chief of staff told the President's brother.

Congressman Wayne Palmer looked up at Novick with a smile that looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "That's easy for you to say, Mike. You're not the one who everyone thinks got elected because of his brother."

"That's not fair and you know it, Wayne."

"Is it?" Wayne asked rhetorically. "David gets elected in one of the biggest landslides in history. Forty-three new Democrats in the House, but I'm the one who everybody focuses on. Everywhere I go, people think I'm the next Bobby, and they are always disappointed when I'm not."

"Maybe they'll be more forgiving if you starting getting death threats" Novick gave a tight little smile, as though he were afraid to grin. "Wayne, everyone knows that you're trying to be your own man. David knows and has always respected your wishes. When you asked him not to focus campaigning in your district, he understood where you were coming from. He respected you for it."

"I'm not worried about David's acceptance," Wayne pointed out. "But I have to worry about repercussions."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on, Mike. You know the opposition that they're presenting against me in the primary in six months. You know that guys like Millikan don't want me to be on the ballot next year. That's why David put me on this trip in the first place."

"That's crap and you know it," Mike countered "You and I were in the same meetings for ten years. Everyone knows that you bring a lot to the table."

"They know inside the corridors of power. Public perception is I'm a hack in a suit trying to ride his brother's coattails to the White House."

Mike shook his head. "What's all this really about?"

"I know that you've got a meeting scheduled after the treaty is signed," Wayne said slowly. "I need you to persuade David to not support me."

"He's not going to let this go."

"That's the job people like us had when he was running for the first time, to tell him what he doesn't want to hear. He's already lost a huge amount of his credibility with Sherry. He can't blow what he has left on me."

The conversation was interrupted when the press secretary came in. "Mike, there's a developing situation," she told him.

The Congressman looked at the Presidential advisor. "I've gotta go. We'll discuss this later." Mike walked to the door. "Your brother doesn't give up on some things. It's one of his great strengths."

"I know that," Wayne said. "It's also one of his greatest weaknesses."

7:21:04/7:21:05/7:21:06

Nadia had thought that it was a very bad idea to get the ranks of APO spread so thin while trying to keep track of the four vans that had departed from Cayuga. For one thing, at this hour of the morning, at this relatively dense section of the state, it would be nearly impossible to be inconspicuous tracking them. Furthermore, when she'd contacedt Kim and asked her to come up with satellite tracking, she had been told flat out they were trying to do the same thing with the other vehicles simultaneously, and there were only so much electronics that were available around this section of Los Angeles.

She had a feeling that it would be only a matter of time before Kim called back and told her that they'd begun losing track of the hostiles. For herself, she hadn't made satellite contact in nearly five minutes, which was a bad sign.

The phone rang, interrupting her reverie. "This is Santos."

"Hey, Nadia, we've got a problem."

"Please tell me that you left the gas on when you snuck out this morning," she said, a smile briefly crossing her face.

"I wish," her fiancé said. "We're going to have direct surveillance of these hostiles to the back burner for awhile. Somebody blew a hole in the Sepulveda Dam about twenty minutes ago."

Nadia turned serious. "Do we have any confirmation that there the same people?"

"We don't have any of our people the scene yet," Jack said. "Dixon, Vaughn and myself are about a minute out. But the preliminary description of the vehicle has it matching one of the four that drove out of Cayuga Air Field."

"Where are you on identifying the hostiles at the airfield?""

"Three of them had extensive criminal records in the Far East. The fourth, Jia Kammin, was a known terrorist connected with the Scarlet Circle."

"So it's looking a lot like this has something to do with the President's visit today," Nadia summarized. "Have you contacted CTU?"

"Yeah. Sydney and Tony are briefing the President now." Jack paused. "If you want to say 'I told you so', now would be a good time."

"Right now, I think determining responsibility is something we should leave for Division," she said quietly. "God knows it's their fault that we're in this mess."

By now, Jack's helicopter had landed and he was watching Dixon and Vaughn talk to the police on scene.

"What do you want me to do about finding these hostiles?" Nadia asked. "I can contact Kim, have her do another satellite sweep."

Jack was looking at the van. "Right now, I think that this is our best bet at finding them," he said, looking at a PDA. "The van's model and license plate match; it was definitely one of the four that left Cayuga Air Field."

"How many hostiles have you found?"

"It's looking a lot like the driver was the only guy in the vehicle." Jack said.

"But Dixon said that there were at least eight men on each van," Nadia responded. "Where did the rest of them go?"

"That's the million-dollar question," Jack said, as he looked into the vehicle. "Look, how far out are you from Cayuga?"

"I think about twenty miles," Nadia said. "What do you want me to do?"

"I'm going to have Kim and Marshall use real-time telemetry to try and follow this vehicle's back trace," he said. "Then you're going to try and find out where these people went before. This van was hired to explode; they had to do it between here and the airstrip. They've gotta have some kind of rendezvous point."

"All right. Jack," Nadia paused. "How many casualties were at the dam?"

"According to LAPD, three, including the driver."

"And Van Nuys is still a good ten miles away from anything connected to the Western White house."

"That's right."

"I've got the two-million dollar question," Nadia asked. "Why'd they hit there now?"

Jack looked around. "I don't have an answer for that either."

7:28:31/7:28:32/7:28:33/7:28:34

"Mr. President, we can now state with certainty that the attacks on Cayuga Air Field and on the Sepulveda Dam were caused by the same agents," Sydney told President Palmer over the direct link

"And you're telling us that there are at least three other groups of these same terrorists now in the Los Angeles city limits," Kresge replied.

"Yes, and that's without counting however many others that this man Li Chin Wang had in the city prior to today."

"How certain are we than this man Wang is behind the attacks?" the President asked.

"Right now, we've identified nineteen of the men that came into the country," Chloe told the President nervously. "Of the eleven known terrorists, eight of them are connected either to Scarlet Circle or other known associates of Wang."

"And where are we locating him?" Mike Novick asked.

"Unfortunately, it has been nearly six months since the government has had any idea as to where Wang is," Tony said. "So far, all our leads on tracking him have led us nowhere."

There was a moment as the President considered this. "This conference is scheduled to begin in less than an hour," the President finally said "What is CTU's recommendation as to how to proceed?"

"Sir, Scarlet Circle has made many statements expressing extreme hostility toward any weakening of China's capabilities as a nuclear superpower," Tony said slowly. "Given the fact that they are in California, and have shown no hesitation to kill, we have to be sure that they intend to act on them."

"But the fact is you don't know how or where," Mike Novick said thoughtfully, "For all you know, they may act regardless of the treaty being signed."

"There is that possibility," Sydney admitted.

"Can we have a minute?" the President asked over the phone. He turned off the speaker. "Mike, what are you saying?"

"Mr. President," Mike began, "leaving aside the political fallout if we postpone the treaty signing, the United States' government can not have its foreign policy be mandated by the threats of terrorists. The effects would be catastrophic worldwide."

"And if they choose to attack the Russian or Chinese Premier while on our soil?"

"According to your own orders, the normal security force has been doubled around both leaders after they arrive," Mike pointed out. "NSA has already calculated that the chances are less than fifteen percent possibility of even breaching the motorcade. We can protect them."

"Mike, if terrorists attack either leader, it could be seen as a repudiation of the treaty, if not an all out declaration of war," the President argued.

"And if we delay the treaty signing now, it could negate all of the work you've managed to do just getting them here," Lynn countered. "They might never come back to the bargaining table."

The President considered this for a few seconds, then reconnected with CTU. "All right," the President said. "Just as this government's policy can not be to negotiate with terrorists, I believe this must extend to not letting terrorists decide what any other aspect of our policy is. I am therefore going to allow the conference to carry on as scheduled. However, I am going to raise the terror alert to Orange and order the California National Guard to be on standby until both Premiers have left Californian air space. I will also be relying on CTU to keep me constantly updated on any further developments with these terrorists."

7:34:44/7:34:45/7:34:46

"Very well, Mr. President," Tony said.

"We're going to get through this," the President said before hanging up.

Sydney walked over to Tony. "The President's drawing an awfully big line in the sand," she warned her boss.

"I also know that a show of weakness can only help our enemies," Tony countered. "I'm proud that this President is leading, not following."

At that moment, Sydney's cell rang. "Bristow."

"Sydney, it's Vaughn."

Sydney briefly forgot where she was. "Shit, Michael, you could have told me about what was going on at APO."

"Syd, you know that the day you left APO, you also lost clearance to be informed about what was happening there."

"I'm working security for the President," Sydney argued. "You don't think that I was entitled to a little consideration?"

"You can Xerox my complaint to Division and put your signature in place of mine," Vaughn told her. He sighed. "It was as if I was trying to tell them the end of a movie." He paused. "However, I did tell Marshall to make sure that you got the report from the FAA a little faster than any other agency."

"Well, thank you for that much," Syd said. "What did you and Jack find at the dam site?"

"The body had no identification on it, and it was burned too badly to get fingerprints or dental," Vaughn admitted. "However, we found a PDA with a damaged monitor. I hooked Marshall up on it. He's used one of his data-recovery programs to see if he can get any information on it. So far all we have is the last message that he received."

"What was it?"

" 'Begin phase one.'" Vaughn paused. "Like we needed someone to tell us that."

"You have any idea where the message came from?"

"Marshall's trying to back-trace it now, but he said it might involve some more effort than usual."

"If Marshall says it's tough, we may have a real problem," Syd admitted.

At that moment Chloe walked up. "Sydney, we have something."

"Look, get back to me when you get through to Marshall. And by the way," Sydney paused. "I forgive you for doing your job."

"Thank you."

"But you're not getting sex for awhile." And with that Syd hung up.

"I'm glad to know that you can equate a major government screw-up to a bedroom tiff," Chloe said when she turned to her. "Really puts things in perspective."

Sydney was about to say something, when the phone rang again. She put it on speakerphone. "Bristow."

"Bauer."

Sydney blinked, wondering why Jack's voice had sounded so young…and so female. "Kim, what is it?"

Kim Bauer said, "Marshall sent me the memory chip from one of the cell phones they found at Cayuga Air Field," she started.

"Marshall delegated some of his work to you?" Sydney said disbelievingly.

"Is this just because I'm blonde?" Sydney raised an eyebrow. "The point is I got a list of the last five numbers that the caller dialed."

"Anything we can use?"

"One of the last calls was to the main desk at Wilshire Memorial Hospital. Now I don't know what connection this has to do with the Chinese, but it's within a five-mile radius of Van Nuys," Kim told Sydney.

"Try and get one of our field teams to meet me there," Sydney asked, as she walked to her desk.

Now Kim raised an eyebrow. "You're going out into the field?"

"We're short-staffed because of the President's latest upgrade. Besides, we need some fresh eyes to look at this."

Kim nodded to herself. "Tell me about it. I think that's why APO was sent to the airfield this morning. When was the last time you were out?"

"She has been on a field assignment in more than a year," Chloe helpfully added.

Bristow didn't even spare her a glance as she opened her drawer. "It's like riding a bicycle, Chloe," Sydney said as she checked her Glock.

"Yeah, but if you fall off your bike, you don't get a hole blown in your stomach," Chloe added.

"Your support for me is overwhelming," Sydney said, with an eye roll. To Kim: "At least Marshall isn't snippy. Thanks for the heads up." She looked at Chloe. "Just tell Tony where I'm headed."

7:40:55/7:40:56/7:40:57/7:40:58

By now, the news had been filtering in about the two attacks that had taken place in the last hour, but so far no one was hypothesizing that they had anything to do with the conference. Either the media knew and was being extraordinarily discreet, or they didn't know, and were being incredibly naïve. Both of these extremes were very unlikely, so Congressman James Heller was thinking there was some kind of unhappy medium that was going to end up blowing the entire day into extreme turmoil.

Heller was a decent enough man to not play on these kinds of situations. The men who financed his runs for office, and backing him to run for President, did not share his scruples.

"All of this is going on, and the President hasn't made any statement?" the ambitious representative for the California statehouse was asking over the phone.

"The press secretary came out and said that he would make a statement after the leaders from Russia and China landed," Heller relayed, "which means he'll probably talk about it in thirty minutes."

"And you're just letting this opportunity go?" the union leader whose racial prejudices the media had chosen to ignore. "Palmer's vulnerable, and you're not ceasing the opportunity to strike?"

"Only you, Peyton, could see the loss of two dozen American lives as an 'opportunity'," Heller said with some disgust.

"I'm only saying--"

"I know what you're saying, I also know what kind of tricks you've got in your back pocket," Heller said, his temper rising, "and if you're telling me to use these acts of terrorism as a political opportunity, you can find yourself another candidate to back."

"All right, James, we're all very well of your ethics," the erstwhile representative from Santa Barbara said, "it's one of the reasons we're backing you in the first place. Perhaps we're just a little concerned about what a placid approach you are taking with this entire conference."

"I'm well aware that most of you were opposed to my helping the President at all," Heller said in a slightly calmer tone. "I've already told you that my duty to this country sometimes has to be put ahead of politics, but every time I talk like that, you all get glazed expressions on your faces. So I'll be blunt: until and unless the President makes a decision that I believe is harmful, I'm not going to attack him. Are we absolutely clear, Charles?"

"Absolutely, Congressman," both the men on the conference call said.

Heller turned off the speaker as he saw Mike Novick enter the room. "I appreciate your advice, but don't call me until after the ink on the treaty has dried." With that, he hung up.

"Has there been any further information about what's happening at either of the sites?" he asked Novick

"The dam has affected a major power grid for Van Nuys," Novick said. "Some sections of the city are suffering intermittent power and water service."

"That's all you're going to tell me?"

"That's all we know, Jim" Novick said with deliberate calm. "There will be another intelligence briefing before the plane lands."

"You know, given everything that I've done for the President over the last couple of months, I would think that I'm entitled to knowing more than the media does," Heller said, with a slight irritation in his tone..

"And you know as well as anyone here about the chain of command. When you finally get the Republican nomination, you'll be entitled to more information. Otherwise, your access is the same as every other civilian here."

Heller swallowed his pride. "So the conference is going on as scheduled?"

"Yes, Congressman, it is."

7:45:28/7:45:29/7:45:30

.Jack had just finished a long and (as usual) unproductive discussion with District about getting more manpower to search for the other three vans. Half of the agency forces had been diverted to make sure nothing happened as the airspace into LA, and while Jack appreciated what President Palmer was trying to do, he knew that it was making APO's job a lot harder. Life would just be so much easier if Jack could just shoot the District people who got in his way, like he did with the terrorists armed with assault rifles instead of red tape.

Dixon walked up to him. "I think that we've gotten everything we can out of the scene," he told Jack.

"Has Marshall gotten anywhere tracing that last message?"

"Apparently, it was routed through at least five major networks. This guy definitely made sure that he wasn't tracked."

"Which means that it's coming from someone pretty high up in the hierarchy," Jack theorized.

"It still doesn't answer the main question. Why attack here, now?" Dixon countered. "Right now the major damage seems to be in terms of property rather than loss of life. No terrorist organization in history ever declared a war by tinkering around with electricity and water."

Bauer nodded. "Does this all feel familiar to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know who I mean—high explosives to cover their escapes, multiple attacks that may or may not be feints, along with a heavily organized infrastructure. This one feels like one of our regulars. K-Directorate, perhaps, or the Covenant, if they were still around…or even..."

Just then, Jack's phone rang. "Bauer."

"I think I have something," Nadia said abruptly.

"What? Did you find a rendezvous point?"

"No, but I may have found the last place your bomber stopped before driving into the dam."

"Hold on a second," Jack put Nadia on speaker. "Where are you?"

"It's a power station just off of route 5 on the Golden State Freeway," Nadia said. "Kim backtracked the van's movements to here around ten minutes before the dam was destroyed. They dispersed into three or four other vehicles."

"Were you able to trace any of them?" Dixon asked.

"No, but the photos did reveal something very interesting. Ten people got on to the van at Cayuga Air Field. Two people were on it when it left for the dam."

All three agents listening to the call got it. "So where did the other hostile go?" Jack asked.

"That may explain something else," Vaughn added. "The 911 call about what happened at this dam came in at 7:04 from that payphone." He pointed to one on the far side of the road. "But the only people on site were the guards who the forensic team say died in the explosion."

"You think that one of the terrorists called the authorities about their own attack?" Nadia asked. "Why would they so blatantly reveal themselves?"

There was a moment's consideration. "Because they wanted to create a distraction until they hit their actual target," Jack answered.

"Which means that it would have to be something nearby." Vaughn said. "I'll call Kim, see if she can find any possible targets within a ten-mile radius of this location."

"How long until you can get over to Van Nuys?" Jack asked Nadia.

"Within fifteen minutes."

"Get out here. When we have a probable target, I'll call you with the location." Jack looked at his watch. "And put a move on. They're probably going to hit us sometime before the major delegations are scheduled to land in Los Angeles. The terrorists could strike at any moment."

"Damn," Dixon said, "I hate days like this."

Jack nodded. "You get used to it."

7:50:22/7:50:23/7:50:24/7:50:25

Wilshire Memorial Hospital

The ambulance pulled up to the emergency room doors. "Twenty-nine-year-old female, suffering from stab wounds to the chest, abdomen and stomach," one of the paramedics told the waiting doc. "We staunched the bleed, but she lost the pulse in the field and we had to put in a chest tube."

"All right, take her the trauma two." Two of the doctors took her inside and began working on her.

The two paramedics exchanged a glance, and the one who was more soaked in blood said. "Mind if I use your restroom?"

The ER chief didn't recognize either of the medics that had brought the women, which was odd because he could put a name to nine-tenths of the medics who came into his ER. But with the terror alert having been raised fifteen minutes ago, he couldn't afford to waste his time trying to match the face to the name. "Sure."

The medic walked inside Wilshire Memorial and made his way to the bathroom. Once there, he locked the door, took off his white coat, and removed a pen. He unscrewed it, and removed the spring. He began taking out some small boxes, and in less than a minute, he had assembled a gun. Thankfully, there wasn't time to wand an EMT.

He took out his phone. "I'm in," he told the voice on the other end.

"Good. The security force is concentrated at the front entrance. There's usually only one man on duty. Where is the other man?"

"The back door."

"I'll meet them there."

As Sydney pulled into the front entrance, her cell rang. "Bristow," she said as she turned the key.

"Sydney, it's Dixon. When I called CTU, Chloe told me that you were in the field. Didn't you start working there for the express purpose of not going out on dangerous assignments?"

"Says the man who gave up a desk job to work as field agent for a black ops unit," Sydney responded, getting out of the car

"Fair point. Look, I didn't call the bust your chops." Dixon said, seriously. "You're at Wilshire Memorial Hospital?"

"About to walk in the front door," Sydney said.

"You couldn't hold off going in a few more minutes?" Dixon asked. "Vaughn and I can be there in less than ten."

"So APO thinks that it's a potential target," Sydney said as she took out her ID, and took out her Glock.

"Marshall and Kim just finished running the numbers. They think there's a forty percent possibility that it could be a strike site."

"I don't normally doubt Marshall's work, but what are you basing it on? I'm not convinced that anything's going to happen here."

"Wilshire Memorial's one of the largest hospitals in California," Dixon argued. "Add to that the fact that it never closes and that three of the biggest targets in the range haven't opened their doors yet, I'd say there's a damn good chance they'd make it an objective."

Sydney looked around. "How far out are you?" she asked.

"Ten minutes."

"I've got a meeting with the Chief of Staff. I'll get him to help meet us at the back door."

"Gotcha. Meet you there."

Dixon hung up, and Syd walked to the front desk, where a man with hair so black it could only be a dye job, and a grin that she automatically disliked was waiting.

"You're Dr. Michael Mancini?" Sydney asked.

"That's right. You're the government agent that I talked to a few minutes ago?" Mancini gave an oily smile. "I didn't know that the FBI turned agents out as beautiful as you."

"Save the cheap flattery for someone who isn't married or armed."

Mancini assumed a more businesslike attitude. "How can I help you?"

"Do you know offhand what percentage of your staff is Asian?"

Mancini frowned. "This hospital employs nearly three hundred people, Agent Bristow," he said. "But I can get our employment records to see how many employees we have on staff."

"Do that. Tell them to start with any hires over the last year." Sydney ordered.

"Look, I want to know what this is all about," Mancini said. "Are the people at this hospital in some kind of danger, because there are precautions that we can take."

"Then I suggest you call the people in charge of security."

The main security guard was watching a van pull up through the monitor, when suddenly he felt the muzzle at the back of his head. "Turn off the metal detectors at every entrance," a voice ordered.

"But--"

"Do it."

The guard began cutting the power to the metal detectors. When he flicked his last switch, the man with the plastic gun shot the guard through the head.

He took out his radio. "Security has been neutralized! Go!"

Three men armed with assault rifles walked in the emergency room. Simultaneously, six others walked in the main entrance and the service entrance. All of them began pointing guns at the patients and staff. "Anybody moves, we will fire on all of you. Nobody try to be a hero, and you stand a much better chance of surviving!"

The patients and doctors all froze. "All right," the leader said into the walkie-talkie. "Secure the entrances! No one gets in or out from this moment on! Hsu, get on the line with the police. Make it clear that Scarlet Circle is holding this facility hostage, and unless our demands are met people will begin to die!"

7:59:57/7:59:58/7:59:59/8:00:00