Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The Following Takes Place Between 10:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M.

"At this time, I would like to personally apologize to the members of the press and to the American people for my apparent hesitation in regards to the signing of this treaty," President Palmer told the assembled press corps. "But given the volatility of the situation, I believe that I had the country's best interests at heart. This is an important day, not only for this country, but for people all over the world, and I would not have it stained with the blood of innocents. I thank you again for your patience, and would be grateful if you would now join myself, President Suvarov, and Premier En Lai, in the southern yard for the formal signing in ten minutes."

With that, the President left the podium, with the press corps walking out the main exit.

"Not my most eloquent hour," the President told his chief of staff, "but at least it was the truth."

"Your honesty has always served you well, Mr. President," Mike assured his boss. "In any case, I think they'll understand that this wasn't a crisis of your own making."

"They might." The President gestured towards Congressman Heller. "He'll try and paint a different picture."

"As for Heller, this is going to hurt him a lot more than it hurt you," Mike told the President with a grim sort of satisfaction. "The public doesn't like it when Congress attacks the President; they like it even less when we are in a state of emergency.."

"I think you underestimate both the people and Heller, but I certainly hope that you're right this time."

By now the two men were walking by one of the situation rooms, and the President opened one of the doors.

"Is there anything else, Mr. President?" Mike asked as he walked inside.

"Well, now that we have a few minutes," the President said gently " I thought now would be a good time to tell me about those last couple of phone calls you got before we landed in Los Angeles. The ones that had you trying desperately to maintain your cool."

"You knew, sir?"

"I appreciate how you try to shield me from the uglier parts of this job, the parts that are more political than I like to deal with," the President told him, "but they're part of the job I was elected to handle."

"Allan Millikan has called me repeatedly over the past five days, saying that he needs to meet with you before you formally begin your campaign for reelection," Mike said without preamble.

"Why is he so determined to see me?" the President asked.

"He says that he'll only talk to you about it." Off the look of disbelief, he added "I guess being one of the your biggest contributors as well as being one of major defense contractors in the country has made him more arrogant when it comes to where he fits in the chain of command."

"When you operate in the backrooms as long as Allan has, maybe you forget how things are supposed to be run above board." The President exhaled. "When would be the best time to see him?"

"I think we can arrange to slip away from the retreat around noon."

"Me. Alone," the President insisted. "Or at least as alone as I can manage in my current condition."

"You sure that's a good idea, sir?" Mike questioned.

"He's gone to a lot of trouble to get my attention. I want this to be done as privately as possible. Allan represents a lot to my campaign. If I have a problem, I think he'll tell it only to me."

10:05:41/10:05:42/10:05:43

"We're not going have to get in some pissing contest with Division about whether our people or yours gets to interrogate Wu?" Jack asked Tony.

"Technically speaking, we have jurisdiction and our authority supersedes that of a unit that officially doesn't exist," Tony pointed out.

"Answer the question, Tony."

"Is your team prepped to do the on-site interrogation?" Tony countered.

Jack gave him a sarcastic half smile. "There should be more than sufficient material in a hospital."

"How long will it be until you can reach Director Chase?"

"Sydney's father is in the process of getting her now," Jack said. "Tony, can we do this or not?"

Tony paused. "You need to find a smoking gun," he told him. "Some kind of corroborating evidence that there's a larger threat in play."

Jack Bauer was considering this, when he saw something that he had missed in his initially view of the hospital. Only a small number of the hostages had been injured by the terrorists-- mainly cuts and bruises-- but there had only been one deliberate action. In addition to having taken a severe beating, Wilshire Memorial's chief of staff Michael Mancini had his left thumb completely severed from his hand. Why would someone d that, unless--

"What do we know about Wilshire Memorial?" he asked Tony.

"In regard to what?"

"There were hundreds of easier and more visible targets in Los Angeles that Kar-Wai could have chosen," Jack pointed out. "Why this hospital?"

Tony thought only a moment. "They came here to find something."

"Tell Division that we need Sydney here to help us question the staff of this hospital," Jack said. "That should buy us at least an hour. Long enough for us to get what we need out of Wu."

"I can sell that, but Jack, you'd better get something out of him, fast."

Jack hung up the phone, then looked around until he saw his daughter. "Kim!" he said as he walked over to her.

"What's our next move?" Kim asked as she walked up to her father.

"How much work would it take to set up an off-site unit to get in touch with Marshall?"

"Ten minutes, probably half that, if I can get in touch with CTU's server. Why?"

"Wilshire Memorial has something that these terrorists wanted," Jack asked. "I need you and Marshall to do some back checking into their records, see if you can find anything in the hospital's research grants or staff that would indicate why they came here."

Kim blinked, then glanced around. "I wondered that too…I suppose the barricade was a distraction, but Dad, this is a county hospital, not a biological laboratory. Hell, it's not even an aspirin factory."

"I know, but I can't see any other reason why they would hit this particular hospital," Jack admitted. "Besides, there are a couple of hundred people on staff. There could be one guy with an interest that nobody else knows about."

"All right," Kim said. "I'll tap into one of the mainframes. If there's something hidden in these records, Marshall and I can probably find it."

Jack put his hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Thanks,"

"Dad, about the prisoner that we're holding—" Kim started.

"What is it?"

"I just talked with Vaughn," Kim paused. "Sydney says that she knows him from her time at SD-6.".

A vague alarm went off in Jack's head. "How?"

"Dad, I know what you're thinking," she started, "but according to both Vaughn and Nadia, she specifically gave instructions that he not be killed. She also had numerous opportunities to take him out while in the hospital."

Jack blinked. "Really? Where is Wu being held now?"

"They're prepping a room for him now," Kim said. "Second floor, north wing. Follow the CTU jackets."

"Get started on that mainframe," Jack stopped for a moment. "Start your search with Michael Mancini. Kar-Wai and his men gave the guy a royal smack-down. Maybe they did it because he knew where the bodies were buried."

"I saw the guy," Kim said. "He even tried to grope me when he though I wouldn't notice."

Bauer's glance darkened, and his daughter smiled. "Don't worry, Dad, I used the finger lock you taught me when I was in high school. But, like I said, he doesn't seem like much."

"They cut off his thumb," Jack pointed out. "Even a rat bites when it's driven into a corner."

10:13:03/10:13:04/10:13:05/10:13:06

"You're sure about this?" Vaughn asked Syd as they finished securing "It's not that far from here to either home base. They'd be more equipped to handle this than a county hospital."

Sydney shook her head again. "The kit in my car has more than enough materials for a successful interrogation," she told him. "Besides, the bullets are still fresh in Wu's legs. I'm not giving him a chance to recover. Hell, we've done quicker interrogations."

"That's fine, but first you've got to explain something." Both agents looked as Jack walked up to them. "Why do you want to go at this guy so badly? What's your history with him?"

Sydney didn't even blinked. "Seven years ago, after Dann-- after my first fiancé was murdered, I learned the truth about SD-6 and Sloane's complicity in the Alliance. I was targeted for termination, and the only way that I thought that I could avoid was to complete the last mission that Slone had assigned. So I went to Taiwan, where in addition to my first ever contact with a Rimbaldi device, I met a very twisted scientist whose favorite method of torture was doing his best imitation of Laurence Olivier from Marathon Man. " Sydney paused. "He had several henchmen aiding him."

Jack nodded slowly. He had read her files, but somehow missed this part of Sydney's career. "And Jin Wu was one of those men?"

"Sydney, I thought you killed all of those people," Vaughn remarked.

"I thought I had, too." Sydney said. "But then again, I thought the good doctor was dead, and yet he survived to torture one of my friends. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that another of those bad pennies has turned up even after all this time."

"Syd, are you sure that you're the right person to be interrogating him?" Jack asked.

Sydney gave a sarcastic smile. "Says the man who couldn't wait to be let back in the same room with Nina Myers." She saw Jack wince and changed tones. "I'm sorry, that was an unfair comparison. Jack, if it was Arvin Sloane, you'd have due cause to be worried. There is no way I could be reasonable when faced with that bastard. "

"You're right, it's different," Jack argued. "If it had been Sloane, he wouldn't even have made it to interrogation. But you're right, by comparison this guy's a cockroach. So why did you let him live when there were other suspects to talk with?"

"Though I didn't know it when I went to Taiwan," Sydney began. "The people involved were a small thing that ended up being tied to the tail of a dragon. Now, while it's possible that Scarlet Circle chose to attack this hospital for the exact reasons they told the world, I know that nobody in this room believes that was the only reason."

Jack nodded. "And you think that this Jin Wu knows what this attack was all about?"

"I'm willing to bet that none of the people, including Hsu Kar-Wai, knew what it was really about." Sydney argued. "But my guess is that they know somebody who was pulling the strings for what's happening today. Now, if we'd taken any of the others prisoners, we'd probably have to dick around until we found exactly what buttons to push to get the answers we need."

"And you think that because you have a history with this guy, you can find that button faster?" Vaughn surmised.

"Wu has a long rap sheet," Sydney said. "And this was a very long time ago in his career. He's probably forgotten who I was, at least in connection with that particular mission. But I think that I have a way to obtain all the information he's got. This just has to be done a specific way."

"Sydney, you're a great agent, but your experiences at interrogation have been extremely limited," Jack told Sydney. "What do you think you can get out of this guy that Vaughn or I can't?"

"You'll see," Sydney said coolly. "Just make sure the rooms properly set up, and when you bring in the kit, make sure there's a pair of pliers in the kit." She paused. "The duller, the better."

10:19:22/10:19:23/10:19:24

Jack Bristow had just finished a long conversation with Driscoll assuring her that Division's authority would not be undermined while APO was running point on the hospital. As was almost always the case, Sydney's father felt like that handling the paperwork for these things was a bigger headache than the actual crisis. So when Kim walked up to him, he was almost welcome to hear anything that had to do with the actual crisis.

"Mr. Bristow, I think I may have information about this hospital."

"In regards to what?" he asked.

"You're aware of what happened to Dr. Mancini?" Kim asked. "Well, assuming that they weren't cutting off his thumb just for fun, they probably wanted it to obtain some kind of security clearance somewhere in the hospital. As you know, there are a lot of government protocols where you can only obtain clearance with some kind of fingerprint scan. "

"Does Wilshire Memorial operate under any such protocols?"

"Not according to the public records," Kim admitted. "The use retinal cans for access to their microbiology labs, and the like, but no fingerprint based biometrics. Marshall's in the process of going through every intra- and outside agency search to find out if there may be something that we overlooked. But that's not what has me suspicious."

By now, Kim had walked back over to her laptop, and the elder Bristow followed. "I started a background check on the chief of staff to this hospital, and while he makes a good living running this place, I don't think the pay's that good."

"You found a money trail," Mr. Bristow said.

Kim rotated the computer to show him the monitor. "Mancini has a bank account in the Cayman Islands. One minute into my search, I found a series of deposits amounting to more than fifteen million dollars over the past two years. I've got CTU running back-traces to figure out where it came from."

"Don't bother," Sydney's father said flatly. "I recognize some of the transferred codes. This money came from a DARPA slush fund."

"Since when does the Defense Department sponsor county hospitals?"

"When they're doing something they want to hide in plain sight. How long will it take for you to figure out who sent the money?"

"I'm not that good behind a keyboard," Kim said. "The reason I found things this fast is because Mancini was sloppy when it came to protecting the money on his end. If you want me to start traipsing through the Defense Department's back channels, I'm going to need at least another thirty minutes."

"Why bother going through the back door when we can go in the front?" Mr. Bristow asked. "Contact Defense using our call sign, and ask about any program they have involving Wilshire Memorial Hospital."

"You don't think they'll put us through some kind of runaround?"

"Given what's already happened today, I think they'll be falling over themselves to cooperate—especially given that they should know that their precious doctor had been taken hostage."

Kim screwed up her mouth a moment in thought, then nodded. "I've met Mancini. He was probably squealing to his DARPA contacts before the gunfire died down."

Mr. Bristow nodded, then took out his cell phone and dialed.

"Santos."

"Nadia, are you ready to get back to work?" he asked.

"I had a brief journey to the showers, so I'm ready, What do you need me to do?"

"I need you find Dixon and question Dr. Mancini about why Scarlet Circle chose to attack his hospital."

There was a pause on the other end. "Are you saying he was involved?"

"I'll be texting you the information in a minute; suffice to say, the good doctor has been less than forthright in telling us why the terrorists chose to single him out.

Nadia considered this. "How hard to you want me and Dixon to go at him?"

Now Jack Bristow paused. "From everything I've heard, Dr. Mancini isn't a hardened criminal. He might not even know all the details about what exactly has been going on." He hesitated again. "Go at him relatively soft at first."

"And if he gives us shit?"

"Grab his left hand, and start squeezing."

10:26:12/10:26:13/10:26:14/10:26:15

Chloe had gotten the thankless job of going through the hospital's security footage to see if there was something that they had missed while Wilshire Memorial had been besieged, in case there was something that APO had missed. She had been about to voice her complaint about what she was seeing, when something came up about ten minutes before the hospital had been stormed. She had since done some quick searches and found several disturbing things about the footage that were starting to unnerve her.

"Michelle, I think I've got something," she told her supervisor. "Sydney mentioned that there was some kind of handoff between two of the hostiles."

"What've you found?" Michelle asked.

Chloe keyed up the footage from one of the footage until one good get a clear look at both figures. "The man on the left is Jin Wu, but the man on the right doesn't match any of the dead terrorists we recovered."

"So the terrorists had someone on the inside in the hospital," Michelle surmised. "Do we have any idea who this guy was?"

"I just finished cross-referencing with the staff of Wilshire Memorial," Chloe followed up. "According to the records, his name is Doctor Benjamin Lee, one of the hospital's research fellows. "

"What do we know about this Lee?"

"That's just it. The only Benjamin Lee that I found in the AMA database is the head of the Emergency department at Mary Magdalena in Atlanta." Chloe paused. "He passed away a year ago."

"How did he die?" Michelle asked.

"An automobile accident out in Marietta, Georgia. Cause of death was recorded as a DUI, but the M.E's report had Lee's blood alcohol at less than half the legal limit. "

Michelle considered this. "Chloe, now is not the time to be coy. If you think that you've got something, now's the time to say it."

"I'm not going to know anything for certain until I get the photos back from the Georgia State police," Chloe said carefully, "but I think that somebody killed this man so they could have his name and credentials."

Tony walked on to the floor. "I just spoke with Sara. We've got another problem," he said abruptly.

"Yeah, because we don't have enough of those today," Chloe said snidely.

"APO just did a background check on the hospital Chief of staff," Tony told them, ignoring Chloe's comment. "Sara just confirmed that he's been receiving large sums of money from the Department of Defense."

"For what?" Michelle asked.

"We've got people here and at APO looking into it, but if Defense was willing to pay millions to do this, I'm betting it has nothing to do with curing the common cold." Tony shrugged. "Michelle, get on the phone with whoever we have at DARPA."

10:30:59/10:31:00/10:31:01

When Sydney looked at Wu's face when she entered the operating theater, she didn't see any hint of recognition. She knew it wouldn't last. If this thug didn't give her what she wanted fast, he was going to remember her very quickly.

Considering that Wu had been effectively hobbled by Nadia, tying him up was probably superfluous, but there he was: arms and legs tied to a surgical bed. There would be a little less maneuverability then there would be in an interrogation, but Syd was counting on the claustrophobic nature of the room to work in her favor.

"I know that you speak English," she said in Cantonese as she approached the prisoner, "but I'm gonna see if, when I start in on you properly, what dialect you'll be screaming obscenities. I'm just telling you," she switched to English, "when things start to really hurt, you go ahead and go for broke."

Wu had a look of stoic defiance on his face. "You will learn nothing from me", he said in heavily accented English. "I am willing to die."

"I think you're wrong about that," Sydney said as she removed some acid from the kit. "See, I'm not convinced that you and your people came here intending to die for your cause. Otherwise, you'd have attached the explosives to your vest, and triggered the explosive when I was chasing you down." She found the entry point in his left knee. "At the very least, you would've eaten your gun when I got to you. No, you want to live. You definitely want to survive."

Sydney then poured the acid over the bullet wound. Wu let out a scream of pain that echoed throughout the suite.

"They really didn't want me working on you," she said as if the scream had never happened. "They think I'm all wrong for this part of the job. I feel too much empathy, even for the enemy." She removed a combat knife. "And I've been tortured often enough that I lack the capacity to do what is necessary, even to the most heinous of villains. And, normally this would be true. But, even in my case, there are exceptions."

She entered the blade in the wound, turned it forty-five degrees to the left, and held it in that position for ten seconds before yanking it out. Wu was practically howling in pain.

"Now, there's an easy way, and a hard way to do this." Sydney said through her teeth. "The easy way starts with me asking you who Hsu Kar-Wai and the others were working for, why you attacked this hospital, and what your primary objective for today really is. You start telling me these things, I give you some morphine and we start treating these wounds instead of trying to infect them. "

By now, the pain had passed from Wu's face. "I am a soldier in a great army," Wu said. "And you won't kill me because I'm all you have left. Whatever the hard way is, I can take it."

Sydney had figured it would come to this. "You really don't understand your situation," she said as walked to the kit and removed the instrument she needed. "See, your definitely going to survive today. The question is, when I'm finished, will you consider it worth living?"

She paused. "You see, Jin, you obviously don't remember, but we've met before—it's probably the hair. Remember Taiwan? Seven years ago? Pink hair? You worked with a man in a white coat who wanted my intel. In order to get it, he used one of these."

When Wu saw the pliers, a look of horrified recognition came to his face. Sydney couldn't help but feel a bitter sort of satisfaction at this

"This is the hard way, and you're about to see how this works from the other end of the looking glass," Sydney whispered "Last chance, why did you attack this hospital?"

Wu started to hyperventilate. "I don't know!" he shouted. "Hsu told us that this was enough of a high probability target! There's nothing special about this place!"

.It was a huge part of Sydney's job for her to read people, and she could see how terrified the prisoner was. She could also tell he was hiding something.

"Wrong answer," she whispered.

Wu clamped his mouth shut, so Sydney swung the pliers down on his wound. When he opened his mouth to scream, she darted in with the pliers, and grabbed one of his front teeth, and began yanking-- deliberately not as hard as she could. The tooth began to come out slowly, and Wu was literally howling in pain.

"This is the real reason you wanted an expert, " she said slowly. "With your doctor friend this would go quicker."

10:38:48/10:38:49/10:38:50/10:38:51

A hospital is not built with the same soundproofing you get at a government facility, and even though the surgical wing where Sydney was working on Wu was nearly three hundred feet away, howls of pain were still audible in the area around the reception desk. Despite this, Nadia was still pretty sure that the reason Mancini was so jumpy had everything to do with the questions she had been asking him.

"I think that I had better call my attorney before we go any further," he was telling her for at least the third time.

"I don't know what kind of flashy California legal mind you've got on retainer," Nadia told him darkly, "but Perry Mason couldn't get you out of the mess you're in. You've been taking money from the Defense Department for two years and not reporting it to the IRS. At the very least, you are guilty of tax fraud on a massive scale. As a federal officer, I could take you into custody right now."

"But, your job is connected to terrorism," Mancini was starting to sound a little frantic now. "I'm not like that. The money was a kickback from a research grant."

"I don't believe you," Nadia told Mancini, "and even I did, what kind of research would a county hospital be giving to Defense?"

"I don't know. They told me that the project was classified to only the highest levels of government. The people who approached me about it were only middlemen. They didn't know all the details, either."

"And you didn't think to mention any of this to us when a group of terrorists showed up on your doorstep?" Nadia sneered. "You didn't even bother to tell anybody about the high security checkpoints that are in your own hospital?"

"They insisted on the upgrades a year ago," Mancini was backpedaling now. "Besides, the terrorist never mentioned anything about that research."

Nadia was tired of dancing with this weasel, and though she thought that half an hour in APO's custody would have him singing like a canary, she didn't want to waste anybody else's time. So she walked over to Mancini, dropped her hand around his hand, and slowly tightened her grip, steadily putting more pressure on it.

"You've got till the count of five to start telling me in detail what Defense wanted your hospital for," she said in a throaty whisper. "Otherwise, I'm gonna rip your hand off, and shove it up your backside. One-- two-- three-- four--"

"All right, all right!" Mancini managed to squeak out. "Three years ago, I was approached by a Defense Department liaison calling himself Simon Grady. He said he was responsible for selecting some private health organizations to work on a government project involving genetic research!"

"What kind of research?" Nadia demanded.

"He gave me a lot of paperwork, explaining the scientific concepts, but I had a lot of trouble following along. Finally, he said that it to do with making genetic alterations in order to better combat viruses that are being used by organizations like Al Qaeda. When I told him that a process like this had to go before our board, he asked me how much money it would take so that no one else in authority had to work on it. "

"And you just believed him," Nadia said doubtfully.

"Hey, I haven't trusted the government since I stopped believing in the tooth fairy," Mancini retorted. "But the guy was willing to pay me an obscene amount of money to have a couple of other people working on one project that took up one room in the hospital. I got mine, so who'd it hurt?"

Nadia was about to hold forth on how incredibly stupid this man had been, before realizing that it would probably be wasted on him. Besides, he had admitted enough to get himself sent to prison. He was theirs now.

"Where is this research being kept?" she demanded, releasing his had.

"The laboratory office closest to the back exit," Mancini said, trying to rub his hand as discreetly as possible.

Nadia walked away from the desk, and over to Dixon. "Contact CTU, and ask them about a defense contractor name Simon Grady, and his connection to a project having to do with genetic research," she told him.

"What the hell does Defense want with this hospital?" Dixon asked.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it's sounding a lot like Defense was involved in genetic engineering some kind of viruses for combat duty," Nadia said. "Have Kim or Marshall come up with anything else?"

"Following a lead from CTU, Marshall thinks we've figured out that the man on the inside was Benjamin Lee, one of the research fellows. It's looking like Lee is a manufactured alias for Scarlet Circle use."

"Have you backtracked Lee to anyone specific?" Nadia asked.

"No, but they find one interesting tidbit. According to the medical records for this hospital Benjamin Lee, he had three plastic surgeries done over a six month period."

"You think this could be another example of the Helix project?" Nadia asked.

Dixon shook his head. "The two Lee's have different DNA, according to their hospital records. But I think the same principle applies: Scarlet Circle needed someone who would pass scrutiny with the board, so they killed and replaced him with someone who'd fit their needs."

As Nadia considered this, another yell of pain could be heard-- this one so loud, that several of the other hostages looked up uncomfortably at the sound.

"Sydney's throwing herself a little vigorously in interrogating this suspect, isn't she?" Nadia said with a half-grin, half frown on her face.

"If you're worried about the guy, you shouldn't have kneecapped him," Turning serious again, "I've known Syd a long time, and with one exception, I don't think I've ever seen her this keen to personally interrogate someone." No one had to mention who that other person had been.

"Well, she's probably got a damn good reason," Nadia said. "Look, I think we've gotten all the useful intel that we're going to get out of Mancini. Have somebody take him into custody."

"Whose?"

"I think the police will do for now," Nadia looked ahead. "Something's tells me were going to have a lot bigger fish to fry."

10:50:11/10:50:12/10:50:13

Normally, it takes a trained dentist five to six minutes to painlessly extract a permanent tooth. Sydney had taken twice as long (and with no anesthetic) to make sure the experience was as painful as possible. Now, she decided it was time to stop screwing around, and throw the far of God into this thug.

With one very sharp yank, she removed the front tooth from Wu's mouth. The second it was gone, he gave a scream that made his other shouts of anguish seem like positive whispers. Sydney paid it no more mind then she would have a ticking clock-- in a sense she had removed herself the entire process a while ago. She merely put the tooth on a small shelf, and turned her attention back to the prisoner.

"Now let me tell you," she said, "how this is going to work. I'm going to ask you thirty-one more questions. Each time you fail to give a more than adequate response, you get to go through all this fun again, only amped up significantly. When I'm finished asking my questions, I'm going to throw up my hands, and turn you over to the good people at Justice. They have enough cause to get the death penalty, but I'm going to make sure that you get life with no parole. They will send you to one of the many fine detention facilities we have for enemies of the state. You will be in solitary for the rest of your life, sipping your meals through a straw, stuck in a wheelchair rolling around, unable to have a coherent conversation with any of the few guards who are present. You'll probably try to kill yourself within the first three months, but I am going to insist that you get put on suicide watch, and that they keep you alive as long as possible. That is going to be my punishment to you. "

Sydney let Wu reflect on this for a whole thirty seconds. "Now, are you going to tell me what Kar-Wai were really doing here, or do I have to keep doing something I'm kind of getting a kick out of anyway."

Sydney gave him another thirty seconds of silence. "Hey, it's your mouth."

"All right, all right!" Wu shouted. "I'll tell you what I know!"

"What was the primary objective in attacking this hospital?" Sydney demanded as she put the pliers down.

"We were a Trojan Horse," Wu said. "Our job was to obtain a cache of genetically engineered viruses that were being stored in this facility."

"Bullshit," Sydney said. "Who would keep that kind of weaponry in a county hospital?'

"Some subcontractor for the Defense Department." Wu said. "Our man on the inside learned about the project over a year ago. We were to help him get through the security checkpoints."

"Once you obtained the virus, where were you going to deploy it?"

"When we arrived in California today, we were told that for greater security, we would be broken down into smaller cells, which each member of the cell knowing only about that group's primary objective," Wu said slowly. "The only ones who knew about the other cells plans were Hsu, and the inside man."

"Stop screwing around, and tell me who the inside man was," Sydney demanded.

"I don't know his name; all I know is that he worked at the hospital and was taking his orders directly from Li Chin Wang," Wu told him.

Sydney thought that she had gotten all the information that she could get out of Wu, but there was still one thing she needed to know. "Who commissioned this job?"

Wu suddenly got nervous. "It was strictly a Scarlet Circle operation."

"Scarlet Circle is strictly an Eastern Asian organization," Sydney reminded him. You wouldn't venture this far from home unless somebody with deep pockets arranged at least part of your mission. Now I want to know who, or I start working on another one of your bicuspids."

"All right1" Wu sputtered frantically. "I'll tell you."

10:56:43/10:56:44/10:56:45

Dixon walked up to Jack and Vaughn who were still waiting for Sydney to come out. "We think we know who Benjamin Lee is," he told both of them. "CTU took the security footage from the hospital of this Lee, and ran it through their facial recognition software. They didn't get any hits. However, after Marshall ran it through a facial reconstruction program he has on file," he took out on of the paper, "he got a face that looked like this."

"Who does it match?" Vaughn asked.

"See for yourself." Dixon showed them the papers.

"Son of a bitch!" Jack swore. "You're telling me that the head man behind Scarlet Circle's 's been in this hospital and none of us knew it?!"

"I've got our people sweeping the place now," Dixon told him, "but there was nearly an hour of lag time. There's a very good chance he just walked out the back door."

Before any of them could say anything else, Sydney emerged from the room, looking like she'd seen a ghost.

"Did he talk?" Vaughn asked.

"Oh yeah," Sydney told him. "Jack, I have to contact CTU, and I'm going to need you to contact the President. We're going to need the next five minutes he has."

"What did he tell you?" Jack asked

"That Scarlet Circle came to this hospital to obtain an advanced genetic weapon designed by the Department of defense, and that they probably got it while we were standing with our heads up our asses."

"Was that it?" Vaughn responded.

"Does it look like that's it?" Sydney responded. "He told me that the job was commissioned by an old acquaintance I wish would stay forgot." She paused. "Julian Sark."

Undisclosed Location

The man who had once was falsely assumed to be Dr. Benjamin Lee a year ago walked into the front door of the followed by several felons, white and Asian. He took the large case that he was carrying and put it on the ground.

"Start with the first vial," he said in Cantonese to a man in a white coat wearing protective gear.

While the case was being opened, he walked back outside at the building, and hit call on his cell phone. "We're at the first stop. We have the goods."

"Have you begun to wrap them?" a voice with an English accent that sounded cultured and dangerous.

."We are beginning now,"

"How long until the first one is ready for delivery?"

"Within the hour."

"Call me before you mail it," Julian Sark told Li Chen Wang.

10:59:57/10:59:58/10:59:59/11:00:00