Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Swap Meet
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.22.2007
AudreyCam. She's staring blankly into the middle distance when Cheng's cell phone rings in the background. The caller is Kiefer, telling Cheng where he is. Cheng starts to give Kiefer further directions to where he is, but Kiefer cuts him off and says he's calling the shots now. He says that since CTU wants to stop the exchange, and he knows CTU's satellite coverage, he needs to pick the location for their rendezvous. Cheng trusts Kiefer's intimate knowledge of CTU's orbital surveillance -- despite the fact that this is only Kiefer's third day at work in about five years -- and he agrees to let Kiefer name the spot. Kiefer tells Cheng to meet him at an abandoned hotel called the Calderone on the 305. Cheng warns Kiefer not to try anything stupid. This time it's Kiefer who gets to hang up first. Yeah, you show him. Cheng tells Audrey that they're leaving. Audrey doesn't react, but she flinches when Cheng starts yelling at his men in Mandarin. Or maybe it's Cantonese. I can't pretend to know the difference. It could be Afrikaans for all I know. Audrey is dragged to her feet and led stumbling towards Cheng's parked limousine. It's 12:10:17.
12:14:42. Tom and Karen are in the Oval Office with the Veep and Lisa; Karen says that CTU assures her that they're doing everything they can to find Kiefer. The Veep's unimpressed, since they let Kiefer steal the component in the first place: "Their assurances mean nothing." Aside from giving the Veep a long-overdue chance to be rude some more. Tom diplomatically steps in to suggest launching a multi-agency search, and everyone agrees on that. Not that anything's going to come of it. Tom and Karen leave. Lisa asks if the Veep needs anything else from her. I'm going to gloss over it, because it's really gross, but the Veep basically makes out with Lisa and asks her to "spend what's left of the night" at the White House. But where will she sleep? Does the White House have enough bedrooms? Lisa says she'll go home for a change of clothes. The Veep wisely refrains from suggesting that she not bother, and instead see if she can forage an old outfit of Martha Logan's or something.
Doyle has just reached Kiefer's last known location near the power line towers. As he pulls off the freeway, he's on the phone with Nadia and Buchanan, the latter of whom warns Doyle that if the Chinese get the circuit board, it'll cause an international incident. "I know the stakes, Bill," Doyle says shortly as he parks and gets out, because he watched the previouslies. There must be a full moon out tonight, or at least a glow-in-the-dark fallout cloud overhead, because Doyle is able to quickly spot Kiefer's pickup tracks in the dirt. As Nadia looks at a map on her computer screen, Doyle asks her what's east of there. Nadia names two state routes, and Doyle figures that Kiefer's taking the one that doesn't have traffic cameras on it. He also advises Nadia to check recent cell phone calls from the area, and has suddenly remembered that he saw Kiefer snag a terrorist's cell phone from Fayed's safe house last hour, in case that helps. Doyle gets back into his stolen car and peels out.