Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Carry-on Kiefer
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.23.2006
Looks like Henderson's injured, but he doesn't spend much time licking his wounds before scrambling out of his car to take cover. And start shooting from it at Kiefer, who's just pulled up in his police car. Kiefer tells Audrey to get down and does the same himself, but as soon as the first salvo is over, he jumps out and heads into the barn. The two men exchange shots, and then Henderson is out of ammo. "Damn!" he hollers, just so Kiefer knows he's empty, and falls back. While limping away, he's reaching into his jacket for a fresh clip, but Kiefer stops his flight by shooting all around him. Henderson freezes, as a Henderson-shaped section of the far wall fails to topple to the ground. Kiefer makes him turn around, drop his empty gun, and raise his hands. "Do it or I will kill you," Kiefer says with even greater conviction than usual. But Henderson still has another card up his sleeve: "You kill me, Jack," he monotones, "Secretary Heller dies too... There's always a contingency plan, Jack, you know that." Especially when you have unlimited men. Henderson must be a great chess player, provided his opponent lets him keep putting captured pieces back on the board. As Audrey shakily comes into view behind Kiefer, Henderson says that his men have been tracking Heller by chopper ever since he left Not Camp David. And I'm sure the Secret Service had no problem with that unauthorized incursion whatsoever. Henderson continues that unless he contacts his men every fifteen minutes, they have orders to kill Heller. "Which means you've got about three minutes to save his life." Audrey rather inconveniently asks if Henderson's telling the truth, ignoring Kiefer's request for her to get back in the car. Without taking the gun off of Henderson at 1:10:04, he makes his prisoner step forward, put his hands behind his head, get on his knees, and handcuff himself. With Henderson thus secured, Kiefer's able to switch from gun to cell phone and get Chloe on the line. His instructions for her are threefold: patch him through to Heller's cell phone, pull up Heller's car on satellite by tracking his signal, and send the satellite image to Kiefer's PDA. Chloe barks a bunch of technobabble at Buchanan to make that happen, and adds "Sir" when she notices his hands aren't exactly dancing over the keyboard. I don't think that's why he was slow to obey, Chloe. She transfers Kiefer to Heller's cell phone.
Heller's on the road all by himself, looks like, and Kiefer tells him to look for a helicopter that may be tracking him. Heller leans out and spots the chopper, and asks who it is. "Henderson's men," Kiefer says, and that's enough for Audrey to look even more miserable than before. Heller asks if Henderson's bluffing. "He doesn't do that, sir," Kiefer says, never taking his eyes off Henderson's. By now, Chloe's gotten Heller's car on satellite, and she's sending the image of it to Kiefer's PDA. Meanwhile, the chopper following Heller's car has turned a spotlight on him as it tracks his progress. Heller looks down at the glowing red dot that's dancing across his chest now, reacting to it like I do when a bee lands on me. By which I mean "freezing in terror," not "crying like a toddler." His three minutes are up already? "Jack, they have a laser sight trained on me," he reports nervously. Without hanging up, Kiefer tells Henderson to stand up. "You give me the recording, I let you go," he says. "That's the deal." Henderson refuses. He's saying Kiefer's going to let him go, even as Heller's barking into his ear to do no such thing. "If I had listened to you in the first place," Heller ass-kisses, "none of this would be happening. This is my responsibility." ["Drink!" -- Sars] He orders Kiefer not to let them get away with it. "Tell Audrey I love her" is his sign-off. Kiefer asks him what he's doing, but the line is already dead. Audrey takes a step toward Kiefer in anguish. And Heller drives right off of the road, over a cliff, and into a lake a hundred or more feet below. I don't know how he could see to do that in the dead of night, but there it is. Dude must have eaten his carrots. The back end of the vehicle remains in sight for a moment, then sinks beneath the waves. The helicopter looks pissed.