Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT One-Term Wonder
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 23 | Aired on 05.21.2006
He tells Henderson and McCullough that it's time to move closer to the sub. Henderson tells Kiefer, "I know you've got Malina's .45 in that bag. Give it to me." Kiefer makes a grumpy face, but fishes it out and hands it over. Henderson doesn't bother checking the clip, because he just did that less than a half hour ago, and what could have possibly happened to it since then?
It's 5:09:05 in the Not Camp David Situation Room, where Logan and Novick are bunkered down to deal with the, uh, situation. Looks like evacuation isn't an option, even if they knew what Bierko plans to hit, which they don't. Logan demands to know how the submarine could have been accessed in the first place, which is an excellent question. Novick explains that the Natalia is being serviced at a civilian port rather than a Naval base. Excellent plan on a day like today. Obviously if you have a heavily armed engine of war in town on the day of multiple terror attacks, you want security around it to be as lax as possible. As excuses go, it's right up there with the "mountain terrain" of Iowa. But what's done is done, and now Novick has to explain that the F-18s aren't going to arrive in time to sink the sub. Novick illustrates all of this with an impressive arsenal of local-TV-weatherman gestures at the display screens scattered around the room. Also scattered around the room? Other people! Some of them are even in uniform! Logan really has changed if a national security crisis doesn't mean a one-on-one session with his Chief of Staff any more.
FLOTUS is peeking into the room from the hallway, unseen. She calls Aaron on her cell phone to let him know that Novick is still in with her husband, and they're in crisis mode. Aaron figures it's time for him to get out of Dodge, but FLOTUS says it's still too risky for him to leave. Because, you know, it isn't obvious that her husband is scalp-deep in other things to worry about right now. She asks Aaron for a little more time, and he agrees.
At CTU, Chloe has somehow managed to remotely patch her screen into the sub's weapons systems, which are showing that there are only nine minutes and forty seconds to missile launch. Unfortunately, she can't do anything about it, because she apparently has read-only access or something. She updates Kiefer over his earpiece, and he asks Henderson how long it's going to take him to shut down the launch sequence. Henderson confesses that he won't know until he gets there. Chloe says that Rooney is calling back, and patches him through to Kiefer. "I'm thirty feet forward of the hatch," Rooney tells Kiefer, and adds that the guard is still there. Probably not a good idea to be talking in a normal voice right now, then, even though he's hiding around a corner and the guard has his back to him. I know there's probably a lot of white noise on a sub, but not so much when it's docked, okay? Rooney has switched out his walkie-talkie in favor of an earpiece/miniature microphone combo that he might have gotten off a Secret Service agent, and asks Kiefer what's next. Kiefer says Rooney needs to kill the guy without alerting anyone else. "Are you right-handed or left-handed?" Without asking the relevance, because he probably doesn't want to know, Rooney simply says he's right-handed. So Kiefer says, "I want you to approach him from behind. When you're within eighteen inches, I want you to take your left hand, put in on his mouth, and pull his head back into your chest, exposing his neck. I want you to take your right hand and slit his throat." Rooney is bug-eyed at what he's hearing, although he doesn't seem to have considered the possibility that he's being Punk'd. Kiefer continues, "You need to cut deep to sever the vocal cords and the carotid artery." There you go, kid. Now you're trained. Rooney says he's not up for this, but Kiefer says that's too damn bad. The closed-captioning says, "I need you to visualize the hostile down on the ground, dead," although Kiefer pronounces it, "You need to focus on the objective. You cannot afford to think about this, son. You need to do it." Chloe cuts in to say that they have less than nine minutes, and it's not clear whether Rooney can hear her. But after Kiefer repeats Rooney's name a couple of times, and warns him that they're running out of time, Rooney casts his eyes down to where one of his crewmates is lying dead, his head hanging out in the gangway. And that gives him the resolve he needs. "Cut him deep, cut him fast," Kiefer instructs. At 5:11:55, Kiefer and his two sidekicks start moving towards the sub.