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Hour Three is all about the hostage crisis at L.A.'s Ontario Airport, as we learn that the bad guys are not only armed, but also wearing explosive vests. President Logan's furious that the terrorists are demanding a repudiation of his precious anti-terrorism treaty. And Kiefer's furious that Derek is one of the hostages. Kiefer stays hidden in the terminal to act as the eyes and ears for CTU (with whom he's called an uneasy truce) while Logan goes all pointy-haired on Buchanan. The terrorists start executing hostages, and Derek's . Meanwhile, FLOTUS still hasn't given up on her conspiracy theory, and goes to rather amusing lengths to get her own access to the written transcript of her call with Palmer. Kiefer gets Chloe and Spencer to go off-protocol and help him detonate one of the terrorists' vests in order to stall Derek's execution. CTU's rescue plan is coming together nicely. But then Walt, who is of course privy to the President's discussions about all of this, tattles to The Man about Kiefer's position in the terminal. So then the CTU mission gets aborted, and Kiefer has to give himself up to the terrorists to save Derek's life. He's going to have to do something about his weakness for irritating teenagers, and soon. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The terrorists' panel truck burns merrily outside the terminal at L.A.'s Ontario Airport, where people are running around like a truck bomb just went off. The airport cops arrive in their cars, sirens screaming. One of them, who we'll soon learn is named McLaren, starts barking orders into his radio. Diane runs up to him, freaking out about Derek being inside. He tries to shoo her back away from the building, but she gets away from him and runs towards it instead. Another officer grabs her, and as he drags her away past McLaren, she wails, "I have information for C-T-UUUUU!" Damn, I used to like that actor. Now I'm starting to wish she'd swallow a balloon.
Inside, the terrorists are still securing the concourse -- chaining the doors, spray-painting the security camera lenses, moving vending machines, and the like. They're taking off their outer jackets, and we now see that all of them but Bald Guy 2.0 are wearing vests with explosive charges wired to them. Everybody in bombs! Bald Guy 2.0 is keeping an eye on the hostages, who are huddled around on the floor. He spots one guy who's sneaking a cell phone out of his pocket, and nods to one of his minions. The minion obediently pops the guy through the heart. Can you hear him now? I DON'T THINK SO, BITCH! The hostages begin screaming anew. Bald Guy 2.0 announces that any chance of survival the hostages have is dependent upon their cooperation, and he orders them to toss their cell phones and pagers on the floor. Everyone obeys. A mother is trying to comfort her little boy, who's probably about five. That's rough, dude. Bald Guy 2.0 has his men herd the hostages into a circular clump in the middle of the concourse, while two minions drag out the body of the dead cell phone guy. The guy's dead, I mean, not his cell phone. So at least that's something.
Kiefer's still lurking in the catacombs of the baggage area. Although his gun's out, he stays out of sight as two minions come in. They're looking for Chevensky, the baggage supervisor who killed himself before Kiefer could interrogate him at the end of the last hour. They don't really look that hard, because they could just step around another corner or two and spot his foamy-mouthed corpse lying there. Or at least follow the smell of almonds. Instead, as Kiefer watches from his hiding place, one of them answers a cell phone and reports to Bald Guy 2.0, "Chevensky's not here." Bald Guy 2.0 tells them to keep looking, and the minions decide in Russian to go search some other rooms. Kiefer stays hidden.
Outside, the airport fire trucks are pulling up as McLaren's cell phone rings. It's Bald Guy 2.0 (whom the closed captioning now identifies as "Beresch") calling to tell the cops that his guys are all wearing explosive vests, and they're prepared to blow up themselves and the hostages. Just to illustrate, he states, "If you make any efforts to enter the terminal, you will spend the rest of the day collecting body parts." Beresch hangs up before McLaren can sneer that he's off-duty in fifteen minutes. Not really. McLaren gives some more orders to his guys: set up a security perimeter, move the fire trucks out of the way, and bring Diane to him right now. He's going to regret that decision. Especially if I have anything to say about it.
Back in the luggage area, Kiefer climbs up a set of shelves, moves aside an acoustic tile overhead, and disappears into the ceiling, man-purse and all.
It's 9:06:10 at CTU. Audrey climbs the steps to Buchanan's office (formerly and variously known as the KieferKube, the DrisCube, and the BitchelleHole, when I might as well just call it the Hot Potato Room), and they agree that they should lower their people's respective alert levels now that the Russian president has arrived safely at Not Camp David. Buchanan also reveals that Curtis did indeed find the bodies of Jeff Kober and crew at the refinery. Audrey thinks that means the rest of Chloe's story might be true, but Buchanan isn't ready to assume too much in regard to Kiefer's innocence. Right then his desk phone rings, and an operator tells him Kiefer's on the line. Well, speak of the devil. Buchanan pointedly picks up his handset and tells the operator to put him through. Audrey asks Buchanan to put the call on speakerphone, and Buchanan reluctantly complies. When Kiefer's voice comes through, he's all business: "Bill, I'm inside Ontario Airport. Gunmen have just attacked and taken over Terminal One. They have automatic weapons and they have hostages." This is the first Buchanan's heard of it. While he's getting Kiefer to explain what he's doing at the airport in the first place, Spencer comes into Buchanan's office with news of the attack at the airport. Way to be on the ball, there, Spence. While Buchanan is telling Spencer to have all tactical teams and Curtis sent to the airport, Kiefer -- who's positioned unseen behind a grate overlooking the terminal concourse -- uses his camera phone to take photos of the hostage-takers. Buchanan then tells Kiefer to get out of the airport, turn himself in, and let CTU handle it. "Understand this, Bill," Kiefer says. "I don't work for you." Well, yeah, that sounds tough and all, but that's pretty much what Buchanan just said. That line makes Kiefer sound like Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. Kiefer's point is that Buchanan needs his intel, which means they're going to have to handle things Kiefer's way. Kiefer sends over his camera phone photos of the bad guys so CTU can identify them. Buchanan agrees, and says he's sending a schematic of the terminal to Kiefer's phone. Before wrapping up the call, Kiefer tells Buchanan that he's sent Diane and Derek Huxley to CTU. Buchanan asks who they are. Kiefer says, "I don't have time to explain" -- we see Audrey's face looking interested -- "but I'm responsible for them." Buchanan promises to take care of the Huxleys. End of call. Buchanan tells Audrey to alert President Logan. At 9:08:44, Kiefer looks around his hidey-hole and finds a ladder that he hopes will lead to a better vantage point. He and his man-purse are on the move.
Logan and the Russian president are still shaking hands for the cameras. And probably for painters and sculptors, in light of how much time they're taking. The Russian president, Suvarov, expresses his condolences over the death of Palmer. Logan thanks him, and smilingly says their treaty will be a tribute to Palmer's legacy. Logan's nothing if not single-minded. His unctuous expression melts away when he spots Mike Novick and Walt walking towards them, looking serious. Logan excuses himself for a quiet conference with his guys. They quietly inform him of the situation at the airport, and we're treated to the spectacle of Logan trying to smile as if nothing's amiss while pumping his underlings for details. They don't have many of those, but they think they should retire to the Situation Room immediately. That's the last thing Logan wants to do right now, but he makes his excuses to Suvarov, who offers to do anything he can to help with the hostage situation. Logan thanks him, and he's outie. Like an idiot, Logan is smiling and waving to the cameras, which is going to be awkward for him later when everyone realizes he knew about the hostage crisis at this moment. All he needs to complete the picture is a copy of My Pet Goat.
At CTU, Spencer is getting ready to send plans of the terminal to Kiefer's cell phone, while Edgar is searching databases for a match to Kiefer's photos of the bad guys. He's not having much luck, and when Buchanan suggests widening the parameters, Edgar bitches, "If it was any wider, we could use the phone book." Right then, Chloe appears, shaking off the two redshirts that have been escorting her to a holding cell since the end of the last episode. Now that's a long perp walk. She technobabbles something at Edgar that's meant to be helpful. "Are you okay?" Edgar immediately responds. Chloe says, "Thanks for asking, Edgar," and cuts a dirty look at Spencer, who's just sitting there looking guilty. Buchanan steps right up to Chloe and rumbles, "You managed to rack up four protocol violations." Chloe doesn't exactly cringe in fear, answering, "Well, it's a lot worse than that if you count agency doc codes. It's more like twenty-six violations." Buchanan is totally disarmed by this. Chloe continues, "You want me to figure out whose face that is? Or I can just go wait in holding." Buchanan says, "See what you can do." So I guess anything over twenty-five violations is okay? Like shooting the moon in Hearts? Good to know. By now, Edgar has already identified Bald Guy 2.0 as Anton Beresch, a former Army officer in a former Soviet republic. That's all Buchanan needs to conclude that the attack is definitely connected to the summit. Chloe gets to work on data mining, because she has to stay useful in order keep herself out of the clink. If things slow down on the terrorism front, I hope she knows how to make coffee.
Audrey rushes up and says that the terrorists are making a broadcast from the airport and the networks are picking it up live. Spencer puts it up on the CTU big screen, and we can see that Logan and his sidekicks are watching as well from Not Camp David. The image on the screen shows Beresch, wearing a ski mask and talking to the camera about the anti-terrorism treaty that the presidents are going to sign that morning. As we see Kiefer making his way onto a metal-slatted catwalk that forms part of the terminal's ceiling (having failed to accidentally Bender right through the ceiling like Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club), Beresch makes his demand: "I have hostages. Unless President Logan and President Suvarov make a joint statement repudiating this accord, I will order their execution. You have exactly ninety minutes." At Not Camp David, Logan screams to get Beresch off the air. Not out of the terminal, just off the air. Now that's leadership. Novick reminds him they can't force the networks to drop the signal. ["Kudos to Ciccolella for the silent '…you bonehead' that he added to that statement with his face." -- Sars] Kiefer takes up position on his catwalk, lying flat on his belly and peering through the slats with his cell phone earpiece tucked in. As he does so, Beresch finishes up his statement in support of terrorists, and yay, terrorism, and give us our own sovereign nation of Terroristan. Logan turns off the TV and throws a wobbler. "We've been preparing for this summit for sixteen months! Every news agency in the world is here. I've staked my entire administration on this day and now these people are demanding that I go on national television and publicly repudiate everything I've done?" Novick calmly advises the president to "take a moment." Logan just yells back, "I want this handled! I don't care how you do it, I don't care what it takes, FIX IT!" And he storms out. So the buck stops...where, now?
It's 9:14:02 as a CTU helicopter delivers Curtis to the command post that's been set up outside Ontario Airport. Somehow he can hear his cell phone ring even when standing directly under the rotors, and he answers it. It's Kiefer, giving Curtis the bullet: he can see four bad guys with bomb-vests guarding the hostages, two are roaming, and there are two chained-but-unguarded security doors on the northeast side of the concourse. Curtis dispatches a recon team to the northeast and asks Kiefer to "quarterback this thing from inside." While he's still on the phone, Officer McLaren, Airport Cop tells Curtis that Diane Huxley is there with info for CTU. Kiefer's quite surprised to hear that name, and asks to talk to her. Curtis puts her on. She tells Kiefer that Derek ran into the terminal to "warn" Kiefer, but she's not sure that Derek made it all the way inside. Kiefer tells her to hold on, digs his rifle scope out of his man-purse, and starts scanning the herd of hostages. It's not long before he locates Derek's scraggly mane. "Dammit!" he curses, quietly but forcefully. He confirms to Diane that Derek is with the hostages, but unharmed as yet. She begs him not to let anything happen to Derek, and he promises on his life that he's going to get Derek back to her. He can make that promise, you see, because he'd rather kill himself than listen to the weapons-grade whining that would ensue if Diane lost her son. Weeping now, Diane gives the phone back to Curtis, who's just looking at her hilariously like, Damn, I thought Kiefer's taste couldn't go any further downhill. Kiefer asks Curtis to let Diane stay at the command post, and I'd say Diane's lucky that Curtis owes Kiefer his life, because Curtis agrees. In return, Curtis asks Kiefer to let him know if anything changes in the terminal. Once off the phone, Kiefer hisses, "Son of a bitch!" He looks down at his favorite hostage, and I bet he's missing Spawn a lot less right now. It's 9:16:43.
9:21:12. Kiefer continues watching, the hostages continue huddling, Diane continues getting on my nerves, and Buchanan is holding a photo of Beresch. He's on the phone to Logan, Novick, and Walt, explaining that they've identified Beresch as a member of exactly the kind of terrorist organization that Logan's treaty is designed to fight. Well, no wonder. I'm sure the terrorists would be against anything that might make terrorism illegal. How would they make their livelihoods then? Logan says he doesn't plan to cancel the treaty signing, so they've got under ninety minutes to rescue the hostages. Buchanan says they're on it, although he uses more words than that. Logan impatiently says, "Spare me the agency patter, just get it done." Buchanan warns Logan that there may be more civilian casualties, but Logan isn't accepting that: "It's your job to make sure people get out of there alive," he tells Buchanan. Novick suggests opening a dialogue. "Yes, what about talking to them? Have you tried that?" Logan bitches sarcastically, like Buchanan's the idiot for not thinking of it. ["Cue another priceless reaction shot, this one a 'yeah, we're on it, Screechy, but thanks for your input' from James Morrison. Good work by these guys." -- Sars] Buchanan explains that they're working on back-tracing the call that Beresch made to McLaren earlier. Logan just wants it done: "When I put my name on that accord, I do not want to be signing the death warrant of innocent American citizens." End of call. Chloe comes in, having found Beresch's number, and Buchanan tells her to start dialing. He doesn't tell her to let him do the talking, but even Chloe seems to think that goes without saying.
At the terminal, Derek is trying to calm the woman who's quietly panicking to him. "It's going to be okay," he whispers. At 9:22:45, Beresch's phone rings, and he answers it. Buchanan introduces himself, saying he's been authorized to speak on the President's behalf. But since the President isn't about to ditch his treaty, Beresch isn't too interested in anything else Buchanan has to say. "I don't think you understand just how serious we are," Beresch growls, and hangs up. He goes over to where the hostages are gathered, selects one, and orders his men to lead him away from the rest. Kiefer reports this to Curtis as the hostage is dragged away and his hands are restrained with a plastic tie thingy behind his back. Pulling his ski mask on, Beresch orders the hostage onto his knees in front of the video camera. The feed is back on the network, and Logan breathes, "Oh, my God," as he sees what's happening. The hostage whispers to Beresch, "Please, I have a wife." "So do I," says Beresch, and shoots the hostage in the head. Mrs. Beresch will be proud. Logan flinches, the hostages scream, Kiefer and Novick look sad, and Walt looks blank, since nobody's looking at him anyway. Chloe watches Buchanan watching the live feed of the hostage's body being dragged out of the shot at 9:24:33. Before anyone can say anything further, a masked minion grabs another hostage out of the herd. And this time it's Derek. "No," Kiefer whispers. He tells Curtis he's moving to another hiding spot so he can see where they're taking Derek. Curtis is also watching the live feed on a monitor as Derek is led to the spot in front of the camera and is forced to kneel with his hands tied behind his back. Diane sees this and runs up, completely losing her shit in a frequency that awakens every bat within ten miles. The airport cops obligingly drag her away and stick her in a nearby SUV. If they really wanted to be proactive, they would then roll the SUV off the end of the Santa Monica Pier. But I can see they've got a lot going on.
In front of the terrorists' camera, Derek is holding it together much better than his mom is as Beresch tells the world, "In fifteen minutes, your President will get another demonstration of our commitment." Kiefer asks Curtis how long it'll be until they're ready to move, and Curtis says it's going to be at least a half hour before everyone's in place. Kiefer says that's too long, and they argue for a minute. Curtis says they can't risk all the hostages for one kid, whatever Kiefer's connection to him might be. Curtis promises to hurry, and Kiefer realizes that it won't be long before he's forced to do something stupid.
Derek looks down and sees that he's kneeling in the blood of the hostage who was just shot. It's 9:26:34. Now that's a short act.
9:31:02. Derek waits to die, Kiefer watches from on high, Diane tries not to cry, and Buchanan straightens his tie. At Not Camp David, the First Lady is in her room watching a rebroadcast of Beresch's initial demand with her maid, Evelyn. It's clearly getting to her, so Evelyn starts to turn off the TV. FLOTUS grabs the remote away, and she's once again starting in on her "David Palmer tried to tell me something about national security last night" kick. And now that she's back on her meds and they've taken effect in the last half hour or so, she's lucid enough to have decided that somebody altered the phone recording that Logan played for her last hour. Evelyn wonders who would do that, which is her polite way of saying, "You a crazy lady." FLOTUS tells Evelyn to cover for her, and walks out the door, ignoring Evelyn's question as to where she's going. Evelyn hates her job so much.
Up in his hidden perch, Kiefer takes a camera phone photo of one of the terrorists, zooming in on a device in the front of the guy's vest. He then calls CTU and is surprised to get Chloe on the line. She explains that she doesn't have to go to a cell now that she's a member of the regular cast. Kiefer sends her the camera phone photo he just took, asking her to enlarge and enhance the device that caught Kiefer's interest. Seems that's a secondary detonator that allows the leader to blow up his guys via cell phone if one of them gets cold feet. Or if they talk back to him, maybe. I'd bet Beresch has a very respectful work force. Chloe gets working on identifying the detonator so she can get the detonation frequency for Kiefer. Kiefer has to admit that Buchanan doesn't know about this plan of his, and tells her to check the live feed of the hostage to die. "Oh, my God, it's Derek," Chloe realizes. So she's on board now. As she hangs up at 9:33:47, she flags down Spencer, who happens to be walking by. "I was really worried about you," he says. Chloe brushes that off and asks for his help in figuring out how to get Kiefer's phone to emit an alternate signal. Spencer picks up on Chloe's even-more-intense-than-usual twitchiness, and realizes this isn't quite kosher. But she manages to get him to help anyway, without even having to flash her tattoo at him.
Hey, look who's at Not Camp David -- it's Palmer's former Secret Service guy, Aaron the Lipless Gnome. He taps on the door to FLOTUS's suite, saying he's there to escort FLOTUS to the Garden Room. But nobody's there except Evelyn the maid, who has to cover for her loopy boss. "She's in one of her moods," Evelyn tells Aaron through a crack in the door. "If you push her, it'll make it worse." Aaron nods wearily, like he's been through this a hundred times before, and agrees to wait outside. I bet he misses Palmer more than anyone else does.
FLOTUS is lurking through the hallways somewhere else in the compound at 9:35:56. She totally ambushes some guy in the men's room in the middle of his peeing. The closed-captioning even TMIs the phrase "[liquid flowing]." Dear God, closed-captioning. Go to your room and think about what you've done. The poor dude is already flustered at having been caught urinating in front of the First Lady of the United States, and then he has to zip up and answer her seemingly random questions about the call recording system. He explains that hard copies of call transcripts are kept in the Archive Room down the hall. FLOTUS wants in, but Archive Guy says that access is restricted, and he can't let even the President's wife into the room. She asks to borrow his security card, and he declines. And then we see that sometimes, in order to get what she wants, even the First Lady of the United States has to pop out a boob. "In about three seconds, I am going to scream louder than any woman you have ever heard in your life," she says calmly, hiking up her skirt. The guy's holding out his card to her by the time she gets to two. She politely thanks him, sticks his card in her teeth (ew, he didn't wash his hands!), puts herself back together, and leaves the men's room. It's 9:37:38.
9:42:04, and the standoff at the airport continues. Kiefer calls up Chloe while she and Spencer are furiously working to identify the detonator from the online Sears catalog, and tells them that Derek's going to be killed in less than three minutes. Actually, if my math holds up, Derek's going down in negative two minutes. But what's five minutes between terrorists?
At the command post, Curtis is giving instructions to his men. He tells them to be sure and shoot quickly, before the bad guys have time to blow themselves up and kill the hostages. Buchanan rings in from CTU and asks what their time frame is. As with almost every scene with Buchanan from now on in this episode, Audrey is in the room with him but has absolutely nothing to add to the discussion. To her credit, she refrains from talking anyway. Curtis says it'll be about fifteen minutes.
Beresch approaches the spot where Derek is kneeling on the floor in front of a ticket counter trying not to hyperventilate. Since he's got his mask off, he stays behind the camera. He asks Derek how old he is. Derek says fifteen, which, bullshit. That actor has to be at least twenty. Wait, I just looked it up and he's going to be eighteen this year. My mistake, but still. I guess I just figured that no parent would let their kid wear his hair like that. All avuncular-like, Beresch coaches Derek to control his breathing. I notice that the smear of blood Derek was kneeling in earlier has become a small lake, as if he's bleeding out through his femoral artery. Nice continuity. Sensing that a rapport is building, Derek asks Beresch not to kill him. "It's up to your President, Beresch says. Nice thing to say to a kid who isn't old enough to vote.
It's 9:44:06 when Buchanan gets a call from Beresch. "The boy hasn't long to live," Beresch says. Buchanan tries to buy more time, but Beresch isn't selling any, and he hangs up. Kiefer leans on Chloe some more, but she and Spencer are moving as fast as they can. Beresch puts on his mask so he can go on camera. At the CTU command post outside, one of the agents calls Curtis over to watch the live feed on the monitor. At CTU, Spencer finds the detonator's frequency, and Chloe tells Kiefer how to set up his phone to remotely detonate that one explosive vest. Kiefer follows Chloe's instructions, and now he just has to wait for his phone to reboot so he can press the star key and make bad guy go boom. But the rebooting is taking forever. Kiefer's phone display practically reads, "SUSPENSE BUILDING."
"Your president has abandoned you," Beresch tells Derek, who by this time is panting so hard that he looks about to aspirate his own face. "I'm sorry," Beresch says, putting his gun to Derek's head. That second, Kiefer's phone finishes rebooting. Also that second, a terrorist's patrol route takes him down a hallway out of sight behind a display of tourist brochures. Kiefer hits his star key, and a mighty explosion comes from the spot where we last saw that terrorist. Tourist brochures fly everywhere in a most satisfactory way. The set department is only sad that they couldn't also have that area occupied by a produce stand, a wedding cake, two guys carrying a huge plate-glass window, a house of cards, and an aquarium full of exotic tropical fish. We'll just have to be content with the flying brochures, another nearby terrorist blown off his feet, and a bunch of drywall fragments hurtling through the air. No actual Half-Life-style giblets are visible, alas. Obviously, Derek's execution is put off for a moment as the terrorists, including Beresch, rush to see what happened. The other hostages scream, because that's what hostages do.
"What was that?" Buchanan demands of Curtis. All Curtis knows is that there was an explosion, so Buchanan asks to be transferred to Kiefer. Terrorists run around as Beresch screams orders at them. On the CTU floor, Chloe and Spencer wait for the hammer to come down on them for their part in this. One of the minions reaches the blown-up hallway and obviouses to Beresch, "It was Ibrim's vest. It must have detonated by accident."
Kiefer tells Buchanan, "One of the terrorists' vests blew up, but none of the hostages were hurt." Nice how he tries to imply that it just sort of happened. Buchanan won't let it lie, though, and Kiefer hesitates before deciding to tell Buchanan that he was behind it. He says he didn't have a choice, and that he didn't give himself away, so it all worked out. He asks if Curtis is still on schedule, and Buchanan confirms it. This is a good time as any to mention that Audrey hasn't yet spoken into the speaker phone, so as far as we know, Kiefer doesn't know she's there. Kiefer hears Beresch down below, telling his guys to get into a different formation and check the circuits on their vests. If that were me down there, I'd be checking the circuits on my vest via long-distance telephone by now.
At 9:46:47, Buchanan gets a call from Logan. Buchanan takes a moment to decide to give his entire pension to Logan's opponent in the election before he takes the call. Logan, who's still in the Not Camp David Situation Room with Novick and Walt, wants to know what's up with the explosion he's heard about on the news. Buchanan assures him that everything's under control, and that "our man inside" blew the vest in order to stall an execution. Logan asks if Buchanan authorized that, like it matters, and Buchanan says he didn't. He takes a deep breath and Band-Aid-rips, "You should know, Mr. President, the man we're talking about is Jack Bauer." Logan is gobsmacked. He doesn't understand why the suspect in the Palmer shooting is working with CTU now, so Buchanan says they're starting to think Kiefer was framed. "It's complicated, Mr. President," Buchanan understates. "Why am I only hearing about this now?" Logan demands. Buchanan says he didn't want to distract the President with details. Wrong thing to say; Logan goes all Bad Boss and orders, "You. Tell. Me. Everything. And I will decide which details are relevant!" Buchanan says there isn't time. Logan: "Then TALK FASTER!" Hee hee hee! Logan's funny when he's losing it. It's 9:48:02
9:52:25. Kiefer continues to overlook the concourse, FLOTUS sits on the floor ransacking the Archive Room, Derek's knees must be getting tired, and Aaron the Lipless Gnome is bored of waiting for FLOTUS to come out of her suite. Evelyn tries to put him off a little longer, but he's not impressed. Blowing right past her anemic bluster, he quickly determines that FLOTUS isn't around. He tells Evelyn, "If something happens to Mrs. Logan, the blame will fall on you." I normally dig Aaron, but at this point I really have to say, shut up, Secret Service guy who's been standing outside the door doing nothing for fifteen minutes. But Evelyn folds anyway.
Cut to FLOTUS in a very undignified position on the floor of the Archives Room, showing quite a bit more leg than is strictly FLOTUS-ly. She flips through file folder boxes, tossing them every which way until she seems to find what she's looking for. And I have to give props to the Not Camp David transcribers for their quick turnaround on getting these transcripts typed up, printed, and filed in less than twelve hours. If 24 does a four-hour season premiere again year, I'm totally asking Sars if they can help me with the recaps.
It's 9:53:42 as Curtis gets his men ready to go. He checks in with Diane, telling her Derek is still alive, and then he leads his guys toward the terminal building at a run before she can start screeching again.
Aaron finds FLOTUS still on the floor of the Archives Room. If she really wanted her little expedition kept secret, maybe she should have gone back as soon as she found what she was looking for, rather than hanging around to mess things up even further than she already has. Aaron tells her it's time to go. I notice that she's going to have to get her hair fixed yet again. She gets up, puts her shoes back on, and goes out to the hallway, where the two people she's gotten in trouble in the last twenty minutes are outside waiting for her. She sticks Peeing Guy's card key in his shirt pocket, and takes Evelyn's arm to walk with her behind Aaron. Evelyn apologizes profusely for giving her up, until FLOTUS tells her, "Stop apologizing. It's annoying. Besides, I got what I came for."
At 9:55:12, Walt comes out to the back garden with its fancy concrete moats and tropical plants to make a cell phone call to The Man. He reports, "Jack Bauer is inside [the airport terminal] providing recon for CTU's rescue operation, which will launch shortly." He adds that Kiefer blew up one of the terrorists. Walt doesn't have Kiefer's precise location, but he's concluded that he "has a connection to one of the hostages -- a fifteen-year-old boy named Derek Huxley." Uh, I don't remember hearing Buchanan telling Logan that. He must have been talking very fast indeed during that last commercial break. Walt sees Aaron coming and fakely wraps up his call. Aaron reports that FLOTUS is back in her room getting ready, explaining that the delay is due to FLOTUS's little expedition to the Archive Room. Walt hides his alarm at this development as he asks Aaron what she was doing there. "The First Lady is safe and accounted for," Aaron says. "You'll have to ask her anything beyond that." I do enjoy Aaron's formal-yet-salty manner. Walt looks like he does indeed want to ask FLOTUS a few things, and ask them with his boot.
At the airport, Derek's still not dead. Kiefer watches from above as Beresch redeploys his men. He calls Curtis -- who is now making his way with his men through the darkened catacombs inside the terminal -- to give final positions on the terrorists, and to promise to give real-time updates on their movements as Curtis attacks. Curtis's team gets set up to go.
"This is it," Buchanan tells Audrey. They take one more look at Derek, still kneeling on the live feed.
But, oops, Beresch is just getting off his phone, and he doesn't look like he got good news. "Hostages up!" he orders. It's 9:57:32 as Kiefer tells Curtis to hold on, since Beresch is changing something. One of the minions brings Beresch a laptop, which he places on the ticket counter. He taps the keys, and suddenly both Kiefer's and Curtis's ears are flooded with painful feedback that's almost as shrill as Diane's voice. Their call is cut off. At CTU, Buchanan and Audrey hear the static as well, and Buchanan stresses at Curtis to reconnect with Kiefer immediately. Meanwhile, Beresch picks up a phone behind a ticket counter and speaks into it so that his voice is carried over the public address system. "Jack Bauer," he calls out. He signals for Derek to be brought to him. "Derek is a very brave young man," Beresch announces. "I will shoot him in the head if you don't show yourself immediately." Damn. But at least it's a nice change from all those "please control your luggage" announcements you usually hear in airport terminals. Kiefer realizes the jig is up. Up in the ceiling with him, in fact.
Buchanan is still trying to get Curtis to get back in touch with Kiefer, but it's still not happening. Curtis doesn't think it's a good idea to go ahead with the strike, since the last thing Kiefer said could have meant that Beresch is moving the hostages into the area where Curtis's guys are going to be shooting. "Abort!" Buchanan barks.
All of the hostages except Derek are standing in a clump near the ticket counter, their hands behind their heads. Minions push Derek back onto his knees in front of Beresch, who repeats his threat over the intercom. In other splitscreen windows, Diane frets; Walt investigates the mess FLOTUS left in the Archives Room, and one empty folder in particular; and Logan turns away from the live feed.
Over the PA, Beresch says he's giving Kiefer five seconds before he kills Derek. He only gets to three before Kiefer shows himself. Kiefer sure got down from the ceiling quickly, didn't he? He also ditched his man-purse somewhere along the way. I suspect that the man-purse is lying in wait to throw itself at Beresch at a critical moment. Kiefer puts his gun on the floor, and a minion ties his hands and forces him down to his knees. Kiefer tries to kill Beresch by glowering at him, but that's one lethal skill that he hasn't yet mastered. On the other hand, it's only 10:00:00.