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As expected, the First Lady's decision to act as a human shield for the Russian president hurls Logan's brain into catastrophic vapor-lock, and he spends the hour scaling new heights of passivity. McGill's not doing much better in the face of all the speed bumps along the route of his power trip, so Audrey's basically running her own shadow CTU behind McGill's back. Until, that is, Curtis relieves McGill of command for being a loony. The only active lead CTU has to the nerve gas directs Kiefer to his old, disgraced mentor (Peter Weller, with an emphasis on "old"), who's now head of R&D at the company that manufactured the gas. And it turns out that Weller's also a sneaky bastard, as he pretends to help Kiefer while he's really setting him up for a killing. Which doesn't work, in case you were worried. As for the planned attack on the Russian president's motorcade, CTU picks up some chatter and (no thanks to McGill) warns the Secret Service just in time. So now Logan's in trouble with his wife for not stopping the attack himself, and he's also in trouble with the terrorists because the attack failed. And it looks like Bierko's going to release the nerve gas after all. You think Logan will learn from this experience and realize that it might occasionally be to his advantage to sack up a little? Me either. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Vladimir Bierko is in his bunker, watching the progress of the Russian president's motorcade in real time using a highly illicit, classified surveillance satellite uplink. Or possibly Google Earth. From where he's standing to a white van parked outside somewhere, the VladimirKo henchman I think of as "Fucked-up Accent Guy" calls Bierko on his satellite phone to ask, "Whizzy mutter gay naw?" Bierko answers him as if he had actually asked, "Where is the motorcade now?" To Fucked-up Accent Guy's indecipherable torrent of glottals, fricatives, diphthongs, and plosives, he answers, "About forty minutes." Fucked-up Accent guy spews something else, then hangs up and knocks on the van door. And a couple of guys climb out with what look like the components of a bazooka. Just the kind of thing you want to be seen standing outside with in public on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, in the Not Camp David Situation Room, Novick is showing Logan a map of the motorcade's route. The Secret Service threat assessment he's requested (which he said he couldn't do last hour) indicates that the most likely spot for an attack is downtown. "If an ambush were to occur," he hedges. Because we need to remind slow-moving viewers what's going on, Logan coolly says they can be assured it will happen, since they gave the terrorists Suvarov's route. Logan's already figuring out how to spin this politically, when Novick gets a cell phone call. His expression falls. After getting off the phone, he takes a long time to make sure Logan's good and nervous before breaking the news: the First Lady hopped into the Suvarovs' limo before it left. Logan freaks, and wonders why the Secret Service didn't try to stop her. Novick points out that the motorcade was already under protection, so they didn't see any need. "She wants me to call back the motorcade," Logan deduces. "She's trying to save the Suvarovs." What a shame that such a brilliant mind is only limited to two terms in office. Novick offers to call the motorcade back, and Logan snaps, "Yes! No, stop, wait." He rubs his face as he remembers that warning the motorcade will result in the terrorists releasing the gas. But not warning the motorcade will get his wife killed! But warning the motorcade will get thousands of Americans killed! Logan's in an agony of indecision. This is easily distinguishable from his other moods, which include frustration of indecision, contentment of indecision, general malaise of indecision, and giddiness of indecision. Novick watches him, unimpressed. With minor variations, I've just recapped almost every Logan/Novick scene in this episode. But I'll continue, for you guys. "Get my wife on the phone," Logan barks.
The Suvarovs' motorcade is traveling along a freeway that appears to have been blocked off both ways, because the vehicles that comprise it are the only ones in sight. In fact, the motorcade will appear to be traveling through a completely deserted Los Angeles for most of this episode, because there's no safer route for the Russian President than the one that takes him through footage from The Omega Man. In the back of the limousine, Mrs. Suvarov is nattering on about orange groves while her husband pouts out his window at not getting a quickie on the way to LAX. FLOTUS herself, who claimed she was riding along so they would have "more time to talk," is just sitting there distractedly. She covers well, though. Suvarov silently wonders about his chances for a threesome.
Up front, Aaron answers the ringing car phone and hears Logan saying, "Let me speak to my wife." Aaron lowers the partition to the back seat -- fortunately, not interrupting anything -- and tells FLOTUS that her husband's on the line. FLOTUS picks up the extension in the back and pleasantly says, "Hello, Charles!" He starts trying to talk, but she blows right over him, saying the Suvarovs enjoyed their visit and are inviting them to Moscow. "Won't that be lovely?" she says. Maybe, if they get to stay for more than seven hours. Logan instructs FLOTUS to tell the Suvarovs that she's needed back at Not Camp David, and that one of the follow cars will bring her back. "I don't think so, Charles," FLOTUS flutters. Logan says he knows what FLOTUS is up to, but he doesn't want the terrorists to release the gas. "Well, I guess we'll just have to figure something out before that happens," FLOTUS says. She hangs up on her husband's impotent sputtering, saying, "I'll talk to you soon." If she really wanted to get her way, she'd put him on speaker.
Back at Not Camp David, Logan's desperate. He floats the idea of having FLOTUS brought back by force, but Novick points out that if FLOTUS is desperate enough to put herself in harm's way, she'd almost certainly be prepared to blow the whistle to the Suvarovs. "And Suvarov will know that I gave him up for assassination," Logan says, looking even more terrified at that thought than the reality of his wife being in jeopardy. Bad husband! Bad! Novick asks, not for the last time, if Logan wants him to recall the motorcade or not. Logan just looks lost, standing there in a gastrointestinal urgency of indecision.
It's 4:07:16 at CTU as Audrey approaches Edgar's workstation and invites him to a "secret meeting" in the server room. Edgar's first question is, "Am I in trouble?" You are if you think this means you're getting any action, dude. Audrey leaves him alone, but she's too slow to avoid getting spotted by McGill, who's just coming down the stairs from his office. He charges over to Edgar and demands, "What'd Audrey Raines want?" Edgar says something about "DoD protocols" (which McGill should know by now is code for "I'm lying to you"). McGill looks around for someone else to beat up on, and his eyes light on the second-closest person to him, a pretty brunette named Carrie who's staring up at him with deer-in-headlights eyes from behind her monitor. He complains that she's supposed to be monitoring chatter, and she says they are. McGill bitches about it not being on his screen like he asked. Edgar tries to step in, but McGill snaps, "Mirror everything to my screen until we've secured the nerve gas. Is that clear?" Carrie says it is and McGill snots off, satisfied at having made another enemy. From his position of sitting around nearby doing nothing, Curtis watches him pass, his face troubled. Not troubled enough to look busy, but troubled nonetheless.
Back in the server room, Audrey has met up with Chloe, who has somehow determined from Kiefer's chip that the company known as Omicron International was definitely manufacturing Sentox nerve gas. "The terrorists found out about it," Chloe concludes. "Or worse, they were in contact with Omicron." As they sit down together at a computer, Audrey notices that Chloe has the name Christopher Henderson highlighted on her screen. She learns that Kiefer once knew him, but not much beyond that. Audrey picks up the desk phone and dials.
Driving along in the CTUmobile he stole from Curtis, Kiefer answers his cell phone. Audrey tells him that Omicron is definitely the gas's manufacturer, and Kiefer says he's almost at the company's headquarters. He asks her to set up a cover for him to get inside the building: "There's someone I need to talk to. I don't want him to see me coming." You're going to love how well that works out. Audrey asks if he means Christopher Henderson, and Kiefer hesitates in surprise before grunting, "Yeah." Audrey proceeds to grill Kiefer mercilessly on the significance of Henderson, and we learn the following: Henderson recruited Kiefer into CTU lo these many years ago, was his boss for a while, and then "things ended badly." It seems that Kiefer was part of an investigation that showed Henderson had sold classified information to defense contractors, and while there wasn't enough evidence to indict Henderson, he lost his job. Like that doesn't happen to every CTU boss, sometimes more than once in one day. Audrey asks if Kiefer is convinced Henderson was guilty. "I was at the time," Kiefer says. Kiefer looks a little impatient with all these questions, but he answers them because it's stuff he thinks we need to know, I guess. Having acted as Kiefer's conduit for expositional back-story long enough, Audrey says there's no proof yet that Henderson is directly connected to the Sentox. But Kiefer is confident that Henderson knows about any Sentox-making going on at the company. He tells Audrey to call back when his cover's ready.
Edgar arrives in the server room, wondering what Chloe's doing there. He looks offended, as if his chances of a server-room tryst didn't just double (and two times zero is...?). Audrey explains to him that Kiefer is on a lead in the field. This is news to Edgar; not only was he not brought into the loop on this last week, he didn't have any lines at all. But then if he had, Audrey and Chloe wouldn't be able to tell him that the reason they're going behind McGill's back is because he's turning into an even bigger asshole, and everyone who missed the last episode would be lost. Edgar's worried about all the sneakiness, but Audrey says they can't afford the risk that McGill might "derail the only good lead that we have." And I have to say that I would probably agree with McGill on that one. Because how is finding out where the nerve gas came from going to tell them where it is? They know it was at the garage, and before that the seaport, and before that the airport, and before that it was at Omicron International. Pretty much the only way this lead could pan out in real life is if the space-time continuum loops back on itself somehow. But since it's Kiefer who's chasing it down, I'm sure it'll be a veritable trove of useful data. Anyway. Edgar asks what they need from him, and Audrey simply asks Edgar to "Cover for Chloe until Jack reports back." You're going to love how well that works out, too. But for now, Chloe pulls her eyes away from her monitor and glares up at Edgar with such evil hatred that he has no choice but to consent. Because you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but a Chloe's patented brand of estrogen mixed with strychnine trumps them both.
At 4:10:44, Novick is just getting off his phone as he rejoins Logan in the Situation Room. He tries to bright-side that nothing has happened to the motorcade yet, and Logan says there won't be any warning. He says he needs to talk to the terrorist and tell him that FLOTUS is in the car. Novick doesn't think that'll cut much ice: "The only way to keep Martha safe is for me to call Secret Service and tell them to turn the motorcade around!" Logan desperately asks how CTU's search for the gas is going, and Novick says the search is going nowhere as of five minutes ago. "What am I missing, Mike?" Logan finally demands. Novick all but rents an airplane and writes in the sky, in fifty-foot letters, "Any action we take to save Martha would also save the Suvarovs. And if that happens, the terrorists will release the gas. Unfortunately, it's that simple." Logan finally gets it: "Unless I warn them, Martha's going to die with the Suvarovs." Uh, Logan? If Martha figures out that you did nothing to save her, you'd fucking better hope she does. Or for the rest of your term, you're going to be sleeping in the White Garage.
In the limo, FLOTUS gets tired of sitting there like she's having a fatal migraine and taps on the partition to the front. Aaron rolls it down, and FLOTUS asks him, "Have there been any changes?" Aaron says no, and rolls the partition back up. The Suvarovs are beginning to look at FLOTUS with concern, if not outright suspicion, and Mrs. S. asks if FLOTUS is all right. "I just wanted to be sure we didn't run into any heavy traffic," FLOTUS lies. In Los Angeles, on the freeway, at 4:12:47 PM? Gosh, I can't imagine they would.
It's 4:17:02 as McGill wanders by to harangue poor Carrie some more. She's just gotten off the phone with Homeland Security, which pisses McGill off because she hasn't finished mirroring all the systems to his screen yet. "And yet," he bitches, "somehow you have time to chat with Homeland Security." Like Homeland Security wanted to tell Carrie about its plans for the weekend and the cute outfit it just bought and don't you hate how hard it is to find something to go with an Orange Alert? Carrie explains that DHS asked her for updated code sets. "It'll just take another minute," she flusters. "No it won't," McGill snaps, and tells Edgar to take over for her, because she's totally fired. Carrie gets up, starting to cry. I'd feel a lot worse if we'd ever seen this woman before this episode. Edgar starts to speak up in her defense, but McGill's not hearing it: "Edgar, one more word out of you, and you walk out with her. What's it gonna be?" It's that last bit that makes it so insufferable. "Prickmaster," Edgar says, and walks out. No, obviously not our Edgar. Amazingly, McGill becomes even more insufferable by scoffing triumphantly when Edgar turns back to his computer. But suddenly, McGill notices that Chloe is nowhere to be seen. He asks Edgar where she is, and Edgar says he doesn't know. Great covering there, Edgar. McGill huffs off, and we see that Curtis has been watching McGill's latest pissy little display with growing concern. If it gets much worse, Curtis may have no choice but to stand up.
It's 4:18:15 as Kiefer parks his stolen CTUmobile in Omicron's parking lot, narrating in real time into his cell phone. As he hops out, Chloe and Audrey are both on the line from the CTU server room, technobabbling that they're getting Kiefer's cover into place on Omicron's computer system. He's entering under the name John Barrie, and they've even pulled up what looks like the photo from Kiefer's old Defense Department ID badge. Kiefer's on his way into the building, but Audrey says it's going to be a minute before Chloe finishes uploading it to Omicron's system. Just then, McGill bulls into the server room, demanding to know what Chloe's doing there. Audrey, to her credit, jumps in with both feet to say she asked Chloe to help her with something. She even blocks McGill's progress before he reaches a spot where he can see Chloe's monitor, and rather awesomely stands her ground. McGill reminds her that Chloe works for him, but Audrey trumps that by pointing out that DoD has assignment priority over CTU. McGill all but throws himself on the ground and beats the floor with his feet and fists as he bitches about Audrey overstepping, even as she makes up a smooth excuse about Chloe being the only person who could do a system patch on the server. "Everything in this office runs through me!" McGill yells at Audrey. She yells right back that they're all trying to do the same thing. McGill demands Chloe back. Fortunately, Chloe has just finished with her Omicron-related mischief, and pops up out of her chair before this can escalate any further. As she heads back out to the floor, she chirps, "Sorry Mr. McGill, it won't happen again." McGill follows her out. At first I was surprised that he didn't have more to say to Audrey about this, but then I remembered that he didn't know Chloe was in on the cover-up last hour. Or maybe all it takes to shut him up is to let the baby have his bottle. Or maybe he's mellowing.
Kiefer arrives in the fancy, spacious lobby of Omicron International, where he presents himself at the front desk as John Barrie and says he has a 4:30 with R&D. Despite the ratty brown jacket Kiefer's wearing in a lobby full of suits, the guard can't argue with Kiefer's photo popping up on his system, or his professional manner, or the thumbprint reader that "confirms" Kiefer's identity. A moment later, Kiefer is past the security desk and wandering the bowels of the building at 4:20:03. If the word "bowels" can apply to this place, which is a feng shui dreamland of wide corridors and natural light that makes the headquarters of Wolfram & Hart look like a bomb shelter. Fucking California. Where I live, we're happy if the Skyway is attached to our building. Kiefer just happens to amble past a cavernous outer office where a familiar voice is giving scheduling instructions over a loud speakerphone. So Henderson is such a bigwig that he works on the ground floor? Kiefer approaches the secretary who's operating this end of the phone, and pretends to be looking for the men's room. Unimpressed, she gives him directions, but instead of hitting the john like we know he wants to, as soon as he's out of the secretary's sight he pulls out his cell phone and calls Audrey to create a distraction. Audrey's on it. A moment later, she's on the line with the secretary, introducing herself as Jane Espenson, of all people, and saying there's an invoice issue in accounting that requires the secretary's attention. The secretary intercoms "Mr. Henderson," saying she'll be right back. From around a corner in the hallway, Kiefer watches her go and draws his weapon. Good thing no one else is in the hall right now. It's only a moment before Kiefer's inside Henderson's inner office. And then someone tasers him from behind. And my shit cracks up.
The taserer turns out to be Christopher Henderson himself, wearing glasses and a wireless phone earpiece, and played by Peter Weller. I used to think there were two categories of Peter Weller fans in the world, but I may have underestimated. Maybe you could vote in the poll at the right of your screen and clear that up for me. Henderson may or may not be surprised to see Kiefer, but we can't accuse him of not having been prepared to taser someone, because he pulls an ampoule of smelling salts out of his pocket and quickly pops it under Kiefer's nose. And when Kiefer wakes up, Henderson has made his earpiece and glasses vanish, and Kiefer's gun is in Henderson's hand, even though we never saw Henderson bend over to get it. Wow, that guy's good. Henderson sits in his chair, the gun still trained on a panting and grunting Kiefer, and says in that sardonic monotone that both kinds of fans remember so well, "Just for the record, I never believed you were dead." Just for the record, looking at Henderson makes it hard to believe that Peter Weller isn't. Dude looks like hell. He asks Kiefer what he's doing there, and Kiefer outlines the trail of clues that led him there. Henderson says none of Kiefer's "clues" is a secret, from the company's manufacture of Sentox for the military to Henderson's employment there, but that all the gas is accounted for. "Well, that can't be true, now can it?" Kiefer snarks, like that's a really good burn or something. He says that terrorists have at least nineteen canisters right now. "What are you accusing me of now, Jack?" Henderson bitches, just so we know he's still not over their contentious history. Kiefer says he's following a lead, and that the Sentox killed eleven people at the mall two hours ago. Henderson scoffs that the news said it was chlorine gas, but Kiefer says that was only a cover story to prevent a panic. That makes sense to Henderson, who, as Kiefer reminds him, "knows how this works." Kiefer concludes that the terrorists are threatening to release the rest of the gas.
Henderson looks both sad and alarmed as he gets up to pace the office at 4:23:26, but at least the gun isn't pointed at Kiefer any more. He realizes that whoever is framing him knows his history with CTU. "I mean," he says, "I'm an easy target." Kiefer somehow refrains from saying, "Tell me about it." Henderson swears he's got nothing to do with the theft of the nerve gas, but that's not good enough for Kiefer. "Prove it to me," Kiefer growls. Or what? Henderson stares at him, then hands back the gun, butt-first. As Kiefer holsters it, Henderson goes to his computer. Kiefer says he wants access to the entire Sentox program. Henderson says he's doing that now, and explains that the Sentox operation is housed in a bunker on the other side of the campus. So naturally Kiefer wants to see the bunker. Henderson gives him an appraising look, then picks up a folder, a thick metal clipboard, and his suit jacket. At least two of those items will soon prove that Henderson is pretty much always prepared to do a lot more than taser someone. "Let's go," he says, leading Kiefer out of the office. It's 4:24:47.
4:29:12. From his workstation, Edgar looks up and makes sure that McGill is safely holed up in his stolen office, then gets up and waddles over to Chloe with a binder and one of those electronic data pads they use. He says he's got some NSA "chatter" that's referring to strings of numbers like 5, 110, and 10. "Freeways?" Chloe guesses. Edgar's already recognized this as the route that Suvarov's motorcade is taking back to the airport. "The only other phrase I could decode," he says dramatically, "was 'downtown corridor.'" Chloe asks how long ago this started, and when Edgar tells her about thirty minutes ago, she nervously says, "Come on," and leads the way up to McGill's office.
Where the man himself is bitching at Curtis about how they aren't making any progress on the search for the nerve gas. So he's in no mood at all when Chloe bursts in, Edgar in tow, announcing that they think the Russian president's motorcade is going to be attacked. "What are you doing analyzing chatter that isn't related to finding the nerve gas?" McGill demands. Chloe says the point is that they found something and they should probably alert the Secret Service. McGill shoots that down: "I think I've been embarrassed enough for one day." Amazingly, that's not even the most wrong thing he says this hour. Chloe asks if they can just divert some limited resources to confirm the threat. "I'm sorry," McGill says more calmly. "Maybe I wasn't clear. NO!" Heh. He shoos them out. Before leaving, Chloe cuts a look at Curtis, who doesn't have anything to say. But once they're gone, Curtis carefully suggests to McGill, "I don't think it would be a bad idea to pass along the intel." "Well, I do," McGill snots. End of "discussion."
At Bierko's bunker, several of his men are busy soldering connections inside the nerve gas canisters. And yet not one person is wearing a gas mask. Idiots. Fucked-up Accent Guy calls, and Bierko tells him that the motorcade's about twenty minutes out. Bierko's confident that Logan's playing along, but warns Fucked-up Accent Guy to be alert. Hey, I think I just recognized the cadences of Fucked-up Accent Guy's voice -- he sounds like the guy who used to say "YOU have THREE mes-SAG-es" on my old answering machine. It's 4:31:42 as Fucked-up Accent Guy hangs up and deploys his men. Back at the bunker, Bierko tells his techs, "Keep them armed. If things don't work out, I'll use them here." Well, that should maximize the damage.
Audrey walks into McGill's office, and her voice is shaky as she tells McGill that she thinks they need to report the threat to Secret Service. So obviously Chloe and Edgar went to her after McGill shot them down. McGill isn't pleased: "I'm not going to repeat my orders to every person in this office individually." He doesn't want the chatter to distract from the search for the nerve gas; that's his job. Like she's addressing an idiot (which, to be fair, she kind of is), Audrey points out that the terrorists planning the attack are probably the same ones who have the gas. McGill loses it and screams at her, "This is an unverified threat! If you want to hand it over to NSA, be my guest!" Audrey tells him that'll take too long, and McGill hollers, "Good! That process eliminates false threats!" And lets real ones play out, but whatever. Audrey finally raises her own voice, but McGill cuts her off like she's the one who's being unreasonable, and it drives me insane when people do that. He's screaming at her and threatening to throw her out, his voice loud enough to be heard all the way on the floor. Audrey, realizing she's face to face with a complete nut bar, turns and leaves the office. Outside the office, but still up on the mezzanine, she pauses to tap her PDA. And a window pops up on Edgar and Chloe's computer screens: "A. Raines -- corridor 7A NOW." Edgar and Chloe hop right up from their computers before that window can show up on McGill's screen too.
They meet Audrey in what I presume is corridor 7A, which is as out-of-the-way a spot as CTU has. Audrey tells them she needs to call Secret Service about the threat, "but they won't act on it unless Lynn verifies it." Which verification Audrey plans to forge, with their help hacking into McGill's account. "That's illegal," Edgar tells her. "Fine," Chloe tells her, not caring. She knows perfectly well that she never has to stay in holding for very long. She technobabbles instructions at Edgar on how to cover up what she plans to do. Edgar is still worrying about going to jail, but Chloe suggests he weigh that against "the Russian president, his wife, about thirty-five Secret Service all dead in a few minutes." Edgar -- now wishing he'd called McGill a prickmaster after all -- grudgingly agrees, and they split up to carry out their sneaky plan.
At 4:34:22, Audrey catches up with Curtis in yet another back hallway, and obviouses, "We've got a problem with Lynn." This isn't exactly news to Curtis, but he doesn't see what they can do about it. Audrey takes a breath and blurts, "Section 112." Curtis is confused as to how that applies (and I'm confused as to what it is), so Audrey explains, "Lynn is mentally incapable of running CTU." Curtis thinks that's kind of a stretch, but Audrey disagrees. She tells Curtis that he's the ranking agent on site, and, as such, the only person who can invoke it. Curtis seems to think it's a really bad idea, since they can't back it up with any documentation, but Audrey makes a forceful case. "Think about it," she says, and Curtis agrees to do so, probably just so he can get off the hook. She did catch him on his way into the men's room, after all.
The Suvarovs and FLOTUS are still riding in the back of the limo, now sitting in dead silence. It was nice of FLOTUS to come along to "talk," but it's kind of embarrassing that they only had enough conversation for five or ten minutes of a one-hour-plus ride.
Logan's sitting alone and staring at photographs of himself and his wife; Novick comes in to say the motorcade's only fifteen minutes from the airport. Logan knows, and he whines that his father always told him that every problem has a solution. "You tell me where the solution is on this one," he tells Novick. Novick wearily sits down and says he doesn't know. "But if you want the Suvarov motorcade to turn back, I need to do it now." Logan's got tears in his eyes as he lays it out: "We know the terrorists are willing to kill civilians. And the low end of the casualty range on this one is...a hundred thousand lives?" Novick nods. Logan says that he decided not to risk those lives to save the Russian president, and he can't risk them now to save his own wife. His voice breaks as he complains, "Damn you, Martha, putting me in this position. You brought it on yourself." Me, me, me. Your fault, your fault, your fault. How does a guy like that get to be President? Wait, never mind. Novick looks almost terrified as Logan slides out of his chair and onto his knees on the floor. "Pray with me, Mike," Logan begs. Mortified, Novick tries to demur, but Logan insists. Novick finally kneels slightly in front of and to the right of Logan, who puts a grateful hand on Novick's shoulder from behind. The shot just shows their two suited backs, looking small and vulnerable. Thank God this country is in the capable hands of such confident men of action.
It's 4:38:42 as Audrey, Edgar and Chloe whisper urgently at each other across the floor over their conferenced phone lines. Chloe is, as always, acting like a big stress-monkey and Edgar's trying to chill her out, but before Audrey can tell the kids to play nice, Chloe's screen goes black, signifying that they're busted. Edgar asks what to do, and Chloe answers, "I think it's too late to do anything."
And indeed, McGill is already coming across the floor towards Edgar, flanked by Redshirts. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice you were trying to access my com?" he smirks. Audrey pulls out her earpiece and tries to intercept McGill, but he snaps at her, "Shut up." Rude! He says his people are working against CTU protocols. "That means they're working against me." And it's abundantly clear which offense is worse in McGill's world. Curtis looms into the picture, and Audrey tells him what's going on. McGill orders Curtis to throw Edgar and Chloe into holding, "and then escort Audrey Raines out of CTU." Curtis refuses. "You're not behaving rationally, Lynn," he says. McGill orders the Redshirts to arrest everyone, including Curtis. You know, just to show them how rational he is. Curtis threatens to draw his weapon if the Redshirts try any such thing, and McGill orders them to shoot if he does. "This situation's already getting out of control," Curtis tells the lead Redshirt. "Don't make it worse." McGill screams at the Redshirt to follow his order, and there's a long standoff while everyone who has a sidearm stands there with a hand on it. And just like on Battlestar Galactica a couple of weeks ago, a clash between the top brass comes down to a grunt with a gun. In this case, the guard takes into account three things: when he looks to his left, he sees a shrieking Hobbit; when he looks to his right, he sees an armed, hulking, trained killer; when he looks down, he sees a bright red shirt. So it's really a no-brainer when he says to Curtis, "What would you like me to do, Mr. Manning?" "What?" McGill squeaks. And just as Audrey suggested, Curtis invokes Section 112, relieving McGill of command. McGill is led away, spouting threats: "This is an unjustified usurpation of my authority...there are going to be repercussions. Everyone involved in this is going to face prosecution!" Audrey manages to not smirk, and Edgar manages not to holler after him, "Prickmaster!" Curtis's hand isn't exactly shaking as he picks up the nearest phone and orders Buchanan released and word of his reinstatement communicated to Division. And then he tells everyone to get back to work. Everybody quickly obeys, even though Curtis didn't scream it at the top of his voice. Leadership! It's 4:40:44.
At 4:45:12, Buchanan's on his way back to the floor, being brought up to speed on the threat to Suvarov's motorcade. Buchanan's first question is how the terrorists got Suvarov's route in the first place. And then he asks whether Secret Service has been notified. "Lynn refused to do so," Curtis says. "Notify Secret Service now," Buchanan orders Chloe, whose desk they've just reached. Chloe says she needs clearance, and Buchanan hands over his keycard. Chloe also demands Carrie back, and Buchanan wearily okays it, already looking like he'd rather be in his cell than dealing with Chloe again. And it's not like we're actually ever going to see Carrie again anyway. Buchanan turns his attention to Edgar, telling him to call the President and pull up satellite surveillance of possible attack points. I hope he doesn't have too much trouble with that, since the same satellites are being used by Bierko right now. Buchanan asks about the search for the nerve gas, and Curtis says there's been no progress. So Buchanan asks Audrey about the lead Kiefer was following. Audrey tells him Kiefer's at Omicron, where the gas was manufactured, and where he now hopes to find a receipt or something. Edgar announces that he's got Logan on the line, and Buchanan picks up the phone.
Logan and Novick are sitting across from each other at a nearly bare desk at Not Camp David. I say nearly bare, because the desk holds a speaker phone, from which Buchanan's voice now issues: "Mr. President, we have intelligence that indicates that President Suvarov's motorcade may be attacked in the few minutes." Logan's eyes widen in abject busted-osity, but Novick doesn't look too surprised. Finally, Logan chokes out, "...Is that so?" Logan says they're notifying Secret Service, but they're sure the attack will take place downtown, where the motorcade is now approaching. Logan sits there, completely flummoxed. Finally, Novick rescues him: "The President is at a loss for words," he tells Buchanan. "His wife is in the Suvarovs' limousine." What I love about that is that every word is true. Everyone at CTU is struck just as mute by this news. Logan manages to mutter, "Thank you. You've done a good job," before hanging up. Novick says there's nothing they can do; Secret Service is getting word, which means they'll take defensive measures, "which makes the attack substantially less likely to succeed." Logan doesn't seem to think that's good news.
It's 4:47:17 as the terrorists lie in wait on rooftops over the empty streets. The motorcade is just coming into their sight as Aaron, in the front seat of the Suvarovs' limo, gets a call. His reaction is immediate. "Protocol red," he cries into his shirt cuff, then rolls down the partition and tells the bigwigs in back that they're turning around due to a threat. "Hold on tight," he says. There's so much force behind the words that his mouth nearly opens.
The motorcycles at the front of the motorcade start to hang a U-turn, prompting one of the terrorists to open fire with his assault rifle before they can get away. Both cyclists go down as Aaron calls for backup. Terrorists come out of the woodwork, and the agents in the lead car hop out to return fire. They don't last long, though. And it gets worse when the guy with the bazooka fires, blowing up the front end of the Suvarovs' limo and knocking Aaron unconscious. He's lucky that he already kind of looks like a burn victim.
Chloe's on top of it at CTU as the explosion shows up on her satellite screen. "The motorcade's been hit!" she reports. I hope there's a live feed of that in McGill's cell.
Terrorists approach the Suvarovs' car and try to open it. Naturally, it's locked, so one of the guys empties his machine gun into the door. Which is, naturally, bulletproof. But they had the foresight to bring a guy with a flamethrower, who starts trying to cook them alive inside the vehicle. The screaming from the back brings Aaron around. Staying low, he flings his door open between flame bursts, leans out, and takes out both guys attacking the limo with deadly-accurate shots from his service weapon. Flamethrower guy is still alive, though, and as he tries to lift his weapon again, Aaron fires one more shot and blows up his gas tank. And if there are any terrorists left, we can't see them now that the LAPD has arrived in force. Aaron slumps back into the car, and FLOTUS is so relieved he's okay that I think they're going to get married. Would that make her FLOSS?
It's 4:49:12 as Novick gets a call on his cell phone. Logan only gets to hear one end of the conversation, and his suspense builds until Novick gets off and informs him, "Your wife survived the attack. CTU intervened in time." "Thank God," Logan says unconvincingly. Novick also tells him that the Suvarovs are fine. Logan quickly realizes that Bierko is going to blame him for this. Novick agrees. "We need to prepare ourselves for the terrorists' retaliation," he says. Although the closed-captioning says "Bierko's retaliation," which they must have fixed at the last minute because someone realized that Bierko had never actually introduced himself to them. Is Novick in cahoots, or was it just an early-draft writing mistake? Not that those two theories are mutually exclusive. It's 4:50:14.
4:54:42. One of the splitscreen windows shows the Suvarovs and FLOTUS shakily climbing out of their smoldering limousine. The others are just people staring, like usual. Back at Omicron, Kiefer and Henderson have finally reached the destination of their half-hour stroll. That must be a huge campus. Henderson's telling Kiefer about the airtight security at the Sentox project: "Each defense contract is run out of its own separate, dedicated bunker." As Henderson swipes his card and swings open a heavy airlock-style door handle, he explains, "Nothing gets in and nothing gets out." And then they go in. So far, not impressed with the airtightness.
Kiefer finds himself with Henderson in a space that looks like a server room, only different from CTU's in the sense that it's white instead of a dank concrete cave. They have the place to themselves. Henderson sits down at a computer to see who's working on the Sentox project. Kiefer gives Henderson grief for not knowing that off the top of his giant head, and Henderson grumps that there are 8,000 employees, but it'll only take him a minute to find out. As he taps away, he idly asks who's running CTU now. Kiefer tells him, "Bill Buchanan." Henderson clearly recognizes the name, as he derisively chuckles, "What a stiff!" For a disgruntled ex-employee, he sure seems to have been keeping up with our forums. He says CTU keeps getting rid of everyone who can do their job. And quite a few people who can't, to be fair, but Kiefer cuts through it and says, "You made your own bed." Henderson still insists he was framed. "By who?" Kiefer wonders skeptically. "Nina Myers, George Mason, who knows," Henderson says. Kiefer looks like he's thinking, Actually, that makes sense. But Henderson is still hurt that Kiefer never believed him. By now, Henderson has found the name of the lead scientist, but if Kiefer wants to speak with him he's going to need a Ouija board: "He died in a helicopter crash in Geneva two years ago." There's a photo of the crash scene on the system and everything. The two scientists Henderson pulls up both died suddenly and "accidentally" as well, two weeks apart. Both men seem to realize something suspicious is going on, and Kiefer tells Henderson to upload all the files to CTU for work-up. Henderson heads out, saying he's going door to get some help with that from the IT department.
As Henderson leaves, Kiefer announces that he's going to give CTU a heads-up that the files are on their way. But when he picks up the desk phone, all he gets is static. Rather than pulling out his cell phone (whose signal might be jammed by the bunker environment, although I find it odd that Kiefer doesn't even try), Kiefer crosses the room at 4:57:14 to another phone, which also fills his ear with static. It's here that his radar starts pinging, about ten seconds later than mine did (although I initially thought that Henderson was getting screwed as well). Kiefer scampers to the door, only to discover that Henderson locked it tight behind him and there's no getting out. And now it occurs to Kiefer to start wondering what might be in the room with him. I expect the place to start filling with gas, considering what once went on in there, but Kiefer goes over to Henderson's thick metal clipboard, which his old boss left behind. Kiefer carefully opens it, and rather than papers, he finds a very sinister-looking device ticking away inside. At this point, I would like to advise all Omicron employees that if Christopher Henderson ever comes into your office, make sure he leaves with everything he brought in. "How could I be so stupid?" Kiefer curses himself. Indeed. But I have to say, this is where Henderson became my favorite character. I don't care if CTU finds the nerve gas hour; I would happily watch the rest of the season for free if it went completely Spy vs. Spy and consisted of nothing but Henderson repeatedly getting the drop on Kiefer and Kiefer having his hands full just not getting killed. Do that four or five times an hour, and it's A-pluses from here on out.
Even worse for Kiefer, that sneak Henderson isn't going to IT at all! He's headed out to his car in the parking lot, apparently having decided to call it a day a couple of minutes early. Treacherous and lazy. But then, how much overtime would you put in for a company that makes you park a half-hour's walk from your office? He's on his cell phone with some woman as he goes, saying that after spending a half hour with Kiefer, he's satisfied that "CTU does not have enough information to hurt us." Which explains why Henderson didn't just kill Kiefer outright when he came through the door; he wanted to know what CTU knew. The mystery woman asks him about Bauer. "Well, in about one minute," Henderson says, calmly checking his watch, "he'll be dead." And he gets into his car.
Back in the bunker, Kiefer's busy indeed. He pulls up a heavy floor tile and peers underneath, although a table blocks our view of what's under there. Satisfied, he carries the clipbomb outside the inner door, sets it down on the floor at 4:58:32, closes the inner doors with himself inside, and starts piling file cabinets against them like the bomb is going to try and come back in.
Driving along in his automobile, Henderson reaches into his inside jacket pocket and pulls out a little stainless-steel dildo, which has been there all along. It has, do you hear me? He flips up the plastic top like a Pez dispenser and presses the little plastic button thus revealed, which beeps and glows red. Every garage door in Los Angeles starts opening.
No, what really happens is that the inside of Kiefer's bunker gets blown all to hell. The file-cabinet barrier doesn't do a bit of good; it's hurled through server racks, which explode in turn. Sparks fly everywhere. The dust hasn't even settled when that heavy floor tile swings up and open, revealing that Kiefer had secreted himself underneath to survive the blast. His ears ringing, he climbs out into the wreckage and draws his gun. I think you're going to have to at least make your way outside the blast radius before you get to shoot anyone, dude.
In other splitscreen windows, Henderson drives along, cool as a cybernetic/half-Japanese/drug-addicted cucumber in his aviator shades; the Suvarovs and FLOTUS still aren't dead, and the latter is seeking comfort in Aaron's arms; McGill cools his heels in the same cell where he had Buchanan at this time last hour; Bierko watches satellite coverage of his men's failed attack on Suvarov; and nineteen canisters of nerve gas stand neatly lined up nearby. Bierko angrily slams his laptop shut.
At Not Camp David, Novick's already spinning the media, telling some staffer to say that they don't know how Suvarov's route got out, but they're looking into it. After he hangs up, Logan suggests they "play up the fact that Martha was in the vehicle," so as to demonstrate that they weren't taking Suvarov's security lightly. Yes, he's already figuring out how to use an attack on his wife to his political advantage. It'll be interesting to see if she wants to help out with drafting that statement. And then the cell phone on the desk rings. Nervously, Logan answers it.
It's Bierko, of course, and he's all sad and wounded that Logan appears to have double-crossed him. Logan protests his "innocence," but Bierko isn't impressed: "If Russia isn't going to pay with the life of its President, then the United States will pay with the lives of its citizens. Mr. President, this is our final conversationgoodbye." Logan yelps at Bierko to wait, but he's cut off by the clock ticking down to 5:00:00. That clock's a bitch, man. It doesn't even wait for Presidents.