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Kiefer's got Evelyn's word that Logan was behind the day's terror attacks, but he needs proof. Evelyn sends him to a bank safe deposit box, where she found time to stash a recording of a call between Henderson and Logan earlier in the day. Don't ask me when she got that. Kiefer and Wayne have to leave Evelyn alone in a motel room with her bullet wound and her daughter, who freaks out and calls 911 when Evelyn passes out, leading Henderson right to them. Henderson then sends his men to the bank to kill Kiefer and Wayne and retrieve the evidence. Kiefer's plan for that evidence is to turn it over to Audrey's dad, the Secretary of Defense. Audrey leaves CTU and secretly arranges a meeting with her father; with Chloe's help, she eludes CTU's efforts to track her. In between calls from Henderson, Logan's got his hands full: crowing to the press, lying to VP Gardner about his reasons for issuing a warrant for Kiefer, dodging hairy eyeballs from Aaron, and choking on his apologetic and admiring wife's tongue. With a diversion from the LAPD and the National Guard, Kiefer and Wayne escape the bank with the evidence (although the bank manager they hijacked wasn't so lucky). And that's it. No big shocks, no revelations, no major deaths. FLOTUS gets one pretty funny line, though. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Martial law is still in effect, as we can see by the military vehicles blocking a roadway, and as we can hear by the radio news broadcast reminding everyone that a curfew is in effect. Wayne Palmer drives a car that he got I know not where, with Evelyn and Kiefer in the back and Evelyn's daughter Amy riding shotgun. Kiefer is trying to get Evelyn to talk through the pain and tell him what she did with the evidence we spent all of last hour talking about. Apparently it's in the form of a recording of a phone conversation between Henderson and President Logan. Because, sure, the First Lady's senior assistant has time to be going around making secret phone recordings at work. She's already told him it's in a safety deposit box, but now he needs her to tell him which bank. She tells him the name of the bank, and that the key is in her coat pocket. Applying pressure to the fresh bullet wound in Evelyn's leg, Kiefer assures Amy that her mom's going to be all right. Wayne says they need to get off the road before a military patrol spots them, so Kiefer tells Wayne to pull into a motel ahead on the right. Wayne parks in the lot of what is totally not a Super 8, and Kiefer sends him in to get them a room while he stays and keeps watch. Except Wayne's barely inside the lobby before Kiefer says, "I'll be right back," and hops out of the car. I don't think that's so much "keeping watch" as "taking leave."
Out in the parking lot, he pulls out his cell phone and calls Audrey at CTU, who has to tell him that Chloe wasn't able to track Henderson on satellite. After making sure Audrey's on a secure line, Kiefer breaks the news to her that Evelyn pointed the finger not at Vice President Gardner, but at President Logan. Audrey's shocked, but Kiefer insists that Evelyn says Logan was behind everything that happened today, "including providing the terrorists with nerve gas. That's what David Palmer found out. That's why they killed him." Ah, so this entire thing, the very harebrained scheme that Logan yelled at Walt about, was actually Logan's idea? Hmmm, how can I best express my reaction to this revelation? Let's see...ah...NO. Not buying it. Keeping my money in my pocket. Pull the other one, show. Kiefer again exposits that Evelyn recorded a conversation between Henderson and Logan implicating the latter in Palmer's death, and he's on his way to get that recording now. Audrey reminds Kiefer of the whole martial law thing, but Kiefer knows a way around that: he wants Audrey to upload all the military checkpoints to his PDA so he can avoid them. He also lets her know that once they have the evidence, they're going to have to involve her dad, since they'll need someone credible inside the government to present it. As you recall from last season, Audrey's dad was President Keeler's Secretary of Defense, and continues in that post under Logan. For the moment, at least. Audrey says her dad's on his way back from a summit in Japan (a direct flight from Mt. Fuji?), but she'll call him on the plane. Kiefer tells her to leave CTU beforehand, since they really can't trust anyone; aside from the fact that CTU isn't even really CTU anymore, Logan is in charge of every military and law enforcement agency, and will send out all of them, from the Marines to the USDA, to try to stop Kiefer. They hang up.
Wayne comes back out into the parking lot at 11:05:12, having completed the fastest room registration ever. Not only that, but when he finds Kiefer in the parking lot, he reports that he's also found the bank manager's name and address and determined that it's not far away. I want Wayne as my Amazing Race partner. Kiefer and Wayne quickly get Evelyn and Amy inside the motel room. Kiefer parks Evelyn on the bed, and sends Wayne outside with Amy while he examines the wound and apologizes for not being able to take Evelyn to a hospital yet. The wound needs cleaning, he says, and as soon as he's done with that he'll leave Wayne to take care of her. But Evelyn tells him he needs to get the evidence, and he'll need help. How she knows that is beyond me, but since Wayne has recently and surprisingly proven himself useful, I'll let it slide. Kiefer asks if she's sure. When she agrees, he plops the bloody rag back on her leg and heads out the door before she can change her mind. On his way out, he sends Amy back in to take care of her shot-up mom her own damn self, and then he and Wayne are outie. Enjoy the continental breakfast, ladies.
Henderson's still in Evelyn's car, which now has an "UNRESTRICTED ACCESS" pass on the dashboard. I don't know if that was Evelyn's or if Henderson just walks around with it in his jacket pocket, sticking it on the dashboard of every car he steals. He's back on the phone with Logan, of course, because whenever someone's on the phone with someone at the end of the episode, they always hang up right at X:59:56 to make it extra dramatic, forgetting that they're just going to have to call each other right back in a few minutes to provide some exposition early in the episode. Logan's fretting that Kiefer's going to go straight to the media, but Henderson assures him that Kiefer will do nothing of the kind until he has proof of Logan's involvement. Logan asks if Henderson's any closer to finding that proof himself, and all Henderson can say is that he's having hospitals and emergency services monitored, since he knows Evelyn was wounded. I'm impressed that he noticed that, given all the shit that was going on at the time. Logan's not as impressed, and would rather throw some recriminations: "None of this should have happened. All these killings...this thing was planned to make our country safer. Stronger. To protect our interests. And it all spiraled out of control when you decided to kill David Palmer." Henderson says what's done is done, and they need to focus on the task at hand. "No," Logan says, "you need to focus on it." And hangs up. Better hope nobody was recording that call, moron. You know, I haven't given Gregory Itzin enough credit as an actor this season. He's a little busy facially for my taste, but he works hard. And now they're making him do a total 180 in midair and be all cold and still and quiet, because that equals "evil" on this show. So he's basically an entirely different character, and everything he's been doing for the last 25 episodes has been as a character within a character? Poor guy. He's kind of getting screwed.
Over at CTU, Hayes is already having second thoughts about whether they really needed to take over the place at all. Slime, alarmed that maybe his boss isn't as evil as he'd thought, reminds her that thanks to CTU, "dozens of people have been killed. And they weren't even able to prevent an attack on themselves." Hayes wonders if they really could have done any better themselves. While Slime is choking that down, Chloe calls over to say that Logan is calling. Hayes tells Chloe to transfer it to Buchanan's office, which she's taking over. She adds that she wants to be notified as soon as Bierko (remember him?) wakes up in CTU Medical, and heels Slime up to her new office.
It's 11:08:44 as she takes Logan's call. New Improved Logan (now with 100% pure evil!) is all reptilian and shit as he orders an arrest warrant taken out on Kiefer. Because of course he's evil now, and he wants Kiefer taken out of play to protect himself. Hayes is more than a little thrown by this, and asks for an explanation as to why Kiefer's all of a sudden in the doghouse again. Logan answers, "[Kiefer's] role in the assassination of President David Palmer." Oh, now that's just stupid. Hayes says she thought that Kiefer had been cleared of that, and that Logan himself had reinstated Kiefer (which he never would have done if the writers had been planning at the time to make him evil), but Logan says that new evidence has come to light which he will forward to Hayes "at the appropriate time," by which he means, "When I'm done fabricating it." Which is why he should have made up something else, like a story about how the sheer volume of Kiefer's outstanding parking tickets has become a threat to national security. He tells her to keep the origin of the warrant confidential, and hangs up, the light from the backyard reflecting pool making his face look flat and creepy as he stares straight ahead like he never does. You know, there might be a way to fanwank all of this so that it makes sense again, but I don't particularly want to go blind.
Hayes hangs up, and she and Slime both look unhappy and confused. But they're still going to do what Logan says. Hayes says she doesn't like pulling resources off the search for Henderson. "It's a direct order from the president," Slime points out, and adds that to find Kiefer, what they really need to do is watch anyone that Kiefer might contact for help. Well, Slime certainly learned the rules quickly, didn't he? Through the glass wall of the upper office, they watch Audrey pick up her coat and a CTU folder. How are they going to watch her if she leaves? You'll see.
Audrey heads over to Chloe's desk. Seeing the folder, Chloe asks what it is. Audrey's answer: "Open it up and make it look like this is what we're talking about." For the minute or so, they do quite a convincing pantomime of looking over the contents of the folder while actually talking about whether Chloe can set up Audrey's cell phone as a secure line. Audrey lets Chloe right in on the loop that Logan is now the villain of the piece, and that she's on her way out to help Kiefer with the proof. Before Chloe can do more than register shock and advise Audrey to take a CTU walkie-talkie, her computer beeps with notice of the new warrant for Kiefer's address. "It's starting," Audrey promos. Just then Hayes appears at Audrey's side, asking if she's heading out. Audrey lies that she's going to try to get a couple hours of sleep. Hayes says she wants to talk about the warrant for Kiefer, and Audrey snaps a question about "why the hell it was issued," like she just wasn't all calm and pleasant a second ago. Smooth. Hayes makes noises about "new evidence," and says she can't tell them who gave the order. She asks Audrey when she last spoke with Kiefer, and Audrey smoothly lies that it was about an hour ago. Hayes admits that she thinks it's weird too, "but it's in everyone's best interests to bring Jack in peacefully." Except, of course, Jack's. With that, Hayes cuts Audrey loose. And Chloe gets to stay for some reason, even though she's supposed to be assigned to Audrey for the duration. That's a mistake Hayes will live to regret. And also, Chloe may thwart her plans.
But it turns out that Hayes was just stalling Audrey. As Audrey heads out to the parking lot and Hayes leaves Chloe's desk, Hayes pulls out her cell phone. At the other end is Valerie, the blonde DHS agent who was supposed to be taking over Chloe's work. But now that Chloe's staying, they apparently needed to find other projects for Valerie, like going out to the parking lot and attaching a tracking device to Audrey's car. And it looks like she and a driver are going to be following Audrey out to wherever she's going. Hayes tells them to use the tracker and stay out of sight, since there won't be much traffic. "We don't want anything to stop her from leading us to Bauer," she warns, and hangs up. I'd say that if Audrey isn't actually going to Kiefer, that would stop it pretty effectively. It's 11:12:32.
11:16:54. Kiefer and Wayne roll up outside the home of Evelyn's bank manager. Wayne doesn't think they need to bring their guns, but Kiefer tells his poor, naïve sidekick that the dude isn't about to let them into his bank in the middle of the night unless he has to. Wayne suggests telling the truth, but Kiefer doesn't think that'll work, so guns it is. "If you're uncomfortable with that, you should stay here," he adds, and hops out of the car. After the briefest pause, Wayne follows. Got comfortable in a hurry, I guess. Both of them hop the yard wall with considerable agility and head towards the house, weapons drawn. I wonder how Kiefer would feel if he knew how often Wayne's been following him around with a gun pointed at the back of his head. Once they get to the back door, Kiefer reaches into the man-purse for an alarm system jammer and a set of lockpicks, and they're inside a moment later.
The bank manager and his wife are lying on the bed in their PJs watching the 11:00 news. He hears a noise and gets up to investigate at 11:19:06. And that's when Kiefer makes his move, grabbing the guy by the throat while Wayne steps in to give backup. But Carl -- that's the bank manager's name -- manages to yell at his wife to call the police before Kiefer flattens him and leaves him behind to be covered by Wayne. Kiefer reaches the bedroom and orders the wife at gunpoint to put the phone down. Frightened, she obeys. "Stay calm and everything will be fine," Kiefer promises. On Kiefer's orders, Wayne herds Carl back into the bedroom, and the sight of this seems to scare his wife more than anything. I don't know if it's because her husband is also at gunpoint, or because there's a black man in her house. It's hard to tell. Kiefer gets right to the point, saying he wants to get into the bank. Carl claims that's impossible after hours, but Kiefer doesn't believe him. And to prove it, he swings his gun to point at Carl's wife. Carl instantly gives in, and Wayne shoots Kiefer a disapproving glare. Not disapproving enough to actually say anything or lower his own gun, mind you, but it's still pretty sour. Kiefer tells Carl to get dressed, and hands Wayne a bunch of Carl's neckties with which to tie Mrs. Carl to the chair. This looks like it's more Wayne's speed.
Audrey makes it through a military checkpoint, barely having to slow down, at 11:20:33, just so we don't spend the rest of the episode wondering how she's able to cruise around so freely during this curfew. She's on her cell phone, trying to get her dad on the line.
She appears to be successful, because in the cabin of a private jet somewhere in the air, Secretary of Defense James Heller picks up the phone. I guess this would be Air Force Seven. He asks Audrey if she's calling about the arrest warrant for Kiefer, which Heller has already heard about. Audrey doesn't say much, and Heller seems a little frustrated with her reticence: "You call me this morning to tell me that Jack's alive [which we missed]; now I get word he's a suspect again in the Palmer assassination." Audrey simply makes an urgent request that he reroute his plane to Los Angeles. Heller considers it for a moment, then agrees. Audrey suggests Van Nuys Airport, which a quick look at his laptop tells him is an hour away. They ring off, and Heller thinks for a moment, just long enough to make us wonder if he's going to screw us somehow. But instead, he just tells his pilot to make a stop in L.A. "But keep it off the manifest," he orders. Welcome back, Devane, you crusty old bastard.
Audrey pulls into a gas station. A couple of miles back and out of sight, Valerie and her driver make note of this on their tracker screen and pull over as well. At the gas station, Audrey is simultaneously pumping gas into her car and talking to Chloe on her cell phone, which certain urban legends tell me is a good way to blow yourself up. That doesn't happen here, though. Instead, Chloe does some techno-voodoo to make sure nobody can monitor either end of the call, and then tells Audrey to tune her CTU walkie-talkie to a certain channel, crank it up to eleven, and see if she can find a signal by passing the device around her car. She quickly finds the tracking device that Valerie planted in her left rear wheel well and pulls it out, thanking Chloe for her help. Chloe advises Audrey to take the battery out of her cell phone as soon as she can, and Audrey promises to do so as soon as she hears from Kiefer. End of call. Audrey hangs up the gas pump, hides the tracker on a nearby utility truck that's gassing up (much smarter than just dumping it in the trash, so bravo), and heads out of there at 11:23:43. In unrelated news, her off-white, cowl-necked overcoat is really weird-looking. It's like Jackie Kennedy meets Lawrence of Arabia.
Logan is sitting along in his office thinking up new evil plans when Aaron comes in to tell him that "it's almost time." Apparently Logan's having a little late-night press conference. He's on his way out when he's waylaid by Vice President Gardner, related to a matter that he says is "potentially time-sensitive." The Veep wants to ask about the warrant for Kiefer. "Thank you, Aaron," Logan abruptly tells his suddenly over-attentive Secret Service agent, who reluctantly leaves the room. Now that it's just the two of them (in other words, the entire Logan Administration), Gardner wants to know why Logan would issue such an order without discussing it with him. Logan rather darkly reminds Gardner that he's the Commander-in-Chief, but Gardner doesn't want to let it drop, what with Cummings's confession to the assassination of Palmer and the framing of Kiefer. Logan insists that new intelligence sources clearly finger Kiefer as the shooter. Oh, not just a conspirator now, but the actual shooter? This lie keeps getting bigger. "Which sources?" Gardner demands, which pisses Logan off. "We'll sort this all out once Bauer's in custody," he snaps. "Does that suit you?" Gardner reluctantly agrees that it does, and Logan says, "Good," so quickly that you can barely hear the Doppler effect as he heads for the door. Gardner watches him go, clearly not satisfied with Logan's answers.
Aw, Evelyn's taking a little nap as her lifeblood seeps out onto a motel pillow in front of her daughter. What a tender moment. Little Amy decides this is a good time to go into the bathroom at 11:25:56 and wash her mom's blood off her hands, but she doesn't get very clean before she breaks down and collapses into the corner of the room, crying. This wakes Evelyn up, and she tries to make it into the bathroom to help. The stupid girl just sits there while her mom tries to hop in on one leg. Evelyn makes it as far as the doorway before collapsing, and it looks like she hits her head on one of the motel chairs as she goes down. Finally Amy shifts herself to get up, running to Evelyn in panic. She tries unsuccessfully to shake her awake (by the leg with the bullet hole in it, I can't help noticing), and when that doesn't work she runs to the phone to call 911. No, Amy! Don't do it! Don't you realize how expensive it is to call from a motel room? She quickly gets a 911 dispatcher on the line, whose first questions are (1) what's your name, (2) what's your mom's name, and (3) tell me where you are. Man, kids wreck everything on this show.
Remember how Henderson said his people were monitoring emergency services? We now see that wasn't bullshit, because Henderson is already getting a call from someone reporting that 911 has received a request for assistance for Evelyn Martin at a motel at a specific address. "Be there shortly," Henderson intones, and hangs up without even getting the room number. It's 11:27:42.
At 11:32:04, Evelyn is still unconscious and Amy has stopped crying, for all the good that does now. Logan is addressing the press at Not Camp David, bragging that "federal counter-terrorist agents, under my direction, thwarted the latest attack on innocent civilians." He adds that the nature of the threat was kept secret for the public's own protection. Gardner is standing stiffly nearby, but not all that nearby. Also watching is Aaron, whom FLOTUS comes up behind and remarks, "He really did it." She's amazed at her husband's accomplishments of the day: "He stopped the terrorists...the treaty was signed...he said he would ride out this crisis, that everything would be okay. And it is." She smiles happily. "I should have trusted him." "Yes, ma'am," Aaron grumbles uncertainly. FLOTUS asks him what's up, and he just says he's battle-worn. And she only knows about half of the times he got shot at today.
At 11:33:12, the Carl the Bank Manager's SUV pulls into a parking lot. Behind the wheel, Kiefer explains to Wayne that they have to go the rest of the way on foot to avoid the military checkpoints. Then his cell phone rings, and the display reads "Aaron Pierce." Kiefer grabs his man-purse and hops out of the car to take the call.
Aaron has apparently teleported to a Not Camp David storage room in the last forty seconds, and he's calling to notify Kiefer about the warrant that Logan has ordered for him. Kiefer's not pleased, but also not surprised, and Aaron asks Kiefer if this means that Logan is the one behind this. Kiefer confirms it, and Aaron warns Kiefer that every agency from the Navy SEALS to the FCC is going to be after him. Kiefer says they'll get the evidence they need and pass it to Heller; "After that it's not going to matter." Aaron asks if there's anything he can do, and Kiefer tells him, "Keep your eyes open and watch your back." Good idea. Aaron would look pretty silly if somebody were to sneak up behind him and draw a rude cartoon on his head-bandage. Kiefer hangs up and gets his passengers out of the car. While they're cutting through the park, a Humvee with a roof gunner comes into view. Kiefer leads them all into hiding against a hedge, warning Carl to keep quiet, and the vehicle goes on by. Way to avoid the military, there, Kiefer.
Valerie calls Hayes from out in the field with the news that Audrey's plan worked: they followed the tracker, and only realized something was wrong when the utility truck stopped to check a faulty power line. Hayes tells her to stay where she is and wait for orders, then calls up Slime to tell him to redirect spy satellites to find Audrey. Slime says there's not much he can do with all of the satellites currently being used to look for Kiefer, but Hayes says that if they find Audrey, then Audrey will find Kiefer for them. In the background, Chloe is watching Slime with all the subtlety of a brick wall.
No, wait, here's the brick wall outside the bank, and it's way more subtle than Chloe is. At 11:35:43, Kiefer tells Carl, "Take the wall," by which he means, "Face on the bricks." Which would explain why I'm not familiar with that expression. He leaves Wayne behind to keep an eye on Carl while he scouts ahead. Wayne takes this opportunity to play Good Robber, advising Carl to do what Kiefer says. Kiefer comes back and tells Carl to get them inside, and if he alerts the police, "all I have to do is make one call and your wife is dead, you understand me?" Carl says he understands, although he doesn't realize how long a call that would be, given Audrey's history of squeamishness about this kind of thing. Carl gets them in the building and quickly enters the code to disable the alarm, and then Kiefer asks to be taken to the vault. Carl explains that you enter a code into the vault, but it takes five minutes before the door opens, in order to give the police time to arrive in the event that someone triggers the silent alarm. He writes down the no-alarm code for Kiefer, who heads over to the vault door and tells Wayne to keep an eye on their hostage.
While Kiefer's off entering the code, Wayne has an awkward moment with Carl, who has just recognized him as David Palmer's brother from the morning's newscasts. "And White House Chief of Staff for three years," Wayne doesn't add pointedly. Carl asks what Wayne's doing in his bank, "And who the hell is [Kiefer]?" Wayne rubs his head and assures Carl that he doesn't want to know. Carl disagrees, and Wayne actually caves: "Jack and I believe that there's evidence inside of one of your safe deposit boxes that'll prove who was behind the assassination of my brother, okay?" While he's gauging Carl's reaction, he notices that Kiefer is standing right there, calling him over. Wayne whispers to Kiefer, "What do you want me to say, Jack? He recognized me." Kiefer says it's okay, and goes over to Carl, now all proper manners and calling him "Mr. Mossman," asking how long before the vault opens. Carl again tells him five minutes, and asks if Wayne's telling the truth. Kiefer confirms it. Because he's new here, Carl asks why they don't just get a subpoena in the morning. Kiefer says the people behind this won't let it get that far. To illustrate, Wayne boasts that bad guys have tried to kill him twice today, and they'll try again. Kiefer doesn't say how many attempts have been made on his life today. It's probably going to take him a few minutes to add them all up.
Meanwhile, paramedics are bringing Evelyn around in the motel room. She smiles groggily at her daughter, and one of the paramedics tells her she's in shock, addressing her as Ms. Martin. Evelyn is sleepily surprised that they know her name, but before they can explain, both medics are shot dead by Henderson, who's suddenly appeared in the doorway. Now Henderson closes the door and asks Evelyn, "Where's Bauer?" Amy lets loose with a horror-movie scream whose pitch matches the beeping of the clock almost perfectly. It's 11:39:22.
11:43:45. Logan's on the phone with someone, but he wraps up the call when his wife comes in. "I thought you'd gone to bed," he says, but FLOTUS says she watched Logan's press conference. He nervously stutters that someone or other "thought it went pretty well," and that's all the opening FLOTUS needs to start verbally slobbing his knob: "You were magnificent." Logan likes hearing that from her, and she nearly breaks down, saying how proud she is of him and she hopes she didn't embarrass him. Logan brushes that off: "I mean, you walked up to the edge a couple of times, but nobody noticed." "I'll try to find a compliment in there somewhere," FLOTUS replies, rather hilariously. Logan backpedals, but before he can dig himself any deeper, she clamps her mouth onto his. She apologizes some more, and he accepts, but the moment is broken when his cell phone rings. He pulls away and peeks at it like it's a poker hand, then tells his wife he needs to take it privately. And now we see how fragile their peace really is, because they start bickering again until Logan finally agrees to take the call with her in the room at 11:45:47. Even so, he gets up and turns away before answering.
It's Henderson, of course, back in Evelyn's car and reporting that she gave up Kiefer's location. I wonder if Henderson killed both of them. I guess I'm just going to have to keep wondering. "Well, then, take care of it," Logan says in his evil voice. Henderson says he's on his way. "Good," says Evil Logan. "Let me know when it's done." He snaps his phone shut, evilly, then turns back to his wife in weasel mode, apologizing for still being in a crisis state of mind. FLOTUS wants to know what he meant by "Let me know when it's done," and Logan lies that he asked someone to write him a radio speech for the morning. An evil radio speech? FLOTUS looks placated, but not completely.
At CTU, Slime dashes up the stairs to Hayes's office, saying that the satellites have found Audrey's car. He pulls up the infrared satellite screen on one of her computers, pointing it out to her as a snappy James Bond electric guitar theme kicks in on the soundtrack. Hayes calls up Valerie and tells her to get on the road.
At CTU, New Girl Shari gets up from her computer and approaches Chloe, making the mistake of asking, "Do you have a minute?" "No," says Chloe flatly. Shari is actually stymied by this, until Chloe takes pity on her and asks what she wants. Shari's noticed that one of the satellites has been taken over on a "class one priority override," and asks if Chloe knows what's up. Chloe lies that she doesn't, but she's telling the truth when she says she'll look into it. Also, maybe she could look into why Shari didn't get fired along with everyone else at CTU. Once Shari's gone, Chloe pulls up the satellite screen, and is somehow instantly able to recognize the roof of Audrey's car. She looks up towards the glass walls of Hayes's office, where the new boss and her minion are riveted to a computer monitor of their own. Chloe brings her analyst's brain to bear on the situation and sums it up thusly: "Crap." She leaves her station.
It's 11:47:55 at the bank, as a bunch of black SUVs filled with armed bad guys converge in the parking lot. So Henderson's minions just respawn like video game villains or something? And anyway, won't they feel silly when they realize that the vault opened up almost four minutes ago and that Kiefer has been gone for almost as long? One of the bad guys dials Henderson on a cell phone, saying they're in position and claiming that he briefly had a visual of Kiefer. Henderson orders him to take Kiefer out the instant he comes out of the bank building, then "kill the others and secure the recording."
Wait -- the vault is just now opening for some reason, even though it's been almost ten minutes since Kiefer entered the code. I guess the vault designer thinks cops are slow. Kiefer uses Evelyn's and Mossman's keys to pull out the drawer of safety deposit box #23 while Mossman tells Wayne, apropos of nothing, "I admired your brother a great deal. He was a great man." Drink! Just once I'd like to hear someone tell Wayne, "Your brother was a self-righteous prick." I'll volunteer as soon as he puts the gun down. Kiefer opens the box, which contains only a small digital recorder. So Evelyn not only left Not Camp David and went to the bank, she took the time to open up a new safety deposit box? FLOTUS isn't working her nearly as hard as I thought.
Kiefer pulls the recorder out and presses play, and we hear Logan and Henderson arguing about the latter's decision to kill Palmer. Logan was pissed that Henderson did it, but Henderson insisted it was necessary, pointing out that Palmer had been "snooping around" and had gone so far as to call FLOTUS. "I can handle my wife," Logan lied. "Right now my concern is keeping this operation from collapsing like a house of cards." If only someone had had that concern about the season. This is clearly difficult for Wayne to listen to, as his face twists in rage. Carl is finally catching up as he recognizes Logan's voice on the tape. Henderson on the recording answers one question: "Every thread ends with [Walt] Cummings. He thinks he's running this, and you need to keep playing it that way." Even when he's alone with Walt, for some reason. So did Logan know that Walt was in on the plan before he confessed? Does anyone care?
Kiefer stops the tape and apologizes to Carl for the inconvenience and says he'll be safer if he stays at the bank. Carl offers to help, because they're all buddies now that Kiefer isn't pointing a gun at his wife's head any more, but all Kiefer wants is to "borrow your car a little longer." Carl breezily agrees, saying it's insured, and it's not like he has to hurry home to untie somebody or anything. But Kiefer has just noticed movement outside the front door. They duck back into the vault, and Kiefer asks if there's another way out besides the front door. Carl says there isn't, for security reasons. And if there's a fire? Remind me to never walk into another bank again. Kiefer runs out into the lobby again, staying low, so he can pull out his little rifle scope and see what the sitch is. As we already know, it's bad. Kiefer runs back into the vault to tell the guys that they're surrounded, and Carl says they're going to have to turn themselves in. "They didn't come to arrest us," Kiefer duhs, "they came here to kill us." Wayne wonders what they're waiting for, and Kiefer explains that since the windows are bulletproof, they aren't vulnerable until they leave the building. "How do you trip the silent alarm?" he asks Carl, who points out that that'll summon LAPD in a few minutes. Or ten, depending on who you ask. Kiefer says that's what he wants; Henderson's men won't allow the police to get the recording either, so they'll have to start shooting, creating a diversion that our guys can use to escape. Too bad about the cops who are going to get shot in the process, of course. He tells Carl to trigger the alarm and tells Wayne, "Let's get ready." It's 11:51:07.
11:55:34. Chloe has finally made it to the server room, where she pulls out one of those nifty keyboard/monitor combos and gets to work logging in and accessing something called "satellite data file." Wouldn't she want a feed instead of a file?
Presumably that's the same satellite we see Slime monitoring up in Hayes's office while she paces the carpet behind him. He's also uploading the live feed (excuse me, "file") to Valerie's laptop. Valerie reports that they're two miles behind Audrey, and Hayes tells her to close up to one mile.
Chloe's still typing away in the server room, and she appears to be accomplishing something called "sat-link signal corruption." Right on cue, Valerie's laptop screen display of the satellite feed starts getting all pixilated and blurry. Hayes says they're having the same problem, and soon the signal is lost entirely. Slime traces the problem to their own servers, and hops up to look down at the floor through the office's glass wall. "O'Brian's gone," he spits, and charges right out of there at 11:56:52 to smack himself a geek.
The James Bond guitar kicks up again while Chloe's still in the server room covering her tracks on the system. Meanwhile, Slime is trotting down the hallway right past the ladies' and into the server room. But by the time he gets there, the only thing he finds is a whoosh-ing noise. Chloe's like the wind, y'see. Back to the James Bond guitar, and Slime heads back to the floor. But the music cuts off abruptly when he runs into Chloe, ostensibly coming out of the women's room. "What were you doing?" he demands dangerously. Chloe for once does a great job at playing innocent. "If you really want the details," she snarks, "I'll write you a report." And for once Chloe is nicer than I would have been, because I would have bluffed that the report was already written. On toilet paper. In something nasty. Slime watches her walk away, thinking, Curses! Foiled again!
Back at the bank, Kiefer, Wayne, and Carl are getting ready to head out. The Bond guitar is back yet again. They reach the front door, and before they leave, Kiefer advises Carl to stay. But Carl thinks that if they find him inside, they'll kill him. Kiefer doesn't disagree. "I'll take my chances with you," he declares. Kiefer tells him to stay close to Wayne and break left once they get out of the bank.
Henderson's calling his guy for an update, and when he hears that Kiefer still hasn't left, he concludes that Kiefer must have spotted them and tells his guys to move in. But before they can, the cops arrive, sirens and flashers going. "We can't let them have Bauer," Henderson says. "Take them down." This without asking how many police have arrived, so it's lucky for the bad guys that there are only two cruisers. The shooting starts right away, and the cops are getting the worst of it. Kiefer orders an exit before there aren't any cops left to provide a diversion. But then as soon as he's out, he starts shooting at the bad guys, like, way to make use of your diversion there, dude. "Here I am! Shoot here!" He and the other guys manage to reach cover behind a parked car. There's lots more shooting and chaos, and then the whole damn U.S. Army rolls up, guns blazing. Kiefer says they need to make a dash for one of the now-empty police cars, and they almost make it without one of them getting shot. But of course, Carl takes a bullet right outside the car. Wayne hauls him into the back seat while Kiefer dives behind the wheel and screeches out of there, somehow remembering to turn off the flashers even under withering gunfire. And, split-screen!
Kiefer checks his rearview mirror, just to make sure no bullets are gaining on him. Audrey pulls right onto the tarmac at Van Nuys Airport. Heller is still airborne. Slime tattles to Hayes, who looks over at Chloe suspiciously. And Logan thinks up new ways to be evil.
"How's he doing?" Kiefer asks Wayne in regard to Carl. "He's dead," Wayne responds. So, he's doing badly, then. Don't forget to send someone over to his house to untie his wife, you guys. Kiefer spits out a half-hearted "dammit" before calling Audrey on his cell phone. She says she's at Van Nuys waiting for her dad, whom she's expecting to land in about fifteen minutes. He tells her he has the evidence. Audrey takes a breath and asks, "Have you listened to it?" in this creepily ambiguous way. If there's anything there, Kiefer totally misses it and says, "Yeah, there's no doubt it's Logan. You understand what this means. We're talking about taking down the President of the United States." And it's 12:00:00, the first second of the last day of Logan's administration, I'm guessing. And a quick shout-out to Buono and hachurui for the homepage headline.