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Six minutes of breathing through a plastic bag leaves Kiefer's brother Graem (apparently I've been spelling it wrong all along) feeling more cooperative. He confesses that the family business was supposed to dismantle some suitcase nukes, but then McCarthy -- hired by Graem -- stole them and sold them to Fayed, and you know what happened to at least one of them after that. Tom blackmails Karen into quitting so that he can continue making America less America-like (which includes implementing charming measures like racial profiling of government operatives like our own Nadia), but I'm sure we'll see Karen again when she arrives back at CTU's L.A. office. Walid is tasked with stealing a smuggled cell phone off one of his fellow detainees and uploading the contents to CTU. The data enables Chloe to determine that the men aren't terrorists at all. They are, however, pissed when they bust Walid, and they give him a righteous beatdown. Graem leads Kiefer to McCarthy's office, but we already know McCarthy isn't there, since he's driving around, arguing with his girlfriend, and looking for someone who can help Fayed to activate his remaining nukes. But you know who is at McCarthy's office? Kiefer's dad (played by James Cromwell, not Donald Sutherland), along with a couple of his company's private security guys. Dad's been trying to handle this on his own to keep Graem out of trouble, but when he agrees to let Kiefer bring in CTU, Graem turns the tables, and Kiefer and his dad end up as his men's captives. This is not going to turn out well for Graem. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Watching the freeze-frames in the previouslies, I make the embarrassing discovery that Graham's name is actually spelled "Graem." I've been spelling it wrong all along. Not that it's embarrassing for me; I'm embarrassed for the writer who thought that parents who would name one child "Jack" would name the other "Graem." No wonder they turned out this way.
Wayne's presidential address is still going on, even though it started a few minutes before the hour. What was up with that, anyway? Did Wayne's press secretary used to work at MTV or something? We see that everyone at CTU has dropped what he or she is doing to watch the speech, while four stolen nuclear bombs presumably search for themselves. Wayne goes on about the strength and faith of the American people, and how we must rise above our bigotries and all that. DB Woodside is delivering the speech in this supposedly soothing singsong tone that I find quite distressing. Please stop talking to the country like it's five years old, Wayne. We get enough of that in real life. Also distressed is Wayne's Chief of Staff, Tom, who's watching the speech with Chad Lowe in another area of the White House Bunker. Tom turns off the monitor when Wayne has finished, and wishes the President hadn't made a promise he can't keep: "The American people have got to get used to the fact that these new security measures are a way of life, not some temporary Band-Aid." Which is scary as hell, but at least he admits it. Karen comes in to call Tom out on the latest raft of civil liberties violations he's been authorizing against Wayne's wishes. As Chad Lowe slips out unnoticed, Tom repeats his excuse that he's just getting things ready for when Wayne decides to implement them, "should he decide to act at all." Karen points out that Tom said the same thing about the detention centers, but those are already up and running. She wonders if Tom thinks she's some "bleeding-heart liberal." Tom goes into a whole speech about how the Constitution is great and all, but it was written in the days of single-shot muskets, not nuclear weapons like the one the terrorists just used to kill twelve thousand people in less time than it would have taken to reload one of those muskets: "I love the Constitution, but I won't be ducking behind it when the nuke goes off." So presumably Tom's a gun-control hawk as well, right? Karen says that she's worried about the long-term damage Tom's policies will do to the country, and they start talking over each other like they're on Crossfire. Tom tells Karen to get out of National Security, while Karen accuses Tom of abusing Presidential power. Tom petulantly turns to leave the room, and Karen yells after him, "If you think that you're going to wear me down, you are sadly mistaken!" Tom stops at the door and wearily tells her, "Actually, you're wearing me down." Aw, poor fascist.
Tom then goes to find Chad Lowe in the hallway. Chad's yelling down his cell phone at someone, and when he gets off, Tom tells Chad that he needs Karen out of there now so that Wayne will sign off on all of Tom's insane plans. Chad says that he's working on it now. "This work you're doing for me doesn't go unnoticed," says Tom. Nice to see Chad Lowe getting thanked for once.
At CTU, Nadia's having some computer troubles. As Buchanan's walking by, she flags him down to complain that a new protocol requires all employees with Middle Eastern backgrounds to go through an extra layer of security, and that it's slowing her way down. Brilliant idea. This will make Nadia want to blow up the entire building, and then they can arrest her. Buchanan takes off his glasses sympathetically, but says that there's not much he can do about her plight right now. She wonders how she's supposed to get all of her time-sensitive work done in the face of these new obstacles, and Buchanan tells her just to chalk it up to one of the injustices that all Muslims working in counterterrorism have to face. Because God forbid you get too many Muslims in that field. That simply wouldn't do. Buchanan promises to take it up the chain of command later (as in, when it's not urgent anymore), and Nadia reluctantly accepts his decision. Poor showing from Buchanan here. I expected better. Changing the subject, Buchanan asks whether Nadia's heard from Kiefer. She hasn't, and offers to call him, but Buchanan says that there's no rush. Kiefer will call when he has anything.
What Kiefer's got is his brother's face, shrink-wrapped. Graem is trying to breathe through the plastic bag Kiefer's got over his head, and it's not going too well. I'm going to assume that the bag hasn't been there the whole time; it's been a good six or seven minutes, but Graem's not dead yet. Kiefer yanks the bag off, telling Graem that it goes back on if he lies again. Graem coughs and gasps, his head all grody with sweat and condensation, and starts talking. While crying. He says that Kiefer's right about the nukes. Of course he is. If this hadn't been the one lead out of fifty that was going to pay off, Kiefer never would have tortured his brother in the first place. Graem says that their dad doesn't want to be reached, sobbing, "After the bomb detonated, he told me he was cutting himself off." Graem starts crying even harder when Kiefer says that he doesn't believe him. He starts coming at Graem with the bag again, and Graem does this: "I don't know, I don't know, all right all right all right all right!" Heh. Kiefer holds off with the bag, and Graem tells him that their dad went to see a contract employee of their company. That employee's name? Darren McCarthy. We, of course, have already met McCarthy: he's the ambiguously Australian guy who's been fishing around for someone who can make Fayed's remaining nukes work. But Kiefer doesn't know this, so he asks what McCarthy's connection is. Graem cops to having made a mess Dad's trying to clean up.
Under Kiefer's questioning, Graem tells the whole story. Gredenko, the ex-Russian general Assad mentioned last week, was responsible for having nuclear weapons transferred to the U.S. to be decommissioned. He gave Dad's company, BXJ, the contract to dismantle the smaller bombs and recycle the cores for energy production. They can do that? "We do it all the time," Graem explains. The problem arose when Graem hired McCarthy to run the job, but failed to check him out thoroughly enough: "He had good references. I saw no reason to get all anal about it." Because there are more important things in life than looking into the background of someone to whom you are entrusting NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Kiefer agrees with me, summing up that the nuke detonated in Valencia was stolen from Graem by McCarthy. Kiefer also realizes that they knew about this before today -- since Dad left yesterday -- and yet they didn't report it. Graem says they thought they could handle it "more efficiently." Kiefer's kind of pissed about all the people who have died to cover Graem's ass today, and he doesn't even know how Graem purposely tried to have a whole plane full of people shot down last year for the same purpose. Graem says that his and Dad's plan to recover the nukes is much better than anything CTU could have come up with. It consists of "putting together a security team" and "staking out McCarthy's office." Excellent plan. With Graem and Dad in charge of national security, I see no reason to continue paying taxes. Kiefer pulls out his knife. It looks a lot like the same knife he carries every season, and I really want to know how he got it back. Maybe it's standard-issue and he took it from a CTUmobile, but why then did he yank out the lamp cord with his bare hands at the end of the last hour? I'm letting it go for now, but if the man-purse shows up , I'm crying foul. Using the knife, Kiefer cuts Graem loose and says that they're going to McCarthy's office themselves. Graem doesn't want to leave his family today, but Kiefer insists. At 11:09:54, Graem grabs his jacket and follows Kiefer out of the office.
Out in the living room, Graem's wife Marilyn is watching the news, which shows the mushroom cloud now leaning to one side on its stem so that it looks like the world's biggest comic-strip thought-balloon. As the brothers Bauer are leaving, she asks Graem what's up, and he tells her that they're off to find their dad. He tells Marilyn to stay home with Josh, and promises to be back ASAP. Marilyn gazes into the camera, wide-eyed, as if to say, "Behold the startling contrast of my blue eyes and raven hair! Am I not the most exotic creature you have ever seen?"
Outside the house, Kiefer gets the address of McCarthy's office from Graem and calls it right in to Chloe at CTU, telling her to send two field teams to wait for him there. (I thought this was a plot hole at first, but we'll later be reminded that field teams are plainclothes agents, not the armored tactical teams who are currently riding the jet streams over northern Valencia.) Irritated, Graem bitches at Kiefer for selling out his family. Considering that Kiefer just finished killing one of his few friends a little over an hour ago, this new source of guilt doesn't seem to get to him too much. It's 11:11:02.
11:15:25. In the CTU Situation Room, Milo's running a briefing on the search for Fayed, which isn't going so well. Morris complains that the way Milo is going about it takes too long. Milo bristles, but Buchanan suggests narrowing the search parameters by assuming that Fayed is moving away from the fallout cloud. Morris points out that Fayed will have to be monitoring the fallout, and Milo realizes that means "he'll have technology in the on position." Yes, like a radio or a TV, both of which are broadcasting nothing else. Still, everyone gets to work with renewed purpose. As the briefing breaks up, Chloe tells Buchanan what Kiefer's up to, and that Kiefer wants Buchanan to call him. Chloe also mentions that the CIA is looking for Gredenko in Moscow, in case anybody still cares. Doesn't sound like Gredenko did anything wrong, aside from hiring Kiefer's family to do something important.
Kiefer's doing some pretty reckless driving at 11:16:22. Inside the CTUmobile, Graem is saying that giving McCarthy to CTU will lead CTU back to the family. Kiefer says that CTU won't care, but Graem disagrees: "CTU, like every other federal organization, is made up of human beings with ambition." Graem has not been to get a passport recently, I can promise you. He says that even after the crisis is over, CTU will keep digging. Kiefer says that's just too bad. I would assure Graem that, after this is all over, CTU will be too busy returning all the cars Kiefer's stolen to their rightful owners to look into this any deeper.
Kiefer's cell phone rings, and he answers it to find Buchanan on the other end. Kiefer tells Buchanan about the lead on McCarthy, and explains McCarthy's role in all this. He says he's on his way to McCarthy's office now to look for something on his computer, and hangs up. Graem keeps badgering Kiefer, saying that if he's trying to get his brother, then their dad is also going to get dragged into it: "Maybe you want Dad to go to prison too." Kiefer doesn't say anything, and Graem tweaks him for his lack of loyalty to the family. "If I were you, I wouldn't talk about loyalty," Kiefer warns. But then how are we to glean all of the juicy family backstory that's just waiting to reveal itself?
McCarthy is driving along, yelling at someone on his cell phone to find someone for Fayed. For, like, $7 million. That seems pretty cheap to me, but then I guess it's not like he plans to pay taxes on that money. He hangs up, and his girlfriend starts in on him, saying that he's wasting a bunch of time on a longshot and that it's just going to end up making it harder for them to get out of the city. McCarthy screeches to a halt by the curb and tells her to get out of the car, yelling, "Your negativity is not what I need right now." Rather than getting out, she leans in close and asks how certain the $7 million is. McCarthy's glad she's on board now, like he gave her a choice. But before McCarthy can properly enjoy the moment, Fayed calls his cell phone to harangue him about finding an engineer. McCarthy impatiently says that it's taking longer than he thought, and then hangs up. And starts driving again. Did you know Eddie Izzard was originally cast in this role and he quit after one day of shooting? Which is weird; I can't imagine that he felt more ill-suited to this role than the one he played in Ocean's Twelve.
At the Anacostia Detention Facility's surveillance room, Agent Blond has just finished emailing photos of Walid's new buddies over to CTU so that they can do their cross-checking thing. Milo receives them at 11:19:45 and tells Morris to get to work on them. Morris agrees, as soon as he gets something he needs from Nadia first. Milo's surprised to hear that Nadia's falling behind, and goes over to her desk, where she's huffing and grumping at her screen in frustration. He asks her what the holdup is, but rather than telling him she's doing the best she can to protect a country that's tying her hands because it hates her, she just suggests that he go talk to Buchanan.
Milo enters Buchanan's office to ask what's going on with Nadia. Buchanan tries to play it off, but Milo insists upon knowing what's going on. Buchanan reluctantly tells Milo that Nadia's been flagged by Homeland Security for being of Middle Eastern descent. Milo thinks that's ridiculous: "She's lived in this country since she was two years old. She's a registered Republican, for crying out loud." Buchanan says that it's out of their hands, and tells him to get back to work. Milo does, unhappily. His crusade against ethnic profiling will have to wait. For, like, eight minutes.
Believe it or not, this little run-in has actually galvanized Buchanan to do something about the situation: he picks up the phone to call his wife and complain about the security measures. This is the first Karen's heard of them. "They're not security measures," she says, pissed. "They're the paranoid delusions of Tom Lennox." Buchanan asks what she can do, and she offers to talk to the President about it. Buchanan nods like, "Oh, well, I guess that will have to do for now." Got to start somewhere, I suppose.
Walid's hanging with his new buddies in the joint, and they're telling him that a nuke went off in Valencia over an hour ago. Walid stays neutral as he asks how many were killed, but they don't know yet. The whole conversation is being monitored live by Sandra and Agent Blond in the surveillance room, of course. Walid asks how they're getting their info, and Salim asks why Walid is so curious. Walid makes some excuse about how what happens outside affects them inside: "We have to share everything we know." This weak argument convinces Salim to confess that one of the other guys in the circle -- a younger man named Heydar -- managed to smuggle in a cell phone. Heydar lifts the phone slightly out of his inside jacket pocket so that Walid can see where he keeps it. In the surveillance room, Sandra asks Agent Blond how Heydar could have managed that, and he plot-hole-plugs that security in this hastily-assembled facility is still kind of porous. That's a lot of words to come up with a standards-and-practices-friendly way of saying "up his ass." At this point, Sandra and Agent Blond actually agree on something: they need to get Heydar's phone. Sandra tells him to get Walid out after he gets the phone, but Agent Blond doesn't want to give up their valuable undercover contact. He gets on a walkie-talkie to request access to a cell-phone tower.
Down in the White House Bunker, Chad Lowe has finished his little project for Tom. He hands over a list of names of people he's pressured into agreeing to testify to something or other. Tom accepts the list and heads right over to Karen. "This isn't working for me," he whines. He basically tells her that he needs her out of there so that he can have full access to Wayne. Karen's like, "Not my problem, dude," and when Tom asks her to resign, she just laughs in his face: "What are you smoking?" Actually, that list in Tom's hand is a smoking gun, he says. He's found out that CTU-Seattle had Abu Fayed in custody fourteen months ago, and Buchanan signed for Fayed's release. Karen says that, at the time, there wasn't enough evidence to hold Fayed and the other "detainees" being held along with him. If that's the case, asks Tom, then why did Karen bury the file to protect her husband? Karen angrily insists that she did nothing wrong, but Tom says that no one will care, since Buchanan basically released a guy who ended up nuking L.A. He's got a point; there's no way to make that look good on a résumé. Karen gets in Tom's face, threatening him with the skeletons in his own closet. But he holds up his list of witnesses, saying that he's already got his proof; how long will it take to get hers? Karen calls Tom a son of a bitch, and he shrugs, "I never claimed otherwise." He says that it's not personal, and demands her resignation within the hour. It's 11:26:48.
Commercial for a contest where they're giving away a visit to the 24 set. Not a prize I'm interested in, for reasons I'll explain later in the recap.< p>At 11:31:13, Morris is giving Nadia shit about how long it's taking her to get stuff done. Milo steps up and technobabbles some fictional excuse on Nadia's behalf. After Morris leaves, more or less satisfied with Milo's explanation, Nadia asks why Milo covered for her. Milo says that he talked to Buchanan. Then he reaches for Nadia's keyboard and logs her in under his own user ID. "That's illegal," Nadia points out. Milo says that he's doing it, not her. Still illegal, but she appreciates it. Not enough to make out with him, though.
Karen heads into the new Undal Office, a manila folder under her arm. Looks like she made her decision pretty quickly. She prevails upon Wayne to kick out the people he's been talking to, and hands him her resignation, effective immediately. Wayne basically morphs into a talking mass of red flags and asks her what's going on, but she won't say. Wayne figures that Tom has something to do with this, because he's noticed how Tom and Karen are always fighting, but that's not a good enough reason for Wayne to let her go; he says he needs her: "I need different points of view." He tries to decline Karen's resignation, but she tells him that's hard cheese. She does soften the blow by telling Wayne how totally awesome he is: "You know what to do, sir...You will continue to rise to this challenge." She has tears in her eyes by now, almost as if she believes the crap she's telling him. Wayne asks what he can do to change her mind. "Raise that new security restriction on Middle Eastern CTU operatives," she doesn't say. But she does ask him to reassign her to CTU L.A. Boy, is Buchanan going to be surprised to see her. Wayne agrees to put Karen on a military transport. Let's hope she doesn't end up in a midair collision with Assad, who's currently on his way to D.C. from L.A. With one last apology, Karen leaves Wayne in his office to wonder how he's going to get through the rest of the day with no National Security Advisor.
Walking through the halls, Karen literally runs into Chad Lowe, who asks her to look over some statement and then give it to Wayne. Karen tells him to give it to Tom. That tells Chad Lowe all he needs to know, and he calls Tom to tell him that Karen's out. "Thank you," says Tom, and gets back to work in his self-satisfied aura of evil. But at least he remembered to thank Chad Lowe, unlike some people. It's 11:36:24.
11:40:52. Kiefer's leading his handcuffed brother all around the parking lot at McCarthy's office, reading off the make, model, and license number of every car in the lot to Chloe over his cell phone. None of them is registered to McCarthy, but Kiefer wants her to cross-check them anyway. In addition to looking for terrorist connections, it'll make it easier to find the cars' rightful owners after he steals all of them. As for the backup teams Kiefer ordered earlier, he tells her to have one move into the parking lot, while the other stays in its current position two blocks out. He hangs up, and outside the front door of the building, he asks Graem where McCarthy's office is. Graem tells him it's on the second floor, and they go inside.
Back at the detention facility, that cell-phone-smuggler Heydar splits off from the circle to go check something on his cell phone in a relatively private spot. Walid lurks behind him, waiting for an opening. After Heydar finishes with his phone and stashes it back into his pocket, Walid stumbles right to him. Heydar catches him by the arm and helps him up, asking if Walid's all right. Walid acts all embarrassed at his clumsiness (as if he didn't still have fresh blood on his face) and says he's fine, and Heydar continues on his way, one less cell phone in his pocket. Nice pull, Walid. Over his hidden earpiece, Walid gets instructions from Agent Blond on what to do . Agent Blond tells Walid to dial a phone number (it's the same 310 "fan phone" number that's been featured ever since Season 4), and then to press star twice, which will let them upload all the data on the phone. Then Walid can slip the phone back to Heydar. Walid tells them to hurry. Sandra wants Walid out now, but Agent Blond wants to hold off until they see what they get. He gets Chloe on the line and, addressing her by her first name like they're old friends, tells her that the data is being sent to her now. She pulls up a bunch of undifferentiated phone numbers and promises to call Agent Blond back when she's done sorting it out. Agent Blond comments to Sandra, "Walid did a great job getting that phone." Sandra tells Agent Blond again to get Walid out, and he tells her again that he has no intention of doing so as long as Walid is getting information. Agent Blond certainly enjoys his new pet. He tells Walid to put the phone back, and Walid returns slowly to the circle, Heydar's phone hidden in his pants pocket.
Chloe's managed to analyze the data from the cell phone in record time. She's found a web page in the cell phone's browser cache where Heydar could have gotten the information on the bomb in Valencia. "These guys aren't terrorists. They're spectators," she tells a frustrated Agent Blond. He asks why they didn't report the website if they're so innocent, and Sandra pounces on him for being stupid enough to think they'd tell him about something that incriminating. Agent Blond thanks Chloe, hangs up, and tells his walkie-talkie that they're pulling Walid out of there. Sandra's already on her way.
Out on the yard, Salim is telling the outrageous story of how he got arrested from home, but Walid and I aren't paying attention, because Heydar has just realized that his phone is missing. And the last time he saw it was right before he ran into Walid. Putting two and two together, he accuses Walid of taking it. Walid's normally quick wits pick this moment to abandon him; instead of offering to go with Heydar over to the spot and secretly dropping it on the ground (which wouldn't work, but might at least buy him the few seconds he needs), he denies everything. The circle turns on Walid as he begins to back away, and Heydar tells them to search him.
Sandra reaches the gate to the yard and tells the guard to let her inside. He refuses. A shame, really; I would have loved to see Sandra rush in there alone and start trying to kick some detainee ass.
Heydar finds his phone in Walid's pants pocket. Busted. Salim accuses Walid of spying on them: "You're worse than they are!" He does try to stop Heydar when the younger man starts swinging, but it's not long before Walid is at the center of an angry, yelling scrum of people beating and kicking him while he lies on the ground, helpless. Remember when I said I don't want to visit the 24 set? This is why.
Agent Blond catches up to Sandra at the gate and orders the guard to let them in. This time the guard complies.
Inside the yard, about three or four soldiers are trying to clear a space around Walid from about forty angry prisoners. That's not a good ratio. The area isn't even remotely secure before Sandra runs right into the middle of the circle and kneels to her boyfriend. Agent Blond calls for medical assistance on his walkie-talkie. Bloodier than before, Walid tells Sandra that he's all right. It's 11:47:05.
11:51:32. A couple of guys are sitting in a CTUmobile in the parking lot outside McCarthy's office. This would be one of Kiefer's field teams. They call in to ask for instructions, and Chloe just tells them to sit tight for now.
Inside the building, Kiefer's just finished using his knife to pick the electronic lock protecting the offices of Elegra Global, McCarthy's company. Graem directs Kiefer to the last door on the right, and a moment later they're in McCarthy's office. Kiefer secures the room and makes Graem sit behind the desk. Then he leans over the keyboard at McCarthy's computer. He quickly finds what looks like McCarthy's contract with their dad's company, but when he pulls it up, there's nothing but an electronic shredding trail, whatever that is. The 10:09 time code tells Kiefer that McCarthy started deleting files after the bomb went off. Before he can look further, they hear a noise in the outer office. Kiefer gets Graem out of the chair to unlock his handcuffs. You think for a second that he's going to let Graem go, but all he does is chain his brother to a bookcase, much to Graem's irritation. Kiefer tells Graem to keep quiet, draws his gun, and goes to investigate.
Another noise leads Kiefer to an inexplicably large stock room. He pokes around among the shelves for a bit, until a guy jumps out at him, disarming him. They go hand-to-hand for a bit, but Kiefer quickly regains the upper hand, and his gun from th
e floor. He attempts to hold his attacker at bay, but alas, there's another man behind him, who conks Kiefer on the head and sends him sprawling to the floor. This second man cocks his gun and is about to shoot Kiefer, but a voice from the doorway calmly orders, "Stop." The gunman asks the taller, older gentleman whether he knows Kiefer, and the man casually answers, "Yeah. He's my son." Which is why he didn't bother raising his voice to save Kiefer's life, I guess. Kiefer's dad isn't being played by Donald Sutherland, and we're all just going to have to get over it. Instead, they cast James Cromwell, a guy I've already recapped plenty. Coming into the room, Dad says he's surprised to see Kiefer: "We all feared the worst." Standing up, Kiefer asks for his gun back, and at a nod from Dad, the first gunman complies. Dad asks what Kiefer's doing there, and Kiefer says he's looking for McCarthy: "I know what you're trying to cover up, Dad. Gray already told me." Dad wants Graem in there, and Kiefer tosses the handcuff keys to the henchman who's on his way to fetch him. "I didn't trust him not to run," Kiefer tells his dad at 11:55:22, as they move back into the main office area.
Kiefer yells at his dad for trying to handle the situation on his own, and for not reporting the missing nukes the second he heard about them the day before. Dad tells Kiefer that Graem told him the nukes couldn't be detonated with deactivated triggers. "He was wrong!" Kiefer yells. "Evidently!" Dad yells back. It's like they were never apart. Kiefer turns away; he needs a moment. Dad says he's just trying to keep his son out of jail, and insists that he doesn't know where McCarthy is, offering, "When I do, we can pick him up together." Graem comes in, rubbing his wrists and saying that Kiefer just wants them both in prison. Kiefer says that he wants to find the nukes, adding, "If you're held accountable for what you've done, that's the bed you've made." Graem complains some more about Kiefer's sense of family loyalty: "We'd be better off if he were still rotting in a Chinese jail." Kiefer pulls out his cell phone, but his dad begs him to hold off, offering to compromise. Kiefer basically says that Graem's problems are his own; he should have been more careful, and he should have reported the missing nukes as soon as he knew. "Oh, and you always do what you should, right, Jack?" Graem needles. "How about when Dad needed you and you disappeared?" I can also think of some other examples, if Graem has plenty of time and a very large hard drive. Dad's still asking Kiefer for a chance, but Kiefer refuses to be responsible for thousands of deaths, "just to protect this family." "Wrong!" says Graem. "Protecting family is everything, and I think your dead wife would agree." Ooh, snap! In a flash, Kiefer's got Graem up against a wall. Dad stops the violence by giving Kiefer his way and telling him to call CTU, over Graem's objections. Kiefer lets Graem go and starts dialing his phone, which is when Graem says, "I don't think so."
That's the first henchman's cue to ambush Kiefer with a kidney-punch from behind, and then to disarm him again and hold Kiefer against the wall with his own gun. Dad protests angrily, telling the gunman, "You work for me." Graem tells him not so much, and nods to the other henchman to cover Dad. "You don't think I'd let you run loose without keeping an eye on you, do you?" says Graem. Dad tries to talk to him, and Graem just tells him to shut up. There's that family loyalty he keeps going on about. He takes Kiefer's phone, saying, "I'm glad we can all put our cards on the table." Even his voice is deeper now. "Family. Pfft," he says to Kiefer, and leads them all out of the office.
At 11:57:54, McCarthy and his girlfriend are checking into a hotel. As he lets them into their room, the minion on his cell phone is saying that they've got a candidate in town who can do what Fayed needs, although he probably won't do it willingly. McCarthy tells his minion to text him the guy's info, and hangs up. His girlfriend says that she hopes he knows what he's doing, and he says that he might buy her a small country when this is over. "As long as it's not Palm Springs," she callbacks. Still not funny.
At McCarthy's office, Graem and one of his henchmen are waiting in the lobby, still holding Kiefer and his dad. The second henchman comes in from inside, saying, "Everything's been handled. We're clear to go." Kiefer looks sad; he knows what that means. Graem rumbles, "Let's move." The little group heads out of the lobby and into the end-of-episode splitscreen. Which also includes Walid being carried out of Anacostia on a gurney, attended by his worst-lawyer-ever girlfriend; Karen is still walking through the hallways of the White House Bunker, because apparently she got lost trying to find the way out twenty-five minutes ago; and McCarthy works on his laptop while his girlfriend lurks in the room.
Walking out into the parking lot, the Bauers pass the CTUmobile in the parking lot. It now has two bullet holes in the passenger window and two dead agents inside. "Good God, what have you done?" Dad asks, horrified. "Jack forced my hand," says Graem, and tells his men, "Call me when it's over." Graem drives off in Kiefer's CTUmobile, while his father and brother are loaded into the back of a blue van to be driven off by his henchmen. But before they go, the captive Bauers' handcuffs are chained together. "Lap and shoulder belts are much safer," Kiefer doesn't say. It's 12:00:00.