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Kiefer's not too broken up to hear about the death of his brother because he's too busy tracking a captured Morris. Not that it helps; McCarthy gets away, only to be double-crossed and killed by his girlfriend, who delivers Morris to Fayed. CTU traces Fayed's location, but it takes so long that Fayed succeeds in torturing Morris into compliance. When CTU bursts in, Fayed escapes the ensuing firefight. But he leaves behind an unconscious Morris and a ticking nuke. In the White House Bunker, Wayne convinces Assad (who got there awfully quickly) to make a televised address appealing for help from the American Muslim community. Tom's about to quit in a righteous conniption over having his ideas shot down, but Chad Lowe suggests that there are other options. Options that involve mysterious phone calls to shadowy conspirators, but options nonetheless. Kiefer defuses the nuke with seconds to spare, but he's not happy to learn that Morris gave Fayed what he wanted. Neither is Tom; he decides he wants to hear more about what Chad Lowe has in mind regarding how to deal with Wayne. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Kiefer's in his helicopter, being flown to where Morris got nabbed by McCarthy and his girlfriend, Rita. He's also on the line with Chloe, trying to calm her down long enough to help him by telling her that Morris needs to be kept alive until he does what Fayed wants, which gives them some time. For once. Even so, Chloe's having trouble keeping it together; it's taking her a while to pull up the right satellite feed, and she snaps at Milo when he tries to help. He was kind of heckling her, but still.
In the Situation Room, Nadia hands Buchanan a report. They are both so sober and solemn that we quickly realize it's word of Graem's death. "Jack's on line 1," Nadia tells Buchanan, and leaves the room. Buchanan picks up the phone and quietly breaks the news to Kiefer. "What happened?" Kiefer asks into his headset. Buchanan says that they'll know more after an autopsy, but that it looks like the interrogation was "a factor." Ya think? Kiefer asks whether Dad knows, and Buchanan says that Dad was there. Buchanan doesn't know the half of it; Dad knew Graem was dead even before Graem did. As for Marilyn and Josh, they still don't know. Kiefer asks Buchanan to break the news to Marilyn for him, and Buchanan agrees. Sucker. He puts Kiefer on hold, because Milo's just entered the room to notify him that Chloe's off her game due to being worried about Morris. Buchanan hangs up and goes out to the floor to see what's going on with Chloe. Upon learning that she hasn't managed to activate the satellite uplink yet, he tries to help her clear her head. She whisper-screams at him, "Get away from me! There's not a problem! The only problem is people like you bothering me while I'm trying to do my job!" The geyser of blood now rocketing skyward in the spot where Buchanan's head used to be tells Chloe to get up and let Milo take over. Chloe reluctantly agrees, and Milo takes off his suit jacket to take her seat. Buchanan hits a button on Chloe's desk phone and tells Kiefer that Chloe's out and Milo's in. Mere seconds later, Milo has the satellite image of McCarthy stuffing Morris into the back of a silver Maserati thirteen minutes ago. He effortlessly tracks the McCarthyMobile to its current location, which he relays to Kiefer. Also, TAC teams will be intercepting McCarthy on the ground shortly. Well, that was easy.
Rita's driving the McCarthyMobile like a madwoman. Way to not attract attention. They don't even know where to go yet, so right now they're just waiting for Fayed to call and tell them where to take Morris. Rita says that she just wants this to be over. Morris says that it'll never be over: "CTU knows who you are. They're already looking for you." McCarthy tries to blow this off to calm Rita down, but Morris is like, "So you're not Darren McCarthy, arms dealer, subcontracted by BXJ Technologies?" McCarthy can't exactly deny it with Rita sitting right there. Instead of attempting some lame cover like, "No, I'm Darius McArthur, love machine, subcontracted to this lovely lady's skirt," he just tells Morris to shut up, because this doesn't change his plans: "If I'm already a marked man, I might as well get paid for it." And what about Rita, wonders Rita. McCarthy assures her that CTU doesn't even know she exists. He's just promising to take care of her when he hears the sound of the helicopter overhead. Opening the moon roof, he spots Kiefer's chopper just as Kiefer spots him. McCarthy directs Rita on an evasive course, driving all crazy and squealy at 1:06:05, but it's not like they're going to be able to evade both Kiefer's helicopter and Milo tracking them by satellite in real time. Even when McCarthy grabs the wheel and steers them into oncoming traffic. Rita shrieks in panic, even though this show totally doesn't have the budget to wreck a Maserati. After a series of near misses, the McCarthyMobile dives for refuge under a tangle of overpasses that Kiefer identifies as the 110 interchange. It disappears from aerial view under what looks like about ninety lanes of traffic and doesn't come out. Milo reports that there are no traffic cams there, and that the CTU TAC teams are still five minutes out. Kiefer tells his pilot to set him down right there, right now.
Under the bridge, McCarthy gives Rita the gun, gets out of his car and runs between a couple of parked cars. He looks inside them before finding one he likes, and then uses a handy concrete fragment to smash the window of a silver extended-cab pickup. In the process, he unwittingly escalates the "peeing-Calvin-sticker" wars, but he probably doesn't care.
While McCarthy's scampering around up ahead, Morris is getting to work on Rita's head back in the parked McCarthyMobile. She's facing forward in the driver's seat while holding the gun pointed vaguely back over her shoulder, which is the least scary way imaginable to threaten someone with a firearm. Morris tells Rita what's going on: they're taking him to Fayed, the guy who nuked Valencia, so that Morris can make Fayed's other four nukes work and kill tens of thousands more people; he exhorts, "And all you have to do to stop that from happening is to uncuff me." He says that McCarthy's right; CTU doesn't know Rita exists. "All those people's lives are on you," he begs. Well, for now they are. Then they'll be on Morris. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Kiefer's pilot sets the chopper down with the skids positioned across a couple of parked semi trailers. I'm not sure that's allowed. But at 1:08:33, Kiefer hops out and bounds down to the ground. Meanwhile, McCarthy drags Morris to the pickup he's just broken into, rushing Rita along and telling her to leave her luggage behind. Let's hope she didn't pack anything worth more than $7 million. As McCarthy cuffs Morris to the inside of the truck's back seat, Rita complains to her boyfriend, "You did not tell me this is about nuclear bombs." "What this is about," says McCarthy, "is seven million dollars." Rita gets into the truck with McCarthy, Morris staring holes into her conscience the whole time, and they all drive off.
Kiefer arrives on the spot seconds too late. All he finds is an empty McCarthyMobile and a small pile of broken glass to an open curbside parking space. That tells him all he needs to know, and he calls Milo on his cell phone to say that McCarthy switched vehicles. Milo says that, from there, they could have merged to any one of six roads, which means that there's no way to track them. "Dammit, Milo, they could be anywhere!" Kiefer bitches, like Milo didn't just say that. "Find them and get back to me!" He hangs up just as the CTU TAC teams arrive. Glad you could make it, boys. Kiefer hops in the lead car and tells the driver to head south.
Back at CTU, Milo turns to Chloe and sadly tells her that he's sorry. To his credit, he doesn't ask her out yet.
Meanwhile, in the new McCarthyMobile, Rita's still holding the gun on Morris in the back seat. Fayed calls McCarthy's cell phone and gives him an address with a sixth-floor apartment. After confirming that Fayed has his money (sure he does), McCarthy hangs up and tells Rita to turn on the GPS unit attached to the dash. So that's what he was window-shopping for. He stops the truck at 1:10:44. While he's preoccupied with programming the address into the GPS, Rita sneaks Morris a conspiratorial look. He nods minutely. McCarthy finds the address on the screen, and as soon as he does, Rita shoots him dead. Whoa! Morris is goggle-eyed in shock as Rita pushes McCarthy's corpse out onto the pavement, slides behind the wheel, and drives on. But he quickly recovers, congratulating her on doing the right thing, even if it was "a bit excessive." He starts going on about how he has to contact CTU, but she puts the gun right back in Morris's face, screaming at him to shut up: "Fayed wants you alive, and whatever shape you're in beyond that is up to you." Disgusted, Morris asks what she's doing. Rita answers, "I am making seven million dollars. And I can spend it without having to worry about CTU. Like you said, they don't even know I exist." Morris makes a pained oopsie-face. It's 1:11:57.
1:16:24. The Cabinet meeting has finally adjourned, and Wayne and Tom have the Battle Bridge to themselves. Wayne tries to smooth things over with his pouting Chief of Staff, remembering how Tom convinced him to run in the first place and saying that he hopes he can count on Tom's help through this crisis. Tom's about to issue a cutting reply when Wayne's lead Secret Service agent (still not Aaron) enters to report that Assad has already landed at Andrews Air Force base, less than two and a half hours after leaving CTU. What did he fly on, the Concorde? Wayne tells Tom they'll talk later, and heads out to get ready to meet his new best friend. Tom leaves the room himself, tossing a copy of his rejected proposal on the table as he goes.
Tom enters his temporary office to find Chad Lowe already there, fiddling with his cell phone. Tom goes in, slams the door, and pushes a bunch of shit off a table onto the floor like the petulant child he is. Chad Lowe hurriedly calms down the alarmed Secret Service agent outside the door, and then asks what happened. Tom rages that Wayne just not only shot down all of Tom's proposals, he also rolled back the detention centers already in place. He says that Wayne's going to try to "appease the Muslim population," and thunders that Wayne's only proving that he doesn't have any balls. I haven't seen Peter MacNicol this pissed off since Dragonslayer. Chad Lowe tells Tom to use his influence to change Wayne's mind, but Tom sputters that he doesn't have any influence. He's resigning. Chad Lowe says that would be a mistake: Tom has the support of lots of people, including the Vice President. But Tom's adamant, and sends Chad Lowe to go draft his letter of resignation and bring it back for a signature. Because Tom has so much other stuff to do while waiting to quit. I'm sure his first call will be to Karen Hayes, telling her to come back.
Out in the hallway, Chad Lowe pulls out his cell phone and calls somebody we haven't seen before -- somebody whose office window has a great view of the Capitol dome and whose hair is quite helmet-like. His name's Carson. Now you know as much about him as I do. Chad Lowe tells Carson that Wayne shot down Tom's plan. Carson says this means that they have no choice but to go ahead with "what we all talked about." Happy hour in Georgetown? It is almost quittin' time on the East Coast, after all. Chad Lowe says the problem is that Tom plans to resign immediately: "If he goes, I lose my job and I lose my access." Carson says that won't work, and that Tom might "reconsider if he knew what was coming." Chad Lowe offers to "feel him out," and Carson tells him to do it carefully: "We need to protect ourselves." Chad Lowe hangs up his phone. Super. It just isn't 24 unless someone is planning to overthrow the president in the middle of a national security crisis.
At CTU, Milo is scrolling through about nine million traffic-cam frames, which will probably take hours. That should get us through sweeps quite nicely, don't you think? Buchanan tells him to keep at it. Get comfortable, everyone. He then looks up and sees that Marilyn and Josh are entering, escorted by a white-shirted CTU guard. Buchanan either recognizes them on sight or isn't expecting any other hot thirtysomething brunettes accompanied by blond teenage boys this afternoon, so he crosses the floor to introduce himself. He asks for a moment alone with Marilyn, and both Bauers agree.
At 1:21:14, Buchanan leads Marilyn into a private room to break the news. Upon hearing that Graem is dead, his widow doesn't exactly dissolve into hysterics. She just asks how it happened. Buchanan says that Graem suffered a heart attack. "What did Jack do to him?" Marilyn asks severely, and Buchanan promises an investigation: if Kiefer did anything wrong, he will either be severely punished, disappear underground, or get shipped back to China. Buchanan adds that Dad Bauer is already at CTU, and that they plan to do Graem's autopsy right there. "Unless you have an objection," Buchanan adds. Marilyn tries not to look like she wants to be the one to cut Graem up herself. She goes to the glass wall, looks out at Josh, and says that she has to tell him. Buchanan steps outside and sends Josh back in, and then watches through the glass wall as Marilyn breaks the news. Josh doesn't seem to be taking it well. Fortunately, we watch from a distance so as not to tax Josh's acting abilities too seriously.
From the road, Kiefer calls in to CTU. He's crouched over McCarthy's body, saying that they intercepted a call to the LAPD from a witness that identified the shooter as a female in a silver pickup with a passenger fitting Morris's description. What a lucky break, and what an observant witness. Kiefer has taken McCarthy's cell phone off his body, and reports to Buchanan that McCarthy got a call five minutes earlier from a blocked number. Kiefer says that he'll upload the phone's data to CTU, and Buchanan says that he'll put Milo on it. But what about those traffic-cam frames? I want to see more of those!
At 1:22:56, Rita leads Morris into a dingy apartment hallway and holds the gun to his ribs while she forces him to knock on an apartment door. To the muffled voice behind the door asking who it is, she says she's McCarthy's "associate" with the "package." As they're quickly allowed in and rudely frisked at gunpoint by about three of Fayed's men, we can see the sweat stains under Morris's armpits. Fayed asks Rita who she is, and she cannily tells him that McCarthy's waiting to hear from Fayed: "If he doesn't get the money, he gives you up." Fayed asks if Morris is the engineer. "I'm just a data analyst," Morris insists. "You've got the wrong man." Fayed doesn't believe Morris, probably because he Britishly pronounced his title as "darter analyst." Fayed gives Morris a hard sock across the chops and has him forced into a seat. Rita demands her money, and Fayed says that she'll get it once Morris has finished with his job. Hey, that wasn't the deal. Unfortunately for her, Rita's to stupid to protest. Fayed turns to Morris and tells him what he knows Morris already knows: he has four suitcase nukes that he needs reprogrammed, and Morris is going to do that for him. Trying to sound brave -- which is difficult when your voice is shaking -- Morris tells him, "Not bloody likely, mate." In case you forgot Morris is British. Fayed nods to one of his henchmen, who pistol-whips Morris down onto his side. Fayed shows Morris a handheld electronic device and says that Morris is going to reprogram the GameBoy to function as a NukeBoy. Morris refuses again. So Fayed's henchman goes to work on him with a baseball bat. How very...American of him. Rita doesn't seem to enjoy witnessing the beating of a guy she delivered. Don't you feel bad for her? It's 1:25:22.
At 1:29:45, one of the act-in splitscreen windows shows Assad being led through a surface-level hallway of the White House. Meanwhile, Kiefer's still at the site of McCarthy's murder, on the phone with CTU and wondering why it's taking Milo so long to do the phone trace. Instead of explaining to Kiefer that commercial breaks tend to slow things down, Buchanan sends Nadia to look into it. She has to have at least one other thing to do this episode, after all. So far, all Milo's been able to figure out is that the call came from a land line, but its origin has been thoroughly disguised with several layers of technobabble. He's getting frustrated by obstacles that keep popping up on his screen. Chloe shows up behind him, calmly offering to help: "I know I screwed up earlier. I wasn't thinking clearly. Let me try this." Milo relinquishes the seat to her. After exchanging some technobabble with him, Chloe completes the trace in a few seconds. Nadia returns to Buchanan with Milo and gives the address. Kiefer also heard it, since he's on speaker, and asks which apartment he's looking for. Milo says that there's no way of knowing, since Fayed has tapped directly into the building's trunk line. Kiefer orders a covert perimeter (snerk) of CTU agents around the building and hops into a CTUmobile at 1:31:06. He's on his way. Back in the CTU Situation Room, Buchanan congratulates Milo on tracing the call. Milo says that it wasn't him, and turns to look at Chloe, who's dining on her fingernails out on the floor. "If you think she's ready, bring her back in," says Buchanan. Let's just hope she's not too rusty after being out of play for fifteen minutes.
The door to the White House Bunker elevator slides open to reveal Assad, standing with his arms crossed and surrounded by three Secret Service agents and two armed soldiers in fatigues. The little party walks to meet Wayne, who's been waiting in front of the elevator with his own arms crossed. It's very Return Of The Jedi. "Mr. Al-Assad, right this way," Wayne directs, and he, Assad, and Wayne's lead Secret Service agent enter a rather luxurious conference room. Wayne says he believes that Assad wants peace. "On my own terms, yes," Assad agrees, sitting down without being invited. Wayne sits as well, so that he can talk about his own terms instead. He starts by saying that the U.S. has suffered a nuclear strike by terrorists who used to follow Assad. Assad knows: "I was there." Wayne warns Assad that if another nuke goes off, Wayne will have no choice but to retaliate -- not just against terrorists, but against the governments supporting them. He doesn't add that he might hit a few non-involved countries as well, but I suppose you have to break a few eggs if you want to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Assad gets up to pace the room, and Wayne's Secret Service agent paces along with him, his gun visible in its holster. Assad asks he doesn't know what Wayne wants from him. Wayne says he wants Assad to make a television address to the world, declaring his peaceful intentions and asking people in the Muslim community to come forward with any information about Fayed. "You flatter me if you think I hold sway over all Islam," Assad scoffs. What, they don't all know each other? Wayne says that he only wants Assad to influence his fellow extremists. Assad angrily says that it won't work if he presents his agenda on American television from the White House: "Fayed has already called me a traitor, and many others will follow him if there is even a suspicion that I am an American puppet." Wayne calls Assad a partner, and forcefully tells Assad that's what it's going to take for Assad's peace initiative to work: "And between you and me, sir, I really don't give a damn how and when you wanted to present your agenda. You want to lead this peace initiative? Then lead." Well done, Wayne. I suspect that a lot of the problems that are about to come his way wouldn't be so bad if people heard him talking to Assad like that.
Kiefer arrives at the CTU staging area near Fayed's building. Agent Turner is once again in charge, and he explains the logistics of the situation to Kiefer as they peer at the building through gaps in a privacy fence across the street. They don't have confirmation that Fayed's there, but Turner says that the building manager confirmed that Morris entered the building with a woman (McCarthy's presumed shooter) less than twenty minutes ago. That's one observant building manager. The building has no security cameras, so they have no way of finding out which apartment the bad guys are in. At 1:34:42, Turner leads Kiefer to the back of a parked CTUmobile and hooks him up with a CTU earpiece. In a moment, Kiefer's on the line with Buchanan, telling him everything he just learned from Turner. CTU has the building on infrared satellite refreshing at five-minute intervals, and Nadia chimes in that the six-floor building contains over two hundred people in over one hundred apartments. Kiefer says that they don't have time to go room by room (which would tip Fayed off anyway, I would add) and will have to figure something else out. Air strike? After a moment's thought, Kiefer hits on the idea of triggering the building's fire alarm and going in after anyone who doesn't come out. "Chloe, it's good to have you back," he interjects as he gives her the instructions. It's going to be a little while before she can hack into the system, so Kiefer throws on a bulletproof vest while he waits. It's fortunate that when he was ransacking the belongings of some unsuspecting movers a several hours ago, he chose something that matches Kevlar.
The bad guys have moved Morris to the bathroom, where they're holding his head down in the tub. Which is full of water, I should add. At least it won't mess up his hair. When they let him up for air, Morris coughs out about a gallon of water and begs them to stop. Fayed says that they will, if Morris agrees to do what he wants. Before Morris answers, however, the building's fire alarm goes off. One of Fayed's henchmen looks out the window and reports that people are leaving: "If there really is a fire, what do we do?" Fayed responds by borrowing an assault rifle from another one of his men, using the butt to bash the fire alarm off the wall, and returning the weapon. "CTU knows we're here," he says. Rita would really like to leave now, but Fayed tells her to shut up and storms back to the bathroom, now carrying a cordless drill with a very long bit attached to it. Uh-oh. Fayed has his men push Morris face-first against the wall and tells him, "Your time is up." And he sinks the spinning drill bit into the back of Morris's left shoulder. Owie. At least we don't see the bit actually going in, much less coming back out in front. Morris screams obligingly, and then sinks to the bloody floor when Fayed pulls the bit out. Standing over him, Fayed tells Morris, "I will use this all over your body until you die of shock or blood loss. Then I will just find someone else to do what I need. Do you understand?" If Morris does, he's too busy crying to say so. Or to point out that Fayed really doesn't have that kind of time. Not that I would myself. I'm only mocking Morris for crying because I'd still be too busy screaming to cry. Rita comes in, begging to be let go. She says she doesn't even care about the money any more. Which is stupid, because it tells Fayed that McCarthy isn't waiting to hear from her after all, and that he can kill her with impunity. Which he forthwith does. Rita falls to the ground, eye-to-dead-eye with Morris. That, plus the sound of the drill revving up again, is enough to break Morris. "I'll do it," he says tearfully. It's 1:38:34.
1:43:02. Tom sits in his office reading a memo. When Chad Lowe comes in, Tom says that Assad's going to be giving a televised address. "Not only are we giving free airtime to a mass murderer and an avowed enemy of democracy, we are proving terrorism works." Something wrong with killing two birds with one stone? This just makes him want his resignation letter more, but of course Chad Lowe doesn't have one for him. Instead, Chad Lowe asks him, "What if I told you the climate could change?" What does that even mean? "What does that even mean?" Tom asks. Chad Lowe says that there are others who believe "that a change in leadership is imperative to ensure this nation's security." If Chad Lowe expects to be thanked for mentioning this, he's going to be disappointed. Tom slowly gets up, comes around his desk, and dangerously asks who Chad Lowe is talking about. Chad Lowe backpedals so quickly that he practically redshifts, but he says that Tom's plan would have plenty of support if the Veep were president. Tom says that while he may disagree with Wayne, he doesn't think it warrants Wayne's removal. "I'm not talking about holding hearings," says Chad Lowe. "Something more immediate would have to happen." Oh, well, that sounds much better than hearings. But now it's out there. Well, as "out there" as it's going to get, since Chad Lowe is done saying what he means for the two episodes. Tom is shocked at what Chad Lowe seems to be suggesting. Chad Lowe says he's only "musing," and Tom warns him not to "muse" himself into jail for treason. Then he sends him off to write that damn resignation letter already. Surprisingly, he doesn't tell Chad Lowe to put his own name on it as well.
From their hiding spot at the CTU staging area, Kiefer and Turner are watching the evacuation of Fayed's building. Based on reports from agents on the ground, Turner's certain that neither Fayed nor Morris have left, which means that they're still in there. The good news comes when Buchanan chimes in on Kiefer's earpiece to say that the infrared scan now shows the building nearly empty, except for people in three apartments on the second, fourth and sixth floors. Chloe pulls up a database that quickly tells her that the second-floor tenant is handicapped and therefore probably trapped. I hope that after this is over, someone tells her that, in the event of an actual emergency, someone in the fire department would shift their ass to get her out of there. As for the fourth-floor tenant, he's a single male with a couple of narcotics priors. Kiefer figures Fayed wouldn't set up a safe house with a guy who has a criminal record, so that leaves the sixth-floor apartment. Kiefer decides it's time to move.
Inside Fayed's apartment, Morris is pretty much upright again, sitting on the couch while working with the laptop and the NukeBoy set up on the ottoman. Fayed accuses Morris of stalling, since he thinks it should only take a few minutes. Morris denies it, even though he could offer the excuse that he can't type as quickly as usual right after some asshole has taken a core sample of his left deltoid. The guy at the window says that everyone else in the building has evacuated, and Fayed realizes that means they're almost out of time. Despite knowing that he's probably seconds from rescue, Morris doesn't even slow down. I can't judge him for giving in earlier, but that moment there is a pretty poor showing.
At 1:47:37, a shotgun-wielding Kiefer leads a platoon of armored CTU agents up the stairwell to the sixth floor. They move into position slowly and quietly. (For CTU agents, I mean.)
Inside the apartment, Morris tells Fayed that he's done. "Bring it!" Fayed orders. Morris is shocked that a suitcase nuke has already been broughten. "Just one," says Fayed, and orders Morris to arm it. He gives Morris a whack on his good shoulder for hesitating. Morris finally complies, and Fayed is satisfied to see a "DEVICE ARMED" message pop up on the screen. He gets ready to leave, saying, "Kill him." Morris gets up to protest, and then gets knocked down by one of the henchmen, who tells him to get up again. Before this yo-yo game can get more ridiculous, a giant hole gets blown through the wall adjoining the hallway. Kiefer steps through the breach, shotgun blazing. CTU agents are backing him up with automatic weapons fire, shooting guys right through the walls. There's so much gun smoke and drywall dust in the air that I don't know how they can tell whom they're shooting. I certainly can't. Kiefer gets one last bad guy pinned down in a bedroom, and rather than going in after him, he simply whispers, "Now." Seconds later, two CTU agents crash through the window behind the surviving henchman and gun him down. When the dust settles, Turner tells Kiefer that they're short a corpse; Fayed's not there. Kiefer goes to the window and looks both up and down; nobody there but CTU agents, who haven't seen anything. Kiefer tells Turner to keep looking for Fayed and figure out how he got out. A medic tells Kiefer that Morris is unconscious, but alive. Kiefer relays this news over his earpiece to Chloe, but before they can celebrate, another agent summons Kiefer into the bathroom. At first, Kiefer thinks it's so that he can see Rita's body on the floor and the bloody ring in the bathtub, but no; it's the suitcase nuke, sitting on a stool with its lid ajar. Kiefer crouches before it and gingerly lifts the lid. "CTU, this is Bauer. We've got a problem," Kiefer understates. It's 1:50:52.
1:55:14. It gets worse; Chloe's going to be walking Kiefer through the defusing process over his earpiece. Seriously, does Kiefer really have to do everything? His TAC team doesn't include a guy who knows how to defuse bombs? On a mission where they're trying to recover...you know, bombs? The component inside the case that we need to worry about -- aside from the nuclear charge itself, of course -- is a small glass case that looks like a French press, inside which two metal plates shaped like parentheses have a long screw threaded between their centers. The screw is turning, and this is causing the plates to move closer to one another in unnerving little jumps. And Kiefer can't force his way into the case without triggering the bomb. Chloe says that when the plates touch, that's when the nuke detonates. I don't know why super-advanced computer engineers are needed to reprogram the electronic trigger when the mechanical component is so Rube Goldberg-ish. Kiefer tells Chloe that the plates are about three inches apart. Chloe says that gives them about three minutes. Milo sets a digital timer for that interval on his computer screen as Chloe starts giving Kiefer his instructions. She has him unscrew a small metal box inside the bomb case, and he reaches into a handy bomb-defusing tool kit. Because again, they have tools for this, but not a guy. While Kiefer's fiddling around with the nuke's guts, Agent Turner has found Fayed's escape route: a tiny hole in the closet leading to a ventilation shaft with a knotted rope hanging inside. He reports this to Kiefer, adding that the shaft leads to the basement and thence to the sewer tunnels. Kiefer asks about the perimeter, but Turner says that they got reports about a helicopter taking off from nearby about five minutes ago. "It appeared to be a medevac chopper so it got through our net." "Dammit," Kiefer hisses, as if this is a surprise, and returns his full attention to the one-kiloton explosive device he hasn't stopped fucking around with during this little distraction.
Once Kiefer gets inside the little box, it reveals a circuit board and a bit of clockwork. Those metal parentheses take another jump closer to one another as Kiefer tells Chloe that they're running out of time. Dude, she was waiting for you. She has Kiefer short out some wires, which stops a gear, which gives Kiefer access to a row of tiny little dipswitches. Using his left hand to steady his shaky right, Kiefer uses a bitty little eyeglasses screwdriver to depress the two dipswitches Chloe tells him to. Nothing happens, except that the plates are still getting closer together. Chloe gets "an updated schematic" and tells him to flip two different switches. "Are you sure this time?" Kiefer growls. Chloe says she's as sure as she's going to get before it goes off. While the clock ticks down past fourteen seconds, Kiefer gets the right combination of dipswitches. The glass case pops open, and Kiefer jams the rubberized screwdriver handle in between the plates. And then shits himself. Wait, sorry -- that was me. Kiefer collapses against the bathtub, and as CTU's timer shows less than two seconds, Kiefer tells them over his earpiece that it's done. After a moment, he gets up and goes out to the front room.
On his way out to the hallway, Kiefer notifies Turner that the bomb has been deactivated: "It's over." "It's not over," says Morris, mirroring his remark from earlier. He miserably confesses that he gave Fayed the goods. "You gave him something that works?" Kiefer hisses furiously. Morris says he's sorry. I guess he's not really in a position to argue that he couldn't withstand twenty minutes of torture to a guy who just wrapped twenty months of it. Hearing the conversation, Chloe looks sad and disappointed as Kiefer asks if CTU got that. Buchanan says that they did, and sends Nadia to notify Wayne.
Back at the apartment, Kiefer tells Turner to split his men into teams to search the apartment and the building. "Agent O'Brian will tell you what you're looking for," he passive-aggressives. Morris guilts into a splitscreen window, other ones of which show Chloe looking sad some more, Wayne on his phone getting the news, and Fayed already airborne in a helicopter. Seems to me that if Kiefer hadn't defused the bomb, Fayed would have had a pretty short flight.
The latest news has already shown up on Tom's screen, and he reads it with alarm. He picks up his phone to call Chad Lowe, who has his resignation letter all ready. "No, just tear that up," says Tom. He carefully says that he wants to continue the discussion they were having earlier. Chad Lowe snatches up the handset and quickly says, "Not on this phone. I'll let you know when I have a secure location." So they can, you know, muse in private. Chad Lowe hangs up, and then crumples Tom's resignation letter and throws it in the trash. Meanwhile Tom sits at his desk and rubs his face with an expression of, ironically enough, resignation. It's 2:00:00.