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With the bodies of Kiefer's presumed victims piling up, Ethan realizes that his career is over, and he resigns to protect President Taylor from his mounting failures. And then we learn that Olivia was the leak all along. Kiefer and Tony are at the Port of Alexandria, taking the security guard hostage to try and find Starkwood's shipment before Hodges' men arrive to pick it up. The guard turns out to be the terrorists' inside man at the port, under the impression that he was just dealing with electronics smugglers. Tony and Kiefer draft him for their operation, in which they plan to follow the couriers offsite. Meanwhile, Moss is working the crime scene at Mayer's house, and certain clues lead him to suspect that Kiefer's being framed just like everyone's been telling him. At the port, Kiefer nearly blows the operation by saving the security guard from Starkwood's men, but he does manage to steal the truck with the weapon in it, leaving Tony behind to get nabbed by the bad guys. Kiefer tries to hand it over to the FBI, but when he stops to deal with a leak that occurred during the firefight, Starkwood's men catch up to him and steal it right back. So now he's lost the weapon, plus he's been exposed to whatever nasty-ass shit Juma was shipping to Starkwood, and Tony's not going to be happy with him the time they meet up. Not a good hour.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Tonight's freeze-frame previouslies feature Ethan Kanin, Jack Bauer, the increasingly misnamed FBI Agent Renee Walker, Jonas Hodges, and the late Senator Blaine Mayer. Clearly, "dead" is the new "about to be dead." Which is odd, because it looks like "about to be unemployed" is also the new "about to be dead."
It's gettin' forensic all up in Senator Blaine Mayer's house. Crime scene guys are swarming around the building, while the senator lies dead in his entryway. Moss silently contemplates the wreckage of the French door that Kiefer dove through near the end of the last hour. Since it lies outside the house, even he can conclude that the shooter clearly didn't enter that way. Behind him, a couple of guys dig bullets out of the banister at that end of the hall, where nobody who was after just Mayer would have had any reason to shoot. An agent reports that Kiefer is nowhere to be found, and Moss gives the order to widen the perimeter before making a rather awkward cell phone call. It's to Ethan Kanin, back in his office with his tie loosened and his jacket off, and hoping to hear that Kiefer's been arrested. Moss has to tell him that not only is Kiefer still at large, it looks an awful lot like he just murdered Senator Mayer. "How could you have let this happen, Agent Moss?" Ethan rages. "I released Jack Bauer into your custody. I ordered you to keep him on a short leash." Moss is not about to let Ethan pin this on him. He snaps, "It was your decision to give Bauer access to Burnett! I advised you against it." That shuts Ethan up so effectively that Moss has to confirm that he's still there. After a long moment, Ethan realizes that Moss is right, and hangs up, telling him to just find Kiefer. He sinks into his chair. Not a good last day at work. Oops, did I just spoil something?
Kiefer, behind the wheel of the SUV he stole from the construction site where he confronted Quinn, is also on the phone. He's telling Tony about Starkwood's connection to Juma and the events of the day. He also tells him about the handy text message he got off Quinn's cell phone, telling him when and where the bioweapon is to be picked up. Tony suggests they call in the FBI, but Kiefer points out that as fugitives, they won't exactly have much credibility. "We need to know exactly where that weapon is before we call anyone else in." And, ideally, get their own hands on it while they're both still wanted for murder and terrorism. Seems like the only prudent course of action, so Tony agrees to meet Kiefer at the port's access road.
At 10:05:34, President Taylor is on the Oval Office phone to her husband, who's apparently awake after his surgery. She's got nothing but good news for him, telling him that the crisis is all over and everyone behind it is dead (as far as she knows), plus Olivia's back in the fold. Too bad he slept through all of the excitement while having a bullet dug out of his thorax. Henry's happy to hear it, even though he's still pretty groggy as he balances a phone to his ear in his hospital bed. With a promise to visit as soon as they can ("I'm not going anywhere," Henry says), Taylor hangs up just as Ethan enters the Oval Office. Even as she tells him that Henry's going to be fine, Taylor can tell from Ethan's grim demeanor that something's wrong. Ethan has to tell her that Senator Mayer is dead, apparently at Kiefer's hand. Taylor is shocked and confused. "After everything he's done today, why on earth would he do this?" she wonders. Ethan doesn't have an answer; only an offer of his own resignation. She resists the idea at first, but Ethan convinces her that it's for the best, with a few subtle digs at some of Olivia's remarks. Taylor hates to do it, but she knows he's right. And the whole scene only takes about five minutes longer than it needed to.
So now it's 10:10:45, and Kiefer joins Tony, who is peering through the port's chain-link fence with the aid of binoculars. Somehow Kiefer has changed out of his suit and into commando gear in the last five minutes, plus he's got an assault rifle. I have to assume he got both out of the back of Tony's car. Poor Tony; he started the day doing cool stuff like almost crashing planes into each other, and now he's Kiefer's laundry service. They know that they have to get access to the port's manifest to find the right container, and that means dealing with security. So far, Tony has only spotted one Port Authority guard. Sounds easy enough. Too easy.
That guard, Carl, is now doing his rounds outside the guard shack, shining his flashlight around while on his cell phone reassuring his wife, stuck at home, that he'll be home in a few hours. He's played by Connor Trinneer from Enterprise, although somehow he looks a lot more weaselly than Trip Tucker. We also learn that his wife is pregnant with twins. And that's what we need to know about Carl the guard for now. Before we can learn more, he hears a thump among the shipping containers and says he'll call her back. Approaching the nearest container and peering around it, he suddenly finds himself pinned face-first against the side of it by Kiefer. He and Tony turn him around and take his weapon at gunpoint. When Kiefer demands a look at the port's manifest, Carl protests, "I'm just a P.A. cop." Kiefer responds by pressing his gun against Carl's forehead and repeating the question. Carl points him to the customs house, and the three of them head off in that direction at 10:12:25. But Kiefer! He's expecting twins!
Commercials. I think the Crank series exists to make Jack Bauer's shitty luck seem more plausible.
10:16:52. Hodges is pacing around the multi-story atrium at Starkwood HQ, on the phone to his guy at the port, a man named Stokes. Stokes tells Hodges that they're only waiting on Quinn to go ahead with the pickup. Hodges wonders if Kiefer took out Quinn and thus knows something about the operation. He tells his man to wait five more minutes for Quinn, then go in, "with extreme caution," and let Hodges know as soon as they have the container. As he hangs up, Seaton appears at his elbow to tell him that the whole board is present. Noticing Seaton's worried demeanor, Hodges pauses at the board room door to tell him, "They're six-year-olds, Greg, and they need to eat their carrots." The secret to good management, right there.
With that, Hodges enters the board room, followed by a not-reassured Seaton. He starts right in, saying that Starkwood might have been able to help prevent the events of the day. Yes, by not causing them. But clearly his board is in the dark on everything he's been up to. He launches a lecture: "Fact: the United States military is strained to the breaking point. Fact: reinstatement of the draft is off the table for political reasons. Fact: the people in this room, you all, control the largest private army in the Western Hemisphere. Now could we have been of help today? You bet your ass we could have been of help!" But instead, as he points out, the government is shitting all over them. He calls out a craggy-faced man, saying, "Doug, you brokered the deal with this government. You were short-sighted. They don't understand that the global war on terror can only be won with forces like ours." His point? The company is through cooperating with the Taylor administration. Now who's acting like a six-year-old? Doug is up on his feet, asking, "You came here to ask the board to risk a federal indictment?" He and Jonas argue about it, until they walk out to discuss it in the hallway. Hodges leaves Seaton behind to answer questions for the rest of the board. So in that brief scene, we've learned a lot about Starkwood. A) it has a board, B) its board meetings are really short and late at night, and C) Greg Seaton's job sucks.
In the hallway, Doug insists that they have to play along, what with Senator Mayer on their asses. So Hodges tells Doug about Mayer. "He was killed by a rogue federal agent not one hour ago. Tragically," he remembers to add. As he walks away, Doug asks for reassurance that Hodges didn't have anything to do with it. "Starkwood is not in the business of political assassination, Doug," Jonas slimes. "But maybe we should look into it. I hear it's a growth market." At 10:20:52, Doug doesn't look as reassured as he might have hoped.
At the port's customs house, Tony is standing guard while Kiefer operates the computer, and Carl the guard sits tied to a chair with tape over his mouth. Kiefer has found a couple of recent shipments that look like they might have originated from Sangala, but runs up against a password barrier. He rips the tape off Carl's mouth and asks him his name. Carl gives it, but claims not to have the password. Kiefer begins his speech about the terrorists who are now trying to get their hands on a WMD. "I understand this might be hard for you to believe--" "No, actually it's not," Carl interrupts. "You don't have a lot of time. They are coming. In fact, they should be here already." Oops; looks like Carl's the inside man. He says that he was told they were only smuggling in electronics from South Korea, and had no idea it was anything this big. All he agreed to do for them was open the front gate, disable the security cameras, and juggle the schedules of the other guards so he'd be the only one on duty. "That's enough confirmation for me," Kiefer declares to Tony. "I'm making the call. Untie him." Kiefer tries to dial a desk phone, but it's dead. As is his cell phone. Realizing someone's jamming them with some magical device that affects both cell phones and land lines, Kiefer and Tony draw their weapons and duck to the window. Just then a walkie-talkie on the desk squawks to life. It's the Starkwood guy, and he sounds angry. Kiefer tells Carl to answer it and act like everything's fine. Carl does, and Kiefer instructs him to put his gunbelt back on, then go let them in as planned. After they have the weapon, Tony and Kiefer will follow them until they're clear of the jamming field. "I don't know," Carl balks. Kiefer's not trying to hear that. "You became a part of this the second you said yes to these people," he snarls. From the window, Tony reports that there are three trucks with at least eight heavily armed guys waiting outside the gate. Kiefer tells Carl that he can either let them in or they'll come in after him. "These people have killed over three hundred people today," Kiefer lectures. "They get a hold of that weapon, they're going to make that look like child's play. You've only got one choice here." Carl just wants Kiefer to promise that they have his back. Kiefer cuts a shifty glance over at Tony, but promises anyway. Of course he never says the magic phrase, "You have my word," so Carl should realize that he's being screwed. Behind Carl's back, Tony looks even shiftier. While the bad guys are still waiting outside with what I'm sure is increasing impatience, Kiefer attaches a wire to Carl, while Carl makes excuses about how he needed the money to start a family. Kiefer opens the door for him, reminding him, "Remember, it's just another day at the office. You're going to be fine." He and Tony exchange a look that says, we are lying liars who lie.. It's 10:25:22.
10:29:44. A whole commercial break later, Carl finally reaches the front gate, where Stokes gives him a hard time about how long it took him to get there. Stokes seems pretty angry about it, too. But what we're going to learn about Stokes this hour is that he's angry about everything, all the time. Carl nervously asks Stokes for the routing documents as he opens the gate. Stokes can tell he's nervous, and asks in a not-so-friendly way, "How's your wife?" Carl says she's fine, and he didn't tell her or anyone else about this. "Why would I?" he asks rhetorically. Stokes angrily wonders why Carl seems so nervous. Carl stammers that he was expecting a simple pickup, and here's Stokes with a small army. He claims he just doesn't want to get caught, is all. Stokes tells him it's cool, then orders everyone into the vehicles -- including Carl. Carl weakly protests that he should finish his rounds, but Stokes insists. Angrily.
Watching from the window, Kiefer mutters, "Dammit." "Forget about him, Jack," Tony advises. "He was dead the minute he stepped out that door. You and I both know that." Even if it did take him a full five minutes to amble from the shack to the front gate that's less than a hundred yards away. At 10:31:47, the three trucks rumble onto the lot: two SUVs sandwiching a semi tractor without a trailer. I guess they're going to just drag the container out of there. The hail of sparks that results from that shouldn't attract too much attention.
Ethan is cleaning out his office. From a frame, he removes a picture of Taylor and himself in happier times. Apparently the frame is government property. Olivia comes in to express her condolences. "I appreciate the courtesy, if not the sincerity," Ethan says, a bit snippily. Olivia insists that she's sorry for him, "and for some of the harsher things I said to you in anger." In turn, Ethan apologizes to her for accusing her earlier. "Considering the impression I gave you I'm not surprised," she admits. Ethan decides to offer Olivia some advice, and gives her a little lecture about ambition. He wants her to remember that running the country is different than running a campaign. "It's not about doing whatever it takes to win. It's about doing what's right for the American people." "Sometimes those things aren't mutually exclusive," Olivia says smoothly. Ethan takes off. And the second Olivia's alone in his office, she takes out her cell phone and calls the reporter from last hour, the one who pulled Ethan aside during Taylor's address. "You can go with that story now, Ken," Olivia says, revealing to nobody's surprise that she was the leak after all. "And it just got better," she adds. "Ethan Kanin's resigning...It seems Jack Bauer just murdered Senator Mayer." Ken is shocked, not least of all because she's giving him an exclusive on this, and in time for the eleven o'clock news, no less. "You just hold up your end," she warns, by which she means he needs to make sure that Ethan gets the blame and her mom gets away clean, and more importantly, ignorant of Olivia's role as the leak. Well, that certainly sounds feasible. He asks her to dinner, because this isn't all incestuous and creepy enough yet. "Maybe week," she dodges, clearly not for the first time, and hangs up. It's 10:34:57. Ken, even though she just used you to get rid of a political rival in under two hours, it would seem that she's just not that into you.
10:39:24. Moss is in Mayer's study with the crime scene guy, who hands over the preliminary ballistics report. Right now, Moss is more curious about the files that were up on Mayer's computer. I know it's a bit late to be mentioning this, but clearly Senator Mayer needs a screensaver password. Moss also wonders aloud why there are slugs in the doorway and the railing at the far end of the hallway, if Mayer was shot at point-blank range in the entryway. Maybe Mayer saw the gunman from the opposite end of the hallway and tried to rush him when he turned out to be a shitty shot? For now, Moss passes it off to the crime lab, thinks for a second, and pulls out his cell phone.
Walker is still pacing her holding room when another agent enters and hands her a cell phone, telling her it's Moss on the line. Moss opens bluntly: "Senator Mayer's dead." Walker asks about Kiefer, and Moss says they don't know where he is. Walker asks Moss if he thinks Kiefer did it, and Moss acts noncommittal. He does ask Walker if she has any idea where Kiefer might have gotten a hold of a UNP40 submachine gun, which was apparently Mayer's murder weapon, while on the run. Well, he did get a hold of a laptop, a PDA, a car, and some incriminating security footage, so anything's possible. Moss adds that it looks like someone else was in the house at the time, according to clues like, "Unexplained slugs, broken set of French doors, chair where it doesn't belong." The last one is a canny reference to how Mayer had his guest chair parked at the end of his desk while copiloting his computer with Kiefer in the last hour. "Are you saying that this third party killed Mayer?" Walker asks. Moss pounces: "Well, you know, Renee, I might be saying that if I knew what the hell Bauer was doing here in the first place!" Heh. He wants Walker's help, but she's still resisting. So he tells her about the Starkwood files up on Mayer's computer, and whether she talked about them to Kiefer. Walker pulls another one of her long phone silences, so Moss asks her to trust him. "What role does Starkwood play in all this?" Walker pauses some more... and then some more... and them some more... and then finally tells Moss about John Quinn, and Kiefer's assumption that Starkwood is behind the day's events. "He went to Mayer to get the evidence to prove it. I have to assume that Quinn followed him there," Walker explains. Moss is satisfied, but he can't spring Walker just yet until he has more evidence. So she grits her teeth and hangs up on him at 10:42:22. She is not happy about having to spend a whole hour out of action like this. But at least her hair still looks amazing.
Meanwhile, at the port, the Starkwood group has split up. Some of them (and Carl) are watching as a tall forklift picks up a container, and some others are hooking a trailer chassis up to the semi tractor. Apparently the port has a supply of those, just for situations like this when someone shows up with a truck but nothing to set a container on. Stokes orders the Starkwood container put down on another container for now, then orders one of his men, Mitch, to "run a diagnostic" so it'll be ready when the truck gets there. He's pretty angry about it, too. While this is going on, Tony and Kiefer are lurking in the shadows between the containers, watching the proceedings. "We should get back to the car," Tony whispers. "We want to be in position to follow that container once they move out." Kiefer's not ready for that, though. "Just give me one second," he says. Out in the lot, Stokes sends a big guy named Cooper to "settle up" with Carl, and Cooper leads Carl off, claiming to be taking him to his truck with Carl's money in it. As they go to the aisle, Kiefer leads Tony between the containers to where they can see what's happening. Which is Cooper pulling a gun on Carl. Kiefer gets in position and attaches a silencer to his gun. "Dammit, Jack, what are you doing?" Tony asks angrily. "You're going to turn a surveillance job into a firefight." And? Wouldn't be the first time. "It'll be two against ten," Tony adds. "Two against nine," Kiefer corrects laconically. Or three against nine, if Carl steps up, but I don't think we'll be able to count on that. Tony says it might cost them the bioweapon. "Don't break your own rules. You may save one man, but what about the thousands of people who could die in a biological attack? Is this about you, Jack, or about them? You want to prevent another disaster or ensure that it's gonna happen?" Tony, dude, keep your voice down. Kiefer lowers his gun. He knows Tony has a point, but at the same time he's thinking, If I don't save Carl, there's this red-haired FBI agent who's going to smack me so hard.
Cooper decides Carl has walked far enough, and tells him to turn around. "You're gonna kill me, you're gonna have to look me in the eye," Carl says. "Okay," Cooper shrugs, and raises his gun. But when the shot comes, it's Cooper who goes down. "Oh, dammit!" Tony hisses. "Thank you," Carl calls into the shadows, and runs off. Awesome: now Carl's twin daughters won't have to grow up without a daddy, as long as they don't mind spending the rest of his life with him on the run or in prison. Kiefer tells Tony -- who isn't wasting time with recriminations, just concentrating on what has to be done now -- that they have thirty seconds before Stokes and his men figure out what happened, and now they're just going to have to steal the truck. "I'll make the direct assault, you cover the east flank. All we need is a big enough firefight to get one of us behind the wheel." And life is going to suck for the other one. They duck back between the trailers.
Stokes and Mitch are satisfied with the diagnostics. There's even a handy LED readout right there on the outside of the container that tells Mitch that everything's copasetic. "Good," Stokes says angrily. He calls the truck over at 10:45:45. As it wheels around into position, Stokes calls Cooper on his walkie-talkie, but there's no answer. He sends one of his other guys to go find him, while Kiefer and Tony hide out and wait for them to confirm that they're not alone. Because what's the best tactic when you still have the element of surprise? Wait for it to expire, of course. As soon as Stokes gets the report that Cooper is dead, he pulls his gun and starts yelling orders. "Engage, engage!" Kiefer says to Tony, and they open fire. One of the men goes down while the rest dive for cover behind the cars. Tony and Kiefer keep shooting as the forklift crane backs into the aisle, one guy shooting from outside the highly-placed cab. Kiefer takes him down, and the operator is hit but not killed as the crane keeps moving. A couple of loose containers are knocked off the stack, crushing a parked pickup as the firefight continues. The incredibly dedicated forklift operator manages to lower the container onto the trailer, and Stokes gives the order to drive the truck out now. It's moving right away, because apparently the driver never stepped out from behind the wheel. "I'm going after it!" Kiefer yells at Tony. "Cover me now!" Kiefer makes a run for it behind the line of containers, while Tony wastes ammo giving him protection he doesn't need. Seeing the truck coming around the corner, Kiefer starts to climb containers. And Tony is out of lead by now, so he runs off, probably hoping to get back to his car before he gets caught. Stokes and his men, meanwhile, have come back out into the open, having somehow intuited that their assailants are empty. This would be a lot easier for Tony if he'd just saved a few bullets until the very end. "Two shooters, fan out and find them," Stokes orders his men. He's still angry, but now he's got a better reason to be, I think. By this time, Kiefer's on a second tier of containers, from which he leaps down onto the roof of Starkwood's container as the truck rumbles past beneath him. Then he climbs down to the side of the cab, where he takes the time to open the driver's side door and sock the driver in the mush before throwing him out into the dirt. "Tony, it's Jack, do you copy?" Kiefer says once he's behind the wheel. Right now, Tony is too busy beating up one of Stokes's men and taking his gun away from him to copy. I do like the move where Tony rolls over him, even if it can't hurt that much. But then Tony is shot at from above, and he surrenders to Stokes and his men. Who suddenly aren't in as much of a shooting mood. "I know you," Stokes says. "You're on Emerson's crew. You're Almeida, right?" Hearing this over his earpiece, Kiefer mutters, "Dammit." Well, what did he expect? Stokes asks where Kiefer is. Just as Kiefer crashes through the port's locked gates with the truck. It's 10:49:34, and Kiefer forgot to yell into his earpiece, "Stay alive! I will find you!"
At 10:54:02, Kiefer calls Moss on his cell phone. Apparently it took nearly five minutes to get clear of the magical jamming field. Moss is in the shotgun seat of a traveling FBI car as he demands, "Jack, where the hell have you been?" Kiefer tells Moss to send as many teams as he can to a weigh station on Exit 29 of Highway 236. "I'm in a big rig about ten miles south... you also need to send a CDC recovery unit." Moss is naturally curious as to why Kiefer wants a crew from the Centers for Disease Control. Is it the kicky white suits? "I'm in possession of a biological weapon, interdicted at the Port of Alexandria," Kiefer explains. Moss is like, what the fuck? Twenty minutes ago he was wondering how Kiefer would have gotten his hands on a machine gun, and now dude's driving around with a WMD. It's like a long-delayed sequel to Falling Down. Kiefer tells Moss to listen to him, which sounds odd coming from him this late in the conversation. "I don't care if you arrest me, I don't care if you shoot me, just get your teams out here. I fully expect to be pursued by hostiles." "Starkwood?" Moss asks. Kiefer's glad he doesn't have to explain it all (and frankly, so am I), and he adds that Tony's probably being held hostage. Moss promises to secure both locations. "Larry, hurry," Kiefer urges.
Just then, in his rearview mirror, he notices that the highly convenient LED display on the front end of the container is blinking. Kiefer stops the truck and gets out. He doesn't know what the blinking and beeping means, but that tear in the skin of the container can't be good news. At 10:55:20, he points a handy flashlight inside and sees a gas cylinder, broken off below the nozzle and venting its contents into the trailer. Kiefer's eyes bug out and he gasps as he recoils. Probably shouldn't have gasped. He turns to look from the abandoned stretch of highway where he's parked, to the busy city streets that look literally just blocks ahead of him, and decides he needs to handle this himself. Going around to the back, he takes a deep breath, holds it, opens the back of the trailer, and climbs inside, with the flashlight between his teeth. He makes his way to the front of the trailer, where the offending cylinder is. Fortunately it has a shut-off valve, which Kiefer closes. Well, that was easy. He exits the trailer and lets out his breath, coughing mightily. I don't know what he's worried about; if the Sentox nerve gas didn't get him a couple of years ago, nothing will.
And he's just about to get back into the cab to continue his drive when suddenly lead rains down on him from above. The bad guys have gotten a helicopter, and they want their toy back. Plus an SUV is coming up the road. Rather than trying to get back in the truck to try to outrun a chopper, Kiefer dashes across the highway and bounds over a fence into the rocks on the embankment while the shooting continues. He's totally pinned down while Stokes's men slide the bioweapon out of the back of the truck, allowing the helicopter to lower a tether and scoop it out of there. It's an odd-looking device, with rows of gas canisters arranged along a metal rack. It looks like California Closets did a custom job for Cthulhu. Kiefer raises his weapon as though he's about to take a shot at the helicopter, or the tether, but probably thinks better of it as he imagines what would happen if that thing hit the pavement. Both SUV and helicopter are soon gone into the night. "Dammit!" Kiefer roars. Of course.
It's 10:58:06 when Stokes calls from the inside front of his SUV. He spares a look back at Tony, bound and gagged on the floor in the back of the truck. He gets a hold of Hodges, now tieless and in a casual jacket. "The package is secure, we're inbound," Stokes angrily tells Hodges. Hodges asks about Kiefer, so this clearly isn't the first time they've talked since Kiefer made off with the goodies. Stokes says that Kiefer was there, but found cover. Dude, he went and laid down on the ground. You had a helicopter. You couldn't have wanted him that bad. As the conversation continues, we see that Hodges and Seaton are walking through some kind of weird lab, with work stations everywhere that are equipped with magnifying work lights, computers, UV canisters or something, and giant jiffy-pops. Hodges says that since Kiefer almost certainly told someone what he found, they'll need to hurry things up. On 24? Is that going to be possible without ripping a hole through the space-time continuum?
Kiefer calls Moss back to report that he had to stop seven miles short of that weigh station, and also to tell him to redirect the units. "Starkwood reacquired the bioweapon," he euphemistically tells Moss. "They managed to access one of the dock's freight helicopters. While they had me pinned down they airlifted the freight right out of here. They were headed due west from my current position." Moss says Starkwood has a large facility in that area, but, "I can't assault a private compound unless I have proof that a weapon exists." Kiefer tells Moss to send the CDC guys to him, then. "You'll have all the proof you need." "Jack, what happened?" Moss asks with concern, suddenly Kiefer's best friend. Kiefer says one of the canisters leaked. "I was exposed," he stammers. Moss sympathetically tells him to stay where he is, and the guys from CDC will be there shortly. Kiefer hangs up, and sits on the running board of the truck, waiting. And of course Kiefer Sutherland picks this week to tell us he'll be back for Season Eight. It's 11:00:00.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter (mgiant), or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.
Discuss this episode in the 24 forums, but more importantly -- is Jack boyfriend material? Obviously not, but it's fun to ask the question anyway, of course.