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The good news is that Kiefer's on the right track chasing Toombs (now known as Davros). But that's where the good news ends. Bad news includes such nuggets as: he is too late to catch Davros; he is too late to prevent him from killing the cop Davros is replacing at the U.N. (or his wife, for that matter); and a Vic Mackey wannabe catches him in the house, assumes he is the killer, and decides to have a little fun with him.
Additional bad news is the fact that CTU is continuing to bark up the wrong tree in a big way. Hastings does get Meredith Reed to confess to her affair with Hassan. And he gets Hassan to confess to it as well, albeit privately. But Hastings is still not convinced, and refuses to send Kiefer any backup no matter how much Chloe whines. Worse, that file planted on Reed's computer turns out to be plans for the U.N. Council Chamber and a bomb designed to be hidden beneath it. Hastings of course takes the bait and orders a full evacuation, which naturally will take Hassan right to where Davros plans to blow him up for real. At the last possible second, Kiefer gets sprung, does an end run around Hastings, and manages to get Cole to intercept Hassan's evacuation car. So the bomb goes off under Cole instead of Hassan. Did Cole survive? We'll have to wait at least three minutes to find out.
Also, stupid Dana lets her stupid ex-boyfriend blackmail her into letting him crash at her stupid place, in case anyone cares.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previouslies freeze-frames: "CTU New York," President Omar Hassan, Chloe O'Brian, Jack Bauer (showing his investigative acumen while leaving out the whole part where he didn't want any part of this), Dana Walsh, and "Davros." That's the guy I've been referring to as Toombs all this time. I'm glad I can drop that geeky sci-fi TV show reference now that I know the character's actual name. Which he happens to share with the inventor of the Daleks.
This hour's opening exposition scene takes the form of one of Hastings' least favorite activities, namely being chewed out by White House Chief of Staff Rob Weiss. Weiss really wants some good news to report to Taylor, but all Hastings can offer him right now is the fact that everyone there is trying to decrypt that big file they pulled off Meredith Reed's computer. Indeed, all the CTU big screens are filled with flashing grids of ever-changing characters that look like a sports book in Hell. "If your people fail and President Hassan dies, this peace process dies with him," Weiss harps, once again repeating the stakes for this part of the season. Oh, the excitement! Peace is at stake! Weiss says to let him know when the file is decrypted. Oh, I think he'll do more than that.
Down on the main floor, Cole comes and finds Dana to ask her how that same decryption project is coming. She says it's about thirty to forty minutes away from being decrypted, although she burned up about half of that time technobabbling at him. Cole's wondering about this whole project, due to Kiefer's theory that Reed is being framed. "If that evidence was planted, the file you're decrypting is irrelevant at best. Or at worst, a misdirection." Dana says she traced the breach herself (so she's a little invested in the official theory, I'm just saying) and points out that the polygraphs indicate Reed is holding something back. Something she unfortunately did not hold back from Hassan. Cole hopes Dana is right: "Jack's going after this guy on his own." Dana is surprised that Hastings went for that, but before Cole can explain how that came about, and how Kiefer essentially made Cole a party to his blackmail of the boss, Cole's away team is ready to go and he takes off.
Kiefer pulls up in his borrowed CTU sedan to the corner of Broadway and West 23rd in Queens. We can tell that's where he is because he's narrating it to Chloe over his cell phone in real time. They know from the cab company that Davros was dropped off at this corner earlier, but since she doesn't have anything more specific than that yet, all Kiefer can do is wander around and hope to get lucky, like maybe spotting a security camera or something. Which he'll do while still on the phone with her. So far, "running ops" doesn't seem that hard.
Inside one of the houses right on that very block, unbeknownst to Kiefer, Davros has finished changing into his NYPD uniform, apparently in front of his two hostages. Jim demands to know who Davros is and how he fooled everyone. Davros refuses to speak, and when Jim yells at him, all Davros does is stomp over and point his gun at Jim's chest. Maggie ends up defusing the confrontation by screaming a lot through her duct-tape gag. Thanks for that, Mags. Davros lies that he doesn't want to hurt them and is just doing his job when their phone rings. That would be Jim's captain, returning a call that Jim presumably made during the previouslies. Davros reminds Jim to do what he said. Jim agrees, and a moment later, he's on the line with his captain. Jim claims to have come down with something (not mentioning that it's a severe case of I'm-being-held-hostage-by-a-cold-blooded-terrorist-itis) and that "Mike Farmer" -- Davros's NYPD alias, you'll recall -- will fill in, using Jim's police motorcycle. Jim lets the call end without giving anything away, even though he clearly wants to, and hands the phone back at 6:07:22. He says he did what Davros wanted, and tells him to leave them alone. "We're not gonna make any trouble for you," Jim says. Davros just nods thoughtfully. Well, given that he's only killed three of his own guys so far this afternoon, I'd say Jim and Maggie are probably in the clear, wouldn't you?
Kiefer's walking past a basketball court where a pickup game is going on. A couple of security cameras overlook the court, and Kiefer starts to head over to get Chloe their serial numbers so she can access the footage from them, because it's just that easy. But as he's skirting the court, suddenly the game stops and all the tough-looking ballers come over to glare at Kiefer. The biggest, scariest guy there gets in Kiefer's face, wanting to know what he wants and asking in a rather unfriendly way if he's lost. Kiefer pleasantly says he is, and that he's looking for "a friend." "Unless you're a cop, I suggest you look someplace else," the leader threatens. Kiefer assures them that he "ain't" a cop, and repeats that he's looking for someone who was let off by a cab on the corner in the last half hour. The guy gets further into Kiefer's face, so Kiefer simply puts his hand on his sidearm, which he now has in a hip holster instead of the back of his pants. Handy, that. Having deployed the stick, out comes the carrot: he produces his photo of Davros and offers a hundred dollars to anyone who's seen him. One of the kids steps forward, even though the leader tells him, "Yo, shut up, Jay." But Jay tells Kiefer that Davros went into the light-blue house across the street. Kiefer hands over the cash and walks away, leaving Jay to tell the irritated leader, "I don't know about you, but I got a hundred dollars. It's y'all play, let's go." "Yo, I'm about to take that hundred dollars. Gimme the ball, man." Ah, the local flavor, yo. But shouldn't Kiefer get a receipt from Jay so he can expense this when he gets back to CTU?
Kiefer scampers across the street at 6:09:17. Instead of going to the front door, he goes around to a side window, and through a convenient gap in the curtains, sees Jim's dead face with a bullet hole in the forehead. Oh, Davros, you hard-ass. That sends Kiefer right into action mode, as he hops the fence into the backyard and draws his gun. He kicks open the back door and enters. The sinking afternoon sun is shining off the floor in such a way that you can really see how high the heels on Kiefer's boots are. You could roll a skateboard under those things. Kiefer quickly searches the house, finding no Davros, but as he looks out the front upstairs window, he pulls out his cell phone and starts dialing. By the way, there's now an NYPD patrol car parked across the street. Nice timing, officers.
A big, bald cop knocks on the front door, calling Jim by name and saying some neighbors called. Those are some pretty vigilant neighbors. Meanwhile, Chloe answers Kiefer's call, but he doesn't have time to talk right now. He just sneaks around the house with his phone to his ear, until he goes to the back and sees the cop's younger partner prowling the backyard. Trapped inside a house with two corpses, holding a gun, and with his escape cut off, Kiefer hangs up the phone, which might not have been his smartest move. He pops out onto the back porch with his gun leveled at the younger cop and orders him to put his gun down. The rookie complies, and Kiefer introduces himself and claims he's working on behalf of CTU. I think CTU's director might have a thing or two to say about that. The rookie invites Kiefer to drop his own weapon, if he's really one of the good guys. Kiefer refuses. "The man I'm pursuing killed two people in this house. If I lower this weapon, I'll be sidelined. That can't--" But it does, because Kiefer's just been tasered from behind. He goes down hard, dropping his gun. The bald cop emerges from the house, giving Kiefer another long jolt and kicking him in the back while he's down. "Son of a bitch is a cop-killer," he says when the younger cop protests and says they have to call it in. "Not yet, we don't," the vet says ominously, and makes his partner help him drag an unconscious Kiefer into the house. A helpless Kiefer in the hands of an angry sadist? Oh, the irony. It's 6:11:57.
6:17:02. Hastings comes down to the CTU floor to try to hurry Dana along with the decryption of the file. When that doesn't work, some field agent comes up to Hastings with something they just found in Meredith Reed's stuff: it's a key card to President Hassan's private residence at the U.N. I don't know if it took them this long to find it, or to figure out what it was. Unless of course it's emblazoned with the words "KEY CARD TO PRESIDENT HASSAN'S PRIVATE U.N. RESIDENCE," which doesn't seem like the best security. "We've got her," Hastings says, waving the card triumphantly as he heads back toward interrogation. Look at that moron go!
Meanwhile, Dana gets a call on her headset. It's from security at perimeter gate nine, saying she has a visitor. How many perimeter gates does a place need when so far we've only seen people go in and out via an underground tunnel? She smiles at the novelty of it, because she's not as quick as you and I are in realizing that it's her stalker. But then the guard says it's Kevin Wade. "Says he's a friend of yours." Dana's brain goes into vapor-lock, and she pulls up a video feed from that gate up on her monitor. There he is, smirking up at her on the security camera. "Tell him I'll be right there," she instructs the guard, because this subplot is so dumb it even makes Dana dumb. As she gets up from her desk, Chloe watches with suspicion, her on-and-off ability to read people currently in the "on" position. Dana puts on her blazer, gets on the blinding-white elevator by scanning her palm on the reader (fire hazard, anyone?), and rides it up. As she does so, she removes her engagement ring and drops it in her jacket pocket. So she's not smart enough to tell the guard to get rid of her stalker, but she is smart enough to not only get a high-profile gig at CTU but also find out where to get ladies' jackets with real pockets.
Up on the surface, Kevin is trying to chat up the guard about what CTU is, but "Ms. Walsh is on her way," is all the guard will say at 6:18:07 (it's not like he says anything else the whole rest of the hour either, just to be clear). The guard hands Kevin his ID back, and Dana comes out of the glorified guard hut that is the elevator's terminus on the surface. She favors the guard with an "Everything's fine, we're fine, how are you?" smile before leading Kevin off to a safe distance in the middle of the parking lot, near where he parked his van. The guard discreetly heads back inside as Kevin taunts her, saying he likes her as a blonde and even creepily touching her hair. She rounds on him, demanding to know what he's doing there and what he wants. He seems to think they're going to get back together, because he's a stupid guy in a stupid subplot. Obviously Dana is not down with that, so Kevin taunts her some more, looking at her CTU ID badge (which identifies her as a senior data analyst, like, could you vague that up, show?) until she snatches it back and offers him money to make him go away. "Say my name," he insists. Instead of doing what any self-respecting person would do in this situation, which would be to mock him right back by singing some Destiny's Child at him, she says it. Now he wants her to say "Please, Kevin." Where is this going to stop? With him asking to crash at her place? She forces a "please, Kevin" out through gritted teeth and again asks what he wants. He says, "A place to crash, for starters. Getting a little tired of living out of the van." See, what did I tell you? She refuses, so he threatens to tell everyone about her, touching her hair and face some more and saying it won't be so bad. "It'll be just like old times. You'll come home and we'll catch up." Just to get him off her, she pulls away and gets her keys out of her pocket, telling him he can stay the night but has to be gone tomorrow. I hope it's before 5:00. He agreeably takes the keys and walks over to his van, because he's already established that he can make her do whatever he wants; she's the only one who doesn't know that yet. When she offers her address, he pleasantly says, "Already got it." Well isn't he helpful? Dana turns and stalks back to the entrance at 6:24:06. And I think we can assume that she doesn't live with Cole, because she doesn't stop and smack her forehead halfway there.
Poor Meredith Reed still has her hands clamped to that table in that uncomfortable-looking position. And worse, she's being grilled by Hastings some more. He shows her the key card and asks where she got it. She refuses to talk, even when Hastings threatens her with the death penalty some more. Except when he presses, she does deny having either stolen or fabricated the card. "Where did you get it? Tell me!" he screams in her ear, and she cracks: "He gave it to me!" Hastings demands who, and she says, "Omar." Because she and the foreign president are on a first-name basis when she's confessing her affair to counterterrorism officials. Hastings isn't buying it, so without leaving the room, he hits a button and asks to be connected to Rob Weiss at the U.N. so she can hear him asking for permission to talk to Hassan. But since Weiss is currently in a closed session, Hastings tells her she has a little time to reconsider her story. Which she's clearly already having second thoughts about. And I know everyone's all worried about this threat to Hassan's credibility, but what will become of Reed's career if it gets out that she's been shtupping the subject of her journalistic profile? I mean, sure, she'll have plenty of willing subjects for her interviews, but what publication that you can buy without an ID will print them?
When Hastings comes out of the interrogation capsule, Chloe intercepts him to ask for his help with Kiefer, whom she's lost touch with. He wants no part of it and doesn't have anyone to send anyway, since he's got everyone who works for him at the U.N. protecting Hassan against the entirely wrong threat. Chloe keeps scampering along to him at 6:25:43, insisting that Reed's claim backs up the alternate theory that she's being framed. "It explains why the biometrics registered her deception and why the real insider within Hassan's camp chose her to divert our investigation." Hastings doesn't buy the affair story, even less so now that Chloe is on board with it, but Chloe presses him to consider sending backup to Kiefer if Hassan corroborates Reed's story. Hastings agrees to this, and adds, "Just so you can hear it for yourself, I'll have someone alert you when Hassan calls me back. Is that good enough?" "No!" Chloe says. "But it's better than nothing." Hastings manages to suppress an eye-roll by some heroic effort. Which is totally wasted, if you ask me.
Down in Jim and Maggie's basement, Kiefer wakes up to find himself handcuffed to a chair and having water thrown in his face by the bald cop, Officer John, while the younger one, Officer Phil, watches from the background. Officer John starts yelling at Kiefer and punching him while the rookie weakly tries to call him off. But the veteran is on some kick about the failures of the criminal justice system. "What I can't do is watch another creep like this walk on a technicality. Or because some lawyer didn't file the right papers to the right clerk." Or because some vigilante sadist with a badge tied him to a chair and beat the crap out of him? Not that Kiefer doesn't kind of have this coming, mind you. Officer Phil reminds Officer John about what Kiefer said about working with CTU, but since Kiefer's not carrying credentials, he's out of luck. And he's not bothering to speak a word in his own defense. One wonders what Officer John would think if he knew his suspect had been tortured by the Chinese government for almost two years and never said a word. Think he'd step up his game? Eventually Officer John gets tired of arguing with Officer Phil and sends him to wait upstairs until he's finished. "Just don't kill him," Phil says. What a hero.
Down at the U.N., Davros climbs off his police motorcycle and removes his helmet as another cop greets him as "Farmer" and asks what he's doing there. At 6:26:03, Davros gives the story about filling in for a sick officer. "Probably a few to many at lunch," he smirks. And a few too many bullets in the brain at dinner. They enter a room where Cole is currently conducting a briefing of NYPD cops, none of whom seem to mind being lectured by some puke from CTU. He says the perimeter is being pushed out another six blocks and the Queensboro Bridge will be closed until mid-April (or, as he puts it, "noon tomorrow"). Cole informs them that CTU has made an arrest, but they're still after the main guy. "He's already killed five people that we know of, including two CTU agents." I guess the third would be Victor, and then his two compatriots who were already dead at the start of the season, which shouldn't even count. Of course that also doesn't count the two cops Davros's men killed in the first hour, and they don't know about Jim and Maggie yet. Rather than correcting Cole's math, Davros just takes this all in from the back of the room, polite but dead-eyed, as Cole concludes. "History is happening upstairs, people. And it's on our watch." It's 6:27:07. Which is apparently the ideal time of day to make dorkily earnest pronouncements.
6:31:25. At the U.N., the two presidents are in conference when they're interrupted by someone passing a note to Ethan, who passes it to Taylor. After Taylor rudely stops what she was saying to read it and Hassan realizes they're done talking for a minute, Taylor covers her microphone and says "my counterterrorism director in New York" is asking to talk to Hassan about Meredith Reed. Farhad comes over all shifty, and after a moment's hesitation, Hassan gets up to follow Weiss to a conference room at 6:32:22. The Hassan brothers hang back a bit so Farhad can remind his brother to deny the affair with Reed (ostensibly to protect Hassan, but really so Farhad can continue to operate as Davros's inside man while CTU is distracted with Reed). Now they're in the conference room, and Weiss hands Hassan the phone and leaves the two of them alone in there.
On the other end of the line, Hastings beckons Chloe into his office as he introduces himself over the phone to Hassan. Hastings wastes little time asking Hassan why Meredith Reed has a key card to his residence at the U.N. "She claims that she got it from you and that her relationship with you is perhaps more than professional." Hassan cuts a look at Farhad and asks if there is anyone listening in or the call is being recorded. Hastings assures him in the negative, and Hassan clearly says, "Then I will tell you what Ms. Reed said is true." Farhad hisses, "Omar! What are you doing?" Hassan says that he's trusting in Hastings' discretion, which I'm not sure he would do if he knew Hastings better. But maybe I'm being unfair. Yes, in the two and a half hours we've known Hastings, he's proven to be a martinet, a weasel, a blame-dodger, and a miser, but I guess there's no reason to assume he's a blabbermouth. Hassan explains, "I'm telling you all this in the interest of justice. Because I'm convinced that Ms. Reed is not part of this conspiracy." Hastings asks if Hassan is basing that on anything other than his naughty bits. "No, I suppose not," Hassan admits, and Hastings lets him go. As soon as Hassan hangs up, an angry Farhad snaps, "Have you any idea what you've done?" "The honorable thing," Hassan says, and heads back to the council chamber. Well, la-di-dah.
Hastings, however, is not doing the honorable thing, and Chloe's pissed that he's not sending backup to Kiefer like he said he would. "I said I'd consider it, and I have," Hastings weasels. He says confirmation of the affair proves nothing (then why interrupt historic peace talks and have an embarrassing conversation with a head of state to get it?), and maybe it's how Reed got the goods in the first place. Chloe says that Kiefer's still missing, but Hastings scoffs that he's just out of contact. "His phone battery may have died or more likely he's in an area with bad cell reception. There's pockets of them all over the five boroughs, which you would have known if you were from around here." By "around here" I assume he means New York and not the 24-verse, where cell phone problems only occur when vital to the plot. Chloe says she'll go herself, and Hastings won't even let her do that, saying they might need her to work on that big file that's almost decrypted. Alluding to her earlier suggestion that he speak more efficiently, he says, "You leave the building, you're fired. Is that clear and direct enough for you?" It would seem to be.
At 6:36:04, Farhad steps into a quiet hallway to call Davros, who is just coming out of Cole's police briefing. He breaks the news that Hassan confessed the affair. Davros steps out onto the sidewalk and into a lovely shot of the setting sun peeking horizontally along the length of the street, while Farhad's splitscreen window shows the full orb reflected in the window nest to him. It's beautifully composed and I always appreciate when the day-night transition on this show doesn't look like someone flipped a switch, but I don't know how the sun is visible to only one of them when they both seem to be on ground level within a block of each other. Anyway, Davros isn't unduly worried about this threat to their frame-up job. "They will still have to act on what they find in any event." He says they need to stick with the plan and stay cool. "I promise you, your brother will be dead before the hour is out." Really? This very episode? Farhad hangs up at 6:35:57, because if Davros is being serious, a lot is going to have to happen between now and then.
6:41:14. The sun has fully set over New York in a gorgeous blue-tinged aerial shot. Down in Jim and Maggie's basement, Kiefer is still tied to his chair. Officer John has found a rag to wrap around his hand, and as he walks smirking back towards Kiefer, the prisoner suddenly jumps up, lifting the chair along with him, and charges Officer John, sending him crashing through some shelves. Then he backs into the cinder-block wall hard enough to smash the chair, somersaults so his handcuffed wrists are in front of him, and starts bludgeoning Officer John with a piece of the chair. Poor, dumb Officer John. That's when Officer Phil comes back, pointing his gun at Kiefer and ordering him to drop the makeshift club. Kiefer does, and with his cuffed hands in the air, insists that everything he said before is true. I guess he can talk again now that he's not sitting down any more. While Officer John yells at Officer Phil from the floor to shoot Kiefer, Kiefer tells Officer Phil to call Chloe O'Brian at CTU. Phil tells them both to shut up and hold still, because he's calling it in. "The officer upstairs has to be connected to the assassination plot," Kiefer says, which pisses off Officer John all over again. Officer Phil tells them both to shut up while he gets on the phone to his lieutenant and explains the situation as he understands it. Kiefer tells Officer Phil to ask about the duty assignment of the officer upstairs while he's at it. "What have you got to lose?" Phil makes the request.
Dana sits at her desk looking distracted when Arlo comes up to her and says, "You screwed up." She jumps, and he's like, "Yeah, surprised me, too." Apparently she forgot to do some technobabble to his system that he needs to finish cracking the file from Reed's computer. He offers to finish up from her station, so she relinquishes her chair to him. Which she will soon regret, because while he does his thing, he asks her what's up. "It's not like you to make mistakes. You seem distracted. Wedding jitters maybe?" He starts in again about how she and Cole are wrong for each other --"not exactly intellectual equals," as he puts it. He keeps pushing, and she starts to snap at him, but the file has just cracked. And up on the screen appears a schematic of something. She sends him off to finish his part and put it up on the screen while she alerts Hastings.
And at 6:44:52, here comes the man himself, blowing off Reed's lawyer over the phone. Dana uses her handheld device to mess around with the graphics on the screen, which she says shows recent construction work on the U.N. building -- namely a couple of new I-beams to hold up some new interpreters' booths. Right under the Council Chamber, in fact. And here comes Arlo's part of the file, which looks like a bomb attached to a cell phone. "Modified to fit between the I-beams," Arlo observes. "Sir, judging by the size, that's big enough to drop the entire Security Council into the East River." Hastings calls a red alert and demands to be put in touch with Cole and the U.N. security guy from last hour, whose name turns out to be Manners. And he orders a full evacuation. From his elbow, where she planted herself right at the start of all this excitement, Chloe insists he think about whether the intel is fake. Hastings says he's not taking any chances, and by now Dana has Cole and Manners on the phone for him. Hastings tells them both over Cole's speakerphone that there's a bomb in the building. Cole also has his doubts, considering how thoroughly the building has been vetted and searched. Hastings insists Manners start the evacuation, and that Cole be personally responsible for Hassan. They both move to comply, and other guards begin to accrete to what will rapidly become a growing mass of them. It's already a pretty big group that bursts into the Council Chamber so Manners can announce that it's evac time. He tells them to head to underground parking, and "please speak only with your designated handlers." Cole tells Taylor and Ethan to get themselves out and leads Hassan and his brother (and Hassan's own bodyguards) out of the Council Chamber to the elevators. As he does so, he's on his earpiece to NYPD traffic control out on the street. In position among them is Davros, sitting on his NYPD motorcycle and confirming that he's standing by. He takes out a cell phone and enters a code which causes the display to read "device armed." That certainly won't be suspicious if anyone finds it on him. He looks up the street to a manhole cover half a block away. An electronic device is attached to its underside, blinking red and attached to a few blocks of C-4. It's 6:47:44.
At 6:52:02, the underground parking garage is, unlike most underground parking garages on TV, quite the hive of activity, with armed security guys leading the various dignitaries to their various vehicles. The Presidential party jumps into a big limo. Meanwhile, Cole leads the brothers Hassan to their own transport as Omar remembers to ask where his wife and daughter are. His bodyguard says they're on their way down a stairwell, less than two minutes behind. Hassan doesn't want to leave without them, but Cole insists. Farhad offers to wait for them and make sure they get out okay. Oh, good, I was wondering how Davros was going to blow up just one of the Hassan brothers if they were leaving together, so this clears that up. Hassan goes on ahead in a car that's part of a whole motorcade, and Cole sprints to his own car and pulls out of a parking spot to fall in behind them. Somehow, during all this, Farhad is able to go off by himself to make a cell phone call to Davros. "He's in the third car. Motorcade's coming up the ramps now." Davros hangs up and on his police radio hears confirmation that the cars are heading up the ramp and should be visible in five minutes. How big a ramp is this? Farhad goes back over to meet his niece and sister-in-law, who are kind of stressed out, but he hurries them into a car with him at 6:54:02.
Back at the crime scene in Queens, Officer Phil is just getting off the phone with dispatch, having found out that the dead cop was assigned to U.N. security and was replaced by Mike Farmer. He lets Kiefer out of the back of his squad car and uncuffs him, telling him he was right. He tells Kiefer about Mike Farmer. "That's your assassin," Kiefer says. He wants to call CTU and get to the U.N. now. When Officer Phil hesitates, he presses, "Officer, this is going down now. You can either stand here and do nothing or you can help me stop it." Phil says, "Make the call. I'll drive you to the U.N." They both get in the squad car and drive off, to Officer John's chagrin. He's left standing there scratching his bald head. In other splitscreen windows, Hastings watches live video of the evacuation on the CTU big screens, the Hassans ride up the parking ramp in their various cars (really big ramp), Davros watches for the motorcade, and Dana looks focused on her work for once.
From the shotgun seat of Officer Phil's car, which is en route with sirens and flashers going, Kiefer gets a hold of Chloe. He says he needs to tell Cole about the assassin having killed a cop and taken his place. Chloe says she'll patch him in. "He's in the middle of evacuating Hassan." Kiefer asks why, and Chloe says it's Hastings' orders. "The evidence in Reed's computer indicated that there's a bomb in the building," Chloe explains. She adds that Hassan's motorcade is about to hit the surface just as Cole comes on the line. "Cole, you need to stop Hassan's car now!" Kiefer orders. He explains to Cole as quickly as he can, and Cole asks if Hastings knows about this. Kiefer says there's no time, and Cole needs to stop Hassan's car now. Except Cole can see the cars ahead of him already emerging into what would be daylight if it were still day outside, and he tells Kiefer it's too late. Kiefer insists, "Cole, you need to stop that car or Hassan's a dead man." Cole sets his jaw and hits the gas. His car comes screaming out of the tunnel, passing the last squad car in the Hassan motorcade. "Whose vehicle is that?" Hastings demands, watching on the CTU big screen." "It's Cole, sir," Dana says in that "Oops, I killed your son" voice she has. Hastings hits his phone and starts yelling at Cole. Cole ignores him in his rush to catch up to Hassan. The lead car in Hassan's motorcade already passing over that manhole cover. Davros watches from his position as Cole's car keeps jumping slots in the motorcade, finally hauling the wheel around just in time to cut off the car that Hassan is in, just before it drives over the bomb. Davros hits the button and the bomb goes off, flipping Cole's car in the air. He grunts as it hurtles against a parked car and comes to a stop on its roof, on fire. "Cole!" Dana yells, having just watched her fiancé possibly get blown up for the second time this evening. "What was that?" screams Mrs. Hassan from the back seat of the car she's sharing with Farhad and her daughter. Kiefer says into his phone, "Cole, can you verify, was Hassan hit? Cole?" Cole can't do much of anything, since his car has just finished rocking from side to side on its roof and the only thing visible through his windows are his blinking flashers. It's 7:00:00.
Now we're talking.
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, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.