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Marcos is busy tinkering with the detonator on his explosive vest, and it looks like he's going to have it working again before CTU can drill him out. So it's all about talking now.
Cole and Dana return to CTU, where Hastings rips them new ones and demotes Dana to the newly created position of Chloe's Bitch. Cole, on the other hand, is dispatched to pick up Marcos's mom. They both assure Hastings that their personal crises are over, but then Dana gets a call from Kevin's parole officer, who knows Kevin and Dana had been talking. And he wants to meet Dana ASAP. Cole leaves it for Dana to handle, which is a pretty major display of trust under the circumstances.
Kayla is still in bed with Tarin and dodging her mother's calls as well as those from Hassan. But Dalia at least gets through to Hassan, and convinces him that he's fucked up and needs to fix things.
Marcos's mom makes an heroic effort to talk Marcos down, but when that doesn't work, Kiefer steps in to threaten her life to Marcos. That's enough to get him to come out in one piece, but not until after he's already re-armed the bomb. Kiefer races to disarm it again, but the other terrorists blow it up remotely. Kiefer is only able to get one piece of information from Marcos before that happens, but it's a doozy -- the terrorists are working with Tarin after all. I should have known.
Dalia finally gets through to Kayla and manages to convince her that Tarin really is one of the bad guys, and she gives up their location. Too bad Tarin wants to leave almost at once. Man, Hassan is going to be impossible to live with after being proven right on this.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Dana Walsh, President Omar Hassan, the late Farhad Hassan, and Jack Bauer are the names in the previouslies freeze-frames. Oddly, Marcos Al-Zacar doesn't get one, even though he's the guy who made half of these previouslies happen to begin with.
Marcos is of course still barricaded inside the hyperbaric chamber at the hospital. In addition to the intercom camera Marcos disabled at the end of the last hour, there's a bulb-style overhead camera mounted in the ceiling, watching Marcos do his thing. That thing, of course, is tinkering with the guts of his vest's electronics while referring to a complex circuitry diagram that he drew on the wall during the previouslies. So when Samir told Marcos he would "walk him through" modifying the detonator, what he meant was he would somehow download the required schematic directly into Marcos's brain over the phone? Dude, if the IRK has that kind of technology, who needs nukes in the first place? As Marcos continues fiddling with the wires, his vest gives a little beep and an LED light comes on under his left shoulder. That either means something to do with the bomb or Marcos's internal hard drive is spinning.
In the hallways outside, a tech geek in CTU armor is giving Kiefer a rundown on the chamber. It's one-inch steel all around (okay, so I was off by a factor of twelve) and air and power systems are "internal," whatever that means. Are we supposed to believe that the pressure controls are also operated from inside? Wouldn't that mean that anybody undergoing treatment in there would either have to be accompanied by a doctor or technician, or run the machine themselves? Maybe the magic of the hyperbaric chamber is that people inside it can instantly become experts on how to work anything, which would also explain Marcos's circuitry diagram. It would also explain why, for this entire episode, nobody ever hits on the idea of simply pumping out enough air to render Marcos unconscious. And don't tell me this chamber can't do that, because otherwise there'd be no reason for the door to swing outward instead of in. CTU would still have to get in there somehow, but at least it would buy them some time during which Marcos wouldn't be working on the bomb because he'd be too busy lying on the floor drooling pink foam. The geek adds that the atmosphere inside is probably oxygen-rich, which increases the risk of fire. Probably? Gosh, isn't it just CTU's luck to have to deal with this problem in a hospital without any staff to ask questions like this. As far as getting Marcos out, it's going to take forty minutes to drill through the steel, using a low-speed drill to avoid sparks and the attendant risk of explosion. Taking people alive is such a hassle sometimes.
The still youthful but now less inexperienced Agent Owen, a trickle of blood still on his temple where Marcos pistol-whipped him, shows up to tell Kiefer that the camera Marcos knocked out is back online. The intercom isn't yet working again, but Owen is able to show Kiefer the video feed from inside the room, which offers a sweetheart view of Marcos's wiring diagram. Owen says that according to the techs, the modifications Marcos seems to be working on will do the trick. As for the time frame, he says Marcos will need to reset four circuits, the first of which is already completed, as shown by the single LED still glowing under Marcos's shoulder. Once he gets all four he can trigger it at any moment. The bright side is that the chamber will contain the explosion and keep anyone else from getting hurt. "He's not trying to hurt anybody, he's trying to make sure we don't take him alive," Kiefer says, because he is not about bright sides. He asks his earpiece to connect him to Hastings, and a woman's voice says that's coming right up. Glad to see Sarah from The Andy Griffith Show landed on her feet.
Kiefer gets patched through to what looks like a little staff meeting already convening on the CTU floor. He wants everything they have on Marcos, and Chloe gives it to him, at some unnecessary length. We already know he's got an American mother in town, but his father was from the IRK. Chloe also has the file on Professor Al-Zacar, who was a vocal critic of the U.S. He spent four months in jail under President Wayne Palmer (a phrase I still can't type with a straight face to this day), came out unemployable, and committed suicide a year later. Hastings chimes in that Marcos joined IRK intelligence two months later. As for his mom, Arlo has her DMV records placing her home in East Harlem, "4211 East 117th Street." In fact Google Maps tells me that address is in a part of Harlem so far east it's in Queens. Kiefer wants her picked up and brought to him right away. Once the call ends, Hastings gives instructions to his troops. He says they're working on the assumption that the terrorists will want to hit someplace in Manhattan with the uranium, which of course means it'll have to be brought onto the island. Chloe suggests locking the city down, but Hastings says their best chance to catch them is in transit. Sure, using the entire island of Manhattan as bait seems reasonable to me. That means keeping a close eye on the radiation sensors that have been set up at all the bridges and tunnels. Which should work, as long as the terrorists don't get their hands on a helicopter. Or maybe just a catapult. Or a giant crossbow they can use to shoot the rods at the U.N. from Roosevelt Island one by one. I'm an idea guy, you know. Hastings barely pauses in his speech as he looks up and happens to see Dana and Cole's faces on a building security monitor, and he reminds Arlo that the drones need to be on that as well. Damn, if the air is covered, so much for my giant crossbow idea. I would be a sucky terrorist.
Cole and Dana get on an elevator together, and Cole's still pretty shut down, standing silently with his back to her. "All we have to do is act natural," he mutters. "Keep our heads. You'll be okay." Dana pushes him to show some kind of reaction, but that doesn't really fit into his schedule for the rest of the night. "We're in the middle of a radiological threat...When it's over, then we'll talk." That works for me, as long as the threat doesn't end until late the afternoon. Dana lets that go for a while, and in a softer tone, Cole says that while he can't promise anything, "I wouldn't have done what I did if I didn't still love you." Which is just what I said, although with different words. Finally the elevator door opens (because CTU is now a mile underground or something) and they step off, to see Hastings waiting there for them in full glower. "You two have holy hell to answer for," he says. Cole starts to apologize, but Hastings cuts him off and says he should have checked in every twenty minutes, per protocol. Cole says the lead he was supposedly following "didn't pan out," but agrees there's no excuse. As for Dana, "You were supposed to be servicing a faulty relay station. Yet I see you found time to change your clothes." And into something a lot more casual, too, although it's not quite yoga pants. Dana says nothing. Hastings says he doesn't know what's going on with them, and doesn't care. "If we weren't at high alert and you weren't the best at what you do, you'd both be out on your asses for this." He says he'll only ask this once: "Whatever it is, are you finished?" "Yes, sir," Cole says crisply. So Hastings isn't even going to ask where they were? I get that he assumes it was a personal issue between the two of them, but he can't assume that if he's going to run CTU. For all he knows, they were just having an emergency meeting with their terrorist colleagues, or were possibly being coerced somehow into returning to CTU to sabotage everything. This hour's slacker is hour's mole around here, Hastings. But instead of pursuing it, Hastings tells Dana that Chloe is now her boss until further notice. That's gotta sting. In fact, I'd say it's a bit of overkill for a few hours of absenteeism. I'd say that punishment is more appropriate for, say, masterminding and facilitating a robbery during which a police officer was assaulted, and then helping to cover up the deaths of the robbers themselves. As for Cole, I guess he's still got Hastings' first-hour screw-up to hold over his head, so Hastings simply dispatches him to pick up Elaine Al-Zacar and bring her to Kiefer at St. Julian's. "How you perform form this point will determine whether or not you salvage your careers. Now get to work." They split up, and on her way back to her desk, Dana snags the master remote to the CTU big screen -- the symbol of her power, that's just been sitting on a desk for the past few hours -- and hands it to Chloe, who mostly contains her smirk.
Samir gets a call from Ali, who is set up in a hiding spot right across the street from the hospital, able to watch the milling CTU agents through binoculars. He's also got a tech guy with him who has helped him tap into the hospital's surveillance systems, so they can also see Marcos, and the glowing LED in his vest indicating his one of four completed circuits. Samir in turn tells Ali, "Soon we'll be able to transport the rods into Manhattan." Ali asks whether the radiation sensors are down. "Not yet," Samir says ominously. "Call me when Marcos is dead." Which is also pretty ominous. It's 2:08:52. What an ominous time!
Funny how I've stopped fast-forwarding past Fringe promos.
2:13:12. Samir and some guys meet a whole bunch of other guys in a warehouse somewhere. This is the most fully pre-planned backup plan I've seen since Marwan in Season Four. They open the case either just to take another look at the rods or because Samir is like, "But I want cancer now!"
Dana's at her desk, calling out an update to Chloe on how the tunnel radiation detectors are showing up clear. Chloe is loudly bitchy to Dana about the bridges, and after a round of competitive technobabble that Dana loses, Chloe gets up to talk to her face-to-face, acting sympathetic. "I just want you to know I'm glad you didn't get fired or anything. Hang in there." Dana stiffly thanks her and she returns to work. How's that role reversal taste? To cleanse her palate (and make the rest of her feel dirty while she's at it), Dana gets up to check with Arlo on the status of the aerial scoping. Arlo says the drones are covering the waterfront with their radiation detectors turned up to eleven. "If they try to bring the fuel rods into the city by boat, we'll spot 'em. Easily." For some reason Dana lingers instead of getting away from him as soon as she can, which gives him an opening to apologize for squealing on her to Cole. Dana tells him not to worry about it. "So is he gone?" Arlo pushes, meaning the other guy. Dana says he is. "So you and the Boy Scout are okay," Arlo says. Which he takes as license to start hitting on her again. What's even grosser is that results in the closest thing to a smile that we've seen from Dana since midnight. It'll be interesting to see whether Arlo ever gets in trouble for covering for them during their absence. By which I mean annoying, because I suspect the answer is no.
At 2:15:46, Marcos is still busy with his electronics project, while Kiefer watches helplessly from outside the anteroom. Owen comes up to tell him that the intercom is working again, so he can have a talk with Marcos. With CTU and Ali monitoring from their respective positions, Kiefer heads into the anteroom to address the video intercom. He introduces himself, and says he knows about the original plan to take the rods back to the IRK to get its nuclear program started up again. "So I'm just guessing that helping to deliver a dirty bomb to New York City which costs the lives of tens of thousands of people wasn't exactly what you signed on for." Kiefer says Marcos will kill the IRK by forcing Taylor to hit back hard. Marcos has stopped his fiddling and now lets himself be drawn into a political debate. He claims Hassan is giving up without a fight. Kiefer says Marcos couldn't win that fight anyway. "The IRK will sustain massive casualties because of this. Because of you." Marcos goes on about American nuclear arrogance, and Kiefer reminds him that Marcos is an American himself. As for Marcos's father, Kiefer says, "This is no way to honor his memory." He begs Marcos to open the door, but Marcos is adamant. "I came here prepared to die," he says. "And that's what's going to happen." He goes back to work on the detonator, ignoring Kiefer's entreaties to speak further. Almost immediately, he's gotten a second LED on his vest to light up. It's 2:18:46, and obviously those LEDs are also wired to whatever triggers the commercial breaks.
At 2:23:04, Tarin and Kayla are still in bed, and still in what might charitably be called a post-coital glow. Or if you wanted to be less charitable, you could say that Kayla looks as if she was just sprayed down like supermarket produce. Tarin is just finishing a phone call with a friend at the State Department, who says he can get them political asylum. Tarin warns that it might take twelve to eighteen months. "But as soon as we file the application, we are protected by the law. Your father cannot touch us." There's some talk about how they're going to live while waiting for it to happen, which of course Kayla says she's doesn't care about. They go back to macking, until Kayla's phone rings again. Apparently she hasn't been taking her mom's calls either, on Tarin's advice, although now she says she should. "She deserves to know that I'm all right." Tarin playfully takes her phone, and says she can call back after their application is filed. "Bye-bye," he says, tossing the phone away so they can make out some more. He's totally going to get her grounded.
Speaking of Kayla's mom, she's walking through the U.N. building as she leaves the latest of what sounds like an increasingly worried series of messages. She hangs up just as she spots Hassan at the end of the hallway. They walk into the elevator together, and Dalia brings up Tarin's arrest, of which she has heard and of which she does not approve. Hassan sheepishly says he didn't know who to trust. "I had to do something," he says lamely. Dalia says he's one of Hassan's most loyal men. "So was my brother," Hassan whines. "Or so I thought, until he tried to have me killed and destroy my government." Dalia says Hassan's well on the way to accomplishing that himself. I'm still not clear on what changed Hassan's mind about Tarin in the first place. I just hope it's something other than story reasons. As they get off the elevator and walk across the hall into their residence, she asks if the police are involved. Hassan says they're about to be, as Nabeel, posted at the door, closes it behind them. They stand at opposite ends of the giant window, staring out at the overlit matte painting outside at 2:26:06. After a long silence, Hassan says he's sorry. "As you should be!" she snaps, blaming him for the fact that their daughter is out in a city that's under threat. "You drove her away with your suspicion and your paranoia!" He cops to it all, and promises to change and to do everything he can to get Kayla back. They hug it out. I think we're supposed to be pulling for them to get back together, but I also think I'm a little too scared of her.
Marcos's mom has just finished packing when there's a loud knock on the door of her apartment. Without opening it, she asks who it is. Cole holds his badge up to the peephole and tells her to open up, saying it's about Marcos. He quickly gets tired of her stalling and threatens to break the door down. When she takes it off the chain, armored CTU agents run in, scaring the crap out of her. Cole takes charge of Elaine while they start sweeping the apartment like they're going to find Marcos in there, asking if she knows where her son is. Of course this is a question they already know the answer to, which is what I call a James Lipton. She truthfully says she doesn't. As far as his contacts with the IRK, she doesn't seem aware of anything beyond communications with family there. Cole suddenly spots the packed suitcase on her couch and asks, "You going somewhere?" I feel like I've already recapped this scene this week. Elaine says she's on her way to her sister's house. "You do that a lot?" Cole asks. "Take trips to visit relatives at 2:30 in the morning?" Elaine tells Cole all about Marcos's call last hour, and we also learn that Aunt Shelly lives in Pennsylvania. Now that she's told all she knows, Cole tells her what he knows: "Ma'am, right now your son's barricaded himself at St. Julian's hospital, trying to blow himself up with a suicide vest." Way to break it to her gently. She freaks out and sinks onto the couch, but Cole says there's no time for that and drags her out. It's 2:29:05.
At 2:33:23, Dana enters Hastings' office to report that Cole checked in and is on his way. Hastings rudely interrupts her to ask Cole's ETA, and she says under ten minutes. Hastings dismisses her, but she stupidly wants to talk some more right now, because wouldn't it be awesome if he asked her where she was now that they're in the privacy of his office? She apologizes again, saying she knows she let him down. "Yes, you did," he says, looking at her for the first time since she walked in. Hastings wonders if he was wrong about the awesomeness he saw in her before (I clearly was). He says that he doesn't want to lose her or Cole. "You're both valuable and everyone is replaceable." Dana says that she and Cole are both ready to accept the consequences for their screw-up. Hastings nods like they're coming to an understan
ding. Wouldn't this be an awful time for her personal cell phone to ring? Of course, it does. She thanks Hastings and ducks out of the room, answering it at 2:34:37 as he watches her go.
"Can I ask who I'm speaking with?" asks the voice of Jimmy James. Yes, it's literally Stephen Root, calling from his car. Dana unwisely tells the caller her name -- Dana, not Jenny. "Forgive me, Ms. Walsh, for calling at this ungodly hour," he mugs. He says he expected to leave a message and apologizes for waking her. Dana politely asks what this is about, and the caller identifies himself as a guy named Prady, from the Department of Corrections in Little Rock. And he's looking for Kevin Wade. Ooh, just what Dana needs right now. Walking down the hall so Hastings doesn't see her on the phone, Dana lies that she doesn't know Kevin. Which is as stupid as anything she's done, because obviously Prady found her number somehow. The thing to do would have been to go back to the old story she tried on Kevin, which was that he had mistaken her for someone else and was bothering the wrong person. I mean, it didn't work on Kevin, but he knew Jenny Scott, unlike Prady. She might have been able to get rid of him easily. But now Prady's folksy, down-home antenna are activated, because he knows, and he tells Dana, that Kevin called her number from a motel room in Queens. Dana tries to blow it off as a wrong number, and Prady doesn't buy that either, given the number and length of some of the calls. Dana tries to rush him off the phone, using her work crisis as a pretext. Prady gets that, "But since we're both awake, I wonder if I could meet with you in person." Now, in fact. Prady says it won't take long, and when Dana seems less than enthusiastic, Prady offers, still in that mildly demented southern gentleman manner, "If it'll smooth things over, I can call your supervisor." Dana jumps all over saying he doesn't need to do that, and can spare him a few minutes. "Thank you, ma'am, that would be super," Prady says, and pulls over to get Dana's address.
Back at the hospital, Marcos gets a third LED light going. It's a peculiar feature of this vest that as each circuit is completed, it makes a louder and more dramatic sound effect. Someone really did some thorough usability testing on this interface. Meanwhile a CTU crew is only now getting a drill into place. And then what are they going to do when they get through, pull Marcos out through the resulting keyhole? After snagging him with a really long crocheting hook? Owen tells Kiefer that Marcos will be ready to rumble in ten minutes or less, which is not going to give the crew nearly enough time to get to him. Fortunately, Cole has just delivered Elaine into the hallway behind them, guiding her to a seat and telling someone to get her some water. "Take care of that," Kiefer tells Owen, who less than an hour ago was being asked to face down a suicide bomber and is now on butler duty. Cole comes over to report to Kiefer that Elaine came quietly, but she had a packed suitcase. "So he cares enough about her to make sure she got out of town," Kiefer realizes. He heads over to talk to Elaine himself at 2:37:33, pausing to take her water out of Owen's hand so he can be the one to give it to her. Poor Owen. Dude's still got blood on his face, Kiefer, maybe you could throw him a bone. Kiefer introduces himself to Elaine as the guy in charge of field operations. Elaine wants to see Marcos, and Kiefer says he'll take her to him, but first he needs her to sit down so he can explain some stuff to her. So Kiefer's not going to wonder where Cole was either? I can see Hastings letting that slide, but Kiefer should know better. Well, he knows better than to let himself get wrapped up in that stupid C-plot, I suppose.
We don't get to hear Kiefer's conversation with Elaine, because we have to watch Cole answer his ringing phone and listen to Dana tell him about the probation officer situation. Cole totally shuts down, saying he can't do anything about it now. Dana says Prady caught her in a lie, so he's on his way to talk to her. "You're gonna have to figure out a reason why [Kevin] had your number," Cole says. Hey, you're the one who said no one would miss them, smart guy. Dana doesn't think she can pull this off. "What, lie?" Cole asks. "Come on, we both know you're good at it." Ouch. Cole apologizes for that, but tells her this is her job to handle. "Let me know what happens, I gotta go." So I guess the new dynamic of their relationship is Cole decides what to do and then Dana gets to deal with the fallout. I guess that's a start toward evening things out between them.
Still talking to Elaine, Kiefer has just gotten to the part of the story where Marcos is working with people who are trying to hit Manhattan with a dirty bomb. "Now he's going to kill himself in order to protect this plot unless you can convince him otherwise." He gives her the bottom line: she needs to get him to open the door. She asks what's . "He'll be alive," Kiefer says, and adds that he'll do what he can to help Marcos in exchange for his cooperation. In between being both Grandpa Kiefer in L.A. and dating Renee Walker in New York, I guess. Time to head into the other room. Cole and Kiefer walk her over to the anteroom door at 2:39:45, and Kiefer kicks everyone else out of there. From his listening post, Ali is able to recognize Marcos's mother, and he tells Samir over the phone that it's her. Samir wonders if she'll be able to talk him down, and Ali thinks not. The scene is also being monitored from CTU, as Elaine goes up to the intercom screen and says her son's name. Marcos is pretty upset to see her. "You son of a bitch!" Marcos yells. He really is a terrorist, talking to his mom that way. Oh, I guess he's addressing Kiefer, who's lurking in the background. "Leave us alone! Leave us alone!" Marcos screams. Kiefer exits the room without a word of protest. He can see better on the monitors in the CTU command post in the hallway anyhow. Once he's gone, Marcos asks why she didn't go like he asked. She'll see that and raise him taking part in a terrorist attack. He's getting such a time-out. He doesn't deny anything, and she asks why. "After what this country did to Dad?" She says he never condoned violence, but Marcos thinks he'd be on their side: "He hated America." Elaine reminds Marcos he hated America so much he moved to America, married an American wife, and had an American son. Who is about to kill thousands of Americans, so her argument kind of breaks down if you bring it to its logical conclusion.
While she continues talking, broadcast over the giant monitors at CTU, a message pops up at the bottom of the screen. Chloe realizes it means someone's tapping in, and tells Hastings, adding that she's trying to trace it. Hey, if she can do that, they can let Marcos blow himself up and Elaine can go home. Everybody wins! Except Marcos and Elaine, obviously.
Meanwhile, Elaine is blaming herself for this situation, which Marcos tells her not to do. "You couldn't have done any more, or been a better mother." "She's almost got him," Kiefer mutters from the command post. Don't jinx it! Chloe's voice suddenly pops up in his ear saying they're being spied on, but she couldn't trace it. Kiefer says he'll take care of it from there and asks Owen how long it'll take to disconnect the video system. "Thirty seconds," Owen says. Kiefer tells him to make it so.
Marcos is telling his mom that he knows she's supposed to convince him to open the door, but it's too late. Why? Aside from the conspiracy and attempted murder charges, all he's actually succeeded in doing is assault one CTU agent, shoot a corpse, and cause some property damage to the hospital. And the clubbing seems to have done said agent some good, the corpse had it coming, and nobody seems to work or be in treatment at this hospital anyway so he can just blame it on squatters. Elaine begs him some more, but he tells her to be strong. Kiefer sees this going bad, and orders Elaine pulled out. Cole's on it, as Marcos tells her he loves her and she screams his name while Cole physically removes her.
Kiefer enters the anteroom, loaded for bear. Ali watches remotely, until the screen goes snowy. See? Owen's brain is still working ju
st fine. Ali reports to Samir that he's lost video, but he can still see through his binoculars that Elaine's no longer in the anteroom but Kiefer is. So they can't even see that Marcos just finished wiring the fourth circuit. Marcos picks up the detonator slowly. Casually, looking off to the side so Marcos can admire his profile, Kiefer hits the intercom button and says, "You detonate that vest, your mother dies too." Marcos isn't sure he heard right, so Kiefer clarifies, "I'm gonna make sure your mother's in Manhattan when that dirty bomb goes off." Marcos says Kiefer doesn't even know the target, but Kiefer isn't talking about having her die in the actual explosion. "I'm gonna personally escort her to the blast site so she's exposed to the radiation." Marcos doesn't buy it, what with Kiefer being a federal agent. Kiefer kind of explains about being a specialist brought in for the occasion. "If you knew who I was, the things I've done before in my life, you would know that I'm not bluffing." Indeed, I could give Marcos a whole list of people to ask, but most of them are dead. Kiefer tells Marcos to go ahead. "First thing I'm gonna do is I'll make your mother come in here and clean it up." Dude, that's rough. And then he'll take her to he blast site. "You know how long it takes the human body to absorb a lethal dose of cesium 137?" Well, doesn't everyone? "Five seconds. Followed by twelve days of pain that is so agonizing, morphine can't even touch it." He says it's up to Marcos, and finally turns to the camera full on, inviting Marcos to look into his eyes. Which are pretty scary. Good thing Kiefer framed his face in the camera in such a way as to not accidentally cut them off, because that would have undercut the effect a bit. "What happens to your mother is because of you. Only you." Marcos starts crying as he makes Kiefer promise to leave her alone if he comes out. Sounding like he's passing a kidney stone, Marcos puts the detonator button down and moves to the door. Kiefer backs up and levels his weapon as Marcos opens it and steps out. Kiefer yells at him, and suddenly Marcos, who has been trying to blow himself up for an hour, is all scared of Kiefer shooting him. "Cole, I got four lights on," Kiefer says. Cole calls in for assistance. Meanwhile, Ali can see Marcos outside the chamber through his binoculars, and reports as much to Samir. "They must have talked him out of it, but he's re-armed the vest." As his men finish transferring the crate with the rods into yet another vehicle, Samir tells Ali, "Hang up right now and transmit the fail-safe." Fail-safe? No fair!
Kiefer's busy trying to disconnect the vest-bomb himself, telling Cole to keep his men back because he knows what he's doing. Those lights on the vest start beeping and blinking, scaring the hell out of Marcos. And to them is a timer, now counting down from 60 seconds. Okay, that evens things out a little. This is certainly a warning-rich interface on this vest. I'm sure that when Ali transmitted the fail-safe, his computer monitor lit up with a series of dialogue boxes like, "This action will permanently delete the person wearing the vest. Are you sure you want to proceed? OK/Cancel." Kiefer tells Cole it's a fail-safe (because it's impossible that Kiefer might have triggered this himself with his tinkering), and tells Cole and his men to clear out. "Get this off of me!" Marcos hollers desperately. Apparently the vest doesn't just come off, though. Kiefer's doing his best to defuse the wiring, while Elaine screams from the hallway behind him, pausing only to yell, "Get her out of here now!" Kiefer starts to realize he might not have time, and asks Marcos what the target is. Marcos doesn't know. Nor does he know how they plan to get it into the city, past the radiation detectors. "Who does?" Kiefer yells, and Marcos understands him even though he was talking at the same time. Now is when you'd expect Marcos to give up Ali or Samir, for all the good that would do Kiefer, but Marcos walked in here with more than one bombshell under his jacket, and here's the second one: "President Hassan's head of security, Tarin Faroush!" Marcos says. Whoa! Check out Marcos, delivering the goods! Kiefer's hands are now shaking like they did near the end of last season, and with less than ten seconds left, he looks up at Marcos with anguished eyes and says, "I'm not gonna be able to do this in time," "Tell my mother I'm sorry," Marcos says as the bomb starts to make a noise like a camera flash warming up. At the last moment, Marcos turns and runs back into the chamber. Kiefer tries to close the door behind him. But they left it just a second too late, and the blast hits the door hard enough to make it smack Kiefer and, along with the blast, send him spinning across the anteroom like a racquetball. From where he's lying on the floor, Kiefer looks into the chamber, which now has a really bad red paint job. "CTU, this is Jack," Kiefer says from the floor. "Marcos is dead. I'm gonna need to speak to Predizzent Hassan." It's 2:49:17, and I know he's still shaken up, but he's going to need to get it together if he's going to be talking to any predizzents.
At 2:53:35, Hassan is on the phone begging with the NYPD for their help in the search for Kayla. Nabeel enters, saying Hassan has a call coming in from Jack Bauer. Hassan takes it on speaker, and Kiefer brings Hassan up to speed on the most recent developments, and their new lead: "Before the suspect was killed he identified your head of security, Tarin Faroush, as a co-conspirator." Hassan, to his credit, does not commence jumping up and down, pointing at Dalia, and singing, "Told ya so!" Kiefer tells Hassan to have U.N. security take Tarin into custody. Hassan explains at length about why that's not going to work, giving Kiefer a little TMI about his daughter. He has to admit that he has no idea where they are, and neither he nor his wife have been able to reach her. While Dalia goes for her cell phone for another shot at it, Kiefer tells him to keep trying. "Right now, Mr. Faroush is our only lead." Which means he's doomed.
Kiefer's only lead gets into the shower in the hotel suite. A bathrobed Kayla watches him dreamily, then hears her phone ring again at 2:55:34. This time she finally answers. Hassan quietly tells Kiefer that Kayla's on the phone, and Kiefer says he needs an address. Dalia is already asking her that, but Kayla is still playing coy with her mom, assuming Hassan put her up to it. Dalia then asks if Tarin's with her, and she says not right now, because he wants to stay incommunicado. Dalia breaks the news to Kayla about Tarin being a mole, and Kayla eye-rolls about Hassan's "paranoid delusions." Dalia says it's coming from CTU this time. "You know I loathe your father's behavior and the way that he's handled everything," Dalia reminds Kayla, to demonstrate her sincerity, while behind her, Hassan is looking like, I'm right here. Kayla's in denial about Tarin, who is now getting out of the shower. Dalia asks her again where she is. Finally, Kayla quickly rattles off, "The Teodore Hotel, Suite 514." Dalia tells her to stay where she is, while Hassan relays the location to Kiefer.
Tarin sees Kayla on the phone, and she acts innocently busted as she tells her mom she'll call later. "Please don't tell father we spoke," she lets Tarin hear her say before hanging up. The whole scene occurs with them still pointing those loving smiles at each other, even though I'm doubting Kayla's going to be getting sprayed down again any time soon. Tarin reminds her of their agreement, and she says she didn't want her mom to worry. "Did you tell her where we are?" he asks. She shakes her head. "Do you think I am stupid?" she asks sweetly. He comes over to her, saying, "You know I could never think such a thing. You are perfection." And it's a credit to his skills as a spy that he can say that without barfing. After a quick kiss, he tells her to get dressed, for their meeting at the State Department. "At this hour?" Kayla asks. She makes excuses
about being tired, but he's politely insistent. He hands her her folded-up suit, which she carries into the bathroom. She closes the door and locks it, and Tarin's smile fades. Of course he didn't fail to notice that she suddenly doesn't want to dress in front of him. Rookie mistake, but then she's only been a freelance undercover operative for a minute or so.
Other splitscreen windows remind us of the existence of such characters as Hassan and Hastings, Chloe and Dalia, Dana and Prady, and Cole and Samir. People whose existences we are not reminded of: Walker and Taylor, who weren't in this episode at all. They could be anywhere, walking and tayling, respectively.
Cole and Kiefer talk to an NYPD officer, since the local cops get to the Teodore Hotel faster than CTU can. But Kiefer reminds the officer that they need to take Tarin alive. Another reason it's a good thing the assassination plot against Hassan didn't work, because in case you need to be reminded, Tarin was in the car. It's 3:00:00, and Cole joins Kiefer to go catch and question a man whose life he just saved eight hours ago. Ah, the twists and turns fate can take when the writers are once again making it up as they go along.
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.Discuss this episode in our forums, then see our list of Other TV Characters We Want to Spend 24 Hours With!
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