24 – Two Days Later
7:00 pm – A young man, dressed as a valet, speaks with his supervisor while a small group of other valets waits. The supervisor says, “This is your first day. All you have to do is greet the guest, take the car keys, hand them a receipt, and drive the car over to the lot. That’s all there is to it.” A car pulls up to the restaurant. The other valets seem to recognize the car, and all dive behind the bushes, in an attempt to hide. The supervisor looks around nervously, and tells the new valet to park the car that just drove up. The new valet runs around to the driver’s side door to open it. Before he gets there, the car door opens, and Jack Bauer steps out. He warns the valet that if anything happens to the car, he will hunt him down. The valet looks nervously back towards the restaurant and sees his supervisor nervously peaking out from behind a philodendron.
7:02 pm – Jack enters the restaurant. The hostess asks if Jack had reservations. Jack says, “I’m not Native American. I’m just here to meet some friends.” Jack sees Bill, Chloe and Morris in a booth in the back of the restaurant near a small musical quartet, and starts towards them.
7:03 pm – On his way to the table, Jack briefly interrogates one of the customers after seeing a table with a suspicious plate of linguini covered with crumbled Pop Tarts and French fries. Jack finally concludes the customer just has an extremely bad sense of taste, and he continues through the restaurant to the table where his friends are seated.
7:04 pm – Jack sits down in the booth with the others, and thanks them for inviting him out for dinner, and especially for not picking a Chinese restaurant. Bill tells Jack that CTU has hired him as a consultant.
Chloe tells Jack, “I’m so sorry about Audrey.”
Jack looks down at the table and says, “Thanks, Chloe, but Audrey is going to be fine”.
Chloe says, “That’s what I meant”.
Bill distracts them both and says, “I have it on authority that Cheng has been released from custody.”
Chloe rolls her eyes. “We all know that, Bill. I’m the one that told you that!”
Bill doesn’t seem to hear this and continues, “Cheng was released to the Chinese embassy just a couple of hours ago. The White House had him released after the Chinese ambassador threatened to cut off all shipments of wonton wrappers to the United States, unless Cheng was remanded to Chinese custody”.
Jack slams his fist onto the table. “Don’t they know what Cheng is capable of? The last few days just haven’t made any sense to me. First we thwart a plot to blow up a major city with a nuclear weapon…”
Bill points out, “They blew up Valencia, Jack”.
Jack continues, “I said MAJOR city… Ok, I see your point. We mostly thwarted them. That’s beside the point.” He glares at Bill. “…Anyway, it turns out that my dad, brother, a Russian general who was under the delusion he had detachable arms, and some Mid-Eastern terrorists from a country whose name we never found out are all in on this bomb plot. We get that fixed, and then we have to fight the Chinese over a computer chip, AND over what they did to Audrey! Does that make sense to anyone here?” Everyone is quiet.
The waiter arrives with drinks for Chloe, Morris, and Bill, and asks Jack for his drink order. Jack orders a margarita with a perimeter of salt.
Jack looks at them all. “I’m just happy that it’s all over, and we don’t have to worry about anything bad happening.”
Loud foreshadowing music plays.
Morris reaches out and pulls over a waiter. “Do you mind asking the quartet not to play any loud foreshadowing music?”
7:08 pm – Several workers in an abandoned factory make adjustments to a large television screen which hangs above an arch, positioned against a wall. Wires connect the arch to a large bank of computers. People sit at the computers, working frantically. Cheng stands at the other end of the room, and speaks on a cell phone. “Yes. I’ve just arrived… Yes. The final adjustments are being made now. We’re awaiting your arrival.”
7:09 pm – Cheng hangs up the phone and dials another number. He tells the person at the other end, “You have a green light. …No, I know you’re not sitting at a traffic light. I meant that you should start the operation. …Yes, I realize you’re not a doctor. That’s not what I meant! Listen carefully! The mission you’ve been training for… Yes. Yes, that one. It’s time to start!”
Commercial
7:16 pm – Morris asks Bill, “When is Karen getting back from Washington?”
“She’ll be back in another week,” Bill replies. “Vice President Daniels asked her to stay on a few a few more days until she could hire her own replacement. Karen is having a hard time finding someone that’s capable of resigning, taking it back, firing her husband and then circumventing secret military operations. There aren’t many people submitting resumes with that sort of experience.” Bill seems proud of that.
7:17 pm – A busboy walks out through the back door of the restaurant where Jack is having dinner. He walks into the alley carrying several trash bags. He opens the lid and throws the bags in. He turns around to go back into the building when a man stands up in the dumpster, and pulls the busboy into the dumpster. There’s a short fight inside the dumpster. The attacker jumps out of the dumpster and unzips the cover-all he is wearing; he’s wearing clothes just like the waiters inside. He grabs something from inside the dumpster and goes into the building.
7:20 pm – Morris and Chloe are in the midst of an argument about the merits of using strongly-typed languages versus weakly-typed languages as the waiter arrives with the drinks and food. Bill and Jack try to break up the fight, and no one notices that the waiter isn’t the same one that took their orders. Everyone finally calms down, and everyone except Jack starts to eat.
Bill asks why Jack isn’t eating, and he says, “I can’t eat this chicken. After biting that guys neck a couple of days ago, chicken tastes like terrorist to me now.”
Chloe says, “Well, Jack, why did you order it then?”
Jack thinks for a second, and says “…. I didn’t…”
As Jack pushes that plate away, he sees a wire come out from underneath it. He lifts it up and sees a small explosive device on the bottom of the plate! Jack immediately takes the plate and starts to run out of the building. The hostess at the front briefly attempts to stop Jack from leaving with one of the restaurant plates, but thinks better of it when he pulls out a gun. Jack shoots the glass door which shatters as he runs through it, and across the street.
By this time, Bill, Morris and Chloe have gotten out of their seats and taken a few steps towards the front of the restaurant. Somewhere outside, there’s a large explosion.
Commercial
7:28 pm – Police cars, fire trucks and many people with cell phones trying to take videos to sell to the media are out in the street. The movie theater across from the restaurant is engulfed in flames. Bill approaches a group of movie theater employees to ask what happened, and one of them tells him that a man carrying a plate of chicken ran into the theatre moments before the whole place exploded.
7:29 pm – Firemen are working to clear the marquee that fell down in front of the entrance, so they can go inside the theatre to look for any survivors. They move a large section of the marquee, and we see soot-covered Jack emerge from the building, eating a bag of popcorn.
7:30 pm – The movie theater manager that has been talking to a police sergeant points at Jack and yells, “I want that man arrested!” Jack walks over to him and shows the officer his CTU badge. Bill, Morris and Chloe run over to Jack, expressing their relief that he’s OK. The manager is still very upset. “I want this man arrested! I don’t care where you’re from, or who you work for! You blew up my theater!”
Jack says, “Relax! When I ran outside, I had to dispose of the bomb in a place that I knew wouldn’t have any people in it. I saw that the theatre across the street was showing ‘The Life and Times of Paris Hilton’, and I knew the place would be completely empty.”
The sergeant asks, “What about the employees?”
The manager of the theatre speaks up, “We all ran out of there after the movie started. We didn’t want anything to do with that movie”.
7:32 pm – The police sergeant pulls the theater owner aside to tell him about CTU’s contract with the city to blow up any buildings they feel necessary. Jack dials CTU on his cell phone, and notices the waiter who brought him the plate bomb getting into a car down the street. He starts to run after the car, and tells Bill to get his SUV so they can go after the waiter. Jack starts running after the car. A valet tosses Bill the keys to the SUV and points to the lot near the restaurant.
7:34 pm – Jack runs down the street and around the corner after the waiter’s car, while trying to talk to Nadia at CTU at the same time. Nadia hears the heavy breathing on the other end of the line, and threatens to send a CTU tactical unit until she realizes it’s Jack on the phone. Jack stops and tells her the license plate and the location of the waiter’s car. Nadia tells Jack that she’ll get her top people on it. Jack points out that Chloe and Morris are her top people, and that they’re both with him right now. Nadia says she’ll get her next-to-top people on it. Bill’s car finally catches up with Jack, and Jack gets into the passenger seat, with Chloe and Morris in the back.
Commercial
7:40 pm – The waiter drives at high speed through the streets of Los Angeles, and realizes that Bill’s car is closing in fast. Jack leans out of the car and shoots the tires of the waiter’s car, which slows it down, but the waiter keeps driving. The waiter calls Cheng to tell him that Jack is hot on his trail, and closing in fast.
7:41 pm – Cheng tells the waiter he’s sorry to hear that. With the waiter’s car slowing down and Bill speeding, Jack has nearly caught up! Cheng presses a sequence of numbers on his cell phone, and then “enter”. The waiter’s car explodes!
7:42 pm – Nadia calls Jack, and starts to complain that Jack shouldn’t have blown up the car they were trying to track. Jack tells her that this time it wasn’t his fault. Bill, Morris and Chloe all speak up and Jack holds his cell phone towards them all so that Nadia can hear it. Nadia tells Jack that before the explosion they were able to spot the car on satellite, intercept a cell phone call between the car and Cheng, and pinpoint Cheng’s exact location. Jack seems pretty impressed about how they were able to do all that with a couple of minutes. Nadia shrugs and says it has something to do with those “computer thingies”.
7:44 pm – Jack asks Nadia where they need to go to find Cheng, and she gives them the address of an abandoned factory. Jack relays the information to Bill, and they start driving towards the factory. Morris asks Chloe why there are so many abandoned warehouses around, and that someone should start keeping an eye on those things because they always seem to turn into headquarters for criminals.
7:46 pm – Cheng dials his cell phone, and tells the person at the other end “The plan to kill Jack Bauer has failed, but we’ll continue to try. This doesn’t change your overall plans. The device is nearly ready.”
7:47 pm – Bill rolls the SUV to a stop and turns off the lights to the car. He points down the street and says, “That must be the abandoned warehouse. It has armed guards with machine guns out front.” Jack uses his binoculars to look at the guards. He tells Bill this isn’t the right address, and this must be some other criminal hideout. Bill realizes the right place is several blocks away, and starts heading there.
Commercial
7:52 pm – The SUV rolls up to another, suspiciously similar, abandoned warehouse. This one also has some guards armed with machine guns out front. Jack says he has a plan, and asks Bill, “Can I drive?”
Bill says, “…I think so, Jack. I’ve seen you do it before.”
Jack and Bill get out of the car and switch places to that Jack can drive. Jack revs up the SUV engine, and floors it! He heads straight for the chain-link fence the guards are standing in front of. The guards are taken completely by surprise because cars do this sort of thing in Los Angeles all the time, before swerving off in a different direction. Jack shoots one of the guards and crashes the SUV through the fence. The SUV spins around and Jack shoots the other guard. The SUV comes to a stop.
7:54 pm – There are several other cars in the lot, all parked next to the warehouse. One of the cars is in a parking spot labeled, “Criminal Mastermind of the Month”. The whole place is very quiet. Jack tells everyone to get out their guns, and get out of the car. Bill and Morris each pull out a gun, and Chloe pulls out a taser. They approach a building that has a sign on it “ACME Rent-A-Warehouse: Warehouses for the Criminal Mastermind”. Jack tells Bill to make a note of that for CTU. Jack opens a door to the warehouse, and after checking that the coast is clear, goes in. The rest follow.
7:55 pm – They see the warehouse doesn’t have anyone in it, at least that they can see. They spread out to look around. They see the arch with the television screen above it. The area within the archway is dark, and they can’t see through it. Bill and Jack check the other exits in the room, but don’t see anything.
7:56 pm – Morris looks at the computers. He tells everyone that the computers have been locked, and it’ll take some time to figure out what’s going on. Chloe picks up a television remote control on a table next to the arch, and clicks the “on” button. The dark area in the arch flickers as if a light were turned on, because we can now see a hallway down past the arch. The television monitor displays the same scene. Chloe tries the “off” button, but the remote makes a popping noise instead of turning anything off.
7:57 pm – Jack sees the hallway and tells everyone to come with him because it will be safer. They hesitate for a second, but decide to follow anyway. They all walk through the arch into a shag-carpeted hallway. There is wood paneling on the walls. Morris smirks and says that the seventies called and wants its style back. Jack hears a noise from one of the rooms. He motions for everyone to be quiet, and kicks the door in.
7:58 pm – Jack bursts into the room, and there’s a little blonde girl in pigtails in the room. She screams. Jack tells her that everything is OK. They’re looking for some very bad people who came through the hallway. The little girl has a lisp and tells them that she hasn’t heard anyone. She says she wants to see her parents.
7:59 pm – Chloe tells Jack, “Uh, Jack…. I think you should see this.” Jack steps back out into the hallway and looks to where Chloe is pointing. The archway they walked through is gone! Jack goes back to the little girl, and asks, “What’s your name, honey?” The little girl says, “Cindy.”
8:00 pm – Time’s up!