24

9:02 A.M.-9:09 A.M.: Two paramedics give Jamey an IV, announce that it doesn't look good, and haul her out of CTU on a stretcher. Nina explains the situation to the rest of the staff, before ordering them to resume work. She gets Tony to call Jamey's mother to have her pick up Kyle. Jack rings Nina from the car to let her know that it's in his possession. He's stunned to hear that Teri had gotten through to CTU earlier. He also needs help with directions, as the police have set up roadblocks around the entire area. She recommends he turn himself in, but he refuses, knowing full well Gaines won't keep Teri and Kimberly alive if he's in custody and, thus, of no use. Nina goes to work on tracking the roadblocks for him, then fills him in on what happened to Jamey after he mentions her. Things take a turn for the worse -- literally -- when the street Jack is on leads him straight into a surprise roadblock. He makes a hasty U-turn, then berates Nina for failing to catch it. She tries to find him an alternate route.

Teri prepares to call Nina again, with Kimberly standing by the door as a lookout. Nina still has Jack on the line, so when the phone rings, she asks Tony to answer it. She puts Jack on hold and takes it when Tony says who called. Teri has no idea where she is, so Nina asks her to leave the line open long enough for them to set up a trace. Nina gets back on the other line with Jack to tell him, but just as she patches Teri through at his request, Kimberly signals that they're coming, and Teri has to hide the phone before Jack can talk to her. After sticking it atop a wooden beam, Eli and Rick enter. With the line open, Jack and Nina can hear every word of Eli threatening the women over the whereabouts of his phone. Nina mutes their end of the call, so she and Jack can talk to each other. Eli tears the shed apart in a fit of rage, but can't find the phone. While he's otherwise preoccupied, Kimberly motions to Rick where Teri put it. Rick proves his trustworthiness by pretending not to know where it is when asked. Milo has started the trace. He has a latitude, but not a longitude.

9:09 A.M.-9:13 A.M.: On the news, they announce that Palmer is going through with today's schedule as planned, which includes an appearance at an elementary school. From the back seat of their limo, the Palmers have yet another argument over Maureen Kingsley. Mike is with them, and sides with the senator. Once in front of the school, they exit the limo and are greeted by a screaming crowd of children and adults. Nina tells Jack they have a preliminary trace, but it's a pretty big area. She gives the broad location, then helps him circumnavigate the cops. Tony calls Nina over, after having sifting through Jamey's email. Jamey deleted all her messages but one, sent this morning to a Ted Cofell. It's encrypted, so Tony plans to work on that. But Nina needs him to find out who Cofell is, so Tony pawns the decryption job off on Milo. Tony's phone rings, he answers, and is saddened over the conversation. He goes over to tell Nina that was the clinic. Jamey didn't make it.

9:18 A.M.-9:27 A.M.: Eli and Rick have departed. Kimberly keeps watch by the door and signals to Teri again -- this time because the coast is clear. Teri redials CTU. Nina answers, and puts her through to Jack. Jack finally gets to talk to her, and says he's on his way and the others are tracing her location. Teri asks how long that will take. Milo says twenty minutes. That's a time frame that isn't comforting to Teri. Jack has to cut Teri off, as two cops have found him, and are ordering him to pull over. He pulls over, waits until they get out and walk over to his car, then speeds away. The two cops race back to their vehicle to follow Jack in hot pursuit, as Teri, Nina and Milo all listen to what's going on. A mad chase follows, during which Jack hides out in a parking lot, gets out of his car, and ducks under somebody else's car. The cops scout the parking lot as backup arrives. One of the officers walks right past the car Jack is under, but doesn't see him. Teri interrupts to ask if he's alright. Now that he has a free minute to talk, he tries to get more details about her location. She offers up a few minor things, and Nina puts Milo to work on factoring them into the trace. Jack promises he'll find Teri soon, and stresses how important it is that she doesn't hang up the phone until the trace is complete. After Teri says that Kimberly is there, he asks that she put her on the phone so Jack can reaffirm his love for her too. The cops begin to close in on Jack, just as Teri fearfully says that she has to get off the phone because the kidnappers are coming back. Jack reminds her to keep the line open. She does and hides the phone atop the beam like before, but this time, Eli is angrier and more violent than ever, knocking Teri to the ground and throwing Kimberly into a wall in search of the phone. Rick attempts to stop him from hurting them, and he's about to punch Rick's face in when the phone starts beeping. Jack freaks out; neither he nor Nina know why it's beeping. They figure it out when Nina notices the trace signal dying. It's too late anyway -- Eli has followed the sound of the beeping and uncovered Teri's hiding place. The phone back in his possession, Eli asks who they called. When he doesn't get an answer, he goes to the source, and asks Jack who they called. Jack responds by threatening to kill Eli if he hurts his family. Eli pushes past Rick, on his way to tell Gaines what they did. Rick tries unsuccessfully to talk him out of it by reminding him Gaines isn't going to be happy when he finds out whose phone they used to call for help. As Rick and Eli are in the middle of another violent struggle, his phone drops to the ground, and Teri grabs it to get in a few last words with Jack. Eli snatches it away from her, and hangs it up. He and Rick leave. Jack hopes and pleads that they got the trace. But they didn't.



9:32 A.M.-9:36 A.M.: The cops locate Jack's deserted vehicle. Jack is across the parking lot breaking into someone else's run-down vehicle. After hot-wiring it, he drives off the lot without being seen, then calls Nina to check on how close a trace Milo managed to get. She says within a 25-mile radius. He needs more help, but is crushed to hear that their star witness, Jamey, has died from suicide. Tony picks up the line, and together he and Nina give Jack Cofell's name and address. Gaines is sitting at his computer, trying to send another message to Jamey. He gets a call from an associate, Mr. Drazen, who's on a Lear jet bound for Los Angeles. Drazen would like to know why Palmer is still alive. An uncharacteristically passive Gaines tries to talk Drazen out of voiding a certain contract, due to the plan falling apart. Gaines reassures him that Palmer will be dead by day's end and Jack will return, for he still has the family as Plan B. But Drazen doesn't consider that Plan B, he considers it 'Plan A, recycled.' Drazen's brother wants him to check things out for himself, so he says he'll be there in an hour. Drazen warns that if things don't get back under control, he'll have Cofell empty the accounts. Though the money is all Gaines is in it for, Drazen has a personal axe to grind. In parting, he threatens Gaines that he will lose something worse than money if Palmer survives.

9:36 A.M.-9:39 A.M.: Sherry secretly dials Carl. He was expecting her call, figuring she wants him to stop Palmer from exposing Keith. But, no, since he has no power to wield there anymore, Sherry wants him to stop Maureen instead. The revelation that he is already taking care of the evidence against Keith shocks both Sherry and a gentleman who's in a meeting with Carl. She isn't sure she understands what he means, while the gentleman certainly seems to. Before ending the call, Carl tells her to make sure Palmer takes whatever way out he's given. Meanwhile, Milo cracks Jamey's email to Cofell. It's a wire transfer of one million dollars to Gaines' Swiss account at 2:10 this morning. Nina wonders what Cofell's connection is. Tony surmises that it was his million, since he works in finance. They believe they have a match on the right Cofell, who's worth over $35 million, so Nina calls Jack to give him the details. Jack has her patch him through to Cofell's office. Cofell's assistant answers, but he's in a phone meeting. Jack pretends to be an old friend, to no avail. Cofell is going out of town right after the meeting, and plans to leave no later than 10:00 A.M.. Jack hangs up the instant the woman asks if he'd like to leave his name.

9:43 A.M.-9:46 A.M.: Tony comes to Nina with more bad news. Division notified him that Jack's temporary replacement will be there within the next few minutes. She asks who is it; he says Alberta Green, which flusters her. Tony understands why, since Green used to work for her and she wouldn't be coming in the first place had Tony not gone and had them relieve Jack. Jack calls again to get Nina to help him through a traffic jam. While she checks on the traffic for him, she breaks it to him gently the news who Division was sending in to take over.

Sharing a much more somber moment together than earlier in the hour, Kimberly suddenly asks Teri why dad moved out. Teri doesn't want to talk about that now, but Kimberly goads her into it, figuring there may not be a later to talk about it. Teri relates the tale of how Jack went away on what he said was a training exercise, but what she figured was a mission. When he came back, he was a different person, distant, preoccupied and angry. He hid it from Kimberly, but it put a strain in his relationship with Teri. They decided to separate to attempt to patch things up. Kimberly hopes she and her parents can be together again.

9:46 A.M.-9:51 A.M.: Tony has found that Cofell is taking a private plane to Denver, but can't locate any known terrorists there. Everyone's spirits sink the moment the ice-cold Alberta Green walks into CTU. Nina greets her, and Green requests she gather up the rest of the staff on-hand to hear an announcement. Nina introduces the other staffers to Green, stating that she's here because Jack has been relieved. Green notes CTU is now back in control, and their only objectives are to protect Palmer, while bringing down Jack, who she states was apparently behind the attempted hit. She doesn't care that the people are tired; they won't be getting any sleep with her on board. After putting the crew back to work, she tells Nina off the side that, while it's awkward for both of them, they'll get through it as they're both professionals. Green says they'll talk later, then goes into her office. Palmer is chatting with a oom of elementary school kids, one of them told Palmer that his father stated there will never be an African-American president. Palmer counters, saying that he was going to prove his father wrong. Mike receives a phone call from Frank Ames, asking Palmer wants him to call back, but Frank said it was urgent. Since Frank is Palmer's biggest contributor, Mike thinks it not wise to blow him off. Palmer apologizes to the students and excuses himself. Frank, who who didn't like hearing what Carl shared with Sherry earlier, also knows the history between Keith and George Ferragamo. He told Carl it's a problem, he and his associates don't like problems, so this problem better be covered up. Now that he knows it wasn't, Frank is washing his hands of the entire campaign. After he gets hung up on, Palmer tells Mike he needs to talk to Carl immediately.

9:56 A.M.-9:57 A.M.: Nina enters Green's office to say she hasn't talked to Jack since this morning. Green doesn't believe her, and promises a level of immunity in exchange for the truth. Nina doesn't bite, and, when Green throws her fling with Jack up to her, and stresses how Jack trusts no one. The meeting ends sorely with Green advising "let him screw you, don't let him screw you over."

9:57 A.M.-10:00 A.M.: Jack makes it to Cofell's place of work in the nick of time. From the lobby, he calls the assistant again to ask if he can drop by to say a quick hello to his old friend. But Cofell is on his way out. Jack learns Cofell Enterprises is on the 14th floor, and gets in the elevator. Cofell's meeting ends, and he has his assistant, Nancy, ready his limo for him. She follows him out of the office as he's leaving to bring up the "old friend" who kept calling. Since Jack wouldn't leave so much as a name, they both figure it's a salesman, Nancy agrees not to give out his cell phone number, and Cofell gets in the elevator. Jack misses him by a fraction of a second, but hears Nancy calling his driver, and stops her to ask where he is. She says he just got in the elevator. To buy some time, Jack pulls the fire alarm, and bolts down the stairs.

Cofell calmly tells his elevatormates that it's likely just a false alarm, and, after a 30-second reset, the elevator will descend automatically. Jack gets to the parking garage first, tracks down the driver, pulls out his badge, and takes the man aside. Cofell walks into the garage next, and Luis, the attendant, summons his limo. Cofell gets in, and the driver takes off. He asks Mark to turn on the air for him. Mark, however, is not the driver. Teri winces in pain, which she hides from Kimberly.

Tick, tick, tick...