The House Special Subcommittee's Findings at CTU

by Marc Cerasini

  DRISCOLL: And you believe that’s what happened here?

  BAUER: Yes. I believe that only Victor and Andre Drazen knew all the details of their two plans and, with maybe a few exceptions, the identities of all the people working for them. Most of the others, including high-level operatives like Ira Gaines and Kevin Carroll—and even Nina Myers—were most likely kept in the dark regarding the bigger picture. Gaines was hired help. It’s fairly clear that Andre contacted him first. Then Gaines hired Kevin Carroll, who recruited Rick and Dan to kidnap my daughter.

  FULBRIGHT: So who did Nina Myers work for?

  BAUER: She still refuses to talk, Mr. Chairman. But if you’ve already reviewed the report I filed about the events on this day, then you know that near the end of it, close to midnight, Nina Myers confessed to me that she did not work for the Drazens—

  SCHNEIDER: It is possible she was lying when she confessed that.

  BAUER: No. She confessed it as I held a gun to her head. She traded her life in that moment for the one thing she had—information. I believed her then, and I believe her now.

  DRISCOLL: Then what is your theory on Myers?

  BAUER: Nina Myers did not work for the Drazens directly. Her services as a deep-cover mole were “on loan” to Victor and Andre by her superiors, whoever they are. I think that the (pause) creature we call Nina Myers was trained by an intelligence service hostile to our nation—one that she claimed shared common interests with the Drazens.

  SCHNEIDER: So how did Nina Myers fit into the attempt on David Palmer’s life?

  BAUER: Frankly, she may not have fit into that plan until much later in the day. As I said, if the Drazens were using Nina on a need-to-know basis, then it’s likely that their overall plan was not known by Nina at that point. It was only after their first plan fell apart and Jamey was out of the picture that they turned to Nina for greater help inside CTU.

  I believe that Nina was working hard to appear as if she was doing her job and doing it well. By identifying the corpse in the trunk, for example, she made us all believe that she was efficient, loyal, and on top of her duties at CTU—she was the perfect deep-cover mole. I’m sure she believed she had nothing to lose by revealing York’s identity to Teri, because she was never told how that name connected with Gaines or his plan.

  As for her other actions, she was mostly concerned with what I was working on, doing, and thinking. I get the impression she’d been asked to stay very close to me, to be aware of my every move … which leads me to the staged execution—

  SCHNEIDER: Over Baylor’s key card. Is that right?

  BAUER: Yes. Jamey had already told Gaines we had the card. So Gaines ordered me to switch it with a fake one and then to leave CTU. The man was controlling me with an earpiece, so I tried to write out an SOS. But Gaines was watching from CTU’s security cameras. They were everywhere in our facility, and he’d patched into them—

  SCHNEIDER: Jamey Farrell set that up, right? She was the one who gave Gaines access to the cameras?

  BAUER: That’s right. Agent Tony Almeida heard her confess it.

  FULBRIGHT: We’re aware of Agent Almeida’s role here. In fact, we have him scheduled to testify tomorrow. Please continue describing your own actions.

  BAUER: Nina had been supervising the decryption process with Milo. After I switched the cards, the two of them quickly figured out what I had done, and she confronted me in my office. She threatened to call Division if I didn’t turn the original card over. Whether she planned to sabotage the card herself or was continuing to protect her image as a good agent, I don’t know. Either way, it’s clear she had no idea I was acting on the orders of Drazen’s man.

  At that point, Gaines was watching. He assumed Nina was about to blow the whistle on me, so he kept screaming in my ear to take care of this or my daughter was dead. I knew I had no choice. I pulled a weapon on Nina. Through the earpiece, Gaines told me to get her out of the building.

  At that point my mind was searching for a way to protect Nina, so I took her over to the locker in my office and slipped a jacket on her to hide the weapon I had at her back. I took the opportunity to slip an armored flak jacket on her first. I walked her outside to my car. Tony stopped us on the way. When he asked where we were headed I lied, telling him we were en route to a meeting. Gaines gave me instructions about where to go. He also had a couple of thugs waiting in another car with a remote camera pointed at me for insurance. They followed. We parked in an empty industrial area. Under Gaines’s orders, I took Nina out of the car and shot her. I had no choice. He said he would end Kim’s life if I didn’t kill Nina. I also knew that if I didn’t shoot Nina myself, the thugs in the other car would—and they were more likely to put a bullet in her head.

  I was careful to hit the flak jacket. I also made sure to shoot her near the edge of an embankment and to give her a push. My hope was that when Nina fell down the ravine, the men in the second car wouldn’t even bother to get out and confirm she was dead.

  I was right. They didn’t. Gaines believed the images he saw from their video camera and instructed me to drive away.

  SCHNEIDER: Of course, we know Myers didn’t die. But how did she get back to CTU?

  BAUER: Tony can tell you more about that.

  DRISCOLL: (After a pause) Agent Bauer, I’m sorry to belabor this, but I’m still confused. Gaines worked for Drazen. Nina Myers also worked for Drazen, so Myers was no threat. Gaines should have known that. Ordering Myers to be shot seems pointless.

  BAUER: Not to Gaines. To Gaines, Nina appeared to be just another CTU agent—one who had stumbled upon his plan. So he had me eliminate her. And yes, Nina Myers worked for Drazen—but only on loan. Her primary job was to supply intelligence to some other entity, some other employer. She wasn’t supposed to jeopardize her position in CTU by breaking protocol or looking suspicious. Nina’s job—at that point in the day—was to watch Jamey. She was Drazen’s eyes inside CTU. Gaines never knew she existed.

  DRISCOLL: Okay, I’m getting it. Drazen used Nina to spy on his own spy. Is that right?

  BAUER: Yes. Spies and informants often have a deep-cover mole nearby watching them so they don’t jump sides again and become double agents … so they can be eliminated before they break, like Jamey Farrell was.

  It’s also fairly clear that Drazen’s modus operandi was to have redundancies—backup plans and reserve personnel. Nina was Drazen’s insurance.

  DRISCOLL: Very troubling, Agent Bauer. You describe a world of treason and back stabbing that I find perplexing.

  BAUER: Unfortunately, ma’am, it’s the world we live in.

  DRISCOLL: I find something else troubling here—your actions. You entered CTU on false pretenses at the behest of a potential presidential assassin. You stole crucial evidence in the form of an encrypted key card from an employee. You kidnapped another employee, drove her to a remote location, and shot her at point-blank range—though I’ll grant that you shot Ms. Myers after you provided her with an armored flak jacket.

  BAUER: That’s all true, ma’am. But I was desperate to save my family. And I also knew these same people wanted Palmer dead. I believed I could take control of the situation once I got to Gaines.

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Bauer, may I remind you that you shot Nina Myers on orders from Ira Gaines.

  BAUER: Sir, I regret most of the things I had to do in that twenty-four-hour period. But shooting Nina Myers is something I would be happy to do again.

  FULBRIGHT: All right, Agent Bauer, that’s enough for today. We’re adjourned.

  7:00 A.m.-8:00 a.m.

  CHAIRMAN FULBRIGHT: Agent Almeida, please rise and raise your right hand.

  AGENT TONY ALMEIDA: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

  FULBRIGHT: Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give this subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?

  ALMEIDA: I do.

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Almeida, you may consider yourself under oath. Please be seated. For th
e record, state your name and occupation.

  ALMEIDA: My name is Tony Almeida, I’m an intelligence agent working in the Los Angeles Division of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counter Terrorist Unit.

  FULBRIGHT: Thank you, Agent Almeida. Between the hours of 7:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M. on the day of the California primary, you contacted … (papers shuffling) … Secret Service Special Agent Aaron Pierce and warned him that Jack Bauer was a threat to Senator Palmer’s life. Is that correct?

  ALMEIDA: That’s correct, sir.

  FULBRIGHT: You also caught Jamey Farrell in the act of treason and were one of two agents who interrogated Ms. Farrell before she died, is that correct?

  ALMEIDA: Yes, sir—the other agent being a traitor herself.

  FULBRIGHT: Nina Myers, yes. (Pause) We understand from your written statement that you, like Agent Bauer before you, were involved with Nina Myers on an intimate level. Is that correct, Agent Almeida?

  ALMEIDA: Yes, sir. I regret to say that is correct.

  FULBRIGHT: And for the record, you had no idea she was a spy—

  ALMEIDA: No, sir, I did not. To say it was a shock to find out the truth is a gross understatement, I assure you.

  FULBRIGHT: Thank you. Now help us, if you can, to fill in some gaps.

  ALMEIDA: Certainly.

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Bauer has testified that his family was being held hostage and that he was ordered by a mercenary named Ira Gaines to shoot Nina Myers. He was then told to drive to the Santa Clarita power plant where Senator Palmer was about to give a breakfast speech. More specifically, Bauer was instructed to go to a utility closet and assemble a weapon he had smuggled into the power plant. This was to make sure Bauer’s fingerprints were left on the weapon. The weapon was then given to an assassin who masked his own prints.

  The assassin was able to walk into the power plant breakfast without suspicion because he’d undergone plastic surgery to look like a famous photographer by the name of (papers shuffling) …

  ALMEIDA: Martin Belkin.

  REP. ROY SCHNEIDER, (R) TEX.: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but I’d like to ask Agent Almeida if he knows anything more regarding the whereabouts of that unknown assassin yet?

  ALMEIDA: We have yet to locate and apprehend him, sir. We have some foreign intel on him as well as leads from the Gaines compound, but that’s all at the moment. I’d be happy to provide the CTU profile on him for your records.

  FULBRIGHT: Thank you. Now let’s go over the events of that time period.

  ALMEIDA: Yes, sir. After Special Agent Jack Bauer took Nina Myers out of CTU, I became suspicious and replayed the security camera footage from Bauer’s office. I saw that he pulled a weapon on Nina and placed a Kevlar vest on her. It was clear he’d taken her out of CTU at gunpoint.

  After Jack shot Nina and left the scene, she found her way to a phone and called me. She seemed almost desperate to have me put Jamey Farrell on the phone. I walked to Jamey’s workstation on the command center floor and overheard her lying to our encryption consultant, Milo Pressman, about Nina’s whereabouts. Jamey looked me straight in the eye and told me that she’d just spoken to Nina a few minutes before.

  I knew then that I couldn’t trust Jamey. I walked away with the phone still in my hand, demanding that Nina tell me what was going on. I told her how Jamey had lied. Nina acted shocked by this. She hesitated and then stated that we could no longer trust Jamey. She said we were probably being watched through our own security camera system.

  I sent a car to pick up Nina. By the time she returned, I made sure the corridor and the nearby ITS room—that’s the Internal Tech Support room—were dark—

  REP. PAULINE P. DRISCOLL, (D) CONN.: “Dark”? What do you mean. No lights?

  ALMEIDA: No, no. I mean I arranged it so that no one could observe us from a live camera. I created a ten-minute loop of an empty corridor and fed that recording into the network. Anyone who was tapping into our surveillance cameras would simply see a vacant hallway. I had effectively rendered the cameras inactive.

  DRISCOLL: “Inactive.” So the cameras were no longer working, is that correct?

  ALMEIDA: No, not quite. If I had physically interfered with the cameras, an alarm would have gone off. So I simply relayed the actual recordings the cameras were malting directly to Archives, essentially bypassing the live feed. Then I sent the phony images I had created to the live feed so that anyone tapping into our system would see what I wanted them to for that brief period of time. That’s what I mean by rendering the cameras inactive. Inactive just means that one can’t access recorded images off the live feed—they have to go directly to the archival database for them—where they would pretty much meet with a dead end, since accessing the archives requires entry codes that change frequently throughout the day.

  DRISCOLL: So the cameras were still running and recording, is that right?

  ALMEIDA: Yes.

  DRISCOLL: Thank you for explaining that. You do realize why I’m asking you about these details.

  ALMEIDA: Yes, ma’am. The recording of Jamey Farrell’s death in the ITS room was found in our digital archives, and you want to know how. I understand.

  DRISCOLL: Please go on.

  ALMEIDA: Nina told me that Jack was forced to shoot her because his family was being held hostage, and the people holding Jack’s family were behind the assassination plot against Palmer. Nina also said Jack was looking for a mole inside CTU and that Jamey was obviouslv that mole—

  DRISCOLL: (Interrupting) In other words, Nina Myers exposed Jamey Farrell as a traitor and a spy.

  ALMEIDA: Yes.

  DRISCOLL: Yet apparently Nina was a spy herself and “on loan” to assist the Drazens. Can you tell us why you think she exposed Jamey, given her own apparent intention to assist the Drazens?

  ALMEIDA: That’s simple. She had no choice. Remember that when she first called CTU, she was desperate for me to hand the phone to Jamey. My guess is that she intended to play Jamey as best she could without exposing her. But I had caught Jamey in a cold lie, and I threatened Nina, telling her that she had to tell me what was going on or I would go to our regional director, Ryan Chappelle.

  Nina knew I would be a witness to whatever happened next. She had to act the part of a trustworthy CTU agent at that point. Fingering Jamey also deflected suspicion away from her. Jack was looking for a mole—well here was the mole, Jamey Farrell. No reason to look any further.

  DRISCOLL: I understand. For Nina Myers it was either give up Jamey or risk her own exposure. No honor among spies, is there, Agent Almeida?

  ALMEIDA: No, ma’am. No honor.

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Almeida, I understand you and Nina Myers then set a trap for Ms. Farrell. Is that correct?

  ALMEIDA: It is. I returned to the command center’s main floor and lied to Milo Pressman, making sure Jamey overheard. I told him we got the encrypted key card out of Jack’s office, sent it to Archives to make a backup, and would have it back shortly to be fully decoded. Then I returned to the tech room to watch Jamey on the remote camera feed.

  Jamey squirmed for a few minutes, then she headed for the rest room. I followed and caught her in the act of trying to communicate with an unknown party through text messaging on a handheld device.

  The surveillance cameras in the rest room area are on a twenty-second rotating loop. I drew my weapon and made sure to apprehend her during the brief interval when the camera was not focused on us, so that her employer would not know she’d been caught.

  FULBRIGHT: Where did you take her?

  ALMEIDA: To the tech room, where Nina was waiting to confront her. At first Jamey tried to play dumb. But Nina and I threatened her with charges of treason and murder. Richard Walsh and Scott Baylor were dead, and Jack’s wife and daughter had been kidnapped. She’d played a part in all these crimes.

  Jamey admitted to us that she’d been passing messages, but she would not reveal who her employer was. She then asked for Agency counsel. I was furious. By that time I had already to
ld Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce that Jack was compromised and that he was a threat to David Palmer. I had put Jack’s family in further jeopardy. The only lead I had in helping Jack now was sitting right in front of me. I had to get Jamey to talk.

  It was about that time that we noticed a loud commotion ensuing on television. We had been monitoring Senator Palmer’s power plant speech, and it appeared that someone was making an attempt on David Palmer’s life during that speech….

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Almeida, when the assassination attempt failed, Ira Gaines had no reason to keep Teri and Kimberly Bauer alive any longer. Isn’t that right?

  ALMEIDA: Yes, and according to Teri Bauer’s debriefing statements, it was around that time that she and her daughter had guns put to their heads execution style. Gaines made contact via walkie-talkie and stopped the shooters at the last second.

  FULBBIGHT: Do you know why?

  FROM THE DESK OF

  MARC CERASINI

  SUBJECT: JESSICA ABRAMS

  At the end of this twenty-four-hour period, the news to the press that Jack Bauer had saved David Palmer’s life.

  With Bauer suddenly seen as a national hero, Jessica high school classmate of Bauer’s, came forward to give interviews. It seems Abrams was working as a Senator Palmer’s campaign staff. On the morning of Palmer’s speech, she had approached Bauer, whom she said around, waiting for Palmer’s speech to begin.

  “I was realy surprised to see Jack that morning at heard he joined the army, then went into some sort but I never knew what exactly. Anyway, I went over know, like ‘Remember me? Want to catch up?’

  “He seemed realy preoccupied, a little nervous even, Hey, maybe the guy’s nervous about seeing ME again. But clearly he had bigger things on his mind!

  “So Senator Palmer started his speech. Then it happened. realy intense. Someone at the back of the plant yeled, herd of Secret Service agents just rushed Palmer out of around for Jack again, but he was already gone.”