The House Special Subcommittee's Findings at CTU

by Marc Cerasini

  All of us at CTU were still trying to trace the Drazens’ movements that day. Nina ordered me to work on the detention center strike. She thought I might be able to retrace the steps of the strike team and maybe even find Drazen’s headquarters. So far we were stumped. We had yet to figure out how the Drazens got out of the detention center after bringing down the ceiling and cutting off what we believed was their only means of escape.

  I needed detailed schematics of the Saugus detention center, so I accessed CTU’s division and district data banks and downloaded them. I also downloaded the same map from the DOD system as a backup.

  When I compared the two schematics, I discovered that the Department of Defense map was different—and more accurate. An entire section of the facility had been erased from the CTU schematics. The Drazens used that area of the prison to escape. I concluded that someone with access to these files was helping the Drazens.

  I called up the names of everyone who had downloaded that particular file in the last six months. The names of five people turned up. Pour of them were computer technicians, people who backed up our systems. The other person was George Mason. According to the logs, he had accessed the prison schematics only four days before Super Tuesday.

  REP. PAULINE P. DRISCOLL, (D) CONN.: What did Nina Myers say when you gave her this information?

  ALMEIDA: She agreed with me. This evidence fingered Mason as CTU’s mole. Nina wanted to call in Chappelle, but I’d already called for one lockdown in the last twelve hours—I didn’t want to call another. Not without better proof than what we had. So Nina ordered me to shut George Mason out. Deny him access to the data banks, the servers—everything. Mason would catch on sooner or later, but we had to at least contain the damage until we could prove conclusively that George was dirty.

  DRISCOLL: You didn’t suspect anyone else? Jamey Farrell? Perhaps she’d altered the files before you caught her.

  ALMEIDA: Jamey didn’t have the codes or the security clearance to go into division or district files. Full access to intelligence data is limited.

  DRISCOLL: To whom?

  ALMEIDA: Chappelle. George Mason. Jack Bauer. Nina Myers. Me.

  DRISCOLL: (Pause) You were intimate with Ms. Myers, is that correct?

  ALMEIDA: Yes, ma’am. (Pause) It was a mistake—

  DRISCOLL: A mistake! Then we have a consensus. That’s what Agent Bauer called his dalliance with Ms. Myers. I sometimes wonder what she thinks.

  ALMEIDA: I’m sure Nina Myers has regrets. She got caught.

  DRISCOLL: But not by you, Agent Almeida. You never once suspected that it was Nina Myers who altered those schematics. You thought you’d found a clue, but you were really playing right into her hands—Nina Myers was moving to divide the CTU. She wanted suspicion to fall on George Mason, and you were helping her.

  ALMEIDA: We didn’t know she could alter data. That took special skills none of us were aware Nina possessed—

  DRISCOLL: You didn’t know she was a mole, either.

  ALMEIDA: No, ma’am.

  DRISCOLL: So I must agree with you for the record—that’s what I’d call a helluva mistake.

  FULBRIGHT: What happened next, Agent Almeida?

  ALMEIDA: When Mason did finally catch on, he made a scene about being shut out and demanded that I get his terminal working again. That’s when we heard the news on television—Palmer had been killed by a bomb blast at his hotel….

  KIMBERLY BAUER: … and then Alexis—the younger Drazen brother-died. They left me alone with his body When the older one, Andre, came back, he took the duct tape off my mouth and gave me some water to drink.

  He told me he once had a sister. But he said she was dead and that my father had murdered her. I told him he was a liar and that my father would never kill an innocent person. Then he asked me if I knew about my father’s work, where he went when he was out of town.

  I didn’t.

  I always wondered what my dad did. Sometimes, when he was away—I guess on one of his missions—I would hear my mom crying softly at night. You know, after she thought I’d gone to sleep.

  I know that Andre Drazen was a bad guy and everything, but I sort of knew he was telling me the truth. I thought maybe my dad does do bad stuff—stuff I’ll never know about. But he’s my dad, you know? … He’s my dad….

  INTERVIEWER: What happened next? How did you escape?

  KIMBERLY: Well… my mind started racing for some way to fight back and get out. I saw that these guys were pretty sure of themselves, you know? Here I was this kid, and they were all big guys with guns, so they didn’t watch me very closely. I guess they figured they could hurt me or shoot me if I gave them any trouble—no problem. So I decided to use that against them.

  I saw a pot of hot coffee and pretended to want some. I asked a guard if I could pour a cup. He’s the typical gruff type, you know, he’s not about to serve a girl, so he lets me do it myself. I took the pot and threw the hot coffee right into his face. He screamed, and I ran.

  The Drazens chased me to the end of a pier at the Port of Los Angeles. I was cornered, so I took a deep breath and dived into the water. I’d been on my high school swim team and was really good, too. I tore the ropes away from my hands and swam away. It was dark, and the water was cold. So I figured, with any luck, Andre and his thugs would think I drowned….

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Bauer, you say you suspected that the scrambled phone Andre gave you had a bomb inside of it?

  SPECIAL AGENT JACK BAUER: I would have been a fool not to.

  FULBRIGHT: But you went to Palmer’s hotel suite anyway. You followed Drazen’s orders to the letter.

  BAUER: I knew the bomb wouldn’t go off right away. I knew that Victor Drazen would speak to Palmer first, even if it was only to gloat. And that’s exactly what he did. He said, “It must be nice to be reunited with your friend Jack Bauer.”

  I snatched the phone away from Senator Palmer then and threw it out the window. I was surprised at the intensity of the blast. It was not Semtex but something more powerful. A new plastique, maybe—certainly military grade.

  DRISCOLL: After the explosion, Senator Palmer agreed to pretend he had been killed, just to buy you time to find your daughter?

  BAITER: Yes. He gave me his word. But when his wife, Sherry, confronted me, I knew she would be a problem. She seemed to be the type to put her ambitions first. She knew that what her husband was doing—playing hide-and-seek with the national press—was politically risky.

  REP. ROY SCHNEIDER, (R) TEX.: What happened next?

  BAUER: Andre Drazen called me at Palmer’s hotel, to verify my death. I told him I would trade my own life for that of my daughter. He agreed, believing that Senator Palmer had indeed been assassinated.

  Andre gave me thirty minutes to reach Pier 11-A at the Port of Los Angeles, or Kim would die. Before I left the hotel to keep the rendezvous, I called my wife, and we spoke for the last time.

  Teri told me … (pause) she told me I was going to be a father again.

  I felt reborn.

  I had been so afraid she was going to say something else. I knew she’d recently learned about my affair with Nina Myers. And I was afraid that news and the stress of the day had convinced her to end our marriage. That my job had ruined our lives together—that she would finally want out.

  But Teri didn’t want out. She loved me and she was going to have another baby. My baby. I was so pleased. I promised her that everything would be okay … that she would soon be reunited with Kim … and I told her that I … that I loved her very much….

  FULBRIGHT: (Mumbling. Softly after a long pause) Let’s take a recess.

  11:00 P.M.-12:00 MIDNIGHT

  CHAIRMAN FULBRIGHT: So you drove to Pier 11-A, Port of Los Angeles, correct?

  SPECIAL AGENT JACK BAUER: Yes, to save my daughter. CTU had delivered a car to Palmer’s hotel, an operations vehicle that contained lots of extras, like a weapons kit with two pistols and extra ammo, a wireless communications system, a scan
ner, and an LED screen slaved to a computer and mounted on the dashboard.

  As I reconnoitered the boathouse and the surrounding docks, my cell phone rang—it was Andre. I told him I wasn’t going to show myself until I talked to my daughter. Andre refused, and I sensed desperation in his voice.

  I told him that I didn’t trust him. He told me that I’d lied to him about Palmer being dead, so I shouldn’t talk to him about trust. I WAS stunned. The Drazens knew Palmer was alive—which meant they were getting their information from an inside source … another mole in CTU.

  Again I demanded to speak to Kim. Again Andre refused, so I hung up on him. Something was wrong. I could sense it. Maybe Kim had gotten away, or maybe the Drazens had already killed her. I began to fear the worst….

  I had to warn CTU that there was a traitor in their midst before more damage could be done, so I called the only person I trusted—Nina Myers. Nina told me that only three people in CTU besides herself knew that Palmer was still alive: Ryan Chappelle, Tony Almeida, and George Mason. I told her that either Tony, George, or Ryan was a traitor and warned her not to trust anyone—

  REP. ROY SCHNEIDER, (R) TEX.: (Interrupting) Excuse me, Agent Bauer, I was following the primaries at my ranch in Texas, and I recall CNB News broke the story that Palmer was alive just after midnight—that’s a little after 11:00 P.M. California time.

  BAUER: Yes, I learned later that Sherry Palmer leaked the truth to protect her husband’s candidacy. At that point, thank God, Kim was safe—although I didn’t know it yet. Andre, of course, found out about Palmer before then through the mole at CTU.

  FULBRIGHT: What happened next, Agent Bauer?

  BAUER: I was watching the boathouse when my phone rang. It was Nina calling. She told me to return to CTU. She said that the Coast Guard had fished Kim’s body out of the ocean—that my daughter was dead. I’m sure they knew exactly how I’d react.

  I lost it.

  Nothing I’d done in the last twenty-four hours had been enough to save my little girl’s life. I thought of Teri and broke down. I didn’t know how I would be able to face her….

  Then something went cold inside me. I walked back to my car and loaded a second weapon. I saw a commercial van—a big yellow one. I broke the window and hot-wired the engine. Then I drove it right through the middle of the boathouse.

  SCHNEIDER: Damn, son, that was practically suicide! How many meres were in there?

  BAUER: Six or seven. I didn’t count. I just gunned them all down, one by one. Victor and Andre ran. I chased them out to the pier. A boat was in the water, coming to take the Drazens to a cargo ship waiting offshore.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I reloaded, and with a weapon in each hand, I rushed Victor and Andre. I hit Andre with two or three slugs, and watched him go down with satisfaction.

  Then Victor caught me above the kidney. It was a grazing wound, but it took me down anyway. Victor stood over me, aimed and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

  I leveled my weapon at Drazen’s chest. He raised his hands to surrender. I stared into his eyes and the abyss stared back. I shot him. Two, three, four times. With each shot, a .45-caliber slug tore through him. I kept pulling the trigger, shooting until there was no ammunition left in the cartridge. He fell into the water and just floated there.

  The CTU tactical team arrived a few minutes later. They found me on the pier, still staring at Drazen’s lifeless body, thinking, This is how they found my little girl….

  The tactical team called in to CTU immediately, reporting that I was alive and that the Drazens were dead. It’s clear, based on the evidence, that Nina Myers panicked. She knew she’d been exposed, so she went to the main computer and began to download sensitive information—the names of covert operatives overseas, state secrets, anything she could grab. She also took my wife prisoner.

  SCHNEIDER: When did you know for certain that Nina Myers was a traitor?

  BAUER: After I’d killed the Drazens the wind went out of me. I still thought my little girl was dead. I grabbed a Coast Guard and told him I wanted to claim Kim’s body. He told me they hadn’t retrieved a body that night. And that’s when I knew—Nina had lied to me about Kim’s death. She was the mole.

  I called George Mason and told him everything. He didn’t believe me, of course. So I swore I’d get proof. My mind raced back over the events of the day. I followed a hunch and called Dale Wilson in Archives. I asked him for the security camera footage in the room where Jamey Farrell had committed suicide earlier that morning. Wilson said the tape had been erased, so I gave him my access code and told him to download the footage from the digital backup file and send it to my LED screen.

  The tape shows it all. Jamey didn’t kill herself, she was murdered by Nina Myers. I sent the footage to George Mason, for his eyes only. He locked down the CTU complex—interrupting Nina’s download of sensitive intelligence data.

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Bauer, tell us what happened when you finally got back to CTU.

  … and as the body of the female maintenance worker found inside the transformer room. Please see attachment 23.6 for final anatomic and forensic summaries of these individuals as well as full autopsies.

  Myers’s laptop, which was left in the transformer room, had been plugged into the mainframe through a makeshift wall jack found behind the removed wall panel. Please see attachment 23.7 for a review of laptop contents and 23.8 for a review of CD contents, recovered from Myers’s jacket pocket.

  [Document 21 provides full analysis of transformer room forensics.]

  Regarding restored digital footage from security camera archives: full analysis of Myers’s physical movements, including the two recorded shootings, can be found in attachment 23.8.

  No recovery of audio possible.

  CTU lip-reading analyst #4379-G studied the digital footage and transcribed all conversations in the transformer room involving Nina Myers between 11:00 P.M. and 12:00 midnight. See attachment 23.9 for full and complete transcription.

  Myers placed and received three (3) phone calls while in the transformer room. Phone calls took place on a cellular unit with a scramble device, recovered from Myers’s jacket pocket. Again, no audio available.

  The following excerpt of the lipreader’s transcription primarily recounts Nina Myers’s end of the phone conversations she conducted in the transformer room. Analyst #9351-J provided translations, where applicable, from German to English. See attachment 23.10 for analysis of speech pattern and accent.

  TRANSCRIPTION OF MYERS PHONE CALL #1 11:33:21 P.M.

  MYERS (into phone): Meine Duckung ist aufgeflogen. Du musst mich hier rausholen. (English: My cover is broken. You must get me out of here.)

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Unreadable. CLASSIFIED

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Ich kenn’ das Protokol und bin schon dabei. (English: I know the protocol. I’m ready to go.)

  [Teri Bauer physically enters room]

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Just call me when it’s time.

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Just call me when it’s time.

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS: Yes.

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  [Myers terminates phone connection]

  TERI BAUER (to Myers): You speak German?

  MYERS (to Teri Bauer): Frankfurt Division. Something wrong?

  [See attachment 4.4 for Myers-Bauer transcription]

  Duration of call: 25 seconds

  TRANSCRIPTION OF MYERS PHONE CALL #2 11:35:00 p.m.

  MYERS (into phone): This is Myers.

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): That’s right.

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Where?

  [Myers terminates phone connection]

  Duration of call: 16 seconds

  TRANSCRIPTION OF PHONE CALL #3 11:53:52 p
.m.

  MYERS (into phone): I’m leaving now.

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Why Germany? Why can’t I come to you directly?

  RESPONSE: Unknown.

  MYERS (into phone): Yeah. All right.

  [Myers terminates phone connection]

  [To Teri Bauer] I’m leaving now, Teri. I’m going to lock you in from the outside. Someone will find you soon.

  Everything will be fine.

  Duration of call: 24 seconds

  BAUER: As I drove in through the CTU garage, I saw that Nina was already driving away. She shot at me through her windshield. I returned fire. Nina crashed and I dragged her out of the car. I wrapped my hands around her throat and held a gun to her head.

  She said, “If you kill me, you won’t know who I work for. You think I work for Drazen, but I don’t.”

  Mason and Tony arrived and talked me out of pulling the trigger. I wish they hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t put a flak jacket on her that morning, or slept with her months ago, or trusted her—ever. That’s what my life is now, useless wishes….

  FULBRIGHT: (After a pause) Agent Bauer? Can you continue?

  BAUER: Yes … (Pause) While I held the gun to Nina’s head, Mason assured me that my family was waiting for me, that Kim had just arrived and Teri was inside.

  That’s what made me sane again—the thought of Kim and Teri.

  I rushed into the command center and found my daughter. I hugged her with relief and joy. It’s all over. That’s what I told her. And that’s what I thought. The nightmare’s over.

  I told her I loved her. Then I looked up for Teri. I could feel her close by. Right there. Right next to us. I was surprised to see that she wasn’t.

  I walked through the corridors, calling for her. Then I began to see the bodies—the wake of dead guards that Nina left in her path. I felt the dread rising in me as I began to run, checking every room. Finally I reached the transformer room….