Season 7 episode 2

The following takes place between 1:00am and 2:00am.

Morris and Chloe stood in shock and horror as they tried to grasp what was going on at the other end of the phone line. It hadn’t gone dead, which meant the men hadn’t bothered to take it but they knew that Bill was seriously hurt and Karen was in immediate danger; along with their twins.
Chloe quickly re-dialed Jack’s cellphone.
“Bauer.”
“Jack, Bill’s down and they have Karen.”
“They killed Buchanan?” Jack cried.
“No…Yes… I… I don’t know Jack. We heard men bust in and Mr. Buchanan tried to defend his wife. We heard her start to scream his name desperately so he’s either unconscious or dead.”
“Alright, Chloe, I am too far away from his house to do anything. I need to check out that address. Can you and Morris check out his house? Maybe the kidnappers left something that will give us a clue as to what they’re after.”
“We’re on it.”
Chloe grabbed the car keys and raced down the stairs.
“Chloe? What are you doing? Where are we going?”
“Just get in the car Morris! I’ll tell you on the way.”

**********************

Karen was tied up and thrown into the back of a van.
“Please, let me go. I didn’t do anything. Please!” Karen pleaded while tears poured out of her eyes.
The man just gave her a cold stare. He reached for a handkerchief and made a movement to tie it around her mouth.
“Please, just let me speak with my husband. To tell him I’m alright.”
The man gave her the same calm expression. “Bill Buchanan is dead.”
“NOOO!!!!” Karen wailed. She started to flail and he had to hold her down to tie the handkerchief in her mouth. It was her fault. Her fault. She had wanted to go deeper into the server. And now he was dead. Her body was shaking with bitter sobs. She felt the van start up and leave but she didn’t care. He was gone…forever.
“Oh shut up, will ya?” the man reached back and hit her on the head.
Karen stopped crying immediately and scooted farther back so that he couldn’t reach her. She looked at him with utter loathing. He had done it. He was the one that had taken Bill from her. Karen was about to lash out when she heard the names Milo and Edgar amidst the German they were speaking. She frowned. Those were Chloe’s boys. But, how did they……?
The realization hit her at once and Karen knew that she couldn’t escape. She had to stay to protect those boys with her life. She immediately stopped crying and began to think.

1:07:21 1:07:22 1:07:23 1:07:24
1:11:16 1:11:17 1:11:18 1:11:19
Jack drove up in front of his sister-in-laws house and stared at it.
“Jack?” Laura put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure you can go in there?”
Jack nodded. “Yes, I have to. This address has something to do with the twins and Karen’s kidnapping so I intend to find out what it is.” His face straight and emotionless, Jack got out of the car and pulled out his gun. Laura followed and stayed behind Jack.
When they reached the front porch, Jack looked through the window and saw that they were watching television together in the living room unaware of Jack and Laura’s presence.
He turned to Laura. “I need you to go around back and make some noise. I’m hoping Marilyn will get up to investigate and leave Josh on the couch. I can get in quicker.”
“Jack, are you sure…?”
“Laura, please do it!”
She sighed and walked to the back of the house. A few seconds later, Jack heard leaves rustling and heard the trash bin get knocked over. Jack watched Marilyn frown, say something to Josh, get up, and leave the room. Jack quickly jiggled the lock and walked in with his gun raised.
“Uncle…!” Josh started to cry but Jack put a finger to his lips. A few minutes later Marilyn walked back into the room.
“Josh, it was nothing just those wild raccoons…Aaaaa!!!” Marilyn jumped and it seemed to take her a second before she realized that it was Jack.
“Jack, thank goodness we haven’t seen you in years. What’s going on?” She stared warily at the gun.
“Sit down, Marilyn,” Jack said more coldly than he intended. Marilyn suddenly looked frightened and sat down on the couch next to her son with her arm around him. “What are you doing Jack?”
“I don’t know, Marilyn; you tell me. I was following a lead and it led me to your house.”
“What kind of lead?”
“Some chatter on a server had your address in it.”
Marilyn sighed. “Jack are you sure that this isn’t an old lead connected with Graem?”
Jack frowned. “You never got rid of all his files?”
Marilyn looked up at Jack. “You know what kind of man he was. There could be files embedded on that computer that the police missed when they went through to confiscate and delete stuff.”
The back door opened and Laura walked back in. “Was that good enough?”
Jack nodded. “You did fine, Laura. Now I need you to take Marilyn back to that computer and restore the hard drive. Look for any files that are suspicious; call me when you have something.”
Laura nodded and took Marilyn back.
Josh stared up at Jack. “Was that your girlfriend? I thought her name was Audrey?”
Jack sniffed and looked down. “No, just a colleague I work for. Her name’s Laura.”
“We aren’t in trouble are we?” Josh seemed to be pleading with Jack in his own way; Jack was the only man left in the family Josh had to look up to.
“I don’t think so,” Jack looked back uneasily at Marilyn and Laura.

*****************

Chloe and Morris pulled up to Bill and Karen’s house and saw that the door had been left open. She looked around and frowned. “Why didn’t anybody hear what happened? It’s been almost twenty minutes; you’d think that cops would be crawling all over this place.”
Morris shrugged. “Maybe it seemed louder to us over the phone.”
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know; let’s get inside quickly in case they are watching the place.”
Chloe closed the door behind her. “Mr. Buchanan!!? Mr. Buchanan are you alright!?”
“Chloe, I found him!” Chloe heard Morris call from the work room and she raced in. He was laying face down on the floor.
Morris smiled, relieved. “He’s still alive, but he is knocked out. Go get some water.”
Chloe ran into the kitchen, grabbed a cup and filled it with water. When she came back in, Morris had turned Bill over. He had been beat up pretty badly. Bruises covered his face and a long gash ran down his cheek. Chloe also noticed that his arm had a deep cut. He was deathly white and his eyes were still closed.
Chloe gulped and then splashed the water on his face. He moved but didn’t wake up.
Chloe frowned. “What’s going on? Did they drug him?”
Morris shook his head. “He’s just really hurt. He lost a decent amount of blood; he may need to be taken to a hospital.”
“No!” Chloe exclaimed. “We can’t take him there. The people who kidnapped Karen probably have control there. All three of us could be killed.”
“But, Chloe we have to wake him up!” Morris said in a exasperate tone.
“I’ll look for something in the medicine cabinet.” Chloe ran upstairs into their bathroom and searched for some kind of smelling salts. All she could find was rubbing alcohol but grabbed it and ran downstairs. Morris had found a washcloth and wiped away the blood on Bill’s face and arm.
Chloe opened the top and stuck it under Bill’s nose. Nothing happened.
“Come, on Mr. Buchanan!” Chloe kneeled next to him.
A few seconds later, Bill moved and started coughing. He opened his eyes and stared up at them.
“What the…Chloe…Morris what are you doing here?”
“Bill, you were knocked out. Can you move?” Morris stood up.
Bill closed his eyes for a second and then they flew open. “The men…they…knocked…KAREN!” He sat up abruptly. “They grabbed her, I tried to…” Chloe and Morris never saw him ever look that distressed.
He hauled himself to his feet. “We have to find her!”
Chloe grabbed his arm. “Mr. Buchanan; we know. Remember when Jack tried to warn you? They have our boys too.” Chloe started to shake and Morris had to hold her. “We want to help you,” Chloe said with tears in her eyes, “they have my boys.” Her voice faltered and she started to cry again.
Bill seemed a little bewildered for a second before pulling himself together. “Has Jack contacted you yet?”
Morris nodded. “He’s following a lead at Marilyn Bauer’s house. Hopefully it’ll yield us something.”
Bill nodded. “Okay; did you two bring a car?”
Morris pointed. “It’s out front.”
Bill grabbed his and Karen’s laptops. “Let’s go. We need to find a safe place to help Jack. I want those three to come back safely.” Bill looked more determined than ever.
Morris pulled the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Buchanan. “You’re driving.”

1:28:25 1:28:26 1:28:27 1:28:28
1:28:26 1:28:27 1:28:28 1:28:29

Jack walked into the computer room with Josh. “Well?”
Laura shook her head. “Nothing, Jack. I can’t find anything that hasn’t already been taken or erased.”
“Can you look at whoever has logged in in the last week?”
Laura typed a few keys and a log pulled up. “The only people that have logged on were Marilyn and Josh. It seems like they only opened and emails and games.”
Jack slammed his hand on the table. “Dammit! There has to be something here! Why else would it lead us to this house?”
“Jack, you’re positive that this chatter is new? Are you sure this isn’t a few years old?” Marilyn asked again.
“I’m positive,” Jack said between his teeth. “That’s one of my jobs at NSA; to look at chatter. It would not have come up if it wasn’t recent.”
“Do you want me to pull up what was erased?” Laura suggested. “Maybe something wasn’t erased properly.”
“Good idea” Jack said.
Laura pulled up every file name of what had been erased in the last three years. Jack looked at the dates and was almost all the way through when the last two caught his attention.
“There are two files here that were erased about two days ago.” He looked at Marilyn and Josh. “That’s not possible unless someone here was covering something quickly.”
Josh frowned. “Are your sure it wasn’t one of my English papers? I recently erased a few that I didn’t need anymore.”
“No” Jack answered. “These are under an anonymous user and were obviously encrypted. Unless you are taking an encryption class, which I doubt, they’d be in English. Which one of you isn’t telling me something?”
Marilyn shook her head. “Jack, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would one of us do something like that? It might be very old and one of us accidentally deleted it recently.”
Jack looked between the two of them and raised his eyebrows. “If you’re lying to me, then this situation will get much worse.”
Josh looked scared but Marilyn remained impassive. “Jack, I don’t know why you’re here, but you are following a false lead. If you leave now, then we’ll all forget this ever happened.”
Jack’s face contorted into anger and he stomped out of the room. Pulling out his cellphone he dialed Chloe’s number.
“This is Morris.”
“Morris, this is Jack. Is Bill okay?”
“Yeah; we found him out cold in his work room. We got him to wake up and he’s ready to help us find the twins and Karen. We are in the car and on the way back to our house.”
“Did you see anything that the kidnappers left there?”
“No, they were good, Jack. Except for Buchanan’s cuts and bruises nobody could ever tell they were there.”
Jack sighed. “At least you three are alive. Alright, I came here, but Marilyn and Josh haven’t gotten anything on their computer. However, I found out that two files were erased two days ago and Graem died over three years ago.” Jack heard the phone get handed off. “Jack, its Chloe. Listen, I heard what you said, and there’s a way to find out who logged on.”
“Really?” Jack walked back into the computer room. “How?”
“You need to click on the file and hit escape 7. That should get you into a file with every single user that has ever been on the hard drive.”
“Okay.”
Chloe cleared her throat. “Alright, now you have to double click on the unknown user. It should need a password.”
“Yeah, I see the sign.”
“Okay, use my password meob2012. That should get you into the files.”
Jack opened up the files. “Here they are; they’re heavily encrypted but I’ve got them.”
“Alright now push F5 and hold it.”
“I’m seeing another password entry” Jack told her.
“Use my other password and that should give you the user.”
Jack typed in the password but error message came up. “It’s not working, Chloe.”
“What do you mean? The person’s user name should come up.”
“Well, it didn’t.”
Jack heard Chloe whisper something to Morris. “Okay, we’re gonna have to come there. This computer may need to be hacked into.”
Jack sighed. “I know, but I need to decrypt those files and keep Marilyn and Josh with me.”
Jack heard the phone being passed to someone again.
“Jack? It’s Bill.”
“Bill! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, listen. The three of us will come to Marilyn’s house and you can take the files, Marilyn and Josh with you to C.T.U.”
“What?! Bill, none of us work there. We can’t have an entire agency helping with this. This lead came from NSA and I am already going to get fired for stealing this information off the server!”
“Jack, that’s the only safe place I can think of where there are resources and you can get help. Nadia is still in charge there, and if I ask I’m sure that she’ll let you in. You don’t have to tell anyone else what’s going on.”
“Bill, that place isn’t very safe. It’s been attacked at least three times and Nadia will want to know what’s going on.”
“Then suggest another location for me, Jack.”
Jack put his head in his hands. He wracked his brain for another safe place, but there just wasn’t one.
“Fine, Bill, I’ll go to C.T.U. But I need at least level two clearance, access to a holding room, and I need to keep everyone off my back. I have a friend here that can help but no one else can know what we’re doing. That’s proven too dangerous.”
“Alright, Jack. Go now. We’ll be at her house in ten minutes.”

1:38:32 1:38:33 1:38:34 1:38:35
1:42:12 1:42:13 1:42:14 1:42:15

The van stopped and two men roughly pulled Karen out of the back and took her into a building. They had stopped in the middle of the trip, blindfolded her, and switched vans. Once they had thrown her into the building, the blindfold and gag was taken off and she found herself kneeling in straw.
“Well, well, well. Who do we have here?” A tall man with short dark blonde hair leaned down and lifted Karen’s chin looking her over. “Ahh, Buchanan’s wife. You’re mighty pretty to have married such a stiff.”
Karen spit in his face. “Go to Hell.”
The man punched her and she fell sideways.
The man wiped his face and looked down. “You are very feisty. Well, I guess that’s why you got so high into the government.”
Karen glared at the man, but said nothing. She didn’t want to get punched again.
“So, do you know why you’re here?” the man looked at her smugly.
Karen just gave him the same look of loathing and said nothing.
“I think you know, Karen. Tell me now, or we’ll kill you.”
“Oh like you killed my husband?” Karen practically spat out the words.
The man raised his eyebrow. “Oh dear, that wasn’t supposed to happen. I guess things work out that way. However, more people will die here if you don’t start talking.”
He gestured and two more men brought in Milo and Edgar; both were shaking and had their mouths taped shut.
Karen looked up at her kidnapper angrily. “You let them go now!”
“Tell me what you, Buchanan, and the O’Brians found!”
Karen looked away.
“Okay then.” He picked up a gun and pointed it at Milo’s head. Both boys started sobbing.
“No! Don’t!” Karen cried and attempted to get up.
“Tell me what you four came across!!”
Karen gulped. “The server had some German chatter and we were trying to decode it.”
The man walked over and pulled her to her feet. “And?”
“That’s it.”
The man slapped her, hard, across the face. “Tell me more!”
Karen just looked away from him.
“You must not care too much about those boys.” He cocked his gun.
“Wait!” Karen looked back at him. “Chloe said they were following a lead to a house on Greenwich Avenue.”
“What address?”
“I don’t remember.”
The man raised his eyebrow. “Okay” he turned back to Milo. “Prepare to die, Milo.”
“No, please, no!” Karen yelled. “Please, don’t kill them! I really don’t remember!” She looked at him pleadingly. “Please! I really don’t know! Don’t kill them.” Hot tears sprang to her eyes.
But the man just looked at her coldly and turned around to shoot the boy when his phone rang.
“Yeah; I have both boys and the woman. Yes. She said it was German. Yes, sir, Greenwich Avenue. Are you sure? Both boys and Hayes? Okay. Fine.”
He hung up the phone and turned to his men. “Take those three to a cell. Boss wants us to keep ‘em alive.”
Karen knew that her kidnapper didn’t want to reveal the name of his boss, but she had to find out and stop him. He killed her husband. And she could never forgive anyone for that.

1:50:56

Memories flooded Jack as he walked back into C.T.U. Teri, Kim, Tony, Michelle, Audrey, the nerve gas, the nuclear bombs, Nina, Mason, Chappelle, Jack’s family…it all went through at once and Jack could only stand there and let it soak in.
“You went through a lot of pain here didn’t you?” Laura asked in a consoling voice.
“Jack managed a “yeah” before Nadia came up to him.
“Hi, Jack. Wow, I haven’t seen you in years. How is everything?”
“Okay, I guess.” Jack just stood there.
“Well, Bill, called me and I’d be glad to help you. Here’s station six; the D.O.D. liaison isn’t here today so you can have his seat. If you need any resources just ask Rob over in station three.”
“Thanks, but this needs to be under the radar.” Jack replied. “This is the only place that I can stay relatively safe and when we’re done we’re leaving.”
Nadia looked taken aback by Jack’s bluntness but just nodded. “Okay.”
Jack ignored her face and looked over at Marilyn and Josh beside him. “I need you to put them in holding room one and place your best two guards in charge of them. I may need to question them again and they need to be safe as well.”
“Sure.” Nadia walked away with Marilyn and Josh.
“Alright, I’ve logged into NSA and pulled up the decryption software.” Laura turned to Jack. “I need those files we printed.”
Jack handed them to her and she copied them into the computer. “Okay, now we just need to run the software and let it decode. I have no idea how long this is going to take.”
But Jack had looked back at the place where Nadia had disappeared with Marilyn and Josh.
“Jack, what’s wrong?”
Did something seem wrong with Nadia?”
Laura frowned. “No, why?”
“She seemed…different. Almost…I don’t know…tired or upset.”
“Jack, you are more observant than I’ll ever be. I didn’t notice anything. Now come on, we need to try and get this computer to pick up the pace.”

**************
Bill and Morris stood over Chloe as she logged onto the computer. “Okay, we need to find…here we are.” She pulled up the files with the unknown user.
Morris frowned. “That encryption is in German.”
“What?” Bill looked at Morris. “How can you tell?”
He pointed at a few keys. “I lived in Germany for two years before coming here and I had to decrypt a hell of a lot in order to send it back to the U.S. That is definitely German.”
Chloe frowned as the error message came up. “Jack was right, whoever was on this computer really knew what they were doing. I’m gonna have to hack deep.”
Bill frowned. “Did you hear something?”
Chloe looked up. “No.”
Bill got up and looked out the front door. A lone car was sitting across the street and the brakes had just been turned off. That’s what Bill had heard. But the car gave him an uneasy feeling. He turned away and walked back into the room. “It was just a car.”
“At this time of night?” Morris asked worriedly. Bill saw Chloe start typing even faster.
Bill walked back over to the window and saw two men get out and look around. He noticed the glint of a gun and ran back into the computer room. “Chloe, we need to get out of here, NOW!! Men are coming with guns. They found out we were here.”
“Hold on, I need a few more minutes.”
“Chloe, we’ll get killed!” Morris cried.
“I need to find who deleted those files!”
Chloe, Jack will understand, get off there now!” Bill said desperately.
They heard a banging on the door. “Open up! We know who you are! We’ll kill you!”
“Chloe!!” Bill grabbed her arm.
She gasped. “Okay, I got it.” She hit the print button and the three heard loud banging on the door. Chloe grabbed the paper out of the printer and hit log off as the door fell down.
Chloe, Morris, and Bill fled to the back door and ran out into the woods behind the house. Shots echoed behind them as they dodged the bullets hitting the trees behind them.
“We need to find a car.” Bill said as they ran.
“I believe that would be bloody hard right now, mate” Morris retorted.
They heard crashing footsteps behind them.
“We are being followed, I need to call Jack. If we get captured he was to know that user.” Chloe stopped.
Bill pushed her to keep her going and handed her the cellphone. “We can’t stop.”
Chloe quickly dialed the number and kept running.

1:58:07

Jack was just about to start swearing at the computer to hurry up when his phone rang.
“Bauer.”
“Jack, its Chloe.”
He heard heavy breathing and running. “Chloe, what’s happening?”
“Men…found…us…they’re…after us…” She panted and Jack’s stomach leapt to his throat.
“Can you get to a car?”
“We’re in…the middle of the…woods.” She gasped. “We got a…head…start, I think…we’ll be alright.”
“Did you find out who the user was?” Jack asked desperately.
“Yes” Chloe’s voice suddenly got softer and Jack knew that she recognized who it was.
“Who?” Jack said while dread crept through him.
“Well, the encryption…was in German…so I suspected…but it wasn’t…” Chloe stopped unable to go on.
Jack put his hand over the phone. “Laura run the files in German. It should go quicker now.”
Turning from Laura’s confused, but obedient face, Jack sighed.
“Chloe, I need you to tell me who it was, now.”
Jack heard her breathing on the other side. “It was…Marilyn. Listen…Jack, I’ve gotta…go. We need to…keep going. I’ll call when…we’re safe.” The phone went dead.
But Jack hadn’t heard a word she said. He’d turned toward the holding room with hate and betrayal etched all over his face.

1:59:57 1:59:58 1:59:59 2:00:00