Marc Cerasini - 24 Declassified: Trojan Horse

He found Jack Bauer hunched over the conference room table, head cradled in his arms. It took Admin istrative Director Richard Walsh only a moment to realize his agent was fast asleep. Setting the digital audio recorder on the table, Walsh wondered how Jack could find peace amid the chaos that still reigned on the other side of the wall, in CTUs war room, hours after the crisis had presumably passed.

Walsh unbuttoned the suit jacket that seemed to stretch too tightly across his broad shoulders. He would have preferred to leave Jack to his dreams. God knows, the man earned his rest. But with his bosses at Langley demanding answersprobably because their bosses in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were demanding sameWalsh had no choice but to gather all the statements as soon as possible, and deliver his findings. The Administrative Director of CTU shut the door, sat down in a steel chair across from the sleeping man.

Jack awoke at the sound, instantly alert. He sat up, arrow-straight, fully aware of his surroundings. Jack self-consciously rubbed the stubble on his jaw, combed his sandy-blond hair back with his fingers, embarrassed to appear before his superior in such a disheveled state.

Morning Jack. Have a nice nap?

Bauer shrugged off the gentle jibe as his superior tossed him a sympathetic smile. It vanished a moment later when Walsh keyed his digital recorder.

Log number 32452, subheading IAC. Debriefing Special Agent Jack Bauer, said Walsh, adding Jacks service tag, the day, date, and time. Then Walsh scratched his closely shaved chin and fixed his pale-blue gaze on the man across the table.

Ryan Chappelle tells me that a raid on a major movie studio triggered this unpleasantness. What the hell were you and Blackburns tactical team doing in Hollywood?

Utopia Studios is not a major movie studio and its not in Hollywood, Jack replied. Utopia was a marginal direct-to-video production company until they fell on hard timesa combination of rising production costs and diminishing interest in the soft-core porn and low-rent horror films they were peddling did them in.

So Utopia Studios became a threat to national security?

Utopia Studios doesnt exist. Not anymore, said Jack. Its CEO declared bankruptcy, incorporated a brand new firm with a new financial partner and shifted production facilities to Montreal. The move saved him a bundle but left his old studio on the ass-end of Glendales industrial zone vacant, its proprietorship a matter of ongoing litigation. In the meantime, narco-terrorists moved in and set up shopor at least, that was the intel we had at the time.

Walsh studied the sheaf of papers in front of him.

According to the DEA this was primarily a drug raid.

Thats true. Chet Blackburn and I were members of a joint task force working with the DEApart of District Director Ryan Chappelles interagency initiative.

Yeah. I think I got the memo on that, Walsh said dryly.

The initiative was launched because the CIA and the DEA unearthed intelligence indicating a new level of cooperation between international terrorists and certain drug cartels. Chappelle thought it best to team up with the Drug Enforcement Agency in order to better manage the problem

And spread some of the responsibility around in case things went south.

Jack nodded. That too.

So beyond some faulty intelligence, what was the rationale for this interagency initiative?

Things are heating up. In the past twenty months, the DEA has captured military-grade weapons in several raids along the U.S.Mexican border. And you recall that CTU recently thwarted a plot to use smuggled North Korean Long Tooth shoulder-fired missiles to down U.S. commercial airliners.

Walsh smoothed his walrus moustache with his thumb and index finger. Youre talking about Hell Gate.

It wasnt a question so Jack didnt reply.

Walsh shifted in the steel chair, which seemed too small for the brawny man.

Chappelle also tells me that despite the obvious threat to national security, you initially resisted this assignment. Now why would you do that, Special Agent Bauer?

Walsh was staring at Jack now, waiting.

Permission to speak freely, sir.

Walsh turned off the audio recorder. Talk.

When it comes to the Counter Terrorist Unit, interagency cooperation has always been a one-way street, Jack began. CTU gave, the FBI, the DOD, the DEA took. Period.

Its gotten better, said Walsh. His lined face was impassive, unreadable.

Ill concede that the situation has improved in recent months. But CTU is still getting squeezed out of the big pictureby some of the same people Chappelle ordered me to work alongside.

You could have refused the assignment. You could have come to me and I would have handled things with Chappelle. You had to make a choice here. Walsh paused. So what changed your mind, Jack?