geeky_agent | (no subject)

(no subject)

July 10, 2012
9:12 AM

After driving around, Chris and Jack found a drugstore nearby that was open. Armed with a short list of supplies, she went in while Jack stayed behind with their attacker.

The store itself was brightly lit and nearly empty, only a few employees inside. It didn't take long for Chris to find everything they needed, the large bottle of extra-strength aspirin being the most important item in their makeshift first-aid kit. Hurrying up to the front of the store, she was anxious to get out of here. It's not until she reached the front of the aisle that she notices the cop standing at the checkout desk, chatting with the clerk.

At least, Chris hopes it's just idle chatter. Ducking back into the aisle, she pretends to be checking out the various kinds of snack bars, even throwing a few into her basket. When she hears the doors of the store open, she peeks around again and watches the cop leave.

It's not until he's completely out of the store that she moves forward, walking up to the check-out desk and unloading her basket. Remembering that she might have a large bruise on her forehead, Chris is careful to keep her head down, pretending to be interested in the magazines nearby.

Once she's out of the store, Chris lets out a sigh of relief and hurries towards the van.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While Chris searches the car, Jack pulls off his smoky-smelling cotton shirt, the t-shirt underneath glued to his skin with perspiraton. He leans over the hostile, pressing the shirt against his bullet wounds, trying to stem the bloodflow as well as making sure his face was right above the hostile's.

"With the amount of blood you're losing, you're going to die unless you get to a hospital. If you want to get to a hospital, you have to answer my questions, got it?"

The hostile nods, slowly. From the look of desperation in his eyes, he's definitely not someone on a mission; not a true believer for whatever cause. Maybe there's a chance he'd get some information out of him then.

"Why did someone want me to take the fall for Palmer's death?" Jack asks.

"He said he wanted you out of the way. Said you couldn't get involved," the hostile replies, puncutating the statement with a wheezy cough.

"Why? Why kill Palmer? What made them think I'd get involved?"

"I dunno, he didn't say why, an' I didn't ask. I was just hired for this."

Jack's about to ask what he was hired for, exactly, when Chris approaches. Jack glances back, spotting the briefcase. "Is it a key lock or combination?"

"Key," Chris says, laying the case down on the hood of the car and looking at the keys on the key ring. There are two that could be it and she tries the first - it doesn't. Expecting the same of the second she's surprise when it fits and she hears the lock open with a click.

Jack watches her for a second, then turns back to the hostile, glancing back and forth as he speaks. "He didn't tell you anything about why I couldn't get involved, why Palmer needed to be taken out?" He applies a little more pressure to the wounds; he can still tell himself that he's doing it to try and stop the bleeding, but the hostile yelps in pain.

"No--I was just hired for the hits."

Something about the phrasing makes him pause, and before he find his voice to ask for specifics, he hears the click of the briefcase opening, turning to look at it.

There's not much inside the case but it might be just what they needed. Aside from the foam, complete with cut-outs to nestle parts of a gun, there was a side pocket with something bulky in it.

A silver case. One that opens easily and contains small, thin, skin-like fingerprints. It reminded Chris of when she was a child and poured glue on her hands, then peeled it off.

She didn't have to wonder whose fingerprints they would be.

"Jack, you should look at this."

Jack looks between the small pads of fake skin and the cutouts in the foam, large enough to hold a rifle and sight.

Surprisingly, for a moment he feels nothing; not anger or shock, just...nothing as the knowledge seeps in.

"...You killed David Palmer," he says, softly, rocking back on his heels, staring at the man in front of him.

She can sense the change, same way the air shifts before a storm. Closing the small case, Chris turns back to the briefcase and places it back in the pocket.
"There were also pictures of a hotel room. I'm guessing Palmer's."

Jack's quiet for another moment, starting to feel the anger build deep within him. This guy had killed Palmer; had tried to get someone to kill himself and Chris, just because he was getting paid. At the moment he'd like nothing better than to pull out his gun and shoot the bastard, but unfortunately, he needs him to clear their names. Not that it doesn't take almost every ounce of self-control he has to remind himself of that.

"Who hired you?" Jack asks, his low and icy.

"I dunno, it was all set up through a closed server. Y'know how it works," the hostile replies, his words getting more and more slurred, his eyes losing focus. "I've told you what I know, I need a hospital."

Chris looks at the man then back at Jack again, telling him, "I should call CTU. Let them know what we found. Does he have a phone?"

Jack reaches into the hostile's right pocket; he'd felt the phone in there earlier. "We'll need a medevac chopper, and they'll have to have the surgical team standing by," he says, focusing on the details of trying to keep this guy alive, fighting the part of him that asks why they should bother. It's easier to think about the logistical details than on the fact that he's crouching next to Palmer's killer.

Leaning forward again, he forces himself to put pressure on the wounds, when part of him would like nothing more than to let the hostile slowly bleed to death.

Chris nods, dialing the numbers. She's hoping Kim will answer but isn't surprised when she doesn't. "This is Christine Chappelle, patch me through to Bill Buchanan."

Bill is in his office when the intercom beeps, and he's informed that Chris is on the line. Quickly he picks up the handset, telling the swtichboard to patch her through.

"Chris? Where are you? Is Jack Bauer with you?"

"Yeah, it's me and Jack's right here with me. We found evidence that Jack's being framed and the man responsible for Palmer's death. He's been injured so we're going to need a medevac. We're at an oil refinery near Santa Clarita. It's just off Copper Hill Drive," there's a quick sigh after saying all that and she feels some tension leave her shoulder. It was almost over.

For a moment Bill's not sure he heard her right--they had Palmer's assassin? Just how in the hell did they manage to do that?
Forcing himself to shake it off, he takes a seat, leaning over his desk to reach for the phone's keypad. "Okay, hold on one minute, I'm going to get a trace on that phone and get a chopper on the way."

Putting her on hold, he quickly calls down to Nadia, giving her orders to start tracing the phone call as well as getting a chopper in the air, then to call the team at Chris and Jack's condo and get them enroute to their location.

"Okay, I've got a chopper and a field team on the way to bring you in. We know Jack didn't do it--forensics found that his fingerprints were faked. Division still has a lot of questions, but it looks like you're both clear." He hadn't expected what a relief that would be to say. Not that he has the luxury of relaxing long; Jack's not going to be happy when he arrives and finds out that Kim was interrogated.

"All right," she says curtly, turning around to look at Jack. His back is turned to her as he leans over the hostile and for the first time she notices the dark spot of blood below his shoulder. It couldn't be a gunshot wound... maybe shrapnel from the van.

"Jack!" When he looks, Chris touches her own shoulder to indicate where the wound is. "Your shoulder."

Bill's back on the phone and talking before she can say anything more to Jack. The news that forensics had cleared them was a pleasant surprise. "Thanks, Bill."

Snapping the phone shut, she ends the conversation and looks back towards her boyfriend. "The chopper's on it's way. Forensics already figured out the fingerprints weren't yours."

At her gesture, he turns his head, trying to see the wound for himself, but he can only see a small part of it. It hurts, but not so much as to be much of a distraction; particularly not when he's intently listening to Chris' side of the phone call.

"Nice to see they finally clued in," he says wryly, as she relates the information about the fingerprints. "Did Buchanan give an ETA on the chopper?"

"Didn't say," she admits with a sigh. "I told them we would need a medevac so let's hope it won't be long."

Giving him a worried look, Chris asks, "How's your shoulder?"

He gives her a small smile to reassure her, glancing up at her before returning his attention to the hostile. He's pale, breathing rapidly and looks only semi-conscious, but still alive. If they didn't need him to provide information on who had hired him for the hit, Jack isn't sure he'd care if the man died.

"Hurts a bit, but I've had worse. How's your head?" he asks, glancing up at her again.

"Better. Once the asprin kicked in," she says, a slight smile on her lips. "Wouldn't mind going home and taking a nap."

Jack lets out a tired, dark kind of laugh; the adrenaline rush is starting to wear off, and the events of the day are starting to hit him, now that they're just waiting for CTU to pick them up. "Yeah. Buchanan's probably going to want to debrief us, though." Not to mention CTU would have a lot to do with their captive to find out who hired him. They still need to find out why someone wanted Palmer dead.

He still needs to find out who's responsible, he realizes. Somehow he feels he owes Palmer that much. There's only one way he's going to be able to do that, though; or at least do it and be effective.

"I know." She knew it was going to be a long day and, truth be told, if they told her she could go home she'd probably refuse. There was too much to still do and Chris didn't think she'd be able to rest while everyone else was trying to find Palmer's killer.

"At least it'll just be a debriefing," he says. That'd be easier to take than an interrogation. "And at least this part is over."

"Yeah," is the last thing she says for a while. Chris leans against the car, her feet are sore and she's thirsty. A small scowl comes over her face as she remembers that her water bottle, along with the granola bars and her pumps, blew up with the van.

At least there was some shade where they were standing.

"Do you want me to do that so you can rest a bit?"

Jack shakes his head. his knees are getting sore, but he's already got blood on his hands and shirt already, and he's wearing jeans; he's better-dressed for kneeling in the dirt and tending to someone that's bleeding than she is, even if her dress is already dirt-streaked. Besides, it's only a few minutes more before they hear the sound of helicopter rotors; the cavalry has arrived.

It takes a couple minutes for the chopper to find a place to land, but as soon as it does, a medical team runs over to them, getting the hostile into the chopper quickly. As they load the hostile into the chopper, the field team arrives in a caravan of identical black SUVs, Jack and Chris bundled into the lead car as the chopper takes off. One of the agents passes Jack a few sanitary wipes to clean off his hands, as another slaps a couple butterfly bandages and a gauze pad on his shoulder. Once the blood is gone from his hands, he takes Chris' hand in his, squeezing it gently.

The occupants of the SUV are mostly silent, as the convoy heads back out onto the road, heading south toward downtown L.A. and CTU headquarters.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only