DAY ONE

After noticing that his teenage daughter Kimberly has snuck out of the house, Jack gets urgently called into the office. Presidential candidate Senator David Palmer has been named a target for assassination. Jack is also told to keep much of the investigation a secret from his staff because there is suspicion that someone inside CTU is involved. When District Director Mason is evasive about his source of information, Jack blackmails him to get answers. Meanwhile, his concern for Kimberly’s safety only intensifies as his wife sets out with another girl’s father to find their daughters.

When Director Richard Walsh calls, Jack rushes downtown to help him escape from unknown shooters. Before Walsh is killed, he gives Jack a CTU security key card with encrypted information about the Palmer assassination attempt. Walsh tells Jack that if he finds out where the card originated, he will uncover the dirty CTU agent. Jack has Jamey decrypt the card. The card came from Nina's computer.

Jack returns to CTU with evidence that incriminates Nina as being the dirty agent. Jack confronts Nina. Jamey discovers that the data was compiled onto the key card on January 14th . But on that date, Jack and Nina were in Santa Barbara together. Someone must have hacked into Nina's computer. Jack is relieved that Nina is innocent. She, however, is furious with Jack for not trusting her.

Jack apologizes to Nina and tells her about Walsh getting killed. When an address is found on the key card, Jack investigates and, along with a patrol officer, pursues a man who is hiding there. The suspect kills the officer, and as the police drag the suspect away, he tells Jack that he knows how to save Kimberly.

Jack slips a note to the heavily-guarded Penticoff so that they can speak privately. Working around Mason, Jack manages to illegally spring Penticoff from jail so that he can obtain some leads on both Palmer's hit and Kimberly's whereabouts. When Gaines instructs Penticoff to dispose a body in a locked trunk, Jack fears the worst. They find the body and it's not Kim but an unidentified man. Mason catches up to Jack and Penticoff . Jack appeals to the Mason for help. Mason sends Penticoff back to prison, and allows Jack to follow up on the case. As Jack takes the car to CTU to identify the body, he asks Teri to find out anything she can from Janet York.

Jack takes the car to CTU and has Nina rush the identification of the body inside. He quickly helicopters to the hospital to see Teri, and has guards watch over Janet. He begins to interrogate Alan York, but Teri stops him. As he waits to speak to Janet, his cell phone rings. It is Gaines, who has kidnapped Kimberly. Gaines orders Jack to leave the hospital without alarming Teri. Unbeknownst to Jack, Janet has been killed and York has taken Teri. But the man Teri is with is not really York. Nina is unable to reach Jack to tell him that the body in the car is the real Alan York.

Jack is ordered by Gaines to switch out the decoded key card, and when Nina catches on to his deceit, he is also forced to shoot her. But Jack surreptitiously has Nina put on a bulletproof jacket so that his shots won't affect her. Although he tries to write a note to warn someone, Jack realizes that Gaines has also bugged the security cameras at CTU. With Nina supposedly gone, Gaines sends Jack to the Palmer breakfast.

After learning that Teri is indeed alive, Jack picks up a briefcase for Gaines and brings it to the Palmer breakfast, where he is to wait in a supply room. Jonathan, the assassin made to resemble Martin Belkin, removes the laptop in the briefcase to reveal a disassembled gun. He has Jack put it together in order to stamp his fingerprints on the weapon. The Secret Service is warned about Jack, and they apprehend him. Thinking quickly, Jack reaches for an agent's gun. This sets off the entire Secret Service detail to pull Palmer out of the building, causing Jonathan to have no target. Jack tries to persuade Gaines that he had nothing to do with the commotion, but the transmitter falls from Jack's ear. He loses communication with Gaines.

After unsuccessfully explaining his cause to the Secret Service, Jack is taken into custody. Knowing that his absence will place Kim and Teri in jeopardy, Jack escapes from the Secret Service and hijacks a car. He has Lauren, the driver of the car, bring him to an empty construction site, where he contacts Nina. When the Secret Service arrive at the construction site, Jack asks Lauren to get the car that Nina has sent him. Lauren turns him in to the Secret Service, and Jack escapes their grasp once again, fleeing in the CTU-arranged car.

Although roadblocks are set up to trap him and a squad car pulls him over, Jack manages to evade the grasp of the police. He is followed to a crowded lot, but he hides among the parked cars and escapes in another car. Jack talks to Teri on her stolen cell phone, and assures his wife and daughter that he will save them. Yet when Eli finds the phone, Jack threatens him to keep his hands off of Teri and Kim. Jack pretends he is an old friend of Cofell, the name in Jamey's computer. He ascertains from the man's assistant that Cofell is leaving the office by 10 a.m. When Cofell gets in his car, Jack is in the driver's seat.

Jack questions the trapped Cofell, but gets no results. He has Nina research both the backgrounds of Cofell and Kevin Carroll, the man Cofell is supposed to meet. When Cofell's claims pan out, Nina questions whether Cofell is truly innocent. Jack does not waver in mistrusting him. Jack drives Cofell to the meeting place, and Cofell pulls a hidden knife on him. As Jack fends him off, Cofell suffers a heart attack. Jack tries to force feed Cofell his heart medicine, but Cofell refuses the pill and dies. Kevin Carroll arrives to meet with Cofell, and Jack recognizes him as the man who has been posing as Alan York. Jack ties Carroll up, and he agrees to lead Jack to where Teri and Kim are being held.

After Kevin Carroll leads him onto the compound, Jack is reunited with his family. Rick helps them escape with one of Gaines' vans, but they get trapped at the compound entrance. With Gaines' men shooting at them, Jack explodes the van to create a diversion. He and his family run safely into the woods.

After Jack secures an injured Rick at the water tower, he goes back to find the lost Teri and Kim. He saves them from one of Gaines' men, grabbing the guy's radio to listen into Gaines' commands. Jack draws Gaines away from Teri and Kim by heading towards him in the woods. Over the walkie-talkie, Gaines reveals that there is a connection to the Belgrade mission and that his employers wanted to affect Jack personally. Gaines, however, refuses to give up and Jack shoots him. Jack, Teri and Kim are shuttled away safely in a CTU helicopter.

After Teri and Kim are taken to a clinic for checkups, Jack is arrested and questioned at CTU. He tries to explain his actions, but Alberta Green and Division head Ryan Chappelle stand in the way of his offering any help to the Palmer case. Jack admits to Nina that he believes someone else on the inside is working against Palmer. That someone would have recruited Jamey.

Jack is furious when his wife and daughter are relocated without his knowledge. He refuses to answer any more questions. He is surprised when he is brought in to meet with Senator Palmer. After Palmer accuses him of enacting his own revenge for a botched mission, Jack explains the real situation and the two work together. They soon realize that someone is retaliating for the deaths of terrorist Victor Drazen and his family. Teri and Kim are still in danger. Jack and Palmer contact a covert operative who had set up the mission. He provides them a list of Victor Drazen's associates. As he speaks to Jack about a missing file from the mission, the operative is killed.

Deputy Director George Mason is put in charge of overseeing Jack's operations. Jack learns that Robert Ellis has been murdered, and Palmer informs him that one of his campaign aides has been having an affair with suspect Alexis Drazen. Jack convinces the woman to plant a transmitter on the assassin. Jack is still wary that another mole is inside CTU, and he asks Milo if he has any suspicions. When Nina returns to the office, Jack is upset because he asked her to personally safeguard his family. Nina, however, feels that she left Teri and Kim in good hands.

Although he is wary about his family's safety, Nina assures him that they are in good hands. Nina also informs Jack that Teri knows about their affair. Jack sets up the sting operation with Elizabeth Nash, and everything is going according to plan until Alexis Drazen tells Elizabeth that he loves her. Elizabeth takes matters into her own hands and stabs him. Jack raids the hotel room with the SWAT team. Alexis Drazen, Jack's only hope of nabbing the assassination team, is barely alive. Yet when Alexis' phone rings, Jack answers it and is instructed by a man to deliver money to a set location.

Jack tries to get in touch with his family, but Mason tells him that the women are fine. At the meeting place, Jack is assigned a CTU shooter named Hanlin who blames Jack for his ex-partner's being arrested. Hanlin, who still holds a grudge, gives Jack a hard time. Jack meets with the man who Alexis Drazen was supposed to pay off. The man reveals that he is supposed to cause a power outage at 7:30 p.m. Yet when the suspect flees after suspecting that Jack is not Alexis, Hanlin disobeys Jack and shoots the man. The man is incapacitated and unable to provide Jack with more information.

After Palmer provides him with an address from the Pentagon's Drazen file, Jack discovers that it falls within the bounds of the location where the dead man was supposed to shut the power down. Mason goes with Jack to the area, which is a wildlife preserve. However, with no wetlands or animals in sight, Jack becomes suspicious when he spots a brand new power transformer box. Suddenly, a helicopter arrives and Jack is sure that someone knows that they are there.

In the abandoned wildlife preserve, Jack stumbles upon a locked door to an underground area. Guards bring him inside, and he is informed that it is a top secret, government detention center. A prisoner named Victor Drazen -- whom Jack had assumed was dead -- is delivered there, as Jack helps thwart Andre Drazen's initial attempt to rescue his father. Jack tries to plead with Victor to spare his family, but Victor still carries a grudge about his own family's death at Jack's hands. When Jack finally convinces the detention center leader to move Victor to a more secure location, the lights go off in the facility. Victor tells Jack that his sons are setting him free.

Jack tries to keep Victor Drazen at bay and ward against Andre Drazen's forces, but he is overtaken. In a standoff, Andre shoots Mark DeSalvo and captures Jack. The Drazen mission succeeds in its escape. As Victor is about to kill him, Jack offers up Alexis Drazen's life in return. Victor relents, and drags Jack with him as he flees.

Jack has Nina get Alexis Drazen on the phone to prove to Victor that his son is still alive. Mason agrees to trade Alexis for Jack. In a hideout, Jack makes a last ditch attempt to take a girl hostage. Although Victor is fond of the girl and her father who have sheltered him, he kills them in cold blood. Jack sees Kimberly being brought in, but he is taken away to an abandoned oil field and shackled to a post. After Alexis is safely delivered, a sniper shoots the restraint off Jack's wrist. Jack is then directed over cell phone to get in a waiting car and drive toward Century City. He is to follow Andre's orders if he wants to see Kim alive again.

Jack is instructed to drive towards Palmer's hotel so that he can put the Senator on the cell phone with Victor Drazen. Palmer will be ordered to unfreeze assets for the Drazens. Jack phones CTU, but is evasive about his actions. After Mason warns the Secret Service, Jack must convince Palmer to let him past security. He promises the candidate that he will not harm him -- Jack only wants to save his own daughter. At the hotel, Palmer tells Jack that Drazen knows the money can't be recouped. Jack realizes that it is a trap, and flings the cell phone that Drazen gave to him out the window as it explodes. Although Palmer is still alive, Jack persuades the Secret Service to announce that Palmer was killed. Jack tells Andre Drazen that he will trade his life for Kimberly's. Andre has him come to the Port of Los Angeles.

Andre tells Jack that they know he lied about Palmer's death. They threaten to kill Kimberly if he does not come forward. Jack demands to speak to his daughter, and when Andre refuses, Jack abruptly hangs up. Jack phones Nina and asks her to find out who would have told the Drazens the truth about Palmer. That person is the mole inside CTU. Nina then informs Jack that Kimberly's body was found in the water. An enraged Jack plans his revenge on the Drazens, and storms into their hideout with a van. Jack goes after the fleeing Drazens, and kills both Andre and Victor. When the police arrive at the port, Jack asks a Coast Guard officer about Kimberly but no body had been found in the water. Jack hurries to his car, and learns from Mason that Kimberly is, in fact, safe. Jack warns Mason that Nina is the traitor. Mason, however, needs proof to arrest her. Jack has a surveillance staffer at CTU transmit to his car the security footage from when Jamey Farrell committed suicide. The video confirms that Nina killed Jamey and provides proof for Mason. Jack drives into the CTU garage and is head-on with Nina, who shoots at him. Nina crashes, and Jack holds her at gunpoint. Although he wants to kill her, he pulls away. Jack greets Kimberly warmly, and she asks about Teri. He goes off to look for his wife. Jack finds Teri, but she is dead. Nina has killed her.

DAY TWO

Eighteen months after his wife Teri was killed by Nina, Jack is inactive from CTU and estranged from his daughter, Kimberly. When he tries to make contact with Kim, she pushes him away, still blaming him for her mother’s death. Jack ignores CTU’s calls to come back to work until President Palmer contacts him. Palmer asks Jack for help with dire circumstances, and Jack agrees to hear the situation from CTU. When Mason informs Jack that a rogue nuclear bomb is set to go off in Los Angeles that day, Jack’s first instinct is to flee with his daughter. Yet Kim refuses to take Jack’s call, and he is forced to tell her voice mail that she must leave the city. Jack has a change of heart, and accepts the assignment. He demands that CTU protect Kim, and then asks that they bring in a witness set to testify against a man connected with the suspected terrorist group. When the witness is brought to CTU, Jack does not interrogate him. He instead shoots the man in the chest. Jack tells Mason that this is necessary to get him undercover and close to Wald, the link to the terrorists.

From surveillance photos, Jack recognizes Eddie, a member of Joseph Wald’s current gang whom he befriended when he was undercover. He shows up at Wald’s hideout, giving Eddie the head of turncoat Marshall Goren as proof that he is on Wald’s side. Suspicious of Jack’s showing up on the day when they have a big job, Eddie’s associate Dave checks Jack’s record. Dave confirms that Jack did just serve time for Wald’s benefit. At CTU, Paula makes the facts in the database correspond to Jack’s story. Yet when Eddie tells Jack that he has to leave, Jack feigns a broken down car. He then belittles Dave to Eddie and breaks Dave’s ankle. Eddie has no choice but to ask Jack to join the crew since he is now one man short. On their way to the job, Eddie tells Jack that the plan is to blow up CTU.

As Jack is accepted into Eddie’s crew, he tries to find out why they are targeting CTU. No one will give him an answer. Kim calls Jack’s cell phone begging for help, but because he is in earshot of the crew, he only tells her to go to her Aunt Carol’s house. Jack can not get through to CTU to warn them, so he calls Palmer at the O.C. and is put through to Lynne Kresge. Jack tells her to evacuate the CTU premises. When a telephone repair crew shows up at the relay station, Eddie shoots one of them and has the other obtain access to CTU. While Eddie leads his crew through the building, Jack waits in the van with the telephone worker as a hostage. He releases the man and gives him a note to bring to Tony inside. Jack cuts his own head to make it look like the worker knocked him out. When Eddie and the crew return, they only have a few minutes to flee the explosion. As they watch smoke rise from CTU at a distance, they celebrate their success. Jack looks on in horror, hoping his note made it to Tony on time.

Jack snatches the address where he was to meet Joseph Wald and places Eddie under arrest. In escaping, he is forced to kill Eddie and the crew. Driving their car, Jack heads to Wald’s location. He checks in with CTU and gives them Wald’s address for backup. However, there is no news about Kimberly’s whereabouts. Jack phones Lynne Kresge at the President’s O.C. and berates her for not warning CTU when he originally called. They would have had ample time to evacuate the workers. Jack gains access into Wald’s house, and demands that Wald reveal who hired him for the CTU hit. Wald, however, escapes into a locked safe room. Jack tries to break down the safe room’s steel doors with no success, so he instead appeals to Wald for help. Wald did not know that the ultimate plan was to target Los Angeles with a nuclear bomb. Wald finally gives Jack photos of the woman who hired him. It is Nina Myers.

Jack has Nina delivered for questioning when it is learned that she was the one who hired Joseph Wald to blow up CTU. Although Mason doesn’t want him there, Jack returns to his old office under the pretense of typing up his debrief. When Kimberly calls him in a panic, Jack is forced to tell her the truth about the nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. He convinces her to leave the city, with a promise that he will soon join her. President Palmer phones Jack to say that he has granted Nina a pardon in return for her help in apprehending the bombers. Jack tries to persuade Mason to let him take a crack at questioning Nina, but Mason won’t let him near her. After hearing Mason cough, Jack sees him take a pill in the restroom and takes the medicine’s wrapper to find out what it is. He confronts Mason after discovering that his boss is dying from radiation poisoning, and threatens to disclose Mason’s condition to Division unless he lets him interrogate Nina. Mason gives in to Jack’s request.

When Nina is uncooperative, Jack slams her into a wall. He threatens to kill her unless she reveals her sources. Mason has Jack removed from the interrogation room, but Jack persuades him that it is actually part of his plan to make Nina afraid that he will put his revenge ahead of finding the bomb. Seeing how Nina’s fear will work in their favor, Mason allows Jack another shot at her. Jack then pulls out a gun and fires past Nina’s head. She finally gives up the name of Mamud Faheen. Since CTU is already aware of Faheen, Jack asks what their relationship is. Faheen connected Nina with Joseph Wald, who was looking to blow up CTU. She says that she only learned later that the larger plan was to set off a nuclear bomb. Yet Nina demands that she be allowed to go to Visalia because her contact will only disclose the bomb’s location in person. Mason sends another agent with them to Visalia as a safeguard against Jack endangering Nina. Yet in the transport van, Jack drugs the other agent. Nina is terrified that Jack will actually kill her.

The agent accompanying Jack to Visalia forewarns him that he is there to protect Nina. Jack still doesn’t trust her, and orders Nina to change clothes where he can see her. In Visalia, Jack makes Nina go into Faheen’s contact location alone. Michelle tracks her with audio and video. Since Michelle can not clearly identify Faheen, Jack holds the team from raiding the site. Yet when the wire goes out, Jack orders the invasion and the agents shoot at the terrorists inside. Jack finds Faheen down and Nina gone. He follows Nina to a basement entrance where she is locked in. With no one around, Jack considers shooting her. He arrests her instead.

After Nina makes a weak attempt to get information from Faheen, Jack drags her out of Crescent Collectibles so that they can return to Los Angeles. Yet the FBI agents draw their guns on Jack to prevent him from being alone with her. Back on the jet, Jack listens to the translation of Nina trying to persuade Faheen to surrender his plan. Faheen still resists Nina’s pleas. Michelle connects Jack to a phone call from Kim, who has been arrested for murder. Although she has asked him to come himself, Jack tells Kim that he will have someone from CTU retrieve her. While on the line with Kim, Jack notices that Nina and Faheen are whispering to each other. Michelle is unable to pick up what they are saying. Before Jack can separate them, Nina slashes Faheen’s throat with a piece of gift card hidden in her hand that she had stolen from Crescent Collectibles. Nina then demands to be exiled in return for giving up what Faheen told her about the bomb. Jack grants her request. Seething, Jack blames her for taking away his wife. Suddenly, an explosion shakes the jet.

As the plane goes down in flames, Jack calls Mason with information about their intended crash landing site. He makes one last plea to Nina to reveal the location of the nuclear bomb, but she is afraid that Jack will only kill her if they survive the plane crash. Jack vows that he will not harm her, but Nina remains taciturn. Agent Phillips raises his gun to Nina’s head, and Jack orders him to back away. Jack manages to let Mason know that the plane will miss its target before the phone gives out. Jack survives the plane crash, but his leg is wounded. He resuscitates Nina and takes her with him into the forest to set a flare for their rescuers. They see a group of soldiers descend upon the crash site and kill Agent Phillips. Jack knows that these soldiers are not part of the Search and Rescue team, and he shoots one of them with the flare gun. Jack takes the man’s rifle, and he and Nina flee into the woods. She provides reconnaissance, and tosses him with ammunition for the rifle. Yet Jack does not see Nina hide one of the ammo clips, and when he runs out of bullets, she loads the rifle herself. When the CTU Search and Rescue team arrives to save them, Nina takes Jack hostage and demands to speak to the President. On the phone with Palmer, she asks to be given a pardon in advance for killing Jack. Jack tells Palmer that they have no other option of finding the bomb. He only asks that the President keep his daughter safe. Palmer grudgingly gives in to Nina’s ultimatum with the stipulation that she not act until the bomb is found.

As Nina holds him captive in the woods, Jack notices that a CTU sharpshooter in the distance can not make a shot. Jack makes Nina step forward, and she is hit in the hand. CTU agents take her down, and Jack is freed. He whispers something in her ear that makes her afraid. Jack then sees a coral snake tattoo on the wrist of one of the soldiers who tried to kill him. He phones the President and tells him that the tattoo means that these men were part of an American military unit hidden within the NSA. Only someone with resources inside the government would have had their flight plan. Jack is taken by helicopter to the address where Nina said Syed Ali would be. The CTU team in place has identified two people in the house. When the team raids the premises, Jack rescues Kate Warner from the grip of Ali’s assistant Mohsen. Mohsen, however, immediately takes his own life with a cyanide pill hidden in his mouth. Jack questions Kate, and she describes what Ali was wearing when he left. Jack calls Tony, who fills him in on the investigation already underway with the Warner family. Yet they do not know what connection these people actually have with Ali. Kate recounts what had happened in the house, and because she knows some Arabic, was able to discern the word “prayer” being said. Jack realizes that Ali might be headed to a mosque, and he has the other agents find one nearby. Jack asks Kate to accompany him there so she can identify the man.

Jack drives Kate to the mosque where they believe Syed Ali may have gone to pray, and he divulges the nuclear bomb plot to her. Mason calls with news of Kim’s disappearance, and Jack begs him to find her. When they get to the mosque, Jack prepares the CTU team, still unsure whether they have the right location. Kate offers to enter the building and find Ali. She sees him inside, and hurries back out to Jack with the confirmation. They wait outside to grab him as he is leaving the mosque. Tony phones Jack with news that Marie Warner killed Reza and the CTU agents guarding him. He warns Jack that perhaps Kate might be involved along with her sister in the terrorist plot. Jack, however, is confident that Kate is innocent. When the service is over, Ali is not among the worshipers leaving the mosque. Jack orders the SWAT team to raid the building, and inside they find a man who has been burned to death wearing Ali’s clothes. But Jack notices that the clothes do not fit the corpse’s body, and he realizes that this is not Syed Ali. He radios the agents surrounding the mosque that Ali is still somewhere on the premises.

Jack finds Syed Ali in the mosque basement, and he quickly removes the cyanide tablet from the terrorist’s mouth to prevent him from committing suicide. Jack harshly interrogates Ali, but Ali will not say anything about the bomb. Ali’s cell phone reveals that Marie Warner was the last person he called, and Jack must convince Kate that her sister was complicit. Kate calls Marie and gets her answer. With Ali still resistant to talk, Jack shows him a video monitor linked to a live satellite of Ali’s family in captive. Jack threatens that their lives are in danger if he does not acquiesce, but Ali remains silent. Palmer gets news of Jack’s plan, and phones him to prevent him from taking such drastic measures. Yet Jack makes it sound like he has gotten the President’s approval for Ali’s benefit. Jack then orders one of Ali’s children be killed, and Ali watches in horror as his oldest son is shot on the monitor. Before Jack can order the murder of the second child, Ali gives in and divulges the plan and location of the bomb. What Ali does not realize is that the shooting of his son was pretend. The boy is really still alive. Jack takes Kate with him to the airfield where the bomb is so that she can help apprehend her sister.

Jack asks Tony about Kim, who is still missing. He is then informed that Coral Snake is on a rogue mission to secure the bomb, and they will treat anyone who crosses their path as hostile. At Norton Airfield, the CTU agents track the Coral Snake soldiers to a fuel depot. Yet when Jack raids the building, the six commandos have all been killed by gunshot. CTU discovers the tail number from the scrap of paper, and Jack drives to the hangar where that plane is housed. When he arrives, a Cessna is pulling out from the hangar and Jack’s team follows it down the runway. Jack shoots the pilot, and the plane comes to a stop. However, the techs discover that the bomb inside the cockpit is only a decoy. Plutonium residue shows that a real nuclear weapon was recently removed from the device.

Jack is informed that a seventh commando escaped and may have killed the other six who were tracking the bomb. Kate learns from Omar that he was lured by Syed Ali to do this work because Ali was going to pay off his family. Omar, however, does not know anything else about a second bomb. After Kate spots her sister at the airfield, Jack fires a shot that hits Marie’s arm. He refuses to remove the bullet until she gives him some answers. Despite Marie’s pain, she will not reveal where the real bomb is. She instead tries to direct Jack away from the airport, but he knows she is lying. He orders the CTU agents to look for the weapon on the site. They find the bomb. It is nuclear and activated. However, they don’t know when it will go off.

When the bomb can not be dismantled, Jack arranges for a plane to fly it somewhere so that it will detonate safely. Jack calls the President, and the analysts decide that the least damage and casualties would occur in the Mojave Desert. However, without a military payload delivery, the pilot would have to crash the plane at the precise site. Jack does not tell Palmer that he will make the suicide mission himself. Mason, who has shown up without warning at Norton Airfield, offers up himself as the pilot. Jack refuses him because of Mason’s weakening state. As Jack is in mid-air, Tony connects him to Kim. After Jack explains the situation, both father and daughter say their sad good-byes. Jack is then surprised to find that Mason has stowed away on the plane. Mason hands him a parachute and again asks to be the one to crash-land the aircraft. Knowing the hardest part of the flight is over, Jack relents and gives up the plane’s controls to him. Jack thanks Mason, and he jumps out to safety a few minutes before detonation. Once he is on the ground, Jack sees the mushroom cloud in the distance.

A helicopter picks up Jack in the desert and transports him back to CTU. Michelle asks him for help interrogating Syed Ali. Although audio verification shows that the recording of a conversation between Ali and the three Middle Eastern representatives is real, Ali had told Michelle that the tape was actually a phony. The United States may be planning retaliation against those three countries based on the validity of that tape. Jack has Michelle track down Kim, and he goes to find Ali before the terrorist is removed from CTU. Jack admits to Ali that they did not murder his son, and he asks him about the tape. Ali is grateful for Jack’s honesty, and tells him that the recording is not real. Suddenly, an unknown shooter guns down Ali. This convinces Jack that what Ali claimed is really true. Tony, however, stands by the evidence, and battles Jack over this decision. Jack calls Palmer with the turn of events. Palmer tells him to get hard proof immediately. Jack turns to Michelle, and she informs him of Yusuf Auda, the Arab liaison sent to CTU for the investigation. Jack asks Yusuf for help, but because Jack won’t reveal anything about what might be going on, Yusuf remains silent. Jack then gets a cell phone call from an unidentified man. The man claims to have planted the tape and killed Ali. He demands that Jack bring him Kate Warner, who has been sent to CTU for debriefing. Jack sneaks Kate out, but is stopped by Tony. Jack grabs Tony’s gun and knocks him out. He and Kate exit the CTU complex.

Jack takes Kate from CTU, and he is followed by Yusuf Auda, the Arab liaison. Yusuf, however, offers to help Jack with his mission. Jack shows up at the warehouse and leaves Kate in the car. Inside, he meets Wallace, the Coral Snake commando who had murdered his fellow soldiers. Wallace had tried to detonate the bomb at the behest of oil investors who wanted the United States to start a war with the Middle East. His employers then tried to kill him, so Wallace wanted Kate’s access to the Department of Defense through her father to help him escape the country. Wallace secretly gives a signal to a cohort outside. The man attempts to capture Kate, but Yusuf stops him. Wallace had falsified the Cyprus recording, and he promises to hand Jack the evidence if he gets Kate in return. However, he plans to kill Kate once he is given transport, so Jack has Yusuf put a tracker on Wallace’s escape car. Yet unseen assailants ambush Wallace with gunfire when he tries to flee with Kate.

Jack, Wallace and Kate get back safely in the warehouse. Yusuf tries to assess the situation from outside. At first, Wallace won’t let Jack call CTU for backup, but when more snipers arrive, he gives in. Jack has Michelle pull a satellite image of the warehouse to determine where the shooters are positioned. Yusuf drops a smoke grenade near the warehouse to allow Jack and Wallace to run out and shoot towards the snipers. Jack grabs Kate, and the three run to the car that Yusuf has waiting. Wallace gets hit in the neck, and he demands that Jack suppress the bleeding so that he can get on a plane to escape. Yet when Wallace starts to go into shock, Jack reroutes them from the airport to the nearest medical facility. Although it is only a clinic, Jack orders the doctor to perform the necessary surgery to remove the bullet. Wallace, realizing he is about to die, tells Jack that the source files that faked the Cyprus recording are on a memory chip. He dies before he can say where the chip is hidden. Jack then notices that there is a spot on Wallace’s chest x-ray where the man also has a scar. Jack slices into Wallace’s body cavity and pulls out the chip.

Jack phones Tony to tell him about the chip and asks him to notify the President with the news. Yusuf removes a tracker from the chip. Jack takes the tracker and hands the chip to Yusuf and Kate, having them meet him at another location. He instructs them to take the chip to CTU if he does not show up. With the tracker in hand, Jack leads the henchmen through the clinic. He drops it in an empty room and runs out. The men catch him and knock him out with a taser. Jack is stripped and checked for the chip. They interrogate him. The lead interrogator named Stark puts Jack on the phone with Stark’s boss, Kingsley. Kingsley offers Jack money for the chip, but Jack refuses. Stark begins torturing Jack, and Jack passes out. When Jack can’t be revived, Stark panics and begins administering CPR to him. Jack’s heart stops and the men believe him to be dead. Stark calls for epinephrine.

After the doctor revives Jack, O’Hara kills Stark for almost spoiling the plan. O’Hara then pressures the doctor to give Jack a drug to strain his breathing. Despite the torture, Jack will not give up any information about the chip. Out of O’Hara’s earshot, he begs the doctor to help him escape. The doctor loosens Jack’s binds and stabs O’Hara with the syringe full of the drug. Jack takes the disabled O’Hara’s gun and forces him to reveal Kingsley’s name. After killing him, Jack leaves with O’Hara’s phone and car. He attempts to call CTU, but is disconnected. Jack goes to the meeting point and finds a bloodied Yusuf. Before he dies, Yusuf tells him that some men took the chip to Kate’s house. Jack goes there and saves Kate. But the men, fearing Jack, threaten to destroy the chip.

Jack gets the chip back, but it is damaged. He is only able to retrieve some junk coding on it. None of the audiofiles survived. Jack gets through to CTU and has Tony run a search on Peter Kingsley. He is then connected to Kim, who tells her father that she loves and misses him. When Kate breaks down, Jack comforts her. Jack tells Palmer that he was unable to turn up hard evidence to disprove the authentication of the Cyprus recording, but that he is convinced the audio is a fake. Michelle finds that the coding on the chip is the trademark of a hacker named Alex Hewitt who may have programmed the audiofiles on the chip. Jack goes to Hewitt’s last known address, but Hewitt is not there. Jack is surprised when Sherry Palmer enters the loft looking for Hewitt.

 Jack gets Sherry Palmer to admit that she was looking for Alex Hewitt because his audio tapes implicate her as a participant in Peter Kingsley’s plot. She had sought to bring down Palmer’s presidency out of revenge. Hewitt comes out of hiding, and Sherry convinces him to assist Jack by confessing that he produced the Cyprus audio. Yet she asks Jack for immunity in return for her help with Hewitt testifying. Jack calls CTU and requests that Tony send a helicopter to pick up Hewitt. Hewitt, who is skittish, questions whether Jack and Sherry made a deal to set him up. Jack speaks to Palmer, who advises him not to trust Sherry. He then asks Tony to have the Attorney General ready so that Sherry can cut a deal when Hewitt’s testimony incriminates her. Sherry is furious, and Jack must prevent her from trying to appeal to Hewitt. Jack gets a panicked call from Kim, and he instructs her to kill Gary Matheson. While Jack is distracted by the call, Hewitt manages to stab Sherry and slip out a hidden door.

Jack chases Hewitt out onto the roof of the building. When Hewitt refuses to concede, Jack is forced to shoot him in the leg to stop him. Although the gunshot wound is superficial, Hewitt’s head bleeds from falling off a ledge. The CTU helicopter arrives to pick up Hewitt, but it takes off before touching down. Jack calls Michelle to find out why this happened, and she tells him that Chappelle ordered the chopper back. Nevertheless, Hewitt dies from the fall. Jack returns to the loft and informs Sherry that she will be the one to make the connection to Kingsley using Hewitt’s voice. From offsite, Michelle links to Hewitt’s computer and the voice program he created. She and Jack locate a phone call between Sherry and Hewitt from the night before to match Hewitt’s voice. The program can reconstruct his voice with new phrases plugged in. Jack has Sherry phone Kingsley and offer to trade him Hewitt for a tape that incriminates her involvement. They play a facsimile of Hewitt’s voice as proof that he is still alive. Kingsley warily agrees to the trade and sets up a meeting. Jack, who has been suffering from chest pains since the interrogation stunted his heartbeat, dismisses Sherry’s plea that he see a doctor. While driving to the meeting place, Jack is afflicted with a more severe pain that causes him to lose control of the car. He and Sherry swerve off the road and crash into an embankment.

When Jack is trapped in the car, he convinces the fleeing Sherry to help him escape. They steal a car and make their way to the L.A. Coliseum in order to meet Kingsley. Chappelle calls Jack to tell him that he now has full CTU support behind him and that he will soon have backup. Jack asks him to set up a feed with the President so that Kingsley’s confession can be heard live, but he must proceed before the backup arrives. When they arrive at the Coliseum, Jack wires up Sherry with a transmitter. Sherry is afraid that she will be killed and that Jack’s failing health will prevent him from saving her. After she goes into the stadium, Jack is gripped with a sharp chest pain. He makes his way into the complex and takes out a sharpshooter aiming at Sherry. When Kingsley turns on Sherry, Jack shoots his guards. Losing his weapon, Jack fights off the last guard and is afflicted with an even stronger chest pain. As Jack lies weakened, Kingsley raises his gun at him. Yet before Kingsley can fire, a CTU helicopter kills him. Jack is then reunited with his daughter. He tells Kim that everything will be all right.

DAY THREE

As Director of Field Operations for CTU, Jack has been working undercover for the past year on the Salazar drug ring because of its ties to terrorist cells. Its leader, Ramon Salazar, is arrested and he agrees to hand over information about the terrorists in return for a lesser-security prison facility. But before Salazar signs the deal, he stabs his own lawyer in the throat with the pen. As he’s taken away to his cell, Salazar says that “what happens next” will be Jack’s fault for arresting him. Jack learns of a deadly virus threat and an anonymous caller links the threat to Salazar’s release. Jack is uncomfortable when his ex-girlfriend Kate Warner phones because he hasn’t seen her in some time. When it is discovered that a local drug dealer is the dead person, Jack orders a search for the man’s supplier to connect to the Salazars. As Jack battles the sweats and a voracious thirst, his new partner Chase inquires about his state of mind, alluding to what he had to do to infiltrate the Salazar drug cartel. Jack denies any problems, and holes himself up in his office. He is about to shoot up with heroin when Kim buzzes on the intercom. Jack destroys the syringe before he takes the drugs.

After smashing his heroin syringes, Jack saves one vial of the drug. Chase confronts him about his addiction, but Jack refuses to go on record with it and dismisses his partner’s help. Kim tells Jack that she and Chase are dating, and Jack is cold to Chase as they go out on an investigation. Jack lets Chase know that he doesn’t believe a Field Agent can have a relationship -- especially with his daughter. They enter a crack den and are shot at by a dealer. Jack fires back and hits the man. The guy confesses to waiting for a delivery from a kid on behalf of one of Salazar’s men. Jack sets out to find the kid who may have the virus in a bag of cocaine. He orders the unhappy Chase to accompany the dealer back to CTU. Jack tells Chase that he must protect him because he is involved with Kim.

Jack is interrupted once again when he tries to shoot up with heroin. He joins an old friend, Dr. Nicole Duncan, and her Hazmat team to invade the Singer home and find the white powder substance. As he tries to contain the virus threat, Jack suffers from detox withdrawal. Yet the powder is not toxic, and Jack determines that Kyle Singer must have the virus planted inside of him. After Kyle is traced on his cell phone, Jack drives to the location with Dr. Duncan. She recognizes the symptoms of his heroin addiction and confronts him. Jack confesses his situation caused by going undercover. Yet he says that he has not used and is currently kicking the habit. Chase tries to contact Jack, and Jack avoids his call. Jack arrives at the mall but enters just after Tony has been shot. Jack alerts the officers outside to find Kyle Singer.

Jack concocts a plan to break Salazar out of prison to meet Hector Salazar’s demands and stop the spread of the virus. This will allow the President to abide by his policy of non-negotiation with terrorists while also saving the lives of Americans. Unfortunately, by acting on his own accord, Jack will become a fugitive from the law. He tells Palmer that he accepts his fate. Jack hoodwinks Kim into arranging the prisoner transfer request, and says what he believes is his final goodbye to his daughter. Then he finds out that Chase has gone to the prison. Jack is forced to knock out Chase and tie him up so that he won’t prevent the escape. Yet before he can walk out with Salazar, the alarm goes off. Jack threatens a guard to open all the doors so that the prisoners are released from their cells. Jack and Salazar hide out among the melee.

Jack and Salazar knock out some guards and put on their uniforms. Yet prisoners who believe they are guards capture them in the riot and force them to play Russian Roulette. After two lucky rounds, Jack takes the gun and shoots at the prisoners. He and Salazar are able to hide in the prison. Outside is the SWAT team ready to bring them down, but Jack comes out with Salazar and demands the helicopter. With no choice left to thwart the virus being spread, Chase gives in. Jack and Salazar escape by helicopter, and Jack removes the tracking device so CTU can’t find him.

Jack flies Salazar toward downtown Los Angeles instead of Mexico because he knows they can’t be shot down in a populated area. Jack manages to fly into the downtown corridor before the military helicopters following him fire. He lands the chopper in the middle of a busy street. Jack and Salazar run to the nearest subway station, and exit through the tunnels onto another street. They come upon a valet parking lot and steal one of the cars. Jack calls Salazar’s pilot and arranges to drop off Salazar at an airfield. Salazar asks Jack why he used heroin while working undercover when he didn’t have to. Salazar notes that Jack, like all other junkies, was trying to numb himself against something painful. When they arrive at the airport, Salazar’s men knock Jack unconscious and take him onto the plane. Hector Salazar had ordered that Jack be delivered alive.

Aboard the private plane, Salazar revives Jack and tells him that his brother Hector wants him delivered alive even though Salazar would rather kill him now. Jack is able to knock out the guard watching him and take the man’s gun away. Salazar goes to kill Jack, but Jack takes him hostage. When they land in Mexico, Hector refuses to shoot Jack despite his brother goading him to do so. Instead, Hector embraces Jack and congratulates him on a job well done. Their arm tattoos match. Out of Hector’s sight, Jack presses a button on his watch. This sends a signal to Gael’s handheld device that he is inside the Salazars’ gang again.

On a pre-recorded a message for the President, Jack explains the sting operation on the Salazars. He is pretending that he is on their side to acquire the real virus from a group of Ukrainians. Jack had set up the infected body at Health Services and the prison break to garner the Salazars’ support. Only Tony and Gael were in on the secret so that the President would be protected from any political fallout. In Mexico, Jack tells Salazar that he is only helping them so that he can make a profit. Hector convinces his brother that this is true, and Salazar allows Jack to make contact with the seller. Claudia, who had an affair with Jack, is angry with him for betraying her and going against his own morals. When Chase is captured, Jack must shoot him in order to gain the Salazars’ trust. Fortunately, the gun chamber is empty. Salazar orders a move because he thinks the government has located them. Yet Chase inadvertently destroyed the transponder on Jack’s watch, and now CTU can not trace him.

Jack is forced to tell Claudia the truth about his mission so that she will help him contact CTU. She agrees after he promises to save her family. Jack makes contact with the virus dealer and brings the Salazars to purchase the goods. Yet he finds Nina Myers is also there to buy the virus, and an auction is set up. Nina is ready to kill Jack, but the dealer assures her that he had Jack checked out. Jack admits to Salazar that Nina murdered his wife, but that it will not impede the deal. Nina wins the auction, and the Salazars want to kill Jack for failing. He convinces them that he can hunt Nina down to retrieve the virus once it passes hands. If he fails, they can kill him.

Believing that Gael is still working for the Salazars, Hector has him find Amador via the cell phone number. Gael is able to track Jack’s location as well, and he learns about both situations with Chase and Nina Myers. Jack gets Amador’s meeting place with Nina, and he and Salazar go there. Jack convinces Salazar to let him go in alone. After Amador leaves, Nina takes Jack hostage. Jack offers Nina ten times what her buyer is paying if she hands the virus to the Salazars. He tries to convince her that he has no life left, and he only wants to use his share of the money to disappear. Tempted by the money, Nina is ready to take Jack up on his offer. However, she is not quite sure that he has changed. To test his claim of disavowing his former life, Nina kisses him. Jack kisses her back.

Jack attempts to convince Nina that he’s switched sides, but Nina can tell from his kiss that he is lying. Jack manages to take her hostage. He tells her that since he is now a fugitive, he needs the money from this deal to survive. Salazar informs Jack that Chase has escaped, but Jack is saddened to hear that Claudia died in the process. Jack listens as Nina gives Amador the money transfer. Jack then secretly dials Michelle from the cell phone so that she can hear them discuss the location of the transaction. Hector becomes wary. He tries to talk his brother out of going through it, and then disobeys him by walking out on plan. Jack is shocked when Salazar shoots Hector for betraying him.

Jack watches as Salazar plugs another shot into Hector to put him out of his misery. Nina continues to press him about his affiliation with CTU, but Jack keeps her at bay. When Nina returns with the briefcase holding the virus, Salazar turns his gun on Jack. Before he can kill Jack, Salazar is shot by Chase in the shoulder. The guards fire back. In the melee, Jack grabs one of the weapons and takes out a few men. He chases after Salazar, who runs off with the briefcase. Jack follows him, and is met by Chase and a team of agents. They trap Salazar, and Jack tries to persuade him to hand over the virus. The vial, however, explodes in Salazar’s hands. Jack radios CTU to tell them that he does not have the virus because Amador switched it with a bomb. Jack and Chase go looking for Nina.

Jack finds Nina and brings her onto a plane headed for Los Angeles so that she can help him track Amador. She gives up the name of Amador’s associate who is named Alvers. Nina gives Jack a secret number to contact Alvers, but when he does, it actually engages a computer worm that disables the CTU system. Since this could expose undercover agents, Nina promises to give him the kill code in return for the plane transporting her back to Mexico. After the worm speeds up, Nina provides the code to temporarily slow it. Jack insists that he won’t bargain with her anymore, and makes the plane keep going toward L.A. Tony, however, orders the pilot to turn around. Jack pulls his gun on the pilot so that they don’t change direction. CTU finally defeats the worm, and Jack is relieved that he beat Nina this time around.

Jack returns to Los Angeles with Nina. But before he can get back to work, Chappelle forces him to take a blood test and subject to questioning about his addiction by the Inspector General’s office. Although Jack used heroin long before he began working undercover with the Salazars, he explains that it was meant to make him seem more like a junkie. Jack knows he has nothing to hide. When Nina escapes from the clinic where she’s been taken, Jack comes upon Kim holding Nina at gunpoint. He fires and hits Nina in the shoulder. Jack sends Kim out of the room, and he kills Nina himself.

Chappelle accuses Jack of blocking the security camera to obscure the view of him shooting Nina in cold blood. But Jack insists that he killed her in self-defense. With the help of Chase, Jack gets permission from Chappelle to remain on the mission. Jack captures Amador, who won’t reveal anything about the virus. Amador does say that the man responsible for this threat knows Jack very well. Jack has CTU cross-reference all of his contacts with the virus investigation.

Jack sets it up so that Amador escapes. Yet Jack had put a tracking device in the man’s bandage. Jack and Chase follow Amador and hope he will direct them to his boss. Amador enters a parked car and it explodes. Jack receives a cell phone call from a man he does not know who claims to have eleven more vials of the virus. The man demands to speak with President Palmer. Jack connects the man to Palmer, and the President listens as the man threatens to release more of the virus.

Jack recognizes the terrorist as Stephen Saunders, a British MI-6 agent who supposedly died when working with Jack’s team on the attack on Victor Drazen in Kosovo. Jack supposes Saunders was tortured in prison and now blamed the U.S. for his fate. Jack and Chase pick up a call girl who worked with Saunders and bring her to the MI-6 office. They are ambushed by gunmen from a helicopter. The woman is killed without revealing anything about Saunders. Jack manages to escape with MI-6’s hard drive that has intelligence on Saunders before Saunders’s men destroy it in an explosion.

The President calls Jack to let him know that Saunders wants Chappelle dead within the hour. There is no apparent connection between Chappelle and the terrorist, so Jack intensifies the search in order to beat the deadline. Chappelle tries to escape, and Jack takes him into custody. They find a location in Los Angeles where Saunders’s phone is connecting from. Jack doesn’t lead the raid, and he lies to Chase about where he is going with Chappelle. He instead takes Chappelle to the train yard, per Saunders’s instructions. CTU fails to capture Saunders, and Saunders phones Jack with a threat. Jack is forced to kill Chappelle in order to prevent the spread of the virus.

After he turns over Chappelle’s body to Saunders’s men, Jack returns to CTU and is alarmed that Kim is being sent out in the field as a double for Jane Saunders. Kim rebels against his wishes, and Jack must lead her in her mission. When one of Saunders’s men grabs Kim, she defends herself and shoots the guy. However, their tactics might now be exposed to Saunders.

Jack convinces Jane Saunders that her father is a terrorist, and she agrees to call Saunders so that CTU can trace the call. Saunders knows that Jack has his daughter in custody, and Jack intimates that he will use torture if he has to. Jack flies to the building where Saunders is hiding out. He calls to Saunders to come out, but Saunders refuses.

Jack questions why Tony would move all the agents to one side of Saunders’s building, but Tony blames the call on his own tactical error. Jack takes over command of CTU from Tony because he tried to cover this up. Jack then learns that there might be a mole inside CTU, but he finds out that Tony was secretly dealing with Saunders to trade Jane for Michelle. Before Jack can get to Tony, he disappears from CTU with Jane.

Jack gets to Tony before he reaches Saunders, and he convinces Tony to help use Jane in luring the terrorist. Jack has Tony ask Saunders for a different meeting spot so that they can set up a SWAT team. As Jane is traded for Michelle, Jack orders the CTU agents to open fire. Saunders runs off to a waiting helicopter, and Jack follows him. CTU sends in Marine jets to shoot the chopper, and Saunders is knocked down in the explosion. Jack wants him to give up the location of the other vials of the virus, but Saunders refuses unless he’s given what he wants. Jack seemingly has no choice.

Jack is unsuccessful in getting leniency for Tony from CTU. After Jane’s pleading to Saunders doesn’t work, Jack threatens to send Jane into the infected building unless Saunders releases the location of the eleven other vials. To save his daughter’s life, Saunders gives up all eleven codes that track the couriers holding the vials. Ten of the couriers are safely apprehended, but the missing one is somewhere in Los Angeles. Chloe locates the courier in an underground subway station. Jack takes down the man holding the tracking device, but it is an innocent victim. The real courier placed the tracking device in the man’s bag. Jack locks down the station to find the courier among the passengers.

After Saunders is killed there is no one to identify Rabens. Jack notices that one of the passengers has disappeared from the subway station. He and Chase follow Rabens, who has hijacked a car. Rabens hides out in a school, and he is about to kill Chase when Jack shoots him. Chase clamped the device holding the virus onto his own arm to prevent Rabens from taking it. With no time left before detonation, Jack is forced to chop off Chase’s arm. Jack safely puts the device in a refrigerator before it emits the virus. At the hospital where Chase is undergoing surgery, Jack reunites with Kim and grants his blessing for her life with Chase. Jack is overwhelmed by the day’s events, and he retreats to his car to break down in tears. Yet duty calls, and Jack returns back to work on the case.

DAY FOUR

Jack, who works for the Secretary of Defense, secretly dates his boss’s daughter, Audrey, the daughter of the Secretary of Defense and his boss. Jack visits CTU for the first time since he was fired. As he watches a raid on the train bomb suspect, Jack gives advice to Driscoll that allows them to catch the perp. Chloe’s info leads Jack to believe that the suspect has larger intentions. He barges into the interrogation room and shoots the suspect, who reveals that the target is really his boss Heller. Jack quickly notifies Audrey, but she and Heller are captured.

After Driscoll has Jack detained, Chloe helps him contact her programmer friend Andrew who is now being chased by the terrorists. Jack threatens Driscoll, and she agrees to let him assist field ops to bring in Andrew. Andrew gets kidnapped by the terrorists, and Jack wants to follow the car to see if it leads to Heller. The head of field ops overrules this, but he is killed. Jack takes the agent’s car to follow the abducted Andrew.

Jack refuses Driscoll’s orders to bring in the suspect who captured Andrew because he hopes the man will lead him to Heller. As he follows the suspect, Jack convinces Chloe to help him track the man on satellite. Jack saves Andrew’s life by taking out the other henchmen, and then follows the suspect to a convenience store. Since Chloe can’t get the satellite system up, Jack stalls for time by pretending to rob the store at gunpoint.

Jack takes the people in the store hostage, and grabs Kalil’s phone and gun in the process. A cop comes to the store and Jack takes him hostage too. When the police radio calls, the store clerk yells for help. Cops surround the store, and Jack takes Kalil out at gunpoint to escape in his car. When Chloe has the satellite up, Jack releases Kalil on the road and drives off. Chloe calls with Driscoll, who insists on picking up Kalil now that he is monitored. Jack is furious that he will lose the trace to Heller. Jack gets pulled over by the police who want to apprehend him for the store robbery.

After Driscoll confirms that he is working with CTU, Jack is released by the police. He is forced to call the local cops when Kalil is detained for an unrelated incident. Kalil becomes suspicious when he is quickly released, so Jack moves to apprehend him. He is too late. Kalil crashes his own car into a truck instead of leading the feds to Heller. Jack goes to the terrorists’ compound, but Driscoll warns him that the President ordered a strike on the complex which will kill anyone in the vicinity. With both Audrey and Heller’s lives at risk, Jack goes in alone.

Jack single-handedly saves Heller from the compound, and then with help from the Marines, rescues Audrey. He steps aside to let Audrey deal with her husband, who has shown up at CTU. Jack figures out that the terrorists have in their possession a stolen device that could cause a meltdown at any of the country’s nuclear reactors. The broadcast trial with Heller was only an internet distraction so that the terrorists could tap into the reactor plants’ computer systems.

Jack takes Audrey to the security company that has footage of the man Audrey saw at the compound. The place is raided by terrorists, who kill the other CTU agents on site. Jack manages to get the footage downloaded onto memory sticks. Knowing that CTU has been compromised, he calls Tony Almeida for help. Tony arrives just in time to save Jack and Audrey from being killed.

Jack dispatches Heller to flush out the mole in CTU. He reviews the surveillance footage at Tony’s house and has the Defense Department identify the man Audrey that recognized at the compound. Jack goes with Tony to pick up the man, who is trying to flee the city. The man is killed by a sniper before Jack can take him into custody.

Jack finds a cell number on the murdered suspect’s phone that leads him to Dina Araz. Driscoll plays back a traced conversation where Dina and Behrooz discuss her husband trying to kill her son. To get Dina to give him information on the Override, Jack has the President issue a pardon for Behrooz. Dina convinces Behrooz to obey the authorities, but when they go to pick him up they find that Navi has already captured the boy. Jack chases them to a garage, where they escape into the basement.

Jack sneaks into the room where Navi is hiding with Behrooz. As Jack moves in to apprehend them, Behrooz shoots his father dead. Dina provides Jack with an address of a house used by her group, and Jack finds there a bunker with schematics and maps of the plot. CTU learns that Paul Raines is linked to the owners of the house, and Jack asks Audrey to contact her husband. When Audrey agrees to meet Paul alone, Jack races to her. He gets there just in time to prevent Paul from hurting Audrey.

Jack finds out that the name on Paul’s lease is an alias for Marwan, who was also named by Marianne. Jack goes to the building where Curtis took Marianne. He meets up with Curtis, who has escaped from Marwan’s gang. Jack and Curtis go to the office where Marwan is but they can’t identify him among the many workers. Marwan flees and Jack goes after him. Curtis apprehends the Override device, and Edgar is able to thwart the meltdowns. Marwan steals a CTU uniform and tries to escape as an agent.

Jack takes Paul to the company that built the Override device because Marwan was an employee there. Jack’s suspicions about the company are proved correct when he discovers that they have recently purged Marwan’s files. As Paul tries to recover the documents, Jack realizes that the company had been developing a pulse bomb for the military and that they set it off to destroy any internal files and communication. Jack tries to contain the just-detonated EMP bomb but he is too late.

Jack and Paul escape from the company headquarters and hide out in a sporting goods store where they arm themselves with rifles. Jack initiates a firefight with the mercenaries so that they use their radios. This will signal CTU to their location. Jack holds the commandos off long enough for the CTU rescue team to arrive. Paul takes a bullet for Jack, telling him that he owed him for saving his life.

Jack brings Paul back to CTU and he sees how upset Audrey is. When a name from the terrorist watch list is found on the encrypted document, Jack plots for Dina Araz to use that man to lead her to Marwan. Dina pretends that she has taken Jack hostage, but Marwan doesn’t believe her. When Dina can’t shoot Jack, Marwan kills her and takes Jack into custody.

Jack is brought back to Marwan’s hideout and is handcuffed. When a prisoner exchange for Behrooz is set up, Jack tells Marwan that CTU won’t give up the boy if he is significant. Jack manages to short out some phone lines so that they cause a disconnect in service. He is transported to a meeting place where he is traded for Behrooz. Marwan’s plan to kill Jack is foiled by CTU’s sniper, and Jack is rescued by the field agents. Jack lets Tony know that he manipulated the phone lines, and Tony is able to track the phone service to locate Marwan’s hideout.

Jack raids Marwan’s hideout, but the computer hard drives have been destroyed. Jack finds a batch of forged passports and one of them matches Anderson, a former military pilot. Jack goes to Anderson’s apartment where an FBI agent has been sent to investigate. He meets the woman who he thinks is the FBI agent, but it’s really one of Marwan’s associates looking for a hidden backup drive. Jack kills the woman, and finds schematics for a stealth bomber on the hard drive. CTU locates an airborne stealth that has been kidnapped, and Jack radios Anderson to try to convince him not to do what he is planning. Anderson ignores Jack’s pleas and fires at Air Force One. The President’s plane is hit by a missile.

Heller assigns Jack to lead the mission to recover the Nuclear Football. Jack speaks to a man who found the Football in the desert, and he instructs him on how to disarm the transponder that acts as a tracing device. Jack flies by chopper to where the man and his wife are hiding, but Marwan gets there first. Jack secures the latch code from Audrey, and he has the man and woman each take part of the Football and separate. Marwan captures the couple and escapes. Jack is able to save them from being killed, but when he finds the Football some of the pages with warhead codes are missing.

Jack discovers that the Playbook pages Marwan stole correspond to nuclear warheads that are in transit. When a rights lawyer gets a recently apprehended suspect released, Jack knows that Marwan is responsible. After the new President refuses to grant CTU jurisdiction to hold the suspect, Jack abruptly resigns in order to interrogate the man as a private citizen. By use of force, Jack gets the man to reveal a location for where Marwan is supposed to be.

Despite Audrey’s disapproval, Jack knows he needed to torture the suspect in order to get crucial information quickly. Jack goes to the address that the suspect gave up and he confirms that Marwan is inside. Before he and the SWAT team can raid the building, the Secret Service arrives to arrest Jack on the President’s strict orders. Marwan’s men see the Secret Service and flee into a tunnel. Jack is unable to catch them because they were able to set off a bomb that seals the tunnel. Jack is detained and then released when President Logan realizes his pride has cost them Marwan. Knowing that Marwan is long gone, Jack returns to CTU.

Jack learns that a Chinese scientist named Lee helped Marwan with the nuclear warhead. Lee is protected at the Chinese Consulate, who cannot turn him over for questioning. Former President Palmer asks Jack to perform a covert operation to kidnap Lee, which makes Jack personally responsible in order to protect the U.S. government. Jack gets the man out, but Lee is shot in the raid. Jack rushes Lee back to CTU so that a doctor can remove the bullet and save Lee’s life. However, the doctor is already in the middle of an operation on Paul Raines. Audrey is horrified when Jack interrupts her husband’s surgery and forces the doctor to work on Lee. Paul dies, and Audrey blames Jack.

Jack learns that the Chinese Consul was killed in the ambush, and he has his team plant alibis for the night. Jack tells the head of security from the Consulate that neither he nor anyone at CTU was involved. When the man produces a still from the surveillance footage that incriminates one of the CTU agents, Jack insists that it is a forged photo. Jack quickly ushers that CTU agent out of the city on a chopper. Lee gets out of surgery and gives up a possible location for Marwan. Jack goes to that building with a team and raids the premises. He captures Marwan, but discovers that Marwan has already launched a missile with the nuclear warhead. Its destination is unknown.

Jack tries to persuade Marwan to give up more information, but he refuses to break. As the agents attempt to transport Marwan, terrorists fire on them and Marwan escapes. Jack returns to CTU to interrogate Richard Heller, whose number was found on Marwan’s cell. Jack argues with Audrey about torturing her brother, and Jack admits that he was afraid to tell her about his past at CTU. Jack takes Tony with him in the field, and Tony gets captured by Mandy.

Jack learns that Mandy contacted Michelle for help in escaping. He has Michelle pretend that she is cooperating, and Jack hides teams to catch Mandy. When the car explodes with what appears to be Mandy and Tony, Jack thinks something isn’t quite right. He plays back the audio from the call and realizes that Mandy was not outside in the rain but was calling from an apartment. Jack finds a trail of blood that leads him to where Mandy has taken Tony. He apprehends Mandy and saves Tony. With no time to interrogate, Jack immediately offers Mandy a Presidential pardon in return for Marwan’s whereabouts. She agrees to look at the deal.

After Mandy gets her pardon, she tells Jack where Marwan is. Jack goes there and prevents Marwan from leaving. Marwan jumps over the side of the building and Jack grabs his arm. While Jack demands to know the missile’s location, Marwan slices Jack’s hand with a knife. This causes Marwan to fall to his death. Marwan’s damaged digital device is found, and Chloe is able to determine that the missile is headed to Los Angeles. The Air Force shoots the missile down, preventing a nuclear blast. Jack returns to CTU and Audrey breaks up with him. China gets proof that Jack led the raid on the Consulate and they want to convict him. Jack agrees to be turned over until Palmer warns him that a covert White House mission intends to kill Jack to prevent him from exposing national secrets. An agent is sent to kill him, but Jack fakes his own death during a gunfight by using a drug to suppress his cardiac level. Tony and Michelle revive Jack and sneak him out of CTU. They arm him with a phony identity and an untraceable cell. Jack speaks to Palmer, who says that he is now officially considered dead. Jack slips away to lead his life in hiding.

DAY FIVE

Jack is hiding under an assumed name when he is contacted by Chloe, who believes that the attacks on Palmer, Tony and Michelle are related to him. Jack meets Chloe at an abandoned oil refinery, but he was followed by Derek, the teenage son of Jack’s girlfriend Diane. Jack traps the assassin, who confesses that he was hired to take out Palmer. Jack kills the man in fury.

With Chloe’s help, Jack enters the crime scene where Palmer was assassinated. He and Wayne Palmer find a name and address in an encrypted file on the computer. Chloe traces it to a baggage handler at the Ontario Airport. When CTU finds out that Jack is in the building, he slips out with Derek and goes to that airport. Jack hands off Derek to Diane there. The baggage handler takes a poison pill before Jack can obtain any information. While he is there, the terrorists hijack the terminal and tell the hostages that they have demands for the President.

Jack hides in the airport, feeding information to CTU. He promises Diane that he will get Derek out. Yet when Derek is about to be killed, Jack has Chloe help him detonate an explosive on one of the men. This distracts Beresch, the leader, and Derek is saved. Jack confesses to Buchanan that he was responsible for the bomb. Beresch learns that Jack is spying on him from inside and he cuts off Jack’s cell signal. Beresch threatens to kill Derek because the boy has a connection to Jack. Jack is forced to surrender to save him.

When the President does not cancel the summit Beresch makes the captured Jack call CTU to convince them to attack from an entry where the terrorists will trap them. Jack phones his ex-employer but relays a secret duress signal as a warning. He sees Beresch pass a keycard to one of the hostages. CTU is able to capture the terrorists, but Beresch kills himself before Jack can grab him. After the melee, the hostage with the keycard who had been working with the terrorists goes missing. Before Jack can find the man, Curtis has orders to take Jack into custody. Jack hugs Derek and sends him and Diane to CTU.

Jack is brought to CTU where he sees Audrey for the first time. McGill absolves Jack of Palmer’s murder and grants him a low-level security clearance to help with the investigation. He agrees with Jack’s theory that Palmer was killed because he knew about the terrorist plot. When Jack is lured to Tony's bedside, a hit man attacks him but Jack kills the man. Jack gets Spenser to admit that Cummings from the White House hired him to monitor CTU. While CTU can’t go after the Chief of Staff, Jack says that he can do it because he doesn’t work for CTU.

Jack says goodbye to Diane and Derek, telling her that he is still in love with Audrey. With McGill’s approval, Jack goes to a clandestine meeting with Novick but he is arrested by the Secret Service when he arrives. Jack appeals to Agent Pierce, who worked detail on Palmer, for help exposing Cummings for treason. Pierce confirms that the First Lady had the same reservations, and he brings Jack to see the President. Jack makes his accusations against Cummings and threatens to torture him unless Cummings tells him where the nerve gas is. Cummings gives up the information, and Jack has CTU find the container. CTU agents raid the boat, but the nerve gas is gone. The yellow tie man found out that Cummings had been deceiving him. To appease Logan’s political concerns, Jack offers to disappear once the terrorist threat is over.