They went in and cleared the rooms. In the living room, a body lay on the floor, flies buzzing around it.
Ghost gave it a quick look, then spoke through his mask in a muffled voice. "Dead at least two days. Gunshot."
Steve Owen and the others took one look and backed out, hands over their noses, and hurriedly called it in.
The tipster had clearly been silenced. This was a conspiracy aimed specifically at Jack Bauer and even CTU—meticulously planned.
Confirming that Jack was being targeted on purpose put Owen's team in a foul mood. It meant the odds of Jack getting out clean were even lower. The other side was never going to let him go and probably had more in reserve.
On the way back to Omega, they hit a red at an intersection. Both vehicles stopped, and suddenly a few people with camera gear rushed up, striking interview poses.
Owen crankily lowered the window. The reporters, excited to see them geared up, mistook them for cops. One thrust out a mic. "Sorry to bother you, officer. We're doing some man-on-the-street interviews. What do you have to say about the recent protests against CTU's excessive force?"
Owen hadn't planned to engage, but hearing that sent his blood pressure up.
He waved them in closer. The reporter blinked, then beamed and leaned in. Owen said, "I think they're absolutely right."
Hearing that, the reporter got even more excited. The mic nearly poked Owen in the mouth. "Oh? And why do you think that?"
Owen said, loud and casual, "Because of course. If those damned CTU people hadn't gotten in the way, then the Los Angeles premiere bombing would've killed more socialites; in the Wall Street mass shooting, the gunman wouldn't have been interrupted—he could've taken out even more Wall Street parasites; during the White House terror attack, the President and those damned White House higher-ups would all have been wiped out. America would be a freer, more beautiful country…"
He finished venting and raised the window. If he didn't leave now, he was afraid he'd grab the mic and smash it into their faces. The light turned green. The cars shot off, leaving the reporters standing there, completely baffled.
Owen didn't think much of it, but to his surprise, the next day his remarks blew up. One station aired the clip; more and more rebroadcast it. You could tell they'd first wanted a dissenting voice for contrast, but within half a day people started speaking up for CTU, especially in law enforcement. There are truths the public doesn't have access to that cops know more or less about. They couldn't talk due to gag orders, but they knew what CTU had done.
"Mr. Owen, you did well. Keep it up—the tide of public opinion is shifting…"
Alicia Florrick even called to praise him. Owen gave a wry smile. He hadn't expected that a bit of venting would accidentally produce the hoped-for effect.
There was a downside. Because it was a face-to-face interview, his identity was quickly dug up: former LAPD West Hollywood officer, later at CTU, and—more astonishing—he was the real-world prototype for the movie Die Hard's protagonist, the original "lone hero storming the fortress."
How do you smear that? You don't. Move on to the next. But soon someone dug deeper into the old Nakatomi Plaza incident: Jack Bauer was the CTU commander on that case and had also gone in alone to rescue hostages.
Now the public had fresh tea to sip. Because the Nakatomi heist had been adapted into a movie with CTU's blessing, the case details hadn't been classified.
To the higher-ups, that operation wasn't a "success," since all the \$500 million in bearer bonds was blown to dust—yet in the public's eyes, five hundred million was just numbers; the hostages' safety mattered most.
Sensing the trend, unscrupulous media quickly swung the pendulum the other way. They never care who's right or wrong—just traffic.
With that twist, attitudes toward Jack Bauer suddenly split into two camps. One still believed CTU under Jack's lead was guilty of excessive force. The other saw Jack as a hero—but a human hero with flaws.
Each side held its view and argued nonstop. Many shows spun up debate segments, bringing on two panels to present their takes—and the ratings soared.
Among supporters, some took a novel tack and ran the numbers: in major cities like Washington, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the clearance rate for hostage cases defined as terrorist incidents was nearly more than double that of hostage cases handled by regular police. And everyone in the country knew that once a case was classified as terrorism, it skipped the police entirely and went straight to CTU.
Then a "mysterious insider" leaked that CTU had stopped multiple mass-casualty terror plots, including ones involving nuclear devices and biochemical weapons.
These never-before-heard claims instantly fascinated the media and public. Reporters went to CTU for comment and got the same response across the board: national secrets, no comment.
That sent people into a frenzy. CTU's answer was "national secrets, no comment," not "that never happened." Not denying was admitting. Turns out those Hollywood doomsday plots weren't pure fiction—they were right around us; we just didn't know. Some outlets tried to dig deeper, but quickly got warned off and backed down.
At the same time, conspiracy narratives rose. The reason was simple: the Black guy who delivered the video had died inexplicably at home. That grabbed the gawkers again. Some said he'd just been a tool—someone was targeting CTU and then silenced him. Others claimed CTU killed him in retaliation.
Both theories found audiences, and the arguments turned into a brawl.
…
While the U.S. was in an uproar, at the same time in Moscow, Russia—Sheremetyevo International Airport.
An elevator rose. Inside, five young men were fully kitted out, wearing body armor with M240 machine guns in their hands.
As the elevator neared the departures concourse, they pulled down their balaclavas. Makarov gave his final instruction. "Remember—no Russian."
______
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