24 Declassified: Chaos Theory/2:00am-3:00am

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 A.M. AND 3 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME.

2:00am PST

UCLA Medical Center

Christopher Henderson follows Dr. Kris Czikowlis into Ryan Chappelle's hospital room, listening as the doctor updates him on her patient's status. Czikowlis is mystified; his blood work came back completely clean, ruling out a barbiturate overdose as she had originally suspected. Henderson urges her to keep at it, and informs her that he'll be posting a security guard outside the room; a fugitive recently escaped and made a call asking about Chappelle.

2:07am PST

West Los Angeles

Jack and Teri had once had a big argument over Jack's work schedule at La Strada, an Italian restaurant on San Vicente Boulevard.

Now, Jack and Emil Ramirez exit the stolen Maxima and walk the half block to the abandoned restaurant, which is built into the lower floor of a high-rise office building. Studying the restaurant's apse, Jack locates a withered potted tree and quickly crosses the street. In the tree's base, he finds the navy blue pouch that he asked Teri to leave; inside are a spare SigSauer, three magazines, a full box of ammunition, and new identification. Jack slams a magazine into place, just as a hand lands on his shoulder.

2:20am PST

Los Angeles

Dan Pascal gets in his government-issued Crown Victoria, just as his cell phone rings with a call from LAPD Sergeant Mike Santomiere. Santomiere informs the marshal that a car was reported stolen from DeLeone Avenue, a long sprint from the Federal Holding Facility. Pascal listens as the sergeant gives him the make, model, and license plate number.

2:21am PST

West Los Angeles

Jack spins around and gets his assailant in a choke hold, realizing after a moment that it's Teri. Still amped, Jack lets her go, while Teri recovers, shocked by a brief glimpse of her husband's face. She explains that she stayed to see if she could help, and was just about to leave. Ramirez crosses the street and asks Jack what's going on; Jack explains that Teri is a friend. Suddenly, a Chrysler 300C pulls up in front of the restaurant, and the occupants begin firing at the three of them in a drive-by. Jack throws Teri and Ramirez to the ground, shielding them and returning fire with the Sig. He hits one of the attackers, and the car eventually speeds away.

Jack gets a terrified Teri to her feet and tells her to return home - if the phone rang or anyone knocked, she was asleep and didn't hear it - then grabs Ramirez and drags him back across the street. He guesses that the hit was another MS-13 attack, but has no idea why they're after him or how they managed to locate him. Two blocks away from the restaurant, he and Ramirez hide from two squad cars rushing toward the scene of the drive-by. Jack says that they need cover, but can't go to a hotel since neither of them has ID. Ramirez agrees to take them to the people he knows.

2:39am PST

CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

With Henderson's permission, Tony had assigned two field agents to place wiretaps on Riduan Bashir and Encep Sungkar's phones, and Seth had gained access to Sungkar's emails and instant messages. Sungkar has just received an obscure message referencing a visit to "Papa Rashad's factory," which Tony believes is a code.

Tony calls Jamey Farrell and impatiently asks her to speed up the decryption process, but Jamey replies that she's been doing some digging on the man Jack killed, Adrian Tintfass. It turns out that he was never a major player in any illegal activity until the alleged contact with Hassan that got him killed. She suggests that Jack killing Tintfass might withstand scrutiny for someone only familiar with Jack's service record, but it doesn't fit with the man they know. Tony agrees to send Nina Myers to question Tintfass's widow, just as Seth finishes a cryptographic analysis on "Papa Rashad's factory." The phrase is an encryption for the initals PRF, also shared with the Pacific Rim Forum.

2:44am PST

Boyle Heights, Los Angeles

After sex, Smiley Lopez lights up a joint and surfs the channels on television - nothing on HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime, but he finally settles on fight reruns on ESPN. His cell phone rings, and an angry voice demands to know what's going on; his soldiers just screwed up their assignment for the third time. The stranger demands that they finish the job or else he will make sure Lopez's men on the inside burn, then hangs up.

2:53am PST

Century Plaza Hotel, Century City, California

Martin Webb, the 73-year-old Chairman of the Federal Reserve, stirs from a restless sleep, and calls the hotel's room service for a glass of warm milk. He recalls visits to his father's house in Silver Springs, and how his own father would also rise late at night and have long talks with him. Now Martin was the old man, and the one who came down for talks with his son Max or his grandson Jake.

Webb had good reason to lose sleep: the economy was spiraling downward, about the plunge, and none of the tools he employed to fix it - interest rates, hedging bets, bullying the administration into fiscal restraint - were working. Consumer spending had dipped, unemployment and inflation were up, and consumer confidence and the housing bubble were all that stood in the way of an unprecedented economic crisis. In the eyes of many, Webb was the third safeguard against that crisis - he had become something of a miracle worker in his twenty-seven years as Chairman, and always managed to pull the markets up by their bootstraps.

Room service arrives with the milk, and Webb sits down in front of the television to watch it. He flips through channels, eventually settling on a sports channel playing fight reruns in preparation for the match tomorrow night, and drinks.