Mark Boudreau

Mark Boudreau was the White House Chief of Staff under James Heller during Day 9, and the second husband of Heller's daughter, Audrey.

Biography
During the three years following Audrey Raines' release from Chinese custody, Boudreau took care of her and later claimed that he was instrumental in helping her regain her mental faculties. The two developed a relationship and were soon married. During his run for, Audrey's father James Heller named Boudreau as his Chief of Staff, a position he retained after Heller was elected.

Two years before Day 9, Al-Qaeda terrorist Mahmoud Al-Harazi was killed in a targeted drone strike on a meeting hall in Ghundi Kala. To ensure that the administration secured funding for the drone program, Boudreau concealed from the President the fact that twenty-three others, including six children, were also killed in the attack.

British summit
Boudreau accompanied his wife and President Heller to London, England, where Heller was due to attend a summit with Alastair Davies regarding the lease on the U.S.'s Diego Garcia drone base in British territory. At 11:00am, Boudreau attended a briefing at the state residence with the President, General Coburn, and Ron Clark about Parliament's position on extending the lease. Coburn reported that the Chinese had dispatched a carrier wing to the Mediterranean for the first time, in their "Friendship Tour," which Boudreau argued was intended to intimidate the British into staying out of their territory. Heller likened the action to Theodore Roosevelt' Goodwill Tour in the early 1900s, but mistakenly said it had been Franklin Roosevelt. After the meeting ended, Boudreau told the President about his mistake, but Heller brushed him off with a laugh and told him not to worry about him.

Minutes later, Clark handed Boudreau a phone call from the local CIA station chief Steve Navarro, reporting that they had just captured Jack Bauer at a factory in central London. Noting the timing of Jack reappearing, Boudreau concluded that Bauer intended to do harm to President Heller, and informed Navarro that he would be drawing up a formal order to transfer Jack to the station's Special Activities division for enhanced interrogation. After hanging up, Boudreau told Clark to keep the news confidential for the time being.

After reviewing Bauer's file, Mark helped his wife Audrey get ready for a reception with the. Audrey asked about her father's slip in the briefing, but Mark assured her it was a common mistake, reminding her that he wasn't supposed to show symptoms for at least another year, and said that Heller was handling the stress better than he was. Clark knocked on the door to inform them that the car was waiting outside. Boudreau and Clark headed downstairs, while Clark informed him that Bauer's transfer had been approved. Boudreau asked Clark to make preparations to have Bauer covertly handed over to the Russian government. Telling him about how Audrey had been after returning from China, he insisted that it was the best option for her well-being, as well as for national security. Clark agreed, just before Audrey and the President arrived to enter their waiting motorcade.

At the Foreign and Commonwealth Office reception, Boudreau and General Coburn called away the President to inform him that an American drone pilot had fired on an allied convoy in Afghanistan, killing two British officers. Afterward, at the residence, Boudreau tried to dissuade Heller from addressing Parliament in session about the incident, arguing they would be furious and unwilling to listen. Heller, intending to hand over Lieutenant Tanner to the British as a sign of goodwill, insisted that he could win over the lawmakers' opinion by speaking from the heart. Finally, Boudreau confessed that he didn't believe the President, in his current condition, was up to the challenge, but Heller was undeterred. In turn, Mark tried to convince Audrey to intervene, but she said that they only had to get her father through the trip. At her insistence, she and Mark held a debate preparation session, with Mark playing the part of the angry MP. Despite Heller's initial success, he soon slipped up, mentioning that there had been three casualties instead of four. Mark shouted at the President, chiding him for forgetting the men's names, and Heller turned to do some more preparations, but not before replying: Lieutenant Wilkins. Audrey, upset at Mark's behavior, left the room as well.

At 1:20, Ron Clark brought Boudreau a drafted executive order to transfer Jack Bauer to Russian custody, and reminded him that the President himself would need to sign the document. As they were talking, Audrey arrived, and Mark dismissed Clark. Audrey criticized him for mistreating her father earlier, but Mark said he was simply being as harsh as the real Parliament would be, and begged her to convince the President to return home and work through back-channels to win the support they needed. Finally, Audrey relented, and left his office. Reviewing the executive order, Mark forged President Heller's signature on the final page. Despite Audrey's intervention, Heller resolved to address Parliament as planned. After arriving at the meeting hall, Mark asked Audrey why he had decided to go through with it after all, and she defended the decision. She told him that Mark needed to stop making decisions for both her and her father. Inside, Mark sat in attendance as Heller began his address, and was quickly shouted down by various MPs in the audience. Despite a shaky start, however, Heller managed to win over the crowd, concluding his address after twenty minutes to warm applause. As the speech ended, Boudreau stepped away to take a call from Steve Navarro, who had unsettling news: Jack Bauer had escaped, and now had taken hostages inside the U.S. Embassy. Furious, Boudreau finally was left with no choice but to tell Audrey and the President about Jack's presence in London. Surprised, Heller refused to take any action until he could speak to Bauer personally, and ordered Mark to make it happen.

Boudreau listened on a conference call as Bauer explained his actions at the embassy: he was uploading data from Lt. Tanner's flight key to prove that the drone had been commandeered using a device that was now in the hands of Margot Al-Harazi. After the call ended, Boudreau flatly denied Bauer's claims, and explained that he had broken Chloe O'Brian, a member of Open Cell, out of CIA custody. The terrorist threat was a ploy, allowing Jack to upload classified information to Open Cell that would endanger American lives. Despite Audrey's insistence that Jack was telling the truth, Heller ultimately ordered the marines at the embassy to raid the communications room and stop the upload. In the hall, Audrey accused Boudreau of twisting the facts to pursue a personal agenda, and warned of the consequences if Jack was proven right.

Drone attacks
Minutes later, Jack's claims were corroborated by CIA agent Kate Morgan, who reported that she had found the override code used to hijack Tanner's drone. Boudreau watched as Heller ordered a drone recall worldwide, just before six of the drones, heavily armed RQ-29 Vanguards, lost contact with their pilots and fell under Al-Harazi's control. Realizing his grave error, Boudreau ordered that Jack be brought to the residence to meet with Heller, and admitted that he had misrepresented the facts due to his own feelings. In private, he apologized to Audrey for his mistake and for letting her father down; she forgave him, saying that Heller needed him now more than ever.

Soon thereafter, Margot posted a video on the CIA interagency server outlining the drone strike that had killed her husband, and her demand that Heller be turned over to her within the next three hours. Heller was furious to realize that Boudreau had hidden the civilian casualties in the attack from him, but he countered that burdening the President with that knowledge would have distracted from his effort to continue the drone program. After Prime Minister Davies arrived, Boudreau and the others watched a live feed of a CIA raid on Margot's suspected hideout. The mansion turned out to be a trap, and Al-Harazi used one of her drones to destroy the building, killing four of the field operatives. With few options, President Heller authorized Jack Bauer to pursue a lead on one of Margot's associates on his own. Boudreau visited him before he left to give him an untraceable cell phone as he had requested. He then asked what Audrey and he had spoken about earlier, and said that was concerned about the effect Jack's return would have on her mental state. Jack assured him that, before long, he would either be dead or imprisoned, and then, lying, said that Audrey had told him Mark was a good man, and kind to her.

While having a personal chat with Audrey, Mark received a call from Anatol, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister in London. After expressing sympathy for the terrorist situation, Anatol asked about the status on the rendition order that Mark had forged. Boudreau replied that the order had been rescinded, but Anatol, reminding him of the severity of Bauer's crimes against Russia, insisted that he could not simply rescind such an order without explanation and demanded to know when the President would get in contact. Finally, Boudreau agreed to meet with the minister later and sort the matter out.

Despite his actions against Jack Bauer, Boudreau ended up working together with him when Heller made the decision to surrender to Margot Al-Harazi in order to prevent further drone attacks. Despite grave doubts, he agreed to help in allowing Heller to sneak away, providing Bauer with the Secret Service protocols for the day and calling a staff meeting to clear the hallways. He was later forced to reveal his actions to Audrey, who at first was greatly upset and stated that she would never trust him again, but seemed to relent once he explained that he hated making the decision, but it was what her father wanted, and he considered him one of the greatest men who ever lived.