White House siege

On the evening of Day 7, General Benjamin Juma and his presidential guard launched an armed takeover of the White House. The attackers got in through a subterranean access and took over fifty people hostage (including President Allison Taylor). After an hour-long standoff, HRT—with the help of Bill Buchanan, Jack Bauer, and Aaron Pierce—successfully retook the building and secured the remaining hostages. At least fourteen people (excluding the attackers themselves) were killed in the siege.

Motive
Following his successful coup d'etat in Sangala, General Juma began an ethnic cleansing campaign which claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000 people. This was met with international condemnation, and the United States was preparing to invade Sangala and depose him. In an attempt to preempt this, Juma had his lieutenant, Colonel Iké Dubaku, carry out numerous attacks on American civilians to coerce President Taylor into calling off the invasion. Dubaku failed, however, and the invasion commenced shortly after. The Americans were met with little resistance, and many of Juma's forces began fleeing the capital. With the collapse of his regime imminent, Juma planned to launch an attack on the White House as revenge.

Planning
The initial plan was for a twelve-man team of commandos to infiltrate the White House through an underground maintenance tunnel. Once inside, the attackers would fight their way to the Oval Office and secure the president. She would then be forced to read a live statement acknowledging her "crimes" against Sangala, and then be executed.



Starkwood CEO Jonas Hodges (who was responsible for supplying Juma's coup in Sangala) was heavily involved in the planning for the attack, supplying Juma and his men with intel on the White House. Senator Blaine Mayer's chief of staff, Ryan Burnett, was also involved in the planning and was scheduled to meet with Juma at 9:30pm. Juma also planted one of his men, Abo, in the White House staff as a utility worker. His job was to create an opening between the maintenance tunnel and the White House basement, through which the attackers would enter.

Preparation
Some time before 6:04pm, Juma and his presidential guard arrived in D.C. and set up a staging area in a warehouse at 44543 Lambourne Marina. When he learned that Colonel Dubaku had been captured by the FBI, Juma sent one of his men, Udo, to the hospital where he was being treated to assassinate him. He—posing as an orderly—injected Dubaku with a toxic substance while one of the nurses was distracted by a phone call. With Dubaku's death imminent, Udo fled the scene and headed back to the staging area. Unbeknownst to him, he was being shadowed by FBI agent Renee Walker.

At some point before 5:56pm, Tony Almeida received intel from Vincent Cardiff about an imminent terrorist attack. Although he could not specify an exact target, he knew that Ryan Burnett was involved in the planning. Tony met up with and relayed this information to Jack Bauer. Jack decided to interrogate Burnett—now at the White House—himself. Using a taser, he tortured Burnett for the intended target of the attack. However, Jack's interrogation was cut short when soldiers—under President Taylor's orders—stormed the room and placed Bauer under arrest.

Zero hour


With everything in place, Juma and his men headed out at 6:48pm. They boarded a boat and sailed down the Potomac River until they were approximately 100 meters from their target. While Laurent Dubaku stayed behind to provide reconnaissance, the rest of them donned scuba gear and plunged into the water. Renee, who had managed to sneak onto the boat, used this as an opportunity to look at their attack plans, eventually discovering their target was the White House. She was soon spotted by Dubaku; she then dove into the river and swam to shore with him in pursuit. Meanwhile, the commandos reached their designated point of entry: a maintenance tunnel beneath the White House.

Breaching security
Using a jackhammer, one of the commandos drilled a hole into the rocks, creating an opening which allowed them to enter the tunnel. At 7:08pm, they reached the conduit which connected to the White House basement. Juma contacted his man inside the basement, Abo. After killing a co-worker of his, Abo pushed aside a storage cabinet, exposing a weakened wall behind. After Cimbe used a blowtorch to remove a security grate, Ngozi temporarily shut off the proximity alarms, allowing the commandos to pass through the conduit and gain access the White House. Once inside, Ngozi accessed the Secret Service tracking grid, pinpointing the president's current location: the Oval Office.



The commandos made it up to the ground floor and dispatched two secret Service agents. Juma stated that the next Secret Service roll call was in nine minutes, which is how long they had to maintain their covert edge. They continued to make their way to the Oval Office, killing several White House staffers and Secret Service agents along the way. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent in Charge Larry Moss—now in contact with Renee—alerted Bill Buchanan that the White House was under attack. Buchanan initiated a lockdown, and he, Jack Bauer, and two other Secret Service agents prepared to escort the president to a panic room near the Roosevelt Room. However, Jack realized the attackers were using the president's tracker to track her movements. Buchanan grabbed the tracker and attempted to draw the commandos away from the others while they made their way to the lockdown. Juma and his men cornered Buchanan but quickly realized he was only part of a diversion. Knowing that he has now lost his covert edge, Juma ordered his men to begin taking hostages, starting with Buchanan.

Takeover and hostage-taking


A team of Service agents—led by Ted Hovis—attempted to retake the building but ran into resistance in one of the ground floor corridors. Meanwhile Jack Bauer successfully sealed President Taylor and himself away in the lockdown, just as Juma and several other commandos arrived outside of it. Juma then had one of his men jam Secret Service's communications. With Secret Service reinforcements arriving, it was turning into a losing fight for the commandos. Juma radioed Ted Hovis, bluffing that he had the president; he threated to kill her unless Secret Service retreated from the building immediately. Feeling he had no choice, Hovis ordered his men to pull back. By 7:33pm, the commandos had taken over fifty people hostage and brought them all to the hallway outside of the lockdown.

Escalation
Ngozi, using codes provided to him by Jonas Hodges, attempted to open the lockdown doors, but Jack managed to short them out from the inside before he could do so. Juma, needing a way to open the doors, placed a call to Hodges, who informed him that President Taylor's daughter, Olivia, was still in the White House. She was being escorted out of the building by Aaron Pierce, a former Secret Service agent. However, the two were soon captured by Juma's men and were taken to where the other hostages were being held. Using a fiber optic camera embedded in a chandelier (the feed of which was mirrored inside the lockdown), Juma made contact with President Taylor; he threatened to force her to watch him butcher her daughter unless she opened the lockdown doors immediately. As per the president's orders, Jack Bauer reluctantly did so.



Juma then commanded her to read a statement—which would be streamed over the internet—in which she would acknowledge her "crimes" against Sangala. Taylor said that she would, but only if he were to release the hostages. Juma said he would "release" one hostage, only to proceed to execute one of them; he threatened he would do the same to every other hostage, starting with her daughter. Taylor then agreed to read the statement.

Resolution
While inside the lockdown, Jack released five canisters of CH4; once ignited, the gas would create a big enough explosion to take out most of the commandos. Jack, now among the hostages, shared his plan with Buchanan. But he, who overheard Juma communicating with someone on the outside, insisted that there were others at large and that Jack was the only one who could stop them. Buchanan then proceeded to get up, seize the gun of one of the commandos, and fire it in the lockdown; this sparked a massive explosion, killing him instantly.



The ensuing explosion took out most of the commandos, and it was witnessed by the Hostage Rescue Team stationed outside. Against the orders of Vice President Mitchell Hayworth, Larry Moss ordered them to initiate their rescue plan. The HRT agents stormed the building, killing several hostiles in the process. Grabbing the weapons off a dead commando, Jack fended off the remaining hostiles while Aaron Pierce escorted the president and her daughter to safety. Juma ordered Ngozi to kill the hostages, but Jack neutralized him before he could do so. He then cornered Juma, commanding him to surrender; the Sangalan general reached for his gun, and Jack proceeded to shoot him five times, killing him. By 8:11pm, the siege at the White House was over.

Attack fatalities
The following people were killed during the course of the siege.

Aftermath


At least fourteen people were killed in the attack. HRT set up a triage unit in the East Wing to treat those who were wounded. They also wanted to move President Taylor to Andrews Air Force Base, but she refused, saying that the American people needed the reassurance of knowing that their president was still in the White House. It was not until 8:21pm until the lights in the building were brought back on.

President Taylor spoke with the families of those killed in the attack personally. She said that they "lost some good people" and decided to bring her daughter, Olivia, (with whom she was previously distant) into her administration as a special advisor.

Acting on the information given to him by Bill Buchanan, Jack Bauer requested that he be allowed to continue his interrogation of Ryan Burnett, but his request was denied by Larry Moss. Renee Walker, however, convinced White House Chief of Staff Ethan Kanin to sign off on the interrogation instead.