24 Declassified: Chaos Theory

24 Declassified: Chaos Theory is the sixth novel in the 24: Declassified series.

A brilliant madman dedicated to anarchy has dark plans from the U.S. In twenty-four hours, America will be plunged into chaos - the result of an unthinkable assassination to be carried out flawlessly - and the government has no inkling of the catastrophe that is about to occur.''

Only one man can prevent the nightmare: disgraced rogue CTU operative Jack Bauer. But Bauer's been cut loose, is wanted for murder, and is running from the police, who have orders to shoot to kill. And there's no one he can turn to for help - because a high-level traitor in CTU wants Jack Bauer dead.

Timeline
Chaos Theory is set before Day 1, and begins and ends at 8:00pm Pacific Standard Time, covering Friday to Saturday. The story takes place after late 2004, as reference is made to the September 9th bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta by Jemaah Islamiyah. Also, a presidential primary (possibly that of Season 1) is said to occur in the coming months, possibly placing the story in late 2007.

Synopsis
''After the 1993 World Trade Center attack, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency established a domestic unit tasked with protecting America from the threat of terrorism. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Counter Terrorist Unit established field offices in several American cities. From its inception, CTU faced hostility and skepticism from other Federal law enforcement agencies. Despite bureaucratic resistance, within a few years CTU had become a major force in the war against terror. After the events of 9/11, a number of early CTU missions were declassified. The following is one of them.''

Prologue
Three Weeks Ago

Gun at the ready, Jack Bauer kicks his way into a backroom game of cards, in pursuit of Adrian Tintfass. Tintfass, formerly a suspect in a CTU investigation, pleads for more time, but Jack advises the other players to forget what they're about to see, and shoots Tintfass in the chest.

8:00pm-9:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "8:00pm-9:00pm"

Three weeks later, Jack is incarcerated for the shooting of Adrian Tintfass, serving time in the Federal Holding Facility in Los Angeles until his trial. After a call of support from new CTU recruit Peter Jiminez, he leaves to shower with the other inmates. In the shower, he comes under attack from three members of MS-13, a dangerous and brutal street gang, but manages to incapacitate each of them. Once back in his cell, Jack talks with his cellmate, Emil Ramirez, who explains why he landed in prison and confides that his associates have something big planned for tonight.

9:00pm-10:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "9:00pm-10:00pm"

CTU Los Angeles holds a threat assessment meeting. Tony Almeida briefs the team on possible terrorist targets, which include the Pacific Rim Forum being held tomorrow. As the meeting is about to end, however, Ryan Chappelle unexpectedly loses consciousness and suffers a cardiac arrest; he is quickly rushed to the UCLA Medical Center.

Meanwhile, Jack Bauer and Emil Ramirez fight off another attack from MS-13 led by Oscar Cisneros, who is taking orders from an unidentified source outside the prison. Jack asks the senior corrections officer if he can speak to guard Adam Cox or the prison warden, but is shocked to hear that both have suddenly been killed or taken out of commission.

10:00pm-11:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "10:00pm-11:00pm"

Peter Jiminez pays a visit to Teri Bauer at her home, hoping to learn something that might help investigators understand why Jack murdered a suspect. She is unable to tell him anything concrete, but advises him to remember that her husband is capable of anything. After leaving, Jiminez is stopped by a pair of FBI agents, Jason Fujimora and Holmquist, who sternly warn him to back off the Bauer case, but refuse to elaborate on their involvement.

Ryan Chappelle is admitted to the hospital, where his doctor prepares to run blood work and other tests. Director of Field Operations Christopher Henderson decides to wait at the medical center for the results.

Meanwhile, a mysterious traveler known as Zapata arrives in Union Station on the Pacific Surfliner from San Diego. That train explodes ten minutes later, while Zapata is en route in a taxi cab toward the Staples Center to meet an associate, Francis Aguillar.

11:00pm-12:00am

 * Full synopsis: "11:00pm-12:00am"

Upon learning that Ryan Chappelle has been hospitalized, Jack Bauer forms a plan to break out of the holding facility by opening all the cell doors and releasing the inmates, starting a prison riot. During the chaos, Jack and Emil Ramirez manage to escape from the facility, escaping into the city.

Zapata and Francis Aguillar go to the maintenance area of the Staples Center to meet Mark Kendall, an aging former MMA champion looking to win back his title in the Professional Reality Fighting Championship tomorrow night. Zapata offers Kendall a proposition: if he kills a certain man after the fight tomorrow, Zapata will pay for his sick daughter's medical care, ensuring that she will live a full life. Kendall angrily orders them to leave, but holds on to the envelope that contains the details of his "assignment."

Meanwhile, Tony Almeida follows up a lead on the Indonesian terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, which intel suggests may be planning an attack on the Southeast Asian trade conference scheduled for tomorrow. Tony visits Riduan Bashir, an importer based in Van Nuys, and discovers that Bashir knows details of a previous JI attack that only an insider could know.

12:00am-1:00am

 * Full synopsis: "12:00am-1:00am"

Tony Almeida follows Riduan Bashir to the Little Java Cafe on Atlantic in West Los Angeles, where he observes Bashir meeting with unknown Indonesian men. Sneaking in disguised as a busboy, Tony takes a teacup from one of the strangers, and returns to CTU. Seth Ludonowski runs the fingerprints and comes up with a match: Encep Sungkar, third in command of Jemaah Islamiyah.

While Deputy Marshal Dan Pascal and George Mason coordinate the manhunt for Jack Bauer at the Federal Holding Facility, Jack and Ramirez hole up in an abandoned thrift store, changing into new clothes and waiting for the police perimeter to pass their location. Jack tries to call CTU to explain his situation, but is forced to hang up when Ramirez comes close to overhearing. He then calls Teri at home and asks her to bring a saddlebag from their garage to a restaurant where they once had an argument.

1:00am-2:00am

 * Full synopsis: "1:00am-2:00am"

At the UCLA Medical Center, an intruder breaks into the lab and switches Ryan Chappelle's blood sample with a fake.

Zapata and Frank Aguillar ride the L.A. Metro away from the Staples Center. While on the train, Zapata points out a middle-aged man speaking to a teenage girl, and tells Aguillar that he plans to rape her. Demonstrating an uncanny, brilliant insight into the patterns of human behavior, he explains how the man is imposing on the girl by creating a false "we" where it does not exist, and how society's rules prevent her from being rude and getting out of a dangerous situation - a perfect example of why the society must be destroyed. Changing his plans, Zapata follows the two of them off the train and brutally assaults the would-be rapist with a stun gun, warning him that they will find him again if he hurts any more women.

2:00am-3:00am

 * Full synopsis: "2:00am-3:00am"

After stealing a car, Jack Bauer and Emil Ramirez arrive at La Strada in West Los Angeles, where they find both Teri's package and Teri herself. The three come under attack from an MS-13 drive-by; Jack manages to kill one of the shooters, but the car speeds away. Now armed with a SigSauer and false identification, he sends a terrified Teri home and tells Ramirez that they need to get in touch with his associates if they want to avoid going back to prison.

At CTU, Jamey Farrell and Seth Ludonowski manage to tap into Encep Sungkar's emails and instant messages, identifying one phrase, "Papa Rashad's factory," as a likely code for the Pacific Rim Forum. During the search, Jamey confronts Tony Almeida with evidence suggesting that Adrian Tintfass' shooting doesn't add up; Tony agrees to send Nina Myers to question Tintfass's widow Marcia.

At the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, Martin Webb, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, awakens from a restless sleep and watches fight reruns on television. Meanwhile, MS-13 gang leader Smiley Lopez, watching the same broadcast in Boyle Heights, gets an angry call from the unknown source, threatening to burn his soldiers on the inside unless he has Jack Bauer killed.

3:00am-4:00am

 * Full synopsis: "3:00am-4:00am"

Nina Myers questions Marcia Tintfass at her home in Chatsworth, and becomes convinced that Marcia is hiding something. She orders Jamey Farrell to place a tap on Tintfass's phone.

Agents at CTU intercept a call between Encep Sungkar and Bacharuddin Wahid, which sheds light on Jemaah Islamiyah's plans: with Bashir Riduan's funds, the group intends to purchase a weapons cache from a local dealer named Arturo Menifee, which in turn they will trade to an unknown party in exchange for a computer virus. A CTU team raids Menifee's warehouse, taking him into custody, and Tony launches a plan to attend the deal himself, posing as Menifee.

Emil Ramirez escorts Jack Bauer to the InterContinental Hotel to meet his boss, a weapons fence named Vanowen. After hearing his story, Vanowen is somewhat convinced of Jack's sincerity, but the meeting is interrupted by the arrival of Mark Kendall - Vanowen is one of his sponsors. While the two men are conversing in another room, Jack sneaks away to contact CTU. He explains to Christopher Henderson that everything he's been doing in the last three weeks was part of a deep-cover operation he was working with Ryan Chappelle. Unwilling to listen, Henderson orders him to turn himself in; Jack eventually hangs up when it becomes clear that Chappelle is still unreachable. However, Seth Ludonowski has traced the call, and Henderson puts in a call to Peter Jiminez.

4:00am-5:00am

 * Full synopsis: "4:00am-5:00am"

Encep Sungkar and his entourage arrive at the warehouse in Inglewood, where Tony Almeida introduces himself as their contact, Arturo Menifee. Secretly, CTU field agents disable Sungkar's truck during the meeting, so that Tony can offer to drive them to the deal himself.

Vanowen comes out of the meeting with Kendall and tells Jack and Ramirez that they have a job to do: his boss has ordered him to oversee the delivery of a piece of software to an interested party in exchange for a weapons cache. He invites Jack along as hired muscle, noting that his skills will come in handy.

Both parties converge at the U-Pack Storage Facility in Playa del Rey, where both Jack and Tony, undercover, are dumbfounded to see the other at the exchange. Unexpectedly, the deal is interrupted by the arrival of Dan Pascal along with the Los Angeles Police Department, who happened to notice Jack on the hotel's cameras while surveilling Vanowen. In the ensuing firefight, Jack is clipped in the arm, but manages to get both Ramirez and an injured Vanowen back into their truck (now loaded with Menifee's weapons) and break through the police barricade.

5:00am-6:00am

 * Full synopsis: "5:00am-6:00am"

Peter Jiminez arrives at the storage facility to assist the clean-up. Tony Almeida shares with him and Deputy Marshal Pascal his theory that Jack has turned traitor, using his government access to profit on the side. Jiminez doubts that he could ever do any such thing.

Jack, with Vanowen and Ramirez, hijacks a car and heads to the Biltmore Hotel to report the outcome of the botched deal to Vanowen's superiors. Jack waits outside a hotel room while the other two men talk with an unknown occupant, but then hears the sound of two gunshots as they are shot in the head. He pursues the assailant into the hotel stairwell, and manages to bring him down. Jack sits down in exhaustion, believing he has accomplished his goal: killing Zapata.

Eventually, Pascal arrives to bring Jack into custody. As they are led out the door, Jack is horrified to realize that the dead man's name is Francis Aguillar - he killed the wrong man, and Zapata is still at large. The real Zapata, surprised to realize how close he came to being captured, chalks the experience up as a lesson and goes for a jog.

6:00am-7:00am

 * Full synopsis: "6:00am-7:00am"

En route back to the holding facility, the marshals' car is unexpectedly rammed by Peter Jiminez while passing through Downtown. Peter handcuffs the marshals inside and tells Jack he needs to get him away from here, but Jack gets the upper hand and incapacitates the other agent, stealing his gun and car.

Nina Myers locates the address in Chatsworth that Marcia Tintfass called, and is surprised to find FBI agents Fujimora and Holmquist guarding the real, very alive Adrian Tintfass. They explain that his shooting death was staged, as part of an undercover operation to get Jack into the prison and close to a person of interest. Nina relays what she has learned back to Tony and Jamey at CTU. They all confront Christopher Henderson, believing he was running the operation, but he angrily denies any knowledge of it.

Jack Bauer heads to the UCLA Medical Center, entering the facility in disguise and proceeding to Ryan Chappelle's room. There, he finds Dr. Czikowlis, and orders her at gunpoint to wake Chappelle up immediately.

7:00am-8:00am

 * Full synopsis: "7:00am-8:00am"

The doctor sets to work, preparing a treatment under her original assumption of a barbiturate overdose, and Chappelle responds almost immediately. Jack notes that whoever poisoned him could have falsified the test results, then leans in to speak to Chappelle. He says that he needs to know the name of Chappelle's resource on Zapata, and Chappelle manages, weakly, to tell him: Talia Gerwehr, with the RAND Corporation.

Mark Kendall wakes up, and gets a call from his wife. She is upset, saying that their daughter's condition is still getting worse, and the doctor says they may need to admit her to the hospital again. Kendall, looking at the envelope from Zapata, promises that he's going to win the match and get them what she needs.

Zapata, waiting outside a Starbucks, gets picked up by an associate, Kyle Risdow. Risdow agrees to let the anarchist stay at his house today, as long as he promises to provide "the kind of chaos I can profit from."

8:00am-9:00am

 * Full synopsis: "8:00am-9:00am"

Nina Myers arrives at the hospital to question Dr. Czikowlis about Jack's visit. She is startled to hear the name Jack asked Chappelle about, Zapata, and departs immediately to return to CTU, leaving a confused Dan Pascal in her wake. Meanwhile, Jack Bauer heads to Talia Gerwehr's home address in Beverly Glen and breaks into her house. Startled at first, Talia quickly realizes who he is.

Almost simultaneously, Jack and the gathered agents at CTU begin to piece together the identity of the man Jack has been trying to locate. Zapata, formerly the brilliant computer scientist Jorge Rafael Marquez, is a Mexican anarchist responsible for numerous attacks and bombings across the world for the last decade. With no specific cause or ideology beyond pure anarchy, he has switched allegiances hundreds of times, contributing to attacks that are calculated to cause the greatest possible destruction in the cause of breaking down societies and governments. Zapata is brilliant, incredibly adept at foreseeing and avoiding patterns, and no government agency - the Russian GRU, Mossad, the CIA - has ever even come close to capturing him.

Jack guesses that Gerwehr was recruited by CTU to apply her area of expertise, chaos theory, to tracking Zapata's activities. She agrees, saying that every chaotic system has some kind of pattern, and so must he. Talia agrees to take Jack to her office to help investigate his last remaining lead: the MS-13 tattoo he found on Francis Aguillar's body. Meanwhile, a sickly Chappelle returns to CTU, demanding that none of the agents attempt to contact Jack in any way.

9:00am-10:00am

 * Full synopsis: "9:00am-10:00am"

10:00am-11:00am

 * Full synopsis: "10:00am-11:00am"

11:00am-12:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "11:00am-12:00pm"

12:00pm-1:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "12:00pm-1:00pm"

1:00pm-2:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "1:00pm-2:00pm"

2:00pm-3:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "2:00pm-3:00pm"

3:00pm-4:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "3:00pm-4:00pm"

4:00pm-5:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "4:00pm-5:00pm"

5:00pm-6:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "5:00pm-6:00pm"

6:00pm-7:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "6:00pm-7:00pm"

7:00pm-8:00pm

 * Full synopsis: "7:00pm-8:00pm"

Memorable quotes

 * Adam Cox: Why were you causing trouble, Bauer?
 * Jack Bauer: Bored. So when those three gang-bangers walked into the shower with all their clothes on for no reason, I jumped them.
 * Adam Cox: They say that shiv's yours. You pulled it outta your ass, huh?
 * Jack Bauer: That's what I do with everything.


 * Oscar Cisneros: You gonna get fucked, blondie.
 * Jack Bauer: Well, you're not gonna be doing it.


 * Teri Bauer: You may or may not know that my marriage with Jack has had some pretty rough patches, and pretty recently. There've been times when we've barely spoken and when we did, it wasn't about his work. There are times when he's gone for days at a time, and he comes home without a single word about where he’s been or what he's done. For all I know, he’s saved the world from a nuclear bomb. Or maybe he's just been in somebody else's bed. I never know. So no, he’s never told me about any trouble at work. But I will tell you one thing I do know. The one thing I do know is that Jack is capable of anything.


 * FBI Agent Jason Fujimora: Bauer's in the zoo where he belongs. Don't disturb the animals too much. Nobody wants to get bitten.


 * Nina Myers: Jack Bauer breaks out of prison. Is anyone surprised?


 * Nina Myers: The thing about Jack Bauer isn't that he's always right. The thing is that he's always eventually right. He just keeps fighting until he gets it right.


 * Dan Pascal: (about Jack Bauer) We got to go catch Captain America.

CTU and Division

 * Tony Almeida
 * Jack Bauer
 * Ryan Chappelle
 * Jamey Farrell
 * Chris Henderson
 * Peter Jiminez
 * Seth Ludonowski
 * George Mason
 * Nina Myers

Other Agencies

 * FBI Agent Jason Fujimora
 * FBI Agent Holmquist
 * FBI Agent Sue Mishler
 * Deputy Marshal Dan Pascal

Zapata and MS-13

 * Francis Aguillar
 * Oscar Cisneros
 * Smiley Lopez
 * Jorge "Zapata" Rafael Marquez
 * Kyle Risdow
 * Vanowen

Ukranians

 * Sergei Detrenko
 * Franko
 * Malenkiy
 * Felix Studhalter

Jemaah Islamiyah

 * Riduan Bashir
 * Encep Sungkar

Fight storyline

 * Chico D'Amato
 * Jake Webb
 * Max Kominsky
 * Mark Kendall

Prison guards and inmates

 * Adam Cox
 * Ferg
 * Lafayette
 * Emil Ramirez

Politics

 * Lou Friedman
 * Frank Nye
 * Darren Spitz
 * Martin Webb

Civilians

 * Arguello
 * Teri Bauer
 * Dr. Kris Czikowlis
 * Talia Gerwehr
 * Marcia Tintfass
 * Maurice Tintfass
 * Megan Wallen