The House Special Subcommittee's Findings at CTU

by Marc Cerasini

  VASQUEZ: (Quietly) Yes. I asked her. I did ask her, but Jamey said, “Please don’t ask. Just keep it.”

  ALMEIDA: So where did you think all that money came from, Mrs. Vasquez? Three hundred thousand dollars?

  VASQUEZ: I trusted my daughter. I trusted her. And when she said not to ask, to just accept the money in case anything happened to her, I did as she asked. That’s the truth!

  ALMEIDA: All right. I just have a few more questions…. Before she died, Jamey confessed some of the things she did for that money. Think about your answer on this next question, Mrs. Vasquez: Can you tell me why you think your daughter decided to take a bribe and break the law?

  VASQUEZ: (After a pause) Jamey sometimes said how she thought she was being taken advantage of at work. That she was doing more work than anyone else and that she was not being paid nearly enough.

  ALMEIDA: And that was why? She was bitter because her bad marriage left her broke and she felt slighted at work?

  VASQUEZ: Yes … and … (crying)

  ALMEIDA: And what, Erica? What else?

  VASQUEZ: Her father … my husband … (crying)

  ALMEIDA: What about him? Did he need money—was there some kind of debt?

  VASQUEZ: He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—just before Christmas. We were all very upset. He is just at the beginning stages, but we know how bad it will get. We know it will mean long-term nursing care. Big expenses. I think Jamey … I think she was looking for a way to bring more money in … any way to make sure we’d all have whatever we needed. Her father, Kyle, me. I know my daughter, Tony, and she may have agreed to break some laws, as you say, but she never, ever would have done anything if she thought it would cause people harm….

  ALMEIDA: But she did cause people harm, Erica. She helped Ira Gaines murder people. She became a traitor for him.

  VASQUEZ: (Crying) I know … I know … God forgive her … but she paid for it, she paid with her life.

  ALMEIDA: (Long pause) I know, Mrs. Vasquez … and I’m sorry.

  THANKSGIVING RECESS

  1:00 P.M.-2:00 P.M.

  CHAIRMAN FULBRIGHT: Special Agent Bauer. Your wife and daughter were now safe, and you were back in the hands of the CTU. Did you believe the ordeal was over at that time?

  SPECIAL AGENT JACK BAUER: No, sir, I did not, and the moment I learned that a CTU security team was taking Teri and Kim to the clinic at Grace Memorial Hospital, I asked Nina to go with them … to watch over them. After finding out about Jamey, I didn’t know who else to trust.

  FULBRIGHT: What happened with you, after you were taken into custody?

  BAUER: Frankly, sir, I was hung out to dry by my boss and an ambitious woman who wanted to move into my job.

  FULBRIGHT: You’re talking about Regional Director Ryan Chappelle and Acting CTU Director Alberta Green? You believe they were working against you?

  BAUER: I thought Chappelle, at least, would help out a loyal agent. I had turned myself in, made them aware of how my family had been taken hostage. I honestly didn’t expect to be thrown to the wolves.

  REP. PAULINE P. DRISCOLL, (D) CONN.: Don’t be naive, Agent Bauer. Alberta Green was simply doing her job. And Director Chappelle was simply going to turn you over to the FBI, not throw you to the wolves.

  REP. ROY SCHNEIDER, (R) TEX.: Who’s being naive now, Pauline?

  FULBRIGHT: You should know, Agent Bauer, that Ryan Chappelle’s recent statement to this subcommittee is supportive of you.

  BAUER: (Dry laughter) Now he’s supportive, because a month ago David Palmer was elected president, and Chappelle knows Palmer was the one who demanded I be reinstated.

  FROM THE DISK OF

  MARC CERASINI

  SUBJECT: RYAN CHAPPELLE

  Sources close to the CTU provided this reporter with the transcript of a private conversation between Richard Walsh and Jack Bauer, recorded by security cameras at the CTU regional office, Los Angeles, just six weeks before the California primary.

  WALSH:… he really burned me up in there. Thank God Chappelle’s limited his exposure to field operations. As long as he stays nice and cozy in that bureaucratic seat of his, we’ll be okay. But Lord help us if the shit ever hits the fan in this agency. The one thing more important to Chappelle than protecting his ass is selling someone else’s to advance his career. So watch your back, Jack.

  BAUER: Richard, you don’t need to warn me. Every field agent around here knows Chappelle is competent in performing administrative duties but worthless when it comes to doing real intelligence work.

  FULBRIGHT: I get the picture. Go on with how you were treated.

  BAUER: I was isolated in an interrogation room. I was denied access to a phone, my family, my workstation. When Chappelle showed up, he made a big show of wheeling in a tape recorder. Before he let me speak, he turned the machine on—a not-so-subtle hint that my words would be used against me in a court of law, that he and Alberta were already building a case.

  I explained the timeline of events, but Chappelle wasn’t very sympathetic about my family’s kidnapping. When he did refer to it, he was incredibly patronizing. It wasn’t long before he was talking about “protocols” and “procedures”—code for “I’m covering my ass, so I’ve got to nail yours.”

  I argued that I should be reinstated, that I was a resource, the only one who knew about all the pieces of the still unfinished puzzle—Cofell and the money; Belgrade and Kosovo; blowback and some personal vendetta. But Chappelle was adamant—they were going to hand me over to the Justice Department as soon as possible.

  But while Chappelle was planning my prosecution and Alberta was getting comfortable in my office, the Drazens were busy, too. Tony and Milo discovered that three international assassins hired by the Drazens had come into the L.A. area from the Balkans. They uncovered the names of two of them: Mishko Suba and Jovan Myovic.

  BAUER: At about 2:14 P.M., the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to reports of an explosion at a building in the North Valley where the rest of Gaines’s thugs had fled. The structure had been blown up, using Semtex, a Czech-made plastic explosive. Several corpses were discovered inside, burned beyond recognition. Firemen also discovered another body—this one shot at point-blank range. CTU forensics positively identified this corpse as Kevin Carroll. It was fairly clear from the evidence that the Drazen family was tying up loose ends.

  SCHNEIDER: And your family?

  BAUER: At Grace Memorial’s clinic, Teri and Kim were being examined by physicians when Nina raised an alarm. She said she’d confronted a man who claimed he was an FBI agent but was not.

  The thing is, I know now that Nina was dirty. And this may have been just an excuse to get my family to a place where the Drazens could reach them. No one else saw the fake agent, and when a CTU specialist tested the phone the man supposedly used for fingerprints, he found nothing.

  DRISCOLL: Nothing?

  BAUER: The prints had been wiped by a professional. Nina, as we know, is a professional and could have done that herself.

  Whatever the truth, Nina used this revelation as an excuse to move Teri and Kimberly to a safe house at [INFORMATION WITHHELD FOR SECURITY REASONS]. It was one of several safe houses the Agency maintains in suburban Los Angeles County. The house had good security, including alarms monitored by CTU security personnel, motion detectors every ten yards to sense intruders, and a backup security team, disguised as telephone linemen, working outside.

  FULBRIGHT: What happened next at CTU? Your interview with Ryan Chappelle did not go well, is that correct? He refused to reinstate you at that point?

  BAUER: Yes, sir. Chappelle sent Acting Director Alberta Green in to finish debriefing me. Right off the bat, she tried to soften me up with a lot of talk about how “uncomfortable” she felt about conducting such procedures on my turf. She was trying to handle me, of course, and I don’t like to be handled, but—I cooperated, anyway. I told Alberta to convince CIA headquarters at Langley [Virginia] to open up their data files on
the Balkans. I told her about Ted Cofell and the money trail that led to Belgrade. I began to fill her in on what I’d learned in the past twelve hours….

  KIMBERLY BAUER: … then me and my mom were taken to a clinic to be checked out. The doctor who took care of us, Dr. Kent, asked if there was anything more she should know about besides my mother’s stomach pains.

  Mom wasn’t going to tell the doctor the truth, I could tell. But I looked at her like you better tell the doctor or I Will! They had me go into the next room, and that’s when she told the doctor she’d been raped. Mom told me later, at the safe house, that the doctor gave her an exam and tests and everything was okay.

  It was that scum Eh who raped her, the one who beat up Rick when he tried to help us. Sometime between eight and rune in the morning, he came into the room where they were keeping us and pointed at me and said I should get up and come with him to the next room. He said he wouldn’t hurt me.

  Mom saw the look on his face, and so did I. It was sick. We both knew he was going to do something bad.

  I screamed “No,” but he came at me. I fought him off, kicked and scratched. I know I hurt him. He was really angry and pulled out his gun. I got a piece of wood and began to swing. That’s when Mom got between us and calmed him down saying, “Hey, hey … I won’t hurt you.”

  Before I knew what was happening, he took her into the other room and locked the door between us. I couldn’t help her. She let him do that to her so she could (crying) … so she could protect me … (crying).

  When she came back, I hugged her and she told me she was fine. She said, “What happened in the other room just now … there are some things in life that you have to let go of.” She promised that we would escape and that we would be a family again. She said, “We’re going to be with Dad and have our lives. This is not going to be part of that life…. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I did. She never wanted Dad to know she’d been raped. She even told the doctor that my dad should never see her medical file.

  INTERVIEWER: Kim, to set your mind at ease, you should know that the CTU files show that Eli is dead. His body was picked up at the Gaines compound and brought to the CTU morgue.

  KIM BAUER: Of course I know he’s dead! He was the one they sent to shoot us. But my mother shot him first…. I’m glad she did—I’m glad he’s dead.

  PATIENT EXAMINATION FORM

  Examining physician: Rose M. Kent, M.D.

  Patient Name: Mrs. Teri Bauer

  Address: Santa Monica, CA Age: 34 Sex: Female Height: 5′ 9′ Weight: 130 lbs. Next of kin: Jack Bauer Relationship: Husband

  Condition on admission: Stable Blood pressure 36.9C Respiratory rate 20 If female, date of last normal menstrual period: 24 days ago

  Frequency of periods: every 28 days

  Initial diagnostic impressions: Patient reported she was sexually assaulted. Complains of right lower quadrant abdominal pain.

  Initial physical examination comments: Minor bruising in perineum and vaginal regions; rape kit used for exam. Additional bruising on upper arms, minor abrasions on legs.

  Diagnostic studies: Bedside ultrasound revealed remnants of a ruptured follicular cyst on the right ovary. Small amount of free fluid noted in pelvis. Left ovary, uterus, and pelvis appeared otherwise grossly normal.

  Laboratory Tests

  Complete blood cell count normal

  Urinalysis normal

  Electrolytes normal

  HIV test normal*

  RPR [syphilis] negative*

  Gonorrhea, chlamydia test negative*

  Wet prep negative for trichomonas, +sperm found

  HCG [pregnancy] positive*

  * Patient forced to leave clinic before these lab results available to her.

  Additional comments: Patient reported sexual assault occurred approximately 4 hours before this visit. Abdominal pain started shortly thereafter. Best evidence is that this is a ruptured follicular cyst possibly related to the sexual assault.

  Patient under federal protection and left hospital prior to all lab tests being completed. Patient unaware of positive pregnancy test at time she left hospital; however, urine test given to patient to perform at home. Will need to contact patient in the next 24 hours to review lab results and to schedule a follow-up ultrasound. No need to offer postcoital contraception since patient already approximately 4 weeks pregnant. Biological father is husband. According to patient, no other sexual partners at that time.

  Referral made to rape counseling service, however patient at this time refused referral. Patient requests this record be confidential. Does NOT want her husband to know this happened to her.

  Follow-up: Will call patient within 24 hours with test results.—RMK, M.D.

  24-hour follow-up: Patient called, message left on telephone machine to contact Dr. Kent for test results.—GAA, R.N.

  48-hour follow-up: Patient deceased.—GAA, R.N.

  2:00 P.M.-3:00 P.M.

  CHAIRMAN FULBRIGHT: SO, Agent Almeida, you received new intelligence at about 2:00 P.M., is that correct?

  AGENT TONY ALMEIDA: Yes, Milo uncovered the name of the third assassin. Alexis Drazen. Former sniper. Serb Special Forces. He was Victor Drazen’s son and Andre Drazen’s younger brother.

  Alexis flew into LAX [Los Angeles International Airport] on the Saturday before Super Tuesday. He came in from Belgrade after a few days’ stopover in Washington, D.C.

  Days later, we put together his movements in D.C. He had been sleeping with an aide to Senator David Palmer named Elizabeth Wash Wash, along with others on Palmer’s campaign staff, had been in D.C. right before traveling to Los Angeles for the Super Tuesday primary.

  REP. PAULINE P. DRISCOLL, (D) CONN.: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to ask Agent Almeida about several details not covered in the previous hour’s testimony.

  FULBRIGHT: That’s fine.

  DRISCOLL: Agent Almeida, how would you describe the welcome Jack Bauer received when he returned to CTU on the afternoon of Super Tuesday?

  ALMEIDA: I was glad to see him. I think we were all happy his family was safe. But the mood at CTU was tense. We’d had a terrorist bombing of an airliner, an assassination attempt, a lockdown, and a command turnover in a fourteen-hour period. And the presence of Alberta Green and Ryan Chappelle was a distraction.

  FULBRIGHT: What about Green and Chappelle? Be honest, Agent Almeida. Your comments won’t get further than this room, I assure you.

  ALMEIDA: Truthfully, sir, I think they were both looking for a scapegoat, and I think they were eyeing Jack for the part.

  DRISCOLL: They said this to you in so many words?

  ALMEIDA: They got their message across. First Alberta Green asked me if I was happy being in third place at CTU. Then Chappelle insinuated that if I cooperated in the prosecution of Jack Bauer, good things would happen for me, career-wise.

  REP. ROY SCHNEIDER, (R) TEX.: Why were you singled out, Agent Almeida?

  ALMEIDA: To smear Jack, Green and Chappelle needed my help. I was the one who initially called for the lockdown, and Chappelle told me outright that the case against Jack might boil down to my testimony because I was the one who reported Bauer’s erratic behavior—

  SCHNEIDER: Before you knew what was going on?

  ALMEIDA: Before I knew about Jack’s family, about the kidnapping, yes.

  DRISCOLL: We have a statement from Ryan Chappelle, but for the record, what do you recall saying to him?

  ALMEIDA: I told him the truth. I told Chappelle that I didn’t approve of Jack Bauer’s methods, with the way he delegated authority or the way he ran his operations. I also told Chappelle that since midnight that night, I could not disapprove of a single thing Jack Bauer did.

  DRISCOLL: You were loyal to your boss.

  ALMEIDA: I told the truth. And I don’t like to be handled.

  FULBRIGHT: You don’t like to be handled, you say? Interesting … Jack Bauer expressed the same view. Can you give us some insight into that, Agent Almeid
a?

  ALMEIDA: (After a pause) We had a saying in my Marine Corps platoon, sir, “A good officer commands his troops, the other kind of officer handles them.”

  Ryan Chappelle and Alberta Green were handlers.

  SCHNEIDER: I was a marine, too, son. And I’m sorry to point this out to you—but Jack Bauer and yourself were being handled all along … by Nina Myers. It’s fairly clear she was so good at it, you simply hadn’t caught on yet….

  FULBRIGHT: Agent Bauer, about your debriefing with Alberta Green—

  SPECIAL AGENT JACK BAUER: I ended it the moment she informed me that my family had been moved from the clinic to the safe house without my knowledge. I was furious and done cooperating at that point. I was willing to help them hang me, but not if it meant leaving my family vulnerable. And unless I knew what was happening with them, I felt helpless to protect them. So I made the only move left open to me on the board. I blocked Alberta.

  She was angry, but as my wife often said, pissing people off is pretty much my unofficial hobby. It was about then that CTU had a collective heart attack because David Palmer walked right through their front door and demanded to see one person—me.

  DRISCOLL: I’m surprised Ryan Chappelle allowed Senator Palmer access to you.

  BAUER: Chappelle stalled. Then he sent Tony out to delay Palmer some more. I understand Palmer made a phone call to the Pentagon to finally end the charade. Within minutes Chappelle had me ushered into a new interrogation room where I found Palmer waiting for me.

  SCHNEIDER: Palmer thought you were the assassin at that point, correct?

  BAUER: Yes, he did. He thought I wanted revenge for what happened to my men in Kosovo. I was stunned. I had no idea Palmer was associated with that mission. I thought it was Robert Ellis’s operation from start to finish.