Bill quickly knocks down one of Juma’s soldiers, and grabs his weapon. He shoots the gun towards the ceiling, and just as quickly the combination of bullet spark and methane gas cause a terrible explosion and several of Juma’s men go down. Jack is up and fighting, Pierce is already shepherding the President and First Daughter to a safer area, and the FBI and standby Secret Service move in as soon as they saw the explosion, over the feeble protests of the Vice President. In the darkened rooms of the West Wing, Moss’s team dispatches all of the soldiers. Jack has a bead on Juma – warns him not to move, but the arrogant dictator advances – and Jack shoots him dead.
And then it’s one of those moments were you suddenly already know the outcome, just as Jack knows that Bill will be dead when he reaches him. Jack sinks to the floor, as the weight of one more friend’s death squeezes the spirit out of him. Renee sees him in his distress from a distance; while she is busy with the attack clean up. When she gets a chance to see Jack, he tells her what he knows about Juma, that he was not working alone.
Jack implores Renee to follow up the information. And shortly Moss declares that Jack is under arrest. Jack asks Larry Moss to be given the chance to have one more go at Ryan Burnett. Jack states that he does not need to touch the man; he should be able to put enough of a scare into him by just being in the same room as Burnett.
Larry refuses. He promises that he’ll follow up on the co-conspirator theory and takes him away. Renee does not agree, and takes it on herself to approach Ethan Kanin to ask if he’ll intercede and guarantee that interrogation. Ethan sides with Renee, calls Larry, and the interrogation parade begins. But what Jack, Larry, and the FBI TAC team does not know, the parade marshal is way too many steps ahead of them.
Enter Hodges, the man behind the man behind the man. Jon Voight is bringing his own style to the villain role, a resigned sense of practical cold-bloodedness, a man who expects what he expects but will adapt quickly. He’ll be interesting to watch, along with his aid, he-who-must-not-be-named-who-does-not-seem-to-mind-getting-his-hands-dirty.
So the aid-to-Hodges reports that Jack and Co. are on their way to the hospital to see Ryan Burnett. The good news is that a bloke named Quinn is already at the hospital – ready to kill Burnett and “take care of Bauer” at the same time. Hodges is pleased, tenting his hands like Montgomery Burns.
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