8:00 P.M. – As he is driving towards the airfield, Jack inquires about Kim. Tony says that they have not yet heard from her. Jack asks him to do whatever he can to find her.
Kim limps behind McRae through the forest toward his cabin. He notes her injured ankle and suggests that she be taken to a doctor. When Kim says it is not safe for her to go back to Los Angeles, McRae asks if she is being accused of something she didn’t do.
8:03 P.M. – Palmer enters the holding room in the O.C. where Agent Simmons has been interrogating Roger Stanton. Stanton admits to being part of a group that wants to make Palmer’s defense policy more aggressive. They allowed the bomb to enter the country, and permitted the Second Wave terrorist cel to operate unimpeded. However, Colonel Samuels’ special ops forces have been tracking the bomb so it does not detonate. They were to remove the bomb from play at the last moment. The President orders Stanton to call off the mission and secure the bomb, but Stanton says that the team has not been reachable for the past three hours. They are operating on their own accord at Norton Airfield in Los Angeles.
8:06 P.M. – McRae cooks up some food and offers Kim the use of his shower.
At CTU, Tony asks Michelle to send transport teams to pick up groups of Second Wave terrorists named by Syed Ali. Mason announces that the NSA and the President’s command center in Oregon confirmed that the bomb is at Norton Airfield. He orders all agents sent there, overriding Tony’s directive to pick up other Second Wave members.
8:07 P.M. – As Jack drives with Kate, Mason calls to tell him that Colonel Samuels’ Coral Snake team, a hostile paramilitary unit who shot down Jack’s plane, will prevent him from getting to the bomb. Jack wants to know why the American military is working with terrorists, but Mason assumes that Coral Snake merely want to be the ones who secure the nuclear weapon. However, this group is acting as a rogue unit who can not be contacted. They will treat anyone else as hostile. Jack senses that something is wrong.
8:09 P.M. – At the hangar, Omar gets the plane ready to fly the bomb over the city. Marie spots police cars pull up at the airfield, and she warns Omar that they have been found.
Jack and Kate pull up to the emergency building at Norton Airfield. He asks her again for her help, and has another agent take her to a secure area. Jack is met by Steve Goodrich, an agent heading the assault team on site. Goodrich gives him profiles of the soldiers in Samuels’ Coral Snake unit, as well as the schematics for the airport. Jack then briefs the assault squads about the situation.
8:16 P.M. – Division wants to shut down Mason’s CTU operation because the site is not up to full speed after the bombing and may be compromised. Division wants to run the investigation themselves. Tony tells Mason his frustration with this news.
8:17 P.M. – Kim finishes cleaning up, and McRae serves her food. He asks her again why she is resistant to returning to the city, and Kim divulges to him that there is a terrorist nuclear threat. McRae is surprisingly not shocked by this. He has suspected something would happen soon enough in this country.
8:19 P.M. – Lynne briefs the President about what Jack is facing from the special ops team that Stanton described. Then Novick discovers that Stanton had been working with a Senator from Michigan named Gluck. Palmer suggests that they bring in Sherry because she is close to Gluck and his key staffers. He instructs Novick to give her access to the O.C.’s secure databases. Novick and Lynne trade looks of concern. When Lynne attempts to tell the President about her suspicions, he cuts her off and orders her to do what he asked.
8:21 P.M. – Michelle voices her distress to Tony about Division’s stepping into their investigation, but he says that it is nothing to worry about. She asks about Mason, and Tony tells her that Division will probably pull him from command once they see his deteriorated health.
8:22 P.M. – Agent Goodrich shows Jack a group of footprints left by military-issue combat boots that lead into a fuel depot at the airfield. The marks show that no one has exited the building, which means that the special ops soldiers are still inside. Jack leads the SWAT team to raid the building. Yet inside they find the Coral Snake commandos lying on the ground. Each one has been shot in the forehead. Goodrich asks, “If these guys are dead, who’s tracking the bomb?”
8:28 P.M. – Inside his office, Mason readjusts a bandage on his arm. He is clearly in agony, and puts on his suit jacket to cover the bandage. Meanwhile, Tony and Michelle lead Brad Hammond from Division around the office to show him which databanks have been damaged by the blast. Hammond points out that they have the same data at Division, where they should now be running the operation. He orders them to shift people to his Division offices. Mason hears this, tells Hammond that will only waste time instead of finding the bomb. Hammond comments that he heard Mason wasn’t feeling well. Mason shrugs off this notion and demands that they not shut down. His systems in this office are now exceeding performance levels. Hammond, taken of guard, has no response. Mason walks away, and grabs his arm where the bandage is. Blood is beginning to seep out.
8:30 P.M. – McRae leads Kim down into the basement of his cabin to proudly show her the bomb shelter he has built. Yet when Kim sees the weapons and ammunition he has amassed inside, she becomes alarmed and runs out of the shelter. McRae chases her upstairs to the living room. She tells him that she was a bit claustrophobic and afraid of the guns he has stored. McRae boasts that if there is a nuclear explosion, he will be one of the only people to survive. Kim says that she needs to be with her family at her Aunt Carol’s house. McRae tells her to go if she needs to.
8:33 P.M. – Lynne meets Sherry on her arrival at the O.C., and she hands her access cards to the facility. Sherry asks what made Palmer change his mind to allow her in. Lynne avoids answering, but requests that Sherry not deal with any of the personnel and run everything through her. Sherry is taken aback, and accuses Lynne of positioning herself between Palmer’s inner circle because she doesn’t trust her. Lynne cuts through the niceties, admitting to not liking Sherry and not wanting her to be here. “Well, now we’re communicating,” Sherry says with a slight smile.
8:40 P.M. – McRae packs some supplies for Kim to take with her on her escape. They hear a car pull up to the cabin, and Kim hides. A park ranger comes to the door and asks McRae if he spotted a teenage girl from a car accident. The park ranger explains that the police had arrested her for kidnapping and murder. McRae says that he hasn’t seen her, and the park ranger leaves. Kim comes out of hiding, and McRae asks about the charges. She tells him that she is not guilty. She then says that she is lucky that he found her.
8:43 P.M. – Palmer asks Sherry to find whatever she can about Stanton’s relationship with Senator Gluck. She thanks him for trusting her. Novick comes to the President with news that all six members of the Coral Snake team were found dead, but that Jack Bauer did not uncover the bomb. Palmer goes in to see Stanton. He angrily tells him that the plan backfired. Stanton is astounded, and can’t understand who else would have known about the situation. Yet when Palmer says that six of the commandos were killed, Stanton tells him that there were originally seven soldiers.
8:45 P.M. – Murdoch the tech comes up with a clearer picture of the number on the scrap of paper, narrowing it down to two tail numbers. Michelle discovers from the FAA records that one of those tail numbers is at Norton Airfield. Tony calls Jack with the plane. Its location is hangar MD7.
8:46 P.M. – Inside MD7, Marie wishes Omar good luck and they say their farewells. Omar climbs into a Cessna plane and starts its engine. Marie opens the hangar door and leaves the building. As the plane drives out of the hangar, Jack and the SWAT team see it and follow it along the runway. Jack has the Hummer he is riding in pull up alongside the Cessna, and he shoots at the plane’s wheels. Although the wheel blows out, the plane keeps moving. Jack then fires inside the cockpit and hits Omar. The plane comes to a stop, and the agents raid it. Jack sees the bomb inside the plane and calls for the Nuke Emergency team.
8:52 P.M. – At CTU, Hammond hears Mason cough. He tells him to get it checked out. Mason brushes this comment aside.
8:53 P.M. – Inside the airplane, the bomb specialist finds a modification on the bomb and is unsure if he can diffuse it. Jack prepares to put the bomb onto another plane to take it outside Los Angeles. Then the N.E.S.T. tech realizes that what he is looking at is not a bomb but a fake one rigged to look real. The plutonium residue on the device means that there was recently a nuclear bomb in place that is no longer there. Jack notifies the other SWAT teams that they only have a decoy.
8:55 P.M. – As Kim prepares to leave, McRae checks the police scanner. He panics because all of the Los Angeles radio stations have gone static, and a station outside of the county reports a flash in the sky. Kim looks out the window and doesn’t see anything. McRae gives her his headphones to prove that all the stations are dead. Kim begins to hyperventilate and starts for the door because she wants to go to her father. McRae pulls her back, saying that they have to go to the bomb shelter. Shell shocked, she lets him lead her down into the basement and McRae locks them inside. Kim does not know that all is normal in Los Angeles. The bomb did not go off.
Michelle gets word that Jack did not find the bomb, and she passes this on to Mason and Tony.
8:59 P.M. – Palmer goes in to see Stanton again, saying that there was no bomb at the airport. He gives Stanton one more chance to come clean. Stanton tells the President to ask Sherry. “She’s the one you want to talk to,” Stanton says.