Jack goes into a covert operation to find out where Margot Al-Harazi is hiding while we finally discover the infamous mole we all knew was coming…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Well the fateful day you’ve been waiting for as ’24’ fans is finally here and it took us until almost halfway through this abbreviated 12 episode season to happen, but it did — there’s a mole working for the bad guys currently implanted in the CIA.
Shocker, I know, but admittedly I guessed wrong last week when I thought I had the mole pegged so kudos to ’24’ writers for giving me the slip. Before we reveal the mole, let’s get to the other action this week as Jack goes back into the field to try and find the location where Margot Al-Harazi is hiding while accompanied by Kate Morgan for the trip.
The Plan
Following a drone strike on the fake location where Margot totally was not at, President Heller sends for Jack to hear him out on the idea he has to track down the arms dealer who has sold weapons to Al-Harazi’s group in the past and probably has her address as well. Heller approves the mission giving Jack full reign to go covertly into the operation while also handing him Kate Morgan as a partner for the ride.
Navarro quickly gets back to CIA headquarters (they must have some fast cars in London) where Jordan tells the boss a couple of important items — first, Jack has requested Kate go into the field with him while having no surveillance, coms or backup to protect them and two, he’s been doing a data search and he found that in the catacombs of date that Kate’s husband supposedly sold information to the Chinese that there were key pieces of information missing. Now, my first thought was Jordan is the mole (as I thought last week) and he was setting up Kate to take the fall for her husband to get her out of the field and away from helping Jack. It turns out, I judged you all wrong Jordan.
Kate heads out into the field to meet Jack when she learns about his operation.
For the past two years, Jack has been working for the very arms dealer who sells weapons to Margot Al-Harazi, but doing so in a spy capacity to leak information to authorities so he can’t do any real damage. The man’s name is Karl Rask and he’s the key to finding Margot, but Jack left his employ two weeks ago when he heard about this plot to kill the president so he knows just showing up again will either make him look like the informant or just flat out get him killed.
So he plots to shoot up Kate with drugs, rendering her unconscious and offering her up as bait to prove that it was Nills (another member of his crew now dead) that was selling information to the CIA, and Jack discovered his carefully disguised rouse. Putting Kate under would protect her from any torture for now and give Jack enough time to get back into their good graces and hopefully find the location where Margot is hiding.
The Operation
Jack shows up at Rask’s compound with Kate bound in the trunk of his car knocked out from the drugs and that’s when the problems start (don’t they always?). Rask has drugs to revive Kate from her sleepy time, which means she’s about to undergo a rather nasty bit of interrogation.
On top of that, Rask doesn’t believe Jack but he gives him a chance to prove he’s still loyal by handing over the $200,000 in his possession at the time he fled the compound a couple of weeks ago. Jack hands him the passwords for a German bank account where he has the money stashed, but in reality the link is a set up from Chloe that will help her feed a virus into his computer and root out his real bank accounts so she can track the money he’s been paid by Margot Al-Harazi and hopefully find a location for where she’s hiding.
Rask’s men begin torturing poor Kate with a few knife wounds and electrocution before moving onto more horrific forms of interrogation. Jack tries to get this situation moving as quickly as he can before Kate is dead or his buddy Belcheck would have to intervene and act as a sniper to save her life and blow the mission before they got the information they needed. Just as Belcheck was about to take the shot, a garrison of soldiers dressed in black jump in and knock him out as they are about to storm the building.
Why you ask? Stay tuned…
All the President’s Men
No president in the history of ’24’ can keep control of the people around him/her. I’m not sure if this is just dramatic liberty being taken or if we should all be really worried that these scenarios are all versions of real life stories where the commander in chief fell asleep with his finger on the button while his cabinet made all the calls.
While President Heller is authorizing Jack to go back into the field, his chief of staff Mark Boudreau is dealing with the Russians, who believe they are about to get back a very wanted international criminal but he’s no where to be found currently. Remember back in the first couple of episodes when Mark forged the president’s signature to hand Jack over to the Russians so he could keep him away from Audrey? Well now the Russians want their prisoner and Mark obviously can’t deliver.
The Russian minister who calls him looks back at the paperwork and immediately starts to suspect something fishy is going on. In Mother Russia, you don’t sign paperwork. Paperwork signs you and Mark Boudreau you’re about to be in some deep Siberian doo-doo.
Meanwhile, President Heller’s ‘condition’ has been found out by the British government, which prompts the Prime Minister to begin questioning his decision making. With an apparent bout of Alzheimer’s, the President doesn’t seem to have all his faculties about him so the Prime Minister decides to send his own MI-5 team to track Jack and Kate so he can capture Rask and bring him in for questioning to stop Al-Harazi himself. Dammit England!
So there’s your answer for the team about to burst in and blow Jack’s cover at exactly the wrong moment.
Botched!
Sure enough, Austin Powers and the rest of the MI-5 team go in before Rask can access the phony bank code so a shootout ensues. Kate has to go, well she goes all Jack Bauer and escapes her predicament with some fancy leg work and a behind the back stabbing. Thank goodness for strong muscles and a flexible back!
Jack is able to input the code to help Chloe gain access to the account, but before they can take Rask into custody he wrestles away a grenade from one of the MI-5 soldiers and proceeds to blow himself to smithereens.
Thankfully the operation isn’t a total bust because Chloe finds the transactions and a cell phone attached to them. Care to guess who it belongs to? Sure it’s Simone Al-Harazi.
The Sister’s Gotta Go
Back at terrorist camp, Ian tries to question his mother’s decision to trust Simone, which earns him a slap across the face. Oh Ian, if only mother would listen!
Before the terrorists can dispose of Naveed’s dead body, his phone rings and they discover that he had contacted his sister (who lives in London of course) to tell her to pack up her things and get ready to move on a moment’s notice. Mommie Dearest sends Simone out to find her and investigate what she knows or doesn’t know. Knowing too much may be half the battle, but this ain’t GI Joe and in this case if the sister has any information about their plans, she’s gotta go.
Simone tracks her down along with her daughter and finds out that Naveed didn’t tell them a thing, but when she informs mommy, it’s better safe than sorry — the sister and her kid both gotta go.
Simone struggles with the decision to knife her sister in law and niece and instead tells her to pack up and run away right now. Of course the sister argues, which ends with her getting a knife in the belly (by accident) and Simone locks eyes with her daughter who saw this entire thing unfold. She runs like crazy out the door with Simone close behind, giving chase. Before Simone can find her, she catches a bus. Well, technically the bus catches her…right in the face. Simone is down and out, the little girl is safe and Chloe is tracking her phone and sending Jack to retrieve.
Who is the Mole?
So Jordan’s discovery of the missing information in Kate’s husband’s files prompts Navarro to sneak off into the shadows to make a call to a mystery person. It seems he was in on the plot to frame Kate’s husband and now he has to make sure that Jordan doesn’t get the wiser on how it all happened. So Navarro is the mole but who was he talking to on the phone? Their voice was disguised which means one of two things — this is the real big bad behind this whole plot or Navarro is a double agent and he’s reporting back to another good guy.
My vote is on the former because behind every bad guy on ’24’ is an even badder guy.
