Wayne, on the other hand, was still in the retreat with Aaron when he bumped into that snaky Hal Gardener. The veep looked shocked to see Wayne still alive, and when he asked what he was doing at the retreat, Aaron covered and said that Wayne had given him a memento from David Palmer. Likely excuse. For whatever reason, Hal actually bought this load of crap and walked away. Close one, fellas.

Back at CTU, Miles happily sassed Bill, telling him he was no longer in power. This led to confused stares of betrayal as Bill and Chloe could not believe that Audrey had signed those papers. Oh, if they only knew! Meanwhile, Wayne and Evelyn were now in the same SUV, driving to their rendez-vous with Jack. The two shared some words about David, with Evelyn crying, "I have your brother's blood on my hands, and for that, I'll never forgive myself!" And some writer has a cliché's blood on his hands, and for that, he should never forgive himself either.

As for Henderson, he found out that Wayne Palmer had been hangin' around the Presidential retreat and that immediately made him suspicious. "He was there for a reason," Henderson said. "And it wasn't to drop off his resume." Actually, funny story. He was dropping off his resume. There's this really great internship program that they just started and, well, okay, I'm lying.

Elsewhere, Jack called Audrey again to get an update on the satellite maps he needed. Aud tried to help him, but she was distracted by Bill who gave her an unhappy (but not totally accusatory -- he knows something's up!) glance. Chloe, on the other hand, was totally pissed at Audrey, but once she learned that she was needed to help Jack, she dropped her 'tude. The two women headed off to the back server room, a.k.a. the place where people NEVER walk in when there's a bad guy but always snoop around when good people are trying to do good things.

"You bitch."

As the two women got to work opening up sockets and the like, we then found Evelyn and Wayne standing in a dark, deserted barn. This was an ambush waiting to happen if I ever saw one. I was really hoping Wayne would go somewhere and hide. As a 24 character, he was really working on borrowed time. His death could come at any second. Suddenly, the two heard a car pull up, but then... silence. Wayne's spidey sense went off like crazy, and so he grabbed Evelyn and the two hid. And by "hid," I mean, took a few steps to the left and stood behind a partial barrier. Not quite the height of "covert."

Luckily, all this fear was over nothing. It was only Jack wandering in to meet up with his new pals. Once everyone's heart rates came back down to normal, Jack called up Chloe to get schematics on Evelyn's rendez-vous with Henderson. The bad news: there were men everywhere. Ten, specifically. The good news: uh, Jack just saved a bunch of money on his car insurance?

Well, Jack needed backup, and Wayne was just the man... at least, according to Wayne. "I was a Marine, Jack," he said.

"I know that, WAYNE, and you never saw combat," Jack retorted. Oooh! Marine DIS!

Still, Wayne managed to convince Jack to bring him along -- you know, to sate his bloodlust and avenge a certain fratricide. Chances of Wayne dying by the end of the episode: 89%.

Back at the White House West, Hal popped into Logan's office to say whattup and mention that oh by the way, Wayne Palmer dropped by the estate and didn't pay his respects. When Logan just brushed it off by essentially saying, "Whatever," Hal pressed on, saying how surprised he was that Wayne didn't want to meet with him. Such a manipulator, that Hal. Always causing drama.

"Excuse me while I mysteriously lurk in the shadows."

Anyway, time to buckle your seatbelts because the unlikely troika of Jack, Wayne, and Evelyn were approaching Henderson's hideout. Of course, we knew how this would play out. Evelyn would probably die, and then we'd spend the next five episodes hunting down the evidence that she had. Classic 24 scenario. Anyway, at the outskirts of the Henderson meet, Jack and Wayne got out of the car and infiltrated the hideout. This meant the obligatory quick and amusing deaths of several anonymous henchmen. First, Jack shot a guy through the back twice. Of course, he was at point blank range, which meant we got to see the bullets go flying out of the poor sap's chest. Haha, taste the Bauer justice!

Gotcha, jerk!

Wayne then enjoyed his first murder as he gunned down a thug as well. The two guys then snooped around, hurrying to whatever strategic locations they had planned, occasionally checking Jack's extra powerful PDA to find guard locations. It was all very videogame stealth mission.

Eventually, Jack made his way up a tower where he killed a bearded sniper. For this death, Jack eschewed his silencer for the more squish-tastic knife in the throat technique. We appreciated the switch-up. After all, when it comes to 24, we expect nothing less than blood-curdling subtlety. Unfortunately, just at that moment, Henderson paged the sniper on his walkie talkie. Uh oh. That would be a problem, considering the guy was, you know, dead. Thinking quickly, Jack tampered with the device to create disturbance and then told Henderson that everything was just fine. Hmm... will Robocop really be fooled by that? I don't think so.

Posted by B-side on April 4, 2006 7:21 PM