Jack Bauer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
out_of_time) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
capeandcowllogs2012-01-02 12:20 pm
out_of_time) wrote in capeandcowllogs2012-01-02 12:20 pm
You’re a muck, that’s why I had to cut you down
WHO: Jack Bauer and OPEN
WHERE: Throughout the City
WHEN: The following takes place between January 3rd and January 10th. Events occur in real time.
WARNINGS: Violence
SUMMARY: Captain Bauer is fed up with having to do administrative stuff for the cops and goes to get back to his roots: running around, yelling at people, and fighting bad guys.
FORMAT: Whatever works. Comment on this post if you want to plan something out!
Jack was frustrated and restless. Paperwork lay on his desk like a tablecloth. He was by both training and inclination a field agent. He belonged out there, chasing down leads and suspects. However, he was also the force’s head Import officer, which meant he had to deal with the bureaucratic fallout of incidents like Khisanth escaping. Proposals and recriminations were flying around behind the scenes, and without the Red Queen to put a cool, professional, somewhat unsettling face on the super-jail, Jack had to handle them: the AI she had left behind was very efficient, but it couldn’t do memos. Two-Face’s escape had its own consequences, but at least NoHOPE wasn’t under police jurisdiction like the jail was.
This was on top of a police station being attacked by a dragon in November and Calendar Man ruining both Christmas and New Year’s, to say nothing of the Joker robbing a museum, trying to destroy the Porter, and not even staying in this universe to be imprisoned afterward. With all the new things happening, old work got pushed to the side, and so Jack still had to give an opinion on new riot control procedures stemming from the Thanksgiving debacle. He would have to testify at Roomba Man’s trial soon as well.
And Laurie and Yusuke were gone too, back home with her mother and his fiancée, a bittersweet thought that brought its own personnel paperwork with it. The fact that he might never yell at Yusuke about something or know that he had his back in a fight put a pain in his heart. He pushed that pain deep down, nestling it inside him next to all the other feelings that had been gnawing him for what would soon be two years, next to missed friends and family and people he hadn’t been able to save.
It all added up to Jack having to do more work that he didn’t consider work. He had never had to deal with this in the less regulated environment of CTU, and it grated on him. While he was bogged down in administration, Jack was all too aware that things were happening even beyond the high-profile Import crises that ate up the public’s attention. The Dolvanian mob group Zero’s Children had expanded its operations in the City, and was now involved in several nasty rackets. Yet most of Jack’s information on them had been acquired illegally, courtesy of James Bond. He couldn’t act on it, especially while he was doing this office crap.
Jack put down his pen. He stared at his desk for a moment, at another cost justification for the plasma gun Ted Kord had made for him. Then he looked at the force’s open case file.
“Screw it.”
Jack grabbed his jacket and headed out. He would spend most of the next week outside of the station, getting some real work done.
WHERE: Throughout the City
WHEN: The following takes place between January 3rd and January 10th. Events occur in real time.
WARNINGS: Violence
SUMMARY: Captain Bauer is fed up with having to do administrative stuff for the cops and goes to get back to his roots: running around, yelling at people, and fighting bad guys.
FORMAT: Whatever works. Comment on this post if you want to plan something out!
Jack was frustrated and restless. Paperwork lay on his desk like a tablecloth. He was by both training and inclination a field agent. He belonged out there, chasing down leads and suspects. However, he was also the force’s head Import officer, which meant he had to deal with the bureaucratic fallout of incidents like Khisanth escaping. Proposals and recriminations were flying around behind the scenes, and without the Red Queen to put a cool, professional, somewhat unsettling face on the super-jail, Jack had to handle them: the AI she had left behind was very efficient, but it couldn’t do memos. Two-Face’s escape had its own consequences, but at least NoHOPE wasn’t under police jurisdiction like the jail was.
This was on top of a police station being attacked by a dragon in November and Calendar Man ruining both Christmas and New Year’s, to say nothing of the Joker robbing a museum, trying to destroy the Porter, and not even staying in this universe to be imprisoned afterward. With all the new things happening, old work got pushed to the side, and so Jack still had to give an opinion on new riot control procedures stemming from the Thanksgiving debacle. He would have to testify at Roomba Man’s trial soon as well.
And Laurie and Yusuke were gone too, back home with her mother and his fiancée, a bittersweet thought that brought its own personnel paperwork with it. The fact that he might never yell at Yusuke about something or know that he had his back in a fight put a pain in his heart. He pushed that pain deep down, nestling it inside him next to all the other feelings that had been gnawing him for what would soon be two years, next to missed friends and family and people he hadn’t been able to save.
It all added up to Jack having to do more work that he didn’t consider work. He had never had to deal with this in the less regulated environment of CTU, and it grated on him. While he was bogged down in administration, Jack was all too aware that things were happening even beyond the high-profile Import crises that ate up the public’s attention. The Dolvanian mob group Zero’s Children had expanded its operations in the City, and was now involved in several nasty rackets. Yet most of Jack’s information on them had been acquired illegally, courtesy of James Bond. He couldn’t act on it, especially while he was doing this office crap.
Jack put down his pen. He stared at his desk for a moment, at another cost justification for the plasma gun Ted Kord had made for him. Then he looked at the force’s open case file.
“Screw it.”
Jack grabbed his jacket and headed out. He would spend most of the next week outside of the station, getting some real work done.
no subject
Besides, part of him loved the looks and the awe when a six-eight space marine raptor came down the road.
"Bauer," he says, voice kept low. "What do we have?"
no subject
"We've already ID'd a vantage point that will give you a full view of the room. You'll have a clear shot if we can't talk him down." The standoff had now been going on for over half an hour. Jack had no intention of letting it get dragged out into a siege.
no subject
Not that simple wasn't bad. It was pretty rare to be given such a straight forward assignment. He glanced through the files, getting what he needed.
"Just tell me where you need me."
no subject
He held up a small screen. "We'll need you to be our eyes in the room. We don't know what's happening in there yet. Can you feed the footage from your scope to this?"
no subject
"I'll be up there in two shakes," he said, and headed off as directed.
Once he got up there he settled into a nice little nest. Cleared look, barely anything to advertise his presence. Just the way he liked it. He sat-- relaxed, went through his mantra. Been a while since he'd had a job like this. There was something satisfying about simply the ritual of setting up.
Took him back, man. Took him way back.
no subject
He saw Neri from the back, facing the door, a heavyset middle-aged Italian man with just a few touches of grey starting to show in his short brown hair. The subject was facing the hotel room door, back to the window. Jack couldn't get a good view of the smaller, younger hostage past Neri's body, but it looked like the hitman had one arm tight around the guy's neck and the other pressing a pistol firmly against his head.
Furniture in the room had been overturned. An open suitcase was on the bed, articles strewn around. Neri looked agitated, constantly shifting back and forth, looking at the phone, then at the door, sometimes behind him at the window.
"All right, we're about to try to establish a communication with him," Jack said. "Garrus, what's your take on this?" Even though he was seeing what Garrus was seeing, he was seeing it in the van and Jack knew there was no substitute for being there.
no subject
He paused, mandibles fluttering as he inhaled, exhaled.
"He's a hitman," he said, reminding himself of what he read. "He can't be stupid enough to keep the back of his head -- giving me an easy clear shot-- to the window. Something's wrong."
no subject
In the hotel room, the phone rang. Neri shoved his hostage away to free an arm for picking it up, but kept the gun pointed at him as the man sank to the floor trembling. The hitman carried the phone away from the bed and stood in full view of the window as he talked, gesturing frantically, screwing up his face. The conversation lasted for about a minute before the hostage taker hung up. Then he dragged the hostage back up and away from the window view.
Jack called Garrus immediately. "He says he doesn't want to hurt anyone and is willing to negotiate," he growled. "He also says he wants a helicopter, a million dollars, and a new Pope. He's playing games."
no subject
Mandibles fluttered again, this time in irritation.
"Room didn't get that way in the struggle with the hostage, did it? Someone got there before him," Garrus said, looking at the emptied suit case, overturned furniture. "Emptied the suitcase, went through all those drawers..." He pauses. "He's performing. This is an act. He knows I'm here. Put himself right in my scope when you called. I think he's more afraid of somebody else then he is of us."
no subject
He thought about what Garrus said, turned over the pieces in his mind. The professional acting like a cartoon loon, making sure he was in full view of where he was likely to be watched. Neri was trying to walk a fine line between convincing the police not to shoot him but acting unstable enough that they'd take his threats seriously.
"I think you're on to something," Jack said. "If we can convince him that we can protect him, we can end this peacefully. Can you zoom in on the case? Maybe we can see if something's missing." If the room was ransacked before the standoff started, then the hostile's goal was probably to buy time to deal with whatever was found or taken.
no subject
"We've got a brown file -- looks like one of those old accounting ones the boys in acquisitions use when they're tallying up the ammo." He paused, and then says, "Must be really traditionalist if they're still using paper data. I mean, you're all digital age now."
Says the FUTURE COP who still wonders at the fact he can fit the entire criminal database on his omnitool. You guys are way behind the data times.
no subject
A few minutes later, Carlo got another call. The police wanted to send someone unarmed into the room to verify that the hostage was all right. On the screen, Jack could see him tense to tell them no- they could view the hostage through the window, couldn't they? But then he saw the hitman forcing himself to relax, because of course he couldn't let them know that he knew they were watching.
Now that Jack had a better idea of what Neri's game was, it was getting easier to get inside his head. Jack could guess at how he was calculating: the risk of letting someone inside against the value of showing the cops that he could be compassionate and worth not shooting. Neri went on a half-hearted rant to keep up his image, but they got their assent and Jack got back on the radio with Garrus.
"Okay, I'm going to go in unarmed. Hopefully I'll get a look at the file while dealing with the hostage. You'll need to cover me the whole time in case he gets jumpy." Jack was able to disarm a gunman with his bare hands, but the prospect of going in there was a lot more comfortable with a sniper in the picture.
no subject
If he wanted that man dead, he'd be dead.
no subject
In the van, Jack was swiftly changing out of his tactical gear and into something less threatening, tight-fitting clothes with no room to hide weapons in. Neri was going to be careful, and he was not in the mood to be strip-searched by this guy. Then he got a first aid kit and got moving.
"Heading in now."
He knocked on the door, and it opened immediately. Jack was face-to-face with a desperate armed assassin. He kept his face neutral and showed his hands. Neri gave him a perfunctory but effective frisking. Then he made him put down the kit, open it, and check everything inside, both of them standing in window-view the whole time. All possible weapons had already been removed, and the hitman made sure of there being no secret panels.
It wasn't a weapon Jack was smuggling into the room, though. The penlight for examining a patient's pupil responses concealed a small camera. He intended to use it for getting shots of that file, and the briefcase. But Neri had moved the hostage away from the bed, the briefcase, and the window. Once he was satisfied with the kit, he jerked his head towards the bathroom. Jack could hear frightened panting within.
Neri led the way, slowly backing toward the bathroom and out of window-view. Jack followed at a safe distance, aware of the briefcase at his back.
Then, once he was sure he was far enough away from the window, the hitman raised his pistol and pointed it at Jack. Bauer stopped dead.
"What the hell is this?"
"Change of plans." Neri's face was flat. He wasn't even bothering with the loon act anymore. "I want your shooter out there gone, he's unsettling me. Don't bother denying it. I know he's there. You're my new leverage." Standing in that window knowing there was a scope on him had sparked a sudden shift in Neri's priorities: away from convincing the police he was compassionate and toward securing his position.
"Don't do this, Carlo."
"You don't call me by my name, you call me 'sir.' Now get in the closet by the bed and get comfortable. I'll let your people know what's happening."
Jack began backing away. Carlo took a step forward, just enough that his gun hand could be seen in the window, pointing toward Jack.
"Well, shoot," Jack said, and touched his brow.
no subject
But when he sees that hand go up -- the guns in another pair, he feels a brief moment of satisfaction as he angles himself and the rifle.
"Think you're a hot shot?" he hisses, voice low before a single squeeze of the trigger gives him only a sense of recoil. "Not anymore, asshole."
Hope Carlo wasn't fond of that gun. Or his hands.
no subject
There was more screaming from the bathroom. The hostage had heard the violence and was sure his death was imminent. In fact, it was all over within minutes. Uniformed SWAT officers swarmed the hotel, barged into the room, verified that their Captain wasn't dead. Neri had passed out from shock, which made things a lot easier. His limp body was taken away so that paramedics could work on his shattered wrist. Garrus' shot had put a permanent hamper on his assassin career, at least with that hand.
Only once the suspect was gone and they were sure the area was secure did they bring the hostage out of the bathroom, terrified but largely unhurt. Satisfied that the situation was resolved, Jack radioed Garrus.
"Great shot, Garrus. Meet me back at the van."
no subject
He packed up his gear, put the room the way he found it, and headed out of the building, clanking in his armor every step. He found the van again soon enough.
"So, you think I should sent him a get well card?"
no subject
"Take a look at this." Jack handed Garrus the mysterious file folder. Within was information on someone called Ivan Darov. "It looks like this was his target, another hitman. He works for Zero's Children. From this, I think we can piece together what happened here."
no subject
Trying to get a comfy, safe cell in the City clink. Away from his target, who might already be aware...
no subject
"We need to keep an eye on this. The last thing we need right now is the Mafia and the Dolvanian mob killing each other in our City. There's already too much going on." The conventional Mob in the City wasn't much of a presence these days- being surrounded by superheroes and master detectives tended to be bad for business- but that didn't mean a lot of blood couldn't end up being shed. "Hopefully our new friend Carlo will be willing to talk to us more."
no subject