The identity of the culprit behind the bombing was finally confirmed. Tony began reaching out to the FBI. Since he was already working with the CIA, he didn't mind sharing some of the credit with the FBI—as long as CTU got the biggest slice of the pie.
He made the call, only to find that that slippery guy Womack had already gone off to Washington, leaving everything to his deputy, the rich kid Benjamin Affleck.
Tony couldn't tell if the guy was genuinely helping polish the rich kid's resume or just using this mess as an excuse to bail.
When Benjamin learned what Tony wanted, he readily agreed, patting his chest and promising the FBI would fully cooperate with the operation. He even guaranteed that no matter what they did, CTU would take the lead, and the FBI wouldn't try to steal the spotlight.
Tony had thought he'd need to talk the guy into it, but to his surprise, Benjamin was playing along nicely.
Leaving the conference room, Owen began assigning his team to focus on the two men from earlier, especially that Zheng Anshun. The guy was Asian, so he should be relatively easy to trace.
Right then, his phone rang. Owen picked up and found it was a call from Universal Studios. The producer of Die Hard was on the other end.
After chatting for ten minutes, Owen hung up in frustration. Of all times, they had to call now to talk about the script. Die Hard had been a huge hit, and Universal had gotten a taste of success.
The movie had only been out for a day, and Universal was already reaching out to Owen to explore potential future collaborations.
To that, Owen had only two words:
Talk later!
This was not the time to be thinking about that.
Just after he hung up, Tony got his side sorted. Chloe brought over several files.
"These are three profiles. After our screening with the field team, we narrowed it down to these three people who could be connected to the bombing. All of them have bomb-making skills, but upon investigation, each one has either disappeared or taken time off in the last few days. No one has seen them. We suspect the person who helped make the bomb is very likely one of these three…"
"I'll have them checked out…"
Owen picked up the three files.
Martin Black, demolition engineer at Apex Engineering...
Seth Hawke, assistant researcher at the Los Angeles Institute of Explosives...
Lewinsky Blachek, structural mechanics expert at Bosen Tunnel Engineering Company...
He handed the other two profiles to his most capable teams, while he and Heartbeat went to investigate Lewinsky personally.
Unlike the other two who had taken leave, Lewinsky was simply unreachable. His supervisor said he hadn't shown up since the day before yesterday, and his phone was off.
Owen drove to the address listed on Lewinsky's file. The house was locked. He knocked, but no one answered.
He and Heartbeat walked around the house and returned to the back door. After checking that no one was around, Owen wrapped his elbow in his jacket and gently smashed the backdoor window.
They entered through the back.
The living room was a mess. The table was overturned, and the picture frames on the wall were shattered.
Owen and Heartbeat exchanged a glance and silently drew their guns to begin searching. Owen took the first floor, and Heartbeat went upstairs. A while later, they reconvened in the living room.
Though the door hadn't been forced open, the interior clearly looked like it had been broken into.
Owen had Chloe look up Lewinsky's wife's number. He called—no answer. He then called the company where she worked and learned she hadn't shown up for two days either. Same situation: no leave request, no contact.
Owen had seen this once before—last year, when Jack Bauer's family was kidnapped. He was now almost certain this family had run into serious trouble. Coupled with the bombing incident, Owen was about eighty percent sure Lewinsky was the bomb-maker.
Just then, updates came in from the other two teams. The two other suspects were cleared—it had all been a false alarm. They had indeed gone on vacation, nothing more.
At that very moment, CTU received a tip: CBC had gotten an anonymous videotape. Someone on the tape finally claimed responsibility for the bombing at the Los Angeles movie premiere.
Now this was big news!
CBC had merely given CTU a courtesy heads-up that they would air the tape in ten minutes. That was standard for them—they weren't about to pass up on such a bombshell of a scoop just for CTU.
Owen, still in Lewinsky's house, turned on the TV and switched to CBC. The program hadn't started yet, but a ticker was already running at the bottom.
"In ten minutes, our station will exclusively reveal the mastermind behind the premiere bombing. Stay tuned…"
Seeing the rolling text, Owen gave a bitter smile. That's the media for you—shameless opportunists.
Ten minutes later, the program began. The screen changed to show a masked man speaking directly into the camera. Behind him were various anti-American slogans and bloodied images, giving the scene a grim tone under the dim lighting.
"Last night at 8:08 PM, I, on behalf of the Cruel Angel, officially claim responsibility for the bombing at the Los Angeles premiere. The mission of the Cruel Angel is…"
Cruel Angel? Owen remembered that name.
The masked man spoke for less than a minute before a news commentator chimed in: "As you can see, twenty-four hours after the terrorist attack, a group has finally stepped forward to take credit.
The Cruel Angel claims responsibility for this attack, contrary to earlier public speculation pointing to the West German People's Liberation Front. This certainly caught most people off guard.
The Cruel Angel doesn't appear often, but people may have forgotten that just a year ago, they also struck Los Angeles.
That was their debut, and their opening act was a bombing of CTU itself. This time, they've changed their approach—shifting from official targets to civilians. It's a disturbing shift.
We've just received word from the hospital that another injured person has died from their wounds. The current death toll stands at five, with twenty-two injured. Our sympathies go out to all the victims…"
Almost immediately after the broadcast, the internet exploded. Everyone was talking about the Cruel Angel, and CTU's archived case files on the group were pulled up again.
After the attack on CTU a year ago, the Cruel Angel was marked as CTU's number one enemy and was thoroughly investigated. But the group knew they'd stirred up a hornet's nest. After losing some of their bases and personnel, they deliberately cut off many of their peripheral members.
CTU managed to take out a lot of them, but that was as far as it went. Thanks to their "sacrifice the rook to save the king" tactic, the group's core remained hidden.
No one had expected them to resurface a year later—and in such dramatic fashion.
Right now, Owen wished he could grab that news commentator's face and rub it into the dirt. The guy was practically saying, in no uncertain terms, that CTU had screwed up big time again—last year, slapped in the face; this year, same story.
Don't wait around, folks—this is probably it for today. Hit a bit of writer's block.
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