- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
"The timer's just too goddamn urgent," Jack Bauer growls under his breath as he hogties the hippy and the Code Pink activist behind a dumpster in the alley. Sweat drenches his tactical vest and shirt now.
"Hey man, you don't have a right to do this to us!" cries the anti-globalization hippy as Jack finishes the last knot around his wrists and ankles.
"Shut the hell up!" Jack bellows, then knocks the hippy out with a single punch. The Code Pink protester cowers silently in fear. He knocks her out too, just in case.
He stomps back to the protest near Berkeley City Hall, searching for a vehicle that is not only fast enough, but enormous enough, for him to drive. Only a GMC truck of some kind will do.
Near the protest, a group of Marines are staging a counter-protest. One is helping his young family down from the muscular heights of his GMC Yukon. It's brand new - perfect.
"CTU, I need your vehicle now!" Bauer screams at the Marine.
"Who the hell are - " says the Marine, but Bauer doesn't have time - there just isn't enough time! Bauer snaps his neck before he can finish his sentence, snatches up his keys, and commandeers the truck before the Marine's stunned family can even realize what has just happened.
The GMC Yukon roars through both the counter-protest and the protest alike, injuring and killing untold dozens. Jack Bauer must get to a high-speed aircraft in order to reach Pelosi and Hoyer in time - before the stroke of twelve-hundred hours, when FISA expires and the nation's defenses against Islamofascism collapse completely - before America's cherished Freedoms are forever destroyed by the swarthy hordes.
"Goddammit!" Bauer shouts as he looks down at his digital G-Shock watch, gobs of sweat falling on the screen. He flips open his cell phone, absent-mindedly steering the Yukon with his left hand as he barrels through a pedestrian market.
"CTU," answers the voice on the phone.
"This is Bauer - I need a high-speed jet at the nearest airstrip from me. I'm located at - "
"We can't do that, Jack," interrupts the CTU operator as the Yukon snuffs out another unit of collateral damage beneath its massive off-road tires. "There's been a problem. Al Gore and the ACLU just filed an emergency injunction forbidding us from taking any emergency national security measures."
"WHAT?!"
"Our hands are tied, Jack. Nothing we can do."
"GODDAMMIT!!!"
*BEEP... BEEP... BEEP... BEEP*
