An empty warehouse. A doublecross. A standoff. That’s where we are as we head into the midnight hour.

Hodges arrives with a load of his men to order Moss and HIS men off of his property. He’s blustering and bellowing about baseless accusations from the government trying to take his company down, and then he orders Moss to vamoose in 5 minutes. Moss radios back to the field office and pins his hopes on Walker and Jack to come up with a play they can instigate within that 5 minutes.

Jack had been going through Mayer’s files during all of this and came across the CEO of Starkwood, Douglas Knowles, who had been secretly helping Mayer try and bring down Starkwood. Moss tells Jack to call him and see if he will help. When Jack reaches Knowles, the CEO seems relieved at the call. Knowles is watching events unfold on the base and is full of disbelief. When Jack asks him if he knows where the weapons might be, Knowles says he does and agrees to talk to Moss.

Jack, Moss, Walker, and Tony work quickly to formulate a plan to keep Tony behind while the rest of Moss’ men decamp. They must create a diversion to do this, however, and so Moss returns Seaton, his captive and punches him pretty good while Tony slips away.

Tony starts making his way out of the area and runs into Knowles. As Tony radios back to the FBI office asking for positions from satellite coverage, Jack’s hand begins shaking and he backs off, clearly in some pain. He’s sweating, grunting, trying to get his body under control. Part of me wants to be sad for Jack, but my cynical self is wondering what miracle cure the writers of the show will come up with to save him. It just better be good.

Bauer calls the President to brief her on where they are in the search for the bioweapons, and he tells her that he believes a surgical airstrike will work to take out the base and the weapons as long as they know exactly where they are, and that Tony and Knowles are working on that. The President tells Jack that once Tony and Knowles find the weapons, they will require  a visual confirmation from Jack since he is the only person who has seen the canisters the weapons are in. She then asks Jack if he’s all right, and tells him she’s not giving up on him. Awww. Jack leaves the room and can’t stop his hand from shaking.

After the call, Olivia leaves the Oval and receives a call from the journalist she’s been helping. He tells her he’s got some inside info about weapons of mass destruction and then pretty much blackmails her into giving him details by saying he’ll release the info that she is his secret source. She tells him she can’t talk now and he gives her 30 minutes to come to his hotel room and talk.

Back on the base, Tony and Knowles make use of FBI’s thermo satellite map thingies (I’m sorry, I suck at the technobabbly stuff tonight. I’m tired.) to try and deduce which building the weapons might be in. Tony must hack the door code working with Janice to find the key code. While he waits for the correct number combination to come up, a patrol passes by. To buy time, Knowles appears before the patrol and flashes his ID. His diversion works and Tony is able to get into the building. He begins making his way through it in search of the weapons. Walker lets him know they need a visual ID confirmed by Jack.

Unfortunately, Jack has gone into some kind of convulsive seizure.

Meanwhile, Hodges talks to his soldier who took Knowles and tells him to escort him back to his office and guard him til he arrives. He also tells the soldier to lockdown ‘Zone 9′ and make sure Knowles really was alone. Hodges then asks his team working on the weapons when they will be finished and they tell him 30 minutes.

Olivia, meanwhile, has arrived – with her new Secret Service agent Aaron (Yay Aaron!) at the hotel to meet the journo. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this bit because frankly, it squicks me. Basically,  he gets her to tell him what’s up with the weapon and she tells him he can’t run with the story because the whole plan depends on surprise. And then they shag. *shudder*

At the field office, Jack is given a shot of something that will control the shakes, and told he can dose himself with it ever two hours.  And then, *Ding!* miracle cure introduction: Dr. SunnyMacer from the CDC tells him a Uni has been experimenting with stem cell whatchamahoosits and  that if Jack can get a donor from an immediate family member there’s a slight chance he could survive the exposure. Which means contacting Kim. Which Jack refuses to do.

Walker attempts to convince Jack to enlist Kim’s help, but Jack keeps trying to tell her that he and Kim don’t talk. Walker tells him that it should be Kim’s choice but Jack shuts her down by saying, “I’m the one who’s dying. It’s my choice.”  Ouch

Jacks gets back on the floor and starts helping Tony again. Some guards/soldiers have entered Tony’s building and Tony uses the element of surprise to take out two of them and gets some of their gear. Now that he’s got a keycard and some weaponry he fits right in. he makes his way to the room where the weapons are being transferred to a delivery system, snaps a piccie with corporate sponsored Sprint iPhone looking thing (Sorry, I have the iPod Touch. I loves my iPod Touch. I would so have an iPhone if service was offered here in Bumfuck, Nebraska, so I know zip about Sprint phones.) Jack confirms the visual ID of the weapons and tells Tony to amscray.

In Knowles’ office, Hodges arrives. Knowles starts getting his back up with Hodges about what the hell is going on. And this is where Hodges does his big Crazy Bad Guy speech. From what I can tell, he’s doing the bioweapon thing because Congress is about to dismantle his operation. And then he kills Knowles. Tra la la. Then he gets a call from Seaton who informs him that a squadron of F-18s have been scrambled, weapons ready and are headed their way. Scheduled ETA: 10 minutes. Hodges orders Seaton to place a call to the President.

At the hotel, the two sleaziest people of the season, Olivia and … Ken? I think it’s Ken the journo, have just finished shagging and when she asks him if he would please not run the story, he tells he he’s going to do it. It will put him over the top in New York and this is how the game is played baby. Olivia calmly goes to a table where her spiffy cell phone has recorded their Deed and tells him that she doesn’t think his wife would appreciate seeing that video. Outsleazed.

As she’s leaving, the President calls her and complains about her being out of touch when everything is going down at the base. As Olivia and Aaron board an elevator, he looks at her somewhat disapprovingly I felt. You go Aaron.

President Taylor joins her Joint Chiefs to monitor the airstrike.

Hodges arrives back in the lab area, his shirt spattered with Knowles blood. He’s just getting wackier and wackier. Seaton and the lab chief can’t stop looking at his shirt and Hodges makes it clear that Knowles will not be joining them, ifyouknowwhatImean.

As the President and Chiefs look on, they learn that Starkwood knows they’re coming. Then the call from hodges comes through on a “proprietary line” which befuddles everyone as to how Hodges managed to set one of those up inside the White House. She takes the call privately, as requested.

Hodges tells Taylor that if they don’t turn the planes around, he will launch the missiles he has equipped with the bioweapon on three cities on the Eastern seaboard.  He tells her he wants a meeting, mano a mano in the Oval. She rushes back into the Sit room and orders an abort on the strike. As the Chiefs look on waiting for an explanation, she walks out of the room.

Yikes. I can’t wait to see what happens next week let me know what you thought of this week’s episode in the comments!