Teri receives a phone call from Alan York who says his daughter, Janet, is a friend of Kimberly's and is also missing, so the two parents join forces to try and find the girls. Even as Jack is secretly called out of the office and given an encrypted key card containing information on the Palmer hit that could lead him to a dirty agent within his organization, the explosion of a 747 over the Mojave Desert becomes yet another piece in the puzzle.

Jack follows the arrested shooter to the police station in hopes of interrogating him only to find that Mason has arrived and taken control of the situation. But when the shooter says he will talk only to Jack, Jack learns he must break the shooter out of jail in order to learn who has kidnapped Kimberly. Back at the hotel, Senator Palmer learns more about the threatened news leak that could hurt his campaign.

Now, under constant surveillance from Gaines, Jack goes back to CTU where Nina inadvertently gets in the way of Gains' plan. Teri tries to escape from York, but her call to CTU only brings more help for York. Meanwhile, Palmer tries to convince his family that they need to tell the press about a secret personal tragedy from their past before it's too late.

Jack learns that one of the assassins, Alexis Mecir, is actually Victor Drazen's son and has become intimate with one of Palmer's aides. In an attempt to find the man ordering the assassinations, the aide agrees to plant a tracking device in Alexis' wallet. Back at the safe house, Teri and Kim discover their location is no longer secret or safe.

Alexis' contact turns out to be a power company worker who was being paid to shut off the electricity to a power grid out in the middle of an empty field. As Jack and Mason follow up on that lead, Kim's search for information lands her in jail, even as Palmer's press conference disclosure could ultimately put his own son in jail.

As Kim tries to get the police to call CTU, Jack discovers that the empty field where the power grid is located actually houses a secret underground government prison and that night's scheduled arrival is none other than Victor Drazen, the man Jack supposedly killed two years ago. Now Jack's convinced Victor's sons are coming to break him out.