Istanbul, Turkey
A few days later, Nikki and Owen arrived here after a long detour. Their investigation in Manila had gone poorly. Who could have imagined the CIA's contact point there would be completely wiped out? They'd been unlucky enough to be framed as murderers, and as if that weren't enough, Janet happened to assassinate General Piccolo at the same time, pushing the situation from bad to worse.
Fortunately, they had at least gained something—they uncovered the name Dmitri Pavlovich. That name had appeared on the Core Group's whiteboard, which meant it was extremely significant. Owen believed that if they could stay on Pavlovich's trail, it was only a matter of time before they found Makarov.
Jack had already provided Owen with Pavlovich's background, and Nikki had also found information on him in the NSA database. In summary, the man was a nuclear weapons genius. He never married and had no children, having devoted his entire life to the Soviet Union's nuclear program. Ironically, the USSR ended up collapsing.
Worse still, based on his past statements and behavior, Pavlovich was a staunch Russian nationalist. During the Cold War, he already harbored intense hatred toward the U.S. After the USSR's dissolution, this hatred only deepened—he came to see not just America but the entire Western world as his enemy. He had made several radical public statements over the years, which caught the attention of CTU and got him flagged as a potential threat.
This man had never left the post-Soviet region in his life. His sudden appearance in Istanbul, far from Ukraine, raised immediate red flags.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the Manila incident had finally begun to spread. The Philippine authorities had recovered Makarov's video. For reasons unknown, they released it publicly. The footage showing Makarov assassinating the U.S. ambassador instantly became the hottest news around the globe.
Makarov became infamous overnight. The video acted like a shot of adrenaline for terrorist cells worldwide. Emboldened by the buzz, a surge of terrorist attacks began erupting in multiple countries. Makarov had become a banner figure for the "industry."
Owen was frustrated. In this kind of climate, it was obvious Makarov would go into deep hiding somewhere safe, likely for at least a year or more. That made tracking and capturing him far more difficult.
And the bad news didn't stop there. Just a few days earlier, relations between CTU and the CIA had hit rock bottom.
After Owen passed the intel about the nuclear weapons expert to Jack, Jack had personally contacted CIA Director Martin and solemnly informed him that the Core Group might be in possession of a nuclear weapon. The reply? "CTU should mind its own business. Nukes aren't your concern."
Director Martin's dismissive attitude infuriated Jack. It was obvious the CIA was working on something—something connected to the nuclear weapons expert Owen had found. But, in typical CIA fashion, they wanted to keep everything to themselves.
Jack had passed the warning on to Owen: from now on, they shouldn't expect CIA support. In fact, the CIA might actively sabotage them. But Owen wasn't too concerned. He never had much faith in the CIA. Among all his encounters with them, perhaps only Omega Squad from the Governor's office had made a decent impression. The rest were all selfish operators.
Luckily, he had Nikki.
Nikki was a senior security consultant at the NSA and held access to a mountain of secrets. She didn't have decision-making power, but she could legally—or otherwise—find out just about anything she wanted.
Now, she and Owen were sitting in a safehouse in Istanbul, watching a news broadcast of the president's address. President David Palmer had formally declared Makarov an enemy of the United States. This meant the U.S. would now pour massive manpower, resources, and money into capturing him worldwide.
The safehouse they were in had been accessed through some clever maneuvering on Nikki's part. With the CIA no longer an option, Nikki had traced the NSA's safehouse locations. Though she had no formal authorization to use one, she didn't need it—she silently bypassed the authorization protocols and disabled the alarm. As far as the NSA system was concerned, the safehouse was still inactive.
Most people had no idea how powerful the NSA really was. Officially, the CIA was America's leading foreign intelligence agency, but in truth, the NSA was far more secretive and expansive. It controlled America's entire spy satellite network and had listening posts across the globe. If you thought the NSA only collected intelligence and protected digital systems, you'd be wrong. At the very least, Owen knew they had a covert field operations unit known as "Third Echelon."
It was just like how the Constitution forbade the CIA from conducting operations on U.S. soil—yet the CIA had broken far worse rules than that.
After the president's address, Owen contacted Jack Bauer again. Jack's advice? "Play it by ear." CTU had always depended on intel from other departments—NSA, CIA, Naval Intelligence, Army Intelligence—and now it was tapped out. Everything moving forward would be up to Owen and Nikki.
The NSA safehouse, much like a CIA one, was fully stocked. Weapons, vehicles, medical supplies. In one corner, Owen found something particularly interesting—a box of silicone masks. More precisely, 3D-printed masks.
He vividly remembered how Ethan Hunt had used such a mask to extract Salim from CTU's L.A. branch. Back then, he'd thought these were exclusive CIA gear—only seen with the Impossible Mission team. But to find one here in an NSA safehouse was a surprise.
Seeing Owen staring at the box, Nikki leaned over. "What's that?"
Owen explained. Nikki picked up the instruction manual, skimmed through it, and quickly understood how to operate it. For a test, she downloaded a random photo from the internet and began printing.
The 3D printer spun and carved, its blade rotating a full 360 degrees. As the excess material was trimmed away, a human face began to take shape.
The second pass added coloration, also using a 360-degree rotation from top to bottom. When it was finished, a human-like mask in lifelike skin tones appeared.
Nikki lifted it. The eyes, nose, and throat were hollowed out. The silicone felt soft and supple. Owen slipped it over his head, having worn one before on Keese Island and watched Luther handle one firsthand.
After adjusting the mask and smoothing it into place, his appearance changed entirely. Without a wig, he still looked odd—but once he attached the hair, eyebrows, and a false beard from a nearby cabinet, he transformed into an elderly man.
"Amazing!" Nikki exclaimed.
"That's not all. Stick this to your throat, and your voice will match your target's exactly."
Nikki nodded. She was already familiar with the concept. Back when Owen had described it, she and Monica had even built a knockoff voice-changer. The technology wasn't overly complex. The hard part was the mask itself—making it realistic enough to fool someone up close was incredibly difficult.
(End of Chapter)
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