Victor Drazen

Template:24 character Victor Drazen is a fictional character in the TV series 24. He is played by Dennis Hopper.

Before Day 1

Drazen received a Master of Science in Engineering from the University of Belgrade. He was trained in counter-espionage by the KGB during the Cold War, and later served as a commander in the Special Operations Unit of the Serbian Army. After serving in a series of violent paramilitary nationalist organizations, he went on to command the Black Dogs, Slobodan Milošević's secret police. During his time in the Black Dogs, Drazen gained the attention of American senator David Palmer, who, sickened by his atrocities, ordered a secret mission, Operation Nightfall, to eliminate Drazen. (Technically the mission was illegal because it violated NATO parameters, thus Nightfall was kept totally secret.) Jack Bauer led a special operations force consisting of Delta Force operators and an MI-6 agent named Stephen Saunders. They landed in Kosovo and destroyed a building used by Drazen, who was visually confirmed to be inside at the time. Stephen Saunders was killed in the blast that destroyed Drazen's compound, and the rest of the team was ambushed by Serbian soldiers shortly afterward en route to the extraction point.

Jack Bauer was believed to be the sole survivor of the operation. However, it is revealed in Season 3 that, unbeknownst to anyone else, Saunders survived the explosion that was presumed to have killed him and would spend two years in Serbian captivity. The hatred of the United States that Saunders internalized during his imprisonment would be the motivation for his bio-terrorist attack against the United States several years later.

It was later discovered that the house destroyed by Bauer's team was occupied by Drazen's body double, and that Drazen's wife and daughter were also killed in the blast. Drazen was later secretly captured and placed in a Department of Defense Class III detention facility, though Bauer and Palmer were not informed of this and thus still believed him to be dead. A mole, possibly Nina Myers, informed Drazen's sons, Alexis and Andre, that their father was alive in US captivity. The two brothers devised a plan to avenge the death of their mother and sister and free their father. To that end, Andre hired American mercenary Ira Gaines in a plan to kill Palmer, at that time a presidential candidate, and frame Bauer for the assassination. When this failed, Alexis brought in a team of backup shooters.

Day 1

Bauer eventually discovered that Drazen was still alive and confronted him in the prison. This backfired, as Drazen's son Andre and a group of commandos broke into the prison and freed Victor as well as capturing Bauer. Victor Drazen told Jack: "Over the last two years, I have accepted my share of responsibility for the death of my family. This is the day you accept your share." Jack later escaped from the Drazens.

However, by the time the elder Drazen took charge, the plan against Palmer had suffered a major setback: Alexis had been discovered infiltrating the Palmer campaign and was subsequently stabbed by an overzealous staffer. He later died from the injuries.

In an endgame, Drazen proceeds to kidnap Kim Bauer to lure Jack into a trap, and also makes a final attempt on Palmer's life by planting an explosive in a cell phone which he instructs Bauer to give to Palmer if he wants Kim to live. Believing Palmer to be dead, Victor and Andre Drazen prepare to leave the port of Los Angeles for international waters. Bauer catches up with them, however, and pursues them in a fit of rage and sorrow after learning (falsely) from the Drazen mole Nina Myers that Kim had been murdered and her body recovered by the Coast Guard. In the ensuing firefight, Bauer kills the Drazens' men as well as Andre. After Bauer was felled by one of Victor's rounds, Victor aims for the kill shot but discovers he is out of ammunition.

Bauer pulls himself upright and aims at Drazen and the two stand silent for a few seconds, Drazen with his hands over his head in surrender. In a sudden fit of blind rage, Bauer mercilessly empties his magazine into Drazen, continuing to fire at the corpse as it floats away in the water, even continuing to pull the trigger after his chamber had been emptied.