Max (24)

Evil-doer
Full Name	Unknown
Alias	Max
Origin	24
Occupation	Arms dealer Terrorist
Powers / Skills	Genius-level intellect Gunmanship Vast wealth and resources
Goals	Smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States and detonate it (succeeded). Ignite a war between United States of America and the three Middle Eastern countries in order to raise oil prices Assassinate President David Palmer Assassinate Vice President James Prescott Smuggle nuclear weapons out of the country Kill Kate Warner and Jack Bauer (all failed).
Crimes	Terrorism Attempted mass murder Corruption Smuggling Murder Seditious conspiracy Treason Attempted assassination War profiteering
Type of Villain	Terrorist Mastermind

Max (last name unknown) is the overarching antagonist of Season 2 of 24 and the main antagonist of 24: The Game. Max is a secretive and enigmatic German arms dealer and sponsor of terrorism who attempts to get revenge on the United States government by orchestrating multiple terrorist attacks with his terrorist organization.

Max was played by Thomas Kretschmann in Season 2, and he reprised his role to voice Max in 24: The Game.

Biography

Before Season 1

It is revealed in 24: The Game that Max was an international arms dealer who sold weapons to Middle Eastern terrorists. When the United States government learned of this, Max's business was sanctioned, preventing him from completing the deals. As a result, the terrorists took revenge on Max by forcing him to watch his own children be executed. Max held the United States responsible for the death of his family and sought revenge. Max then spent the next several years creating a terrorist syndicate to orchestrate terrorist attacks against the civilians of the United States.

Season 2

In his most devastating attack on the United States, Max smuggled a nuclear warhead into the United States and planned to detonate it in Los Angeles, blaming it on the terrorist group Second Wave, headed by a Muslim terrorist named Syed Ali. Against the advice of his second-in-command, Alexander Trepkos, Max hired an oil baron named Peter Kingsley to coordinate the conspiracy. Kingsley hoped to profit enormously from an ensuing war in the Middle East that would increase the price of oil coming from the Caspian Sea, where he had oil holdings. The plan was foiled after the bomb was discovered and detonated safely in the desert. Although Los Angeles was not destroyed, the government became aware of the bomb all the same. The next phase of Kingsley's plan was for a tape to be found in Syed Ali's house, which had the voices of three leaders of Middle-Eastern countries discussing the plot. This tape was forged by Kingsley, so that the US would launch a retaliatory strike against these countries and start the war.

Jack Bauer found a chip containing evidence of the forged tape, however, Kingsley's men, led by Ronnie Stark, captured and tortured him. When Stark nearly killed Jack by causing his heart to stop, Kingsley had another of his men, Raymond O'Hara, kill Stark and replace him, although he and the other mercenaries were killed by Jack soon after as he escaped. However, the chip was damaged and unrecoverable. Around this time, Alexander Trepkos visits Kingsley to inform him that Max is very unhappy with how Kingsley has handled the plot. Trepkos claims that their entire project is going down the drain because the military is not attacking the Middle East. Kingsley says that Palmer is going to eventually have to respond with military force just because of the pressure alone. Trepkos is worried that Jack Bauer has already delivered proof against the Cyprus audio, but Kingsley says that Bauer won't be a problem.

Alex Hewitt, the computer expert Kingsley hired to forge the recording, died before he could show the government that it was faked. Peter Kingsley, who hoped that Alex would have been killed in the nuclear detonation, tells Max that the chip containing the source recordings didn't fall into the hands of the government. Max tells Kingsley that Hewitt can't be allowed to talk. Hewitt dies before he can testify to the recording being faked, so Jack uses Sherry Palmer to talk to Kingsley while wearing a wire and she got him to confess that he forged the tape. This averted the crisis, and Kingsley was killed in the process. With his plan to destroy Los Angeles and start a massive war in ruins, Max still wanted to cause chaos for the Americans. Max hired Mandy to assassinate President David Palmer with a biological agent. This attempt also failed; however, it did leave Palmer in critical condition for six months. After the collapse of his conspiracy, Max went into hiding, although he continued with his terrorist activities.

24: The Game

Max's death in 24: The Game

In 24: The Game, which is set six months after Season 2 and two and a half years before Season 3, Max returns, but this time as the main antagonist. Max hires terrorist Peter Madsen to kill Vice President James Prescott, who was Acting President while David Palmer recovered from the assassination attempt Max put on him. Max's carefully laid plans eventually fell apart when he kidnapped Jack Bauer's girlfriend, Kate Warner, so he could blackmail her father, Bob Warner, into helping him smuggle nuclear weapons out of the country. The Governor of California, James Radford, who had worked with Max to kill Prescott so he could become the next President, attempted to back out of the conspiracy at this point. In retaliation, Max had Mandy kill him. Jack later found Max on his yacht and shot him. Max was still alive and attempted to kill Kate, but Jack shot him again, killing him.

Season 3

At the start of Season 3, when Wayne Palmer speaks to President David Palmer about his assassination attempt, he comments that David authorized a successful manhunt for the masterminds behind Day 2's events, saying: "you remind everyone that it was your administration that not only arrested the man behind the attempt on your life, but you also exposed his organization and put his top tier people away as well, all this while you were in this so-called weakened state." Kingsley and Max were both killed, and Mandy was not apprehended until Season 4, so therefore Alexander Trepkos must have been "the man" in question. Trepkos was never seen again and is mentioned by name in the game as a known associate of Kingsley, so Trepkos was undoubtedly apprehended and incarcerated for his role in all the terrorist activities of Season 2. This also suggests that Max's entire criminal syndicate was fully dismantled, and all of his other associates being exposed, arrested, or both.

Trivia

• It is unclear who the Middle Eastern terrorists who killed Max's family were. However, it is extremely plausible that they were part of Second Wave, possibly even Syed Ali himself. Max intended to frame Syed Ali and his group for the nuclear attack, and Syed Ali was later shot by Peter Kingsley's men. If Syed Ali was involved in the death of Max's family, this would have been how Max got revenge.
• Max is arguably the most mysterious 24 villain. His full name is unknown, and it is entirely plausible that "Max" is an alias.