Sometime during Season 9, NCIS
The day began with the discovery of a dead petty officer near the Potomac River and the body of a male 50 yards away.
It quickly regressed when Gibbs and his team confronted a panicked, aggressive male and female nearby, preventing them from recovering the bodies.
Ziva had to kick the male in the head - twice; McGee had to shoot the female in the arm; and Ducky and Palmer had to administer sedatives to both to resolve the situation.
The sedatives wore off when the male and female arrived at NCIS, and it took a dozen agents to secure them. The female was in the morgue under sedation - McGee's shot was at best a minor flesh wound - and she was strapped to a slab, next to the bodies.
The living male was in interrogation, tied securely, every so often struggling against his bonds. Director Leon Vance made the call on that, not knowing what else to do with him.
As Ducky and Palmer worked on the bodies in the morgue, Gibbs made his way to forensics to check in with specialist Abby Sciuto, who was examining a curious marking cut out of the dead male's forehead.
When Gibbs walked in, holding Abby's customary 64-ounce Caf!-Pow drink, he saw a woman scared unlike he had ever seen her before.
"Abs?"
Gibbs's famous 'gut' was screaming at him that something was way, way off and that Abby may not be overreacting to any degree.
"Abs? You okay?", Gibbs shouted, in order to be heard over the loud music playing in the room.
"No!" she shouted, turning. "Gibbs...Gibbs I'm scared."
Gibbs walked over to Abby's stereo, found the volume control and turned it all the way down, then handed Abby her Caf!-Pow.
"At what?" he asked Abby, handing her the Caf!-Pow. Abby promptly put it aside, and focused her attention back on a screen with some strange computer coding. "What are you scared of?"
"I...I found a chip, imbedded in the flesh sample Jimmy brought down," Abby said quietly, with some fear in her voice. "It's not in his skin. It's-part of his flesh-"
"Part of his flesh?"
"Part of his flesh," Abby repeated.
"A computer chip?"
"I've never seen anything like it, and McGee says he hasn't either," Abby continued. "A chip should be, well, artificially produced - silicon, for example. If you imbed it in someone's skin, their muscles, it should still maintain its original properties. But this" - she showed him the sample, with the 'chip' in it - "is organic."
"That's part of his forehead," Gibbs said.
"We carved it out of his forehead - or, Ducky and Jimmy did," Abby told Gibbs. "Look at the chip - it looks like a chip, acts like a chip, but it's flesh."
Gibbs looked the sample over a few times, looking first at the chip and then at the marking surrounding it.
"This marking," Gibbs said.
"-is the creepiest thing I've ever seen," Abby replied. "And it's not just because of how it looks. It's because the chip is a part of it and because of what's on the chip."
"What's on the chip, Abs?" Gibbs asked.
Coding appeared on the monitor.
"This," she said. "I had McGee run it through and I'm waiting to hear back from him. But what I saw...so far...scares me."
"What did you find, Abs?"
"Biographical information - like blood type, genetic information, eye color...date of birth, hometown, which is weird: Buffalo, North America?...financial information...and references to taking the 'mark of loyalty' 11 months before."
"Mark of loyalty?"
"Mark of loyalty," she said. "It's almost like what they call the 'mark of the beast'."
"Who, Abs?"
"Pastors, preachers, evangelicals...some of my evangelical friends hear it all the time in church; I'm Catholic so I don't hear about it a lot, though some guy in New York state who's Catholic talks about it like one of those TV preachers. Stuff that's yet to come, yet this is just like one of those-"
"Abs," Gibbs said calmly and firmly, handing her the Caf!-Pow. "This chip. This mark. You keep looking at that monitor. The two related?"
"That's the coding from the...organic chip imbedded in the mark," Abby replied. "The entire coding is arranged in sixes. Triple sixes. Arranged in triple sixes."
"Triple sixes, Abs?"
"666, Gibbs. Like the mark of the beast."
Gibbs didn't know quite what to make of this; he wasn't exactly a religious man, and certainly not of the evangelical variety.
He knew people, inside and outside NCIS, who believed that the Bible predicted events yet to come. He was somewhat familiar with the evangelical prophetical interpretations of the Book of Revelation, including the so-called Mark of the Beast.
Gibbs also knew that many Christians, even Protestants, saw Revelation as apocryphal, as some sort of reference to first-century Rome and the fledgling Christian church.
There certainly wasn't an Antichrist running the world at present, and everyone was paying for things with cash and credit cards. He hadn't been ordered to take a mark of loyalty under penalty of death.
So what in hell was that thing, that had Abby so spooked?
"Abs," Gibbs said softly, "where's McGee?"
"Upstairs, as far as I know." Abby's attention was fixed on that monitor, showing coding in a series of triple sixes.
Gibbs called up McGee on the smaller, nearby monitor.
"McGee?"
"Yes boss." McGee said, standing in front of the big monitor in the team's third floor bullpen
"What have you found from that chip?"
"Biographical information on the person - the dead male - and lots of references to a one world order, the potentate, all encoded in a series of triple sixes."
"Where is he from?"
"Place of birth states Buffalo, and this is curious - 'former' state of New York, 'currently' New York Province, North American Hegemony."
"Financials?"
"Yes, but I can't verify them with any known financial institutions."
"Which financial institutions are listed, McGee?"
"Even more curious," he said. "One World Earth Bank, True Lord Financial. Loyalty cards, the kind you'd get at a supermarket, only this one is called Triple Six. And this: payments to Morningstar Cable, and Lucifer Motor Company Financial-"
"McGee," Gibbs said. "You're not making that up."
"Honest to God, boss," McGee replied, as Tony and Ziva looked on.
"What about fingerprints, DNA, date of birth?"
"Still trying to verify. Date of birth listed two ways: 12-10-1977, and 344-negative 31. He's not in any known databases."
"McGee, where's Ziva and Tony?" Gibbs asked.
"Right here," he said; moments later both agents appeared, opposite McGee.
"Tony, Ziva, information on the living woman and man," Gibbs ordered.
"Boss, nothing on Crazy Jane and Mad Max," Tony stated.
"A thorough search of all known databases show no trace of identification in regards to fingerprints," Ziva added.
"Tony. Get Dorneget and a couple of other agents not working a case, arm yourselves and get down to the morgue now," Gibbs ordered. "When that woman comes out of sedation, I don't want Ducky and Palmer by themselves. If she does anything hostile shoot on sight."
"Boss? Shoot?" Tony asked.
"My orders," Gibbs replied. "Ziva-"
"Ziva I want up in interrogation with the male."
Vance walked into Forensics with two other agents beside him.
"Gibbs, I anticipated you would have one of your agents down here with Ms. Sciuto," Vance said. "Agents Foreman and Collins will stay here with Abby. Ziva and four others will be in the room while you question that man."
"Reading my mind, Leon?" Gibbs said.
"Suppose so," Vance replied.
"Gibbs, please...please be careful," Abby pleaded. "Those people scare me. More than Ari. More than that guy who stalked me years ago. More than the Port-to-Port Killer."
"Don't worry, Abs," Gibbs said. "Not planning on letting the Antichrist kill anybody."
Gibbs and Vance made their way to Ducky's autopsy room, where they met DiNozzo and four other agents, each fully armed, surrounding the slab the woman lay on.
"How sedated is she?" Vance asked Ducky.
"Enough to put the proverbial horse to sleep," Ducky replied. "I don't want to administer any more sedative if I don't have to; it may be enough to kill her."
"If Crazy Jane wakes up we may not have a choice," Tony mused.
"What about the wound to her arm, Duck," Gibbs asked.
"Timothy's shot nearly grazed it," Ducky said. "I administered some antiseptic and placed a bandage over it. It should heal rather quickly."
"Good thing Tony thought to slug her," Jimmy Palmer said, as he worked on the dead male whose mark was being examined by Abby and McGee.
"Dr. Mallard, put the bodies in the freezer, and you - and you, Mr. Palmer - both of you get up to the bullpen," Vance told Ducky and Palmer. "DiNozzo, if she makes a move that presents a threat to you or the other agents, shoot on sight."
"And keep the Director and I apprised every five minutes," Gibbs said. "We'll be in interrogation."
Ducky and Palmer joined Vance and Gibbs on the elevator, then made their way to McGee in the bullpen when it reached the third floor. Vance and Gibbs walked up the stairs to the interrogation room, where Ziva and two other agents awaited them.
In the room, 'Mad Max' was struggling mightily against his restraints, and ranting about his lord and god, demanding answers of his own.
Leon Vance stood in front of the glass partition separating him from the lunatic secured in the interrogation room, and thanked God for the agents standing guard in there.
Leon took the measure of this man, and saw someone who, the best way he could put it, was soulless.
The man's facial expressions ranged from angry to lustful, greedy to desperate; one moment Leon saw the glare of a serial killer and the next the look of a child.
Then there was the mark on his forehead. It was nothing like anything Leon had seen in his life.
And it gave him the chills.
By looking at the other agents guarding the man, Leon wasn't alone. He'd have to ask his pastor about this, although it couldn't possibly be the real thing.
Gibbs and Ziva walked in and stood next to Leon.
"Gibbs, I can take the first round of interrogating," Ziva said. "I have dealt with worse men than this before."
"That guy's different than anyone we've met before, Ziva," Gibbs said.
"I don't think anyone on this earth has dealt with someone like that," Vance interjected. "I don't want either of you in there by yourselves. I've called in Marines and I expect them to arrive at any time. Some are up here with us; four more will join our agents down stairs in the morgue. I've also instructed one of our agents to administer another dose of sedative if that woman stirs."
"I should be down there, with Tony," Ziva said.
"Not by yourself," Gibbs replied. "And not before we talk to that guy."
"Be careful, Gibbs," Vance warned. "I've instructed those agents to shoot on sight if he is sufficiently threatening. I'm giving you two the same order."
Gibbs and Ziva walked in, and the man's demeanor changed; he responded to Gibbs as if he sensed he was the leader, or a leader, of whatever organization occupied this building.
"You gave us quite a fight," Gibbs told the man, who eyeballed he and Ziva with suspicion. "We don't normally...secure...those we interrogate. You gave us no choice."
The man's demeanor changed to sternness, him glaring at both Gibbs and Ziva.
"Do you speak English," Ziva said.
"Noi quo satana esparoli," the man cooly replied. "Duont qeva harmonidini svato myxvimino."
"Pig Latin, pal?" Gibbs said, standing within two feet of the man, as four agents readied their pistols.
"Of course I speak English, fool," the man suddenly said, then sneered. "I assume that's what they call it here, too."
"Here, too?" Gibbs replied. "What does that mean?"
"Are you a Marine?" the man asked Gibbs. "You carry yourself like one. Like one of the old-style American marines, before the real lord took his rightful place as ruler of the world...the one I'm from, anyway."
Gibbs refused to answer.
"You're a Marine," the man answered. "Don't worry, you don't have to answer me if you don't want to. It's okay if you're scared, a little. I can be frightening. So can my wife. My brother's almost as bad, though you killed him, but that's okay, because he's below in paradise."
"Below...in...paradise?" Gibbs said.
"Go ahead, sit down," the man said, nodding towards the lone chair in the corner. "I'm not going to kill you - oh, I could if I wanted, you're right to restrain me - but you've piqued my curiosity."
Gibbs continued to stand. He nodded to Ziva.
"You have said some...interesting things," she said to the man, who looked at her with a mixture of contempt, curiosity and intrigue. "Paradise below. Your world. Old-style American marines. And your true lord. Not to mention, that...thing on your forehead."
"Israeli?" he asked Ziva, who refused to answer him. So he answered himself.
"You ARE Israeli...the national enemy of our risen lord and master. And not just any Israeli...Mossad? You have that look about you."
Gibbs gave Ziva a 'not a word' look; both she and Gibbs remained silent.
"I know...you ARE Mossad...but what about the rest of you? I take it this is Washington, D.C.; the pictures don't do it justice. Of course, where I'm from, we don't HAVE a Washington, D.C. anymore. Not that we need the Constitution...or the U.S. government...or even the Redskins, where I'm from. Not when god is all we need. Alllllllll IIIIIIIII neeeeeeddddd..."
Then, the man began singing and chanting in a strange language unlike anything anyone else had ever heard before.
Though two of the surrounding Christian agents wanted sorely to pray to their Lord out loud - as they would later tell Gibbs and Vance - they maintained their composure.
The man alternated between singing, chanting, shouting and gurgling.
On the other side of the window, Tony DiNozzo burst in to the room where Vance was observing.
"Director," Tony said, "Crazy Jane's..restrained, for the moment."
"For the moment?" Vance replied.
"She woke up," Tony answered. "She rose up, broke her restraints - Ducky must not have tied them securely enough - then looked around, started into this weird chant, and spoke in English. Told us she knew who we were."
"Go on," Vance said.
"Then one of the other agents - Lawanda, the Baptist preacher's daughter - started shouting in tongues, and Crazy Jane shouted back in some language I've never heard, and Lawanda started singing some old Amy Grant song-"
"Mr. DiNozzo," Vance interrupted, with urgency. "Sit rep. Right now."
"Jackson sedated her," Tony replied. "Marines arrived down there right as she put the needle in the ol' arm, Crazy Jane went back to sleep, and this time the Jarheads tied her down tight, fully strapped to the ol' slab...how's Mad Max?"
"Unlike anyone I've ever seen before in my life, DiNozzo," Vance replied.
Gibbs and Ziva looked at 'Mad Max', as Tony called the man, who alternated between glaring and winking at them both.
Then the mark on his forehead began to glow, a dark bright red; that caused one of the agents to begin softly humming The Old Rugged Cross.
Which set the guy off.
He unleashed a storm of profanities, in English and his other language, and for a moment seemed to be about to burst his restraints.
Ziva and Gibbs and the other agents kept their composure.
Tony, on the other hand, wet himself.
"Get Marines in there. Now!" Vance ordered, and moments later four Marines burst through the door and aimed their weapons right at the man's skull. Mad Max stopped his rant.
"Le tul satanico advril," he said, calmly.
"Marine," he said to Gibbs, "and Mossad," he said to Ziva. "I bet you want to know where I came from and how I got here."
"That would be a good place to start," Gibbs replied.
"I bet you'd also like to know why we tried to kill you and your people earlier today."
"We'll get to that," Gibbs said. "Tell me about yourself. Your world. Your god."
"Very well," the man replied. "Long story short: Russia and Syria led an invasion of Israel. It failed, because the enemy of the true lord of my world was with the Israelis - you should be proud, Mossad - but that led to the true lord rising out of the proverbial sea of humanity to takehis rightful place as its master.
"He turned one hundred and eighty nations into ten. He brought together the world as one, took control of everything, and I mean everything, and gave us the mark of loyalty...pretty easy to take it when you have to have it to eat, you know? And yet...we don't have to worry about...credit cards and keychains anymore."
"Keychains?" Gibbs.
"You thought I was going to say checks and money orders, huh, Marine?" the man replied, chuckling, then laughing. "This place is a lot better than I thought it ever would be...anyway. Back to my story. Most people took the mark of loyalty, and I tell you what, it's better than getting drunk, high AND laid...at least that's what I tell myself. You know, those damned little beasts with their stingers...that wasn't a walk in the park, you know?"
"No I don't," Gibbs replied. "Tell me about those who don't take your mark."
"Not mine, Marine, his, the lord's," the man said. "Those who didn't take it...OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" he said jubilantly, and with the biggest, creepiest grin Gibbs and Ziva had every seen.
"Sheesh," Tony said to Vance behind the glass. "Kyle Boone wasn't that crazy. Jack Nicholson in The Shining wasn't that creepy."
"And when I say off with their heads, I mean literally," the man continued. "Guillotine. Huge TV ratings. Better than porn. Even New York FC vs. Barca. You guys have soccer here?...you do?...oh, you guys are going to hate Barca now aren't you? Messi play for them here? Or did he get his head chopped off like he did where I'm from?"
Gibbs motioned to Ziva to follow him out the door, then told the lead Marine to 'watch the bastard'.
"That's not a very Christian thing to say, Marine," the man yelled as Gibbs and Ziva walked out into the hallway, where Vance and Tony met them.
Gibbs was too preoccupied to notice the stain on Tony's trousers from earlier; Ziva was not.
"Mad Max has that effect on people," Tony told her.
"What do you make of him?" Vance asked Gibbs, and Ziva. "You didn't say a helluva lot in there...Marine."
"Didn't have to...Director," Gibbs replied. "He had plenty to say on his own."
"Question is what we do with him - and the woman downstairs," Vance said. "I can't possibly believe they're from some other 'world'."
"You are not going to call SecNav?" Ziva asked Vance.
"No reason to," Vance answered. "The most logical thing is to assume he's crazier than a loon-"
"Director!"
Tim McGee ran towards the foursome, slightly out of breath. "Director...SecNav is trying to reach you...called Gibbs's phone-"
"Whoa, McBreathless," Tony interjected. "Take a McBreath or two-"
"DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "Not now!...McGee!"
"Boss...Director...SecNav says he wants you on the phone...says it's a homeland security issue related to who's in there...SecDef is aware, even the President."
"SecNav, SecDef, the White House?" Vance.
"Yes sir, and he wants to talk to you now," McGee said.
Vance sprinted down the hallway towards his office; Gibbs turned to follow him, but not before issuing orders to his agents.
"McGee," he said, "find out everything about that mark you possibly can. Ziva, stay here with this...lunatic, and tell me the moment something changes. And DiNozzo...check in on everybody, including Abby - and change your pants."
