This is my 39th NCIS Mystery, the Ninth of my Fourth Season. (It's also my 99th FF posting so I'm approaching a personal milestone.)
NCIS is owned by Belisarius Productions. The usual legal Disclaimers apply. I only own Rev. Siobhan (O'Mallory) McGee, Apprentice Pathologist Dr. Samantha Sky and original Agents. You can find all my stories listed in order in my Profile.
'What do you do when the world you thought you knew isn't?'
Rated T or NCis-17
Please Review.
Life, the Universe and Everything
by JMK758
Chapter One
Big Brother and Uncle Sam
"Ready on Alpha," the technician reports, initiating a series of similar reports which range from Beta through Rho.
"All Systems confirmed, Captain." Commander Paul Lewiston's crisp summary masks his concern about the minutes to come.
"Thank you, Exec," Captain Patrick Kotzain acknowledges. The chamber, dominated by a distant, dark screen that dwarfs most movie theaters', comprises seventy two computer stations on nine descending landings.
The sole door to the right of the forward screen opens and from his position near the top Kotzain recognizes Admiral Philip Candelario, Vice Admirals Richard Schneider and Nicole Feder together with Marine Generals Gregory Castagna and Joellen Roberts with Colonel Roderick Makenzie.
Above the door they'd entered the board displays August 10 and the year, perhaps too soon in the reckoning of man for this, and the time, 1734, or as Kotzain calls it, Zero Hour. On the recommendations of these people hangs the future funding of this program. Oh, not this year's budget, of even next year's, that'd be too merciful; these people will recommend adjustments that will accelerate or slow to a crawl the entire operation.
He's expected all six men and women who ascend the ramp along the right wall this Friday evening and in fact had no apprehension about that door opening to admit anyone but authorized and severally cleared persons. This is the deepest and most heavily guarded chamber in the complex and since he, Lewiston and all seventy two technicians are armed, a hostile force attempting to breach the room via its single door would receive a most formidable welcome.
Last through the door is the Naval Research Lab's Commander, Captain William Malone.
The seven ascend past the multiple wide levels and Project Director Kotzain salutes the Marine and Naval Officers collectively. That Admiral Candelario returns it confirms for him who's in charge, yet he directs his words to the Base Commander.
"All Stations are Go, sir. Security has confirmed all present." This Project is so secret that the people in this room had recently been re-Vetted and every man and woman has had their identities confirmed before they were admitted. After what had happened with the PDC/9, the USS Millennium and the too mysterious attack on Captain Tom Benes, no one is taking chances.
He wishes the former Project Leader, whose XO he had been, were here to see this, but the man is still officially sidelined until he's certified as having recovered from whatever it was that put him in Monroe Hospital and took Marine Private Patricia Court to Heaven & NCIS know where.
x
"Very well, Captain." Malone turns to the man at his left. "Admiral Candelario, I must repeat that I am against this demonstration at this time. Despite our best attempts it is clear that our Security has been compromised and while every man and woman here has been re-Vetted following the incidents with the PDC Mark 9 and the Millennium, I must urge caution. Project Millennium had been considered secure and with what happened to Captain Benes–"
"Captain, this is the only opportunity for the six of us to be together here for the foreseeable future. Proceed with the demonstration."
With the direct order before him, Malone can do nothing but nod to Kotzain, who in turn addresses his XO.
"Energize the Matrix, Mr. Lewiston. Set visual for one mile radius. Let's see what's out there."
x
Anyone who expects the throwing of switches, the lowering of a bone vibrating hum through a long scale that preceded the Death Star's firing its planet annihilating weapon is doomed to disappointment.
Instead the huge screen that fills the entire distant wall at the base of the well lights up, an irregular field of bright green lights clustered in the center and filling a third of the whole to spread outward into a dim green field dotted by thousands of bright green specks scattered irregularly throughout.
The dots outside the main body are irregularly spaced, many clusters appear but there are vastly more individual points. Most are stationary but dots of bright green move in specific rapid patterns. The high, wide screen shows thousands of pinpoint lights and yet indistinct green haze lightens the screen. The image seems like the starry decked heavens but Lewiston confirms to his superior "One mile radius, sir."
"Thank you Commander," Kotzain says and addresses the assembled officers. "Gentlemen, ladies, what you see before you are the individual life readings of every living thing within a one mile radius of this facility. Each and every person in the area shows up on this screen."
"Just like on a satellite infra red heat detector," General Joellen Roberts says.
"Not exactly. The two prime differences are that we do not go off satellite data, the instrumentality is contained within this unit and second, infrared tracking can be fooled. High heat areas, heat shielding, clustered bodies can all serve to break a lock. Commander, focus on this room."
x
"You heard the order, people," Lewiston says to the seventy two technicians ranged below them. The image expands rapidly enough to cause vertigo, thousands of dots fly out to all sides and the image zooms in until a final cluster within this building gives way to a recognizable arrangement of large lights, no longer pinpoints, arranged in organized rank and file with nine enlarged lights grouped at the top of the screen. Now the background is dark green.
"General Roberts, if you would be so kind as to walk down to the door and back?"
The moment she does so a single large light detaches from the cluster and follows her path in real time. The steps are laid out nine from bottom to top, but each is the width of the platforms upon which the rows of eight technicians and their control panels sit.
She makes a quick movement to the side, varies speed and angle, reverses up a step and in all things the point on the screen reflects her movements.
When she reaches the floor level the others have a clear sense of the immensity of the screen.
As she turns about and ascends the nine long steps to the group, the light takes its place in the upper cluster.
"Now identified, you could phone us from anywhere and we can tell you exactly where you are and the numbers of people around you."
"Let's not get too particular, shall we?" she asks with good nature.
"No. The system would be better used, once a Terrorist Leader is ID'ed, for our units to know exactly what chair he's sitting in and the names of all the Jihadists in the room with him."
x
"That's your present range, a ten mile diameter?" Vice Admiral Schneider asks.
"Thirty mile radius. But we find that, beyond a five mile range, identifying specific signals within a metropolitan area becomes too difficult unless we're locked on to a specific signal. Once that is done, we have tracked that specific person to thirty miles away.
"We plan in the future to link to satellite data. That is, of course, when said satellites are designed and built." He looks to Lewiston. "Show us a two point five mile radius view." The command is relayed and the view condenses to where the entire complex forms a bright spot in the center. "What you see now is five miles of the greater DC area. Each of those tiny dots is a person or, conversely, more than one person so closely situated that they render together, perhaps in physical contact. The rapidly moving points are, of course, vehicles."
He turns to Colonel Makenzie. "Marine Motto, 'Never Leave A Man Behind'. With a mobile unit, provided we have the funding for them, this can locate a man in the desert where infrared is hampered or inefficient and pinpoint him not to a square mile but to a square foot." He looks to Admiral Candelaro. "That same square foot applies to a seaman overboard or a pilot shot down in the ocean where hypothermia makes infrared useless. If he or she is alive, you know exactly from where to pull him out."
"Captain, why the haze?" Schneider asks. "When you were focused on the room, the image was sharp. I see people, they stand out, but why do you not get a clear image throughout?"
"Ants."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Crickets, honey bees, gnats, birds, squirrels, cats, dogs, goldfish... The system detects life, any and all life. Large living things like humans, they give off an intense signal, billions of tiny living things, they give off haze. We could lock in on a single–"
"Then what's that?" Vice Admiral Nicole Feder asks, pointing to a spot on the upper left of the screen. The spots there, too small to distinguish even on so large a screen, are much brighter than any other in the five mile zone and grow more intense by the moment.
x
"Focus on that," Kotzain orders. But before it does the bright spot flares like a nova and, though no lights go out, the intense ones are lost among hundreds of others, none brighter now than any other.
"Any answers, Captain?" Malone asks.
"None, sir." Kotzain admits to the base commander.
"Then I suggest you find some."
"Yes, sir."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Malone says, "if you'll step this way we'll continue the presentation. Captain, if you'll join us..."
As the officers step away, Kotzain turns to his XO and says with quiet fury "Commander, I want every circuit on this damned thing inspected and verified, even if it takes all night."
"Yes, sir."
xxx
Tim McGee parks his car for the first time in over two weeks across the street from the apartment house and he's really happy at the luck. Crossing the street, he sees Dorothy Lincoln coming from his right and knows she'll reach the front of the building before he will.
It's not that the woman causes him any real pain, but conversations with her can be likened to having a tooth pulled under not quite enough nitrous oxide, and so very slowly. No real pain, nothing sharp, but it goes on and on and on… and on.
He knows he can beat her to the door if he triples his speed, or better, but to do so would be ruder than he can bear to be, so he gives way to the inevitable and, as Shav says, offers the moment up in prayer.
"Good evening, Tim."
"Good evening."
"How was your day?"
"Good." He's not going to ask. There are two questions that, if one values one's sanity, one does not ask Dorothy Lincoln, the other one being 'how are you?' He's learned the hard way about each of these.
"I was surprised to see your wife and daughter at that rally this afternoon."
"Excuse me? My daughter?"
"Yes. She's such a lovely thing. Looks more like you every time I see her."
That'd be a good trick. Little six year old Bridget is Bill and Lenore Morehouse's little one and if anything she should look like her aunt Siobhan. "Errrr. Yes. Thanks." At this moment he has an insight into his neighbor but not one he wants to pursue, not with dinner and his new daughter waiting. She goes with her parents to her new home to Utah in the morning, a few hours for a touch and go rendezvous that they may not even leave Reagan for.
x
"It was such an interesting rally, though hardly suitable for a child."
"Excuse me?" he asks very unwillingly, sure he's opening a floodgate regardless of his intent but he can't help himself. "What rally?"
"Why, Clare Adams', of course."
"Of course."
"She has the most interesting theories."
"Do tell." He's sure she will.
"Nothing for children, of course, that's why I was so surprised to see your wife brought your daughter to it. Do you think that was a good idea, really?"
"I trust my wife's judgment," he says, knowing there's no polite way of getting out of hearing about this rally so he wants to hear about it quickly and get to dinner. He has to do an edit of 'The Other Locked Room' – doesn't have to but wants to – but the only way to do that is to wait until Bridget goes to bed.
"Well, that's up to you. Of course, the girl should know what she's getting into."
Now she has his attention. "What she's getting into? At a rally?"
"Well, she'll be getting married soon. She needs to know what she has to look forward to."
"Excuse me?" Momentary concern gives way to astonishment and he fights back a laugh. "Bridget is 6 years old."
"You can't start them right too soon with something this important."
"I guess not," he admits, still feeling he's swinging between stunned and lost.
"You certainly don't want her to get her heart broken, do you?"
Before he got to know Bridget, Sammy Sky was the most ecstatic person he'd ever met. He doesn't believe he'll live long enough to see either of their hearts break. "No."
"Well, then," she says, the definitive conclusion to her point.
x
x
x
'I am truly going to regret this.' "Mrs. Lincoln," he suddenly realizes he's never met a Mr. Lincoln but the man is either a Saint or in a padded cell. "What rally?"
"Clare Adams'."
He presses his hand to his forehead to work the kink from his neck. 'I so deserved that.'
He fights a laugh down. This is one of those situations where you have to either laugh or scream and he doesn't want to laugh, not for fear of being offensive but that he might not be able to stop. "What was the rally about?"
"About 45 minutes."
He feels that laugh welling up but it'd have to push annoyance out of the way to get out. "Mrs. Lincoln, what was the subject of the rally?"
"She was pushing her new book and having a Signing. She's proven that, believing they can get away with it, 23% of married men will cheat on their wives."
He only thought he was surprised before. "23%? Don't you think that's rather high?"
"She was very compelling. Had some pretty hard arguments."
"Yes, I'm sure she did." But he expects he's heard far better ones in Interrogation. It doesn't sound like something Shav would be interested in.
"Did you know that in the coming twenty years, 34% of marriages will end in divorce, and that of those 82% will be because of marital infidelity?"
"I did not know that." Gibbs' track record aside (75% of his marriages ended in divorce) he has high hopes for celebrating his Golden with Shav, and their grandkids are going to throw the party.
"Believe it."
"I guess I have to." His Rule 11, which he is now coining in the back of his head, will be that to end a conversation, agree with everything the other person says, but he's too tired to put the maxim into practice. "This has been very interesting but I really have to run. Siobhan is holding dinner and I really want to see my n– my daughter." To call her his niece or to mention she's leaving for Utah in the morning would be disastrous. "So if you'll excuse me."
"Of course. I just wanted to say–."
"Oh look, isn't that Mrs. Jones?"
"Where?" she asks, turning about and he practices his disappearing act. Jones is nowhere in sight but by the time the woman realizes that….
'Okay,' he thinks on his way to the elevator, 'I'll ask Shav for absolution later.'
xx
"UNCLE TIM!" The shriek as he gets the door three quarters open gives him a much needed two second warning to prepare for the collision. He's gotten used to falling back to his High School Catcher's position, arms out to catch the three foot tall fast ball and bring her into a hug.
"How's my favorite niece?" She has yet to know she's his only one barring an inevitable surprise call from Sarah, AFTER the one about her getting married and there had best be a year between those two forthcoming calls.
"Aunt Siobhan took me to the bookstore after school!"
"When he releases her and stands up, the only suitable reply is "I can see that." The coffee table before the couch is littered with, not to say buried by, a colorful collection of large books, excepting the three that have fallen to the floor, quite probably in the girl's launch.
By this point his lovely wife is in reach and he helps her the rest of the way and spends some time warming her lips which are suitably warm anyway.
But after too few seconds she pulls those lips away and whispers very softly "A grá, we're being watched."
"Good. Time to learn about a loving marriage." If she did hear this Clare Adams, she needs to see reality. Shav reaches up and drums pinky through index finger to the back of his head, her version of Gibbs' pay attention call. "All right."
"One more night and you get the bed back," she promises. By his own insistence he'd taken the convertible this week, outwardly to be generous but also not forgetting the apartment's thin walls. Further, the bathroom is beyond the bed.
"I'll hold you to that," he whispers, his lips brushing hers.
"I'm sure you will," she says with a discrete bump of hips before releasing him.
"So," he says, stepping into the living room, "what's with the treasure trove?"
"Just a few books for the trip," Siobhan says.
"To Mongolia on foot?" They make plenty of money between his salary and her two, but he's still glad all the books he sees have big green discount stickers plastered to their upper corners.
Bridget sorts through the very unsorted pile that hides the table. "Aunt Siobhan bought me The Thank You Elephant and Piggy Book The Story of Diva and Flea The Day The Crayons Came Home Where the Sidewalk Ends I Wish You More Robo-Sauce The Lornax Five Minute Star Wars Stories Owl Diar –."
"Honey, I have to talk to your aunt for a minute."
"Okay, uncle Tim." They get exactly one step. "Uncle Tim?"
He turns back to her, a glance to Siobhan admitting the inevitable. "Yes, honey?"
"When aunt Siobhan took me to your job and I met aunt Abby, how is aunt Abby my aunt?"
He looks to Shav, his first thought being that he used to date the woman - a long time ago - but Shav wouldn't bring that up. She may flummox him - pretty often - but she always plays the girl straight. And for how well he knows Lenore, she probably never told her daughter about the polite custom of naming any adult who's a friend as aunt this or uncle that. She probably introduces everyone as Mister this or Missus that.
But this is a long conversation, he thinks, and he already has one on hold. "Errr, can I get back to you on that, hon?"
"Okay." Another step managed. "How is uncle Ducky my uncle?"
"I promise."
x
When Shav does lead him into the bedroom and he closes the door, he says "Quite a haul."
"So she came with two suitcases and can leave with three. You should have seen her eyes, probably the only children's books she gets come from Bill. Len probably only buys her text books."
"Not our fight, hon."
"I also bought her next year's calendar, but told her to ask her father to hang it in her room."
"A calendar?" Why should that be an issue? "Ohhh, a calendar."
"Mmm hmm."
In the kitchen hangs a calendar from the Mayo Photographic Club, beautiful full page images of Ireland and this month isn't August, it's Lúnasa. "Shav, don't you think–"
"Like you said, hon, it's not our fight," which he translates to mean 'drop it and stay happy'. He'll gladly stay out from between the sisters; he's had too much of getting between them in High School. She goes over to the bed to turn down Bridget's side. When the girl goes in at seven, at least they'll have the rest of the evening. "But when we see Lenore and Bill in the morning, I am going to suggest they have her lungs checked. She has a fine future either as an Opera singer," she turns about, "or an Auctioneer."
x
Her expression falls as she reads his. "You're not coming."
"I'm sorry, honey. We have–" He halts at her upraised hand. It does, however, take her nearly twenty seconds to erase the emotion from her face and he gives her the time.
"We agreed long ago," she admits, "that if one of our jobs pulled us away that we wouldn't…." She fights herself to silence. "But dam - darn it, this may be the last time before her wedding."
"I know. I'm sorry, honey."
A burst of effort wipes the emotion off her face, leaving a too placid mask. "As we agreed, I'm not blaming…." comes out toneless.
He takes out his BlackBerry, powers it down, goes to her night table and sets the landline to mute. "I am home for the evening, and the night."
"A mhuirnín," to which 'uh wúr-neen' he hears 'darling', "I'm not blaming you. God, if I don't know how important your job is then no one does."
x
x
She's forced herself to silence and he has to change the subject. "Dot Lincoln waylaid me before I made it to the front door. She told me she saw you at some rally this afternoon?"
"Not a rally, a book pushing at B&N. They had the signing and speech set up right next to the Children's section, why I don't know. So while Bridget read a few things sitting on a small chair we were lucky to snag, I listened."
"How was it?"
She gives him a slow smile and suddenly he wants to duck. Instead he goes to his bureau to secure his weapon. "Pretty interesting. Clare Adams, who wrote the book, says that 23% of married men, if they believe they can get away with it, will cheat on their wives."
"That's awfully cynical."
"Maybe. I don't know."
"Well," he says as he places the Sig in the lock box and sets that at the back of the drawer, "it must be good to know that I'm in the 77%." Her silence makes him look back and he doesn't care for her troubled eyes. "Well, come on, you don't think I would, do you?"
"How do I know what you do Wednesday through Monday? I'm only there on Tuesdays and you have all these cases. Beautiful suspects, gorgeous young witnesses; remember that Bikini Contest you told me about a couple of years ago? What about that nymphomaniac Catherine Reynolds in Bethesda, who tried to take a swan dive into your boxers? And another redhead too? What about Susan Grady from Polygraph who faked results so you'd have to take the test again? What about Brenda Carter at that Women's Prison who climbed you like a koala up a eucalyptus tree?"
"The one who threw up on my Ermenegildo Zegnas on our graduation night from FLETC?"
"Did you see her again when you went back to interview McFadden?"
"No!" If he'd had any idea his innocent foibles had affected her like this he'd never have told her such stories.
"My point is if you were sleeping around I'm that last one anyone would tell."
He closes the drawer. "Come on. I would never cheat on you."
"I don't know, a mhuirnín, a proven 23% is very compelling."
Silly. 'Proven 23?' He crosses back to her. "Sweetness, you're a priest. You see the good in people."
"You have no idea what I see. I see the seamy side too, the things no one ever wants anyone else to know, all of which I must keep secret. If you knew the things I've Absolved people of over the years you'd run shrieking from the building."
"Come on."
"Come on yourself. Temptation is out there and it's 24/7/365. It's insidious, and the only ones who think they're above it are those who lie to themselves more than to others. You're no exception."
"I'm not?" he asks, longing for a way to play the mounting torrent down.
"Look at who you work with. Abby jumped your boner days after you got there, and you did it in her coffin. Then she was fighting for you for months after she broke it off until you and Ziva broke up. How do I know you two didn't make up?"
"What?"
"That's to say nothing of you working opposite a former lover you were dhéanamh grá do every chance you got for months since last June, and now Jethro sits between you to keep you two separated."
x
He gapes at her, finally has to declare that "I don't believe we're having this conversation."
"You two used to take breaks at work together at the top of the stairwell behind that still broken Emergency door. But I forgave you because you stopped not long after we got married."
"Not LONG?"
"Who can be sure?"
"Ziva and I broke up before you and I started dating!" How can she possibly misremember this?
"Because she doesn't share any more than I do. And yet you also work right next to, and go out into the field 'partnered' with, another woman you've slept naked with," she bites, her voice low and intense.
"Huh?" This is insane. "I never slept naked with Michelle."
"What about when you say you were trapped in that sauna?"
"We weren't–" He cuts his voice down, mindful of the girl outside. "We Weren't Naked. She had her bra and panties on."
"And you were in your boxers."
"We weren't asleep, we were passed out from the heat!"
"Oh yeah?" she challenges, not raising her voice but her words are a whip snap. "And what were you doing that made you both so hot?"
This is insane. "We were writing 'goodbye' notes to you and Jimmy."
"You had her in her bra and panties, you in your boxers, get hot and suddenly you're writing me a 'Dear Jane' note? A Note?"
"I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!" She waves him to be quiet. "We didn't do anything!"
"Have you any idea how many couples I've counseled, young lovers who 'hadn't done anything' but the girls were pregnant and now she's preg– Oh my God, do I have to demand a paternity test?"
"NO!"
x
Looking at the horror and outrage on his face she sputters and bursts into laughter, so much so that she must sit down on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry, a thaisce," she says when she can force a breath, calling him 'uh hásh-keh', my treasure, which takes much of the sting out, "of course I don't believe any of that nonsense." She manages to fight the laughter down. "I know everything that happened that day, from you, from Michelle, from James, Ducky and so many others. I have never doubted you. I know you'd never cheat on me."
"Thank you." He's relieved to realize he's been had - again - though he doesn't appreciate the scare. Sometimes his wife's humor can be daunting because he Always falls for it.
He pulls her up and into a hug and she assures him that "I have absolute trust in you. Always did." They hug more tightly and kiss most thoroughly, but he'll settle this score with her some time after Bridget goes home. "Plus," she tells him as she pulls back from his lips, "you're so deeply into your computers."
This stops him and he pulls back, still held in her arms. "Huh?"
"Well, if you ever did try to cheat on me, I'd make certain that you got that Lorena Bobbit virus."
"Lorena Bobbit virus?"
"You know the one, it turns your hard drive into a three and a half inch floppy."
He's too flummoxed to say anything so she kisses him.
