Washington, D.C., United States of America
The bullet whizzed past Leroy Jethro Gibbs's ear and shattered the window behind him.
The next bullet hit its mark. Fortunately for Gibbs, he ducked behind his couch.
Fighting for his life in the middle of a shootout, Gibbs took aim at the intruders: two in the kitchen, one hiding in the annex doorway behind them, another in the stairwell. With his primary handgun in his right hand and his backup in his left, Gibbs needed just four good shots to get himself to kill the bastards.
As three more bullets lodged themselves in the lead-reinforced couch, Gibbs suddenly realized he wasn't sure he was going to get out of his predicament.
"Ihr beide. Bewegen Sie auf mein Signal. Wir beenden jetzt das."
The bastard in the back wants me to hear that, Gibbs thought. Well he's right. This ends now, one or the other.
"Für das Vaterland! Für den Führer! Sieg Heil!"
Why am I not surprised?
Gibbs decided one of the two in the kitchen would rush him, as would the man hiding in the stairwell to the upper floor. He'd shoot them first. The trick would be to shoot them and the other two and get out alive.
He waited for the Nazis - or whoever the hell they were - to make the first move. Seconds later he heard a series of very light taps on one of the unbroken windows right behind him.
-. ..- -. -. -.- .-.-.- / ... .. - / - ... . / ..-. .-.. - - .-. .-.-.-
Gibbs smiled and hit the floor.
The next thing he heard was the sound of yet another of his windows shattering above him, followed by something hitting the floor in the kitchen.
"Was ist das?" Gibbs heard one of the intruders yell. Gibbs took a deep breath to avoid breathing in the gas from the canister and hoped they got the bastards before the bastards got to him.
'They', of course, were the members of a Marine Special Operations Tactical Squad and they came in shooting.
The front and back doors were kicked in as someone crashed through above Gibbs and into the living room. The NCIS agent kept low to the ground, guns in both hands, and looked out from under the couch.
All he saw was gas, and a gas mask which he quickly put on one-handed. He got the mask on just as the tear gas from the exploded canister reached him.
The sounds of gunfire soon stopped, replaced by sounds of friendlies shouting instructions to each other as they moved through the house.
Gibbs looked up and saw one of the Marines looking back at him and extending a hand. He grabbed it and got up, acknowledged the Marine and looked at the mess around him.
The neighborhood quickly filled up with people from NCIS and almost every other federal agency, including the FBI.
As he had the last three times, FBI Agent Tobias Fornell made his way to the house and flashed his badge at the agents guarding what was left of the front door. He saw Gibbs in the living room leaning over the body of an intruder.
"Gibbs, I'm surprised they haven't thrown you out of the neighborhood," Fornell said. "It's the fourth week in a row something like this has happened."
Gibbs grimmaced at the comment. He kneeled down, looking at one of the dead men's uniform.
"Did I tell you about the bunch I ran into a few days ago?" Fornell asked Gibbs, who replied with a stare.
"'His Majesty's Secret Service working in the Colonies'. MI5. When I told the lead guy I was a federal agent working for and in the USA, you know what his reaction was? Like I'd grown a second head and a third eyeball - just like I reacted to him."
Fornell looked over the body. There was something about the uniform that looked familiar. He noticed an armband, obscured by the position of the body and blood on the visible portion. "Wonder who this mouth-breather's associated with?"
Gibbs looked up. "This one's gotta wait till Homeland gets here," he said as he walked to the kitchen to look over another body. "Maybe this one'll tell us something."
The one Gibbs and Fornell guessed to be the leader laid just outside the laundry room in the kitchen.
The exposed armband - a American-type flag, with a star-bordered swastika in the upper left blue field - told both men enough.
"I don't recognize these jokers, Jethro," Fornell said. "I'm really surprised you haven't had little green men show up on your doorstep yet."
Gibbs didn't find the humor in Fornell's quip.
"Soviet Spetsnaz, Roman centurions, now these loonies," the FBI agent continued. "You might want to think about laying low for awhile."
"Not gonna happen," Gibbs replied.
Fornell kneeled down to take a closer look at the armband. "Wonder what the hell his story is?"
"Wondering that one myself," Gibbs said, "along with the other bastards. We haven't been able to find out a damn thing about them."
The look on Gibbs's face of extreme frustration was completely understandable to Fornell, who was just as frustrated for his friend. "I know what you say about coincidences-"
"You're forgetting the first group."
Confused for a few moments, Fornell remembered whom Gibbs was talking about. "Those guys with the marks on their foreheads? I'm surprised you didn't find religion after looking at those things."
Gibbs looked his friend hard in the eyes. "What I need to find is who these bastards really are and why they're showing up, period."
"You and everyone else on the planet, Jethro."
Washington
Navy Yard
NCIS Headquarters
The Event, at first, was laughable.
Telescopes at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawai'i first picked up the artificial lifeform between Mars and the asteroid belt. It was a batlike being heading straight for Earth.
Shock at first contact with an alien species quickly turned into jokes on late-night talk shows while the United States and Russia worked together on a plan of defense and attack. The alien 'space bat', as large as the moon, passed Earth peacefully.
When it disappeared from telescopic views around Venus, the weirdness on Earth began.
While Gibbs had to deal with a home invasion every seven days, other people (and their governments) were faced with everything from time travelers to elves to fictional characters come to life. Generally, the 'craziness' was benign worldwide although there were exceptions (the "All-Watching Eye" in New Zealand and the gigantic fiery birds in Mexico).
So far, Gibbs and company hadn't had to deal with the worst. The past few weeks for them had been of the more mundane, investigative variety.
Because of the incident at his house, Gibbs had to order his senior agent Tony DiNozzo to begin processing the crime scene for the team's latest case. Neither DiNozzo; Mossad liaison Officer Ziva David; Medical Examiner Donald 'Ducky' Mallard; nor Examiner's Assistant Jimmy Palmer had to go very far.
All four walked to the scene, just outside the main entrance gate to the Navy Yard, where a dead male laid inside the motorcycle that crashed into the guard shack. Two security guards were watching the scene for the agents, two more guards were rerouting traffic to the secondary entrance. Nothing about that was unusual.
In contrast, the leprechaun by the sidecar attached to the motorcycle was most definitely unusual.
"His name's Lorcan," one of the guards said to Tony. "Like Duncan, first part Lor, like roar."
"I'm gonna make a wild guess and say you're not talking about the dead guy."
"Him? That's your job. Oh yeah, Lorcan's from someplace called High Brazil, which apparently is in Ireland. And call him Mister Lorcan."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Mister Lorcan."
The guard leaned in and lowered his voice to a whisper. "And the guy hates any mention of Lucky Charms. You'd think them fellas would have a sense of humor, you know?"
Tony looked back at the scene, where Ducky and Palmer were just beginning to look at the body, while Ziva talked with one of the guards. "I think you can cut the guy a break. The other guy is dead, after all."
Lorcan's diminutive stature, his red hair and beard, and green outfit made him look just like a classic leprechaun. He fidgeted impatiently near the sidecar but didn't look like he was going anywhere. Tony caught Ziva's eye, shook his head in Lorcan's direction, and went to talk with Ducky and Palmer.
"Ah, Tony. I presume Jethro is preoccupied?" Ducky asked while he looked over the corpse.
"Same thing as the past three weeks. Gibbs is headed here as soon as he can get away."
While Tony took pictures, Ducky looked closely at the man's back, noticing a small hole.
"I can't tell you anything definitive until we get this man back to the morgue, but I'm willing to venture this " – Ducky pointed at the hole – "was, at the least, a factor in his demise."
Tony angled his camera at the blood-stained handlebars and speedometer which the body was slumped over. "Could be. Hopefully Horace over there can shed some light on this."
"Horace?" Palmer said.
"The leprechaun in The Luck of the Irish, a classic from the late forties. Tyrone Power, Jayne Meadows, Anne Baxter. I forget who played the leprechaun."
Palmer grinned abruptly. "Well, unlike Horace, this fellow didn't have the luck of the Irish. Maybe he wasn't wearing his lucky charms."
"Mister Palmer," Ducky said as Tony groaned. "You must learn to make observations which are more insightful and less silly."
"Sorry, Dr. Mallard," Palmer said. "At least I didn't get the good ol' Gibbs glare this time."
Palmer quickly realized that both Ducky and Tony could emulate the Gibbs glare very, very well.
Washington, en route to the Navy Yard, near Rock Creek Park
After speaking with the Homeland agent, Gibbs left his house in the hands of the Homeland and NCIS agents on the premises and headed to work.
Like Tony and Ziva, Gibbs had been unable to reach special agent Tim McGee. When Tony asked Gibbs about "McLate", Gibbs said he would handle it.
He suspected the young agent had a damn good reason for not being at work and not being reachable. His mind told him to put out a BOLO, but his gut suggested something strange had happened to McGee.
Gibbs was about to find out how strange McGee's predicament was.
The driver of a sedan a couple of car lengths ahead of Gibbs slammed on her brakes. Gibbs braked and swerved to avoid a collision and missed hitting the sedan's bumper by inches.
He pulled up a few feet, looked into the sedan and saw the driver was wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Then he heard the noises in front of the sedan and his truck.
-FFFSSSSHHHHWWWWWWWWWWWWWW—
Light beams – no. Lasers, Gibbs thought as he flashed his badge at the driver and motioned for her to get down in her seat. He slowly opened his door, bending low as he got out and quickly moved towards the back.
He looked ahead to get a feel for what exactly was happening. It looked like a shootout, with lasers instead of bullets. Four people, in maroon, hiding behind an SUV shooting left to right. Someone behind a silver Porsche Boxster car, shooting right to left.
McGee.
Gibbs decided having the woman in the sedan get out from the passenger side was a good idea. She opened her door after Gibbs tapped on the window, then crawled out; Gibbs firmly and quickly pulled her out and told her to stay behind the truck.
The next move was to get to McGee, and Gibbs had no idea how to do that.
Think, damnit!
Gibbs looked around, and found his answer in the thick brush and trees along the street. He went back to the woman and told her his plan; they ran from the truck and sedan into the nearby brush, Gibbs looking back all the way with his pistol drawn.
On the other side of the brush, Gibbs gave her Fornell's number, told her to call him and request help, then get as far away as possible. He then ran towards McGee's position, which was easy to find given the laser blasts cutting through the foliage.
Gibbs found a spot to crawl through the brush. He was met on the other side by McGee and his pistol.
"Boss! … Boss? How'd you get here?" McGee said, pistol in his left hand and some type of weapon in his right hand. "I almost shot you just now."
He ducked as the laser bolt flew inches over his head. Gibbs told McGee to give him a sitrep, and McGee's response sounded like a cross between a fib, a fevered dream and a certain television show.
In short, as he left for work, McGee came across four people doing some kind of reconnaissance near his apartment. For some reason, they saw him as a threat and tried to abduct him. McGee's phone was shot out of his hand before he could call for help at his apartment complex.
He picked up one of their guns, and sped out, towards the District; they apparently carjacked an SUV and followed him from Silver Spring to Rock Creek Park. The bastards forced him to pull over and started firing at him. McGee quickly figured out how the laser pistol worked and began firing back.
"Four of them, Boss, like the characters on the show, only evil," McGee said. "Maroon uniforms, with laser weapons. Their communicators on their chests are of a sword going through the Earth, just like on the show."
"McGee. Those things could slice through your car easily," Gibbs said. "They toying with you?"
"Maybe. I'm pinned in, no way to call for help. No offense, Boss, I'm glad you're here, but we're gonna need some reinforcements and fast."
Gibbs hoped that woman had called Fornell. "Like a starship?"
"Maybe."
They counted four people hiding behind the SUV and a hatchback: a bearded man, a short-haired blonde woman, a man with olive skin and a large, dark-skinned man with a very large, ridged forehead.
They hadn't moved, but shot at McGee and anyone who dared to approach them. That included a SWAT team from D.C. Metro police.
Gibbs and McGee watched as the lasers dissected an armored Humvee barreling down the street from their right. They ducked as the vehicle exploded.
"Yep, they're definitely toying with you," Gibbs hollered while he reached for his phone. He called NCIS for reinforcements and hoped somebody had something to fight these bastards with.
Navy Yard
NCIS Conference Room
As Lorcan drank his fifth cup of coffee, Tony wondered where the coffee went; if the man had some sort of super bladder; and if he was going to have to carry him to the bathroom.
"I'm fine, laddie, as long as ye don't sit me here all day and night," Lorcan said, seemingly reading Tony's mind. "I'd appreciate it if ye didn't take that long, cause I got a hot date tonight."
Ziva found herself fixated by the man's strange outfit. Lorcan wore a belted green top hat, a green jacket and green pants, all consistent with the traditional image of a leprechaun.
The rest of his ensemble was more modern and eclectic: red Chuck Taylor sneakers with neon green shoestrings; a brown leather belt with a large steel beltbuckle; and a white T-shirt with a very familiar logo of a legendary rock band.
Ziva had to know what that logo was, even if it meant a dozen Gibbs-slaps.
"The Giant Tongues!" she blurted out. "They sing about brown sugar and satisfaction! Right?"
Tony groaned. "Tell her," he told Lorcan. "I don't want to be here all day either."
Lorcan sighed, then pointed to the logo. "Lassie! Haven't ye heard of the Rolling Stones? Greatest rock band in history. Saw them in Hy-Brasil, '79. Ye've heard of them, laddie, right?" Tony nodded.
"But if they are the Rolling Stones why is their logo a tongue sticking out of a mouth?" Ziva replied.
Tony decided to bring the conversation back on topic. "I'll tell you later. You, Lorcan, can start by telling Ziva and I how you met the victim."
According to Lorcan, he met Navy Lieutenant Kyle Richards earlier in the morning at a coffee shop in Alexandria and asked for a ride into town.
"I wanted to see the clipper ships on the river, right here at your Navy Yard," Lorcan said. The clipper ships appeared three weeks ago, their crews claiming to be U.S. Navy from the year 1799. "D'ye know what happened to that Civil War ship?"
"Classified," Tony replied. "So you and the Lieutenant are in town and he's taking you to look at the ships."
"Which are restricted access since the Event, along with the rest of the Navy Yard," Ziva added. "Surely you were aware of this?"
Lorcan wasn't. "I swear, lassie, I didn't know. I thought it was like that Lincoln Monument, open to everyone, including leprechauns like me."
Tony leaned in. "A U.S. Navy officer is dead. I saw the bullet wound on his body. You HAD to have seen him get shot."
"Were you involved?" Ziva said as she leaned in. "Did you shoot him yourself?"
"Hey!" Lorcan replied, wide-eyed in shock and fear. "Lassie, laddie! I didn't shoot anybody! I'm a leprechaun!"
"And I am Mossad."
Lorcan pondered that for a few moments. "I've heard of ye. Killin' me's a bit overkill, wouldn't ye say?"
"Nobody's going to kill anyone," Tony said, glancing at Ziva, who smiled. "How did the Lieutenant come to crash into our guard shack?"
The morgue
Ducky looked over the body of Lt. Richards laying on one of the steel tables inside the morgue, while Palmer set up the tools Ducky would use during the autopsy.
It was a routine they had performed hundreds of times together. This autopsy would – hopefully – shed light on the cause of Richards's death.
"The entrance and exit wounds Tony saw are bizarre," Ducky said. "The trajectory of the…whatever caused the wounds should not have killed this man, at least not immediately. It should have punctured his lung. A shot through the heart would better explain the massive amount of blood on the motorcycle."
Palmer pointed to the small hole in Richards's left pectoral muscle. "You'd expect the exit wound to be larger on the chest than it is. What if he got shot from the front?"
"That doesn't explain how the exit and entrance wounds are the same. How the man got shot and with what is for the agents to determine. What we are to determine is his cause of death and we shall start now. Mr. Palmer, hand me the scalpel, please."
Ducky cut the standard 'Y' incision from the shoulders to the pubic bone, then peeled back the skin, muscle and soft tissue to open the chest cavity.
The grotesque sight that awaited him would stick with he and Palmer – and anyone else who saw it – for the rest of their lives.
A small, reddish creature laid in the cavity where the heart should have been. Its head rested between the left lung and a deflated right lung. It appeared the creature took the brunt of the shot, as its body was torn nearly in half.
"OH GOD HOLY—" Palmer yelled, then went into hysterics.
Ducky briefly was stunned, struggling to grasp what he had found inside Richards' body. When he came to his senses, both the dead Lieutenant and the dead creature were still there, and Palmer was screaming. So Ducky quickly moved to calm Palmer down.
"Mr. Palmer! Jimmy! JIMMY! JAMES!"
-SLAP!—
The head slap did the trick.
"Doc-doc-doc-doctor Ma-Ma-Mallard…Th-th-that th-th-th—"
"I know, Mr. Palmer," Ducky replied quietly as he quickly turned Palmer away from the sight. "I want you to go upstairs and have Tony come down here unless Jethro is back. Then tell Jethro I need him to come down here immediately."
"Y-y-y-yes Doc-doc-doc-tor M-m-mallard," Jimmy stammered, running straight to and out the door.
Ducky forced himself to take another look at the corpses, then got himself a few specimen bottles. He proceeded to take blood samples from the beast and from Richards' foot, and tissue samples from the beast itself. When Palmer returned with Tony (or Gibbs), Ducky would have them take the samples up to forensics. Hopefully, Abby Sciuto would uncover something useful to the investigation, and the bizarre twist it had just taken.
Placing the bottles down next to his tools, Ducky realized Abby hadn't checked in via the video monitor as she normally did. He also realized no one had heard from McGee yet. Tony said Gibbs was going to look for McGee; Ducky hoped they wouldn't have to look for Abby too.
Resisting the strong temptation to run like hell out of the morgue, Ducky remembered he needed to wait. So he did the next best thing: walking to his desk a bit more briskly – and jittery – than usual, he hit the call button on the monitor to make sure Abby was there.
Rock Creek Park
McGee figured his Boxster was a lost cause. Collecting on the insurance for the car was not on his mind at the moment.
Getting out alive was.
He followed Gibbs back into the brushes in the midst of the nearby chaos. The four aliens were busy carving up police cars, SWAT Humvees and, now, the Army vehicles pouring into the area. Gibbs's idea was to run as far away as possible and hope the bastards didn't follow them.
McGee didn't argue. He also didn't dwell on the possibility that the aliens had a starship up there that could easily zap them from orbit – or worse.
"You have any idea why those bastards followed you? Why they started shooting at you?" Gibbs barked.
"Honest to God, Boss, no," McGee said. "It's like the guys at your house. You didn't know them either and they still tried to kill you."
"You know I don't believe in coincidences and I don't like being in the dark on any of this," Gibbs replied.
"Maybe it is a coincidence."
Gibbs glared at him.
"Or, they have us confused with somebody else," McGee added.
"Now that's a good thought, McGee," Gibbs said. "We keep going to the other end of the park until I say stop."
Both men kept running as fast as Gibbs could, with McGee hanging a step behind while looking over his shoulder every other second. He stopped when he heard Gibbs scream in pain.
"OUCH – DAMNIT!"
Gibbs's right knee nearly buckled as he fell forward, towards the grass. McGee caught him and helped him back up.
"Can you walk, Boss?"
"No, McGee." Gibbs grimaced when he put pressure on his leg.
McGee looked back for the hundredth time. He heard laserfire and gunfire and the sound of helicopter blades in the distance. He looked around and saw a group of trees about 40 feet from their position.
"Grab my neck and hop along with me the best you can," McGee said. "We're headed towards those trees. We'll try to call NCIS from there."
Gibbs nodded in pain, and both made it to the tree furthest back. Only when they had settled in did they realize Gibbs's phone was ringing. Wincing, Gibbs answered it while McGee kept a lookout.
"Yeah, Gibbs," he yelled as his knee throbbed, the pain getting worse.
NCIS Director Leon Vance was on the other line. Gibbs explained his and McGee's predicament and told Vance they needed to get out of there now.
"I'm told it's turning into a damn war zone over there," Vance said. "Can you move at all?"
After ordering McGee to maintain his lookout, Gibbs managed to get up. He could manage the pain, but not do more than slowly limp along. There was a hundred yards or so of open space to the next grouping of trees; he estimated the road to be about three-quarters of a mile away.
"Keep your phone on, I'll send someone to you," Vance said. "You're too exposed in the open area."
Gibbs flipped the phone shut. "We stay put. Too risky to move."
"What if those guys break out and come looking for us?" McGee said.
"You know that thing better than I do," Gibbs said of McGee's laser pistol. "We empty the bullets and clips in our own weapons and hope that thing doesn't run out of energy."
The Navy Yard
"Repeat back to us how you saw the man die," Ziva said to Lorcan.
The leprechaun tugged at his t-shirt and took a drink of his eighth cup of coffee.
"We're headed to the Navy Yard, right?" Lorcan replied, a bit more jittery than he had been when he was escorted into the conference room. "That guy's yelling above the traffic and telling some pretty raunchy jokes – fancies, er, fancied himself a regular George Carlin, I guess. We don't get that many stand-up comics in Hy-Brasil—"
"Let's get back on topic, Lorcan," Tony interjected.
"Of course, laddie. Anyway, Kyle's tellin' jokes that would make the King blush as he turns onto that road, where that guard shack is. He's talkin', next thing I know he stops talkin', and he's heading for the shack. I tell him twice he's gonna hit the thing. I look over and he's slumped over and that's when I notice blood. He put on his brakes, enough to gently run into the shack without killing either of us. Of course, he must've been dead when he hit the shack."
"Did you hear anything, like a shot, when he stopped talking?" Tony asked.
"Not a damn thing like that, just the engine and the guards yelling at us to stop. I couldn't do a bloody thing. I was hopin' my luck might actually save me—"
The door opened and Palmer stumbled in, nearly falling on his face past the agent who let him in the room. "Tony, is Gibbs here?" he said, breathlessly.
"No he's not," Tony said, slightly agitated and very surprised at Palmer's interruption. "We're in the middle of something here. Wait downstairs until Ziva and I finish—"
"I can't. Dr. Mallard told me to tell Gibbs if he was here or you if he wasn't—"
"What is it, Jimmy?" Ziva said.
Palmer saw and stared at Lorcan for a few seconds, then noticed Tony's glare and gestured out towards the hallway. Tony excused himself and followed Palmer outside.
"As I said, gremlin, we're in the middle of something," Tony said. "So this had better be good."
"It's not, but Dr. Mallard ordered me to find you or Gibbs and tell you to get downstairs stat."
"He couldn't tell me himself?"
"He's downstairs with the bodies."
"You mean body."
"Bodies."
"Bodies? There's only one dead guy, Palmer."
"There's more than one dead guy, Tony…you have to see it for yourself."
Forensics Lab
Ducky did not want to leave the corpses alone in the morgue. He would have had a couple of agents watch it in his absence, but he wanted to keep the circle of people who knew about the corpses as small as possible, for as long as possible.
He also knew he'd have to tell Vance as soon as possible, and that the director would have more than a few questions of his own. Questions that would take some time to try to answer, time that Ducky didn't have right now.
Abby wasn't answering the monitor and Ducky was greatly concerned. He knew from a phone call to security that she had gone through check-in at the entrance this morning, and no one had seen her leave.
Ducky decided to listen to his gut and check on her himself. Two agents would meet him at the lab. He closed the morgue, put a post-it note with 'At Abby's Lab' on the door, and stepped into the elevator.
He stepped out once it reached the lab's floor and saw the agents. They noted that the entrance was locked and Abby was down at her office, her back turned, engaged in conversation.
"She looks alright, sir," Agent Percy Clemons said. "But she's not answering her phones. We need to make sure she is alright."
"I know," Ducky said to Clemons and Agent April Quincy. "Open the door but let me go ahead of you."
"Protocol states we go in first, Doctor," Quincy replied. "We don't know who she's talking to nor if they're armed or not armed."
"I realize that, but my gut is telling me at the moment she needs to see a familiar face."
As they politely argued, the elevator door opened, and Tony and Palmer walked off. Ducky quickly explained why he left and why he needed to go in first. Clemons and Quincy argued about protocol.
Tony had enough. "I'm an agent, and a familiar face, so I go in first," he said, very impatiently. "And we're going in now. Ducky's behind me, you two are right beside him. Palmer, you hang back, outside. Got it?"
They nodded. Tony took the key card and opened the door, then went in, Ducky and the agents trailing him and Palmer staying outside near the door.
"Abs?" Tony said, approaching slowly while noticing the silence. "You okay?"
She motioned for the person with her in the office to get behind her, then slowly turned around.
"Abigail. Are you alright?" Ducky said as Clemons and Quincy looked around, while Tony slowly walked towards the glass door sealing off the office from the laboratory. "We haven't been able to reach you and we were concerned."
"Yeah. Ziva and I haven't seen you yet," Tony added, trying to get an angle to see the person hiding behind Abby, who herself was looking back and forth, between Tony and Ducky on the outside and someone or something to the side.
Abby cautiously approached the door to her office. "Stay behind me," she said to the person behind her. "Tony? Ducky? … April? Percy?"
All four acknowledged Abby. "Abs. Who's in there with you?"
"I need to make sure he isn't around before I open this door," Abby said.
"Who's 'he'?" Tony said.
"Ari."
"Ari? Ari Haswari?" Ducky said.
"Abs, Ari's dead," Tony replied. "Abby, who's hiding behind you?"
The young woman hiding behind Abby decided to step into view of those on the outside, and showed her identification.
"Eleanor Bishop?" Tony said. "Who are you?"
Bishop sighed. Abby knew her, as did the two agents hiding just outside of view. But neither Tony nor Ducky – nor the other two agents – knew who she was.
"Probationary agent, NCIS," she explained. "Gibbs hired me out of the NSA a couple of years ago. I work with him, you and McGee."
"Well, there's only one girl agent on our team and Ziva's upstairs," Tony said.
"Ziva's upstairs?" Abby blurted. "Tony, she's—"
"Abby, no," Bishop interjected. "If this is what McGee thinks it is, the less they know the better."
"The less they know what?" Tony shot back. "Abby. Who's in there with you?"
Abby looked to the side, and watched as McGee stepped out, telling someone else to stay put.
"McGee?" Tony said, looking closely at the man. Something's really hinky about this. "Gibbs is out there looking for you."
"He's looking for someone else," McGee replied, slowly reaching for his own badge.
Tony looked at the badge, then at McGee, then back at the badge, and at McGee, the Bishop woman, and Abby. The two of the three which he thought he knew looked different. Older.
He looked back at McGee's badge. "Senior Special Agent?" he mouthed.
Before he could process that, the fourth person stepped from the side into view, showing her badge.
"Caitlin," Ducky said, softly. Special Agent Kate Todd, as young as when he and Tony last saw her before she died. "Caitlin, is that you?"
"Ducky," she replied. "Tony." Kate's expression went from apprehension to relief, although she stuck close to McGee and had her hand on her weapon.
Tony looked at the other agents and at Ducky. He was in command here and was going to act like it even if he had no idea what he had just stepped into. "Abby, I'm giving you a direct order. All of you step out, slowly."
Bishop whispered something in Abby's ear, and stood aside as Abby went to open the sliding door. All four stepped out, as Tony tried to figure out what in the hell to do now.
Rock Creek Park
The Marine Humvee skidded to a stop close to where Gibbs and McGee were hiding. From the time Gibbs ended his call to Vance to now, both men had witnessed a dozen attack helicopters converging on the area and six of them getting blasted out of the sky by laser beams.
"We've got to get you to safety, sir," a Marine said to Gibbs.
"Careful. He's injured," McGee said to the Marine. As Gibbs was carefully put into the Humvee, McGee maintained a watch towards the park. Another Marine noticed the laser pistol in the agent's hand.
"Where did you get that?" the Marine shouted. McGee explained how he procured it.
"I've heard and seen crazier than that," said the lead Marine. "We're to take you to NCIS, but I'll have to call Homeland about that gun."
"They can have it," McGee replied.
The Humvee left the area, speeding towards the other side of the park, where a convoy of military vehicles awaited it. Close to the road they heard something that sounded like a jet flying right above their position.
The driver hit the brakes and looked out his window, seeing some sort of small spacecraft rapidly heading towards the battle. Everyone saw the craft wiggle side-by-side, and light beams shoot downwards from its forward section. Then came another giant explosion, followed by the ship stopping abruptly and hovering in the air above the tops of the trees along the side of the other road.
The driver uttered an expletive. "I hope to the good Lord that thing's on our side."
"Let's not wait around and let's get these people back where they belong," the lead Marine said.
As the Humvee and its caravan sped towards the Navy Yard, Gibbs grimaced in pain. He figured the knee would be okay once Ducky looked at it. What he didn't like was the feeling of helplessness. In just over a month, the entire world had changed into something he didn't think he was equipped to deal with. Everyone on his team and most within NCIS – even Vance himself – were looking to Gibbs for strength and guidance that he thought he absolutely could not give now.
The caravan approached the Navy Yard. Gibbs was going to headslap Tony for being unreachable, and Ziva for not calling back after she told him "something crazy" was going on in Abby's lab. Before the caravan turned towards the back entrance, something distant in the sky caught Gibbs's eye.
Another alien space bat.