WARNING: This story deals with a dark subject matter, a possible nuclear attack. No real graphic details. If it bothers you, please remember this is fiction or don't continue reading, although I hope you will!


Chapter 2

Thursday, June 13th, 2019

Nearly to mid-June, Tim's alarm reached what he considered epic levels. While they kept working on the last file, the decryption team hadn't been told whether anything had been confirmed. That Thursday when Director Finch stepped in to thank them for their hard work and said their work was done, the man's body language gave Tim the answer.

The team was dispersed and amazingly, no one gave them any instructions or prohibitions about sharing the information. When files one and two were decrypted, everyone involved signed non-disclosure agreements for each sub-file. However, when they'd busted into the third file there were no papers to sign. By the previous evening, they'd gotten through all but one of the encrypted sub-files on the third file and Tim felt that one might haunt him forever. They knew the 'what' but the 'when and where' were still unclear. And the 'who' was a total mystery. He left the building feeling more fear and anxiety than he had since he was a 9-year old orphan abandoned with his baby sister.

On a whim and needing to do something 'normal', he stopped at Costco on the way home. Along with ordinary household items, he bought two cases of cooking oil, feeling ridiculous but determined. There was still the possibility the threat wasn't real or wouldn't be executed and that would be wonderful but he was not going to lose any of his family, he'd be as prepared as he could be. When he carried the boxes in, Ellie looked at him, questioning. He shook his head, he'd tell her later. Dinner had been in a slow cooker all day and now the four of them sat around the table brought back after their release from WITSEC, Lia in her high chair.

Ty and Brynie had been on an overnight to Grandpa's with Nonny and Poppy and talked about jumping the waves, chasing Neo on the beach, finding seashells, playing at the playground, having a campfire on Grandpa's patio and sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags! Overall, they'd had a grand adventure and a wonderful time. That was fine, with their jobs, there wasn't much Tim or Ellie could say about their days anyway, except that it had been either busy or quiet. When they caught a criminal, they might mention it but heavily edited the details.

After the kids were tucked in, the baby sound asleep in her crib, Ellie sat in her husband's lap. "Tell me."

Despite his silence, Ellie had guessed the project had some potentially deadly information and she'd heard the same rumors her father reported. Now that the team had been dismissed and no one said to keep quiet, Tim had few qualms about sharing with his wife.

"More evidence that something will be happening and it's damn frightening. And we're done; the director thanked us, gave us cash bonuses. Cash, when has the government ever done that? And then dismissed the team. Without saying anything else, Ellie! And I had this idea that we should all be driving diesels because I can convert the engines to running on cooking oil."

Responding to the news, Ellie held onto her husband, murmuring to him. Then she raised her head, "Is that why you bought two cases of cooking oil?"

"Yeah."

"My truck's already diesel. You can convert that first, make it your prototype."

Tim shook his head, "Not unless we trade cars until the baby's born. Cooking oil, especially the used cooking oil we might be able to get, has a distinct odor to it. If you decide you can stand it, then I'll do your truck."

"Hm, yes, I've noticed several things that used to smell fine are now disgusting."

"Such as?"

"Coffee, sad to say. Uncooked eggs, even in the shell, in the carton in the refrigerator. And strawberries, dang it!"

"Fresh or frozen?"

"Fresh, haven't tried frozen."

"What about if they're in a smoothie or shake?"

"Don't know; I could try."

"Anything else?"

"Beer smells like baby pee to me."

"And that's not just after changing Lia's diaper?" He said it with a smile so she'd know he was kidding. He was finding pregnancy hormones meant mood swings and getting through a conversation without inadvertently landing on one of the suddenly hurtful, maddening or stressful topics was sometimes tricky.

"Nope."

"Do you think it would help if we put the eggs in one of those plastic egg holders Dad has for camping?"

"That's a good idea, let's borrow his and see."

They cuddled for a bit before she said, "When do you think?"

He looked at her, undecided. Jimmy said the worst of the mood swings would go away toward the end of her first trimester and wouldn't reappear until the baby was nearly due with Ellie likely to be uncomfortable. That had mostly happened. Mostly. Now he had a choice: deflect and risk the wrath of the woman who hated being treated differently 'just because' she was pregnant or tell her what he believed, cause her more stress and risk her health and the baby's. He knew she'd want the truth, no matter what.

"We're not at all sure but our best guess is sometime between October and December. And I want us to be safe long before that."

She nodded, "Then we need to leave for the ranch by the end of July, first of August. I looked at our finances on my lunch break the other day. If we take Gemcity's funds too, we have enough for all the Gibbses for 11 months. But we've got a lot to do between now and then."

He opened his mouth to say something but nodded instead. "Did you look at the overseas account?"

"No, I haven't looked at that since the day you first told me about it. Besides, DiNozzo either heard something or was bored, he was nosing around."

Tim snorted, "Some things never change. All right, let's look at that now and then see what kind of diesel vehicle we want."

She patted her tummy, "We'll need the biggest van we can buy. We'll need room for Mac and Ducky on the trip."

"I think they go as high as 15 or 16 passengers, but with the kids' seats, figure we'll have room for 14. And most of the luggage will go up top."

"Or we buy a trailer."

"For our things or for us?"

"Hm, that might be an idea for your folks, an RV and they could tow the truck but I meant for our stuff."

"We're going to need trucks to haul supplies, I don't want to take the risk of getting to New Mexico and finding we can't stock the way we need to or wiping out the inventory so the locals don't have supplies."

"What about a bomb shelter?"

"Not there yet. What about your folks?"

"Can't tell them until the last minute, can we? Can't start a panic. We'll have to be careful how we prepare."

"Yeah, thought of that when I was leaving Costco; we're going to have to go to different ones." He shook his head, "This is ridiculous Els; it's not going to happen!"

"That'll be great; we'll come home and talk about our grand adventure."

Tim shuddered, "That's what Dad and I said the night the marshals came for us."

Logging into their overseas account, he showed her the balance and she reacted, "Timothy Jackson Gibbs, we could have paid for the New Mexico property and the renovations by ourselves without making a dent!"

"I put my share of the Navy letter money in. And the interest has been piling up for several years, Ellie; you know I hate depleting our assets. And it's the Gibbs extended family ranch, not the 'Timothy Gibbses' ranch."

With the successful convictions of Svetlana Stacevyko, Ric Krose, Joann Fielding, and the traitorous Stanson brothers, the formal investigation into Tim's missing letters to the Navy resumed. Eventually, an entire file cabinet full of letters was found hidden in a basement full of old equipment; he and Sarah had not been the only victims. The civilian who'd let them pile up over the years shrugged when asked why. "It was too much work. That one kid always wanted something; the others never left me alone."

Sadly for him, he was found to have accepted funds from Svetlana and although she'd apparently only contacted and paid him once, he'd continued to bury Tim's - and others' - letters. Sentenced to 15 years in prison for bribery among other things, he lost his job, benefits, retirement, and wife.

The Navy settled out of court with all the victims, although the McGee children were the most affected. Sarah and Tim were finally compensated for the money they should have had to be housed, fed, clothed and educated. Additional funds were settled on them for their pain and suffering, in Tim's case, literal pain and suffering. The Navy also compensated the hospital that treated Tim for the stabbing and donated to the Camp Alumni non-profit organization. While the siblings were satisfied, their parents felt there was nothing that could truly compensate for their lost childhoods.

With the miraculous reappearance of his wife and daughter, Jethro never returned to work full-time after his knee healed. He worked as a trainer for new agents, making sure the agency's post-FLETC probationary agents had more in-depth training in investigatory skills, crime scene procedures along with basic MMA classes and additional training on the firing range. He taught the investigative, crime scene and firearms classes and the MMA classes were taught by other agents or when the budget cooperated, an MMA master. They'd piloted the training through the Georgia FLETC location and when it was deemed successful Jethro also took on the New Mexico location, hand-picking two additional retired agents for the other FLETC locations.

Everyone involved reported success with the new agent training and NCIS team leaders chronicled a significant decrease in time needed to train in the basics once the newbies were assigned to a team. An additional bonus was the standardization of training, previously left to individual team leaders who often delegated to their SFAs.

That was still his responsibility but as FLETC classes were only held once or twice a year and he'd only taken on the two locations, he had free time. Most of that he used to renovate or flip houses with Shannon and Tobias. The trio wasn't especially fast but their work had already gained a sterling reputation and their houses brought steadily increasing profits. As Tim predicted years ago, Freddie and Jose eagerly took on the plumbing jobs and their business was booming.

Tim handled the electrical work when he had the time and because his parents and Fornell weren't speedy, he could usually make time. When they were able to, his siblings helped too. Tony was an adept framer while Sarah loved to demo and Geo found he was good at drywalling and painting. Kelly and Rob threw in design ideas and helped where they could but the two of them were usually swamped at the hospital and at the free clinic they ran in Baltimore with Jimmy and Ducky.

Ellie chuckled as she pulled her husband in for a kiss. "You're always prepared, sweetie. I do love that about you."

"That's good because we're about to become Mr. and Mrs. Prepare for Survival."

She nodded, "I know neither of us wants to believe it and hey if it doesn't happen we can open a restaurant or a cooking school. And I'll be the first student!"

Tim managed a smile, "I was thinking about long-term room for beds at the ranch, but you're right, we should talk shelter first. Let's figure out how many people we'd have."

Making a list, they came up with 76 people they would need to shelter, rounding it up to 80. That meant fresh air, potable water, food, beds, toilets, and bathing for that many people for however long they had to stay until it was safe to be outside again.

Along with generators, fresh air, air circulation, heating, and cooling, they also added laundry, school/activities for the children, an indoor garden so they could avoid radioactive food, and entertainment. When Tim wrote down books, Ellie looked at him. "Just books?"

"Don't know how the electronic world will hold up or for how long and who from outside the blast zone or the US will come to our aid. Might not be friendlies who show up first; huh, we need weapons too. Firearms, ammunition, knives, Tasers, heck, bows and arrows. Anyway, back to books, might be months before we can use solar panels to charge anything. Need history books, textbooks for the kids, books about government, gardening and basic survival, anything we can get our hands on. Maybe all of those "'Whatever' for Dummies" books. If we decide it's important for future generations to know about the US before the attack, we'll need paper maps, geography books, and more history books.

"How to build things. Not buildings per se, but cars, bikes, things none of us knows how to do. Medical books and as many medical supplies and equipment as we can cram in. Yes, the rest of the world will still be there but I don't know how we'll communicate with them, or each other."

"What about food?"

"Canned goods and grow our own and I don't know, would chickens, cows or sheep be able to live in a bomb shelter?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Maybe a separate one and we can have a tunnel between us. That's going to smell so bad."

"Good point and we'd need a slaughter room. Oops, sorry…" he called as Ellie ran for the bathroom. She was back in a couple of minutes, "False alarm but how about you talk with our dads about the livestock?"

"Good idea. Ok, plumbing, we'll need septic tanks and leach fields. A water source, huh that'll have to be stored, can't risk piping in water."

"So no rainwater?"

Tim shook his head. "Dry showers of some sort."

She grinned at him, "Honey, this isn't Star Trek!" They both chuckled, which felt good considering their grim discussion.

"I know but we're going to need what water we have for drinking, for people and any animals. Potty, bathing and laundry are going to be problems."

"And we can't hang clothes outside after we're above ground again because - oh cloud cover? We'll need lots of Vitamin D."

Tim nodded, "Yeah, need a full range of vitamins for everyone."

He googled "bathing without water" and came up with several results. He read them aloud, "There's a product called NoAgua invented by a teenager, doesn't need any water at all. I'm going to see if we can order a few cases. In addition, huh, I didn't know that apple cider vinegar works as a deodorant. It has many uses; let's think about adding that to the volume purchases. Ah, also wet naps, baby wipes for no-water bathing. That's good to know. Let's see if I can find this guy with the NoAgua product."

He found a website for the product, saw the company shipped worldwide and sent the proprietor, now in his 20s, a message, asking if he could bulk order. He looked at his watch, frowning. The time difference was 6 hours so he probably wouldn't hear back tonight. He smiled several minutes later when his laptop chimed with an incoming message. From the young entrepreneur who reported there were two types of product and described them. He also confirmed bulk orders were acceptable for either product or a mix and that shipping was included in the price.

Realizing the real difference in the two products, that the profits from the premium product likely allowed the young businessman to keep the cost lower for the second product, Tim input an order on the website for several cases of each, making sure to order more of the premium product than the lower cost one. He included a note that said he worked with a non-profit organization that helped the homeless and his product would be a godsend for many people. He gave the shipping address as the ranch house in New Mexico. No use schlepping anything they could have shipped. He stopped to think about that.

"We should probably be careful what we ship."

"Because?"

"For one thing, anything we ship will sit on the front porch, a clear sign nobody's home. And we don't want to attract unnecessary attention to what we're doing."

"When can we tell everyone?"

"Not sure. I guess now although I don't want to start a panic."

"But you had permission to tell me."

"Sort of. I had permission in March to tell you I was working on something. It was purely my decision to tell you the rest of it today. None of us were told anything or given anything to sign before Finch left us this afternoon. I don't know, Eleanor; on the one hand, we're not going to sit on our hands and do nothing to save our family and friends. On the other hand, we all took oaths when we became federal agents, no matter what agency."

"Who does your weekly report go to?"

He told her and she nodded. "And what do you think they're going to do?"

"Save themselves and their families."

"Damn skippy they are! Tim, I know some of those people; I'm sure they've already got their bags packed, money moved and will find excuses to leave town as soon as they see the report."

He looked at her, smiling. "Leave town, that's what we need, an excuse to leave town and have mounds of supplies!"

"So what's the excuse?"

"Summer camp?"

"For who, us?"

"Yes, but not just us. We could say we're hosting a bunch of people for, let's say a taste of the Southwest. People will stay at the ranch and that's why we need the supplies."

"That's not a bad idea and we will be hosting a bunch of people."

"Need to see Porter."

"When?"

"I'll update her tomorrow and I want permission to tell our fathers and Vance."

"Good! Here's another idea. Call our dads tonight and tell them you want all of us to have diesel vehicles that can run on cooking oil and that you'd like to have a large supply of cooking oil at the ranch. My dad might figure it out, your dad will ask, and I'll tell him. Mm, don't call them on the regular phone. Use our emergency text so each will use his burn phone."

"I like your ideas. Dad's still an agent, we can probably squeeze by telling him but your father is a civilian."

"He is now but he was a sheriff's deputy for several years while they were building the ranch."

"Huh, that's pretty slim, Eleanor but it's something I guess. All right. I don't want to wait until I speak with Porter. Rule 18."

She nodded and got both her phones out, her regular one and her burn phone. She used her regular phone to send the coded text to her father. Ten minutes later, her burn phone rang. Tim answered, "We're fine, no immediate problem and none with Ellie, the kids or the pregnancy."

"Thank you, son. What's up? I had to look for the burn phone. I feel very covert."

"Good, hold onto that feeling because what we're about to tell you has to stay with you for now."

"Ok. I'm in Ellie's old room, Barbara's reading in bed but I can't be heard from there."

Ellie made a noise, "I wish I'd known when I was still living there!"

Tim grinned at her before continuing with the grim news.

"Jerry, what you said about the rumors, we believe they're true. However, I have insider knowledge I'm not allowed to share. And you can't either, not even with Barbara."

There was a gulp and then "You have my word. Do you have any information you can share?"

"We'll be arriving in New Mexico in late July, early August. And we'll be driving diesel fueled vehicles; actually, I'm planning on converting our rides to use cooking oil."

"Biofuel, I've read about that, got neighbors who converted their diesel trucks."

"I bought cases of cooking oil tonight and will continue to do so. And we have a list of other items that we'll need."

"Food, water, shelter…oh."

"Yeah, next step is to look into bomb shelters. We figure at least 80 people with all the Bishops, all of us Gibbses and the extended family."

"Wow, so air, water, food, power, toilets, beds, clothing, for how long?"

"I'm not sure about that yet. I'm trying to be discreet about what I look at online."

"I can do it. I'm always looking up weird things."

"Thanks, that'll help. I looked a few nights ago and what I saw was disconcerting to say the least. Also, if you can figure out how much food, protein, etc. is needed on a daily basis for adults and then children under the age of 15. The older kids we figured in with the adults."

"And Dad, if you have any ideas about adding livestock to the shelter and slaughtering it, let us know."

Tim looked at her, "I thought…"

"I'm all right with it now."

"All righty. Sorry Jerry."

Jerry nearly bit his tongue to stifle a remark about pregnancy hormones that would surely offend his daughter. "That's okay. An easier way would be to buy a large quantity of already processed meat, for example, a half cow and freeze it until needed."

"Much better idea. Need a huge freezer but we can work on that. Or we can go meatless; eat beans and other proteins. Hmm, generators need to run on cooking oil too."

"I can research that too. Beans all the time? Let's think about that. So, what size generator, oh, we need the size of the shelter first, huh?"

"Yes, and it needs to be a high protection factor, 1000 if we can swing it."

"All right, I'll get on that. Hey, the ranch house basement floor is dirt."

"Right but we'd have to take the outside wall down to fit a premade shelter in there. And since the outside wall supports the house, that's not going to happen. Or maybe a shelter goes deep enough to go under the foundation."

"Might be easier to build a tunnel up into the basement. To check radiation levels without too much exposure, maybe store food in the root cellar."

"Huh, that's a good idea. We'll need a radiation monitor; Ducky has one but it belongs to the agency. And at least one hazmat suit for whoever's taking readings."

"We'd rotate that and it should be us older folks."

"We can argue about that later. All right, think that's enough to get started?"

"Yes. And Tim, our trucks are already diesel so you can cross the Bishops off your list for that."

"Good, thanks."

They said good night and hung up. Looking at his watch, Tim sent his dad a coded text and had a call back in less than a minute.

"What's up?"

"You someplace private?"

"Your mom's reading in bed, I'm in the basement."

"Ok, here's what's happening." Tim quickly explained the possible threat, leaving out his work but giving his dad a codeword that served as a verbal eyebrow rub.

"Holy shit!" Tim heard him take a deep breath, "This what you've had on your mind? We've been worried but hoped you'd talk to Ellie or come to one of us. So we're going to the ranch; when?"

Tim told him and included the discussions they'd had that evening. "All right. Guess you haven't noticed but my truck's diesel."

Tim chuckled, "So it's just the Acura that needs to go."

"You'll need a bigger vehicle anyway."

"Yes."

They exchanged several ideas and Dad took on a large part of the purchases. "You're better at research but I can handle buying stuff and storing it. I like your cover story, I'll use it too."

With a sigh, he agreed not to tell his wife or any of the others. Once they disconnected, Tim started transferring funds from Gemcity's offshore account to the account he'd set up in Albuquerque before they left nearly three years ago. He and Dad would probably need to go to New Mexico to work out the shelter details; he couldn't yet bring himself to think of it as a 'bomb' shelter. Maybe he'd refer to it as a survival shelter.

The transfers complete, he gathered his wife, who was dozing next to him and went to bed. Despite the frightening discussions and actions that day, he fell asleep right away.

His father was not so lucky. He was up half the night trying to absorb the news; making lists of what to take and what they would need. He did a quick inventory of the basement, guessing Tim's über-organizational skills were rubbing off on him or maybe he was the original source. He thought it was more likely his mother Anne. Finally, he trudged upstairs to bed, falling into a dead sleep.