Chapter 2: Poisonous Gas
- - - - -
Gibbs made his way through the clumps of emergency vehicles and rescue personnel; the dozens of flashing red lights illuminating the Navy Yard like so much battlefield shelling. It was a chilling war comparison that he wished his mind hadn't made. So many times now, he'd had to stop and show his badge to so many well-meaning police and military police that he now kept it in his hand.
He spotted Jenny standing on the sidewalk in front of the NCIS building. "I got here as fast as I could…"
"Six casualties so far," she said, struggling not to choke as yet another gurney came out of the building with a carefully-tended victim. "No deaths. But they're still looking for people."
"We don't know how many were on duty in the building? Or rather, in the building?"
She shook her head, blinking away tears. "The worst cases are from the second floor. Near the squad room."
"Well, that's where you'd expect the most people to be, at this time of night," Gibbs said mildly. He brushed some sawdust off his old NIS t-shirt. When Jenny had called him, he'd come at a run, not taking time to change clothes. "Is there any idea what's caused this? Radon gas, maybe?" They watched as more emergency workers in gas masks brought another gurney out.
"That hasn't been determined yet, but yes, gas of some sort is suspected. I don't know what else it could be besides radon or carbon monoxide."
"Hey, boss! Director!" Tony ran up to them, Ziva half a step behind.
"How did you two hear about this?" Gibbs asked, eyebrows stalked.
"It's all over the news. You get this many emergency vehicles in one place and someone's going to report it. They're only saying, 'Emergency in the Navy Yard', but we figured it likely involved NCIS, so…"
"I drove by Tony's place and picked him up," said Ziva. "Gibbs, we should help the rescue personnel. They would not know where people are likely to be in the building. We do."
Gibbs nodded. "Go grab three gas masks from our supply room in building #200."
Tony hesitated. "One more thing, boss…I haven't been able to reach McGee by phone. It's 10 now; do you know how late he was going to be staying at NCIS?"
Gibbs paled. After only a moment, Tony and Ziva were running to get the gas masks.
- - - - -
It took a little fight to get the fire chief to let them in the building, gas masks or not. "Good, at least you've got your skin covered," said the chief.
"Do you know what the gas is?" asked Gibbs.
"Not yet. Nothing visible. Most of my people reported not being able to smell it; one or two thought they smelled something but couldn't identify it. Nonetheless, keep your skin covered, be prepared to go through your decontam procedures when you're done, and for heaven's sake, don't touch anything without gloves on. And be careful."
The squad room buzzed with activity. Some NCIS workers were merely groggy and could leave under their own power with just a steadying hand; others went out on gurneys.
"Do we know where the gas is concentrated?" Tony asked their escort, the deputy fire chief.
"That corner, according to our air quality readings," she pointed. It was Gibbs' team's area.
Ziva pocketed her cell phone. "Gibbs, McGee's name is still not on the list of casualties."
"Have you tried his phone again?"
She rang him, and a second later, they heard a familiar ringtone. "Crap!" Tony said, and roughly brushed aside emergency workers to get to their area. He was the first one to reach Tim, who had fallen to the floor at his desk in a manner as to not be visible unless you walked around to the back of the desk.
"He's breathing!" Tony said in relief while Ziva yelled for a gurney. "Whew! Kissing McGeek was not high on the list of things I wanted to do today."
"What's different around here?" Gibbs said to his team. "Do you see anything new that could have introduced gas?"
"Other than that stupid sunflower, which introduced nausea to me the moment I laid eyes on it?" Tony grimaced.
"That could be it! The sunflower!" Ziva cried. "I will look around, though, to see if anything else is unusual."
"Where's the box it came in?" Tony said suddenly. "Last I knew, it was still on the floor by McGee's desk."
"Cleaning people may have picked it up when they came through around 8," said Gibbs. "I'll go look for it. What did it look like?"
"Uh, just a box, boss. You know…"
Gibbs purpled. "That 'just a box' may cost a number of people their lives! Do better, DiNozzo!!"
"Okay, sure. The sunflower is about 8 inches tall…it was well-padded in the box for shipping, so I think the box was about 12 inches square. Brown, corrugated cardboard."
"Return address?"
"I didn't get that good a look at it." Tony watched sadly as the EMTs worked on Tim. He'd been breathing oxygen for over two minutes, but still showed no signs of regaining consciousness. "McGee said it was from Aunt Peg Barkins."
"Was there a note?"
"I—don't know." Tony reddened, feeling a little guilty for not having paid more attention to McGee and the ugly gift.
Gibbs signaled to the deputy fire chief, and quickly had a solid container to hold the sunflower.
"We've swept the building twice, Agent Gibbs," the deputy added. "We're sure everyone's out. Fifteen people had been in the building; most were conscious when we found them, but all are going to GW Hospital as a precaution. Now, you people need to get to Decontam."
He started to argue with her, but realized she was right. "And no, you can't use the facilities in this building. Go elsewhere," she said firmly.
"Go shower and change at building #200," Gibbs ordered Tony and Ziva. "There will be NCIS sweats there that you can wear. Then go pick up Aunt Peg and bring her in for questioning."
"Uh…to where, boss?"
Gibbs eyed the deputy. "How long before we get our building back?"
"Depends on what the gas is. We don't know how to clean it until we can identify it."
He sighed, and pulled out his phone to call Abby. He waved to Tony and Ziva to go.
"Agent Gibbs, you have to leave now, too," said the deputy.
"Not until I can go through the picked-up trash," he said. "This is a crime scene, and that shipping box is evidence."
- - - - -
In about an hour's time, Gibbs met Abby at NCIS' supplemental building, known simply by its Navy Yard designation of "#200" (the main building being #111). It served as overflow, with a few teams operating out of there. There were showers, to be sure, and even a small lab (usually used for investigative training for agents).
Abby didn't apologize for her wearing of a (non-traditional, for her) glittering Bambi (the Disney version) t-shirt, given the hour of her summons. She wrinkled her nose at the rudimentary lab. "I guess I should be glad that this place has electricity," she said.
"Abby…"
"All right, all right. Yes, I should be able to determine what the gas is, and whether it came from McGee's objet d'art, even with Mr. Wizard's 1950s science lab here. Did you happen to grab a hazmat suit from HQ?"
"Nope. But I got you one from the Marine compound. Try to keep it clean."
"You got it, Gibbs-san." She twisted a knob gently. "Gibbs…how is McGee?"
"As of about 15 minutes ago, they were still working on him in the ER, the Director told me. He was still unconscious." He drew her into a hug. "He's made of tough stuff, Abby. I'm sure he'll be fine."
"But nobody's with him?" Abby sniffed.
"Jenny's there. She's there for him and all of our other people who were taken to the hospital. She'll call me when there's news."
Abby wiped her eyes. "So then, I've gotta get busy and identify this gas."
"The sooner the better."
- - - - -
Abby called Gibbs just half an hour later, and he in turn called Jenny. "Abby says it's a CG-like gas."
"Phosgene!" Jenny had been standing in the hospital waiting room; now she sat down hard. "That's classified as a WMD! No one even uses phosgene as a weapon anymore. It's horrible."
"They stopped using it because nastier stuff was invented. But anyway, someone did here and now. And it definitely seeped out of McGee's sunflower. Abby is now tearing apart the thing, and the box it came in."
"Good grief. So what does this mean for us?"
"First, I'll give you the chemical formula Abby gave me. You'll need to relay the news to the doctors. Have them call the Center for Disease Control for treating instructions. Abby's guess is that since the gas is close enough to CG, the results and treatment should be the same. It's…hoped that it's not going to be lethal, but still, it may prove uncomfortable for the affected people."
"Well, that's something, anyway. The hospital's holding everyone, no matter how small the exposure, until they know what they're dealing with. What about our building?"
Gibbs put a hand on his aching back. It had been too long a day. "Ammonia. Just as with standard CG, ammonia broke down this gas rapidly in Abby's tests. That's what we'll need as a disinfectant. This is Wednesday night…my guess is we'll be able to get back to work in the building on Monday, maybe. Or Tuesday."
"I'll call in the decontam pros." Again Jenny felt a bit numb. "We can't fit everyone inside #200. It isn't even a quarter the size of #111! If I have to deal with the decontam people and the SECNAV, you can figure out who reports to work in #200 and who stays home tomorrow."
He groaned. "How much free space do we have in #200? That determines how many more people we can fit in there."
"I see it the other way. How many people do we need to keep the agency running? I don't care if we have people sitting in each other's laps."
"Well, I do. We do want to get some work out of them. The weather will be nice, so if necessary, we'll put some people in the park. Do you have a telephone tree available? Mine is at home."
"So is mine, sorry. Don't worry about calling people late at night; it can't be helped. Tell me who you're bringing in to #200, and I'll have my automatic dialer call the rest."
Gibbs settled on bringing in two additional teams—his own, plus one other—for the day shift, and two for the night shift. Building #200 never had anything going on at night, but NCIS needed 24 hour coverage…and that might mean sending a team out to the field while another stayed behind to answer the phones.
This could be a rough couple of days, and they hadn't even questioned suspects.
All this because of a dangerous sunflower.
