Chapter Seven
Trouble in Paradise

Authoritative bearings and black shield jackets proclaiming 'NCIS Federal Agent' supplemented by equally distinctive white on black caps clear right-of-way through the building lobby. No one, seeing the grim set of their features, attempts to challenge private use of the elevator which brings the five Agents to the 9th floor, that destination revealed upon the lighted wall directory near the ignored Security officers.

When they step onto the carpeted 9th floor corridor they find themselves facing glass doors and wall that provide an excellent view of the round Receptionist well within. Gibbs pushes the door out of his way; his team flanks him before the round countertop surrounding a decorative woman. Brown hair, mid-30's, cream pants suit, she glances up briefly at the five dark visitors but keeps her attention on the telephone receiver at her left ear.

x

"One moment, please," she tells the quintet. "Yes, Mister De Palma, Mister Wellington will be able to see you tomorrow at–"

The unit at her ear goes dead and she glances left, surprised to see that the tall man in the middle of the group has reached over the counter and his finger holds down the phone's button. He's holding in his other hand an ID folder containing a gold shield. "Hey!" That was Brian De Pal–"

"Your President," the man says in deadly tones. "Now."

"Just who do you think you–?"

"Your President." The man leans slightly forward, looming over the counter, his eyes like cannons. "Now."

Desire for a long and pain-free life makes her decide there's great wisdom in passing this matter up the chain-of-command. She gestures to the phone and the man removes his finger from the button.

x

Charles Tedesco steps into the outer foyer more in response to Anne Gendelman's tone than her message and finds there are indeed five people at the circular Receptionist station. The oldest of the black uniformed people steps forward to intercept him. "Charles Tedesco. May I help you?" he asks in his most formal 'this is a business' manner.

Each of them display metal and card IDs. "Special Agents Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee, Palmer, Officer Dav-eed, NCIS."

Confronted with this very official delegation - where in Washington are there not such? - Tedesco is more willing to be sociable. "Yes?"

"You're the President?"

Tedesco knows that's who they'd asked to see. "I'm the Managing Editor."

The leader - Gibbs - seems satisfied. "Is there someplace we can talk?"

He'd rather not, but Federal Agents of any breed are rarely put off, and never for long. "My office."

The man's nod says this is satisfactory and, resigned to the inevitable, Tedesco turns and leads the way.

xx

Gibbs, satisfied he's impressed this manager with the seriousness of his intent, decides he can afford now to tone that seriousness down a notch. By the time they're in a mahogany office somewhat grander than Director Jennifer Shepherd's, Gibbs is ready to move on to phase two.

Tedesco takes his place behind a desk as large as two combined and probably feels pretty secure. "NCIS. Didn't 'We' do a feature on you a few months ago?"

Gibbs knows the man knows all about it. "That's why we're here."

Tedesco reacts more to Gibbs' grim tone than to his answer. "Is there a problem with the article?"

"Someone used both the published and unpublished photos of our agents," DiNozzo says, playing his part in the united gang-up, "to create nude photo fakes of women purporting to be our agents and posted them all over the Internet."

They watch the color fall out of Tedesco's face.

x

"N-nude photo fakes?" Tedesco's voice quivers under the weight of lawsuits and worse.

"Of me!" Ziva declares viciously, driving a nail into the coffin of the Corporation's profits.

"And me," Michelle pounds another nail in.

"And my wife." McGee, with his own nail, adds another dimension to Tedesco's nightmare.

"And every other woman in our agency, all Federal Officers," DiNozzo drives the next nail in.

"We believe the same was done to the women from our sister Federal Agencies; OSI, CID and CGIS." McGee hammers in another nail. On the way to this meeting, though he doesn't know many other corresponding Agents well, he did find a picture purporting to be Hollis Mann and doesn't want to be the one to tell the Lt. Colonel about her grand unveiling.

"And we're here to arrest everyone responsible," Gibbs completes the interment.

Tedesco's hard gulp might be audible in the hallway outside. "May I make a call?"

"You'd better."

xx

Corporate Presidents get the best offices and President of Paradise Publishing Lydia Jackson's overlooks the Capital Mall from a glass eastern wall fourteen stories above.

Seven people sit in that palatial chamber and two of them feel distinctly queasy.

"Special Agent Gibbs - Special Agents," now is not the time to fail in political correctness or courtesy "let me say I am very sorry for this."

"You can say it," Gibbs assures Jackson, "as long as you give us the ones responsible."

"I assure you we will make a thorough investigation and..." her voice dies off at Gibbs' headshake.

"Investigation is our job. Your issue 'Women Crime Fighters in the Military' was used to humiliate a lot of Agents and the production and distribution of Internet Pornography is a felony. NCIS found out about it only this morning so we're the first ones here."

"I figure it won't be long at all," DiNozzo says, "before the Army Criminal Investigation Division,"

"Air Force Office of Special Investigations," Ziva puts in.

"And the Coast Guard Investigative Service," Michelle says cuttingly.

"Come beating down your doors," Gibbs concludes, rather liking this cooperative coffin nailing technique as much as the paper-white faces before them.

x

"What," Lydia Jackson asks, reaching with a shaking hand for a glass and the pitcher of ice water, "can we do?" The ice clinks loudly in the sloshing pitcher.

"We'll run interference with the other Agencies, but we expect immediate and complete cooperation in our Investigation." The warrant in his jacket pocket effectively covers this same thing, but it's much better to have motivated cooperation.

"You have it," Jackson assures them, seeing her career and the company's financial stability, possibly the entire corporation's existence, hanging by a very thin thread. She turns to Charles Tedesco. "Who took those pictures?"

"Of NCIS, Aaron Comer. Suzanne Blake went to the Army. I have to check on the others."

"Get Comer and Blake up here now." When he leaves, Jackson prays she and these five Agents can come to an understanding that'll allow her to keep her company in business. The potential law suits alone could be devastating, the public backlash immense. Looking into the hard eyes of Agents David and Palmer, she doesn't have high hopes. "Gentlemen - Ladies and gentlemen, couldn't we come to a compromise?"

"Certainly." Gibbs watches Jackson's eyes brighten in hope. "We'll have our male agents make the arrests."

xx

Suzanne Blake is in the field on a 'Photo Shoot' but responded to the summons to return immediately to the office. In the meantime, when a knock comes at the office door Ziva is on her feet immediately, well aware of the disconcerting image she presents as she opens the door, grips the arm of their present chief suspect and escorts him by quick march to her vacated chair, seats him in the midst of an intimidating crowd of superiors and grim investigators and assumes a 'looming gargoyle' post above his left shoulder.

Aaron Comer is 30 years old, hair just short of shoulder-length insufficiently dyed to disguise threaded premature-grey left unattended for a week too long. His belt buckle is silver Texas long horn, his black shirt is covered by an open black vest whose shine catches the light of the glass wall. Though his eyes betray discomfort, presumably at being summoned into the inner sanctum of the Corporation President seated with Executives and black clad Federal Agents, they hold no fear. Gibbs reserves his decision on whether he'll give the man any.

"What's this all about?" Comer asks when introductions have been made.

Gibbs has already recognized that this is the man who'd spent an entire day at NCIS taking a vast number of digital photos. Now he must determine what the man did with them.

"We want to discuss your photos, the ones you took in NCIS Headquarters."

"Is there a problem? I mean, your Public Relations Department went over exactly what we could and couldn't shoot and the Reporter could report. Your PR man was with us the whole time. I assure you we uncovered no secrets."

"'Uncover secrets'," Gibbs says. "That's what we're here to discuss." He glances to the woman behind Comer's shoulder. "Officer Da-veed?" From a folder Ziva withdraws and hands down to the photographer a photo of herself. It was taken at her desk, her partition wall forming the background. "Recognize that?"

"Sure, it's one of mine." Ziva passes over the next picture. All above the neck is the same, the erotic pose on what's supposedly a beach is not. Ziva is quite convincingly making love to a palm tree, stroking her crotch against it and the image is so sharp they can see the puckered flesh of her erect nipples. Her smile is unchanged but in the context...

Michelle pulls two photos out of her own folder and drops them on Comer's lap. The first is the familiar published image and in the other she's leaning back against a window, a very sensuous pose, her blouse hanging open, her hands raised as though she were surrendering or obedient to some command. The image extends to her knees but the open shirt reaches only to her waist.

The Agents watch surprise escalate and quickly give way to sick realization. Comer's eyes and mouth are wide as he falls back into the seat. "Ohhhh ... shit."

x

Gibbs, long in favor of the 'sledgehammer between the eyes' method of interrogation, is satisfied by the dozen more subtle and uncontrolled reactions he's seen from the man. "Who has access to your unpublished pictures?"

"U - un - unpub - pub - publi - unpublished?"

"There are nearly a thousand different pictures on the Internet," Gibbs tells him, not about to ease up on the pressure.

"I - I - I - I don - I don't - I don't know." He slaps the image of Ziva paper down, belated outrage forcing the fugue away. "I had nothing to do with this!"

"I know." Gibbs is quite satisfied the man's surprise - and distress - are genuine.

"This could cost me my job!"

"Hell of a lot more than just your job. Who has access?"

"I don't know." Gibbs gives him his most disbelieving expression. "I don't know! It's not like these pictures are secure or anything. I turned them all in, someone else decides which get used, I go on to my next assignment and I never bother to look back!"

Gibbs glances at Jackson. "It's true," the President assures him. "After we go to press, old pictures stay on disk for months or years at a time, pretty much ignored."

"I think you'll be changing that policy."

x

As the Warrant Gibbs carries in his jacket pocket covers computer as well as physical files, Gibbs decides it's time to turn his Number One Computer Guru loose on the records. "We'd like access to your computers now."

Though he frames the words as a request, the Warrant makes it no such thing. He's holding back on presenting the paper, preferring cooperation, even if it's fearfully obtained, over legal compulsion.

At the moment, Jackson and Tedesco are looking at this long-built empire toppling around their ears, their profit line digging a hole into the street, their stock turning to toilet paper and their assets obliterated by lawsuits, to say nothing about their professional and public reputations being decimated. They're ready to cooperate in any way that'll leave them on their feet in the end.

And Gibbs, as always, is happy to have Rule 13 firmly in place: Never involve a Lawyer.

"Come with me, please." Tedesco's invitation is a hair short of pleading as McGee stands to follow.

"DiNozzo, go with him." Gibbs doesn't have to say aloud that the senior field agent is to interview the IT staff. He's also to keep them occupied so they won't try to be 'helpful' while McGee works.

xx

Led into the IT Department on the 10th floor, DiNozzo and McGee pause behind Tedesco and survey the huge room crammed with computer workstations. "Sherman," DiNozzo mutters, "set the Wayback Machine for the days of quill pens and parchments."

"You'll be doing the talking, Tony. I'll be doing the typing."

"By the way, I meant to ask before," he actually sounds apologetic even to his own ears, "how'd your wife take it when you told her?"

McGee keeps his eyes straight ahead as he walks into the room. "Don't ask."

x

Tedesco is giving his staff a soft introduction to the problem; too soft, Tony decides as he steps up a foot before the man. "Ladies and Gentlemen, pursuant to a Federal Warrant I'm inviting each of you to that wall, yes, that wall there, where I'll be asking a lot of personal, probing questions which you will answer truthfully and in complete detail while my partner here invades your computer and personal systems to uncover your deepest and darkest secrets. So everybody, just line up right over there and get ready to spill your guts."