CHAPTER SIX
Anacostia Park across the river from the Navy Yard
Ivan was behind the door, and got the drop on her. He put a knife to her throat, then saw Palmer.
"Agent!" he growled. "You do anything other than contact your 'boss' and I will kill her instantly, then you, then your boss and your team...NOW!"
Palmer played it safe. Minutes later, Gibbs, DiNozzo, and dozens of others - including Jackson and his RRT 1 and 2 units - were there.
"There's only one way out of this, Ivan," Gibbs said. "Surrender."
"You're joking," Ivan said. "I'm going to die, and I'm taking her with me."
"No, you're not taking her with you, and you're not going anywhere," Gibbs replied.
"Un unh," Ivan growled, grimacing from the shrapnel imbedded in his lower back, and buttocks. "I'm going out fighting, and killing you lot. You should've listened to Ginstock. Remember him. The guy YOU elected. The 1980s. Johnny Reb wanted to talk peace with you. Ginstock wanted to talk peace with him. You people listened to the pansy-ass Plainsians in Omaha and their friends in Austin and Sacramento and Boston."
"PUT your weapon down, Confederate!" Vance yelled. "Surrender. You'll walk out of this alive."
Ivan laughed. "Bull...and I don't take order from damnYankees, specially the likes of YOU. I GIVE them to damnYankees."
"Really?" Gibbs said. "What're you ordering us to do? Hear you ramble on?"
"You LISTEN," Ivan said, as Bishop squirmed under his grip, and with the blade lightly pressing against her carotid. "Just yoke you should've listened to Ginny. The guy you sent to The Hague, the guy who we got out and into protective custody. If you had listened, the IRNA, the Confederates, the Soviets and Red Chinese would've been an unbeatable combination. Lewis and his Black Fist, Dees and the Socialists, the Galtists and their bullcrap? D-O-N-E. And we would've rolled over the rest of the continent and REALLY made it free-"
"All that would've done is unleash a hornet's nest, the mother of all rebellions," Vance said.
"Did I tell you to open your mouth?" Ivan said, condesceningly, even as sweat poured from his forehead. He was losing blood, and beginning to weaken - but not enough to keep from slicing Bishop's throat. "Rebellion? We would've restored faith and values in your country like our own. You're sick, your diversity and tolerance. It made you step back when you could've finished off the Plainsians. Your perversions made you weak, just like this bitch."
She didn't move, due to the knife at her throat and the shiv poking in her back.
"You wanna make an announcement to NCIS?" Gibbs said. "We know you were talking to Mishnev. We know you're allied with Ari."
Ivan smiled, for the first time in a few days. "Yeah, what about it?"
"Your friends funneling you cash and arms?"
"Support," Ivan said. "They told me all about you, Gibbs - or is it Jethro? Or Leroy? Your father called you Leroy, didn't he? Wonder if he's burning in hell right now."
Gibbs grimaced.
"Got a reaction from you."
"Keep on, and I'll give you a reaction."
"Sure you will," Ivan smiled. "Just like when you and your puppy dog came up on Dr. Mallard, after you found Crystal."
Ivan saw a Seal aim a weapon.
"I SAID I WILL SLICE HER THROAT IF ANY OF YOU DO A THING!" he screamed, and winced. Bishop waited for her chance to get the drop on the bastard. She realized she may get stabbed first.
"Crystal Hale," Ivan said. "That was my work."
Gibbs lowered his gun just a bit. Tony caught his eye, and started to say something. Gibbs shook his head.
"Wanna say something, 'DiNutso'? Or you gotta ask your boss's permission?"
"Are you admitting to the murder of an NCIS agent in 2003?" Gibbs said, as shocked as he's ever been. He never expected Ivan to be this bold.
"Yep," Ivan said. "And the murders of your petty officers and gunny at the range the other night. Just like you bastards gunned down my boys, tonight."
"You killed them?" Gibbs said. "Why? What did they do to you?"
"What did Crystal do, what did Paula do, what did E.J. and Levin and Cade do...what did a hundred other people do...they didn't do nothin'! Wrong freakin' place, wrong freakin' time!"
Vance stepped forward.
"Be careful...boy," Ivan said. "You know the CSS trained me. I can move faster to kill your agent than you can stop me. You may get me, I'll get her."
"I'm the head of a federal agency that your associates have chosen to take a peculiar interest in," Vance said.
"Yeah, so?"
"I can speak to certain people, who will have an interest in what you have to say," Vance continued. "You keep this up, you're leaving here on a gurney."
"Put me next to her. She smells nice."
"She's not leaving here on a gurney at all," Vance continued. "You play nice with me, you give us information. You get life in prison."
"Is that the deal he gave Harper Dearing, Leroy?" Ivan taunted. "Was that before or after you stabbed him?"
"Self-defense," Gibbs said. "He went after me. He also exploded a bomb, paid for with Confederate dollars, that killed dozens."
"And forced poor Ziva to flee to Tel Aviv after Parsons went on his crusade," Ivan continued. "Did you ever think that-"
"Are you Mark Jones?" Gibbs said.
"Nope," Ivan said. "Shot the fat son of a bitch, left him somewhere between here and Owings Mills. Good luck finding him. I ain't tellin' you nothing."
"If you don't tell us 'nothing' then we can't deal," Vance said.
"You really want to talk, MLK Three?"
"I'll take the 'King III' comparison as a compliment," Vance continued. "You let Agent Bishop go - UNHARMED - then we'll talk."
"Really," Ivan said, twisting the knife just a hair, beginning to draw blood. He didn't notice Gibbs talking into his phone. "You want to talk? Send a helicopter from the Soviet Embassy NOW, taking us - her and ME - to the Embassy, then I let her go when I'm on friendly-"
The back of Ivan's head exploded, as a sniper's bullet came out of nowhere, speeding from the rifle of its shooter toward's Ivan's head.
Bishop felt the knife slice her cartoid ever so slightly, and she put pressure on it to keep from bleeding out.
"DUCKY!" Gibbs yelled, as the Medical Examiner's truck sped towards the scene. After Ducky got out to tend to Bishop, and Gibbs confirmed Ivan was dead, he looked back towards the Navy Yard.
He then dialed a number on his phone, for the shooter perched atop the NCIS building in the Navy Yard.
"Guess I taught ya somethin' after all...former Agent Todd," he said. "Nice work."
Kate got up from her perch, and smiled.
