Fornell moved into the warehouse office that DeSarro had been placed in. He pulled a chair up across from DeSarro at the desk. McGee and Ziva followed. Ziva moved to a corner. She had a slight smile of upturned lips which she turned on DeSarro. DeSarro shivered. It was like looking into the eyes of a snake, a beautiful and deadly snake. McGee unfolded a lap top computer and keyed up the page he wanted to start with.

"First of all Major DeSarro, we would all like to make clear that the man who just nearly killed you is a highly decorated hero, a Marine Sniper and Master Gunnery Sergeant and our personal friend. None of us and I do mean none of us, really would have cared if he had killed you, but it would have left us with a whole bunch of unanswered questions and

possibly some weapons grade material missing. I personally would really, really like to think of you in federal prison with all your terrorist friends for whatever would remain of your useless life. I'm sure having your asshole stretched in the shower for a few years would improve your continence issues considerably." Fornell had a completely friendly smile on his face.

"Oh God. You're all crazy, as crazy as HE is!" DeSarro put his head in his hands.

"Let's just start with where the hell Sgt Wells is?" Fornell said slapping DeSarro's hands away. When DeSarro looked up Fornell was smiling like an evil gremlin at him.

Jethro drove heading for home. His true home he thought. Home was not a place but a person as Lainy had told him months ago. It was getting dark. He didn't slow down. The Challenger's engine growled without a hitch. The car was in 6th and he hadn't downshifted since he had hit the highway.

He had reverted there at the warehouse. There had been no real thought involved, just a black, black place somewhere inside of him. The rage had been building. He wasn't far off when he told Tobias he hadn't felt anything like this since 1990. It had taken him a lot of time, months of surgeries on his knee and rehabilitation to get his strength and agility back. Only when he could compete in a unit drill and run and was as fit as he could be did he resign and seek out Franks.

His phone went off. Looking at the ID he flipped it open. "Yeah Tony."

"Boss! We got trouble, big, big trouble! Ziva is driving, we should be at your house in 20." Tony was breathless. " Can't you get this hunk of junk goin' any faster?"

"15" Ziva said.

"Called Smitty. Cops, NCIS, FBI already in route. No answer from Smitty. Mary answered from her basement. There's a battle goin' on Boss. She says it's like Falujah out there. .."

Gibbs hung up and took the Challenger up to 120.

It was dark as he roared up to side street to their house. His way was blocked by 2 military vehicles, a troop transport and a military humvee. He parked his car and jumped out. The flash of strobe told him there were police. As he ran forward his ID and badge on his belt, he also grabbed his dog tags and pulled them out of his shirt. He could hear automatic and semiautomatic weapons fire. The homes on both sides of the streets were dark. Marines lived in this entire neighborhood. He was willing to bet the men and women were already at his home after securing their own families. Like Smitty putting his Mary and children in their basement.

Jethro ran forward gun out and was slowed by a checkpoint. The police officer looked young and totally freaked out.

" You can't go further, there's a whole military action going on. We got people dead, people wounded!"

" I am NCIS and I am an active duty Marine. My family is in there and my friends. Now MOVE!"

The last was said with a roar and a push of the officers hands aside.

Jethro moved to the side, flanking the cars and men hiding behind them moving in a crouching run to the side of the machine shed. As he went to the back he saw a SWAT officer crouched there eyes on the nearby roof of a neighbor in back. The privacy fence was down. There was the smoke of weapons discharge everywhere.

"Report!" growled the Gunny sergeant. He dropped to one knee beside the man.

"We got the report of explosions and black covered men moving on that house. They were apparently being held off by 3 people with M16's and a fourth with an M4. Apparently the resistance wasn't expected because there were bodies on the front and back lawns.

"When SWAT rolled in the fire fight got really hard. There were already a bunch of marines here and they had moved up and surrounded this group of houses making a perimeter. We're having a bitch of a time getting by 2 snipers up on those dormers though. Got 4 of our men."

" Can you get me an M40 with a star scope or infrared?" Gibbs was totally focused. He had to get to the house.

"Hell yeah. They took out our 2 main men. You sure?" The cop stared at him.

" I am a damn sniper. Gunnery Sergeant Jethro Gibbs. Get me the gun."

Jethro was looking around the area and looking up. The gun fire had become sporadic. A radio com unit buzzed to his left. Looking over he saw an officer on his back unmoving. In the strobe it was obvious he was dead. Jethro felt a tightness inside for a split second then nothing. He took the whisper piece and placed it in his ear and near his mouth. He quickly stripped the flak jacket off the body. It covered his blue polo.

The SWAT officer was back. He looked for a split second then helped Jethro. He had the rifle and a hip pack of shells which he handed to Gibbs. He nodded to Gibbs. " I told 'em you were going for it Gunny. What else can I do?"

"Get me some cover. Tell command this is all because of a smuggling ring based at Fort Belvoir. Tell 'em to contact Senior Agent Fornell of the FBI. Tell him this time I'm shooting. No survivors."

He was smearing his face and arms with dirt from Lainy's garden. He refused to follow the thought further.

Gibbs had loaded his weapon with automatic familiarity. The SWAT officer nodded.

"I'm an ex Seal. I'll cover you as I can and I'll tell them you got a com unit. Your Baker Fox Trot with that one."

Jethro suddenly turned and held his hand out. "Thanks."

The SWAT officer took his forearm and gripped it tight. " Parker, Reginald Sgt, Navy ret. Oorah marine!"

"Semper Fi Sgt." Gibbs vanished into the darkness towards the neighbors trees on the left

Running a ragged, unpredictable stride. It was all back now. He was on full automatic. He was at War.

Parker said " NOW!" into his link sweeping the ridge of the first dormer with his weapon.

Bullets arced out from the units near the house. An endless mind numbing barrage that lasted for 90 seconds. At the end in an eerie silence there was a teeth jarring CRACK of a high powered rifle. A scream was heard then a body was seen falling to the ground from the dormer. A split second later a rapid crack then another was heard. Two men fell from the next house's second story window then the third . Shouts were heard then an explosion as the rear wooden privacy fence took another hit. A wave of men in black, approximately a dozen swarmed through and headed for the house.

As the SWAT and marines came across the front lawn, a volley of bullets from the house from 2 chattering M16's took down the front runners. A running figure vaulted the nearest police car, M40 on his shoulder, 9mm in his hand. He leapt thru the broken frame of a breezeway window and dove toward the blown out front door. He fired a full clip at a running figure trying to beat him in.

"GUNNY! Get your ass in here!" roared Smitty, " TJ's holding the back by the bedroom, Nardo's with him, he took one in the leg. Lainy's in the kitchen. Here!" He slapped an M4 into Jethro's hands.

Lainy's gun stuttered in the fashion of a combat soldier conserving ammunition.

Jethro dove behind the lower cupboards smashing into the sink cupboard. He snaked quickly over to lie next to his love. Lainy's expression was pure and savage rage. Her teeth were clenched in a grimace. Her face was covered with scratches as were her arms and trunk. A cut at her right temple was bleeding down her face. She ignored it. She was wearing a USMC tee shirt and camo cargo pants full of ammunition. Jethro's arms were bleeding from glass cuts going through the window.

"Whad'ya got?" He shouted.

"2 are trying to make it from the pool house over. 2 more at the edge of the garage. I think there's one on the roof. TJ couldn't stop 'im from climbing up. He shot TJ. Nardo's down there trying to stop the bleeding. Smitty's got the breezeway. Somebody took out the snipers that were covering for them." She glanced at him then. "Of course it was you…I felt it. I felt you." Her eyes looked pure love to him. He did the same back.

At that moment a snap/bang grenade was tossed through the kitchen window. The moment he heard the hum Jethro grabbed Lainy's legs and pushed her under and through the food bar. She spun 180' around and shot through the window over Jethro's head.

The man fell half through the window and he fired a last fusillade of bullets from the ceiling downward.

Lainy took the shot into her left shoulder. It knocked her backward and toward the couch.

She made no sound except a gut filled snarl. Then she looked toward the kitchen. Gibbs lay unmoving on his face. She could see blood spreading… Time froze.

"No… No!" She surged to her feet. Screaming obscenities in Farsi and min snapped. She charged forward as she had done on the Iraq/Kuwait border. This time she wasn't protecting her men. This time she meant to die. Emptying her M16 she screamed as she had there. She screamed so hard the whites of her eyes turned crimson. Her mind was in the past as well as the present. She knew there was rape and torture that would follow. None of it meant anything. Her world was over. It had died on the kitchen floor. The glass shards beneath her feet turned suddenly to sand. The smells of the fall air

disappeared and were replaced by the scents of burning buildings and worse. She ran forward out of the house. 2 men came up on her side and she shot them. Two more came up on the left she took out one with her 45 before her weapon failed her empty. The remaining man grabbed her from behind and a man came out of the shadows and up to her. Voices came from the front of the house, she heard gunshots from the rear up high, sniper.

"Typical bitch. You can't even pass along a simple message. Well, no matter I suppose. But I owed you a chance to die in front of your cop. I don't see him behind you. Dare I hope? That would be delicious." The man smirked at her.

He was tall, hair slicked back. He had a British accent but was dark, Middle eastern mix she would bet. In Farsi she called him a name worse than a pig. His face darkened. He slapped her.

"You fucked up the Spanish accent asshole." she said and spit on him. A horrific insult to him.

"Enough! Finish her." The man turned from her to walk toward the fence. An unexpected shout sounded behind them.

" HEY! Asshole! Lookin' for me?" Jethro shot him between the eyes when he turned back to look, while Smitty slit the other mans throat. Jethro fell down hard onto his butt, eyes glazing. Lainy, making inarticulate sounds of fear and soul deep pain scuttled across the ground taking him in her arms and covering his face with kisses. Jethro had blood coming from his mouth and was coughing. Nardo was suddenly there. He leaned Jethro back into Lainy and cut away the neck of his shirt and flack vest. Jethro grabbed his arm and moved it toward Lainy. She shook her head.

"Hit high in the chest, upper lung. Got it Gunny." He sealed the wound off and applied a pressure bandage. Jethro fainted dead away. Nardo then turned to Lainy. "Jesu baby. How am I gonna explain this to TJ? This is gonna hurt."

"I don't care… take care of Jethro." Lainy was slumping now. She had lost blood. Her eyes were crossing, vision blurring.

"He's gonna make it Niña. You need to too or he won't bother. You know that's true."

Lainy began to cry. She clung to Jethro as she fainted dead away too. Smitty had also slid to the ground just behind Lainy. He now yelled for a corpsman.

"I'm right here you idiot. Yell for an ambulance! Damn! You never did figure me out, all those years! Lift her up you jarhead so I can wrap it."

Nardo's hand never slowed their blinding fast pace. " I was hoping I'd forgot how to do all this." "Good for all of us you didn't you poor excuse for a squib failure." Smitty then slid down onto the patio. "Jesus, Mary. Tell Mary I love her. Please""Shut up you moron. You're not gonna die today and ruin my record." Nardo moved over Smitty and began cutting his blouse and hardware off. He put a pressure dressing to Smitty's abdomen. Voices sounded "Police! We're bringing help!""Back here! Back here! 3 down, one down at the end of the house! We're here! We're Marines! Hoorah!"An answering roar from outside and around the house-OOORAH!