Chapter Ten
Gemcity's Gambit
"Abby, talk to me and make it good news," Gibbs orders as he enters her lab with McGee and Kelman in his wake. The scientist is seated before her freestanding workstation in the main room, eyes locked on her computer's monitor screen.
"This is top level stuff," Abby says as the numbers and commands scroll upward with agonizing slowness. McGee takes his place at the adjacent computer; Kelman locks her attention on the screen. Downstairs, the Cyber Crime Unit is devoting their collective resources to this puzzle.
"I'm looking for differences in the pattern of the code," the Forensic Scientist continues, not taking her eyes off the creeping lines. "Each programmer has his or her unique style. I'm looking for something that doesn't fit the style. It's more art than–"
"We don't have time for art."
"Art's our only real hope," she counters, not sparing him a glance. Her eyes hurt, they feel crusty from staring at the screen for hours but she has no choice. She's already used a half bottle of eye drops since yesterday and anticipates finishing several before she completes this task. "There are nearly a million lines of code, more than one person can handle. It's only by looking at the whole picture rather than each individual pigment that I have a chance of solving this before the next millennium."
Gibbs doubts that Abby would make a tasteless joke, attributes it to fatigue. He turns to McGee, hoping to get a counter assessment. "McGee, what about, I don't know, radio some kind of order for that ship to stand down?"
"That was the first thing they tried. The Abort code was either changed or deleted, I don't know which."
It also doesn't matter. "Is there anything you can do from here?"
"When Otto was stolen by Professor Pike at Azeon, Jamie Jones got us access through the maintenance system. Unfortunately that method was in our report. I'm not sure how, possibly from Robert DiMarco working against us, but Navy R&D got hold of the idea, recognized a hole in Millennium's defenses and plugged it. Of course, that implies a flow of information in two directions; I'm not sure how it can help."
"Because you don't know it was Bob."
"Right. It's not even a theory, we don't even have fact number one."
Gibbs says nothing; there's nothing that can be said. But before McGee can pursue the point he's interrupted by Kelman, who reaches past him and takes control of the keyboard.
McGee stares at Kelman, annoyed. She scrolls several lines of code at a time, five times as fast as on Abby's screen.
"What are you doing?" Gibbs demands.
"Shut up."
x
Gibbs is too astounded to respond; Abby and McGee couldn't be more surprised if she'd slapped him. They look for a safe shelter before the detonation.
Gibbs would never let such insubordination go unchallenged. He is Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge and only Shepherd has authority to give him orders. Regardless of the circumstances, even she would not be so outrageous as to give him this order, particularly in front of his subordinates. But the thousands of lives lost, and the unknowable number still at risk, make this an extraordinary circumstance.
He turns and leaves, resolving to discuss this matter with the young woman later – after she's produced results.
x
Every Agent in Washington is working on the Millennium problem; it's at the apex of several to-now-apparently divergent cases. Now all of them are seen, in hindsight, to be intricately related and the aggregate had immediately passed the point where one team could hope to manage even a fraction of the task. There's the case of the stolen secrets that led to the deaths of Captain Judith Mangini, Cynthia Devlin and Special Agent Mary Narz in her guise of Nurse Margaret Burns. Coupled with this is the hijacked supership to which is now added an International band of Terrorists who had virtually dropped off the map following the deaths of their supposed leadership. They cannot exclude the attempt by another team to steal NCIS' secrets via the kidnap and torture of Tim McGee. That case too must be added to the aggregate until its place in the matrix, if any, can be determined.
Each member of his team is a de facto Team Leader, coordinating and receiving reports on the activities of numerous Agents in multiple disciplines. Gibbs is in overall charge of these divisions, but he doesn't intend to sit still compiling reports.
There is one resource in Gibbs' possession and it's past time for answers.
xx
Gibbs pushes open the door to Interrogation One, having stationed DiNozzo and David in the next room to observe. Dale Karmichael, unwashed and unfed, sleeps with his head resting on the table. Gibbs slams his fists down upon either side of the man's head and the explosive sound rockets Karmichael upright. Gibbs leans over the prisoner.
"You helped your bosses steal the Millennium; you're responsible for everything that ship does and it's destroyed a school." He's gratified as surprise is replaced by shock.
"No, you're - you're lying."
"Three missiles, a school destroyed, hundreds of kids dead – on your head."
"No. No." He tries to stand, Gibbs slams him back into the seat.
"No deals, no money, no immunity. You have one chance to avoid the death penalty. Who and where?"
"I - that wasn't supposed–"
"WHO AND WHERE?"
"Military targets, that's all it was supposed to hit on its way to Europe. It was supposed to defend itself and go to them, so they could study it, take its secrets, use it..."
"Where was it supposed to go?" Silence. "If you think you're going to hold out or get a lawyer, wrong. Under the Patriot Act you're a Enemy Combatant who has committed treason and mass murder."
"I only killed one woman. I didn't com–"
"Every death Millennium causes is on your head. You thought interrogation at Dix was hard? In an hour you'll be begging to get back there. If you do get sent to Gitmo, I'll make sure your escorts will be relatives of Ticonderoga's crew. I'll be amazed if you make it half way. Your only prayer is to talk - now."
"I won't."
Gibbs settles in, determined to make this a short battle. He already knows who'll win.
x
In Observation One DiNozzo and David watch. The man has been under continuous interrogation by a steady stream of agents since his arrival. His meals have been overlooked, and the timed fifteen minute rest he'd been allowed had been more debilitating than a continuous onslaught. His mind has slowed in anticipation of rest. There will be no rest.
"This should be quick," DiNozzo predicts. He'd had his own turn with the exhausted man, enough to know Karmichael doesn't have enough in him to withstand a furious Gibbs.
That Gibbs looks neither cold nor furious is, DiNozzo knows, a very bad sign.
x
"Let's take it from the top," Gibbs finds the exhausted officer's eyes reveal little but unreasonable confidence. Karmichael's recovered from the initial shock a little too quickly.
"Captain Judith Mangini, why was she killed?"
"I don't know. I didn't do it."
Gibbs stares, letting Karmichael believe he has the answer already. The ploy has an excellent history.
"I wasn't in on that, wasn't my call."
"Whose was it?"
Karmichael stares back, his voice grows more confident. He's maintained the same demeanor through hours of questioning. "I didn't want her dead."
"No, you were just left to pick up the pieces, falsify her 'transfer' to Maine." Karmichael nods, giving up the point. "Why was she killed?"
Gibbs doesn't like the change in the man's expression, in the look in his eyes. His fear and apprehension are gone.
"You'll find out," Karmichael says smugly, "before you're put before the firing squad. You, your people, there'll be no place for any of you."
x
Whatever caused this sudden burst of assurance, Gibbs wants to pursue it. "I'm getting tired of hearing about this 'new order' you and your people are going to 'usher in'."
"I doubt you'll be around to see it."
"When is it? I want to put it on my calendar."
"You think I'm bluffing?"
"Last time, you were ready to sell out your people. It was all about immunity and the Franklins. Now, as soon as you get a reason to save your neck, you're in bed with them."
He wonders what about the attack on the school seems to be working in Karmichael's favor. The silence rages, nothing more between them than two inscrutable stares.
x
Tony and Ziva are astonished to see Gibbs get up and leave the room. They don't have long to wait, the investigator enters the darkened Observation chamber, looking satisfied.
"I thought you'd be mad, boss."
"Why, DiNozzo?"
"I've never seen you come out second in an interrogation before."
"Now what makes you think that? There's no point in questioning Karmichael; we can't threaten him with Leavenworth, Gitmo or even the Death Penalty. He has immunity."
"He asked for immunity," DiNozzo reminds him. "I doubt Palmer would've filed for it." If she has, DiNozzo doesn't want to be there when Gibbs gets back upstairs.
"She didn't. He had immunity long before he got here. We just don't know who gave it to him yet."
"We don't?"
Gibbs is disappointed to see the look of surprise on his Senior Field Agent's face. Has the man learned nothing? "No, DiNozzo, we don't. But we will."
His cell phone rings, he answers with his usual brevity. The conversation is brief, and when he pockets the device, he tells them; "No one sees him. Keep those cameras running and him awake. Two agents in the hallway every minute, stagger them every thirty minutes. Keep him awake even if you have to take out the furniture and make him do jumping jacks."
"Yes, sir," DiNozzo says, cautious and mystified. As Gibbs starts out, he risks asking "Boss, where will you be?"
"In MTAC with the Director and McGee."
"Of course." When he's gone, DiNozzo addresses the woman beside him. "Does it bother you too when he does this?"
"You do not think he wants us to work it out for ourselves?"
DiNozzo turns to the monitoring technician. "Play back that thing, will you?"
Gibbs opens the door. "DiNozzo, you coming?"
He hadn't known he was, but he's not going to admit that. "On your six, boss."
When they're gone, Ziva shrugs, turns to the technician. "'Play back that thing, will you'?"
xx
When Gibbs strides into MTAC, DiNozzo at his heels, Shepherd and McGee await them. Shepherd doesn't waste a moment in greeting, she addresses the technicians manning the control board. "Bring the CNO on line."
Gibbs and DiNozzo reach their colleagues as the image on the huge screen changes to the blue uniformed Chief of Naval Operations DePardu.
"Good, you're ready," he says. It's obvious the last two days have weighed heavily on him, he's aged a year in the past hour. "I can spare you only a few minutes. Things didn't go well with the President and I'm on my way to another meeting with the Joint Chiefs. I have three proposals for dealing with Millennium. One stinks, the other's horrible, the third could be disastrous."
"Nice to have choices," Shepherd commiserates. She's faced similar situations too many times.
"I need a fourth choice."
"Understood. What are your three?"
"One is to consider Millennium lost. It cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Assemble a fleet, intercept and throw everything we have at it."
McGee, appalled, turns to Gibbs, feeling he's his most likely supporter. "Boss, they can't do that. Millennium's more heavily armed and armored, and with its sophisticated attack and defense systems it could win."
"Thank you for your assessment, Agent," DePardu says, his voice tight. McGee turns to the huge image.
"Sorry, Admiral, it's–"
Shepherd cuts in. "What is your next option?"
"We use the PDC Mark 9 to knock it out of the water." No one likes this idea either.
"And the other?"
"An electromagnetic pulse to fry its electronics." His tone tells them he likes this least of all. "Those are my three options. I need you to give me a fourth."
All eyes turn to McGee. DiNozzo feels sorry for his teammate, itself an odd sensation.
x
'What is it Shav says about God not giving us more than we can handle?' "Errr, Admiral, I - uh, how much time do I have?"
"I can hold them for an hour, no more."
Gibbs steps in front of the younger agent. "McGee."
"I'm sorry, boss, I don't know what made–"
"I don't care about that, I care about those other two plans."
"Well, er, the PDC/9, the photon density converter, I didn't even know they got it working. It fires a pulse of solid light that will impact Millennium at 186,242 miles per second. But its energy requirements are enormous; it'd take no less than a nuclear reactor. It requires line-of-sight targeting but it also requires a steady targeting. A nuclear powered ship is out of the question, it's like you trying to snipe at a moving target from a moving boat." He knows Gibbs wouldn't consider it unless he had no choice. "If they miss, anything the pulse hits–"
"All right, what about this electromagnetic thingy?"
"I don't know if they can aim an E-M pulse. Everything I know about it makes it omni-directional, like an A-bomb. If they can't aim it, it'll fry any piece of electronics it touches. Fortunately, there are non-nuclear electromagnetic bombs with an effective radius of only 100 miles. Hit it out at sea, the risk is minimized."
"Unfortunately," DePardu interrupts, "since we used that in Afghanistan, measures were taken to insulate Millennium's electronics. Only a nuclear E-M bomb will be effective. However, a burst of that magnitude will also disrupt our missile detection and the early warning system, PAVE PAWS at Cape Cod."
"What's the radius of a nuclear pulse?" Gibbs asks, just a shade short of an outraged demand.
"Five hundred miles."
x
Shepherd doesn't need the color draining from McGee's face. DiNozzo doesn't look that well either. She supposes she understands the implications well enough. "So if Millennium is within five hundred miles of the American coast, a large portion of the country will be 'fried' and left vulnerable to attack?"
"Dark Angel, 2000 - 2002, James Cameron, Jessica Alba, Michael Weath–"
"DiNOZZO!"
"Sorry, boss."
Gibbs turns on the screen. "You're saying you have a choice of two ultimate weapons to take out the ultimate weapon."
"Yes."
"When you guys built the ultimate weapon, did anyone stop to think how we can protect ourselves from ourselves?"
"Find us another alternative, Agent McGee," Shepherd directs.
Tim nods, starts up the ramp, keeps his mutter low. "No pressure."
xxx
SSA Melanie Kelman, in Abby's lab, snaps her cell phone closed when McGee walks in. She and Abby continue to pour over lines of code that crawl up the monitor screens.
As soon as he has their anxious eyes he announces "We need the solution in fifty minutes."
"What?"
"happens in fifty one minutes?" Abby finishes the Supervisor's explosion.
"The US Navy gets destroyed en masse; the PDC/9 takes a bouncing precision potshot at Millennium somewhere on the Atlantic and if that ship's beyond the terminus it blows a hole through some foreign city, or an E-M pulse zaps us back to the Stone Age and Al Qaeda strolls in and plants the flag."
"Damn," Kelman exclaims, "can't they do anything simply?"
"Guess not."
"Well, it'll have to be a good plan," Abby declares, "because this software has so many counter-measures against cyber-terrorism I can't find a way to break it."
"Cyber Crime's not any further along either," McGee says. "I checked with them on the way down."
"It's starting to look like science isn't going to get us out of this one." Kelman declares.
Abby turns of the woman. "Bite your tongue! Science is the only thing that can help us."
"I thought your god was forensics."
For a moment it looks to Tim like Abby is going to strike Melanie. He hadn't thought the unrelieved pressure would get to them so soon but he steps between them, determined to be the calm voice of reason. "Well, I think I have an idea," he announces.
Abby looks like her faith has been restored. The fire in both women is instantly quenched. "I knew you'd come up with something."
"It wasn't my solution. It's Thom E. Gemcity's," he tells them, referring to his novelist pseudonym.
"I always liked him."
x
When Gibbs takes the call to assemble the rest of the team in Abby's lab he's gratified. He doesn't expect, however, to lead DiNozzo, David and Palmer into the Forensics Lab to find the three smartest people he knows engaged in a furious shouting match.
The individual words are lost in a barrage of fiery verbiage, all the more surprising for the steady natures of the combatants. Abby and Melanie face off against Tim, who holds his own in both fury and volume. A quick look at Tony, Ziva and Michelle reveal them as mystified by the spectacle as he is.
Gibbs whistles, an ear piercing shriek of noise that drowns out all else. The furious trio turns to him, evidently registering the quartet for the first time.
"What is going on?" Gibbs' quiet tones are a strong counterpoint to the broiling echoes.
"Agent McGee," Kelman flares, "has come up with a plan only a hack writer could concoct."
"Hack!" But McGee subsides under Gibbs glare.
"What's the plan, McGee?"
"Thank you. We can't hack through Millennium's firewalls; the defenses that prevent infiltration are the best the country's top programmers can devise. But we can get a man aboard and physically introduce a virus through one of the terminals. The virus will erase Millennium's operating system, leaving it no smarter than the half-boat in your basement. The Navy can then safely collect it."
"Okay, no one has to get bombed or blown up. So why did we walk into a war?"
"Because," Kelman cuts McGee off, "it involves having a man dress in a stealth-suit we don't even have, drop in by parasail in the hope that Millennium won't see it as a threat, get through the hull, infiltrate the ship, find the control system and introduce the virus."
Gibbs turns to McGee, the conflagration now understood. "A man, McGee?"
"Me, boss."
"Probie-Wan Kenobi infiltrates the Death Star to sabotage the tractor beam," DiNozzo announces, longing to make his friends see the insanity of the scheme, "while Luke and the others wait in MTAC."
"Why you, McGee?"
"The plan requires a computer expert on site. We can't just send in a Seal with a flash drive; the plan may require tweaking once I'm aboard."
"You been taking high altitude parachuting lessons on your days off?"
"No, but I'm the only one you trust enough to send aboard Millennium, who understands the computers and software enough to safely shut it down."
"Gibbs," Kelman steps in, "Agent McGee is untrained in the maneuvers."
"Are you trained?"
"No, but I'm not volunteering. I've done the math; I give Agent McGee no less than a 94.6 percent probability–"
"Well, it's risky, but those are very good odds."
"–of dying!"