He didn't get it. And not for the first time either... Another undercover mission, another 'need to know', and once again the orders that be, demanded DiNozzo. Sure, maybe the man wasn't half bad as undercover Agent, but he wasn't that great either. Right? Vance had tried offering them Agent McGee, and even David a few times when she still worked for them. Offered some other agents. He'd even tried offering Gibbs couple of times. Nope. They all wanted the most incompetent one of the team.
What didn't he see? What was he missing? What did they see that he couldn't see no matter how hard he tried to look?
DiNozzo was old school. Too old school like Gibbs. Well, maybe not that old school, he could give DiNozzo that much. But at least Gibbs was... Well, he was Gibbs. At least his age meant that the old man's time was almost up and when that time came, he could move his focus more on agents like McGee. Agents who were their future, not past.
Once again leafing through pages of the thick files with disinterest, Vance scowled and lost any interest he might've had. He already knew who DiNozzo was. He didn't need to waste his time reading through his old files.
Pushing aside his Agent's personal files, Vance opened the case files. It was deep undercover for several months, maybe even longer. No real backup. DiNozzo would be mostly on his own, perhaps completely if anything at all would go wrong and it was outside the country. This would be one of the most dangerous undercover works, and as Vance stared at the words 'terrorist ' and 'cell ', he would be lying if he didn't see the potential there. Send DiNozzo in and it would keep his bosses happy, and if he was lucky enough, they would never hear from the Agent again. Or if he did make it through, he might come back as a changed man. Hopefully no more jokes and pranks and those stupid too bright smiles, which somehow irritated him to no end. Of course Gibbs might not be too accepting... But then again the old man had acted lately as if he couldn't stand his SFA, which worked just fine. The timing couldn't be better.
Vance read through the files once again. The success rate was ridiculously slim; no one else had succeeded so far and through their failures it had dropped even lower. He picked up his phone and he didn't have to wait long for the cheerful tone of voice to answer with the usual, "Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo speaking. How may I help you? "
"Agent DiNozzo. In my office."
The End