I Have Faith pt. 2

AT NCIS

As they were walking towards the interrogation room, to have another go a Lt. Armstrong, Tony asked, "Could I be worse cop this time?" He was still waiting for Gibbs to say something when he felt a hand smack the back of his head. "Right Boss, I'm the bad cop."

Gibbs gave a little smirk as he paused at the door to the observation room and watched DiNozzo scurry past. As he entered the observation room, he noted that Lt. Armstrong hadn't moved, had barely changed his expression. For whatever reason the man was not relaxing at all, which told Gibbs that despite appearances, whatever was going on was still playing out.

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"It's been a while Lieutenant," DiNozzo said as he ambled into the room. "You made a pretty good impression on the Seahawk," he paused and noted the increased tension in the officer when the ship had been named. "This new look is a bit of a letdown." Tony pulled up a chair and opened the file, seeming to pay attention to it rather than Armstrong. The truth was, though, that he was focused on the Lieutenant with an almost frightening intensity. People who were just acquaintances with DiNozzo would have been surprised at this, but like Xander (and Ogre's) he had layers. With seeming indifference he started speaking again. "You know, for a guy who specializes in operational logistics, your plan pretty much sucked. You walk in with no backup, no exit and no real idea of what you were doing; now normally I'd say you were too smart to do anything like that but anyone dumb enough to jeopardize your relationship with a hottie like your wife, not to mention your daughter; is stupid enough to do anything."

DiNozzo pulled the picture of Armstrong's wife out and was lecherously scanning it. "I mean really, how long after you're in Leavenworth do you think she'll be going out with someone else. Come on, a total biscuit like this; heck, I might even help her in her 'grief therapy'," he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Gibbs could tell that DiNozzo was getting to the guy, but what surprised him was that Armstrong tensed up more when the daughter was mentioned as opposed to when Tony was talking about hitting on the guys wife. Gibbs eyes widened at that. Armstrong was more concerned with his daughter right now than he was his wife or the possibility of going to jail; interesting. He'd let DiNozzo poke away for a while longer, looking for weak points that Gibbs could exploit later. It might take a while but he'd find out what he wanted to know.

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"Mrs. Armstrong, my name is Alexander Harris and this is my partner Ziva David; we're with NCIS. May we come in?"

The young woman, who looked as though she'd been through the wringer; just nodded distractedly and opened the door without saying anything. As Xander stepped into the modest living room, he wondered if she knew about what was really out there or was just distracted by what was happening with her husband. "I know this is a bad time, but could we ask you some questions so that we can try and understand what's going on with your husband." Again the young woman just nodded and sank down onto the couch, her eyes not leaving Xander.

For her part, Ziva was surprised again. She had thought that having Harris take the lead would startle the young Mrs. Armstrong into talking from the moment they showed up at her door, from his grim look if nothing else. But here was a rather intimidating looking guy giving off an almost tangible air of safety and caring. She shook her head; he'd surprised her yet again.

"Do you have any idea why he'd do something like this," Xander asked.

"No, we're doing well," Mrs. Armstrong replied. We're living within our means and we don't do anything extravagant."

"Pardon me for asking, but what about gambling, do you or your husband do anything like that?"

"Nothing beyond the office football pool and that kind of thing," she replied quickly. "Neither of us have ever been to a casino."

Xander turned and gave Ziva a quick glance, then turned back to Mrs. Armstrong. "Could my colleague check your personal computer, just to see if he might be hiding anything like that?"

She looked like she was about to object, but just nodded her head again. "Go ahead, it's already up and running."

"Where is it please," Ziva asked.

"The back room," was the quick reply.

"I won't disturb your daughter, will I," Ziva asked

"No," was the brisk reply. "She's at my mother's for the time being."

Ziva just nodded and headed back in the direction that Mrs. Armstrong had indicated. There was something not right here but she just couldn't put her finger on it yet.

Back in the living room, Xander gave Mrs. Armstrong a sad smile. "I apologize in advance, but you know what I have to ask you about next."

"Bryce and I," she replied.

"Yeah, everything okay on that front, nothing extra-curricular for either of you?"

"No," she responded sadly. "It's been wonderful since he's been at the Pentagon. We've even been talking about having a brother or sister for Hailey."

"So nothing that's been setting off your 'wife radar'?"

"He's been distracted lately, just the last few weeks actually. But he gets like that when he's got an urgent project or something that he needs to get done quickly."

"And he didn't mention what was on his mind?"

"He wouldn't say and I wouldn't ask," she replied. "He takes his secrecy oaths seriously. Bryce says that it's as much for our protection as anything. After all, we can't tell what we don't know."

"True enough," Xander replied. But then added, "Assuming the bad guys believe you."

Mrs. Armstrong just nodded silently, tears leaking out her eyes.

Xander fought his instinct to comfort the young woman and just sat across from her as she wept.

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Ziva sat back disappointed, the computer; no, the entire house was completely normal. There were no hidden files, no cryptic E-mails, no unusual web sites visited, nothing that would suggest that the Armstrong's were anything other than a typical family. She got up and started back towards the front room but hesitated. Ziva shot a calculating in the room's direction, wondering if a little detour might be in order. Figuring that it was worth it, she tried the first door in the hall, and had to smile. It was the daughter's room.

Seeing it reminded Ziva of the very different room that she had growing up and her smile grew. The room was done in pink and white and was almost cloying in its cuteness. There was a literal mountain of stuffed horses on the girl's bed and similarly themed toys scattered about the room. Idly Ziva wondered how her life would have turned out if she had grown up in such a way as this girl was.

She started to leave, but turned back, something wasn't right. Her eyes scanned the room relentlessly, trying to discover why all of her instincts were screaming at her. Eventually her focus came back to the pile of stuffed animals on the bed. They were arranged in such a way that they would have to be moved whenever the girl wanted to sleep, which probably wasn't all that unusual. Ziva was still not sure what exactly was pushing her buttons when she realized that the animals were dusty. They shouldn't be. Just the regular movement of removing and placing them back on the bed should have prevented any accumulation of dust, but the animals were dusty; there was no doubt of that. This meant that the girl had not just been sent off that morning but had been gone a much longer time; Ziva's eyes widened at the implications of that. The most immediate concern was what to do with Mrs. Armstrong. Ziva's first instinct was to drag the woman down to NCIS and find out why she had lied to them, but she didn't go with that. Better to use the knowledge to get information from the Lieutenant and only pull the wife in if he refused to co-operate. With a plan in mind, Ziva silently closed the door and moved back to the front room, it was time to wrap things up.

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Ziva walked into the front room just as Mrs. Armstrong was finishing up a story about a vacation that she and her husband had taken a couple of years ago. "So have you ever been to the Outer Banks?"

"No ma'am," Xander replied. "I grew up in California and have spent the last ten years in Africa, up until this year I'd never made it to the east coast."

It looked like the conversation was going to continue until Ziva put her hand on Xander's shoulder; "We need to go."

Xander just nodded and held her gaze for a moment. To Ziva it felt like he was reading her mind; he could obviously tell that something was up. Then he turned back to Mrs. Armstrong, "If you can think of anything that might help, just call me at this number," he said, holding out a business card.

"I will," she replied. "I hope what I told you can help."

"I'm sure it will," Xander told the woman. Ziva chimed in with, "Thank you for your time and co-operation."

The two moved down the front walk in silence, eyes constantly scanning their surroundings. For both it was as automatic as breathing. They concluded that all was clear and got into the car and headed back to the Naval Yard. When they were a couple of blocks away, Xander asked, "So what did you find?"

"How did you know I found anything," Ziva asked. Long ago she had schooled her face to give nothing away, or so she thought. The notion that Xander could have clearly seen the truth in it frightened her a bit.

"I heard you give one of the doors a try. You were there a couple of minutes which means you gave it a going over and when you came back to the front room, your breathing was faster than normal; meaning you found something. So what was it?"

Ziva was dumbfounded for a moment or two. That he had come up with all of that from such a minimum of physical clues made her wonder why he was at NCIS in the first place. Clearing her head with a brief shake, Ziva told him what she'd found. "The girl has been gone for much longer than one day. Whether it is to force the Lieutenant to do what he did or because the wife knew what was coming and sought to minimize the girl's trauma, I don't know."

"Which way do you lean," Xander asked after thinking things over.

"The first," Ziva answered quickly. "I believe that someone took Lieutenant Armstrong's daughter as leverage to force him to go through with that farce of a bank robbery. That was used to draw us out and gave someone the opportunity to remove something vital from our storage. Who is behind it and why," here she paused. "I cannot say."

"I think you're right on the bean there," Xander told her. "It's a lot more probable than a man who specializes in planning trying to pull off the world's most half assed robbery which just happens to be at the same time someone takes the chance to break into NCIS. I just hope the others can shed some light onto who and how."

Ziva just nodded as they sped down the road.

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Gibbs almost smiled as he walked into the interrogation room. It was something he had to fight every time he entered one because here was where he just felt right. Every time he walked in knowing that there were very few people in the world that were as good at this as he was. He'd let DiNozzo peck away at Armstrong for almost three hours and had learned a lot. That was DiNozzo's style, he'd just start talking about whatever and pretty soon the bad guy was telling him everything he knew just to shut Tony up. Harris' style looked to be the quintessential good cop, someone you just felt right opening up to and only afterwards realizing that you'd just hung yourself. Gibbs could and had used both of those techniques and was good at them, but ultimately he was a closer; the guy who didn't so much ask you questions as told you how you'd screwed up and the only sound you heard after he was done was the door closing on your life. He walked into the room with Lieutenant Armstrong knowing how the whole thing would go before he even opened his mouth.

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TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER

"What have you got for me Abby?"

"A lot and a little, Gibbs."

"Care to explain that."

"Well we've been over everything from the storage locker and we've got some information, it just doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Details, Abby."

"Well, first things first; there weren't any fingerprints or other trace stuff that shouldn't have been there. So whoever broke in was careful. There's still a couple of things to test but honestly I don't expect anything to turn up from them. So with that out of the way, we come to the computers. McGee and I tested all these laptops and we came up with the one that we're mostly sure was swapped out."

"Mostly sure?"

"Yeah, you see all of those things were our machines, but this one was supposed to have already been reconditioned and sold."

"And whose did they swap it out with?"

"Lieutenant Evans, the dead guy that Tony found in Columbia."

"So someone broke in and switched one of our old computers with a dead man's computer?"

"Yeah, it looks that way."

"And the hard drive?"

"Is exactly what you'd expect on something that had been cleaned and reconditioned."

"Any idea why?"

"Well that's where the 'little' part kinda kicks in."

Gibbs just gave a minor glare and grunted.

Abby frowned; she'd obviously disappointed her boss. "I do know who bought the replacement computer," she added, trying to dispel Gibbs ire.

Gibbs just raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

"It turns out that this machine was bought as part of a lot of ten laptops six months ago." She typed away furiously for a second and then said. "And the buyer was . . . . Durant's Trading Inc. They're based in Seattle."

Abby turned and saw Gibbs eyes lit up. Something that she'd come up with had told him something, something major. For a second he looked like he was going to say something, but he just leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Then he hurried out of her lab without bothering to tell her what was so important. 'Typical', Abby thought and went back to her machines.

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FIVE MINUTES LATER

Gibbs was on his way to talk to Leo when McGee ambushed him coming off the elevator.

"There you are boss."

"McGee."

"Abby seemed to have the computer stuff in hand, so I decided to look at the crew of the Seahawk because everything from this case seems to tie back to there."

"And?"

"Well the Seahawk is currently deployed in the South Pacific and has been there for nine months. So I went back and looked at the crew that had served with Lieutenant Armstrong but were no longer on the ship. There were five men from the enlisted rates and two officers that are currently in the area. There are also several who have retired but they're in different parts of the country and I've at least been able to electronically account for them."

"So who's here?"

"Well the five enlisted have just been transferred to different ships that just happen to be docked at the moment. I'm waiting to hear from their Captains; the two officers are Commander May who's doing a joint turn in intelligence at the Pentagon and Captain Nguyen who's finishing up a stint at Walter Reed."

"Finishing up?"

"Yeah, he's slated to be sent to Diego Garcia within the month."

Gibbs just raised his eyebrows at the news. "Wait for those calls McGee, and let me know what you find out."

"On it boss."

"Nice work McGee," Gibbs said over his shoulder. He saw the junior officer light up at the praise and then turned and headed up the stairs, he really needed to talk to Leo.

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"What is it, Jethro," Leo Vance asked as his head investigator came bursting through his door.

"I need some leeway here Leo."

"And why is that?"

"I think I've got an espionage case."

Vance looked up from the folder he was currently perusing, eyebrows raised. "Do tell."

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FIVE MINUTES LATER

Gibbs was hurrying down from Leo's office; he needed to get his notes together before he confronted Lieutenant Armstrong. He was stopped by the sight of Ziva and Harris standing by his desk; obviously they had something. "What have you got?"

"Armstrong's daughter is not in her home and the mother's story is not true," Ziva blurted out.

"Any idea what's going on," Gibbs asked.

"We think that someone's using her as leverage on Armstrong," Xander answered. "But we don't know why someone would go to all that trouble just to break into our storage areas and swap out or steal a computer."

"I'm going to find that out," Gibbs said, with a shark like grin. He stood and arranged his notes and headed for the interrogation room.

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He walked in and took a good look at the Lieutenant. The man looked ready to hit something and considering he'd just spent the last two hours with DiNozzo, this was understandable. Gibbs dropped a file folder on the table in front of him and sat down, studiously not looking at the Lieutenant. He opened the file and perused a few lines, he had an idea as to what was going on, but until he heard it confirmed by the Lieutenant it was just a theory.

Gibbs finally looked up, his face utterly expressionless. "Where's your daughter?"

"What?"

"I asked you where your daughter Hailey was, Lieutenant."

"Joanne sent her to her mother's in Arlington."

"Yeah, that's what your wife said, but she claimed to have sent her there this morning and there's no way you could have known that. So let's try this again," Gibbs said rising from his chair, voice colored with contempt. "Where is your daughter, Lieutenant?"

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"How long do you think it'll take," Xander asked the others as they watched Gibbs break Armstrong down.

"Half an hour," Tony answered immediately.

"I've got ten that says it's under fifteen," Tim chimed in.

"You are both wrong, it will take forty to forty five minutes for the Lieutenant to crack."

"How about ten bucks apiece," Xander said. "I'll be the bank and judge since I'm not betting. From," here he looked at the clock, "mark to fifteen minutes from now; Tim wins if the guy cracks. Fifteen to thirty is DiNozzo and thirty to forty five is Ziva's time."

"And if it takes longer," Ziva asked, giving him the evil eye.

"Then I keep it 'cause you all were wrong," Xander shot back with an innocent smile on his face. A smile that none of them were buying, still the idea had merit.

"I'm in," Ziva finally said, producing a ten dollar bill.

"Me too," said Tim as he was digging for his wallet.

"Ditto," said DiNozzo as he handed a ten across.

"So what happens when we get a name," Xander asked as he pocketed the money.

"We will bring the suspect in for questioning."

"When, it's already after nine right now," Xander observed.

"Gibbs likes to bring someone in when they are at work or in the middle of something else. It disorients them and that makes the interrogation easier."

"Well, you all will have to enjoy yourselves without me then," Xander said with a rueful smile."

"And why is that," Ziva asked.

"I have a prior obligation," Xander answered. The tone he used and the glare that followed it killed off any questions that were in the process of being contemplated.

"Don't forget rule three there probie," Tony said with a smirk.

"What's rule three," Xander asked.

"Always be accessible," the three of them replied at the same time.

"I never was much for rules," Xander murmured; his attention now focused back on the interrogation.

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They headed their separate ways after Armstrong gave up the name of Captain Russell Nguyen. It took forty two minutes which had Ziva happy and after passing the money over, Xander left a note about the next day on Gibbs desk, since he was wrapping up loose ends with Armstrong. The take down the next day was easy, too easy in fact. It appeared as though the good doctor knew that NCIS would be coming to call.

"Hey there Doctor Feelgood," DiNozzo said with smirking irreverence. "You remember me?"

"Indeed I do Agent DiNozzo," he looked behind Tony and saw that Gibbs and Ziva were there as well. "I take it that this is not a social call?"

"Nah, we need you to come down to NCIS and clear a couple of things up," Tony replied.

"Certainly," Doctor Nguyen answered immediately. He turned to a nurse and said, "I seem to have to be somewhere else right now; would you tell Doctor Tenent to see to my rounds please?"

The nurses reply of, "Certainly Doctor," was almost drowned out as Nguyen turned back to DiNozzo and said, "I insist that my legal advisor join me."

"That won't really be necessary," Gibbs drawled.

"But I insist," Doctor Nguyen repeated, then gave Tony a dirty look. "After all, you never know when someone is going to try and persecute you for something you didn't do."

Remembering their past interactions with the doctor, especially DiNozzo's, Gibbs realized that he couldn't force the issue and so he just nodded reluctantly.

"Excellent, then we'll see you at NCIS Agent Gibbs."

"Agent David will escort you there," Gibbs informed the smug man.

"I know the way," Doctor Nguyen retorted.

"Either she goes with you or you go in handcuffs," Gibbs said, coming to the end of his patience.

It looked like the doctor was going to say something else, but the 'Legal Advisor' put a hand on the doctor's arm and he calmed down immediately.

Seeing that the conversation was at an end; Gibbs headed out towards the cars, certain that DiNozzo was right behind him and that Ziva was already intimidating the good doctor.

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It was one of the most frustrating interrogations that Gibbs had ever watched. DiNozzo was at his best and was getting the good doctor flustered; but every time it looked like he had the guy on the ropes William Wyler, the 'legal advisor'; would open his mouth. When he did this, the question would be deflected, the point rendered moot or some clarification would be required. And because the jerk was actually a lawyer, Gibbs couldn't remove him from the room. What it all added up to was that DiNozzo would be run off track for a little while and Doctor Nguyen would have a chance to regroup. Next to him, Gibbs could feel Ziva seething; he knew that the former Mossad agent would love to have this guy in one of their rooms where the rules were a lot more flexible. In all honesty, Gibbs wouldn't have minded that at all. He knew that Abby and Tim were working on all the electronic and forensic stuff as fast as they could. Right now Gibbs was pinning his hopes on DiNozzo being able to stall this guy long enough for them to get him something concrete so he could nail this bastard. Because that was the other thing; there was no doubt in his mind that this guy was dirty. Just how dirty was the only question he had; that and where Hailey Armstrong was.

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"You know Abby," Tim said as he looked up from his terminal, "I want to be Gibbs when I grow up."

"What prompted that McGee?"

"You know he told us to look for some connection to China, well I was just wondering how in the hell he knew to look for that."

"You mean you found something?"

"Yeah." He pointed to a line on the screen. "LT. Evans computer automatically made contact with a server in Angola of all places. A server that we now know was controlled by Chinese intelligence."

"Kind of like a systems check, you mean."

"Exactly."

"So Evans was a spy," Abby asked.

"Nope, it happened after he was already dead," McGee replied.

"So there was a spy on the Seahawk and when they found out that Gibbs was on his way, they swapped out their terminal with the dead guy's so if anything turned up, Evans would get the blame," Abby said, warming up to the story.

"But since we seized it, there was no way for them to get it back. So it sat in our locker like a time bomb waiting to go off," Tim said, continuing the train of thought.

"Whatever encryption is on that thing was probably state of the art back then, but now would be found when we did the security check before reconditioning the thing."

"So our spy had to steal it from NCIS in order to cover their tracks because I'm guessing that there is something still on there that would lead us back to whoever it was. And in order to do that, they needed a diversion that would be sure to pull us all away from here. So they forced Lt. Armstrong to attempt to rob a bank in his blues, which would mandate a response from NCIS."

"And in order to force him to do that, they took his daughter," Abby finished.

"It all hangs together," Tim said after a moment's thought.

"And that would explain why the only prints in the locker were NCIS personnel or folks from the Seahawk." She turned to McGee, "Why are you still sitting here, Gibbs needs to know this."

"Abby, all we've got is a theory based on a few small bits of concrete evidence."

"Gibbs still needs to know this," she insisted, pulling McGee up out of his chair. "Now go sell it."

Given his marching orders, McGee hurried off to find Gibbs and Abby retreated to her machines, anxious to find anything that would help.

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Gibbs was about ready to charge into the interrogation room when there was a knock at the door. He gave a little grin, only McGee was that tentative; "What is it McGee," he called through the door.

"Umm Boss," Tim started, wondering how Gibbs had known it was him. "Abby and I have put some things together and we've got a theory about what's been going on."

"Let's hear it," Gibbs said, anxious for anything that would help.

"First of all, how did you know to look for a Chinese connection?"

"The company that bought the laptops is a known front for Chinese intelligence," Gibbs said, now what have you got?"

So Tim laid everything out for him, for something that complicated, it didn't take long. "There's just one more thing Boss."

"What's that McGee?"

"Well, if I were a betting man, I'd say that those two were prepared for all of this and that they've studied us and how we question witnesses. So if any of us go in there, they've pretty much got our play book and know how to keep us away from what we want to know."

"So what would you suggest?"

"Hit them with something that they're not prepared for or more specifically; someone they're not prepared for."

"Harris?"

"It's a definite possibility."

"Where is he?"

"He didn't say Boss; he only said he had a prior commitment."

Gibbs glare went from mildly perturbed to nuclear death ray in half a second and McGee wilted under it. He pulled out his smart phone and after a few seconds of tapping said, "He's at St. Peter's on 2nd."

Without turning Gibbs said, "Ziva".

Silently, the former Mossad agent left the room and headed for the garage. She knew that Gibbs would keep Doctor Nguyen there until she returned. Her job was to make sure that was as short a time as possible.

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The first impression that Ziva had of St. Peter's was that it was light. It was a gloomy day in DC and she had expected the interior of the church to be equally gloomy. But the white marble interior seemed to grab and multiply the available light so that the interior was bright. It was easy to find Alexander, he was in one of the middle pews and somehow the air around him seemed darker; the other parishioner's were giving him a wide berth. As quietly as she could, Ziva eased into the pew behind him and was leaning forward when he murmured, "What is it Ziva?"

Hiding her surprise at his detection of her, she whispered back, "Gibbs needs you back at NCIS."

Ziva heard him sigh, "Is it important, or is Gibbs just in a snit?"

"They won't tell us where the little girl is," she finally whispered back.

Without another word, Alex rose and moved towards the aisle. Ziva's moves paralleled his and she stepped out into the aisle just behind him as he was rising from kneeling towards the altar. Without a word or even a look, he headed out the front door, opening it silently so as not to disturb the others who were there. "I did not know you were a Catholic," she said.

"I came to it late in life," he replied. Then he turned to her, his eye flashing fiercely. "Now you have disturbed something that is really important to me; more than important, an obligation, so make with the splainy."

"What," she said, not understanding at all what he had just said.

"What the hell is going on Ziva," he asked; speaking slowly and clearly, like you would to a child.

Ziva could feel her own anger rise in response, but she forced it down and told him everything that they knew as the two of them walked to her car.

"So basically you need me to shake this guy up so he gives us the kid," Xander summarized.

"Exactly," Ziva answered. And then, with a wicked grin, she fired up the engine and tore out of the parking lot, breaking at least four traffic laws in the process. If she had wanted to shake him out of his funk with her . . . energetic driving, then Ziva failed spectacularly. Stopped at a red light and not being able to take the silence any longer, she asked; "Why was being at St Peter's today so important to you, what obligation are you fulfilling?"

Xander was silent for a moment, finally he said, "It was a burden placed on me by someone I respect immensely. I suppose you could call it my own personal Yom Kippur."

Ziva looked startled at this, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. For the rest of the drive she wondered what Harris needed to atone for but wasn't sure she actually wanted to know.

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Tim almost flinched as he watched Harris get off the elevator. He was obviously not happy to be there and seemed perfectly willing to spread the bad feelings around. Harris moved through the bull-pen like a thundercloud, a worried looking Ziva trailing behind. Tim was just glad he was out here and not stuck between Harris and Gibbs; Tim doubted that he would survive the experience.

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Gibbs eyes flicked to his right briefly as the door opened. "Glad you could make it."

"So how sure are you about this," Harris asked with no preliminaries.

Gibbs thought it over, it was a fair question; "Nothing is certain, but I'd say this is pretty close." He looked over and noticed that Harris was focused on the 'Legal Advisor' as opposed to Doctor Nguyen. "Someone you know?"

"Little Billy Wyler," Harris replied. "He's a lawyer for the DC branch of Wolfram and Hart." He looked over at Gibbs, "They're just flat out bad, Gibbs. They're the kind of guys that give lawyers such a nasty reputation."

"How bad," Gibbs asked, surprised that he'd never heard of them.

"They were the primary defense advisors at Nuremburg," Harris replied calmly. "The fact that the Doc is associating with someone like that tells me that he's a black hat."

"So you ready to do your thing," DiNozzo asked as he poked his head into the observation room."

"In a minute," he replied; then Xander turned back to Gibbs. "I need you to promise me that no matter what, you don't stop me once I start."

Gibbs was taken aback at this, "You planning on doing something illegal."

"By your standards, yes." Xander continued before Gibbs could say anything, "But fortunately, who I work for and what I do gives me a tremendous amount of leeway. I won't exceed my mandate, but I won't be playing by the rules that you're used to." He looked at Gibbs closely, "Can you live with that?"

Gibbs thought about that, he had a tremendous respect for the law and the rules that governed how law enforcement operated. But if Harris had a legal foundation for what he was about to do, then that was within the letter of the law. "You're wasting time," was all he growled out.

Xander just nodded and left. He went back to his desk and pulled out his Walther and holstered it, then he pulled out a large, homemade looking knife and casually stuck it through a loop on his jeans. Finally he rummaged around in the main drawer for a moment and pulled out a piece of paper that had a lot of seals and things on it. Satisfied, he headed for the interrogation room; stopped outside and took a few centering breaths, and then opened the door.