Chapter Fourteen
Arrest
Finding the ballroom with the sick man is easy; it's the only lit one with a blank movie screen at one end and a huge, nearly vacant space in the rear third. Homeland Security Agent Kerr, together with Gibbs, Ziva and Michelle enter, blue surgical masks firmly in place, and the scene tells its own story. Everyone in the rear third of the huge room has scattered for safety elsewhere, those in the forward section cower in a mob, fearful of approaching the retching man huddled on his hands and knees in an aisle, perched over a widening mess that puddles up on the intricately decorative carpet.
The only ones that are near him are three figures - male or female is impossible to tell - encased in bulky white Hazmat suits that would have blended in with this Convention except that the occupants do not play at fantasy.
Gibbs and the women, protected only by latex gloves and Ducky's surgical masks, draw no closer to this scene, and within a minute Ducky arrives, but Gibbs blocks his attempt to get closer.
"You sent for me, Jethro, but I don't see what I can do from twenty five feet back."
"Watch. Observe, tell me what we're dealing with."
He examines the scene before them. "You, or rather they, are dealing with a male Caucasian, approximately twenty five years old, who is reduced at this point to retching dry heaves. Now that is all I can tell you until I examine him."
"When they're done, I want the vomit."
Ducky turns, looks up to him. "Have you ever considered, Jethro, that NCIS is one of the very few career choices in which you may say that?"
xx
However, when the Hazmat team has carried the man away on a stretcher delivered by a fourth member of their team, and Ducky follows them, Gibbs and the other agents discover they have a more immediate and pressing problem.
"Let us out!" someone from the tightly packed crowd in the front of the room demands.
"The hotel is under quarantine," Charles Kerr, Homeland Security Agent-in-Charge of this operation, says in an authoritative voice that goes nowhere under a rising tide of protest.
"You can't keep us here" is the general consensus of the rising swell of angry, frightened voices.
"There's no place to go. Dozens of Doctors are right here working on the problem."
One man pushes through his fellows. "We don't care about that." He strides forward. "We want out!"
"You can't get out."
"Fuck you! I'm leaving!" He looks back. "Who's with me?"
But rather than joining the charge, the people fall back and the man turns face to barrel with an automatic weapon.
Neither Ziva nor Palmer will draw unless Gibbs does but the surreal standoff holds the shocked people back.
"What the f*ck? You gonna shoot all of us?"
Gibbs steps between him and Kerr's gun, ignores the weapon at his back and pulls off his mask.
x
"No, we're not going to shoot you, but the doctors you need are here. You go outside and you might not reach another doctor."
"What's causing this?"
"We don't know. We're trying to find out. Those of you with rooms, go back to them. Stay away from each other."
"We don't have rooms," comes a ragged chorus from various parts of the room.
"Then stay down here. And if you feel sick go to the gym, that's the med site. There are twenty three people out of thousands sick. We don't know why, we're working on it, but we can't do that and hold back a riot."
"Too bad!" one man says as he advances toward the gun.
"GET BACK," Kerr orders, stepping past Gibbs, gun again at ready.
Gibbs slaps the gun aside and turns to step before the man. He doesn't say anything, a break between them will destroy both their credibilities but he's determined to win this.
"All right," Ziva declares, stepping around Gibbs, "the movie is over, you must stay in the hotel but go somewhere else."
Brandished guns and angry men make the decision for most of the trapped people who make their way on either side of the knot until the agents are alone.
Gibbs locks eyes with Kerr, his voice stony. "If you were one of mine–"
"But I'm not one of yours, you're one of mine. I'm in charge here."
"Short memory. Were you going to shoot him?"
"If I had to. Wound him only. He was building a riot."
"Shoot him to save him."
"We have to keep this, whatever it is, contained."
"You don't know how it's spread. We should shut down this Convention."
"Thought of that. There aren't enough rooms." His cell phone jangles, he pulls it to his ear. "Kerr. What? Be right there." He shoves it back into his pocket. "Shit."
"Another one?"
"Another two. A couple on the 9th floor." He leaves alone.
Instead of following for further debacles, Gibbs pulls out his own phone, presses a speed combination. He'll call Morrow later; this man has got to go. "McGee."
xxx
Siobhan McGee, still costumed as the scarlet faced, black wigged Katma Tui, Green Lantern of Space Sector 1417, pretends to shop as she keeps her eyes half on the ballroom exit, three paired brown wood doors, and on the huge room as a whole. With the hotel in lockdown, few are in a Convention mood though the Dealers and Exhibitors continue, as do many of the programs whose participants can't get away. Siobhan knows that somewhere in this semi-crowded room is 'Slave Leia', the barely clad Special Agent Nell Jones from Los Angeles' Office of Special Projects. Nell's Undercover - what an irony that is, for the poor woman has to stay 95 percent naked - and she's been ordered to keep close to her in the event this case breaks. When it does, Timmy has told her to grab Jones and run.
She's not openly looking for her, keeps her attention on the three doors halfway across the room, glancing fairly regularly while pretending to shop the books, magazines, collectibles and other wares. She needs only to know when Jones leaves so she may follow her discreetly, then openly ignore her in whatever room she goes to.
x
Siobhan allows her attention to wander to the tables around her. Jones isn't in the forward half of the room so she's somewhere behind her. She forces herself to concentrate, or at least look like she's concentrating, on the tables as she moves from one to another. Timmy may not have taught her much about covert surveillance - okay, nothing - but she knows that watching the doors more than the tables is no way to be an undercover shopper.
The room is only half full, the buzz of conversation not as oppressive as it had been when fighting the crowds and trying to keep bodies off hers, so she can actually walk along the aisles beside the tables and look at the merchandise being hawked, keeping her ears open. She still plays the part of the red skinned, black haired Green Lantern. There are many die-hard fans who refuse to give over even in the face of death and she tries to appear as one of them even while trying to focus on prayers for everyone when she hears a too familiar voice behind her. She glances back, sees she's gotten careless. Nell Jones, the undoubtedly chilly and certainly quite embarrassed Slave Leia, is barely ten feet away and accompanied by Darth Vader.
'Oh oh, target at five thirty.' She can't leave, not without calling Vader's attention. She isn't even sure if this is the same Vader who'd so outraged her earlier. She concentrates on the table before her, scans the rows of paperback books, maybe a hundred fifty paperbacks set staggered on the long table, each two-thirds covering the one beneath it so the titles are visible. She's barely interested, these are just a good distraction; the titles aren't new, mostly Classic ones, quite a collection; mostly Science Fic–
Whoa!
x
Can it be? It is. Staying aware without looking at Jones, she picks up two of the books, feels her heart speed up. There are 7 white-bordered paperbacks in all, each with antique space scenes of ships and space suits and heroes; E.E. 'Doc' Smith's 'Lensman' series. They're displayed out of sequence but there's 'Grey Lensman' on top of 'Triplanetary' next to 'Children of the Lens', and there's 'Second Stage Lensmen' under 'First Lensman' - all 7 books in near mint condition. She had these books as a girl, wore out the pages living the adventures of Virgil Samms and the generations of the Kinnisons.
She shoves her excitement down, very difficult though that is with her heart pounding. She halts her breath until she's sure she can keep a steady voice, lets the breath out carefully and puts on her haggle face. "Excuse me," she asks the man seated behind the table, "how much are these?" She waves her hand over her accumulated treasure.
"I can let you have them for $8 a piece," the young man says. "The science is so old no one–"
"Sold!"
She'd expected to hear fifteen and was ready to haggle, hoping to wear him down to ten. Pulling her wallet from her long strap mini-purse, her one concession to the mundane world's intrusion onto the Green Lantern mystique, she takes out a fifty and a ten, completes the deal and takes the white bag of treasure, already contemplating a week or two of quiet evenings on and about Tellus and outward to Lundmark's Nebula–
"Donaldson!" a woman's voice to her right snaps.
x
Reverend George Donaldson is her partner, Rector of Saint Mary the Virgin Church and she's occasionally addressed as such by people who don't read the sign outside the church correctly; but even as she starts to turn toward the voice, an automatic correction nearly on her lips, she realizes the call isn't usually made so emphatically.
She freezes when she comes face to Sig with a gun pointed between her eyes from six feet away - and beyond it is Ziva David!
She glances right, an automatic reaction to the need to flee and is astounded by Michelle Palmer, also wearing her NCIS cap. Her friend's gun is trained upon her heart.
"Georgette Donaldson," Ziva snares her attention and Michelle steps in, turns her and pushes her over the book table, pulls back her arms and locks handcuffs onto her wrists, "you are under arrest."
"Hey, let her go. You can't do this," a male voice declares into this surreal scene. She looks over her shoulder to the young man who waves his arms to the other watchers, trying to incite them. "This is police brutality. They can't arrest her."
"Federal Agents." Ziva declares. "Back off."
"Federal brutality," the kid decides.
"You have the right to remain silent," Michelle declares and gives her shackled hands a squeeze at the final two words, and she pulls her upright as Ziva's gun shifts aim and the kid decides his fun isn't worth what this Fed will do. "If you give up the right to remain silent," Michelle continues with another squeeze, "anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of Law." Michelle hurries through the last sentences as a crowd grows and people are realizing that perhaps the one responsible for their confinement is being arrested in front of them.
Michelle snatches up the white bag containing Siobhan's books as Ziva clears the way with her voice and gun. The two agents quick march the astounded Green Lantern through and out of the huge ballroom.
x
They cut through the outer foyer between ballrooms, attracting more attention with each rapid step and far too many camera flashes for any of their tastes until they reach the elevator, which Ziva's Sig quickly clears.
When the doors close on the three women "What the–" Siobhan bites it back hard, tries not to tug at the handcuffs. She won't be forced to say it no matter how outraged she is. "Is going on?"
"The right to remain silent," Ziva insists. "You are our prisoner."
x
The opening of the doors into the main lobby cuts off any more words. The red faced Green Lantern is propelled through the lobby, Homeland Agents open the front door and the NCIS Agents push their green, black and white costumed prisoner into the street, left along the sidewalk and stop her at the curb at the back of the parked white over black MCRT truck. The rear doors are opened from inside by Captain America sans his winged blue cowl.
"You cuffed her?" he demands of his partners, massively outraged as Michelle and Ziva boost Siobhan up the step and Tony and Tim help her into the truck. "I can't believe you cuffed her," he says with greater fire before Ziva, still outside with Michelle, slams the doors. DiNozzo, already behind Siobhan, puts his key into the lock.
"Relax, Timmy." She'd been outraged until he was, but at her husband's fire she starts to change her mind. "It was interesting. I've never done the perp walk before." The cuffs disappear with a clatter into Tony's back pocket.
"You make it sound like a dance," DiNozzo says.
"Don't," Tim says in lingering aggravation. "Please. Just don't."
The door opens again and Gibbs climbs in.
x
"Sorry to pull this," he says to the costumed McGees, breaking Rule 6, "but we had to work fast. I need my team back and Green Lantern's done."
"You didn't have to arrest me," Siobhan declares. Despite the Convention having half fallen apart, parts were fun and she was enjoying them.
"We need a priest out there more than a superhero." He points to a shelf.
She sees a short stack; her black skirt, blue Clerical shirt and circular white collar. Beside the stack are her black high heeled shoes. She doesn't see nylons but won't say anything about it now; these are men and she doesn't feel like trying to explain.
"Heroine, and you could've as–" Anger is crowded out by realization. She looks up into Jethro's eyes and is sure. "You're flying blind."
"We want Kanyicska to think we're clueless, yes. That's why we took you right under Jones' nose while she's with a Vader. There are three Vaders at this party, they might be together and switch out when one's with her. Green Lantern's been seen with Jones, we can't know how badly she's been compromised, if at all."
"There are 15,000 registered guests for this shin dig," Tony says, "more than half got trapped here when the doors were locked. A tenth of them are in some kind of costume, there are way too many masks and we can't lift them without probable cause or we tip our hands."
"You're also needed inside," Gibbs finishes.
"I've tried to help, but couldn't do it openly, not as Katma Tui."
"You're going to have to do it openly. There are twenty five down now, three in the past hour and we nearly had a riot with scared people wanting to stage a jailbreak."
Gibbs reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Convention ID tag. "Time for Georgette Donaldson–"
"Cute." Her ID card has her real name but it's pinned to the small pouch that hangs from her shoulder and was turned against her hip so it had never been easily read.
"to disappear." The stringed card he hands her reads on two lines 'Rev. Siobhan O'Mallory'. To her questioning look he'll only say "Can't have too many McGees."
"That's the first thing you've said that I agree with," she tells him with a smirk.
x
"I still don't like it," Tim gripes from behind her. She turns.
"Like what part, sweetheart?"
"You showing your face in there." Her eyebrows go up, much in warning. "You know what I mean. You were just on the NCIS website on Friday for the Memorial Service."
"Yes, a chuisle," she says, her fingertips brushing his cheek, "but you of all people know that ní mná solas teacht ó lantern."
He glances past her to the other men. If they're taken aback by her sudden shift to Irish they say nothing. "I do?"
"Um hum," she assures him, tracing his cheek with one white gloved finger.
He glances at Gibbs and DiNozzo and when she turns neither of them seem willing to take a guess. He has to. "What would I know if I were in America?"
She smiles slowly. "A woman's light doesn't come from a lantern."
x
Her makeup case, including all she needs for removal of her red face, is already in the truck, so she shoos Gibbs and DiNozzo out. Only Tim may stay, though Michelle, out on the curb with Ziva, takes the moment's opportunity of the open rear door to place her bag of books on the floor to the left side.
"Where do we stand?" Siobhan asks her husband, taking off her black wig when the door is closed. She pulls off the head covering that holds her red hair in place.
"We stand right where we did before. Can't approach Jones. Whoever's involved in this is probably costumed and masked and we can't force anyone to unmask without giving away the game." She shakes her head sharply, her fiery mane falling into place and he turns her around, pulls down the zipper. The pink half-bra she'd put on this morning is one of the very sheer Victoria's Secret gifts that had never been intended to be worn through mid-afternoon, but a regular one couldn't be hidden under the tight costume.
She tries to ignore her scarlet face and the uneven end of the makeup that had stopped under the collar of her costume as she pulls the black sleeves, tugs the top of the one piece costume down to her waist, leaving only the too wispy and low pink bra.
She finds in the case her jar of make-up remover - God have mercy on him if he'd forgotten that - and spreads a generous portion all over from collarbone to hairline and he hands her several towels from a drawer.
"People are sick and getting sicker," he continues, "and Homeland should've evacuated everyone to hospitals when they had the chance. Gibbs managed to cow Homeland into an uneasy alliance only because their Deputy Director used to be our Director."
"Thomas Morrow?"
"That's the one. But Homeland's Agent Kerr considers these people cannon fodder for his breaking this case." He helps peel the overly affectionate costume down her legs while she removes the red make-up, running his hands along her legs to push and not missing a chance for a very close peek at the narrowest part of her very small pink wisp of Victoria's Secret panties, all he'd left her with and all she'd been able to wear without lines showing.
She sits down on a folding chair, pulls the emerald faux boots and the rest of Green Lantern's costume off. She looks at the stack of folded clothes upon the shelf. "It didn't occur to you to get me some real underwear?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind." There is none other than more Victoria's Secrets and she can hardly expect he'd have asked Michelle or Ziva to shop. She can't ask now, she'd have to tell them why she needs it and this private business is staying so.
"You're perfect just as you are."
She stands up, feeling particularly naked in the wispy pink bra and panties - she'd have murdered him if he'd dared to go so far as crotchless - but she feels her body warmed by his fiery gaze. She wipes the last of the red onto the last towel, pulls him close, their lips meet and his arms encircling her body complete the warming as she reaches up his back.
Her slap bounces his lips off hers.
x
"OW! I liked the first part better." She recalls his making this complaint once before and supposes he has a point. There are some things that shouldn't be imitated.
"Well, a grá, don't make part two necessary." She steps out of his grip, moves aside her blouse and collar on the shelf and shakes out her folded skirt. "What more is there?"
He looks like he's not quite in the mood to answer, but the others are waiting for them outside the truck. "Ducky and Jimmy are in the gym, it's now an Isolation ward and triage for the new cases before they can be moved out the back Service Exit to hospitals that may be taxed beyond their limits before this thing is over. There are three people in the gym, the newest of the cases. We don't know how people are getting sick; the café and the hotel restaurant came up clean for disease or faulty food prep but right now Homeland's concentrating on the air conditioning."
She hooks her skirt into place and he hands her the light blue, short sleeved blouse. "These people need a Priest and we need a miracle."
xx
Only Michelle is waiting for them when the McGees alight back onto the street. He's back in brown slacks and button down white shirt with shield stuck onto his belt, she's in black knee length skirt, light blue short sleeved Clerical blouse and the stiff white collar encircling her throat. Both look about expectantly before converging on Michelle.
"Where's Gibbs?"
"Slapping heads," she says in a way that conveys he would if it would help. "Cases twenty six through twenty nine have been found in various parts of the hotel and have joined the other three in the gym. You're to see what they have in common. He wants you and the others in plain clothes," she says, removing her jacket and cap. "NCIS has officially made the arrest of the terrorist," she looks to Siobhan, "and pulled out with her. Special Agent Edsen will park the truck a few blocks away and stay ready." She looks to Siobhan. "You're to stay in sight of Nell Jones, while working with 5,000 people."
"Is your cell phone on?" Timmy asks.
"Yes." Her tone says 'of course' when her words won't.
"If I call you, it'll mean that things are breaking and you grab Nell and the two of you run like the legions of hell are chasing you."
"Oh, darling, I can run ever so much faster than that."
He checks the power on his own cell phone. He knows hers has different programmed ring tones; he doesn't know which tone is his but she'll know his call from anyone else's. "This is going to be hell."
"No, a chuisle, I'm waiting to see how Jethro applies his Fragibbsie Rules of Inquisition with this crowd."
Michelle tries in vain to smother her giggles. "I have to remember to use that."
"I dare you to try," Timmy cautions. He looks to her. "Ready to do this?"
She feels her smile collapse. "Counsel a thousand people, offer prayers for ten times that many, give Last Rites to..." She shudders. "Don't ask."