Chapter 14 – Interns
The phone ringing at 1:57 a.m. woke up Vance. He growled an incoherent oath. Middle-of-the-night phone calls always meant trouble. His practiced hand found the phone on the table next to his bed without having to turn on the light. "H'lo…" He listened for a few moments, and then said, "Okay," and hung the phone up.
"What is it?" Jackie asked sleepily.
"Trouble at the building. I've got to go in. Sorry."
She waved a hand limply. "Go. Save the world." It was her usual response to a call at this time of night, and he loved her for it. She was already back asleep.
Vance's bodyguard/driver pulled up in front of the NCIS building and parked. The NCIS building and other nearby ones reflected the flashing blue lights of police cars, both Metro PD and the Yard's small security department. People in uniform moved about, mostly concentrating on the corner wall to the right of the building entrance.
"Leon!" a voice called to him. "Over here!"
It was Bob Dunkirk, the Chief of Naval Operations, the person who had phoned Vance. The CNO's residence, Tingey House, was at the far corner of the Yard, and he was often the go-to guy when there was trouble in the Yard and the agency chiefs weren't around.
"What've we got?" Vance asked, approaching him. He marveled that the man could look so immaculate at this hour of the morning, assuming he, too, had been roused from his bed. Then again, being career military (and an officer) meant that you learned to do things, like getting dressed, very quickly.
"The patrols noticed something reflecting the light a bit near these windows. They found this." The CNO pointed down to an area now illuminated by powerful Klieg lamps.
"A pipe bomb?" Vance murmured. It was indeed a length of pipe; it would take closer (and careful) examination to tell if it really was a bomb. Even as he spoke, though, he could see what looked like a fuse coming out of one end, so that seemed to answer that question.
"It's on your property, Leon; you can take charge of it if you want, or…"
"No. I don't have skilled people on duty now, and I don't want to wait until they come on board. Let the Navy bomb squad deal with it, and let me know what you find out, Bob."
"Will do." Dunkirk pulled out his cell phone and turned away.
Vance sighed. A miserable time of night to be awoken. He would just as soon go into his office and go to sleep on his couch, but the Yard security force was barring entrance to the building. It was a wise move, but it meant he'd have to go back to Alexandria and sleep for a few hours in his own bed before coming back here.
And worse, he was going to have to wake up someone else with the news of the pipe bomb. He called the SECNAV.
This would be a low-key day at NCIS. Since Independence Day fell on a Sunday this year, the federal holiday was Monday. Most NCIS workers had the day off. Those who needed to be on duty would be able to take a day off later.
Leslie was here…he admitted to liking to work the quiet days, and would take his birthday off, instead. Gibbs' team was off. Vance had briefed him on the pipe bomb during normal business hours on Friday. The bomb had been taken away and detonated by the Navy's bomb squad. Vance was hoping they'd have test results by now, but every time he'd called over the last few days, he was told these things take time and it's a holiday weekend and you can't rush science. Shades of Abby Sciuto.
Vance harrumphed and called the CNO, politely requesting return of the bomb fragments to NCIS. Abby Sciuto could do her own tests and probably have results in a third of the time. Dunkirk was obliging, and said he'd get the fragments sent over by close of business today.
No one at NCIS other than Gibbs had been informed of the pipe bomb. There was no need to start a panic. It would come out at some point, particularly if the evidence pointed to an inside job and employees had to be questioned…Vance sighed. No one wanted to think that the members of their work "family" could be capable of such a thing.
Back to a normal workweek. In one of his surveys of the squad room from the balcony, Vance recognized one of the interns, a young man who was doing clerical work for Intel. Something vaguely unsettled him about seeing the intern…or perhaps it was interns in general. When he went back to his office, he asked Leslie if files had ever arrived from the FBI on the three interns adopted by NCIS. When Leslie said no, Vance phoned Fornell.
"Sorry, Leon. We had files on them, but as soon as the people became your jurisdiction, we destroyed the files completely. You know how it is. The public is on us about not keeping any data or reports on individuals unless absolutely necessary. Since they weren't our interns, the files weren't necessary."
"You could have emailed the files to me, first," Vance said pointedly.
"They could be traced back to us, though. I don't like it, either, but the decision wasn't mine to make."
Vance sighed. "So now we have to reconstruct three files…"
"Three? What do you mean, three?"
"For the three interns you sent us."
"You have three extra?...Leon, you have a problem, because I swear I only sent you two."
"Two."
"No joke."
Vance fought the panic sensation that started to rise inside him. "Give me the names of the two you sent me."
"Dang. Sorry, Leon. I don't think I ever did more than skim them once. All I know is both were male. Dang, Leon. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Just call me back if you remember anything. I've got a mole to catch." Ending that call, he called Gibbs and summoned him to his office while pulling up on his computer the scant information NCIS had on the interns.
Gibbs looked grim when Vance told him the story. Together they looked at the photos of the three on Vance's plasma screen. "Jerry Alcott, Paul Turnings and Nicholas Wye. Without knowing who's the mole, all three will be suspect."
"Where are they assigned?"
"Alcott is in Legal, Wye's in Records, and Turnings' in Intel as a clerk."
"Let's get them up here and grill them."
"You don't think that would frighten two innocent students who we might want to hire in a few years?"
"You asking me, Leon, or looking for a sounding board? You know as well as I do that this can't be helped. If this scares the other two and they can't take it, then we probably don't want them for NCIS anyway."
"Fine. But round them up all at once; I don't want any of them to not be taken by surprise."
Vance watched from the hallway as Gibbs questioned Nicholas Wye in Interrogation Room #1. Tony, he knew, was warming up Jerry Alcott in Room #2. Since there were only two interrogation rooms, Ziva and Tim had Paul Turnings in a second floor conference room on a ruse of wanting to brief him on a new Intel procedure (until a room was freed up).
The conversation with Wye was not going well. The young man did not respond well to pressure, and clammed up, seemingly unable to utter more than one word every five minutes. Vance shook his head and decided to take on Alcott by himself.
Tony stood up in surprise as Vance entered his interrogation room, but Vance motioned to him to sit back down. Tony did so, although choosing a chair a little further away to give Vance the direct eye contact with Alcott.
"Jerry Alcott?" Vance asked, neutrally, setting down on the table a manila folder. Alcott's name was on the tab. Inside was nothing but a couple of crossword puzzles Vance had printed out, but Alcott didn't need to know that.
"Yes, Director?" Alcott's dark eyes met his own with barely contained fear. "Am I in trouble?"
"That depends. Have you done something wrong?"
"I—I don't think so, sir."
"You were originally assigned to the FBI."
"Yes, sir. No offense, but that's where I want to work after I've graduated."
"Why is that? You have a relative there?"
Alcott shrugged. "No, I just…it's big. Everyone's heard of it. It's so big there are jobs in it everywhere. I could live almost anywhere and work for them. NCIS—one pretty much has to live on the coast, and even then, only in certain cities."
Vance thought. Cracking this youngster might be hard…if there was anything to crack. Or maybe he was devious enough to put on a good show.
After a few more questions, Vance was out of ideas and decided to leave Alcott to Gibbs, with Tony watching him from the hall. Vance then went to the conference room and pulled Tim out. In the haste to round up the three interns, no one had thought to do background checks on them. The things we forget under pressure… Ziva would be fine watching Turnings alone.
He leaned over Tim's chair half an hour later. "Report, Agent McGee?"
Tim glanced up from his typing before his fingers stopped moving on his keyboard. "All three have clean records, Director. No run-ins with the law. Good school attendance. Wye and Turnings are on college scholarships. Alcott's parents are either well-off or else got him a student loan."
" 'Or else'? You don't know which it is, Agent McGee?"
Tim blushed a little. "Well, yes, I think I do, now. Jerry Alcott's parents own a nice health foods business that has grown exponentially in the last seven years. I should think they wouldn't need a student loan to put their son through Harvard…except…"
"Yes?"
"Aha. Here. The poor people don't need to enroll him at all anymore. Jerry Alcott died in March. He never worked, never had even a summer job, and the Social Security death index hasn't caught up with his death yet. Our 'Jerry Alcott' has assumed the identity of Jerry Alcott of Sacramento, California."
Vance straightened up. "Good work, Agent McGee. Sometimes we old-line investigators forget that computer work can go a long way into solving puzzles."
Tony came in at the tail end of the conversation. "Guess we can call Gibbs off the other two interrogations, then. But what did Alcott want? Did he really think he could get away with it?"
"We may never know. I'm not even sure what we can charge him with," Vance shrugged. "Unless it turns up that he was linked to the pipe bomb…"
"Or the death threat made to the MCRT," said Tony. "Oh, scoff all you want, McGee. My ex-cop's instincts are to treat that seriously."
"I still think it's nothing," Tim said, shaking his head. "Someone blowing their stack. Besides, Alcott will be booted out of here, and things will get back to normal."
"You're probably right. Besides, we have Ziva to protect us," Tony grinned as Ziva came back to her desk.
"I cannot always protect you, Tony," she demurred. "I do not always want to protect you."
"Oh! I'm wounded by that!" Tony cried, clutching his chest.
Vance chuckled and returned to his office, glad that this threat was over.
Tuesday, July 6
Monday, July 5
Friday, July 2