Ok, so this is where the story connects with the first chapter. I've re-edited it and added some extra stuff, so don't just skim! :) hope you're enjoying it!
WARNING: Language
"Hustle up Probie! I can hear them! Shit, can't believe we're fucking compromised. First goddamn Op and we're compromised. I blame you, McGee!" Tony hissed, trying to keep his voice down as he looked through the peephole in the door.
"Yeah Tony. Okay… there we go! Five minute window is open! Let's do this." McGee spoke out loud, but more to himself. Tony slung his rifle behind him and pressed his eye closer to the peephole. All that was in the limited view was the grungy, dimly lit hallway they had just come out of.
Tim McGee tapped feverishly through fingerless black gloves at the computer, a black skullcap low on his head. He was seated at a creaky card table in a run down apartment that was littered with empty bottles and trash. Rats scurried to and fro, their shadows transforming them into enormous sizes on the walls. Chinese symbols in spray paint adorned the inside of the condemned one bedroom apartment. It was on a top level floor of an apartment building in the Sham Shui Po District in Hong Kong, China. Rain pattered against the cracked windows in droves, as the neon lights of the slums reflected glaringly against McGee's eyes. Precious minutes passed.
"Just a couple more levels." The agent whispered to himself, his submachine gun lay on the table next to the laptop he was working on. His fingers typed away as levels of encryption fell. Access. I need access. I need to slow their operation. I need to plant this virus. They need to stop.
*ACCESS DENIED*
Dammit! Maybe this will work.
*ACCESS DENIED*
The letters blinked menacingly at him as sweat dripped off his nose. They're gonna be here soon. We need to get out of here! He continued typing, now looking for a backdoor entrance through the weakened firewall. The deep greens of the screen flickered along against his pupils. Damn, that Russian runs a tight ship.
"McGee! McGee, I can hear them coming down the halls! We gotta book it! You done?" Tony DiNozzo, clad in jeans, combat boots, a tactical vest over a tight black t-shirt, stood in front of the door of the apartment, his assault rifle slung around his back as he looked through the peephole.
"Yeah yeah, almost there. It would have helped if the Agency could have bought us a larger window of time."
The C.I.A., in assisting the two agent's operation, had infiltrated Mikhailov's firewall with a bug, that would render it weakened. Weak enough for McGee to plant the virus. Once the virus was planted, the C.I.A. Non-Official Cover Agent, Ethan Barnes, would activate it, allowing the Saint Elmo's Fire virus to render The Index inoperable. But the program Mikhailov and his computer technicians had concocted was designed to reset the firewall security systems every five minutes. A five minute window. It was their only shot. And McGee only had seconds left.
"Seriously Tim, and you know I only use your first name when I'm serious. We need to get the fuck out of here!"
"I know I know! I'm almost there." With unbridled focus, his fingers whisked over the keyboard.
"37 seconds McGee."
Harsh Russian voices came from the hall through the door. Loud thumping of boots, and clanking of firearms. The voices got louder, and the light of a flashlight replaced the dull blinking of the suspended bulb the cascaded under the door from the hall.
"Shit shit shit Probie!"
*ACCESS GRANTED*
"Got it!" McGee raised his arms in victory.
"Okaaay…" McGee typed a few more codes of data, drawing the virus from the flashdrive in the side of the computer and into Mikhailov's coding.
"Good planted, lets go!" McGee called, closing the computer, sliding it into his backpack, and slinging it onto his back. He picked up his submachine gun, cocked it, and looked to Tony, who had his ear against the door.
Suddenly, a hole ripped through center of the door, right beside Tony's head. Cordite lingered in as the agents' ears rang. They heard a shotgun being reracked and the harsh Russian voices begin again.
"Probie! Plan B!" Tony stumbled, fingers in his ears. He immediately regained his focus and tossed a fragmentation grenade through the hole in the door that the shotgun made as he ran to McGee.
"What's plan-"
"Follow me!" Tony shot out the glass of the side of the room McGee was working in, leaping through it and onto the rusty fire escape ladder outside. McGee looked in wonder. The ladder was at least five feet from the window, and Tony had already made his way onto the roof of the building below them and was running across it, looking back. When McGee heard the grenade and the Russian cries and cursing, he took a running start, and leapt.
He made his way down the ladder, tracing Tony's steps across the flooded rooftop. Good thing the computer is waterproof. Hope it's bulletproof too.
He caught up to Tony, who had leapt onto the balcony of an apartment across an alley. McGee followed suit, realizing that looking down was not the smartest idea. As he passed over the alley, he couldn't even see the bottom. It looked like a square well, the bottom most likely littered with garbage. Maybe even a body or two. They had to be at least ten stories high. And if the fall didn't kill you, the rats or the Russians would.
Mcgee landed on the balcony as Tony kicked the door in, eliciting the cries of a Chinese family, startled in the night.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Tony whispered as he ran through the dirty, crowded apartment, throwing open the front door, closely followed by McGee.
They sprinted through the hallways. They were filthy; rotting garbage, food, rats. Oh, the rats. They ducked under hanging wires and leaking sewer pipes and splashed through puddles of god knows what. Weaving their way through the apartment halls, Tony finally turned. There was a window at the end of the hall.
Tony grinned. Must be at the North side of the building, above an alley. Can't touch the ground yet, still a few blocks to go. I don't want to spend the rest of my days in some commie fucking gulag.
Upon reaching the window, he used the nose of his gun to break it, clearing the large pieces from the frame. The rain buzzed by noisily. McGee turned his head as the lonesome notes of an erhu caught his ear. A baby cried somewhere in the dirty apartment complex as the hanging bulbs flickered like some mad dream. Tony surveyed the jump.
"Alright Probie, you or me first?"
"I'll go, you cover. You're going first in everything."
"Oh-ho McEnvy. Be my guest. By the way, the next rooftop looks about 15 feet down, and 8 feet out."
McGee gulped, took a glance out the window, immediately regretted it, then backed down the hall for a running start. Tony crouched by the window, raising his rifle to be sure no one was following them. McGee began to sprint. At the last moment, he crouched and leapt through the window, leading with his feet.
As he fell, he saw how beautifully dark and romantic the Sham Shui Po District was. Large neon signs in Chinese characters were littered haphazardly about the countless buildings that surrounded them. The different bright colors made gorgeous paintings in the rain as it fell, as well as the puddles. Damn, puddles! I'm falling!
McGee hit the roof, rolled, and finally skidded to a stop on his back. He immediately stood, held his weapon, and checked himself for pain. Wow, didn't even sprain an ankle.
In an instant, Tony came flying through the window. He landed in the same spot McGee had, and rolled unceremoniously to his partners feet.
"Woooo Probie that was great! We gotta-" Tony was laughing, but paused when he heard a creak. The two agents looked at each other curiously. Then, the roof under them gave way, and they fell through.
Ziva held her breath as she watched the giant screen in MTAC. Both Tony's and Tim's eye-cams were on the monitor. She couldn't believe that this was McGee she was watching; jumping across alleyways and running over rooftops. She could hear his deep panting. When they fell through the roof, she audibly gasped. But, she wasn't the only one. NCIS had been almost fully converted for this Op. Other teams were handling the casework that would normally been prescribed to Gibbs' team, as he, Ziva, and Ducky even stood quietly within MTAC. She knew what to expect from Gibbs, Vance and Kort, but what surprised her was Ducky's reactions.
She tore her eyes from the screen for a moment to watch the M.E. He looked on in fascination as the boys ran across rooftops in the rain. There was something on Ducky's face that Ziva couldn't pin. Is that anxiety? Is that fear?
Occasionally she would see Ducky's lips moving, but no sounds came out. The doctor was obviously saying something, but it was too low to be heard. Then she saw it. In Ducky's eyes, accompanying the anxiety for two men he cared for, was excitement. He rocked back and forth on his heels, and she saw his body tense up with corresponding moments on the screen. He smiled slightly, and even clenched his fist, raising it slightly in front of himself as he shook it. She looked at the old man wonderingly, making a mental note to herself to find a private moment with the doctor where she could ask him about what was going on inside his head.
She turned back to the screen. All she could see were the cameras laying still, as dust lingered around and rain fell through the whole in the roof into the dark room.
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