Chapter 25
Thirty years ago...
"Next week," Sam said.
Naomi sat down and looked at him with concern.
"Wow... I knew it was coming, but... next week?"
"Yeah."
"Tim's at school," Naomi said.
"Well, I'm not leaving right this instant," Sam said, trying to lighten the mood a little bit.
It didn't work. Suddenly, Naomi pulled him close and started to cry.
"Hey. Hey, now. It's going to be okay, Naomi," Sam said, hugging her tightly. "It'll only be about a month and then I'll be back."
"If you survive, and will I even be told if the worst happens?"
"Don't think like that, Naomi," Sam said, firmly.
"I have to, Sam," Naomi said. She pulled back and looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I'm pregnant."
The first thought that came into Sam's shocked mind at Naomi's announcement was that this was really bad timing. One week before he shipped out and she was telling him that she was pregnant again? After all the miscarriages before? After all the stress they'd had in the past? His mind was relentlessly seeing this as a major inconvenience, one more source of anxiety on top of all the others he had to deal with right now. But looking on this as a negative thing would, in his mind, only make it more likely that she'd have another miscarriage and he didn't want that to happen.
"I can't go through this without you. Whether it's successful or not. I need you," Naomi said. "And the thought that you might not make it..."
He pulled back and looked at her sternly. "No, Naomi. You can't think like that. I've made it back every other time. I know that's no guarantee, but we can get through this, and this will be the one that gets us there. I'm coming back. I don't care if I have to hack my way through a jungle, crawl on my hands and knees, whatever. I'm coming back. I promise."
He hugged her again and prayed that he hadn't lied.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Present...
Faith walked into NCIS, carrying her briefcase. She was early for her meeting with Sam McGee, but that was by design. She wanted to get everything set up and ready so that she could slip right into the groove of doing her job without thinking about the possible risks involved. Now that she'd made her decision, it was easier. All she had to do was focus on the law. The one thing that hadn't been done was getting read in on his mission. It was still classified Top Secret and it would be difficult to do her best without knowing all the details. However, getting read in would be difficult when the charges hadn't been made official and so she had no way of knowing who to ask about it. The only option would be to go to Major General Cresswell and ask for his help, but she was reluctant to do that just yet. He didn't even know she had agreed to take on this case, although she found it hard to believe that he wasn't aware of its existence.
At the end of the day, Faith wasn't used to being covert. It wasn't that she couldn't be, but she wasn't used to it. She was a lawyer and an officer in the U.S. Navy.
She was conducted to a private room in Legal for her meeting. If anyone there thought it odd that a JAG lawyer was commandeering one of their rooms when JAG Headquarters was also on the Yard, they didn't say anything.
Once she was in the room, she sat down at the table and opened her briefcase. As it always did, the perfection organization helped her calm down. Seeing things placed neatly where they belonged helped her think more clearly and not worry so much about the complications.
By the time she heard movement outside the door, she was as prepared as she could be.
There was a knock.
"Come in," she said, getting to her feet.
Then, she finally got her first look at the man she'd decided to defend.
She was interested in how direct he seemed. He met her gaze and evaluated her, just as she was evaluating him.
"Dr. McGee, I'm Captain Faith Coleman. Agent Gibbs asked me to look at your case."
Sam rolled over to her and shook her hand.
"Captain, I appreciate the risk you're taking in agreeing to represent me," he said. "This is my wife, Naomi."
Faith looked at Naomi and shook her hand as well.
"Ma'am," she said.
She noticed Naomi's glance at the perfectly aligned briefcase and papers, the perfectly sharpened pencils (which she just couldn't help preferring to pens). She smiled.
"I like order, ma'am," she said.
Naomi laughed a little at having been caught staring.
"I can see that."
"Now, to get down to business, I realize, Dr. McGee, that you are not at liberty to share the details of the operation in question. Until charges are officially filed, it will be difficult to get read in on it, although, should a trial occur, I will obviously have to be fully informed. What will be best is for you to give me whatever information you can give and that will make it much easier to prepare once I have all the information I need. Obviously, if you decide that I am not the best choice for your lawyer, there are no hard feelings and I will do my best to find someone else to step in, although I'll be honest that there are likely very few who will be willing and even fewer who will want to."
"Why is that?" Sam asked.
"Because even before I had made the decision to take this on, I was visited and told not to get involved. It's clear that this is something that goes very high and that can be dangerous, not only to one's career. I am going in with my eyes wide open as to the risks, but I also don't want to have you feel that you have to stick with me if you don't wish to. My purpose is to help with the court martial. I doubt this will help my career much because, if all goes well, few will ever know about it, and if it goes badly, then, I'll probably be out of a job."
"I'm sorry to be pulling you into it."
Faith smiled. "You didn't. Agent Gibbs did, and he has a personal reason to be involved. I understand that Agent McGee is your son."
"Do you know him?" Naomi asked.
"Only slightly. Actually, I'm surprised he's not here with you."
Sam and Naomi exchanged looks. They were extremely significant looks.
"What is it?" Faith asked.
"Well, actually, we don't know where Tim is," Sam said. "He left a few days ago, went off the grid. No one knows where he is."
"Why?"
"Because he wants to save his father," Naomi said. "We don't know exactly what he's planning to do, but he'll probably be willing to go a lot farther than NCIS will let him."
"In fact, he already quit," Sam added.
Faith was shocked, not only that Tim had done that (it seemed very out of character from what little she knew of him) but also that Gibbs had never mentioned it. After the initial shock, she was irritated, heading towards furious. Gibbs was asking her to put everything on the line for this and he was keeping important information from her.
She could see, however, that the McGees were unaware of this being a problem. It was likely not their fault, but Gibbs could have told her, and he should have. She made a mental note to confront him about it as soon as possible.
"Understood. I'll simply have to take that in stride as we go along. Keeping in mind the fact that I will not be able to know everything just yet, what can you tell me about the mission?"
As Sam started to talk, Faith took notes, not only of what he said, but how he said it and the obvious gaps in the information.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
The sound that broke through his focus on the computer screen was not a car, this time. Tim looked around and noticed how dim it seemed, even though it was still afternoon and the Sun was far from setting in the sky. A bit confuddled and confused, he got up and walked to the back window.
What he saw did not make him feel any better.
Clouds. Not just any clouds. Dark, foreboding clouds that had the potential to bring down rain in this forest. Would the roof keep out the rain? Quite frankly, Tim didn't know. Rain was not something he had factored into his plans, although the possibility of rain should have occurred to him.
If it did rain, and the roof did leak, the important thing was to keep his equipment from getting wet. He needed to be able to use the laptop for as long as all his work took him and the last thing he needed was to have the electronics short out because of water.
He made a mental decision to put his laptop in the trunk, wrapped up in plastic if it came down to needing to protect it from the rain.
He hoped that he wouldn't, and he settled back down to work. However, he didn't get much time on it because there was a flash of light, followed by a crash of thunder. The storm was coming whether he wanted it to or not.
Instead of having to worry about getting to his car in the rain and worrying, Tim just decided to pack it in right then. He hated to do it because he really thought he was almost into the Department of Defense, but a little delay would be better than a permanent one. So he shut down the laptop and carried it out to the car. As he walked, the first raindrops began to fall. That spurred him to move more quickly. He opened the trunk, hooked his laptop up to the battery, draped some plastic over it, made sure it wasn't sitting directly on the floor of the trunk in case there was a leak, and then closed the trunk and hoped that the lightning wouldn't strike it. The stuff inside should be safe even if that happened, but still, he didn't want the worry.
Then, all he had left to do was worry about himself. He hurried back into the shack as the rain started to fall in earnest.
...and he discovered that the roof was less a roof than it was a sieve. Even while the rain wasn't falling heavily, there was water coming in.
Tim groaned to himself. This was pretty awful. How much worse would it get?
He began to gather up his food supply to make sure it didn't get waterlogged during the storm. He did have a poncho, at least, but it wasn't much better than that.
It took a couple of minutes, but he got all his food stowed away. He was getting wet, so he pulled the poncho over his head and continued to try and waterproof his possessions. He packed the blankets into the car because he didn't want to have to deal with wet blankets. When he finished, it was no longer just rain. It was a downpour, and it all seemed to be coming into the shack. He looked around for a place to shelter, maybe one part of the roof that might be holding some water out.
There was another flash of lightning, with a rumble of thunder almost right after. The wind started blowing and he could hear the trees creaking out in the storm.
This was terrible. He could feel the temperature plummeting as the storm moved in. Even with the poncho, he was getting wet.
"Serves me right," he said as he looked around. "I didn't even bother checking the weather."
The wind started to pick up and he got a little more worried as the noise from the trees got louder and louder.
Then, he thought he heard a crack. A really loud crack that had nothing to do with the lightning.
...and everything to do with a branch being blown off a tree.
Suddenly, the roof was falling in.