話 – Talk
"GIIIBBBSSSS!" Abby's shout echoed through the bullpen as she ran from the elevator towards his desk a couple of hours after Joseph had granted her access to the DoD files on the tsunami images.
"Did you find them?"
"I've found them on the pictures!" She said, excited.
Gibbs, Tony, Ziva and Joseph - who had been lingering in the bullpen at McGee's desk - stood up immediately before those news.
"Where are they, Abby?" Tony asked, elated that they might have a clue of where they were.
"I actually don't know where they were right now. I haven't finished yet processing the sat pictures but I have a pretty good idea of where they've been."
"Show us." Gibbs ordered.
Abby herded everybody to her lab, where the plasma had a huge picture of a parking lot of Sendai train station. She immediately went to her station and started typing.
"We know the exact schedule of the bullet train towards Sendai coming from Tokyo, so we know that this train..." She points to an incoming train on the station. "... brought Timothy and Joy to Sendai. With a rough math, we would guess that they took a couple of minutes to leave the station and …"
She typed again, and then another aerial shot appeared, this time showing Tim and Joy walking out of the station going to the parking area where the rentals were.
"There they are." Gibbs approached the plasma, seeing his two agents walking to their rental.
"Do you have more pictures of them?" Tony asked, finally becoming enthusiastic about it.
"I have a bunch of pictures of them." Abby typed something and another picture appeared; now showing them entering a Toyota utilitarian.
"Strange choice of car," Tony commented, just to receive a glance from Ziva.
"They are in Japan. They don't rent Porsches at train stations." Ziva added, just to receive a glare from Gibbs who turned to Abby.
"Do you have more pictures of them?"
"I have loads of pictures of them." She returns to her keyboard. "I actually was able to reconstruct their itinerary from the moment they've left the station all the way to their first stop."
"Load it up."
For the next half an hour, they watched a slow slideshow of both agents traveling through the narrow streets of Sendai, until they stopped in a small cluster of houses very close to the sea.
"Where are they going?"
Ziva asked and they watch the two agents leaving their car and walking to the last house in the lane. The next two pictures didn't show any sign of them, until they appeared again running after two men on motorcycles.
"Who are they?" Joseph frowned at the pictures, but Gibbs just shook his head.
"My money is those are the men Tezeri sent after his sister." Tony added, remembering the Yakusa soldiers charged to retrieve Tezeri's sister from her hiding place in Sendai.
Abby searched the next of batch of sat pictures, "here is when the things get tense."
"Why?"
"Check this out."
She loaded the next slide show and it showed their Toyota Previa leaving the small neighborhood and driving after the two green motorcycles.
"Do you have a wider angle?"
"Sure."
Abby clicked and they could have an idea of how far they were from the bikes they were pursuing.
"There's no way they can reach them. They have much faster motorcycles." Ziva mentioned, watching the distance between they growing bigger at each picture.
Abby paused as a new picture appeared, turning to look at the horrified eyes of the agents watching the slide show.
"From here on, all the pictures will be from the earthquake." Gibbs approached Abby's side, who showed a blown up image of the agents car almost losing control in the highway as well as several accidents happening around them.
"Oh, my God." Joseph muttered, looking horrified as the next picture appeared, showing cars exploding around them, crashing in trees and the road moving beneath their car.
The next picture their car apparently had stopped, but there was a crack on the concrete going towards their car.
"Please tell me that they got out of the car in time." Ziva muttered, staring horrified at the pictures as the next one appeared, showing Tim dragging Joy away from their car which hung over a crack.
The next picture showed then running towards the field and then lying on it, as the destruction around them increased.
It stopped briefly on them both lying horrified as the houses in the edge of image fell apart.
"So they were alive when the earthquake hit. Do you have more images?" Gibbs asked, just to see the image changing on the screen again showing them going back to the road and Tim running to one of the cars which had crashed, leaving Joy out of sight under a tree.
However, the next pictures showed Joy right beside Tim, one hand firmly grasping his arm as he looked down at her as she spoke to him. The next she pointed to the tree line and the ocean.
"That's it." Joseph said.
"What?" Gibbs asked him, without taking his eyes from the screen, where both Tim and Joy turn to the ocean in the picture.
"She realized the danger they're in and she is telling him that. Check it out."
Next picture showed Tim carrying a woman back to his car and the one after that, both were in the car, moving down the highway and out of the danger zone.
"Where are they going?" Tony asked, frowning at the blow by blow frames showing them driving down the highway parallel to the coast. "They are not going away from the coast, they must leave the danger zone! Where are they going?"
"That's the problem. I don't know." Abby said. "I was able to download the pictures all the way to this moment, but after that, that's the last picture where I have them."
Abby points to a picture of the white Toyota driving over a bridge, a few minutes before the tsunami hit.
Gibbs turned to Joseph, who was looking worriedly at the picture. "Joy is driving. Where would she go?"
Joseph looked at Gibbs and recited Psalm 121:
"I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Abby, do you have a wider angle of this picture?" Joseph asked and Abby typed hurriedly and they had a wide view of the plains, the valley and the mountains in the back of Sendai.
"Mountains... or high ground. There's no time to reach the mountains but they would look for something high and firm."
"There isn't much in the area where they are." She tried to look around their car. "Most are wooden houses, just two stores and most of them had been destroyed on the first wave."
"What's that here in the end of the picture?" Ziva points to a series of big buildings on the very edge of the image.
"I don't know, let me see if I can find another angle for it." Abby did a search on her computer and another angle appears.
"Sendai Airport."
"Do you think...?" Tony looked at Gibbs, who immediately rushed to Abby that was already searching online all images of the Sendai airport that she could find in the internet.
"It is still there. It was one of the only buildings not destroyed in the Tsunami." Abby said in a quivering voice, shaking hands covering her mouth as she stared at the videos of NKH showing the waves invading the airport.
"People are still in there, waiting for evacuation." Ziva said, reading the news which came with the youtube video.
"Do you think that they've made it to the airport? If they've made it, they are just waiting for rescue." Tony glanced at Abby, who was crying softly staring at the replay of the destructive wave hitting again and again the airport.
"I don't know, but that's a start." Gibbs said, staring at the small car driving south towards the airport. "I'll talk to Vance, ask him if he can strong arm someone in Japan to give us a list of those stranded at the airport. It's a beginning."
His gaze went to the top right of the picture, where a rolling white surf could be seen speeding towards the coast.
He could only pray that they had made it before the wave hit.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
After a talk with Vance, they were informed that somehow they had reconnected Internet access in the airport, but the hours went by and no contact from the two missing agents came.
Abby, after four hours checking picture by picture, gave up and ran to autopsy, looking for consolation on Ducky's arms and a cup of tea for her fear and tears.
Tony and Ziva kept going through the dead and missing lists, always glancing at the plasma where the picture of the Toyota could be seen speeding down the highway in Sendai.
Joseph was also helping, checking names and manifestos which were being sent each half an hour to NCIS with the new identified bodies.
They spent the night working on it, checking manifesto after manifesto. Dead, missing and injured lists. Up until then, nothing.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Vance called Gibbs to his office at the beginning of the third day, asking for a moment.
Gibbs glared at Vance as soon as he guessed the subject of their talk.
"I'm declaring them MIA."
"It's only been 48 hours."
"It's been more than that and you know it. I can't keep on spending Agency resources and time on the search of two people who are most likely dead."
"There is a chance..."
"Have you really paid attention to the news? If they were in that little car when the wave hit, they were drowned in a matter of seconds. The number of missing are already in the thousands and the dead too. I can't keep on wasting resources on a task that is bound to fail."
"They are alive!"
"If they were alive as you believe they are, in the refuge at the airport, they would have already contacted us. The communication channels have been open for hours and still no sign of them. Of either of them."
"Something must have happened."
"Indeed. Something happened. A tsunami of never seen proportions happened and wiped them away." Vance stood up, looking at Gibbs who seemed to look older than his age in mere seconds. He softened his tone, but held his ground. "I know how important your agents are to you, but you have to accept that this time, they haven't made it."
Gibbs growled and stared at Vance, before leaving the room slamming the door shut after himself. Vance sighed at the harsh decision he had to make, but MCRT had to go back to rotation, as there were other cases that needed to be addressed. And he couldn't keep them on this faint hope that all would end well.
Sometimes hope was man's worst enemy.
He opened two files on his desk. He glanced at Buchanan' file and at McGee's file and the papers he had requested his secretary to fill out. Once he signed them, they would officially be listed as missing in action. After a while, they could be considered killed in action.
He leaned his head down, studying the pictures in both files. He had initially frowned at the relationship of the two agents, but their synchrony could not be denied, even by Gibbs.
It kind of sounded poetic that they both disappeared together and - why not? - died together as well. It was hard to imagine one without the other nowadays.
Vance looked up at the picture of his own family, sitting on his desk. Pity they wouldn't have another chance. He took his inkpen and took his hand to the papers, ready to sign them.
He stopped, glancing again at his own family picture, thinking about his agents and the horror they must have faced during their last moments. He laid the pen on the table, closed the files and put them back in the drawer.
Where there is life, there's still hope.
NCISN CIS NCIS NCIS
Gibbs came down to the bullpen fuming, more than mad with the Director. How dare him give up on them yet? It's too early! They could be injured, waiting for rescue while he and his team were thousands of miles away checking lists.
They had to do something!
Gibbs reached the bullpen and everyone immediately felt the ire their leader was irradiating from his very skin.
He looked at Tony, Ziva, before his gaze finally landed on Joseph, whose face clouded over as he realized what that talk with the director could mean.
Ducky and a tearful Abby also came up to the bullpen, along with Jimmy who was holding Abby's hand firmly.
"Oh no, Jethro," said Ducky, just to have his fears confirmed by Gibbs.
"He's declaring them MIA. They are calling off the search." Gibbs said somberly, just to watch Abby's explosion.
"He can't do that! They are alive! They need our help!"
"Abs!"
"Gibbs, we have to help them!"
She sobbed and turned around, crying brokenheartedly on Ducky's shoulder. Jimmy sniffed, thinking about the amazing couple of agents who had been his friends. He would miss them.
Gibbs turned to Joseph, who was looking at him somberly. "Can you talk to Jack and ask him if he can take over the search and rescue?"
"I could try. But as I told you, there's no way to pinpoint exactly their position without..." Joseph points a finger up, indicating a spaceship in orbit. "There's no way they can do that."
At that moment, Gibbs phone chirped indicating an incoming text message.
Same happened with Abby's, Ducky's, Jimmy's, Ziva's and Tony's phones.
"What the hell?" Gibbs opened his phone and his sight clouded over with unshed tears as he read the message in the display, just barely hearing the shouts of joy of Abby or the excitement of Tony's words floating over his head.
Everything else disappeared and his world resumed to the few words blinking in his display.
Both Alive. Sendai Airport. Skype Elflord. Send Chopper ASAP.