Chapter 28: Debrief

The NCIS agents' eyes followed Gray as he crossed the room and sat next to Kort. He looked alright.

Then they turned to study the CIA analysts. The youngest of the men powered up a laptop and removed a panel from the middle of the table to reveal a hub of wiring. He connected the computer to the room's network while the most senior official, sitting at the head of the table, did the introductions.

"I'm glad to see all of you here in one piece." He was older than Gibbs, but still robust and muscular, with wiry gray hair and smooth mocha skin. The words were accompanied by a small smile that actually seemed genuine. "Gray, I understand you were injured. Are you comfortable enough to proceed?"

"I'm fine," Gray said.

The man nodded and turned to Gibbs. "Agent Gibbs, welcome home."

Gibbs nodded, squelching the desire to point out that he hadn't actually gotten home yet.

Little lines crinkled up around the official's eyes, as if he could read Gibbs' mind. "Thank you for bearing with us for this debriefing." He nodded to Dinozzo and Ziva, but kept his gaze on the team leader. "It's a policy designed to protect people, as well as information."

"I'm familiar with debriefing protocol," Gibbs said.

"Yes. I've read your file. You and your agents are comfortable?" He looked Tony and Ziva over, honestly appearing to be . . . nice. "Can we get you anything before we begin?"

The agents shook their heads.

"Alright then. Let's get started. The CIA has been monitoring the activities of the Calera cartel for decades, but an uptick in activity and influence over the last few years has led to concern. It seems that this particular cartel will now be of interest to NCIS as well. Agent Gibbs, I've spoken with your director and he has agreed on a policy of sharing information. My team will be furnished with your report regarding this incident, from Gibbs' abduction in Mexico through his extraction from Calera custody. Agents Dinozzo and David, your reports will also be appreciated." CIA Boss smiled wryly. "Once you have a moment to write them, of course."

Gibbs and his agents nodded, faces perfectly bland. The CIA would have wanted them to write up their accounts on the spot. Vance must have put his foot down.

"Frankly, we don't have any similar intelligence to share with you. We have no agents within the Calera organization at this time and keep contact between our people and the Calera at a minimum due to the region's complicated political climate."

CIA Boss shrugged at Gibbs' scowl. "The Calera cartel is powerful on many fronts, Agent Gibbs. They are actually valuable to some of our own interests. The truth is they've been incredibly useful on the political scene and in the civil war. Neither the United States nor Colombia is willing to openly risk that support, despite Calera involvement in the drug trade."

Gibbs could feel his soul hollowing out just listening to that crap. He shuddered to think what it would be like to work with the mindset every day. "Right. The justification for supporting corrupt politicians and murderous gangs." Gibbs set his shoulders. "I'm familiar with the reasoning. You can move on."

The room fell uncomfortably still. Tony and Ziva tensed, prepared to have Gibbs' back even if it was just around a conference table.

"It's a frustrating situation," CIA Boss said smoothly. He didn't seem to take offense. "One with no easy solution. I understand you were the principal sniper in a mission that killed the top three in the Calera organization back in '92. Your mission was part of an effort that successfully crippled the cartel for a good ten years. That is the kind of movement that we are exploring here."

"That's classified," Gibbs said stiffly.

CIA Boss glanced around the table. "Everyone here has the clearance necessary, or can be read into the op," he dipped his head toward Ziva and Tony.

Gibbs glanced pointedly at Gray and then back to the CIA supervisor's eyes. "I disagree."

The cool gaze never left Gibbs. "Gray has already been read into that portion of your file."

"Well that's unfortunate, since reading him into a classified operation constitutes involving him in it. And that would obviously be a war crime."

The stillness intensified, everyone at the table shifting subtly to stare from Gibbs to the resolutely calm man at its head.

CIA Boss sat back in his seat. "A war crime. Due to his age?"

Gibbs didn't bother to answer that.

"And what do you call his actual involvement in rescuing you from the Calera camp?"

"A much more serious crime."

Tony and Ziva glanced between the two men and then to Gray, who followed the conversation with dull, disinterested eyes - as if the topic was the weather on a particularly boring week.

"If that were true your own agents would be complicit in it," CIA Boss pointed out.

"I'm well aware of that."

CIA Boss abruptly got up and walked over to the side table, pouring coffee from a silver carafe into one of the dark mugs grouped next to the milk and sugar. "I tend to agree with you, Gibbs, on both counts. Of course, depending on your interpretation of international law and CIA mandate, the mission you carried out in '92 was illegal too, regardless of the age of the participants."

Gibbs shrugged. "Technically illegal, maybe. But sanctioned. And necessary."

"Ah. So a crime is acceptable to you if it is deemed necessary." The man swirled a spoon in his coffee and didn't pause for an answer. "And you have decided Gray's presence here is not?"

"I haven't been told anything to indicate that it is," Gibbs said steadily.

CIA Boss sat back down. "You don't consider your rescue to have been necessary."

"Obviously not." Gibbs' voice was curt.

"Hm. Well, I'm telling you now. His presence here is necessary."

Gibbs raised his eyebrows. Unimpressed.

CIA Boss raised his own. "As has been explained, intelligence on the ground in the area around Camp Six is scarce. The same can be said for much of this organization's activities, as well as the identities and movements of its leaders. At this stage any source of information is crucial to our efforts to get a handle on a cartel that is shaping up to be a serious threat in the drug war and dangerous to the political and social stability of the entire region."

Tony huffed a little at that. Shaping up to be a serious threat? The thugs had their own army, for god's sake.

"I never said he wasn't convenient." Gibbs spoke slowly, as if he thought the person receiving the words might be mentally deficient. "I'm sure he is. If exploiting children wasn't convenient we wouldn't need laws against it."

The man at the head of the table sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Then he continued as if Gibbs had never interrupted him. "Beyond our own interests, it has been made clear to me that Gray's involvement in these matters is the only way to actually ensure his safety, and the safety of his family in the long run. Is that sufficient for you, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs looked from CIA Boss's patient face to Gray, who stared back at him pokerfaced.

Or maybe the kid was just bored.

"That true?"

Gray nodded slightly.

Gibbs sighed. He doubted that putting a boy in danger was really the only way. But he didn't have all of the information here, and he knew he had hardly any of the power. He turned his eyes back to CIA Boss. "Fine. Let's get this over with."

"Alright, moving on. As I was saying, we will be looking over your reports and may come to you with follow-up questions in the future. We'll also hope that you will share any new intelligence that you may come across concerning the gang's activities, if you happen to find yourselves investigating them in the future. In return we can make available to you, on request, satellite coverage of areas known and suspected to be used by the organization for its illegal activities. We will also make available any intelligence gathered by our agents, if it is deemed relative."

Tony huffed again.

"Fine," Gibbs said, indifferent. "I assume you want a rundown on how I got to the camp?"

"That would be an excellent place to start."

"I was knocked unconscious during the initial assault in Mexico. When I woke up I was on the floor of an SUV. After a few hours I was transferred to the hold of a boat. Boat was on the small side, maybe a forty footer. After two days at sea we anchored in a remote area. I was transferred from the boat to a small plane. The flight from the beach to the camp was about four hours. When I got to the camp I was transferred to the second floor of a shack. Six days later Gray climbed into the room."

Gibbs fell silent.

"Okay," CIA Boss said serenely. "Nice and concise. We've studied our coverage of the camp and don't appear to have caught your actual arrival there. Do you know what time of day it was?"

Gibbs thought a moment. He hadn't been able to see, but he remembered the sounds, and the sun on his skin. "It was day, not night. Not dawn and not evening."

"Your timeline would put you in the camp on . . . hm." CIA Boss turned to the young man sitting in front of the laptop. "Bring up the twenty-second, late afternoon."

An enormous flat screen descended from the ceiling a few feet back from the end of the table, where no chairs were set. After a few seconds of typing an image of the camp appeared. It was almost identical to the photograph that Kort had first shown Tony and Ziva less than two weeks ago.

The lone female anaylist spoke. "Close in on the airfield."

The crystal clear image focused on the airfield. She used a lazar pointer to indicate a section. "Here."

The photo pulled in again, showing a small plane with amazing clarity. Tony could see individual blades of grass growing up through a crack in the tarmac by the wheel.

"Could this be the aircraft?" the woman asked.

"Could be."

"How many flew with you?"

Gibbs paused. "I counted three. Could have been more."

"Would you be able to identify any of them?"

"I had a hood over my head, so no, not by sight. Maybe one of them by voice."

CIA Boss spoke up. "Pull out again."

The full photo of the camp reappeared.

"Were you interrogated while you were there?"

"Not really."

"And that means . . . what, exactly?" the supervisor probed.

"I didn't get the impression they were serious."

All four CIA officials looked at Gibbs incredulously. Finally CIA Boss nodded. "We have the medical report of your injuries from the doctor who treated you. But you're right. Their lead interrogator hadn't yet arrived. Would you be able to identify any of the men who questioned you?"

Gibbs shook his head. "I only saw the faces of the guards in the shack."

CIA Boss nodded. "Were any of the questioners women?"

"No."

"How many were there? Interrogators, I mean?"

"Two."

"Would you be able to identify their voices?"

"Probably."

"Did they seem to know who you were?"

Gibbs shrugged. "They didn't seem to. I can't know for sure."

"Never used your name? Never mentioned NCIS or your activities in Colombia in the early nineties?"

"No."

CIA Boss nodded. "We suspect no one at the camp really knew who you were, or your significance to Londono. Keeping your presence quiet would protect him from accusations of kidnapping a federal agent, since it would reduce rumors and anyone in the know to a minimum. Of course his secrecy may also have made your escape easier - no tell-tale security measures were put in place to imprison you. The effort to track you down once you escaped also seemed to be on the quiet end of the spectrum. If we didn't have the coincidence of his arrival at the camp along with his interrogator while you were there we wouldn't be entirely sure that he even knew of your capture. One thing we do know about him is that Londono is extraordinarily good at keeping his secrets secret."

Gibbs frowned. Londono was actually at the camp?

While the NCIS agents absorbed that, CIA Boss tilted his head at the lead analyst, indicating she could move the meeting along.

"Rodney," she said. "If you could bring up the twenty-ninth? Do we have late afternoon?"

The photo on the screen switched out, replaced by one that looked identical at first glance.

She leaned over the table to hand the pointer to Gray. "If you could outline your route."

He frowned at the clicker for a moment and then pointed the beam of light at the screen, circling one point at the perimeter. "In through the main gate." He moved the pointer toward a small building. "Waited there till dark."

"Hold on," CIA Boss broke in. "I understand you bought a pass into the camp?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

Gray glanced at Kort, who shifted slightly to meet the kid's eyes but was otherwise motionless. And silent.

Apparently communication via ESP worked for them.

After a moment Gray turned back to CIA Boss. "I located someone outside the gates who had a pass."

"Someone you knew?"

"Yeah."

"And the price?"

Gray looked to Kort again. The agent nodded slightly.

"Five hundred in US up front. And the location of one of the lonely fields."

The man sitting next to CIA Boss flipped quickly through the papers in front of him, finally running a finger down one of them.

"You haven't indicated on this list which one might be compromised."

"I didn't include it on the list."

CIA Boss and his more youthful cohort looked up at Gray, surprise etched on their faces. The three of them stared at each other silently for a long moment.

Gibbs smiled a little, on the inside anyway. Gray didn't back down for anyone.

"Any other fields you failed to mention?"

Kort spoke up. "None that are significant."

"That would be a yes."

"Of course there are more," Kort returned sharply. "He couldn't have swept them all if he had a month. Moving on?"

The analyst with the list of fields turned his wide-eyed gaze to Kort. He looked too shocked to speak.

Or, judging by the red flush creeping over his face, it was possible he was too angry. He seemed about to blow when Ziva broke in.

"Excuse me, 'lonely fields'? I am not familiar with that term."

CIA Boss glanced at her, then back at Kort and Gray. He waved a hand. "Let's move on. That second location at the camp, where you waited for nightfall. That's a storage shed of some kind?"

"Yeah."

"Storing what?" the woman asked.

"Replacement parts for the trucks and planes. Some tools."

CIA Boss smiled a little. "Any of them worth more than scrap metal by the time you left?"

"Probably not."

That got an eyebrow from Gibbs. Sabotage?

"Then what?"

Gray swept the pointer over several of the larger buildings. "After dark, to the hangars."

The official with the incomplete list of fields spoke up again, snide and definitely still testy. "And is the list of equipment there complete?"

There was a pause, like the room itself took a breath, and then Gray turned his head deliberately, looking at the man as he had not looked at any of the rest of them.

Oh, Tony thought. Uh-oh.

People who keep vipers for pets should know better than to poke them with sticks.

The slight motion of Gray's head drew all the focus in the room. It was slow and sharp, like a snake, like a bird of prey. And then he smiled, fake and cold, the relaxed grin of a predator. "As far as you know," he said.

Tony had thought from the beginning that Gray didn't like the NCIS team. That he was just barely tolerating the agents for some reason, some personal gain that they weren't aware of yet. They'd spent days in the jungle together after all, and unless he was delirious with fever the kid hardly spoke to them. Well, beyond the occasional threat to Tony's life. It seemed obvious at the time that the kid wasn't a fan.

He could see now, though, that Gray didn't really have a problem with him or Ziva or Gibbs. Not a serious one anyway.

Compared to the look he was giving the CIA suit he'd been bosom buddies with NCIS from the get-go.

Gibbs watched the scene carefully. Gray wasn't just standing his ground here – he was hostile. It was one of the rare moments he'd seen him display any emotion at all, if hostility could be called an emotion.

The CIA analysts didn't seem to care too much about the cold attitude and sarcasm. And why would they? The kid was obviously a gold mine of information. Just as much gold as information, if Gibbs understood that byplay about the fields.

The woman cleared her throat and spoke up again. "Most of the trucks left the hangars after your escape but didn't get more than a few miles. None of the aircraft even left the bays. Are they permanently disabled?"

The NCIS agents shifted to stare at Gray.

"No, not permanently. If so many of them hadn't broken down at once they probably wouldn't have noticed it."

The woman nodded. "Worn fuel lines and such?"

"Yeah."

"So that's why we didn't meet many patrols on the way out," Tony said. "First you broke the truck parts, and then you broke the trucks."

Gray's eyes slid over Dinozzo's as he turned back up to the screen.

"After the hangars, to the guard houses." He ran the pointer over a line of small buildings. "He was in . . ." Gray studied the line. "This one. Only two guards, both on the lower floor. Cut the power and waited for one of them to step out to fix it. Went in through the upper window, disabled the interior guard. Waited for the second to reenter and disabled him." His pointer swept back. "From the guard house to the hangars –"

The woman frowned. "Disabled? Could you be more specific?"

"Tranqed."

The woman continued to look at Gray, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"He shot them up with tranquilizers," Gibbs spoke wryly from the other side of the table.

"Oh," she blinked. "Okay. So. Back to the hangars?"

"Where I met with our ride out. Then back to the guard house to wait for the truck."

CIA Boss shuffled some papers. "Your ride out. This would be . . . Mateo's father?"

"Grandfather," Kort cut in.

Testy CIA spoke up again, still testy. Clearly the man was an idiot, and had all the self-preservation and social skills of a fruit fly. "Anything else for Mateo's grandfather?"

Gray looked at him, face so expressionless it was actually creepy, until the suit shifted uncomfortably. Then the kid leaned forward a little, seriously, like he was about to share a really good secret. "Are you sure you want to know?"

Testy CIA's face edged a bit more toward apoplectic. He opened his mouth but was cut off before he could speak.

"Another field?" CIA Boss sighed.

Gray nodded, eyes still locked on Testy, as if he didn't want to miss the show. The analyst, unable to help himself what with the fruit fly brain, sat forward with a hiss. "You don't have a clue - those fields are worth a million a piece!"

The kid grinned caustically. "You know, I think that one was actually closer to ten mil."

"You – CIA assets aren't yours to hand out!" CIA Asshole was now red in the face and just short of shouting, hands jerking through the air. "We didn't clear any payments for this little – "

Gibbs tuned the words out and watched the man calmly, deceptively still. More than ready to intervene if Asshole actually lost it and made the first millimeter of a move. Not that he thought it likely the guy would get physical . . . unless you counted the little flecks of spit making their way across the table toward Gray. That was way more physical than anyone would ever want to get with this guy . . .

Though it would be satisfying to have an excuse, take a swing . . . Gibbs would hit him just below the jaw, a right hook into the soft under carriage of his skull. Or maybe straight in the mouth, that would be good, take out a few teeth . . . then again, this had been a fairly extensive daydream so far and the guy was still yapping. A jaw wired shut might be just the thing. A one-two combo then, right-left, watch the knuckles on the teeth . . .

He'd have to move fast, if he had a hope of beating Ziva to it. A glance to his right showed her eyes had narrowed into what were, in his experience, lethal slits, and she'd already subtly rebalanced her weight . . .

Fortunately - or unfortunately? - their services weren't required.

"Would you shut up, Hogan?" Kort's derisive voice was just as bored as it always was, only louder, to drown out the other man's rant. "Nothing on Calera land is a CIA asset. Unless you were hoping to end up with a few personal assets?"

Asshole – Hogan, apparently – turned to Kort furiously. "You accuse me - it's your goddamn – "

Tony was really hoping for a fist fight, but CIA Boss finally looked up from his papers at that point. "Hogan, simmer down. Kort, don't use Hogan's name in front of the guests. You know how it makes him nervous."

CIA Boss peered over his reading glasses to sweep the table with his gaze, making eye contact briefly with the NCIS agents and Gray. "I apologize. They get a little cranky before lunch. You were saying, Gray?"

Gray shrugged, cool as ever. More than immune to Hogan's glare, indifferent to the tacit approval of the man's anger, given how long that rant was allowed to go on. "I waited with Agent Gibbs at the guard house for the truck. Made it into the truck and left through the main gate. Met up with the other agents."

Silence.

"That's it," the kid said.

Not exactly. Gibbs glanced between the thus-far rational woman and CIA Boss. "Do we know who was in that helicopter?"

The woman looked to her boss, then back to Gibbs when the man nodded. "Yes. Roberto Londono, one of his interrogators, and several bodyguards. I'd say you got out of there just in time."

Tony sat forward, glancing from Kort to the woman. "That was Londono? We were told he doesn't go to the camps."

"Very rarely, these days. Seems he made an exception for Gibbs." CIA Boss looked back down at his file. "Perhaps killing most of his adoptive family pissed the man off."

"Great," Tony grunted, and sat back again in his chair.

"On the other hand," the man continued, "he didn't have you outright killed when he had the chance, or even tortured. Much. Any idea why, Agent Gibbs?"

"No."

"Information from prior missions that he might be after?"

"Not that I'm aware."

"Hm."

It wasn't a Hm, he must have been waiting for when he could watch. It was a Hm, I'm pretty sure there's information here he's after. Either you don't know what it is or you don't want to tell me any more than you want to tell Londono.

"Alright. Turning back to the helicopter." CIA Boss peered over the top of his specs to pin Dinozzo and then David to their chairs. "That machine met a spectacular end. You intentionally shot at it with a . . ." The man glanced back down at his papers. "A grenade launcher?"

The two of them looked at each other quickly, figuring out who would speak.

"Yes," Tony said, since he was the senior field agent. And his citizenship status wasn't quite so . . . new.

"And the labs?"

"That was accidental," Ziva spoke up. She had been the one doing the shooting, after all. Tony had only been loading. "We chose the guard tower as a primary target and the helicopter as a secondary. The first shot at the helicopter went wide and hit one of the lab buildings instead."

"Well," CIA Boss said neutrally, if with a little sigh, "you put a dent in their operations for a short time, anyway." He turned to the tech guy. "Bring up the day after."

A new photo came up, shifting as the tech closed in on the labs. The charred remains of the guard tower and helicopter were both visible, along with what was left of the smoke-blackened buildings. The chemical fires must have been flash burns, big explosions that burned out quickly, since the buildings were still intact.

Gray had been silent up to that point except when asked a question – his default behavior unless he was manipulating agents, as far as Gibbs could tell. Now he turned and said something into Kort's ear.

Kort nodded and spoke up. "That's an afternoon shot, isn't it?"

"Yes," the woman this time. "It's the clearest that we have. Earlier images are obscured by smoke and some cloud cover."

"I want copies of anything you have from earlier in the day."

Asshole snorted and twitched in his seat.

The woman glanced at her boss, who looked up from his papers at Kort. "You know we aren't allowing pictures of that camp to leave the building. What's on your mind?"

Okay, Tony thought, eyes sliding from Kort to CIA Boss and back again. Two things here. First of all, Kort had given them, his NCIS nemisis team, a photo of that camp. And Kort knew that McGee and Abby had images too. Apparently that was Not Approved. Saying something was not to leave the building was a pretty serious barrier, not something you screwed around with. But Kort had screwed with it, and apparently risked CIA wrath to do so.

Why? To give him and Ziva a better understanding of where Gibbs was, and what was going on in the camp?

That would be generous. More generous than Kort.

More likely it was just to convince the two NCIS agents that Kort's information was real, that he knew what he was talking about. Still, it was a risk. Either Kort was hoping they would never find out just how Not Approved it was or he was trusting them not to screw him over with the knowledge. Which would be weird.

Second, CIA Boss was being nice to Kort. That was definitely weird. Kort was acting like the same arrogant prick in here that Tony had observed him to be everywhere else. Why was CIA Boss being nice?

Kort didn't hesitate. "Fine. We'll review them here. After the debrief."

CIA Boss's gaze moved from Kort to Gray. "Mind telling us what you're looking for?"

There was silence for a beat too long while Gray returned the man's stare. Finally the kid tilted his head and said, "I want to see how much damage the fire did."

Apparently CIA Boss had the patience of Buddha. He didn't say anything, just looked at them, Kort and Gray, and waited. Probably for reasoning that didn't smell quite so obviously of bullshit.

Gray and Kort stared blankly back, patient too, in a calculating way. They were hunters after all.

The three of them seemed prepared to play chicken for hours.

"He's looking for the dead," Gibbs said.

He watched the kid's eyes move back to the screen, away from the people staring at him, studying the camp again with that same blank face.

"The dead?" the woman said blankly.

"Bodies would have been pulled out first. They must have been cleared entirely by the time this photo was taken," Gibbs nodded at the screen. "Since there aren't any there."

A strange, instant heaviness come over Tony, disorienting and total, like opening your eyes to discover you were moving underwater. "You think there were people in there? It was 0100."

A beat of silence that, oddly, Gibbs stepped up to fill in a quiet voice. "Those labs never close, Dinozzo."

CIA Boss tapped his fingers on the papers in front of him, then shoved the file forward a bit so that he could rest his elbows on the table and lean toward Gray. He spoke to him earnestly, even though the kid's attention never left the screen on the other side of the room.

Gibbs gave the guy points for at least making an effort at sincerity.

"Gray. We can give you time to go through images after the meeting if you prefer. But it's often valuable to share information with the group as a whole. That's why we insist on debriefing together. The more information we all have, the better."

Gray's pale eyes flicked from the screen to CIA Boss, then over the NCIS agents on the opposite side of the table before finally landing on Kort. He shrugged.

"He's waited almost a week already," Kort said, low and irritable. "If we can just get it over with?"

CIA Boss nodded and raised his eyebrows at the woman. "Well," she said uncertainly, "we don't have constant surveillance in place over the area. But we do have hardcopy of this sector at regular intervals . . ." She pulled a thick binder out of her briefcase and handed it to Kort, who passed it on to Gray. "The day in question is the 1200 series."

The photos were marked with numbers at the bottom. Gray flipped quickly to the right section and went through them one by one, glancing at each before turning them over rapidly. Eventually he paused and pulled a photo off of the stack, pushing it back toward the woman. He pulled the next photo, the next – four more, then closed the binder and shoved it back to her.

Gibbs noted that the kid's hands were still creased with stubborn ground-in dirt, the kind that burrowed in after a hard week out there, and didn't come off unless you were willing to take the skin with it. His own hands were the same.

The woman looked the pulled photos over briefly and made note of the numbers before handing the images to the tech. He called up the first one from his digital cache instantly and zoomed into the quadrant of the camp that held the labs. In this image the shells of two of the buildings were still smoking heavily and the light was a little gray, even in the context of the black-and-white picture. It must have been close to dawn. The wind was pushing the smoke south, and along the northern edge of the destroyed lab there were rows of dark smudges.

Kort spoke up again, voice clipped. "This will be easier if Gray can manipulate the view himself. Unless you want to be here for hours?"

"Sure." CIA Boss stood up. "Gray, why don't you switch seats with me. Then you can direct our tech here to whatever you want to examine more closely."

The two switched seats and Gray pointed silently to the screen of the laptop. Up on the plasma the image narrowed in on the smudges, again and again, and then again, until their faces began to emerge.

The image scrolled across the first row, pausing on each upper body before moving on. The only sound in the room the keystrokes of the tech as he manipulated the picture. Some were burned terribly, but most seemed to have died from smoke inhalation or the shock of the explosions, their faces and clothes blackened but intact.

Ziva would not let herself look away from the remains. Beside her Tony was rigid.

She knew the guards in the tower would die. But it had never occurred to her that civilians would be in the labs in the dead of night. No light had seeped from them . . . but then, there were no windows in the structures. If there were, perhaps the people on the screen in front of her would still be alive. As the faces scrolled before them the reality of what they had done seemed to sink like a sickness into her bones.

She didn't need to put it into words - Ziva looked at him, and he knew what she was asking. Gibbs never took his eyes off the screen. "They were probably locked in and got trapped." He kept his voice calm and very low, and it seemed faint over the buzzing in her ears. He paused. "They restrict movement in the labs to maximize productivity. And to stop people from stealing the merchandise."

The tech went through every face, then back over four that Gray pointed out. Two of the images clicked back and forth several times, from the face to a wider shot that included the bodies next to it.

Using the surroundings as some kind of scale, to estimate height, Ziva thought. It was likely from the difference in size that the smaller of those corpses was not fully grown. Many of the workers were women or rather young. Perhaps the men were more usually in the fields.

Finally the image pulled back completely. And then moved to another, obviously taken sightly later. The rows had grown.

There was less smoke in this picture, but the wind had shifted to the west and some of the bodies were obscured by clouds. Gray began again with the new corpses, and the table watched the gray faces of the dead flow by.