Timing in Everything: Chapter 38 - Epilogue

A/N: I know it's a day early, but I just got exciting about posting the last chapter :) And in case you don't notice the date stamp in the first line, it's two years later. More A/N at the end.

Cairo, December 2013

NCIS Special Agent Kim Cunningham glanced around the airport terminal, not seeing anyone familiar and not expecting to. She had a feeling of nervous excitement in her gut; it was her first big op since taking over the Cairo office in July. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was her first real field mission since she was pregnant with her now twelve-month-old, and while Sydney was adorable and a lot of fun to have around—maybe less so now that she was walking and getting into everything and wreaking havoc wherever she went—she sure did have a tendency to mess with mom's career.

As if knowing what she was thinking, she heard Mossad operative David Cohen's teasing voice in her ear: "So what does Dr. Cunningham think of you leaving behind your toddler to play with guns and bombs?"

"Probably the same thing DiNozzo thinks of your boss being here," Cunningham replied without hesitation. "But Jeff doesn't complain as loudly. That's why I keep him around."

"I am in the van," Ziva David's voice protested. "It is not real field work."

"And I'm sure DiNozzo agrees with you," the NCIS agent said sarcastically. She could hear Cohen's chuckle over the line and something that sounded almost like 'the mom squad'.

It had taken more than two years since the Truman bombing, but both Kim and Ziva kept to their promises: they kept their eyes and ears open for anything even remotely related to the missing Semtex, and after a few misfires, they were sure that they finally had the right guy with the right explosives. The intel had only come in the week before, and they had to act fast on it: he planned to use it to blow up the non-stop flight from Cairo to JFK in New York on Gulf Air. And the fact that the explosives were produced privately a few decades ago meant they weren't tagged for easy detection. If this guy knew what he was doing—and Kim doubted they would send someone who didn't—he could place his kilo brick of Semtex in his suitcase and walk on the plane without getting a second glance from a lazy security guard.

Which brought her to the international ticketing gate at her new local airport, intentionally standing out like a sore thumb in her NCIS windbreaker while Cohen was undercover—because he didn't know how to operate any other way—keeping a discreet distance from their mark, and Ziva sitting with a couple of NCIS tech guys and two guys from Homeland Security in the van. It was a whole mix of Israelis and alphabet soup, but in the two years since Vance gave her a task force and told her to have fun, Cunningham had learned to make it work for her.

And sometimes it was fun. Like when she was stalking a would-be suicide bomber in the Cairo airport.

"The bag has just been checked," one of the Homeland Security agents informed the team. "We'll be pulling it off the line in two minutes. Repeat: black Samsonite roller, checked to JFK on Gulf Air, will be pulled off the line in less than two minutes." Kim rolled her eyes at the protocols, but didn't admonish him. They were the only ones who could hear the conversation anyway.

"He is approaching the security line," Cohen informed them. It took her another minute, but then Kim spotted the mark: a completely unremarkable, middle-aged, Middle Eastern man in a dark business suit with a computer bag slung over his shoulder. He looked exactly like a thousand other men surrounding them. Even Cohen was dressed the same way, much to his complaints. He was much more comfortable in khakis and a tee-shirt.

Cunningham walked in a parallel path to the mark, also headed toward security, keeping him in her peripheral vision without looking directly at him. When she reached the emigration desk she gave a nod and smile to the security officers seated there, getting the same in return. Even if she hadn't briefed them on the basics of the operation, that would have been their response. They were used to seeing her, between security conferences at the airport and her frequent flights out—especially to Bahrain, to check in with DiNozzo and Ziva and meet with the anti-terrorism analysts—and her presence was never questioned.

She crossed through security and waited on the other side. Just approaching where he showed his boarding pass and ID was the mark, looking no more nervous now than he had ten minutes before, or a year before when his picture was taken for his new passport. He was one cool customer, she had to give him that.

"He is through security," Cohen announced a few minutes later, more for the benefit of those in the van than Cunningham.

"I got him," Cunningham replied.

"We finished the search of the suitcase," an out-of-breath Homeland Security agent informed her. "We got it. One-point-oh-three kilograms of PETN and RDX hidden in a hairdryer, matches the composition of the Truman bomb exactly."

"Excellent," Cunningham replied, making her move toward the mark. "Cohen, fall back, but keep him in view in case anything happens." They had discussed how to proceed after this point: they could let him get on the plane and let the guys in New York pick him up at JFK when the plane didn't explode, or they could pick him up right here. Both Kim and Ziva were in favor of option two, and not because it meant that they got to do a little bit of the field work that they both missed. They didn't know what his plan B was in case the suitcase didn't explode and take everyone with it, and they didn't want to find out. In the end, they decided that Kim would take him into custody; Cohen and Ziva had to preserve their anonymity, after all, and the two Homeland Security agents didn't have the same authorization from the Egyptian government to operate in that country that Cunningham had.

Besides, she was in charge. It was her op, and if she wanted to be the one arresting the bastard, that was her right.

The mark's eyes met Cunningham's, and apparently he saw something there he didn't want to see, turning and barreling down the terminal at full speed. "Damn it, I hate it when they run!" Kim complained as she took after him.

In the end, she was younger and faster, and the running shoes she wore for this exact scenario were better than the man's dress shoes; they had barely passed two gates when Kim tackled him to the ground amidst sounds of surprise from the crowd around them. "It does not matter," the man said victoriously as she handcuffed him. "The plane will still explode. All you have done is make sure that I do not explode with it."

"We got your suitcase, moron," she informed him as she pulled him to his feet. She saw camera phones pointed in her direction and tried not to smile. They could have done this without anyone knowing—that was the plan Ziva and Cohen were fans of—but the good guys needed a win, for the sake of the moral of everyone who had to go through security checks at the airport. Sometimes they just needed a reminder of why they were doing it.

Tony DiNozzo was watching ZNN with one eye and his son with the other, making sure the little brat—he didn't usually refer to his son that way, but since Ziva left the evening before, that's what he had been—didn't manage to get into anything that would necessitate either a trip to the emergency room or a call to a professional cleaning company. Somehow, everyone had neglected to tell him just how much kids were able to get into at that age.

The sound of the door opening got the attention of both of the DiNozzo men, the shorter of which immediately started running—well, toddling, but he was trying to run—toward the door in response. Tony swept him off the ground before he could get too far. "I am home," Ziva called out in Hebrew, the first half of the 'all clear' message they had worked out a while before.

"Welcome back," DiNozzo replied in the same language, completing the message to let her know that it was just the two of them in the house, no bogymen of any sort holding anyone hostage. Ziva walked into view, an exhausted smile on her face. "I've been watching ZNN," Tony informed her as he handed the squirming mass of little boy over to his mother. "They've been playing the story every half hour or so."

Sure enough, the reporter's next words were, "And we've had some exciting news come out of Egypt today. Earlier this morning at the Cairo International Airport, United States federal agents apprehended a man intent on blowing up the non-stop flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. We have Sarah Hoffman on the scene."

"Thank you, Janet," a second reporter said, the camera now on the image of a tall brunette reporter standing next to Kim Cunningham, making the NCIS special agent look positively tiny in comparison. "I'm here with Naval Criminal Investigative Service's Special Agent Kim Cunningham, the special agent in charge of the field office here in Cairo. Agent Cunningham, what can you tell us about what happened here today?"

"Sarah, this is a perfect example of what happens when everything goes right," Kim—it had been a year and a half since she had gotten married, and DiNozzo still couldn't think of her as 'Cunningham'—commented. "Through the constant vigilance of intelligence agencies in the United States and internationally, we were able to come across information of a plan to detonate a bomb on a plane today. Arresting him and removing any explosive material from the vicinity of the airport came through good investigative skills and international cooperation. On behalf of NCIS and the other United States agencies who participated in this mission, I want to thank our international partners who remain committed to joining us in the fight against terrorism." DiNozzo knew the last line was a not-so-subtle dig at Pakistan; ever since the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, relations between the two nations weren't going quite as smoothly as they once were.

"How is it that our suspect was able to get the explosives past the security screening? Are you saying that our airports aren't safe?"

"Not at all. Air travel continues to be the safest way to travel, and with the continued vigilance of security personnel around the globe and the continued cooperation of air passengers, we will keep it that way. Our suspect had in his possession an explosive that was manufactured illegally and without detection tags. The explosive and detonators were contained within a hairdryer, and had we not known what we were looking for, we could have missed it. We're recommending increased hand searches of luggage containing items that could be used to conceal explosive devices and are working to improve our detection devices to allow them to pick up this and similar explosives in the future. In the meantime, we rely on strong intelligence and the continued cooperation of our international partners in our mission to fight terrorism."

"Thank you, Special Agent Cunningham. This is Sarah Hoffman, reporting from Cairo International Airport." Ziva picked up the remote and clicked off the television.

"Kim did well," she commented as she carried their son toward the kitchen.

"So did you," her husband replied. She gave him an amused look.

"I meant with dealing with the reporter," she replied.

"Oh. Well, then, so did you. After all, you didn't even have to talk to one." Ziva chuckled at his response.

"Have you thought about what you want for dinner?" she asked, setting the boy down in his high chair and pouring out some Cheerios for him to play with. Neither parent bothered believing that he would eat them instead of play with them; sure enough, it was only seconds later before a thrown Cheerio hit DiNozzo squarely in the forehead.

"Pizza?" Tony asked hopefully, getting an excited babbling response and more thrown pieces of cereal from their son. Ziva gave the boy, then his father, an exasperated look, and Tony just grinned.

The issue of the missing Semtex had been hanging over them for over two years. It was good to have that finally over and done with, and until the next crisis came around, he was content just sitting around and enjoying some family time.

The End

A/N: Yes, it's the end of another story :( I really enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much. I have a few ideas for future stories, but I'm not quite sure how to make any of them work. As I mentioned in the last chapter, I have an opening that could work for either another Tomblin story or an NCIS story, depending on which direction I want to take it. I also have an idea for an NCIS story involving one of the Tomblin twins getting into trouble in DC and having to deal with Gibbs and co, but nothing's written on that one, and ideas for an original story completely unrelated to anything I've written thus far (but that's just an idea; I don't know how to get it started and make it work). Thoughts on what you would like to see next would be appreciated.

I think this story arc that I have going through my series will last one or two more stories, and then it's time to retire it. It pains me to say that, but with how little inspiration I get from the canon show these days and how hard it is to think of cases that would involve both the Bahrain team and the DC team, it's getting harder and harder to come up with fresh ideas, which I think you've noticed. I do appreciate everyone who's stuck with reading/reviewing/lurking/whatever; I wouldn't be posting anything anywhere if it wasn't for you.