warnings: Offensive racial and homophobic sentiments expressed by a character.
It's been more than 18 months since I last posted a chapter on this story. In fact, I haven't written or posted a lot in that time. Real Life came along and ambushed me with four deaths and two serious illnesses of close family members. I probably wouldn't be writing still but I signed up with the 2019 Quantum Bang last year before everything went pear-shaped and then was too stubborn to withdraw. I wrote my QB fix it in about seven crazy weeks during my sibling's recovery from emergency surgery. It is still hard to find the time or energy to write but I have tried to maintain the writing momentum – finishing the last tag in the There's Always Tom Morrow season one series AND finishing a first draft of Rising to the Bait.
With the kind assistance of Aussiefan70, I managed to do what had been eluding me for far too long and draw the story to a fitting close – at least one that I'm finally happy with. So, I'll be posting this story again as quickly as I can get redrafts written. Although, typically, when I'm on a roll, life throws another curve ball my way. This time it's minor irritancy – my e, w and 8 keys on my laptop don't work and I must insert them manually via symbols, which has slowed me right down. So, my estimate to have this completed by the end of the year probably isn't achievable but just know, it is coming, and I hope to get at least one chapter a week uploaded.
As I post this, Oz is in the grip of bushfires – the smoke is blinding, choking. Air quality levels are at least ten times toxic levels and spending any time outdoors is not good. There is a massive fire front which is burning 30 kms long and moving in on close family and friends. Unless we get rain soon, which doesn't seem likely as we are in the middle of water restrictions due to drought, the firies don't know if it can be stopped. So, we wait and hope for the best for homes and lives while the country burns, wiping out our native flora and fauna. Bad way to see out the decade.
Assistant Director of DHS, Thomas Morrow sighed with exasperation as he hung up the phone. Ziva David was being as problematic a 'guest' as they had anticipated. She was violent, lashing out at anyone who forgot for even a split second that she was a highly trained and dangerous assassin. She was also desperate and desperate people were dangerous, even if they weren't assassins.
Morrow knew that up until a few days ago, she had always been secure in the knowledge that her father would pull strings to have her removed from trouble, should she need it. After all – he had a lot of political influence. With his arrest, however, her safety net had been unceremoniously yanked out from under her, leaving her without a backup plan.
Tom reckoned if she had a lick of sense, Ziva David would be feeling extremely scared about now, because for the first time ever, she was being held accountable for her actions. And frankly, she should be scared – for her crimes she could be facing the death penalty or at best a very long time in prison. It was frustrating to the assistant director that it had been possible for her to steal such a massive tranche of classified data in the first place. Particularly when the people who'd effectively allowed it to happen would undoubtedly get off by resigning or like Jennifer Shepard and Eli David, were beyond any punitive measure by virtual of already being dead or soon to be dead.
Still, if nothing else, there needed to be a massive shakeup to ensure such a ludicrous situation was never permitted to occur again in a federal. Foreign operatives should never be permitted to serve as liaison officers in any federal agency which had access to or generated classified information and or could pose a threat to national security. Pretty sure that the Mossad didn't create liaison positions for law enforcement operatives from other countries in Israel, let alone grant foreigners' security clearance in order to make it inordinately simple to steal classified data from them.
Tom found it so unbelievable, the ease in which Ziva had infiltrated a federal agency, all based on a charade perpetrated by her cynical puppet master father. He literally, couldn't stop shaking his head at the stupidity of his successor, Jenny Shepard, for not seeing that she had been adeptly played by father and daughter using a ridiculously simple feint. And he wasn't alone. The Davids had deliberately set her up to be killed by a bumbling wannabe assassin, only to have Ziva-Warrior-Princess come riding to her rescue and save her life.
It was almost exactly the same situation which had occurred with Leon Vance back when he'd been a nobody – sent by his then NIS handler on what was supposed to be a suicide mission. Well, except that back then, Eli David had serendipitously saved his ass instead. As far as Morrow knew, it hadn't been a calculated plan just a case of being in the right place, but Tom had no doubt that when Eli reviewed the mission later, he'd be clever enough to realise the repercussions pretty damned fast since he was sly as a shithouse rat. David Senior knew full well that Leon was beholden to him for saving his life and since Eli had been on the outs with his bosses and Leon undeniably knew that too Vance was more likely to have felt allegiance to him personally.
Significantly, it had in all likelihood given Eli the idea of replicating the 'I saved your life' scenario with any number of people in various intelligence agencies over the years, all who mistakenly believed they owed their life to Eli David and by extension, Mossad, given his position within the organisation. He'd earned their loyalty dishonestly, helping consolidate his power and reach in Mossad. Eli had even taken to using the exact damned ploy, but this time with Ziva as his proxy to con Shepard and even Gibbs, so the NCIS agents believed that they owed Ziva, and by extension, Eli their life.
Rather ironically, despite his ubiquitous rules, Gibbs hadn't applied one of the most reasonable and logical of his unnumbered ones about there being no such thing as a coincidence. He damned well should have employed that specific rule to how Shepard, Vance and himself had all been recruited to the David family fan club in identical fashion. Sadly, for all involved, he didn't stick to his own decrees.
Albeit grudgingly though, Tom had to give credit to the Israeli spymaster. Based on his modus operandi, Eli felt confident his elaborate con job worked much better at controlling his marks...um allies than blackmailing them by threatening to expose various skeletons they had in their closet. And make no mistake, the NCIS trio of agents, in particular, had some doozies as far as Tom could tell.
As abhorrent as AD David's political methods were, as ruthless as he was, and let's face it, you don't get much more ruthless than siring a kid with a Palestinian doctor just so he'd have a secret weapon to unleash on his sworn enemies, he was also a master of the subtle art of knowing when to use the carrot instead of the stick. Eli David knew that fear had its place in making sure people didn't stab him in the back, but also knew that gratitude and the notion of owing him one cemented a great deal of personal loyalty – especially in operatives from foreign countries.
Clearly, not only fostered blind loyalty, but also incredible stupidity in people who were supposedly highly intelligent, since they should have realised that the first instance of one family saving the life of a prominent NCIS agent ( in this case, Leon Vance) was good fortune or being in the right place at the right time. It happening twice was pretty questionable, but a third time? Well, that was a pattern, and someone should have damned noticed – hello NSA or CIA!
Although Tom reflected, perhaps Shepard had known all along that she was being played, and she just didn't care. It was always the worst kept secret that she had engaged in affairs with Jethro and Eli. Scuttlebutt was that she'd been on very good terms with SecNav as well and while Tom wasn't a misogynist, he really had trouble doing the math – he couldn't see how she could have risen to Director in such a short period, given that she wasn't all that brilliant an agent. Of course, even if you discount the rumours of her sleeping with SecNav to get her promotion since she wasn't in line for the directorship, Eli had certainly been a powerful advocate of her gaining the top job.
As he left his office to attend an emergency briefing with his boss on the current situation with Officer David, Morrow scowled impatiently. Damn Vance, he'd packed her back to Israel soon after he'd taken up the vacancy left when Jenny Shepard had committed suicide by terrorist and never mind the fallout to the agency. Why the hell hadn't Leon stuck to his guns and left her there? What on earth had possessed him to let the assassin and spy come back to the agency?
Then again, if he was playing the what-if game, why the hell didn't Shepard resign and blow her own brains out instead of messing up other agents' careers by ordering her protection detail to stand down. Tom resolved to find out which so-called mental health professional had done her psychological assessments and pull their security clearance asap. The incompetent idiots would end their career administering personality profiles in the private sector in recruitment if he had anything to say about it – and he did!
Now DHS was left to clean up the mess caused by the hugely ambitious and fixated former female director. Well likely two ex-directors, since it as expected that Vance would fall on his sword if he had even a portion of the IQ he was always bragging about to his peers. If not, he would probably end up sharing a cosy cell with Ziva David.
Looking at the situation as it stood now, Tom could have kicked himself. How could he have not foreseen a situation such as this one occur? He should have also put protocols in place before he left NCIS for DHS that would have made it impossible for Ziva David or anyone else from a foreign intelligence agency to be able to infiltrate NCIS. Hell any federal organisation in the US, dealing with intelligence data and operations. Obviously, this was now their number one priority and seriously, what did it say about the calibre of the likes of Jenny Shepard, Leon Vance and Philip Davenport that such protocols were needed?
It was an absolute scandal. When this whole debacle with the Davids and their espionage activity hit the fan, Morrow had immediately offered up his resignation to his immediate supervisor, the director of DHS. Tom's stated reason was that he viewed it as a failure of his own administration that he hadn't foreseen such an eventually and taken effective measures to prevent it from happening.
Director Bill McIntyre had read the letter swiftly, snorting before putting it through his paper-shredder. "I'm refusing to accept your resignation, Tom. Who would have ever envisaged the need for such an obvious protocol to be put in writing? Even once it was au fait accompli and she was in as a liaison, no one in their right mind would have seriously thought we'd to spell out in writing that David shouldn't have had access to classified fucking data, Tom. Clearly, we overestimated people's intelligence...a lot," he'd said scathingly.
Nevertheless, Tom still felt he should have done something to prevent the espionage from occurring since it happened in his old stomping ground. Meanwhile, DHS and the NSA Had only just started their investigation into what data had been breached and only then could they analyse what impact it would have on US national security and their relationships with other countries. The short story though was it was a fuckup of monumental proportions, any damn way you looked at it.
Aside from all those aspects of the Mossad debacle, Jerome Craig was dead. He'd been sacrificed on the altar of Leon and Eli's overweening arrogance and political ambitions. Craig was only an acting associating director when Morrow left NCIS for greener pastures, although over the years he'd risen up the ranks, thanks mostly to his cautious approach and attention to detail. The man was a born bureaucrat, a nit-picker extraordinaire. When it came to paperwork, Jerome would keep his agents up to the mark when writing reports which had been noted and approved of by the powers that be.
He was also loyal to a fault, honest, sincere and singularly lacking in any desire to sit in the director's chair. In all likelihood, Jerome's almost total absence of ambition was why Vance had chosen him as his 2IC. It was also why he'd shanghaied his deputy to accompany him to Israel, knowing full well how biddable he was. And it also was what had gotten the poor SOB killed.
Sighing as he arrived at the conference room, Tom's raging acid reflux reminded him he was supposed to be scheduling some time for stress management. Morrow wondered if his assistant had any antacids in her desk. Somehow, he just knew that Ziva David wouldn't go quietly – she would want to create as much chaos and anarchy as she possibly could.
Quite frankly, Tom thought she possessed way too much of a reactionary temperament to have ever had any longevity in the intelligence game. She'd never been one to take one for the team since she wasn't a team player, particularly now that her father had been removed from his position of power and she no longer had impunity.
Far from being the wily watch-and-wait type of operative, like her father had been in his heyday (someone who could adapt at a moment's notice when he saw an opponent's weakness) Ziva was like a wildfire, engulfing everything in her path. In many respects, Tom mused, she was more of the suicide-bomber type of agent, who'd take out, not only the terrorists but also destroy allies as well. She was too impatient, too impulsive, too arrogant, too damned fiery to be able to hide in plain sight and be underestimated the way that DiNozzo did. She had to be in people's faces, her hubris regarding her abilities and training requiring that people fear and acknowledge her superiority. Which ultimately was her undoing.
Tom was certain that Eli had recognized those traits in her a long time ago and adjusted his plans accordingly. When chaos ensues, if you are anticipating it, it gives you a massive tactical advantage to get in and get things done without the usual scrutiny and oversight. Like many opportunists, Eli David would see collateral damage, not in terms of good and bad, right or wrong, morality or immorality but as a reality, an inevitable fact of life. Like many pragmatically ruthless and ambitious men before him, Eli wouldn't hesitate to use it as a tool which could be employed or taken advantage of for stymying an enemy or advancing your own political and or personal agenda.
Personally, Tom was damned relieved to be shot of the David family – Eli, Ari and Ziva had been nothing but trouble from day one. Although, they did still have to deal with Ziva until her trial. He'd heard whispers from State Department sources that the Israelis had offered to extradite Eli to the US to stand trial for the murder of Jerome Craig. Both Morrow and Director McIntyre were hoping that TPTB at the State Department and the DOJ would turn them down and encourage the Israel government to deal with him themselves.
It was simply too risky to move him – he was too dangerous to let into the country, in Tom's humble opinion.
Good lord, what the hell had Leon been thinking about, playing footsie with him all these years?
Yet another psychologist (who'd passed that batshit crazy SOB) to thank for being piss-weak at their job. Tom needed to track them down too and ensure any future employment prospects were limited to administering and scoring personality profiles for matchmaker dating companies.
Thus, their immediate priority was safeguarding their federal agencies so that no other foreign national was hired to work for a federal organisation dealing with classified data or God forbid, someone was dumb enough to let a foreign national work in a sensitive government department such as Treasury. The potential damage they could inflict was too horrifying to contemplate.
Unequivocally, the second most important priority was a shakeup of how psychological evaluations were being conducted for top-level echelon at NCIS, especially the director! If necessary, depending on what the investigation revealed, Tom would broaden the scope to include all federal law enforcement bodies too. Never again would he assume that people who were supposedly their countries best and brightest were able to make common-sense decisions and fulfil their oath of office to put country before self. Never. Again.
~o0o~
Meanwhile, ensconced in Secretary of the Navy's luxurious Lear jet, winging its way stateside, Director Leon Vance was asking himself that self-same question that Tom Morro had asked about what in the world he'd been thinking, getting into bed with Eli David. He must have been out of his mind, honestly.
If only he'd refused to let Ziva come back to NCIS when Gibbs demanded his team be reunited, he wouldn't be facing the inevitable end to his career right now. It wasn't that Leon was all that cut up about the fact he was about to lose the directorship, he'd never intended for it to be anything but a stepping- stone to bigger and better things. But it was supposed to enable him to keep stepping upward the ladder, not come to a dramatic halt, leaving him stranded in the political and professional wilderness.
The bottom line was that Leon was deeply ambitious and utterly ruthless. He wanted power. Wanted to play with the big boys on Capitol Hill. Politics had always been Leon's ultimate goal and let's face it, he was way smarter than most of the buffoons who somehow got themselves elected to run the country.
He snorted disparagingly. Hell, cacti had a higher intelligence quotient than many of the elected officials in Washington, although it as probably much more painful than having to crawl up the ass of the average politician or their toadies. An unpleasant albeit necessary price that must be paid to be granted access up to the dizzying heights to which he craved. But that as then.
Now, he knew how unlikely it was that he'd ever be able to come back from this espionage debacle. He'd be damned lucky not to end up charged with treason himself. At the very least, he could easily be facing charges of negligence, not to mention carrying the can for getting Deputy Director Craig killed, even if it wasn't his fault. Sec Nav had already chewed his balls off about taking Jerome to Tel Aviv.
Of course, Leon had no idea that Eli was going to decide to use them to force the US to take a harder line with people accused of being terrorists. Apparently, Eli had decided that they would make excellent martyrs to Eli's cause, which intellectually, was a brilliant if a morally reprehensible strategy. The NCIS director (at least he was for today) still couldn't believe that after all that he'd done for the deputy director...ah the ex-deputy director of Mossad, that Eli could sacrifice his life so damned casually.
Eli knew h tranche Vance was a father of two gorgeous kids and also a loving husband. He'd even met Jackie on more than one occasion, and yet the man who'd saved his life, who he considered to be his friend and a brother had been prepared to make his wife a widow and rob Kayla and Jared of their father. Vance realised belatedly that he'd totally misjudged the man. Eli David was no saviour – he was a monster.
Groaning out loud he realised that Jackie was going to have his guts for garters when he explained that he'd lost everything that they had worked for the past two decades. Even though he was still alive, she would make him wish that he wasn't. That woman had one hell of a temper – sure she was slow to rile but when she blew, it was not pretty.
Leon remembered her reaction to finding out that he told DiNozzo he was expendable when he lent him out to the FBI to help capture the escaped Mafia Don, Mike Macaluso. She'd kicked him out of the marital bed, literally and figuratively for being a mean-spirited arrogant jackass. It was only Tia Cooper's intercession that had prompted Jackie to let him return to sleeping in their bed, although sleeping was all he'd been allowed to do.
His wife had warned him he was still on probation and therefore shouldn't expect that she would resume a sexual relationship with him until he'd proved he was truly contrite about what he'd done, and not just apologising because his overactive libido was talking. To say that he was chronically horny since she stopped having any type of sexual relationship with him was not an exaggeration. Not by any stretch of the imagination but he knew better than to look for comfort elsewhere.
Moaning, he envisaged how his back would protest at being banished from their marital bed again. Sleeping on the couch was damned uncomfortable and with little to no chance of getting lucky in his immediate future, he realised that cold showers were about to become his best friend. With two kids and an angry spouse, jerking off wasn't exactly a very practical option and he wished yet again that he hadn't let Gibbs pressure him into bringing Ziva David back to NCIS. Sure, Eli had been dropping a lot of hints about Ziva wanting to return (and now he knew why) but why the hell hadn't he stuck to his guns and said no?
And it was no wonder that Ziva desperately wanted to return to DC, why she'd pressured Gibbs to make it possible so she could resume stealing classified intel and passing it on to her father. Damn Jenny Shepard and her stupid obsession with avenging her father's suicide – although, therein lay the heart of the problem. Jenny could never accept the truth that her father had sold out his country and his oath and when he was caught, took the coward's way and topped himself. She insisted that the arms dealer who'd bribed her father had murdered him and made it look like a suicide.
If she hadn't been tilting at windmills and allowed Ziva onto the MCRT in exchange for Eli's assistance in hunting down and killing La Grenouille, Leon would have scoffed at a request for Ziva to join Gibbs' team but she was already on Gibbs' team when he'd taken over as director. Plus, Shepard had set a precedent that made it nigh near impossible for him to resist the request, especially when it was backed up by Eli David offering his quid pro quo for the mole.
As the plane approached Andrews Air Force base, he realised that almost a year ago, he'd told Anthony DiNozzo his life was expendable when he seconded him to the FBI to curry political favours. It had been the truth – at least from Leon's perspective because he stood to gain from it personally and for the agency – both of which would stand him in good stead for his political aspirations. He'd even justified it to DiNozzo in terms of the greater good without a thought to how that would make him feel, truthfully because he didn't much care for the agent or his welfare. Ironically that was almost exactly what Eli had done to him, deciding that he and Jerome were expendable pawns - that the best use of their lives was for them to die to further his own personal and professional agenda. Justifying it for the greater good!
As he prepared to meet his critics, he mused at his ill-fortune. He'd always thought of Eli as an ally and a friend, but he'd obviously overestimated their relationship greatly. That had been a huge blunder and now he would lose everything.
The brooding, sullen elephant in the room remained; would Jackie stand by him or would she pack up the house and his kids and go back home to California? She'd always stood beside him, sacrificing her own career as a promising museum/ art curator because someone needed to be the one staying at home with the kids. This had been especially pertinent if he'd been killed in the field but after he finally got the top job, they had felt that scenario of him dying was quite unlikely.
Irony much?
But while he was paying his dues on the way up the political and promotional ladder, she and the kids had sacrificed so much for him, following him to various posts including several years in Rota and Naples before they had ended up in San Diego. Jackie, Kayla and Jarrod had loved California, yet they'd dutifully packed up house again and followed him to DC last year when he became the new director after Jenny Shepard's death.
Now less than twelve months later, he was about to be tossed out on his ass – if he was lucky. If he wasn't extremely lucky, he could end up in federal prison for treason should TPTB decide they needed a scapegoat. Leon was a dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist – he knew that politicians always needed a fall guy.
Brooding on the bleak future ahead of him, Leon tried to focus on the fact that while SecNav's Lear jet was bringing Jerome Craig's casket back to DC to his family, he at the very least was still very much alive. Vance knew he should be grateful that his kids weren't fatherless, but he couldn't help but feel a wave of irrational anger at his second in command for dying because, with his death, the odds had shortened dramatically that Vance would do time.
The only consolation and sure it was a pretty hollow one, was that SecNav had a better than even shot of sharing a cell with Leon.
Sipping on the top of the line Ethiopian coffee that Davenport kept his Lear Jet stocked with, Vance tried to focus on the best-case scenario but couldn't find a lot in it to be cheerful about either. Bottom line, even if they permitted him to resign, he was still going to be disgraced and struggling to support his family in the manner to which he'd become accustomed to since he'd occupied the big chair.
As the plane taxied across the tarmac, he noticed the phalanx of media vans with their omnipresent satellite dishes ready to beam out video footage all around the country. Plus, behind the cordoned-off area, all of the bloodsucking reporters and camera persons waiting to film the ramp ceremony and the DC dignitaries come to pay their respect to Jerome Craig, his wife and family. More importantly, to be seen to be paying respect to the fallen deputy director of NCIS. This was going to be a shitstorm and he also knew from Sec Nav's aide that Jackie would be present too, insisting that she be there to support the grieving widow and her three devastated daughters.
Leon couldn't help wondering if his wife had already had a lawyer drawing up divorce papers to serve on him the minute, he set foot on US soil. He knew with Jackie's temper and her momma bear instinct to protect her cubs it was a distinct possibility.
It had all seemed so simple – a quick trip to Tel Aviv to soothe the ruffled feathers that the death of their Kidon operative, Michael Rivkin had caused. Afterwards, it would be business as usual and he and SecNav could go back to rooting out the NCIS mole who was determined to cut short Leon's illustrious political career and by association, Philip Davenport, too.
As he forced himself to alight from the plane after trying (mostly ineffectively) to straighten his rumpled Armani suit with only on hand, he snuck a lightning-quick glance at Jerome's widow and his two teenage daughters dressed in black mourning vestments, stoically standing on the tarmac, waiting for Craig's remains to be unloaded from the cargo hold of SecNav's jet. Hardly daring to look for fear of what he would see, he noted that Jackie was front and centre, physically supporting Susy Craig who had looked to have lost a shocking amount of weight since the last time they'd met.
Although he was still too far away to be able to discern her facial expression, after two decades together, Leon could easily read the cold fury in her body language. He winced before quickly masking his expression, knowing full well that the eyes of the country were upon him right now, courtesy of the fourth estate with their morbid obsession with covering death and human suffering. As such, he should at least fake some appropriate gravitas for the loss of his second in command. The fact that his balls had shrivelled up at the sight of Jackie's fury was of no concern to anyone else but himself. It would not be a good optics going forward if he seemed indifferent to the grief and suffering of the Craig family.
Since this FUBAR ending to a controversial liaison program had already threatened to take everything from him, he needed to actively show remorse when the truth as that Leon as pissed off at what Eli had cost him. Still to show his true feelings would be to hammer the last nail into his professional coffin and he was not going to make it any easier for his enemies to get rid of him. Remembering something that DiNozzo had advised a young rookie once when asked about working undercover, the guy who had brought down a mafia family in Baltimore had told her 'to fake it 'til you make it."
Leon figured it was also excellent advice in these circumstances. He imagined his sex life, or more accurately, the lack thereof for the next six months and suddenly Director Vance found no trouble at all in looking emotionally gutted and empty.
What a nightmare!
~o0o~
Mike Franks was damned tired of being stuck in a tiny trailer with his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Hiding out in the Gila State Forest in New Mexico was not exactly a stimulating environment. He was going stark raving mad having to lay low.
So okay, he didn't lead a particularly exciting life down in Baja, California. His beach shack was minimalist – but it was his home. Well, it had been until the scum-sucking Federale assholes decided to bulldoze it when he escaped from prison, right before they were about to extradite him back to the US to stand trial for Arcady Korbach's murder.
Yeah, so his home was far from a palace, but it was his. He didn't owe any money on it and anyway... he liked it just fine the way it was. Granted that since he started sharing it with Amira and Layla, he'd felt obliged to gussy it up somewhat, but still, Layla was a pretty undemanding housemate and Amira was a self-contained child, happy playing on the beach. Yet, even with the trimmings that women seemed to expect, like curtains and other such luxuries, it was still homey...or it had been. Nowadays it was just a pile of rubble and Mike was beyond pissed about that.
These days a simple trip to the cantina to drink beer and being able to flirt with the delectable Senorita Camila was a thing of the past. They were currently stuck hiding out in the wilds of New Mexico in a trailer and he was fed up with being on the run. Layla and Amira were both fugitives, too since the Mexican government discovered that the Shakarjis didn't have proper documents to enter into Mexico legally. The Mexican government planned to deport them both back to Iraq if they caught up with them.
Goddamnit! This wasn't how he was supposed to enjoy his well-deserved retirement. Not surprisingly, Mike blamed his former protégé, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, for the mess he found himself in.
Why the hell wouldn't he? After all, all the yellow-bellied backstabbing Probie had to do was keep his effing mouth shut about Korbach. But oh, no, he couldn't even do that!
The Probie owed him big time – owed him for the job at the NCIS and his sanity.
If it hadn't been for Franks, Jethro would never have been able to track down and execute the mongrel that had killed his wife and kid. He'd also have eaten his gun or died of alcohol poisoning if he hadn't given him a purpose.
So, the truth was that Mike saved that ingrate bastard's life!
The morally flexible former NIS agent conveniently managed to ignore the fact that by revealing Pedro Hernandez' identity and location to the grief-crazed husband and father so he could kill him, Franks' had expediently avenged his own agent's death without having to get his own hands dirty. Mike convinced himself that Agent Mitchell's death being avenged was merely a happy coincidence rather than the real reason why he'd craftily encouraged the Probie to take a trip down to Mexico to take Senor Pedro Hernandez out with his sniper's rifle.
After all these years, Mike honestly had deluded himself into believing that his actions had been completely altruistic. Therefore, Gibbs' betrayal of Franks and his family seemed even more heinous.
Now after several weeks trapped in a trailer with a toddler, with a very limited supply of hooch, plus no senoritas who could keep his 'Little Franks' happy, he'd had enough. He was going stir crazy; which was why he'd impetuously decided to head to DC looking for answers and get himself an abject apology from the horse's ass and find out why Probie had thrown him under the bus.
Consequences had actions and the consequences of Gibbs's betrayal was that Jethro was facing the ass-kicking of his life. Goddamn him to the depths of everlasting Hell.
Sempre fi was not just a trendy catchphrase that those poncy faggots from Hollywood and Californ-eye- ay threw about with gay abandon (no pun intended). Nope, they were real words to live by for by real Marines. His son, Liam's brothers-in-arms had stepped up to the plate and were willing to look out for Mike's granddaughter and Layla while he was gone; they exemplified the creed of the Corps alright. Not like Probie – the cowardly two-timing rat-bastard. Gibbs had spat upon those most hallowed of Marine principles.
He'd taken the Probie into his home when he'd resigned in disgust over the bureaucratic FUBAR mass wholesale slaughter of countless innocent military personnel. He'd opened his home up to him and welcomed him into it when Jethro was too furious to stay in the States a second longer. And THIS was the way Jethro repaid his kindness?
Time to teach him that real Marines don't rat out their fellow Marines.
Franks was confident that without Layla and Amira to worry about, he could easily travel to DC, whoop his pathetic Probie's ass and get back out again. It wasn't like anyone would be expecting him to head into the lion's den, so to speak. That would be plain loco.
Mike's buddies had already started rumours that he was headed further down into South America, so he felt perfectly safe heading to the capital. It was time to remind Probie that no one messed with Mike Franks and got away with it. He might be older, but he was also a durned sight sneakier than Gibbs, who was too damned arrogant to believe that anyone would have the effrontery to break into his house. That's why the dumb fuck never bother to lock the door.
Thought he was such a badass that no would dream of messing with him. Well, Mike Franks was about to disabuse him of that notion real soon.
Right now, thinking about what he wanted to do to his former probie, Franks alternated between wanting to pepper Gibbs' sorry ass with buckshot or adopt a more permanent, a more painful consequence. Ultimately, he figured much would depend upon what the Probie had to say about why he chose to rat him out to the FBI after all this time. That was something that really had stuck in Franks' craw. If Jethro was going to go all holier-than-thou on Mike and rat him out, then why not do so back when he'd first killed Arkady, more than two years ago? Why now?
No, he would hear Probie out before deciding if he needed to take action that would be painful but necessary. For example, he might have to render him incapable of giving evidence in a court case. He wouldn't like having to do it but he also had to think of Amira and Layla, since ratting him out had put them firmly in the firing line as well and that was not acceptable. Time would tell if that would be necessary or not!
Now he was making his way slowly toward DC, roundly cursing the Probie for making what was a damned long-assed journey by air into an epic one via road, since he wasn't crazy enough to fly. Ever since the 9/11 bombings by those A-rab crazies, there was no way he could sneak onto a flight with all the added security that had become commonplace. Even domestic flights were way too risky for someone who was a wanted felon.
So, Franks had been hitching rides with interstate truckers hauling freight through the southern states of the US. It wasn't the shortest route, not by a long stretch, but he didn't stick out as much down south. Plus, southerners tended to mind their own damned business too.
Occasionally, when he couldn't hitch a lift by hanging out around truck stops, he'd haunt diners along the inter-states, stow away in cars, vans or even trailers while the drivers were taking a pitstop to eat and go to the head. Sometimes he'd get pissed off with all the waiting about and make his way to a moderately busy train station or major bus interchange, find himself a suitably sozzled commuter and appropriate their ticket.
It really wasn't that difficult for someone with his skills. Identify a mark – someone travelling on their own who wasn't real bright, then buddy up to them and proceed to drink them under the table with liquor. Luckily, Mike had a hard head when it came to alcohol.
Then when the idiot stepped into the head to vomit up their innards or take a crap, he'd give 'em a gentle little love-tap with his trusty-old sap so they'd take a nice long nap. He'd then bundle them into a cubicle, locking it; kindly allowing them to sleep off their inebriation in peace. In return for his kindness, Mike would take their seat on the bus, so their ticket didn't go to waste, although he'd be careful to exit the bus or train several stops before the ticket terminated. It was always better to play it safe.
Speaking of keeping a low profile, He would frequently change his appearance, too. Right now, he'd dyed his hair black and was wearing tortoiseshell glasses, black jeans, green and white checked western-styled shirt and a yellow string tie. Plus, the obligatory black Stetson, naturally.
Obviously, he avoided security cameras whenever he could. No one paid him any heed but still, you couldn't be too cautious.
Once he hit the tri-state area in a few days' time however, he would need a new disguise. Lonesome cowboy was a tad too conspicuous to pull off up there in DC so he was thinking of something more blue collar-ish and therefore invisible to the vast majority of the population. Perhaps a gardener or a cable guy.
Although he would need a van to pull off either those covers – it shouldn't be too difficult to acquire one, mind. Not for the former NIS agent. All Franks needed was to find someone who was using their van for less than 'legal purposes' and steal it out from under them. That way the owner wouldn't dare report it stolen to the cops.
As he stared out of the darkened window of the eighteen-wheeler hauling two 40-foot trailers along the Tennessee Interstate, approximately 75 miles out of Knoxville, Mike wondered why. After all, he'd done for his Probie, why would he try to destroy his mentor's life?
In the next few days, hopefully, he would get to look into those ice-blue eyes of Gibbs' and ask him what the hell Mike had ever done to him to deserve his fucking disloyalty, apart from saving his god damned life that is!