Chapter 11

Josh finished telling the story about how he and his friends had pranked their history professor by registering him for the campus Jail and Bail fundraiser so he would get walked out of class before the end, when he often gave pop quizzes.

"Was he mad?" Sarah asked, after she finished laughing.

"Stunned," Josh said. "Somebody had been 'arrested' in his class earlier in the week, so he figured it was another student until they got all the way down to the front of the lecture hall. But we did all chip in to bail him out."

"And why did you do this again?" she asked, as she stretched to relieve the ache in her back.

"One of the guys had to be someplace else — I forget where — and the pop quizzes were the professor's way of taking attendance. Since you never knew when he would give one, you didn't dare skip. No pop quiz, no penalty for missing the class." He grinned, and Sarah couldn't help laughing again.

"Pretty ingenious," she said. "I almost wish I was still in school so I could use that one some time." She tried to hold back a yawn, but failed. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Josh said.

"It's a sign of weakness, I know." She rolled her eyes. "You don't think I've heard all the Gibbsisms by now? Tim's been on his team since before I got my license."

"I just meant, I know you're tired," he said.

"All the time," she said, grumbling. "And I don't want to go home-" She broke off, before she could tell Josh something she wasn't sure Ziva wanted her sharing.

"Everything OK?" he asked.

"As OK as it ever gets?" Sarah said. "Things have been so crazy for the last year or so that I'm not sure I remember what normal is like."

"Oh, Damon and Ziva are here," Josh said.

Sarah glanced down. The table hid her belly, so if she just stayed sitting, maybe Ziva wouldn't- Well, no, Ziva wasn't going to forget Sarah was pregnant just because she couldn't see the evidence, but still, it had to be better not to have to see it.

She greeted their friends, but wasn't surprised that they didn't do more than say hello before finding seats on the other side of the space.

"Is this finally a date for them?" Josh asked.

"I have no idea," she said. "Maybe?"

"That would explain why they didn't join us," he said.

Sarah picked her words carefully, for once. "She's had a difficult week," she said. "Whatever else is going on, they have always been good friends, and I think that's what she needs right now."

Josh looked cutely puzzled, and she really needed to stop thinking like that. "Wait, didn't he break Tony's nose when they met?" he said. "I heard something…"

Sarah smirked. "Oh, he did. Get Tim to tell you the story sometime. He's the one who tells it best. Ziva likes Damon too much for her version to have the full impact, and Tony's still too irritated about the nose thing."

"Talking about us behind our backs?" Tony smirked as he, Tim, Jimmy and Abby walked up.

"Just telling Josh to get you guys to tell the story of the cases you had with Damon," she said, and mostly hid her snicker when Tony reflexively rubbed his nose.

"The evil ex stopped by," Josh volunteered. "I got video, but I don't think you'll need it."

"He turned nice over the summer?" Abby said. "No way."

"No, but seeing evidence that I was Tim and Tony's surrogate seemed to make him lose interest in harassing me," Sarah said.

"But-" Jimmy only got a word out before Abby and Tim both elbowed him and Tony glared.

"Later, Black Lung," he said.

"Black-?" Josh looked lost.

"Another one of those long stories," Tim said. "So, do you guys want to join us?"

"Yes, but I won't," Sarah said. "I'm going home to take a nap, and maybe stick my feet in a bucket of ice."

"You're sure," Tim said.

"Tim, I'm fine," she said. "Just exhausted."

"Come on, McMom, she's said she's fine," Tony said, herding her brother away from the table.

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

Ziva watched as McGee, Tony, Abby and Jimmy stopped to talk to Josh and Sarah. Abby looked over at them once, and Ziva could see she was chewing her lower lip, but she smiled when she saw Ziva watching. It was, perhaps, forced, but she wasn't running over to hug Ziva and tell her how sorry she was, though Tony and McGee must have told her. If Abby could make the effort, so could she. She smiled back.

"Do you want to leave?" Damon asked her.

"No, I will stay," Ziva said. "For now." She scanned the room. "Those tables over there, they would be enough space for all of us, including Sarah and Josh. We should take them, before somebody else does."

"Do you want to go get the tables, or put Scrabble away?" Damon asked.

Ziva started to say it did not matter, then stopped herself and thought. "I will put the game away," she said. "Go, I will be over in a minute."

By the time she reached the table, everybody was sitting. The open seat was between Damon and Tony, and she saw McGee was sitting next to Abby.

"Hey, Ziva!" Abby said. "It's really good to see you. I mean, not that we haven't seen you because we saw you the other day and you didn't go anywhere, you just weren't at work yesterday, but-" She broke off. "It's really good to see you." She poked McGee and and Ziva realized that McGee must have budged her or something to get Abby to stop talking.

"It is good to see you too," she said. "All of you." She looked around the table at her friends. "No, not all. Where is Sarah?"

"She went home," Tony said. "But the good news is, Evil Josh seems to have given up."

"Seriously?" Damon said.

Cooper nodded. "His father's putting pressure on him to propose to the girl he's dating now." From the expressions on Tony and McGee's faces, they were not aware of that until now.

"The one from the library," Ziva said.

"I guess," he replied. "He told his friend that if she asked, he'd only just gotten back into town because he can't afford for her to break up with him."

"So he is still a cheating mamzer," Ziva said. "Still, it is good he is gone."

"Ziva's right," Tony said. "As long as he's not dating a sailor, we don't have to worry about him again."

"Oh, I got the part about him cheating on her on video," Josh said. "I'll send you a copy."

"Hand me your phone, and I'll send me a copy," McGee said. "Better chain of evidence that way, in case we ever need it."

"Not you, McGoo," Tony said. "Make sure Abby gets a copy. All of us, really. That way nobody can argue that you tainted it."

"So, we are done with worrying about him, yes?" Ziva asked.

"Yes," Tim said, his tone emphatic. "There is something else we should talk about, though."

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

Once the emails were sent, McGee figured it was time for a distraction. "While we're all here and the rest of the Navy Yard isn't, we should figure out what Vance is up to with this cold case contest."

"Jarvis is retiring in January," Jimmy said. "Could Vance just be trying to figure out who could replace him?"

McGee looked at Tony, who gave an imperceptible nod. "No, he has a plan for that," McGee said.

"It has something to do with the training sessions you were leading," Ziva said, her voice certain.

"Let's just say I'm pretty sure that's not the reason for the contest," McGee said, deflecting. "Josh, what did you find out?"

The intern pulled out a notepad. "So, I saw a few patterns when I looked at the cold cases the director had pulled compared to all of them: More agents who served in San Diego at some point, and agents, generally, who had a lower close rate than the average."

"Bad agents?" Jimmy asked.

"Or overworked," Tony said. "We close almost all our cases because we have the most resources of any team at NCIS — and the best people. When you're the agent afloat, it's not that simple. You work solo, nobody wants to talk to you, and you, Ducky and Abby are miles away and focused mostly on the major cases."

McGee thought for a minute. "Did they all work in San Diego?"

Josh shook his head. "No. Many did, but not all."

"How does it work?" Damon asked. "NCIS assignments, I mean. The Marines, you have tours and postings, and with a few exceptions, they don't last all that long. But you guys have all been in your positions for a while."

"That's because nobody wants to work with Gibbs," Tony said.

"No, he has a point," McGee said. "He's got a fresh set of eyes. Maybe he'll see something we're missing."

"For agents, it's different," Abby said. "Specialists like me and Jimmy are just regular government jobs. Some of the bigger field offices have forensics techs, like Great Lakes and San Diego, but unless I asked to transfer to one when there was an opening, I'm based here."

"We, however, can be reassigned whenever the director wants," Tony said. "There are a few exceptions. Agent Afloat tours are a year, and McQueasy here could turn one down."

"So, like the Corps, if you're assigned, you go," Damon said.

"Not always," Tony said, and McGee could tell he was thinking of the Jeanne assignment, and Rota.

"The biggest difference is when you aren't reassigned," McGee said, as a distraction. "There are a lot of specialized jobs, like the cold case unit, where if you get there and everybody's happy with how you're doing, you can pretty much stay as long as you want."

"Being able to survive Gibbs is considered a specialized job," Tony said. "With one notable exception-"

"For a larger purpose," Ziva interjected.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yes, he did it for a reason. I'm still not forgetting about it. Anyway, as I was saying, with one notable exception, once you're on Team Gibbs, they don't mess with you as long as you and Gibbs both still want you on the team."

"But you're saying San Diego wouldn't be like that," Damon said.

"Not for a typical agent," Tony said. "Like Pearl, it's a popular posting, so they try and rotate those slots around. It is one of the bigger offices, though, so it has a SAC and an ASAC, which smaller offices like New Orleans and Rota don't have."

"They don't?" Josh asked. "And what's a SAC?"

"Special agent in charge, and an ASAC is an assistant SAC," Tony said. "Local offices have only one team, so the team leader is in charge of the office, but the agent is still just a high-ranking field agent. There are about a dozen field offices, like Norfolk, with several teams."

"Agent Whelan was the SAC in Norfolk when I was there," McGee said, remembering. "I think she's at Pendleton now."

"And that's the point I was trying to make," Tony said. "If you're a SAC or an ASAC, unless you want a demotion, you only have so many places you can go, so once you get one of those jobs, you might be there a while."

"Was Vance the SAC in San Diego?" Abby asked.

"Pendleton," Tony said. "Then when he was assistant director, he was based in southern California over all the Pacific operations, including San Diego, Pendleton and OSP in LA."

"But he was an agent at San Diego," McGee said, remembering the file he'd finally looked at after Tony's comments Friday. "In the late 1990s, he was based in San Diego for a few years. Gibbs was there then, too, but I don't know if they overlapped before he went to Europe."

"Europe means Paris," Tony said, making a face. "And you know what Paris means."

"Jenny," Ziva said. "She was a junior agent when they worked together."

"Who's Jenny?" Josh asked.

"Former NCIS Director Jenny Shepard," McGee said. "She was director when we worked your father's case, but she died a few years ago."

"Yeah, under my watch," Tony said.

"It wasn't your fault," McGee, Abby and Ziva all said at once, though it got muddled when Ziva said "was not."

Josh and Damon just looked at each other. "Not going to ask," Damon said. "Unless it's relevant."

McGee shook his head. "Let's hope not," he said. "So, getting back to our puzzle, if Vance noticed something while he was in San Diego, why didn't he deal with it when he was the assistant director?"

"Maybe he needed proof," Abby said. "Only Gibbs has a gut."

"Perhaps he could not risk it," Ziva said. "The director is an ambitious man. Maybe he was not willing to rock the ship with whatever he suspected."

"Boat," Tony said. "You think he looked the other way?"

"Would he do that?" Josh asked.

"He does for us, sometimes," McGee said. He thought for a second. "But no, that doesn't seem like his style."

"Maybe Abby and Ziva are both right," Jimmy said. "If he had proof, would he be running this cold case contest?"

"Jimmy's right," McGee said. "This feels a lot like the mole hunt, without the lying and splitting up the team parts."

"He has a theory, but he's using the agency to prove it," Tony said. "At least this time, he's letting us work together."

"But if Ziva's right, that means whoever he's after has enough juice that he couldn't afford to do anything until he was director," Damon said. "That has to narrow down the suspect pool."

"That and the age of the cases," Josh said. "There are some from 25 years ago, so it has to be somebody who's been around for a while."

"Probably somebody older than Vance," Tony said. "Once he was in, he rose up the ranks pretty quickly because he was one of the first agents with cyber skills." He frowned, and looked up at the ceiling.

"What?" McGee asked, recognizing the look. "You know something."

"Something Jenny said to me once," he said. "The day I turned down Rota-"

"You did what?" Jimmy said.

Tony waved it away. "Not important, Black Lung," he said. "Anyway, she said she wished she'd made a similar decision, that to get where she was at her age, especially as a woman, she had been on the fast track from the beginning."

"How old was she?" Josh asked.

McGee shrugged. "I don't know, but she had to be about the same age as Vance is."

"She is."

They all turned to look at Jimmy.

"The case last year, from Chicago, the one the director was running," he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "The Marine who died was somebody Vance had grown up with, and he was born the same year as Director Shepard. I remember from when I was entering the information from the autopsy reports in the system."

"You remember something like that?" Tony said.

"Oh, like you wouldn't?" McGee rolled his eyes. "Who remembered the name of the small town Gibbs was from?"

"He has a point, Tony," Ziva said. "You do remember details about people, especially when you are poking your toes into something."

"Nose," Tony said. "And that's besides the point. If Jenny was on the fast track to make director when she did, Vance had to be too."

"He's not a woman," Josh said.

"No, but he's black," Abby said. "That's just as hard — look at how few black military leaders there are, or even in the civilian DOD agencies."

"So Vance had to keep quiet with what he suspected if he wanted to stay on the fast track," McGee said. "We're not looking for just any agent here."

"It would have to be somebody who was well-established before he joined the agency," Tony said. "Otherwise, he could have made an example of them and helped himself."

"That means somebody who joined when it was NIS," McGee said. "And whoever they are, they aren't a field agent anymore. Too old."

"Agent Decker, he had an insurance policy, yes," Ziva said.

"And Franks has it now," Tony said. "What are you thinking, Ziva?"

"Perhaps the reason the director has not done anything is because he believes there is a similar insurance policy out there for whomever he is after," she said. "The only thing worse than not stopping something is trying and failing, yes?"

"She's right," Tony said. "If whoever he's after manages to skate, he's missed a chance and blown any element of surprise he has working for him."

"So he has to be careful," Damon said. "Make sure there's no way whoever he's after can wriggle out."

"Couldn't he just force the agent out?" Jimmy said. "If it's somebody older than Vance, couldn't the person be nudged into retirement."

"Not if Vance thinks the person would fight it trying to stay on for a bigger pension," McGee said. "We're civilian, so the 'failure to get promoted to a higher rank' approach doesn't apply. And with civil service, there are protections in place."

"Not to mention, we don't know what Vance is after the person for," Tony said. "Cooper's information suggests incompetence, but it has to be more than that if Vance is going through this much trouble."

"Tony is right," Ziva said. "The director will take dramatic steps, but only when they are warranted. Something involving this many people and agency resources must be an important target indeed."

"So what can we do?" Josh asked. "Well, what can you all do, I guess, since my internship's almost over."

"Solve the cases," Abby said.

"All of them?" McGee said. "Abbs, there are hundreds of cold cases, and most are not in this area." "Well, OK, so we don't solve the cases, but we figure out why they weren't solved the first time around," Abby said. "That's faster than solving them, and if we can find a pattern there-"

"We can figure out what Vance is really after," Tony said. "That is genius."