NCIS

"Aw, man! I really wanted to see what they'd use for my mugshot," Abby lamented as she sat on top of Riley's desk and looked down at his laptop.

Tim chortled and slipped into one of Riley's t-shirts that he picked up from a folded stack on the office floor. It was a snug fit, and it reminded him of the last time he "stole" one of Riley's shirts.

"I'm not surprised they're covering it up," Riley replied as he sat at the desk and looked studiously at the laptop screen despite the glare of the morning sunlight coming through. Occasionally he cast a discreet, lustful glance at Tim as he got dressed. "OMNI doesn't want the government agencies noticing their repeat screw-ups as far as dealing with you guys is concerned."

Tim smiled and picked up a pair of jeans that looked much too small for him but compared it to his leg anyway just to see how much shorter Riley really was next to him. "I, for one, am glad I'm still not on the Most Wanted list. My sister would laugh because she'd think it's a stupid mix-up, my mother would call me incessantly to lecture me on responsibility, and my father would handcuff me to a desk until I signed forms to become a Navy officer."

"Oooh, handcuffs…" Riley hummed mischievously and bumped his eyebrows up at Tim, but then quickly shuddered and shook the look off. "Never mind, too soon."

Tim blushed as he understood what Riley was insinuating, but his lips couldn't stop smiling. He found a pair of khaki shorts and started putting them on.

Abby giggled and crossed her legs. "What, like you two didn't have enough fun last night?"

Tim was caught off-guard by her innuendo and lost his balance, causing him to come crashing down clumsily on the hard carpet. This caused Abby to break out into more hearty laughs while Riley rolled his eyes and tried to ignore her.

Tim looked up at her. "What?"

"I saw you two sneaking off, then coming back positively glowing," she quipped knowingly. "But you may be interested to know that you two weren't the only ones shacking up last night."

"Oh?" Tim asked as he straightened up and buttoned his shorts. "You and that guy?"

Abby shook her head. "Tony and Ziva."

"WHAT?!" Tim gasped, once again unable to restrain his smile.

"They may not have gone as far as you two," Abby explained with a giggle, "but when I got up, Tony's cot was across from Ziva's in her cubicle while his was completely empty. Tell me there's nothing going on there."

Tim gave a surprised huff. "Wow… that's really something. I wonder what that's going to look like."

"We could go downstairs for breakfast and find out," Abby suggested.

Riley smiled and closed the lid of his laptop. "Yes! I'm starving."

Tim slipped into his shoes, though felt unusual and uncomfortable to be wearing his work shoes with shorts and a t-shirt. He hoped they had shoes in his size on the second floor and made a mental note to stop there on his way back from breakfast. True to her word, after they exited the office, Abby gestured over to Ziva's empty cubicle across from Gibbs' and Abby's, where two cots were indeed positioned opposite each other. Tim shook his head in amusement, then followed Riley as he led them down to the first floor's cafeteria.

The air buzzed with the noise of almost fifty people in the cafeteria in various buffet lines, at tables, or entering and exiting. Tim didn't remember seeing this many people in the center the previous night, though there had been at least twenty on the first floor and another dozen in the garage, so it made sense that there were others he hadn't seen. Some of the people serving looked like they wore catering uniforms, which made Tim wonder how they fit into the Originals if most of them were on the run. Despite the situation, Tim felt strangely content as he was able to collect a more balanced breakfast of eggs, ham, an apple, and a cup of coffee before heading to the table where he saw Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, and Alyssa already eating. Tony and Ziva sat next to each other across from Gibbs and Alyssa. Riley sat down next to Tim and Gibbs with his own tray while Abby met with Cal and brought him over to sit with them.

Tim got a closer look at Cal, who had a soft and warm face, shaved head, and neatly trimmed stubble over his smooth brown skin. He seemed quite happy to be at Abby's side, and Tim thought he recognized a flirtatious flicker within his brown eyes as spoke to her. He diverted his attention to Tony and Ziva, looking for any and all signs of romance just like they had once done for him and Riley. Though upon observing them, he noticed that they were watching Riley and, strangely, Gibbs. He wondered if possibly they were putting together Riley and Gibbs' history, which made him concerned about how Gibbs would react once he realized what they were up to.

Tony looked down at his tray and let out a low belch as he finished his breakfast. "Damn, that was good. How do you guys afford all this? The food, the office? It's got to cost a lot to house all these people."

Cal began, "The catering is run by Brendan's brother, and they bill it under a different address to keep this building off the radar."

"Brendan's the gun guy, right?" Riley asked through a mouthful of eggs.

"Right," Cal continued. "He ran a gun store with a range, and OMNI started sending people through his store to train and to buy guns. Well, we started following them, then told him who those people were and showed him evidence. He tried to shut them down and bar them from his store, but one night they stole all of his guns and torched the place. He tried going to the police, but they tried to arrest him on bullshit gunrunning charges, so we got him out. He's been with us for about a year. He's still got a warrant out for his arrest."

Abby sighed. "Wow… so his brother donates the food to help out?"

Cal shrugged. "We pay him what we can, but the lease here is really expensive, so we don't always have enough for big meals. We got lucky last week, though."

Riley grinned and chuckled. "When we took out the Dallas Regional Director, we got almost $5 Million from her accounts. That will keep this place running smoothly for years."

"How long have you been here?" Gibbs asked, looking at Cal.

"This building, probably about eight months. We've moved about once a year since I came back," he explained. "We'll see, though. Hopefully with all of you on the job, we won't have to be in hiding much longer."

"Here's hoping," Riley agreed. "Any updates overnight?"

Alyssa hummed affirmatively as she swallowed a mouthful. "Yes, the DOD account we've been monitoring is up another million dollars, now sitting at $438 Million. We've also received word that the Kyoto Knights Cartel out of Southern California is sending 20 people to DC via convoy. They left yesterday."

Riley frowned. "20… If they're sending that many, it must mean that this data center is where OMNI's platform is hosted. They'll be running the auction out of there, so how about we crash the party while it's happening?"

Tim looked around. "Just the five of us going in armed, with Abby and the Originals hacking in?"

Tony pursed his lips. "I vote 'No' on the 5 vs. 20 standoff."

Ziva smirked and looked away, fondly reminiscing. "They're not the words odds I've faced."

"Maybe not for you," Tony retorted smartly. "The convoy will be here tomorrow, maybe tonight if they don't stop for long. It doesn't leave us much time, but if we have to raid the place, then we should do it tonight before they get here. What are we going to look for once we're inside?"

"The Vault," Alyssa replied. "The server room. I've seen on the cameras that there's an access terminal inside that should give access to all the data, but I've never been inside to know how it works. What I do know is that they have an emergency disconnect switch that severs the fiber connections and resets everything. It's supposed to be used when we get hacked, but I've never seen it needed."

"That's because their firewall is impenetrable," Cal noted irritably. "Even Alex can't keep up with their coding, and he's a savant."

Gibbs shook his head. "No single piece of data is going to do the kind of damage we'd need to do in order to cripple OMNI. King made OMNI seem like an entire government, so we have to make our endgame about toppling their government."

"That's why we were trying to expose them with each attack," Riley explained. "OMNI prizes their secrecy. Getting the country – or hell, the whole world – to know about them, who's involved, and what they do will break them and get the government to abandon them. It just hasn't been happening fast enough."

"We could send our evidence on King and Hall to the press," Alyssa suggested. "That ZNN reporter, Andrew Julius, has been covering the OMNI stories as they come up. Two corrupt FBI agents as part of a cybercrime organization would really stir things up. He'd jump on it."

Tim shook his head. "All of our evidence was seized by the FBI yesterday and they knew we went after King, so they've probably already disavowed and removed all traces of him."

"Knowing OMNI, they've probably done the same thing with Hall," Ziva added. "We could attempt to retrieve our equipment from the FBI?"

Riley grimaced. "No. I don't think we should risk what manpower we have on getting evidence on one person. The data center is a goldmine of information, and that's where we should be focused."

"Yeah, but how do we get the information out of there?" Abby asked. "We don't even know what we're looking for yet, or how many encrypted hard drives it'll be scattered across in the Vault. Even if we did get inside and did establish a link to the servers here with the Originals, OMNI would still be able to get in and wipe everything."

The eight of them sat in silence as they each contemplated an answer. Tim looked to Riley, who seemed to be wracking his brain looking for an answer. Tim thought that Riley would've had a dirty trick for anything, but that made the thought occur to him.

Tim whispered down to Riley, "You remember that trick you pulled when we played Risk?"

Riley quickly tried to remember. "Yeah, I reset your modem, then I con—" He stopped and his eyes shot open. He stared up at Tim, his mouth dropping further and further open as he built the idea in his head.

Tim grinned and nodded, seeing the wheels turn in Riley's eyes. The others took notice and waited curiously while Riley ran through the scenario in his mind.

"Alyssa," Riley began, "You said the data center gets its data via fiber optics, right?"

She nodded, thinking about the details. "Two providers: SwiftCast as the primary, and Horizon as the failover."

Turning to Cal, Riley continued, "Who do you use for internet here?"

"SwiftCast," Cal replied.

"Oh man," Riley grinned and started to laugh, then turned to Tim and kissed him hard on the mouth. "You are so hot when you're smart! Alright, follow me!" He gestured to the rest of the team to follow as he got up from the table and strode towards the conference room.

The other seven followed with Abby and Tim scrambling to re-assemble their trays of half-eaten breakfast. When they reached the conference room, Riley already had the data center's blueprints on one screen and a satellite map of DC on the second. He was searching for a service map on Swiftcast's website as the team sat.

Riley continued, "High-priority fiber lines bypass all local infrastructure and go directly from the site to the headend, basically the service provider's main distribution for the area. Ah!" He found a map overlayed with orange of Swiftcast's DC-area internet service. He quickly drew a line from the data center to the backbone, then to the Originals' office. "If we could introduce a bug to cut off that backbone's connection to the rest of the internet, then the servers here at the office would still connect through the backbone to the servers in the Vault." He drew a circle around the large area. "No one outside of that circle could get in to OMNI's servers."

"This could work," Cal agreed. "If you're on the inside of OMNI's firewall, you can open up access and we can make a VPN tunnel to take whatever data we want."

Tim added, "And you'll be able to disable the firewall's failover to Horizon so OMNI can't come in and stop us. All we'll have to do is make sure no one goes into the Vault to trigger the disconnection."

"But that then poses another risk of exposing the Originals," Abby argued. "If your connection to the rest of the world is cut off, it will be impossible to cover your tracks. It won't take long for anyone to trace where the signals came from. You'd have to evacuate the building, all these people, and all the equipment with almost no notice."

"That's the risk we take every day," Cal reasoned. "It wouldn't be the first time any of us will have had a close call with OMNI. But you bring up a good point: We won't be in a good position to be the only ones in possession of OMNI's data. Perhaps we should send all the OMNI data we find to the press, and not just one news station but all of them simultaneously."

Ziva raised an eyebrow. "How will you do that? You will only have a local connection, same as everyone else."

"Cell phone tethering," Riley smirked. "We connected cell phones to computers holding the data we extract, then they'll send out the information through their cell carriers." He nodded gleefully at Tim, "I did the same thing with Tim a while back, resetting his internet while I worked through my Blackberry."

Tim smiled back, feeling hopeful of their plans. "And the time you caught me hacking the FBI through my iPhone. But this time we'll just be uploading stolen OMNI files."

"What about the OMNI operatives inside the circle?" Abby asked. "They'll still be able to connect to the servers if they're on SwiftCast, even if they can't get to the rest of the internet."

Riley shook his head. "They'll be distracted. We'll do what we did with Dallas – send a picture of Cassandra Vianne's body to her lieutenants, throwing OMNI's DC cell into chaos while we hold down the Vault."

The conference room went silent. Tim felt surprised to hear Riley suggest repeating such a violent course of action. He thought that by striking sooner that they could overtake and subdue the guards, but Riley was on much more of an offensive. Tim could also visibly see Gibbs' brow shift to an angry frown.

"No," Gibbs objected. "We don't kill her. She needs to testify in court against OMNI and anyone in the government who's involved."

"'In court?'" Riley repeated sarcastically.

"Yes, in court," Gibbs replied. "Once we're inside and we've isolated the data that we need, we call Shepard at NCIS. OMNI has her under a microscope, but once we've got control of the data center, no one will be able to give orders to stop her. Shepard will send backup, they'll confirm to the police that we're NCIS and be our exit strategy. We all leave with Vianne in-hand."

Riley huffed dubiously. "Gibbs, however much you trust NCIS, OMNI's operatives don't go to court. They're either released with all charges dropped, or they 'mysteriously' disappear or die along the way."

Gibbs' stare intensified. "You don't know that, Riley, and that risk doesn't mean that we should pull the trigger. That's not what we do."

Alyssa groaned frustratedly. "Look, we don't have time to argue about this. You're both right. Even if imprisoned, she's too dangerous to be left alive. But as much as I'd like to give that back-stabbing bitch a taste of her own medicine, she's way too valuable to just kill off. We need her to get us into the Vault and through whatever other safeguards are in the system. To get into the Vault, you'll need to get past both a badge reader and an optical scan, which can only be done by a server technician or Cassandra herself. What are you willing to bet that she's letting even the server techs in there right now?"

Tim saw a moment to interject. "Besides, Riley, her being alive is our best shot at finding the rest of OMNI if something goes wrong with hacking into the servers."

Riley folded his arms and contemplated with a scowl on his face. He looked up at Tim to confirm his conviction to the idea, and then around to the others. He finally reached Gibbs' combative stare and gave a single conceding nod.

Alyssa pursed her lips and walked to the board with the blueprints. "Okay, so we have the plan once you're inside. Now we have to actually get you there. Even if we manage to hit Chronology before the backup gets here tonight, you'll still have at least five armed guards to deal with in the building, maybe 10 if she's called in extra security already. The front glass doors are unlocked, but there's another set of doors inside that only unlock with badge access outside of business hours. The Vault is basically a rectangle surrounded by hallways on all four sides, with one emergency exit to the outside on each side. Once through either side door from the lobby into the hallways, you can get into the Vault either by the door to the front of the building by the office elevator, or through the back. This is where we'll need Vianne."

Tony squinted. "What would it take to get to her?"

"On a normal day to get to Vianne's office," Alyssa resumed, "you'll have to get through the two guards stationed in the front with the receptionist, at least one if not two on either side hall, and the guard at the elevator. You'll need the receptionist's badge to access Vianne's floor via the elevator or stairs. Then, you'll need to fend off any other guards that find you, plus any police if she calls them. Also, both Vianne and the receptionist have panic buttons to lock down the building in the event of a possible threat, which they'll see coming as the front of the building overlooks the only entrance."

Tony nodded, then looked curiously at Riley. "Could you make us passable NCIS or FBI badges, then cook us up a warrant for Vianne's arrest? Security would have to let us through for that."

Riley shook his head. "They'll be on high alert now that OMNI knows you've escaped, and they'll be expecting you. They'd shoot you on sight and cover it up."

Abby frowned. "Well… that just leaves you, then."

"What?" Riley asked.

"You're the only one they haven't seen," she explained. "They think you died before our investigation started, and you were never someone officially linked to the investigation. They're not looking for you."

Riley grimaced. "Sure, but no FBI agent goes by themselves to arrest someone. We'd need… Hmm."

Gibbs tapped his fingers on the table pensively, then looked up at him. "The delivery truck. We give them a Trojan Horse."

Alyssa shrugged. "That might work. Occasionally we got office supplies, maybe every now and then some server parts. It would at least get you into the lobby. What would be in the box?"

"Not what," Gibbs replied as he looked around. "Who." His eyes landed on Ziva.

NCIS

The late-afternoon sun beat down on the I-66, a 75-mile stretch of divided highway spanning from Washington, DC out to Middletown, VA. Westbound on the highway passing Falls Church, the highway runs with barely a turn or a curve for just over 13 miles, where only the commuter train running down the middle of the highway and the never-ending construction on either side breaking the monotony. While a skilled driver in an agile car would've been able to outrun the rush hour traffic leaving Washington, DC and Arlington, a skilled driver in a stolen FedEx Ground box truck would not have the same luck without attracting significant attention.

Riley looked from the cab of the truck back through the sliding doors where Gibbs, McGee, Tony, and Ziva were arming themselves. Alyssa attempted to stay out of the way by standing in the corner, but the truck was not meant to accommodate six people. All but two of the shelves lining the inside of the box truck were removed to accommodate the team and its preparation for the mission. On one of the two remaining shelves sat boxes of ammunition and several firearms in various states of being loaded. A moving dolly was strapped to the side near the back door, and it held a 6-foot-tall cardboard box whose flaps swung freely outward.

"We're hitting some traffic, probably about 30 minutes," Riley called back to them.

Gibbs finished loading an M4 magazine into its rifle and handed it to Tony before nodding to Riley.

Ziva eyed the cardboard box cautiously and glanced over to McGee. "You really think this will hold, McGee?"

McGee nodded and pointed to four sets of magnets on the long flap down the side of the cardboard box. "Yeah, the glue should've set by now. The magnets will keep the box closed while Riley smuggles you into the building, but they will quickly release when you're ready to pop out. He'll position you so you'll have an angle to hit both of the side guards while he gets the receptionist. They'll be expecting the sudden moves from him, not from the box."

Alyssa reached up to the other top shelf and clicked a laptop to life, bringing the screen to view the four cameras strategically placed on the truck. Three were in the cab, one facing the front out of the windshield, two on the dashboard facing out of the side windows, and the last on the back to see anyone behind them. "Once you all are in, I'll walk you through the hallways over the radio. I'll keep the truck ready and keep an eye on things outside in case we have to bail."

Tony grinned gleefully as he finished loading a shotgun. "You've got to admit, Ziva, this has all the makings of Silence of the Lambs, with you being wheeled around like Hannibal Lecter, rushed in and out of buildings." He lowered his voice to a hiss, "What did you see, Ziva? What did you see?"

Ziva rolled her eyes while McGee stifled a chuckle.

Gibbs replied, "DiNozzo, if we weren't loading guns in a moving vehicle right now, I'd head-slap you really hard."

Tony's eyes went wide, and he grimaced embarrassedly at Alyssa. "The verbal head-slap will suffice, Boss. But I would like to point out for the record that it's been nearly three days since I've watched TV for entertainment."

McGee smirked as he slid behind Tony on his way to the front. "The first step is admitting you have a problem," he hummed mockingly.

"Find us a mission where you can't use a computer, McGoogle," Tony retorted. "We'll see who has a problem then."

"I would've thought you'd be missing those swimsuit magazines you read so often," Ziva teased with a little sarcastic venom, noting the glances between Tony and Alyssa. "Suffering withdrawal yet, Tony?"

Gibbs shrugged. "You mean the same magazines you have, Ziva? And don't think you don't also have a head-slap coming after what you two did."

Ziva chewed her lip and tried not to smile as she backed away. Their earpieces crackled as Abby's voice came through.

"Comms check, how's everyone doing?" she asked.

Alyssa looked disbelievingly at the team, then whispered into her radio, "I feel like I'm behind-the-scenes on Cops. Remind me again, is everyone here sleeping together? Because I'm starting to feel left out."

Abby chuckled. "If not now, then by the end of the week at this rate."

"Not me," Gibbs added, looking around. "It's why I'm still the only one working around here."

Tony nervously picked up the pace loading weapons with Ziva's help, and McGee chuckled as he weaved around the others to get to the cab. McGee struggled to maintain his balance as the truck lurched forward, but he slipped through the open door to the cab and into the passenger seat. The passenger seat was a small, worn-down pad to sit on that folded down from the wall, a hard, seat-back-shaped cushion fixed to the cab wall, and a flimsy seatbelt that would just barely pass minimum safety requirements. Despite its shortcomings, McGee thought it more spacious and breathable than standing in the back of the truck with the other four people. He was also glad to have found tactical boots in his size so that he wouldn't have to have been wearing dress shoes on this mission. In the cab, he could tell Riley was tense, though more pressingly he looked very strange in the purple and black FedEx uniform that was certainly too big for him.

"How are you doing up here?" McGee asked.

Riley shrugged. "I don't know. Everyone else seems to be having a good time with this. I hope they're taking the mission seriously because this isn't a game or just another case."

"Don't worry about them," McGee replied. "The situation's definitely new, but even under all the banter and not-so-subtle flirting, they're ready for anything. You don't seem as enthusiastic as you were earlier, though."

"My gut doesn't like this," Riley explained. "We're rushing into the job and not getting more surveillance from inside."

McGee raised an eyebrow. "Is that really it, or are you also not happy about Gibbs' plan? You two have disagreed a lot on how to handle OMNI."

Riley sighed and shook his head. "Gibbs is doing what he can to not get personally involved, which is probably what I should be doing, too. But it's kinda hard considering how personal OMNI has made this fight. But to tell you the truth, I think I'm still just not crazy about any of you being out on the hunt," Riley admitted. "Especially you."

"Me?" McGee asked with surprise.

"Of course," he replied, then chuckled. "Gibbs had a good point with Rule Twelve. I thought that maybe I would like doing this with you - you know, facing OMNI together. But now I'm worried that we'll be in over our heads and something might happen to you. I'm worried about you."

McGee nodded, but started to smile. "You told me last night that you didn't feel much of anything before, but now you do. You're bridging that gap between soldier and investigator. Maybe this is a good thing."

Riley shook his head. "Not right now, it's not. If I hesitate because I'm second-guessing myself, you could be killed."

"Not necessarily," McGee countered. "I'm still an NCIS agent, aren't I? I may not be as good with a gun as you are, but I'm not helpless."

Riley glanced over to him, then a small smile formed on his lips. He reached out his hand to McGee's, who took it in his.

"You're right," Riley agreed.

McGee smirked and held Riley's hand tightly. He could tell Riley was still conflicted, so he continued, "Since we're handing out pearls of Gibbs' wisdom, one thing he told me recently that stuck with me. 'As long as you understand what you're really doing and why you're really doing it, you'll know which side you're on.' I think we're all on the same page as far as stopping OMNI, we just have different ideas of going about it."

Gibbs listened over the sound of the engine, and his lips curled to a proud smirk as he continued loading another magazine. Riley nodded understandingly as he continued driving, and McGee kept a tight grasp on his hand for comfort as he contemplated the mission ahead. As the traffic slowdown cleared, they kept on the I-66 until they reached the Manassas off-ramp.

"Getting close, guys," Riley warned, then lowering his voice he turned to McGee. "Better get back there."

McGee nodded and waveringly stood up. "Good luck. I love you."

Riley squeezed his hand hard and let out a deep breath. "Love you too," he whispered back.

He remembered the last armed offensive that they launched together was on the warehouse, and he remembered Riley winking at him at the time. Now from the side, McGee could see that Riley's focused "soldier" state had set in and he felt much more closed-off from him again. It felt like a lifetime had passed and so much had changed, including Riley. It was then that McGee realized that he had also changed. He was not carrying secrets behind his back and he no longer held himself back out of fear. He still felt worried about Riley, but he was certain that they'd make it out of this, one way or another.

The door slid closed behind him as he entered the cargo area, and McGee brought his hand up to the only other shelf not occupied by weapons to stabilize himself as the truck rocked gently back and forth. Tony handed Riley's modified M4 Carbine to Ziva and she put it in the cardboard box. She then checked the straps on her vest, zipped up her jacket, and tightened her ponytail to keep the hair out of her face. After checking the magazines of two of the suppressed pistols she packed, she stepped backwards into the box with a pistol gripped squarely in each hand. Tony slipped on a bulletproof vest, then turned to observe Ziva in the box. His face betrayed an itch to make another TV reference, but it weakened under the concern and focus on his face. His eyes locked with Ziva's, and they nodded understandingly to each other as Tony closed the flaps of the cardboard box with the clicking of the magnets. The van turned off the main route onto the small service road leading to the data center. McGee recognized the drive as he and Alyssa watched the screen.

McGee whispered into his wrist microphone, "We're close. Are we ready to cut?"

Cal's voice chirped back, "Primed and ready. On your command, we'll cut the cord on SwiftCast. Just make sure to quickly get us access to the receptionist's computer before OMNI can do anything about it."

Gibbs looked over to Alyssa. "Will our radios penetrate the walls of the Vault?"

"They should, if not from the center then at least by one of the side walls," she replied.

Tony looked over to him. "Ziva and I will be guarding the hallways outside the Vault. We'll hear them if they're ready and we'll radio any signal ourselves if we have to."

The van leaned slightly to its left as it rounded into the parking lot. McGee gulped nervously as Riley pulled around to position the right side of the van to face the glass lobby doors. They wobbled forward as the van finally parked, followed by the hollow sound of the van's right-side door sliding open. The four visible team members stepped as far back away from the sliding door as they could, trying to keep out of sight of any cameras for when Riley would open the door. McGee found himself squished against Gibbs and Alyssa but was decidedly not distracted by the contact with either of them.

They kept perfectly still as Riley pulled the back door upwards, almost as if they were hiding from him as well. Riley then slid out a metal cargo ramp from a slot above the bumper of the truck, then jumped up inside. He cautiously took the handles of the cargo dolly holding the tall, inconspicuous cardboard box branded with a major computer company's logo, and slowly wheeled it down the ramp. McGee heard Tony sigh with relief as Riley reached the bottom without the box falling over. As Riley started approaching the doors, McGee peered over Alyssa's head at the laptop screen to view the right-side camera looking through the doors. The bright white and stainless steel decorum of the lobby made it easy for the camera to differentiate the figures from the background. The first set of glass doors allowed Riley through, however he paused at the second set.

An unintelligible noise came through the radio, but Riley gently released the dolly, looked at a label on the package, and dully responded, "Um, okay, do I have the right address for Chronology Inc.? This is from… let me see… Kyoto LLC, San Jose, California?"

Another noise came through, which McGee realized was an intercom in the space between doors. The secretary stood up and walked to the doors, then opened one of them and held it for Riley to go through. McGee was relieved, but then the security guard on the left stepped away from the door and towards Riley as he backed into the lobby. Riley gingerly set the dolly back upright with the box's main flap facing the desk, then unhooked his delivery pad and turned to the secretary who stood behind the box.

McGee took note of the guards' positions and whispered into his mic, "Okay Ziva, you have one guard directly in front, another 45 degrees to your right. Riley is behind you with the secretary. Three… two… one… NOW!"

Ziva lunged through the cardboard flaps and out of the box, firing one shot dead ahead of her and swinging her right arm around to silently fire another shot at the other guard's head. Riley quickly ripped a stun gun out from the pocket of the puffy FedEx jacket and jammed it into the receptionist's neck, her body tensing before falling to the floor at the same time as the others. Ziva quickly looked around the room to ensure there was no one else present while Riley swiped the receptionist's access badge from her belt. McGee watched as Ziva quickly shot out the four lobby cameras, but Riley stood completely still. His gaze appeared to be fixed towards the right side door, but McGee wasn't completely sure as the camera inside the truck was a good distance away.

Ziva noticed Riley's stillness, and quickly hissed, "Riley! The computer!"

Riley slowly pulled out of his trance and shook off whatever seemed to distract him. He unclipped a small flashlight from his belt and shone it on the secretary's wrist, straining to see the UV ink reacting against the harsh interior lighting.

"0-6-3-0," he reported into his mic while removing his FedEx jacket, revealing a tactical vest fully outfitted with extra magazines, two pistols, and two grenades. He rounded the cardboard box and retrieved his rifle. "Cal, cut the link. Ziva, go let the others in."

Ziva holstered her weapons and crossed the lobby while Riley got behind the computer desk, logging in using the receptionist's OMNI designation. Alyssa squirmed through the truck's front door into the cab while Tony, Gibbs, and McGee jumped out from the back of the truck. Riley crossed to the right side door and opened it with the receptionist's badge, then positioned the guard's limp arm between the door and the frame so it wouldn't close before he quickly returned to the desk. Ziva held the inside door slightly open while holding the outer door more open for the approaching team members.

Cal reported in, "I'm in, and I've cut their backup internet line. We own their connections now."

Suddenly, the inner door quickly pulled itself shut as an alarm blared. Red lights flashed on the lobby walls, and after a moment the alarms were silenced. McGee was startled by the noise and looked inside, where he watched in shock as Riley's hand appeared from under the front desk. He realized that Riley pressed the receptionist's panic button. Gibbs stared with his eyes wide as Ziva tried the inner door, but it wouldn't open.

"Mathis!" Gibbs barked. "What are you doing? Stand down!"

"Riley!" McGee called. "Let us in!"

Riley breathed deeply as he looked back at them, regret appearing in his eyes. He shook his head. His voice was muffled by the glass but came through the radio, "I'm sorry, Tim… I can't. I've put the building on lockdown. You need to leave, now."

McGee's jaw dropped. "What?! Why? Why are you doing this?"

His gaze found the dead guard on the floor by the right side door, and his eyes focused on something white and circular contrasting against the guard's black pants. His eyes widened in horror. The guard had thick white zip-ties hooked onto his belt, which Riley had been staring at before.

"Oh god," McGee whispered, realizing what was going through Riley's mind.

"What?" barked Gibbs. "McGee, what is it?!"

"What's happening?" Abby's panicked voice chimed over the radio.

McGee pinned himself against the glass. "I'm not leaving, Riley, and I know what you're thinking. You're not going to get kidnapped again, and neither am I. We'll make it out of this together, but you can't do it alone! Killing more and more people won't stop OMNI!"

"You don't know that." Riley retorted shakily. "No one can know that until all of OMNI is destroyed. We have to cut off all of OMNI's leadership and we can do that by using their tracking virus against them. It's here, and Vianne will get me in whether she's alive to do it or not."

Gibbs pulled McGee away from the glass door, pulled out his pistol, and fired three shots at the door. Each shot banged against the door, but the bulletproof glass held. He looked past the small, bullet-shaped dents over to Riley.

"I'm sorry, Jethro," Riley continued. "Rule Eighteen: It's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission. I… I just can't let OMNI keep going. This is the only way. Please, get him out of here and make sure he stays safe." He looked to McGee. "Tim… I really hope you can forgive me for this someday."

Riley bolted to the side door and pushed against it to pry it further open, the dead guard's arm having held it open against the power of the door's sealing mechanism. Once he slipped through, he kicked the arm out of the way and let the door close all the way behind him.

McGee's mind raced to find a solution. He looked around the outer lobby to see if there were any kind of controls. He saw the intercom panel and a badge reader with a red light on it, which gave him an idea. "Cal, can you override the lockdown and unlock the doors?"

"I'm inside her computer now," Cal replied. "I can stop the lockdown, but I can't unlock the doors. They're separate. I can't even get through to the servers. You'll still need a badge to get through the doors."

"Do what you can. We'll figure out the rest from here," Gibbs commanded.

Tony snarled, "Dammit, Riley. If they don't get him, I'll kill him myself."

"Shut up, Tony! You don't get it!" McGee snapped. "Riley's panicking. He's traumatized from when OMNI kidnapped him, and he hasn't slept well in days. I think he saw the guard's zip-ties and that set him off."

Ziva frowned. "You let him come here knowing he's not well?"

"I didn't know how bad it would be," McGee argued. "He seemed fine this morning."

Gibbs shook his head. "He wouldn't have taken 'No' for an answer from any of us. I know him too well for that. The question now is how do we get in there?"

The sound of gunfire burst through the radio, jarring the whole team.

McGee looked with panic at Gibbs. "We have to get in there. If I can get to him, I know I can help snap him out of it."

"Here," Tony motioned them away from the door as he aimed his shotgun at the door. He fired two deafening shots at the same spot, and the glass splintered outward in a spiral but stayed together.

Alyssa called from the truck, "Guys! I have an idea. Stand back!"

They watched as she pulled the truck out of its parked spot out to the end of the parking lot. The metal ramp dragging behind on the asphalt created sparks in its wake. She then turned the truck around, which then made the team realize what she was doing.

"Move!" Gibbs yelled.

They moved away from the doors as Alyssa gunned the engine, jolting the truck forward straight towards the front doors. It roared as it picked up speed until the behemoth jumped the curb, a loud *POP!* heralding the blowing out of the front wheels. The truck crashed through the first set of glass doors before it hit the ground, its momentum carrying it the few feet it needed to smash through the second set and shattering part of another pane of bulletproof glass. The truck came to a halt only a few feet into the large lobby, but glass chunks had showered across the whole floor.

"Alyssa!" Tony shouted.

The team ran to the front and saw the wreckage, then carefully made their way through to the lobby. McGee was relieved to hear a grunt from the front seat as the door opened to show Alyssa clutching her abdomen.

"I'm alright," she wheezed.

Gibbs and McGee helped her gently exit the front seat while broken glass crunched under their shoes.

"That was reckless," Gibbs scolded. "Sit still. McGee, get to the computer. See what you can get."

"On it, Boss," McGee replied and darted over to the computer while Tony took his place by Alyssa.

Ziva went over to one of the fallen security guards and started feeling through the pockets. She found his access badge and car keys, then went back to the truck. "Alyssa, take these," she handed over the car keys. "Find his car and have that ready to get you and Riley out of here."

"You might have a bruised or cracked rib, but I think you'll be okay," Gibbs diagnosed. "Go straight to the hospital and both of you stay there. I'll make sure Riley goes with you."

Alyssa nodded and started walking through the wreckage with a slight limp and holding her hand against her ribs. Ziva then climbed into the truck and retrieved an M4 Carbine for herself, then went to the right side door.

"McGee," Cal called through the radio. "I've got the lockdown ready to clear."

"Do it," McGee replied. "And see what other security functions you can access. If they have CCTV, we'll need eyes on us. Boss!" he called to Gibbs. "We're ready."

Ziva slid the guard's badge over the reader, and it unlocked with a buzz and a click.

"Let's go," Gibbs commanded.

NCIS

As they entered the brightly-lit hallways, they saw the bodies of two guards on the floor with bloodstains slowly creeping wider underneath them. The smell of gunfire still hung in the air, and bullet holes dotted the walls near the door and behind where the guards stood. Rounding the first wall, another guard's body decorated the floor with a clean headshot through the forehead. At the far end of the hall near the other security door, another guard's body was lying crumpled on the floor. McGee recognized the face of the guard as the heavily armed one that he and Tony had previously encountered.

Gibbs raised his wrist. "Alyssa, four guards down in the halls, two in the front. Any more?"

"You'd know it if there were. They run towards the shooting, not away," she replied. "This means we caught her before she raised security."

"Vianne's office is on the third floor," Tony informed Gibbs.

"Stairs," Gibbs ordered.

Ziva ran their badge over the reader, but the reader beeped twice and flashed a red light. Ziva tried again and pushed the door, but it didn't unlock.

Tony frowned. "How did he get through if the doors were on lockdown?"

McGee replied. "Alyssa said that some security guards had higher-level clearance than others. She was able to get us to Vianne's office before, but Riley has the receptionist's badge now." He looked over to the dead elevator guard and noticed he also had a badge. With nothing to lose, he quickly bent down and retrieved the badge, then ran it over the reader while mumbling, "Please."

The door buzzed and unlocked, allowing them into the stairwell. McGee smiled and tossed the badge to Ziva, who took it and resumed leading the way up the stairs. They quickly sprinted up the stairs until they got to the third floor. They paused for a moment to regroup, then Ziva swiped the badge as Gibbs pushed through the door.

Tony and McGee rushed through with their weapons aimed. They remembered Vianne's rectangular office from their last visit, and while the meeting table and the couch were slightly out of place, it took them a moment to understand exactly what else was happening in the office. Vianne's desk was overturned into the center of the office, its monitors and papers haphazardly jettisoned from it. But the left side of the desk looked as if it had exploded outward along with what looked like pieces of a computer that had once been on that side of the desk. Small, smoldering pieces were mixed in with the damaged remains and emanated tiny puffs of smoke.

Behind the desk, Riley stood with his rifle strapped behind his back but his Glock 18 drawn, pointing down at a trembling woman on her knees. McGee recognized the woman's disheveled blonde hair and her round Italian face, even as it was scrunched in terror and hatred. Cassandra Vianne hyperventilated as she kneeled and clenched her fists over her thighs.

"Riley, STOP!" Tony called.

Riley's head inched slightly to the side such that he could see Tony in the corner of his eye, but then he turned back silently.

McGee kept his rifle drawn but didn't aim it at Riley. He lowered his voice to try to appear calm. "Riley, please, don't do this."

Vianne looked over to McGee. "Agent McGee?" she asked with a desperate shudder in her voice despite trying to maintain her composure. "Please, don't let him kill me. Please. I'm Amber. I'm pregnant!"

"What?" McGee replied warily, his eyes opening wide and looking disbelievingly at Tony.

Gibbs and Ziva joined them, their weapons drawn and pointed at Riley.

"I swear, I'm telling the truth," she pleaded.

"That's rich coming from the woman who tried to have us all killed repeatedly," Riley spat, keeping his gun pointed at her. "Gibbs, you were supposed to get him out of here. Backup's coming."

"Riley!" Gibbs warned. "Put the gun down."

Vianne shivered and looked imploringly at McGee. "You were in your Porsche at the intersection when I called you. You tried calling your friend, but I answered. Then you found the coffee bag with my urine sample in it. I couldn't get a test myself or all of OMNI would know!"

"Shut up!" Riley shouted.

McGee calculated her expression with what she was saying, then slowly lowered his rifle and set it on the ground.

Riley noticed and shot him a warning look. "Tim, no! She just blew up her computer to stave me off. She's the DC Regional Director, and she's just lying to stall us until help gets here. They'll be here soon. I'm telling you, she's lying! She could've picked all of that up from your phone calls while your phone was infected!"

McGee looked from Riley to Vianne. The terror on the woman's face seemed genuine, yet it was clouded with snarling defiance. He remembered sitting at the office table and telling her that Halsted was killed. Her hand drifted down to her navel when he told her. He realized then that she might be telling the truth, and that if Riley killed her then he would cross an unforgivable line. Nervously, he did the only thing he could do, which was slowly stepping forward with his hands at his sides.

Gibbs moved closer to McGee and covered Riley's right side, making sure to be able to see Riley's eyes. His heart raced as he realized what McGee meant to do.

Riley barked, "Timothy! Get back! She's dangerous! She is NOT pregnant!"

"Maybe," McGee answered shakily. "But I still can't let you shoot her."

He slowly stepped between Riley's outstretched gun and Vianne, the gun's tip pressing against his jacket and the vest underneath. Riley's eyes went wide as he stared into McGee's, but then his brow furrowed, and he looked scathingly through him at Vianne as he tightened his grip on his gun.