NCIS
Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva rushed through the server room doors towards the front of the building. Gibbs split off to the right while the other two went left, each side quickly opening their security door to the lobby and getting into position. Riley slipped his rifle over top of the row of server racks near McGee's desk, then with McGee's help he hoisted himself up and laid down in a prone position on top of the row. While Riley prepared his rifle, McGee rolled the chair back to the desk and checked on the auction program.
A large, yellow digital timer in the auction program started at 15 minutes and began to count down. On another screen, the virus program showed the convoy of OMNI Assets on the service road leading to the data center. McGee pulled up the security cameras on another screen and found the set of cameras for the parking lot.
Tony and Ziva stayed in cover and watched the laptop screen as the desk-mounted camera showed a central view of the lobby. Across the lobby, Tony could see Gibbs peering slightly out from behind his door and concealing his assault rifle. Ziva kept one of her pistols at the ready and her rifle leaning against the wall nearby. Tony felt his heartbeat soar as the distant rush of engines and tires perked up his ears.
Abby and Cal stood in the Bridge of the office while they stared at the screens, looking at the same data center security cameras and managing their slow upload of files to various news outlets. Abby trembled anxiously, unable to be consoled. Outside of the Bridge, people rushed to get computers and furniture disassembled, then loaded important items into whatever vehicles they could before evacuating.
Director Shepard sealed the doors to MTAC and nearly threw her OMNI laptop at the two agents manning the consoles. She kept a death-grip on her Blackberry as she placed call after call and gave order after order to get agents and troops deployed out to Manassas. A live satellite feed opened up on the large screen showing the data center.
Six black SUVs rounded the turn one-by-one into the data center's parking lot and parked in the middle of the sparsely lit parking lot, giving themselves distance from the shattered lobby entrance. Twenty people quickly emerged from the SUVs fully armed with shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, submachine guns, and military body armor. The squad started to fan out as they approached the lobby.
Gibbs stared intensely and whispered into his mic, "We have contact. Be ready."
McGee tried listening, but the transmission from Gibbs distorted. "Gibbs? Boss, can you hear me?"
Riley swallowed hard. "Abby, can you hear us?"
With no answer, they looked at each other grimly.
"They've jammed us," McGee breathed.
"Shit," Riley agreed.
McGee's computer chimed as the auction program displayed an icon labeled "NCIS – Director Jennifer Shepard" and notified that they had joined the auction. Her opening bid was the starting price, $300 Million.
Ziva watched acutely as the enemy soldiers drew closer, though the parking lot lights and headlights from the SUVs left mostly silhouettes. Once she saw them step up to the curb, she didn't wait for Gibbs and instead yelled out, "NCIS! Lower your weapons and leave, NOW!"
The soldier at the front of the line quickly searched for the source of the voice, then after seeing a sliver of Gibbs' exposed face he raised his rifle and fired a burst of shots through a gap in the bulletproof glass. Gibbs immediately ducked behind the door, which deflected the shots with thick, metallic taps. Ziva leaned out and zeroed in on the first guard in her line of sight through the broken doors, taking them out with a quick double-tap. A volley of rapid gunfire sprayed against her corner of the lobby as she ducked into cover.
McGee's breath quickened as he saw the firefight beginning through the monitors. The countdown continued, but another chime brought another buyer's icon into the auction, this time labeled "NSA – Deputy Director Mark Stockton" and placed next to the NCIS icon. Another bid brought the total up to $350 Million. Another arrival sounded shortly after, reading "Xīn Yuè" with no other name associated. The new bidder raised the total to $370 Million.
Ziva cleared another shot just to the side of the wrecked FedEx truck, wounding but not killing her target. The bulletproof glass panes splintered in opaque spirals as more shots were fired by the incoming soldiers. The glass held, but each impact obscured the team's view out of the lobby. Gibbs saw a trio of agents sneaking down the far side of the truck and out of Ziva's sights, but just within his. He pulled the pin of his grenade and sent it bouncing across the lobby floor towards the truck. He heard the yelling of the soldiers just before it detonated.
McGee watched helplessly as he couldn't even see the lobby with its cameras having been shot out by Ziva earlier. He kept his eyes on the exterior cameras and watched the squad members as they kept close against the front walls. The sound of the gunfire was barely audible through the thick walls and dull hum of the room. The cycling cool air wasn't cool enough to soothe his nerves, nor did it distract him from the surreal feeling of knowing that combat was happening nearby.
"GIBBS!" Abby screamed into her headset. "Anyone! Can you hear me?"
Cal shook his head and blazed his fingers across one of the keyboards. "It's no use. They're probably jamming them on-site. Let me see if I can reach McGee on the console."
Ziva sent out a spray of bullets to cover Gibbs, though through the smoke she wasn't sure if she hit anyone. More bullets tore at the door she hid behind, and a bullet grazed the fabric of her sleeve. A clinking sound caught her attention as a small tube soared through the air into the lobby and slid to a stop by the receptionist desk. Seeing the tube, she then dove against Tony as a blinding light and a deafening bang filled the lobby.
"Shotgun, now," she gasped.
Tony rolled around her and barged through the door, quickly kneeling behind the door and whipping his shotgun out of cover. Two agents emerged through the smoke and blinding sparks of the flash grenade only to be met with repeated blasts from Tony's weapon. Once he saw them drop to the ground, he ducked back behind the door and winced.
"Damn, these have a lot of kick," he lamented as he rubbed his right shoulder.
The timer was down to 11 minutes and McGee kept his eyes on the protected files, waiting for his first chance to extract the Operative List once the auction was over. As he listened to the muffled thuds of nearby gunfire, a Notepad file opened up on his screen and began typing.
MCGEE, IT'S ABBY – CAN YOU HEAR US?
McGee's heart raced with excited relief as he quickly started typing, but then paused as he wondered if it might be an OMNI hacker. He quickly thought of something that only the team would know and typed it on the notepad.
ABBY, WHAT DID YOU TELL ME THIS MORNING WHILE I WAS GETTING DRESSED?
He watched and waited patiently while watching the cameras. Two of the injured OMNI operatives had been pulled back from the lobby entrance and off to the sides, still just barely within view of the camera. Then he quickly glanced back to see typing on the program:
YOU AND RILEY HAD SEX
McGee blushed as he was expecting something more along the lines of Tony and Ziva becoming involved, but he didn't waste time in acknowledging that he was actually communicating with Abby. He quickly typed his response.
COMMS JAMMED, OMNI HERE, TAKING FIRE
McGee quickly switched over to the other screen and watched as the soldiers outside suddenly split up and headed off to opposite sides of the building's front, then down the long sides of the building.
Gibbs peered out from behind his heavily dented and bullet-ridden door but saw no one. Ziva also looked, but the lack of movement sent warning signals to each of them.
McGee zoomed into the map to see the Asset icons slowly moving around the corner from the front and up the long stretch of the building's sides. He waited for them to try entering through an emergency exit, but they kept moving along the back. Worriedly, he zoomed back out of the map. Two more Asset icons were making their way up the nearby highway, but what caught his eye was an Asset icon moving extremely quickly towards the data center, not keeping on the map's roads. The icon approached from the east and passed over the data center, curving its course northwest.
Shepard stood like a daunting statue in the center of MTAC and barked into her phone, "I don't care who's jurisdiction it is, just get something in the air now!" She tapped in a new bid of $400 Million and sent it through the program on her laptop, then continued watching the live satellite feed of the data center.
On the edge of his seat in the Vault, McGee clicked the quickly-moving icon on the map, which brought up a label with the name "MQ-9 Reaper ZA99F" that moved with the icon. He frowned with dread, then called out, "Riley? Is an MQ-9 Reaper what I think it is?"
Riley stared at him for a second as his memory processed the name, then he gasped and rolled off the server racks. "GET AWAY FROM THE WALLS!" he shouted and ran for McGee, grabbing him and pulling him towards the center of the Vault.
A light unmanned military drone sailed high across the night sky, its propeller barely a buzz in the wind. It arched back around to head south towards the data center. One of its two missiles launched and screamed down towards the back wall. In a flash, the missile detonated in a blazing fireball that shattered a hole through the reinforced concrete outer wall and blasted all the way through into the server room.
Abby stumbled back against the desk in sheer horror as the security camera feeds cut to static.
McGee and Riley huddled together between one of the server rows while concrete and metal shrapnel shot across the Vault floor. The lights across the ceiling flickered and a legion of high-pitched alarms sounded as hundreds of backup batteries flipped on and off again. The warped steel doors tumbled to a halt on the cracked concrete floor as the power stabilized.
Tony and Ziva felt the shockwaves through the building and heard the blast echo down the long hallways. They quickly exchanged fearful glances with Gibbs as they realized what happened, then began running with full force down to the other end of the building.
Shepard snarled and paced MTAC as a feed from a F-16 fighter jet came onto the screen. Its radar pinged and the targeting computer beeped as it locked onto the drone, which swept back for another past at the data center.
"Bravo One, target locked, weapons hot," the pilot reported.
"Take it out, NOW!" she barked.
"Sending 'winder," the pilot complied. "One away."
The Sidewinder missile split across the sky with a white trail of smoke. The drone's targeting computer locked onto the lobby, then sent its last missile screeching down just as the Sidewinder slammed through the drone and vaporized the aircraft with a bright explosion. The second missile sped down building's entrance but was cut short of the lobby by the crippled FedEx truck. The detonation shredded the metal walls of the truck, scorched and cracked the white walls and floor of the lobby, and sent a shattering shockwave through the lobby's bulletproof glass and into the ceiling above.
McGee stayed huddled down on the ground with Riley as the second explosion's rumbling shook the Vault. When the floor stopped quaking, he looked up and around. The din of fire alarms rang out from the back hallway and the overhead sprinklers activated, spraying some water in through the hole into the server room. From his line of sight, a few of the server racks appeared to have been minorly damaged by the explosion, but none of them had detonated their own self-destruct explosives. A cold breeze from outside carried a stench of hot iron and concrete dust inside, replacing the sterile, conditioned air of the Vault.
"Holy shit," he breathed. "How did OMNI get their hands on a new military drone?"
Riley grunted as he stood up. "I think they got their hands on the military itself, first."
Looking back towards the front, McGee's heart dropped as he remembered that the other three agents were positioned at the front of the building. He scrambled from the floor up to the desk to check the security monitors.
Riley picked up his rifle from the floor and looked back to McGee. "Stay low! They could come through at any second."
McGee nodded and quickly cycled through any cameras he could to get an eye on the others, then heaved a heavy sigh of relief as he saw Tony and Ziva headed down one hallway and Gibbs in the other. They seemed to be uninjured, which was an even bigger relief as he hadn't seen them since the shooting started. He swiped up the keyboard and mouse down to the floor, then pulled two monitors to the side of the desk. He hoped that hiding behind the side of the desk would provide him cover from anyone coming through the newly blasted hole in the back wall. Abby had frantically typed a poorly-spelled message in the notepad asking if they were alright, but McGee put it aside to check the map to look for the Reaper. He briefly scanned the map, but with no sign of the drone, he switched over to the auction while crouching behind the desk. The program seemed to be unaffected by the explosions and its timer was down to 8 minutes. The latest bid from the NSA brought the auction to $425 Million.
"The drone's gone!" McGee called, even though he wasn't sure Riley could hear him clearly.
Riley sprinted across the center aisle and down several rows to get a better look at the breach. Standing in the harsh fluorescent light, he couldn't quite see anything in the blackness of the outside until a soldier suddenly whipped around the wall with his weapon raised. In a split second, Riley confirmed that he didn't recognize the face through his scope and fired two quick shots that easily dispatched his target. Four shots fired out from the blackness towards his general direction, one ricocheting off the side of a server rack and the rest slamming into the floor.
"Taking fire!" he yelled to McGee.
Hearing the shots, McGee breathed nervously and grabbed his rifle from the floor by the desk. He pulled up the Notepad program and replied to Abby:
STILL HERE. STANDBY.
Tony and Ziva reached the far back corners of the data center's outer hallway where the sprinkler system rained water down on them. Rounding the corner, they saw Gibbs on the other side of the hallway from the breach. Shots rang out over the blaring alarm, and two soldiers appeared through the hole but were completely focused on what they saw inside the Vault. Tony quickly pumped two shots out of his shotgun while Gibbs and Ziva aimed precise headshots at the two.
Two squad cars skidded around the corner of the service road and into the parking lot, then dodged the line of empty black SUVs parked precariously in the middle of the lot. Two officers got out of their vehicles and drew their weapons as they approached the front of the building. Two OMNI soldiers were positioned outside, both bloodied and battered from either gunshot or shrapnel wounds. They looked up as the officers approached, skeptical as to their affiliation. Silently, the two officers gave each other a questioning look, then each fired a shot into one of the solders' heads. With no one else outside, the pair then carefully tread across the smoldering field of rubble and into the smoke-filled lobby.
At the breach, Gibbs carefully aimed as two more assailants attempted to rush into the Vault. The crossfire between Tony, Ziva, and himself easily took down the soldiers as they came in small trickles, but the downpour from the sprinkler system obstructed all of their sight. While their vests protected the soldiers from lethal chest shots, they were not immune to the stunning pain that made them vulnerable to a well-timed headshot. Another two echoing shots from inside the Vault signaled to Gibbs that at least one more OMNI soldier had been claimed by Riley. Two more agents slid through the gap, this time blindly firing on either side. Gibbs fired two shots towards the first agent, but he had to quickly throw himself across to the other wall to just narrowly avoid the spray of bullets. With a blast from Tony's shotgun and a finishing shot from Riley, the second agent fell.
Ziva reloaded her pistol while in cover around the corner, but her ears perked as she heard footsteps from down the hall. She quickly leapt from the wall with her gun raised at the two, then started registering their features as she shouted, "NCIS! Drop your weapons or I will shoot!"
The two officers had their weapons drawn but not aimed. They stood just outside of where the overhead sprinklers were spraying.
"Manassas P.D.!" one of them yelled.
Ziva recognized the two officers as the ones she encountered with Gibbs in the woods just outside of the data center's grounds just two days ago.
The Lieutenant seemed to soften as he recognized her as well. "Wait," he breathed. "I remember you. You really are NCIS, aren't you?"
Ziva kept her weapon raised but shifted her aim towards the wall. She nodded at them before she explained,
"We're under attack by a group called OMNI. We have soldiers advancing through…"
She drifted to a pause as she looked behind the two officers and down the hall. Despite the explosion that she heard, she saw no rubble from the distance to indicate that the security doors or the walls had been damaged. She looked suspiciously at the two officers who now stood within only two paces of her.
"Wait, how did you get through the doors?"
The Lieutenant's face quickly betrayed his intent as the two agents retrained their weapons on her and attempted to fire. Ziva bolted her gun back up to easily squeeze off two precise shots at such a close range, but one of her attackers managed to fire a shot that grazed the top of her right forearm and forcibly sliced across the right side of her neck. The hit to her neck jerked her back against the wall, though her body rushed with too much adrenaline for her to realize that she had been hurt.
The close shots snapped Tony's attention around the corner where what he saw made his heart dive to the ground. "ZIVA!" he yelled in a bloodcurdling cry.
Ziva was startled by Tony's yell, and at first her attention was drawn to the tear on her jacket exposing her grazed arm and the small amount of blood-tainted water that ran down from it with the sprinkler water. Then as she noticed the wound more, she also found more fresh blood staining her sleeve and torso from higher on her body, and a wave of stinging pain shot out from her wrist and her neck. She doubled over against the wall and grunted in pain as her hand tremblingly reached up to her neck, but searing fire radiated from the wound even before her hand touched it.
Tony looked back to Gibbs and desperately called out, "Ziva's hit!"
Gibbs' stomach twisted as he tried to see her but couldn't from his position. He cursed under his breath and backed up to get in cover at the hallway corner as he saw Tony rush back to help Ziva. She tried batting away his hands as he tried to get hold of her and examine her more closely.
"I'm okay, Tony!" she panted through gritted teeth.
"No, you're not," he replied sternly as he checked the wound on her arm, then tried to get a look at her neck.
She pushed him back towards the corner and kept a hand pressed firmly down on her neck wound. "Keep defending the Vault! It's just a scratch. I'll manage."
Tony's pulse skyrocketed as he gave her one last concerned look, then checked his shotgun. With only two shells left, he tossed the shotgun aside and picked up Ziva's M4 Carbine and stepped back around the corner.
Bodies began littering the hallway in the path between the outside and the Vault. From their positions at the hallway corners, the thickness of the outer wall prevented Tony and Gibbs from seeing anyone standing on the other side of the hole, though the incoming soldiers had the same disadvantage. They could, however, see Riley whenever he peered around from his cover in one of the server rows. Blind fire came in bursts from outside into the server room or into the hallways, though Riley knew that the other team members had the breach covered for the moment.
Rather than risking crossing the center aisle, Riley sprinted down the server row to one of the long side walls, then ran at full speed to get back to the center row where he rounded the corner and continued back to the center of the room. Across the server room, he could see McGee still crouched behind the desk. He skidded to a halt as he reached the center aisle.
"How much longer?!" he called to McGee.
McGee wiped his brow of sweat as he stared at the tracker's map. "5 minutes, but we have another problem. More reinforcements are here."
Riley peered around the corner and from the greater distance he could see a set of headlights illuminating the grass outside the breach, but they were quickly turned off and the blackness returned. He huffed and quickly checked his ammunition, then kneeled down in position behind one of the server racks, aimed for the breach, and adjusted his scope for the distance.
Tony heard the engine of another car or SUV over the sound of the sprinklers, and he took another glance back at Ziva. Her hand was covered in blood and her face was pale, but she breathed steadily and gave an encouraging nod. The wound appeared to just be a deep graze but not a serious wound. He looked back around the corner to see a quick blur of a few small tubes thrown through the breach. Their metallic shells clinked against the floor as two went down each side of the hallway and one went up the center aisle of the Vault. Tony, Gibbs, and Riley all ducked into cover as the flash grenades blindingly exploded with a bang that resonated throughout the Vault. Riley then aimed back around and fired as four more armed soldiers darted across the hallway.
Tony jumped out of cover to try and hit one as the group reached the Vault, but as he fired, one of the soldiers fired two submachine gun rounds that slammed into his right side and in the center of his chest. He was jolted backward and slipped on the wet floors, sending him backwards down to the ground and knocking his head on the tile floor.
Ziva gasped as she saw him fall. "NO!" Forgetting her pain, she dove for him and dragged him from the hallway.
Three of the soldiers kept firing cover fire towards Riley while the fourth bolted off to the side. Riley sped through clearing the first targets, but he only saw a blur of the fourth before the soldier was out of sight behind the last row of server racks.
He ducked back into cover and shouted worriedly, "Tim, they're inside! Got one headed for you!" He quickly ejected his magazine and slammed another one in, then looked back around for more soldiers.
McGee stayed crouched behind the desks but aimed his rifle down the far aisle towards the back. A submachine gun appeared around the end and fired five shots blindly, all of which missed and ricocheted. McGee returned fire and shot four rounds towards the assailant, all of them smashing into the wall in small puffs of concrete dust. The soldier appeared around the corner and fired another volley, some of which hit the set of three server racks in front of the desk. The clear plastic front on one of the rack doors splintered as a bullet pierced through and ricocheted inside the rack, showering sparks down over McGee.
"TIM!" Riley shouted as he saw McGee roll backwards from his cover and out of view behind another row of racks.
McGee straightened back up quickly and fired another set of rounds at the soldier, finally hitting him hard in the chest and a final shot through the forehead. McGee's heart slammed in his chest as he watched the body go limp and fall to the floor.
"Tony, come on!" Ziva begged as she slapped Tony's face to keep him awake.
"Ow!" he winced and grunted. "That doesn't actually help when I've just hit my head."
She quickly checked his head for any sign of bleeding, then checked his vest. The bullet hit just above Tony's hip and was fully received by the vest, as was the one in the center. Both hits left only redness on the skin that would eventually bruise quite colorfully.
"It's just a scratch. I'll manage," Tony echoed her words back to her with a sly smile before pulling himself back to his feet with a grunt.
With renewed vigor, she grabbed her other pistol and crouched around the corner with him to resume their defense.
With McGee still out of sight, Riley looked nervously over to the other side of the Vault and decided to cross. He kept his rifle aimed at the breach and began moving steadily across the center aisle.
Through the smoke from the grenades, another cluster of soldiers armed with assault rifles moved in unison across the hallway towards the Vault. Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs couldn't clearly see the soldiers but knew they were there, so they began rapidly firing. Riley also saw the troops descend into the vault and began firing as he crossed the aisle. Bullets whizzed past him as he moved. One on each side fell from the team's gunfire while Riley handled the two leading into the Vault.
McGee rushed back towards the desk and saw that only 2 minutes and 30 seconds were remaining. The bid now stood at $460 Million with NCIS in the lead. He looked up to see Riley heading towards him and crossing the center aisle while quickly squeezing out shots two at a time.
From behind the two leading soldiers jumped out another soldier with an assault rifle, and before Riley could properly aim at him, a quick shot blasted through his upper left thigh, buckling his leg and pivoting him to the left as he fell, followed by two shots that slammed into the right side of his chest so hard that he was lifted up by the impact and spiraled in the opposite direction before he crashed to the ground.
McGee felt like he had been hit with another high-explosive grenade as he watched Riley fall in slow motion. Shock blazed through him and ripped his heart out of his body when Riley didn't immediately get back up. He screamed out Riley's name as he scrambled out from his cover and down the row. He skidded to a halt as he aimed around the corner down towards the breach, but with no one in sight he dropped his rifle and dove down to attend to Riley. Blood poured from the leg wound and pooled on the concrete below.
"Riley! Oh god, p-please, no!" McGee whimpered and rolled Riley over.
Riley groaned and his arms shook as he was rolled. He clutched at his chest where two rifle bullets were crunched against the bulletproof vest. McGee let out a guttural sigh of relief as he pulled Riley closer, but Riley yelped in pain and coughed out droplets of blood onto the floor.
"Oh my god!" McGee yelled in terror. He realized that they were still out in the open, so he tried reaching around Riley to pull him to safety.
Riley cried out in agony when McGee squeezed his right side even just under the shoulder. "FUCK! Argh!"
"What do I do?!" McGee pleaded. "I can't leave you here!"
"Here," Riley hissed through the pain as he gave McGee his left arm to pull while he pushed with his right leg.
McGee dragged him hurriedly out of the center aisle and down the row towards the desk. Riley writhed and grunted as he tried to move, but McGee kept going until he sat him upright against one of the server racks. Riley breathed shallowly and winced hard as he found and put pressure on the hole in his thigh. McGee knew that he had to slow the bleeding, so he quickly unclipped his belt and wrapped it around the leg above the wound multiple times, then pulled it tight and secured it. Riley nodded appreciatively but with gritted teeth.
"Th-there's s-still someone ins-s-side," Riley shuddered as his whole body convulsed with pain.
McGee breathed shakily, not wanting to leave Riley's side but unable to ignore the impending threat. He picked up his rifle and crept down the row towards the desk. When he reached the end of the row, he listened for the soft approaching footsteps, then whipped around and fired a burst of bullets towards the soldier. The soldier ducked into one of the rows, and McGee paused his firing to get back into cover behind the desk. A spray of fire splintered the top edge of the desk and shattered one of the two monitors just over McGee. A split-second after the last shot fired, McGee rose up and fired two shots right into the center of the soldier's chest. The man was knocked backward off his feet and to the ground, but in a desperate move he whipped out a pistol and fired three shots back. McGee ducked back down, but on his way a bullet sliced across the top of his left shoulder.
McGee clapped his right hand over the wound and grunted loudly through his gritted teeth. It wasn't the worst pain he'd ever experienced, but the stinging pain overtook his arm whenever he moved it. He kept himself crouched against the desk he heard the soldier start to stand back up. His shoulder stinged as he tucked the stock of his rifle against it, but he quickly peered out of cover and fired two more shots towards the soldier. Blazing pain scorched through his shoulder as he moved, and it hurt even worse when he shot. The two bullets that he did manage to fire before ducking back down had vastly missed their target. Panic spread across his face as he realized he couldn't use his rifle, his only weapon. He looked frantically towards Riley, who's eyes were wide as he watched a thought seemed to strike Riley and his right hand dove for his holster.
"Tim!" Riley called, then with an agonized grunt he hurled his Glock 18 pistol down the row towards McGee.
The pistol clattered on the ground and slid towards McGee, who grabbed it with his right hand, flicked the safety, then dove to the side instead of looking over the desk. The surprise move gave McGee enough time to pull the trigger and send a burst of three .45 caliber bullets towards his attacker, which hit with full force and finally killed the soldier.
McGee panted with relief as the man dropped, then he climbed back over to the computer. With one of the monitors destroyed, he had to quickly move windows around to view the auction program but had difficulty because his hands were shaking. He took a breath and continued, then saw the auction reach 1 minute remaining with a high bid from the Xīn Yuè of $470 Million. He found the Notepad program and typed to Abby as the timer continued.
GET READY!
Abby and Cal waited in silence only broken by their anxious breathing. They stared at the computer screens showing the auction timer counting down, the notepad, and the secured file folder they were waiting to access.
Gibbs checked his watch and knew they were almost out of time. He wanted to run into the server room to check on Riley and McGee after hearing the gunfire, but he had no idea if there were more OMNI soldiers outside. He started hearing the deep whipping sound that he thought he recognized as helicopter rotors. A rippling surge of air from the outside started blasting through the hole outside, scattering the shower of water from the sprinklers overhead. Tony tried to see Gibbs through the lifting smoke and moved from behind his cover to look, but then the sound of rapid gunfire from outside quickly had him retreat.
McGee's heart raced the timer as the seconds counted down on the auction program. NCIS, the NSA, and the Xīn Yuè continued submitting last-second bids. With ten seconds left, NCIS looked to be the last. McGee didn't blink as the timer reached the final two seconds, then gasped as the Xīn Yuè placed the final bid of $495 Million just before the yellow timer hit 0 and turned red. McGee didn't know who they were, only that they weren't NCIS or someone they trusted, yet now they were about to have control over the virus.
The program windows rearranged themselves as another program initiated a wire transfer for the $495 Million and confirmed the funds had transferred. Then a file transfer program opened and started the upload to the Xīn Yuè. Abby and Cal nearly jumped as the file access opened, exposing the virus management program and the OMNI Operative List. They moved quickly to get the Operative List database to move, but its large size and the concurrent upload of the virus management program made slowed down the transfer. Abby's fingers were a blur as she typed:
WE'RE IN. GET OUT OF THERE!
Once the auction ended, McGee quickly looked around and remembered that they were sitting near the center of a very large room filled with explosives that were all about to detonate. He bolted over to Riley, who had fallen down to the floor after throwing his gun to McGee. Riley's face was draining of color as more blood pumped from his thigh, his breathing was still labored, and a small trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth.
McGee panted and urgently looked around, wondering if they had enough time to escape. "Riley, we have to get out of here, you have to get up."
Riley's teeth were gritted with pain, but he nodded and used his left arm again to grab hold of McGee. McGee hated to do it, but he had to pull Riley up by his right side as well. Riley gasped shudderingly as he was lifted, and as tried to stand his left leg buckled again. McGee caught him and held him up even though his own shoulder was screaming at him, but he still started their slow rush towards the center. Riley limped and kicked with his right leg to keep them going and increase their pace, but his face was scrunched in agony. McGee steered them to the right towards the front Vault doors, not knowing what else may try to come through the breach at the back.
Abby rapidly slapped the top of the desk impatiently as she yelled at the screen, "Come on, come on, COME ON!"
The download bar was halfway across as more and more OMNI profiles flooded through.
Gibbs heard the sound of yelling outside but couldn't make out the words. He kept his gaze fixed on the breach, ready for whatever was about to come through.
McGee and Riley limped up the aisle, still only about halfway to the doors.
McGee looked back hesitantly, then mumbled, "God, I hope the upload is really slow."
Riley grunted and grimaced, keeping his focus on getting out rather than a witty reply.
"Almost there," Abby whimpered urgently. "Come on, come to Mama."
The list's download bar reached its end just as the upload to the Xīn Yuè completed.
A deafening alarm sounded in the Vault, startling Riley and McGee and prompting both of them to rush even more than they were in their damaged states. McGee nearly picked Riley up completely to try to move faster towards the door. They only had a few yards left as the alarm sounded a second time, then a third. With only a few feet between them and the set of double doors, McGee pushed Riley ahead towards the left door as the fourth alarm rang. The door unlatched, and Riley pushed through with McGee right behind him as the fifth alarm sounded.
In a flash, the RDX primer cords detonated at over 20 times the average speed of a 9mm bullet. The blazing thermal reactions ravenously consumed the cables throughout the server racks, igniting the dollops of C4 they passed through. With seemingly no delay between any of them, the multiple hundreds of server racks exploded in a concussive and blistering blast of plastic, silicone, and metal shrapnel.
McGee pulled Riley down to the ground as they fell behind the closed right door. A few fragments of shrapnel just barely made it through the opening before the left door closed, but the din of the explosion and the debris thundering against the doors and walls left the two covering their heads with their arms regardless of how painful the position might have been.
Gibbs' gut sank as he heard the explosion and saw a fiery wave of debris launch across the hallway through the opening. He had no way of knowing if McGee or Riley made it out. Across the hallway, Tony's eyes were wide with terror and worry for his teammates. As the blast subsided, the unmistakable sound of a helicopter landing and nearby sirens rushed through from the outside. Keeping his hand up for Tony to stay in position, Gibbs quickly slid out of cover and over to the breach to investigate.
McGee and Riley panted painfully on the floor. Riley was on his left side facing McGee, who was clutching his shoulder again. McGee looked into Riley's eyes and smiled.
"It worked," McGee breathed. "Abby and Cal got in. They got the list."
Even with his face drained of color and twisted by pain, Riley's eyes lit up brightly, his open mouth curved to a smile. He laughed brokenly and rolled into McGee's chest, then started laughing happily. His laughs turned to pained coughs and a thick glob of blood trickled out of his mouth, but he wiped it away with his hand before McGee could see.
"Thank fucking god," he wheezed, then smiled. "So… can I buy you a drink?"
McGee smiled wearily and nodded, though not without showing his concern when seeing the blood in Riley's mouth. "As soon as we're out of here, yes please. A big one. But you know, I think I have to agree with Tony on this one. This was not a good make-up date."
Riley paused as he read McGee's tone, then grinned and broke into another hearty laugh. His laugh was interrupted by another bout of coughing, and he pulled his arm against the right side of his chest but looked back up at McGee with a smart smile. "Well… w-well I'm sorry!" he laughed sarcastically. "Maybe you'd prefer flowers and a-a movie or something instead?!"
McGee grinned and squeezed Riley's hand, then nodded. "That sounds like a good place to start. And no more tiny air mattresses for a long time."
"Ugh," Riley groaned. "My own bed, yesss…" he slurred and rolled back down into McGee.
McGee's smile dropped. "Riley?" he shook Riley gently. "Come on, stay awake, we still have to get out and there are still people coming."
Riley slipped his eyes open and nodded. "I know," he replied weakly. "Just need a second."
McGee tried to smile comfortingly, but inside he knew Riley was fading quickly. He sat himself up, then pulled Riley up with him to a sitting position against the wall. Riley hissed in pain, but not as harshly as before. McGee wondered if that was because the pain was easing, or because Riley had lost so much blood.
"Come on, let's try to get to the others," he nudged Riley back up, but his eyes widened when Riley didn't easily budge. "Riley, come on, don't go to sleep."
Riley grunted lightly but didn't move.
McGee panicked and tried holding Riley up. "Riley please, come on! Stay with me!"
Footsteps thundered down the hall towards them. McGee's heart raced as he held Riley in a vulnerable position on the floor. He found the Glock 18 in his belt and raised it towards the end of the hallway, but then his earpiece crackled to life.
"McGee?!" Gibbs called out.
"GIBBS!" McGee screamed into his mic. "Come quick, we're just outside the front of the Vault. Riley's hurt, bad!"
"Standby," Gibbs ordered.
The heavy footsteps grew closer and faster until a squad of uniformed, armed Marines rounded the corner followed closely by Gibbs, who pushed his way past them. McGee gasped gratefully and lowered his weapon as Gibbs rushed over. Gibbs gently eased Riley off of McGee as the Marines cleared the rest of the hallways. The cold floor felt like it was freezing against McGee's sweaty palms.
Gibbs looked seriously at McGee. "What happened to him?"
McGee gulped before being able to form the words. "He was hit in the leg and he's been bleeding a lot. And he took two in the chest and he's been coughing up blood."
"Sergeant!" Gibbs barked, "Need a medic and a stretcher here, now!"
One of the soldiers nodded and radioed in the request, then two others descended on Riley, shoving Gibbs and McGee out of the way.
"What about you?" Gibbs asked as he pulled McGee off to the side.
McGee nodded down to his shoulder. "Just got grazed. It's not bad." He watched as the Marines removed Riley's weapons and vest, then cut away a blood-soaked patch of his pants just below where McGee's belt acted as a tourniquet.
"What about the auction?" Gibbs continued.
McGee didn't answer. He couldn't look away from Riley's limp form. Gibbs' voice and the voices of the Marines trying to speak to Riley became distant and echoed. Riley's pale face just barely moved on its own after an oxygen mask was put on, which brought a small spark of hope to McGee, but his mind began going blank to everything else but Riley's condition. He was startled by Gibbs forcing him to face towards him.
"McGee!" Gibbs snapped. "He will be fine, but I need you here and now."
McGee blinked back the clouds from his eyes and took a deep breath, then nodded readily.
"The auction," Gibbs repeated.
"We… um…" McGee stammered, trying to remember. "We didn't get the virus, but Abby and Cal got in after it ended and started downloading the Operative List before Riley and I ran."
Gibbs frowned. "Someone else knew we ran the auction early?"
McGee nodded. "Yes. The NSA and… some Chinese group. I don't know who they were, but they put in the last bid. They were called the X-I-N something. So much was happening."
"It's okay," Gibbs replied. "I'll try to reach Abby now that the jammer's offline."
Paramedics rushed around the corner with a stretcher and were let through by the Marines. They gently picked Riley up and moved the stretcher under him, then laid him down, and carried him out. McGee didn't even ask Gibbs' permission to follow, but Gibbs kept with him as they sprinted down the long hallway to the rear of the building. The sprinklers and alarms had finally been turned off by the fire crews making their way through the building, though there was enough water on the floor to create a small splash with each step.
McGee had only seen the hole that was blasted into the building just after it had happened. He was unprepared for the scattered bodies of OMNI Operatives that had failed to get passed his team, but his stomach stayed strong as he continued outside. Bright lights illuminated the rear delivery lot, including strobe lights from police cars and ambulances. On the grass behind the lot, a large CH-46 Navy transport helicopter was parked with its rear door open to the ground. McGee was glad for whatever strings Shepard had pulled to get backup out there so quickly, but also made a mental note to look into the drone strike when he had the chance.
To his right, he saw Ziva sitting in an ambulance with a paramedic work on her neck, while Tony gingerly removed his bulletproof vest. Ziva noticed McGee and quickly whispered to Tony to get him to look as well. They both looked relieved to see McGee, but worried to see who they assumed was Riley on the stretcher. Overhead, a local news helicopter approached to film the incident. The paramedics loaded Riley into a waiting ambulance, and McGee jumped in before either of the two could stop him.
Gibbs halted outside and called to him, "Wait for us there. I'll send Fornell to keep you under guard."
McGee nodded, then the ambulance doors closed. He looked bleakly down at Riley and gently squeezed his hand as the ambulance drove away.