DISCLAIMER:- I do not own NCIS or its characters and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N:- As always, thank you for your support of my story. Special thanks to those of you who review anonymously or are just happy to read along silently in the background - I can't thank you personally but I'm very grateful. I hope you enjoy the next chapter. L
Chapter 5
Although it was after midnight, Ducky and Palmer had stayed to keep the Goth forensic scientist company until they had news on Tony and McGee's whereabouts.
Gibbs entered the lab with a Caff-Pow in one hand and an ever-present coffee in the other. Nodding a greeting at the ME and his assistant, Gibbs baulked slightly at the sight of two upturned polishing mops wearing the faces of his missing agents.
"Whatcha got Abs?" he said.
"I'm still running the facial recognition program for Mr Slick in his two thousand dollar suit. I can't tell you who he is – yet - but I can tell you what he's not," Abby replied. "I can tell you he's not, nor has he ever been in the Armed Forces or Police Department and he does not have a criminal record. I'm running the DMV records now but that's gonna take a while."
"Jethro, Director Vance has already told you that Anthony and Timothy are expected back by 0330," Ducky said. "I'm not sure I understand why you are so determined to locate them when they are just as likely to be back before you get your answers?"
"Two reasons, Duck," Gibbs replied. "One - the Director went to a lot of trouble to keep me from finding out about what he called a routine assignment. Two – since when did a routine assignment require DiNozzo to check out half of our armoury? He's got them into something dangerous and I want to make sure someone's got their backs."
The glass sliding doors slid open as Ziva entered the lab.
"You have something?" Gibbs asked her.
"Agent Balboa has just returned from a crime scene. He said that Tony and McGee were called to the Director's office at about 1330. He does not know why. Later he saw them walk into MTAC at about 1430 and leave again at approximately 1845. They were dressed in black clothing and Tony was carrying a rifle," Ziva reported.
"Anything else?"
"Yes, Director Vance is still in his office. He appears to be waiting for their return."
"Routine assignment, my ass," Gibbs muttered as a high-pitched chiming sounded from behind him.
"Ooh, my baby's calling," Abby said, retrieving a photo from the printer of one of her computers. "I've been trying to enhance the photo of the partial licence plate of the SUV that came for Tony and McGee."
She looked at the photo and then worried her lower lip with her teeth. "You're not gonna like this Gibbs," she said. "The plates are registered to the US Government."
"Can we trace the department?" Gibbs asked Abby who was already typing into her computer.
"Department of Defence," she replied.
"Abs, narrow your facial recognition search to people who work at the Pentagon," Gibbs instructed.
"How many people work at the Pentagon?" Ziva asked.
"About 10 percent!" chirped Jimmy, grinning proudly at his own joke until he felt the unamused gazes of the others and his face flushed with colour. "I mean…er…about thirty thousand."
"Good Lord, Jethro, what on earth has the Director got these boys into?" Ducky asked.
"Don't know, Duck, but I intend to find out," Gibbs snarled striding purposefully out of the lab.
--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo--
Moving before he even realised, Tony turned his back to the window, hurdled the couch and ran full-tilt at McGee who had just entered the living room with his Sig Sauer held in his favoured left hand.
"Move, McGee, move, move!" Tony screamed shoving the younger man forcefully toward the back door.
Had the situation not been so dire, the scene would have been comical. McGee was totally stunned by Tony's urgent almost panicked warning, causing him to stumble and trip over the ottoman before falling heavily against the coffee table. Bouncing quickly to his feet but still unbalanced, he crashed into a bookshelf upsetting a stack of precariously piled books before Tony's hands once again made contact with him and threw him bodily towards the door.
The room behind them exploded in a flash of blinding light and a deafening roar, sending the agents tumbling down the back steps. Tony vaulted over the top of McGee and bounded to his feet in one rolling motion, his Sig ready in one hand and his spare handgun in the other. Crouched ready for action his eyes darted anxiously from one side of the house to the other, searching for signs of danger, his backpack and the rifle were slung around either shoulder.
"McGee," he hissed urgently. "Head for the woods. I'll cover you. Go!"
McGee climbed to his feet and staggered slightly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. Quickly regaining his equilibrium, he ran as fast as he could for the cover of the trees, looking back to ensure Tony was following several yards behind. Reaching the tree line, they ran deeper into the woods; tripping and stumbling over exposed tree roots and fallen branches and feeling the thorns and brambles tearing at their clothes, hair and skin.
They ran for another few minutes before they stopped to get their bearings and to listen for sounds of pursuit. They leaned heavily against the rough bark of a large tree, their chests heaving and their breath visible in the frigid air. Even in the darkness, Tony could see a stream of blood flowing down the side of McGee's face.
"Probie? You okay?" he whispered, noting with relief that the head wound was a small superficial cut.
"Yeah," McGee replied. "It's nothing, I'm fine. What the heck was that, a flash bang?"
"No, a concussion grenade, we're lucky we got out in time or we'd both have huge headaches right now."
"For the record," McGee quipped, "I'd just like to say that I thought my reflexes back there were cat-like."
The image of McGee stumbling, tripping and crashing into the living room furniture flashed through Tony's mind and despite their dangerous situation, he couldn't help the grin that formed on his face.
"Cat-like? Lucky for you the door was open or there'd be a McGoo shaped hole in the wall right now."
Tony's body tensed suddenly and he gestured for McGee to be quiet. McGee's heart pounded furiously but he relaxed a little once he saw Tony's sheepish grin.
"Did you hear something?" McGee whispered.
"It's okay," came Tony's hushed replied. "It's just some kind of bird."
"Oh, actually, that was the night call of a honey-eating wood wren," McGee informed him.
"Wha...it's the what?"
"The scout troop and I often go bird watching – it's fascinating."
"McGee, as acting Team Leader I order you to get a life," Tony said, his lips twitching slightly. "How come being a scout leader taught you the night call of some honey-eating wren but you still don't know what poison ivy looks like?"
At a loss for a suitable reply, McGee surreptitiously checked the vegetation around him, realising he had completely forgotten about his previous painful encounters with the noxious weed.
They remained quiet for a few moments, still listening for signs that they were being followed. Tony's expression turned serious.
"Tell me you still have the hard drive," he said.
McGee lifted the hard drive in his right hand. "You mean this?"
"Good job, Probie," Tony whispered. "Still got your backpack?"
"I couldn't get to it," he replied. "Sorry."
Tony schooled his features and bit back a curse, knowing they had just lost half of their ammunition and supplies.
"Don't worry about it," he said taking the hard drive and placing it into his own backpack. "How many clips do you have?"
McGee checked his pockets, revealing three clips and his PDA. "One for my spare and two for the Sig," he said.
Tony nodded. "Make sure that PDA is off and preserve your ammo, don't shoot unless you're sure you can take someone out," Tony told him.
"I can't see anything! How do I know what I'm shooting at?"
"Here," Tony said passing his night vision goggles to McGee. "Put these on."
"What about you?"
"Don't argue, McGee, just do it," Tony snapped, trying to give the younger agent every advantage.
"Who do you think they are?"
"I've got a pretty good idea but I'm sure I know what they want," Tony replied.
"The data on the hard drive? How'd they know it was here?"
That was the million-dollar question and right now, Tony prayed that the hollow feeling in his gut was from missing lunch and dinner and not a silent warning that he had, once again, been set up by his superiors. Not wanting to alarm McGee until he knew for certain, Tony replied with a shrug.
"Maybe Khalil had someone watching his place while he was gone or maybe we set off some sort of auxiliary silent alarm."
"We disarmed the security system according to the schematics and blueprints," McGee said.
"Undercover 101, Probie," Tony said, "Do your own intel."
McGee nodded his head, understanding now why Tony had been so furious earlier, when told that there wasn't enough time for him to do his own intel.
"What do you want to do?" McGee asked in deference to Tony's seniority and greater experience in such situations.
"We go back. We stick to the tree line, circle the house and get to the car," Tony said checking his watch. "We've got an hour to get the car and drive to the airfield before we lose our ride home."
"And if that happens?" McGee asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
"We find our own way home," Tony replied.
--oo00oo--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—
Gibbs took the stairs to the Director's office two at a time ignoring the protests from his bad knee and finding that he ran out of stairs before he ran out of temper. As the outer office was empty, he barged through the door without pausing to knock. Expecting to find Vance seated behind the large oaken desk attending to piles of paperwork, he was surprised to find the desktop clean and the Director pacing anxiously on the other side of the office.
"Anything I can help you with, Gibbs?" Vance answered curtly.
"You can start by telling me what the DOD wants with my agents."
"You had to do it, didn't you?" Vance snarled. "I ordered you to leave it alone and you had to keep digging. Like I told you before, this is 'need to know' and you don't."
"The hell I don't!" Gibbs spat. "You sent two of my agents on an assignment without consulting me!"
"This may come as a shock to you, Gibbs, but as Director of this agency, DiNozzo and McGee are my agents and I don't have to consult you about squat!"
Both men stood nose-to-nose, eyes flint-hard and struggling to control their fury. Without breaking his intense gaze Gibbs spoke in a voice fighting to remain calm.
"Where are my agents?"
Vance looked at his watch. "They should be on their way to catch the transport home."
"Should be? When was their last communication?"
Vance's eyes flicked away for a split second before returning to meet Gibbs' furious glare.
"Their orders are to communicate with someone else and only in a dire emergency."
"You sent two of our agents on a dangerous assignment and handed over control to someone else?" Gibbs said. "Why would you agree to that?"
"I had my orders too, Gibbs," Vance snapped defensively, "but unlike you, I follow mine."
"If they're injured or killed, Leon, I hope the fact that you were following orders will help you sleep nights," Gibbs didn't wait for an answer and strode from the office, closing the door forcefully behind him.
Vance ran his hands over his face and scrubbed his tired eyes before snatching his cell and dialling a number. As the call diverted to voicemail, he cursed vehemently then left his fourth message in 30 minutes.
"Brady, this is Vance. You were supposed to keep me apprised of the progress of this assignment. Those are my agents and I want an update, now! You have the number, I'll be waiting."
Despite his resentment of Gibbs' belligerent attitude, he couldn't help but feel that the Lead Agent was right. There was much more going on here than SecNav or Brady had told him and despite his "need to know" and "following orders" mantra, the simple fact was that he had authorised the use of two of his agents in an operation he knew very little about.
Taking a leaf from Gibbs' book he decided to find out for himself, he resumed his seat at his desk and switched on his computer. He took a deep breath and used his password and fingerprint to access a highly classified site. If he was right, he knew he had a limited time to access the information he sought before the agencies who had flagged the name, started asking questions.
He was defying orders but it was those same orders that had placed two of his agents in jeopardy without back-up. Gibbs' words reverberated in his mind, 'if they're injured or killed, Leon, I hope the fact that you were following orders will help you sleep nights.' Taking another deep breath he typed the name – Mehmood Khalil.
--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—
McGee and Tony continued to backtrack towards the house, stepping cautiously and stopping every few feet to determine whether their position had been detected. They knew that Tony had effectively disposed of three of the six men pursuing them and were quietly confident of the odds of two against three. Holding their position in the woods, they could now hear the muted voices of the three men searching the woods for them with large halogen flashlights.
Once they broke the cover of the tree line they would have to run fifty yards in the open to get to their car. Tony turned his back to the house to face McGee and spoke quietly.
"You ready, Probie?" he asked. "On my count you run like hell to the car and don't look back. I'll lay down cover fire if you need it and I'll be right behind you."
"Wait!" McGee protested. "Why don't you run and I'll lay down cover?"
"No offence McGee but I'm a better shot and I'm faster than you."
"I don't know, Tony. I think this is too risky. I'm...Tony."
"No, me Tony - you P-r-o-b-i-e," Tony whispered drawing out the nickname. "You must have hit your head harder than I thought."
"No, I mean – Tony, turn around, we've got more company!" McGee gestured to the front of the house with a nod of his head.
Tony turned back towards the house and cursed as he saw another dark SUV stop just outside the large gates of the property.
"You think that's back-up?" McGee whispered hopefully.
"I'm sure of it," Tony answered. "But it's their back-up, not ours."
--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—
Tobias Fornell sat back on his haunches and wiped his hands on well-worn overalls. He sighed appreciatively at the various machine parts spread on the drop sheet beneath him. 'Yep, she's really coming together,' he thought.
His appraisal of his work was abruptly interrupted by a loud knock on his front door.
Fornell checked his watch and saw that it was 0140 – this was definitely not a social call. Still wiping the grease from his hands he reached for his handgun and pressed himself against the door as he peered through the peephole.
"You shoot me through the door, Tobias, you'll make me spill your coffee," came the voice of his visitor.
Fornell rolled his eyes, turned the deadlock, opened the door and was immediately handed a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
"Dammit, Gibbs, do you know what time it is?" Fornell growled. "Even Dianne doesn't come by this late when my alimony's late and she's out for my blood."
They walked into the living room, stepping over the tools and machine parts that were strewn across the drop sheet.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Fornell asked, gesturing for Gibbs to take a seat on the couch.
Gibbs removed a photograph from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to Fornell.
"You know this guy?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," Fornell replied. "Name's Jason Brady, he's Senior Flunky to the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence. What's NCIS want with him?"
"The question is what does he want with NCIS?"
Fornell's brow furrowed in confusion, "He came to you?"
"He came to Vance, who sent me on some idiot detour while he enlisted two of my people on some highly classified, 'need to know' assignment," Gibbs replied tersely.
"Let me guess, he told you that you don't need to know and now you want me to help you find out what's going on?" Fornell replied.
Gibbs' intense stare was answer enough.
"You do realise I'm on vacation?" Fornell asked.
Gibbs gave an unconcerned shrug of his shoulders.
"I can tell you this, Jethro, Brady's a snake in the grass," Fornell warned him. "He's definitely the brains in that partnership and he'd step on his own grandmother to further his career."
"You saying I should be worried?"
"When Brady's involved?" Fornell replied. "Always."
Gibbs took a final gulp of his coffee and walked to the kitchen to dispose of the cup. On returning to the living room, he surveyed the chassis of the old motorbike and the various machine parts scattered carefully on the drop sheet.
"It's looking good," he said.
"She's gonna be a beauty when I'm done," Fornell replied. "A 1923 Harley-Davidson HT. Found on the scrap heap and then lovingly restored."
"Have you ever even ridden a motorbike, Tobias?" Gibbs taunted.
"It's not in the riding, Gibbs, it's in the building – you been sailing lately?" he replied with a grin.
Gibbs huffed out a laugh and was almost at the door before he stopped and turned to look at his old friend.
"Should I ask why you're building a motorcycle in the middle of your living room?"
This time Fornell shrugged, "Because I haven't got a basement."
The corners of Gibbs' mouth twitch in a small smile. "Good enough," he said and without another word, he let himself out.
--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—
Tony and McGee watched from the relative safety of their position among the trees as three men climbed from the SUV, drew their weapons and headed for the house. They stopped along the way to check the bodies of the three men Tony had killed, for signs of life.
As they disappeared from sight, it appeared as though they were all going to enter the house from the front and McGee was ready to make a break for the car.
"Come on!" he whispered to Tony. "Now's our chance."
As he started to move forward, Tony grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back.
"Wait!" he hissed and as McGee struggled against his hold, two armed men rounded the corner of the house. McGee's mouth dropped open slightly as he realised that, had they broken cover, he and Tony would have been caught in the open and more than likely killed.
"How'd you know they'd split up?" McGee asked quietly.
"That's what I would have done," Tony explained.
Two men circled the house while the third entered and checked the rooms and the basement. Satisfied that there was no-one in the house they met on the back lawn speaking in Urdu and gesticulating wildly toward the trees. A fourth man ran from the woods to join their discussion.
Tony turned to McGee. "Probie, there's two more in the woods looking for us. Use the night vision goggles and see if you can spot where they are."
McGee nodded and watched as Tony removed the night vision sight from the rifle and held it to one eye to get a clearer view of the four men. He couldn't understand the language but he recognised the furious tones and saw from their hand signals that the men were preparing to split up and join the search for them. Cut off from the car, they had no choice but to head further into the woods.
"Probie, where are the others?" he asked.
"One of them is about 200 yards to our right and moving further into the woods."
McGee whispered.
"What about the other one?"
"I can't find him," McGee answered.
"Keep looking, Probie, we don't want to run into him."
Tony turned back to the four men, who were checking their ammunition and the flashlights as they prepared to enter the woods. His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the man doing most of the talking. A vague feeling of recollection washed over him as he tried to remember where he had seen this man before.
He could hear McGee moving quietly behind him, still searching for the position of the second pursuer. Tony felt another painful clenching of his gut and turned quickly to check on his partner. The younger agent was standing about 15 feet from him, still peering deeper into the woods. Rolling his eyes and embarrassed by his sudden rush of panic, Tony started to turn back to his position when something fell to the ground between them with a disquieting thump. There was no time for Tony to call out a warning as the concussion grenade detonated and his world exploded to white and then black.
--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—
Still watching the live feed in a secure room within the Pentagon, the Under Secretary leapt to his feet in alarm as the terrorists dragged the seemingly lifeless bodies of the two agents into the clearing.
"God dammit!!" he yelled. "You idiot!! Do you realise what you've done? We are now complicit in the death of those two agents! I should have never listened to you!"
"Sir, you have to calm down," Brady said.
"Calm down? This whole thing was supposed to boost my standing in the eyes of the Secretary of Defence and the President and secure our jobs. In stead you've just ended both of our careers."
"With all due respect, sir, we don't know that they are dead," Brady said. "However, I do agree that we are in way over our heads here."
"Our intel said that Khalil had just formed this sleeper cell and that they were just kids!" the Under Secretary seethed. "We were supposed to be dealing with half a dozen, pimply-faced 19 to 20 year olds with handguns. These were heavily armed and highly trained terrorists!"
"It appears our intel was wrong, Sir."
"Tell me, Brady, can you see a way of salvaging this situation politically?"
"No, Sir, I don't," Brady replied. "Whether those agents are dead or alive, I'm afraid there will be a very public inquiry. The President will either summarily dismiss us or we'll be forced to resign. Either way, we'll be brought up on charges."
"Then I suggest you take my advice, Brady," the Under Secretary said.
"Sir?"
"Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in a Federal penitentiary, clean out your bank accounts, grab your passport and be on the first plane."
--oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo—oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--oo00oo--
A/N: For the purpose of the story, I have used a little "license" with regard to the usage of the concussion grenades. These are anti-personnel devices designed to damage their target with explosive power alone rather than shrapnel and are most effective in confined or enclosed spaces – not the outdoors. Apologies to grenade lovers, everywhere. L