"Fornell, you are a…" Tony stopped and censored himself. "Jerk," he finished lamely. It wasn't what he wanted to say, but he used all the halfway polite and most of the impolite epithets he could think of on the way back to the NCIS building. He was down to the just plain foul now. He glared at the man standing impassively before him and picked up another aspirin off his desk, crunching it down dry. "Couldn't you at least have brought me coffee?"
Fornell gave a smirk and Tony itched to slug it off his face. "Sorry, Agent DiNozzo. I've forgotten how you take your coffee."
"Oh, bullshit, Fornell. You probably know how my last girlfriend took her coffee."
"Black, two sugars," Fornell tossed out, casually, then continued on. "So are you ready to listen to me now?"
"You just had someone using me for target practice on a DC street!" Tony was incredulous. "Why the… you know what? Never mind. You're not going to be happy until you tell me what's on you're mind, so go ahead." He made an expansive gesture with his right hand while still cradling his head in his left.
"Your problem, DiNozzo, is you don't know when to leave well enough alone. You and Gibbs, both, need to stop digging around in this mess and walk away. There are people already handling this, people far better placed than you right now."
"And what precisely is 'this', anyway?" Tony sat up slightly, wondering if the gunfire he'd heard his boss being treated to was related to his own.
"Fine question, Tony. Fornell, don't you think it's time you stopped pussy-footing around the whole situation and started answering some real questions?" Gibbs blew by the two men and slammed his gun into his desk drawer.
"Gibbs! What the hell happened out there? Where's McGee?" Tony dismissed Fornell momentarily to focus on his dusty and furious leader.
"Our farmhouse turned out to be a shooting gallery. With us as the targets. I'm more interested in what's going on here. Why weren't you out at my crime scene, DiNozzo, and what's Bozo the Clown doing hanging around?"
"Oh, now, Jethro. That's not very nice. After everything I've told you?" he finished his coffee and pitched the cup in Tony's trash.
"You haven't told me much of anything, Tobias. Perhaps you'd like to start with what you know about those shooters out there today?" Gibbs' voice had a dangerous edge to it.
"Why should I know anything about your shooters?" Fornell returned calmly.
"Let's just say I don't trust you. So out with it. Whose job was it to play clay pigeons with us? And was injuring McGee part of the deal or not?" Gibbs' voice became icy as he stared down the FBI Agent.
Fornell said nothing, his expression blank.
"Damn, Gibbs? Is he going to be okay?" Tony's shocked voice cut through the tension. Then he rounded Fornell.
"What the hell is it with you? You get off on playing with people's lives or something? It's not enough that Kate's dead, now McGee has to get shot, too?"
The older man backed up a step with his hands half-raised in surrender against Tony's fury.
Gibbs, observing all of this, stepped in verbally. "Easy, Tony. McGee didn't get shot. He took a piece of flying rock to the side of his head."
"Still, this isn't right—"
"No, it's not, DiNozzo, but McGee is going to be fine and that's what's important. As for you," Gibbs shifted his gaze to the other man, still holding his 'Who me?' posture. "Don't give me that innocent crap, Fornell. I want answers now!"
"Say, Boss, forget him," Tony snarled while looking at Fornell, then turned and gave Gibbs a conspiratorial grin and continued. "I bet I know where we can get some answers. I think I found a link between Purcell and Ketterer. Think Leah would take a phone call from you?" Tony gave Fornell a smug look. Fornell returned it with an enigmatic smile of his own.
"Miss Hecht is out of the country, I'm afraid. She's on a special assignment. Favor to an old friend."
Forty-five minutes later Gibbs hung up the phone, in frustration. He'd contacted the only link he had for Leah, a name Tony had found for him – Jack Lawrence, a Denver attorney.
But the first words out of Jack's mouth after Gibbs identified himself sent a shiver down Gibbs' spine.
"Agent Gibbs! Good to finally hear from you. How's Leah?"
It took several minutes for the two men to straighten out the story. According to Jack, Leah worked for him as his private investigator and had been since she left DC.
Then two months ago she received a phone call from an old friend. Leah hadn't said who, but Jack had assumed it was Gibbs. Leah said she needed to do some work for this friend and asked for some time off. She'd be going undercover again and there'd be no way to reach her.
When Gibbs called looking for her, Jack began to sound worried. If Gibbs hadn't called her, then who had? Gibbs assured the attorney that he'd look into the matter. In the meantime, he extracted the man's promise to notify him if Leah contacted him for any reason.
As he finished the call, he noticed that Fornell and Tony were having something of a staring contest. Actually, Tony's was more of a glare and Fornell's more of a smirk. Enough with this shit, he thought.
"Where's Leah?" Gibbs' question brought Fornell's head around.
"I don't know if I can tell you that." The words were mild, accompanied by a shrug.
"Dammit, quit jerking me around! Where is she, Tobias?" Gibbs slammed his hand down on the desk.
"Gibbs," Fornell shook his head warningly.
"All right, Fornell. I want answers. Not just half-truths, either. Cards on the table. Or I shoot your ass." Gibbs walked over and leaned against Kate's desk, never taking his eyes from the man who seemed to hold all the answers.
"Jethro…" the other man began slowly.
"No more excuses. Spill it all, now. Or I throw you in a holding cell for obstruction of an NCIS investigation." Gibbs voice was deceptively mild, only a hint of steel running through it.
"You'll never get away with it."
"Try me."
"Jethro, I can't," Fornell stood, palms up in supplication.
"DiNozzo, cuff him."
"You'd really do this?" Fornell was twisted around as Tony took great delight in securing one cuff on the man's wrist.
"Look at that, Fornell. Sterling silver bracelets, just for you." The younger man grinned as he spoke.
"Oh, don't be vulgar, DiNozzo. You and I both know he'll never make this stick."
"Damn you, Tobias! Just talk to me!" Gibbs turned his back on his sometimes friend and rested his hands on the desk of his fallen agent.
"All right, all right. But not here. Our usual conference room?"
"No." Gibbs turned around and looked him in the eye. "Interrogation."
The Observation room was eerily quiet. The cameras were still, the recording equipment silent – Fornell had been adamant about that. The room itself was empty, Special Agent DiNozzo ensuring the two men's privacy by standing guard in the hall outside.
"Let's have it." Gibbs sat calmly across the table from Fornell in Interrogation Room One.
"You already know some of it," the other man hedged.
Gibbs simply beckoned with his hand, as if he could pull the words forth from the recalcitrant lips. "Start at the beginning."
Sighing, Fornell began slowly. "The Al-Qaeda cell that you thought you wiped out when Kate died is actually more complex than just those few terrorists. CIA's been watching them for quite a while. Unfortunately, there's been a couple of CIA operatives with questionable ethics and motives involved. I believe you know them?"
"Ketterer and Purcell," Gibbs stated flatly.
"Mm. Yes. Well, in an unprecedented move, someone at the CIA turned to someone at the FBI for help."
"You're joking."
Fornell spread his hands. "I'm only telling you what I know. I'm not really part of this. They wanted some help with the domestic end of things. We put a man in place several months ago with the right background to attract some attention. Unfortunately for us, he's disappeared and we haven't heard anything from him since."
"Michaelson's dead, Tobias." He said it quietly, sure now that this was all tied together.
"Ah… damn. How, Jethro?" Fornell rarely showed emotion, and now was no exception, but Gibbs could detect the genuine sorrow underlying the words.
"Ducky will have some answers for us in a little while. What was Michaelson's job?"
"For us? To infiltrate the cell and gather intelligence, of course. His cover was as a missile specialist. Our latest intel said that Al-Qaeda was planning on using our own military against us." Fornell rested his head on one hand as if he were tired of the process already.
"So you gave them a weak man, some one easily seduced. Hoping they would try to make a double agent out of the man? Or were you just hoping they would kidnap him? And while they were busy supposedly bleeding him dry of information did you think you'd gain some of your own? God, you people are a bunch of cold bastards!" Gibbs snorted in derision and drained his coffee.
"Dammit, this wasn't my plan!" I told you, I wasn't involved in this!" Standing suddenly, he paced away from the table. "This whole thing is a mess. There are dangerous men being smuggled into this country as diplomats with forged papers, brining God knows what with them in diplomatic pouches. We suspect there are expert forgers in this country helping out the effort. The documents they're creating are so good that even the governments of the other countries involved are having a tough time telling the false papers from the authentic ones."
Fornell turned back to Gibbs and continued. "We have a credible threat to the military, but we're unsure how they plan to execute it. At first, we thought they might simply try and slip a substitute in for Michaelson, but that hasn't happened.
"We've been all over these 'suspicious' diplomats from the minute they enter the country, but there are several countries involved and many of the men and women never leave the embassies during their stay here. Of course we check out the couriers and visitors to those embassies, but there aren't enough hours in the day to keep track of that many people." He sighed as he sat down in front of his questioner. "You want answers? Frankly, so do we, Gibbs. Who the hell did you light a fire under? We haven't made anyone that mad and we've been investigating this thing for months!"
Gibbs smiled. "Tobias, even if I knew who I'd pissed off, I'm not sure I'd tell you."
The FBI agent gave a half-smile and looked away. His questioner recaptured his attention one last time.
"Tell me about Leah, Tobias."
"I don't know. I don't even know for sure who pulled her in on this." Fornell sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "I ran across her name in some paperwork. She's been tasked as an undercover operative working overseas. That's all I know." He hesitated and Gibbs pounced on it.
"Out with it!" he growled, leaning forward.
"The code name for her particular op is Scarlet."