A/N: I'm posting tag #5 to the Bone Yard in the last hour of 2020 as we, along with NZ, are among the first nations to herald in 2021. Like everyone else around the world we're hoping the new year will be a much better one for all. Heartfelt thanks to all the essential services workers who risked their own lives this year to protect other people. Stay safe everyone and have a happy new year.
Series: There's Always Tom Morrow (Series Two)
Title: Giving Them The Finger
Episode: The Boneyard
Characters: Tom Morrow, Anthony DiNozzo, Caitlin Todd, Timothy McGee, Ric Balboa, OC Roz Goldstein.
Special Agent Tony DiNozzo stared at the director, staggered by his statement and immediately deciding that he must have imagined it. Shaking his head silently as if to try to clear it, he said, "My bad, Director. I don't think I heard you correctly. Could you repeat what you said…and maybe speak more slowly?"
Tom Morrow grinned evilly. Enunciating slowly, he said, "The Secretary of Defense has seconded Special Agent Gibbs to Army CID for the next six months working with Gunnery Sargent, John Alan DeLuca as an NCIS liaison and then assigned for a further six-month stretch to work with AFOIS as the NCIS liaison, effective immediately."
Okay, that was what he thought the director had said but it was far too phantasmagorical for him to have believed it the first time. Hell - Tony didn't believe it the second time around either. Maybe he had a concussion, and this was some kind of totally freaky hallucination. Either that or he was dreaming! Yep, that's what was going on…a dream made perfect sense.
Chuckling sardonically, the director leaned forward and asked, "Would it help if I pinched you, Special Agent DiNozzo?"
Tony, who'd been reaching for a glass of water to sip started to choke when Tom made his kindly offer, noting that the young investigator looked as if he thought he was losing his mind. Looking at the director quizzically, DiNozzo wondered if he'd spoken his thoughts out loud. An even more disturbing prospect was that Morrow been replaced by some freaky mind-reading alien who was intent on taking over the earth. Normally, Tony wasn't exactly into SciFi scenarios but if Morrow was an evil alien clone who could read minds, then he reasoned that by definition it wasn't science fiction – it was science fact!
There was another explanation that belatedly occurred to him, albeit an extremely unpalatable one. He was losing his mind; this was in effect some sort of break with reality. After all, there was a family history of mental instability, he reminded himself. His uncle had become convinced he was one of the mole people who inhabited golf courses – who knew, right? If that wasn't bad enough, both his parents were alcoholics plus, his mother was addicted to antidepressants… so it did make sense that he was going mad, he reasoned. The only trouble was though that he couldn't decide if being stark raving mad was a more, or a less palatable option than a mind-reading alien creature from outer space taking over NCIS.
Honestly, the thought of going crazy was something that filled DiNozzo with bowel-loosening terror, since it would ultimately mean that he'd lost control. Being out of control was a state he was desperate to avoid at all cost since he had an irrational fear of being seen by friends and workmates alike as being weak. And wasn't going crazy the absolute epitome of weakness?
Having an abusive father when he was a kid, who was constantly reiterated his theories that DiNozzo's didn't cry, didn't pass out since that would make them weak and pathetic certainly helped shape his attitudes about being in control. Plus, working with Gibbs who snarled, and head slapped him if he apologised (because saying sorry according to his boss was a sign of weakness) probably wasn't all that helpful either. Not unless it was intended to fuel his over-the-top irrational fear of being seen as feeble of mind/and or character, in which case – mission accomplished.
Even feeling the director giving him a short sharp pinch on the hand wasn't truly enough proof to convince Tony that he wasn't: a) imagining things b) dreaming c) hallucinating or d) all the above. However, experiencing the pain did cause him to speculate if there might be a final option to consider – that this little tête-à-tête was the real thing!
Sighing patiently, realising DiNozzo need a few minutes to get his head around the situation, Morrow flicked on his office intercom, telling his Personal Assistant, "Please have Special Agent Balboa come up to my office if he's not too busy, Cynthia."
As they waited, Tony thought about the last case that they'd just wrapped up last night (the one which had seemingly caused this massive blowback) before they'd been directed to work on cold cases today. Tony had been instructed to supervise the other team members as Gibbs was kept busy with meetings with the director and what the scuttlebutt had deemed to be a bunch of suits from the FBI. Tony was reliably informed by a trusted source that one of the Fibbies was none other than the Assistant Director Doug Kerns; a real bastard, according to anyone who had the misfortune to work for him. The bullpen had been rife with gossip and speculation all day as Gibbs continued absence didn't go unnoticed.
Cate and McGee contributed to the general hysteria in the bullpen by throwing out wild theories about what was going on. Not that they'd even come close as it turned out, although to be fair, Tony was pretty sure no one would see this coming! Not even a profiler who worked on the president's protection team.
Tony had downplayed the situation as they reviewed cold cases, but that didn't mean he wasn't genuinely concerned about what was happening to Gibbs. He was, but it wouldn't help anyone to press the panic button. Besides, Gibbs hadn't earned the Teflon Gibbs moniker without good cause; it was said he knew where the bodies were buried!
If he had to hazard a guess, DiNozzo speculated whatever he was being grilled over, involved their last case as Gibbs had seen fit to fake the suicide of his buddy, Special Agent Tobias Fornell. The fact that it had been staged in the FBI's own holding cells and almost certainly involved the Boss going all lone wolf AGAIN and failing to inform TPTB of his intentions, was typical of Gibbs' high-handedness. Tony guessed there were a lot of pretty pissed off Fibbies wanting a piece of him for that little stunt.
Tony had shaken his head at that boneheaded move but seriously, no one could ever accuse Gibbs of being a team player. Even after he'd found the FBI mole no one would be killing themselves to hand him a medal for his outstanding effort. Particularly after Little Ricky's attorney had the case against the mafia Don's son thrown out on a technicality and was threatening to sue NCIS for unlawful arrest of his client.
Of course, this staging of Fornell's death had been a doozy – even Tony hadn't seen that one coming, although he knew from being his partner that Gibbs suspected that someone close to Tobias in his agency was the mafia's mole. Having spent a quite a bit his career as a cop investigating the Mafia and taking down a mob boss and pretty much his entire family back in Philly PD, Agent Charles stuck out kind-a like a sore thumb as being a likely candidate. Other factors were pointing to the agent with the great big sad puppy dog eyes being the guilty one; his standing around joking in MTAC, quoting classic dialogue from Mafia movies just after arresting and charging Tobias was at best, insensitive.
So okay, Tony had joked around too but hell, at least he had good reason to bear a grudge against Fornell – he still hadn't forgiven the FBI agent for tossing him out onto the beltway at night while he was zipped up inside a body bag. Tony was damned lucky all he received out of that cockup was some bruising and soft tissue injuries because he could have so easily been pulverised beneath the wheels of a speeding Double B truck hauling ass. If an NCIS agent had been taken into custody, accused of being dirty, Tony sure as hell wouldn't have been feeling like joking around like Agent Charles was about the damned lookout and his uncanny resemblance to a TV actor – Abe Vigoda.
So okay, the Mob henchman, codenamed Abe bore a rather striking resemblance to the guy who was best known in Mario Puzo's The Godfather playing Salvatore Tessio and later on the Barney Miller TV sitcom playing Phil Fish. It also didn't escape Tony's notice that he also bore a striking similitude to Agent Charles. Both men had the same lugubrious air about them and large doleful eyes that had DiNozzo checking to see if there was some familial relationship between the pair.
Not surprisingly, he'd learnt from his mob sources that they were distant cousins, which in large Italian families wasn't exactly proof of a crime and Lord knows, Tony's old man was not exactly a model citizen. At best DiNozzo Senior was a conman, at worst his sperm donor was guilty of financial fraud and tax evasion, if not actual money laundering. However, even if Tony shared half his old man's DNA, that didn't make him dirty just because Senior was, and it wasn't enough to condemn Agent Charles, either. Still, the fact was someone in the FBI who was close to Fornell was giving Jimmy Nap inside information so he could avoid being convicted, even though he was as crooked as any of the mob bosses Tony put away when he was working undercover with Philly and Baltimore police departments.
Of course, like any good thriller or whodunit, the bad guy or in Gibbs' parlance, the dirtbag, was always the person you least expected. So, Tony thought it was pretty obvious who was the most likely suspect to be the FBI's mole, and as much as Fornell rubbed him up the wrong way, it wasn't Tobias.
Gibbs must have thought the same thing because aside from the medical examiner from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, plus the FBI agent who supervised the holding cells, the only other persons who were there when Fornell was pronounced dead at the scene was Gibbs and Special Agent Charles. Tony never believed that the agent-in-charge of the holding-cells, or the medical examiner could seriously be considered persons of interest in the case. That left Agent Charles of the big woeful eyes as the corrupt agent - QED.
As the chief suspect, it was key to Gibbs' sting that the mole view Fornell's corpse and pass on the information to Napolitano that the FBI agent was dead, shoring up his position in the FBI. The sting's success rested on the mole's belief he wasn't under suspicion. Of course, Agent Charles investigating and 'having to arrest Tobias had been quite a smart move. Plus, it gave him the chance to establish that he believed Fornell was innocent and the mob had chosen to set him up at this time because he was vulnerable after pushing for Gibbs' meeting to take place with Ari Haswari, their prize asset. Unfortunately for Tobias, the Boss had put a slug in Ari's shoulder as payback for shooting him.
Not that Gibbs had wanted to hear from Charles that he might bear some responsibility for Fornell's current job woes though. The boss was never one to apologise or even have regrets as far as Tony could tell. Honestly, Tony had doubts it ever occurred to Gibbs that he might miscalculate or just plain get something wrong, an attitude which took some big balls, he'd mused as he glanced at the two junior agents reading old case files.
Tony thought about Gibbs' completely uncharacteristic determination to take the FBI agent with him to the meeting with the Mafia don for the exchange of the FBI informant's identity for his son's freedom. Neither Cate nor McGee could appreciate the true extent of Gibbs abhorrence of and refusal to work with agents from other alphabets - with the grudging exception of Tobias Fornell of course. But Tony understood how atypical it was for Gibbs to volunteer to take someone as a backup (who wasn't on his team) without having a gun aimed at his head or other methods of coercion. The fact he'd suggested it was enough of a clue as to what he was thinking. It was so unusual it immediately tipped off Tony that Agent Charles was within Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs' sniper sights as the prime suspect.
DiNozzo didn't blame the two rookie NCIS agents for not comprehending how monumental it was for Leroy Jethro Gibbs to take the FBI agent for backup; neither one had the advantage of knowing and working with Gibbs as he did. After Gibbs and Agent Charles left, Tony had slipped out and tailed them to the rendezvous, knowing Gibbs would expect nothing less of him. He might not be a Marine like Gibbs with his Sempre fi - leave no man behind creed, but Tony was first and foremost a cop and he didn't leave his partner without backup. Nor would he dream of trusting the team leader's six to a guy they believed to be a scum-sucking Mafia informant - that was just plain dumb and despite opinions to the contrary by his team, he was a long way from dumb.
Mind you, while he had seen the downfall of Agent Charles, he certainly hadn't expected Fornell's resurrection from beyond the grave. That had caught him off guard, just like Cate and McGee. Gibbs' shit-eating grin when he produced Fornell had been pretty much solid-gold Gibbs ploy and Tony felt like kicking himself because in hindsight it was way obvious! See the thing was that the former Marine lived to catch people with their pants down around their ankles and to manage to pull off such a huge con on not just the FBI but NCIS too would be a huge ego boost for the arrogantly bombastic agent.
That said, it was one thing for him to pull the wool over his team's eyes in the misguided belief it built up his aura of omnipotence, even if he managed to avoid irreparable damage to the bedrock of team dynamics, and Tony wasn't sure that he did. Bad as that was, it was always a terrible idea to keep your director in the dark about such a massive con. Even the most understanding boss hates to be made to look like a fool, and Morrow was no exception but also doing it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation was crazy and downright arrogant.
They were never going to appreciate such cavalier treatment from an agent from a relatively small sister agency who didn't know his place in the federal pecking order. Which was undoubtedly why Gibbs was up in the director's office right now getting his butt keelhauled for the subterfuge he and Fornell had pulled. One thing Tony was reasonably confident about was the FBI wasn't discussing a silver-plated invitation for Gibbs to join their ranks, not that he'd give a shit since the boss had utter contempt for the big sister agency.
Tony rose from his seat, cracking the vertebra in his stiff lower back with a sigh of relief. With the cold case he was reviewing clutched in his hand, DiNozzo told Tim and Cate he was going down to the lab to ask Abby something about the evidence. He noted almost automatically that McGee rolled his eyes, obviously thinking he was using Gibbs absence to skive off. The Probie hadn't figured out that when it came to investigations Tony took his job extremely seriously. He might muck around to relieve tension sometimes but never at the expense of doing his job.
Yep, the Probster still had much to learn! About the job and also about his senior field agent.
Strolling to the elevator, Tony thought about the close combat training the team had been engaged in. That was right before they'd caught the case at Quantico Base that had turned out to not only be a Marine practice bomb site but a very macabre Mafia boneyard for their victims. Horrifically, they'll maybe never know just how many people have been dumped there, which makes DiNozzo livid when he thought of all the families who will never get closure or justice. Life sucked at times!
Shrugging as he told himself again that they couldn't help everyone, he focused his thoughts back on Cate who'd been wrestling with Tim when Gibbs received the callout. It was plain to both Cate and Tony that McGee was holding back, more than likely because she was female, and the probie had been brought up to not hit or physically hurt a woman. Which was fine and dandy when you were in polite mixed company or you were hanging out with females who weren't intent in getting away from your custody or wanting to kill you, but unfortunately, they frequently ran into those types of women and men in their day job. If the Probie wanted to play with the big kids as a field agent and more importantly, stay alive, then he had to get used to a whole new set of rules when it came to criminal types.
So, they'd double-teamed him. Tony had taunted him, which knowing how super competitive he was, wasn't exactly rocket science to get a rise out of him. The probie had swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker, flipping Todd off him and forcibly restraining her on the mat. Then she'd demanded to know why he'd been holding back on grappling with her, McGee conceded that it was about her gender. That was when she kicked him hard in the balls, leaving him curled up in the foetal position as she stalked off to the showers to change.
Off course, Probationary Agent McGee had complained long and hard to anyone who would listen to him and even people who didn't give a shit about the hazing he had to endure as the newest kid on the MCRT, although in this instance, he was bitching about Cate. What McGee was yet to figure out was that while Caitlin Todd, Tony or the Boss might enjoy delivering some harsh, often painful lesson to him, their supplementary enjoyment had nothing to do with why they made him suffer. There were important lessons he needed to learn, which in this case was that holding back when he was out in the field against a perp because she happened to have ovaries could end up getting him or some civilian, he was protecting injured or killed.
In the real world, life and death wasn't an abstract concept that you'd studied in the police academy or FLETC. You couldn't afford to let your guard down for a minute because it was just possible it might be your last one. As the barmaid Vanessa should have proved to McGee, females could be just as dangerous and deadly as any guy, having dispatched multiple big tough Marines and almost cost one Anthony DiNozzo as well.
If McGee felt aggrieved and humiliated by getting his nuts crushed in the gym at NCIS in front of his colleagues, then too damned bad. Give him embarrassment and degradation over ending up dead, any time!
Hopefully, McMortified would one day realise (Boy-Genius he claimed to be) that Cate Todd's handing out an unpalatable dose of tough love, albeit one she enjoyed inflicting, was her way of teaching him never to go easy on an assailant, no matter their gender. Thanks to her harsh teaching methods though, Tim might just end up walking away unharmed at the end of the day.
As the elevator arrived in the sub-basement level where Abby's lab was situated, Tony mused that some touchy-feely do-gooder types might scream about the so-called hazing, arguing that it equated to exposing the probationary field agent to deep psychological trauma. Well, Tony had no patience with that crapola, it sure as hell wasn't anywhere as bad as getting himself or a civilian shot. The guilt of knowing it was your fault an innocent was injured, or dead was unimaginable, and it was something you never wished upon your worst enemy.
What well-meaning civilians could never understand was that you can tell someone like McGee (who frequently thought he knew better than his superiors did because of his high IQ) that females could be just as dangerous as males, but it wouldn't sink in. Not with the same intensity as Cate's kick in the testicles. That wasn't something any guy forgot in a hurry as Tony knew from his own painful personal experience a time or two. While guys had some advantages in terms of height, weight, and muscle mass, they were also vulnerable if a female opponent was willing to exploit their vulnerabilities as Cate had demonstrated so effectively (and painfully). Fortunately, she merely left him humiliated of the NCIS mats.
Entering Abby's domain, he pushed aside Probie's outrage over his crushed nuts and of more immediate concern, Gibbs' power tripping stunt keeping everyone in the dark about Fornell's suicide. The senior field agent refocused his concentration back on the cold case under review, knowing it was time to get his head bag into the game. There had been some weird-ass trace elements found on the murdered lieutenant which he'd never encountered, so he was hoping that Abby could explain it to him. Of course, he could Google it, but Tony always found that his brain worked better if he could bounce ideas off another person's intellectual energy. Besides which, Abby for all her Caff-pow fuelled hyperactivity and her façade of new age, touchy-feely ditz, was far better than Google when it came to anything to do with forensics.
And if he still didn't figure out what those trace elements meant after barnstorming with Scuito, well there was always the option of picking Ducky's brain which was jam-packed full of esoteric and oft arcane knowledge. That might help him scratch the itch he was experiencing after reading the case file. There was something other than the unfamiliar trace evidence that he'd spied, and he just had to figure out what had tripped his mental alarm.
Maybe he should talk to the former SFA whose team had investigated Lieutenant Colter's murder. Shaunna Gottlieb had taken a leave of absence to start a family last year, but surely, she wouldn't mind if he called her to see what she remembered. Normally he'd go ask the team lead on the case when it was first investigated, but Supervisory Special Agent Waters had retired due to a brain tumour and had sadly for his friends and family, passed away seven months ago.
Smiling at the prospect of hanging out with his favourite Goth girl, Tony had a sudden urge to creep in and tweak one of her pigtails. Juvenile perhaps but sometimes in this job you needed to grab a little bit of joy when you could!
~o0o~
Tom observed his young agent's shocked expression with a degree of amusement since Morrow reckoned that he knew how DiNozzo felt. Gibbs was often jokingly referred to by his peers as being Teflon-coated - as in shit didn't seem to stick to him, no matter what crap he pulled. A sentiment that he considered carried more than a kernel of truth, not to mention a rather large helping of frustration too.
It pained him as the director to say that all too frequently, Leroy Jethro Gibbs got away with a shit- ton worth of ignoring rules and regs…sometimes he got away with bending, if not outright pissing on the self-same laws he'd sworn to uphold. Measures that would find other less connected and less charismatic agents in prison or at the least precluded from working in law enforcement again.
Lord only knew Director Morrow was perplexed about how a Supervisory Special Agent, seemed to have a helluva lot more sway at times than he did as director of NCIS. Which was one of the chief reasons why Tom was looking for a new job – one where even if he needed to take a demotion, it would allow him to do his job without the political interference he encountered whenever he tried to pull Gibbs into line.
Then again, today proved that even Gibbs, with all his influence and friends in high places, could sometimes go too far. Jethro had misread the sudden chilly atmosphere in the room, his biggest supporters becoming mute instead of springing to his defence as they normally would. The fact was that they'd left him swinging in the breeze, while they scurried away to their bunkers, intent on protecting their own asses with muttered phrases about natural consequences and too damned cocky for his own good. Not to forget that perennial proverb about pride goeth before a fall.
And was Tom the only one to find it rather ironic that Jethro had finally fallen foul of TPTB after uttering one of his typically arrogant throwaway remarks? In this case, he'd threatened to shoot one abrasive and uncouth gunnery sergeant from Army CID. Who'd have predicted it would suddenly set the cat amongst the pigeons? Certainly, it had caught him on the back foot.
Apparently, in another case of exceptional irony, Gunnery Sergeant John Deluca possessed equally impressive connections of his own that in this case, trumped Gibbs. To wit, the United States Army Judge Advocate General, Edmund Turner plus the head of the USACIDC Provost Marshal General, Walt Marsden, who in turn, had some other influential friends who'd demanded punitive measures against the truculent NCIS agent.
If this situation had cropped up before Gibbs had shot the FBI's asset, Ari Haswari as payback for him shooting Gibbs while escaping from NCIS in March, Tom seriously doubted that such an outrageously unprofessional threat to shoot Deluca would have gained traction. More than likely, it would have been brushed aside as Gibbs being Gibbs. But not this time.
Now people knew the former sniper was not just running his mouth off – he had form!
Of course, the Assistant Director of the FBI was mighty pissed at Gibbs' actions. The infuriatingly smug ex-Marine's pretext for shooting Haswari – he did it to provide Ari credibility as a Palestinian terrorist. Not that such a lame excuse attempting to justify why he'd ignored a direct order not to harm the Mossad agent fooled anyone. Morrow still wasn't sure if Jethro had truly deluded himself into swallowing that bull shit he'd fed them or not, but the bottom line was there were a lot of pissed off Fibbies out there and they didn't believe the altruistic I did it for him - crap. Not for a minute.
When the opportunity via the Sergeant Deluca situation presented itself, they'd argued with some justification that Gibbs had become dangerously unstable of late. The FBI contended that obviously, he was prepared to put his desire for retribution above and beyond the interests of National Security. Why shouldn't they take seriously that he was capable of carrying out a threat to shoot Deluca over jurisdictional and personality issues, when he'd already demonstrated with Haswari just how little self-control, he retained?
Yet it wasn't just the fiasco with Ari that turned up to bite him on the ass, as Tom conceded, reviewing the actions that had led them to this point. It was also that Gibbs had gone lone wolf again, failing to consult anyone else. Nor did he seek opinions or bother asking for approval to implement his plan to smoke out the FBI mole leaking information to the Mafia Don. No, in his typically highhanded arrogant fashion he'd unilaterally decided to fake Special Agent Fornell's suicide in custody, determined to flush out FBI Special Agent Charles who'd been enabling Napolitano to thwart years of investigations and court cases and screw any chance of charging Ricky Napolitano or his father for the murder of FBI Agent Victor Gera.
Due to his choices, Jethro had effectively allowed Napolitano to give the FBI the finger and that made for a lot of very cranky feds. Not surprising then they wanted to respond in kind.
Tom wasn't completely unsympathetic to the former Marine, who was extremely desperate to nail the scumbag agent. Yeah, Tom got it - undercover agents and FBI witnesses died over the years because Agent Charles was a corrupt evil sonofabitch. Gibbs' obsessive focus on nailing the dirty agent dead to rights, while seeking to exonerate Tobias Fornell (Gibbs ex-wife's former husband) was understandable up to a point, Tom supposed, even if most guys usually hated the fella who stole their wife. That said, his obsessiveness at the expense of the law was NOT OKAY.
The bottom line was that Jethro never bothered to build a prima facie case against Little Ricky (Napolitano's son and heir) a case that should have seen him charged with the murder of the undercover agent.
If the MCRT had gone through legal channels to obtain a warrant to obtain his DNA, Gera's family and workmates might have also had the closure of knowing his killer was serving a well-deserved life sentence for the murder of the federal agent. Unfortunately, that chance was stolen from them due to the cowboy stunt of getting Ricky Napolitano's DNA by illegally accessing paternity records. It made his subsequent arrest unlawful and the failure to Mirandize him or permit him legal representation was anathema to good law enforcement practice and inexcusable for someone who'd sworn an oath to uphold the law.
Little wonder that the FBI was ropable; Tom couldn't exactly blame them. If the shoe had been on the other foot and an FBI agent had pilled the stunt that Gibbs had, throwing aside years of costly investigations (in terms of assets, manpower and lives) for vengeance and to exonerate a friend, the Naval Criminal Investigative service would be livid, too. They would quite rightly want the book thrown at any cowboy agent who'd acted alone.
If Gibbs had only been willing to work with colleagues, then perhaps, they could have caught Agent Charles, charged Little Ricky, and exonerated Tobias Fornell - it could have been a win-win situation for everyone. Even if it had been necessary to let Ricky Napolitano get off to uncover the dirty agent though, that was a decision that was well and truly beyond Leroy Jethro Gibbs paygrade. It should have been made at the higher echelons of the Justice Department in concert with both agency hierarchy. He was, after all, only a senior supervisory agent and didn't even bother to consult his director, not that Jethro had any real respect for anyone above him in the chain-of-command.
Tom sighed in frustration. If Gibbs had expected the director would try to intercede on his behalf, he was sadly misguided, as far as Tom was concerned. Morrow personally thought that the Department of Defense and the Justice Department had been admirably restrained in how they had chosen to discipline Special Agent Leroy Gibbs. Instead of summarily terminating his employment, they had chosen a course of punitive action that was going to drive Gibbs to distraction.
Spending six months as a special NCIS liaison to the US Army's CID, specifically working alongside the abrasive and uncompromising Gunnery Sergeant Deluca and his partner, Micheline Phelps was going to be absolute torture to the former Marine. Both men were extreme alpha males and Gibbs being forced by the powers that be to work under Deluca's authority would be his idea of pure unadulterated hell. If Gibbs thought Phelps would be easy to manipulate, Tom understood that she had a reputation among her CID colleagues as equally tough as Deluca.
To add further insult to injury, it had been decreed by the undersecretary of Defense who was also one of the few pencil pushers (who wasn't a fan of the renegade agent) that Gibbs should spend a further six months as NCIS liaison to the AFOSI. Tom was under no illusion that Commander Drayton (who was Morrow's AFOSI counterpart) would select a suitably Type- A personality to pair Gibbs with during his stint with their sister agency too.
It was going to end up being one hellacious 12- month period for the Teflon-coated Special Agent Gibbs. Privately, the director couldn't be happier that Jethro's pigeons were finally coming home to roost, even though with Gibbs' reassignment, he would be down an investigator on his major case response team. Still, his time as NCIS liaison might just result in Gibbs developing some humility and bring him to heel, although Tom reckoned that was a longshot. Yet, it gave him a year free of Gibbs and his flagrant disregard of the rule of law. Twelve blessed months free of him ignoring agency regulations and procedures and of him promoting a disdain in his subordinates for chain-of-command, unless it was implicitly obeying Gibbs and his special rules.
As Cynthia announced via the intercom that Special Agent Balboa had arrived, Tom informed his personal assistant to send him in. Gibbs being sent as a liaison to CID meant that they would require a new team leader. Although TPTB hadn't officially demoted Jethro, no one expected that his job could be held open for 12 months, simply by appointing an acting SSA in his stead. Therefore, although it wasn't stated explicitly, the punitive measures ensured that Gibbs was not only being humiliated and emasculated by serving in a liaison capacity (with effectively no authority to act) but effectively he was also no longer lead investigator of the MCRT. The powers that be had stopped short of firing him, but it was extremely unlikely there would be a vacancy for him when he had completed his assignments and certainly not as top dog of the major case response team back in DC.
Tom reckoned that Gibbs would probably have preferred to have been tossed out on his ass to being presented with what was effectively a Hobson's choice. The sheer Machiavellianism of this punishment was audacious, to say the least. When told of his 'new assignment,' Gibbs, in typical double B for Bastard mode, had smirked and said he would resign from NCIS rather than endure working for Deluca and then a bunch of flyboys in the air force.
Which was when it was pointed out to him rather bluntly that they could do this the easy way, or the hard way and it made no difference to the Department of Defense and Department of Justice. He could go in as an NCIS liaison and in 12 months return to NCIS or, since he was a Marine reservist, they could reactivate his on-duty status, effective immediately, and then assign him as a Marine liaison to Army CID and AFOSI. Thereafter, having completed the 12-month assignment as a liaison, he would be transferred to the USMC CID.
Given that typically, the USMC CID was responsible for: complex misdemeanour and felony investigations, narcotics cases and often working cooperatively with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies (including NCIS), CID would be a huge step down to the arrogant special agent after his time in NCIS. Sure, there were other less demeaning responsibilities in the USMC CID for an ex-federal agent (particular a ferally territorial and egotistical one as Jethro) for example assisting the U.S. Attorney's Office, the local District Attorney's Office, and the Staff Judge Advocate Office in the prosecution of criminal cases. However, given his well-earned reputation for ignoring pesky things like the rule of law and failing to obtain lawful warrants from judges, it wasn't likely he'd find anyone putting their hands up wanting his assistance.
Of course, it was always possible he could find himself maintaining the Provost Marshals Office / Marine Corps Police Dept. evidence repository; something that would bore him to tears or perhaps they'd tap him on the shoulder to conduct personnel inquiries in Internal Affairs. Other even more hated duties (from Gibbs perspective) included protective services details, crisis negotiation and liaison with the Family Assistance Program regarding law enforcement aspects of domestic violence in the Corps. While all were integral to upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Gibbs was patently unsuitably to carry out many of these crucial roles in the USMC CID. Little wonder then that Gibbs had decided to accept his assignment as a federal agent liaison rather than a member of the USMC. At least theoretically, he could resume the duties of a federal agent at the end of twelve months.
As Special Agent Eric (Ric) Balboa knocked respectfully and the director invited him to enter, Morrow smiled at the former navy officer who'd joined the Agency some nine years ago. Seeing concern comingled with curiosity on the senior supervisory agent's face, Tom smiled briefly to let him know that he wasn't in trouble, nor was Agent DiNozzo. Balboa relaxed slightly as the director invited both agents to join him at his conference table. They all had a lot of logistics and details to discuss.
Several hours later, both men exited his office looking somewhat dazed. He didn't blame them. After several years of Gibbs pretty much appearing to be bulletproof, the rules of the game had altered. Shifted quite drastically by anyone's standards and now there were changes afoot, not just logistically but it would fundamentally transform a lot of things at the agency. Hopefully for the better!
~o0o~
The senior supervisor agent watched as DiNozzo and Special Agent Greer's senior field agent, a former SEAL who for some unknown reason had been named Michael (call me Mick) Carmichael, sparring with each other in the boxing ring. Both were deadly serious, oblivious to the cuts and bruise they inflicted upon each other; their intensity left everyone else in the gym mesmerised. All activity had slowly ceased as one by one, the other agents joined Balboa watching what most had initially considered an uneven challenge. Ric wasn't sure if it was their joint lethality of purpose or the dramatic metamorphosis in Tony's attitude, his stance, his laser-like glare that drew people in. It was like he was a different person entirely from the happy-go-lucky, skirt-chasing jock.
Most people had observed DiNozzo dancing around in the ring, in Abby Scuito's own words 'like a demented improvisational dancer on crack', whenever he sparred with Gibbs. His efforts always resulted in him getting his ass handed to him as the former Marine kicked it around the boxing ring. Not surprisingly then, the majority of people at the office who saw those antics tended to view him as a frivolous outlandish buffoon. Essentially, they saw him as someone not smart enough to realise how foolish it was to poke the bear, also known as Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Although, it must be said that it wasn't just in the ring or on the mats in the gym that DiNozzo was foolish enough to taunt and tease the singularly grumpy agent which was his demeanour on a good day.
As Balboa looked around casually, he noted Todd and McGee (complete with a cup this time) had ceased their grappling session, transfixed by the clash between the senior field agents. The pair inched their way closer towards the ring to watch the contest between the two agents who seemed oblivious to the crowd that was gathering to watch.
Balboa smirked like the Cheshire cat, seeing the steeliness of Todd's gaze as she observed the senior field agent, almost as if for the first time. Good! She was finally seeing what had been right there in front of her nose the whole time she'd known and profiled DiNozzo.
McGee meanwhile was staring wide-eyed, his usual deer in the headlight's expression was in evidence which usually appeared when Gibbs was in the middle of a tirade. His gaze flickering back and forth between DiNozzo, Carmichael and Todd as if the answer to this mystery would materialise right out of the ether.
He must have realised that such magical thinking was not going to materialise because he cleared his throat before squeaking slightly, "Ah Cate, what's going on?"
Risking a glance at the grinning Supervisory Special Agent who would be acting head of an expanded MCRT (at least temporarily) she snarked, "Seems like we've been suckered, Probie."
The querulous computer genius looked over at their new acting leader questioningly, noting unhappily that he was staring at them, smugly amused.
"What does that mean?" he asked Cate, wishing she didn't enjoy playing her profiler games with him, although he always laughed uproariously when she taunted DiNozzo. But c'mon, the guy was a jerk – always calling him Probie and other annoying McNicknames.
"It means, Probationary Field Agent McGee, that your SFA has been downplaying his hand-to-hand combat skills," Director Morrow explained gravely, having approached the boxing ring unnoticed by the two junior agents.
Morrow glanced over at Balboa and said approvingly, "See you wasted no time in setting DiNozzo straight about a few things?"
Balboa grinned like the cat who swallowed the canary. "Told him that I didn't need him to run interference for the rest of the team or be my damned whipping boy, Sir. Said when people screw up, they need to be responsible for their own shit," he said bluntly as he started at Cate and Tim.
"Then I told him that a real Marine didn't need their 2IC running acting as a relief valve when they were feeling fragile and needed to blow off steam. Said I expected him to stop concealing his skills and I'll ensure that the chain of command is respected. That he and Roz will have real authority over the junior agents since I'm not intimidated by having competent 2ICs, as Goldstein can a test."
Morrow nodded. "Excellent job."
Balboa stopped talking to watch Tony as he appeared to become distracted by hearing the director's voice. He half-turned his head and Carmichael went in for the kill, only to realise a split-second too late after committing himself that it had been a feint. Striking like a cobra, DiNozzo avoided Mick's lethal right hook easily enough and with an economy of movement that made a mockery of his former dancing technique, followed up the play, using his opponent's momentum against him.
The ex-cop finished up the ploy by sweeping Mick's legs out from under him and restraining the former navy SEAL on the mat in a hold he'd learnt while working with some of Macaluso's muscle. Unlike some of his colleagues, Tony wasn't a purist. He didn't mind mixing up styles, acting skills and hand to hand techniques when he fought, making it more difficult for his opponents to anticipate what his next move might be.
As a bunch of cheers and boos broke out, Tom flashed a faux stern glance at Ric and said, "Who won the pool?"
Balboa shrugged. "Didn't set it up," he replied carefully avoiding answering the question or looking at his two newest agents who were standing looking gobsmacked at the SEAL as he regained his feet and shook hands with DiNozzo.
"Sneaky bastard, ain'tcha? You've been holding that one back on me, Tony?" Carmichael joshed him good-naturedly, not in the least shocked if Morrow was any judge, leading him to infer that it wasn't the first time.
Shrugging offhandedly, he said, "Not the first one to tell me that, Mickey-Boy. Hold back on ya? Maybe! Where's the fun in life when there's no mystery, man? And FYI, that particular hold is courtesy of Joey Romano of the Philly Mob," he permitted himself a grin.
Mick scowled, "Damn! A two-bit hood? I wanna rematch, Dino!"
"Okay," he said good-naturedly, despite his bruises and cuts. "But let's go back to sparring sans our onlookers next time, yeah?" Tony bargained, pulling a face that expressed mild distaste.
The former SEAL shrugged, "Okay with me. But why'd ya wanna today?"'
DiNozzo looked over at Balboa, neutrally. "My new boss told me to stop acting like a demented barfly in the ring," he said paraphrasing a conversation that had said a good deal more.
Meanwhile, Morrow repeated his earlier question. "Who won the pool?"
Balboa looked at various SFA's positioned around the ring and slowly raised his hand while every senior field agent bar Carmichael and DiNozzo raised theirs too. Morrow tried not very successfully to hide his smirk but not all that hard.
"I see," he said placidly.
Cate was not amused by their levity, although his estimation of the former Secret Service agent was that she tended to the humourless end of the spectrum. Which was especially the case when it came to male teammates; the exception being when she was playing unkind mind games and believed she had the upper hand. That in his opinion made her something of a bully; he'd also never seen her joke at her own expense.
Roz Goldstein, Balboa's senior field agent, like the observant senior field agent she was, noted the brief flash of rage that flitted across Cate's face as she tried to school it into blankness.
"What Cate? Just because you can't see beyond the nose on your face doesn't mean that Tony's fellow SFA's don't know what he's made of. Have you ever come across the term confirmation bias when you were studying profiling? Because you and Probationary Agent McGee might want to review the theory of it before you decide to run a pool betting against your partner again," she snarked at the fuming agent. "He's a hell of an agent but what else would you expect for the senior field agent for the MCRT?"
Although Todd bared her teeth in a facsimile of a reciprocating smirk, Ric was pretty sure she was just plain pissed, not that it surprised him. Roz got away with it only because she had ovaries too and also Cate's superior. If one of the male SFA's had attempted to admonish her, even as mildly as Goldstein did, then she'd be screaming about sexual harassment and sexist derogatory remarks right now.
Looking over at Carmichael and DiNozzo heading off to the showers exchanging in a liberal dose of good-natured smack-talk between them, Balboa ordered the rest of the team back to their workouts, deciding against pairing up Todd and Goldstein just yet. He exchanged a look with his SFA who nodded her head subtly before dragged their junior agent Sam Watts towards the free-weights offering to act as a spotter for him.
Morrow indicated that he wished to speak to Balboa in private, Ric followed the director out of the gym into the corridor. Morrow smiled and gave him a brief pat on the back.
"Nice work, Balboa. Looks like you managed to get through to DiNozzo. Did he tell you I'm going to send him off to work with JAG for a fortnight to help him get his head out of his ass? Can't believe he went along with that dumbass stunt to get Ricky Napolitano's DNA from that paternity test." Tom said angrily. He knows better than that, damn it! I'm also gonna send him back to FLETC to complete a couple of advanced courses in the next couple of months, brush up on legal issues."
Balboa nodded. "Yeah, he mentioned it. "I'd say he's feeling plenty ashamed about not getting the warrant, too. Told me he forgotten his roots but said he wants to get back to them, Sir." Ric paused before adding," Think that stunt between him and Agent Carmichael today was intended to show me he's serious about getting his shit together. Honestly, he's been floundering around ever since Gibbs started pulling the rug out from under him, telling the Bobbsey Twins that they could ignore his orders."
Morrow smiled. "That's good news if he's willing to pull his head out of his ass. How did the rest of the MCRT deal with the news that you were their acting team leader?"
"Well, they were pretty shocked that Gibbs had been reassigned. Also, they weren't expecting you to assign my old team to the MCRT either. I think that between Goldstein and DiNozzo as senior field agents and myself to whip them into shape vis a vis the chain-of-command, we'll have a team that can function lawfully and follow orders from superiors."
"And you don't see a problem when DiNozzo leads the actual investigative side of cases?" Tom quizzed.
Balboa frowned, "Not from my agents, Sir. We all know that DiNozzo is the most experienced investigator and that includes me too. The guy's worked homicides, vice, mass murders, serial killing, sex crimes, kidnapping, hostage negotiation situations and also organised crime as a cop, a detective and an agent on the major case response team. It makes absolute sense for him take charge of major and violent crimes, which after all is the purview of the MCRT."
Tom nodded. "I know but it is a unorthodox situation. If Phil Dobbs and Viv Blackadder were still on the MCRT then I'd have more than likely just promoted him to team leader – he's filled in before and done a more than capable job. Unfortunately, Gibbs white-anted his authority with the junior agents after he hired Todd and McGee - God only knows what he was thinking. I think that neither Todd nor McGee would accept his leadership at this point, so I'm not even going to try it."
Shrugging, Ric said, "From our perspective, it's a non-brainer – Sam, Roz and I are good with it and we're expecting to pick up a lot of knowledge and experience of violent crimes working under his direction. The only issue I can see with this slightly unorthodox situation is that Todd and McGee might think that they're more qualified than him, given their somewhat inflated assessment of their skills. Thanks for that, Jethro," he said with a touch of disdain.
"But should that prove to be the case, guess they'll find out I can be just as much of a bastard as Gibbs is if they don't follow orders," he assured Morrow. "Seeing that my orders to them will be that DiNozzo has point on investigations, then that would amount to two counts of insubordination and I'll have no hesitation in giving them a kick up the butt. They'll find themselves back at FLETC if they're insubordinate," he warned the director grimly.
As Tom dismissed his new acting team leader and made his way back up to his office on the mezzanine level above the bullpen, he permitted himself a small sigh. Ric Balboa seemed to have the newly expanded MCRT under control, although it was early days of course. If it worked out, he would appoint a permanent lead in a few months, but for now, Ric had his work cut out undoing a lot of damage to the MCRT team dynamics.
Even so, for the first time in a long while he was feeling optimistic about the future of NCIS and his directorship. Maybe he would hold off on circulating his CV amongst the other federal agencies for a few more months so he could see how things played out.