Jethro stopped for coffee at Elaine's Diner on the way to the Navy Yard, talking to his Senior Field Agent on the phone while he drove to work. He then quickly made his way through security and up to the squad room.
"Hey," DiNozzo quipped, "look what the Corps sent back."
He adopted a deadpan expression. "Actually, more like swapped. They wanna steal you."
His Senior Field Agent raised an eyebrow in disbelief. The younger agent knew full well that Jethro was messing with him.
Jethro smirked. "I told 'em you weren't old enough yet, Tony."
DiNozzo rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Jefe."
Jethro took on a more serious countenance. "Our terrorist siblings?"
"The wonder twins are in Interrogation One," his Senior Field Agent informed him without missing a beat. "Just like you asked, Boss."
Jethro gave a curt nod and grabbed a file that DiNozzo had left on his desk for him. He then made his way to interrogation. He had decided to break Rule #1 in this particular situation and let the two perps stay in the same room together. Soraya and her equally unpleasant younger brother were praying intently in Arabic when he walked in.
He threw a file down on the interrogation table. "Welcome to my classroom."
"Why am I here?" Soraya asked.
"Instead of a direct flight to Gitmo," he replied, "I thought we could talk. Have a family reunion." He wanted a crack at the pair himself before they were locked up for good.
"I have nothing to say," Soraya retorted.
"When was the last time you saw each other?" he inquired. He shot Soraya a sarcastic look. "No, let me guess. Terrorist convention in Toledo?"
"Mock me all you want, Agent Gibbs." Of course, Soraya was going to try and play the victim card. "You will never understand our motivation."
Jethro gave Soraya a look of complete disgust. "You gained the trust of these kids, and then you hurt 'em."
"By teaching future generations not to be influenced by your histrionic lies?" the sorry excuse for a woman replied.
He sneered at Soraya. "In this country, teaching children is a privilege."
"In this country," Asa finally decided to chime in, "you waste money sending your kids to college to have fun."
"They're taught to think on their own," he countered.
Soraya eyed him. "They are rich, spoiled brats."
Jethro decided to make it clear he had the high ground and pulled out two photos from the file he'd brought it. Pictures of two of his prisoners' young victims. He placed both of the photographs down in front of the obnoxious sibling pair. "This is how you answer that?" It was disgusting. "You're radicals who maim and kill innocent children because they want to learn how other people think?!"
"You think we do this for ourselves?!" Soraya exclaimed. "You come into our villages and towns with your disgusting Western ideals. You teach our children to question their heritage, to rely on the Internet instead of the Qur'an. Yes, this is our answer. It is the only answer. And you will see."
"I'll see," he stated with a slight nod. "I'll see what?"
Soraya eyed him. "You are here. We are here. Lieutenant Flores is here."
Asa spoke up again. "And our older brother is here too."
"Asa, don't!" Soraya chastised.
Jethro was all ears. "According to our file, he's dead."
"You think our fight is over," Asa said smugly. "But... it has just begun."
Deciding that he wasn't likely to get much more out of the siblings at the moment, he headed back to the squad room.
He heard Ziva speaking as he walked into the room. Apparently, the young Israeli had finally made it and was still reeling a bit. "Well, I need some rest.
"No rest for the weary, Ziva." Jethro understood the sentiment but there was still work to be done. "Party isn't over yet." His gaze flickered between his two male field agents. "Older brother - talk to me."
"Osman Zoranj," McGee stated while putting the Department of Defence's Record of Information on the man up on the plasma. "Thirty-eight-years-old. Born in Helmand Province. Fought with the Mujahideen for seven years against the Soviets. Raised to the rank of commander. Helped drive the Russian occupiers out of Kabul."
"War hero," Ziva commented.
"Until he joined the Taliban," DiNozzo stated.
"And he brought his brother and sister with him," Ziva added.
"Tell me something new," he retorted.
"Well, I got something here." McGee pulled more information up onto the plasma while he was talking. "According to the DIA, Osman was killed in an apartment complex raid in Gardez, Afghanistan, two years ago."
"Raid set off a gas-line explosion," the Italian-American commented, reading off of the plasma. "Osman was among two dozen dead."
"Not according to his siblings," Jethro countered.
Ziva gave him a look of incredulity. "And you believe them?"
He dipped his head slightly. "Yeah."
"D.C.?" DiNozzo asked.
"You tell me," he ordered.
"Putting out a BOLO on the Oos-Mahn," DiNozzo quipped as the man walked back over to his desk to do the aforementioned task.
"McGee," he said, "we need Asa's cell records."
"Already on it," McGee informed him without missing a beat. "Also alerting LEOs at the train depots, bus stations and airports."
Satisfied with that, Jethro started to rummage through his desk while issuing orders to the young Israeli. "Ziver, Homeland and Metro P.D. This group is up to something." Of that, he was absolutely certain. "Find out what."
Ziva nodded her head, making her way over to her own desk to get down to work.
"If Osman's little brother had been in D.C. the whole time.." DiNozzo suggested
"He might know where the big brother is?" Ziva finished. She then eyed him curiously. "Did you lose something, Gibbs?"
"Yeah," he confirmed. "Knife."
DiNozzo glanced over at him. "Well, you always have one in your pocket, right?"
Jethro didn't really want to explain the plan until he'd talked to and cleared it with the director. "Well, this one's different." And with that, he rushed down to autopsy with the intent of borrowing a knife off Ducky.
After talking to both Ducky and the director, Jethro rejoined Asa who was now alone in interrogation, Soraya having been moved to a holding cell by Ziva. Jethro placed a kit down on the interrogation table and then moved to shut off the recording devices and deactivated the two-way mirror.
"There are others watching," the man said nervously as Jethro did the aforementioned tasks. Perfect, he had Asa exactly where he wanted him. The plan was kind of insane, but then that's why he wanted it cleared by the director. Plus, Jethro needed the man's help if he was going to pull this off.
"Nope," Jethro replied. "Just us." Jethro walked back over to the interrogation table and tossed a file on the table. "No record of this conversation. Don't need one." He placed several photos down in front of Asa of Lala's injuries and then opened the kit of knives that he'd borrowed off of Ducky. "Let us get started, okay? Where's that son of a bitch brother of yours - Osman?" Jethro got no response from the prisoner so he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one. "Want a smoke?"
"No," Asa said. "It is against Allah's wishes."
"Yeah, well, it's against fire regulations too." He shrugged his shoulders slightly as he continued to speak. "But if you want one, go ahead. It's okay."
The man accepted and started to take a drag off of the cigarette.
Jethro heaved a sigh. "Look at her. Cigarette burns over sixty percent of her body. In unspeakable places." Asa looked away so Jethro took advantage of it. He grabbed the cigarette and head-locked Asa, shoving his face down at the pictures. "Look at it! Go on, look at it, you son of a bitch!" He yanked the man back and held the still-lit end of the cigarette close to the man's skin. Not enough to burn him but just scare him.
Asa started to freak out. "You cannot do this!"
He didn't back down and the director walking in right on cue. "Stop, Agent Gibbs!"
"I got this, Leon!" Jethro yelled, acting as if he was going to burn the pathetic excuse of a man on the cheek.
"You're about to break sixteen international laws right now!" Vance exclaimed!
"He deserves it!" Jethro fired back.
"But it doesn't matter!" Vance yelled. "His brother Osman is dead anyway!"
Jethro pretended to be stunned and a little chastised, visibly calming down a little.
"FBI took him down in a raid about twenty minutes ago," the director pretended to tell him. "We went to tell his sister Soraya, but it was too late." Vance added a little more compassion to his tone, selling it. "She'd taken her life already. She hanged herself in her cell. They're both gone."
Asa looked heartbroken. "My family is dead."
He eyed the man mockingly. "Fight's just begun, huh?"
As predicted, Asa's mouth started running a lot quicker than his brain. "We were going to finish what my sister had started."
"How?" he inquired.
"A bomb," Asa replied. "Electronically detonated. My creation."
"Where?" he pressed.
Asa's brain had apparently caught up with his mouth and the man finally realized that Jethro and Vance had been playing him for a sucker from the moment that Jethro had walked in. "They are not dead. They are not dead."
With the lead he needed, Jethro left interrogation and hurried back to the squad room to meet up with his team.
"Okay, jobs Osman had!" he said as he walked in. "What'd he have access to?"
"He had several occupations," Ziva informed him.
"Never as a school teacher," McGee countered.
"Mainly as an auto mechanic," Ziva agreed.
He considered that for a second. "Buses."
"Museums and memorials, Boss?" DiNozzo inquired.
"I want to know every school trip scheduled today," he demanded.
DiNozzo shot him a look. "That's a lot of kids."
"Do it!" he barked.
"Well," McGee said, "Park Service isn't showing anything out of the ordinary. Couple of local junior highs. Some professional tours."
"I have something," Ziva jumped in, pulling an event brochure up in the plasma. "The National Consortium for Independent Girls' Schools. Three hundred girls from around the country at the science museum."
An all-girls educational event. "That's it," he said. "When is it?"
"Now," Ziva said.
"Let's go," he said. He started to grab his badge, SIG, and jacket. "Class trip."
At the museum, Osman pulled out a flip phone and began fingering keys. Until he got a SIG in his face. Jethro had approached with Ziva behind him and asked for the cell.
He eyed the man. "Give me the phone, Osman."
"Put the gun down," the man replied, "or I hit the last number."
"Ziva," he ordered, "get the kids off the bus, nice and easy."
She nodded. "On it."
"You don't want to do this," he said.
"It must be done," Osman said.
"Then you'll die too," he promised.
"Then I will die a martyr for the cause," the man stated.
"McGee," he said pointedly. This had better work.
McGee spoke gravely. "Got it, Boss."
Osman smiled, held up the phone like an amateur, and then screamed with joy while he pressed the button. And nothing happened. Confused, Osman pressed the button again. The detonator still didn't work.
McGee, feeling quite pleased that the plan had worked, held up a small black device to show Osman. "Signal-jammer, Osman. That's why your detonator's dead."
Jethro holstered his weapon and then took Osman's burner phone.
Osman eyed him. "You could have killed me."
Jethro had been tempted, still sort of was. "Coulda, shoulda... didn't."
Osman gave a little snort. "You are weak."
Disgusted with the pathetic man and exhausted, Jethro one-punched him unconscious and replied, "No. Just better than you."
They dealt with the scene and Osman's arrest and then Jethro phone and updated First Lieutenant Flores. He then found himself being called up to Vance's office.
Walking into the director's office, Vance was seated at his desk and was just getting off the phone with who he surmised was General Ellison.
"That was the Commandant," Vance said, confirming it.
"Tell him he still owes me dinner from sixteen years ago," he quipped.
"He called to thank you personally," Vance said with a smile.
Jethro chuckled softly. "Think he called to thank you personally."
Vance gave him a look. "It's protocol."
Jethro laughed and then eyed Vance. "You wanted to see me, Director?"
There was an undercurrent of something in Vance's countenance when he spoke next that was a lot closer to concern than Jethro was entirely comfortable with. "I want you to take some time off."
He wasn't sure how to take that. "And do what?"
"Spend some time with your family," the other man replied pointedly. "Rest. Recreate. Whatever you do."
Jethro bristled slightly. He wanted to argue the point with the director, not fond of the fact that he was essentially being ordered to take leave and the implications that came along with that. "I do this. Pass on the vacation."
Vance eyed him. "Gibbs, take a few days."
He sighed. The fact was, Jethro had quite a bit of lost time coming to him and a couple of days where he was at home and got to see his family was far from the worst thing. The only remaining issue Jethro had was in regards to just why Vance felt the not-at-all subtle push was necessary.
He swallowed his pride though, knowing he had been a little off since the case started. He could admit that much, at least, privately, to himself. "Fine."
"Good," Vance said, glancing at the clock to check the time. It was 1538. "Then I'll see you back at work this coming Monday."
Jethro nodded and took his leave, heading down to the squad room to grab a couple of things and let his team know he was taking some lost time. Ziva gave him a look that suggested she knew that the issue had been pushed and why, but didn't comment.
He stopped at Elaine's Diner for some hot brew on the way home and honestly, couldn't be irritated with Vance when he walked through the front door and laid his eyes on his wife and daughter.
"You're home early," Kelly said with a grin as he walked in.
"I'm off until Monday," he explained before taking a sip of his coffee.
"Oh?" Shannon asked. "Did something happen?"
"Nah," he said. "Just taking some lost time."
Shannon nodded. "Well, I can't say I'm not glad you'll be home." She pulled Jethro in for a kiss, all of them chuckling when Bailey starting jumping up on him. The pup was clearly set on playing fetch if the ball she shoved at his feet was anything to go by.
He rolled his eyes in amusement, tossing the ball for the energetic pup. "It's like having a two-year-old all over again."
"I wasn't that bad," Kelly said with an eye roll.
Shannon patted Kelly on the back. "I love you."
"Hey!" Kelly exclaimed with a laugh.
"We'd just started using the time-out rule with ya and you were doing something you weren't supposed to be doing," he said, deciding to share a story with her. "So, I go, 'Kelly. Kelly.' You turn and look at me with this total guilty look. I say, 'Do you need to go to time out?'" It had been frustrating at the time but was quite funny. "And you go, 'Okay!' and walk over and just plop down." Kelly snickered. "I wasn't gonna send ya, but it was like you enjoyed it. The joke was on me. One point for you. Dad, zero."
Shannon raised an eyebrow, smiling as she turned to Kelly. "And a month before that you and your old man destroyed my entire flower garden because you got stung by a bee and the entire world had come to an end."
He laughed at the memory. "I thought you were gonna kill me for that one."
"I was tempted to," Shannon said, giving him a look of fond exasperation. She turned to their daughter. "I left you alone with him for one day. One damn day."
He grinned at his daughter. "Still one of my favourite days. You damn near gave me a heart attack though that day that you took my pocket knife and decided to climb up on the counter and carve your initials into the back of that cabinet." He shook his head in amusement. "You were… tenacious."
"Apple didn't fall far from the tree," Shannon quipped.
They all laughed in earnest and Jethro had to admit that Vance was right. He really did need this after the hell of a week he'd had.
