Almost seven weeks had passed since Christmas, and it had been quite the whirlwind. Along with a New Year's Eve get-together, DiNozzo and Maddie both had birthdays, and Michael shipped back out to Afghanistan.
Work had been keeping them on their toes as well. Abby had quite a rough time with a recent hit-and-run case they had caught, but was, thankfully, more or less back to her usual bubbly self. That same case had Jethro breaking up an interaction between two fathers that quickly went fists to cuffs.
Scott Cutwright walked out of the elevator and clearly couldn't read a room if his life depended on it. The man immediately walked over to Walter and Meredith Dunn while Mr. Dunn was already on edge from his son's death.
"Walter?" Cutwright said. "How could this happen? Your son killed my Lyla."
Mr. Dunn's fist connected with Cutwright's jaw a second after the accusations had left the other man's mouth. "Don't you talk about my son!"
Jethro swiftly pulled Mr. Dunn away and eyed the man.
"Don't you ever talk about my son!" Dunn exclaimed stepping back towards the man.
Jethro gently pushed Mr. Dunn back away. "Walk away! Now!"
He understood they were both angry and hurt. They had anger issues as it was and had just lost their children, but damn, they weren't helping get justice for their kids by getting into a brawl in the middle of the squad room.
As for Ziva, Eli David had shown up to rock the boat and ended up in a spat with Ziva causing him to cut his short trip. A good thing too, because both Jethro and Vance had been concerned about why the Mossad director had really been in Washington.
His team also ended up attending the funeral for a cyber agent who lost his life when the young agent's cover was blown when MTAC was hacked the first week of January. Naturally, the entire agency was up in arms and there was a new face up on their Most Wanted Wall to attest to it. They all wanted justice for Special Agent James Hunt.
Which is how his team had found themselves undercover at an apartment building this brisk Wednesday morning. As far as undercover operations go, McGee came out pretty well on this one compared to Jethro who was dressed up as a homeless guy. McGee was a maintenance man, currently checking on some wiring. Ziva was pretending she was a resident while DiNozzo hid in the dumpster by the rear entrance that Jethro was going to be 'rummaging through.'
Not one of either Jethro or DiNozzo's prouder moments, to be sure. It was disgusting. On the other hand, at least Shannon wasn't seeing him like this. There was no way in hell she would ever let him live it down. And if his mother-in-law… well, Jethro didn't want to even entertain that particular line of thought.
Finally, Jethro heard McGee address him through their comms. Their op was officially a go. "Target's headed your way, Boss."
A moment later, Jethro tossed a bag behind him, hitting their mark when the man had appeared right behind him, bicycle in tow.
"Hey!" The young man said. "Watch it!"
Jethro grabbed a bag and started to back away from the dumpster and into the man.
On cue, Jethro heard Ziva making her way down the stairs. The woman was playing a stereotypical girly girl quite well. "- right then. But I just had my nails done, so…" He fought not to laugh. "Uh-huh." Ziva giggled.
"How'd you get back here anyway? Get lost." The young hacker moved Jethro towards the entrance he'd just come from. "Get lost. Get lost."
He didn't bother to respond, just continuing to make his way over to the entrance and intentionally stopping to look in his bag, blocking the exit as Ziva approached.
"No, so I actually said to her, 'Get your hands off my man, you bitch. Stay away from him.' Yes, I did. And you know what she told me? She actually had the nerve to look at me in the eye and pretend..."
He heard Ziva scream and turned around, his weapon drawn, to see the young hacker had pulled out his own gun and had a hand across Ziva's neck.
The young man moved the gun off of a terrified-looking Ziva, aiming it at Jethro.
"Federal agent!" he announced. "You let her go, Khan."
"Who are you?" the young hacker demanded. "Homeland? FBI?" He didn't reply, slowly walking forward and forcing the young man to walk towards the dumpster again. "You won't shoot. Whoever you are, you want me alive."
Unfortunately for Ajay Khan, Jethro wasn't the only federal agent there. Once the man was successfully backed into the dumpster, DiNozzo popped out to grab the laptop bag and Ziva punched the young hacker, knocking him out.
DiNozzo eyed his girlfriend, a cheeky smile on his lips. "Nice job, Sexy."
Ziva smirked, an eyebrow raised. "Next time, you wear the heels."
DiNozzo returned the playful look. "Okay."
Jethro rolled his eyes in amusement at the pair's bantering. They were an odd couple, but somehow they worked. Holstering his weapon, he then pulled out his cuffs and put them on the still unconscious man.
"Is the computer alright?" McGee asked.
"Easy does it, McGoo." DiNozzo held out the laptop bag. "It's completely fine."
McGee sighed in relief and then eyed their suspect. "He's a lot smaller in person."
"Well, we finally got him, Boss!" DiNozzo stated smugly. "This is going to put a big hole in the 'Most Wanted List.'"
He had to agree with that. They now had one less cyber-terrorist to deal with. He just hoped that they could break Khan and get him to lead them to his employer.
Heading back to NCIS, McFee got Khan settled in Interrogation One while Jethro went and threw proper clothes on, getting cleaned up before briefing the director. His Senior Field Agent requested Khan's full FBI file to use as leverage.
With his boss now fully briefed, Jethro finally made his way into the main interrogation room to speak with their resident cyber-terrorist. It didn't take long for Jethro to figure out that the young man was a complete narcissist and that the best play would be to make the kid think he was an idiot. Easily made believable by the fact that he had learned a lot about basic technology from his daughter in the last couple of years but had been more or less technologically illiterate for years.
"You'll be here in how long?" the man said to his defence attorney over the phone. "I don't know. Hold on." Khan glanced at him. "Who are you?"
"Special Agent Gibbs," he replied. "NCIS."
Kahn turned his attention back to the ongoing call. "You catch that? Yeah, fine. I'll see you then." Closing Jethro's flip phone, Kahn held it out to him. "Love the phone, man. My lawyer won't be here till tomorrow, so until then..."
Jethro stood up and swatted the cellphone out of the younger man's hand, hearing his cellphone hit the floor and smash a second later. "I don't care." He opened the file he'd brought into interrogation with him and then roughly placed a photograph of their late cyber agent down right in front of the arrogant hacker. "Special Agent James Hunt was undercover when your hack took down the system. It gave away his position."
"Don't send your people where they don't belong," Khan quipped.
"He was tortured to death," Jethro fired back, pointing at the photo. "Look at it!" The hacker gulped and glanced down at the photo. "That's terrorism. Do you want to avoid a life at Gitmo?" Jethro pretended to consult his notes as he continued to address the young man. "I need your employer's U.P. address."
He started putting the photograph back in the file, preparing to walk out. Apparently, it caught the young man's attention. "Okay, wait, wait. Please. He only... he only goes by the letters 'M.C.'"
"We know that," he replied.
"Well," Khan said. "I don't know his name. Nobody does. But I... I do know where you can find him. There's just one... problem." The kid was laughing now. "You don't even know what an IP address is." Khan laughed even harder. "You're a dinosaur, Man." The young man shot him a rather smug look. "And come on. That terrorism BS still work? And Gitmo? That place is a political black hole. No one's been sent there in five years."
He tilted his head slightly "And you believe that?"
The young man leaned forward slightly; a challenge. "Look, you could charge me with second-degree manslaughter at best. I don't need anything from you that'll make me talk, so…" Khan leaned back in his chair. "… good luck trying."
"I won't need luck," Jethro countered as he rose to his feet. File in hand, he started to make his way towards the door. "Got your computer. Gonna send you and your boss to Cuba on a permanent vacation."
"Sounds like an Aerosmith album," Khan quipped. "That's your era, right? Old school?"
He eyed Khan with a small smirk. "Damn right." Turning back towards the door, Jethro stepped out and closed the door to the interrogation room behind him.
"Boss, I am so sorry!" DiNozzo said just outside of the observation room. "I should've written 'IP address' in my notes. You've just been doing so well lately with basic terms like that and I guess -"
He shot the Italian-American agent a reassuring look. "It was deliberate."
DiNozzo looked confused. "What?"
"Yeah," he replied, "the guy thinks I'm dumb." The veteran agent started walking away with a smug smile. "Just wanna prove he's right." If Khan thought that Jethro was just some old codger, he would let his guard down. Would underestimate him. It was their best chance at getting the rather arrogant young man to talk.
