Author's Note - The recommended guest stars listed in intermediate chapters are just ones that I thought about since publishing the original cast. They may not necessarily appear in THIS episode but they do appear in other episodes.

GUEST STARRING

Jessica Rothe - Nicole LaPrairie

SEVERAL HOURS LATERS – NCIS OFFICE

"Is Garner Plastics linked to the Garner crime family?" Gregorio asked.

Everyone else shook their head. "Not related at all. Oh yeah, I remember, you ain't from around here."

Gregorio gave him a nasty look. LaSalle was usually not like that but her arrogant New York personality was definitely getting to all of them.

"Pride, Patton and I did look into Garner Plastics and got something and this could be big, concerns both Eddie Prescott and our wonderful principal, Mr. Thomassie," LaSalle continued, addressing the entire team now.

"Let's hear it," said Pride, hopefully they were getting closer to a breakthrough. He was still driving through the streets of Algiers, heading to the Marine Reserve base in the Federal City division of the district, named for the military presence there.

"Thomassie did have a point back there," LaSalle said, "About how he thought Prescott was wasting his degree and talents being a simple high school teacher, at an inner city school of all places." LaSalle nodded at Patton, who pulled up several financial records on the big screen and also sent them to Pride's phone.

"I'm not saying Prescott is dirty, or he wasn't a hero, but he ain't as squeaky clean as he first came across," Patton said. "He did recently purchase and was planning to remodel and expand a new home on the Metairie lakefront. He also spent a week on Hawaii's Big Island, where he and a woman we're still trying to identify stayed at an exclusive resort and chartered a private helicopter tour over Volcanoes National Park. Yes, all on a New Orleans Public Schools salary."

He clicked his pointer some more. "Turns out there's been several secretive wire transfers into his Regions Bank account, coming from an offshore account in Bermuda. And guess what, after hacking into several of the wire transfers in and out of Bermuda, those funds come directly from Garner Plastics LLC in Darrow."

"We need to look further into this. But what about Thomassie?"

"Plenty of bad blood between him and Garner Plastics. Thomassie was a union boss in the National Federation of Teachers local chapter. That union threatened staff walkouts several times last year in order to protest the state industrial property tax exemption for Garner Plastics's facility expansion in Clearwater. Thomassie has written a number of guest columns in the Times-Picayune ranting about how these extra property taxes should be going to public schools. In fact, in one of these articles Thomassie complained about his own salary and wrote some self-agrandizing bullcrap about how only his love for marginalized city kids is keeping him from working at a private school. Oh yeah, and the fact that Garner Plastics donated a lot of money to a candidate supporting charter schools doesn't help. Garner hates how charter schools like to be in contact with industry to see what kind of skills tomorrow's employers are looking for."

"As if he's qualified to teach at a private school," Gregorio said.

MARINE RESERVE BASE, ALGIERS NEIGHBORHOOD

"Keep the focus on the high school too," Pride said, "We're going to continue monitoring the traffic out of New Orleans area mosques since there's been a few new threats regarding the Iraqi operation. But we need to keep all the possibilities open." He didn't need to mention that a young Muslim immigrant or left wing activist who heard rumors about Prescott's involvement in Middle East and vents hardly means there's a terrorist conspiracy targeting veterans on American soil.

"Agent Pride, Captain Bednarik is ready to see you," a young Marine officer said, ushering Pride into a well apportioned office overlooking a courtyard filled with two live oak trees draped in Spanish moss. Even this base had the character of the Deep South. Bednarik was Prescott's direct superior in the US Marine Corps.

"You had mentioned there were a number of threats made? By the way, we are on speaker with my team back at NCIS New Orleans headquarters."

Bednark nodded and presented a stack of materials.

"So why wasn't I told of this?" Pride asked, looking at transcripts of various voicemails and hate emails sent to Prescott's Facebook accounts. "You had only previously informed NCIS and local police about you looking for terrorist chatter from the Middle East. A lot of these are domestic, even local."

"I thought you we're looking at threats coming from the Iraq mission."

"What about other ops he was involved in?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The mission that pissed a lot of these left wing radicals, the…."

"You and I both know people like Antifa have a soft spot in their hearts for anti-American terrorists, including Muslim jihadists."

"It specifically refers to what Prescott allegedly did 'down there'? Somewhere in Latin America? We talking about an anti-narcotics operation against the cartels? Something off the books?"

"All that's compartmentalized, you know that. And you know you don't have the security clearance necessary." The captain as much as admitted something was up.

"I hate to do it this way, but we're pressed for time as these threats are escalating and other American veterans may be in danger. Either you decompartmentalize it, or I can place one phone call to NCIS headquarters and have them order you to decompartmentalize it, and ask you to explain why you wasted my time in a major federal investigation. You see, I hate it when people play these games with me."

Captain Bednarik sighed. "The last month before Prescott left active duty for the reserves, his unit was involved in a classified operation in Venezuela during the worst of the political crisis there."

"Now we're getting somewhere," said Pride.

Bednarik continued. "Before President Maduro cut diplomatic ties with the United States and expelled our entire embassy staff, Prescott and several other Marines from his command were sent to Caracas to boost up the Marine embassy detachment there, especially since Maduro had invited Russian and Chinese military advisors into Venezuela. Complete chaos down there, you know that. Maduro's left wing goons from the Venezuelan National Guard massacring unarmed protesters in the streets. People so hungry they broke into the zoo and ate the animals there."

President Nicholas Maduro was the socialist, rabidly anti-American dictator propped up by generous amounts of financial and diplomatic support from China and Russia as well as by shadowy international donors. He was the protégé of the infamous late Hugo Chavez and has continued to chart the same failed, destructive socialist path that Chavez had began.

"So you're saying Prescott led an off-the books op in Venezuela, fought an engagement with Maduro's soldiers?"

"No, it was cleared by the Joint Chiefs themselves. Several embassy workers were in the city of Maracaibo meeting with opposition leaders when Maduro ordered an operation to capture these very opponents. Obviously several of these staffers worked for Langley and we couldn't let them fall into Maduro's hands. Especially as these regime forces were being directed by Russian advisers, so Prescott led a last minute operation into western Venezuela that rescued our embassy staff but resulted in the deaths of 25 Venezuelan soldiers. 5 civilians were also killed by a Venezuelan National Guard helicopter before Prescott shot it down."

"Let me guess, people blame that on us too?"

"What else would you expect?" Pride said wryly. "They said the American imperialists forced the confrontation that those deaths resulted from."

"But that was never officially even mentioned on the news, not even in Venezuela's own state-owned propaganda media nor by the mainstream media here in the U.S. which would jump at any chance to make our military or law enforcement look bad," said LaSalle.

"Saves them the embarrassment," Pride conjectured, "With all of their new Chinese and Russian supplied equipment including new radar systems, attack helicopters and machine guns they can't defeat a small team of Marines who were simply there to protect our embassy."

"The underground media, however," Patton spoke up, "Has been crawling with chatter. Much more so than with the Muslim terrorist angle though those threats are starting to come in as well. As badly as Prescott is hated in the Middle East, if this is about his past operations as an active-duty Marine, I'd say what happened in Venezuela is clearly the key."

"I'm sure you have some specific individuals in mind?" Pride ask.

"Sure do," Patton replied proudly. He pulled up a suspect's face onto the screen. It showed a young, hip looking college student with a New York driver's license and a Tulane University student ID. "This is Shane Rappaport, originally from Westchester County, New York. He's a biology and political science major at Tulane. Also a major campus agitator. He worked for the Dyson Pitts re-election campaign."

Congressman Dyson Pitts was a black Democrat from the Lower Ninth Ward. The only Democrat in Louisiana's Congressional delegation, he represented the 2nd Congressional district for the U.S. House of Representatives. His district included a large swath of New Orleans and Baton Rouge's most troubled inner city communities as well as a number of smaller river towns and working class suburban areas.

He had begun his long Washington career as a moderate Democrat that reflected his predominantly black inner-city constituency, but as the national party had shifted leftward, so had he. Pitts now described himself as a democratic socialist and had been endorsed by the upper echelons of the national party as well as a number of Hollywood celebrities and by the national media. The intensification of racial politics has also helped him cement his support among some elements of the inner city constituency while the liberal elites filled his coffers with cash.

"Shane Rappaport was also one of the leaders of the local Antifa movement here in New Orleans. He was arrested last year in Laredo, Texas for damaging property during an anti-Border Patrol protest organized by Antifa." The screen now showed a video of Shane picking up a garbage can and throwing it into the lobby of an office building, shattering a large pane of glass. There was another picture of Shane and other protesters setting fire to an ICE vehicle while holding placards supporting illegal immigrants during a violent protest on the Tex-Mex border at Laredo.

"Sebastian and Gregorio, go pay them a visit," Pride ordered. "I'm sure you'll be able to blend in on a college campus better than me. I seem to scream cop or Fed wherever I go."

"Yeah, I know Sebastian has that nerdy look and all, but I…." Sonja began.

"C'mon, Gregorio," Sebastian said, "Let's go. Plus I AM familiar with that campus, I have several friends from there who play….."

"I'm setting up the meeting right now, putting the fear of NCIS in him so that he cooperates in setting up this meeting. You two can talk about the online gaming scene at Tulane on the way there."

Pride then hung up the phone and looked at Bednarik. "Captain, I trust if you hear anything else, I'll be the first to know." He turned around and walked away before the other man had a stance to respond.

TULANE UNIVERSITY

Shane Rappaport haughtily strolled into the main offices of Tulane University's sociology department, barely acknowledging the office assistant as he went into the corridor lined with professors' private offices. Pride looked at the security camera footage, already disliking the privileged college student for his smugness and arrogance. After all, he was already well known in the sociology department, where many people were engaged in the same activism that he was. Plus that was the typical Yankee attitude so many from Tulane's wealthy disproportionately East Coast student body demonstrated.

"Professor Dalby," Shane said, walking into the door, yet was taken aback when he found the professor's desk was empty. Suddenly, the door closed behind him and Sebastian and Gregorio were there.

"What the….where's Professor Dalby, and who are…"

"I'm Agent Lund, and this is Agent Gregorio, NCIS."

"Oh the feds," Shane said with a smile. "I love this."

"Love this?" Gregorio asked with a surprised, incredulous look on her face.

"I love how you guys set this meeting up by the way, nice and discreet. Unlike the pigs working for Louisiana State Police. I've always had a positive opinion on the Feds. Except ICE and the Border Patrol, of course. But the FBI really showed a bunch of guts at Waco teaching those loonies a lesson. See Bill Clinton knew what's up." He was referring to the infamous Waco Massacre in Texas 1993 in which FBI and ATF agents in tanks armored vehicles ended a standoff with a religious sect by setting their compound ablaze with flamethrowers, killing dozens of unarmed women and children. In the mind of people like Shane Rappaport, anyone who opposed the federal government and deserved such a fate.

This actually made sense to Gregorio. Many left wing radicals hated local law enforcement and major corporations, but for some reason were big fans of the federal government. But more so the Washington bureaucracy than a semi-independent outfit like the NCIS New Orleans office.

"I like you already, Agent Gregorio," Shane said, "You must be an inspiration to so many women, being so strong and confident like you obviously are and doing your kind of work. You're here about the complaints I've made against the state police actions during our last protest?" Shane asked.

Gregorio shook her head. "No, we're here about the threats that you made against Eddie Prescott."

"I was exercising my free speech rights," Shane said.

"No, you dumbass," Gregorio said. "You made direct threats, and you did it while logged into a computer at the campus library. Campus police showed us the security camera of you sitting at that computer the comment these threats were posted about the mission in Venezuela. We'll save the question of how you gained access to info on classified military operations for another time."

"Then why am I not in jail now being tortured like the prisoners at Abu Graib?"

"Because we want to know how you came about this classified information. How does a campus activist, even an Antifa leader with national connections, learn about Prescott's off the books ops in Venezuela?"

"Are you going to arrest me? Because if so, I demand to call my family attorney. And I assure you, he's a very good lawyer."

"No, you're not being arrested, but the thing about the Internet these days, even if the national media is sympathetic to you," Sebastian told Shane, "Stuff still goes viral. How would your parents feel if they saw that you were making death threats against a decorated veteran and a major community figure?"

"I believe the things I do because of how they raised me!" Shane said, almost yelling, his eyes wide with passion. "I grew up with progressive values, and my dad will support me if you try to do anything to me."

"Ah yes," Gregorio said, "You see I'm from New York. I know exactly what kind of people your parents are. You don't care what some hicks and rednecks on the Internet think about you, but what would they think if you never graduated from college, let alone become a rich doctor like I've been told you want to be? If you ended up like those people you look down on?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Shane said. "The campus administration knows my criminal record from my protests, they don't care."

"As powerful as your family may be politically, the military is more powerful. The fact that one of their students was given classified information, and made threats while on campus property regarding this info, the Navy will see to it that you're expelled. And you only got into this school because of your family's donations and financial clout. Good luck getting your degree anywhere else."

Shane remained silent for a while.

"Yeah, think that one through buddy," Gregorio said in her tough voice.

"I…fuck!" Shane cursed, banging his hands on the table. He was certainly no genius, but it was clear even to him that NCIS got him this time. If he was expelled from college, that would make him a useless failure to his family and to all his peers in the East Coast liberal elite bubble. "I got it from an activist from UT-Austin, who said he was also at that protest on the Mexican border."

"You have his name? Where we might be able to find him?" Sebastian demanded.

"His name was Josef Blakjovic. He said he was an international student from the Czech Republic. He made contact with me like two days ago."

"How?"

"In our meeting on campus! I….I really don't know how to contact him. He doesn't have a Facebook because that can be tracked too easily. But he goes to Texas! You can check their files."

"So you and Josef Blakjovic were instrumental in the riots in Laredo at the ICE facility? That's when you first met this person?"

"No! I don't remember seeing him there, there were activists from all over Texas and from around the country there to support immigrant rights!" he said, leaving out the word "illegal". "I don't remember meeting him there, but he goes to UT!"

"See, we're making good progress so far," Gregorio said, maintaining the pressure on the radical student leader. She wanted to wring his arrogant, privileged, misguided little neck but this was official duty, and she was still an NCIS agent. "We're going to take a walk down to the security office and review the cameras of the student union the day of the meeting. You better point out Josef Blakjovic to me."

"What….what if he wasn't captured on camera?"

"You better hope he was, or you're fucked," Gregorio said.