Chapter Four
Elly and Greg guided Bishop upstairs and into the bullpen. They huddled in on Tim's side where she was introduced properly to Tim and Ned.
"It's good to meet you," she said with a tight attempt at a smile. "I just wish it was under different circumstances."
"Definitely," Ned said with a sigh.
"You said you would show me the message boards?" she asked, getting straight to work.
"Come on over. I'm sure Tony won't mind you using his desk. Just don't touch the stapler." He turned to go around the divider, and Bishop looked between the guys with a raised eyebrow before following.
Ned was already pulling up the message boards on his computer again as Bishop sat her bag down on Tony's desk and scanned it for the stapler. Once she saw the Mighty Mouse emblem on it she took a peek at Ned, then back. She nodded once to herself as she wondered how weird the NCIS team may be after all, and turned to Ned for guidance on their next steps.
"We can either put these up on the plasma, or you can come sit near me. It's up to you on how secure you think we should keep them. I always keep them little screen, and snip little things I want to show on big screen." Ned looked at her, trying to tap into his MTAC persona, and finding it surprisingly easy.
"I'll join you," she said, pulling Tony's chair across to his desk. She sat cross-legged in it once she was in position, and leaned forward as Ned showed her the site he was using.
"Okay," she said with a nod. "Yeah, I haunt this board, too. My Arabic isn't so great, but it gets better every day."
He showed her the thread that he had shown the others the snippet of, and she nodded again as she understood where he's gotten the information. He switched to a different message board, and he glanced over at her as he heard her breath hitch for a moment.
"Wait a minute!" she said quietly, leaning on his desk and staring from him to the screen again with her mouth hanging open. "How do you have access to this?! I've been trying to get on it for a year!"
Ned re-grounded himself in the MTAC persona, and shrugged. "I have contacts."
Bishop sat back in her chair, her hands on the armrests, grasping them until her knuckles were white. "Okay, but I guess my question is, why do you have access to this?"
Ned turned to her, his face stone. "I'm a tactical specialist for MTAC operations. The need arose in an operation, I tapped a contact for info, was led here. Why do any of us have access to any of the things we have access to? Because we need it. And once you get in on something like this, you keep the line of communication flowing. You don't let it go dormant, or you risk losing it."
Elly and Greg had joined them on their side of the bullpen after a briefing with Tim. Elly rolled his eyes. "I bet I know the contact," he said with a little too much snarky attitude. He scrunched up his nose as he got to work running searches on his computer.
Ned leaned into Bishop's space and whispered. "Elly doesn't like it when we mention my contacts."
"Elly? You mean Elijah."
"Oh, we call Elijah Elly," Ned said, sitting back up.
"Really?" she asked, looking at Elly.
He nodded. "Yeah. It was my mom's nickname for me when I was little. She was killed when I was three. The team has kind of adopted me, and now everyone here calls me Elly. E-L-L-Y."
"Huh," Bishop said, trying to make out these weird people. She turned back to Ned, leaned in, and whispered, "Why doesn't he like you mentioning your contacts?"
Ned nodded understandingly. "One of my contacts is an ex-boyfriend. Elly is my fiancé."
"If you two are engaged, how are you allowed on the same team?" she asked both of them.
"Ned's not my subordinate. And we have very different specialties. I'm the Senior Field Agent in title only. I specialize in techno babble, searches and what not, and lately interagency affairs, and Ned specializes in tactical operations, and dabbles in a little psychological profiling now and then."
"He's being modest," Ned jumped in. "He's an expert at locating people and things. Give him a whiff of a paper trail, and he's all over it. And he's currently designing a database platform that can be used throughout all agencies to locate correlations between cold cases."
"I thought Agent McGee was the Senior Field Agent?" she said, the confusion written on her face.
Elly nodded. "He is, of the MCRT. I'm the Senior Field Agent of this team. Our team leaders are off on their honeymoon."
"Okay then," Bishop said with wide eyes and a deep breath escaping her chest. She was feeling overwhelmed and wasn't sure, but she thought she may have bitten off more than she could chew by coming over to NCIS alone. "So what can you tell me about what you've found on this message board. What's your take on this?"
"Well, the writing of the Americans is really broken, basic, beginner's Arabic. It even has some English thrown in now and then. So these are converts. They aren't natural Arabic speakers, and if they grew up with the Quran they would have at least enough of the language down to read the text, because as you know, reading it in Arabic is the only real way to appreciate it."
Bishop nodded. This was typical of what she'd seen.
"The difference though that I'm seeing between those claiming to be a part of the 'atfal Alnabii and most of the rest of the people I've observed on this board is the language pattern."
"What do you mean?" Bishop asked, looking back and forth between Ned and the computer again.
"They don't seem to be getting any better. And the word choices they use correspond to words that a younger generation uses in the United States than the others on the board. It's almost like they're children, or at least 15-20 years old. They say things like, alquzam, which I've figured out is their equivalent to "troll", which doesn't translate quite right. In Arabic it's more like a pygmy, but it's used in the English way that we use "troll" on the internet. To troll someone's Facebook or Twitter accounts, you know, that kind of trolling."
Bishop nodded as she thought about that. "Come to think of it, I can see what you mean. Some of the communications I've received are in English between The Children and Crow, and they do sound completely different. Not necessarily stupid or dumb, but immature." She chewed on her bottom lip and thought. "Why haven't I thought of that before?"
"Maybe because you thought that no kid in today's world would be stupid enough to get caught up in stuff like this?" Ned asked with raised eyebrows and a shrug.
"Or maybe I was just too naïve, and thought that kids wouldn't be evil enough," she said with another sigh. "Okay, so what if they are kids? That would explain the name that they've chosen."
Ned nodded with a sympathetic sigh. "And now we're hunting down kids."
"It's a theory at least," Greg said from his desk where he'd been eavesdropping.
"An unfortunate, but realistic theory," Bishop said. "I think I'm going to need some Coke."
Ned looked at her with a single raised eyebrow, and wondered for a moment who in the hell this chick was sitting next to him.
"Do you guys have a soda machine around here?" she asked.
"Ahhh," Ned said, then nodded and got up to show her where the breakroom was, feeling more than a little stupid for his thoughts that she was wanting cocaine. He showed her the vending machines, and pulled money out of his pocket to get him and Elly some Starbursts and decided on another Mountain Dew for each of them.
They were about to leave the breakroom when a hand on Ned's arm stopped him. Bishop looked towards the doorway and then back at Ned. "So this contact," she said. "Can you connect me so I can get on the board?"
Ned thought for a moment, feeling cornered. His eyes kind of darted around the room in a brief panic, and he took a deep breath. "I can ask my contact, but I'm at his mercy. I doubt he's going to be too happy to hear from me right now."
"Why?" Bishop said, feeling a little bit like she was entering the NCIS gossip train.
"Because I was supposed to meet him last month to exchange information, and my boss came with me. And I think he wanted me there alone."
"Alone? He doesn't trust your judgement on who to introduce to him?"
Ned raised an eyebrow at her, his mouth twisted in that way that said she wasn't getting it.
"OH!" She said, her hand going over her mouth as she held back a laugh. "Alone. Right. Got it."
Ned nodded. "Yeah. I'd told him that I'm engaged, but things were always kinda crazy for us, and my boss knew that, so when he heard we were going to meet up he shouldered his way into the meeting, and yeah. You know that iceberg that sunk the Titanic? Felt like that."
"So your boss cock blocked you?" she asked with a snicker.
"Thankfully! I didn't think he'd try anything, but when he reacted so coldly to Tony's presence I realized that there weren't innocent intentions behind the meeting, and the discussion was a bit… chilly."
Bishop was trying not to laugh. "No wonder Critten doesn't like you talking about this guy!"
"Oh, you're not joking! I mean, when I was sitting there with Tony and my ex approached us, he said hi to me, and then introduced himself to Tony, asking if he was my fiancé with this uber-confused look on his face. You should've seen Tony's expression!"
"I'll have to meet your boss sometime," she said with a smile.
"He's great. He and Gibbs number one are like my idols. Personal heroes for sure."
"Gibbs number one?" she asked.
"Yeah, well once they got married Tony took Gibbs' last name, so they're now Gibbs number one, and Gibbs number two. Number one is the original, and number two is Tony."
Bishop suddenly put the pieces together that both of their married bosses were men, and mentally shrugged. "Sounds like a tried and true method. Is it one you and Critten will be using?"
Ned shrugged. "We haven't decided what to do about our last names yet. My family disowned me, his dad disowned him, so we're not really tied to our names except professionally. And already having two Supervisory Special Agent Gibbses in the world is confusing enough. If we did take a mutual last name, it would probably be something different than either of our names."
"I don't blame you," she said. "It's really nice working with your spouse though. My husband is a technical lawyer for the NSA. We have matching clearance so we can talk about almost anything work related, but our jobs are so different that it keeps things interesting."
"Nice!" Ned said, feeling excited to have something personal in common with Bishop. "I love working with Elly! We are always in each other's business, but when we do need time apart, we're both totally cool with it. Like, I went to a move the other day by myself. And Elly has friends in the club scene since he used to be a DJ, and will occasionally go hang out with them without me. It's working really well for us."
Bishop started walking slowly towards the bullpen, and Ned kept pace. "Jake and I sneak away every day we're both in town to this restaurant for lunch. It's our favorite, and it's great to be able to connect with him throughout the day. We keep a healthy social life outside of work that sometimes mixes and mingles, sometimes doesn't. And my family loves him. It's great."
"How long have you two been married now?" Ned asked as they reentered their part of the bullpen.
"Seven years," she said with a grin.
"That's a long time!" he said with surprise as he blindly handed Elly his Dew as he passed his desk. "You don't seem old enough to be married for seven years."
"Yeah, we met in college. He was working on his law degree, and I was studying analytical communications, and we hit it off. We both applied for all sorts of government jobs, but we ended up together at the NSA."
"Interesting," he said as they sat down. "Where else did you apply? Was there something else you wanted to do? I mean analytical communications and the NSA are pretty much peanut butter and jelly."
"Yeah! It's where most of my classmates wanted to go. I wanted something a little different, but I'm happy where I'm at I guess."
"What did you want to do?" Ned asked, leaning on his desk and giving Bishop his full attention. He wasn't sure why, but he really liked her.
"I kinda wanted to be an agent somewhere. I travel the world sometimes, but I don't feel like I'm making a big difference. 95% of my time I spend with my head in a stack of files or in front of a laptop trying to find patterns in speech to indicate that the same people are writing it, and what they could possibly mean. Only one in a hundred of our hypothesis turn out to be accurate, if that. It gets frustrating."
"So you wanted to be an agent, like CIA? FBI?" Greg asked her.
"I even applied here at one point."
"Well, don't make it sound like a last resort or anything," Ned said with a chuckle.
Bishop turned pink and looked at the ceiling for a minute as she chuckled in embarrassment because she realized that she had just said it exactly like it was. "No offense, I just haven't had much in the way of ties to the Navy, and so I didn't feel a connection here. Applied for CGIS, too, but I grew up in Nebraska where the closest body of water was the duck pond in the next farm over."
Ned nodded, taking in Bishop's body language like Greg had taught him. She was open, vulnerable, and yet somehow restrained. He felt proud to have been able to make her feel so comfortable in the hour he'd been working with her. He also had a sense that she was looking for more out of life. He wondered if she might be good at doing some of the stuff he did in MTAC, or at least the prep work for it. He sighed as he thought of that and realized they needed to work.
"So, the kids."
"The kids," she said, her expression turning grim.
*********WDYG?*********
Ziva was trying not to kill Sommers. It was hard. It was very hard. However, despite her fantasies, he was still alive and whining, like always. She'd tried to steer his conversation into more positive waters, but to no avail. She tried turning his whines into questions that he just shrugged off or explained away with immature attempts at justifications for his actions and attitude. Nothing she did seemed to make him realize that he was being a worthless jackass.
Finally, he started bitching about something else, and she went up to him and slapped him hard upside the back of the head. "If you do not have anything constructive to say, stop talking." His expression as he glared at her matched that of a petulant teenage punk being put in his place by someone for the first time, and she wondered if he was ever going to learn anything.
They searched their Sergeant's small apartment, and found no signs of struggle, or anything else that would indicate he had been taken from the location. They found nothing else suspicious. Ziva had snagged a couple of photos of Davis with some people doing work in what appeared to be Iraq or Afghanistan from the shelf. They were in basic wooden black frames, but not all of the people in the photos were in US uniforms.
The other indicator that the Sergeant wasn't taken from his home was that the car was missing. He had a 2002 Mustang registered in his name, and it wasn't anywhere in the parking lot or the carport assigned to his unit number. Ziva used her phone to put the BOLO out for it, knowing that Sommers would've grumbled the entire way through the task, and she would've ended up doing it just to shut him up.
She tried to appeal to Sommers' masculinity, and asked him where men hide things. Sommers' discovered Davis' porn stash, but it was Ziva who discovered where his weapons were hidden around the house.
"If I was hiding weapons like this around the house, I was worried that someone was either going to find them, or someone was going to catch me off guard," she said thoughtfully.
"You think he had enemies?" Sommers asked.
"In war everyone has enemies," she said thoughtfully. They bagged each weapon and tagged it. Thankfully Sommers didn't complain about the task. They printed the doorknobs of the house and collected a few hair samples, but they all appeared to be from the Sergeant.
"Are we done?" Sommers asked as Ziva looked around for anything else that might lead them to a clue.
"One more thing," Ziva said, going over to the home phone. She searched through the caller ID and wrote down all of the numbers in its fifteen number memory bank.
"Can't we just pull the records to find out who called him?" Sommers asked.
"Yes, but that is going to take time. You can do a quick search on these in the car on the way back to the Navy Yard." She ripped the little page out of her notebook and handed it off to Sommers. He rolled his eyes as he took it, then picked up a box with the collected evidence. They headed back to the car, and Ziva rolled her eyes at his back as she closed the door behind them.
They spent the next hour canvassing the neighbors for anything unusual, but came up with nothing. Davis was a hero to his neighbors. He helped the single mom next door with repairs on her car, brought groceries to the old WWII vet across the street every week when he was home, and helped coach intermural soccer for the Boys and Girls Club. No one in his apartment complex had anything bad to say about him. That in and of itself was a red flag to Ziva. There was always someone that didn't like you. Either you took up too many parking spaces, played your music too loud, came in and out at all hours, or had obnoxiously loud sex, but there was always something. Even being too quiet so that you're creepy would have come up, but no one said anything negative about him.
"Okay," Sommers said as he got into the car and slipped his seatbelt on, seeming to finally have learned his lesson. "Is it just me, or is this guy just like, too perfect?"
Ziva was amused that Sommers was being insightful for once. It was one of the rare investigative moments she'd experienced with him since they'd met. "I was thinking the same thing."
"It's like he was so great I want to punch him," Sommers said.
"Everyone has a demon. I wonder what his was," Ziva said as she pulled away from the curb.
"It's not even like he's got some secret fetish or something. I mean, we saw his porn collection. Completely predictable. What was this guy's outlet? Where's his dark side?"
"If you wanted to hide something, but didn't want it found, you wouldn't hide it in your apartment."
"Now you're talking," Sommers said. "Maybe he had a storage unit."
"We're in Norfolk. Maybe he has a boat."
"True. It's like everyone down here has a boat. May not be a yacht, but a fishing boat at least. Could be a good place to store stuff."
"See what you can pull up on his records," she instructed. "If we can check on it before we get out of town, I would like to."
"Bingo," he said a few minutes later, holding up his phone so Ziva could see. "Looks like it's registered at Cobb's Marina."
Ziva pulled over, and called McGee. "McGee, we discovered that Davis had a boat. We're going to go check it out before we come back."
"Good call. I think I'm going to take Elly and go search the NSA agent's house if you're going to be a while. I want to get ahead of this thing. Do you have anything promising from the apartment?"
"Absolutely nothing, which in and of itself is something. This man is too clean. Perfect neighbor. Everyone loves him. There is nothing to indicate any kind of… shadiness."
Tim sighed. "Okay. Try not to read into anything that isn't there. Search the boat, and come home unless something piques your interest, then call me."
"Very well," she said, and hung up to get back on the road.
********WDYG?********
McGee had been listening to Ned, Greg, Elly and Bishop bounce ideas off of each other for the past couple of hours when he came over to get a report out on what they had so far.
"Well, we're really starting to find evidence that these wannabe jihadists are kids," Elly said.
"Or at least young adults," Bishop added as she shifted through her paperwork. "Their linguistic patterns are definitely immature enough to be. I thought before it was just because they weren't very comfortable with the language, but as I'm looking again, I'm seeing it. These posts are either by younger people, or by someone who hangs out with younger people a lot. So a teacher, a coach, a youth counselor, or someone like that."
"And as Bishop analyzes the age factor, we're trying to analyze Crow," Ned said, gesturing to him and Greg. "She's given us a series of his conversations with The Children, as well as others, and we're noticing some things. He's definitely American. His use of the Arabic language is sloppy, but not slang. He's been taught Arabic officially, and he's very comfortable with it in textbook form. His English is very modernized and contains idiom, metaphor, and casual slang, but very mature."
"Be careful McGee, we may lose him to the NSA by time all this is done," Elly said with a grin.
"I wouldn't want to do this fulltime!" Ned said with a daunted look on his face. "But every now and then it's a refreshing challenge."
"So we're looking for an American that speaks English as a first language, Arabic as an additional language, and works at the NSA," McGee summarized.
"For Crow, yes," Greg said.
Elly jumped in. "I've already passed on that information to Agent Hadley. They're currently running through a list of possibilities on their end, and are going to compile a list that meets that description, and send it to Other Ellie to narrow down even further."
"As for The Children," Bishop started. "I see some passages here that might be them gathering at a particular location on a regular basis. It has a word, I think a codename, that I can't make out."
"Let me see?" Ned asked, reaching for it. Bishop had taken to sitting on the floor in front of Ned's desk, her papers spread out around her, computer in her lap. She reached a sheet up, and Ned took a look at it.
"Highlighted in the third paragraph down, second to last line."
"Burj almuraqaba," rolled off of Ned's tongue, and he squinted at it. "Tower… Control tower, I think?" He turned to his computer, and typed a few things in. A moment later he looked over his desk at Bishop, and handed her back the document. "Control tower or watch tower."
"Now do we take that literally, or metaphorically?" she asked.
"What's the context?" Tim asked. "Should we be worried that they're going to attack a control tower of sorts?"
"No," she said as she looked down at the papers, and then after a moment back up at him. "This is their meeting place. Their safe place that they gather. Not a target."
"That could be a number of places in New York. Plenty of towers to watch from," Greg said with a sigh. "Radio towers, water towers, tall buildings that could be considered towers…"
"Yeah, I'm looking for a way to narrow it down," Bishop said.
"What do you have for us?" Elly asked Tim.
"Abby is still working on the blood on the clothing, but she's pretty sure it's not all our victims'. She also has the Major running tests on the soil samples from their shoes. She did a quick look under the microscope though, and she said that there's sand. The Major will have to determine whether it's sand from the banks around the river or not, but she doesn't think it is."
"Not the beach Mark was planning on going to this week, I can assure you," Bishop said with a sigh.
There were nods from around the room, and then Tim remembered what he and Abby had talked about earlier. "Hey, did Mark wear glasses?" he asked.
"Yeah, he did," Bishop said, looking up at him. "Why?"
"Well he wasn't wearing them when we found him. He also was only wearing one shoe, and his wallet was missing. We're pretty sure that he was leaving breadcrumbs for us to follow."
"He would definitely do that," Bishop said excitedly. "He loved clue games and scavenger hunts. He would do that geocaching game all the time. He was obsessed with it. He made me go with him sometimes, and though the game doesn't really hold much interest for me, the places it would take us did. We'd always end up off the beaten path somewhere."
"This is awesome!" Elly said, sitting down at the computer. "If someone finds his wallet, and tries to use a card, it could lead us to pinpoint a location he's been at in the past week. I've already tracked that he stopped using his cards the last Friday night, so he had to of been taken sometime after that. He was at home that night. He ordered pizza, and had it delivered to his house. Called the Domino's location, and they gave me the number of the driver from that night. He said he delivered the pizza to Mark around 8PM, was tipped well, exchange only took a minute, but he seemed fine. We know he never made it to the airport the next morning. So he was picked up somewhere between 8PM on Friday night and 8AM Saturday morning."
"And he was already dressed like he was going on a trip, Hawaiian print shirt and all, so we can assume that he was taken before he left for the airport or along the way to the airport."
"Oh, yeah. His horrible Hawaiian shirts!" Bishop said with a groan. He would occasionally wear one to work when he was missing the beach. He wasn't wearing one at work on Friday though."
"Good to know," Tim said. "This means that he was wearing the same clothes for a week. That means there's probably a lot of good trace material on the fabric, and if anything is there, Abby will find it."
"I take it Abby is someone in forensics?" Bishop asked.
The guys took turns smiling at each other. "Yeah," Elly said. "When you're ready for a break, I'll take you down to meet her."
"She's a brilliant forensic scientist. One of the best in the business," Ned said very seriously.
"I wouldn't expect anything less," Bishop said with a smile. "You all have certainly shown me your best side since this started."
The guys chuckled. "You haven't even met Gibbs 1 and 2 yet," Greg said with a smirk.
"I've been hearing good things. Hopefully I get the chance," she said.
"Hopefully you won't be here that long," Elly said, then looked up as he realized how that sounded. "Oh! No offense. I just mean hopefully we've wrapped this up before they get back from their honeymoon. They just left this morning, and will be in Italy for a week. If we don't have this wrapped up quickly the Director will have our asses."
"No offense taken," she reassured him. "I was thinking the same thing, but regretfully." She smiled up at Ned who smiled back.
"Elly, has Hadley said anything about searching Agent Piper's house?"
"He said he was going to wait until Agent Keo was available this afternoon."
"I don't want to wait any longer," Tim said, shaking his head.
Elly raised an eyebrow. "What do you want to do?"
"Bishop?" Tim asked. "Will you go with me and Elly to search Mark's house for any evidence? You know him the best it sounds like. You should really be there."
Bishop looked somewhat surprised. "You want me to investigate a potential crime scene with you?"
"It's the only way we're going to be able to do it without stepping on your agency's toes," Elly said bluntly.
"And you'll know things about Mark's habits that Keo won't know because she hasn't worked with him like you have," Greg said. "Things that are out of place, of out of character; things that no one else would notice."
"Sounds sensible," she said. "If Hadley is okay with it."
"Do you want me to call him, or do you want to call him?" Elly asked.
Bishop chewed her bottom lip as she thought. "It would be more convincing coming from me," she said, suddenly feeling an alliance with the people around her in a way she was really enjoying. She got to her feet, and took her phone to move towards the break room.
Elly and Tim exchanged a raised eyebrow, and everyone waited until Bishop was out of earshot before they started talking in shushed tones.
"You know that if she wanted privacy, she's going to talk about us to Hadley," Elly said.
"Oh, definitely," Greg said. "But I believe it's going to be positively. I think she's more afraid that he's not going to talk positively about us, and she'll have to defend us. She is latching on to any offering of socialized working we're offering her. And that stuff she said earlier about wanting to be an agent…"
"She wants to be an agent?" Tim asked, confused.
"She's craving collaboration, for sure," Elly said, looking up at Tim.
"She said she'd originally applied to be an agent at various agencies, and the NSA is the one that picked her up. She'd even applied here." Ned's look seemed to insinuate something, and Tim raised an eyebrow at him.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"Well…" Ned looked to Greg and Elly for a bit of encouragement, finding it in their expressions, and looked back at Tim. "You need a fourth, right?" he asked.
"You think Bishop would be a good fit?"
"Hell, I think we'd take her if we could use another teammate, but our roster is full," Elly said. "She's like, wicked smart. You should hear some of the stuff that's come out of her. She's got this textbook thing that reminds me of Ned when he goes all MTAC-ey on us."
Greg nodded. "I'm pretty sure she has some kind of eidetic memory, or something similar. She remembers exactly where things are on every page she reads, she remembers things word for word from reports, and she's recalling things from memory that I wouldn't have storage space for." He tapped his temple.
Tim shrugged. "We'll see how things go," he said. He tried to keep any emotion out of his voice. He was a little skeptical, but he was also intrigued. He'd been listening to the conversations happening across the bullpen, but it was harder to hear Bishop since she'd taken up the unusual position on the floor. The chatter pretty much stayed focused on their case though, so he hadn't interrupted the flow. He was busy chasing a couple of ideas down himself, and he knew he was going to have to report to the Director soon.
He leaned against Tony's desk as they waited for Bishop's return, and it was clear that everyone's thoughts were on what was happening in the next room.
Bishop called Hadley, waiting for the ringing to stop and the man's comforting bass voice to come through the line. She trusted Hadley, and she was grateful that he was letting her in on the investigation. She didn't want to piss him off and risk getting taken off of it, so she had to go about this delicately.
"Hey Ellie," he answered. "How are things going there?"
"Really well," she said. "I don't know what I expected when working with NCIS, but it wasn't this. We're working well together, and they're all crazy smart in their own ways."
"Good, because we're going to need smart." He sighed. "Evan is working on gathering that list their Agent Critten asked for. What can you tell me about it?"
"They've given me a fresh perspective on things. We're analyzing the conversations, and we think The Children of the Prophet are possibly actually children or young adults. Their linguistics reflect that. Crow, however, is an adult. And if our leak is Crow, if we've had that prick in our ranks this whole time, I'm going to be… oh!" she groaned.
"You're sounding emotionally invested in this. Are you sure you should be working it?" Hadley said.
"Absolutely," Bishop said, bringing her voice back to a calmer demeanor, feeling her opportunity on the edge of being taken away. "There's no one better to be on this than me. I worked these communications, too. This guy took out my partner. For all I know, I could be next. Which is why I wanted to ask you for a favor."
"What do you need?" Hadley said, sounding like he was ready to offer her whatever she required.
"Let me take some of these agents with me to Mark's house. I know him, Terry. I know him better than Keo, better than Evan. I'll understand if things are out of place, or if something was moved to indicate a signal or a clue. There's evidence to suggest that he was leaving breadcrumbs. He was missing his glasses, his shoe, his wallet, his phone. The Marine Sergeant wasn't missing anything. If Mark was taken from his apartment, the breadcrumbs would start there. I'd be able to follow his trail. I know how his mind works."
"I hate to relinquish so much of this investigation to another agency. It's hard enough knowing that someone from our inner ranks may be the big baddie in this one, but to turn over this much-"
"It's all the more reason to do it. You know Evan hasn't processed a scene in ten years. He's had bigger projects, and hasn't gotten his hands dirty like this since before I came on board. If we log any evidence in house, we're basically granting him access to the entire investigation. We don't know who it is. We have no clue. We can't protect the data. We all literally live for cracking this kind of stuff. If we were to put a keystroke in a computer to even search, we don't know if Crow is watching. We'd be leading him right to us, or he'd at least know our every move."
"Then we need to get the FBI involved, not NCIS," Hadley said, sounding exasperated.
"Our networks lead right into theirs. We use some of the same software. And I don't know how to say this any other way, but I trust the people I'm working with here. They're good people, and I know without a doubt that none of them are Crow. If he isn't NSA, then he's either FBI or CIA, and I'm not comfortable giving either of them access to the information we're uncovering."
Hadley sighed. "Fine," he said. "Go investigate Mark's apartment, but I want to know every detail, in MTAC afterwards. This doesn't go anywhere else. The Director will probably be there. You might want to bring theirs. We're scoping out our systems to try to narrow down our list of suspects. You should know, based on your access to the research, your name would be on the list."
"That wouldn't make any sense. There's nothing Mark had access to that I wouldn't have access to already. I wouldn't need to torture information out of him."
"I'm going to make sure everyone knows that. I've already said it ten times today, and I'll keep screaming it until every person scrubbing our systems knows it."
"Thank you," Bishop said with a sigh, her eyes closing.
"I trust you, Bishop. Don't let me down."
She nodded to herself. "I won't. I want this bastard more than all of you combined. I'll do whatever it takes to find him, and take him down."
********WDYG?********
Sierra pushed Amira on the swings. She felt her phone vibrate, and cringed. She knew it was Quinton and that she was going to have to cancel on him tonight. She didn't know when Abby and Tim would be free to take over watching Amira, if they would be able to at all. She pushed Amira one handed as she pulled the phone out and read the text. Sure enough, it was him confirming their plans. She texted him back the conundrum she was in. She took a picture of her exaggerated frownie face, and sent it with the text.
-That sucks, but I understand
- - - Thanks for understanding. I'm at the park with my charge. I'll text you tonight when I can.
-Okay babe
She smiled to herself as she thought about how great this new guy was. He just seemed to get her, and he had been totally cool about her erratic work schedule. She hoped that he kept pace when she started back to school the next week. It was going to be rough being a nanny, going to school, and having a boyfriend. She was going to have to lean on him to carry the weight for a while until she learned to juggle everything.
Amira suddenly jumped off the swing with a squeal, and Sierra was brought back to the moment. She followed at a distance as she ran for the jungle gym and started to climb it.
"Sierra! Watch me!" Amira said, sliding down the big tunnel slide. Sierra made sure she was waiting at the bottom to bestow the appropriate accolades for taking on such a big slide by herself. Sierra jumped around and squealed, running to go back up the side of the gym, and take on the slide again. Sierra smiled, and enjoyed the excitement of the little girl.
She thought back to what Dr. Mallard had said to her. She was afraid she may already be too attached to Amira and her family to pull back. A part of her wanted to run in the other direction, but so much of her wanted to run deeper into the forest of this crazy family and everything that came with it.
It was a rule that you didn't too attached to your clients though. Not only was it a rule for the company she worked for, but it was a rule in therapy as well. You needed to keep a healthy detachment from charges and patients. You never knew when you'd lose one.
The problem was, she finally felt found.
********WDYG?********
The flight to Italy from France was only two and a half hours long, so Jethro and Tony were flying business class. It was still pretty nice, and Tony wasn't complaining or even mentioning the difference. They were both anxious to get to where they were going. The sun had already set where they were, but their bodies told them it was only about 1800. It had been a long day though, and they both were ready for some good food, a comfy hotel room, and some time away from other people.
Tony was starting to understand why Jethro chose cargo plane flights when they had the option. On a cargo plane no one was around to stare at them. No one was being obnoxious. Or snoring. Or smelling funky in such a small space. By time the wheels touched down in Naples, Tony had consumed much more alcohol than intended. Jethro had also had enough coffee to make even him jittery.
They were both infinitely glad when they got off of the plane and into the airport. Tony had taught Jethro some basic phrases in Italian to help them get by, but Tony knew that this was his time to shine. He loved the way Jethro's gaze turned a shade darker as he read off the signs aloud to him to guide them to where their baggage claim was. He smirked to himself, then headed for the corridor to the right. They followed a long trail of people who were also heading for the claims area, and then waited impatiently for their belongings.
Their suitcases finally tumbled over the conveyer belt, and around to them. They hauled them over the sides of the belt and extended the handles to roll them towards the exit. They chose a cab, the driver getting out to help load the luggage in the trunk, and then slid into the backseat. Tony told the man where they were headed, and he nodded with arched eyebrows at the name of the hotel.
Tony noticed, and to avoid conversation with the driver who may ask what their trip was about and start an awkward conversation, he turned to speak to Jethro in English. "Do you want to find dinner nearby tonight, or see if we can order room service?"
"I think room service would be nice tonight," Jethro said back quietly with a smile. "Would be nice to be away from people for the rest of the night after being crammed in a plane, or rushing through an airport all day."
"Yes, yes it would," Tony said with a smile. They sat quietly and watched the city's lights as they drove the fifteen minutes to their destination. "Even at night it's beautiful."
"Yeah, it is," Jethro said, but Tony realized that Jethro was looking at him instead of out of the window. He grinned to himself, and shook his head slightly. He looked forward at the driver to find he was looking back in the rearview.
He started a conversation with him about what he thought were the real best places to eat in Naples, not just where the tourists go. Jethro watched Tony intently as he spoke. Tony would turn occasionally and translate for Jethro the gist of the conversation. The cabbie was willing to offer up a couple of local places where there was a lot more than pasta on the menu, including a local bakery that he said made the best baba au rhum in Italy.
They arrived at the hotel, and said farewell to the cabbie with an extra bit on the tip for the advice. It didn't take long to check in, and soon they were escorted into their suite by a bellhop. Tony hadn't known the name of the hotel until the night before, and Jethro hadn't told him which suite that was booked. As soon as the bellhop left them alone, Tony had Jethro pinned to the wall with a kiss of happy gratitude for picking such an incredible room.
"It's amazing!" Tony said softly as he pulled back from the kiss. "Thank you."
Jethro reached forward and put a hand on the back of Tony's neck, pulling him in for a long, languid kiss. When they finally pulled apart, Tony was a little lightheaded. "You're welcome," Jethro whispered.
Tony could only nod for a moment while he regained his senses. He eventually cleared his throat, and shook off the daze. "So, room service?"
"Oh yeah. I'm hungry." The long look Jethro gave Tony let him know he was hungry for more than food, but if they didn't eat a real meal soon there would be no energy for fun afterwards. "Let's settle in, and we'll see what they got."
They explored their suite, complete with big screen TV and Jacuzzi tub. Tony's interest was more in the king size bed that he couldn't wait to be snuggled with Jethro in. He was feeling the honeymoon vibe, and was anxious to make this trip all about spending as much time as close to Jethro as possible, both physically and emotionally.
While Jethro used the restroom, Tony checked out the room service menu. It was fairly basic, but this hotel catered to international travelers, and had a little bit of everything available. He saw that there was a wine menu as well, and wondered if he needed any more to drink that night. He decided to hold off and save that for another night.
Jethro returned and came up behind Tony, sliding his arms around his waist from behind and kissing his neck. "What they got?" he asked softly in Tony's ear, holding him closer to him as he rested his chin on Tony's shoulder to look at the menu. Tony hummed in appreciation for the embrace, and leaned back into it.
"Did the reviews say anything about the dining?" Tony asked as he flipped the page.
"Just that it was good restaurant quality," Jethro said, squinting to see something on the page.
"See anything that looks appetizing?" Tony asked.
"I'm holding it," Jethro said, gently nipping playfully at Tony's ear, making him chuckle.
"On the menu," Tony said through his smile.
"Oh! That. Well…" Tony turned his head slightly towards Jethro and realized he wasn't wearing his glasses, so he probably didn't see anything at all on the pages.
"Where are your glasses?" he asked.
"In my pocket."
"Then why aren't you wearing them?"
"Because I'd have to let you go to get them out of my pocket, and I don't want to let you go. Just tell me a few things. You know what I like."
Tony felt like a teenager. He grinned even wider, and shook his head slightly as he read off a couple of things to Jethro. Jethro started rocking them back and forth, and Tony closed his eyes. He just wanted to stay right there forever. He felt Jethro kiss his jaw, and they both sighed happily.
"Should probably go ahead and order. The restaurant closes soon."
Tony nodded and confirmed Jethro's choice, then turned in his arms for a sweet kiss. "I love you," he said softly.
"I love you, too," Jethro said with a smile, his eyes shining.
"I'm so happy to be here with you. A year ago I wouldn't have even imagined something this perfect, and now I'm living in a fairytale."
"No scary dragons to slay." They both chuckled, thinking about bedtime with Amira.
Tony let go and placed their order. They started unpacking their things, settling into the room and preparing for the video call they'd have soon with Amira. Tony was testing the camera on his tablet when there was a knock at the door. Jethro opened it to let a different hotel associate wheel in a cart with lidded metal meal trays. He lifted the lids and looked at Jethro, who nodded to him that they looked sufficient, and the man put the food on the small dining table.
Tony joined them, then tipped the man, thanking him in Italian and commenting on how good the food looked. They were soon alone again, and sitting down to eat. They were quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the food and the peace.
"I can't wait to talk to Amira," Tony said with a sigh. "Not that I'm not enjoying a little peace and quiet, but…"
Jethro chuckled. "Me, too."
"I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that she has wrapped around her little finger."
"I'm pretty sure she has all of us wrapped," Jethro said before taking another bite of his food.
Tony nodded. A minute of silence went by as they ate some more, and then Tony shook his head. "I'm not going to think about work," he coached himself. "I'm not going to think about work."
"They'll be fine," Jethro said. Tony nodded and continued to eat.
Tony put his fork down finally and sighed. "That was good, but I'm looking forward to getting some real local food tomorrow."
"What do you want to do tomorrow?" Jethro asked.
"You," Tony said with a smirk. "As often as possible."
Jethro smirked around the bite of food he was putting in his mouth.
"Around delicious meals though. I want to find some crostata for breakfast. I looked into it after you finally gave up the name of the hotel last night. There's a bakery about three blocks from here that should be a great place to start. They have coffee and espresso as well, so we'll both be happy."
Jethro nodded, chewing the last of his food and setting down his fork.
"Then I thought we'd stay close, browse a bit and see what we find. Sundays here are about devotion and relaxation. So I thought we'd find a place for lunch, then come back and I could prove I'm devoted to you, and then we could relax." He smiled at Jethro who chuckled.
"I like the idea of resting and taking it easy for the first day," Jethro said, reaching across the small table to take Tony's hand and entwine their fingers. Tony looked at their fingers as he did. It was Jethro's left hand, so his wedding band shone brightly and felt warm and smooth between his fingers. He then looked up to see Jethro's blue eyes staring at him, a happy and content look on his face. Tony sighed happily himself.
"This is the break I didn't realize I so desperately needed. Just time alone with you."
"Nothing to worry about. No work or fatherhood to distract us. Just you, and me, and some peace and quiet."
Tony nodded. "I'm tempted to just spend the entire week curled up in bed with you."
Jethro shrugged. "Whatever you want."
Tony chuckled. "We didn't come to Italy to stay in bed the entire time, but it's tempting."
They sat quietly, their fingers rubbing soothingly against one another.
"Want to go ahead and call Amira a little early to get it out of the way, and then have the rest of the night to ourselves?" Tony asked, looking up at Jethro with a seductive stare.
Jethro cocked an eyebrow. "I'm good with that."
Tony got up, leaning forward to give Jethro a quick kiss. Jethro obliged, and then gathered their trays to sit outside of their room.
Soon they were sitting side by side at the table, the tablet propped up on it's case, and Skype ringing. Jethro pointed to the little window in the upper corner that showed the two of them. "This is what she's seeing?" he confirmed.
"Yes," Tony said softly. It took a minute, but soon the screen changed, and the video was moving in a way that nauseated Jethro.
"Hold on guys," Sierra said, heading towards her living room where Amira was sitting at the coffee table coloring. "Sierra! Guess what!?" Sierra had turned the tablet so that they could see Amira, and her expression when she realized that her daddies were on the tablet was priceless. She squealed and jumped up, reaching for the small screen.
"Hey Munchkin!" Tony cooed.
"Daddies!" she screamed.
"Hi baby girl," Jethro said with a chuckle. Amira hugged the tablet, and suddenly the screen went black. Tony had to restrain himself from hugging their tablet.
"We miss you so much!" Tony said.
"I miss yous guys, too!" Amira said, pulling back to see them on the camera. She stepped backwards and scooted up on the couch, never putting the tablet down. Sierra sat down next to her. Tony and Jethro were a little surprised to see that Amira was at Sierra's apartment instead of at Abby and Tim's place.
"You hanging out with Sierra tonight?" Tony asked.
"Yeah! We're coloring pictures, and she made me cookies!"
"I bet there were good cookies," Jethro said. "Sierra makes good cookies."
Sierra laughed. "The teams caught a big case first thing this morning, and I mean first thing. You may not have even been in the air yet," she said into the camera.
"Already?" Tony said with a wince, looking at Jethro.
"Yeah, already," Sierra said. "But Amira and I have hung out all day! We went to the park, and tell them what you did at the park."
Amira got shy, tucking into Sierra's side and smiled up at her, then at the tablet. "I went down the big slide all by myself!" she said.
"You did?!" Jethro said. "Atta girl! I knew you could do it!"
"Good job!" Tony said. "I bet Sierra was there to catch you."
"Yeah!" Amira said. "I did it, I did it four times!" she said, holding up four fingers.
"Four times!?" Tony said. "Wow! Look at that!" She and Jethro squeezed each other's hands under the table.
"Now I'm coloring pictures," she said. "And I got to watch Mickey!"
"Oh?" Jethro said. "What did Mickey say?"
"He- he said to count to ten with him and the Goofy, and then Minnie had ten flowers! They were pretty like mine!" she said, and the guys both thought about the giant tissue paper flowers Sierra had help her make for her room.
"Great!" Tony said.
They spent the next fifteen minutes talking to their daughter, enjoying seeing her smile at them and rattle on about all of the happy things she had done that day. It made both of them feel settled that she was safe and content with the people they trusted. Once they had finished their talk, Sierra told Amira that it was time to get ready for bed.
"Is it 8:00 already?" she whined.
"Almost," Sierra said with a nod.
"It's the middle of the night already here, Munchkin," Jethro said. "Daddy Tony and I need to go to bed."
"Really?!" Amira asked. "Is it really dark?" They'd tried to explain to her about the time difference before they left, but it was a hard concept for a five year old to grasp.
"Yup," Jethro said.
"Wanna see?" Tony asked.
"Yeah!" Amira said, squirming on the couch.
"Okay, hold on." Tony got up and took the tablet to the window, opening the curtains for her to see outside. He could hear her gasp, and he smiled.
"That's so awesome!" she said. Tony chuckled. She'd started saying "awesome" because both Sierra and the guys said it around her a lot. He turned the tablet back around so the camera faced him, and walked back over to sit next to Jethro.
"We're going to go to bed now, too," Jethro assured her.
"You are?" she asked.
"Yes," Tony said with a nod. "Definitely. We had a really long day."
"Ooooookay," she said with a sigh. "I miss you!"
"We miss you, too, Munchkin," Tony said.
"And we love you very much," Jethro added.
"I love yous guys, too," she said back.
"Bye-bye. We'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Bye-bye!" Amira said, then reached forward, and after a moment the screen went blank.
Tony turned off the tablet with a heavy sigh, then looked at Jethro. "Are we really going to bed?" Tony asked.
Jethro leered down Tony's body. He nodded slowly. "Hell yeah we are."
"Good," Tony said, getting to his feet and reaching out his hand to help Jethro to his feet. "Because I want to kick off my honeymoon."
"Be careful what you wish for," Jethro said with s smirk, and tugged Tony towards the bed.