Jethro couldn't believe just how much had changed in the last twenty-four hours. The last two months had been a little hectic with a bombing, the death of a senator taking Jethro to New Orleans, a Navy officer being found dead in a back alley which led to a rape case, and DiNozzo being sent off on a two week TDY to Marseille in the south of France.
As far as that murder and sexual assault case went, it had taken the MCRT a while to ascertain if the death of Ensign Lester Tate was the result of a bar fight he got into or because the ensign knew too much about an attack on a fellow female officer.
Despite all of that, the prior night had seemed to be a night just like any other. They were going after a man who committed petty theft and had robbed a place on base. Nothing at all violent, just a little unfortunate for the victims. Eventually, intelligence let them know another location that their thief was planning to hit.
DiNozzo had been inside at a military mixer, buying a couple of drinks. Jethro listened in as a young Navy officer flirted with him, but the young agent played it off by saying that he'd gone to the mixer with a date. He'd then joined that "date," NCIS intelligence analyst Nikki Jardine at one of the tables off to the side. Jethro and McGee were both monitoring all of the conversations from the surveillance van while Ziva - who was on a video call with them - did a background information hunt for the team from her desk back at the Navy Yard. The desk duty was now really getting on her nerves, but they made it work and kept her involved any way they could outside of the field.
The team was after a thief named Wayne "The Snail" Levinson. DiNozzo spotted him in the crowd, and no wonder, since Levinson was apparently walking through a black-tie Washington nightlife crowd dressed, well, it was clearly not the man's crowd. Then again, it was not Jethro's either so he couldn't exactly judge. There was something to be said for trying to blend in, though. Levinson stuck out like a sore thumb.
DiNozzo and Jardine moved to follow Levinson and caught him in the act. They needed to go for a bit of a run to do it, but they managed to catch the man, holding cash from a safe. Levinson beelined, but Jethro and McGee cut him off from the van.
His weapon was aimed at Levinson. "NCIS. Get your hands up."
McGee began cuffing their suspect while DiNozzo laughed and began gloating. "We got him. Nice job, everybody. The Snail just became escargot. He's cooked. Fini."
While his number two gloated over the apprehension of Levinson, Jethro found himself having a flashback of himself as a child and his dad walking hand in hand down a trail.
He was pulled back to reality in an instant but still felt sort of out of it as McGee talked about finishing processing and booking Levinson. "Boss, we'll match his prints to those other burglaries once we get back."
"Yeah," he said, trying to focus. "Do that."
Maybe that should've been the combat veteran's first clue that things in his world were about to somehow take a turn for the bad. Jethro shouldn't have been surprised when Director Vance appeared on top of the staircase to request that Jethro join him up in his office for a private conversation.
They'd been down in the squad room listening to ZNN reporting that the U.S.S. Niagara had caught on fire at sea because of an accident in the galley. Jethro wanted to tie up a couple of remaining loose ends but the team was in a very jovial mood over closing a relatively low-stakes case where nobody took any physical or mental hits. Relaxing after an intense last few weeks.
Each step up to the director's office just increased the ever-growing sense of concern and anxiety he'd been feeling since he saw the look on Vance's face. Jethro was many things, but unobservant wasn't one of them.
He walked into the director's office and immediately spotted Wayne Erickson standing over by the small conference table. He knew the look on the man's face and instantly felt as though the carpet had just been pulled out from under him.
The director tried to keep his tone steady as he gestured towards a seat. Clearly, this was a conversation that Vance didn't want to have to have. "Have a seat."
That comment put him even more on edge. His thoughts abruptly flickered to his wife and daughter, his father briefly too. Fighting to keep his expression neutral, he turned toward his long-time family friend. "This isn't work-related."
Wayne shook his head. He doesn't want to say it either. "No."
Vance tried to move the conversation along. "Unfortunately, this is a personal matter."
He nodded and eyed Wayne. "What is it?"
"Stacy went over to your place this morning to grab that cookbook that Shannon said she could borrow," Wayne explained. "There was no answer so she let herself in and…" The former Marine took a deep breath before speaking again. "Gunny, your father had a stroke. I'm terribly sorry, Jethro. He's gone."
And that's how he found himself standing in the director's office feeling like he had just been punched in the gut. Jethro also recalled the last time that much too similar words had been said to him: 'Gunny, they're both dead. I'm terribly sorry, Jethro.'
The combat veteran tried to pull himself together and eyed his long-time friend with a look of muted shock that he couldn't manage to hide under the circumstances. Dad's gone? I just saw him this morning. He was fine. How…?
Vance shot him a look of compassion. "I'm so sorry, Gibbs."
