Disclaimer: See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.
Near Warren Hanson's Home, Allandale, Virginia/September 15, 2010, 2125 Romeo
When Gibbs reported the apartment empty and had Metro secure it to scour for evidence, he and Ziva took their Charger to a station for gas. There Abby reached him and told him some very disconcerting news, news which changed the game significantly. Gibbs placed some calls to Tony and Fornell, and by the time he got to Vance, they were nearing his Hanson's home on Starr Jordan Drive.
"Hacked?" Vance asked, his voice registering the kind of surprised anger a parent has when they find pot in their kid's room. "Our database was hacked?"
"Yeah, Leon, it was," Gibbs replied. "Abby says there wasn't even a remote attempt to conceal it. Thing is we were too busy trying to get to Hauser and McGee to notice it."
Vance sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and continued the conversation, his voice now level and back to business. "Did she trace it, find out who it was?"
"Yeah, she traced it, right back to the burn house Ziva and I just handed over to Metro. As for who…"
"You think he was coerced?"
"Damn right I think he was coerced, Leon, I'm pretty sure he's had the hell beaten out of him a few times!"
"Settle down, Jethro. Getting mad at the situation isn't gonna resolve it any sooner."
Now it was Gibbs's turn to sigh. "Yeah…yeah, I know."
"What exactly did they access?" Vance asked, returning to the matter at hand.
"Safehouse information. Locations, guard rosters, and schedules, stuff like that. I called Fornell to see if he could lend an FBI safehouse, but they're all in use already."
"Every FBI safehouse in the D.C. area's already being used?" Vance asked, somewhat and understandably incredulously.
"Yep. They finally got a solid case against Crane Mercer, that underboss they've been after for awhile now."
"Mr. Neo," Vance voiced the street's moniker that popped into his mind. "Able to dodge whatever we throw at 'im."
"And now they got enough people to hold him in place for the firing squad, and we're left to deal with the hand we got."
"Alright, so what's our hand?"
"Safehouses are out of the question. We also have to assume they know where Hanson and Margott live. Now, Hanson's home is in driving distance, but not Margott's. Hauser can keep McGee as a hostage or for leverage until after hitting Hanson, but he can't risk dragging him all the way up to Maine."
"McGee'd be a liability..." Vance trailed off, not wanting to think of what an operative with any decent amount of common sense would do with a liability.
"…Yeah…yeah he would."
"So Hanson would be his first target…you already got a trap set up?"
"Yep."
"And where's Hanson now?"
"His place, right in the middle of DiNozzo and eight FBI agents."
"He's where?" Vance sat up. One of these days he was gonna have a coronary…
"Home. When DiNozzo filled him in, he said he wasn't gonna run. Way he sees it, if Hauser even catches a whiff of a trap or any sign that Hanson's not there, he's gonna bail and we'll lose our chance to get him. He volunteered himself as bait and wouldn't take no for an answer."
"Sounds like someone I know."
"That's what DiNozzo said, too."
"Well, on the bright side of this, Margott's out of the whole mess."
"Actually he's not."
That made Vance frown even more, if that was possible. "He's not?
"He's staying in a room in the Georgetown Suites, been here on business with the Pentagon for the past two weeks. He's got a flight out to Seoul tomorrow morning, so Fornell and his guys have decided to let him stay put and play Secret Service."
"They can't secure that whole building…then again they don't need to. Far as Hauser and McGee know, he's still in Maine."
"Yeah."
"Can McGee find out that he's there?"
"If Hauser somehow knew he wasn't home, yeah. I've got Abby keeping an eye out for searches that'd turn his location up, though. She'll call me the minute she finds one."
"So now we play the waiting game."
"'Fraid so, Leon.
Vance let out another link in an endless chain of sighs. "Helluva mess, Jethro."
Gibbs looked at his right hand as it sat on the steering wheel, covered in small bandages and butterfly sutures. As memories of the BP restroom flashed through his mind, he couldn't help but figure McGee was in a similar boat with his appendage.
"Yeah…yeah, it is."
25th Street NW, Washington, D.C./September 15, 2131 Romeo
Hauser wasn't aware that Eaves Margott wasn't home. It disappointed him, because it meant that whenever they found Hanson, wherever he was, he'd have to get rid of McGee. Damn shame, he really did like the guy. But luck was on both men's sides that night, one's more than the other's. That wouldn't be seen until later, but in the here and now, Hauser was the man with the dice.
"Hauser," the SEAL answer his cell phone. Beside him, McGee sat in the passenger's seat..only he seemed more to simply just…be there. He was slumped back into the seat, his eyes open but unseeing, his breathing steady and even, but pained. It was as if he'd crossed a line in himself and couldn't deal with it, so he'd simply shut down most of everything. Not quite comatose, but he definitely seemed dead to the world. It seemed to make the zip ties around his wrists and ankles unnecessary, but prudency was second nature.
"Hauser? I hardly knew her!" the voice answered, making the SEAL smile. "How things hangin' Slick?"
"Alright, Henderson. Things're hangin' alright. What warrants the ring?" Henderson was a crusty son of bitch from the SOG that he'd worked with a few times in the field.
"Eh, nothin' much just lookin' to shoot the shit. How's that search a' yours goin', the sappy Oprah one?"
"Well, I finally got their names," Hauser said. He figured he could tell a little bit of what he knew, it'd been awhile since he and Henderson chatted. He wouldn't be any wiser.
"Oh yeah? How many of 'em are from the Agency?"
"Three. Randall Stockwell, Eaves Margott, and Stan Merdetzky."
"Whoa. Well, Slick, I got good news and bad news for ya."
"Ah, great," he grumbled. "What's the bad news?"
"Randy Stockwell died a couple days ago."
"What?" Hauser asked. His voice had just the right amount of shocked and crushed hope to sell him. That wasn't an easy thing to do with a SOG grunt.
"Yeah, looks like a breakin' and enterin'. Don't know anything else about it, just what I heard through the grapevine."
"Ah, dammit…d'ya know him?"
"Nah, never even heard of him before the word spread. A death in the agency's a big deal though, obviously. But that does bring me to the good news."
"And what's that?"
"I do know Eaves. He retired this year and went into business full time, made it pretty big. He lives up in Lovell."
Hauser sighed. "Looks like I'm callin' Maine tomorrow."
"Not necessarily. I bumped into him today at the Pool, we shot the breeze and caught up. He's staying at the Georgetown Suites until tomorrow morning, and if you hurry up you can reach him tonight."
A new smile found its way back onto Hauser's face. It wasn't anything like the friendly smile he had at answering Henderson's call, though. It was a predator's smile.
"You got his room number?"
"And the hotel's number. What would you do without me, Slick?"
Hauser looked to his right and saw McGee, with his head turned to the side and staring at him. His smile became even wider as he said, "I'd probably shoot someone in frustration, Henderson."
Mendocino Grille and Wine Bar, Georgetown, Washington D.C./September 15, 2010, 2140 Romeo
After ending the five minute call and turning down a few streets to head in the opposite direction, it only took three minutes to get within sight of the Georgetown Suites. Hauser didn't park his car in front of or anywhere near it though. Like Merdetzky's, his target building was down the street from where Hauser and McGee currently sat, the parking lot at Mendocino Grille and Wine Bar. Separating Mendocino and what appeared to be a shopping center of some kind (which was the Georgetown Suites' northern next-door neighbor) was M Street Northwest.
It'd be a long trek if things went south, but Hauser had been in worse. His mind wandered back to the desert, even more so when the music system in Mendocino started a new song.
"You've gotta be shitting me," he mumbled. He could recognize that song if it were sung by a harelip…
Two white pickup trucks, old pieces of shit, bounced along the desert in a staggered side by side line. The cloud billowing in their wake was like a ghetto sandstorm. Each truck had three men crammed into the cab, two DEVGRU operators and a CIA SOG paramilitary operations officer. They were all dressed in olive green and brown clothing common to the area, including shemagh headscarves wrapped around their heads and under their chins. When they had to get dirty, they could just pull the under-chin part up to their cheeks, keeping the infernal grains out of their mouths. They all had beards of varying length, dark tans, and throat microphones concealed by their shemaghs . One member of this seemingly ragtag band of operators was using his mic for his own form of entertainment since the radios sucked monkey nuts.
"She says we've gotta hoold on, to what we got, it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not, we got each other, and that's a lot for loove. We'll give it a shot!"
"Goddammit Pitch," Dasher cut off the offending singer, whose moniker was the only resemblance of pitch the SEAL had. "I don't care if I have to jump from my truck to yours, I will make you shut the fuck up if you don't do it yourself!"
"Does he always do that?" PMOO Gaskill asked from his cramped space between Hauser and Dasher.
"Every chance he can get," Hauser replied, his eyes never leaving the desert before him as he kept a solid hold on the steering wheel. "If he thinks his dick is big enough, he'll start doing it in the middle of the night when we're trying to sleep."
"I make sure there aren't any hadji-fucks around first, Slick, gimme credit when it's due!"
"He does have a way of making the goats stay away," Dasher conceded.
"Asshole."
Hauser set his jaw as he came back to the present and turned to McGee. "Alright, Agent McGee, you know the drill. Look at the bright side, s'almost over."
With that, he stepped out into the night chill and started walking, his hands in his pockets. Just another Faceless John out for a stroll. Enjoying the nice summer night air before autumn began turning down the temperature.
He walked down the east sidewalk along 30th Street Northwest, never making eye contact with the other people he passed. Those who made contact stood out and were easily remembered. He came to the crosswalk just as the DON'T WALK signal turned into the green outline of a man walking, meaning Hauser never even had to break his stride. He reached the southeastern corner of the intersection of 30 St NW and M Street Northwest, and continued straight past the Vietnam Georgetown restaurant. After passing the Best Address Real Estate further south, he turned left into the alleyway between the shopping center and the Suites. It took him awhile, but he eventually found a back door. He tested it, found it open, and slipped inside.