Chapter Six
and Stardates
Gibbs is aggravated. This is the second time - the first was when Mikel Mawher stalked Abby - that a 40-plus year old television show has arisen as an unwelcome element in a case. This time it could mean anything from kidnapping to biological assault. Up until now it had only meant murder. "What else?" he demands of his team and, by extension, Ducky and Jimmy.
"What do you mean, boss?" DiNozzo, senior within the team, must bite the bullet.
Gibbs looks about at the faces surrounding him, wondering if this is finally going to be the day he serial head-smacks almost everybody in the room. "Elizabeth Stillwell is not going to kidnap William Rolonio from his flower shop and beam him into a replica of the Enterprise. What else does that clue mean? What happens on that damned show that'll give us a clue to her plans?"
At their blank expressions he wonders if he should order McGee to download the film. Does he want to take any one of his agents away from duty for almost 45 minutes to watch a film in the hope of gleaning–?
"If I may offer an observation?" Ducky says with uncharacteristic diffidence.
"Anything." Mallard's observations, though frequently verbose, always make sense - something that will be very refreshing now.
"Miss Stillwell's creation of a Romulan alter-ego, the Tal Shiar operative Zabeth, very likely became a defense mechanism. Zabeth need feel nothing, she has no emotions. Therefore–"
"I'm sorry, Doctor, you're wrong," Jimmy tells his mentor, earning a look of utter astonishment.
"Indeed?" Ducky has been wrong in his life, many times, but he's never had his assistant – any assistant – have the temerity to call him on it, particularly in public. Even Sammy Sky, who often spoke her mind in blissful disregard for setting, had never dared. He looks forward to hearing the root of this gaff – and if he hasn't been wrong, he hopes the young man can move quickly.
x
"Romulans are offshoots of Vulcans," Palmer explains.
"Yes, I had heard that," Ducky replies dryly. That's why he'd made the point that they too have no emotions.
"What I mean is Vulcans - and Romulans - do have emotions, the same as ours. In fact, the reason they repress them is that they're so powerful - more intense than human."
"You don't say," Gibbs interjects. This reverses several of his conclusions. If it's useful, he's willing to let Palmer run with it.
"I do say. The Romulans left Vulcan before Surak's principles of non-violence and the suppression of emotion took hold. But genetically it's as possible for them to have the discipline the Vulcans have as they … have. The Romulans expressed it in a repressive, regimented culture but their brains, their mental discipline, still allowed them to adapt to that repression of emotion the way the Vulcans did. The Vulcans carried it much further; they suppressed emotion in everything in their lives, but the Romulans have the same ability of discipline."
At the end of this, he realizes everyone is staring at him and tries to fight off a bout of nervous stammering. He suspects only 'Chelle recognizes the reason for his pressed lips.
"Indeed," Ducky says, fascinated by this faintly convoluted though long - for Palmer - and quite erudite - for Palmer - explanation and already reworking his theory to conform to this new vision.
"It's what you said earlier today," Jimmy reminds him, having overcome the nervousness that would have undone him, at least enough to feel confident with a single declaration, "that you spend more time with Masterpiece Theater than Star Trek."
"It is a good thing then that we have the benefit of a Trekkie to advise us."
"Trekker," Michelle, seated at her desk, corrects with a smile. "Trekkie is archaic, and kind of offensive."
"I do apologize," he says, offering a slight bow to the woman. Michelle, however, is beaming with pride at her husband.
x
"What does all this mean to us?" Gibbs keeps it only a notch below a demand.
"It means," Ducky explains, now confident due to the insight his protégé has offered and continuing as though he'd never had to alter his theory, "that 'Zabeth' is helping Elizabeth to repress the pain of her loss. The more deeply Elizabeth is hurt, the more tightly she will cling to Zabeth's discipline. We shall not get through to Elizabeth as long as Zabeth remains her shield."
"What do you suggest?"
"Put Zabeth and Mister - or Commodore - Rolonio together."
"That's what we're trying to avoid. She wants to kill him."
"In a controlled environment. Under our control."
"We still have to find her first."
"Could she–?" DiNozzo begins, shuts himself up immediately.
"What?" Gibbs demands.
"No. It's ridiculous."
"This entire investigation is ridiculous!"
"No argument from me, boss. The Enterprise - the real Enterprise - is in Norfolk. Carolyn Stillwell has orders to report tomorrow. Elizabeth could pass for her if she puts her hair up and you look fast enough. Could Elizabeth be planning to steal her sister's uniform," his tone conveys how much he hates even saying it, "march him onto the Enterprise and execute him there…?"
"You're right, DiNozzo."
"I am?"
"It's ridiculous."
"Well, I could've–"
"She's going to kill him in the Gideon Council Chamber - wherever the hell that is. McGee!"
"Er, yes boss?"
"If we can't find where, what about when?" He turns back to the plasma screen bearing the image of the enhanced note. "When the hell is 'Stardate 27548.845'?"
"I don't kn–" He bites it off at Gibbs' glare. "Stardates in the original series didn't mean anything. It was four digits and a decimal. They used random numbers because no one ever thought it would matter. In the later shows they used five digits plus a decimal and the second digit referred to the season."
"So it's gibberish?"
"Maybe. Before 2000, fans used to fiddle with the calendar. September 6, 1987 would be understood to be 8709.06. After the end of 1999, it got unstandardized. Destandardized?"
"A little after 2030," Jimmy cuts in.
Gibbs turns on him. "What?"
x
Jimmy is flustered at the demand, but an encouraging look from Michelle strengthens him. "The system used in 'Next Generation' and everything since gave the decimal more significance. It worked because they broke up the day into ten 2.4 hour periods. Point 845 could refer to around half-past eight."
Gibbs comes nose to nose with him. "You're sure?"
"No one is sure. There's no authoritative–"
"We have to know!"
"I'm doing the best I–"
"If I'm going to commit resources thinking whatever is going to happen will happen at eight thirty–"
"That's the best I can–"
"I have to be sure!"
"We're guessing a psycho's fantasies–"
"If you can't give accurate assessments, what good are yo–?"
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
Everyone turns to Michelle who's on her feet, gasping. No one can say who's more astonished.
x
It's nearly fifteen seconds before Gibbs voice, penetrating in its enforced calm, concludes: "McGee, keep trying to translate that computer stuff. Does it mean anything? Ziva, that diary. DiNozzo, you're with me."
"On your six, boss," he says equally quietly.
"Come alone, Mr. Palmer." Ducky leads Jimmy out of Ground Zero.
Gibbs and DiNozzo start to leave.
"Sir?" Michelle calls. Gibbs turns. She hasn't moved. Her voice is tiny, her eyes filled with the old fear. "I'm sorry, Age - Special Agent Gibbs, sir. What - should I do?"
He considers. That message implying Gideon has to mean something. Some part of Zabeth's plan must be there ... somewhere. "Watch Star Trek."
xxx
Though Gibbs' training of the next generation of agents involves the ceaseless drive to obtain answers now rather than five minutes from now, shoving past all obstacles, investigative work is still hours of painstaking research and the asking of a myriad of questions, sometimes so often a tape player seems a desireable part of standard equipment. Cases are not just solved in the field, they're also solved in labs and at computers and on phones.
Thus, while Gibbs and DiNozzo tackle the street, McGee, David and Palmer painstakingly track leads among minutia, figuratively laboring to separate dross from gold. And since the human mind cannot focus indefinitely upon any one thought and remain efficient, there is conversation.
No one has ever implied that Tim McGee has to like it.
x
"Tracking William Rolonio, if he is still alive," Ziva gripes deep into the second hour, "is becoming hopeless. The man has dropped off the face of the Earth. No phone calls, no contact with his GPS enabled cell phone, no emails ... I can find no trace of him anywhere."
"We should probably be looking for a shallow grave somewhere," McGee says bitingly.
"That is pessimistic." She ignores the fact she'd been as pessimistic.
Tim shakes his head sharply, as if to throw off her point. "We have to face the fact that not everything can be solved in a nick of time."
Ziva is surprised by his caustic tone. "Why do you think we cannot?"
"So, Tim," Michelle says quickly in an effort to distract the pair from an obviously brewing argument. The on-line film long ago ran its course and she wants to let it percolate in her sub-conscious, and will also do anything to drown the memory of her earlier humiliating gaff. "What are you going to do on your honeymoon?" Her salacious tone clearly says she's not talking about sightseeing through the Irish countryside.
He's surprised by this segue. "What did you do on yours?" Tim uses the sharpness to drive home the point that the answer is pretty obvious - and none of her business.
"None of your business," she counters with a smile.
But it doesn't seem to affect his mood.
x
'If Zabeth is Romulan', McGee thinks, trying to focus on the on-screen Romulan glossary, 'then she probably speaks it, maybe even thinks it.' He's trying learn it, and hopes he's made his point to silence the women.
"It's two days away," Michelle continues, an odd tone creeping into her words, "you should be feeling pretty good."
"Yeah, I am," he admits, the thought of his lovely and loving fiancé more appealing than the Romulan faux dictionary, so he takes a few moments to focus on that.
"Then why aren't you?"
x
He turns to her now, surprised and now completely derailed. "What?"
She leans closer in her chair, says intensely, "I've noticed, for the past week, ever since your bachelor party, that you've been pretty tense."
None of her business. "I'm getting married. It's a big step." That's so common a cliché as to be meaningless, just as he wants it. He knows what she means – he hasn't been able to help it – and doesn't want her to go there.
"I have noticed, however," Ziva interjects from across the bullpen, "that since you have passed the hundred hour mark, your tension level has nailed."
He's halted, even in his mounting annoyance, and has to think that one over. "Spiked?"
"Yes, spiked, thank you."
"I am not spiked." He is, however, feeling ganged up on.
"Yes you are."
He's even more aggravated at being contradicted. "We're trying to track down an innocent woman before she murders an innocent man and all I'm praying is that we can stop her without having to shoot her."
"No," Michelle interjects from his right, "you were tense before Stillwell ever came. Yesterday afternoon you nearly bit Special Agent DiNozzo's head off just because he–"
"You know what, this is ridiculous," he snaps, looking from one woman to the other. "I am not tense. I love Siobhan with all my heart and I'm marrying her the day after tomorrow and we're finally going to get our 'happily ever after' so just drop it."
"I notice she's Siobhan," Michelle says.
He turns full on her. "What?"
"You called her 'Siobhan'. You only ever call her 'Shav'."
"Well, excuse me, 'Shav' is my private name for her. I shouldn't even be using it in the office."
"But you do. And in the past few days she's 'Siobhan' more often than 'Shav', by almost three to–"
"Enough with the interrogation! You have your assignment, Probette." He sees the sting of DiNozzo's jibe in her eyes. He'd meant it to sting.
But guilt, as she turns back to her monitor, makes him want to pull the word back. Of any two, they've always sided with one another, have always been the closest and she hadn't deserved that bite. "Michelle…."
"You cannot deny," now Ziva outflanks him, "that in the past few days your level of anxiety has had you snap–"
He turns on her but Michelle cuts in before Ziva's words can spark another bite. "Tim, we care."
He holds up his hands to block the women. "Listen ... ladies ... there is - no - tension. Maybe there is pre-wedding jitters but I'm fine. We're fine. So get your best dresses pressed, okay? Now, if you'll excuse me..."
x
He gets up, leaves the bullpen and starts down the corridor. "You can say nothing is wrong," he turns at Ziva's voice and finds the women trailing him, "but there is."
"No there isn't," he says tightly. He recalls a point the late Kate Todd had conveyed to him from Gibbs in a story about one of her earliest cases with NCIS, that involving the equally late Paula Cassidy. "'Why do women always try to fix what isn't broken'?"
"McGee," Ziva's faster with the answer, "we are not trying to–"
"Zee, just drop it, okay?" He's five feet from the men's room door and considers it a reasonable sanctuary - at least from one of them. Michelle would never invade this sanctuary and even if Ziva disobeys Gibbs' orders again, at least he'll only have to deal with one of them.
He stalks to the door and shoves it out of his way.