The two visiting Nells, skinny as models, perched like sparrows on the edges of seats in the squad room. Gibbs listened to them with somewhat strained patience, wishing that Klara Schultz and her team weren't hovering and eating up the weird show. He cast a menacing eye at Schultz; she ignored him blithely.
"So you see, Agent Gibbs, Dawn was like a sister to us. She has no family to speak of, and we just want to do the right thing by her. I understand she had Servicemembers Group Life Insurance; if that isn't enough to cover her funeral expenses, Nell, here, and I will be happy to make up the difference."
"That's right," said the second Nell. "We just need to have you release the body to us so we can give her a proper burial. Right away, if you can.."
"Your concern is so touching," said Schultz, pretending to wipe away a tear and sniffling.
"Klara—" Gibbs warned.
"—but it may be awhile before the autopsy is done. Days. Weeks. Months. Decades. Who can say? Leave us your card, and we'll get back to you. Whenever it is that we're done. And thank you ever so much for coming. Bye, now!" Schultz motioned to her agents to escort the Nells back out.
When they were gone, everyone broke out laughing. "Klara, you have a mean streak a mile wide!" said Tony.
"Mean, but effective," Gibbs was forced to admit.
"Well, come on, Gibbs; this whole case is cuckoo as can be," Schultz said. "We've read your team's notes on it. All those people named 'Nell'? Give me a break! Someone's cooked up quite a story, and gone to a lot of work to make up a background would make the Twilight Zone people shake their heads! You need to find out what's true in it, and separate that from what isn't."
"Yeah. You're right. Maybe we've been taking too much at face value." Gibbs looked thoughtful. It had only been about 30 hours since Lieutenant Dawn Peskarev had died, but so much information had washed in in that time that they'd scarcely been able to lean back and truly rule out the more dubious 'facts'.
"Yes, like those notions that Tim and Commander Alvarez have been infected with living, parasitic circuitry."
"Unfortunately, that is true," Gibbs said, over Tony and Ziva's gasps. They hadn't had time to read Ducky's recently-posted notes, that the under-the-skin sensations Tim and Alvarez had weren't just in their minds. Gibbs regretted not having had time to tell them.
"Oh, dear. I'm so sorry, Gibbs."
"Yeah, well..." Gibbs' emotions warred between sadness and irritation. As peculiar as this case was, the one sure thing was that Tim and Alvarez were ill, and so far, no one knew what this might mean for them. A horrible death like Dawn Peskarev's? Even with the priority stamp of the Department of Defense on the order, it would still be days before the blood tests results were in. And who knew if there would be anything useful in the test results, with the infection period so new yet?
Ducky walked up, a small package in hand. "I was about to go post these samples, Jethro. This is Tuesday, hmmm; we may have a reply by Saturday, though I wouldn't count on it."
"Where are Alvarez and McGee? Is Alvarez fit to return to work?"
"He agreed that he wasn't; he's going to step down for awhile. Timothy walked out with him, oh, twenty minutes ago. I'm surprised you didn't see them."
"We were conferring with two more Nells. Now where did McGee go this time?!" Gibbs snapped to no one in particular as Schultz and her team went back to their area.
Tony and Ziva looked blank. With a sigh, Gibbs got his phone out, then stared at it when there was no answer on his call to Tim. They all looked up when sirens of emergency vehicles passed the NCIS building with a wail, and then cut off.
Gibbs' desk phone rang. Jenny. "The police report finding an ensign, shot, just down Sicard Street. He's alive but in bad shape."
"On it!"
- - - - -
The ensign was unconscious when he was loaded into the ambulance. Gibbs' team did the usual sweep of the scene. From his ID they quickly determined that he was assigned to the Anacostia base. Gibbs' eyes swept to the Navy base across the river; hazy in the mid-afternoon sun. Everything seems to come back to Anacostia...
Nonetheless, he was surprised when he called the base to find that the ensign had been sent in a staff car to pick up the commander, and that neither the commander nor the staff car had returned. There was certainly no sign of a car now.
"Tapes!" Gibbs bellowed to Tony and Ziva as they were packing up their gear. "Do our security cams reach this far?" About 300 feet from the main entrance to NCIS. They just might...
- - - - -
Up in MTAC, Gibbs and his team watched with Jenny as the digital "tape" rolled. Bingo; with a timestamp showing 31 minutes ago, there were Tim and Alvarez walking out, going past the gate, then standing and chatting at street side. Waiting for the staff car, most likely. A car pulled up; they got in.
"Where the hell does McGee think he's going?" Gibbs grumbled.
"Officially, he's still on admin leave," Jenny pointed out.
"But all things considered...he should have let me know if he was going somewhere..."
The car drove off, out of camera range. The team's spirits sagged.
"We'll switch to the rooftop cams," said Jenny. "They have greater range."
They hit pay dirt on the second rooftop cam. The timestamp showed just two minutes after the entrance cam had lost the car. A car, apparently broken down, at the side of the road; three older women clustered around it. The staff car came into view, and stopped. Jenny zoomed in on the picture as Tim and Alvarez got out.
Sighs erupted as they saw the scene of the women getting the drop on Tim and Alvarez, shooting the ensign, forcing the two men. into the car, and driving off. In less than a block from our building! Jenny seethed.
"DiNozzo, get—"
"BOLO. Already on it, boss."
"Send out pictures of those women, too. Chances are they won't keep the car for long, though."
"You don't think this is a Thelma and Louise...and Louise thing, then?"
"Get your head out of the movie theater, DiNozzo. I think Alvarez and McGee were targeted. Our 'Nell' visitors may have been a distraction."
"Staff car found," Ziva reported not seven minutes later, just as Jenny located Tim's cell phone by GPS. "In Jesup Blair Park in Silver Spring. I know that park well. Sometimes I go there for my morning run." She stared at Tony, silently daring him to make a comment; either about her jogging, or worse, about obliging kidnappers taking Tim home.
Tony, though, only frowned. "Are we going, boss?"
"What other lead do we have, DiNozzo? Move it, people!"
- - - - -
The abandoned car turned up not much of use; fingerprints might be their only hope. Tim's and Alvarez' cell phones were found on the back seat. There was no sign of blood; in fact the car was relatively pristine, on first look. The lab would, of course, do a more thorough search. They could only hope that their people had not been harmed.
Gibbs wiped his tired eyes with his hands. It'd been far too long since he'd had coffee. He felt like he hadn't slept at all since yesterday morning. The physically-hardest cases, the ones that gnaw at your mind, involve people you care about. There's not enough coffee in the world to cure those ills...and there was no way of knowing if the kidnappers were close by, or moving farther away...
- - - - -
The room Tim and Alvarez were delivered to, after having been blindfolded in the second car, was windowless and a bit musty-smelling, but for all that, tidy and not unpleasant. Like an in-law apartment, Tim thought. Bedroom, full bath, kitchenette, sitting room. Windowless? Are we underground?
"Amuse yourselves here," said one of the women who'd brought them. "You have all the modern conveniences except a telephone and a computer."
"How about a Blackberry?" asked Tim.
"No."
"Walkie-talkie?"
"No."
"Two cans tied with a string?"
"No!"
Alvarez looked at Tim curiously. What is he up to...
"It's musty in here. Don't you ever air this place out?" Tim complained. This earned him only a glare from the women.
"Come on," he persisted. "If there are no windows in here—and unless you roll them up and take them down when not in use, there don't appear to be any—then you must use a fan now and then to ventilate this place. Bring us a fan, would you? My allergies will kill me, if you don't..." He let the double meaning dangle.
"Bring them a fan, Nell," one of the women said to another, with a sigh. Within a few minutes she was back with a tower fan.
"Thanks so much," said Alvarez. "If you're expecting us to dress for dinner, you'll note that we didn't come with a change of clothes."
The woman in charge laughed. "You won't be joining us for dinner. Enjoy each other's company; you have plenty of food in your refrigerator." With that, the three women left; locking the door behind them; at least three bolts turning. Tim listened, and frowned.
Tim set up the fan at the side of the room and turned it on high. "Did you notice she laughed at your jokes, and not mine?" he grumbled.
"You really have allergies that bad?"
"Well, hay fever, anyway." Tim beckoned Alvarez to join him right up close to the fan; his hair flying in the breeze. "I don't carry a bug-detector device on me most days," Tim said, almost in the commander's ear. "But we should assume that the room is bugged. This is our best way to communicate without them picking up what we say. I hope."
"You don't think they put a bug on the fan?"
"Wouldn't have had time. This should be pretty secure."
"Is your name McGee or MacGyver?"
"Just trying to survive here, Enrique. The good thing is that we changed cars in Silver Spring, and only drove then about five minutes. I live in Silver Spring, so if we are able to get out of here, I should be able to reconnoiter."
"You're better than me, then. I live in Virginia."
"I promise not to hold that against you."
"I'm originally from New Mexico."
"Lovely state! I'm from—"
They both jumped away from the fan as they heard the door bolts unlatching. What I want right now is a beautiful, veiled princess to be our secret rescuer and to lead us out through a hidden passage way, just like in the old comic strips, Tim thought.
Unfortunately the person entering turned out to be a man; about 60, blond but balding, and badly in need of months on a stair-master or on the tennis court. He wore a lab coat.
"So! You are my new subjects, yes? After the, ah, tragic death of Lieutenant Dawn Peskarev?" he said, with a trace of an accent that sounded Nordic.
Alvarez' hands had gone to fists. Tim held him back. "Did you kill Dawn?" Alvarez thundered.
"She would have died, sooner or later. In her condition. But I was so fortunate that you two allowed yourselves to become infected. We'll see how the circuitry grows within you."
"The...what?"
"Oh, hasn't your NCIS lab found this out yet? The substance that infected you contains tiny organic mixed-signal circuits; both analog and digital devices, which I developed, When enough of them have grown inside you, I'll be able to control you and use you in very...interesting fashions. If only Lieutenant Peskarev hadn't died so soon...I wonder what her brain looks like..."
"You've been sending women to NCIS to try to get the body back," Tim said. It was either talk, or think about the horrors that the man had just spoken.
"Yes, my team. They are hard workers, are they not?" He turned to go.
"And just who the hell are you?!"
"Oh, don't let me keep you from your dinner, just as you should not keep me from mine. I need you strong and healthy in the coming days and weeks. For our little...tests. You have only been infected for a day, but I think nonetheless we will start tomorrow." He grinned, a terrifying grin behind eyes that had no human mercy.
"Who the hell are you?!"
"Oh, I am the designer of this lab, the founder of this experiment," the man smiled again. "My name...is Nels."