Gibbs and Schultz arrived at the same time the next morning, and gave each other a typical (for them) morning snarl as they both tried to be the first in the elevator. When the elevator reached the second floor, Schultz used a sharp elbow to be the first out. Gibbs rolled his eyes.
There was a message, a sticky note, tacked to his monitor when he reached his desk. Both of you. My office. Immediately! it read. He sighed and looked up. Schultz waved her identical message at him. They charged for the stairs.
"I need to know what progress has been made," said Jenny without preamble as the two supervisory special agents hustled in. "I now have both the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief Naval Officer on my back—Klara, stop smirking, or I will hit you. I need results and I need them fast!"
Gibbs flipped his hands. "Some leads, no real evidence. The whole thing reads like a second-rate sci-fi novel."
"I can't go to the DOD with that!" Jenny snapped. "Make progress, and make it today!"
It would have been standard, and easy, just to nod, bite back a grump, and get back to work. Some days the brass just expected you to do the impossible, and all you could do was just give it your best shot. Gibbs was about to do this standard routine when Schultz broke the spell.
"This is bull and you know it, Jen," she retorted. "This case is no different from any other. Cases take time to be done right. Move too fast and someone may get hurt."
"You have your orders, Schultz! I expect them to be followed!"
"You'd do that, as a special agent yourself, Jen? You'd rush in just to satisfy the bosses?"
"Our agency is committed to finding our missing commander, and rescuing him! That's what we're here to do! I have to kowtow to the DOD or to Congress sometimes, yes, but that's what we have to put up with. And don't you think for a minute, Agent Schultz, that you have any choice but to follow the orders that trickle down to you. The SON and the CNO want their man back; have you lost sight of that?!"
"No," said Schultz with chilling clarity. "But I also remember that one of our men, McGee, is also missing. I don't want to put him in danger, either. Do you remember who he is? McGee? Kinda shy, geeky, hazing magnet for Tony and Ziva? He's so quiet that you've probably forgotten him. But I haven't!"
"You are out of line, Agent!"
"Only because I expect more from a director, Director!"
"OUT!!" Jenny's eyes were ablaze. "Report on my desk by 6 o'clock today!!"
Gibbs and Schultz left. He respectfully allowed her in the elevator first.
- - - - -
Bypassing the squad room, they headed for Autopsy. "Got anything for us, Ducky? We're under the gun," said Schultz.
"Ah, the powers that be want solutions, and they want them now," Ducky said knowingly. "Isn't that always the case: rush around, pretend that by shouting enough one can produce results. Would that things could be so easily accomplished! Now as for our unfortunate lieutenant…" He moved around the side of the table. "I can tell you this much: Based on the decay rate of the tissues killed off by the invading cells, for lack of a better term, I would say the infection appears to have occurred around January of this year. It took awhile for the cells to reach the number that started to make her personality change evident."
"January? And not, say, November of last year?"
"Oh, no, Jethro. It's possible that February was the month. But not earlier than January; the evidence just is not there."
Gibbs and Schultz exchanged relieved glances. So the soup kitchen angle was out, and so was that threatened line of infection. Good.
"There is something else, though; and you'll probably want to talk to Abby about it. It involves the electrical components themselves…"
- - - - -
Abby was twirling in place when Gibbs and Schultz entered her lab. "Hi, guys! I'm glad you came! Look! Look at this!" She gestured toward a screen. "We've talked about parasites, right? And electronics? Well, my research shows that they're not such a far-out combination after all. In a sense, that is.
"Parasitic arrays, in electronics, refer to the ability to absorb energy and re-radiate it. They reflect it. And there's a concept called parasitic capacitance. Capacitance refers to how a circuit element stores a charge. That's the short version. It refers to electrostatic discharge protection in high-speed circuitry. Diode suppressors are used in high-speed digital circuitry. Now, parasitic reflectors—"
"Abby…"
"Sorry. The short explanation is: this circuitry was most likely implanted in her for use as some sort of communication system. Think everything from cell phones to wifi and beyond. Think where we would be if somehow our communications all failed."
"The nightmare of the e-bomb. An electrical pulse, as terrorist weapon," Schultz murmured.
"Yes, but this is on a different standard, I think. I could be wrong. Imagine, now, if you had a system that could get into sensitive and top secret areas and jam or even modify broadcasts; a system that no one would suspect…"
"A jamming system, in human form…"
"Yes! Exactly! That, I think was what they were going to do with the lieutenant! Of course, I could have figured this out faster if I'd had my geek to help me…Gibbs, Klara, please bring my geek back…"
Schultz, then Gibbs, hugged her. "That's our goal, Abby," said Schultz. "Let us know if you turn up anything else."
- - - - -
In the squad room, they brought together the two teams, and quickly told them what they'd learned.
Joe's eyes popped. "That's very interesting. Her two former co-workers, Colchester and Eisen, were both talented with electronics, I've learned. When I called them and mentioned it, just fishing, you understand, both acknowledged it but didn't say much about it."
"Too close to call a coincidence," said Gibbs. "I'll have the Pensacola and Groton offices bring them in for further questioning."
"And that visiting scientist—Ekerot? The electronics specialist?" asked Ziva.
"Let's bring him in here. The base must have contact information for him."
- - - - -
Tim met up with Nels, at Tim's request, in mid-morning. "I've been thinking about what you said earlier. If the offer still stands, I'd like to work with you," Tim said, carefully bland.
"Oh? Why the, ah, change in heart, Agent McGee?"
Careful, now. "I won't go so far as to betray my country or put anyone in danger, mind you. But I do enjoy the sciences; my parents are both scientists. I'm always eager to learn something new. I don't know much about electronics, and I'd hope you could fill in those gaps for me."
"That I can; that I can. But what are you expecting to get out of this?"
What answer is he looking for? "I'm hoping not to die. Not soon, and certainly not in the horrible fashion that Lieutenant Peskarev did. I want you to do something to prevent that."
Nels' eyes narrowed. "But, you understand, I need test subjects. Are you suggesting I concentrate on the commander instead?"
"No!" Tim said sharply, then added, "I can still be your subject. Just be…humane, would you?"
The scientist's expression was unreadable. "Very well," Nels said at last. "To the extent that it is feasible, I shall see that you do not suffer. Now, I will send you back to your quarters. Have a hearty lunch; you will start assisting me at noon."
- - - - -
"Gibbs, this doesn't multiply up, and it's driving me crazy."
"What's that, Ziva?" he said, not correcting the idiom.
"These Nells. First McGee compiles a list of females named Nell in Peskarev's background. Then Tony digs into their backgrounds, and says they all died in the last year. Then he digs some more and claims they never existed! Now, now all of these cannot be true!"
"Figure out what is true, then."
"How long do I have?"
"Until 5 o'clock."
She gave him a look, then turned back to her computer.
"DiNozzo—Get inside McGee's mind—"
"Ick!"
"—and analyze what he'd be likely to do to try to contact us; how he'd get out of wherever he's being held. I don't have time to do this myself. Write me a scenario."
"Okay, boss. Inside the mind of Paranoid Probie I go." Tony went to his desk, muttering about having to pretend to think like McGeek.
"I'll help you, Tony," Balere said. "I took a number of psychology courses in college, and I think I know Tim pretty well."
"You sound like you want to date him." Tony grimaced.
She smiled. "Oh…geeks can be pretty appealing."
He made a face. Not in this universe…
- - - - -
Mickey swore at the phone while hanging it up. "Dead end, Klara. The base hasn't seen Nils Ekerot since Monday. The address they have for him turns out to be non-existent. I asked for the record of the car he brought onto base. The license plate of the car is registered in his name, it's a Maryland plate, but the address is a commercial location."
"No one residing there?"
"Well, I didn't check that. Let me see…zoned for research; not residential. It's in Bethesda, on Wisconsin Avenue."
"Check it out!"
- - - - -
Gibbs and Schultz worked together at fever pitch all morning and all afternoon. They knew that Jenny's threats were never idle; some sort of progress had to be shown to her by day's end. With a little less sniping at each other than usual, they gained a little ground.
"Mickey says the Bethesda location is false, unless Ekerot lives at the back of a tanning salon."
"And Joe's notes say that our Newport, Rhode Island and Pensacola offices are trying to talk to Colchester and Eisen, but both lieutenants have been out sick all week. Joe had reached them by their cell phones, but both phones now only go to voice mail. Hmmm; this is Thursday; that's a long sick stretch. They're sending out agents to pick them up."
"Think we'll have an answer by 6?"
"Think you'll win the lottery this week?"
"There's always hope, Gibbs. Hope is what keeps me going."
"You shouldn't have riled Jenny like that this morning, you know."
"I know. I like Jen; I really do. But sometimes she really gets my goat. I probably should apologize to her."
"Well, let's wait to see what our report turns out to be today. If we have good enough news, maybe you won't have to."
"And if we don't," Schultz said with a short laugh, "I may be looking for another job."
- - - - -
Tim reported for work at Nels' second-floor lab right at noon, walking in still chewing a chocolate cookie made by the Nell who liked to cook. She's pretty nice, for someone mixed up in this weirdness…
"You are here." Nels sounded faintly pleased. "I do not have time to be your instructor. You will study the texts that I have place on this computer. I have disabled the internet access, so do not think you can contact anyone. Just read, and work on the practice lessons. You are bright enough to absorb it. At, let's say 3 o'clock, you can take a break and begin assisting me."
"Sounds good," Tim said. There must be something I can pick up here that can help us get out...
- - - - -
Jenny summoned Gibbs and Schultz to her office shortly after 6. "Well?" she said harshly. "There's my desk. Do you see a report on it?!"
"Jen, be reasonable…"
"It is not my job to be 'reasonable', Jethro! I have already told you that I need results. Now where the hell are they?!"
"We are working on it, Jenny," said Schultz, eyes lowered.
"You've been factoring in McGee's likelihood of trying to contact us, to escape, haven't you?"
"It's, er, one of the avenues we've been exploring."
"Not any more it isn't! I told you I wanted results on the disappearance of the commander. At this point, McGee is expendable. We'll not waste another agency dime on finding him. You concentrate on finding the commander, and only the commander. Is that clear, agents?"
"Perfectly," said Schultz, and flattened Jenny with one punch. "Is this?" Depositing her gun and her badge on Jenny's desk, she walked out.
- - - - -
To be continued…