Chapter 9 – Furlough Fallout

Friday, April 16

Vance lingered in the Ballistics storeroom, watching the clerks dispense the new SIGs to the agents. Every agent within reasonable driving distance had been issued an appointment time to come to HQ to pick us their new firearm and turn in their old one. The HQ people themselves were summoned downstairs during quiet times.

This was Gibbs' team's time. Naturally, Vance wouldn't watch all of the SIGs being handed out, but there was something quietly ceremonial about seeing them go the HQ MCRT team…so he made himself available for that.

He watched as Tony moved his new gun from hand to hand, sighted with it, did a few mock poses with it, and then slipped it into his holster with ease, looking pleased. Ziva held hers in the palms of her hands and looked on it with a fond smile, as if giving it a blessing. Gibbs appeared to be giving his a serious study; searching out the differences from the old model. Only Tim seemed unimpressed by his; it looked and felt like a gun, and that was satisfactory and the end of his interest. He was the first to put his away.

"You all have to turn in your old SIGs, you know," the head of the department prompted.

Vance turned away and left the area. It was a good feeling to be able to outfit his people properly, and keep them safe.

Wednesday, April 21

There was a meeting with the NCIS liaison to FLETC, Janis Tomes. Tomes, who had been a Marine, believed in no nonsense as a way of life. Not a bad attitude for someone in charge of recruits who had to learn how to protect themselves and their teammates.

Tomes felt the curves of her new SIG with experienced hands. She (with accompanying guards) would be taking a box of new SIGs down to FLETC. These would be used for training only; NCIS recruits would get their permanent firearms at their assigned duty station.

Vance waited until Tomes had had a minute or so with the gun and was then willing to set it aside. "What's the mood at FLETC these days?" he asked. "Did the other agencies give our people a hard time about being furloughed?"

"Somewhat, Director. A little teasing. It was harder, I think, hearing it come from some of their instructors, since our people weren't permitted to attend classes during the furlough. The grapevine says that some instructors implied that our agency was weak and ineffectual for allowing it to get into those straits. Now I know that's not how it happened, sir. But people will sometimes believe the worst…"

"And we get the black eye."

"Even though it was your speech before the Senate that got the DoD appropriation."

"We don't know that that did it. I'm not going to dwell on it. Have our people been able to make up the missed class time?"

Tomes frowned. "I'm negotiating with the instructors, individually. This is unprecedented at FLETC, so there are no written guidelines, or even oral traditions. The instructors seem to think that they can do what they like."

"And what is it they like?"

"A few are sympathetic; most blame NCIS and aren't willing to give what one of them called preferential treatment to our people. I'm concerned, Director, that some of our new hires might fail some courses."

Vance had guessed that that was coming, but hearing it said aloud made it no less troubling. "Just because we have a budget again doesn't mean that we should be wasting money having people have to repeat their entire special agent course," he growled.

"I agree, sir, and that's why I requested this meeting with you. Can't you do something? If necessary, could you bring in the SECNAV and have him throw his weight around? Maybe they'd listen to him."

"They might," Vance said, looking away. Or, they might not. FLETC drew special agent and LEO candidates from most of the federal agencies and the larger city police forces; 70 different forces in all. It was hard to say who the dog was that wagged the tail that was FLETC, unless you went high up the ladder to the bigwigs at Homeland Security or even the President.

Vance had another concern. Having Kel Paulsen at his side at the Senate committee hearing last month was still too fresh in his mind. Vance hadn't asked Kel to be there; it was Vance that the committee had wanted to talk to. Kel had just invited himself along. Kel had probably felt he was doing the right thing, there as support for Vance. Also, as Vance's boss, Kel was probably prepared to stuff a sock in Vance's throat if he started to make a fool of himself before the Senate committee. And while that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because protecting NCIS had to be their top priority, it had nonetheless made Vance wince. He couldn't run to Kel every time he had a problem.

"I think," Vance said, "I'll make a few phone calls. See what I can do."

"Thank you, sir. I have here a list of the courses and the instructors and their phone numbers, so you don't have to look that up."

"Good. Thanks, Ms. Tomes. Let's see if we can get this resolved satisfactorily soon." The nineteen new-hire agents had only been two weeks into their FLETC classes when the furloughs had hit. They'd now been back for two weeks, and were struggling. There were still seven weeks to go in the course.

When Tomes left, he started making phone calls.

Friday, April 23

The phone calls weren't going as well as Vance would have liked. The seven different instructors teaching the NCIS students were often hard to reach. Vance had little luck in getting information from the Registrar's office as to when their off-class hours would be, and was stonewalled at every attempt to get their cell phone numbers. All he could do was leave messages for them with their department heads.

Three had called him back right away. Of those, two were willing to work with the NCIS students and help them make up the missed sessions. They would probably be doing it on weekends and not ask for any extra pay, Vance realized. The third one was a tad belligerent in saying that he would not do a thing to help the students. His feeling was that if they weren't tough enough and smart enough to get around a little misfortune by themselves, then they weren't cut out to be special agents.

And I thought Congress was tough. After a few conversations with the man, Vance gave up on him. There would always be types like that in the world.

Tuesday, April 27

Vance had now heard back from a fourth instructor, who was at least willing to listen to Vance, politely, but was just as determined to not back down as the other instructor had been.

That left three holdouts who had not called him. Vance suspected that by now the seven instructors had all talked with each other and all knew why he was calling. More than likely, the remaining three would also say "no" if confronted. But Vance knew he couldn't give up. Not with nineteen careers at stake. He figured out the pattern of email addresses at the training center and emailed the remaining instructors; a carefully-crafted letter pleading his case.

He also emailed, now for the second time, the nineteen students, offering them the highest encouragement he could give them and urging them to do all they could to make up for the lost two weeks.

Now all he could do was wait.

Monday, May 3

"Director, the head of Student Performance at FLETC is calling for you," said Leslie on the intercom.

"Thank you, Leslie. Put her through." Vance had never met Iona Kartov, but her name had been treading the back corridors of his mind often in these last few weeks. She'd also conveniently never been in her office when he'd called. "Ms. Kartov. How are you today?"

"I'm fine, Director Vance. It's starting to get very warm down here. Short spring; long summers. But that's not why I'm calling."

"What's up?" asked Vance, hoping for the best; fearing the worst.

"Your students. NCIS has nineteen agents in training here now, and seventeen of them are failing their classes. The remaining two are passing, but just by the skin of their teeth."

"It seems to me that they all would be doing a lot better if their instructors had been willing to help them, after they had to miss two weeks of classes."

"No one gets special treatment."

"All I'm asking is that they be given a chance to make up the work that they missed. That's not 'special treatment.' They can work evenings and weekends. Right now they've been stymied in their attempts to get the lecture material that they missed so they can't turn in the coursework."

"Don't blame my instructors for your furloughs, Director. FLETC has a schedule it has to keep."

"The furloughs were unavoidable! They were a hardship on my entire agency. And you are holding the careers of nineteen promising young men and women in your hands."

"If it was that important to you…why did you furlough them?"

Vance hung up on her so he wouldn't swear at her.

In a way, she had a point. He could have made different choices. As Director, at the top of this pyramid, he could see other choices washing down the walls below him. He could have chosen to not furlough the nineteen, and picked out the next-hired nineteen in the list. But that hadn't seemed fair at the time; it would have seemed preferential. He could have done it, though.

Or, he could have made fewer cuts among the special agents, and more in the support staff. Or reduced the furloughs to five per cent, and frozen all further purchases, no matter what they were. He didn't have the power to negotiate salaries, or he might have looked there.

But he had done what he'd done, and he knew he shouldn't try to second-guess himself. Just keep on walking. Don't stop; don't look back. There's always something more that needs to be done.

The FLETC course was more than halfway done. It was too late for NCIS to get a refund if they pulled the students out now and simply waited for the next class session to start, which probably wouldn't be until September. But even that was doomsday thinking. They'll pass. I know they will. NCIS hires the best. They'll pass, and be good agents. We can throw in an extra training day or two for them here. They'll do fine.

He typed up another email of encouragement to them.