Chapter 16 – Danger Within

It was day four of no air-conditioning in the NCIS Headquarters building. The temperature outside was 98 degrees. Inside, it felt like 198 degrees. No longer was it a strange sight to see men without suit coats and ties, nor of women down to outfits just one step above beach wear. Vance sent Leslie around to visit the departments and hand out cold drinks on NCIS' dime.

Vance stood at his window, his sleeves rolled up, and sighed. More and more, a move to a brand-new building with up-to-date climate control was sounding like the way to go.

But I don't want to move.

He grimaced as he picked up his cold Coke. It isn't about you, Leon. It's about what's best for the agency, which includes keeping the employees happy.

The SECNAV wanted a go or no-go decision by the end of the year. Doubtless, he'd be pleased to get an answer before then, if Vance was willing to give him one. New buildings took time to make, and even an early 2011 groundbreaking meant that they'd probably be looking at an autumn 2012 move-in.

Vance had been playing with various ideas for layouts in a new building, built to certain dimensions that Kel had given him. He'd downloaded a drafting program and become rather skilled in dividing spaces and even doing the not-so-easy job of doors and tables. But that was all imaginary unless he said the "go" word.

A polite cough came. "Sir?"

Vance came out of his deep thoughts. Leslie was at his elbow. "The HVAC people are done and are about to turn the a-c on. They just need your signature on these orders."

Nodding, Vance signed the papers on the clipboard Leslie held. He still had the drafting program open on his computer…had Leslie seen it? If he had, he didn't say anything about it. Leslie didn't know about the proposed move to Quantico…did he? No, Vance hadn't mentioned it to him. Only Gibbs knew. Vance intended to keep it that way for as long as he could.

About 15 minutes later Vance heard the welcome quiet rumble of the blowers, and felt a tiny coolness in the air, which slowly became more pronounced. Good. At least they would be set until moving time now. Hot weather, cold weather—bring it on. Inside, it would be comfortable.

Vance was at one side of the squad room, speaking to two of the workers on the foreign desks, when Gibbs' team got a call on the tip line. "Ziva, Tony, gear up," he heard Gibbs say. "McGee, trace the money line and call me."

"Okay, boss," said Tim, disappointment seeping through the edges of his words.

Instantly, Gibbs turned and towered over his seated agent. "You got a problem with that, McGee?"

"No, boss. No problem," Tim said quickly, his eyes down on his desk.

"Good."

Vance stepped up. "Agent Gibbs, if Agent David's presence is not absolutely needed in the field, I need her to continue tracing the drug route from Morocco."

Gibbs stiffened. "We can manage without Ziva. But McGee's got to stay and track the money line on this case."

So that's how it's going to be. Vance would not get into a public fight with Gibbs unless it was of dire importance. This wasn't. "Fine," he said. "Go about your business."

On his way out, Vance caught a tiny glance from Tim; a glance which appeared to be thankful.

Late in the afternoon, Vance was still waiting for Gibbs to return. He'd called him only to say to come up and see him when he got in; that was all. No need to have the man worry while he was in the field. His job still needed to be done, and a distraction would not help.

By now the emergency workers had long since cleared out. Vance had pulled in Klara Schultz' team lead the hands-on investigation. The arrest had been made. Tim and Ziva were…condition unknown.

It could have turned out so much worse. All because we let our guard down…

He thought back to the story the witnesses had given him in the squad room. He and Leslie had taken the statements themselves, and typed them up for the required agency Incident Report. After the seventh statement, they had a pretty clear idea of what had happened.

The squad room had been mostly empty when it happened. Most people went to lunch at noon; a few, in the middle of something, would delay going to lunch. Some took a later lunch shift to be available to answer the phones. Still, there were about a dozen clerks and analysts in the large room at 12:10 p.m.

Intern Ed Ronaldson may have been the first one to notice something. (He was being held for further questioning.) He claimed to have seen McGee and David working away at their desks. (He admitted to having a little crush on Ziva.) He saw intern Faye Lotus come out of the elevator and approach that part of the squad room.

Analyst Ellen Fierro, whom Ronaldson worked for, noticed his gaze and was about to tell him to stop ogling the special agent when she saw Faye Lotus. Fierro, as a supervisor of an intern, had met all of the interns and knew that Lotus should be in the first floor Accounting offices, not here. She wondered what was going on.

African Desk Clerk Joseph Bekele noticed it, too, but not until he heard voices raised, quickly going to shouting. Bekele claimed to have "very good eyes" and said he could see from across the room that McGee was on his feet at his desk, looking "distressed." He could not make out what was being said.

Other witnesses could. Two mostly agreed on words. Faye Lotus appeared to be flirting with McGee. David appeared to be tuning both of them out. McGee seemed to be somewhat embarrassed by the college student's attention, and wise enough to recognize that a liaison with an intern was a bad idea on several fronts. He started out being polite to her, and tried to brush off her attentions, saying he was really busy. It was only when she said that her smart phone wasn't working right that he got up in an apparent attempt to be helpful.

That was when David got interested, or perhaps recognized a line when she heard it, and decided to get involved. She left her desk and walked over to McGee's. Together she and McGee examined the phone.

And that, three witnesses agreed, was when Lotus produced a gun and told them that they were going to die. That if Life was fair, she'd have the entire MCRT in her sights now and would kill them all.

Data Clerk Libby Arundel said that if this was a movie, then the others in the squad room would have rushed Lotus and subdued her, or else brought out their own weapons and taken her out. Unfortunately, this wasn't the movies. No one else who was in the squad room then had a fire arm. Firing quickly, Lotus shot first McGee and then David. McGee went down with a thump as coworkers screamed; David, although wounded, managed to grab a heavy two-hole punch from McGee's desk and hurled it at Lotus' head. That unbalanced Lotus enough for two brave employees to tackle her and bring her down. By then, the sound of gunshots had brought Vance and other employees to the squad room.

Vance had already started the deeper investigation into Lotus' background. He'd had Abby run a fingerprint scan on her and that turned up a match on a 24-year-old non-student named Jill Gower. Gower turned out to be the daughter of a man whom NCIS had put away early last year, now facing life in prison for the murder of two Navy SEALs.

So this was their death threat. Vance would make digging more on her background his project for the rest of the day. Too bad if Gibbs thought Vance was stealing his thunder. Lotus/Gower had almost killed two of Vance's top agents, and this was as close as he could get to getting blood from her. Gibbs would have to be content to watching over his people at the hospital.

Damn, Vance thought. Why weren't we better prepared for this? Why did we let our guard down after we ejected that ringer from the FBI group? Was that intern—Alcott—a plant to divert us so Lotus could bide her time?

His head ached. He wanted to be at the hospital with his people, who were currently in surgery. He sent Ducky and Abby there, instead. The Director doesn't often have the luxury of just clearing everything off his schedule, and something as major as an infiltration, perhaps an inside job, would keep him here most of the night.

Who had recommended Lotus? Who had signed off on "hiring" her as an intern? Had standards just fallen apart, or was there further evidence of rot inside the agency, if someone had finagled things to bring her in?

The only blessing in all of this was that Lotus wasn't the daughter of the Congressman who'd pushed through the funding of the federal agency interns program. That young woman was on the West Coast with the Secret Service somewhere, he'd heard.

Vance realized that this was no time to pigeonhole people. Interns should be no more likely to be suspect in hiring than any paid employee. The rest of the interns were probably (probably) decent-enough youths. A threat from inside the agency could have come from anyone…a new hire, or even a long-time employee who snapped and "went postal."There was no way of making the workplace 100% safe…but it wouldn't hurt to try to do better. Vance typed a note to himself to schedule a meeting with the agency's top profilers, maybe calling in the FBI's help, to assess possibly dangerous characters in the employees. Something covert, not overt. A little closer scrutiny of who Vance had in his flock might head off further trouble before it became trouble.

It was past 9:30 p.m. and Vance was still tracing Lotus/Gower's past, and her notorious father's past, and trying to see if there were links to the other interns, when Gibbs appeared at his office door.

Vance raised an eyebrow. "How are they?"

Gibbs took off his NCIS swoop cap and flopped in a chair. "They'll live. They're both out of the anesthesia. Well, Ziva is. McGee was still woozy when I left, but I made sure he knew I was there. Tony elected to stay with them."

"I'll go see them tomorrow. No permanent damage, the doctors said?"

"Naw." Gibbs was clearly tired, and his years showed on his face.

"It doesn't get any easier, does it? You'd think that after awhile, you'd get used to it…"

Shaking his head, Gibbs said, "You never even get numb by it."

"Damage done by one of our own people. Incredible."

"But it happens, sometimes. Paulsen going to give you hell?"

"He already has. Ask me if I care about what the SECNAV thinks."

"Well, I'll tell you what I think," said Gibbs. Despite the fire in Vance's eyes, he went on. "Today you went over my head and kept Ziva behind, when I needed her in the field. I wasn't going to fight you over that, but it riled me at the time. But now I have to thank you."

"For what? If I hadn't interfered, David wouldn't have gotten shot."

Gibbs smiled tiredly. "If you hadn't interfered, Ziva wouldn't have been there to bonk Lotus with the two-hole punch. She saved McGee's life."

That was something that hadn't occurred to Vance. He wasn't ready to accept that there might have been a lesser-damage angle. "But…we don't know if Lotus would have acted if she only had McGee for a target."

"Nope. We don't. We can only count our minor victories."

Vance mulled this over. After a long pause, Gibbs said, "Go home, Leon. The investigation can wait for you to get a night's sleep."

"Will it ever be over?" Vance wondered aloud. "Things like this seem like they're never over."

"That's why this was a perfect cover," said Gibbs. "Lotus probably knows that you'll be watching all of the remaining interns like hawks. Causing discord was probably one of intentions."

"Dang intern program. I wish I could dismiss them all now."

"There's only a few weeks left to go in it. You're the boss; you can terminate it early if you want to." Gibbs departed, leaving his Director to consider that.

Monday, August 9

Friday, July 30