Chapter 6
MTAC, NCIS Headquarters
The team filed into MTAC for the video conference with the President. The Director was already sitting in the theater style seats when Gibbs came in. "Was it necessary to bring the whole troupe?" Jenny questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"No," Gibbs just stated. He stopped in the middle of the room, while Tony, Ziva, and Tim sat at the side.
Gibbs nodded at the agent to signal that he was ready to open the channel to the President. The live video conference with Lex Luthor sitting at his desk in the the Oval Office popped on screen.
"Mr. President," Gibbs acknowledged, starting the formalities.
Smiling a very practiced Cheshire grin, the President spoke, "I take it that you are the infamous Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs." Not letting Gibbs confirm if this was the case, he continued unfazed. "I heard about the tragedy that has befallen an old friend of mine and I wanted to inquire as to the nature of the death."
Obviously believing that this agent would bend his will, Luthor sat up a bit more waiting for the answer he thought was inevitable. Gibbs, used to people throwing their weight around during his investigations, was not shaken at all.
"That's classified." There was silence over the feed. The men were sizing each other up.
When Lex had apparently finished his assessment of Gibbs, he continued the strained conversation, "I'm sure you have questions to ask me Agent Gibbs, lets get to the point of it shall we. I do have a busy day ahead of me," condescension dripping from Lex's tone.
Doctor Mallard slipped into the back and caught Gibbs' eye. DiNozzo caught on and deciding to break Gibbs's own rules for him, got up quickly and stood up in the middle of the room, "Um, sir, excuse me, but I have a few questions."
"And whom might you be?" the President asked, not holding back on the disdain.
Tony did not seem to notice and continued with his introduction, "Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, sir. I was always wondering...why green and purple, I mean-"
Taking the hint Gibbs went off to the side to see what Ducky thought was important enough to come topside for. "What do you have Duck?"
In hushed tones, the doctor replied, "I have time of death for our dead marine. On I hunch I had Abby check to see when the body was burned in relation to time of death, the body was burned postmortem and not very long after his death. You know several cultures would burn their dead and there is this one that-"
"I need a time frame, Duck."
"...What? Oh , your not going to catch Luthor without a solid alibi if he is guilty, and more than likely he would have someone else do it. He can't afford to dirty his hands."
"Someone close to him?"
At that question, Ducky glanced at the screen, the President was maintaining a visage of calm during Tony's inane questions.
"No, nothing that could point to him, it would not even be someone from his past connections, it would have to be someone random off the street that would receive no compensation."
Gibbs nodded, "Then no money linking them together."
Ducky continued with his profiling, "You may want to look into missing persons in the DC area because that could lead to your murderer." Both men were looking at the President on the screen now.
"Thanks Duck," Gibbs walked back to DiNozzo's side.
"...Oh come on, you can't seriouslly tell me you did not have a thing for Catwo—Oh nice meeting you Mr. President." At the look Gibbs gave him, Tony backed away.
"Will that be all Agent Gibbs, I have pressing matters to attend to," Luthor said in clipped tones.
"That's it," Gibbs said, putting up his with the intenton of telling the agent in charge of the switchboard to cut off the President.
"Just one final word of advice agent, Superman has fought for his life against enemies all the time."
"Your point Mr. President."
"His guard was never down around enemies, only friends, only around his allies. Remember that." Gibbs had enough and cut off the feed.
Gibbs turned to his team who all looked at bit weary at that bit of advice with their investigation.
Ziva was confused, "He wants us to investigate Superman's allies, that's like a wild boar chase."
A beat passed. Tim spoke up, "Um, Ziva I think you mean a wild 'goose' chase."
Tony, after laughing at the image of Ziva chasing a boar around, and then of Tim getting chased by a goose, turned to Gibbs. "What now boss?"