a/n - Today and tomorrow will be double dip days (this is chapter 2 of the day). Tuesday will not be, but the chapter is more than three times the normal length. It just couldn't be broken up without losing some it its impact. Wednesday will be the epilogue. Thursday I am going to sleep and Friday I start posting a new story. The new story is the first sequel to Memories of a Circus, so you might want to reread that one on Thursday. The new story will be the most angsty thing I've written, so make sure you have plenty of tissues for the weekend. Enjoy this chapter.
By Wednesday evening, time had lost all real meaning. The lights were never dimmed, you worked until you could no longer read the pages in front of you, you ate when the growling of your stomach annoyed the person next to you. Ducky was threatening to start coffee IV's and Gibbs was wondering why he waited so long.
Other than McGee, whose suitcases had arrived from the safe house, and Gibbs who never looked rumpled, no matter what, it was a shaggy group that gathered for their twice daily round table.
"Okay people, what do we have?" Fornell's question lacked the spark from earlier in the week, but the agents, both FBI and NCIS, responded. Tony started out this briefing.
"He bought a zoo in Wyoming four months ago."
"A zoo?" Fornell stopped writing on the white board and turned to look at DiNozzo and then Gibbs, with incredulous look on his face. "What in the hell does he want with a zoo?"
Gibbs just shrugged; he and Fornell had been taking turns running these twice daily sessions and he was just tired and punchy enough to be glad this tidbit came on Fornell's rotation and not his.
DiNozzo was also glad he was not trying to explain this one to his boss. "Don't have a clue what the reason was, they closed it to the public two months ago, claiming to be upgrading the facilities, but I grabbed the most recent satellite photo and the place is empty. There's no sign of any of the animals and no sign of any construction."
Hank remembered sending his own family off to a day at the zoo another lifetime ago. "Please don't tell me that he's started testing his crap on animals."
"He could get dozens of dogs and cats from the pound, why would he bother spending the money on a zoo?" Fornell couldn't see any reasoning behind this move of Moore's group and was wishing it had been discovered when Gibbs was leading the team.
McGee was frantically flipping through the papers in front of him. "Nothing else indicates that he's moved onto animals, but one of his new business acquisitions is an organic seed company and he immediately closed it."
"So what, he's stockpiling animals and seeds? Is he building an ark someplace?" Sacks was trying to stay civil, but it was getting harder as the days went on.
Ziva and Jason had been tracking all of Moore's real estate holding, a complicated task considering how many shell companies he used for the purchases. They immediately started looking through their own pile of records. Jason found what they were looking for first, and Ziva read it off to the group. "They purchased a decommissioned missile silo in Colorado three years ago." She looked around the room. "Why would the government sell a missile silo?"
"If it's been decommissioned, what use would the government have for it anymore?" Fornell continued to think about it. "Nothing of military value would have been left in it, right? I mean, he didn't get some crony in the Army to leave some toys behind, right?"
McGee had already moved to the computer. "What kind of silo and when was it decommissioned?"
The rest of them were quickly going through the records they had on the purchase. Jason looked up at him. "Nothing, all I have is the name of the closest town and the deed number.
It was enough. Jason read off the little information he had and McGee was into the county records and from there, located what he needed. "It's a Titan One site." He reported back to Gibbs with a concerned frown on his face. "It gives them over forty-five thousand square feet of secure underground space and with the proper rebuilding, they could probably double it. Not only that, they've got over two hundred acres of land to work with there."
"DiNozzo, get us current satellite imagery of that silo."
"On it, Boss."
Once Gibbs and DiNozzo had that taken care of, Fornell focused again on McGee. "How are you doing on the encryptions?"
"I'm down to the last level."
Fornell couldn't help but perk up at the announcement. "So you'll have it soon?"
"Level four was more hardcore than what the Pentagon uses; I doubt level five is going to be any easier." He looked around at the concerned faces. "I'll keep working on it."
They were concerned about more than the encryption, and Tim knew it. "Vance is going to help me load the next set of parameters into the computers when he gets back from meeting with the SecNav. I'll get some rest while that's running."
"How many computers are you using on this?" Fornell really didn't understand the process, but he figured it was like manual paperwork, the more bodies working on it the better.
"I've got nine going right now, but I think Vance is raiding cybercrimes again." Everyone started laughing; it had become a standing joke about how many times Director Vance had 'dropped in' at cybercrimes and acquired the technology they needed. Before the hysterical laughter could gain momentum, Mildred burst through the door, running for the first time since Tobias had met her as a rookie.
"We've got a problem."
Tony couldn't help it. "You've just now noticed this?" Any other day, Sacks would have had a snappy comeback of his own, and the two men would have been at war. Today the two just leaned against each other and tried to muffle their giggles. Tobias nodded his approval and Gibbs stepped behind them and headslapped them both.
Gibbs' actions might have stopped those two in their tracks, but the rest of them started laughing at their matching expressions.
Smothering his own laughter, Fornell turned to the confused woman. "I'm sorry, Mildred, it's been a long couple of days. What new problem do we have now?"
"Dr Mallard, Mr. Palmer and I have spent the last two days working with the other labs, trying to make sense of the results from the burned bodies in New York. We've identified what was done to them."
Two short sentences and the group was deadly serious again. Mildred glanced over at the agent she had worked with for so many years before she continued. "There were four separate body dumps, each several months apart. Some of the bodies were too badly burned to test for anything, but we were able to piece together enough information from each grouping to tell that each group died of a different cause." She started pacing, not a good sign to those who knew Mildred. "Group one died of Ebola, group two of Anthrax." She waited as several of the task force muttered curses.
Tobias could hardly ask the question. "The other groups?"
"Hemorrhagic Fever and," she looked over at DiNozzo with compassion, "the Plague."
"Shit!" Tony was on his feet before he even was aware of moving. "What, one deadly disease wasn't enough for them? What the hell are they going to do for an encore? Maybe we should start checking to see if any nuclear warheads are missing."
"DiNozzo, DiNozzo!" It was the second time Gibbs said his name that caught Tony's attention and he dropped back into his chair, rubbing at his cheeks.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, Boss. It's just that once was enough, ya' know?" He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling while he composed himself. "So, were they disease shopping, or are they going to hit us with the whole enchilada?"
"Let's hope they were shopping." Fornell felt every bit of his age while Jason tried to grasp the full impact of what they were facing.
"How are they going to do this? Are they going to cram all their people in the silo and just wipe out the rest of the country? They can't be serious; they can't have enough followers to repopulate the country like he preaches about. Besides, when they come out of hiding, won't they be exposed to the disease anyways?"
DiNozzo remembered his own experience. "If they build a suicide gene into the disease, they can outlast it."
Both Gibbs and Fornell silently turned to the one team member who knew the most about how Edmund Moore thought and operated. McGee nodded in answer of the silent question and moved to stand in front of the bank of computer monitors. Everyone waited, now used to the sight of McGee gathering his thoughts. Eventually, he turned to face them with an even more troubled look on his face.
"What if he's not just protecting his own followers?" Tim's emphasis on the word 'protecting' made Gibbs sit up straight, remembering a previous conversation.
"My God, the vaccines."
"Exactly." McGee started picking up speed, both in his pacing and in his speech. "His people were going around door to door, right? So, they spend a few minutes chatting about the weather, politics, whatever. Farmer John's answers fit what Moore wants, and he gets the inoculation against whatever they're planning to do. Farmer Joe doesn't fit their version of utopia and so he gets a needle full of water and nobody knows the difference."
It was beginning to make sense in a horrible way. Ziva realized the next step. "Moore disperses whatever he plans on using to wipe out most of the population. The majority of the survivors are the ones that think the same way he does, proving that he was right and becomes their leader."
"More than that," Sacks thought about some of the wild revival meetings he'd seen as a child visiting his relatives in the southern states, "He's the one with the supplies to rebuild, proving that he is God's chosen one. He's even got seeds stashed away to raise food for the next year. They'll have no choice but to go to him."
Gibbs looked at it from a military perspective. "If he's got a few well placed followers in the Armed Forces, he'd have control over whatever military was left overseas. That would decrease the chances of foreign invaders."
Mildred looked at it from a scientific standpoint. "If we had a way to determine which biological weapon he planned on using, we might find a way to slow him down."
"It's the one he's vaccinating people against."
She stared at DiNozzo. "How do you propose we determine that without Moore finding out or triggering a panic?"
McGee started grinning at his partner. "Tony is right, and he started with his own people." Still grinning, he looked at Mildred. "You tested the bodies in autopsy for any disease they might have had, right?" He could tell she hadn't made the connection yet. "How about diseases they couldn't get?"
"Because they'd been vaccinated against it. Of course." She didn't wait for orders, just rushed back to the lab.
During the discussion Vance had arrived and was quietly listening. Finally he broke in. "If you're right then we need to know their exact plans and we need to know now." Beside him was a handcart with the extra computers he had taken from cybercrimes. "What else do you need, McGee, to get the encryptions broken by morning?" McGee looked over what Vance had brought him and started writing a list. He handed it over to Vance as he explained.
"I'll need this and full, uninterrupted access to the primary MTAC."
Vance studied the list and then looked around at the task force. "The only way to do it is to evacuate and lock down the building. You'll hear the alarms, but stay put until I get back. In the meantime, everyone back to what you are working on."