"Do you know I'm watching?" McGee looked around his conference table. "That's what goes through my mind when I see him. Does he know we are watching and listening to him?"
Tim looked at Mark O'Neill, the head of the Middle East desk, before shifting his gaze to look at the rest of the Section Heads.
"It's been eight weeks since the failed extraction, and Adala is still out there. Tell me we have something new." Silence met that response. "Reach out to your contacts in other agencies, go global if you have to. I want more information on this man before next weeks meeting. Thank you." Tim watched as the seven people left his office, noticing a man sitting outside, waiting for him. "Agent Langer," Tim called, "Come on in."
"Thank you, SSA McGee." It's better than Sir, Tim thought.
"Tim will be fine, or, if you prefer, McGee. Am I OK to call you Brent?" Seeing the nod, Tim continued, "Brent, I've reviewed your file, and I can tell you with utmost certainty, you will not get a posting to the CTOC." Tim watched as his face dropped. "Don't worry, it's nothing to do with your record, it's stellar. You don't have enough language skills, you speak fluent Spanish, some Portuguese and French. The CTOC needs people who are fluent in at least three languages, that's not including English. Sorry."
"That's ok, I knew that was a long shot. But what about Intelligence."
"Before we get to that, why do you want to come back to NCIS?" Tim asked, wondering why a man who had spent the last ten years in the Bureau wanted a transfer out.
"I never wanted to join the FBI. I was attached to a joint FBI/ATF/NCIS task force dealing with arms smugglings, eightteen months later, I was transferred over, permanently."
"Let me guess, this was when NCIS had a limited number of people who could be special agents." With how small NCIS used to be, the amount of people who could hold Special Agent status was limited, due to the cost of paying them, as well as maintaining the standards of each individual.
"Yeah, so it was either come back to NCIS and work my way back up again, or stay, and keep going forward. So, I stayed. Now that the cap on agents has gone, I want back." Tim was impressed, most people would have just stayed with the FBI, kept climbing the ladder.
"I'm gonna be blunt, I have no openings for section heads or team leaders right now. I wish I could use you, but the Intelligence Section is full." Tim regretted turning the man down, but there was nothing he could do.
"Then why did the Director send me down here, Sir?" There was that word again. "She said you would find something for me to do, that you always used good people."
"Stop!" Tim commanded, his memory recalling Rule 5: Don't waste good. "I need to make a call. Stay there." Tim picked up the phone on his desk, pressing only one button. Waiting no more than two seconds, Tim began speaking. "Hey, it's Tim, any chance of a quick conversation?... I just need two minutes…. Please, it's very important… Thank you… I have Brent Langer in my office….I don't have an opening for him….Where will I put him?...Are you sure?... Ok then."
Brent Langer disliked being talked about, especially when he was still in the room. Hearing only half of the conversation concerning his future, that was just detestable. Watching as SSA McGee put the phone down, he hoped he had a job.
"Right now, your application is still pending, awaiting further review. As Head of Intelligence, the review can be conducted in a number of ways. Tell me, Brent, what do you know of Husam Min Adala?"
"He's the leader of Atfaal Min Itar, the Children of Vengeance. His name means the Sword of Justice. He is currently one of NCIS' Top Ten most wanted, and, from what I've heard, the guys like smoke, just disappears into thin air." Brent Langer had familiarised himself with the Top Ten, just in case questions came up. "He seems to be very good at recruiting young men, languages and nationalities seem to be no boundaries for the man."
"Good, you know the basic bio. You will soon know a lot more about him. The Director has given me permission to use you as I see fit. So, this is what we will do. Starting tomorrow, 0800 hours, you report to me, and I'll hand over everything we have on the man, videos, audio, transcripts, all the intelligence, along with the reviews. You will have five days to be an expert on the man. I want your take on what he is planning, how he will do it, and where he will be next."
"I'm to do all that in five days?"
"Trust me, our intelligence is not as much as it sounds. I can give you two analysts, neither from the Middle East desk, I want fresh eyes on this. Think you can give me something I haven't heard about the man?" Tim didn't want to see him fail, he wanted to see if the man thought differently than the current Section Heads and Team Leaders.
"I can definitely try, Sir." Tim was going to shoot him if he said that word again.
"Rule 1- Sir is not my title. Sir is a term of address for a male head of state, for men in the armed forces, or men knighted by the Queen of England, I'm none of the above. Tim or McGee is fine, you can use SSA when there are others. understood?" Tim really hated being called Sir.
"Got it...McGee." Langer stood when Tim did.
"I'll have a desk set up for you in the morning, see you at 0800 hours." Tim offered his hand to the man, hoping he hadn't made a mistake.
"Thank you for the opportunity, McGee. See you in the morning." Langer left the office, feeling much better than he did before entering it, though unsure if he wanted to learn a new list of rules.
Tim hoped he hadn't made an error on the man. Langer had been a probationary under Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the same as himself, Stan Burley and Tony DiNozzo. Gibbs had gotten it right with Stan, sometimes right with himself, and in Tims mind, completely screwed up with DiNozzo. After ten years with the FBI, Tim was hopeful Gibbs had gotten it right with Langer, otherwise, Tim worried he'd have another DiNozzo on his hands.
24 Hours later.
"McGee, we've got something." Langer burst into Tims office, startling Tim who was munching on an apple, almost choking.
"Please tell me it's not contagious." Tim wondered what had gotten the man so excited. He had only been on the job for ten hours, so Tim reminded himself to let the man down gently, the first reviews were always the same.
"Me, Laura and Mickey have been going over the audio and video footage of the meeting of the AMI inner circle meetings. We spotted it on the footage that came in, six weeks ago."
"Brent, take a breath, let some oxygen in." Tim worried the man was going to have some sort of attack in his office. Watching the man take some deep breaths, Tim offered the seat next to him on the small sofa. "OK, when you are ready." Tim really hoped the man wasn't hoping to solve it straight away.
"For some reason he went back to Somalia, according to Intelligence, they never figured out why."
"Yeah, we thought it strange. He never stays in one place very long, and to our knowledge, he has never visited the same place in the same six months."
"Yeah, well, what if he had never been there?" Langer let the question hang.
"OK, I'm lost, so you may have to explain from the beginning." Tim didn't know where this line of thought was going, but he would let the newest member of his team explain himself.
"We did some comparing of the footage over the last seven weeks, compared to the footage previously. Even with the robes they wear, and the scarves around the face and head, the one thing that doesn't get covered up is their height." Tim was now racing to catch up with the man. "We have confirmed certain key players in the villages and camps, and by comparing the oldest videos to the newest ones, Husam Min Adala has had a growth spurt of about five inches." Langer was now smiling at Tim. "Even if he was wearing boots, or lifts in his shoes, five inches is way too much. Plus, anyone not accustomed to the height would have trouble walking, this guy doesn't."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"Either we've been following the wrong man for the last seven weeks, or Husam Min Adala is eating the same things as Alice does in Wonderland. The guy has shot up by five inches, there is no doubt, according to the video forensics."
"OK. So either Big Adala has killed off Little Adala, or…?"
"Or, Little Adala was the decoy. Sent in to assure loyalty of the followers, before the real guy goes in to meet with them himself. Either way, we have two people needing tracking."
"Yeah, but we now know where he is going. Compare the visits of Big Adala and Little Adala, see where they have both been, and where Big Adala will be going next. We might be able to catch him somewhere." Tim was moving to his desk, needing to make a phone call, "Brent, whether this gets him or not, I'll make it happen somehow, but you've got yourself a job." Watching the man smile, Tim hit him with the bad news, "Now, I need the complete report in an hour, no more than ninety minutes. Go." Tim ordered, pressing the speed dial for Jennifer Shepard. The man might not have solved it, but he and two agents had spent ten hours on the intelligence and gotten further than himself, and an entire section of NCIS Intelligence.