Chapter 12

Nate ambled into the mission on his way to report about Agent Blye's condition to Hetty and the team. Kensi's worry about the team and how they might think of her concerned him. He tried but there was no way to alleviate her worries. It would take some time to get her back to her old self.

As he passed the bullpen he noticed a crowd at the desks. He recognized his team and Nell and Eric but there were more. As he stood in the entrance to the area he recognized a couple of faces. One was Tim McGee who'd been here a few years back and Special Agent Gibbs. Why were they here? How did the attack of one of the OSP agents warrant their arrival and what did the attack have to do with a team from D.C.? Who were the other two agents with them?

He stood just inside the area by Sam's desk and watched as both teams assimilated the intel supplied by the Wizards of Wow.

Agent Gibbs looked up just as Nate made a turn to see Hetty. He met Nate's eyes and with just a nod made the plan to see Nate later. Nate nodded back and the meeting was set. The actions of Nate made Gibbs smile and really take note of the man. He'd come a long way in the last few years. Gibbs understood Hetty's appreciation of the man.

Nate turned away and made his way to his boss and mentor's office.

She looked up as he approached and waved him into her space. "Mr. Getz, it's so good to see you. Welcome home, I just wish it was under better circumstances."

Nate smiled and hugged his boss. Years before this familiarity would never happen. He'd been too afraid of her back then to hug her. Now it seemed as if they were on an even footing, 'seemed' being the operative word. "Nice to be home." He sat across from Hetty and accepted the tea she pushed across the desktop to him. He took a sip and realized that it was Chamomile. Not his favorite but obviously she needed the soothing aspect of the tea. "I visited with Kensi and it's not good. She feels that she failed the team, her partner and herself. Her sense of worth is at rock bottom. At the moment I want to focus on her physical health and then work on the psychological aspects, if that is okay with you."

Hetty folded her hands together and held them under her chin while pondering Nate's request. "I think you need to work on those psychological aspects sooner than later. Mr. Deeks isn't going to be held at bay for much longer. See what you can do with him as well, would you?"

"I've already had a run in with our detective. He's less than pleased with the situation and made an incursion into Kensi's room today. That did not go well. It upset Kensi and made him angrier with the sitation but more distraught as well. He and I will talk again in a day or so, possibly tomorrow." Nate looked around her office and every time he been in that room he'd found something new to ponder over. Today there were the beads on her desk. Where did she get them and through what method? She once said she brought everything with her to the Director. He wondered what that actually meant. Gazing and pondering the items in her room were a cleansing tool for him. It cleared his head. "Hetty, why is the team from D.C. here?"

Hetty's face took on a grimace. "It's a bit of Special Agent Gibbs past coming back to haunt us all. It began twelve years ago and will continue until he finally solves it, hopefully it happens soon."

Nate took another sip of his tea and sat forward in the chair. "Does it have to do with a man named Ari Haswari? That is the name the perpetrator kept saying to Kensi. She didn't get the connection and it's still bothering her."

Hetty's head shot up from her tea cup. "Yes it does and that is our connection to our attacker. He's here to avenge his cousin's death or should I say both cousins, Ari Haswari and Sergei Mischnev."

Nate's face took on a look of confusion. "Who's Sergei Mischnev?"

Hetty sat back in her chair, picked up her teacup and started telling him. "Mischnev is a half-brother to Ari Haswari. It seems that Gibbs was in on the killing of both men, just not directly. DiNozzo told Callen that Haswari's half-sister shot him eleven years ago and that FBI Agent Fornell, who you've met, shot Mischnev in defense of Gibbs, a little over a year ago."

Nate gave his mentor a quizzical look. "So why is someone coming after us now?"

Hetty chuckled. "If we knew that we'd have caught the bastard that did that to Miss Blye by now."

Nate sat back in his chair and wondered why their perpetrator came now. The profiler in him went to work on the problem. "Hetty, I'm going to my office and think about the ramifications of Kensi's emotional state, Deeks wild behavior and our attacker. Do we have a name for him yet?"

Hetty reached for her pot of tea and began pouring a new cup for herself. "Oh yes, I forgot to tell you. His name is Jamal Mohammed Haswari. A Dr. Mateus at UCLA thinks our young man has done this before. Give that some thought as well."

Nate heard those words and his mind began to work. He placed his empty cup on Hetty's desk and rose to leave. "I'll be back Hetty. I need a bit of privacy and maybe a little nap. I'll be in my office."

Hetty nodded as he turned to leave. "Mr. Getz, don't think about this too long. We have people who need those answers."

Nate nodded and walked out to the stairs and up to his office.

Callen looked up to see Nate go up the stairs. It didn't seem normal for him to bypass the bullpen. Something must be weighing heavy on his mind. Callen would make a point to go up later.

Gibbs had waited until everyone had their coffee and had sat again before telling his tale of Sergei Mischnev. He was actually telling the Los Angeles team, as his own had lived it with him. "About two and a half years ago Mischnev started tracking me and then began making trouble for NCIS and myself. He'd enticed an NCIS computer tech, to turn traitor and sell NCIS software to the Russians. When Tim and I went to bring the tech home Mischnev was waiting for us. He'd gotten it into his head to kill me for the death of his half-brother, Ari Haswari. He dogged us all the way to the Finnish border and I thought that I'd killed him. Didn't happen. He got up and got better. A year later he comes after me again but this time a lot of people died, innocent people, including my ex-wife Diane. He found out about my former cases and started mimicking them. Diane was engaged to FBI Agent Tobias Fornell and he ended up killing Mischnev in the line of duty." Gibbs smiled and chuckled. "Here's the thing, no one knew of Ari's death in my basement. Supposedly he died a hero. At least that's how Mossad Director David made it out to be. Why did Mischnev think that? Who would have told him that? Now we have Jamal Haswari who was only thirteen when his cousin died. He more or less knew that Ari worked with Hamas as well. Why all of a sudden is he here in LA coming after me and NCIS? There has to be a reason. I've given it a lot of thought and I believe that we have a common denominator in one Anton Pavlenko, the Secretary of Security for the Kremlin, but I can't prove it. He made sure to tell me he sicced Mischnev on me and then told me he tried to have him stand down. Mischnev wouldn't listen and kept on coming. Pavlenko "helped" me by giving him up to me." Gibbs smiled and shook his head. "Wow… How considerate of him. Now this young man is here and he holds a grudge and he uses an abusive, brutal way to get our attention. Why?"

McGee looked up from his computer and spoke. "Boss, I think I've found something. Anton Pavlenko was born in Amsterdam to a Russian mother, the mother's name is Svetlana.."

Gibbs jumped in with "Chernitskaya?"

Tim looked up at his boss. "Boss you killed her in Washington, eight years ago."

Gibbs nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah and her husband when I first joined NIS. His name was Anatole Zukov. What happened to Pavlenko after his father died?"

McGee looked back at the screen and pulled information off. "He and his mother went back to Moscow and he went to school there. He excelled in Mathematics and went to college in England. When he went back to Russia he joined the army. There he went through training as a spy. When his enlistment was up he joined the KGB and since then the GRU. He's worked his way up to the Securities Secretary over the last few years. It is an impressive list of accomplishments."

Gibbs sat back down at Callen's desk. His look became dark and Bishop wondered what that meant. She looked to DiNozzo and he had that look that told her she'd be better off not asking. It hadn't ever stopped her before so she let it rip. "Gibbs, what are you thinking? What should we do now?"

Gibbs needed to know more about Anton Pavlenko. "McGee, see what you can dig up on our friend Secretary Pavlenko. We need to know what transpired to make him call Mischnev off. We also need to know where he met our young Haswari, also find out where he is now. I have the sneaking suspicion that he's here. He'll want to be nearby for the kill. Find him, Beal or McGee, I don't care. I want him, now!

Eric chose that moment to face Gibbs. "I've found something."

Callen stepped up to face Eric. "What do you have?"

Eric didn't know which team leader to talk to. He looked back and forth between Gibbs and Callen but he decided to talk to Callen since he scared him just a little less than Gibbs. "Secretary Pavlenko had a sparkling career until eighteen months ago. He received a rebuke and a letter of discipline in his personnel file. It seems his boss didn't like Mischnev coming after an American agent. He was told to stand Mischnev down and when he didn't or couldn't, he was reprimanded. When Mischnev came to the United States, Pavlenko received another letter in his file. I think that is why he gave him up to Gibbs. He needed to make nice with the ranking officers at the Kremlin." He had watched Gibbs from the corner of his eye and he thought he saw a small smile.

Callen thought about it a second and then turned to face his friend. "Bishop's question still stands; what do you want to do with this?"

Gibbs had listened in the cars earlier and liked the idea of giving Haswari to the Molina's. "What do you say about giving the Molina's a phone call about Haswari's sneaky ways? Let them get him out of hiding.

McGee spun around from his computer. "Boss, I've got something. A year ago, Putin sent a group to Syria to talk about what Russia could do to stop ISIS. Our friend, Secretary Pavlenko, was part of that group. This report says he met with several groups and one of them was Hamas. It may have been where he met Haswari. It occurred just about the same time that Jamal fell out of the limelight and disappeared. It also happened just after Mischnev died in Virginia. Could be our connection."

Gibbs had always known that he made the right choice with Tim but right now he couldn't have been prouder of the young man. "Good work Tim. Now we got the whereabouts of the possible meeting and the reasons for Haswari's actions. Let's smoke him out. Eric?"

Eric lifted his head from his computer screen. "Yes?"

"Find Pavlenko. He's here in the United States and probably here in Los Angeles. If he's not here, it is somewhere that he can be here in no time. Find him for me." Gibbs voice had emphasis but also urgency. The need to finish this was foremost in his mind, before anyone else died.