"Ziva thinks that all men are liars," McGee said, standing in the bullpen with the others as Morgan walked in with Russell.
"They are," she chimed as she sat down at her desk, making mcGee gesture to her as Tony huffed.
"Really? So if I were to lie to you, you would be able to tell?"
"Yes," Morgan answered simply as Ziva laughed.
"Particularly you."
"You think?"
"I wouldn't go there, Tony," McGee warned, knowing himself how bad of a liar Tony was.
"Oh, watch and weep. True or false: I had eggs for breakfast this morning."
"True," Ziva hummed.
"Lucky guess. Last night I had a date with a very beautiful woman."
"False," Morgan replied, making him huff.
"You're not even looking at me. Okay, three: my first car was a shiny new Corvette."
"False," Ziva chimed. "Strike three. We win."
"How did… How did you do that?"
"When you said you had a red Corvette, you looked down and to the left. A telltale sign when people lie."
"And the date?"
"You would've bragged all day if you had a date," Morgan replied. "I didn't need to look at you to tell you that was a lie."
"I would?" Tony asked, looking at McGee who nodded.
"Oh, yeah."
"Okay, but how could you possibly know that I had eggs for breakfast this morning?"
"Gear up," Gibbs said, standing at his desk. "We have a message from a dead guy."
"Ready to roll, boss," Tony said, heading to his desk to grab his things.
"DiNozzo."
"Yeah, boss."
"You've got egg on your shirt."
Ziva smirked at Tony's expression. "Not just your shirt."
The crime scene had two vehicles sectioned off the road while police waved traffic past. Gibbs was first to the car holding the dead victim with Ducky, learning what he could as the others went to get the gear from the van. The victim had bled to death driving his vehicle the last few blocks with a gunshot to his stomach. One of his last actions had been to scrawl "NCIS" on the passenger seat of the car in his own blood. As the team headed over, Tony let out a whistle.
"Jackpot. There's got to be fifty or sixty bucks there," he commented, eyeing the bag of coins that had fallen out of the car when the door had been opened.
"Yeah, there's more in his trouser pocket," Ducky informed him.
"What do you think? Illegal slots?"
"Maybe he was on his way to a video arcade," McGee offered as Ziva hummed.
"Maybe he was doing laundry."
"That's a lot of laundry," Tony informed her.
"Maybe he was a once-a-month kind of man."
"I do it once a week," Tony said, pausing when he realized how that might sound. "Laundry."
"Who's the fare?" Gibbs asked the officer behind him.
"Oh, that's Robert John Stevens. But the guy's got an accent as thick as Polish sausage, so I ain't buying it. Found a loaded thirty-eight on the seat. Recently fired."
"Got an exit wound?" Gibbs asked Ducky.
"No, there doesn't appear to be an exit wound. So, I dig out the bullet, you match it to the weapon, and hey, presto! Justice prevails."
"It's never that easy," Morgan muttered, walking Russell around the car just in case there might be something he'd alert to.
Gibbs agreed. "No such thing as an open and shut case, only water-tight."
Ducky stepped away to wait until he could move the body while the team looked over what they could.
"It doesn't look like a fake ID," Tony noted, holding the ID of the supposed suspect.
"Fake," Ziva chimed after a glance.
"What are you talking about? You barely got a look at it."
"I can spot a fake a mile away."
"Huh. I had the best fake ID in college. Never got turned away from a bar."
"Doubt that," Morgan said and he argued the point with Ziva for a bit as she stepped away to talk to the officer. "Where exactly did you find the weapon?"
"He was sitting on it," the officer informed her. "I asked if he usually kept a gun in the vehicle and he said no, but you know I don't trust him."
"Thanks," Morgan replied, heading over to Gibbs. "Russell alerted to gunshot residue only on the driver's seat where the officer said he had the weapon. I don't think it was fired from the vehicle nor was the Petty Officer shot in the car. We've got a crime scene somewhere else."
"Start looking into it when we get back. His place, where he was before driving, whatever you can find."
"Yes, boss."
Once back at NCIS, Gibbs took the suspect into interrogation while Tony and Ziva monitored and Morgan worked at her desk with McGee; both trying to figure out what they could about the victim and where he might have been. McGee could see her getting annoyed though and knowing how frustrated she could get when stuck on desk work duty, he chimed in to try and help.
"Getting anywhere?"
"No," she replied firmly. "There are no banks within a few blocks of the crime scene, no arcades, no laundry mats, casinos, nothing that would make that amount of change make sense. His home is ages away and he works in the supply department."
"What about—"
"As for the fact that Russell's scent work claims he wasn't shot in the vehicle," she continued, already knowing what he was going to ask about next. "There weren't any reports of possible gunshots in the area. No stolen vehicles or suspicious activity unless you count the petty theft of a gas station vital to the case."
"Right. Have you checked in with Abby about the 911 call he made? Depending on where he made it, it could give us a hint as to where he was."
Morgan looked up from her computer with a frown, eyeing the ceiling for a moment before nodding. "All right. If Gibbs asks—"
"I'll let him know," McGee replied, happy he could help and hoping Abby had something to give her.
Things weren't quite the same with Gibbs's missing memories of her and with how long it had been going for at this point, the team was waiting for her to snap about it. She had a good hold on her temper though but that only made them feel more uneasy about how she was trying to play it off. She was definitely a ticking time bomb.
"Hey, Abby," Morgan greeted as she stepped in, finding Abby sorting the coins that had been taken from the victim's car. "Having fun?"
"Oh, absolutely," she chirped, getting up and facing her with a smile. "Still no match on the suspect's prints but what we do have is $73.65. That's what the victim was carrying and there's no pennies. He probably threw them out. A lot of people do, you know. I mean, I don't but other people do. Do you know how many pennies are thrown out or put into jars every year?"
"A lot?"
"Three and a half billion, Morgan. That's like thirty-five million dollars in pennies. That's a lot of pennies in any language."
Morgan had a thought then. "The suspect has a heavy accent. Could he be a foreigner?"
"Oh! I could run his prints through immigration and find out. As a foreigner, every visitor is printed when they enter the US. Clever, Morgan."
"Just a thought," she replied. "Did you get the 911 call? I'm trying to work out where our victim was shot since Russell didn't pick up any gunshot residue in the vehicles."
"Sure did. Here."
Abby went over and played the recording she'd gone over.
"My name is Jack Vale. This is really important, okay? I've identified a terrorist—a known terrorist. I'm following him downtown right now. Get someone over here. Call NC—"
The call cut off then as Abby hummed.
"NCIS. I'm guessing an over-taxed relay tower in the downtown area caused the line to drop off before he finished."
"He works in the supply department though," Morgan muttered with a frown. "What would he know about terrorists?"
"Don't know. Oh! And I also isolated the background noise. That might help with his location."
She played it and Morgan's frown deepened.
"It's kind of a Pac-Man-retro-meets-Vegas sort of thing. Not really something you'd hear in a car, like you said."
"Yeah, he called while he was walking. Wouldn't find that sound in a bank or anything either. I might have to ask to search around the area," Morgan grumbled, running a hand through her hair when the computer chimed.
"And we have a winner. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Puchenko. Russian." Another little alarm went off and Abby winced. "Uh-oh. And there's a Homeland Security alert. You're not the only one interested in Mister Nikolai Puchenko."
"I'll go let Gibbs know."
"Let me know what, Frost?" Gibbs asked, having just entered the lab.
"We found out who the suspect is," Abby chirped, grabbing him by the arm and bringing him to the computer. "Nikolai Aleksandrovich Puchenko. A wanted Russian."
"How'd you find out he was Russian?" Gibbs asked, glancing at Morgan.
"He wasn't coming up in the regular system and he has a heavy accent. I figured he might be foreign and it's a shorter list of fingerprints to go through," she answered. "I just came down to check if the 911 call had any information to help me locate the place where the victim was shot."
"And?"
"Just the sound of coins like a casino almost but I've checked the area on the maps. There's nowhere that fits. I'd have to go down there and—"
"No. Go check with Ducky to see if he found the bullet yet. If we can match it to the weapon, then we can go hunting for the scene later."
Morgan wanted to argue that but nodded. "Yes, boss."
Gibbs nodded and headed back upstairs as she watched him go with a frown and Abby came over; giving her arm a squeeze.
"Still no sign of him remembering?"
"No," Morgan answers shortly, lightly tugging her arm from Abby's grip. "It's fine so long as he's not preventing me from being in the field."
So she said, but what Gibbs had just done to stop her from going out to search had her wondering if he was still doing that. It was only a few blocks she would have to check for the sound but he was adamantly keeping her inside instead. She tried to push the thought from her mind but it wasn't the first time he'd done it during the last few cases.
"Ducky," Morgan called as she stepped into autopsy. "Gibbs wants to know if you've got the bullet so we can match it."
"Ah, yes, well… I'm afraid it's not that simple."
Morgan felt a headache coming on and dragged a hand through her hair again. "What's wrong?"
"Normally, matching the bullet to the weapon shouldn't present us with any great difficulty. But this is far from normal," Ducky explained. "I haven't seen anything like it in twenty-five years of slicing and dicing. Well, the bullet entered below the rib cage, traveling from left to right. It nicked the pancreas, missed the liver, deflected off the fifth rib, and gouged its way through soft tissue, and perforated the stomach. No exit wound. And so that's where it appears to have, um…"
"Please don't tell me the bullet is missing," Morgan groaned.
"I'm sorry, Morgan, but it appears to have vanished. "It's not in the bullet furrow and it's not showing up on any of the x-rays. I mean, I don't know where it's gone. I'm afraid we don't have a bullet."
"Gibbs is going to be pissed," Morgan muttered, giving Ducky a look. "Check everywhere, any possibility. Even if it's ridiculous. Could it have traveled through his bloodstream and ended up elsewhere? Could it have entered his stomach and thrown it up? Could we have missed it exiting some other way? Maybe he shat it out, I don't know, but we need that bullet, Ducky."
"I will check everywhere I can, Morgan," he said, giving her an apologetic look. "You're panicking more than I am. I'm sure it will be fine."
"Yeah, tell that to the boss who's still treating me like a probie," she complained, heading out as Ducky sighed.
"The 911 call was routed through this tower here," McGee explained, showing the map on screen as Tony called out from his desk.
"Anyone ever heard of Operation Sunburst?"
McGee and Ziva ignored him. "Which locates Vale somewhere in this area when he made the call. Anywhere outside of the circle, it meant that the call was routed through a different cell tower."
"Back in '91. Come on, anyone? Operation Sunburst."
"About three city blocks."
"Less," Gibbs replied as he stepped into the bullpen with Morgan who looked less than pleased after giving him the information that Ducky had provided. "Abby said the signal dropped out. It probably puts him at the outside edge of the reception area of that tower."
"That's pretty clever, boss. How did you figure that out?" McGee asked.
"Too much time around you."
"Boss!" Tony piped in, hoping he might have an answer. "Operation Sunburst. Do you know it? It was a sting. One of our ops. Chief Vale was part of it. He was just a P.O. Three back then. Detailed from the supply department to NIS for five weeks."
"Get that file from archives," Gibbs ordered.
"I can't. I-I mean, it's not possible, boss. I've got the index reference but when I called the archivist, he said the file was missing."
"Check the log. Who booked it out last?"
"CIA. So, I guess that's not a who, it's more of an it."
"Who was the NIS case agent?"
Tony popped it up and gave Gibbs a look. "What time is it in Mexico right now?"
"Cantina time," he replied, going to make a call as Morgan glanced up and over at Tony.
"Who was the agent on the case?"
"Mike Franks. The guy Gibbs went off to retire with, in Mexico," Tony answered. "His old boss."
"Great," Morgan muttered under her breath as Gibbs hung up with Franks and looked at the team.
"We got a case yet, DiNozzo?"
"Like you said, working on it, boss."
"We've narrowed down the area where he was shot," Ziva chimed in. "And we do have a suspect in possession of the gun."
"Which means murder one," McGee replied as Tony nodded.
"With a bullet."
"If we can find one," Gibbs grumbled.
"I could go check the area—"
"No," Gibbs said sternly to Morgan, turning to her as she lightly frowned. "I won't say it again, Frost."
"Yes, sir," she spat with a hint of venom, making the rest of the team wince as she returned to her computer search in silence for the rest of the evening.
The following morning didn't find her in a much better mood. In fact, she was far more sour than before as she popped open an energy drink and pointedly ignored Mike Franks standing in the bullpen. Ziva was the only one willing to check on her and rolled her chair over to lean on her desk.
"You doing okay, Morgan?"
"Fine," Morgan said shortly, making Ziva roll her eyes.
"Okay, stupid question. Did you sleep last night, at least?"
Morgan glanced at her with a solid frown, making her hum.
"I'll take that as a no."
"I slept fine for about four hours," Morgan replied anyway. "I'm possibly building an immunity to my meds."
"What'd you do for the rest of the time?"
"Went to the gym," she muttered.
"Ah… Well, do you want food? I could pick us up lunch later, if you want. Give you something other than energy drinks to live off of."
Morgan grunted, accepting the offer and Ziva nodded, rolling back to her desk and sending a message in the group chat for the other team members. Food was a quick way to calm the beast that was Morgan and already they relaxed as her typing stopped sounding as harsh.
"Enjoy your tour?" Gibbs asked Franks as he stepped back into the bullpen after having dropped by interrogation where Nikolai was meeting with his lawyer, Marty Allen.
"Yeah. The place is like a video arcade. You've got more technology in one room than we had in every office across the whole damn country. You know, if I needed to interrogate someone when I worked at Camp Pendleton, I'd take them into the broom closet with a telephone directory."
"Yeah, no broom closet, no telephone directory, no smoking," Gibbs said, taking the cigarette from his mouth when he'd started to search for a lighter.
"Another three reasons why I left just in… time," Franks breathed, pausing at the sight of the Director poking her head over the cubicles with a stern-faced man just behind her.
"Special Agent Gibbs, may I have a moment?"
"Hoo-rah, gunnie."
"You know that guy?" Ziva asked Franks, seeing his expression morph into a scowl.
"Yeah. Like a rat knows a snake."
Gibbs stepped aside to talk to the man—Roy Carver, from Homeland Security—who wanted Nikolai released into his custody. Without anything to tie the man to their case, there was seemingly little choice but to do so, so Gibbs told Ziva to get the Russian from interrogation. Tony made the call to let the agents watching him know, and it wasn't long before Ziva was uncuffing the man in the bullpen while Franks leaned over by Tony to mutter under his breath.
"If he walks out of here, you won't see him again. Any evidence you have won't be worth spit."
"We haven't got enough evidence to even clear our throat. We can't charge him with anything," Tony informed him, so he stepped forward to take matters into his own hands.
"Director, may I draw your attention to a NIS case codenamed Sunburst, which dealt with serious allegations of arms smuggling by this man, Nikolai Puchenko."
"I'm aware of the case, Mr. Franks," the Director said, speaking carefully as Carver stepped over as well.
"As I recall, the file was lost, Mike."
"I made a copy, Roy," Franks countered, surprising him.
"Jack Vale was the key witness. He's dead. You don't have anyone to testify."
"I was the case agent. I'll testify."
Seeing his chance, Gibbs cut in. "Serious enough charges for you, Director Shepard?"
"Take him back into custody. I'm sorry, Mister Carver. NCIS is not through with this man," the Director said as Ziva handcuffed Nikolai once more.
"Homeland Security looks forward to reviewing the files," Carver bit out as Nikolai's lawyer shouted in retaliation and Nikolai himself lunged forward, spitting out death threats in Russian toward Franks.
"What did he just say?" The Director asked and Gibbs eyed Franks.
"He said, 'You're a dead man, Mike.' Take a seat."
Franks sat in the chair Gibbs rolled over and the Director left as the team got set up once more to deal with what was going on.
"We're taking Puchenko's threat to kill Franks seriously. So right now, this is who we have to worry about," Gibbs said, flicking through some images on the screen. "McGee?"
"Arkady Mikhailovich Kobach. Late forties. Served with Puchenko in the Spetsnaz. That's the Soviet Special Forces. First Afghanistan, then Chechnya. In 1990, Arkady executed three clerks in the payroll office because they could not pay his men. He then shot the Colonel who came to arrest him. Been dealing arms ever since."
"I want a twenty-four-hour protection detail. Dinozzo, you're team leader."
"You're in safe hands, Mike."
"I've seen your hands, Dinozzo. They don't impress me."
"I wasn't talking about me," Tony said then, nodded toward Morgan. "Boss, I'd like to nominate Agent Frost for the position."
Franks took one look at the woman and scowled, turning back to Gibbs. "I don't need babysitting, gunnie. I can look after myself."
"After spending four months in that crap hole you call home in Baja, I find that highly debatable." Gibbs glanced at Morgan who looked less than pleased by being nominated for a position that was more waiting around than anything. "DiNozzo, I want you—"
"With all due respect, boss, I trust her to do the job properly and far better than I am capable of," Tony said then, cutting him off and surprising the rest of the team with what he'd said. "She also has Russell. Added eyes and ears."
Gibbs wanted to argue. This was his good friend, his old partner they were talking about, and handing over his protection to someone he couldn't even remember felt like a huge risk. Yet, what Tony said struck a chord with him and there was something in his gut saying that he could trust her with this. So, begrudgingly, he listened.
"All right. You're up, Frost. Safe house is mine. Make yourself at home. You need directions—"
"No," Morgan said shortly. "I know where it is."
Her phone went off then and she picked it up, curbing the sharpness in her tone when she answered.
"Agent Frost… Thanks, Ducky." She hung up and turned to Gibbs. "Ducky found the bullet."
The team and Franks headed downstairs, expecting the bullet to just be handed over but it seemed Ducky wanted a demonstration.
"It's fascinating where bullets can end up. I once found a twenty-two caliber slug in a woman's knee, and she'd been shot in the chest. You see, the bullet entered her heart, was pumped down through the aorta, into the iliac, and on down into the femoral artery. Extraordinary."
"So the missing bullet's in his knee?" Tony questioned but Morgan spoke up; arms folded over her chest.
"Wasn't on the x-rays."
"Exactly right, Morgan. That's much too easy."
"So, where is it?" Ziva questioned.
"I have no idea. None at all," Ducky replied as Gibbs shot him a look.
"You said you found it."
"Well, I have. I just don't know where. I can, however, tell you how. It was Abby who gave me the idea when she said that she would be sick to her stomach if she ever lost evidence. Sick. That's the keyword. So I had Abby run some tests of material I took from his esophagus. And we found traces of protein pepsin along with all sorts of other things such as sulfides, oleic acid, polyphenols. But the smoking gun, so to speak, was the presence of Triticum durum."
"Pasta?" Ziva questioned, understanding what he was talking about.
"Well, specifically, it's spaghetti cooked with garlic and olive oil. Spaghetti aglio e olio, as the Romans say. Very nice with a glass of San Genovese. Anyway, anyway, when the bullet became lodged in his stomach, he became sick. What you might call projectile vomit."
"He puked up the bullet?" Tony questioned in disgust.
"Yes! You can thank Morgan for that idea coming to mind. Rattled off several possibilities of where it could have gone. Find the puke and you'll find the projectile."
"So you want us to look for a pile of… dried-up vomit," McGee muttered, knowing that this was going to be a job he'd end up with given how gross it was.
"Yes, and I'll need a generous sample so I can positively match it to what I found in the victim. Oh, and of course, the bullet."
"Ziva, McGee, get on to it," Gibbs ordered.
"Well, Boss, we have narrowed it down to a few city blocks," McGee started.
"Vale must have still been on foot when he was shot, or he would have gotten sick in the car," Ziva added, hoping to narrow it down.
"So maybe a parking garage or a parking lot? That narrows it down."
"Then, go. Go. Don't come back without the bullet," Gibbs ordered before stopping beside Morgan and Tony. "Where is Mike? I thought you were supposed to be protecting him."
Morgan shot him an annoyed look and nodded toward the elevator. "I am."
"How?" Tony questioned as Morgan shook her head and started off; the two of them following. "He couldn't have gone far, right?"
"He didn't," Morgan replied. "He's smoking."
"How do you—"
"Because I know a nicotine addict when I see one," she replied, grabbing the back of Tony's shirt when he started off in the wrong direction. "See?"
Franks was around the corner from the elevator with a cigarette in his mouth, surprisingly unlit while staring down at Russell sitting in front of him.
"Why is he just starin' like that?" Franks complained. "Can't have a light with him just watchin' me."
"You're not allowed to smoke in the building or you'll set off the fire alarms," Morgan replied, taking the cigarette and flicking it into a nearby trash bin. "Not to mention people who work here who might have asthma or be pregnant or working K9s. You want to smoke, then I'll escort you outside where you can do it."
"I'll have a talk with him, Frost," Gibbs said, silently amused by the staredown the two were having. "When I'm done, I'll bring him back and you two can head to the safe house."
She frowned but stepped away, calling out for Russell to follow her as Franks eyed her back.
"I don't like her."
"Yeah, you do."
Morgan walked around the perimeter of Gibbs's home as Russell rushed over. Morgan let out a heavy sigh and gave Russell a pet as she turned to scowl at Franks.
"I get you don't want to be in protective custody but could you at least stay in the damn house?" She snapped at the man as he lit a cigarette.
"Can't smoke with the dog, can I?" He grumbled, making her roll her eyes.
Something cracked behind her and she turned, eyeing the bushes before her phone went off.
"Agent Frost."
"Frost, it's Gibbs. We've got a security problem. Time to go off-script. Where's Franks?"
"He's right he—" She cut herself off and twisted abruptly, grabbing Franks's wrist and jerking it behind his back as he knocked the phone out of her hand with a piece of wood he'd grabbed.
"Ah! All right! Let go! Get the dog off!"
Russell had grabbed Franks's calf and Morgan grit her teeth in annoyance at the sight of her broken phone.
"Russell, release," she ordered, making him let go and move to her side with a growl as she shoved Franks up against the side of the house.
"Let go of me! I fucked up, alright!"
"No shit you fucked up," she spat, twisting his arm higher up his back. "Wanna explain what the hell that was about, Franks? Because I don't give a shit how much Gibbs likes you. I'll tie you up like a Sunday roast and have Russell guard you in the basement so any move you make means you lose a damn finger if you're going to pull shit like this, understand?"
She jerked him around and shoved her forearm across his throat, keeping him in place.
"I was just gonna get some space, okay? Knock you out and hold up somewhere else," he grumbled.
"Then, what? Huh? Call this jackass up, use yourself as bait, and hope you're fast enough to take care of him before he kills you? Walk in by yourself and find out he brought friends?"
"Yeah, all right. I get it, but we can't let this guy get away! Way this is going, he'll walk right on out of NCIS and I'll end up dead anyway. We lure him out, then we at least have something, right?"
Morgan frowned, eyeing him before finally pulling her arm away. He grimaced and rubbed at his throat.
"Where the hell you'd learn to fight like that."
"Afghanistan," Morgan grumbled.
"Marine?"
"Army."
Franks made a face at that but understood now why Tony and Gibbs had let her take over his protection.
"I did special ops," she added, nodding toward the house as she picked up the broken remains of her phone. "Dammit. That's the second one this month."
"What happened to the first?" Franks asked offhandedly as they moved back into Gibbs's house.
"Had Russell chew it up to prevent the FBI going through it while they were trying to pin a murder on Agent David," she rattled off, grabbing her bag and checking her things were in it before throwing his coat at him. "Come on."
He scowled. "What? Another safe house?"
"No point," she replied, taking the gear off Russell and stuffing it in her bag as well. "You'll try something stupid again or they'll take advantage of us moving places. You want to play bait, then you'll play bait."
"You're joking," Franks muttered before letting out a bark of a laugh and slapping her shoulder with a grin. "You're not so bad, Frost!"
She shot him a dark look. "But we're doing things my way. You have a place in mind?"
"Sure do. Wouldn't step out without some sort of plan. How long before Gibbs finds out we're gone?"
"Not long. You cut me off while I was on the phone with him. We're lucky we managed to get out of there before the agents in the house came out. He would've called them first to check on us. There's been a security breach apparently."
"Probably Carver. He did it back in '91 pretty sure."
"Where we going then?"
"Hotel in port district. El Executivo."
Morgan grunted as he rattled off the address and they settled into silence briefly. "And the rest of your plan?"
"Not much to it. Call up Nikolai or that cheesy lawyer of his, offer them the recording of the Sunburst Operation for the right price, pick a place, and shoot whoever shows up."
"Stupid plan," she countered.
"Well, it's the only plan we've got unless you've got something better."
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before looking ahead of her once more. "We'll call and offer the bait but I will stay near you and Russell will be situated nearby. Instead of one idiot pointing a gun at an unknown number of assailants, there will be two of us and Russell. Your friend doesn't show up alone then we have half a shot instead of you just walking in the getting killed."
"Same plan, more guns."
"And we contact Gibbs before we get there. If we're being outnumbered, I want a team to back me up, not just some old retired drunk."
Franks shot her a look as she parked the car and stepped out. "You always talk to men like that?"
"Only the ones who annoy me," she grumbled.
"So, that's a yes."
Things were not going well on the other side of things. Tony was checking with the agents left at Gibbs's place to try and figure out what had happened. Gibbs was ticked that he not only had his friend and partner missing but one of his agents as well. He was on his way to the Director's office and the only good news he'd heard so far was that McGee and Ziva had found the bullet and were on their way back.
"You didn't waste any time," he said sharply when he entered the Director's office where Carver was sitting.
"Bad news travels fast, especially in this town. No sign of your agent?"
"Do you really give a damn?"
"Any update on Mike Franks or Agent Frost?" The Director asked instead, sensing the tension easily.
"No."
"Do you expect to find them, Agent Gibbs?" Carver pressed.
"They're resourceful."
"No doubt. In the meantime, I'd like Nikolai Puchenko released into my custody."
"I'm not finished with him," Gibbs argued.
"But you are, Agent Gibbs. Perhaps your time would be better spent finding out who in your department leaked the location of the safe house where you were keeping your key witness."
"Did you?" Gibbs countered, making him scowl as the Director warned him quietly.
"Gibbs."
"No," Carver answered as Gibbs held back a scoff.
"You did in '91."
Carver got up and adjusted his suit, having nothing to say about that. "If you would like to have this request formalized, Director Shepard, that can be arranged."
"I'm sure you didn't mean for that to sound like a threat, Mr. Carver," the Director warned him as well. "But in the meantime, Mr. Puchenko will remain in our custody, pending our investigation into the disappearance of Mike Franks."
"Well, I think you need to look closer to home. Maybe there was no leak. Maybe Franks just lost his nerve and ran away. Or Kobach met his asking price."
"You don't know Mike Franks and my agent is missing as well."
"Then, maybe she went with him," Carver countered, nodding to the Director and leaving.
"You've got about an hour, and then all hell is going to break loose," the Director warned Gibbs. "Jethro? I really hope you know Mike Franks as well as you think you do."
He shot her a look and the Director sighed.
"Have you remembered Agent Frost at all?"
Gibbs remained stubbornly silent as she continued.
"If it helps, she reminds me of you, Gibbs. She wouldn't go down without a fight, so if there were no signs of a struggle…"
"Then, there was no fight," he concluded, feeling a hint of relief as he headed out the door as well.
He went straight for the interrogation room where the lawyer had finally arrived and he offered Nikolai a deal. He gives up where Arkady is and he won't spend the rest of his life in prison. It wasn't a deal Gibbs would usually make with criminals like him but he needed to find Franks and Morgan. The team moved out quickly, bursting into the apartment that Arkady had been at, clearing the room instantly.
"Smoke's from a Russian cigarette. Arkady hasn't been gone long," Ziva noted and McGee went to pull out the computer setup he had in his bag when Ziva's phone suddenly went off.
All eyes went to her as she answered it cautiously.
"Agent David… Morgan?"
Gibbs held out a hand and she handed it over quickly. "Frost, where are you?"
"Hotel cantina. El Executivo in port district."
"Where's Franks?"
"Be quick. He's bait."
The phone went dead and Gibbs spat out a curse as he tossed the phone back to Ziva and called out to the others.
"Come on! El Executivo in port district. They're in the cantina. Move!"
Franks took a puff of smoke and sipped his beer as the door to the cantina opened. Arkady stepped into the room but Franks stayed calm knowing he had two others in the room to help him out if things went sideways. Not that he couldn't handle this himself but having some sort of backup was nice.
"Beer's cold, but they're all out of lime. I sent the barman to buy some. I told him to take his time," he told Arkady as he snuffed out his cigarette and walked around behind the counter to grab a couple more beers to open.
"You've got what I want?"
Franks nodded as Arkady lifted the suitcase at his side and set it down on the ground.
"And I've got what you want."
"The truth is, Arkady, you've got nothing I want," Franks replied, pointing his gun at him.
"You think you're the first to point a gun at me?" Arkady questioned, not intimidated it the slightest.
"No, but I will be the last."
Another man stepped out with a shotgun but before he could bring it up, a dark shadow rushed out and grabbed hold of his arm. He let out a cry of pain before it was silenced by two shots to the chest from Morgan, who'd stood up from behind the counter of the bar. Arkady drew his pistol as well before staring down Franks. Then, the door opened and Gibbs stepped into the room, gun drawn as well. Arkady took the split second of distraction to lift his pistol and fire off a shot as Morgan shifted just to the left to cover Franks and the two of them unloaded into Arkady's chest.
Franks huffed and grabbed the two beers he'd pulled out—tucking his pistol in his coat—as Morgan let out a harsh breath and bowed over the counter. Gibbs went to check on Arkady, confirming he was dead as Franks nodded toward the other body just by the stairs.
"There's another one over there. I figured we could take them both and turns out, we could."
"Liar," Morgan bit out as Russell bounded past Gibbs and Franks to move to her side.
"Yeah, well… maybe I am a half second slower."
"There was no leak, was there?" Gibbs concluded and Franks shifted.
"Was gonna knock her out but she's a stubborn one."
Gibbs shot him a look of disbelief as Tony called out from the doorway.
"Boss?"
"Clear!" He shouted as he and Ziva stepped in. "Secure the room. Frost, we need a debrief," he said, starting to head outside after Franks but he stopped.
Morgan hadn't answered.
"Frost?" He called again, moving back when he heard a whine from Russell.
"Gibbs!" Ziva called out, having noticed Morgan doubled over the bar counter and heading her way as Gibbs rushed in behind the counter where Russell was whining.
Immediately, he saw how pale Morgan's face was and his gaze caught sight of the red seeping into her shirt and through the fingers of her hand wrapped around her side.
"Ziva! Ambulance! Now!" He ordered, reaching out and grabbing Morgan which drew her sharp gaze to his as she bared her teeth at him.
"Don't," she snarled, but he ignored her.
"We need to put pressure on the wound, Frost. We don't need you bleeding out."
She scoffed and pulled her arm out of his grip as she took a faltering step back to lean against the counter behind her. "I'm fine. Y-You should be happy your idiot friend didn't get shot. Would've gone right through his gut if I h-hadn't moved."
"Morgan!" Gibbs bellowed, silencing her as he grabbed her again. "Shut up and sit down."
She eyed him for a moment before slowly nodding and letting him lead her to the ground. He grabbed some of the towels scattered across the bar and pulled her hand away to press them into her side. She grimaced at the pain it caused, shifting slightly as Russell whined and sprawled himself across her lap in concern. She glanced at the dog and sighed softly, reaching over and petting his head with her free hand.
"You're gonna want Franks to get checked out too," she muttered, not looking at Gibbs as she did. "Russell got him by the leg for trying to knock me out at your place."
"He's not my concern right now, Morgan. You are."
"You can't even remember who I am," she argued with a scoff.
"You think so?" He replied, eyeing her as she finally turned to look at him. "You think I can't remember how stubborn you are? Your gut instincts that have helped us through cases time and time again? You think you're so unimportant that I couldn't remember that you have always stuck your neck out for those people you care about?"
A frown flickered onto her face though. "I had to get shot for you to remember?"
He cracked a small smile. "Now, I wouldn't say that. I remembered bits and pieces."
She closed her eyes with a groan and a wince of pain. "Fuck you."
"Yeah, well, maybe some other time," he replied offhandedly as the doors opened and the paramedics stepped in as he informed them of what happened. "Gunshot wound to the abdomen."
He took a step back and let them take over, calling Russell to his side despite the dog wanting to go with her into the ambulance. As she headed out, he moved outside to check on Franks who was rather surprised.
"She got shot?"
"Protecting you, apparently. You set yourself up as bait."
"The bigger the bait, the bigger the fish you catch. Arkady never would have got to court, probie, and you know it. Carver, or whoever else is pulling the strings, would have made sure of that. Another crappy deal—more innocent people die. If you think I'm not going to sleep well tonight because of what I just did, then you're wrong. I'm going to sleep like a baby because Arkady Kobach was a scary SOB who kept me awake nights for the past fifteen years."
"Someone else will take his place," Gibbs reminded him.
"That's your problem, probie. I got my guy… And if anyone asks, I made her come with me, okay?"
Gibbs raised a brow at him, knowing—remembering—that no one could make Morgan do anything. She had willingly gone along with Franks's plan, willingly put herself and him at risk, and gotten shot in the process. He was going to have to have a word with her about it but she'd done something unexpected. She'd earned Franks's trust. She'd earned his acceptance and his respect. That wasn't an easy thing to do.
"She did her job," Gibbs agreed. "Saw you running, went after you, kept you safe as an agent should. Who's idea was it to call?"
"Hers," Franks hummed, passing him his beer. "She's a good one, Jethro. Don't let her get away."
"I'll try not to," Gibbs replied with a small smile before calling to him as he started to walk off. "Hey. You got that audio tape?"
Franks reached into his pocket and handed it to him with a smile. "Beer's getting warm."