Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a weird fucking case from word one.

Staff Sgt. John McAvoy, USMC, 31 years old, walks away from his post in the Middle of Nowhere, Colorado one Saturday (no one notices he’s gone at first on account of it’s his day off and everyone figures he’s on his couch at home with a beer watching college ball or something until he doesn’t show up for duty the next morning); somehow makes his way to DC.  Walks up to a table out on the sidewalk out in front of a little Mediterranean café in Georgetown, all buddy-buddy with the guys sitting there -- couple of colonels doing God-knows-what classified shit at the Pentagon -- shoots them both in the heart, in the head, clean shots, nice, sort of thing you’d expect from a guy who’d spent most of his career in Spec Ops, calmly walks down the street to a Starbucks’, shoots the place up, leaves the gun, vanishes into thin air  before the cops have a chance to get there.

Should be an open-and-shut case: guy must’ve had PTSD, guy snapped, guy shot a bunch of people, now it’s just a matter of finding the crazy dude and making sure he’s locked up in the Secured Wing at the hospital in Bethesda (for his own good, for everyone else’s good) before he shoots anyone else.

That’s the story his records want to tell.  Been in Iraq, been in Afghanistan, lots of lines blacked-out in what they’re allowed to see, but end of story, McAvoy comes home with a lot of new bling to pin to the front of his uniform, spends a few weeks in the hospital, gets his ass reassigned to guarding a bunch of eggheads working on some deep space telemetry project (whatever the fuck that is) out in BFE, Colorado  Survey says:  Shit Went Down,  NCO now damaged goods (but either now so decorated they can’t kick his ass out outright, or not so damaged they can just hand him a medical discharge and expect it to stick if dude isn’t feeling complicit in his own firing), NCO gets sent to the middle of nowhere to live out the remainder of his career where he can’t hurt anyone.  The police would probably believe it.  Hell, for that matter, most of NCIS would probably believe it. 

But if you listen close, there’s that subtle sound of bullshit rattling around when things should be ringing true.

Thing is, guy’s that damaged, even if you can’t prove it, you sure as hell don’t hand him a big gun (even if he’s only sitting in some guard booth in the Middle of Fucking Nowhere with his thumb up his butt checking IDs and making the yellow-and-black striped arm go up and down and up and down and intimidating the hell out of the bored teenagers that drive up there for shits and giggles and then going out for beer and pool with his buddies).  No, you hand him some line about how he’s going to be shuffling Important Paper for the good of God and Country and the honor of the US-fucking-MC (oo-rah) and chain his damaged ass to a desk where Someone Can Keep an Eye On Him. 

And then there’s the matter of Shooting Up Starbuck’s.  Crazy guys, ones who believe Everyone’s a Dangerous Terrorist, Even Soccer Moms, they walk in, start blasting away, kill as many as possible, and then run like hell before the Evil Terrorist Cops show up and drag them off to Evil Terrorist Jail.  What they don’t do is carefully ensure that while fifteen people were shot (in the arm, in the knee, in the thigh, in the foot), exactly zero people were killed.  Wounded, traumatized or pissed as hell, or traumatized and pissed as hell, depending on individual disposition, but pretty much the exact opposite of dead.  And Crazy Paranoid Dudes Who Ran Like Hell From The Scene sure as shit don’t leave their gun with fingerprints all over it (same gun used to shoot a couple of Very Important Colonels Working on Mysterious Shit at the Pentagon) right out there in the open for the local law enforcement monkeys to find.  And they sure as hell don’t wear their uniforms and make damn sure they’re on the security camera footage while they’re Shooting and Not Killing fifteen people, thus pretty much ensuring NCIS will be called in on this long before anyone bothers to run the fingerprints that are all over the gun 

If it’s not quite writing NCIS on the passenger seat of your car in your last few ounces of blood, it comes pretty damn close.

But it’s the meeting with the civilian linguistics specialist (what the fuck’s that got to do with telemetry, deep space or otherwise?) that finishes it.

Just blind stupid luck it’s Gibbs and Ziva that talk to her when finally she gets in to D.C. (long damn flight from The Ends of the Earth, Colorado, even absent the delay in goddamn O’Hare airport – there’s always a delay in goddamn O’Hare airport – and she’s exhausted and upset about John who she’d just seen Friday night, in fact).  DiNozzo’s out with the flu, and McGee’s off doing some incomprehensible  techie thing for another case they’re working and really can’t be spared right now unless Gibbs wants that asshole from JAG breathing down his neck (again, as usual) about how Gibbs is intentionally delaying them being able to take this thing to trial, and that’s the last thing he really feels like dealing with right now.

Dr. Willis is petite, blonde, mid-30s.  Green eyes.  Stylish wire-rimmed glasses.  Recently-trimmed shoulder-length hair pulled back in a short ponytail.  Jeans, pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt, gold Seiko watch.  Comfortable shoes.  Wears the visitor ID like she’s used to wearing a clip-on badge (would be, should be).  Carrying a big tan leather hobo bag that looks like she could hide an Uzi in it and which probably would cost him a month’s salary, at least.  She holds out a hand, Gibbs shakes it, Ziva shakes it.  Willis’s nails are short, neatly trimmed, unpolished.  Her grip is firm, her palm is dry and warm.  They offer the usual thank-you-for-coming-I-know-it-was-a-long-flight-out-I’m-concerned-about-my-friend-do-you-have-any-idea-what-happened-happy-to-help-in-any-way-I-can pleasantries; Willis’s face is serious, a little sad, a little worried.

Gibbs can feel the gun calluses on her fingers.

They’re in a conference room, not in Interrogation – no reason for interrogation, since she’s not a suspect, just there to help them find one.  Willis sits first, folds her hands on the polished table, crosses her legs, right-over-left.  Sits, as a lot of civilians would, with her back to the door.  Intentionally sits with her back to the door.  DiNozzo would have missed it.  McGee would have missed it.  Gibbs almost misses it, the way Willis’s shoulders twitch in discomfort  for just an instant after she sits, the way her neck tenses like she’d like to turn it and look at the door, rather be sitting in any other chair but this one, before she forces herself to relax (nothing to see here, just a civilian, move along).  It’s over so quickly Gibbs would have thought he was simply being paranoid (whole damn case is a big bucket of weird and it’s making him edgy) but for the quick look Ziva flicks in his direction.  Did you just see what I just saw?

The interview doesn’t feel scripted, doesn’t feel fake.  So far as he can tell, so far as Ziva can tell, given that she hasn’t yet shot Gibbs that look, Amanda Willis (Amanda Willis who is intentionally sitting with her back to the door) is telling them the truth.  Her truth, (mostly) unrehearsed, unedited, save the things that anyone working on a highly classified project carefully avoids saying.

No, of course she had no idea that McAvoy was planning to fly to Washington and kill people (she’d certainly to have reported it to her superiors if she had).  No, he’d never said the first word to her about knowing the two colonels he’d killed, much less having any kind of grudge against them.  But she doesn’t really know much about his contacts outside of Colorado, or even his family.  Not really at the take-the-girlfriend-home-to-meet-the-parents stage yet.  Probably won’t ever get there now, given recent events. 

They’d talked about football, and about maybe taking a vacation to San Diego when he got some leave time after New Years’.

She has no idea where he’d go in D.C., who, if anyone, might shelter him.  Like she said, she doesn’t know any of his friends off-base.  But she assumes he’s smart enough (having been Spec Ops) not to get back on a commercial flight after what he did, or to rent a car under his own name.   And anyway, she’s incredibly worried about him (clearly he’s snapped), and hopes they find him before he hurts anyone else or he gets himself killed.

It’s not that Gibbs gets the feeling that Amanda Willis isn’t telling the truth.  Certainly she’s not telling the whole truth, but given the nature of what she can’t say she’s working on (whatever the hell that is), that’s only to be expected.  No, it’s more her body language that sets his teeth on edge.  The body language that anyone in the office that wasn’t Gibbs or Ziva (or Jenny , which is to say anyone who isn’t still or wasn’t a paranoid fucking spook at some point in their career) would have missed.  Willis’s posture, the fact that she sat first, without being invited, the way she positions herself in the room, all studiously, carefully say, civilian.  Academic.  Harmless. The way she leans forward when talking to them says honest, helpful.   Her expression says, worried.   But Gibbs can’t miss the way Willis studies them out of the corners of her eyes when she seems to be looking down at her well-groomed nails, her gone-in-a-split-second, you-can’t-really-have-seen-that discomfort at sitting where she’s sitting, the way he’s pretty sure she’s scoped out all possible exits from the room.  And the one unguarded instant when he catches the woman glancing at Ziva and registering danger.  It’s quickly hidden, quickly covered with a façade of simple, civilian I’m worried about my friend who went crazy and shot up Starbuck’s; God, I hope you catch him before he does anything else.   But Gibbs saw it, and he knows from the subtle, interested pursing of Ziva’s lips that Ziva’s seen it too.  Both of them can feel the wariness radiating off the good doctor, for all it’s hidden several layers deep.

For those that have ever been part of, or on loan to, one of the Agencies With Three-Letter Names, any of the many soldiers in dozens of Secret Little Wars, or Secret Big Wars, or Secret Parts of Not-So-Secret-Wars, that wariness becomes a reflex, natural as breathing, as necessary to one’s continued presence in the world of the living as a heartbeat.  Lose that wariness and you’re as dead as if you’d swallowed cyanide, or worse.  Gibbs feels a sense of kinship with her, a flash of sympathy, just for an instant.

Again, what in God’s name that has to do with deep space telemetry, Gibbs has no idea, but the point is that there’s no reason at all for Amanda Willis’s body language to be quietly, subtly whispering spook. 

Gibbs asks Willis who she reports to.  Asks it like it’s the pro forma question it is; he asks everyone.  If she thinks he’s too interested in the answer, Amanda Willis certainly gives no sign.

Woman named Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, USAF.  Gibbs knows that name from somewhere, but isn’t sure where until they show Amanda Willis out (here’s my card, give me a call if you think of anything else) and Gibbs gets a chance to do some digging. 

Carter’s an egghead, been on TV a couple of times with bits of wild technology the Air Force has been playing with.  McGee practically idolizes the woman, to DiNozzo’s eternal eye-rolling, God-you’re-such-a-geek-even-if-she-is-kinda-hot disgust.  But what interests Gibbs is that Sam Carter’s military record, up until she disappeared off to Buttfuck, Colorado seven years ago to work on deep space telemetry (at least with her degree in theoretical astrophysics, her assignment there makes sense), was nothing short of spectacular.  Egghead, yes.  But the kind of egghead you’d want on your team if you thought your mission to recover  the Technological McGuffin of the Week from the Enemies du Jour was likely to go 100%, completely and totally pear-shaped, because Sam Carter could shoot her way out of a situation as easily as think her way out, and make sure she dragged your sorry ass out with her while she was at it.

What’s even more interesting is the identity of Carter’s CO. 

Batshit Jack O’Neill (Gibbs served with Batshit Jack, years upon years ago, and while he can’t quite remember the details these days, he does remember that Batshit Jack was the one you sent in after everything had gone to shit and there was no help for it but to simply torch the whole fucking thing and start over fresh).

A Marine that kills two  colonels who were working on some project way above Gibbs’s pay grade at the Pentagon, walks down the street and shoots a bunch more while Carefully Not Killing Them, and  then seems to want NCIS to investigate before  his fingerprints get run.  The Marine’s girlfriend, the academic-who-has-no-reason-to-read-spy-but-does.  A specialist in ancient languages working on a deep-space telemetry project.  Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, badass uber-geek.  Samantha Carter’s CO, Batshit Jack, who has apparently spent the last six years in Asshole, Colorado playing nursemaid to a bunch of eggheads after a highly-decorated career of doing things that are generally blacked out with permanent marker before anyone gets to read his record .  Leroy Jethro Gibbs doesn’t like it, because what you get when you solve that equation is two dead guys who used to work on Top Secret Shit at the Pentagon and a big ball of what the fucking fuck .

Chapter Text

So of course all roads (or rather no roads, given that they haven’t been able to turn up a damn lead on MacAvoy: so far as forensics are concerned he ran his happy ass to a nearby park and disappeared into thin air before the Boys in Blue could get him.  Therefore they might as well go back to where this thing all started and talk to the folks there) lead to the Ass End of Nowere, Colorado, otherwise known as the Cheyenne Mountain Compex.  NATO, eggheads, and Batshit Jack O’Neill, whatever the fuck that’s about.  Military flight out of Norfolk at oh dark thirty, color McGee distinctly unthrilled.  (“Suck it up, Probie,” says the DiNozzo in his head). Gibbs catches some rack time.  Best sleep he ever gets, the roar of the engines drowning out the noise of his own thoughts.  Just him and McGee on this run – Tony’s still out with the flu, and polite investigators don’t waltz into a Top Secret facility with an agent of a foreign power on their six, at least not if they want the inhabitants of said top secret facility to actually tell them a goddamned thing.  So.  Gibbs.  Tim.  No Ziva.  No Tony.  No body (yet), so no Ducky.  Thanks be to God, no Palmer.  The Dream Team it ain’t, not when you’re talking investigating spooks and really weird shit,  but it’s what they’ve got and it’s  gonna have to do.

By the time they’re wheels down, Gibbs wants about a gallon of coffee.  Also to slap Tim upside the head, and a pilot that knows how to land a fucking plane, but there’s no sense pining after things one can’t have.  Still, gotta hand it to the military – this is a damn sight better than waiting for what feels like eighteen hours while fatass tourists unload luggage containing what has to be half their property from the overhead bins and then take a leisurely stroll down the jetway in their shorts and knee socks.

Jack O’Neill’s waiting for them on the tarmac.  Fatigues, not dress blues.  NCIS doesn’t merit dress blues.  NCIS never merits dress blues.  Half the time NCIS doesn’t even merit common courtesy or a friendly smile, but then again, according to the Great Rule Book of Jack O’Neill, nothing short of the Second Coming merits dress blues, and even then, they’re probably only warranted if someone actually bothers to make it a fucking order.  Doesn’t look happy (Jack O’Neill never looks happy, except maybe when he’s pissing off the brass).  Gibbs watches the colonel have a quick salute-vs.-handshake argument with himself, takes the proffered hand.  Welcome to Buttfuck, Colorado, Mr. Civilian. 

Gun calluses there too, maybe no surprise since Jack always enjoyed blasting away at Very Small Targets at the range, but the guy is also whipcord lean and looks like he could run twenty miles before breakfast and kick someone’s ass after, which is potentially unusual given that O’Neill should have been sitting on his hiney behind some desk requisitioning $250 hammers and telling Marines when to man the booth with the little yellow arm. 

“Jethro,” Jack says, with the trademark O’Neill warmth toward uninvited guests, which is to say his voice is maybe ten degrees above absolute zero, fifteen if they’re lucky.  “Talk about a blast from the past.  How long’s it been?” 

“Since Poland,” Gibbs says shortly.  (We Do Not Talk About Poland).  “Which was two ex-wives ago, if you’re curious.”  He nods at McGee, who has fallen in on their six and is looking around with barely-concealed glee, doubtless because this is where all the Cool Shit comes from, and maybe Sam Carter might be lurking around some corner looking like the pinup girl from Computer Geek Monthy.  “This is Agent Tim McGee, NCIS.” 

“Sir,” Tim says, trying not to look too terrified by Batshit Jack.  Well, at least the folks here working on Top Secret Shit won’t feel threatened.  Gibbs sighs internally.  This is gonna be less like good cop/bad cop and more like bad cop/totally harmless cop. 

“So how’s  little Jenny these days?” Jack asks.  “Haven’t seen her in years.”

“Little Jenny,” Gibbs says with a raised eyebrow, remembering how Jack had squalled like a cat with his tail caught in the door when Gibbs’d brought her in on that business in Russia, “is my boss these days.”

“Director of NCIS,” O’Neill whistles softly.  “Never thought she had what it took to run with the big dogs.  Guess I was wrong.”  He shakes his head, rolls his eyes.  “She sent you clear out here on the government’s dime to talk to us about McAvoy?  Jesus, Jethro, you guys never heard of MTAC?”

“Lot of nuances you miss on videoconference,” Gibbs retorts.  “Jack.”  Like the fact that the vintage-‘70s paneled hall O’Neill is leading them down is clearly window dressing for whatever the hell really goes on out here in Armpit of the Universe, Colorado, never mind that they’re two stories underground (gotta make it look good for the tourists, after all, and the good ol’ US of A never disappoints).   Too damn tidy, and the folks that have been hastily installed behind identical desks in identical offices only differentiated by the nameplates on the doors (little boxes, all made out of ticky-tacky) and the handfuls of random knick-knacks tossed about to make it look like they actually work there (which is bullshit) are shuffling uncomfortably through papers like they don’t know where a damn thing is and now more than ever Gibbs would bet a stack of Benjamins whatever goes on out here ain’t whatever the fuck deep space telemetry actually is.  “Nice place you got here.  You pull all this out just for us?”  Another pile of C-notes says that the good stuff is a really long elevator ride beneath their feet..

Startled glance from Batshit Jack (clearly he thinks Gibbs has gone soft in civilian life, too bad for him), but the colonel doesn’t say a damn thing.  McGee looks disappointed at the ambiance (sorry, Probie, but they’re not gonna have the crazy technological whatsits on display in the hallway.  This is a Top Fucking Secret Government Facility, not Disneyland.  Or DARPA.).

They finally end up in pretty much the most generic conference room Gibbs has ever seen, which is saying a lot given the number of Agencies With Acronyms Gibbs has visited over the course of his career.  Particleboard conference table that must weigh four tons, beige-upholstered chairs any self-respecting two-star General would use as target practice sooner than sit in.  Hell, the place could be a conference room at the IRS or the Census Bureau or some other nest of underpaid, self-important bureaucrats but for the pictures of guys with stars that line the walls.  (Bet the conference room down below isn’t so generic.  Bet that one has, y’know, maps and other things that are useful to military personnel talking about Super-Duper-Secret Military Stuff.  This one has a goddamn five-year-old Colorado Springs phonebook). 

There are two other people in the conference room already, sipping at little Styrofoam cups of what smells like truly terrible coffee.  Gibbs recognizes Samantha Carter from the photo in her service record --  short-cropped blond hair, green eyes, no-nonsense attitude.  Except she’s probably 20 pounds thinner than her service photo, with the same lean, hard look as Jack.  Sits with her back to the wall.  Wears her fatigues with the ease of long familiarity.  This lady hasn’t worn a skirt and heels probably since she came on board, and if Jack’s folks aren’t up to their asses in Black Ops bullshit of some stripe or other, Gibbs will turn in his damn badge and give up coffee.  With Carter is a rumpled, bespectacled man in greens (but no rank insignia; interesting) with a distracted air that belies the piercing scrutiny he directs at Gibbs when he thinks Gibbs isn’t paying attention, and at McGee when McGee probably isn’t because McGee’s too damn busy staring at Carter like a kid who’s just seen his first rock star.  The guy kind of puts Gibbs in mind of McGee on steroids with Navy SEAL training and Gibbs would give almost anything to have Ziva on his six for this one, because all his bells are clanging like it’s fucking Christmas morning and everyone’s forgotten to show up for church.

“My, ah, research team,” Jack says, nodding at Carter and Glasses Guy.  “Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson.  Daniel’s a civilian specialist with the program.  Carter, Daniel, these are Agents Gibbs and McGee, NCIS.  They’re looking into what happened to John McAvoy.”

“Ma’am,” McGee gulps.  “It’s really great to meet you.  I’ve seen you on TV, and I’m, uh, kind of a fan.  The stuff the Air Force has been working on is light years ahead of anything else.  I mean, that hologram alien was so cool.”  Gibbs feels his hand itching to deliver a headslap, and restrains the impulse.  No need for them to see Bad Cop abuse Completely Harmless Cop, at least not yet.

Carter looks perplexed.  "Uh, thanks?"  Her gaze cuts to Gibbs.  "Agent Gibbs, we're all really upset about McAvoy, so anything we can tell you that might help ..."  The energy in the room is fucking weird.  Something about these three puts Gibbs in mind of that year in Russia with Jack and Jenny when close encounters with the KGB and other garden-variety dangers had driven them so close that they could communicate more in a shared glance and a nod than most folks in the Beltway could communicate in a forty-page memo with footnotes and a glossary.  Even the way they've arranged themselves around the table speaks of long habit, which is really fucking curious since they've left what looks like a space for someone else.

“This all of you?” Gibbs asks.  May have been years since he served with Batshit Jack, and his recall might be a little shy of crystal clear and stunningly accurate, but damn if he can’t still read the guy’s face, and damn if every muscle in said face isn’t saying aw, shit while simultaneously trying to look totally unconcerned. 

“…No.  Uh, the other member of our team is … a foreign national on loan to the program.  He’s … overseas, dealing with family stuff right now.  Has been since before McAvoy disappeared.”  (Now why the fucking fuck does the word ‘overseas’ sound like a euphemism to Gibbs’ ears?)  Thee entire sentences so goddamn full of Top Secret Bullshit Doublespeak that Gibbs isn’t even sure he can parse them.  If this nonsense is representative of the general level of truthfulness and candor Gibbs is going to be able expect from the folks here in BFE, Colorado, he might as well go on back to civilization, swipe Abby’s Ouija board, and ask his questions that way, because it would probably be more informative than this goddamn interview has been so far and wouldn’t leave Jenny busting his balls (not that it’s anything new) about wasting precious budget dollars on a pointless flight out to the fucking middle of fucking nowhere.

“How ‘bout we cut the crap here, Jack,” Gibbs growls finally (maybe he should have had some of the goddamn coffee; maybe then he wouldn’t be so fucking cranky)  “How about you tell me what you guys really do around here, and what McAvoy was actually doing for you, and maybe we can figure out what the hell he’s doing in Washington shooting people.”  Gets to watch Jack and Carter and Glasses Guy exchange some very concerned mental telepathy.  Jenny warned him that SecNav wanted Gibbs to ‘tread carefully,’ and probably this doesn’t exactly count, but (call him nuts) what Gibbs mostly cares about is the crazy fucking Marine who shot up Starbuck’s then disappeared into thin air and who was probably still running around D.C being crazy..  “Any reason that McAvoy might want NCIS to come down here and do some digging?  Because that’s sure as shit what it’s looking like right now.”

O’Neill sighs, sits down at the table, puts his head in his hands like it weighs about a million pounds, closes his eyes (Gibbs can practically hear him thinking, God grant me patience).  “Look, Jethro, I’m sorry you got dragged into this – it’s an internal matter, and we did a crap job of handling it.  McAvoy worked with us overseas,” (again that damned feeling that overseas is a euphemisim for God-only-knows-and maybe-doesn’t really-even-want-to-know what), “and the work we do over there is stressful.  Some guys – even the best of the best – they can’t take it.  Sometimes they snap.  We didn’t catch it soon enough.  This never should have ended up in your lap.”

Jesus H. fucking Christ on a crutch, this is the biggest pile of horseshit Gibbs has stumbled into yet this century, and he’s going to need about fifty times more coffee than he’s had today (which is to say, any, because as usual NCIS is being treated with all the courtesy and manners one usually reserves for door-to-door vacuum salesmen and Jehovah’s Witnesses) if he’s going to deal with it.  “Well, it is in our lap, and there’s two dead colonels at the Pentagon and fifteen injured people back in D.C., so I’d say it’s a fair guess you’re stuck with us until we get this straightened out.  What’re you guys doing ‘overseas’ that’s so fucking stressful?  Torturing innocent people at Abu Ghraib?” 

“Actually boss,” McGee speaks up at last (halleh-fucking-lujah for Totally Harmless Cop), “I think it’s something more like technological espionage.  Bringing it back here, reverse-engineering it . . . though who they’re stealing it from I have no idea, because even the stuff they’ve released to the public is some of the most advanced tech I’ve seen anywhere.”

More Very Concerned mental telepathy flying between O’Neill and Carter and Glasses Guy (Gibbs supposes he ought to start thinking of him as Daniel, or as Jackson, but right now he’s liking the name Glasses Guy so much better and figures that Glasses Guy ought to be thankful he hasn’t earned a worse moniker  Though that may come later, given that Glasses Guy hasn’t yet opened his mouth). 

May as well strike while they’re all freaking out that Totally Harmless Cop (aka Tim McGee, who may have just earned himself a few iotas of forgiveness) has apparently hit a target somewhere in the vicinity of the truth; maybe then Gibbs’ll get an answer that’s less than eighty percent evasive bullshit, so Gibbs asks, “What’s your connection with Colonels Harcourt and Evans?  I’d appreciate a truthful answer, if it’s not too much trouble.”  Okay, so he’s snarling, but Gibbs figures he’s earned it, because his blood pressure is probably six inches from Heart Attack Central and still climbing.

And it’s Glasses Guy who turns out to be the weak link in the group, because he blurts out that Colonel Harcourt is their program’s liaison with the Pentagon, but they don’t have any clue what Evans has to do with any of this because they’ve never had contact with the guy so far as he knows, and he can’t figure out why on Earth McAvoy would have shot either of them because there’s no indication they’ve ever had any contact and McAvoy’s security clearance shouldn’t have been high enough for him to even know that Harcourt was connected to the Program.  And then Jackson attempts to sink into the floor, probably to avoid the synchronized death glares that Carter and O’Neill are beaming his way with laserlike precision.  (Sorry, son).

Then it’s Carter’s turn to un-clam, though it’s O’Neill she’s looking at, and in Gibbs’s humble estimation, the good Captain Carter’s expression has shifted from bland concern to something in the neighborhood of real worry.  “Sir, I hate to say it, but there’s a chance this could be a possible f--,” she breaks off at a subtle but emphatic hand signal from O’Neill (if Gibbs were to take a guess at the dictionary meaning of that particular piece of sign language, it would be something to the effect of Don’t even fucking go there), turns to Gibbs, takes a breath.  “I mean, there’s a chance McAvoy may have been exposed to something overseas that could be affecting his behavior.”

“C’mon, Carter, there’s no reason to go jumping to wild conclusions.  You know he was screened when we came back last week,” but Jack looks almost as concerned as she does all of a sudden, and Gibbs can practically hear the gears grinding and overheating in O’Neill’s head the way they did right before everything went straight into the shitter in Poland. 

“But sir, if there’s any chance of it,” and Carter’s little gears are turning too, almost as furiously though with substantially less smoke, “we need to find him, and quickly, and my feeling is that NCIS may be closer to getting McAvoy than we are.” 

“Fuck,” intones O’Neill, with feeling.  “Just – fine.  You go back to D.C. with them, give them whatever help they need.  I’ll clear it up with General Hammond.  Just – ugh.  Don’t tell them anything you don’t have to, okay?  And watch out for their Director.”

So, in the end, it’s a few more completely uninformative interviews with an assortment of Marines and oddly well-muscled civilian specialists who knew McAvoy (the ones that aren’t off overseas right now, anyway) and who claim that of course they had no idea McAvoy was  going to lose it and go on a rampage in the nation’s capitol, but this was his first year and the job is damn stressful and you never know who’s going to be buying the next ticket on the Crazy Train to Crazytown, and it’s a damn shame that McAvoy did, and then they’re wheels up at 0300 the next morning, with Carter settled in beside Gibbs looking like she’d rather be flying the damn plane and Tim looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, like possibly hell or on a commercial airliner, which is pretty much the next best thing.  Cater’s got a locked case with her with who-knows-what inside, but Gibbs is pretty sure whatever it is would never have made it through airport security. 

They’re back in D.C. by 0900, and Gibbs’s head is pounding with irritation and caffeine withdrawal and four hours on a plane with McGee, and he’s feeling a bit like telling Jenny, “Look what followed me home,” as Carter marches through the door behind them, and then it seems like the day’s only going to get better from here, because there’s a very pissed off blonde woman in a very expensive navy Chanel suit having a staredown with Ziva.  And apparently Tony has recovered from the flu.

“I’m sorry, Boss,” DiNozzo holds out his hands helplessly.  “I tried to head her off at the pass, but –“ he gestures at the blonde woman, who has now turned her icy stare on Gibbs and his little entourage, “this is Charlotte Mayfield.  She says she’s the VP of Farrow-Marshall Enterprises, and she wants to talk to you about what happened to Colonel Evans.”

Chapter Text

Within seconds of Gibbs walking into NCIS after spending four utterly delightful hours on military plane with Tim McGee, Sam Carter, the Mystery Box, and no goddamn coffee, Charlotte Mayfield (more like Corporate Barbie meets the Terminator, Christ) practically shoves him into the conference room, barely giving him a chance to shut the door before she slams a copy of the Washington Post, open to a back page showing Colonel Evans’ service photograph and what’s probably a story about the murder (Mayfield’s well-manicured hand is planted in the middle of the article, so guessing is the best he can do), down on the conference table.  “This is completely unacceptable!” she chews out, apparently shooting for zero to High Dudgeon in under thirty seconds.  (Which ex-wife was it that had enjoyed the designer suits and the Very Aggressive haircuts and Being an Important Person on the Beltway?  Mayfield could be a clone.  God, what was it about this week, anyway?)

Bland seems like the best way to play this one, though it’s a bit difficult in light of the screaming woman in the navy suit who’s about six inches from his face and the distinct overabundance of blood in his caffeine-stream (were five fucking minutes in which to make a Starbuck’s run prior to having some pissed-off blond executive in a thousand-dollar suit attempt to rip him a new asshole too much to fucking ask?).  “What can I do for you, Ms. Mayfield?”  He settles into a chair and looks up at her placidly. 

That innocuous little query (we’re only here to help ma’am; it’s our job, you see) is like opening a spigot on a super-sized bottomless barrel of vitriol.  Turns out Farrow-Marshall holds several billion dollars in government contracts (doesn’t making a significant contribution to increasing the United States budget deficit entitle a company to some goddamn personal attention from the servants of said establishment?), everything from pharmaceuticals being shipped to VA hospitals to the manufacture of certain components for a highly-classified advanced weapons project (called COBRA – Gibbs doesn’t ask, but he’s sure it’s a mouthful, and has never ceased to be amused at the convoluted names people will come up with just to make their acronyms spell a goddamn word; you’d never see something named Laser Weapon For Killing People simply because LWFKP didn’t spell something cute) helmed by – guess who – Colonel Evans, the dead guy in front of the Mediterranean restaurant in G-Town. 

And it isn’t so much that Colonel Thomas Evans’d had the poor taste to get dead before the project was finished, or even that Mayfield and her boss (Mr. Balim, who’s still back in Seattle Making Money For the Company like a good little CEO) had to find out about this unfortunate turn of events from the news media (though certainly that doesn’t help matters).  No, it was that the government had neglected to inform them of Colonel Evans’ death after the Pentagon’s stunning display of exceptional competence two weeks before, in which someone involved with COBRA (and certainly not on the Farrow-Marshall end, as they had procedures – not to mention a security force that wasn’t composed of half-trained monkeys in spiffy uniforms and shiny boots, unlike some organizations she can think of -- in place to prevent anything of the sort ever happening on their end) had managed to lose track of some very expensive and extremely proprietary system component long enough for it to make its astonishingly successful debut on the black market, meaning that by now the design has almost certainly been copied by at least five of Farrow-Marshall’s competitors.  Since it was a Marine sergeant that had done the killing, Charlotte Mayfield (and probably this Mr. Balim, who’s undoubtedly holding her leash – though as far as Gibbs is concerned, not nearly tight enough, given that Mayfield’s in the damn conference room chewing his face off when Gibbs would much rather be taking a piss and getting some fucking coffee) wouldn’t be a bit surprised if someone at the Pentagon had set it up.  Evans probably knew whose incompetence was behind the leak and some General who had been out playing golf instead of safeguarding the goddamn technology didn’t want to risk having his ass sued to the tune of a hundred million bucks for exposing Farrow-Marshall to patent infringement and the loss of millions of dollars in potential profits.  The Government Does That Sort of Thing You Know, Agent Gibbs.  It’s Just Part of the Culture.

And God fucking damn it but she’s right, maybe not so much about incompetence at the Pentagon (though one is compelled to admit that this is the United States government she’s talking about), but that this bizarre goddamn case is probably even less straightforward than Gibbs had fucking assumed.  McAvoy had wanted them to go to Colorado, had wanted NCIS thinking about deep space telemetry and Marines that endured incredible stress overseas working for Batshit Jack O’Neill, because as long as they were focused in on Batshit Jack and his little Circus At The End of the Universe, they weren’t focused on the actual reason (whatever the hell it was) that McAvoy had gunned down two colonels at the Pentagon, and as long as they weren’t considering the actual whys and wherefores of McAvoy’s little killing spree, NCIS wasn’t guessing his next move. 

Fuck.  Fucking fuck.  McAvoy had laid them a nice little trail of breadcrumbs, complete with a blinking neon arrow pointing it out (hey, Roadrunner, have some free bird seed, don’t mind the anvil), and Gibbs had lost a day and a half of productive investigation following it straight to The Ends of the Earth, Colorado like a gullible ass while the crazy fucking Marine (maybe not so crazy; maybe just smarter than they’ve been so far) was still out there somewhere (laughing at them) making headway on his diabolical fucking secret plan.  Nobody wastes that much time on a distraction unless they’ve still got work to do, and now McAvoy’s got a two-day head start.

It’s probably not good customer service to push back from the table before Mayfield’s had a chance to finish excoriating him for the sins of the entire American government (certainly she must have an entire section of this tirade planned out to include a detailed description of his dubious ancestry and his parents’ proclivities with various creatures of the zoological persuasion; he’s almost sorry he’s going to miss it), and probably he’s going to hear about this from Jenny later, but the last time Gibbs checked, the motto of NCIS was “get the bad guys” and not “the customer is always right.”

Gibbs realizes as he takes the stairs two at a time, leaving Charlotte Mayfield gaping impotently behind him (clearly the woman's totally unaccustomed to not being treated like the goddess she so clearly considers herself to be, too bad for her), that if Carter’s right and some of Batshit Jack’s little friends from overseas are somehow involved in this delightful fucking puzzle, that yesterday’s episode of Jethro and Tim Waste Their Time Investigating Top Secret Shit in Colorado might also have been a distraction for Jack’s little crew, because time spent talking to NCIS was time not spent figuring out just what the hell had gone down with Staff Sgt. McAvoy.

“Boss?”  DiNozzo hastily stuffs something  (GQ or Car and Driver?) into the top drawer of his desk and tries to look nonchalant about it, and out of the corner of his eye Gibbs can see McGee and Ziva furiously closing windows on their desktops and attempting to look Very Busy.  Carter’s apparently elsewhere, and employing heretofore undiscovered mindreading abilities, McGee explains that she’s gone down to the morgue to talk to Ducky.

“McGee, DiNozzo, make yourselves useful.  I want to know everywhere that Sgt. McAvoy went when he was off duty during the week before he killed those two colonels, everyone he might have talked to.  If he took a shit in a public bathroom, I want to know about it.  If there are suspicious deposits to any of his bank accounts, I want to know about them.  I want to know what flight he was on, who he rented a car from, how he knew Evans and Harcourt were going to be at that restaurant, and what the hell they were doing there together.  Read their e-mails if you have to.  Ziva, I assume there’s still some people owe you favors?  When you’re done showing Ms. Mayfield out, see what your contacts know about the recent theft of Farrow-Marshall technology from the Pentagon.  I’ll be down in Autopsy.”

“On it, Boss.”  It’s always been his favorite chorus.

Ziva looks contemplative as she heads up the stairs to retrieve Mayfield (who is now talking furiously into her cell phone) from the conference room.. “You know, my butt was telling me this was about more than just a crazy Marine.”

“Your gut Ziva.  Your gut,”  Tony corrects.  “Damn, I missed some good stuff while I was out sick, didn’t I?” 

The men’s room, and (thank God) the office coffeepot (normally Gibbs wouldn’t so much as look at the toxic sludge the receptionist brews up, but at least it’s caffeinated toxic sludge, with plenty of powdered cow and little sugar packets to cover the taste) are both on his way down to Ducky’s lair, and after the morning he’s had, nobody’d better blame him if he doesn’t quite make it down to the morgue with his usual alacrity.

“Ah, Jethro,”  Ducky is drying his hands on a paper towel when Gibbs pushes through the door.  “You just missed Lt. Col. Carter.  She’s gone to Abby’s lab to talk to her about some troublesome forensics.  Apparently  Miss Sciuto is quite concerned with the workings of her Mr. Mass Spec.  Quite a strange woman, this Carter.  She had the oddest questions about my examination of Harcourt’s and Evans’s bodies. Whether they had damage to the neck or the back of the throat, whether there was any evidence of a – growth – on the spinal cord or brain.  It was quite puzzling, to be frank.  I don’t know what to make of it, do you?”

Best to cut him off before Ducky’s got a chance to take a breath and start another paragraph, though Gibbs must confess he’s curious about the nature of Carter’s questions.  “What have you got for me, Ducky?”

“Nothing so exciting as mysterious brain growths, I’m afraid, Jethro,” Ducky says as he flicks on the lightbox to illuminate a small phalanx of x-ray images.  Bright bullet spots in several of them; nothing like an unambiguous cause of death.  “Both men were shot twice at close range, .22 caliber.  The first bullet passed through the frontal lobe and lodged against the back of the skull; the second perforated the right atrium.  The job was quite professional, and either of the wounds might have been the cause of death.  Miss Sciuto informs me that the bullets match the gun that was used in the Starbuck’s shooting and then abandoned.” 

“Thanks, Duck.”  Abby’s the next logical stop, though Gibbs isn’t sure what she’s going to be able to tell him that Ducky hasn’t already.  Well, she’s pulled off forensics miracles before – maybe she’s picked up a couple of blue carpet fibers that led her to conclude McAvoy’s headed to the National Gallery to burn it down.  At this point, they’re two days behind the bad guy (bad guys?  Just how many ‘friends’ does Jack O’Neill have ‘overseas’ that might be interested in Farrow-Marshall technology?), and Gibbs’ll take whatever he can get.

Abby’s wearing silver suspenders over a top with garish pink-and-black striped sleeves, a short black skirt with more buckles than a utility belt, pink-and-black thigh highs and army boots -- business casual, as specified by the dress code.  She throws her arms around Gibbs before he’s had a chance to even walk all the way through the door, and through the curtain of Abby’s strawberry-scented black pigtails, he can see Carter, seated in a swivel chair at one of the lab benches, looking on in bemusement (what, this never happens where she comes from?).  “Gibbs!  You’re back!  How was Colorado?  Did you see Top Secret Stuff?  Was it totally awesome?  Did they threaten to kill you if you told anyone about it?” 

“Abs?  The forensics on the McAvoy case?” 

She unwinds herself from his neck, smoothes down her skirt.  Her nails are dark purple with sparkles and little skull stickers.  Last week, they’d been black and electric blue.  “Oh.  Yeah.  Well, they’re pretty much really boring.  McAvoy’s prints were all over the gun.  The serial number was filed off, so he probably bought it from some gangbanger on the street here in D.C., since he couldn't take a gun on the plane.  .22s are pretty much a dime a dozen.  The gun matched the bullets pulled out of the people he shot at Starbuck’s, and the bullets in the two dead colonels, so it’s pretty obvious that McAvoy shot all of them, just like the security camera footage says.  That’s the boring part.  But there’s an interesting part, too.  You weren’t back yet, and I totally didn’t have anything else to do because the bullets and the fingerprints were so easy, so I went ahead and ran the trace I pulled off Colonel Harcourt’s uniform jacket, even though it probably didn’t actually have anything to do with the case.  It was some kind of mineral, and Major Mass Spec needed the exercise, didn’t you?”  She pats the instrument fondly.

Talking to Abby is sometimes a lot like trying to convince a butterfly to take a straight line trajectory, but it’s not like he’s in a huge hurry, since Tony and McGee and Ziva are going to need time to run down their leads.  Gibbs figures he may as well let her continue.  Besides, it’ll give him a chance to watch Carter, try to get a handle on this cipher that Batshit Jack saddled him with.  (He still wonders what’s in that locked case of hers). 

Abby takes a long pull on her Caf*Pow (green today; she’s branching out from her usual red flavor.  Probably it tastes better than Gibbs’s coffee, even if it does have enough artificial ingredients to mutate half the city) and smiles in recollection.  “So anyway, I pulled traces of this mineral stuff off Colonel Harcourt’s uniform jacket– weird, huh; what’s a Pentagon guy doing playing with minerals, anyway? – and I ran them through Major Mass Spec to see what our dead guy had been messing around with, and then I was pretty sure that I had somehow broken Major Mass Spec, because what he was telling me was impossible, because this mineral was like, nothing that actually exists.”  She pauses then, whether for dramatic effect or just because even Abby needs to breathe once in awhile, Gibbs isn’t sure.  “But then Lt. Col. Carter came to Major Mass Spec’s rescue before I called the repair guy to take him apart.  It turns out that there was nothing wrong with Mr. Mass Spec at all and the mystery mineral is just something the Pentagon is developing for their Advanced Weapons Program, which Colonel Harcourt’s records say he was connected to.  So I guess that wasn’t actually that interesting, after all except that I got to see something Top Secret, which is pretty cool.”

Carter’s studying Abby, her expression fluctuating somewhere in between horror and fascination.  She raises both eyebrows at Gibbs inquiringly – is she always like this?

“So,” Gibbs says, trying to keep the resignation from bleeding into his voice, “nothing that tells us where McAvoy’s holed up in D.C. or where he might be headed next?”

“Nope,”  Abby shrugs helplessly.  “Sorry, Gibbs.  I’ve been through everything twice, and there’s just nothing there.  I mean, unless this whole thing had something to do with the mineral I found on Colonel Harcourt’s clothes.” 

Carter looks worried.  She’s trying not to (sitting casually with one arm resting on the lab bench), but Gibbs can see it in the faint crease in her forehead, the subtle tightening of her eyes and lips.  Sam Carter may be up to her neck in Super Secret Black Ops Stuff, but Gibbs would lay even money the woman’s a terrible liar.  “Colonel Carter, it’s beginning to look like this case might be tied to the theft of some components that a firm called Farrow-Marshall Enterprises was building for some project at the Pentagon called COBRA, and their sale on the black market a couple of weeks ago.  That project have any connection to this – mineral – of yours?”

“Shit.”  The word seems to fall out of Carter’s mouth before she realizes she’s speaking.  Her mouth snaps shut and she takes a deep breath, but Gibbs can practically hear her internal litany (Goddamn it.  Fucking hell.  Flaming hellcunts.  Etc.)  “Not directly, no.  But COBRA’s part of the weapons guidance package for an, ah, experimental aircraft the Air Force is developing in association with the program in Colorado.  Most of it’s being built by the program’s own people, but I guess Farrow-Marshall must be manufacturing some of the computer components.”  She looks pained, and those last couple of sentences sound (to Gibbs’s startled ears) like they’re mostly true.  Possibly even candid, which would pretty much be the shocker of the century.

“You didn’t know about the theft?” 

“No one told me.  I mean, maybe Colonel Harcourt brought it up with General Hammond or with J--, uh, O’Neill, when they met last week, but this is the first I’ve heard about it.”  Carter’s added a little line between her eyebrows to the collection of concerned creases on her face, and Gibbs can practically hear her thinking, hard and quickly.  “Fuck.”  Clearly not a word she uses regularly, but apparently the situation warrants it. 

“So it’s a fair guess your friends from overseas would be interested, then.”

“Oh, I’m sure they were the first in line.”  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, say the little lines in Carter’s face, and by the time she and Gibbs have finished talking to Tony and McGee upstairs, Carter’s lines aren’t just saying the f-word, they’re shouting it.

Tony’s spent a few hours on the phone with the NCIS field office in Colorado and with someone in Jack O’Neill’s little circus act who was apparently feeling uncharacteristically helpful, and he’s done a commendable job (not that Gibbs will ever tell him; praise isn’t nearly as motivating as the fear of a good headslap) piecing together what McAvoy was up to in the days preceding his little jaunt to the nation’s capitol and subsequent creation of small-scale mayhem.  Most of the timeline’s dull stuff.  Trip to the grocery store, a night at Moe’s bar watching Monday Night Football with some of his buddies from the squad,, Friday-night beer run to 7-11, a date with Amanda Willis at their usual spot. 

No unusual deposits, no unusual withdrawals, chimes in McGee.  At least on the electronic-banking front, McAvoy was apparently normal, normal, normal.  Funny how folks who are planning to commit double murder don’t always bother to inform their financial institution. 

It’s starting to sound like yet another fucking dead end (this case seems to be sprouting a brand-new one at every turn, and Gibbs is getting really fucking sick of it), but Tony’s not done yet.  Everything was normal, normal, normal, up until the night before McAvoy disappeared.  After their date, McAvoy’d dropped Dr. Willis back at her apartment, then apparently headed back to a bar he occasionally frequented, generally without his buddies.  Bartender said McAvoy’d sat in a back-corner booth for about fifteen minutes until a couple of burly guys wearing baseball caps and the ubiquitous corporate-security uniform of jeans, black tee-shirt, and a sport coat from the Big and Tall and Badass store had approached him and they’d gone outside, presumably to talk.  Bartender had taken one look the guys in ball caps and decided he didn't want to ask.  Next day, McAvoy had flown to D.C. and killed a couple of colonels.   

And halleh-freaking-lujah, but maybe they’ve finally caught a break, because the bar owner‘s been having problems with some damn punk kids tagging his building, so he’d installed some very discreet security cameras a couple of weeks ago.  So far as they can figure, McAvoy and his well-developed friends either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared, because (smile pretty, goon squad) they’d been caught on Candid Camera, and the folks at the Colorado field office had been more than happy to e-mail Tony a screencap. 

It’s not the best picture on Earth, but that’s what McGee’s for.  While he’s cleaning it up (clicky clicky clicky goes the keyboard; whatever happened to the days when people just used film, for God’s sake?), McGee volunteers that he pulled the LUDs on Evans’s and Harcourt’s personal cell phones, and McAvoy had called both of them the morning of the murder.  If McGee were to guess (good thinking, Probie), McAvoy had probably arranged to meet the colonels at the restaurant, then showed up and shot them.

Ziva’s finished her phone call (thank you very much, Marion, you’ve been very helpful) and is looking over Gibbs’s shoulder when the enhanced photo flashes up on the big screen – McAvoy and the two goons in ball caps, big as life.  “I know them,” she says musingly.  “That night with La Grenouille” and Gibbs knows exactly what night she’s talking about; (though nothing had actually come of that evening, there had been a sniper rifle involved).  “I think they were his bodyguards.”

Gibbs isn’t sure what instinct makes him glance over at Carter, but the woman has abruptly gone three or four shades paler and looks like someone’s just punched her – hard – in the gut.  “Something you want to share with the class, Lt. Colonel?”

Carter’s shaking her head slowly side to side, like she wishes she could deny everything that’s on the screen, and the words that spill out of her mouth are obviously completely uncensored, because Gibbs hasn’t got a fucking clue what the hell she’s talking about.  “I’ve seen them before too, but it wasn’t with this  – Grenouille – person, whoever he is.  They’re Jaffa.”  (Who – or what -- the fuck’s a Jaffa?  Clearly nothing good, and more than likely from overseas, given the look on Carter’s face). 

Gibbs blinks at her. “I’ve seen a lot of strange cases,” he grumbles.  “But this case – to borrow a phrase from my medical examiner – this case is weirder than snake shoes.”

Samantha Carter makes a funny, strangled little noise. 

Chapter Text

Up until that very moment, Gibbs hadn’t seen a damn bit of similarity between Sam Carter and her C.O., Batshit Jack O’Neill.  But now it’s funny, because suddenly Carter is wearing the same dark look that Batshit Jack had worn all those years ago when he’d realized that the operation in Poland had suddenly gone totally fucking pear-shaped and they were screwed in eighteen different (new and creative) ways and he was frantically trying to find a way out that wasn’t gonna involve all of them going home in pieces (closed-casket funerals for all, and to all a good night).  Whatever a goddamn “Jaffa” is, it’s got to be pretty much the exact opposite of good, but Carter meets Gibbs’s inquiring look with a closed-off expression that’s screaming Top Secret (if she told you, she’d have to kill you, Gunny).  All she says, her lips pressed tight, is, “I need a secure line.”  So it is little friends from overseas, then, and apparently the kind that are tight with the fucking Frog.  Had been tight, given that the Frog had turned up a week and a half ago doing the dead-guy float (fucking Frog).  Survey says: oh, shit.

McGee takes her down to MTAC ,and Carter’s walking with purpose, back straight (onward secret soldiers, let nothing you dismay), and she looks seriously pissed, and maybe a little bit freaked out, and Gibbs has to wonder precisely what kind of Secret Little War they’ve apparently stepped in the middle of because some goddamn Marine had shot up Starbuck’s and made damn sure that NCIS had gotten involved in this giant fucking ball of weird, and exactly which three-letter agency was going to suddenly come barging in to fucking claim jurisdiction, take all the evidence, and treat NCIS like a bunch of goddamn kindergarteners in the “slow” class.  (But maybe he ought to let them have this one, and good riddance).  And anyway, why the fuck had this happened in D.C. and not in Los Angeles?  Why the hell couldn’t it have fallen in L.A.’s lap?  Leon Vance might be a complete fucking asshole, but he was good with Top Secret Shit.  Leon Vance liked Top Secret shit.  Hetty was good with Top Secret Shit.  Hell, knowing Hetty, she already knew what the fuck was going on out at Cheyenne Mountain, down to their General’s favorite brand of underwear.  It wasn’t fucking fair.  (Not that life ever was.  Whoever said life was a bowl of cherries had it totally fucking wrong.  Life was a bag of flaming dog crap, as every good Marine sniper well knew).

This whole goddamn case (and it’s been flaming dog crap the whole fucking way), they’ve been two steps behind, doing nothing but reacting to all the Freaky Shit Going Down.  Following the breadcrumbs.  (You don’t react, Gunny, you think.  Reacting gets you dead). 

Every case has its own logic (fucking think, Gunny), no matter how fucking bizarre.  Sometimes the general in charge of some damn anti-terrorism task force gets killed by a professional who was hired not by the goddamn terrorists, but by a jealous mistress.  Sometimes some private doing some unimportant job on some Podunk fucking base while screwing around with his bunkmate’s girlfriend and stealing shit from the PX gets dead at the hands of the damn terrorists because he saw something he shouldn’t have when sneaking off base to the 7-11 for some Twinkies and beer.

Fact: McAvoy, who was visited by some of these “Jaffa” fuckers (who used to hang out with the Frog; mustn’t forget the fucking Frog) the night before the murder, calls Colonel Evans and Colonel Harcourt, presumably to ask them to meet him at that little Mediterranean place in G-Town, then he shows up and kills them.  Fact: Colonel Harcourt was Cheyenne Mountain’s liaison to the Pentagon.  Fact: Colonel Evans was part of a project that was somehow connected to the shit going on out in Colorado (whatever the hell that was).  Fact: a couple of weeks before the murders, a part that Farrow-Marshall Enterprises had designed for Colonel Evans’s project (which was connected to whatever the hell was going on in Colorado, which fucked the duck, which ate the weeds, which grew in front of the great big secret house that Jack built) had been stolen and sold on the black market.  All of this had to be connected to Carter’s little friends overseas and whatever the hell McAvoy was planning to do next (and he had to be planning some damn thing, because he’d gone to a hell of a lot of effort to keep NCIS and Jack’s little boys and girls good and distracted).  Solve the puzzle, save the cheerleader.  Or some fucking thing.

Ziva breaks into his thoughts, which is fine, because it’s not like they were fucking going anywhere useful.  “I talked to an acquaintance at the CIA that still owes me a favor,” she says with an enigmatic smile (call me Lisa, Mona Lisa).  Gibbs wonders how many people working for their friends at the three-letter agencies owe Ziva favors.  He’s already pretty certain that he doesn’t want to know why they owe her favors, because that’s about as safe a line of investigation as asking why someone owed Batshit Jack a favor, back when.  “She tells me that a couple of weeks ago, La Grenouille – or someone in his organization, since he may already have been dead by then – apparently brokered the sale of a piece of electronics that was supposedly part of a weapons guidance package being designed for some sort of experimental aircraft.  Far more advanced than anything on the market currently.” 

“COBRA,” Gibbs says disgustedly (watch out for fucking snakes).  “They know who bought it?”

Ziva leans back against her desk, lips pursed.  Serious.  Got her spook face on.  Thinking.  “Unfortunately, no.  The trail leads back to a shell corporation based in Russia, a series of offshore accounts.  My acquaintance says they have their best people working on it, but they have not yet identified the buyer.” 

“Another goddamn dead end,” Gibbs growls.  How many blind fucking alleys is this fucking case going to lead them down?  (Starting to feel like a rat in a fucking maze, though he’s pretty damn sure that the reward waiting for them at the end is rat poison, not cheese.  Assuming there is an end.  That this isn’t just one giant goddamn Mobius strip of weird).  “Fine.  They at least know how the Frog got his hands on it?”  (Fucking Frog).

Ziva sighs.  He doesn’t like that sigh.  Doesn’t like the wary look in her eyes, which is screaming that he ain’t gonna like her answer.  (Doesn’t matter; since when has he liked a single answer about a single damn thing related to this fucking case?)  “My source tells me that Colonel Evans was working with an agent from the CIA to identify the leak at the Pentagon.  An electronics specialist named Dalton Murphy was picked up.” 

“Wrong guy?”  So far, he can’t see why Ziva’s wearing the look.  Suspect identified.  Guy in custody.  Sounds like good news.  (So far).

Ziva shakes her head.  “They are fairly sure they arrested the correct individual.  They uncovered surveillance photos of him speaking with two of La Grenouille’s men at a bar several days before the sale.”  (Gibbs would bet his salary for the next year that it was those goddamn “Jaffa” fuckers Murphy had been talking to, whoever the hell they were).  “Unfortunately, Murphy died in custody a week ago, before they had a chance to question him.  While the evidence is not conclusive, they suspect he was poisoned.”

Fucking hell.  The pieces are starting to make a pattern, and Gibbs likes it about as much as he enjoyed looking at the paintings at that goddamn Picasso exhibit Ducky dragged him to last winter (come on Jethro, I’m certain you’ll enjoy it).  But there’s one piece that still doesn’t fit – “What about Colonel Harcourt?  What does he have to do with any of this besides being associated with that business out in Colorado?”

And apparently McGee’s back from escorting Carter to MTAC (and still no Carter; that’s a long damn conversation with the folks back home, sweetheart; send Uncle Jack my love) and he’s been listening this whole time (of course McGee’s been listening this whole time; after all, the good Scout’s motto is “be prepared.”  Kinda like the live sniper’s.  Nothing wrong with a little preparedness.).  “Actually, boss, I might be able to answer that.  Like you asked, I checked to see what I could find out from Colonel Evans’s email.  I’ll spare you the technical details, because, ah, they might not be entirely legal.”

“Hacking, Probalicious?”  DiNozzo, helpful as always (nice of you to join the class, Tony). 

McGee clears his throat.  “Anyway, I didn’t get much – it’s pretty heavily encrypted and I haven’t had time to completely crack the –“ whatever stream of technical jargon he was going to spew dissipates under the combined weight of the looks that Gibbs and Ziva have turned on him (haven’t got all day, Probie).  “Right.  I managed to read part of an email that Colonel Harcourt sent to Colonel Evans a couple of days before the murder.  It says, ‘I need to meet with you in person ASAP.  What I have to tell you is going to sound pretty unbelievable, but it’s vital that I speak to you about this business with Farrow-Marshall and –‘  That’s all I was able to read, but if I were going to guess, given the timing, it probably had something to do with COBRA.”

The last bit clicks into place, and Gibbs is forced to revise his opinion: actually, he likes the picture he’s seeing even less than he liked the damn Picassos.  La Grenouille dead (maybe Jenny; maybe Trent Kort; maybe none of the above and the CIA is lying their collective asses off as usual, given what Gibbs’s just found out).  Dalton Murphy, who probably sold the mystery COBRA part to La Grenouille’s people: also dead.  Evans, who may have caught Murphy stealing the part, and Harcourt who it looks like also knew something about the whole fucking mess: dead and dead.  “Someone’s cleaning up,” Gibbs growls.  The “Jaffa” fuckers (who keep turning up everywhere he looks like a goddamn bad penny; never met them and he already hates their guts) – as of the day before the murders, when they were caught on Candid Camera (smile, assholes) talking to McAvoy: still very much alive.  “Bet those ‘Jaffa’ bastards or whatever they are have been calling the shots this whole time.” 

“Actually, the Jaffa don’t call the shots,” Carter’s back, and she looks grim.  Got her game face on, got Jack’s game face on, from back in the Bad Old Days, and that chills Gibbs right down to the bone (We Do Not Talk About Poland).  “The Jaffa are always working for someone.  Whoever they’re working for – and right now we’re not sure – is the one calling the shots.  And it’s weird that this case is so complicated, because their bosses don’t typically tend to take the long view of things.  And that’s the part that worries me.”  Jenny’s with her (and God, Gibbs still can’t get used to the hair; as long as he can remember it’s always been that deep red), and Jenny looks pissed, like she’s been told by someone higher up (and there aren’t too many of those, anymore) to do something that really chafes her rear. 

Fucking secrets and lies and doublespeak and obfuscation and plain old goddamn government bureaucracy throwing up walls between him and solving this damn case and he’s sick of it.  “Look, Colonel Carter, I know I don’t have the right security clearances anymore and I’ve been off the field awhile, but I used to play these little cloak-and-dagger games with your C.O., and Director Sheppard used to play with your C.O. and I might not know the names on the jerseys anymore, but I bet I can guess the teams, so maybe you can at least give me a goddamn hint what’s going on?”

Carter looks almost – amused, underneath the stoicism and the worry.  “With respect, Agent Gibbs, to use your metaphor, you don’t even know what sport we’re playing.  I’m sorry.” 

And just as he’s about to get in Carter’s face about it (and Jenny’s stepping forward, putting herself in between them, preparing to deploy an industrial-strength, armor-piercing warning look; always knew him too damn well), it hits Gibbs that in the short run, it doesn’t matter who the teams are or whether they’re playing baseball or basketball or fucking Quidditch.  Doesn’t matter if it’s some damn petty officer covering up evidence of a drug deal or Jaffa bastards getting rid of anyone who knew anything about the COBRA theft.  Rules are simple: get rid of anyone who knows anything.  Guy who sold it, guy who got it for the guy who sold it, guys at the Pentagon who knew about the guy that got it for the guy who sold it.  Which leaves one person maybe not dead.  “Who was running the investigation for the CIA?”

Ziva’s eyes meet his and narrow.  (Great minds and all that shit).  “I did not tell you because I did not think it was important at the time.”  (And, her tone says, because it was going to annoy the living hell out of you).  “It was Trent Kort.”  (Congratulations, Trent, you’ve won a chance to be McAvoy’s next fucking target). 

Gibbs is grabbing for jacket, car keys, cell phone (may hate the guy, but it doesn’t mean he wants some crazy-ass marine shooting him in the head), when Jenny’s voice stops him.  The Director voice.  Tight with annoyance.  (Doesn’t like her marching orders, apparently, but gonna march all the same).  “No, Jethro.  I just spoke with SecNav, and with General Hammond, the officer in charge of the project at Cheyenne Mountain.  The situation is more dangerous than anyone had previously anticipated.  They are sending people who are better equipped to deal with McAvoy and his associates.  They’ll be here within six hours.  We are to do nothing further on the case.  It’s out of our hands.”  No wonder she’s fuming.

So much for jacket, car keys, cell phone.  So much for getting the bad guy.  “Well, someone better at least warn Trent Kort to lay low for the next six hours, until the cavalry gets here.”  (Knew from the minute Carter went to phone home that someone was going to muscle in on their case, treat them like a bunch of dumbass kids with pop guns and plastic police badges).

There’s a brief flurry of phone calls, before DiNozzo comes back with a “you aren’t gonna like this boss,” expression (very cocky puppy with his tail between his legs), except it’s aimed at the director.  “I talked to Kort’s secretary.  He’s been out of the country for the last ten days.  Coming in on a commercial flight under his own name.  It lands in half an hour.”

Jacket, keys, cell phone after all.  “Sorry, Jen.  Trent Kort probably doesn’t have six hours.  Everyone, gear up!” 

“I’m coming with you.”  And it’s Carter on his six, with that damn locked case in tow.

Chapter Text

It’s dark and it’s raining and it’s still fucking rush hour in D.C. (gonna be a goddamn miracle if they make it to the airport before it’s wheels down and maybe lights out for Trent Kort).  Gibbs grits his teeth, tosses the keys to Ziva (God helps those who fucking help themselves, after all), ignores the looks that DiNozzo and McGee throw his way.  Carter doesn’t know any better, slides into the back seat of the black sedan and straps herself in like they’re going on a Sunday drive.  Tony and McGee squeeze themselves in next to her (when the situation’s that serious, no one bothers calling shotgun; either that or they’re afraid they’re going to shit their pants if they have to sit up front while Ziva’s careening down the freeway.  Gibbs doesn’t ask).  Ziva’s peeling out of the parking space before Gibbs’s seatbelt is even fastened, narrowly missing scraping half the paint and the passenger’s side mirror off of a dark green Volkswagen (fat bald guy in the Volkswagen leans on the horn, flips her the bird, someone in the back seat swears quietly under his breath.  In the rearview mirror, Gibbs can see Carter sitting there like the fucking Sphinx).  

It’s a blur of lights reflected in pools of water and the thunk-thunk of windshield wipers set on high and the sound of horns stretching out as they speed past slow-moving SUVs and men in suits driving BMWs and Ziva weaves the sedan in and out of traffic like she’s running some kind of suicidal slalom course.  Inside the cab it’s all of them except Ziva shouting into cell phones as bureaucrats with no sense of urgency hurry to do exactly fucking nothing, and the timer on Trent Kort’s life is ticking down, down, down.  

Gibbs has got some supervisor with the airport police and reception that keeps fading in and out (fucking cell phones) in one ear, and snatches of Carter’s conversation (“No, sir, it’s not like we had any choice, he’s landing in less than half an hour”) behind him in the other, and if this whole fucking odyssey of weird ends with everyone on McAvoy’s to-kill list dead because some high-powered lawyer in a white Mercedes couldn’t get the hell out of the way and the fucking airport won’t divert Kort’s flight on a maybe (but they’ll certainly send some officers to the gate to meet Kort and they’ll keep a sharp eye out for anyone matching McAvoy’s description, i.e., 5’10”, burly, dark hair and crazy.  Just to be safe, you know, but they’re sure he couldn’t possibly get through security with a gun), Gibbs is going to be really goddamn annoyed.

And Gibbs is trying to keep his mind on the mostly-useless conversation with the airport police supervisor (who is, at the moment, trying to gently explain the sort of chaos that an airport evacuation would cause – Really, Sir, You Have to Be Absolutely Sure This Is Necessary.  We Can’t Evacuate The Airport For Every Tiny Thing, Especially When This Guy Is Not on Any Terrorist Watch List, and Gibbs is wondering if the words the guy’s using could possibly get any fucking smaller), but he’s got one ear on what Carter’s saying and he’s getting the distinct sense that her superiors are less then ecstatic about the course that events have taken.  “Yes, sir, of course I want to minimize the potential for exposure, but I’m wondering what exactly you suggest I do if I’m right about what’s happened to McAvoy . . . Yes, sir, of course I’ll try real bullets first.”  (Yes, of course I’ll try real bullets first?)  

COBRA and the Frog and some fuckers called “Jaffa” and Batshit Jack and little friends from overseas and some crazy-ass Marine that might not be susceptible to real fucking bullets.  Carter had said that Gibbs didn’t even have a clue what fucking sport they were playing and he’s beginning to wonder if maybe she actually wasn’t full of shit.  His gut is screaming at him (We Do Not Talk About Poland) that maybe he’d be better off letting Carter’s people handle this or figuring Trent Kort was finally getting what he deserves, but it’s too goddamn late because they’re pulling up to the white curb in front of the terminal and the nice woman’s voice on the P.A. is informing them that there is no parking or waiting on pain of having your car towed and impounded for the rest of your natural life and by the way do not leave your luggage unattended so that terrorists can plant bombs in it (but nothing about watch out for crazy fucking Marines who are immune to fucking bullets), and everyone’s flinging doors open and jumping out of the car without a word about Ziva’s driving because right about now Trent Kort should be walking down the jetway and God only knows what’s coming next.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the locked case is open and Carter’s sliding something under her jacket, and a Glock into the holster at her hip, but Gibbs doesn’t have time to think about it because they’re beating feet through the automatic doors and into a sea of clueless tourists waiting in line for the next available kiosk.  “Gate C-5!” Ziva shouts over the buzz of a few thousand conversations, and pushes past a bespectacled Japanese man holding a sign over his head.  

It’s like wading upstream during the salmon migration, dodging slow-moving tourists with guidebooks and all their goddamn luggage and business travelers who can’t look up from their smartphones long enough to get the fuck out of the way, and probably it wouldn’t help to break out the guns and badges because then it would be a sea of panicked tourists with all their fucking overstuffed roller bags running fifteen different directions, exactly none of which would be out of Gibbs’s fucking way.

Finally there’s the two police officers who were supposed to meet them (Brightman and Owens, good to meet you sir, and Brightman is slim and blonde and pretty and doesn’t look old enough to have graduated from the fucking academy already, while Owens is probably five minutes from retirement and clearly has a standing date with the doughnut stand outside security, but at least they’ve got one of those golf carts with the flashing light which hurries things along considerably given that tourists now have a choice between letting Owens run them the fuck over and getting the hell out of the way).  

It’s the screaming that tips Gibbs off that they’re getting close, that and the herd of people tipping over barriers and stampeding away from the security checkpoint without a thought for abandoned luggage or the fact that they’re probably going to miss their flights, and there’s some folks in TSA uniforms in the middle of the crowd, running every bit as fast as everyone else, because apparently securing the airport is a fine job when you’re sending someone to the back of the line because they forgot to put their miniature mouthwash in the little plastic baggie, but it really sucks when you’re actually securing the airport against a real threat.  (And of course it’s going to be that kind of day; it’s been that kind of fucking case).  

“Boss,” DiNozzo says, and the Red Sea of pale flabby guys in Bermuda shorts and women in too-tight yoga pants and slip-on shoes finally parts to reveal a guy who from the back looks an awful fucking lot like he could be McAvoy, dressed in a black t-shirt and camouflage cargo pants (de rigeur this season for military guys who have gone completely off their nuts), and maybe-McAvoy is standing face to face with Trent Kort.  For once in his goddamn useless life Kort’s not wearing his customary sneer of arrogant self-assurance; the guy actually looks pretty fucking worried, which is kind of hilarious since it doesn’t look like McAvoy actually has a gun, just some weird gold-colored glove sort of thing on his right hand (or maybe it’s not so hilarious, given that Carter’s noticed it too and she looks – again – like someone’s just kicked her in the gut, and she’s reaching under her jacket, presumably for whatever the fuck came out of that locked case she had).

“Where are the police they sent to meet –“ McGee starts to ask, and then they notice the two big guys in blue uniforms sprawled on the floor, guns a few inches from their hands.  Neither of the guys is obviously bleeding, but neither of the guys is obviously breathing , either, which is definitely a good goddamn cause for concern.  McAvoy’s focused on Kort and Gibbs doesn’t even have to say anything before Ziva and DiNozzo quietly thumb the safeties off on their service revolvers and begin circling around to surround the guy and Carter’s moving to where she can got a clear shot with whatever the fuck she has (it’s still under her goddamn jacket, and Gibbs just hopes whatever-it-is is effective in the event that real fucking bullets aren’t).  

And maybe this won’t be Poland all over again (and his gut can shut the hell up), because it’s just one goddamn crazy Marine and some weird glove thing, and there’s five of them and two police officers and Trent Kort who may be a complete fucking asshole but can probably rip McAvoy’s nuts off, so Gibbs gets a bead on McAvoy’s head and clears his throat and says in his best Gunny voice, “Stand down, Marine.”

But McAvoy is apparently not too impressed, because he keeps the hand with the weird glove right in front of Kort’s face and spares a glance over his shoulder, eyebrow raised.  “You must be Agent Gibbs.  I make a point of studying my adversaries.  Congratulations of solving a part of the puzzle,” and his voice is cocky as hell and it creeps Gibbs the fuck out because McAvoy looks perfectly normal, but it sounds like the guy is using one of those voice changer things they use to keep people like Abby from identifying their voices on the phone.  “And thank you for saving me the trouble of having to come find you to finish cleaning up.”  (Arrogant bastard).

Ziva blinks, but Mossad assassins have either apparently seen and heard everything or she’s got nerves of steel because all she says is, “Put the – whatever – down, Sgt. McAvoy.”

“I’d do what the lady says Sergeant,” DiNozzo adds.  “She’s a pretty good shot.”

McAvoy just shrugs like he’s completely unconcerned and turns his attention back to Trent Kort who is actually fucking sweating.  McAvoy sticks his hand in the CIA agent’s face and the gesture should seem completely fucking ridiculous except that Gibbs sees what sort of looks like heat waves coming off of whatever’s on McAvoy’s hand and suddenly Kort’s eyes are bugging out of his head and he’s turning purple like he’s being strangled by goddamn Darth Vader (and maybe he is; after this fucking case nothing is going to surprise Gibbs ever again).

Ziva moves a few inches to her left and her eyes, calm and dark and deadly serious, flick to Gibbs.  I’ve got a shot.  “Take it,” Gibbs mouths.

She’s shooting to incapacitate, not to kill (exactly what Gibbs would have done, since they still have a pile of unanswered questions) and it’s a fucking gorgeous shot, beautiful, textbook – should’ve dropped the guy instantly, but all McAvoy does is stagger a little bit and whirl on Ziva with a thunderous expression on his face.  (Trent Kort dives for cover behind one of those enormous cement trash cans; can’t fault the guy for lack of good sense).  McAvoy raises the whatever-it-is on his hand and for all that Ziva looks startled as hell that McAvoy is still standing upright, she’s got enough wits to throw herself sideways as something from that thing on McAvoy’s hand apparently flies by her (because it sure as hell knocks over the security podium a few feet behind her), and then everyone’s shooting (even McGee) and McAvoy’s dodging, and some of those shots have to have struck home but they don’t seem to be having much effect on McAvoy.  No, McAvoy's laughing in that goddamn bizarre voice-changer voice of his.  Either their crazy fucking Marine is wearing invisible Kevlar (that t-shirt’s tight enough that Gibbs can see the outline of every goddamn muscle), or Sam Carter wasn’t kidding about needing something other than real bullets.

Whatever the hell is coming out of glove thing on McAvoy’s hand (and what the fucking fuck is that thing, anyway?  Something else stolen from the Pentagon?) strikes Owens square in the chest and the old guy flies backward into a pillar like he’s been hit by a car.  Gibbs doesn’t need a second hint – he hits the fucking deck, and he’s got a bad feeling that he’s about to have something other than Poland to Not Talk About.  

What happens next is almost anclimactic – with everyone diving out of the way of whatever the fuck McAvoy’s shooting out of that glowing glove thing on his hand, Sam Carter’s finally got a clear shot (and at least she can fucking tell her superiors that they tried real bullets first).  The thing she pulls out from under her jacket is metallic and shaped like a sort of like some graphic artist’s impression of a snake and when Carter extends her hand it unfolds itself and stands upright (and by this point Gibbs is really starting to run out of what the fuck).

McAvoy’s  facing away from Carter, either scanning around for Kort or looking for someone else to shoot, so it doesn’t take much.  Two (glowing) shots –  that thing that Carter’s firing is apparently some weird-ass ray gun, and undoubtedly McGee is wondering where the hell he can get one.  One of the shots hits McAvoy square in the back and the other strikes him in the side as he’s turning to shoot (or whatever the hell you call it) at Carter, and then the crazy fucking Marine is down.

It’s at that point, naturally, that the cavalry finally fucking shows up, fifteen or twenty officers in police blue and a handful of air marshals in cheap sport coats with handguns drawn, all running like hell, and Gibbs finally notices the alarms droning in the background (funny all the things you don’t hear when you’re busy trying not to die) and the fact that they’re all alone at the security checkpoint, save for a scattering of roller bags and some little kid’s dropped teddy bear wearing a red-and-green striped scarf and tennis shoes.  Carter’s slipped her raygun back under her jacket and Kort has crawled out from behind the trash can and is moving to intercept the phalanx of law enforcement, credentials out and CIA arrogance back in force.

Gibbs brushes stands up, brushes himself off, figures Kort may as well do the explaining to the LEOs and whoever the hell else is going to show up, because Gibbs is already getting a fucking headache thinking about writing up this goddamn report (nothing about this case ever made any goddamn sense and there were fucking ray guns, but at least we found the Marine and saved Kort’s ass and the goddamn day.  The end.).

Within a few hours, Carter’s on a plane out of Bethesda headed back to Buttfuck, Colorado and Batshit Jack with a handshake, a few words of thanks to Gibbs and his team, and an apology that no one at NCIS has the security clearance for a full explanation (especially since they all deserve one after all the weird shit they’ve been through and she’s really fucking sorry).  Gibbs isn’t too surprised (though Ducky’s certainly disappointed, especially after all of Sam Carter’s questions about odd brain growths) when Jenny tells them they’re not going to be allowed to keep McAvoy’s body.  Some guys flashing credentials from an outfit called NID (Gibbs’s never heard of them but Jenny assures him that they’re legit) come with a van, take McAvoy’s body, take what little forensics they’d collected, swear Gibbs and his team to secrecy, don’t bother to thank them (and he hates getting treated like a kid with a plastic badge and a pop gun, but there’s not a goddamn thing he can do about because Jenny’s standing there glaring at him the whole time).

Gibbs’s still at his desk at 7:15 AM with a day’s growth of stubble, a half-written report (because I have no fucking clue what the fuck just happened is apparently not sufficient to please the Powers that Be, or at least to satisfy Jenny’s sense of propriety) and a venti triple-shot latte from the Starbuck’s kiosk across the street when Trent Kort, looking freshly showered and somewhat rested (the bastard) pushes through the door.

“Agent Gibbs,” Kort says, not smirking too much for once, “I owe you a debt of gratitude.  Your investigative skills were apparently instrumental in saving my life – and in tracking down the man responsible for killing almost everyone who could shed light on the business of that theft from Farrow-Marshall.”

“You’re welcome,” Gibbs grates (and I hope you have a long fucking memory, Kort, because now you owe me).  “Those ‘Jaffa’ bastards who were with La Grenouille and who approached McAvoy before the killings are still out there, you know.”

Kort shrugs, all elegant British arrogance.  “Nothing for you to worry about, Gibbs.  This is a CIA matter now – national security and all – and I can assure you that we have a solid lead on those two men.  I just wanted to come by and thank you for helping me to close the circle on this case.”

And it’s the weirdest fucking trick of the light, because Gibbs could swear he sees the other man’s eyes gleam gold for a moment as Trent Kort turns to see himself out.