Brky2020
Sub-lieutenant
Posts: 406
Likes: 406
|
Post by Brky2020 on Oct 16, 2018 2:54:48 GMT
--This is what we've waited for
This is it boys, this is war
The President is on the line
As ninety-nine red balloons go by--
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
3:11 a.m. EDT
Washington, D.C.
Gibbs looked around and saw himself in a park, sitting on a blanket across from his wife Shannon and their daughter Kelly. The weather was perfect, the food smelled delicious, and he was just glad he didn’t have a care in the world.
There wasn’t anywhere else he wanted to be.
He took another sniff of the lunch Shannon had prepared earlier that sat in the basket, waiting to be eaten.
It smelled like black coffee. It hadn’t smelled like that before.
“Shan. There a coffee cake hidden in there?”, he said with a grin. “Or did you spill a cup in there?”
Shannon looked at him and smiled. Kelly looked up from her book, and Gibbs noticed she wasn’t happy like she had been.
“Kelly. You okay?”, he asked her. Shannon reached out for her hand, her own smile having turned sorrowful.
“I’m just sad you have to go away, and we won’t be able to go with you,” Kelly said.
“Now where did you get that idea, honey?”, he said. “My service is up. I’m not going anywhere.”
“That isn’t true, Jethro, and you know it,” Shannon told him. “You have to go.”
“Go where?” He was confused. He was done with the Marine Corps. Shannon and Kelly were his life now.
“No, we’re not,” Shannon added. How did she read my mind? “We’re part of your life. We’ll always be a part of your life. But there are others who are depending on you. Others who need you, now.”
“Please, Daddy. We know you’re tired, but they need you,” Kelly said. “We can’t go with you. If you don’t wake up, you and they will be stuck here.”
“I…they?...stuck where?”
“You have to go, Jethro,” Shannon said, as she and Kelly reached out for his hands. “It’s time to wake up. You have to wake up.”
“Wake up? Honey, what in the hell is—”
“Wake up, Jethro. Wake up!”
He felt his eyes open wide. In an instant, Gibbs saw the ceiling of his basement, and Fornell and Abby looking down at him.
“Gibbs! Ohmygosh, I thought something might be wrong,” Abby said, as she held both his hands. “You need to get up.”
Gibbs sat up on his cot, and Abby let go of his hands. “Something happen?”
“Yeah. Five-megaton blast in Czechoslovakia. News isn’t saying if we authorized it. If they’re dropping nukes on the battlefield—”
“Then we’re on the clock, Tobias,” Gibbs said, getting up from the cot. “Wake everyone up. I’m gonna make some calls, and we need to be ready to move.”
Nuremberg, West Germany
3:18 a.m. EDT/9:18 a.m. CEST
The remnants of the mushroom cloud near Pilsen, Czechoslovakia were still visible, just over 200 kilometers west, at the Nuremberg airport.
Also visible was the smoke from the missile launched from an American fighter on one of the Soviet Red Army platoons assigned to hold the airport. Resistance fighters then descended on the airport in the aftermath and picked off more Soviet soldiers. Fortunately, they hadn’t thrown a grenade at the empty Red Army Mil Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopter 80 meters from where General James Longstreet, Corporal Damon Werth, 34 civilians and six members of the resistance were about to make a run for it.
Werth and one of the resistance leaders – Gerard, a retired West German Bundeswehr Heer Oberstleutnant who stayed in shape by running triathlons – took the lead as the group hurried towards the Halo. Longstreet had decided the risk of being shot at from stragglers or snipers was better than their other option – stay where they were.
The group made it to the helo, and Longstreet was happy the resistance had done its job by taking out the Helo pilot and co-pilot without shattering the Halo’s windows. Now, he would see if the U.S. Army had done its job and trained him well enough to fly it.
The Joint Chiefs had decided to train officers it anticipated might see combat duty in how to operate enemy vehicles and weaponry. On paper, Longstreet could properly do everything from fire a Soviet AK-74M assault rifle to fly a Halo.
He hadn’t gotten a real opportunity to try his skills, until now.
Longstreet put one of the civilians in the co-pilot’s seat. Judith, a reporter for a regional West German television network, had one lesson in flying a civilian helicopter. That was more flying experience than anyone else in the group had, so she got the seat.
Werth made sure the rest of the group were strapped into their seats, and then took a seat next to the cabin. If Longstreet got shot, Werth would have to toss his body out of the pilot’s chair and take the reins himself, relying on what Longstreet was able to tell him in only three minutes.
Longstreet got the helo off the ground, and it headed west. “Gerard. You get word to our people we’re coming in on a Russian Halo?”
“Ja,” Gerard replied. “They are watching us on satellite.”
“Glad we’re not shooting those down yet,” Longstreet said. “We’ll be on radio silence and flying low. We’re going for Heidelberg.” After the detonation near Pilsen, he hadn’t been able to raise anyone at the NATO base near Stuttgart – nor anywhere else. The smoke in the far distance to his left confirmed what Gerard’s contact had said on the radio: the Soviets and Czechs had flattened Stuttgart HQ in retaliation. Now it was a race to Heidelberg.
“Sir?”, Werth said. “Permission to speak freely.”
“What is it, Corporal?”
“I was thinking. I saw a movie on TV when I was in high school. Protect and Survive.”
“So did I, Corporal. Won an Academy Award. Kubrick’s last movie.”
“Do you remember the scene when Robby Benson snuck up on the Russian pilot, killed him, then took his jet and flew it to France?”
“Son, no way in hell am I wiggling his thing when we approach friendly territory. Hell, I’m doing good just to keep this thing in the air.”
“Just a thought, sir. And for what it’s worth, you’re doing a great job.”
“Thanks, Corporal…I appreciate that.” They and everyone else in the Halo then heard the boom from a fighter, and Longstreet’s blood went cold. But the radar wasn’t showing a lock on the helicopter.
Seconds later, he saw a friendly fighter fly ahead, about 200 meters, and waggle its wings. Longstreet looked to each side and saw US Air Force F-18 Blackhawk fighter jets; both pilots waggled their wings.
“Well, lookee there, Corporal. Looks like someone else saw that movie, too.”
--Brian, the Soviets have decried the explosion in Pilsen as a, quote, "merciless act of American aggression as revenge for Indianapolis". The TASS release goes on to say the Soviets, quote, “we promise in the mutual interests of our citizens and of world peace to not use nuclear weapons as long as the West dismantles its nuclear weapons.”--
Washington, D.C.
The White House
3:50 a.m. EDT
Trevor wasn’t fond of being ordered to the Oval Office at a time he wanted to concentrate on the rings, but Lane ordered him there, and so he went.
Like the Pentagon, the White House was a beehive of activity, and just as heavily guarded. Trevor went through only two checkpoints from Arlington to get to the White House, then a series of metal detectors to get into the West Wing. His wait in the Cabinet Room wasn’t long, but when Trevor was ushered into the Oval Office, he found himself in a very crowded room.
President Boehner was at his desk, talking with Vice-President McConnell, the House and Senate leadership, Lane and other people he didn’t recognize. He could hear the conversation around the President, though – no one else in the room was speaking.
“Pilsen is on fire,” one of the men unfamiliar to Trevor said. “Based on the wind direction and speed, we’re projecting Prague’s going to get quite a bit of fallout.”
“And this affects Warsaw Pact forces how?” Boehner said.
“Ground zero was an air base being used by the Czechoslovakian and Hungarian air forces to support Pact armies moving across West Germany and into Austria, Mr. President,” Lane said. “Right before the detonation, satellite and ground reconnaissance showed the base being mostly abandoned.”
“Mostly abandoned, General?” Boehner replied. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Maybe it served its purpose after the initial push into West Germany?”, said Roy Blunt, the House Majority Leader.
“Or it had one last purpose to serve,” said Porter Goss, the CIA Director. “Mr. President, our people in Czechoslovakia sent us this, and this.”
Trevor saw Boehner looking at a series of photographs scattered on his desk. Trevor was too far away to tell exactly what was on the photos. The Secret Service guards scattered throughout the room weren’t encouraging to him in moving from the back of the room.
“This truck carried the bomb?”, Boehner asked, and Trevor didn’t need to see the photos to know what was on them.
“Goss’s people on the ground verified what we saw from our birds in the sky,” Lane added. “We did keep an eye on it—”
“Why in hell didn’t you tell me about this, General???”, Boehner said, with steel in his voice.
“With all due respect, Mr. President, there are a thousand things going on across that front,” Lane shot back. “There are, or were, over 200 mobile nuclear launch sites on the Pact side aimed at our people. Our war plans did not indicate any realistic possibility of one of their nukes detonating by their own ineptitude. One thing Khalinin did when he ran the Red Army was to clean up the inefficiency built into the Communist system, sir. If nothing else, their military and that of their European allies are a well-oiled machine, Mr. President. There are better odds of Martians living among us than the Russians shooting themselves, or their allies, in their ass so badly.”
"General, when I speak to the General Secretary, are you suggesting to me I tell him he did it himself?"
"That's exactly what the intel suggests, Mr. President. The Soviets nuked their own base intentionally."
"General, that doesn't make any sense. I realize Khalinin is a megalomaniac. Destroying an important forward base so close to the German front doesn't seem like something he would authorize."
"Maskirovka, Mr. President. Smoke and mirrors."
"He's trying to blame us for something he did himself."
"Yes, sir. He set his path long ago. This is just another excuse for him to stay on it."
“Well, that gives me something else to talk about with the Marshal,” Boehner said. An aide rushed into the room and whispered something in the President’s ear. Trevor then saw Boehner pick up the telephone on his desk. For the next four minutes, Boehner was calm and composed and spoke too low to be heard from the back of the room.
Then he put the phone in its receiver, and Trevor thought he had just seen the last hope of peace disappear.
“He says we did it. I asked him about the photos, and he denied, denied, denied any responsibility. He told me ‘you have chosen to wield the Damocles Sword. You cannot handle it. You have condemned your people to death.’ I told him ‘you condemned the entire world to death long ago.’”
The silence that descended was so stark, Trevor thought he heard the fly in the room sigh in resignation.
“People, it looks like we need to start thinking about what we do next,” Boehner said. “John, how’s Exodus progressing?”
“Better than expected,” said John Ashcroft, the Secretary for Homeland Security. “We’ll have enough people and resources, here and elsewhere to rebuild for Operation Return.”
I wasn’t read in on that, Trevor thought. What’ll be left to ‘return’ to?
“I’d like to hear about the rings,” Boehner said. “General, your man—” The President was interrupted by his chief of staff, Paula Nowakowski. She handed him some notes. “Thank you, Paula. Soviet fighters are engaging the French from Belgium down to Spain; we sunk a Nicaraguan boat near the Canal Zone; the Angolans dropped a bunker buster on Mandelaburg and the South Africans dropped one on Luanda; and the Israelis just carpet-bombed Damascus. Nice morning so far, isn’t it, everybody?”
No one spoke.
“Shit. My sense of humor’s flat. General Lane, where’s your man on the ring network?”
“Right behind us, sir,” Lane said, looking back and making eye contact with Trevor. “Colonel, would you be so kind as to update the President on your plans for evacuating part of the public?”
“Go ahead, Colonel. We’re all read in,” Boehner said. “Tell me some of the American people have a shot at getting through this alive.”
Trevor stepped forward, and began updating the President on his plans, beginning with his network of ‘evangelists’ across the country.
Washington, D.C.
5:48 a.m.
“Does this stuff really work?”
Trevor stared at the energy drink he held in his hand.
“It did wonders for me the other day, sir,” said his driver, as the Ford Expedition SUV made its way through Washington from the White House. “Kept me going. Of course, when I got a few hours off that afternoon, I took the couch in the break room and went out just like that.”
The driver snapped his fingers, and Trevor wished he hadn’t mentioned the couch. Then he looked at the can, and realized he was stifling a yawn. “Well heck, Walt. Either the ‘bolt’ will kill me or keep me going. Down the gullet.”
“Sir?”
Trevor finished the entire can in 30 seconds, and regretted the taste, which he judged as a mixture of cough syrup and flat cola. “This stuff better work better than it tastes, Lieutenant.”
“It’s an acquired taste, sir,” Walt said with a grin. “You drink it for what it does for you, not for how it tastes.”
Trevor noticed he was less tired, as if he was gaining his second wind. “How close are we, Lieutenant?”
“Two minutes,” Walt said, looking at the map on his dashboard. Two minutes out from their destination; that included the checkpoint set up at the intersection, two-and-a-half blocks away from the house.
As the SUV drove past the checkpoint, Trevor looked at the houses. Many were dark; several had lawns that were overdue for cutting. Many of the people who lived in those houses had left, heading wherever they could that seemed not to be a nuclear target.
The Colonel had been told NCIS had gone through each house near his destination multiple times. This was one of the best things about working in the capital – Washington was more secure than any other area in the country. It helped greatly that most of the capital was empty – only those who had nowhere else to go stayed – but made things a little more difficult where most residents went: rural Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia.
If only the government had told the people about the rings, thought Trevor as the SUV approached its destination. But who would have believed?
At least these people believe.
The SUV stopped in front of the house, and the driver put the vehicle into park. He got out and opened the door for the Colonel, who was escorted up to the front porch by two of the so-called “suits” that McCallister had assigned to guard the team.
Trevor rang the doorbell and was greeted by a younger man – Tony DiNozzo – who he recognized from his dossier on the NCIS Major Case Response Team as its Senior Special Agent. After opening the door, Tony froze in mid-yawn and stared at the Air Force officer in front of him. “Oh – uh – oh shit! Oh shit, sir! – uh, you one of ours?”
“I’m American, son,” Trevor said, smiling and not holding the agent’s lack of manners against him. He was coming by unexpectedly, after all, although he knew Gibbs had been told by Teague to expect such a visit. “That good enough?”
“Uh – yes, sir, uh, Colonel! You, uh, here to—”
“I’m here to see Agent Gibbs. Is he awake yet?”
“Is Gibbs – yeah! He’s awake. He, uh, never sleeps. Must be the boat and coffee,” Tony said, trying to regain his composure and a small piece of his pride. “We, ah, uh – stay right there. I’ll get someone to get him.”
Trevor made his own way inside while Tony quickly looked around before he saw McGee, who was sleeping on the couch. The other men slept in the basement, the women upstairs. Tony was awake, as was Ziva, who was standing guard upstairs, and made her way down to the living room.
“PROBIE! Wake up!”, Tony shouted at McGee.
McGee shot up, rubbed his eyes, and once he woke up he noticed Trevor standing near the doorway. Then Tony stuck his face back into McGee’s field of vision. “Probie! Get Gibbs! Tell the boss he has company! Hurry!”
McGee, still trying to wake up, saw Ziva apologize to Trevor for the “slapnut humor” the Colonel had just seen (Tony corrected her, saying the term is ‘slapstick’ which he was not intentionally doing). As she turned to head down to the basement to get Gibbs, she saw Gibbs in the kitchen, walking towards Trevor.
“Colonel. Wasn’t expecting you this early. I would’ve had breakfast waiting for you,” Gibbs said as he shook Trevor’s hand.
“Busy times, as you know,” Trevor replied. “You got a place here we can talk? I’ve got my SUV outside if you don’t. I know it’s early.”
“Everybody’s waking up, maybe a little earlier than they thought,” Gibbs said, looking at Tony and McGee. “The other men will be upstairs in a few minutes. You take your coffee black, Colonel?”
“Always. It’s an Air Force tradition.”
“It’s a good tradition, then,” Gibbs said, turning to DiNozzo. “Tony. Stop yelling and make the Colonel a cup of hot coffee. Black.”
“Yes, Boss. Sorry, Boss. Of course, Boss—”
--SLAP!—
Trevor smiled as he saw for himself one of the headslaps that Gibbs was known for.
“Getting your and the Colonel’s coffee now, Boss!”
The men waited until Franks, Ducky, Fornell and Palmer made their way upstairs, and headed downstairs. The first thing Trevor noticed when they got to the basement was the unfinished frame of the boat taking up a large portion of space. Four cots leaned against one of the walls; Gibbs motioned for Trevor to take one of the stools next to the workbench.
“How many of those things have you built over the years, Gibbs?”, Trevor asked.
“Too many,” Gibbs said. “I always finish them, though.”
“Just how do you get them outside, though?”
Gibbs chuckled. “I’m afraid that’s a trade secret, Colonel.”
Trevor chuckled in response. “Admiral Coburn told me you’d say that. He met you, once, after you worked that case with his son a couple of years back.”
“Commander Coburn, one tough son of a gun. Reminded me why I liked to work alone. His people did a hell of a job on that case, but the Commander reminded me of me. His dad went out of his way to smooth things over. Last I heard they were helping Air Force OSI track Spetsnaz in Georgia. I hope they’re okay.”
“I talked with Commander Coburn, you know. Told him about the complex at Clemson University, the one inside the football stadium. Only one in all of South Carolina. He didn’t really buy it…wanted to tell me about the Lord. His whole team got religion. I fended him off by telling him I was Episcopalian…but I have to wonder, why would God let things get to this point?”
“Doesn’t God let everyone make their own choices?”
“Depends on who you talk to. The Commander would agree with that. I have a colleague who thinks we’re all chess pieces being moved by a single deity and everything is predestined.”
“John Calvin.”
“That’s who said that! I always get him and Luther mixed up. I prefer what I was taught, growing up, before I lapsed. God loves us all but we make our own choices. That’s easier for me to swallow than God writing us heading straight into nuclear Armageddon.”
“You’re not alone, Colonel. You have any intel on when things might…come to a conclusion?”
“No I don’t, Agent Gibbs. I will say this. An hour ago, an Air Force E-6B Mercury jet lifted off from Offut Air Force Base, near Omaha. There are three more just like it in the air, just so we can keep fighting the war should it go nuclear.”
“Even if the leadership is decapitated.”
“Yeah. Now that those planes are in the air, the ‘countdown to Looking Glass’ is on.”
“Looking Glass refer to what’s on the other side of those rings, Colonel?”
“More like what everything will look like once our nukes and their nukes glass everything over.” Trevor stretched and yawned. “Agent Gibbs, I could use that cup of coffee, if you still have it.”
“Dammit, DiNozzo,” Gibbs muttered. “Gimme a second, I’ll yell upstairs—” Gibbs stopped, and both men heard some commotion upstairs. Seconds later, they saw the source of that commotion make her way down the steps, into the basement.
A tall, strong, beautiful, statuesque woman dressed in a white jumpsuit walked onto the basement floor holding two steaming cups of coffee. Gibbs saw two of his agents – Tony and Kate – practically drooling from the top of the stairs, and shot them a look. He then turned to Trevor, who stood up and stared at the woman.
“Diana. My God…I thought they had…I thought you were—”
“Never, Steve,” she said.
Gibbs walked over and took the cups from Diana. She smiled and thanked him, then walked three steps before Trevor threw himself into her arms. He put the cups on the workbench and headed upstairs, giving both their privacy, then went upstairs to ask Tony and Kate what the hell was going on.
--the President is now in an undisclosed location, while Congress is in another undisclosed location. The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, where Congress would have gone earlier during the Cold War in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, obviously is not an option—
--sources in National Defence Headquarters tell CBC News that the HMCS Warrior supercarrier group has sunk the Soviet supercarrier Kuznetsov in the North Atlantic somewhere near Iceland--
--the Soviet Ambassador informed the Argentine President he must choose to support the USSR or go to war with the World Pact. Kirchner, according to UN News sources, told the ambassador to ‘go to hell’—
--New York City Mayor Giuliani has ordered Harlem and Hell’s Kitchen shut down to keep unrest there from spreading south to Midtown and Uptown—
--Reuters reports Spanish and Algerian fighters are engaging Soviet fighters over Gibraltar, after a large bomb detonated at British Forces Gibraltar headquarters—
--California is allowing people to head into the Mojave Desert despite the fact that the only FEMA camps are outside of Twentynine Palms, Needles and Blythe—
--before NHK went off the air it was reporting hundreds of explosions throughout all major Japanese cities—
--New Zealand Navy has reportedly sunk a Soviet submarine less than 10 kilometers from Auckland—
--the remnants of Hurricane Barry are expected to dump up to 10 inches of rain onto East Tennessee, hampering local efforts to evacuate residents of the city of Knoxville and to secure the Oak Ridge National Laboratory—
--you’ll only hear it if you get on the internet and have something called RealPlayer. Then go to any number of websites. Art Bell. Joe Rogan. They’re taking about rings that will take people to other worlds. Pictures are posting now, on those websites, and in AOL and Prodigy and MSN forums. Giant metal donuts. There’s one in Metropolis Centennial Park, one at the football stadiums at Clemson and Texas A&M universities, one near Mount Rushmore, one near where they hold the Burning Man each year. And people are paying attention. This is something you won’t hear on radio or TV because of the FCC but someone is letting us talk about this on the internet, here on Eyada and other streaming sites—
Gibbs’s basement
6:22 a.m.
Trevor and Diana decided, as far as Gibbs was concerned, to avoid mention of Themyscria and the other missions Task Force X was involved in. The ring network was to be the topic, although Diana suggested she mention that she was involved with the EU – which she was, as she fled west, and wound up in Italy after Themyscria was destroyed. With help from newly-made friends in Europe, Diana made her way to America, determined to find the people who signed off on the destruction of her homeland.
When Gibbs came back downstairs, Diana apologized for her abrupt appearance, and not calling ahead. She thanked him for being gracious to her, then asked for his permission to tell part of her story.
“I come from a small island off the shores of Greece,” she began. “Do not bother looking for it – it has not been on any maps, and in fact is no longer there. It was attacked, and destroyed, by people who…didn’t know any better. It was one of many skirmishes that went unreported by the governments of the world, part of a hidden war that has finally burst out into the open.
“After I lost my people, I left, looking for allies who might help me find those responsible. My priorities were skewed – I was not looking for justice, but vengeance. I would have failed, had I not made my way to America, and met a remarkable man, of means.” She looked at Trevor. “I never had a romantic relationship with him, but he became like a brother to me, and through him I met an amazing group of people. Together we worked in secret, and we accomplished many, many good things.”
“Go on,” Gibbs said. “This group related to what the Colonel’s been doing?”
“Not directly,” she said. “There were many, many times I wanted to reach out to Steve – but was convinced that would be the wrong choice at the wrong time. I argued those who were threatened by me would come against me – us – regardless, but I was outvoted. I was finally swayed by the threat to Steve, and the network of rings he controlled—”
“How do you know they aren’t there now and ready to take you and your team down?”, Gibbs asked.
“They aren’t anywhere now,” Diana said, with a tone of finality. Gibbs then thought he understood her well enough; based on his own experience, he certainly understood going as far as to eliminate someone who would go as far as to kill family.
Trevor understood what Diana was suggesting, and that Gibbs related well enough to it, and his blood ran cold.
“Diana, since I’m hearing this for the first time…who are these people?”, Trevor asked, wanting to change the subject.
“I found myself in Gotham, which is a dreadful, oppressive city,” she began. “I met a man who introduced himself as Bruce, who I later discovered was a multibillionaire, with a reputation for doing good in his city, but hiring others to do his work while he wasted his life on frivolity. He also had quite the reputation for pursuing beautiful and powerful women, which he admitted he did to keep up appearances.”
“Wait…is this guy Bruce Wayne?”, Trevor said.
“Yes.”
“He’s gay?”
Diana looked at Trevor with incomprehension, then laughed. “No, not Bruce,” she said moments later. “I meant merely his image was just that. Not only is he devoted to one woman, he is one of the most focused, intense people of vision I have ever met. Bruce is intensely committed to the safety of his city. So much, he willed himself to become an Olympic-class athlete and a world-class detective. He patrolled Gotham for years, protecting its citizens against the monsters who terrorized them – and the government that eventually killed off the monsters. Bruce was the one who gathered a team of adventurers – a League of Justice, we sometimes called ourselves – and kept us together. He funded us, supported us, fed and mended us, and helped keep us alive.”
“What did you do?”, Gibbs asked.
Diana told of her meeting with Bruce that, instead of turning into a sexual liaison, ended up with her meeting his butler, Alfred; two teenagers he described as his proteges, Dick and Barbara; and the other members of his then-small team of adventurers:
* Arthur, the son of a Maine lighthouse keeper and of a queen from a dead undersea civilization, who could live in deep water conditions and make all forms of sealife do his will;
* Barry, the crime scene investigator from Missouri, blessed with the ability to run faster than sound;
* Hal, the former Air Force pilot turned civilian test pilot from California, who claimed to have been given a ring by a dying alien that could create anything he wanted but had to be recharged every 24 hours;
* and John, the detective from Colorado who could literally become anyone and, Diana said, would later reveal himself to be from another planet.
Soon, there were others, beginning with Oliver, the billionaire heir who survived a year on a deserted island after being presumed dead; his lady friend Dinah, a florist from Seattle; and Ray, a scientist who learned how to shrink to the size of an atom.
They were later joined by:
* another John (an architect) and Guy (a former cop who sounded familiar to Gibbs), both associates of Hal;
* Snapper, a teenager who lost his family to a Stasi agent;
* Rex, an adventurer who, via a failed government experiment, could change his body into any number of elements;
* Adam, an explorer who claimed to have visited another planet via something called a “Zeta beam”;
* Ralph and Sue, a married couple, he a detective who could stretch his body incredibly long distances, she his loving wife (and rock);
* Jefferson, a teacher who could control lightning;
* Ronnie (a college student) and Martin (a nuclear scientist), who somehow combined to become what they called a “nuclear” man;
* Zatanna, an illusionist by day and master of magic by night;
* and William, a loudmouth ‘superman’ who talked his way onto the team and almost led them to their deaths.
Together, Diana said the team fought a wide variety of threats, ranging from stalkers, rapists and child molesters to Pact-sponsored terrorists to alien beings (Gibbs couldn’t quite believe the tale about the mind-controlling starfish, though Trevor had heard about it from his own sources in the intelligence community). According to Diana, though, William – William McIntyre – almost became the one who took the team down for good.
“William was quite taken with himself,” she said. “He had incredible abilities – flight, strength, invulnerability, vision – but was cursed with ego and arrogance instead of humility and gratitude. We tolerated him, because Bruce and I thought we could reach his heart, and sway him towards good, and because the others wanted to watch him, closely.”
“’Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’,” Gibbs said. “This guy wasn’t a friend.”
“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “William betrayed us. He led us into a trap – informing us that a former foe of Bruce’s was about to poison crops in the American plains and Soviet Ukraine, starting a war. We did not find her, but we did discover William waiting with an American military unit.”
“One of ours,” Trevor said. “Diana. Do you know who led the unit?”
“I do not, Steve.”
Gibbs got up, walked to his tool bench, and pulled out a folder. He walked back to Diana and Trevor, pulled out a picture, and showed it to Diana. “Was this man involved?”
The photo was of McCallister, the one used in the press release that announced his succession to Jenny Shepard as the director of NCIS.
“I do not know,” she said. “I do not recognize him. Is this a man of interest?”
“He’s—” Gibbs started to explain who the man was, then stopped when Trevor caught his eye.
“He’s no one, Diana,” Trevor said a tad too quickly. Gibbs saw Diana reach down to the lasso on her belt – how had he noticed that before now? – and take her hand off. Then she turned back to Gibbs.
“William was the only person we knew specifically was involved, but Bruce ordered us to disperse, for our own safety,” Diana continued. “I stayed with Bruce and his proteges in Gotham. Bruce kept tabs on everyone, of course, and finally brought them back together, very recently.”
“How recently?”, Trevor said.
“Within the past month. They are at a place called Novamerika.”
Gibbs’s eyes lit up, and Diana noticed it instantly. “Are you familiar with this place, Gibbs?”
“I have someone there,” he said. “Agent Paula Cassidy. She can’t get out because we can’t get a plane to her and Illinois has shut down the local roads. Cassidy told me the state border’s closed at the Indiana line because of some unrest.”
“People fleeing Evansville and Louisville, and refugees from the Indianapolis bomb,” Trevor added. “I’ve got someone on the ground at the Hoosier National Forest, where a lot of people went. There’s a ring nearby, in a little town called French Lick. Might’ve heard of it. Larry Bird’s from there, survived four years under Bobby Knight, went on to play with the Pacers...you never heard of them?”
“Not a football fan,” Gibbs replied.
“Basketball,” Trevor said. “Kevin McHale, Darrell Griffin, Clark Kellogg, Charles Barkley, John Paxson…you never heard of them?” Gibbs shook his head. “Wow. Well…anyway, we have a ring in French Lick, and you both have people in Novamerika. I can understand an agent getting stuck there. But what’s in Novamerika that your friend sent your team there?”
“Isn’t there a ring there?”, Gibbs asked Trevor.
“No, or I would’ve brought it up earlier,” Trevor said. “Novamerika’s a theme park.”
“A ‘theme park’ funded partially by Bruce Wayne,” Diana said. “Lionel Luthor funded the majority of the project before he sold his interest. Bruce kept his own interest, and unbeknownst to anyone else, stockpiled as much as he could.”
“Stockpiled what?”, Gibbs asked.
“Anything you would need to continue civilization in the event of a global cataclysm.”
“Food, water, medicine?”
“Weapons, also. And knowledge. He has tens of thousands of books in a vault there, on a vast variety of subjects. Science, history, mathematics, the arts. He has the Mona Lisa there, and a book of William Shakespeare’s works dating to the 18th century—”
“Wait, Diana,” Trevor said. “The Mona Lisa.”
“Bruce Wayne is a man of means. And America is a bigger country than France. He is aware of the project you have spent years on, Steve, but he is not putting his faith in it. Nor does he intend to run, as do the leaders of your country. He intends to stay, and help rebuild. Novamerika is where he will stay…and, Steve, where we will go.”
“We?”
“If you will still have me.”
8 a.m. EDT
--(the familiar CBS Radio News ‘sounder’ plays)
CBS News. This is Pam Coulter.
As fighting continues across the globe between Allied and Pact forces, America prepares for another day of war on the homefront. The nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. is quiet at this hour, unlike other major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Gotham and Chicago. John Woodley reports live from the National Mall in Washington. John?
Pam, the Mall is full, but quiet. Thousands of people are here, gathered around the Washington Monument, officially engaged in a ‘sit-in for peace’ but waiting whatever happens. Organizer Charles Moulton:
“We’re hopeful for a peaceful solution, or a solution that ends in some kind of armistice. But we’re okay with whatever happens.”
Metro DC police report no incidents among the crowd, and in fact the crowd is doing a good job of policing itself, leaving Metro DC police free to address other incidents in the District. But sources tell me there are few incidents to report. The city is mostly empty, although Metrorail and Metrobus continue to operate services out of the city, along with Greyhound. No one other than the crowd on the Mall seems to want to be here, should the worst come to pass. John Woodley, CBS News, live from the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
White House Press Secretary Brent Hobard said President Boehner and his staff are not in the city, but are in an undisclosed secure location. CBS News reported earlier that Congress and the Supreme Court were in other undisclosed, secure locations, as are the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is CBS News.
In Europe, NATO announced the evacuation of Stuttgart, West Germany, which is under heavy bombing by Pact forces. NATO spokesmen also said Allied forces are engaged in heavy fighting in central Austria, in Belgium and in the Balkans.
The Middle Eastern network Al-Jazeera is reporting that U.S. and Saudi forces have pushed back Soviet and Omani ground forces from taking key oil reserves in southern Saudi Arabia. Australian media is reporting Australian and New Zealand Naval ships have sunk three of their Pact counterparts near Papua New Guinea.
Closer to home, Philadelphia, Gotham and Denver have declared martial law. For more news, visit our website on the World Wide Web, or our dedicated subsites on AOL, MSN and Prodigy. This is CBS News.--
A trip through the Washington, D.C. radio dial
11:15 Eastern time, June 5, 2007
FM
88.1 WMUC (College Park, MD; NPR affiliate)
--the University of Maryland is closed. Everyone still or in near campus is urged to seek shelter in one of the safe zones in western Maryland or in Pennsylvania—
88.5 WAMU (Washington; NPR) // 88.9 WEAA (Baltimore; jazz) // 89.3 WFPW (Washington) // WETA 90.9 (Washington//classical)
--This is NPR News from Washington. I’m Jen Sturgill.
Fighting between Allied and Pact forces continues across the globe, but the story this hour is a joint announcement by governors of all 52 states urging residents to seek shelter at the nearest safe zone to them--
93.9 WKYS (Washington)
Help them to learn (help them to learn)
Songs of joy instead of burn, baby, burn, (burn, baby burn)
Let us show them how to play the pipes of peace
Play the pipes of peace
96.3 WHUR (Washington // urban contemporary)
The sky was all purple, there were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care
Say say two thousand zero zero party over, oops, out of time
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's nineteen ninety-nine
98.7 WMZQ (Washington // country)
This lady may have stumbled
But she ain't never fell
And if the Russians don't believe that
They can all go straight to hell
We're gonna put her feet back
On the path of righteousness and then
God bless America again
99.5 WIHT (Washington)
If you made the world, made the day and night
Are we all going crazy, why do men fight?
If you made the mountains and the sea
Now can you show a better way to be?
100.3 WBIG (Washington)
Let me tell you now
Ev'rybody's talking 'bout
Revolution, evolution, masturbation, flagellation, regulation, integrations
Meditations, United Nations, congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance
101.1 WWDC (Washington)
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line?
Peace on earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on earth
103.5 WTOP (Washington)
--any civilians still in the D.C. area are urged to leave immediately, taking the following routes--
105.1 WAVA (Arlington, VA // religious)
--They received Christ and went their way rejoicing. I am going to ask you today to receive Him. I am not asking you this afternoon to join some special church. I’m asking you today to give your life to Christ.
(there is a brief pause, followed by the first verse of the song Just As I Am)
This is WAVA 780 AM and 105.1 FM, broadcasting from Arlington, Virginia. I’m Janet Parshall. During the continuing crisis we are airing sermons from the Reverend Billy Graham, preached in years past at one of his numerous crusades. Our focus during this critical hour of history is simple: for those of you listening now who are not Christians, to help bring you to a saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, before it is too late—
105.9 WMAL (Baltimore // news – broadcasting from nearby Chapel Hill)
--the truce between protestors and police is holding. Residents still in the city are making their way north and west of Baltimore as quickly as possible. All lanes for the major roads are now open and lanes headed into the city are reversed: to repeat, lanes headed into the city are currently open for outbound traffic only—
106.5 WWMX (Baltimore – one of the few radio stations still operating within the city)
Ooh war, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears, to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives
106.7 WJFK (Washington)
But you tell me over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction
Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say?
Can't you feel the fear that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no running away
There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave
Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy
AM
570 WWRC (Bethesda, MD; news)
--civil order has collapsed in Chicago, if ham radio reports from the city and suburbs are to be believed--
630 WMAL (Washington; news)
--again, the Mayor is urging all residents still in the District to leave as best they can--
680 WCBM (Baltimore; news – also broadcasting from within the city)
--MTA buses are now running passengers with no charge to the BWI Airport--
980 WTEM (Washington)
--the MARC train is running to the Harpers Ferry and Martinsburg, West Virginia safe zones for anyone who can get to a Brunswick Line station--
1090 WBAL (Baltimore – the other station still broadcasting from inside the city)
--Associated Press reports that North Korean jets are now dropping napalm throughout Seoul and Pusan--
1340 WYCB (Washington)
--an unusual sense of calm among the thousands gathered on the Great Lawn, hoping and praying for the best, and prepared for the worst--
1500 WTWP (Washington)
--Reuters reports massive bombing of NATO forces in Spain—
|
|
