Countdown to Looking Glass (NCIS/DC Universe crossover)

Chapter 42

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

7:40 p.m. EDT

Ducky's house

At Ducky’s house, McCallister’s suits kept a close eye on its occupants, generally taking a hands-off, eyes-on approach.

Sometimes, the suits had to get their hands dirty.

When Tony inadvertently let all of Mrs. Mallard’s corgis out of the house, everyone was needed to corral the cute, vicious dogs. All the corgis were quickly found and returned to their home, and a few of the agents returned to their stations with some extra scratches. DiNozzo was met at the front door with a stare from Ducky that froze the younger man in his tracks (and almost made him drop the animals on the concrete porch).

With the corgis safely back inside, Ducky went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He heard the others talking down the hall as they made their way into the rec room to watch a movie: it was Kate’s turn to pick the film, and she chose Something’s Gotta Give from a few years before.

The kettle on the stove whistled, and Ducky walked over to turn the stove off and pick up the kettle. Putting down the kettle on a nearby countertop, he turned to grab a bag of Yorkshire Tea to put in his mug. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket as he poured the hot water in the mug; waiting for the tea to properly brew, Ducky pulled out the phone and hit the red button, declining the call.

McCallister’s people weren’t monitoring his calls as they had after the new director took over as head of NCIS, but Ducky still didn’t trust his phone to be secure. Like the others on ‘Team Gibbs’, Ducky had taken care to watch what he said when he thought McCallister or his people were listening.

Ducky was tired of their constant presence in his life, especially his home. He deferred to Gibbs’ strategy of waiting out the director, but Ducky thought he soon would speak out and confront McAllister on the overt presence of the suits, and the more covert surveillance he thought McAllister had approved. The killers of Jenny Shepard no longer presented a threat to the team – unless, as darker rumors persisted, McCallister was the one behind her murder. Ducky never quite believed that, though; he thought the man wouldn’t go that far, to kill Americans and fellow NCIS personnel.

He wouldn’t. Right?

The tea was ready, and Ducky pulled out the teabag and put it in the garbage. Turning back to get his mug, his cell phone buzzed again. He stopped, looking around for anyone else in the vicinity, and then looked at the phone’s screen.

There wasn’t a number, but the phone kept buzzing. Ducky decided to answer it. “Donald Mallard.”

For a few seconds, the caller said nothing. “Who is this?” Ducky said, deciding to give the caller five more seconds before ending the call.

“Donald,” the caller said, three seconds later. Ducky recognized the voice of a former colleague from his days in the British Army’s Secret Air Service, someone he hadn’t spoken to in years.

“Are you trying to sell me something?” Ducky remembered using the phrase from his time in the SAS to speak with colleagues when out in public; the phrase meant ‘how can I help you’.

“No, my friend. Jimmy and Ruth have headed off to elope. They’re heading for the countryside, but the balloon has left. God be with us all.”

The call concluded with a recording of a short electronic musical phrase played at the end of a series of videos meant to be broadcast in Ducky’s homeland of the United Kingdom only when nuclear war was unavoidable.

Ducky stood frozen in place as the other line went silent and a chill shot up his spine.

It was 12:40 a.m. Thursday morning Greenwich time in Britain, 7:40 Wednesday night in Washington. If Ducky had been in the UK and in front of a television watching any of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s channels, he would have seen the BBC logo abruptly appear onscreen, followed moments later by the voice of a woman reading from a script:



--This is the BBC.

We have interrupted our regular programming. The BBC will be bringing you news on the developing geopolitical situation, and important information which may be vital to you in the coming days. Stay tuned to the BBC for news and for announcements from the Queen, the Prime Minister, government ministries and the military.—

After a few seconds of a pitch-black screen, Ducky would have seen the animated image of the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb against a blue background. Seconds later, the screen would change to a red background, with three words in white starkly explaining just what the viewer was watching.

EXPLOSIONS

EXPLAINED

A male voice would begin reading: “Nuclear explosions are caused by weapons such as H-bombs or atom bombs…”

This time, the airing of the first of the 20 Protect and Survive videos was no mistake.

Elsewhere, Gibbs was in his basement, working on yet another of his boats, with a television set playing nearby. The set was over 20 years old, and still working in near-perfect condition, set to the local CBS affiliate. The sound was loud enough for Gibbs to know the news anchors were making light conversation, probably a transition between stories. He turned back to his boat.

He put down his brush and jar of varnish when he noticed one of the anchors stuttering while reading from a script. He saw her coanchor gently take the paper, then saw the man’s face grow chalky white almost in a single instant. Gibbs walked towards the TV.

--“A college friend of one of our staffers who is from the United Kingdom directly confirms the Reuters and United Press wire reports, that the UK has taken over all commercial broadcasting within its country. All stations, radio and television, are broadcasting BBC news coverage and a program intended to be aired over British television when a nuclear war was bel—“

The screen went dark. An icy pulse went down Gibbs’ spine as he remembered a conversation he and Ducky had about British preparations for a conflict with the Soviet Union and the World Pact. A television program officially named Protect and Survive, after a set of pamphlets intended to be distributed to the British public, fit the description of what the anchor said before he was cut off. Gibbs also knew if war was imminent, the government would begin media censorship, First Amendment be damned.

Gibbs waited a few seconds, lightly hit the side of the set twice, and looked in the back of the set to make sure all of the cables and wires were as they should be. He then went through the other area channels his set could pick up from the large antenna he had installed after President Broome’s assassination in February.

The Baltimore and Washington network affiliates on the UHF band (channels 2 through 13) were on the air, carrying local news or weather. The stations from Baltimore, Washington and further out in Virginia and Maryland either carried news, sitcoms, dramas or infomercials. None of the news programs said anything about war or a declaration of war.

Gibbs hit 9 on his remote and saw a WUSA Technical Difficulties graphic. From the anchors’ reactions to the script, he figured something had happened, somewhere, that either was a precursor to or the signal to the beginning of war with the Soviets. He went to his radio on the workbench and scanned up and down the AM and FM dials, but there was nothing about war and certainly nothing about Britain gearing up for it.

He considered getting in his truck and driving out to Ducky’s to discuss the situation. But too many of Riley’s suits were around the mansion, and Gibbs wanted to keep as many cards to his vest as possible when it came to the director. Plus, Ducky had told him to stay home after he hurt his knee the day before, and Gibbs didn’t want to aggravate the joint any further right now unless he absolutely had to.

Gibbs then heard his front door slam, and he reached for his handgun in its holster along the right hip. Though the steps sounded familiar, Gibbs wouldn’t let his guard down, just in case, and he aimed his gun towards the doorway connecting the basement steps with the annex.

Seconds later, Gibbs lowered his aim and put his weapon back in the holster.

“Damn, Jethro. I’d have driven into Virginia to get something else if I had thought Chinese would’ve made you draw your weapon,” Mike Franks said, carrying two boxes of Chinese food in each hand as he descended the stairs. “Chinese and gas stations were all I could find open around here and I knew you wouldn’t want warmed-over cold pizza from the 7 Eleven.”

“Mike,” Gibbs said, his voice trailing off. What was wrong with him, that he drew a gun on an ally? Or that he wasn’t sure who it was coming into his house in the first place. “You didn’t have to do that,” he finally said as Franks made his way towards the work bench, where Gibbs had pulled up another stool, and had begun pouring bourbon into a emptied-out nail jar.

“Nonsense. Save them cowboy steaks for another time,” Franks said. “Let me treat you to dinner for a change.”

“Will I like it?”

“Of course, you’ll like it,” Franks protested. “Kung po chicken, plenty of veggies, two large for six bucks and tax. It’s a great deal. It’s that place five blocks over I went to last time I was here.”

Both men began digging into their meal, and Franks noticed the graphic on the TV screen. “Isn’t there something else on? I know you’re working on that boat, but you usually have something on in the background.”

“I’m waiting to see what comes on afterwards,” Gibbs said, explaining what aired before the station briefly went dark. “Something’s happening, Mike.”

“Something else’s happening, too,” Franks said. “Before I explain my…theory…did you do any cleaning down here. And don’t tell me ‘no because Ducky’. I’ve known you too long, Jethro. You ain’t gonna let a little knee-ache keep you in a chair. Hell, look at that thing over there.” Franks nodded towards the boat frame. “You’ll have that done by the end of the week.

Gibbs smiled. “No bugs, Mike. Did find a couple when I got here, but I squashed them. So you can talk freely here.”

“Good,” Franks said between bites. “Before I tell you about who I met at that bar you sent me to, I wanna tell you about the first part of my ‘theory’.”

“‘Theory’?”

“Just eat and listen, Probie. First part has to do with those kids Riley’s got guarding you and your team. And me. Some of them were at Paulie’s, too.”

“Mike—“

“I said, ‘just eat and listen’,” Franks said in a semi-agitated tone. “Guess I’ll tell ya the second part first. So I’m there for happy hour, and it’s the same people this afternoon who’ve been there every single day since you sent me there. Nobody new, nobody absent, TV sets set to ZNN, ESPN and Channel 7. I order a Córdoba Light, in a bottle.

“This time, though, someone new walks in. Very attractive woman, slender, kinda tall in her heels, blonde. Sexy, too, though she called herself Jack. Has to be in her thir—“

“Mike.”

“I’m the one tellin’ the story, Probie. Anyway, she sits down next to me, orders a Rolling Rock, and we start talkin’. Tells me she’s a psychologist, works for DIA, transferred here from Afghanistan. I tell her I’m an ol’ bastard who’s trying to get back home to Mexico but if that ain’t gonna happen, I’m gonna start looking at beach property down in Florida…just so you know.”

“I trust you’re going somewhere with this,” Gibbs said, with one eye on the TV set.

“She chuckles, then reaches into her bag and pulls out this thick folder. And shows me a dossier on me, and says ‘now, let’s reintroduce ourselves. Former Special Agent Mike Franks, NIS, retired, I’m Special Agent and Forensic Psychhologist Jack Sloane, DIA’. She takes out a few more dossiers from that folder, on you, Ducky, DiNozzo, Kate, Abby, Ziva, McGee, even Ducky’s last two assistants, and on a couple other agents you worked with, Stan Hurley and Paula Cassidy.”

Gibbs kept his countenance neutral but Franks realized his former probationary agent and second-in-command was greatly concerned. “What happened, Mike?”

“She nodded towards the front and back entrances, and a couple of big guys up front, and scary-looking biker types in back, covered them both. So I couldn’t just get up and walk out. I took a drink and asked her politely ‘what in the f*** is going on?’”

“I wouldn’t have been polite, Mike.”

“I wasn’t either, Jethro. The barkeeper came over and said ‘you can trust Jack, Mike, just like you can trust all of us. Sit down, and listen to what she has to say’. Then he walks away, and she says ‘now that we’ve been introduced, let’s talk. I have some things you’ll want to know about’.”

“What did you talk about with her?”

“She told me about the ring, Jethro, same things you told me. I told her I believe in facts, not science fiction. Said she’d show me if she got clearance. And she told me she could show me something — someone — else you’d been looking for the past few days.”

“Hollis.”

“Pulled out her cell phone, placed a call, and I spoke with someone who said she was Hollis Mann. Sounded like the woman on the cassette you played for me—“

“What did she say, Mike?”

“Said she knew you’d been looking for her but you needed to back off a little. Let her come to you, and it sounds like she wants to come by later tonight.”

“You didn’t tell her ‘yes’?”

“No, but my gut told me she’s coming by tonight whether you like it or not.”

Gibbs sighed and wondered what in the hell he’d gotten himself into and if the bad guys, whomever they were, had somehow gotten the jump on him. Paranoia or not, his gut had been telling him things were beginning to spin out of control, not just between the superpowers but in regards to matters closer to home.

Franks sensed Gibbs’ discomfort, and what he said next threw Gibbs a curveball.

“Jack said you were right to be suspicious, but you’ve been suspicious of the wrong people,” Franks said. “She says McCallister’s not your enemy, that he’s trying to protect you and your people and NCIS. The real enemy is some of the people connected with these rings who are almost as bad as the Russians, are the ones you need to worry about.”

“What people?”

“Jack said Hollis would explain, tonight, but they were ‘bad seeds’,” Franks said. “Willing to let billions of people die to save their asses.”

Gibbs drank the last of his bourbon and refilled his jar, took another drink and got up and paced the basement, then turned to Franks. “What’s your gut telling you…hell, why didn’t you come to me as soon as you got out of there?” Gibbs said. “You should’ve gotten back here—“

“Jack and the bartender and ‘Hollis’ told me it might draw suspicions,” Franks replied. “We’re supposedly on the ‘bad seeds’ radar, but me stopping off for Chinese would’ve drawn a lot less attention than heading straight here.”

Gibbs paced some more, then stopped in front of the TV. WUSA had returned to the air and now carried CBS News coverage. Gibbs’s earlier interest in what the TV stations were and weren’t saying had gone by the wayside, and he was zeroed in on Hollis and her whereabouts and whether he and his people had just made a new set of enemies.

“I’m going to Duck’s, have McGee do some computer stuff, get ZIva to see what her Mossad contacts might now,” Gibbs said. “Mike, you stay here and don’t let anyone in other than me or my people—“

“I think you’re stuck here, Jethro. One of those SUVs are parked behind your truck—“

“The hell with them!” Gibbs snapped as he began walking towards the stairs. “I’m going—“

“You’re going to stay put, Probie!” Franks yelled back, in a tone he hadn’t used since a time years ago when Gibbs, as a stubborn and too-confident probationary agent, had nearly screwed up a case and severely angered Franks in the process. “Think with your head!”

Gibbs stopped, then turned and shot Franks the look he reserved when one of his people got too off track or babbled too much. The older, retired agent didn’t flinch.

“Jethro. I taught you to use your head, and go with your gut and what made sense, not your emotions,” Franks said calmly, and firmly. “You’re upset about Hollis, and worried about her. That’s on top of being worried about your own people, including the ones you can’t protect. And you’re afraid the ones you thought you could protect, you can’t.

“That’s not when the case starts getting away from you. The case starts getting away from you when you get too distracted and upset to think with a clear head, to be able to hear what your gut’s tellin’ you, and not have it muddied up by your fears—“

“My ‘fears’,” Gibbs said, still standing in place.

“You need to ask yourself right now, Jethro, if you’re in control of what you can be in control of or if you’re starting to lose focus. If you’re losing focus, that’s when you’ll start to lose control, and that’s when you veer off track and put yourself and your people in real danger. Before you do anything, Probie, think. Think about what’s going on, and what your next steps need to be. Then take those steps. Use your mind and your common sense, and listen to your gut, but don’t let your fears or anxiety talk you into doing something you know deep down you shouldn’t.”

Gibbs stood in place for a minute, sighed, and walked back to the workbench. He sat down on a stool, pulled his phone out, and looked at it. “You’re sure those people at the bar were on the level.”

“I wasn’t sure about anything the first day I went there, on Monday,” Franks said. “Now? My gut’s tellin’ me they’re on the level. Whatever’s going on with that thing, whatever threat there really is to you and your team—“

“To you too, Mike. You’re as much a part of this as anyone.”

“Well, whatever’s going on, those people are in the know.”

Gibbs took a bite of his Kung po chicken, now growing cold. “So we wait…but if I don’t hear from her by midnight, I’m going after her.”

“And I’ll go with ya’,” Franks said as he took a drink of bourbon. “I’m thinking, though, we’re gonna learn more about whatever is going on real soon.”

8:32 p.m. EDT

Arlington, Virginia

The Pentagon

Colonel Steve Trevor sat at his desk, waiting for a phone call, and read through some of the reports from the past 36 hours on the thousands of terrorist acts committed across the nation. Spetsnaz, or one of the special forces/terrorist units from another Pact country, were wreaking havoc across the country and everyone, military and civilian both, were so far on the defensive. Things had calmed down within the past 12 hours, but he knew the Soviets could start up again at any time, wherever they wanted.

He cursed Army General Samuel Lane and the bastards here in the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill, for not paying enough attention to the Spetsnaz threat. They should have put The Wall in charge, he thought as the thumbed through the file about the aborted attack on the Sultan Ahmet Mosque in Istanbul. Forty-seven Turkish and NATO soldiers had died protecting the Muslim holy site from Ugandan and Syrian special forces hellbent on turning it into a hole in the ground. The Wall would've known what to do, more than these clowns.

Instead, Lane was in charge of the U.S. military. Long enamored with the former Air Force General Curtis LeMay (who wanted to bomb both the USSR and Cuba to the stone age during the Cuban Missile Crisis), Lane was most definitely looking for a fight with the Soviets. It didn't seem to matter to the man that the 'clash between civilizations' would most likely lead to the greatest disaster in the history of the world and, probably, the end of all life on the planet.

Trevor would've spit in the man's face if he could. Even though he was Air Force and Lane was Army, as head of the Joint Chiefs Lane was still his commanding officer, and therefore Trevor had to follow his orders. So, the Colonel sat at his desk, waiting for the phone call.

His desk phone finally rang, and he picked up. "Trevor."

"General Lane, Colonel. It's been one hell of a day -- couple of days, in fact."

Trevor couldn't argue the fact. "Yes, sir."

"I have a mission for you. Go to Andrews, now. A flight will be waiting for you."

"May I ask where, General?"

"Port-au-Prince." Haiti was the nearest neutral nation to the mainland, and the nation's capital was as stable a place to do business in as anywhere in the world. What kind of business does he have in mind?

"You'll be sent to a secret location. You'll be told more at Andrews. Go, and good luck. If things go well, we might be at peace 24 hours from now."

Lane then hung up, leaving Trevor to wonder what in the hell was going on. He wondered while packing up his gear, and began walking towards the door where his driver was waiting, to take him to Andrews Air Force Base.

8:42 p.m.

Andrews Air Force Base

Arlington, Virginia

The short trip -- Andrews had been relocated to the former Reagan International Airport, with the airport moved to Andrews's former location in suburban Maryland -- was uneventful, and Trevor's driver drove him all the way to the 747 waiting for the Colonel on the tarmac, dropping him off at the stairs leading up to the jet. The Colonel was greeted by a CIA officer.

"You want to tell me what this is about, Mr.--"

"Trent Kort."

"Mr. Kort, I'm listening."

"Inside, and in the air. General Lane's orders."

Trevor sighed. He hated the subterfuge when he worked for Task Force X, and he hated it now. The 747 -- bearing the markings of LASER Airlines, one of the top airlines of neutral Venezuela -- took off from the runway, then turned east, towards the Atlantic Ocean. Trevor assumed it would then fly due south into Port-au-Prince; using his secure MilNet-equipped smartphone on the drive from the Pentagon, he learned it would take just under three and a half hours to arrive in Haiti.

There were a dozen people in all onboard the plane. Two were in the cockpit flying the 747, a third was the stewardess, and four men and three women in dark suits sat in seats surrounding Trevor and Kort in the first class section. "Want to tell me what this is about now, Mr. Kort?" Trevor said, rather impatiently, as he turned to the bald CIA agent sitting next to him.

Kort reached into a briefcase that had been laying in his seat when he and Trevor boarded, and pulled out a folder. "This is a dossier on your counterpart, Colonel," Kort said, handing him the folder.

"My counterpart?" Trevor said, opening the folder. A photo of a Soviet military official was on the first page, followed by a biography. "I don't see any blond hair on his head, Mr. Kort, In fact, he looks more like you than me."

"Your counterpart in terms of his role in the Soviet government," Kort replied. "Meet Lieutenant General Dmitri Pushkin. One of the top-ranking officers in the Soviet Red Army, and someone who the Kremlin has used to speak with us through back channels in the past."

"Name sounds familiar."

"His father, Sergei Pushkin, was involved with the Soviet space program when Stalin was still alive. He later devised an armored battle suit--"

"The Rocket Red program. I remember it now. We developed our own version."

"The Ultramarine program. I understand there was a conflict some time ago."

"I was there -- and before you even think of asking, it's all classified. This Dmitri Pushkin. Was he involved in the Rocket Red program?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny--"

"Kort..."

"Those particular details are, as they say, 'above my paygrade'. There may be someone else you could ask, but we seem to be veering off-topic--"

"It's on-topic because if he was involved, how am I supposed to trust this guy? And what am I going to Haiti to talk to him about, anyway?"

"You and he will discuss what a truce between powers would look like."

11:04 p.m. EDT

—the Pentagon has just announced that U.S. Navy ships off the coast of the Turks and Caicos Islands were closely approached by Cuban naval vessels earlier tonight. A military spokesman at The Pentagon told CNN that two Cuban destroyers came within 500 feet of the USS Grand Canyon, a Spruance-class destroyer, just 12 miles south-southwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, where some U.S. Navy and British Royal Navy ships are currently stationed. According to the spokesman, the Cubans backed away after being challenged by the Grand Canyon’s captain, and headed away towards Cuba—

“Jesus. Wonder what really happened?” Franks said, turning up the volume on the TV with the remote, as both men sat at the workbench. “Think there was some shooting?”

“If there was, they’re not telling us,” Gibbs replied. “There’s going to be a lot of things that we’re not going to get told.”

“Makes sense, if you’re trying to keep people from panicking,” Franks said. “Damn good thing Boehner went on TV last night to talk about those attacks, tell people the government’s on top of things, that the ‘terrorists’ won’t prevail. I’m thinking some of it’s true.”

“You that cynical, Mike?” Gibbs said with a chuckle.

“I don’t think if the Russians bombed Chicago or whatever, the feds would put a lid on it. You’d hear about it somehow.”

“I think yesterday was just the start, Mike. The Soviets have a scary team in place to destabilized the West, as much as possible before they move into Western Europe, or the Middle East, or wherever.”

“How many Spetsnaz?” Franks referenced the Soviet Union’s version of the U.S. Navy SEALs and the Army Rangers, elite special forces typically run by the USSR’s KGB intelligence service.

“Thousands, tasked with attacking government, military and civilian places. Power plants, airports, government agencies, churches, neighborhoods. Put as much fear into the public as possible. If they can completely destabilize the country ahead of military action, they’ll do it.”

“And when they start trying to destabilize the country is when you know things are about to go to hell,” Franks said. “If they do that to us, we’re going to try doing it to them. When you let that genie out you can’t quickly put him back in his bottle. He’s gonna do what he was let out to do, and you have to hope the bastards who have the genies with the nukes bottled up decide not to let them out.”

Gibbs’ phone rang, and both men looked at the ID screen. Unknown Caller.

“You gonna get that?” Franks said. Gibbs gave Franks a look, and hit the green button on the keyboard.

“Gibbs.”

His countenance lifted just a bit when he heard Hollis Mann’s voice on the other end. “Heard you been looking for me, Jethro.”

“You didn’t pick up your phone,” he said. “Where in the hell have you been?”

“I’ll tell you in a few. Your door’s still unlocked, right?”

“I’ll meet you, Hollis. Too many ears around here. Give me a secure address—.”

“No, Jethro, I’ll meet you, in a few. Don’t worry about the ears, the ones that can listen are friendly. And speaking of, I’m bringing friends.”

Gibbs got up from his stool, phone in hand, ready to run up the stairs and out to his truck. “The hell you are, Colonel. Like I said, too many ears—“

“Your truck’s blocked off and your basement is as secure a place as any to talk.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it. Just stay there. There’s too much you need to know. You should hear my and my team’s footsteps in five.” Then Gibbs heard a click, disconnecting the call.

Gibbs growled. “Guess she’s coming here, Mike. Five minutes. With ‘friends’.”

Franks looked at the bottle of Jim Beam, now less than a quarter full. “This better not a social call, because between this and the four bottles of beer in the fridge, there’s barely enough for the two of us.”

“My gut’s telling me we’re both going to want to be sober,” Gibbs replied, “for whatever she’s about to tell us.”

True to her word, Hollis arrived within five minutes of ending the phone call. Gibbs and Franks heard the door open, then heard several sets of footsteps going across the living room and kitchen floors, before seeing a familiar silhouette at the entrance to the basement.

Hollis didn’t break stride, and neither did the four people with her, until Hollis stopped in front of Gibbs and embraced him tightly. “Sorry for the cloak and dagger, Jethro,” she told him. “The people I work with, and for, had to do their due diligence on you and your people before agreeing to let you all in.”

Gibbs pulled back and looked at the other people in the room. Two of them he knew, one of which was Brent Langer, an FBI agent, was one of Gibbs’s agents years ago, before his current agents joined NCIS. The other, Roger Cooke, was with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and had worked with Gibbs on a case a few years before.

Two of the three women in the room were strangers to Gibbs, but one was very familiar to Franks. “Jacqueline Sloane,” the slender blonde said with a firm handshake. “You can call me ‘Jack’. Good to see you again, Mike.”

“A pleasure,” Franks said, shooting Gibbs a wink.

“And who are you?” Gibbs said to the slightly taller brunette standing between Sloane and Hollis.

“Joanna Teague,” she replied, also giving a firm handshake. “I’m with the Agency.”

“CIA.”

“Indeed,” she said, pulling a laptop from her bag. “May I borrow your workbench?”

With a nod from Hollis, Gibbs assented, and Teague opened the laptop. “The information here explains the history of, and the science behind, the ring as close to layman’s terms as possible,” she said. “There’s a lot to take in. Be patient. We’ll answer any questions you have as best we can.”

Gibbs and Franks watched an advanced presentation program describe the ring and the science behind it, much of which went over both men’s heads. They more easily grasped the historical data, beginning with parallel events in 1999 in the American state of Wyoming; the Soviet republic of Georgia; and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China. Three separate portals – one in each country – connecting Earth with another universe. Specifically, a fixed point in an identical region on another universe’s Earth.

Although scientists struggled to understand how these portals worked, they managed – with the approval of their respective countries’ governments – to keep the portals stable and to replicate and control the phenomena. A secret summit in November 1999 in Shanghai saw Chinese Premier Li Xeng convince U.S. President Colin Powell and Soviet General Secretary Vladimir Putin to keep the existence of the portals a secret and to use them for peaceful purposes.

Seven and a half years later, the portals had become an open secret among the top government and military leadership of the major countries, and to certain powerful figures in the civilian world. What Li feared could come to pass – nations using the technology as an escape route in the event of total nuclear war – was coming closer each day to becoming reality. And those in the know were dividing into two distinct and contrary groups: one group wanted to use the technology to save as many people as possible, the other group to preserve its own influencers’ interests and lives.

“All that’s a hell of a story, but what the hell are Gibbs and I supposed to do with it?” Franks asked after the presentation ended.

“Knowledge is power,” Teague told him. “More people by the day are finding out about this. The group that’s out for itself already is lashing out, trying to eliminate any threats to its interests. That includes us…and you.”

Author's note: IOTL, the European domestic seasons would have finished by now, as would have the UEFA Champions League competition.


ITTL, domestic unrest in the U.K. caused the English FA to suspend play two weeks; the Premier League began its season in September as a result. A heavy snowstorm in early January further postponed the season another two weeks. That in turn -- along with a three-week suspension of play in Italy after 13 fans and police officers were killed in rioting that occurred during a match between two Sicilian Serie A clubs -- affected the Champions League schedule.


On Saturday, May 26, 2007, Real Madrid beat Lokomotiv Leningrad 3-2 in extra time at Madrid, Spain in one Champions League semifinal; A.C. Milan beat Chelsea 2-1 in the other semifinal at Stamford Bridge in London. The final, scheduled for June 17 in Munich, West Germany (accounting for the scheduled end of the English football season June 10), officially is still scheduled but UEFA will likely make a decision on postponement by week's end.


The English Premier League table, with two weeks remaining, is as follows:


Manchester United 23-8-5 77 pts


Chelsea 21-9-5 72


Liverpool 20-5-11 65


Tottenham 18-10-8 64


Arsenal 18-10-8 64


Leeds 17-8-11 59


Newcastle15-11-10 56


Everton 14-8-14 50


Manchester City 14-7-15 49


Aston Villa 12-12-11 48


Portsmouth 14-6-16 48


Charlton 13-8-15 47


Sheffield United 12-10-14 46


Fulham 11-9-16 42


West Ham 11-9-16 42


Sunderland 12-5-19 41


Blackburn 9-13-14 40


Southampton 9-11-16 38


Birmingham 6-6-24 24


West Brom 4-7-25 19

Chapter 44

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

2:27 a.m. EDT

Trevor saw the two scantily-clad, slender Haitian women appear in the doorway almost instantly, and both made their way to the bar. The woman wearing a pink bikini came back to the table with a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, then put the glasses in front of the Americans. She filled them up and put the bottle to the side of the table, to Trevor's right. The woman in a lime bikini pulled two bottles of Bud Light from the mini-refrigerator behind the bar, and put both in front of the Soviets. Both women then left the room.

"Beautiful, aren't they?", Pushkin said, with a grin. "It is too bad we cannot enjoy their company, since we have much to discuss."

"I have lots I'd like to discuss," said Trevor.

"Of course, my new American friend," Pushkin said, as he grabbed his bottle of beer. He tore the bottle cap off with his teeth and spit it out on the floor, then raised the bottle to make a toast. "To friendship!", he said, jovially; Trevor stared at him, while Kort and Boris glared at one another. Pushkin looked around the table, shrugged his shoulders, and sat down. "In Russia, good drink is an occasion for relaxation. You do not seem, how do you Americans say it...?"

"I'm not in the mood," Trevor growled. "I'm up past my bedtime and I'm damn cranky. And I keep thinking about the people who've died in my country the past couple of days because of your people."

Boris turned his glare from Kort to Trevor.

"It is unfortunate," Pushkin said, hands spread out. "I have heard of the...unrest in the United States."

"I'm sure you have," Kort deadpanned.

"Would it help matters if I told you of equally offensive atrocities committed against the Soviet people in their own homeland in the days since the Indianapolis bomb?", Pushkin said. "Americans and Frenchmen blew up a school in Kiev today."

“Is this what the Soviet leadership is telling you?”, Kort replied. “ Maskirovka.”

“Smoke and mirrors.”

“I wouldn’t put it past the KGB to blow up that school — if that in fact happened — as a means to an end,” Trevor added. “Boris, you have anything to say?”

Boris said nothing.

“I saw the pictures,” Pushkin replied, with regret and anger in his voice. “We have not been able to catch the men. It is regrettable, da, these operations conducted by the West.”

"Is that what your political officer ‘Boris’ told you?", Kort replied. "Perhaps he knows more than you."

"I'd bet the farm he knows a lot more," Trevor added. Boris's eyes darted between the Agency officer and the U.S. Air Force Colonel. The KGB officer then whispered something into Pushkin's ear.

Pushkin shook his head repeatedly. "My apologies, my friends," he said. "My comrade here is concerned greatly that our meeting is not going as well as we would like."

“I’m starting to think it’s a total waste of time“, Trevor said. "Why are we here, Pushkin? If you have a message from Moscow and it's anything other than 'we screwed up, royally, and we're going to back down now and pay you back a hundred-fold for all of the death and destruction we've caused', all this is, is a waste of time--"

"General Lane sent you because we could talk to you," Boris interjected. "We are not in the business of 'wasting time'. Perhaps the atmosphere here is not conducive to an open discussion."

Trevor’s expression was unreadable. He wondered what in hell the Soviets knew about Lane, and this mission the General had assigned him, and about anything else the American government didn’t want the other side to know.

“I propose we move this discussion to a more open area,” Pushkin said. “There is a table reserved for us, near the main dance floor—“

“Out of the question,” Kort said to Pushkin. The CIA man then turned to Trevor and nodded, and both men stood up. “Colonel, it seems to me that we have reached—“

“Wait, wait, wait!”, Boris shouted, as he stood up with both hands up. “Please. Give me one more minute. I promise it will be worth your wait.”

The Americans glanced at each other. “Clock’s ticking, comrade,” Trevor replied, he and Kort still standing.

“The two of us represent factions within the Soviet Union — Comrade General the military, myself the KGB — that wish to eliminate the power controlling our nation that threatens the world.”

“More than wish,” Pushkin added. “We have the means to eliminate the threat.”

Trevor sat back down. “Wait a minute. Did you just say what I thought you said?”

Boris whispered in Pushkin’s ear, again.

“This is not maskirovka,” Pushkin said. “We both serve the Soviet Union, but we also serve the greater cause of humanity. Come back this evening, through the front door. The nightclub will not be open to the public, so we will be able to speak more freely.”

“Why not speak here, and now?”, Trevor said.

“The walls have ears,” Boris replied. “Give us the day. Then the ears will vanish.”

Washington, D.C.

6 a.m. EDT

Contrary to the legends about Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the man did sleep.

He hadn’t gotten much sleep overnight, however. After Colonel Mann and her associates left his house, Gibbs decided to get some shut-eye on the cot in his basement, while Franks took the couch upstairs. Sleep came quickly to both men, who, despite the presence of a dozen suits inside and near the house, nevertheless slept with loaded handguns underneath their pillows.

Gibbs forgot about the very loud alarm clock on his workbench. It did its job, and woke him up right at 5:45. He stretched, then trudged upstairs to make breakfast and coffee. Seeing Franks snoozing on the couch, he turned on the TV in the kitchen and lowered the volume as not to wake up his friend and mentor.



--This is ZNN, the Satellite News Network, simulcasting on our sister channel, HNC. Here’s the headlines at this hour:

Allied and Pact forces worldwide remain on high alert, following skirmishes over the Persian Gulf and the border between the two Germanies in the past few hours.

ZNN has learned from its bureau in New Delhi that India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, has spoken with the American and Soviet Ambassadors to India, hoping to use them to reach their countries’ leaders so he could speak to them directly about brokering a peace treaty.

Back home in the U.S., both the House and Senate reconvened at 5:15 a.m. to vote on two items: approving the Rock Act, which effectively would turn the media over to government control, and reinstituting the draft. As you see in this live shot, Capitol Hill is swarming with military guards. The White House, the Pentagon and other federal government buildings also are under heavy guard at this hour.

Police presence has as much as tripled around the Soviet Embassy in Washington and Soviet consulates around the country. Five people were arrested in San Francisco after attempting to rush past police and engaged armed guards in front of the local Soviet consulate.

Coming up next: Carol Costello will talk with Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of the Washington Post, about the Rock Act—


Gibbs took the TV remote and clicked through the channels until he found a black-and-white episode of The Andy Griffith Show. With Andy, Opie and Aunt Bee talking in the background, Gibbs cracked open some eggs over the skillet.

A short while later, Franks woke up to the smell of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. He sat up on the couch and saw Gibbs staring at him.

“Probie, why don’t you just tell me ‘Mike, get your ass over here. Breakfast’s gettin’ cold’?” Franks grumbled, without complaint. Gibbs smiled, and went over to the refrigerator to get some butter and molasses. The men had time to eat, and almost finish their coffee before Gibbs’s phone rang.

“Gibbs,” he said, and the person on the other line told him about a dead Navy SEAL discovered by a Metro police officer on foot patrol. Always prepared for any situation, Gibbs got up, grabbed his NCIS cap and jacket from a coat rack next to the dryer, and told Franks he was coming along.

On the way to the crime scene, Gibbs got a call from an unknown number. His hunch that it may be Hollis or someone connected to her paid off. “Yeah, Gibbs."

“Jethro. It's Hollis.”

“Hollis? Are you—“

“Listen. Meet me and others at the park near the old Pentagon Centre, take the back way in.”

“‘Back way in’? Tell me—“

“Sneak in, don’t be seen. Get there by 10:30. We’re going in, early.”

“Early?”

“Early. If we go tonight, there’s a good chance we get caught by the wrong people. We go now, we probably don’t get seen at all. You in or out?”

Gibbs looked at Franks. “You said 10:30. I just caught a case.”

“You have three agents, one who should have his own team by now, two who probably will lead their own teams in time, and a Mossad agent who can probably protect them all by herself. Again, Jethro. In? Or out?”

Gibbs paused. “In. But I go to my crime scene first, check it out, hand it off. Then Mike and I head out.”

“Good enough. See you then, and stay safe,” she said before hanging up.

Franks had watched Gibbs throughout the entirety of the call. “Hollis?”

“Looks like the ‘field trip’s happening a lot earlier than tonight, Mike,” Gibbs said.

Rock Creek Park

7:16 a.m.

Gibbs’s truck — followed as discreetly as possible by two of the suits, in a very conspicuous shiny jet black Ford Expedition SUV — pulled in front of a Metro DC police cruiser. He and Franks got out of the truck and began looking for whichever police officer was in charge, and found their man about 50 feet away.

A middle-aged man in a light blue shirt and dark blue tie stood next to a woman who was squatting over what looked like the victim. Gibbs barely recognized the woman from having visited the NCIS morgue as a guest of Ducky’s a few years ago, but didn’t know the man. Time to take care of that, thought the NCIS agent as he briskly walked their way, ignoring the dull ache in his knee while putting on a pair of the gloves he and his team always wore at crime scenes.

“You must be Gibbs,” the man said, reaching into his right pants pocket to pull out his badge and ID. “Detective Sportelli, Metro PD.”

Sportelli glanced at Franks. “You the new director? This guy must be a pretty big deal if you’re showing up—“

“Hell no,” Franks growled. “Retired NIS agent Mike Franks.”

“My mistake. Saw the news on TV about that woman Shepard getting killed; they showed the picture of the guy who replaced her — McAndrews? — okay. Well, he’s not here, so I guess this is a run of the mill case.”

“There’s never a ‘run of the mill’ case, and this man’s a pretty big deal to someone, maybe including the killer,” Gibbs said, taking a few moments to look at the victim. The deceased laid face-up, dressed in civilian clothing, and a very prominent wound in his chest. The African-American looked to be in his early 30s and, Gibbs thought, was big enough to play linebacker for the Redskins and, as a SEAL, wouldn’t be an easy kill. Was he a SEAL, though?

“You find ID on him?”, he asked Sportelli. The detective shouted at an officer, who went to his squad car and came back with a clear bag that contained a leather wallet. Gibbs took the wallet out of the bag and quickly found what he was looking for. The body now had a name: Chief Wendell Sears.

“Figured this guy would be overseas, if he were Navy,” Sportelli said. “Could be fake.”

“That’ll be for my people to determine,” Gibbs said firmly, to remind the detective that this was an NCIS case — his case — now.

Gibbs handed Franks the bag to hold onto and told him to give Tony and Ducky a call to see where the rest of the team were at, and took a look around the body. Ignoring Sportelli and the woman, Gibbs looked at the small blood pool under the chest. He really wanted his people there to take over the scene, and Ducky’s initial thoughts on the timeframe and method of death.

Instead, he had to make do for the moment with the people around him. He knew Sportelli wouldn’t give up the scene until Gibbs’s team arrived, so Gibbs turned to someone who he didn’t know, but gambled on trusting on account of Ducky’s brief mention of her as a friend and colleague years ago.

“So you worked with Dr. Mallard?”, Gibbs asked the woman, who was momentarily confused as to who he was talking about. Then he saw the recognition, and a broad smile, on her face.

“Ducky,” she said. “He certainly is a friend, and a colleague. We’ve known each other quite awhile. You must be Gibbs.”

“Yep. And you?”

“Oh. Jordan Hampton. Doctor Jordan Hampton. The new Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia. The man who had the job before quit. I was told he took his family out west, to some place in Oregon, he thought would be safe.” If the worst came to pass, she didn’t say, although Gibbs read it in her eyes. “I’m surprised Dr. Mallard’s not here.”

Gibbs looked over at Franks, who held up one finger on his right hand. “Less than five minutes away, Dr. Hamilton,” he said, glancing at her and then down at the body. “You got anything I can use right now?”

“Whoever did this to him had to have some kind of advantage on him, or maybe knew him pretty well,” she said, as a couple of more vehicles arrived and pulled off to the side of the road nearby. Gibbs saw the NCIS examiner’s van, and a blue Chevrolet SUV. Ducky and Palmer got out of the van, and the rest of Gibbs’s team out of the SUV.

“Guess I’ll take over, now,” Gibbs said to Sportelli.

“You can have it,” the detective replied.

The rest of Gibbs’s team arrived, and after catching them up on the victim, Gibbs had Kate, McGee and Ziva wait with Ducky and Palmer, and pulled Tony off to the side. “This is your case, DiNozzo. Call me if something goes haywire, but otherwise I’ll be off the grid for a few days.”

“What’s going on, Boss?” DiNozzo said, knowing Gibbs wouldn’t hand over control of a case unless he were under orders, or working another case. “The Mustache pull you off?”

“Me and Mike’s working something,” Gibbs said. “I’ll let you and the rest of the team know as soon as I can. For now, you’re in charge.“

“They—“

“They’ll listen to you, Tony. This is something I’ve got to get taken care of.”

Tony saw the concern, fear and gravity in his mentor’s eyes. “This thing. How serious is it?”

“Big. Bigger than you imagine,” he said. “Gotta go.”

Gibbs was closer to his truck than to his team, but walked out of his way to go to them. “DiNozzo’s running point on this one,” he told them. “Got something that Mike and I gotta take care of.”

“Gibbs?” Kate said. “Take care of what?

“DiNozzo’s in charge,” Gibbs replied, and said nothing else despite her and the others’ pleas. When Tony arrived to take charge of the scene, Gibbs and Franks were on the road, heading towards their destination.

Arlington, Virginia

The former Virginia Highlands Park

11:00 a.m.



--lots going on here in the District and throughout the nation, and the world. This is WTOP 103.5 FM and WTWP 1500 AM, Washington, D.C. We’ll go now to CBS News at the top of the hour.

(CBS News Radio sounder airs)

CBS News, this is Scott Pelley.

Police in New York City have arrested 47 protestors at an impromptu peace gathering in Times Square that started peacefully but soon turned rowdy. Chris Silber reports:

“A crowd estimated at 3,000 began gathering in Times Square just after 7 a.m. Eastern, in time for the start of the television network morning shows. Six men and women in green T-shirts with peace signs, guarded by a dozen men and women in black T-shirts, also with peace signs, stood in the intersection of Broadway and 47th as the crowd grew. By 9 a.m., New York City police had shut down Times Square both to foot and vehicle traffic; cameras and reporters from local stations and national networks, including CBS, were recording the leaders calling for the United States and Soviet Union to cease hostilities and agree to live in peace.

Nearly 40 minutes later, a few dozen protestors began arguing with NYPD officers, and minutes later several protestors appeared to attack four officers standing in front of a squad car two blocks away on 45th Street. Within minutes, over a hundred police officers, including members of the NYPD’s SWAT Unit, descended on Times Square to restore order. New York Police Commissioner Frank Reagan:

        We live in troubling times, and although we enjoy the rights to assemble and to protest, right now we must exercise those rights in an appropriate manner, at appropriate times, in appropriate venues. I do not doubt the organizers meant well, but these impromptu protests are hotbeds for those who would mean them, and all of us, harm. I wholeheartedly commend and support our officers who did an extraordinary job of keeping the peace in a situation that could have quickly turned into tragedy.

At this hour, the NYPD is being assisted by New York National Guardsmen in clearing Times Square, which remains closed to all traffic. Chris Silber, CBS News, Times Square in New York City.”

The British Army was called in to break up a similar protest in London’s Hyde Park that turned violent. The BBC reported three deaths and dozens more injured after the mood of the protest, organized by musicians John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and Pete Townsend, turned rowdy when members of the banned leftist political organization One Earth, One Government clashed with British military veterans.

Indiana National Guardsmen were called in to break up rioting this morning at FEMA camps around Indianapolis. The camps have seen protests the past few days over food and medicine distribution and from residents who want to go back home. A five-mile area around the site of the bomb that destroyed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Memorial Day remains closed to civilians; portions of surrounding Marion County are being reopened to residents pending federal and state inspections and other factors. This is CBS News.

President Boehner signed the controversial Rock Act into law this morning…--



“Turn that crap off, Jethro,” Franks grumbled, reaching to push the power button on the truck radio before Gibbs could react.

“Got something against the news, Mike?” Gibbs said as he looked out towards the large complex of buildings where they would go, once Hollis and her people arrived. With his truck parked just south of the intersection of the former Hayes and 15th Streets, on the southbound lane right next to the park, Gibbs kept an eye out for them and for anyone else.

“If I wanted to hear propaganda I’d listen to Radio Moscow,” Franks said. “When’s the last time you heard anything about Indianapolis? It ought to be the lead story on every newscast and in the newspaper. You hardly hear much about anything going on there. That’s the Rock Act for ya.”

“Kate called me last night, before Hollis and her people showed up,” Gibbs said. “Her uncle, the governor, said nobody’s going into the city anytime soon because of the water supply. Much of it’s contaminated and not all of it by the bomb.”

“Russians?”

“Or their friends. FEMA thinks some of the reservoirs were ‘spiked’ right before the explosion—”

“Which no one is saying was a nuke. If that wasn’t a nuke, then these things burnin’ a hole in my pocket aren’t cigarettes, either. Whatever it was, it was an act of war, and why in hell the President’s not already declared war makes no damn sense.”

“War on who, Mike?”

“The Soviets. No way the Islamists or the cartels could’ve built a nuke that powerful.”

“Maybe, Mike, it’s because once we go to war with the Soviets, it’s over.”

Franks conceded Gibbs’ point, and decided to change the subject. “If we’re gonna listen to the radio, then the least you could do is let me see if there’s some decent music to listen to—”

“They’re late.”

Franks started to speak, paused a moment, then spoke. “Maybe they’re taking their time gettin’ here, Probie. Wasn’t easy to sneak in past those Arlington cops back there, near that old Exxon station. Hell, whoever’s running that thing up there” – Franks pointed to the nearby complex – “probably already knows we’re here.”

“Hollis told us how to come in here, Mike.”

“She said the park, Jethro. Not on the street. Hidin’ under a couple of trees ain’t gonna cover us.”

“Wanna go out and look around, Mike? You’ve been complaining about not being able to go out and smoke since we left Rock Creek Park.”

“Not my damn fault you don’t want any smoke inside your truck, Probie,” Franks said, with a smile. “And I didn’t survive all those years working for NIS by being a fool; I’ll light up after they show up and we get out of this thing.”

Franks settled for the moment for chewing a piece of gum, scanning the area for any sign of anyone else besides them. “They’ll show up, Jethro. Don’t worry. My gut tells me they’ll be here before you know it.”

“Probably,” Gibbs said. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you see?”

“Nothing, yet.”

“What’s your gut telling ya?”

“I know what she said about tonight, Mike. Something doesn’t seem right about—”

“Jethro.” Franks pointed behind them. Gibbs looked in his rear-view mirror and saw a plain-looking black van pulling up behind them, slowing down about 20 feet away.

“I see it,” Gibbs said.

“Your girlfriend own a black van, Probie?”

Gibbs reached for his SiG-Sauer, pushing the growing sense of dread out of his mind. “On my six, Mike, but keep your eye on the facility.”

Both men got out of the truck and headed towards the van. Gibbs was relieved to see Sloane behind the steering wheel and Langer besides her, but kept an eye out for any sign of unexpected company.

“I don’t like this, Jethro,” Franks said as the pair slowly made their way to the van. “This whole area’s restricted, or it’s supposed to be, but nobody’s around.”

“You’re wrong—“

“The damn Pentagon less than a mile away is swarmin’ with security and soldiers. This place, if it’s what she says it is, oughta have a whole damn Army division here protecting it.”

Gibbs pointed to a nearby building. "Probably hiding in plain sight," he said, although the lack of anyone else in the vicinity made him concede Franks' point. He thought at the very least the area had to be heavily monitored, and the sight of a security camera perched on the side of a nearby building confirmed his hunch. "Second floor, next to the window on the corner: security camera," he said, pointing to the building for Franks' benefit. "They're probably hidden all over the place."

"So we're being watched. I hope her people are the ones watching."

The side door of the van opened, and Gibbs saw Hollis waving him in; as he approached the van, he saw Teague and Cooke both holding semi-automatic weapons, looking ready to fire at will. Both men got in, sitting on buckets set out for them.

“Jethro, I hope you’re not married to that truck out there,” Hollis said.

“Hollis…” Gibbs said with a groan.

“We’re going to have to abort,” she replied. “We got intel on the way over suggesting we’re running into a trap.”

“It’s reliable, Boss,” Langer said to Gibbs. “Contact within the Bureau who knows about the ring said there’s a civil war of sorts between those who want to open it up to the public and those who want to keep it a secret.”

“When did your contact reach you?” Gibbs asked.

“Not long after I called you when you were at Rock Creek Park,” Hollis said, apologetically.

“Jesus, lady,” Franks interjected. “You ever hear of a cell phone!?!”

“Mike…”

“Don’t ‘Mike’ me, Jethro! For all we know we might be walking into a trap—“

“Which is why we need to leave,” Sloane said, looking outwards towards the complex. “This van’s sturdier and more powerful than she looks. Zero to 60 in two seconds, we’ll be out of the line of sight in sec—“

Gibbs’s hand was on Sloane’s wrist before she or anyone else knew it, keeping her from being able to take the van out of park and into reverse. Gibbs barely saw Hollis chop down on his arm above his wrist, hard enough that he loosened his grip on Sloane’s wrist long enough for her to slip her wrist out of his grasp.

“You do that again and I’ll chop your head off, Jethro,” Hollis said in a menacing tone. “Literally.”

Gibbs glared at her, she at him. Franks saw Cooke and Teague with their handguns pointed downwards and their fingers on the trigger, and reached over to put himself between Gibbs and Hollis. “Colonel,” Franks said to Hollis, “does the situation warrant not investigating this ring that you and your people spent half of last night trying to convince me to visit?”

“It does, former Agent Franks, and in my opinion it also warrants us withdrawing imm—“

“DUCK!”

Franks found himself knocked down to the van floor by Sloane, who was trying to cover him. In the corner of his eye, he saw Langer dragging Gibbs downwards and Hollis diving between Langer and himself.

A second later, he heard an ear-splitting explosion that cracked the front window of the van and caused it to shudder for a few, long seconds. That was followed by another explosion that Franks figured wasn’t too much further ahead, and probably aimed at Gibbs’s truck.

Hollis was the first of them to look up, and she glanced at Gibbs, then her team and then Franks. She — and the others — saw flames about five feet in front of the van, through the cracked front window, and flames not far away, near the truck.

Then she noticed the old Cadillac in the intersection that wasn’t there before, and a glint from inside the vehicle.

Shooter.

Her training kicked in almost before she could think of what she needed to do.

“HIT THE DECK!”, she yelled, and seconds later the windshield and front grille of the van were peppered with gunfire. “Cooke! Give me the key,” she barked, while crawling towards the back of the van, and a locker. She took the key, used it to open the locker, then pulled out a couple of semi-automatics. After handing them to Gibbs and Franks, she took another semi-automatic for herself.

“We’re gonna have to fight our way out of this one,” she said, checking the ammunition in her weapon. “Question is, are they with the General or are they garden-variety Spetsnaz?”

“Doesn’t really matter at this point, does it, Hollis?” Langer said.

“Nope,” she replied. “Jack, you get out of here. I’ll get out and draw fire while you—“

Gibbs reached and grabbed her by the arm, with more force than he wanted and with far more fear than he wished. “You.”

“I won’t ask my team to do something I won’t do myself,” she said, turning away from Gibbs to head for the back door. He stopped her before she could turn the handle.

“I’ll go,” he said. “You take Mike and your people—“

“My turn to play hero, Jethro…I love you, you bastard.”

He stared at her, speechless, as she turned the handle. “Do me a favor. Don’t name that boat in your basement after me…Jack. You heard my orders.”

She got out, and he leapt out of the van behind her, both to cover her and to shoot at whomever was trying to kill them.

As they ran back towards a large tree to use for cover, he saw one of the assailants, dressed in all-black garb that he had seen somewhere before, during one of Jenny’s mandatory intelligence sessions. North Korean Special Guards, he though; North Korea had lent use of its military and intelligence resources to the Soviets over the past ten years, and these special forces were probably doing the equivalent of contract work for the KGB. Whoever they were, they were bad news, at least for Hollis and himself and the five friendlies stuck in the van.

Gibbs reached in his pocket for his cell phone; he was going to have to call in McAllister on this one, and deal with the consequences later. But he only felt his wallet and keys, and cursed. It must’ve slipped out of his pocket in the truck, he thought. Damn these pants DiNozzo told me I had to buy.

Looking over at Hollis, Gibbs saw a flash of anger and surprise in her eyes as she shot at the enemy. He remembered her telling Sloane to get the hell out of here, and winced when he noticed the van was still there. Is it drivable? Gibbs ducked to see if there was any fluid leaking from below the engine, but couldn’t tell from his distance.

Out in the intersection, one of the vehicles moved further east, and Gibbs knew the assailants were trying to get a clear line of sight on them. If they had a missile to fire at the van…

“We’re going to have to ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ it to draw their fire, Jethro,” Hollis said, breaking Gibbs’s train of thought. Her comment clarified in his mind that he wasn’t likely to make it out alive.

“We’re not going to make it,” Gibbs replied.

“Maybe not us, but they can,” she said. “Bonnie and Clyde.”

“You mean Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“Yeah. Got my movies mixed up. All this time and I had no idea you were a movie aficionado.”

“Nope. I saw it when I was in basic training, and again when DiNozzo brought his DVD player over to watch with me.”

“You remember how that movie ended?”

“Yeah. Freeze-frame.”

“I’m taking a few of them with me,” she said, running out from behind the tree before Gibbs could say or do anything to stop her.

Law enforcement personnel are trained to run to the battle, trained to overcome a human’s natural tendency to do whatever it takes to survive. As an officer in the United States Army, Hollis Mann had undergone hours of training to become a soldier. Yes, she was an investigator — unlike NCIS, the Army’s Criminal Investigative Command (often referred to as CID) pulled its agents from the ranks of active or reserve Army personnel — but at heart she was a soldier. Especially in light of the ever-present and growing Soviet threat, which had manifested itself in front of her.

As she ran towards the three vehicles and those firing at her from behind and within them, the ring came to Hollis’ mind. She pushed it aside to think of her teammates, and of Gibbs, who she heard yelling and firing behind her. She put his face in her mind’s eye.

Then she felt a sharp pain in her stomach, and felt herself falling, and thought it was strange that she didn’t feel herself hitting the street.

Her mind began to drift, even as she saw the backs of her teammates — her friends, her comrades-in-arm — run towards the battle, then stop. Had they been hit? No…they’re turning around? Fight! Or run like I order – ord —

Hollis screamed in agony at the intense pain that abruptly manifested itself back into her stomach, and sensed that her strength was quickly ebbing. The pain subsided a little, but enough that she could retain her concentration for one more thing.

She saw Jethro to her left, and saw the blood splatter on his pants and shirt, and for the first time figured out why her stomach was hurting so goddamned much.

Only then did it dawn on Hollis that it was now or never to say her last words. This man, this enigma, this bastard, this man of honor would hear them, and she wanted no one other than him with her, now.

“Hollis. Stay with me. Cooke’s calling for backup.” She could see the fear that he was losing her in Gibbs’s eyes, and she mustered her best smile to try to reassure him.

“Is alright, Gibbs,” she said in a near-whisper. Her energy was running low and about to run out, and the sky began to turn dark. “Come closer.”

He put his ear next to her lips. “In my jacket. Pack-et. Yours. Give the letter to Jo. Says you’re on the team.”

“Hollis, you can tell her yourself,” he whispered, as Franks and Sloane made their way over to them. “Stay with us. Backup’s comin’.”

“Je-thro,” she said, drawing out his name. “Do me a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Your next ex-wife. Don’t be…be ass. Tell her…why my name’s on…boat…tell…her…you love her…”

The light went out in her eyes as she exhaled her last breath.

Gibbs shut his eyes tight for several long moments. When he opened them, they were more moist than he wanted, and he noticed the others around him. Hollis’s eyes were closed.

“Probie. She’s gone,” Franks whispered.

“Did we get the bastards?” Gibbs said in a low roar.

“Jethro—“

“DID WE GET THE BASTARDS?” Gibbs screamed, the full force of his fury being directed at, but not to, his mentor. “DID WE GET THE ASSHOLES WHO DID THIS???”

Franks grabbed his mentee’s shoulders firmly and looked him right in the eye. “Every last goddamned one of ‘em, Probie. They won’t hurt anyone else ever again.”

“That’ll do,” Gibbs whispered, then looked at Franks and Langer, the two still-living people there whom he trusted the most. “Help me get her into the van. We’re going to Ducky’s.”

“That’s impossi—“ Teague said, shutting up at a glance from Langer.

“Joanna, let me,” Langer said. “Boss. We can’t. That’ll draw attention we don’t want right now. There’s a safe house in Manassas. We can bring Ducky there a helluva lot easier than we can take you to him right now. Trust me.”

“Ducky’s,” Gibbs repeated.

“Probie,” Franks interjected, with a soft, but firm, voice. “The man’s right. We gotta go to their safe house. We sure as hell can’t stay here. This place’ll be swarmin’ with God knows who in minutes. If you don’t trust them, if you don’t trust Langer, trust me.”

Gibbs pondered Franks’s advice, while Langer, Cooke and Teague picked up Hollis’s body and carried it to the van.

“I trust you, Mike,” was all Gibbs said from the time they walked to the van, during the ride to the safe house, and while Teague and Cooke cleaned up Hollis’s body the best they could once they got to the safe house.

Gibbs stayed silent even as flashing red and blue lights lit the darkened living room and kitchen of the safe house, and during the subsequent knock on the door.

Langer opened the door after consulting with Teague.

McCallister was there.

Gibbs had so, so many things to say, but squelched all of them deep inside his soul for the moment.

Chapter 46

Friday, June 1, 2007

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

10:07 p.m. EDT

When Kort pulled the SUV in front of the Triumph nightclub, almost no one was there. In fact, after going through the police checkpoint three blocks away, both noticed no one was on the street, or in the adjacent buildings. Trevor had heard of ’special arrangements’ made for unofficial meetings between representatives of the Allied, neutral and Pact nations. He had been in one of those meetings before, in Mumbai. He didn’t like that meeting, and he didn’t particularly like this one.

Trevor got out right as Kort did, and both made their way to the front. Two local Haitian men, both brandishing AK-47s, waved them in with the barrel of their automatics after Kort and Trevor showed their ID badges. Trevor was surprised to see nearly two dozen men and women, all armed, spread throughout the interior of the nightclub. One of the women, who Trevor guessed was of Latin origin, guided him and Kort through the main dance floor and up a short flight of stairs onto a balcony. He saw Pushkin and Boris waiting for them, with bottles of water and cans of Coca-Cola on their table.

“Welcome, my friends,” Pushkin said, with his sincere-but-overbearing grin. “As you see, the club is private this evening.”

Neither American acknowledged the Soviet military officer nor his KGB comrade, who sat with his arms crossed. Boris wasn’t glaring at them, however, and Trevor tried to take that as an omen. His gut still told him something was wrong, however.

“You spoke as if peace was a possibility,” Kort said as he and Trevor sat down.

“It is,” Pushkin said. “I have read up about you, Colonel Trevor,” he continued, looking at Trevor. He then turned to Kort. “Agent Kort, you not so much. We have not have, ah, as much luck finding information on you.”

“Good,” Kort replied, staring at Boris. “I’m sure your friend would understand.”

“Da,” Boris replied.

“I see we both are perhaps much more alike than not,” Pushkin said. “KGB, CIA, not so talkative, until they need to speak. Us military types, can be the same way, but in general are more open.”

“You think so?” Trevor asked Pushkin.

“I do,” Pushkin replied. “I have read up on you. Task Force X has been known to us for decades. You have been known to us for years, Colonel. Your activities have earned you a great deal of respect among the Red Forces.”

“Charmed,” Trevor replied. “Wish I could say the same for your ‘Red Forces’. Kinda hard to, considering your leader’s behind a lot of this mess we’re all in.”

“Many of us behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ feel the same way, Colonel. Perhaps before we talk…business…it would help if I told you a little about me, and if I told you a story.”

“Do I have a choice?”, Trevor said.

“I would hate for you both to have come this way for nothing,” Boris interjected. “Comrade Mikhail does like his stories.”

Trevor looked at Kort, who gave a short nod. “Go ahead,” Trevor replied.

“As you were involved in your Task Force X, I was involved in the Soviet equivalent,” Pushkin said. “We too had our share of adventures to save the Rodina and, sometimes, the world.”

“Were your mission parameters the same as ours?”, Trevor asked.

“Da,” Pushkin said. “By any means necessary. Some of our missions haunt my dreams to this day. There is one I would like to share with you.”

Trevor nodded his assent.

“Years ago, an alien ship crash-landed in the Ukraine, in the middle of a wheat field,” Pushkin said. “It was one of the most prosperous such fields in all of the Soviet Union. It was at a time we were having difficulty making our agricultural quota.”

“The U.N. helped bail you out, as I recall,” Trevor said.

“That is correct,” Pushkin said. “The shutdown of nearby fields, and the evacuation of workers, did not help. I was part of the investigation. I was in my Rocket Red suit, since we had no idea what — or who — was inside. I was ordered to open the hull however possible and secure whatever was inside. I would be the first human to make contact with this alien race was asked to open the ship, a significant responsibility if you think about it. I was, of course, a soldier, not a diplomat, so I acted as a soldier. Using a laser, and brute force, I cut a square in the hull. I was not prepared for who I found.”

Trevor noted the hint of sadness in Pushkin’s last sentence. “Who did you find?”

“We — I — found a young alien humanoid woman, unlike any woman I had ever seen before,” Pushkin said, with a smile. “I would have said she was in her early twenties. Golden skin unlike any other here on Earth. She was nearly two meters tall. That would be — how would you say it in your measurement? — over six feet tall? She was athletic, and beautiful. She should have been the pride of Soviet sport, a better player than your Cheryl Miller and Sheryl Swoopes.”

“You said she was beautiful?” Trevor said, thinking of his own lost love.

“Her skin was gold, with a hint of orange. It glowed, almost as much as her innocent, sweet smile. Her eyes were jade, and shone as brightly as the sun. Her hair, long and flowing, as red as fire. She called herself Corey-ann-der — we never could decipher her language — but I called her my Starchild."

“Your country was having trouble making its agricultural quota, as I recall,” Trevor said.

Trevor recognized the pain in Pushkin's voice and almost let the story end there. "What happened to her, Sergei?"

Pushkin blinked hard, and looked back at Trevor. “Khalinin and his KGB allies” — he glanced at Boris, who looked down at the table —“are what happened to her. She, and her people, were deemed a threat. I was, at the time, ordered to deal with a different threat, in the former Yugoslavia. When I came back, I was simply told the threat had been dealt with, for the good of the Soviet Union and the peoples of the world. All of the things we are told every time we committed an atrocity."

Trevor looked away. He had his own past actions on his conscience, and never really would forgive himself for some of them. He was certain Kort — who was pensive as he listened to Pushkin’s story — had been involved with, if not committed himself, some brutal actions as a member of the Agency. God only knew what Boris had done in his role with the KGB.

“Why are we here, Mikhail,” Trevor said; the Soviet officer had managed to make a connection with him, whether he liked it or not.

Boris looked at Pushkin, who nodded.

“The Soviet Union and the world Communist movement are ruled by a madman,” Boris began. “Our leaders have not been as exemplary as your people would like, not as many of your leaders wish to portray themselves. But we have not have a madman in power since the ‘great’ Stalin.”

“Khalinin has already began purges throughout the government and the military and he is beginning them in the KGB,” Pushkin added. “He is demanding loyalty to himself and only himself. To be loyal to him is to be loyal to the international socialist movement, to the USSR, to the Rodina; he is even talking about removing the statue of Lenin on top of the Palace of the Soviets and replacing it with one of himself!”

“I’ll grant you he’s probably nuts,” Trevor said. “Can he be removed?”

“Can he be deposed?” Boris continued. “Yes. There are significant elements now within the Red Forces, the government, the KGB, to eliminate him and secure Moscow. Preparations are being made to do so. We would expect something to happen within 72 hours. When it does — not if, when — the new ruling committee will approach your President Boehner about peace. This will not happen until Khalinin is removed.”

“What do you want from us?”, Kort said.

“Tell your superiors what I just told you,” Boris replied. “Tell them to wait. Tell them that the new Central Committee will come to them, soon enough. We—“

Boris turned his attention from the Americans towards the front of the nightclub. He swore he saw the front wall shake.

Then, Boris heard a loud sound, and saw the front wall collapse. Nine seconds later, he saw a giant of a man walk through the dust cloud, heading right towards him.

The guards opened fire, and their bullets — from Soviet AK-47 assault rifles, German MP5 submachine guns, Chinese Type 77 pistols and Type 85 submachine guns — all bounced off the man, all 2.2 meters and 170 kilograms of impenetrable bone and muscle.

Then, he took the giant red machine gun in his left hand and mowed down the guards, taking care not to shoot at or near the four men at the back of the balcony. Pushkin stood his ground and watched the massacre go down, while Kort, Trevor and Boris hid behind the table they had flipped on its side after the giant walked in.

“Who — what — in God’s name is that?!?”, Trevor yelled towards the end of the giant’s shooting rampage.

“Boris knows of him,” Pushkin replied. “Tell them, Boris. Tell them of the Beast.”

Boris was frozen in fear. Pushkin unfroze him with a cuff to the back of his head. “Tell them, comrade, about the KGB Beast.”

“Anatoli Knyazev,” Boris said after the shooting had ended. “He is KGB. I have met him before. He is referred to often as the Beast. He is a ruthless mercenary, sent to eliminate threats to the Soviet Union, by any means necessary.”

The Beast was dressed in a dark blue and red mask, a dark blue sleeveless shirt with three thick red horizontal stripes on his chest, and dark blue pants and gloves. Trevor had just noticed the Knyazev wasn’t holding the machine gun; his left arm was the machine gun.

And Knyazev was slowly walking their way.

None of the four fled. Trevor’s mind flashed back to one of his last missions with Task Force X in Gotham City a few years before: Operation Mop-Up, in which the Task Force led a platoon of special forces personnel from all four branches of the military, backed by a Army regiment trained in urban warfare. The mission was to eliminate the psychopaths that had terrorized the city. They did so at great cost: over 17,000 civilians dead, 4,200 from the regiment and platoon, not to mention everyone on the target list.

One of them was a man named Bane, who Trevor distinctly remembered as being over seven feet tall, probably 400 pounds of grotesquely proportioned muscle, and having tubes injected into his shoulders, neck and back.

It took the so-called ‘God killer’ sword to dispatch the maniac permanently. Trevor would fall back on God, not luck or his extensive swordsmanship training, as the reason he lived to tell the tale of how he took down Bane. The God killer sword was locked down tight, in the Charlottesville-based vault operated by the Agency’s A.R.G.U.S. division. Trevor figured there was no way his Beretta M9 pistol would make a dent in the blue-and-red garbed maniac walking his way.

The Beast stopped at the stairs and lowered his arm/weapon.

“Comrades, and imperialists,” Knyazev said. “Attention. Moscow is speaking.”

A couple of beats later, the Beast continued. “The uprising against Khalinin, the General Secretary and Marshal of the Soviet Union, has ended. Nineteen out of every 20 of his enemies — the enemies of the workers of the world, the Rodina, the world revolution — have been purged. The rest are being purged. That includes you.” Knyazev looked at Boris and Pushkin, then at Kort and Trevor.

“You are aware of the October Agreement, yes?”, Kort said, as cool as Trevor had ever seen him. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on the man; Trevor, on the other hand, felt a few beads sliding down his neck.

“An agreement made by a would-be imperialist,” Knyazev said. “An illegal agreement.”

“We are abiding by it.”

“Are you going to beg for your lives?” Knyazev said, dismissively.

“I think we’ll stand and fight,” Trevor interjected. Whatever he was, Trevor decided he was a man, not a coward. He would fight to the death for what he believed in, and if that meant dying alongside two Russians he believed were trying to do right, that’s what he would do.

Pushkin wasn’t going to let him die so easily, though.

With no warning, Pushkin — not a small man himself — launched himself at the Beast, knocking him off-balance with a punch to the jaw. “Get away, friends,” he yelled between punches. “Go!”

Kort looked back, and saw the flames coming from the rear entrance. Trevor smelled kerosene. “Arson,” he said to Kort and Boris. “That bastard’s got us good.”

The only possible way out was past the brawling Knyazev and Pushkin; both men’s punches were landing hard, each blow echoing throughout the dance floor. There was no way to get around them, since they were brawling and tossing each other from one side to the other too fast for any well-trained human to dodge.

Abruptly, with a grasp and a squeeze of his hand and a loud crack, the fight was over. Pushkin had passed, and Knyazev turned towards the three other living souls in the room.

Boris broke from behind the table, pulled out his Makarov pistol and began shooting as he walked towards the Beast. He emptied one cartridge, put in another, then resumed shooting. The bullets bounced off Knyazev’s forehead and chest; he waited for Boris to walk within arms length, then grabbed him and threw him 40 feet against a side wall, killing the KGB officer instantly.

That left the Americans.

Kort then reached for the pistol hidden in his trousers, pulled it out and aimed for the forehead. He pulled the trigger six times; the first bullet found its mark, the other five were for insurance.

Seventeen seconds after Knyazev died, his body fell to the ground, on top of the gore created from Kort’s first shot.

“What the hell was that?” Trevor said, gaping.

“Insurance,” he said, rearming his pistol with another cartridge. "The bullets are made of a substance called Nth metal."

“Why…you could — you should have done that earlier!” Trevor yelled. “You could have spared those men’s lives! They died for nothing!”

“I disagree,” Kort said. “We must leave. The authorities will be here very soon and we do not want to be here.”

Kort was 20 feet away, heading for the remains of the front entrance, before Trevor moved. He caught up with Kort outside, and both men were six blocks away by the time the local police arrived. A ‘friend of the Agency’ had them booked on a flight to San Juan and in U.S. airspace before the local authorities could think to find and question either of them.

Saturday, June 1, 2007

8:10 a.m. EDT

Washington, D.C.

WJLA-TV

—As you can see behind me, dozens of U.S. Army soldiers whom we in the media have been told have just returned from Afghanistan, are surrounding the Soviet Embassy. You can also see dozens of protestors defying the martial law order, and police trying to keep them separated from the line of Army personnel, who are protecting the embassy itself—



New York City

WCBS-TV

—both LaGuardia and JFK are taking on dozens of flights from World Pact countries, We know the Cuban and Bulgarian consulates have been evacuated, with all personnel heading east, off Manhattan Island, towards both airports—



Indianapolis, Indiana

Indianapolis Star website

BOEHNER: SPEEDWAY BOMB

DETONATED BY THE SOVIETS

Anti-Soviet protests all over the state

Residents in FEMA camps ‘want blood’



John Lennon, speaking to MTV:

—I’m…I’m bloody speechless. I don’t know what to do, what to say. They aren’t listening to the people. They aren’t listening to the sane people in their own governments. I’ve done something I haven’t done in years, not even when Paul and Linda were killed in the plane crash. I prayed, to God. I asked God to intervene. Maybe I’m talking to the bloody wind. It can’t hurt. I’m scared to death, you know?—



WHAS-AM, Louisville, Kentucky, open lines for listeners, ‘Jeff’ from Salem, Indiana talking with host Joe Elliott:

—I lost people up there, man. I got family and friends, people I went to school with, living in these FEMA camps and they ain’t going home. Everyone here in town knows someone who died or knew someone who died or someone living in those camps. Yeah, I’m pissed. (Bleep) Bernie Sanders, (bleep) the Democrats, let’s bomb the (bleep) out of the Russians. They attacked us. Why haven’t we dropped a bomb on Leningrad or some other city of theirs? Huh? We that damn scared of them? I’m not. No one here in Indiana is. They show their (bleep) heads around here, we’re blowing them clean off their shoulders.—



Notice from an Exxon gas station, Fairfax, Virginia:

OPEN 8 AM TO 4 PM DAILY PER STATE AND LOCAL MANDATES

10 GALLONS PER VEHICLE, NO EXCEPTIONS

CURRENT PRICE IS 5.49 PER GALLON, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REVISE THE PRICE AT ANY TIME WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE

THREE ITEMS OF FOOD AND BEVERAGES PER CUSTOMER ONCE PER DAY, NO EXCEPTIONS

DRIVE-OFFS WILL BE DEALT WITH SEVERELY AND SWIFTLY; ARMED GUARDS ON SITE WILL SHOOT WITHOUT WARNING IF SITUATION WARRANTS



Drudge Report

Wyoming the last state to declare statewide martial law…

‘Patriot’ groups fighting Russian-born residents in streets of Chicago…

37 dead after crowd rushes police protecting Publix supermarket in Jacksonville…

Reverend Billy Graham: ‘The only answer now is in Christ Jesus’…

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists move Doomsday Clock to 30 seconds before midnight…



AMERICA UNDER SIEGE

SOVIETS REMAIN SILENT

CONGRESS TO MEET TODAY IN CLOSED SESSION



ESPN.com

EVERYTHING’S CALLED OFF



Sign on the front lawn of a home in Omaha, Nebraska:

We’re gone for awhile. Please don’t take anything from our home. And please say a prayer, that the Russians don’t take our homes and families and our lives from us.



Washington, D.C.

9:47 p.m. EDT

Two black SUVs pulled up on the lawn of the empty two-story house across the street from Gibbs’s house, and he and Franks watched the rest of Gibbs’s — their — team get out of the vehicles.

Without saying a word, Gibbs waited on his people as they got to the house and walked through the front door held open for them by a suit. He followed Franks, who himself walked in behind Ducky, the last person in the line of people briskly heading towards the basement stairwell. Gibbs nodded to the suit standing upstairs outside the stairwell before making his way to the workbench; everyone else were either standing by the bench or by the boat that took up a significant portion of the center of the basement.

“Mustache let you bring us here, Boss?” Tony said, breaking the silence. “Things must be real bad for that to happen.”

“What’s going on, Gibbs?” Kate said. “I mean, really going on?”

“Is this it?” Palmer interjected. “We going to war?”

“Boss, why are we here?” McGee asked.

Gibbs didn’t say a word in response.

“I have been told nothing by my contacts in Mossad that add to what has already been reported on the news,” Ziva said, “or is in the briefing from Director McCallister given to us to read on the way here.”

“There’s a reason you all are here,” Franks said, from the corner of the workbench he had taken over. “This is definitely need to know.”

“Does it have to do with Hollis?” Kate asked. She, and everyone else, saw the brief glimpse of anguish in his eyes. They saw it go away an instant later, replaced by his usual demeanor, as if he shoved his personal pain to the side to concentrate on his job.

“Nope,” he said with steel in his voice, enough to convince the others not to bring her up for the rest of the meeting.

“Then what is it?” Palmer said, with respect and with none of the timidity he had been known for. Gibbs noticed that Palmer didn’t have his glasses on, and looked more muscular than he remembered. Gibbs then realized he hadn’t touched base with Ducky enough to know about what was going on in his assistant’s life. Tony — who hung out with Palmer off work and probably knew him more than anyone else besides Ducky — hinted at Palmer dealing with some personal issues.

“Jimmy, give Agent Gibbs the floor,” Ducky said firmly, and without admonishment. Gibbs looked at the doctor, then at Tony, who mouthed ‘I’ll explain later’. Gibbs nodded, and looked at the clock on the wall. Then his phone rang, and he picked it up, listening and saying nothing.

“They’re in the neighborhood,” Gibbs said. “Oughta be here in a few minutes. When they get here, hear us out till we’re done, then ask whatever you want.”

“Want to give us a hint, Gibbs?”, Kate asked. Gibbs started to say ‘no’, then reconsidered it, and answered her.

“Yeah,” he said. “The government and military both have their hands in projects you wouldn’t believe are on the up-and-up. This is the mother of them all. Just hear them — me — out. Trust me on this.”

Before Kate, or the others, could ask what ‘this’ was, Langer appeared in the doorway at the top of the basement stairs. He made his way down, laptop in arm, followed by Teague, Cooke and Sloane.

Langer opened the laptop, and began to explain about the ring Gibbs and Hollis saw, as well as its sister rings around the world. Langer showed video of the ring from the Pentagon, and pictures of other rings from 'restricted areas' elsewhere in the country.

“Ask your questions,” Gibbs said, and no one spoke up for the next minute. All of Gibbs’s team looked skeptical to varying degrees, Palmer and Ziva being the most skeptical, and Tony being the most willing to believe.

Finally, Palmer stood up and said what was on his mind, and those of his teammates. “The only reason I’m taking this seriously at all is because I know you don’t bullshit around, Gibbs. But this is the craziest thing I’ve heard in my life.”

“Fair enough,” Gibbs replied. “The rest of you agree with Palmer?”

They all nodded.

“You believe me when I say that I saw something?”

They all nodded, and Ducky remained quiet while the other team members decided they had something to say, all at once, and all talking over one another. A loud whistle from Gibbs silenced them, but he knew they needed to have their say. He nodded at DiNozzo.

“Okay, Boss. I believe you and Hollis saw something,” Tony said. “What if it’s what they — whatever’s down there — wanted you to see?”

“Fair question,” Langer interjected. “Wanna see the video again?”

“Could be from a Hollywood studio,” McGee said.

“It’s not,” Teague said. “It’s real.”

“If it is real,” Ziva said, “and there are others like it around the world, why have we not heard about them yet?”

“Panic, greed, national security, to keep our people from going somewhere that would put them in danger,” Cooke said. “To keep out something on the other side from coming over here and creating havoc.”

“Great,” Kate said. “That thing is supposed to be our salvation, and the authorities are scared of what’s waiting on the other side? Assuming it’s real.”

“It is, Agent Todd,” Sloane said. “You have every right to be skeptical.”

“It’s called ‘common sense’, Agent Sloane,” Kate shot back. “I’ve heard about black ops projects the government is supposedly involved with. This was an alien craft sitting in Nevada, I’d be more inclined to believe you. I take The X-Files and Star Trek for what they are: fiction.”

“It’s real, Kate,” Gibbs said, quietly, and with more conviction than she’d ever heard from him. That unnerved her, but she didn’t want it to show. She tore her gaze away from Gibbs, finding it easier to maintain her skeptical countenance with a stranger.

Sloane’s look of sympathy unnerved Kate almost as much as Gibbs’s tone. She turned away from Sloane back towards Gibbs only to notice her other teammates looking at their leader. Their expressions mirrored the small conflict raging inside her own mind and heart: not wanting to believe Gibbs was insane, or pulling an elaborate (if sick) joke, or anything other than he believed what he was saying, but finding it all but impossible to believe in something they regarded as real as UFOs.

“Boss, I gotta ask,” Tony said, as calmly as Kate remembered him ever speaking. “Are you pulling one on us?”

“No, Tony. I’m not.” The tone of Gibbs’s response was this is as serious as it gets.

“This some kind of psych test?”

“No.”

“Something Mustache pulled out of his ass?”

“Definitely not.”

“So take us,” DiNozzo said. “Take us all. Now.”

“Impossible,” Teague said. “You’ve all heard what happened there. The area is locked up tight—“

“So how in hell are we supposed to get there, if that’s where we end up having to go when the missiles fly, then?”, Palmer said with a sharp tone and in a somewhat confrontational manner.

Palmer and the other team members followed Gibbs’s eyes as he looked over at the other agents. “The Pentagon ring is off limits right now,” Teague said several moments later.

Cooke suddenly had a brainstorm, and he wondered how neither he nor his teammates had thought of it before. “We can’t take them near the Pentagon. We can take them to another ring,” he said.

“And you came up with this just now, Agent Cooke?”, Franks said, mirroring the thoughts of the other NCIS personnel in the basement.

“That’s a great idea!,” Kate added, with much sarcasm. “Stop talking about where we can’t go and talk about where we can go!

“But where can we go?”, McGee interjected, before Cooke’s fellow agents could come to his defense. “How many of these things are there? And how do you know they all don’t have the same level of security — and be just as impossible to get into?”

“Assuming they’re real, McMulder,” Tony said.

“Devil’s advocate,” McGee said. “Can any of you offer an alternate location that we can visit tonight?”

Cooke held up his hand to silence Teague, Langer and Sloane, then pulled out his cell phone. “How secure is this basement, Gibbs?”

“You can talk to your people, Roger,” Gibbs replied, and Cooke walked to the foot of the staircase before placing his call. He spoke with someone while Gibbs’s team talked amongst themselves, and Teague, Langer and Sloane huddled nearby, whispering amongst themselves.

“I wonder what they’re discussing, Tony,” Ziva said as she observed the huddle.

“The weather on Mars,” Tony cracked.

Ziva turned to look at Gibbs, who was talking with Kate. “I wonder if there is something that we are not able to see because we have closed our eyes to it,” Ziva said.

“You mean closed our minds,” Tony said. “My mind’s working just fine, Ziva, and my eyes are wide open.”

“Look at Gibbs,” Ziva said. “He saw something, Tony.”

“Maybe it was what Mustache wanted him to see,” DiNozzo said. “Aliens? Come on.”

“No one said anything about aliens—“

“Then other Earths. Parallel worlds. That’s Star Trek, Ziva. Major Comics. Sci-fi. Not even McGeek believes it.”

“Doesn’t he?”

“Do you?”, DiNozzo shot back.

“My eyes are open to the possibility,” she said, “but only because of Gibbs.”

“Gotta admit it’d be one helluva thing if it were real,” Tony said. “McGee would never let me live it down.”

“He wouldn’t agitate you like that, Tony,” she said, spotting McGee making small talk with Palmer. “How is Jimmy doing, Tony? You spend more time with him than the rest of us.”

“On the surface, he’s doing great,” Tony replied. “Thing is, I can’t get past the surface.

“Perhaps McGee will have better luck,” Ziva said.

McGee, in fact, had looked for an excuse to get with Palmer one-on-one, and Palmer was willing to converse, about everything from the weather to McGee’s now-stalled writing career. “How’s the book coming along, McGee?” Palmer asked.

“The manuscript’s sitting in a box in my apartment, assuming someone’s not broken in there by now. I didn’t have time to get it when McCallister gave the order to leave. I’ve been free-writing some, but nothing’s really come of it.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a pretty decent science fiction story here.”

“Already done. Stargate SG-1. That what this sounds like to me, more than anything else,” McGee said. “What’s been going on with you?”

“Nothing, just work.” Palmer wore a Washington Redskins T-shirt that showed off his muscular, 185-pound frame. The medical examiner’s assistant was no longer the slim, shy young man who had a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He was a slightly older, and much more confident, man who made the ladies’ (and some of the gentlemen’s) heads turn whenever he walked past. He also seemed more brooding, and DiNozzo had tried without success to find out what was going on in Palmer’s head that had made him that way.

“Don’t give me that, Jimmy. You’re way more confident now than you were when you replaced Gerald. You’re working out like a monster. Tony said he didn’t work out as much as you when he played at Ohio State.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Palmer said. “All I have is a weight set I bought from the guy down the street from Dr. Mallard’s house. Tony played at a major college program. He had all kinds of equipment—“

“You’re way more buff than most anyone at the Navy Yard, probably as much as the Marines,” McGee said.

“So why do you not sound like that’s a good thing?"

“It is, it’s great,” McGee said. “I oughta be down there on those things. The weight-lifting’s good for you, Jimmy.”

“Then what are you getting at, Tim?”

McGee paused, to make sure he didn’t respond in the wrong way. “Is something bugging you?”

“No,” Palmer said. “Why?”

“Because you look like…like something’s going on and you’re trying to hide it. Something you’re trying to deal with on your own.”

Palmer sized McGee up, trying to figure out what the young agent meant. “I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re asking,” Palmer said with a smirk. “But I’m flattered, really.”

McGee’s mouth flew open. “That’s not what I…dammit, Jimmy. You’ve been hanging out with Tony a little too much.”

Palmer chuckled. “Probably, although some of his ideas about women make sense. Too bad I can’t test them out right now.”

“That’s what got you pissed?”

“No, and I’m not pissed. About anything.”

“Jimmy, look,” McGee said. “You have friends here. If you ever wanna talk—“

“Nothing to talk about,” Palmer said as he turned away from McGee to walk over to the frame of Gibbs’s boat, then picked up some sandpaper to smooth out a rough edge on a plank. McGee sighed in frustration, and looked over towards Abby and Ducky, who were in the middle of a conversation.

“Uh-oh,” Abby said. “McGee tried to say something to Jimmy.”

“Someone needs to get through to that young man,” Ducky replied. “I know Anthony’s spent quite a bit of time with him during the team’s long sojourn with my mother and I.”

“Tony says he can’t get Jimmy to open up, though,” Abby said. “Something going on with his family, but Jimmy won’t budge. I’ve tried to get him to open up. All he wants to talk about now are movies and working out. It’s like someone reached in his brain and hit a switch.”

“Perhaps you and Anthony will be the ones to get him to open up,” Ducky said. “I have tried to encourage him to speak openly. I’ve even told him it would be a pleasure to see a glimpse of his old self. Mr. Palmer reacted in a manner I didn’t expect.”

“He didn’t yell at you, did he, Ducky?”

“Nothing of the sort, Abigail. He replied in a most calm manner that I hadn’t come to expect from him, and said ‘That idiot’s dead and buried, Dr. Mallard. I choose my words more carefully, now’. Clearly, something is going on with Mr. Palmer, and I assure you, Abigail, I have not given up on him by any stretch of the imagination.”

Ducky put a reassuring hand on Abby’s arm. “That is one of the most pleasant things I have observed about this team, Abigail. The banter flows, but we have gone from a group of four coworkers to a family of sorts. We’re all there for one another, even when we can’t be with our own families.”

“Your mother’s still around, Ducky, and you live with her.”

“That is true, Abigail, but I cannot be there for her as much as I would like. My regular duties prevent that, and her mind is beginning to slip away, as you know. Even now I see moments when she doesn’t know who I am.”

“Ducky,” Abby said. “I’m so sorry. I wish there were something somebody could do.”

“She’s lived a full life, already, and every day with her, no matter how she can be sometimes, is truly a gift,” Ducky said. “How have you been holding up? Any luck contacting your brother Luka?”

“None,” she said with a hint of sadness. “I emailed Agent Pride in New Orleans a month ago. He emailed me back, said he couldn’t find him anywhere. There’s a missing persons report out on him, now. You know what Gibbs would say: ‘until you find a body—‘“

“‘There’s always hope’…How about the nuns you had been living with? Have you spoken with them recently?”

“A few days ago,” Abby said. “They’re scared. There are security guards on site, now, 24 hours a day, and at the church, too. Sister Fran says the neighborhood’s gotten worse since the Indianap—since Memorial Day. More looting, more fights in the streets, more cops chasing whomever. I’m scared, Ducky. That’s why I’m hoping Gibbs is right about this ring, and someone’s not playing a trick on him.”

“Do you believe him, Abigail?”

Abby started to say yes, then put herself on pause, and thought about her answer. She looked at Gibbs, whom she knew was not someone who easily brought into such fantastic stories. For him to think this was the honest truth meant he had to have come across hard evidence — like seeing the ring for himself.

“I trust him, Ducky,” she said. “I always have. We all have, and do.”

Gibbs noticed Abby and Ducky looking at him and nodded back at them, then turned his attention back to the conversation between Kate and Franks.

Franks — for years Gibbs’s ‘boss’, when NCIS was the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) and Franks led the Washington-based Major Case Response Team — had been reading up on Gibbs’ team members and, when possible, getting acquainted with them.

Kate had fascinated the older man the most: the spunk Gibbs spoke of from her early days was still there, tempered by a few years of experience as an NCIS field agent. She still challenged authority, but had come to realize she had plenty to learn, especially from those — like Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva — who had more experience in certain areas. Kate had become more strident on one specific thing: that she was as capable of excelling in her job as an NCIS agent as any man, and she (and Ziva) had the full backing of former Director Shepard.

Gibbs, of course, had always had Kate’s back.

Franks, in approaching Kate, had avoided the Indianapolis Bomb and instead asked her, flat out, how she would have fared if she, and not Gibbs, had been Franks’ probie?

“I would have nailed it,” she flat-out told him. “A lot of what I learned from Gibbs came from you, and I like to think I’ve done pretty well so far.”

Gibbs acknowledged her with a nod.

“You hear that, Probie?” Franks said. “I don’t know whether to thank Kate or ask her why on earth she’s bent on bullshittin’ me.”

Kate chuckled, and Gibbs — chuckling right alongside her — was pleased to see her lighten up. Despite Tony and Abby’s — and his own — best attempts, Kate’s personality was still shaped in large part by her upbringing and her staunch Catholic faith — and, on occasion, her innate sarcasm, which had mostly been tamed but still flared up now and then.

The bombing at the Indianapolis 500 would have been psychologically devastating to most people, according to Ducky, who had taken profiling classes to add to his considerable skill set. Ducky pondered it was a miracle that Kate hadn’t turned into an emotional wreck, and credited that as much to the woman’s inner strength as to the considerable emotional support she had from the team.

But, Kate still wasn’t out of the woods, not by Gibbs’s standards. He cursed himself for not having had more time to help her. He had to rely on his team to pick up the slack. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do what he could do, whenever he had the chance.

“You wonder why I spend so much time down here, building boats?”, Gibbs asked Kate. He pointed to the nearby frame of a boat, with Hollis’s name clearly visible on the near side while Palmer, McGee and Ducky looked over the frame from the far side. “It’s because he nearly drove me crazy.” Gibbs pointed his thumb at Franks.

“It was for your own good, Jethro,” Franks growled, good-naturedly. “You were so raw starting out I had to yell at you every night, just to get you to where the other Probies were. Gettin’ you to where I wanted you took a lot longer. Kate, he ever tell you he was more like DiNozzo at the beginning?”

“I’ve heard that story before, believe it or not,” she said. “I’m still not sure I believe it.”

“It’s true,” Gibbs said. “It’s one reason I was so hard on Tony when I brought him aboard. I didn’t want him to screw up the same ways I did when Mike brought me on.”

“I just can’t see it, though,” Kate replied. “You…seem like you’ve always been Gibbs, the Gibbs I’ve known you to be. A way different guy than Tony. I’ve never seen a wall full of VHS tapes and DVDs in this house. I don’t think you’ve ever bought a VHS tape in your life.”

The three people laughed. “I’ll grant you that, Kate,” Gibbs said.

“We’re getting off track, people,” Franks interjected, looking at Kate. “So you think you would’ve done pretty good as an agent if I’d gotten ahold of you instead of Gibbs.”

“I said I would’ve nailed it,” she replied. “And probably turned out the same, or about the same. A lot of what I’ve learned from Gibbs came from you, after all.”

“So, does that mean you’d be head-slapping people instead of elbowin’ them, then?”, Franks quipped, and Kate smiled. The conversation had made Gibbs happy, and he was about to raise the subject of head-slap lessons when he noticed Cooke waving to get his attention. Moments later, all of the conversations in the room came to a halt when Cooke put his fingers to his lips and let out a loud whistle.

“I’ve got a destination,” he announced. “Not the Pentagon, but not too terribly far. But if we’re going, we’ve got to leave now.”

“Go where?” Franks said.

“Richmond, Virginia,” Cooke replied, then turned to Teague, Langer and Sloane. “Had to pull some strings.”

“Fine by me,” Teague told him. “Richmond?”

“Baltimore’s the closest, but the whole city’s gone SNAFU and is about to go FUBAR,” Cooke said. “The ring’s locked up tight, and you’d have to go thru blocks full of gang-bangers and survivalists and cops just looking to throw some outsider in the slammer — and the last thing any of us needs is to be stuck in a Baltimore jail.”

“I’d heard from someone I worked with in Baltimore P.D.,” DiNTonyozzo said. “She said it’d gotten bad there. I turned on the local news station — WBAL, I think? — on the way here. The Sun, the TV and radio stations are working out of Annapolis, that’s how bad things are in the city.”

“What about Charlottesville?”, Langer asked Cooke.

“Out of the question,” Cooke said. “You have to have Presidential-level security clearance to get in there.”

“What’s in Charlottesville besides the University of Virginia?”, asked Sloane. “It’s a small town, like Mayberry.”

“Whatever it is, the White House doesn’t want anybody knowing,” Cooke said. “Hagerstown’s too far away. Dover, Toms River in Jersey, Bristol in Tennessee, Wilmington in North Carolina, all too far.”

“So what does that leave?”, Teague asked.

“Norfolk was open, but takes a little longer to get there and the way security is down there right now, we might not get in until 5 a.m. And there’s the matter of the NCIS field office down there, which puts a cramp on the cover story I’d like to use.”

“What cover story, Roger?”, asked Gibbs.

“Dr. Mallard,” Cooke said, “is the NCIS Medical Examiner’s van still at the Navy Yard?”

“It’s in the garage,” Ducky said. “But we don’t have an active case.”

“Gibbs,” Cooke said. “Call your director, tell him you got a tip about a victim in Richmond, at the raceway—“

“How’s the Mustache gonna buy that?”, Tony interjected.

“He already knows about the ring,” Cooke said. Noticing the mixture of confusion and horror on the faces of Gibbs’s team members, Cooke followed up and asked, “didn’t Gibbs tell you?”

Tony and the others looked at Gibbs. “Does Mustache really know?”, DiNozzo asked.

“Yep,” Gibbs said.

“Hell, we’re screwed,” Palmer blurted out.

“No, we’re not,” Gibbs said, as if everything was alright. He pulled out his cell phone and called McAllister. After speaking with the director, Gibbs snapped his phone shut. “I hope you brought your gear with you,” Gibbs told his people.

“Yeah,” Tony said, speaking for the group. “It’s stuffed underneath the seats in that SUV. Not a lot of room to work with—shutting up right now, Boss.“

Gibbs smiled. A stern look often did as much good as a head-slap.

“Cooke, you and the other three follow us,” Gibbs said. “Kate, you’re with me and Mike. The rest of you, follow in the van…let’s go!”

Gibbs was almost proud of how quickly his team got up the stairs and out of the house.

Richmond, Virginia

The trip from Gibbs’s house to the Navy Yard was uneventful, as was the drive from the Navy Yard to Interstates 695 and 395. The caravan — the NCIS M.E.’s van, Gibbs’s truck and Teague’s sedan, surrounded by SUVs assigned by McAllister himself — wasn’t put at risk once. Washington and the rest of the District of Columbia was, at the order of President Boehner, secured by two Army platoons and the entire D.C. National Guard. Virginia National Guard helped local police secure I-395 from the Potomac thru Alexandria.

Once I-395 became I-95 south of Alexandria, the caravan was joined by two grey Humvees with Virginia State Police markings on the sides. The missile launchers and machine guns visible on the ringmount atop both Humvees gave away that these were military, not civilian, vehicles. Police in all 50 states, and territories, and all major cities had at least four military-type Humvees in their fleets. Because of D.C. to the north, Norfolk to the south and whatever it was the feds were doing on the now abandoned UVa campus in Charlottesville, the Virginia State Police had 40 Humvees in its fleet.

Gibbs was behind one of those Humvees, and thought it a little odd that the drive from D.C. had been — so far — peaceful.

“We’re either secured tight or sittin’ ducks for Spetsnaz,” said Franks, who sat in the middle of the back seat.

Kate looked on both sides of the interstate; at the moment, the caravan was passing near Fredericksburg. Off to her left in the direction of the town, she saw a faint reddish and orange glow. Kate didn’t want to imagine what might be going on there. “I won’t dispute the need to be secure when going out,” she said, looking back for another glimpse at the glow; one of the Humvees blocked her view. “These military vehicles with us, though; it’s a little overkill, don’t you think?”

“Might be the safest way to get anywhere, now,” Gibbs replied.

Traffic down I-95 was light, if one didn’t count the presence of Virginia State Police sedans and SUVs at least every mile. Tractor-trailers carrying food, gasoline, medicine and other essential items went north and south, along with civilians going to and from work; the near-universal curfew hadn’t excused second- and third-shift workers from their jobs. So far, according to various media outlets, people were still going to work in most areas of the country, the most notable exception being Baltimore.

Once the caravan reached the Henrico County suburbs north of Richmond, the state police peeled off and gave way to Richmond Police Department SUVs and Humvees. Once the caravan got into the city, it quickly became apparent that there was no one on the streets other than police and the occasional ambulance or National Guard vehicle. Gas stations were open, but had one or two civilian vehicles parked and at least two police vehicles. Some of the police cruisers looked like they had been through the wringer, adorned with dents, scratches and mud.

Four Richmond police vehicles — two sedans, an SUV and a Humvee — surrounded the caravan as it entered Gate 4 of the vast Richmond International Raceway complex at 1:07 a.m.. The 60,000-seat motor racing venue was well-known for hosting races from the three divisions of the NASCAR and IndyCar auto racing series, as well as concerts and other public events.

The last event held at the track was from NASCAR’s top-flight Nextel Cup Series in early May. That piece of trivia was brought up by none other than Langer, who caught up to Gibbs after the caravan parked in front of the garages on the west side of the infield. It shouldn’t have mattered to Gibbs, who knew little about NASCAR and had no interest in the sport.

However, his gut suddenly began suggesting something more disturbing than a pack of Spetsnaz or criminals lying in wait behind the garage bay door being lifted by two of the police officers. Gibbs looked around the darkened venue and had the thought that it wouldn’t be around much longer.

He pushed aside the thought of what kind of bomb would wipe the facility off the face of the Earth, and focused on the now-open bay. One of the officers had a flashlight that she shined on a mannequin wearing a sailor’s uniform.

“That supposed to be the victim?”, Tony asked the officer. The ‘victim’ had a plastic ‘spork’ from a fast-food restaurant stuck halfway through its skull, and was covered in ketchup. A half-full ketchup bottle lay a few feet away from the mannequin.

“You needed a reason to be here, right?”, said the officer, a short, muscular woman who grinned at the sight.

“Does he have an ID?”, Ziva asked.

“No,” the officer said. “Call him Dale. Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jarrett. Or Jeff, Ward, Ricky, Kevin, whatever you want.”

Ducky made his way over to the mannequin, having left his medical examiner’s gear in the NCIS van. “This reminds me of a story,” he said. “Back home in Edinburgh, in Scotland, I was given an opportunity to visit a faux crime scene, at the small home of a pensioner who was the uncle of an acquaintance of mine, an Edinburgh police inspector. The pensioner had recently passed away, and have left his ‘estate’, such as it was, to his nephew. The nephew decided to recreate an infamous crime scene from after the Second World War where a reclusive veteran, recently returned from service in the British Army, was killed with a stab to the skull—“

“Duck,” Gibbs blurted out tersely. A moment later he realized he was too gruff, but he wanted to get to the reason they all were here, and looked to the officer. “This where you go to get in?”

“Yep,” she said. “See the shack?”

Gibbs squinted — his vision wasn’t the best in any case, and especially in a darkened area like the vast garage bay used by the teams that competed during the NASCAR and IndyCar races held at the track. However, he did see a small, square-like building about 40 feet away, and along the wall next to a large Chevrolet sign.

He also saw another officer — a tall, slender man with a swimmer’s physique — open the door to the shack. A moment later, lights came on from inside the shack, partially illuminating the surrounding area; the tall officer then opened another door inside the shack.

“That’s where you’re going, folks,” the stocky officer told the group. “The shack over there was manned last month by myself and my partner inside, and by one of you guys.”

“One of ‘us’ guys?”, Kate said.

“Feds,” the woman replied. “Follow me.”

Kate and the others did as they were instructed. She was the first of the group to enter the shack, and she saw what looked like the inside of an elevator. “Two at a time,” the tall officer said, and Gibbs nodded to Ziva. The Mossad officer joined Kate inside the elevator, and the elevator shaft descended. It ascended three minutes later, and it took nearly 20 minutes for the rest of the team — Tony and McGee; Ducky and Palmer; Sloane and Cooke; Gibbs and Franks; and finally Teague and Langer — to join Kate and Ziva in a waiting room area a mile below the garage bay’s surface.

“An elevator?”, Tony mused aloud. “I figured some kind of James Bond, giant magnets attached to steel cables falling from the ceiling and pulling up the floor to reveal some giant platform, rising from the bottom, that takes us to a vast underground complex—“

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs said, turning his gaze from his agent to the tall officer who accompanied Teague and Langer on their trip down. “You gonna show us where this is?”

“No,” he replied, as he stood next to the elevator. “Your host will, though. He should be here in a minute.”

It was a four-minute wait. The door on the far side of the waiting area that Gibbs, Kate, DiNozzo and Teague tried to open finally opened on its own. A tall, African-American woman, dressed in a black business suit walked through; she scanned the room, and fixed her gaze on Teague.

“What a surprise,” Teague said drolly. “I never expected to see you here, Quinn.”

“I got reassigned stateside,” Quinn replied. “Just as you did.”

“A colleague from the Agency,” Teague told the others. “Shall we,” Teague said to Quinn.

“Please follow me,” Quinn answered, leading the group down a long hallway that led to two Army Rangers guarding a steel door. With a nod from Quinn, the Ranger on her right stepped aside and away from a dull-orange glowing panel he had stood in front of. She put her left hand against the panel, and a few moments later the door began to open, in the opposite direction of the hallway.

The sight that awaited the group was nothing like they had ever seen in person.

For Gibbs, it resembled what he and Hollis saw at the Pentagon site; a large area with people moving around or standing. Some of the people, wearing civilian clothing or white lab coats, stood or sat at desks in front of laptops and computer monitors. Some had laptops, or palm-sized tablets. There were soldiers all around the area, several standing at attention, several armed with weapons that he was sure were ready to use at a moment’s notice.

Gibbs figured he was the only person in the group who noticed what else was in the vast, stadium-sized area. He finally allowed himself to look at the area’s centerpiece: a gigantic, circular object that looked like a ring of fire and electricity, hovering a foot above a ten-foot-high machine probably 80 feet long, atop a platform that was probably seven feet high. He could see through the ring, a 70-foot-wide by 70-foot-tall object, probably two feet thick.

He looked at his watch. It was 1:43 a.m. He gawked at the ring.

He looked back at his watch. It was 1:51. He looked around at his team and at Teague’s people. No one looked tired, just awed; even Quinn looked as if she was amazed at the sight. Still, neither he nor his people could keep this up all night.

“Agent Teague,” he heard McGee say from his left. “Can we see the other side?”

“Quinn?”, Teague said to her fellow CIA agent, who motioned for the group to follow her around to the other side. The ring and the machine were at the back of the platform, which had a space that stretched out at least 50 feet, with a set of stairs at the end leading down to the floor

Gibbs, and everyone else, saw the grey, barren brick wall they stood near while gawking at the ring from the other side.

“Transit about to begin. All personnel report to secure areas. Countdown one minute.”

Everyone in the area heard the voice of a male with a British accent, but the voice didn’t come from the speakers in the back or sides of the vast room or the front of the platform. It seemed to come from inside the ring itself.

The few people on the platform in front of the group quickly made their way down the stairs, and one of the soldiers on guard motioned for the group to step back 10 feet. The voice counted down to zero, and the ring began to rotate, and glow, and crackle.

The rear wall faded, and gave way to another sight: a trio of flags and a vast, open area behind them, visible only within the radius of the ring. The wall remained visible outside the ring.

“My God,” Ducky said.

“What in hell is this, Jethro?”, Franks said to Gibbs. “This what you and Hollis saw?”

“Yeah,” Gibbs told him.

Tony made his way to Gibbs’s side. “Boss. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ll never doubt you, ever, ever again.”

“No need to, Tony,” Gibbs told him.

“Gibbs?”, Kate asked. “What’s there?”

“X-Files stuff,” McGee answered for his boss.

“That’s what I thought when I saw this, Agent McGee,” Cooke said.

“We must go through, yes?”, Ziva said.

“Absolutely,” Palmer replied.

The ring ‘cooled down’ and resumed its normal glow, and someone on the other side walked right up to it and seemed to do something — punch buttons, move levers, no one on the group’s side of the ring could tell what. Seconds later, a set of stairs lowered on a set of cables from the top, until landing on the platform.

Quinn began walking, rather briskly, towards the stairs. She stopped halfway up, turned to the group, and waved them over. “Come on!”, she said, with a grin. “This is the fun part.”

“What ‘fun’ part?”, Ziva asked.

“Visiting another universe!”, Quinn said. “Let’s go. We don’t have all night.”

Palmer turned to the others. “Don’t tell me we came all this way for nothing,” he said, looking at Gibbs and Teague. The ex-Marine turned to the other CIA agent (that he knew about) in the place.

“We didn’t, Mr. Palmer,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The group went up the first series of steps, then the second, portable series of steps, into another world.

“‘Through the looking glass we go,” Kate said, the last of the group to walk through into a world that looked like their own.

She went down the stairs on the other side and joined everyone else on an identical platform. They saw civilians at desks or with laptops, and soldiers either standing at attention or walking around the area with weapons. The flags they stood in front of, however, weren’t there on the other side — which had a different meaning now.

“Don’t touch,” McGee heard a booming male voice say from the floor, scaring him off from touching the blue and white flag in the middle. McGee, and the rest of the group, quickly saw the man who gave the warning jog up the stairs, and into plain view.

“Harry Langford, MI-6,” said the tall, athletic, man who — except for his three-day-old beard — was impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit, without a tie. “You must be the, what is the saying? ‘Brothers from another mother’. You look as lovely as ever, Miss Quinn.”

“Charmed, Mr. Langford,” Quinn said.

“What’s MI-6 doing here?”, Franks interjected. “Shouldn’t FBI or Homeland or someone American be here?”

“If this is America, Michael,” Ducky replied.

“Ah, another Brit,” Langford said. “Let me show you the flags, and I’ll explain,” he said, holding out the flag on the left, in the center, and on the right: a close replica of the Virginia state flag; the United Nations flag; and a flag with a British Union Jack in the upper left corner superimposed against two red bars sandwiching a white bar. “Now look behind you, along the wall."

Each group member saw the British Union Jack partly visible along the near back wall of their current location.

“You’re in the Dominion of Southern North America, which stretches from here to the Pacific Coast,” Langford said. “The DSNA is independent, but in close association with Great Britain.”

“You won the Revolutionary War?”, Tony asked.

“Lost. The DSNA was formally established in our early 20th century, but its roots came in what on your world, I believe, was called the ‘Civil War’. We — Britain — initially agreed to support the Confederates in exchange for numerous concessions, including the end to slavery. Then we and the French found ourselves fighting the Americans after the Confederate government collapsed. The Yanks sued for peace, we rebuilt the old Confederacy, and fought the Yanks off two more times that century. Two more times again in the 20th, in both wars.”

“America and Britain are allies where we’re from,” Teague said. “That’s not the case for you.”

“Not on my world, Miss…?”

“Agent Teague.”

“Agent Teague. On this world, the U.S. government allied itself with greedy corporate interests, which controlled both the executive and the military by the early 20th century, and began a long alliance with Germany which culminated in the ascension of Charles Lindbergh to the Presidency in the 1930s, just in time to solidify the U.S.A.’s ties with Germany — by then ran by the Nazis. We fought the Nazis in North America to a stalemate on two fronts during the Second Great War. Hitler and his lot eventually were overcome, and with Germany split between us, the Free French and the Soviets, the United States entrenched itself into isolationism. The corporate interests completely took over the nation, expelling or killing its minorities, and have proven to be a persistent threat to individual liberty and global peace for the better part of seven decades.”

“This America of yours sounds like a terrible place to live,” Ducky said. “I assure you, none of these people besides me are reflective of anything like it.”

Langford looked at the older man for a few moments until realizing why Ducky looked so familiar to him. “I recognize you, sir, more specifically your counterpart. He served with distinction during the Persian and Filipino Wars. A proud Scot with a million stories to tell. He was a good man. That’s why I’m so disappointed to see you with this lot.”

“I assure you, Agent Langford, that the integrity of each of these men and women, individually and collectively, is of the highest caliber,” Ducky replied. “I am sorry your prejudice seems to prevent you from realizing that.”

“I get the feeling you don’t like us very well,” Tony interjected, before Langford could reply to Ducky.

“That would be a logical conclusion,” Langford replied. “Nevertheless, here you are. And here I am, as well. I have my duty, regardless of personal observations, and I will perform it.”

“Is that ‘duty’ to insult us?”, Kate said.

“Part of it is to show you a piece of the mystery,” Langford said, ignoring the latter part of Kate’s question. “As fantastic as this must be to you, you are, in fact, in another dimension, similar to your own. I will show you a slice of it. Come with me.”

Langford turned heel and went down the stairs onto the main floor. Gibbs caught Teague’s eye, and she joined him, both going down the stairs, and the remainder of the group following them down to the floor. Langford didn’t look back until he came to the door leading to a hallway, and saw Gibbs and Teague less than 50 feet away.

Sighing, the MI-6 agent waited on his unwelcome guests, then led them to an elevator like the one that took them to the ring from their own world. Langford was the last person to go up, to a garage bay, where the group — now guarded by a contingent of British Royal Marines — awaited him.

“This looks like the bay we rode down from,” McGee said. “So does the stadium.”

“This track, sir, holds proper motorsport,” Langford said, proudly. “Formula One. Sports cars. The North American Touring Championship. Stock car racing done properly and safely. The Americans race their Fords and Chevys like a drunk lot trying to wreck on the Motorways. That isn’t what you’re here to see, though.”

“I’m guessing it’s not a darkened garage,” Gibbs said, dryly.

“Follow me, Yank,” Langford said. The group — surrounded by the Royal Marines — walked outside, to an open spot of the infield beneath a 107-foot-tall BP sign. Langford pointed south, and the group understood what he wanted them to see: the skyline of this world’s Richmond, bright and colorful, with over a dozen skyscrapers in the distance rising above the much nearer bleachers surrounding the raceway’s track.

“Holy…”, Tony muttered. His eye caught the featured skyscraper, a spire in red, blue and white rising high above the other buildings, higher than any building he knew of on his own world.

“Ten million people live here,” Langford said. “We have our problems, but we have built a good nation with a good culture. A good people, multiethnic, proud and British.”

“You love being British, don’t you?”, Langer said. “I almost want to go there. I hope everyone there aren’t the prick you are.”

“If you say so, Mr.?”

“Agent Langer.”

“Ah. I keep forgetting you’re American federal agents. At least you’re not the politicians or the corporate masters directing their every move—“

“That’s not true,” Sloane interjected, with a hint of anger in her voice.

“Perhaps not now,” Langford said, “not in your situation. The military’s probably taken over now. Of course, they have their corporate masters—“

“I think you’re viewing us through the lens of the local Americans a bit too much,” Cooke said. “Maybe you ought to take a deep breath and—“

“And go back? And send you back where you came from?”, Langford said. “I couldn’t agree more. It’s high time you go back, anyway. It’s too bloody late to be up.” He looked at his watch. “Even the pubs are closing now.”

The MI-6 agent headed straight for the elevator. To the last person, the Royal Marines assigned to the group looked apologetic.

4:54 a.m.

Washington (in the team's home dimension)

Leroy Jethro Gibbs’s home

McAllister had agents waiting on the team once they returned to their home dimension through the ring, and each agent was responsible for driving the vehicles the team had driven or rode in. Every person tried to get some sleep while the caravan — again accompanied by Richmond police, then Virginia State Police and, finally, Metro DC Police vehicles — made its way up I-95 into Washington.

Exhausted, everyone straggled into Gibbs’s living room, and either fell onto the couch, or in the recliner, or on the floor. Gibbs pulled up a chair, and considered addressing the group, then thought better of it. He needed some rest, himself; after checking with the lead suit on the scene, he nodded to the women to take the beds upstairs, and he pulled a cot out of a closet, setting it up with help from another suited agent near the kitchen.

He fell sound asleep after his head touched the pillow at the head of the cot, and Gibbs dreamed of Shannon and Kelly, the three of them picknicking in a park, running through the grass, under a warm sun.

8:00 a.m.

CBS News continuing coverage



—Welcome back to continuing coverage of the ongoing international situation. I’m Russ Mitchell, with me are Maggie Rodriguez and Jeff Glor. Bob Schieffer and Katie Couric are both getting some needed rest. There’s been a lot that’s happened in the past few hours, and we’ll start in West Germany. CBS News sources confirm reports by The Associated Press, the BBC and other news outlets of a large number of West German citizens fleeing west, away from potential attack in the event of a conventional military conflict between Allied and Pact forces.

Closer to home, a Ford automobile plant in Dearborn, Michigan was attacked by terrorists overnight. Eleven are dead and dozens more injured.

Georgia National Guardsmen were called upon to put down food riots in Atlanta. Some civic leaders were upset over certain stores in some inner-city neighborhoods having been restricted to being open eight hours a day and to distribution of food and other necessities to those stores.

Portions of Denver are still without electricity at this hour. Insurgent attacks yesterday afternoon initially shut down more than three-quarters of the city’s power grid. While power has been restored to much of the city, an estimated 34,000 customers are still without electric or telephone service.

An estimated 560,000 men and women have signed up at military and National Guard recruiting offices, according to a Pentagon press release. Millions of young Americans will learn at noon Eastern today whether or not their numbers will come up in the Selective Service draft lottery, the first in nearly four decades, since the Vietnam War.

There are sporadic ongoing protests against the draft lottery across the nation, primarily at college campuses. The largest, at the University of California in Berkeley, saw protestors chant ‘PEACE NOW’ at California National Guardsmen separating them from a group of counter-protestors from the Conservative Student Union at Cal.—



Gibbs got his sleep, such as it was, and after he sat up on his cot discovered he wasn’t the first person from the group to wake up.

He smelled the bacon and coffee coming from the kitchen and walked towards the kitchen until he saw the person standing over his oven, cooking eggs.

“DIdn’t know you were a cook, McGee.”

McGee turned his head and saw Gibbs. “Making scrambled eggs and bacon, and the coffee pot’s percolating, too,” the younger agent said as he stirred the eggs on one of the skillets, and reached for a spatula to flip over the bacon cooking on another skillet. “I couldn’t get much sleep.”

“Not any time,” Gibbs replied as he walked towards the cupboard and pulled out a loaf of bread. “I’ll start making some toast. Gonna need more food.”

“Ronnie” — one of McCallister’s ‘suits’, who had guarded Gibbs’ house the longest — “said there’s a truck coming with milk, cereal, fruit, bagels and cream cheese.”

“Where’s he at now, McGee?”

“Driving the truck.”

Gibbs put the bread in the toaster and pulled down the lever. “He been gone long?”

“Twenty minutes. Ronnie said the director knows people. There’s a place where we can get food. Lots of it.”

“’Lots’, McGee?”

“Not just for breakfast and not just for us. For the neighbors.”

“Makes things a little easier on us,” Gibbs said, reaching in his pocket. Satisfied the object he was looking for – the flash drive McAllister gave him – was there, Gibbs put it on the counter close to where McGee was cooking the scrambled eggs.

“Got something for you, McGee,” Gibbs said, nodding towards the flash drive. “I’ll take care of the food. Grab that, and some coffee, and head downstairs.”

McGee picked up the black-and-red thumb-sized drive and turned it with his thumb and forefinger. “What’s this?”

“Director gave it to me. Said you would know how to crack it and get to the files,” Gibbs said. “Whatever’s on it, he wants us to know.”

“Does it have anything to do with what’s we saw earlier?”

“Find out.”

McGee poured a mug of coffee – he had learned to tolerate drinking his black – and, flash drive in his pocket, went downstairs. He found a laptop waiting for him on the workbench; he decided he’d ask who it belonged to after he decrypted the drive. Searching through the laptop’s operating system, McGee found the decryption programs he helped write a few years back. This is good, he thought. I don’t think I have the time to figure out a new decryption program.

Although he got more entrenched in his work, McGee didn’t fail to notice Gibbs walking down the stairs into the basement with a plate of food. Gibbs had trained him to work under any circumstance while knowing where he was and who was around at all times.

“Headed upstairs, McGee,” Gibbs said, looking over the younger man’s shoulder at the laptop screen, which showed a series of folders. “Stop every so often, eat some food, drink some coffee. That’s an order.”

“Roger that, Gibbs,” McGee replied. He had no idea what order the folders were in or what was in them. So he picked a random folder.



CORTEXIN STUDY

—in the study, Cortexin had a pronounced and lasting effect on a variety of animal subjects during the three-year testing period at Walter Reed Army Medical Center—

—Cortexin stimulates the reasoning abilities of non-homo sapiens species to the equivalent of a third-grade reading and reasoning level in an average human being—

—reporting rates of 46.7 percent using Dalmatian canine subjects increasing in size, strength and endurance, which could prove useful on the battlefield, as cavalry or—



“What the hell?”, McGee whispered. He closed that folder and opened another file.



SPECIAL FORCES

—two new special forces units attached to the Army:

Atomic Knights

Black Knights

Both forces report directly to CJCS, who reports in matters pertaining to these units to, in order: POTUS; SECDEF; SECARM; CSA; and CIADIR. They act alone or in tandem with other military and intelligence units—



McGee went through the other folders, one by one:



—project to create a soldier capable of full self-sufficiency in battle. Nicknamed the ‘One Man Army Corps’, the Army and Marine Corps—

—a similar project between French, British and West German military units named Project Heracles—

—testing on the Brother Eye surveillance satellites went forward at Naval facilities in Okinawa, Japan, helping coordinate U.S., Japanese and South Korean efforts to contain North Korean spy drones over the Sea of Japan—



McGee didn’t stop until he searched through all 48 folders on the drive. The last folder made about as much sense as anything he’d seen in the past several hours.



MULTIVERSE

— CLOSED

3 10 15 26 27 28 29 30 31 40 42 43 48 49 50 51

RESTRICTED

P 6 13 14 16 18 19 20 22 25 37 39 41 45 46 47 W

OPEN

1 2 5 7 8 9 11 12 21 23 24 32 33 34 35 36 38 44 52 53 D M—

Thank you for your kind words Dan! 

Are we going to see more characters from the DC Universe.

Nice.

Does the Gorilla City also exist here ore have the like a certain island also been nuked.