Chapter 17
Gibbs’ entire team had been buzzing around in a flurry of activity and chatter all day. The excitement surrounding his open confession to not only having a girlfriend, but actually being in love with her spread to the rest of the team the second he and Em left Abby’s lab. Even Jimmy Palmer was in the loop on this one.
Adding to the excitement was the progression on the case. Once Gibbs’ admitted he was in love with Em and Abby finally stopped hugging the both of them and he managed to get her focused back on the case, they hit the break they weren’t expecting to find so quickly.
“So, McGee and I haven’t had much luck breaking through the encryption on Abild’s computer. I have no idea where he got this level of security software, but I’ve never seen anything like it and neither has McGee. The only thing we did manage to find were a couple of cryptic emails that mention Halawani by name,” Abby was explaining finally.
Em reacted immediately. “Aman Al Halawani?”
Gibbs replied with a questioning glance, “Yeah, you familiar with him? We found his fingerprints at the crime scene and matched them to Interpol. Apparently the CIA lost him…”
“In Yemen earlier this year and we picked up some information in Dallas that may be tied in here.” She grabbed her cell phone out of its belt holster and quickly hit a speed dial number, waiting just a few seconds for an answer. “Lily, I need you here with me at NCIS… Yes, the Navy Yard… We’ve got ties to Halawani with this case and a highly encrypted computer their top people are having some trouble with…Great, see you then.” She pulled the phone away from her ear. “She should be here in about thirty minutes or so depending on traffic. Lily’s a little unusual, but I’m sure the two of you will like her.” Em turned to Gibbs. “I think it’s time to call in my team. If Halawani’s involved, I need them here. We need to get on top of this now.” She pressed another speed dial button and her call was answered almost immediately. “Danny, gear up. I need you guys here… Halawani’s tied into this… Bring everything we found in Dallas… I want to see your bright shining faces here so fast you make me believe you invented a transporter and beamed here…” She practically yelled through the phone. “Now!” With that, she hung up.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow at her. “Hm, and I thought I could be harsh.”
“It takes different tactics with different people. With Lily, it’s easy to just ask her nicely. She and I have been friends since I was seventeen. Given that twenty years of history, she’s great to work with.” Em didn’t notice the look of surprise exchanged between Abby and McGee at the revelation of Em’s true age. They couldn’t wait to share that tidbit with everyone else. “Now, on the other hand, with my guys, sometimes they can be a bit hardheaded. They all know me and know I won’t take their crap, but I’m a woman, they all tower over top of me, and sometimes they like to play as if they think they can push me so I tend to be harder on them when the need arises. Part of the joy of working with a team of all male agents, I suppose. Anyway, we’re really wasting time here. Abby and McGee need to keep working to see if they can make any progress with this computer before Lily gets here, and you need to escort me to MTAC so I can contact the Sec Def and give a sit rep. He’s not going to like this. I also need to get authorization to read you and your team into the case file from Dallas so you have a better understanding of what’s going on.”
Em’s talk with the Sec Def was quite short and to the point. He had no problem with her talking to Gibbs’ team about Halawani now that he knew he was possibly in the D.C. area. She called McGee up from the lab, gathering the four NCIS agents and gave them a briefing in the conference room regarding what she and her team had found in Dallas the previous week. They had several leads to go on but lacked the simple detail of what city in the United States they belonged before now. With that one piece of information and the double team efforts of NCIS and TCIU, Em was sure they would have the case solved quickly and hopefully before Halawani and whatever terrorist cell remained with him, could act to use their biological weapon or dirty bomb.
By the time they left the conference room, Lily and Em’s team of agents were arriving to the squad room, their first time ever to NCIS. Like any other time her team had to meld in and work with fellow law enforcement agents and take over a case, there was a sense of tension. Most other agencies felt put off by having to call in ‘big shot Washington federal agents’ and bristle at their presence.
The three TCIU agents were clean cut tall, athletically built men, looking to be between early thirties to forty carrying laptop bags. Standing slightly ahead of the others was the obvious senior agent of Em’s team, he looked to be the oldest, about Tony’s height, broad shoulders narrowing to a trimly fit body in a finely tailored classic designer black suit and tie combo, very professional. His dark hair was short with a slight waviness to it, his eyes were piercingly intense and serious, his facial features angular and sharp.
To his left side was a taller and more slender built man, perhaps a few years younger with incredibly short light brown hair, pale skin, and a smattering of light freckles across his cheeks and nose that gave him a slightly youthful appearance along with his softer face. This agent was dressed just a bit more casual in gray slacks and a pale green button down, but free of a tie or jacket. He was smiling and seemed easy going and friendly.
The other agent stood in equal height to the first but his build was that of a football player, broad and muscular, looking as if he could tackle any of Gibbs’ team to the ground with one try. His hair was jet black, longer than the other two agents’ but perfectly styled. Obviously the youngest of the three, his complexion was quite tanned with dark freckles across his face that seemed to draw attention to his deep dark eyes. Dressed in khaki cargo pants, boots, and a dark blue polo shirt, he was far more casual and laid back than the other agents.
Suddenly popping out from behind the men was a tiny pixie-like girl who took all of Gibbs’ team by surprise but garnered no reaction from Em’s agents. With her short spiky bright purple hair, tight purple and black striped tank top worn over a black tee, short black mini-skirt accented by a few chains dangling around it, her clothing was a far cry from the professional dress of the men standing behind her. The accents of a black studded dog collar, eyebrow piercing, nose piercing, dark eyeliner and mascara with purple eye-shadow and lipstick, purple fingernails showing through the fingerless black fishnet gloves on her hands, and the heavy black combat style boots she wore she was an unusual sight to behold.
“Em! Hey! Where can I set up? Who’s their resident geek? I need to talk tech with them.” She was bubbly, talking fast and rocking up on the balls of her feet as she did so. “Oh my God, Em,” she suddenly said looking from Em to Gibbs. “Is this the older man you’ve been talking about?” The sudden deep reddening of her friend’s cheeks answered her question. “You’re right, he’s hot! Great choice.” She winked at Em who wished a hole would open up and swallow her through the floor.
Like Gibbs, Em did not share her private life with her team, with the exception of some vague information regarding Jethro to Lily who was her best friend of twenty years. She was afraid that with his team knowing they would blab to her team, but she was hoping she could possibly have an opportunity to share the information off to the side with them on her own before that happened. Leave it to Lily to make an observation aloud without any hesitation.
Em chose to move on without commenting. “I believe some quick introductions are in order and then everyone needs to get to work, my team will take the lead and help Jethro, I mean, Agent Gibbs’ team get up to speed. I’ll split you into teams of one TCIU agent with each NCIS agent. You’ll each follow the leads we found in Dallas and we’ll work from there.” Everyone nodded in agreement and no one seemed to have any questions so she continued. “All right then. This is Supervisory Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, he and I will take point and work on the most highly classified lead information we attained. Senior Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, I’d like you to meet Senior Special Agent Danny Stearns,” she said indicating the agent in the suit. “The two of you will work together on the information we found about some possible safe houses. All we had were street addresses without cities. Let’s assume they’re in the D.C. area and try to track them down. Special Agent Tim McGee, first I’d like you to show my data analyst Lily Sparrow down to Abby’s lab, get them introduced so she can get started working with Abby on decrypting that computer then you will be working with Special Agent Brandon Ramsey,” she pointed out the tallest of her men. “The two of you are going to pick up the electronic paper trail we followed in Dallas and see what you can pick up here. Brandon’s a whiz with computers so you’ll be well matched for the task. Finally, Probationary Agent Ziva David, I’d like you to meet Special Agent Joe Bishop. The two of you will take the leads we had on some cryptic indicators to an extremist mosque recruiting and training terrorists. You both speak the languages needed so you should be able to decipher the information now that we know what area we are looking in and can compare to the mosques here. Follow up with what you find.” Em looked around at the two teams standing around nearly facing off with each other still. “I meant now everyone. Get to work. I want a sit rep in an hour. If you’re out of the building, you are to call in every hour. We are dealing with highly dangerous terrorists. I should not need to remind anyone, my team especially that safety is of utmost importance. Watch your backs out there. If you think you’ve found something, call for back up, do not move in without proper back up. You’re no hero if you’re dead. Report anything you find directly back to me immediately. Now, seriously, meet your new partners and get to work.”
The two teams split up into pairs with the exception of McGee who came up to Lily as Brandon stood nearby, watching over her like a protective big brother. “Hi, I’m Tim. Let me show you down to Abby’s lab. It’s right this way.” He led her down the hallway and around toward the elevator, with Brandon following right behind. McGee couldn’t help but notice that the unusually outfitted analyst was cute despite the hair, makeup, and piercings. He thought she had a cute face and found her incredibly pale blue eyes captivating, stealing glances over at her as they made their way along to the lab. “So, how did you get into computers, Lily?”
“Well, I sort of got busted for hacking into the Pentagon when I was sixteen and instead of arresting me they paid for me to go to MIT to get my degree if I signed a contract to come work for them after graduating. I had already graduated high school a year earlier and was bored anyway so I figured, hey, what the hell,” she replied casually.
“You hacked the Pentagon at sixteen? Wow.” McGee was fascinated by this petite purple-haired hacker.
“Yep. Who knew it would earn me a free ride to get a doctorate in computer science at MIT of all things. And I only did it to see if I could because I was told it was the most secure system in the world, unhackable.” She laughed at that.
They entered the lab to find Abby still furiously typing at the keyboard with one hand and holding a giant Caf-Pow! to her lips with the other, the deafening scream of death metal blowing out of the stereo speakers.
“Abby!” McGee yelled over the noise.
She turned, grabbed the remote to shut off the music, and greeted them. “Hey, McGee. You brought me new playmates? Good thing, cause I’m getting bored down here all alone with nothing but encrypted computer code that has me about to bang my head against the wall.” She eyed the tiny little punk rock chick from head to toe. “Love your look. I’ve got a collar just like that. You’re hair is totally cute. Are you Lily, here to save me from the evils of this code?”
Lily smiled a warm friendly smiled, quickly returned by Abby. “I can tell we’re going to be great friends, Abby. You’re skirt is to die for. I’m so jealous of your pigtails. I just never have had the patience to grow my hair out.” She began pulling her laptop out of her bag and hooking it into Abby’s workstation, knowing exactly what she was doing. “Sorry to get right down to business, but Em doesn’t like time wasted. It’s her rule number one. Right, Brandon?” she asked the agent behind her without even turning around, already typing on her keyboard.
“Rule number one, time is never on your side during a case, don’t waste time,” he answered immediately. “Speaking of which, Agent McGee and I should back upstairs and get to work on our own assignment. We’ll leave you ladies to geek out.” He stepped over to Lily, leaning all the way down to her and gave her a hug. “Call if you need anything, Lil.”
“I’ll be fine, B,” she assured him as he made his way to the door, following McGee.
Abby being Abby was curious and just had to ask. “So are you dating Brandon?”
Lily giggled at that. “No, we’re just really good friends. We really hit it off when he joined the team six years ago, kind of like siblings. I always know I can turn to him, and he’s very protective of me.”
They discussed the computer code for a few minutes, Abby catching Lily up on what she had been doing, then dove right into it, making far more headway with it now that Lily was on the task. Feeling that things were going so smoothly, they began chatting.
“How did you meet Em?” Abby asked, just dying of curiosity.
“Well, I was sixteen and just started my freshmen year at MIT, she was seventeen and a junior at this really pretentious prep school, totally not the kind of place I’d ever step foot in. Anyway, she had been dating this guy, Ben for a long time, like they met when she was like ten. He was nineteen and a sophomore at MIT and the two of us had some classes together. We hit it off as friends and eventually he asked me if I wanted to meet his girlfriend, thought we’d like each other. Em was just so awesome. Nothing like any rich girl I’d ever met before in my life. Anyway, after she graduated high school, they got married and I was one of her bride’s maids. We’ve been like best friends ever since. When Em graduated from Harvard and took the job at the FBI and Ben and I both graduated from MIT and took software security jobs with the Pentagon, we all moved to D.C. together. They got a house and I got an apartment not far from them. It was really great until...” Lily’s face turned down, her voice had trailed off, and she looked away from Abby.
“What happened?” Abby asked quietly.
“I don’t know that Em would really want me to say anything, but if you promise not to say anything…” Abby nodded her head. “Well, first Em got pregnant and we were all happy. I was going to be the godmother. Delilah was born premature and she had a problem with her heart. She had to have surgery as soon as she was born, but she didn’t make it. Their baby girl died when she was only five days old.” Lily choked back tears. “But things only got worse after that. I mean, they were both devastated by the loss. Just when I thought they were recovering and Em was talking like they were going to try again, it was 2001 and the Pentagon was attacked by terrorists. Ben was killed in the 9/11 attack, Abby. He was working on some computers in an area of the building opposite from where our offices were. I didn’t even realize where he was when it happened. I didn’t know what to tell Em, just that I couldn’t find him anywhere. His death wasn’t confirmed until the next day. She just closed up after that and wouldn’t let anyone in. Em didn’t date anyone or even show the slightest hint of interest in any man until she met your boss, Abby. She wouldn’t tell me details, wanting to keep it private, but she talked about how he makes her feel, how he treats her, and I knew he was the one who would bring her back to life.”
Abby turned her attention to her screen, trying not to let Lily see the tears in her eyes. Gibbs and Em really did belong together. Only Em could understand the pain he felt from losing Shannon and Kelly. Together they could make each other whole again, mend the broken hearts they both hid away from the world. Abby was crying, but she was happy. Gibbs wasn’t lonely, no longer had to hurt all alone. Gibbs was finally loved the way he missed being loved. It was all Abby could possibly want for her friend.
The squad room was a flurry of fingers tapping on keyboards, voices talking over phones, discussions on findings, and the comings and goings of the multiple teams of agents following up on their leads. Gibbs and Em had spent the majority of the day locked behind the closed doors of MTAC following leads beyond the clearance level of the rest of Gibbs’ team.
Finally, Abby and Lily came running into the squad room just as Gibbs and Em descended the stairs from MTAC. All the agents were gathered, things had finally come together. All the puzzle pieces were there and they had the picture they needed.
Em was in full ‘boss’ mode now preparing to raid the locations they had determined the terrorists to be. “All right, we’re going to have to split up into two teams and coordinate our entry times. We can’t give them the opportunity to tip off each other. We don’t know exactly how many of them there will be at each location but from all intel it looks like the cell consists of Halawani and about six or seven followers. If we’re lucky they’ll be relatively evenly split between the two locations.” She looked around the room, making sure everyone was following her to this point. “Okay, Danny, Tony, Brandon, and Tim are all taking the safe house. Danny, you’ve got point. Jethro, Ziva, Joe, and I will take the mosque. We all use TCIU ear pieces, we carry enough for a team of twelve so there’s plenty. These have the signal strength to carry over the five mile distance between the house and the mosque so we can all stay in contact. Brandon will get each one of you one and familiarize you with them.”
As Brandon opened up the case and began fitting the NCIS team members with ear pieces and explaining their features, Em took two out of the case, placing one in her own ear and walking over to Gibbs with the other one. “Here, see the little button here, after you place it in your ear, you press and hold it till you hear a beep to turn it on. When you want to speak to the others you simply reach up and tap the button and the embedded microphone will pick up your voice. Tap it a second time to turn the microphone back off. It’s very simple.”
Gibbs took the tiny device in is big hands and turned it over, examining it. “And this little thing will actually carry over five miles?”
“Technically it will carry over twenty-five, but we only need it over five today,” she replied.
Soon they were geared up, ear pieces in, Kevlar vests on, side arms checked, back up weapons secured, extra ammunition obtained for all parties. Abby and Lily stood in the squad room giving hugs and good luck wishes to their respective teams, both wondering how they were ever going to get through them all being gone in such a dangerous situation. Neither of them liked watch their adopted families walk away, knowing that any one of them might not make it back. Abby decided to introduce Lily to Ducky while they waited and have a nice cup of tea with him. That helped her and she thought Ducky would find Lily interesting and vice versa.
Once at the mosque, Em had them separate. Joe and Ziva were to take the back entrance she and Jethro would take the front. It was not prayer time so she knew the building should be fairly empty and hoped there would not be any innocent bystanders. She did not believe in ‘collateral damage’.
“Com check. Everyone hear me?” Em queried via the earpiece.
Following her protocols given just before they had headed out, each member of the joint team indicated their com presence by name and ‘affirmative’. It was Em’s SOP and her team knew it by heart. The NCIS team was beginning to think she was just as tough a boss as Gibbs in some ways only friendlier and they had yet to see her head slap any of her team, although she had given them a few glaring looks that reminded them distinctly of their own boss.
Gibbs found that from a professional standpoint, he was quite impressed with Em. She was a very capable leader, tough, and motivating, taking her job very seriously, never wasting any time. She hadn’t spent any time during the day flirting around or being otherwise distracted by their personal relationship. She was absolutely all business, determined, and fully focused. He was surprised that unlike other situations he had been in, he didn’t mind her taking the lead and taking orders from her. He trusted her and her instincts. Now the results were showing, they had gone from no ideas where they were headed this morning to preparing to raid two locations simultaneously, which they had evidence to uphold that they housed the terrorists and likely the weapons they were looking for. He felt proud of Em, proud that in some way, she belonged to him.
Em was at the ready. “Okay, everybody. On my mark. One, two, three.”
With that they threw open the front doors to the mosque, both yelling out, “Federal Agents!”
Over the ear pieces could be heard yelling in Arabic and gun shots, just as was taking place in the mosque itself. It seemed everyone was taking heavy fire. Gibbs took out two of the armed men but spotted three more.
Everything happened so fast. It was all a blur. Ziva and Joe had entered through the rear, Ziva taking out the last man as Em had already shot the other two. Unexpectedly, two consecutive shots rang out reverberating off the walls of the mosque. Gibbs looked up to a balcony to see a man with a high-powered rifle, took aim, and fired upon the terrorist taking a sniper position.
Just as he heard Danny reporting in that they had secured the house, located the weapons, and had Halawani in custody, Gibbs realized that Em hadn’t responded to anyone for the last few minutes of the fire fight during which she had been in nonstop contact with everyone.
He looked over in the direction she had taken cover in, but didn’t see her. She should have come out by now, it’s over. He immediately grew worried and ran over searching for her yelling out for her. “Em! Em! Where are you? Em!” Finding her lying on the floor, motionless, he became frantic. “Ziva, call for an ambulance. Em’s been hit. She’s not moving,” he yelled out.
“Right away, Gibbs,” she replied, running up behind him with her cell phone to her ear, already having dialed 911. She turned away as she began speaking to the operator to give the address and information.
Joe came running up to Gibbs. “How bad? Is she breathing? Where’s she hit?”
Gibbs was near panic and irritated by the questions. “I don’t know yet. She’s wedged in here and it’s too dark in here for me to see clearly. Help me get her out.”
Em had created herself a cover from the gunfire between a partially opened door and a desk she had overturned. However the desk chair, a large lamp, and a small table next to it had fallen around her as well. Gibbs was throwing things out of the way as quickly as possible to clear out a path to carry her out to a well-lit area and assess her injuries.
They had things cleared out and Gibbs was about to reach in to pick her up when Joe commented, “Her arm looks bloody to me and that looks like blood on her head there.”
That was the last thing Gibbs needed to hear. Em had been shot in the head. Visions of Kate popped into his head.
He picked her up into his arms and could feel her breath against his neck as he held her near. “She’s breathing, Joe. Let’s get her in some light, lay her down, and get this vest off.”
They found a good spot and Gibbs set her down, taking off the Kevlar vest before laying her head on the floor, noticing six bullets lodged into her vest. Free of the burdening vest she was able to breathe more deeply and soon opened her eyes just as they heard the siren of an ambulance arriving.
“I hope you didn’t call that for me, Jethro,” she said, smiling up at him.
“You’re bleeding, both your head and your arm. I think you need to be checked out. It would make me feel much better,” he replied softly, stroking her hair on the opposite side from the blood, not wanting to hurt her.
She laughed. “I’ll bet anything I just got grazed on the head. Happens to me fairly often, ask Joe. I have weird luck like that. Besides having a hell of a time washing blood out of my hair and a killer headache, I’ll be fine. My arm does hurt pretty bad though.” She lifted it up to inspect it and could see a small bullet hole in the outer edge of the flesh of her upper arm. “Looks like a through and through missing the bone. Wrap it up and I’ll heal up in no time.”
“Em, you were unconscious, I really think it’s more serious than you’re taking it,” he insisted.
“Jethro, I got hit in the chest six times and couldn’t catch my breath and I just passed out. Calm down.” She reached up with her uninjured arm and grabbed his shoulder, using it to help pull herself up to sit as the paramedics came in.
Gibbs made room for them to do their job and stepped off to the side with Ziva and Joe, still wearing a worried look on his face, unconvinced she was really as okay as she insisted.
Joe patted him on the shoulder. “Get used to it. She’s always like this. If one of us gets hurt, she mothers us to death, but if anything happens to her she laughs it off, refuses to go to the hospital or we have to drag her nearly with brute force. Then no matter what the doctors tell her she’s back at the office the next day at least catching up on paperwork even if she can’t do anything else. She’s impossible. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
At first, he said nothing, he just watched as the woman he loved so deeply sat arguing with the paramedics, insisting all her arm needed was a simple bandage and that she did not need to go to the hospital, but finally Gibbs turned to Joe and calmly replied, “I’ll consider myself warned, but I think I’ll take my chances. At this point, I can’t imagine life without her, impossible or not.” With that, he simply walked out following the stretcher Em was now laying on, still declaring the hospital was unnecessary, and he smiled.
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