Reading Time: 135 Minutes

Title: A Greater Sacrifice
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Eureka – minor crossover
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Episode Related, Fantasy, Kid!fic, Paranormal/Supernatural, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairings
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Discussion of suicidality, suicide missions, canonical level of violence
Word Count: 200,260
Summary: When Anthony DiNozzo is told by Director Vance that he must take one for the team, following the death of Mossad Officer Michael Rivkin, never did he imagine that the cost would prove so high. After a year filled with taking one for the team, Tony decides that he is not going to Tel Aviv, until he is blackmailed into going along by opportunistic politicians who see a chance to change the balance of power. Forced onto the plane taking Rivkin’s body home, an injured Tony isn’t sure that he will make it out alive or if there is anything left for him to come home to.
Artist: Lailath Quetzalli

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Chapter 21

As Tom left his office at 1650 to drive back to the Department of Defense at the Pentagon and finish the abruptly aborted conference between himself and the Secretary of Defense, he briefly reviewed what occurred, causing Robert Bose to call a time-out. After years spent around Gibbs at NCIS, where anger was the agent’s default setting, he thought he’d become unaffected by displays of anger. After all, Jethro’s rages were always pretty spectacular when something on a case went wrong. Then there were the cases that triggered him – a dead Marine; a Marine who was corrupt; a victim who was a Marine spouse or child; anything that related to Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Shannon’s birthday, Kelly’s birthday, his and Shannon’s anniversary; or other situations that he found challenging. The problem was that one tended to become desensitised to it and see it as normal.

Well, it turned out that Tom was wrong…dead wrong. Robert’s visceral anger and valiant efforts to subjugate his rage had been far scarier than any temper tantrum that Gibbs had ever thrown.

Despite Robert’s anger after listening to possible reasons why Special Agent DiNozzo had decided to Officer David’s apartment alone to confront his teammate who also happened to be a Mossad-trained assassin, it wasn’t what had tipped him over the edge, however. It was Tom’s admission of an unspoken but accepted truth from NCIS management that while DiNozzo was a brilliant investigator and one of the best undercover operatives ever, a significant raison d’etre for him being on the team after so long as his 2IC was his role as ‘The Gibbs’ Whisperer’ that caused SECDEF to lose it. That candid admission caused Robert Joyner Bose to careen past angry into a rage so terrible he fought gallantly to bring himself back under control and had so thoroughly shaken Tom.

It wasn’t that Robert had a temper that he obviously did his utmost to keep under control that shocked Morrow so much. It wasn’t even his iron self-control he struggled to impose on himself, so as NOT to inflict his fury on a colleague and underling. What shook Tom to the core was the contrast between the character of the two individuals, which couldn’t have been made starker. Morrow saw Jethro who wore his status as a member of the USMC so proudly, insisting that Marines held themselves to a higher standard of behaviour. It suddenly occurred to Morrow that while Marines may indeed do so, Gibbs failed, time and again, to hold himself to those higher standards.

Jethro repeatedly vented his misplaced rage and frustration at the injustices that he felt like fate had dealt him, inflicting it on his team, on the rest of the personnel, at NCIS, and at the world at large and expected them all to wear it without complaint. The former gunny created a toxic workplace and desensitised everyone to his abusive temper tantrums, but when an outsider, such as the cops or agents from other agencies, dared to lodge a formal complaint against him, it wasn’t treated with the respect that it deserved. Instead, the complainant was seen as whiney or weak – after all, it was just the way Gibbs was. If the rest of NCIS, subject to his ‘delightful’ personality daily, could ignore his behaviour because he was just being ‘Gibbs’, then the complainant was dismissed as a lightweight and therefore not credible.

It was a very unpleasant wake-up call to realise that his inertia and desensitisation of how the senior supervisory agent behaved took place, too. Then, before he knew it, Tom had begun regurgitating the whole ‘it’s just Gibbs, but you have to admire his results, schtick’ when he was the NCIS director. Yet, it was the antithesis of Marine Corps values the former gunny claimed to espouse. As a result, Tom had contributed to the whole bullshit notion that Anthony DiNozzo needed to be the dike trying to hold back the raging sea named Leroy Jethro Gibbs that constantly threatened to engulf everyone. He doubted that if Tony was 2IC for any other team leader (or leading his own team as he was more than qualified to do), he would have decided to question Ziva David without backup.

Robert was right to be furious with him.

After returning to DHS with his tail firmly between his legs, a very chastened Deputy Director Morrow requested all of the reports from ICE on the protection detail at SECNAVs. That included their mission specs, the subsequent investigation into security being breached and Tom Sherman’s death. He’d gone straight to the Director of ICE and delivered a warning that DHS was reviewing the case, and that information was not to be shared. Morrow was not interested in a review of the mission, he was only concerned with Special Agent Julia Foster-Yates’ conduct during the NCIS-led investigation, but like all things at this time, he needed to cover his tracks.

Tom hoped to figure out what Tony’s cryptic comments meant concerning Abby Sciuto being threatened by Forster-Yates and McGee’s role in the incident. Unfortunately, after reading Julia’s mission report, he was none the wiser and the SAC, who was her supervisor, had done little if anything to fill in the blanks.

Ignoring Forster-Yates’ rather gushing praise for Agent Timothy McGee, for helping vindicate her strategy for the protection detail after Gibbs and Fornell accused her of murdering Agent Sherman because of their mutual professional rivalry, there was nothing of note. Though he did observe her effusive praise didn’t match the rest of the report, it seemed inappropriate for inclusion in an official report, and he wondered if they’d slept together. Morrow was disappointed to find nothing but far from surprised – if Agent Foster-Yates had threatened Abby as Tony believed, then she would be stupid to incriminate herself.

But he did find something that, after the scene in SECDEF’s office a short time ago, made him step back and take an even harder look at himself. Forster-Yates had complained to her supervisor, SAC Jim Travers, that SECNAV had handed the investigation into Sherman’s death to NCIS, with Fornell as backup when the FBI should have been the lead agency, since they had jurisdiction. Tom agreed it was their purview to investigate attacks on federal agents although since they were taking part in the questionable summit, he might argue that it should have been DHS’s jurisdiction.

According to Forster-Yates, Davenport had told them all that it was his house, his rules and then, to add insult to injury, he ordered the directors of ICE and the CIA to go home, which had, of course, ruffled plenty of feathers. Frankly, when had they started routinely letting victims of home invasions where their security personnel had been killed, decide which armed federal agency would investigate the matter?

They didn’t, of course! And with good reason: they were traumatised by the attack, they were attempting to control the narrative, the victims were involved in the attack in some way, or they had something to hide.

And you didn’t need three guesses to pick which explanation applied to SECNAV. He was using his position… no, he was abusing it (because in terms of power, SECNAV trumped directors of federal agencies), to control the narrative, and Davenport knew he had a better chance of that happening if his own agency was running the show. He could easily dictate the terms of the investigation, courtesy of the fact that Leon Tyler Owens Vance would obey his orders without protest because he was pathologically ambitious (and had a dirty little secret). The current director would never threaten to or actually follow through on a threat to resign in principle – Owens-Vance was far too much of a narcissist to put himself on the line like that, and with the identity fraud he had perpetrated, he couldn’t afford to be principled even if he wanted to be. Davenport owned him, body and soul!

With the benefit of 20/20 vision, Tom felt there was a good chance that Davenport already had a damn good idea who might have been spying on them. If that were so, the last thing he’d want was for it to be made public to the CIA, ICE and FBI that Eli David’s minion was spying on the intelligence conference. It would cause the Mossad director a great deal of embarrassment if it was widely known that he had sent someone to spy on US allies and that the spy killed a US federal agent, even if it had not been intended. Bottom line, Officer Rivkin was trespassing on private property, he’d already been warned by SAC Macy and SSA Gibbs that there was a FISA warrant mandating he leave the US immediately, and he blew off their directives, flatly refused to leave the country.

However, the FBI Director Hutchens and Agent Fornell had seen fit to accept Davenport’s decree about who would be involved in the investigation of Tom Sherman’s death. Consequently, the other agencies didn’t have a choice but to follow their lead, inexplicable as Agent Hutchen’s submission was in the face of his clear jurisdiction. Really, what the hell had Hutch been thinking, rolling over and showing belly like that? Tom concluded, frustrated.

It also didn’t escape his notice that apart from NCIS not being present at their little pow-pow, DHS had also been excluded even if ICE got a place at the table, but DHS was the big brother to ICE and should have been there. If they had been, Tom’s boss would have demanded a joint investigation between the FBI and DHS and not backed down and he wondered why the exclusion.

His combing through the reports on the ‘poker game’ had uncovered an interesting fact. Julia Forster-Yates was not an official part of the joint investigation, as Morrow first assumed. He thought she had been a token agent, like T.C. Fornell to keep their directors happy during the investigation into Sherman’s death. However, Foster-Yates was not there as an investigator, her role was a witness/suspect who had been assisting the MCRT and Fornell with its inquiries. She complained about that to her boss, and he told her, that technically, only the FBI had jurisdiction. If they weren’t making a formal complaint…and they weren’t for some reason, then she’d have to suck it up – his hands were effectively tied. Plus, he ordered her to cooperate fully with the investigation.

Effectively, that meant that Julia Foster Yates, in destroying the listening device found by NCIS, when they were processing the crime scene, was not authorised to do it. She was not an official part of the investigation, and Morrow was livid when he realised that!

It had been embarrassing enough for her to have destroyed evidence but, Tom assumed that she made the dumbass call as part of the investigative team. But to be there as a witness and destroy evidence was beyond excusable – every probie knew that destroying evidence through carelessness, was serious enough to get them booted. When he was able to, Morrow vowed he was going to have her badge for that dick move – she should have known better!

While Forster-Yates didn’t even see fit to include it in her report (Tom learnt about the destruction of the bug from the copies of the reports he procured of Ducky, DiNozzo, Fornell and Ziva David), and that alone meant her career was done. She couldn’t claim that she hadn’t known she wasn’t an official part of the investigation since she complained to SAC Travers already and he had documented it. Cross-referencing the reports of the conversation Gibbs and Fornell had with SECNAV, Tom was aware Forster-Yates was in the room when the jurisdictional issues took place and heard Davenport decree that the investigation was NCIS and FBI. He told the directors of the CIA and ICE to go home, so she had no leg to stand on when she deliberately stomped on the listening device. Not only would she lose her job as an ICE agent, but he would make sure she never worked for any federal agency again. The damn woman was a menace!

Forster-Yates, while failing to document the fiasco with the wilful destruction of evidence, made a verbal complaint (a rather bitter one) to her boss that Officer David and Agent DiNozzo had pulled a pincer movement on her in the NCIS elevator. They obviously picked up on subtle cues that she was holding back information about the true reason for the ‘poker game’. After her stunt with the listening device, who could blame them for being suspicious? According to her (whiney) report, they practically forced her to confess that the poker was just a ruse so that the heads of the agencies could discuss classified data together in a more relaxed environment. She’d claimed she had failed to inform them because she’d been ordered not to discuss that.

Unsurprisingly, DiNozzo and David notified Gibbs of what they learnt from her, and he’d come storming into the bullpen in a rage. Jethro had screamed at Forster-Yates for withholding crucial evidence in a murder investigation, utterly unmoved by her justification that she was ordered not to say anything. When she’d tried to defend herself further by telling Gibbs that she didn’t answer to him, the NCIS agent who, despite ignoring the chain of command on his own team (on the regular) and the agency (when it suited his purposes), the situation then deteriorated rapidly. Gibbs had immediately taken her remark as a direct challenge to his authority, his manhood and his status as the Alpha male and apex predator in the room. The resultant fallout had been predictable for anyone who knew him or knew of his reputation!

According to what Forster-Yates reported to her boss, he’d become aggressive, getting all up in her face and physically screaming at her like a demented drill sergeant or a rapid pit bull getting ready to rip out her jugular, “YES YOU DO! YES YOU DO!”

Even worse, he did it right in the middle of the MCRT bullpen, where Gibbs’ team, plus, Tobias Fornell were all witnesses to, what amounted to verbal battery. You could probably make the case if you wanted to, that Gibbs had committed a misdemeanour simple assault of a federal agent, which carried with it penalties of up to a year in jail and a one hundred grand fine. Given that the MCRT shared an open bullpen with any number of other agents, who really knew how many people were present to bear witness to her humiliation.

Morrow felt a wave of nausea. What a Charlie Foxtrot!

Forster-Yates had reported to her boss after the verbal assault occurred, as Gibbs then proceeded to call into question her competency, claiming her security plan was flawed, purely on the basis that Agent Sherman was dead. Tom was frankly appalled by Gibbs’ behaviour – he had stepped way over the line, intimidating the ICE agent (a witness) and making unfounded accusations in public, but it was not all that surprising. The leader of the MCRT’s ability to be outraged was legendary!

This seemed to be the most likely catalyst for Agent McGee to step into the role of White Knight to Forster-Yates’ obvious damsel in distress, springing to her defence. He interrupted Gibbs’ tirade regarding her competency, offering to build a computer simulation of Forster-Yates protection plan so they could assess it for security flaws. Morrow could see that McGee’s defence was likely a case of monkey see, monkey do, having witnessed DiNozzo’s technique of deflecting Gibbs when he was in full-blown pit bull attack mode because, as the good lord knew, Tony used the technique often enough to save McGee’s ass. That said, what was less impressive was the poor judgment call McGee made next.

Piecing together what followed, the Deputy Director of Homeland created a timeline of sorts. Forster-Yates, who was no doubt still shaken by Gibbs’ humiliating assault on her, had verbally informed her own superior of what had occurred. In reading between the lines of Jim Travis’ report, Morrow pieced together that Travis told her he couldn’t do anything about it. He probably told her to suck it up or some equally unhelpful variation on a theme that amounted to pulling up her big girl panties and getting on with it. Since that sort of behaviour would not be tolerated at ICE, she would have been emotionally bruised and very pissed off, based on her psych evals and personality test results. Forster-Yates also possessed an alpha personality, just not on the same level as Gibbs.

Agent McGee then made a massive error in judgment, particularly knowing Abby Sciuto as he did. Hell, even the lowly janitorial services staff knew how passionate she was about her work and, McGee had been in a relationship with her some years ago. Despite being four years since he was her boss, Tom was sure Dr Sciuto would not have been in the mood to share her workspace with the individual who had destroyed the evidence she was now working on, who had created hours of  potentially needless work for Abby to reassemble it. Even under the best circumstances, the forensic scientist was extremely territorial about letting people work in her lab.

McGee had to know that about her, even if he knew nothing else. A trained investigator could hardly have failed to notice that Forster-Yates was fuming after Gibbs humiliated her in front of a bunch of NCIS agents.

It was human nature to respond to having one’s competency called into question, by going into attack mode. Take a humiliated and angry agent from a different agency down to Sciuto’s lab to work underfoot. Add in Dr Sciuto, trying to repair the crucial evidence of that same agent’s arrogant and defiant dick-measuring act of defiance between her and the other agents, investigating an agent’s death that happened on her watch.

What could possibly go wrong in that scenario?

According to DiNozzo’s cryptic note left on his phone – something pretty monumental!

What was apparent to Tom was that the stimulus was most likely caused by Agent McGee’s poor interpersonal skills. Given a chance to retaliate against a forensic scientist who Forster-Yates probably judged as powerless, someone far beneath her professionally, she’d probably seen Dr Sciuto as someone she could take out her frustrations on. It was understandable but not excusable, Morrow mused angrily.

Nor was the fact, if Tom was reading the situation correctly, that McGee, after five years on the MCRT, had failed to anticipate such a likely outcome. If true, it said much about his lack of people skills that he’d inadvertently caused a confrontation between the two women that could easily have been avoided. Unless Tom suddenly realised with sick dread, Agent McGee did anticipate it, and it had been his intention all along to rile up Abby and cause a confrontation between the forensic scientist and Forster-Yates.

‘But why would he do that?’ Morrow asked himself.

What possible reason would he have to want that? Perhaps he wanted to feed his own feelings of inferiority. Maybe he hadn’t just been picking up tricks like deflection and protectiveness from DiNozzo, by dragging Forster-Yates down to Abby’s lab. Maybe he’d also learnt how to carry out cruel mind fucks – Ziva David and Jethro Gibbs were both masters of the art form, having had Psy Ops training. Looking at the agent’s psych profile, Morrow had concluded that McGee possessed a mildly neurotic introversion combined with a highly sensitive ego, and Tom in the year McGee worked for Gibbs on the MCRT, while he was director had noted that he shared certain passive-aggressive traits with his boss.

Unfortunately, studying the ICE agent’s reports had failed to find any hint of the actual nature of the threat to Dr Sciuto that prompted DiNozzo’s concerns. However, Morrow’s failure to discover what happened in Sciuto’s lab had not been a waste of his time. If nothing else, it highlighted Gibbs’ abusive temper tantrum, directed toward Forster-Yates, which was a study in contrasts between the out-of-control toxicity of Gibbs and that of the furious Robert Bose, Secretary of Defence and how it affected other people. SECDEF had terminated their briefing session when he felt unable to continue without inflicting his anger on another individual, even if said individual deserved the censure for his failures in the past.

Tom already felt thoroughly ashamed that he had contributed to DiNozzo’s belief he needed to be Gibbs’ flak jacket, not only to protect his boss from himself; he needed to protect others exposed to Gibbs’ outrageous anger too. How had Tom let the gifted agent believe one of his values as an agent was to fall on the Grenade-Gibbs when he exploded to protect others in the nearby vicinity from suffering from shrapnel damage. How did it come to pass that he let Tony believe if he got messed up in the process of protecting Gibbs’ or others from the fallout, which is exactly what had happened with Ziva and Rivkin, it was acceptable because that was his raison d’etre for being on the team. It was unfortunate, but better him than anyone else because he could take it. Right?

What a terrible burden to place on the young agent’s shoulders by a bunch of gutless superiors who let the problem with Gibbs’ attitude and behaviour fester as they turned a blind eye to it, expecting Tony to contain him. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so. The most notable being, the time he had saved Gibbs’ life when he went off half-cocked and ended up with his daughter’s friend trapped in a submerged car in the Anacostia River, although that was spur-of-the-moment instinctive behaviour. He’d run into a burning building as a civilian, a college student, to save a child’s life and, unfortunately not been able to save another. Several NCIS psychologists theorised it was why he was so protective of his teammates and civilians, to the point that people often accused him of having a death wish.

No, Tony had consciously fallen on his sword, deliberately sacrificing his career and a chance to become so much more than ‘The Gibbs Whisperer’ two years ago. After Director Shepard persuaded Gibbs to return to NCIS after the hot head resigned in the wake of the Cape Fear debacle, she’d offered DiNozzo a team of his own. A plum position at Rota, Spain, was often seen as being a fast track to the position of Director that said that she regarded DiNozzo as a contender for higher office. Tony refused the promotion because he told her he had major concerns about Gibbs’ memory – that he was showing memory lapses and couldn’t leave the others. The tragedy of the situation was that had Shepard understood that Tony had been conditioned to view his self-worth through the prism of being Gibbs’ minder, she might not have accepted his refusal so easily. If she had persuaded him to take the job, he would never have been put in the situation of going up against an alcoholic Kidon operative, trying to save Ziva David and Jethro Gibbs, who weren’t worthy of his loyalty.

Arriving at the Pentagon, the deputy director went through the rigmarole of submitting to the stringent security protocols, proving his identity for the second time that day; he felt a touch of nerves, given the way the meeting had been terminated. When Tom was escorted into Robert’s office, he found a cup of freshly brewed coffee awaiting him and a sheepish-looking Bose sitting at his desk.

“My apologies for making you return again, Tom,” he said quietly. “I regret my display of temper – I should have better control.”

And Morrow was struck once more by the contrast between Bose and Gibbs. Jethro would never apologise, not even if he was wrong, which happened a lot more than people think, but that wasn’t the only reason he wouldn’t express remorse. In Morrow’s estimation, after working with Gibbs for years, the man never saw his fits of extreme temper as anything that needed apologising for. He didn’t think he’d done anything that required regret, even if he hadn’t long ago convinced himself that apologies were a sign of weakness.

“Just for the sake of clarity, I’m not apologising to you because I got angry,” Robert spoke carefully. “I believe my anger was justified. When superiors decide to abrogate their responsibility onto someone whose job doesn’t equip them to deal with it, I think that is reason enough to be angry. What I am sorry for is my loss of control – I’ve been warned that my rage can feel visceral and intimidating.”

Tom felt ashamed. “No need for apologies, I can understand why you were so angry. Believe me, I wish I did a lot of things differently back when I was the NCIS Director. At the time, I’d found that creative measures needed to be undertaken to achieve desired outcomes, but really, that is no excuse. I should have never put such an impossible burden on a young agent’s shoulders,” he admitted remorsefully.

Robert regarded Tom, his grey-blue eyes coolly appraising.

He nodded, acknowledging Morrow’s genuine remorse. “So, here’s my thoughts on the matter for future reference,” he said with steely determination as Tom sat at the conference table.

“I don’t care who it is or how good of an agent the individual may be.”

Tom nodded silently.

“I don’t care whether they were an outstanding soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine, with a fuckton of chest candy to show for it.”

Of course, Robert would not be intimidated by medals.

“I don’t care about how many goddamned favours they’ve collected over the years or their knowledge of dirty secrets of people who are in positions of power.”

Didn’t need two guesses to know who SECDEF was referring to.

“If that individual is so damned toxic towards the people who serve under them in the command structure, be it military or a quasi-military organisation like Army CID, AFOSI or NCIS, they are not worth sacrificing other people’s welfare for. If they need a fucking minder to not only protect their fragile egos but to protect others from their toxic nature just so they function in the command structure, then they have no business being employed by us. If we choose to employ them, regardless of the harm they inflict while doing the job they’re being paid to do, then we have no business being in command.” he said bluntly.

Tom took a deep breath and didn’t try to make excuses. He simply bowed his head in acquiescence because Robert Bose was right and replied contritely, “Understood, Mr Secretary.”

“Good! Now let’s finish our briefing.”

Tom proceeded to explain what he’d discovered about ICE Agent Forster-Yates’ boneheaded move in destroying the listening device at the scene of the crime on SECNAV’s patio. He explained about the painstaking job that Dr Sciuto had to reassemble it so she could then locate who had been listening to the bug, the Secretary had become visibly disturbed.

“Do we know if Agent Forster-Yates has any known ties to Mossad, specifically to Eli David, or to Rivkin?”

Okay, so Morrow had definitely seen that question coming. “No, not that I’m aware of. Why do you ask?”

“Because her actions directly were responsible for Rivkin being able to set up Abin Tabal for the breach of security at Davenport’s and the death of Agent Sherman. If Sciuto examined the listening device immediately instead of having to repair it, which took hours, and I’m surmising that would have received prioritised as the most crucial piece of evidence, what would have been the likeliest outcome?”

“She would have traced it back to Rivkin,” Tom said, understanding what Robert was getting at.

“I agree. Given that the ME placed Abin Tabal’s time of death as being a few hours at most before he was found by the investigative team, Rivkin would not have been able to kill Tabal and make it look like a suicide if the bug hadn’t been destroyed by someone who had no business touching it,” the Secretary stated simply.

Tom cursed under his breath. “Rivkin wouldn’t have been able to swap his laptop with Tabal’s.”

“And Director Owens Vance would not have been able to declare the case closed and blame it all on the terrorist. Forster-Yates wilfully destroyed evidence that a casual viewer of TV crime scene procedurals would have known you don’t destroy,” Bose pointed out furiously.

“Abby wouldn’t have found Ziva David’s address on the laptop, and DiNozzo wouldn’t have gone to confront her by himself and run into Rivkin instead, who no doubt thought he got off scot-free after taking care of Tabal,” Tom finished the what-if scenario in a strangled voice. “I’ve already run through a similar scenario, Robert, but I just never factored in the possibility that Agent Forster-Yates might have conspired with Rivkin.”

“Didn’t he seduce the sister of one of the cell members in LA while he was sleeping with Officer David? Maybe he seduced Forster-Yates too.”

“She could have been part of Eli David’s kompromat files, and he was blackmailing her?” Morrow finished frowning at the possibility because destroying the listening bug was criminally inexcusable. Why hadn’t he thought about her the evidence intentionally occurred to him?

“When we are free to investigate without tipping our hands to Davenport, Owens Vance, and the Davids, I will launch a full investigation into Forster-Yates. I’ve got Agent DiNozzo’s cryptic note about her threatening Dr Sciuto that I intend to get to the bottom of, too,” Morrow vowed, seething with repressed anger.

“Okay, I’ve been thinking about all of the difficulties we are encountering trying to do this on the down low, Tom. It seems to me that sooner or later, someone may slip up, and they’ll catch wind of it. I’ve come up with a plan, though, to take care of that risk. The way I see it, we either stop investigating until the Israelis are ready to move on Director David and, who knows how long that might be?” Bose said

“Yeah, I’m not in favour of that plan,” Tom said immediately before the Secretary of Defense could continue. “I get this way carries a certain risk, but doing nothing feels wrong. What if it takes them months to remove David?”

“Oh, I agree, which is why I think I might have come up with the answer. We launch an official investigation into how and why Agent DiNozzo came to kill Michael Rivkin, starting at the beginning and particularly looking at how the case had been closed, because NCIS wrongly ruled Tabal’s murder a suicide, based on the swapped laptop that belonged to either Michael Rivkin or Ziva David. As Secretary of Defense, I will declare that I want to avoid such a similar situation occurring again since it caused a major international incident between our two countries.”

Tom was mulling over the pros and cons of the plan in his head. “Who were you thinking of to investigate. Internal Affairs?”

“Nope. I talked to the Attorney General Elaine Woods. Since NCIS straddles both the Department of Defence and the auspices of the Department of Justice and bearing in mind the FBI were part of the joint task force, it makes better sense for the Attorney General’s IG Office to investigate. Elaine says they have a Rottweiler of an investigator named Richard Parsons, and we can toss the matter into his lap because he won’t let it go.”

Tom regarded the Secretary of Defense with equal measures of admiration and apprehension. It was a brilliant strategy – attack them on a legitimate matter and let SECNAV and Owens Vance freak out about what had been an absolutely FUBAR security conference, death of an agent and sub-par investigation, while it left Tom and his cohorts free to investigate the other issues and not worry if they unintentionally attracted attention. It would be falsely attributed to the IG’s probe.

“I think it is brilliant, Mr Secretary,” he said admiringly. “It gives us a lot more freedom to ask questions, he said in relief. Owens-Vance will be shitting himself, and Davenport will think it is a procedural review and has nothing to do with him.”

“Well, except for the fact he overruled jurisdiction. Parsons will want to know why Davenport thought he had the authority to make that call,” he said. “Technically, since he was involved, he should have tossed the jurisdictional matter to Elaine or me. We’ll make sure Parsons asks him that, too,” he said with an evil gleam in his grey eyes.

Tom said, “You are a true evil genius, Robert. It’s the sort of prank that Agent DiNozzo would appreciate. To deflect by attacking them out in the open with something legitimate so they aren’t suspicious, then sneak around behind their backs, tightening the noose,” he said wistfully.

“I went through Agent DiNozzo’s file after our briefing was…interrupted. He was damned fine agent who got a raw deal.” Bose said contemplatively. “This bullshit with Rivkin and Ziva David wasn’t the only time he sacrificed his career for Gibbs. He turned down a team of his own in Rota three years ago because he had concerns about Gibbs’ fitness to lead after being blown up and in a coma. Seeing Director Shepard never made Agent Gibbs complete a mandatory psychological evaluation, I’d say his concerns were justified. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened to the MCRT had he accepted the position in Spain.”

Morrow thought about the improbable save that DiNozzo had pulled off the year after he turned down the promotion, and pulled Gibbs and a former Marine’s daughter out of the Potomac. He had no doubt that Gibbs and the girl (his dead daughter’s best friend) would have died.

“He’s risked his own life to save everyone on his team,” the Secretary of Defense stated respectfully. Agents Todd and McGee would have died from that car bomb, Gibbs and the family friend would have drowned, and Officer David would have been killed, ironically given her training, by assassins for hire in an undercover mission. He even saved Dr Sciuto from Ari Haswari sniping her. All of them would be dead if he hadn’t put his own life on the line to save them.”

“He is courageous. Tony ran into a burning building in Baltimore to save two kids. He managed to get the older brother out, but not the younger sister.”

“Was this when he was a cop? It’s not in his NCIS file?” Bose noted.

“No, he was still in college when it happened.”

Bose was silent as he thought about the conversation before finally stating. “Agent DiNozzo’s analysis of the whole Domino debacle was incredibly insightful. Davenport and Director Owens Vance must be prosecuted for negligence for their failure to alert the Pentagon for five months about the breach. It would have taken hours to figure out what Vargas downloaded – I can’t believe that Eli David would be too impressed when his daughter informed him.”

“It might have even been why he sent Michael Rivkin to take out Tabal’s terror cell in Los Angeles because he didn’t trust them,” Morrow shrugged. Their handling of the intel breach was a despicable act of putting their own careers ahead of the security of the US and its allies. They had no way of knowing that it was Domino that had been downloaded, but that’s the whole point, isn’t it, they had no way of knowing. They were too damned worried that they’d lose their jobs to observe their sworn oaths of office,” he said scathingly.

Robert Bose nodded. “Agreed. As soon as we are free to act, they will be answering a lot of hard questions, but in the meantime, I’m finding it hard to let go of how much responsibility the people who should have known better – who did know better but chose self over their country – have let Agent DiNozzo down,” he said sternly. “Director Shepard used him for her own personal vendetta, and he was nearly killed by the CIA even though he had no idea that his mission was unsanctioned. Why the hell they never reached out to someone like me to warn him off,” Morrow spluttered angrily.

“Or me,” Bose interspersed, also pissed.

“She used him, and when she realised he was getting emotionally involved instead of pulling him out like a competent handler would have done, she encouraged him to get further involved because she knew that it would bring La Grenouille to DC to check on his daughter’s lover.”

“How did he handle learning he’d fathered Jeanne Benoit’s baby?” the Secretary asked.

“Considering it was minutes before the Israeli doctor Dr Deitsch administered the protocol that faked his death, and he knew how risky it was because of his lungs? Not well. Perhaps it was wrong of me to tell him, but I thought if he needed something to fight for, I should inform him,” Tom said heavily, still second-guessing his decision.

“And if he didn’t survive, then he still deserved to know the truth,” Robert said solemnly.

Tom thought he seemed to be struggling internally with something, and he remained silent, deciding it was the better part of valour.

Finally, the Secretary of Defense seemed to reach a decision. “My friend, Dr Allison Blake, the CEO of Global Dynamics, called me today after you left my office. She wanted to put a proposal to me.”

“Isn’t she the one who is supervising the gene therapy at the Aharon Clinic? Is it Tony?”

“She was not optimistic. Allison said the infection is taking its toll on him, and they need to get it under control before they give him the infusion of stem cells. She wanted my permission to use another experimental therapy that Global Dynamics has been perfecting.”

“What is it?” Tom demanded. He was Tony’s medical proxy.

“What do you know about nanotechnology?”

Tom looked at Robert as if he had two heads. “You mean like in science fiction books and movies? Miniature robots, that can rebuild people and create hybrid human robots. Are you kidding me?”

“This is no joke, Tom. Nanomedicine may well one day be the future of medicine. Nano-imaging, nano-drug delivery, and nano-cellular repair are all legitimate possibilities, according to the team at Global Dynamics. They have a nanomedical research team already trying to develop nanites to deliver cancer drugs to target cancer cells and leave healthy ones alone. Plus, they’re working with nanites to search out and consume toxins – as in harmful types of cholesterols in arteries in the heart that could revolutionise cardiac medicine. Nanites are being programmed to search out rogue cells in the body that are pre-cancerous and consume them before cancer develops but are also focused on nanite technology to treat sepsis, programming the nanites to seek out infections and unlike antibiotics, which bacteria become immune to, the nanites don’t kill them. They eat the bacteria,” Robert explained, referring to some information Dr Blake had supplied him with.

“And what happens when they run out of bacteria to eat? They turn around and consume the human?” Tom asked sceptically.

“Um, no, they are programmed to self-destruct when there are no more bugs, and are excreted via the kidneys.”

“But aren’t there good bacteria in the gut and on the skin, don’t they search out and eat that too?”

“Well, Allison said that in the long term, they are working on programming the nanites to focus on searching out destructive bacteria and leaving the good bugs alone. Right now, though, they identify a single bacteria and program the nanites to search out and consume the specific bacteria attacking the patient. Since Dr Blake has already identified the bacteria attacking Agent DiNozzo, she said it would be a fairly swift process to program nanites and courier them to Haifa.”

“What’s the catch, Robert?” Tom wanted to know, feeling cynical.

“Honestly? It’s experimental and it’s an expensive technology, approximately $750,000. I was weighing up the pros and cons of authorising it, but after factoring in everything that Agent DiNozzo had done and all of the crap inflicted on him by our own people, I believe we owe it to him. Plus, he’s in this situation because his lungs were injured in a biological attack on NCIS, and the Acting Secretary of State coerced him into what amounted to a suicidal mission. She didn’t give a fuck how life-threatening it was for him to use the R&J protocol,” Bose said, referring to the Romeo and Juliet Protocol.

Now, all I need to order Global Dynamics to proceed is the approval of his proxy, Tom. What do you say?”

“That before I say yes, I want to talk to Dr Blake and Dr Pitt since he’s been read in on Global Dynamics,” he said firmly.

The Secretary of Defense smiled a wee bit too smugly, Tom thought.

“They’re already standing by,” he said.

Chapter 22

In Tony DiNozzo’s hospital room at the Aharon Clinic in Haifa, the mood of the four doctors, plus the CEO of Global Dynamics, Dr Alison Black and the scientist from Chaveleh Foundation, Dr Hersch, was grim, to say the least. No one acknowledged it verbally, but there was a tacit agreement that Tony was dying by degrees as the infection was gaining strength and winning the war. He was growing steadily weaker, and his kidneys were showing signs of shutting down soon. Despite having the stem cells that Drs Hersch and Blake had turbo boosted in his lab back at Chaveleh’s labs that were good to go, it was agreed there was no point in starting the infusion at this late stage. The best shot for rebuilding healthy lung tissue was once they had the infection on the run, but it was looking increasingly unlikely.

It was Dr Allison Blake, having assessed the situation and concluding that unless a miracle occurred, they would be burying Agent DiNozzo for real this time, who had called her friend Robert Bose. Being an incredibly stubborn person who, thanks to her time in Eureka, the quirky little town in Oregon where Global Dynamics was headquartered, Allison wasn’t prepared to throw in the towel just yet, having seen her fair share of occurrences in Eureka that others would label as miracles. Too many times, she had seen people come back from the brink of death and be returned to rude health again. Of course, she was supremely aware that she wasn’t in Eureka, she was half a world away in Haifa, Israel, and while the city was the hub of much research, Allison felt that they needed a little bit of Global Dynamics magic.

She had been wracking her brain for several hours as the other doctors fought valiantly, but increasingly in vain, to stabilise the federal agent’s condition. There was one thing that she thought had a shot of kicking ass against the infection that was slowly killing DiNozzo. However, it was still a highly experimental treatment for humans (as opposed to testing it in Petri dishes or computer simulations), and the Global team had yet to try it out on anyone alive. Although the actual mechanism – the nanites had been used a limited number of times to clean up blocked arteries, albeit in cadavers and also with a few cancer patients. In both situations, the results had been impressive but were yet to use nanites in live subjects to attack and consume deadly bacteria. Part of the reason for that was that the nanite technology at this time was highly expensive, and when it came to priorities, cancer and arteriosclerosis were deemed to be more practical applications for the technology.

As a scientist and medical doctor, Allison understood the rationale behind the rationing of research expenditure. Cancer, heart disease and strokes were the most common causes of death from medical conditions. The bean counters in the Department of Defense and various other government departments, along with the various philanthropic foundations, argued that using nanite technology to fight infections when it was so experimental and prohibitively expensive could not be justified financially. Particularly, since there was a far cheaper option that was highly effective for fighting bacteriological infections.

To some extent, Blake acknowledged the truth of their justification, but every doctor and medical researcher worth their salt knew, at some time in the not-so-distant future, the antibiotics that they had relied on for decades, ever since the discovery of penicillin, were rapidly losing their efficacy. Thanks, mostly to the criminal over prescription of antibiotics, the failure of patients to take them as prescribed (feeling better and deciding not to finish taking the full course to wipe out all the bacteria) and the idiotic use of it in livestock, which consumers ingested passively – all of which contributed to the bacteria being able to develop immunity to the drugs they relied on to fight infections. In the future, they would face a medical catastrophe when the microbes failed to be killed by the few antibiotics that still remained in their arsenal to treat infections.

In Allison’s opinion, if that happened, then the death rates from even the simplest of infections would skyrocket and make the deaths from cancer, heart disease and strokes look minuscule by comparison. Even though the cost of using nanites, programmed to search out and specifically kill the peskily hard-to-kill bacteria that had taken over Agent DiNozzo’s body and were resisting all attempts to kill them, would cost hundreds of thousands, Allison felt that it was beyond the time when they faced some painful truths. The mess they found themselves in now and in future analogous situations was directly due to the overuse of antibiotics, so they needed a novel way to attack infections asap.

She knew that there was no way that she could get approval from the bean counters at the DOD to use expensive experimental technology on a patient in Israel. Not just because Allison, as the CEO of Global Dynamics, dealt with them regularly but because she used to be a Department of Defence agent who liaised between Global Dynamics and the federal government. But she had, as a DoD agent, developed a good relationship with Secretary Bose, who was personally invested in the nanite technology since his wife Charlotte was in end-stage cancer after her breast cancer, which had been in remission, had come back with a vengeance. After she lost her battle, they had a lot of in-depth heart-to-heart conversations about cancer and nanites.

Secretary Bose had immediately recognised what a game-changer nanite technology could be in seeking out the cancer cells and targeting them directly with chemo-therapeutic agents that would decrease many of the unpleasant side effects of chemo treatment that made cancer patients so ill. Some people thought chemo treatment was worse than the disease. Allison wasn’t sure about that, but then she had never had to undergo chemotherapy, and she knew that some of the side effects, especially heart damage, particularly in older chemo regimens, were certainly scary.

Still, the point was that she was not above using her contacts to circumvent the denial she knew she would get if she sought authorisation to use their nanites for a nonapproved experimental treatment procedure. Initially, when SECDEF realised how much the experiment would cost, Robert refused, pointing out what that expenditure could provide when it came to caring for homeless vets with PTSD and complex trauma. With Tony’s condition continuing to deteriorate, she’d approached him again but this time ready to make an impassioned plea for his authorisation, pointing out that when they ran out of antibiotics, everyone, including veterans and active duty service personnel, was going to be in a heap of trouble. Routine injuries and minor surgeries could become death sentences if infections couldn’t be contained by antibiotics. She could feel that she had made some impact, but still, he wouldn’t authorise it.

Allison was running out of options and any hope that a miracle would come in time. That’s when Commander Brad Pitt noticed something strange occurring when Dr Berkley and her son were in the room, particularly when the 12-month-old was present. Tony’s condition improved, albeit a minor improvement. The improvement seemed to be proportional to the proximity of how close the toddler was to Agent DiNozzo, and it was particularly pronounced when Xavier was on his bed.

She and Dr Pitt conducted some experiments and determined that the absence or presence of Jeanne Berkley seemed to have little or no effect on DiNozzo’s vital signs. But the boy definitely did. Agent DiNozzo’s heart rate and respiration showed small gains when the boy was close by, but the effect was most marked when Xavier was sleeping up against the gravely ill man. It was certainly curious and none of them had an explanation as to why that was until Allison heard the toddler pat his face and refer to him as DaDaDa Da.

“How does Xavier know Tony’s his father,” Jeanne had whispered, looking completely freaked out.

“I don’t know. Perhaps he’s just playing with sounds,” Helen Berkley, Jeanne’s mother observed. “After all, dadda is one of the first syllables children utter, along with mumma, bubba,” she said sensibly.

Allison nodded. “That’s true,” she said, wondering if DiNozzo and Jeanne were together because she hadn’t got that vibe. Later she’d drag Commander Pitt off for coffee and ask about their relationship – apart from the acknowledgement that the gorgeous little boy was their son.

Still, it seemed quite obvious to them once they’d documented the weird phenomenon. Despite being heavily sedated, as he was on a ventilator, gravely ill and deteriorating, Tony seemed to be slightly better when Xavier was in contact with his father. So okay, since she started working in Eureka, it wasn’t the weirdest thing Dr Blake had seen, not by a long shot. Still, Eureka was an odd place, where weird things happened to the residents, almost daily. Okay…perhaps that was hyperbole…kind of but, it was definitely filled with bizarre occurrences. This was not Eureka, so she thought it was fair to say that this relationship between father and son who’d never met before was highly unusual.

Still, as keen as she was to try to figure out what was going on between them, when she got a call from Secretary Bose saying he’d reconsidered and decided to authorise the experimental nanite treatment, pending them gaining permission from Agent DiNozzo’s medical Proxy, Deputy Director of DHS, Tom Morrow, Allison felt a tiny seed of hope germinate. He requested that Dr Pitt and herself stay available since he was sure the deputy director of DHS would want to talk to them before he consented to the procedure. Brad and Alison immediately indicated their willingness to do so. It was an anxious wait before finally, Secretary Bose sent word that they were ready to have that video call, and she left with the infectious diseases specialist to get the go-ahead from Deputy Director Morrow.

Brad professed his feelings of frustration about not being able to help his friend and patient. As they waited for the call to go through, Allison learnt that Brad had played against DiNozzo’s team in a college football game, and he had broken Tony’s leg so badly, that his shot at playing professional basketball had been ruined. After a long recovery, DiNozzo finished his degree and had to find a new career, becoming a cop instead, and six years later, was recruited to join NCIS. Fast forward four more years, and Brad and Tony, crossed paths again. Brad was now a doctor, specialising in infectious diseases with a subspecialty in pulmonary medicine, and Tony was a federal agent infected by y-pestis in a bio-terror attack on the DC office of NCIS. Once, Brad had ruined Tony’s life but, now he saved it, helping him to beat the odds and survive the pneumonic plague that had been genetically engineered to render it impervious to antibiotics.

“Tony survived, but the double pneumonia left his lungs a mess,” he admitted. “And it knocked around his immune system pretty badly.”

“So, he’s more prone to viruses and infection?” Allison concluded.

Oh yeah. Particularly respiratory infections and viruses,” Brad confirmed just as the video call came through.

After the preliminary business had been dealt with, Allison and Tom being introduced to each other, Allison started to explain the procedure in a great deal more detail and technical jargon than the Secretary of Defense had done, the Deputy Director asked them, what his chances of surviving were?

“I can’t give you a ballpark figure, Sir,” Dr Blake told him. “This is experimental, so all I can tell you is, this is a long shot. But if you don’t try this, then it’s almost a certainty baring a miracle, that Agent DiNozzo will die before we can give him the stem cell gene therapy.”

“I see,” Tom said heavily. He looked at Brad sitting silently at the conference table, looking drawn and weary.

“And Commander, what is your take on the situation?”

“Dr Blake is not exaggerating when she says that unless we do something drastic, Tony probably only has a few more days. If we give this a try, then we are probably also looking at starting him on dialysis because his kidneys are showing signs of going into failure, although, if you don’t authorise this nanite technology, I’d recommend we stop all aggressive measures and just keep him comfortable.”

“Let him die,” Tom said, frowning.

“The infection is overwhelming him, as it attacks various organs. Unless we can beat the infection, Sir, we are just delaying the inevitable. I know Tony wouldn’t want that,” he said sadly.

“No. You’re right about that, Brad. But will this robot thing work?”

“Honestly, Director, I have no idea. This is something so far outside my level of expertise. I do know that this is probably the only thing that may stop the infection now it has such a hold on him and works, then it could become a game-changer in the future and not just for Tony,” Brad said, shrugging tiredly. “For all our sakes, I hope it does work, but there are no guarantees.”

Tom thought about what the two doctors said carefully before finally agreeing. “Alright, let’s give it a shot. Secretary Bose and I agree that Tony has earned this last ditch shot for all of the sacrifices, he had to make. How soon can we get started?”

“That all depends on Douglas Fargo back at Global Dynamics and how long it takes to code the nanites for the specific strain of bacteria.

Adam Hersch, who had attended the conference but taken no part in it up to this point, decided to interject. “Dr Blake had already taken a sample of the bacteria and identified it via culturing. When this idea was mooted several hours ago, I took the liberty of getting my top geneticists to start sequencing its DNA. They informed me just before the meeting that they were almost done.”

Allison looked pleased. “That has saved us hours, Adam. Thank you.”

“My motives are not wholly motivated by selflessness, Dr Blake. Unless we can stop the infection claiming our subject, the stem cell trial cannot go ahead, so it is in Chaveleh’s interest to help make it happen. And who better to sequence the bacteria’s DNA than our geneticists,” he explained modestly.

“So, just before we came in, here I gave Douglas a heads up. ETA of the nanite’s arrival was 12 hours of prep time and another 14 to 16 hours to get here to Haifa from Eureka, so just over a day, but, Douglas insisted he could have the nanites ready to go in 8 hours.”

Brad had been silent during the discussion about logistics, hoping they could buy Tony enough time with dialysis so that his kidneys were damaged, irrevocably if this crazy nanite scheme worked. “Did that 8 hours factor in DNA sequencing?”

Blake nodded. “Yep, it did. So conservatively, let’s slash a couple of hours off that 8-hour estimate and have them here in less than a day,” she smiled appreciatively at Adam.

At that point, Secretary Bose promised to see if he could speed up the flight time between Oregon and Israel with a new faster military jet that was being trialled and Tom promised to send one of his best agents to accompany Dr Fargo since even the Deputy Director of Homeland had heard about his propensity to attract trouble.

Adam Hersch surprised everyone by offering to ask his wife’s niece, Mossad Officer Liat Tuvia, to request that the Prime Minister’s Aide fly Dr Fargo from Tel Aviv, via chopper. On a good day, the trip by road was an hour, but it was much less by helicopter. The excuse, should anyone become curious about what he was doing, would be that he had flown in from the US as a troubleshooter to offer his expertise to Dr Hersch at the Chaveleh Foundation when a joint research project hit an unexpected snag.

Feeling slightly more ebullient about Tony’s chances, the video conference ended with the promise to keep in touch with his medical team in Haifa as they went to break the good news that they may still have a chance at saving Tony’s life. They were more than a little shocked to find that Xavier had been stripped down to just his diaper, and Tony’s hospital gown had been lowered to his waist, still covering his body from the hips down to preserve some semblance of modesty. Father and son were lying together, skin to skin.

Seeing the astonishment on Allison, Brad and Adam’s faces, Jeanne hastened to explain. “We’re conducting an experiment. It was my mother’s idea,” she smiled at Helen Berkley.

Helen explained, “There is a growing body of evidence that newborns benefit emotionally and physiologically from skin-to-skin contact and that its benefits aren’t exclusive to the infant. Mothers also benefit, too, especially psychologically and emotionally, which undoubtedly has a rebound effect on the baby. Basically, it helps to regulate their respiration and heart rate, and stabilises body temperature and researchers have found it plays an important part in the colonisation of the baby’s microbiome. Is any of this sounding familiar?”

“Some of it sounds like what we observed in DiNozzo when Xavier was on the bed with him,” Brad said slowly.

Helen nodded smugly. “Exactly. We decided to see what would happen when their proximity was much more intense. So we decided to give skin-to-skin contact a go and see what happened.”

“And what happened? Allison asked curiously.

“Xavier drifted off to sleep immediately. And Tony seemed calmer, too. His heart rate stabilised a little,” Jeanne said, looking incredulous.

Dr Selman continued. “And his temperature fell almost half a degree, and his respiration improved marginally. Perhaps the most positive sign is the deterioration of his kidney function has stalled. It’s a shame we didn’t try this several days ago before the infection took such a devastating hold over him. It might have made a huge difference. Unfortunately, at this late stage, while the effects are definitely interesting, I’m not sure it’s going to make a difference in the long run,” he said, sounding regretful.

“No, but maybe it will buy us some time. Deputy Director Morrow, Tony’s medical proxy and Secretary Bose have agreed to the treatment to be carried out. With a lot of luck, Douglas Fargo will be here within the next 24 hours. We, just need to hold out until they get here,” she said, breaking the good news to Jeanne and Helen Berkley and Tony’s main doctor at the Aharon Clinic, Yair Selman.

Brad was still looking quite shell-shocked. “But skin-to-skin contact hasn’t ever been reported in babies healing adults,” he argued. “And Xavier isn’t a newborn. He’s 12 months old.”

“It hasn’t been reported, since no one was looking for it,” Helen said, a little acerbically.

Hersch nodded, looking quite enthusiastic. “ It is how breakthroughs in science sometimes occur. Thanks to serendipitous propinquity, keen clinical observation, plus, a touch of desperation, they became the catalysts that drove you to experiment. Perhaps the initial focus of skin-to-skin contact has been too narrow and needs further research to determine if this phenomenon is replicable,” he said, smiling at the two Berkleys. “Congratulations!”

~oOo~

Deputy Director Morrow was reading a report from the NYC office about a suspected Iranian terrorist cell operating in New Jersey when there was a knock on his office door. Calling for the knocker to enter, Tom wondered why his executive assistant, Ewan Greenley, hadn’t alerted him about his visitor. He shrugged, figuring that Ewan must have ducked into the bathroom, so he was surprised to see his assistant slip into his office.

“Sorry for not using the intercom, Sir, but Special Agent Fornell from the FBI would like a word. Since he kinda intimated that it was on the down low, I thought it was better to let you know in person.”

“That’s fine, Ewan. You can send him in, and knowing Tobias, I’m sure he would appreciate a coffee.”

“Can do, director,” his EA nodded. “You too?”

Tom considered the question. “Lynnie would kill me, she’s trying to get me to cut back,” he said with a smile as he thought of his wife.

She reckoned his insomnia was due to all the extra coffee he’d been drinking lately, and although she was half right, the reason he was drinking so much was because he was sleeping poorly due to the whole mess with Davenport, Owens-Vance, and Eli David. So he had trouble focusing during the day – it was a vicious cycle, and today, he was on tenterhooks, worried about DiNozzo. They’d sent Dr Fargo off to Haifa just after 0200 hours this morning with his precious nanites that they hoped would arrest the infection that was rapidly killing the NCIS agent. Although technically, he supposed, Tony was a former agent since most people believed he’d been killed in Tel Aviv, in a tragic car accident or if you had half a brain, in retribution for him managing to kill a Kidon operative who was one of Eli David’s proteges who got his ass handed to him.

Since the deputy director had barely gotten three hours of sleep, he decided to throw caution to the winds. “What the Hell, Ewan. I might as well live dangerously, “ he gave his assistant a disgruntled look.

“Your secret is safe with me, Sir,” he vowed. “Scout’s Honour,” he grinned, holding up three fingers in jest because Morrow knew Greenly had never been a Boy Scout.

As Ewan slipped out, Tom debated if he should second Fornell to the DHS until this business was resolved. It would save all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense. There was precedent, Fornell had been seconded a couple of years ago to work with the CIA when Director Jenny Shepard was on her damn witch hunt to take down Rene Benoit.

Fornell slipped in with no muss, no fuss. “Thanks for seeing me, Deputy Director. I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought I’d dropped this off, while I was here. Gibbs thought you’d like to listen to it,” he said handing over a thumb drive and placing it on Tom’s desk.

He nodded his thanks to the veteran FBI agent that Tom knew to be a colleague, frenemy and sometimes drinking buddy of Leroy Jethro Gibbs as Tobias handed over a thumb drive.

“Have you listened to what’s on it?”

“Fornell looked somewhat sheepish. “Yeah, Jethro didn’t tell me not to,” he said, a bit, defensively.

Tom grinned but remained mute.

“I was curious, ya know, about why he didn’t hand it over himself. I figured he didn’t want to be seen in contact with you,” he said, by way of explanation, not an apology.

Tom didn’t expect him to apologise. Not really. Fornell was an investigator through and through. Investigators probe, examine, explore, research, and delve into other peoples’ business. They examine evidence all day, every day. It was hardly surprising that Tobias couldn’t help snooping.

Morrow was pretty sure that Gibbs, knowing this about Fornell, would have expected as much and, if he wanted the FBI agent listening in, he would have sealed it so that it would be apparent what was going on. Indeed, for several files, Gibbs had done just that, so leaving the thumb drive, unsealed was tantamount to him giving permission for Fornell to check it out.

“Anything good?” he asked casually, still uncertain if the FBI agent knew what was going on.

“A conversation between Gibbs and SECNAV,” he shrugged casually. “Nothing terribly earthshattering,” was his verdict.

“Did Gibbs tell you it was SECNAV?” he asked cautiously because that seemed something that Fornell was not likely to know.

“Naw, but he didn’t need to. Recognised Davenport’s voice from that last case, that we worked together where Agent Sherman died. Got a distinctive kinda voice,” he noted.

“Ah, yes. I’d forgotten about that,” he lied.

“Is that what this is about,” Fornell demanded. “DHS looking for a scapegoat over that unmitigated debacle because of Rivkin killing Sherman and Tabal? DOJs got that little asshole, Parsons prowling around NCIS and the FBI, trying to crawl up people’s butts and deliver an enema,” he groused.

“I can neither confirm nor deny what DHS might be doing, and I’d better not hear any speculation about it coming from you either, Agent Fornell,” he said seriously.

“Okay, okay. My lips are sealed,” he vowed gruffly. “Sheesh, you ask one little question and get your head bitten off.”

Tom looked suitably forbidding. “Good, because I’d hate to have to throw you in some dank hole, somewhere that would make Gitmo look like a tropical paradise,” Morrow warned him seriously. “Now we’ve got that straight, are you planning on hanging around and pointing out the highlights to me while I listen to the conversation?” he asked with a knowing grin.

“Sure, why not. It’ll give me a damned good reason to put off ringing my ex-wife Diane back right now,” he said with a mock shiver.

“I can’t believe that you and Gibbs both had the poor judgement to marry that woman,” Tom said, with a grimace of distaste. Personally, he’d never taken to the woman.

“Not the only one, Sir. I wonder that myself, but while she cleaned out both our bank accounts, and stole his grand pappy’s watch, at least I got a beautiful daughter out of it,” he said, beaming. “He got bubkis!”

“True,” Tom conceded, “and, at least Diane didn’t attack him with a sporting implement. That’s gotta count for something.”

Tobias chuckled, “Never have pegged ya for a glass half full kinda guy, Sir.”

“Right, let’s do this then,” Morrow said plugging the thumb drive into his computer after Ewan appeared with their coffee.

Morrow had no difficulty picking out Davenport’s voice on the recording.

“How’d you know what I like to drink, Gibbs?”

Apparently, the functional mute saw no reason to respond to SECNAV’s question, or he reacted non-verbally, Tom mused.

“My older brother gave me my first bourbon before I was even a teenager. He liked to mess with my head.”

Fornell looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Tom shrugged. It was news to him that SECNAV had a brother but if true about the bourbon, it explained a lot.

Gibbs told him, “ My grandfather had a still. It blew up once and he ran back inside to rescue his sour mash.

Morrow wondered if this was the same relative that Gibbs bragged about being a horse thief to a JAG officer one time.

Davenport retorted, “It is a living thing,” before asking, “it’s safe to talk, here?”

Gibbs responded by saying, “Safer than your house.”

SECNAV’s question suggested he was likely asking if they were safe from bugs, which was rather ironic but probably understandable in light of the Poker game fiasco.

Tobias sniggered, and when Morrow looked askance at him, he said, “Isn’t that a rule?

Morrow hit the pause button. “What are you talking about?”

“Always be specific when you lie. Isn’t that one of Jethro’s rules, he makes his agents learn?”

Morrow cocked his head, thinking. “Yeah, I think you’re right. And he specifically doesn’t mention listening devices, so he could argue, he wasn’t technically lying. That he was referring to the fact that there weren’t a bunch of incompetent ICE agents hanging out patrolling his perimeter. Or termites or home invaders waiting to burst in,” he shook his head. “Although to be honest, I’m shocked that Gibbs didn’t record this conversation on an old cassette tape.

This time, Tobias didn’t snigger, he guffawed. “ Likely he did. Or got McGee to do it,” he said.

Tom wasn’t as sure about that, though. Depending on when the discussion took place, he might not have wanted to put him in jeopardy. He restarted the recording.

SECNAV continued to speak, “It was a point of pride with my brother, though. ‘I never hit you, he’d say.’ Preferred psychological warfare.”

Tom briefly wondered about that. Was that a psychological projection? It sure sounded like it might be. Why the Hell was Davenport there in Gibbs’ basement? What was his end game?

“You’re an only child, aren’t you, Gibbs?” SECNAV asked but he already knew that. Davenport would have made sure he read Gibbs’ file. Interrogation 101 – never ask a suspect a question you don’t already know the answer to.

Gibbs didn’t directly answer the question. Instead, he responded, “The Corps. Strangers become brothers in a foxhole.”

“That why you’ve been digging dirt? Trying to get closer to Leon?” Davenport attacked him swiftly.

Aha! The plot thickens, Tom thought. So that was SECNAV’s agenda, then. The damned file on Leon Tyler Owen Vance!

“No. I never asked for this,” he refuted Philip’s accusation, sounding unruffled.

There was a noise on the recording, like a piece of furniture being moved across the cement floor perhaps, Morrow speculated.

“Never opened it,” Gibbs continued, sounding bored.

“Well, let’s see what the CIA’s got on Leon Vance,” SECNAC sounded almost jovial. But there was a hard edge to his voice that Tom picked up on, having worked for the man when he was the NCIS director. So the noise on the recording was probably a drawer opening as Gibbs retrieved the file, he speculated.

“I thought we shredded all these. How does this thing keep finding its way into the open? It’s not even real,” Davenport told him with studied carelessly.

Too carelessly? He cast a glance at Fornell.

The FBI agent smirked and said, “Methinks the Lady doth protest too much.”

Davenport chuckled, sounding a little forced, as he said, “Lucky you didn’t read this. Wouldn’t give you the whole picture anyway.”

Tobias looked across at Morrow and muttered cynically. “Lucky for whom?

Tom nodded, chuckling.

“And you will?” Gibbs asked SECNAV mildly, even though he implied that he believed otherwise.

An extended silence followed, then sounds of papers rustling.

“Lot of black bars covering Leon’s career. Man was born for counterintelligence. “You didn’t peg him for a lifelong bureaucrat?” Davenport asked, sounding amused.

“Nah,” Gibbs responded idly. “Figured he’d worn a few hats. Heard a whisper or two.”

“There’s not a second of his life I can’t account for!” Davenport declared roundly.

Whoa! Was that the smoking gun Tom and Bose were looking for? An admission he knew about the identity substitution. And if he claimed to have been duped, then it was a damning indictment that he’d been fooled, and it would probably be enough to have him removed from his position, even without the rest of the shit with DiNozzo, Domino and Project Frankenstein. HOPEFULLY!

“I might hit him with a stick, every now and then, but, uh, I did not leave him out of that poker game because I don’t trust him,” he confided.

“You were discussing how to use him.” Not a question, Jethro stated it as a given.

“Yeah, I know. Since Director Shepard’s death, you’ve been concerned with the danger in having the wrong person at the top.” Davenport told him. “Well, you’re not alone.”

Tom huffed. Was SECNAV implying that HE was anxious too, or maybe that other people were?

“You’re not the only one looking out for the integrity of NCIS.”

Okay, so that previous statement was probably self-referential then, since he was implying that he was looking out for NCIS… which Tom found highly debatable given his outrageous behaviour.

“Leon’s going to be point man in a major operation,” he told Gibbs.

“Who’s the enemy?” Gibbs asked.

“That’s the problem. It’s our friends.”

Jethro responded, saying. “The Israelis.”

Davenport signed. “Top priority. Ever since Shepard created that unorthodox position of “liaison officer…” he trailed off.

Oh, that was a bit rich, Tom snorted furiously and looking at Fornell, he could tell that the FBI agent was having trouble swallowing that crap too. With good reason! Sure, Shepard was the director of the agency, but she still answered to SECNAV and he could have easily overruled her. If Davenport didn’t approve of Ziva being at NCIS, why hadn’t he simply vetoed her appointment? As he should have done – she was a security risk waiting to happen, as well as being a serious legal impediment to cases being successfully prosecuted.

“You’re talking about Ziva David,” Jethro reacted to SECNAV’s assertion defensively.

Gibbs was so damned myopic when it came to his surrogate daughter, Tom thought, disgustedly. He was unable to countenance even the mildest of debates about her, a foreign national being assigned to the MCRT. Well at least until Israel and his extremely unpleasant lesson on how much of a blind, foolish dumbass he’d been.

“Father’s the director of Mossad, half-brother was a rogue operative. He died in this room, didn’t he? At your hand.”

Well, that was bullshit. The worst kept secret amongst the powers that be is that Ziva shot her half-brother on her father’s orders. SECNAV knew it as well as Tom did!

“And she works with you every day. What a family!”

Uh-oh, Tom could practically feel Gibbs’ hackles rise up at Davenport’s open derision of the Davids. Not because he had any love for Ziva’s father, but because he definitely championed the man’s daughter, unable to entertain the possibility that she was her father’s daughter and remained loyal to him.

Davenport continued, “Semper Fi. You and Leon gotta play nice.”

Gibbs asked, “You ordering me to trust him?”

“Just to follow him,” he said. There was a pause and it sounded as if he was climbing the stairs. “We don’t hit our brothers!”

“So, Fornell, do we have any idea when this cosy little chat of theirs’ took place?” Morrow asked casually.

Right after Director Vance declared that Abin Tabal had committed suicide, and, we all went home,” Tobias said with a growl.

Yeah, not everyone; Sciuto and DiNozzo stayed back, Tom thought mockingly.

“This probably happened around the same time that DiNozzo was fighting Rivkin, trying to stay alive. Hours before he and Director Vance sold DiNotzo up the river while Jethro was too busy cooing over his surrogate daughter and wiping her tears to see what was going on right under his nose. What a fucking waste!”

Well, that answered that question about whether or not Fornell knew about Eli David, SECNAV and Owen-Vance’s pact to murder DiNozzo.

“Gibbs told you about the fake car accident?” Morrow stated sternly.

“Yeah, he was worried if anything happened to him, (like having a DiNotzo-esque accident), that someone needed to look after what remains of his team,” he said simply. “I know that he told Dr Mallard but reckoned that it was a bad idea to tell Sciuto, McGee or Mallard’s assistant, Pimmy Jalmer.”

“True, none of them are good liars or adept at subterfuge,” Tom agreed gravely, furtively checking his watch.

If everything had gone to plan, Dr Douglas Fargo should be touching down in Israel in a couple of hours with his precious cargo. Tom really hoped that it would work.

“Well, seeing you already know about what really happened to Agent DiNozzo in Israel, might as well make it official. How’d you feel about me seconding you to DHS until we can take these assholes down.”

Fornell’s dour aspect suddenly looked a lot brighter, and he immediately adopted the look of a predator. A hungry predator.

“Hell yeah, if it means I get to arrest that pair of scum-buckets, count me in! That way I won’t have to manufacture excuses to drop by Homeland. Some of the hoi polio at the Hoover building, think I’m courting someone who works here,” he said with a grimace as if the very idea was anathema to him.

Chapter 23

Lucinda had watched as her son seemed to be finally coming to terms with the fact, he was a father. It had been a struggle to convince him that Xavier was his child – a fact that she, herself had found was not so difficult to accept. Maybe because she remembered Anthony when he was the same age as her grandson, she could truthfully see the striking similarities they bore to each other. They both had the same honey blonde hair colouring (even though Anthony’s had darkened over the years) and a bright grin that could light up Manhattan, albeit a fairly gummy one on the wee one, since teeth were still rather sparse in her grandson’s mouth, but he was making it work for him. They were both happy babies, very easy to amuse. Xavier also had his father’s ears and overall facial shape, although they weren’t perfect replicas of each other, either.

Anthony’s eyes had always been an amazing shade of green, which he’d inherited from Lucinda, whose own mother, Margot had passed her green eyes onto her. Xavier’s eyes were not green, though they were a deep clear sapphire blue. Her son confessed that whenever he looked into Xavier’s eyes, they reminded him of his mother, Jeanne Benoit. She felt that her grandson’s pointy chin was probably something he inherited from his mother, although she hadn’t really had the chance to study Jeanne in depth. When Xavier’s mother appeared here with Xavier when she had fallen asleep, she had been far away, and it was difficult to see her clearly. As for Xavier’s nose, well she thought it was much too soon to know who he’d favour – all babies’ noses looked identical to Lucinda, but she rather hoped he’d inherit his father’s nose, Anthony’s was pure Paddington.

It hadn’t escaped her attention the irony of the situation. It had taken Lucinda a great deal of persuasion before her son was ready to acknowledge the existence of his offspring. She could feel his fear of being a father, almost as if it were a living breathing entity. Over the time they spent here, getting reacquainted after nearly three decades apart, she realised that he had a genuine fear of children, or perhaps more accurately, it was a fear of being a parent. After hearing some of his experiences with his own father after her death, it certainly made sense and Lucinda, was sure that he had probably barely scratched the surface of what his childhood and adolescence were like, although he changed the subject whenever Lucinda brought it up. After her violent reaction when he’d shared the story of how Senior had come to his games, not to watch him but to court potential investors, she couldn’t blame him. Her manic period, when she had abused OTC medications, antidepressants, alcohol, and an occasional line of cocaine with her husband, had turned her into someone she honestly hadn’t recognised and definitely didn’t like. Anthony referred to her as ‘the monster,’ and Lucinda knew that for the terrified six-year-old, it was an apt description of what she had become.

So, to get him to accept that Xavier was his son and convince Anthony that he needed to survive, to be the father to his boy, that his father had failed to be to him, had been an uphill battle. Ironically, now that he had a reason to fight to stay alive, to fight the infection that was steadily infiltrating his vulnerable lungs and now attacking the rest of his organs, reluctantly, she could tell that slowly Anthony was losing the fight. It was ironic, yes, but more than that – it was heartbreaking and so unfair.

Lucinda thought about how desperate he had been to stay here, in this mind construct with her, rather than go back to his life. Just how unhappy must her baby boy have been to choose to stay here in this space that existed between life and death? (And yes, since he was just a child when she left him, he would always be her baby boy, even though he was an adult now.) It made her want to weep at how empty his life must be – it was not the fate she wanted for her wonderful, talented, and loving child.

While part of her wanted them to remain here together forever, frankly, she had no idea if that was even possible. It wasn’t as if she had some insider knowledge about what was going on. Lucinda didn’t even know if this place she called Honah Lee that she’d instinctively created so they could meet and spend time together was just an illusion of corporeality. Would it even exist if Anthony died?

She had no conscious memories of what it was like to be dead, no memories of arriving at the Pearly Gates, getting wings or so forth. Although perhaps the irreparable harm she had caused to the child of her heart for the two years before her death had precluded her from being welcomed inside said Pearly Gates. Perhaps this was her penance – she just didn’t know. Anthony’s mother did have a misty memory that she had visited him once before when he had been betwixt life and death a few years ago when some crazy women attacked his workplace and infected him with the plague. It was also in part, the reason he was once again lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life, since the plague had severely damaged his lungs.

Lucinda did remember his terror, though, when he’d been artificially drugged to simulate being dead, his life slowed down so that each heartbeat came to feel like an eternity, to feel like being in an abyss of pure nothingness. It was his terror of being in that emptiness that had somehow brought her to his side. She had tried to comfort him, but all she could do was to try to fill the void he was in with songs that she used to sing to him as a little boy. She sang lullabies to calm him when he was a baby and toddler that calmed him then, and it had seemed to soothe his terrible distress now. She had tried to talk to him, to tell him stories that she used to read to him during their special bedtime, but it had no effect. Only the music and her familiar sweet soprano seemed to calm his terror.

So when he spoke to her after they had at long last reversed the nightmarish cocktail of drugs, paralysing his body to simulate death, while his mind remained aware of the void he was in between the light and the dark, Lucinda rejoiced that he was no longer afraid. And here, in this dimension, that existed between life and death, he had wanted to remain with her, even as she fought desperately to convince him that he needed to fight hard to survive. Fight to go back and be the parent to his son that she hadn’t been for him, because as Lucinda fervently wished that they could all remain here together forever, she had a strong feeling that this place would cease to exist should Anthony die.

A bitter thought occurred to Lucinda that perhaps she was never meant to save him as she’d assumed. It was just possible she was sent here to let him know that despite her frightening transformation into a MONSTER, she really did love him more than she’d ever loved anyone else. Perhaps her raison d’etre for being here was to reunite father and son, for a special moment in time, so that Xavier would know deep down in his bones that his father and grandmother loved him with their whole beings.

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, and she railed against the injustice of it all but, maybe with a loving mother and grandmother to help her raise him, Xavier’s life would not be an empty and unloved childhood like Anthony’s had been. Why else would Anthony choose to remain here with her than to return to his life if he was happy and loved?

And that is what Lucinda had wanted for the son of her flesh and her heart, she had wanted him to fight, to go back and live his best life and love his son. If that wasn’t to be, she decided that the very least she could do was give her two beautiful boys an adventure to remember. She and Anthony had some wonderfully happy adventures as they wandered the shoreline of Long Island, searching for Puff, even though they’d never found him. Maybe it was all in the seeking rather than the finding that was the most important part. In this place that was created by her mind, all things were possible, and surely, if she’d been able to bring both Anthony and Xavier here to her Land of Honah Lee, perhaps she could create a little more magic and find a dragon for her two boys.

Watching her son critically, she realised, with a sense of dread, that he seemed not as solid as before. Intuitively, Lucinda understood that the closer he edged towards death, the less corporeal he would become, unable to stay here with them, confirming her suspicion that he wouldn’t be able to remain here with her, should he not survive. Their time together, regardless of whether he lived or died, was swiftly coming to an end. If Lucinda wanted one last grand adventure with Anthony and Xavier, it was now or never.

“So, Anthony Mine,” she said, smiling up at her 6-foot 2-inch-tall son with broad shoulders who had grown into a devastatingly handsome man, “What would you say to us going in search of dragons?’

Watching him grin, realising what his mother intended, he whooped. “Sounds like a plan.”

Xavier chuckled at his infectiousness and patted his face, saying, “Dada dada dada dada!”

“Even Xavier thinks it’s a great idea,” he laughed happily at the little boy’s antics.

Lucinda nodded gleefully at her grandson’s joie de vivre; it reminded her so much of her Anthony at the same age or even when he’d played the piano for her earlier.

“Well then, what are we waiting for? Come on then,” she told him, determinedly.

If this was all the time she and Anthony got to be with the baby, she was determined that it be one hell of an adventure. Impatiently, his mother set off determinedly down the shoreline towards a series of caves in the cliffs that Tony was fairly sure weren’t there earlier. As they drew closer to the cliffs, his mother’s green eyes sparkled with mischief.

They checked out first one cave, then another, but like all the times when Tony had been a small boy the summer he was turning six, there was no sign of any dragon. Then a third cave proved empty, and she could see that Tony was disappointed but trying hard not to show it and decided to stop teasing him. Urging them to explore the fourth and last cave, it seemed as empty as the other three at first glance, but there was a strange mewling sound, and it was coming from behind a large boulder.

Picking up the toddler in his arms, even though this place was his mother’s creation, Tony felt a familiar urge to protect Xavier like he had when it came to his teammates and innocent civilians when there was danger, except that this protective instinct was at least one hundred times stronger. Its intensity scared him as they crept around the boulder to see what was behind it. To Tony’s astonishment, there was a creature, greenish blue in colour, who seemed to be in distress. He had a long tail and four legs, the back two much more powerful than the front two, a big round head with a small snout, huge green eyes, and overlarge Dumbo-like ears. But what captured Tony’s attention were the unfurled wings that he seemed to have wrapped around himself.

A baby dragon!

“Puff, is that you?” Tony spoke sotto voce so as not to frighten the small creature.

It was still mewling sadly as Xavier squealed with glee, less concerned with frightening the baby dragon than expressing his utter delight at the proceedings.

The baby lifted up its ridiculously big head, its huge eyes opening even wider, as it made a me-e-e-e-e-r-u-ff that rose several tones at the end as Xavier clapped his chubby little hands in delight.

“So much for Puff’s mighty roar,” Tony quipped, to his mum.

It reminded him of the sound a friend’s cat made when watching birds in the trees through the window crossed with an Aussie kingfisher’s call. Although the ruff part sounded more like a yappy Pekinese dog.

Puff the Baby Dragon shot Tony a baleful look before launching into a mini tirade.

“M-e-e-e-e-e-r-u-ff, m-e-e-e-e-e-r-u-ff, mee-e-e-e-e-r-u-ff!” he scolded,” his fierce expression at odds with his way too cute baby appearance.

Crouching down beside him, Lucinda crooned, “Why so sad, little Puff. Looking for some company?”

“Me-e-e-e-e-r-u-ff,” he replied, this time sounding unbearably melancholy.

“Come down to the sea and play with my Boys, Puff,” she cooed, running her hand gently over the baby dragon’s scaleless head. Leading all her boys out of the darkened cave, she and Tony sat on a blanket that materialised out of thin air. They sat watching Xavier tottering around on his chubby bandy little legs as he babbled in his limited vocabulary, but making it work for him. Lucinda had already been successful in coaching him into calling her Nan or Nanananan, insistent it was the same difference.

The baby human and the baby dragon chased each other around, only to fall into a heap together as they chuckled gleefully. Then it would begin all over again, but the chaser and the chased would swap around until Xavier inevitably toppled over, his coordination was not quite as good as Baby Puff’s or Pupupu in Xavier’s ever-increasing vocabulary.

Glancing over and seeing her son’s sadly wistful expression, Lucinda wondered about his thoughts. Was Anthony wishing he could join in the fun? Maybe he was wishing that they’d found Puff in that perfect summer they spent together a lifetime ago. Perhaps more heartbreakingly, Anthony was watching his son and knowing that this precious time together was rapidly coming to an end. This may be all the time he had left to know his son, to love him, and to let Xavier know that he had been loved by his father. It was such a tragedy for father and son if this was all the time they had.

From the little information that she had pieced together, she knew that Tony had been coerced into taking part in a dangerous mission when someone threatened to kill Xavier’s mother. His sacrifice hadn’t just saved her life but also saved their son’s, too. If Xavier’s mother was worthy of Anthony’s love and giving up his life to save her, then Lucinda hoped Jeanne would tell her son that his father had died to save them.

Whatever the cause of his wistfulness, she decided there was no time for regrets or introspection, which would only lead to second-guessing. There was still time to live while he had the chance, brief as that may be.

Focusing on her Anthony the summer they hunted dragons, he was transformed back into the joyous little boy physically, even though she knew that his consciousness was that of a 35-year-old. She gave him a gentle nudge. “Go play with your son.”

~oOo~

Tony had watched his son – and wasn’t that a bizarre state of affairs to have a kid – as he rumble-played and chased a baby dragon around the beach? Then the pair would swap around, and Puff would chase him. They looked like they were having great fun.

His mum gave him a gentle nudge before telling him to go and join in.

“I’m too big,” he protested. “If I fall on him, I’ll hurt him.”

He remembered falling on Abby years ago when Ari Haswari tried to kill her and how heavy he was when he covered her body with his own, determined that Haswari would not take a second member of their team. Sciuto whined that he was squashing her, and she was a grown woman, albeit a slenderly built one. He absolutely would crush Xavier if he fell on him by accident.

“Not anymore, Anthony Mine,” she said, holding up a mirror as Xavier trotted inquisitively over to them on his chubby little legs with the baby dragon in tow to see what they were up to.

Reaching Tony, he stopped and looked into his face, seeing familiar eyes. Poking Tony’s little round cheek that Lucinda found adorable, he asked uncertainly, “Da? Dadadadadada.”

When Tony nodded, he clapped his hands elatedly and, his father decided, as weird as this dream or whatever the hell it was, that maybe he should just go with it and let his inner child out to play. Not that he’d ever had much chance to play with other children when he was six… or ever really. Well, what the heck!

Not until he’d been sent off to school when his mother died did really he get to spend time with other kids. Still, he wasn’t an undercover expert for nothing; one of the most critical rules of staying alive was – fake it ‘til you make it. He might not have any clue how to play with little children, since he’d never done it before, but he could fake it with the best of them. Which, was somewhat ironic when Tony thought about it since his son was the physical embodiment of Tony’s whole fake it ‘til you make it mantra of being undercover.

Except it wasn’t true – he’d realised long before he finally gave in and became intimate with her that his feelings for Jeanne were as far from fake as he could get. He should have found some way to end it right then as a fool in love would think it could end well. Yet, with everyone making his life miserable at work, Jeanne had let him feel safe enough to drop his masks around her. Apparently, she liked the person Anthony DiNozzo was… no she liked Anthony DiNardo. He lied to her, ensuring she hated him when she found out, and he didn’t blame her.

Sighing, he knew there was no point in dwelling on the past. That’s what Senior did after his mother died, and that led to his ignoring his son when he wasn’t actively hating on him because he still lived when Lucinda didn’t. Tony stood up resolutely trying to accustom himself to his much smaller body and put the past behind him for a little while.

Tony played with his son and Puff, and when he caught them, he wrestled them to the ground, not like he would a perp, but gently. He tickled the dragon and blew raspberries on Xavier’s belly, making him squeal joyfully. Then they chased him, and Tony let them catch him, although his much shorter legs meant he wasn’t as quick as he was used to being. The children and the baby dragon played in the sand, building castles and mountains that Puff kept knocking down with his tail because he didn’t seem to have a handle on keeping it under control. Xavier would chuckle and then use his expanded vocab, which was still limited to six or seven words, to direct them to start building a new and Puff would redeem himself by digging and scooping sand with his sharp little claws, which Tony noted, he could retract like a cat.

After hours of playtime left them all exhausted, although, in Tony’s case, he thought it might be from laughing so much rather than the physical activities, they wandered up the shore to where his mother’s piano and the chaise lounge were now joined by a circular red and white striped tent with a triangular shaped roof. Inside were a multitude of pillows, cushions, and throws, all soft as clouds that beckoned the exhausted trio as they all collapsed in a puppy pile, barely a few steps in the door.

When they woke after a sleep that might have been just minutes or many hours new surprises awaited them. Moored just offshore was the sailboat Tony’s father had bought for his mother all those years ago. It looked just like it did when his Mum used to take him off searching for Puff, the summer spent exploring the coast of Long Island. All that was missing was the crusty old man, who used to sail the boat

Lucinda informed them they were headed off on a Quest, searching for Noble Kings and Princes and hopefully to find themselves some pirates too.

“With luck, maybe Puff can persuade them to lower their Jolly Roger and give us their treasure maps,” she told them in her musical voice, her eyes filled with joy and life.

Tony chuckled at his mother’s sense of whimsy (she did so love pirate movies, even after she got sick) while Baby Puff let out a serious of m-e-e-e-e-e-r-u-ffs that apparently meant he was up for the quest too.

Xavier was too young to understand the whole concept of a Quest but he pointed his stumpy finger excitedly at the little yacht and babbling bobo bobobo with his babyish giggle as his grandmother tickled his bare feet.

As Tony wondered how they would get to the Lulu, moored several feet away, a tiny rowboat appeared. Lucinda rowed them out and had them aboard the Lulu in the blink of an eye. At least, that was how it seemed to the excited Anthony. Once she unfurled Lulu’s sail, they were off, headed toward a distant island that he hadn’t noticed before, a gentle breeze pushing them along on the seas. Arriving on the island, they tied Lulu up, to a jetty, and the party of four stepped ashore. Awaiting them was a King and a gaggle of Princes wanting to greet and fete them. They all bowed low to each other, just like in the song, and Tony giggled in amusement.

After being invited to attend a feast and presented with bejewelled crowns and kingly robes, they set sail again in search of pirates. They captured several pirate ships, acquiring pirate maps and an enormous treasure chest of swag that the pirates seem remarkably sanguine about losing. Feeling adventurous, they boarded the ship of the infamous Captain Bluesy Beard, where Lucinda, loving pirate movies, challenged the pirate captain to a sword fight, swiftly beating the abashed man’s ass. Tony decided that it looked like too much fun and also challenged the scurvy pirate king to a duel that his fencing tutor (who taught him before his disownment at twelve), would have approved of, as the six-year-old Tony whooped ass too.

Clearly, it was a bridge too far for the foulest Captain Bluesy Beard of the pirate ship to swallow as he tried to capture them and make them walk the plank, and they were forced to flee aboard the Lulu. Unfortunately, the scurvy brigand set sail in pursuit of the Lulu, firing up his cannonball and managing to clip their bow. Soon, tiny Lulu was taking on water, and Tony was starting to panic since they had a 12-month-old toddler with them. He didn’t like their chances if they took to the rowboat with Captain Bluesy Beard hot on their trail. That’s when Puff the Magic Dragon lived up to his name, and there, right before their eyes, he transformed into a mighty dragon. He urged them to clamber on his back, at least that’s what Tony thought he was trying to convey, and with his Mum sitting up front and him at the rear with Baby Xavier safely ensconced between them, he unfurled his massive wings and rose up into the air.

Puff flew low enough to let out a mighty roar that knocked Captain Bluesy Beard and his motley crew clean off their feet as their ship was blown far across the sea. Then, after taking out the trash, Puff proceeded to treat them to a joy flight that Tony would never forget. It was only now that he realised that they were all still wearing their crowns, even Puff although, his headgear had magically expanded to fit his now-mighty head. Unlike his baby self, the dragon’s head was now in proportion to his large body, and his head was far less prominent.

The thrill of riding on Puff’s back was indescribable. It was exhilarating, scary and utterly joyful, all at the same time as the wind rushed past them at a speed that felt a little like driving his Mustang on the open road. He missed that car so much, but riding on a dragon was so much better, it was freedom… weightlessness, and Tony felt a pang of regret when, in the distance, he saw the shoreline. It seemed that Lucinda and Xavier were enjoying themselves just as much as he was. Xavier was using all his words as he babbled nonstop, and his beautiful, wonderful mother was singing…

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail

Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff’s gigantic tail

Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came

Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name

Oh, Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honah Lee

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honah Lee

Then suddenly, Tony felt himself falling through the air. Somehow, he had parted company with Puff, but he could still see the dragon with Lucinda and Xavier still safely astride Puff, which calmed him somewhat. He knew instinctively, he was dying, had known it for some time now. He knew that Lucinda had accepted the fact too, since she’d stopped encouraging him to fight. Not that he gave up; he was fighting to have every single minute possible with his mother and his baby son, but he knew eventually his lungs would give out.

Really, he knew going into this trip to visit Ziva’s Daddy David that his chances of surviving this batshit crazy mission were slim to none. If he hadn’t taken that dip into the Potomac last year to haul Maddie Tyler and that jackass Gibbs out of the trapped car, he might have stood a slightly better chance. Truthfully, his lungs weren’t all that great, to begin with.

No. It was always going to end up with him, dying. But at least Xavier and his mother were safe, and he’d had a chance to spend time with him and to learn things about his mother he never knew. He could never regret the chance he had to spend time here, although it looked like once he died, Tony wouldn’t get to come back.

He just hoped it was quick, he remembered the last time he fell from a plane, it had hurt like hell, connecting with the earth again. And he had been wearing a parachute, even if he waited too long to activate the chute. This time, he was not going to be so lucky.

Or maybe not… about 15 feet off the ground, everything went black, and suddenly there was nothing.

~oOo~

Douglas Fargo arrived, just in the nick of time, as they say with his precious cargo of programmed nanites, Brad thought, looking over DiNozzo’s medical chart at his latest results. His condition had started looking more promising based on his last blood tests. Infection markers: his white blood cell count, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and procalcitonin levels were showing a small, yet steady decrease over the past six hours.

His response initially had proved slow, but in these last tense hours, not only had his infection markers shown hopeful signs, but his temperature had gradually started dropping while his heart rate was improving. Even though they were yet to see an improvement in his renal function, Dr Blake and Dr Fargo had explained patiently that the nanites had been programmed to seek out the primary source of infection first and attack that before moving on to mop up the peripheral pockets of infection.

Hersch, Fargo and Blake – the three scientists seemed to be fair less worried about Tony’s kidney function than Brad and Yair Selman. Brad just hoped they knew what they were doing, although Dr Helen Berkley had tried to reassure him. She had suggested that perhaps dialysis interfered with the nanites’ ability to do their job. Mind you, Brad reminded himself mentally, she doesn’t know about the nanites since she and Jeanne had decided against signing the NDA. They just knew that Global Dynamics had a highly classified experimental treatment that could hopefully treat the infection that was rampaging through Tony’s rapidly weakening body, partly due to him being on the ventilator for so long and also because his immune system had been shot to shit four years ago by the Y-Pestis attack.

So even though Helen’s guess had been an educated one, he figured that she may have had a point. Filtering the Buckeye’s blood, likely would interfere with those microscopic robots in their search and consume mission. He needed to be patient and let them do what Fargo programmed them to. Brad had discovered via Allison Blake that Douglas Fargo was highly skilled in advanced electronics and advanced software programming, especially artificial intelligence, he had created an artificial intelligence program for his car. The Eureka scientist had also created a smart house, but unlike any other, using another AI known as SARAH (Self-Actuated Resident Automated Habitat) and had experience in robotics, designing a human-like robot known as Deputy Andy, who was part of the Eureka Sheriff’s department.

Briefly, Brad resolved that he must try and score an invite to the weird town in Oregon if permitted, so he could see all these wonders. And if that wasn’t enough, Fargo had his own company, designing virtual reality games in his spare time.

So clearly, the programming of nanites to seek out and destroy micro bacterial organisms should be a walk in the park for someone like Dr Fargo. Still, Brad couldn’t help fretting about the former Buckeye. The man was a magnet for trouble – if there was danger Tony would run headlong into it, or it would find him. He also had the worst luck of anyone Brad had ever met, and he should, by rights, be a bitter self-absorbed person, like his boss…former boss. The fact Tony was still looking out for other people, trying to protect them, even when they didn’t deserve his loyalty and protectiveness, was a testament to his generous spirit. Brad was pretty sure it was also why he seemed to attract people who wanted to mother the stuffing out of the fiercely independent man. Not that he wanted to mother DiNozzo, but he was often tempted to tie the guy up for his own wellbeing, and not in a kinky way.

Although his propensity to bring out the maternal side in people had reached new heights lately, his latest wannabe protector was Mossad Officer Liat Tuvia. The only time Tuvia had seen him conscious was when Dr Deitsch reversed that stupid R&J death protocol, and he’d immediately gone into respiratory distress and had to be intubated and bagged to keep him alive. The Buckeye certainly had no opportunity to exude the DiNozzo charm or the wounded little puppy vibes, both of which Brad’s nurse, Emma Ingraham, first spotted when he was infected with the plague four years ago.

Still, that air of wounded little man-child (as Emma called it once) had definitely saved his butt more than once. As it turned out, they owed Liat a massive thanks, not just for watching their backs but because Liat’s Aunt, Ghila, was a geneticist and married to Adam Hersch. Liat suggested to her Uncle that Tony would be a good test subject for the Chaveleh Foundation’s gene therapy research and convinced Dr Selman to talk to Hersch.

Today, Liat brought worrying news from her boss, Malachi Ben-Gidon, that Eli had heard rumours about some VIP being treated at the Aharon Clinic and wanted to know who it was. According to Liat, Amit Hadar and Ben Guidon were positive the Director of Mossad, Eli David, did not suspect that the VIP was DiNozzo who he believed was dead. They thought it was more likely that he was hopeful that it might be someone with a serious or embarrassing medical condition who could be added to his files to be exploited, as was his modus operandi. Liat also reported that the Mossad Director was in mourning, having received a message from Ziva and her handler aboard a Jordanian registered freighter that the Damocles was sinking. Authorities had confirmed that the ship sunk during a storm and there were no survivors, so the conspirators back in Tel Aviv thought that he was dealing with his grief by focusing on something unrelated.

Nevertheless, the general consensus had been that if Eli started sniffing around about their mysterious patient, sooner or later, he could learn the truth, everyone’s asses would be on the line. Since they were still trying to locate where the kompromat files were hidden, the Prime Minister did not want to make a premature move, arresting the Director and his trusted Mossad personnel just yet. Simon Rosen, the Prime Minister’s chief aide, had ordered Associate Director Orli Elbaz to manage the situation and delay Eli as long as possible. She, in turn, had sent for Hadar and Ben-Gidon, demanding they find some way to protect Tony.

Malachai reminded them that Tuvia was already in Haifa running protection for DiNozzo; she was supposed to be on leave, spending time with her Aunt and Uncle after incurring a fabricated injury on duty. Hadar suggested to the Director that they ask her to investigate who the anonymous VIP was, and in the meantime, come up with some fake VIP to play patient to put Eli off the scent.

So now, Officer Tuvia was trying desperately to discover who had been speaking out of turn, and the Aharon staff were currently being limited as to who could have access to DiNozzo’s room. Looking at his friend, Brad was suddenly glad that due to being on a ventilator combined with the effects of his illness, Tony would be hard for most people to recognise. The infection that had ravaged his body and the resulting fever had also been burning up a lot of calories, despite them placing a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding tube last week so Tony could receive enteral nutrition. Despite the enteral feeding, his cheekbones were far more prominent from drastic weight loss, and he had dark shadows under his eyes. With the ventilator apparatus obscuring the lower part of his face, it was unlikely he would be recognised, but as Liat pointed out, if someone managed to take a photo, then facial recognition software was a real concern, which was why they were going to be moved to the neurological ward on the other side of the hospital.

Liat would set up surveillance in the old room and try to figure out who had been talking out of turn. Meanwhile, they decided to bring in private nurses for Tony. The DHS agent, Annie Henderson, was a former medic, and she offered to be one of the private nurses in charge of his friend’s nursing care. Liat somehow procured two other nurses, Samuel and Yitta, who would also be his private nurses.

At that moment, Yair Selman, Tony’s pulmonologist at the Aharon clinic, came through the door with the latest pathology test results in his hands, and a pleased smile.

“Good news?” Brad asked hopefully.

He rose from the unoccupied second bed that he’d been perched on, having shunned the visitor chair in favour of the bed because even in the swankiest private hospitals, such as the Aharon Private Clinic, the visitor’s chairs were sheer instruments of torture.

“Infection makers are all showing a further decrease, particularly the WBCC,” he said, thrusting the results at Brad so he could see for himself.

Dr Pitt donned his spectacles to study the results, noting, “The procalcitonin levels are looking better, too.” His focus shifted from the CBC (Complete Blood Count) and perused the CMP (Complete Metabolic Panel) before looking up in relief. Renal function is finally starting to improve,” he said with relief.

“I need to step out and call Tom Morrow. I promised I would let him know the latest results,” Brad said, feeling relief. The Buckeye wasn’t out of the woods just yet, but things are a whole lot more promising than 12 hours ago.

“Can it wait a bit longer? Officer Tuvia wanted to discuss the plan to move Tony,” Dr Selman said. “She should be here in the next few minutes.”

Brad shrugged. “I guess so. Any idea what it’s about?”

Yair opened his mouth as there was a knock on the door, and the lovely Liat slipped inside. Brad was rather taken with the Israeli. He’d met Ziva a couple of times when Tony spent five days in Bethesda, battling bronchitis after his dip in the Potomac in November after he pulled Gibbs and his daughter’s childhood friend out of a submerged car. Frankly, he was not enamoured by her, finding her to be too arrogant for his tastes. Plus, he wasn’t keen on the way she spoke to Tony. And that was before she and her father demanded he die because he killed her boyfriend when Tony was trying not to get-dead at the hands of a Kidon assassin.

He smiled at Tuvia, who seemed more self-effacing, even if he figured she was probably equally deadly. But then, her father also wasn’t the Director of Mossad, who she could get to sanction the death of anyone who annoyed her, either.

Brad realised that she had already started talking, and it was clear that the plan to move DiNozzo to the neurological ward wasn’t one she thought all that much of.

Dr Selman sighed exasperatedly. “I take it you have a better one?”

Liat smiled. “Yes, I believe that I do. We should hide Agent DiNozzo in the Maternity ward,” she said. “I don’t think any nosy individual will look for him there.”

Brad couldn’t help himself. He started laughing. It was partly the relief from the last series of blood tests, but the idea of his friend surrounded by mothers and babies tickled his funny bone.

Liat frowned at him. “I do not see why this idea provokes such mirth, Dr Pitt,” she said slowly, with a faint hint of disapproval. “And to further throw off any spies who might be keeping watch for the Drs Berkley   bringing in Xavier for a visit, I suggest you bring him in a baby carriage I will supply. People will assume you are his father, and you are bringing him in to visit his mother,” she said with a hint of smugness.

Pitt had to admit, she might have a point. He looked at Dr Selman. “Is this possible?”

Yairs shrugged. “I will consult with Aharon’s hospital administrator, he said and departed swiftly.

Brad cursed under his breath. He was planning on asking the pulmonologist if he could stay with Tony while he stepped out to call Morrow with Tony’s latest blood tests.

Smiling at Liat, he explained his quandary.

She nodded. “Go, make your call. I will watch your friend. It is my job.”

Chapter 24

Donald Ducky Mallard left the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA, a comfortable drive from Reston, where they met the last time he and the former Director of NCIS, Tom Morrow, had found a charming and secluded spot with Adirondack chairs to have a private conversation several weeks ago. Ducky loved Vienna – well, he adored the original Vienna in Austria more, having travelled there many times when he was living in the UK. After all, it was a much shorter journey from London, and he love attending the symphony and the opera there. The Viennese Waltz somehow never sounded quite the same when performed anywhere else.

Still, for all its stunningly beautiful architecture and cultural pursuits, its namesake in Virginia had a certain undeniable charm, too. He loved pottering around the quaint town, and while the main street had lots of interesting shops to explore when he was in the right mood often, after difficult cases, he preferred something quieter with less bustle and traffic. Whenever he was physically and emotionally exhausted, Church Street, which ran parallel to the main street, was just the ticket, It was much quieter, and it had several of Ducky’s favourite stores, like the independent bookstore Bards Alley, where he often picked up some interesting books that weren’t to be found in those blasted giant chain bookshops that were steadily devouring the independents.

Then, right across from Bards Alley was the Clock Shoppe of Vienna, which had over five hundred clocks where he could lose himself for several hours. On one occasion, the proprietor helped NCIS identify a clock that helped to solve the murder of a young Marine Lieutenant. After winding down, wandering into his favourite shops and exploring the newer proprietors and their wares, who had opened up establishments since his last visit here, he would always retire to one of the several pleasant Church Street cafés to indulge in a leisurely afternoon tea, emerging sometime later, much restored in body and spirit.

Although, this particular Saturday afternoon, he was going to forgo the charms of Church Street in favour of one of the very fine craft brewers and have a glass or two of ale. Thomas had mentioned at the end of their tête-à-tête in the Botanic Gardens that he felt like he could do with a pint, and Ducky concurred, telling his old friend and colleague that he knew just the place. In fact, there was one most, excellent brewery that also served food, so perhaps lunch was in order and would ensure that the ale didn’t go straight to their heads.

Of course, later this afternoon, he would stop by Harland Hall and visit his mother, the formidable Victoria Mallard, who, unfortunately, was no longer as formidable or indeed redoubtable as she used to be. Alzheimer’s Disease had robbed her of much of the personality and memories that used to make her such a remarkable lady. Now, in the later stages of the disease, she was much diminished, and there were many more days than not, where Victoria did not recognise him, often mistaking him for his father. Depending on the day, she could still be remarkably cordial if she mistook him for his father, but on her bad days, he would end up copping an earful about his pater’s laundry list of flaws that left him with far more information about his parents married life than he ever wanted to know.

Still, one could always hope that today would be a gem, one of the increasingly rare times when she recognised her own son. If so, he might persuade her to take a spin in the Morgan with him. She had always loved his car – he guessed it was because it reminded her of home. Sometimes, Donald felt guilty that she was going to die in the USA, far from her roots and wondered for the umpteenth time if perhaps he should have returned home to Great Britain so she could live out her twilight years in the place she loved. When those doubts surfaced, Donald had always been rather quick to brush them aside, making excuses about the important work he did at NCIS. Although truth, to tell, Ducky could just as easily, have been doing that work anywhere. No, it was the people who worked at NCIS, who’d he’d come to regard as family, that made the idea of returning home to Mother England for Victoria’s final years undesirable, or it had in the past.

And now, in the late stages of the horrendous degenerative brain disorder that was slowly robbing her of her true sense of identity, extinguishing her unique memories, it was far too late to take her back. The trip would be much too distressing, and he blamed himself for his dithering, particularly in light of the recent hard truths about the people he worked with at NCIS that had come to light. This indubitably begged the question, for someone who prided himself on being a student of the human condition, how the dickens had he been so blindly oblivious?

He had, in recent years, completed a master’s degree in forensic psychology, and with hindsight, it seemed like a massive conceit. Especially with the facts coming to light after Jethro’s return from Tel Aviv a couple of weeks ago. At first, when he returned home sans poor Anthony, killed in a tragic accident, and Ziva, whom Jethro considered his surrogate daughter, sent by her father on a mission to Somalia to locate a terrorist training camp, his friend seemed almost like a stranger.

He could immediately see that something serious was troubling his good friend, and it became even more obvious, at least to Ducky, whenever he interacted with a rather smug, Director Vance. There was a barely contained fury simmering below the surface in his old friend that gave him pause for thought, instinctively feeling that there was something terribly wrong. It definitely reminded him of the troubled countenance of Jenny Shepard when the poor woman turned to him before her death. Tragically, she was already too ill for medical intervention, and all he could offer her was the solace of confirming what she had already feared. It felt so very inadequate, and Ducky prayed fervently, that Jethro was not ill too.

Instinctively he knew that something was very far wrong with him. In addition to the seething anger, Jethro tried to keep hidden, there was a palpable air of defeatism about the former Marine that Ducky had never encountered before.

Certainly, anger was not something foreign to his friend. Ducky had often wondered if Jethro had emerged from his sainted mother’s womb, angry at being expelled from the peaceful solitude he seemed to crave. No – the anger was nothing new – it was Gibbs’ desperate attempts to keep it in check that was terribly uncharacteristic of the man and deeply disturbed Ducky. He’d never in the past (at least during his nearly two decades of acquaintance with the man) known him to worry about inflicting his fearsome temper on those around him. For Jethro to be so intent on restraining himself, Ducky was gravely concerned.

When he learned the truth behind Jethro’s odd behaviour, it was much worse than he could ever have imagined. He also understood why Jethro had taken himself and Tobias into his confidence and chosen to keep Abigail and Timothy in the dark about the looming threat. Both youngsters were appallingly bad at subterfuge and deception. This was most certainly not the time for them to flub and give the game away.

The merest hint that they knew what was going on could be disastrous for all, and with what Jethro had confessed to himself and Tobias, it had rocked the worldly and well-travelled Dr Mallard to his core. It was also exceedingly distressing to learn the truth about Anthony’s death and, Ducky was grateful that Jethro had seen fit not to confess to him the truth about what had occurred in Israel until after Anthony’s funeral had been held. Ducky wasn’t entirely convinced he would have been capable of delivering Anthony’s eulogy, and he now understood why Jethro had refused so vehemently.

At the time, Ducky was at a loss to understand why his friend could not perform this one last service for the young agent who had always been Jethro’s six for the past eight years. Undoubtedly, it was a terrible tragedy for Anthony to have been killed in a fatal car crash but sadly, these things do happen, Ducky had told himself philosophically. If a small proportion of the population in Tel Aviv drove as erratically as Ziva did, then it was not unexpected that there would be accidents where people died. And as inexplicable as Jethro’s emphatic refusal to speak a word at Anthony’s funeral, and such a stirring funeral, with young Madelaine Tyler’s insistence on speaking about Tony’s incredible lifesaving feat last year, and various colleagues sharing various acts of valour, he had still noticed the terrific tension between Gibbs and the director. How could he not, since you could cut the air with a knife when they were forced to share propinquity.

Equally baffling to Ducky was Gibbs’ callous attitude to the fact that Ziva, at her father’s behest, had taken on the mission that Officer Rivkin had been meant to undertake in Somalia. When Director Vance announced that she had been on board a Jordanian registered freighter, the Damocles, in the Indian Ocean when it went down off the coast of Somalia in a storm on the 28th of May, and there were no survivors, the medical examiner expected that Gibbs would be distraught with grief.

To have lost a second member of his team, especially since he regarded her as a surrogate daughter, Ducky had expected him to be distraught. That he was stoic in the face of such devastating news, indeed almost seemed to be uncaring, had perplexed Ducky a great deal since Timothy and Abby, and to a lesser degree Jimmy, were grief-stricken. Particularly, with it coming on top of Anthony’s tragic death.

He’d tried to talk to Gibbs, convinced the Marine was either in deep denial or had walled his emotions off, trying to make him acknowledge his grief. It wasn’t until later when Gibbs had decided to read Fornell and himself in on the truth, not just about Anthony’s death but Leon Vance’s threat to destroy them all if Gibbs reported what had really happened to Anthony, that Donald finally understood. Jethro was not just furious at the Director’s betrayal of DiNozzo, but he felt utterly betrayed by Ziva’s disloyalty. He slowly came to see that Gibbs thought she’d gotten divine retribution for what she’d done to Anthony, and Ducky wasn’t about to argue with the seething team leader even if he had been extremely fond of her, too.

Gibbs confided to Ducky that Vance had much pleasure in cluing him in on the fact that her killing her half-brother Ari was on orders of Ziva’s father when he learnt that the man had gone rogue. That a part of his plan to take care of his son (whose sympathies lay with Hamas, not Mossad) was that in having Ziva kill him to save Gibbs, she would earn Jethro’s undying loyalty, and given that he was a Marine, was no small thing to be owed. It also explained why he was always so protective of her and had given her so much leeway during the whole situation with Michael Rivkin, despite the Kidon assassin’s intransigence, in trying to take out the entire terrorist cell of extremists in the City of the Angeles before relocating to DC to go after Abin Tabal.

He knew that there was a lot more going on that Jethro hadn’t read him in on, and frankly, Ducky was rather glad of that. Sometimes plausible deniability had its perks, so he was happier not to know too much, suspecting that it would make it even harder to behave typically around people that he’d come to despise. He was more than happy to be the intermediary between Gibbs and Thomas however, passing on information since both men had deemed it much too dangerous to be seen in each other’s company. Ducky and the former NCIS director were known to socialise semi-regularly and it continued even after Morrow had joined DHS.

During their first meeting last week, Morrow had indicated that investigations were afoot, but discretion was imperative to ensure that the guilty were brought to justice and not allowed to escape it. Indeed, Donald wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that Tom knew a great deal more about the whole sordid situation than the intel that Jethro had given him to pass on, including a rather curious copy of an autopsy on Director Vance’s dear friend, Tyler Keith Owens who had died, when Leon had insisted on his death being investigated by NCIS, even though the man was clearly not military.

Gibbs, for some unfathomable reason, requested Ducky redo the autopsy, and while he refused to say why, in his typical high-handed fashion, had thrown the ME a bone, telling him to look for evidence of past surgeries. When Ducky handed over the blood tests and confirmed that he also still had a vial of Mr Owen’s blood, Tom seemed very happy. Clearly, Tom knew more than he let on, he was sure of it, although Ducky had refrained from sharing that information with Gibbs, upon Thomas’ specific request.

Morrow was also very pleased when he’d also handed over the transcripts of a conversation, he’d requested Ducky try to undertake, questioning Abby Sciuto about an altercation that had taken place between the pair where Anthony believed ICE Agent Forster-Yates had threatened her. The former NCIS director wanted to know what was said but didn’t want to wait until they took Director Vance and SECNAV down for their despicable act, selling out Anthony and sacrificing his life to curry favour with Eli David. To be honest, when Morrow approached him to pump Abby about their encounter, he found Thomas’ zeal to pursue Agent Forster-Yates to be unusual. Although he found the agent rather strident, Ducky wasn’t sure why Tom seemed bound and determined to bring her down, for that was what he seemed intent on doing.

Tom had sensed his hesitation and said. “If Forster-Yates hadn’t destroyed the listening device, Dr Sciuto would most likely have tracked it back to Officer Rivkin’s laptop, and he would not have been able to plant the laptop as red herring, blaming Tabal for Agent Sherman’s death and spying on the intelligence summit. Even if Rivkin had executed him, it would not have been ruled as a suicide, and the director could not get away with closing the case with Tabal as Sherman’s killer. Ziva would have been forced to answer questions during the investigation about what a terrorist’s laptop was doing accessing her internet.

Ducky suddenly understood where Thomas was coming from. “And there would have been no need for Anthony to go to her apartment in search of answers.”

Morrow scowled. “Correct, Ducky and Agent DiNozzo would not have been forced to fly to Tel Aviv.

Ducky had looked embarrassed. “I erred in declaring Tabal’s death an open and shut suicide. If only I had refused to sign off on his death, Anthony would, in all likelihood, still be alive.”

“That is true, Donald,” Morrow didn’t sugarcoat it. “But you share culpability with Gibbs and Fornell, who could and should have objected to your finding. Leon Vance was in a mad rush to close down the investigation, maybe because he knew the truth of Sherman’s death, or else, he suspected and was desperate to avoid embarrassing Eli David. He must bear most responsibility for the screw-up, but Forster-Yates started the whole thing unravelling. My concern and others,” he said vaguely, “is, was it sheer incompetence on her part, and if so, I’ll have her head on a platter for the loss of a fine agent, or was it deliberate?”

Ducky was looking increasingly disturbed. “Deliberate? What makes you think that, my friend.”

“Because her wanton destruction almost allowed Officer Rivkin to get away with killing Officer Sherman, something which would have caused an international incident if it was documented. It makes me wonder if she was incompetent, one of Eli’s victims of his Kompromat files and, therefore was she coerced into letting Rivkin onto the property to plant the device. Did Agent Sherman see or hear something hinky, as Dr Sciuto would say, and leave his post to investigate? Maybe learning about her threat to Abby will shed light on what really happened,” Tom concluded.

So Ducky agreed to question Abigail about the incident with ICE Agent Julia ‘Jules’ Forster-Yates, wondering how to do that without making too much fuss. The last thing he wanted was to stir her up and for gossip to get back to that cur, Leon Vance. As far as Ducky was concerned, his betrayal of Anthony for political expediency was unforgivable, so he didn’t want Leon to get a heads-up about whatever Tom was planning.

When he expressed his fears, Morrow explained that the Secretary of Defense had a plan. Robert Bose, and Attorney General Elaine Woods had decided to unleash the Justice Department’s IG to investigate how the investigation of Tom Sherman’s death had almost resulted in an international incident as cover for far-wider ranging investigations, Ducky realised he needed worry.

This week the NCIS DC office was dealing with Mr Parson’s investigation of them, with all of its expected NCIS scuttlebutt and the ubiquitous number of betting pools. Speculating was rife as to who would be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency as the least valuable agency asset, since it seemed to the pundits as if the Departments of Defense and Justice were looking for a scapegoat. So, everyone was debating as to whom it was going to be. Would it be ICE, FBI or NCIS, who was chosen to be made an example of?

As Agent Bates in Fraud had said, the smart money was on NCIS because they had four agents, forensics and the medical examiner involved, while ICE and FBI only had one agent a piece. The laws of probability made it highly unlikely that anyone other than NCIS would bear the blame, which was no doubt how Director Vance had read the situation, too. While he hadn’t entered the betting pool, the Director seemed, very out of sorts and irritable.

Although Ducky concluded with more than a touch of schadenfreude, part of the director’s ill-humour could undoubtedly be blamed on Richard Parsons’ demeanour as much as his in-depth investigation. The Inspector General’s representative possessed a personality that could be best described as pernicious. Everyone was too busy keeping their heads down below the turrets, especially when Mr Parsons would stop random employees to enquire if what they were doing was the standard operating procedure.

The purpose of the investigation, as near as Ducky could determine from what the deputy director said, was to keep the entire office off guard and bordering on paranoia. The ME had to hand it to Tom and SECDEF, it, was diabolically clever. Leon Vance was kept extremely busy putting out fires and soothing the nerves of the DC staff, which was amusing since he seemed in quite an ill-temper himself.

As he drove his beloved Morgan away from the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, he thought about the recordings of his ‘chat with Abigail that he’d just turned over to Tom. As to his theory of Foster-Yates’ possible motivation to delay or protect Mossad’s connection to the intelligence conference instead of sheer unadulterated idiocy, Ducky thought Thomas was on the right track after he’d learned the other day when he quizzed their favourite Goth forensic about their encounter.

He had been forced to wait until he and Abigail both had a lull in proceedings before he turned up in Abby’s Labby, as she called it, a Caf-Pow in hand to smooth his way. After the social niceties, he wasted no time getting down to business.

“A little birdy told me that you had an altercation with young Timothy over an attractive young agent from Immigration Customs Enforcement. Were you suffering from a touch of the dreaded Green-eyed Monster, Abigail?” Ducky asked her playfully, wanting to put her on the defensive so she didn’t analyse why he questioned her nearly two weeks after it occurred. Tom had asked him to be discreet after all.

Abby had pouted at him, just as he knew she would.

“What? No, Ducky, it wasn’t like that. I was ranting about the bug you found under the body. I told Timmy that it wasn’t like Agent Sherman’s killer left no trace behind,” she replied. “ Because he did! He left exactly one trace, the bug. And then I think I said, but someone in their infinite wisdom, decided to stomp it into a hundred pieces, and I pointed out that it might have still been transmitting.”

“I see. And what did young Timothy have to say about that?” Ducky prompted her gently.

“Timmy insisted that it was not still transmitting,” Abby told him.”

Ducky wondered how McGee was so sure about that. Timothy was not present on the patio when Ducky discovered the listening device under the deceased agent’s body. Though he held his tongue on the matter and tried hard not to think of the macabre fact that poor Agent Sherman had bitten his tongue as he died, the unfortunate lad!

Abby’s dander was up again at the thought of someone who’d made her life more difficult by destroying the bug.

He couldn’t exactly blame the dear girl, since as a forensic scientist, he doubted that anything could be more heinous to Abby than deliberately destroying evidence.

“We could have tracked the signal, you know,” she told him. Maybe get a bead on the real killer,” she said in frustration.

“How do you figure that, My Dear?” he asked her.

“Well, think of the timeline, Duckman. The evidence came in at the same time as Agent Sherman’s body. It took me hours, to put the bug back together, so I could use it to trace who was listening to the feed. By the time I had it reassembled and could trace the link to the laptop, it had already been planted in Abin Tabal’s motel room.”

Seeing Ducky’s lack of comprehension of the point she was attempting to make, she said. “You put Tabal’s time of death at no more than two hours before he was found, Ducky. If I had received the bug intact, there’s a good possibility that it would have led us straight to Rivkin, or at least to Ziva’s apartment,” she concluded dourly.

“Good lord, Abigail. I do believe you are correct,” Ducky exclaimed.

And if you hadn’t been so damned quick to call Abin Tabal’s assassination a suicide, the case wouldn’t have been closed, and Abby would have found the evidence of the swapped laptops, he concluded guiltily. You messed up, and because of it, Anthony was injured and then he was executed, Ducky castigated himself harshly.

He wasn’t the only one feeling guilty. Tears began to leak down Abby’s pale visage.

“I ranted at McGee about The Bug Stomp, Ducky. I told McGee, that’s a classic movie move. It sounded like such a Tony thing to do. As if he would ever do anything so stupid, but I was mad …”

“And it was always far too easy to take one’s anger out on Anthony,” he observed sadly. “After all, Jethro did it all the time.”

“But Tony was a brilliant investigator with crazy mad skills, Ducky. He would never disrespect the evidence like that, but I questioned his professionalism,” she sobbed. “I’m a terrible person and a horrible friend,”

There wasn’t anything he could say to ease her guilt, except lying, and he refused to do that. Ducky had latterly realised he had a bad habit of absolving people of their guilt, whether it was deserved or not, especially with Jethro. He had even done so with Timothy over the misappropriation of his teammates’ identities, without their permission, for his Deep Six books, even after it cost two people their lives. He told McGee he wasn’t to blame.

The wake-up call on that subject had come about not because of the theft of his typewriter ribbon cost two innocent people their lives but when Abigail had come within a whisker of being murdered by a crazed fan. While Timothy may feel it was cathartic to lash out at people using a pen rather than the sword, if a delusional coffee barista could identify the individuals that he had based his character on, Ducky belated realised the author did bear a degree of responsibility for their deaths as well.

Instead of handing out absolution that was not his to give, he tried to distract her by asking, “And when did it come to your attention that Anthony was not responsible for making your life even harder?”

“Right after I bad-mouthed him, Ducky. McGee said he thought it was a Jules move, not Tony. So then I said, ‘A Jules? What is a Jules?’”

“I take it that at this point you had not made the acquaintance of Agent Forster-Yates?”

“No, Duckman and I wish that I’d stayed in that state of blissful ignorance,” she said emphatically.

“Hmm. So what happened then?”

“I gave McGee the evil eye because I was mad at him that he didn’t seem to understand how serious it was to deliberately destroy crucial evidence. Even after five years on the major case response team,” she said indignantly.

Ducky admitted to being quite shocked by Timothy’s too-cavalier attitude, himself. The girl had a very cogent argument.

“And what happened next?” he prompted her.

“Then I told McGee that I’d have to have a word with this Jules if we ever had the good fortune of meeting.”

What did Timothy have to say about that?”

“McGee smirked at me, Ducky and said, ’I’d like to be here for that,’ which was horrible. He seemed oblivious to how sloppy and negligent Agent Foster-Yates’ behaviour was at a murder scene. I mean, she knew that it was a crime scene because wasn’t she with Tony and Ziva when you declared that Sherman died after forcibly being restrained in a headlock, ruling out an accidental death.”

“Indeed, she was present when I reported my initial findings at the scene,” he agreed calmly.

“Well, she couldn’t claim to be ignorant about the importance of the evidence when she stomped on it. Timmy knows how wrong it was, so how could he take her side like that,” Abby asked him indignantly.

“Against you?” he asked sympathetically.

“Against every rule of forensic evidence gathering, Duckman,” she chastised him.

“Quite so, Abby. Mea culpa,” Ducky apologised.

“Why would she destroy evidence that could help us find to find her agent’s killer. Did you ever wonder if Tony might still be alive, too, if not for her stomping on the bug?”

And who could argue with that conclusion, he asked himself.

“I don’t really understand it myself, Abigail. All I can offer on the subject is that Timothy seemed to have taken rather a shine to the attractive Agent Forster-Yates.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know, Duckman. You should have seen her hitting on him when he brought her down here to My Lab to work on a computer simulation of her protection detail design because Gibbs was mad with her and questioning her competence,” she said sarcastically. “He must have had his reasons; Gibbs is always right.”

Ducky was happy to have such a splendid segue into questioning what had gone on in their confrontation because he knew Abby. When it came to forensic integrity, she would not back down from getting in an agent’s face, and he’d seen her do so with many a rookie agent over the years. He was just about to ask her what had happened when Mr Palmer texted him. Agent Balboa’s team had a dead body, and thus, his services were required asap. His de facto Thomas interview would have to wait.

Perhaps we can continue this discussion at a later date, Dear Abigail? I would love to hear about what happened when you had a chance to confront Special Agent Forster-Yates. Unfortunately, Jimmy has informed me that another crime scene calls me, and no doubt you’ll soon have more evidence to process, too.”

While they were waiting on forensic results on Balboa’s victim, Lieutenant Arminda Singh, who had been beaten to death outside a bar, Ducky offered Abby Sciuto afternoon tea. He sweetened the pot by including her favourite Chocolate Digestive Biscuits, which were his mother’s favourites, too.

“So, my dear Abigail, you were going to tell me what occurred between you and Special Agent Forster-Yates, hmm?”

“Well, at first, I had no idea who she was, Ducky. Timmy just showed up with her and introduced her as Agent Forster-Yates. I gathered from their conversation that Gibbs had bawled her out, questioning her security design, so McGee was ordered to recreate a computer model and analyse it,” she said. “Later on, he admitted he volunteered to do the computer simulation because he was crushing on her, but Tim thought ‘Jules’ was out of his league. I guess he thought if he could vindicate her design, she might go out with him,” Abby told him.

“Did it work?” Ducky asked her curiously because he couldn’t resist a good bit of gossip, and if he didn’t ask her, Abigail would find that suspicious.

“Pu-lea-se,” she snarked. “Special Agent Forster-Yates couldn’t keep her hands to herself, even while he was typing in computer code to save her ass. That’s when he called her Jules, and I realised SHE was the ONE!”

“My goodness, and then what happened?”

“I confronted her, Ducky. I asked her if she was often in the habit of destroying evidence?”

“What was Agent Forster-Yates’ reaction to your inquiry, Abby?”

“Jules turned around and gave me a super patronising look. And said, ‘Beg your pardon?’ And I told her very calmly. I was super-duper calm, Duckman,” she insisted.

“I believe you, My Dear. So what was it you told her?”

“Very calmly, I said to her, ’You should, actually. Because I am the one responsible for reconnecting and reactivating all of those extremely delicate pieces of electronics.’ And I calmly and collectedly gave her the evil eye that my granny taught me.”

“OH MY. What did Agent Foster-Yates say, Abby?”

“Jules was very superior like she was a special agent, and I was just a lab rat. She asked me in a sickly-sweet voice, ‘You can do that?’ And I told her that, of course, I can. But that wasn’t the issue, I shouldn’t have had to do it, Ducky.”

“Of course not, Abby,” he reassured her. “And what did she say then?”

“Very passive-aggressively, Jules asked me, ‘Then what’s the problem?’ Meanwhile, Timmy was staring at Jules with a stupid star-struck grin like a sixteen-year-old boy, then she asked what the problem was, and he got this mean half-smirk on his face and sniggered at me. He was essentially rooting for Jules, who was sneering at me because I was pissed off at her for breaking a fundamental rule in crime scene processing. She did the wrong thing, and ‘Jules’ never even apologised for all the work she caused, and McGee was egging her on!” she told him in high dudgeon with a stamp of her foot for good measure.

“Well, she was most certainly in the wrong when she destroyed that evidence,” Ducky agreed with her exasperatedly.

“She had no official standing to make such a decision. Jethro said that Philip Davenport had told ICE and the CIA to go home. She ignored his directive, and that Jethro and Tobias even let her observe was down to professional courtesy to another agency. Plus, they were trying to obtain information from her like any witness,” he huffed indignantly.

Anthony had yelled at the infernal woman not to destroy the bug when he realised her intention, but she ignored him anyway. Clearly, she needed to be put down a peg or four.

“That’s when I got this hinky feeling that she had some serious issues, Ducky, so I gave up on trying to explain why destroying evidence was wrong and why I was so angry. Not that I should have to, right? Everyone knows you don’t destroy evidence, so I tried to humour her by asking if she knew some kind of martial arts or something, and she told me, ‘My Mother was the ambassador to Bangkok. I fell in love with Muay Thai.”

Abby fell silent, her features working overtime as she struggled to control her emotions.

My goodness, dear girl, it’s like pulling teeth. What happened then?” Ducky said, feeling real anxiety.

“So, then, I said if I tried to scratch her eyes out, she could probably break my fingers?”

“Oh, Abigail!” Ducky clucked, dismayed. “It was not smart to provoke her nor to suggest bodily harm. Not even in jest,” he huffed in alarm.

“Yeah, I got that,” Abby said in a small, strangled voice.

“What did she say, Abigail Sciuto?” he asked her sternly as Abby looked both scared and furious.

“Her voice dripped with more fake saccharine than a Caf-Pow, and she said, ‘That would be a mistake. You need your fingers to fix that bug.’ She threatened and insulted me, and in my own lab,” she wailed, looking thoroughly discomforted.

Meanwhile, Ducky wondered what the bloody hell Timothy had been thinking, letting this situation go on and not stopping it immediately. It went south very fast!

~oOo~

The gardens were a beautiful place to meet, and the secluded corner they chose for their tête-à-tête ensured their privacy. So when Tom mentioned to his wife that he was meeting Donald Mallard in Vienna today, she leapt at the chance to go, too. Lynnie loved to wander around in the quaint shops and said she wanted to buy some of the exceptional handmade chocolates from a specialty shop in Maple St for a birthday present for a friend. Lynette could also never turn down the chance to wander through the Freeman Store and Museum, built in 1858 as a general store serving Ayr Hill (now known as Vienna) for many years.

So, Lynette Morrow wandered off to shop in the town centre, and Tom and Ducky attended to their business at the gardens.

When Ducky suggested that they should grab something to eat at the brewery cum restaurant, Morrow mentioned that Lynnette had come with him to Vienna, and Ducky insisted she join them. They spent a low-key hour or two over a nice meal, catching up together, and enjoyed several craft beers, chatting about various mutual friends, Ducky’s mother, and a couple of scandals currently doing the rounds in DC. He also regaled the Morrows with tales about the kerfuffle that Richard Parsons was causing with his review of the joint investigation into Agent Sherman’s death. It seemed the DOJ investigator (who was seen as a slick lawyer) was causing mayhem a-plenty in all three federal agencies. Tom was pleased by Ducky’s account of Parson’s shenanigans; even if Parsons hadn’t been read in on the bigger picture, he was doing a damn fine job of deflecting attention away from the Secretary of Defense and DHS’ far more wide-ranging investigation of the NCIS Director and Philip Davenport.

According to Ducky, Parsons was sorely in need of a personality transplant, which kept Leon Vance exceedingly busy soothing ruffled feathers of various employees who ran afoul of him when he spotted some minor breach of protocol. In fact, earlier, Donald mentioned that Abby was so hyped up on Caf-Pows due to her concerns over his investigating Agent Sherman’s death, that she had been far too flustered to even ask which little birdie had told Ducky about Forster-Yates threats. Hearing the drama taking place at his former agency, he marvelled, not for the first time, at the cunning strategy devised by Secretary Bose. He must have been a formidable officer.

However, as genial as the company and conversation were on that Saturday afternoon, Tom couldn’t help feeling impatient for it to end so he could head home and listen to the tapes of Donald and Abigail Sciuto’s conversations. Ducky had given him the gist of the contents, and they certainly validated DiNozzo’s concerns, but Tom still wanted to hear the recording for himself. Still, with so many years of practice, he disguised his eagerness to wrap up their visit to Vienna since Ducky and his wife were enjoying themselves. Even after Ducky departed sometime later with a fond kiss on Lynnie’s cheek and a firm handshake between the two old colleagues, Tom managed to avoid bustling his wife back in their car and heading home.

When his wife suggested they stop by the Wolf Creek National Park to check their seasonal concert schedule to see what might be on at the Park’s Filene Center tonight, Tom groaned, but inwardly. He wanted to go home and shut himself away in his office and listen to Abby Sciuto’s account of what happened with Agent Forster-Yates but he knew Lynnette didn’t know that. His wife had put up with a lot of him over the years, with the outrageous hours he frequently had to work, so he sucked it and agreed to check out the concerts they had tonight. Although he was relieved to learn the concert tonight was not one that either of them was interested in attending, he could sense his wife’s disappointment. So Tom suggested they could stop on the way home to catch a movie instead, and he was rewarded by his wife’s incandescent smile that did funny things to him, even after many years of wedded bliss.

That’s when he belatedly remembered it was Lynnette’s turn to pick the movie. Their egalitarian marriage included taking turns picking out the movie and takeout. At least he got to pick dinner tonight, and Morrow chose pizza because it was fast – but he invariably chose his wife’s favourite, seafood pizza. After pizza, they sat in the darkened movie theatre holding hands as they watched The Proposal, a romcom with Sandra Bullock. It was okay, he supposed, although if it had been his pick, he would have chosen My Life in Ruins with Tom Hanks and Richard Dreyfuss or The Taking of Pelham 123 with Denzel Washinton, who was a damn fine actor. On the way home, Tom remembered the Ethiopian food he had eaten a couple of weeks ago with the Secretary of Defense, and he suggested that next weekend, they should make reservations for dinner. Lynnie sounded excited at the prospect, his wife was feverishly planning for the time in their lives when they both retired from work and could spend months travelling each year.

When they finally made it home, he headed straight into his office and fired up his computer before he slipped the thumb drive into the port and clicked on the file. Morrow sat back and listened to the gravelly voice of the forensic scientist and Dr Mallard’s cultured tone and then listened to it again. He listened to the audio file for a third and a fourth time, focusing on the words that Abby chose. Tom agreed, he could see why Tony was contemplating filing a complaint against Forster-Yates. Abby should never have made that passive-aggressive crack about scratching her eyes out, but the threat to break Abby’s fingers was chilling enough for Sciuto to back down. Unless you were Leroy Jethro Gibbs, that was an almost impossible feat to achieve.

However, it was the utter disdain, absence of any contrition of the destruction of the evidence, along with her certainty that Abby could reassemble the listening device she deliberately destroyed, and that Abby had nothing better to do, that was the cruncher for Morrow. This was damn good confirmation that Foster-Yates knew exactly what she was doing; she was either attempting to do one of two things. Jules was either to hide the fact that she gave Rivkin access to Davenport’s residence so he could plant the bug and protect her ass or alternatively trying to buy him time to ditch the technology to listen in to the bug, identifying him as the intruder. Probably trying to prevent them from discovering her involvement, too.

Chances were that Eli had dirt on her! How many others would they discover had been compromised by some dirty secret that had managed to escape the not inconsequential vetting process agent underwent, yet Eli had somehow discovered and used to get what he wanted?

Damn it! Robert had been right on the money about Forster-Yates and the kompromat!

Chapter 25

Allison observed Tony with clinical evaluation mixed together with downright curiosity as he reclined on a lounger, holding onto Xavier as Jeanne left the yacht with the rest of their group, most of whom were spending the day sightseeing in Larnaca, Cyprus. Only three people were headed to the international airport. Her colleague at Global Dynamics, Douglas Fargo, and his DHS minder, Raffael Cortes, were heading back home to Eureka.  Officer Liat Tuvia, a Mossad operative who was in charge of Tony’s protection in Haifa, sailed with them when they had to leave the Israel port city in a hurry. She wanted to ensure they didn’t encounter any trouble on the way to Cyprus. Liat would now fly back home, taking a roundabout route just in case Eli had his people watching out for them.

The plan was to make it much harder to track them should anyone want to as they’d all left Haifa on board the yacht, The Aurora, that Jeanne and Helen used to slip quietly into Israel from Cyprus. The plan was to make stops along the way, with people flying home from different countries as the super yacht Aurora sailed back to France via the Mediterranean Sea. Tony and the three Berkleys would sail back to France since the medical consensus was that Tony should not fly while his lungs were still regenerating, thanks to the experimental gene therapy.

No one knew the risk that flying might cause to that process, and since they were forced to leave Haifa unexpectedly at Israel’s insistence, they didn’t want to jeopardise the promising results in any way. Sailing would also give him a chance to rest in a more relaxing environment than the hospital and recover physically from the effects of the infection that had almost killed him. The sea air and four medical doctors onboard, plus Annie Henderson from DHS, who was a former medic in the Navy, were well qualified to supervise his recovery. Perhaps they were smothering him somewhat if the prospect of spending the day without them hovering around him was a clue, Allison thought smiling. He definitely didn’t seem at ease with all of their hovering.

She planned to depart, flying out from either, Heraklion in Crete or Valletta when they reached Malta. Brad was still vacillating between heading back to DC and his job at Bethesda and staying on so he could continue to monitor his friend as he recovered. Pitt seemed concerned but wouldn’t discuss it, apart from saying he was concerned about Tony’s psychological state. Not knowing the federal agent, Alison was prepared to bow to Dr Pitt’s judgement that he was struggling, and given everything that had happened to him, it was hardly surprising for him to experience a degree of depression. Also, as she was sure Brad was aware, the familiarity between him and Tony was probably a good thing if, as Brad hinted, he was struggling.

When the rest of the group first discussed exploring Larnaca, a city on the southeast coast of Cyprus, after seeing Fargo off at the airport, Jeanne suggested remaining on board with Tony and Xavier since she didn’t think that her son would appreciate the sightseeing or being separated from his father. There was much chuckling when she mentioned Xavier, who indeed clung to his father like a barnacle to a boat. Plus, even if he wanted to, Tony was definitely not physically up to sightseeing and Xavier was surprisingly attached to his father, despite properly meeting him when he was taken off the ventilator only five days ago.

Frankly, their whole father-son relationship fascinated Alison; she felt like there was something mysterious about their connection, and as a scientist, she longed to learn more. As a resident of Eureka for several years now, Alison was used to the inexplicable and the impossible being commonplace. Besides it being the headquarters of Global Dynamics, the deceptively sleepy little town in Oregon also hosted a plethora of quirky types, oddballs, eccentrics, and downright weirdos, so she was a lot more open-minded than most scientists holding two doctorates and a medical degree. Weird stuff was always happening there, and Allison Blake had learnt early on in her tenure never to reject the seemingly impossible.

Aside from their instantaneous rapport, the whole skin-to-skin contact effect was bizarre and amazing! Who knew that it not only worked in newborns or that the positive effects went both ways – or it appeared to, in this case. So, Allison hoped he might open up to her because she sensed a story. Hopefully, she could earn his trust.

Look at you, you sound like a journalist, she mock scolded herself, wondering what it was she hoped to hear.

The CEO of Global watched Xavier as Tony’s eyes followed Jeanne leaving, with the rest of the group, including her mother, Helen, a well-respected physician, as they set off in high spirits. The plan was to not linger here in Cyprus, it was still too close to Haifa for comfort, so they would be departing later tonight, slipping away when it would be harder to follow them. In fact, they hadn’t planned on stopping in Larnaca, but Fargo was insistent that he needed to head back to Oregon. He was totally jazzed that the nanites had worked so well in irradicating Tony’s infection and, wanted to get back to his lab and write up his results and a research paper.

Not that it could be published in a peer-reviewed journal at this time, but when his work was declassified at some point, Fargo intended to be ready so that no one else could steal his thunder. Allison knew that when Fargo said that he was specifically talking about his rivalry with Dr Isaac Parrish – the pair were bitter foes, constantly trying to outdo each other. Knowing Douglas as she did, Allison figured the real reason he was in such a hurry to get home was Fargo probably couldn’t wait to rub Dr Parrish’s nose in his successful nanite treatment.

So, while they stopped to let him off so he could fly home, the consensus was they shouldn’t waste the opportunity to sight-see, since no one had been to Cyprus before and, people exclaimed over its beauty and that it was rich with history. They decided to visit the Byzantine Church of Saint Lazurus, where, after rising from the dead, Lazarus came to Larnaca and lived there until his death. Across Saint Lazarus’ Square was the Byzantine Museum, and according to the Aurora’s Captain Costas Kyriakides, who was born in Perivolia (a village just outside of Larnaca), Finikoudes Beach was only a ten-minute walk from the Church of Saint Lazarus. Helen and Brad also wanted to visit Kition, a partially excavated ruins of a 13th-century Greek-built city BCE. Tony agreed to join the rest of the party at a restaurant by the marina for dinner, although Brad and Allison, both urged him to use the wheelchair and not try to make it under his own steam, not wanting him to overexert himself at this early stage of his recovery. She could tell he was expecting DiNozzo to protest and insist he could walk that far, but when Brad suggested that Xavier ride along with him, Tony shrugged and agreed.

Of course, it was no surprise that Tony wasn’t up to a day of playing day tourist. Ideally, Allison, Adam Hersch and Yairs Selman would have much preferred that he remained at the Aharon Private Clinic to regain his strength. The simple truth was that he was still weak from the combined effects of the infection and the ordeal he’d undergone with that stupid Mossad protocol to fake his death. While it might have been fine for someone medically fit and psychologically prepared for it, and mostly importantly, had volunteered to undertake such a suicidally insane mission, none of those factors had been met. As a former Department of Defense agent, Allison Blake was disgusted with how he was betrayed, not just his own agency but SECNAV and individuals in the State Department working their own con.

This was why Allison thought if he opened up to anyone, it might be her, so she suggested she remain behind to keep an eye on Tony and Xavier. She pointed out that she needed to write up her notes for the nanite experiment and the gene therapy she’d promised to do for Adam Hersch, and it would be better to do them today.

Sitting beside him as Xavier babbled away, his words mostly consisting of dada, pahpah, bobo, lulu, nanan, Tony listened to the toddler and smiled at his antics, but as the rest of the group, plus a number of the DHS agents left the boat, Allison had noted that DiNozzo’s eyes followed Jeanne as she and her mother made her way down the gangway and onto to the pier.

“You love her,” she said. It was more of an observation than a question.

“Yeah, I do,” he acknowledged, tracking her as she drew further away.

Allison noted his affect was flat, his tone without expression.

“It’s clear she loves you too,” she said gently.

“I’m not so sure about that. She did, once… but I hurt her, and now I’m pretty sure she hates me. But I don’t blame her…she should,” he said with genuine regret.

“There’s a very fine line between love and hate. But maybe that means Jeanne can and has stepped back over that line. She insisted on coming to be with you in Haifa.”

“Don’t think it was love, Doc. She was grateful that I made sure that the CIA can’t use her life as a bargaining chip anymore.”

“You’re probably right about that, but I think it was more than gratitude, or guilt for what she did to you. I think she truly does love you, too.”

He shook his head, perhaps in denial and said, “You could be right, Allison. But what if love isn’t enough?”

“Is it because you can’t forgive her, for what she did? Accusing you of murdering her father was a terrible thing?”

The question made Tony turn his gaze from the distant figure to direct those green eyes of his at her, and he let her see the depth of his pain. “This isn’t about forgiveness, I’m used to forgiving people I love, Allison. Probably too much so,” he muttered, softly as if speaking to himself. He sighed sadly and was quiet for a while.

Xavier seemed to realise his father was upset. He started to stroke his father’s cheek, saying, “Dada, Dada,” before leaning over and planting a sloppy baby kiss on his nose. “DadaDada.”

“Dada loves you too, Xavier, he said, kissing the little boy on his tiny nose and each chubby cheek, making him chuckle.

Once again, Alison wondered at the closeness of their relationship. It seemed far deeper than Tony just having met him these past five days since regaining consciousness. As the toddler picked up his toy cat again, Tony chose to pick up their conversation again

“This is far more basic than being able to forgive each other, Doc. It’s about trust – about her trusting me even though I lied to her, and me trusting her, even though she lied about me.”

“Trust is important, I’m not saying it isn’t,” Allison began.

He interrupted her. “Trust is crucial. I struggle with it every day. Not just with Jeanne. I find it almost impossible to trust anyone. Has been like that ever since I was a child,” he admitted candidly. “As you probably already know, I was supposed to be on an undercover assignment, and I fell in love with Jeanne, even though I knew it was wrong. But I trusted her and let her see the real me, and THAT is something I never do, not even with the people I work with.”

Allison knew that for him to be so distrustful of others, he must have had quite a traumatic childhood.

“And even though I let her see a part of me that I’ve always guarded, I still lied to her about who I was, because of the job. That seems to me, like a pretty fundamental breach of trust,” he said remorsefully.

Allison realised that he was still feeling guilty over what he’d done when he thought he was carrying out an authorised undercover mission. Her security clearance with the DoD meant that Allison had been given his file on the mission by SECDEF and she knew that he’d been betrayed by his director, and he still carried the burden of guilt for what he’d done. Realising the true depth of Tony’s anguish, and his revelation regarding his trust issues, Allison considered that in the context of what had happened to him with SECNAV and Director Vance. Their willingness to throw him under the bus, coupled with a team leader’s readiness to ignore the law and let them, was appalling. Plus, he was facing the terrible knowledge a team member had wanted him to die because he killed her lover in self-defence.

Okay, she could see that his ability to trust anyone would be a problem of Defcon 1 magnitude.

Jeanne’s involvement in this mission – which had not been voluntary, couldn’t have come at a worse time. To find out that she had kept the fact that they had a son together from him for over a year was a lot for anyone to accept. On top of the massive betrayal of his colleagues and bosses and the threats and intimidation that the Acting Secretary of State and her faction had pulled – of course, he must be reeling emotionally.

Dr Blake decided to stop playing amateur psychologist/yenta and listen to Brad Pitt (the doctor, not the actor) when he said that he thought Tony was depressed. How could he not be with everything that had happened? His life, his work?

Speaking of which, it was time to be Tony’s doctor and right now, he looked exhausted. He was still weak, and his appetite was poor. Brad said that it had taken weeks before it returned when he recovered from the plague, but she suspected that this time, his appetite was also tied to his emotional state. The biohazard attack had been something that was a fact of life for federal agencies post 9/11 but, this business with Michael Rivkin was a fundamental betrayal of everything that federal agents counted on to do their difficult and dangerous jobs.

Smiling at the cherubic little boy, and wondering how her son Kevin was doing back home, she said, “Right, well, I think it’s time we had some lunch, Xavier?”

He grinned at her, revealing several teeth and a lot of gums.

“Dada ig, Dada ig,” he said, standing on Tony and putting his hands on Tony’s face before repeating himself. Dada Dada ig!”

“Do you want egg, Xavier?” she asked him, but seeing his look of frustration, Allison decided she’d guessed wrong.

“Dada ig! Dada ig!” he insisted.

“Do you want a fig, Xavier?” Tony asked him as the baby unleashed a joyful smile on him.

“Ig, Dada, ig!” the little boy cheered.

“He’s just discovered them,” Tony said, chuckling. “Would eat a bucket full, Jeanne said.”

“Dada ig, Dada ig,” Xavier demanded.

“Yes, you can have some figs,” Tony told him, amused.

“Dada Ov, Dada Ov,” Xavier asked.

“Yes, and olives, too.”

Allison ducked below to the galley kitchen and scrounged up some figs and olives, making sure she removed the pits from the olives, and grabbed hummus, and pita bread for them all, knowing that Tony was likely to pick at his food. His appetite remained poor.

Later, when Allison suggested after a diaper change that Xavier was ready for a nap because he looked sleepy, Tony admitted he might lay down for a while, too. Hovering, in case Xavier didn’t go down easily, she was surprised when the toddler snuggled happily into the porta cot they set up in Tony’s cabin, which he was currently sharing with Brad. Another porta-cot was set up in Jeanne and Helen’s cabin since everyone was doubled up to accommodate all of the DHS agents protecting them. Allison could hear Xavier demanding something.

Before she had a chance to go in, Tony told the little one, “Okay, I’ll sing the song.”

He then began to sing to the sleepy child a song she hadn’t heard for many a year. It was a song made famous by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary in the sixties called Puff the Magic Dragon. She was surprised to learn that Tony had a pretty good voice, and when it was done, he started to sing another song she recognised – this time because she’d heard it a few years before when her son, Kevin, was small. Diagnosed as being on the spectrum, he loved Dumbo and watched it over and over again. Tony was singing the lullaby that Dumbo’s mother sang to the baby elephant.

When he finished, a sleepy voice asked, “Nanan?”

“Nan’s not here, Xavier,” he said before he started to sing the lullaby a second time and Allison noted that instead of singing Baby of Mine, he substituted the words, Xavier mine, and she thought it very sweet.

Once again, Dr Blake was intrigued by the extremely close relationship between Tony and his son. Particularly when he expressed his surprise at how well he was dealing with becoming a father. He’d confessed to her that he was terrified of small children, and he told her he never thought he should or would have children since he was certain he would screw them up.

As she crept away, letting them both nap, she thought about her attempt to talk to him about his relationship with Jeanne Berkley. Anyone could see that they both had strong feelings for each other, but Tony was right – trust was not something that you could ignore if you wanted a relationship to work. His revelation that he struggled to trust people made her realise that this presented a major obstacle to Jeanne’s desire for them to get back together. Alison just hoped she hadn’t ruined her chances of getting Tony to talk about his relationship with Xavier when she put her foot in her mouth about Jeanne. It was like Xavier and Tony had known each other in a past life or something.

~oOo~

As he heard Dr Blake creep away from his cabin, Tony heaved a heavy sigh because he knew why she had been hanging around. In case Xavier wouldn’t settle, and started missing his mother, Tony wasn’t strong enough to lift him out of his cot. It was frustrating to feel so weak but, then he remembered falling from Puff’s back while riding him after Captain Bluesy Beard sank the Lulu – the little sailboat Senior had bought for his mother and named in Lucinda’s honour. His mother loved that boat. As he was freefalling through the air with the ground…no, actually the sea waiting for him to crash into it and die, suddenly in those last terrifying seconds Tony realised he wasn’t ready.

He desperately wanted to live so he could spend time with Xavier – and get to know him properly. He wanted to be there on his first day of school and attend his high school graduation – things his father never did for him. He wanted to get to know his son’s friends and, not because their parents might be potential investors in one of Senior’s dodgy business ventures but because they were important to Xavier. Tony wanted to live so he could be there when Xavier bought his first car and go to all his games if he was into sports or support him in whatever he did, be it chess, performing arts or music.

Most importantly, he wanted Xavier to know that he loved him unconditionally – Tony wanted his kid to trust other people and not be afraid to show who he was, just because it made him vulnerable. Right when he thought his life was ending, Anthony DiNozzo realised just how desperately he wanted to live.

Then he woke up in a hospital room and found that it hadn’t been some weird drug-induced dream, or one caused by oxygen deprivation, because Xavier had launched himself at Tony with a heap of joyful babbling about Puff, Lucinda who he called Nanan and her sailboat the Lulu. Brad, Jeanne and Helen told him how Xavier had kept him clinging to life while they waited for the nanites to arrive, a last-ditched attempt to save his life. He heard how Xavier’s mother and grandmother noticed that when Xavier was on the bed and snuggled up to Tony, his vital signs showed marginal improvement but, when they took him out of the room, albeit kicking and screaming, those tiny improvements decreased.

This was apparently when Helen Berkley, a respected physician, got the outlandish idea to try stripping the toddler down to his diaper and placing him directly, in skin-to-skin contact with Tony. They credited Xavier with halting the progression of devastating effects caused by the infection and helping to keep Tony alive until Dr Fargo arrived with his microscopic robots. Even though Jeanne had become increasingly disturbed that her active little boy just wanted to sleep when he was in contact with Tony, having to be removed so he could be fed, watered and a fresh diaper applied, he seemed perfectly healthy. Except for the fact, that the toddler went straight back to sleep as soon as they let him snuggle with his dad. It still puzzled them all – since he immediately reverted to his energetic self now that Tony was awake.

Tony could have told them why that was. Xavier had been with Tony and Lucinda – wherever the hell that was, having wonderful adventures with a magical dragon, sailing around the sea, meeting pirates and royalty, and flying on the back of a dragon. It was hardly surprising that he didn’t want to be stuck in some hospital room when his grandmother’s mind construct of Honah Lee was so much more exciting for the little boy. While it all made perfect sense to Tony as to why Xavier wanted to be in Lucinda’s mind construct (if not how it was actually possible) Tony knew that no one would believe him if he tried to explain it. They would think he was delusional or maybe that in the helicopter on his way to Haifa when Dr Deitsch administered the antidote, he had suffered from oxygen deprivation or hell, even the Romeo & Juliet protocol had caused brain damage.

And to be honest, Tony would have probably thought the same thing if not for Xavier obviously remembering the dragon, his grandmother, and her sailboat. When Tony was strong enough, he still intended to go to Britain and research all he had recently learned about his mother’s early life. He wanted to investigate the death of Miriam Liston, his mother’s best friend and Tony’s first nanny, but that might have to wait a while. He had some recovering to do in the meantime.

Tony thought that maybe he should settle down there; he had a British passport since his mother was English, and he figured it was not a good idea to go back to the US. Better to start fresh someplace new, although he knew that, ultimately if Jeanne and Helen decided to return to America he would go too…because of Xavier.

Which brought him to another thorny issue – the relationship between himself and Jeanne. It was so fucking messed up. He loved her – he truly did and had done so almost from the moment he started dating her as part of an unsanctioned undercover mission by the then Director of NCIS who had turned out to be a batshit crazily deluded whack job. Although Jenn had been right about at least one thing – Rene Benoit did come to the US to check out his daughter’s lover. Except that piece of shit, Trent Kort had already ratted Tony out to Benoit, and the irony was that her father had known right away that Tony was head over heels for Jeanne and hoped he could protect her. Tony wanted to, more than anything, but he couldn’t protect her from himself – from the lies he’d told her or the hurt he caused her. She wanted nothing to do with him, volunteering to go to Africa with Medicine Sans Frontiers to get away from him…and didn’t that speak volumes.

He thought about Allison’s little pep talk before – she wasn’t nearly as subtle as she thought. Tony wasn’t sure if Jeanne had asked her to intercede or if Allison had decided to try to ‘fix things’ off her own bat. Still, the good doctor had no idea how messed up their relationship was because of the lies he told Jeanne when he engineered an accidental meeting with Jeanne to ask her out. He’d later discovered, after it was too late, that she hadn’t just been on the rebound, as Jenny told him. Jeanne had been engaged, and her fiancé had cheated on her with Jeanne’s best friend. Such a betrayal on top of Tony’s had been too much, and some months later, she reappeared, lying about seeing Tony shoot her father, claiming it was the reason why she fled the country. It had seen him almost charged with premeditated murder. And when she asked him if any of it was real, he’d lied because Ziva had goaded him into ‘being a man and letting her go,’ and, she in turn, had lied to him about Xavier, although this time her lie had been one of omission.

How could you possibly contemplate trying to resurrect a relationship with all of the emotional harm they had caused each other?

If that was what Jeanne really wanted, and if it was, then how much of it was because of her gratitude for ensuring that the CIA rescinded the order to kill her, and how much was because of her guilt over Xavier? Were either good enough reasons for them to get back together or erase all of the emotional baggage their relationship had caused each other. Was love enough?

Tony really wished that everyone would just mind their own business and let Jeanne and him try to figure out where their relationship went from there. Because it seemed at first glance that the simplest solution was to amicably sever their ties, but realistically, with Xavier to consider, Tony was not about to abandon his son. It meant that he needed to have some contact with the mother of his child, and he had no wish to get into an ugly custody battle just so he could see him either. He had to find some other way to make it happen.

Tony thought about the first private conversation he and Jeanne had after they had taken him off the ventilator and regained consciousness. He was still very weak and prone to falling asleep mid-sentence, but Tony knew this was a talk they needed to have. The elephant in the room whenever they were together, would not be denied his dues any longer. If anything, the pachyderm seemed to grow, sucking up ever-increasing amounts of oxygen the longer it was ignored. Finally, Helen had taken Xavier down to the clinic’s cafeteria to give them some privacy, and everyone else had left them alone, too.

Despite the seriousness of the coming discussion with Jeanne, Tony couldn’t help chuckling as Xavier expressed his disapproval of being separated from his dad.

“Dada dada Gaga,” he protested crankily. Much to the frustration of the Berkleys, Xavier steadfastly refused to call Helen, Nan. She was Gaga.

It was a title the toddler clung to resolutely when talking about his other grandmother, Lucinda Paddington DiNozzo, but Xavier couldn’t explain himself and the only other person who knew why Helen was Gaga and not Nana, feared ending up in a padded room if he enlightened them. In Xavier’s little world, Lucinda was Nanan and no one else, just like he corrected people constantly when they called him Tony in Xavier’s presence. He would shake his blonde head and prod Tony in the chest, loudly proclaiming, “Dada Dada Dada,” until the stupid adult would catch the clue bus and nod, then call Tony, Dada. Then he would smile, happy that order had been restored to his little world again.

In a way, Tony mused, Xavier’s rigid view of his world and insistence that everyone else adhere to it too, wasn’t too much different from working for Gibbs for the last eight years. Well, apart from the fact that Xavier was twelve months old and Gibbs was fifty!

Tony also knew he shouldn’t derive so much satisfaction from the fact that Xavier was calling Helen Berkley Gaga when she’d spent hours on the trip from Cyprus to Haifa coaching him to call her Nan. Tony knew it was petty and childish, but she’d made no bones the one time she’d met him when he was dating her daughter that she didn’t think he was good enough for Jeanne. Not that he disagreed with her, mind you, because after Wendy left him at the altar, it had shattered any semblance of his self-esteem, and Tony had precious little to begin with. Besides this, he got enough mocking and sarcasm from his team every single day, especially, after Gibbs had returned from Mexico, as if he had never walked out on them, despite telling Tony the team was his now. Gibbs, Ziva, and McGee had never wasted any time in trying to destroy what little remained of his piss-poor sense of self-worth, and frankly, they did a damn good job of it!

So yes, it was juvenile of him to watch Helen having to accept being called Gaga by her grandson, but then, he had precious little to laugh about. Xavier was the one exception.

There was an awkward silence when Helen and Xavier had disappeared out the door, and Tony as the door to his private room swung slowly shut, could hear the distant cries of babies. They’d told him he was hidden from prying eyes because somehow Director David had learnt that there was a VIP in the Aharon Clinic and he’d become curious. Frankly, Tony felt more than a little disappointed that two and a half weeks after his supposed death, Eli David and Ziva were still not under arrest. Officer Liat said they were trying to track down Eli’s dirt files, which would give them more leverage. He figured they were worried that if they didn’t find them, Eli could probably try to use them to get released if he had the judiciary in his pocket. Still, Tony wished that this was over and done with already, and Director David was locked up tight along with his faction of supporters.

Sighing as he turned his focus back on Jeanne, he figured if someone didn’t take the initiative, the conversation might never get started.

“So, Xavier,” he started.

“It means new house or bright,” Jeanne smiled, although it was a strained smile.

“To me, it will always mean saviour,” he said, seriously, thinking about his readiness to give up.

Jeanne nodded, her beautiful blue eyes sombre, as she acknowledged the truth of his statement. Although she probably thought he was referring to Xavier’s role in a more literal sense of keeping him stable until Douglas Fargo could arrive from Oregon with his nanites. His microscopic Pacmen, as Tony dubbed it, much to the geeky little guy’s irritation.

“Mine too,” she admitted.

“Was he born prematurely?” Tony asked, even though Morrow said he was 12 months old. Yet how could that be? He’d seen Jeanne one month before Xavier’s reported birth, and she didn’t look eight months pregnant.

“No, he was full term. Born on the 16th of May.”

“You were pregnant when you came to NCIS…” he trailed off, leaving the ‘when you accused me of murdering your father,’ hanging in the air between them, a silent but nonetheless palpable indictment.

“Yes, I was pregnant when I saw you after I accused you of murdering Papa,” she acknowledged, guilt etched across her features. “Mother said she barely showed when she was having me either. Plus, Xavier was smaller than average, under 7 pounds and 18 inches in length at birth but, he’s all caught up now.”

“So, when you asked me by the elevator if any of it had been real if I’d said yes, you’d have told me you were pregnant?” he asked, his hurt bleeding through his carefully cultivated calm mask.

“No, it wasn’t like that, Tony. I couldn’t have told you because even I didn’t know I was pregnant. It’s called a cryptic pregnancy, and while it is rare, it certainly isn’t unheard of,” she hastened to explain. “I’d like to think I would have told you if I had known.”

“I doubt that,” he said dryly. Seeing her hurt look, he explained, “You never informed me after you found out, so you can see why I would be sceptical.”

“You’re right, I should have told you, and maybe I wouldn’t have told you that last day at NCIS if I knew,” she said, looking contrite.

When he deliberately silent, she continued to fill in the vacuum. “My mother was angry when I kept you in the dark. She said that we both created him, and you had a right to know about him.”

Wow, Helen Barkley was the last person he expected to be championing his rights.

“Your mother did? But she hated me.”

“No, she’s just an intellectual snob. Thought I could do better than a professor of film studies. After my mother figured out that I was pregnant, she hired a private investigator to check you out. She realised there was a lot more to you than fancy Italian shoes.”

Tony wondered what Helen thought about him being the son of a businessman of dubious ethics. Maybe she thought the Paddington genes countered that…or their money. His mother’s people had some serious wealth that came from North Sea oil, not that he would see any of it if that’s what Helen Berkley was hoping for.

Although his silence was not intentional, it was just Tony lost inside his head, it still worked on Jeanne, who was nervous.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I was so angry. Mother kept telling me that you were really in love with me, and you would never have pleaded with me to tell you that I loved you just before I found out who you were if it had all been a lie. And when I accused you of lying, you told me, ‘Not all of it. Not everything. Just somethings. Not the important things.’ I should have listened.”

Wow, Tony realised that she was quoting words that were etched forever in his memory that he uttered that terrible day, desperate to convince her that despite the lies, he loved her unconditionally. If only he’d been successful, then perhaps they might have been able to work things out. But here they were.

“Why, Jeanne. I had a right to know about Xavier,” he said softly

“I know, and Mother kept at me about it that too, but I wouldn’t listen to her. I realise now that you only told me that it meant nothing because you were mad at me for falsely accusing you of killing Papa.”

“No, Jeanne. That wasn’t why I lied to you,” he said tiredly.

Who knew how exhausting it was to talk?

“One of my teammates, Ziva, told me I should tell you it all meant nothing, so you could get closure and meet someone new,” he said. “The fact that I had driven you to lie to the FBI made me think she was right. I had to let you go so you could get on with your life because I was bad for you. The Jeanne I fell in love with was a good person, and I drove you to perjure yourself.”

Jeanne looked shocked. “Oh my god! I can’t believe what a fool I was. Deputy Director Morrow told me you pulled strings so that I wasn’t charged with making a false statement in an investigation and trying to pervert a federal murder investigation.”

“I wish he hadn’t told you that. I didn’t do it to make you feel bad, I did it because it was my fault for lying to you. I am sorry I hurt you.”

Morrow also said that you agreed to do that crazy mission pretending to be dead because there was a kill order by the CIA out on me that no one bothered to rescind after Papa disappeared, and they threatened to have me killed. He said that when your car exploded that last day, I was the target, not you.”

Tony nodded. “Although the CIA denied doing it, your father was trying to retire. He wanted out of the arrangement he’d been forced into by the CIA, and killing you was meant to be a warning to him that they would target your brothers, too.”

“Half-brothers,” she murmured. They are both younger than me. But if they killed me by blowing up your car, you would have died too,” she pointed out. “They would have killed a federal agent?”

“In a heartbeat. Shepard was interfering in their mission, so as far as they were concerned, it was the Director’s fault for meddling. I would have served as a warning to her like your death would have done to your father. After they lost control over him, they should have rescinded those orders but Kort, your father’s CIA handler, is a real piece of work, and he never forgave me for punching him in the nose after he blew up the Mustang. We weren’t in it, but Henri still lost his life,” Tony said, suddenly feeling extremely tired.

Damn! He still had things he wanted to get settled with Jeanne, but he was fighting to stay awake.

Jeanne noticed it, and she patted his arm. “Sleep Tony, we can talk more later,” she told him, soothingly

~oOo~

Their next conversation – their clearing the air talks as he thought them, was a little easier than the first. Once again, people had given them privacy, although Xavier was not amused. Brad offered to take him out for a walk to a park, with Liat going along as protection. He was optimistically engaged in getting the toddler to address him as Uncle Brad, but so far, Xavier was not cooperating.

“So, Xavier? How did that happen; was it the night that Nick Kerry held us hostage down in the morgue?”

Jeanne nodded. “Do you remember?”

“No, but by process of elimination, it had to have happened that night,” Tony said. “I’m a bit vague on the details. It had been a long week, and I had spent all day working flat out before I drove to the hospital.”

“And then we got trapped with Bernie and Nick Kerry, and you collected a concussion. I’m not surprised that things might have gotten a bit hazy at the end,” she said, embarrassed.

“How many times did we have life-affirming sex after the morgue,” Tony asked her diplomatically. “I can’t remember if it was three or four times.”

“Four,” Jeanne said, blushing. “I was horny, and I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you – you had a concussion.”

“A minor one, and that’s a pretty natural reaction after nearly dying violently. The adrenaline is pumping, and has nowhere to go.”

“Still, you should have been resting, and we’d used up the condoms you keep in your wallet.”

“Okay, so that explains the two in my wallet.”

“I found a couple in my locker, left over from John,” she confessed, looking uncomfortable.

Tony realised she knew how stupid that had been. They must have been past the expiry date or were the wrong size. Jeanne was a doctor; no wonder she looked so sheepish.

“I needed the distraction. I nearly got us both killed that night. You and Annie told me to let it go, but I wouldn’t listen. I should have insisted that security attend or called the police. When he hit you, he could have easily killed you, and I would have been to blame,” she said with a sob.

“No, Nick Kerry would have been to blame,” he said.

“Maybe, but you only went down to the morgue, trying to protect me,” she argued, and Tony wasn’t up to arguing with her.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it breaking?” he asked.

“I was going to after we left the hospital. It wasn’t the first time it happened, so I knew you’d be okay, but then your car got blown up, and you told me who you really were and Papa…” She sobbed, “I know he was not a good man, that he was responsible for so many deaths, but I loved him. I kept thinking there had to be an explanation like, he was undercover…after all, he was working for the CIA…” she trailed off.

Tony understood, kind of. Not that Senior was an international arms dealer.

Without any warning, he sent Tony to RIMA and disowned him simultaneously. Senior had effectively washed his hands of him but paid for his education until he was of legal age because it was the law. His 12-year-old self swung back and forth between hating him with a passion, often acting out because he wanted to get back at his father, to having crazy-assed flights of fantasy about him. Tony would conjure up scenarios about Senior being a secret agent whose life was in danger, so he sent his only child away to protect him from the bad guys.

Not that he believed it for long, but in the early days, when he was getting picked on because he was small for his age and he was the new kid, it gave Tony something to cling to. It was easier to believe something crazy than deal with the truth that Senior was a bad guy.

“You changed your name to Berkley?” he observed calmly.

“Yeah, after Xavier was born, I realised that even though I loved my father, there was no way to excuse all the harm he’d done. Keeping his name seemed like I was excusing all the bad things he’d done.”

“Your father told our Medical Examiner he did it for his three children,” he said neutrally.

“And that is further evidence that he was not a good man if he could justify harming other peoples’ children to make obscene amounts of money. My paternal grandparents were not poor -we didn’t need his blood money,” she retorted angrily.

They were both quiet, and then Jeanne said, “I should have told you about Xavier, but I was angry and hurt, and I guess it was much easier to be mad at you than Papa. I did a pregnancy test, but that was negative, and then I went to Africa with Médecins Sans Frontières.”

They both were silent, remembering her swift departure, Tony remembered the ultimatum she gave him – ‘her or his job,’ but he couldn’t choose her, Jeanne already disappeared to Africa.

“The couple of times I threw up, I put it down to not washing food properly or stomach bugs in a Third World environment,” she finally continued. “ And all the mood swings – I just thought that it was anger and grief. Plus, over there, I came face to face with the terrible poverty and the corruption my father had contributed to. People dying for want of basic healthcare so he could live a luxury lifestyle with his private planes and obscenely expensive food, clothes, and liquor.”

“You felt like you had to pay penance,” he guessed.

“I suppose, but I realise now that nothing I did over there could make up for all the damage he caused.”

Tony wanted to keep talking, he wanted to tell Jeanne about meeting John Carson, but he was just too damned exhausted. He wished he could have thrashed out everything all at once and, he wanted to know where he stood with Xavier. Was Jeanne going to be okay with them co-parenting? Sadly, he was limited by his inability to stay awake for longer than an hour at a time. Maybe it was best to take it slow, so Jeanne didn’t feel like he was railroading her.

Tony wanted to ensure they rebuilt a relationship that permitted him to have a significant role in his son’s upbringing. If anyone had told him that any good would come out of all of the betrayal and blackmail – him being a hairsbreadth away from death, he would have laughed in their face. Yet Xavier had ensured that Tony wanted a future with him, and it meant he needed to start anew. Tony had hoped he was done with having to start over – but there was no way he could ever go back to NCIS, so just like when his pro-ball career was shattered, it was time to start his live over.

As Tony looked across at the little boy asleep in his porta-cot, his thumb in his mouth and his forefinger resting on the bridge of his nose, he supposed that he should sleep too if he wanted to go to dinner at Christakis beside the marina. Although his appetite was still poor, he felt like being social and going out would be a milestone in reclaiming his life. Even if Tony DiNozzo was still too weak to walk three hundred yards from the Aurora to Christakis and needed the wheelchair to get there. For such a fit athletic agent, he hated the idea, but he was also going stir crazy with being cooped up in a hospital and now onboard the yacht. At least today, Brad and Allison had let him sit out on the deck in the sun.

Closing his eyes, he remembered Lucinda stroking his hair as she sang the Cradle Song to him back in Honah Lee and quickly drifted off to sleep. Just before sleep embraced him, he realised that his son had two grandmothers whose names meant light, as did Xavier, and he thought how odd was that.

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