Tag to 'Radio Silence'

Radio

Abby was sitting in front of her computer, biting her lip and trying to decide what to do.

On the one hand, this was serious and Gibbs needed to know. Like, right now. On the other, the team was busy chasing a domestic terrorist cell right now, before they blew up something or somebody important, and the last thing they needed was a distraction from their jobs.

So, did she tell him now, and risk him being distracted and somebody getting hurt... or tell him later, after the terrorists were caught and there was no more danger of distraction-induced injury. Telling him later would probably make him mad at her though. She didn't like it when he was mad at her!

Not that it happened much, but still...

"Hey, Abbs. What ya got?" Gibbs called when he walked in her lab, CafPow in hand.

"Gibbs! I will learn your secret one of these days." She narrowed her eyes at him after a moment of being startled. He only twitched his lips in a small smile before asking again. "Ok, I managed to match one of the voices to the one that called Gator. Voice number eleven, Arthur Hascal." And she obediently went through what she'd found on the current main suspect.

As he left, she decided to wait until the case was solved, and the terrorists were caught before telling him.

It wasn't like she wasn't still having a hard time believing it, anyway.

She knew that they didn't have the most respect for him as their direct superior, but to do this... She never would have thought them capable. She thought that they at least respected him as a friend and fellow agent. Didn't they know just what it was that Tony did for everybody?

Just because she was going to wait, though, didn't mean she couldn't have another team keeping an eye on Tony whenever he left with one of those two. She was pretty sure Balboa's team was on cold cases right now, they had a time to spare. He would be happy to have Tony's back, especially since Tony always had his.

"Abbs. What's up? Did you find something else about MAH?" It wouldn't be the first time that they thought a case was closed, only for her to find some new evidence after the fact linking their suspect(s) with something bigger. Usually when something like that happened, they ended up passing it on to the director. Sometimes he passed the new information on to Homeland Security, or somebody else who could actually make use of it.

Once in a while, there was nothing that could be done about it at that time, and they ended up taking care of it themselves at a later date, anyway.

However, normally when she found something like that out, she mentioned it to the whole team, she didn't usually call him down to her lab after everyone else was already gone for the night.

He hated cases where terrorism was involved... so. Much. PAPERWORK.

Well, that and the fact that you could never seem to get all of them, they were like rats. Just when you think you have them all, ten more appear.

"Um, not MAH."

"Alright, then what?" He was a little annoyed now, he wanted to go home and find his couch. Whether he actually slept on it or not, now that was a different story.

"Ok, now, I would have said something earlier, but you were chasing terrorists, and I didn't want to distract you. That, and I was having a hard time figuring out what I heard, I just couldn't believe it. That they would do something like... I mean, what if something happened, and Tony got hurt!" She went on a little rant, leaving a very confused, and worried Agent Gibbs to try and make sense of what she was saying.

"Abby. Abby!" He finally yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders. She stopped, startled. "Who did what, and how did it put DiNozzo in danger." He pulled her focus back. Was this why he spotted Jack from Balboa's team discreetly following his team for the last few days?

"Right, ok, so, when I set up the mics for the recording, I set up all of them to record. Not just Tony's. Because, what if somebody stopped at the car and started talking to McGee and Ziva, you know? And, well... you're going to have to hear it for yourself." She turned around and pressed a few keys on her keyboard, before hesitantly pushing play, about an hour into the recordings.

Through the recording, they could hear an echo of Tony's conversations with the neighbors, coming in from the radio.

"Ugh, how much more of this do we have to listen to?" McGee asked. There was a small grunt of agreement from Ziva.

After a few more moments of talking on Tony's end, while he tried to get the community members to talk to him, there was an annoyed huff, and then the echo on the recordings, coming in from their comm with Tony, went quiet.

"Ah, peace and quiet." Ziva said, with a satisfied sigh.

"Should have done that a little while ago." McGee muttered.

Gibbs face was full of shock and disbelief. Did they just turn their radio off? On the other recording, Tony was still talking, he made the occasional comment towards his teammates about one of the community residents he saw. On one occasion, he saw a food truck stop by the corner and asked his teammates if they wanted him to stop and bring them something to eat, telling them to text him with their orders if they did. After a few minutes of waiting, Tony said that he was hungry, even if they weren't, and he was getting food before he continued.

Comments that his teammates weren't hearing.

If he'd gotten into trouble... Tony was a smooth talker, but even he couldn't talk himself out of everything.

"It's amazing how a person can talk so much. Just how much does he like listening to his own voice?" McGee asked her after a while, there was some shuffling, then the crackle of paper came over the mic before the sounds of pages being turned came in from the background.

"I know. I mean, don't get me wrong, he is a great investigator, and a good agent. But if he would just talk less." Ziva exclaimed.

A snort. "Tell me about it." More page turning.

After a few minutes of listening, where she watched as Gibbs face got darker and darker with rage, she stopped it and skipped to the end.

There was the sound of a door opening and closing, followed by panting, it sounded to Gibbs like DiNozzo. And it wasn't coming from the car radio, it was coming from DiNozzo's microphone.

"What happened to you?" That was McGee again.

"Don't play dumb, you've been hearing everything, and reveling in my suffering." DiNozzo snapped back, out of breath from the running that Gibbs and Abby had heard him doing in his recording.

(Gibbs was concerned that he sounded so winded, he was very fit, he ran as much as possible if he had the chance, he even competed in the occasional marathon if they weren't busy with a case. His lungs weren't acting up again were they? Ziva and McGee didn't know it, but he never quite recovered from the plague, and now carried an inhaler because of it. He'd barely passed his health physical and field requirements in order to stay employed at NCIS after getting out of the hospital, let alone to remain a field agent. In fact, Ducky had seriously considered calling Dr. Pitt to check on him considering the problems he was having with his voice.)

"No, actually, we haven't been listening for the last couple of hours." McGee said uncaringly, and they heard a page being turned.

"One could only listen to your voice for so long. Did you talk to everyone?" Ziva replied dryly.

There was a moment's pause before DiNozzo answered that yes, he had talked to everyone, and then asked for a drink.

"Alright, that's enough." Gibbs finally gritted out. He was well aware of the problems Tony had had with his voice for the rest of the case. (It had made for an interesting attempt at questioning the suspect, that was for sure.)

He didn't care about that, though. No, what he cared about, was that DiNozzo lost his voice, doing his job and questioning suspects. He'd had to use his inhaler, even. And he hated using it, he avoided it as much as he could. In fact, he would happily burn the thing if he didn't know that he would be sorry to need it, and no longer have it.

All the while, those two were sitting in a car, reading magazines, and not doing their jobs.

Their job was simple, be there as back-up in case somebody made Tony. If something like that happened... they never would have known until it was too late to help.

He glared at the screen for another moment, then reached out to grab a flashdrive from the drawer beside the computer and handed it to Abby, who wordlessly copied the files and handed it back. Without another word, he stormed out of the lab, and went straight to his desk (after a detour to the break room, where he pulled his coffee out of his hiding place, he wasn't drinking that break room crap).

He wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.

At eight in the morning, roughly a half hour before the team usually came in for the day (on days they didn't already have a case), Gibbs stood in the middle of the bullpen, coffee in one hand and folders in the other.

(It was at times like this, when he needed to do something over Vance's head, that he was glad for his status within the agency. What most didn't realize, was that he was the third in command of NCIS.* When the Director or his Deputy weren't available (which seemed to be all the time), he was in charge. It gave him quite a bit of leeway sometimes. Even if he absolutely hated having to be in charge (the paperwork!) when the Director was away at conferences or various other meetings. (Which is exactly why he turned down the promotion and stayed as the leader of the MCRT when Jenny died and Vance was promoted, which meant they needed a new Deputy Director).)

Sitting on the floor by his feet, were two boxes, each full of McGee and Ziva's personal belongings.

The other agents that were walking by, merely blinked before hurrying their pace to get out of the way. They didn't know what was going on, or what the two MCRT agents had done, but they did not want to be in the same room as Gibbs when it all blew up. Or, at the very least, safely behind their desks. Only Balboa's team stayed nearby, they were the only ones that knew what the other two had done.

When the team finally came in, all at the same time for once instead of trickling in like usual (he was surprised and concerned Tony was coming in right on time, and not already there. He was usually at least a half hour early, if he didn't end up sleeping behind his desk after staying late doing paperwork. The last case must have taken more out of him then he or Ducky realized), they stopped in shock once they saw their boss and where he was standing. All joking and bickering stopped.

"Boss?" Tony asked cautiously. He was the only one who was ever brave enough to talk to the Boss when he was in his moods. It didn't escape anyone's notice that Tony's was the only desk not packed up. "Is something wrong?" He slowly dropped his bag behind his desk, and then just stood there, glancing between his teammates and Gibbs warily.

In response, he pointed to Tony's desk, then motioned towards the plasma. "DiNozzo." Tony glanced at his desk and saw the flashdrive sitting on top of his keyboard. Glancing at his boss, he plugged it in and pressed a few keys to switch the file to the plasma from the computer. He knew that the Boss would have already had it in and up... if the Boss knew how to do it.

Ziva and McGee paled slightly when they heard what was being played, although mostly they were confused. Where did this come from, and why was Gibbs so angry? Yeah, they probably shouldn't have turned off the radio, but it wasn't like anything happened. The other agents nearby who were listening in, and pretending not to, were listening with wide eyes.

Once most of the talking on Ziva and McGee's end was over, Gibbs spoke again. "Skip to the last five minutes."

Tony glanced at his teammates and did as ordered. Whispers started flying around the floor when the other agents heard how uncaring the two sounded on the tape. Tony just sat there, he already knew they had turned him off, and was more hurt that they would do that than anything else. And, a little betrayed. He trusted them to be there if something happened, but if something had happened the other day... they wouldn't have been there. Although he was a little surprised that something was being done about it, and so publicly too.

Gibbs was a big supporter of not airing the teams dirty laundry for the whole agency to know about. If it happened within the team, then it stayed within the team, simple as that.

Once the audio was done playing, the room was dead silent. Even Director Vance, standing up top and leaning over the railing, was stunned silent.

"Rule number one, McGee?" Gibbs asked quietly.

"Don't screw over your partner." He didn't have to ask which rule number one he was talking about.

"Rule number fifteen, David?"

She flinched slightly, he only called her by her last name when he was very, very angry with her. "Always work as a team."

"What was that?" He asked next, pointing to the plasma.

There was silence while they looked at each other, slightly confused. When an answer finally came, it was Tony. "That was screwing over your partner, and not working with the whole team." He said quietly, sitting at his desk.

Gibbs just looked at him, and the look on his face let him know, he wasn't too happy with Tony at the moment either. But, he also wasn't angry to the point of packing his desk like he did with them. "Correct. Which leads me to another question, DiNozzo!" He barked.

"Yes, Boss?" Came the automatic response.

"Why didn't you say anything when you three got back from Royal Woods?" He demanded.

"Rule number one, Boss." Tony knew, that if Gibbs found out, they would be in serious trouble, how serious, well... he wasn't willing to find out. So, he didn't throw them under the bus. He also didn't really think that anything would really be done. Gibbs gave him another Look to let him know that the Boss knew he was holding back, and Tony knew that the Boss probably knew what it was, too.

"Now for a question of my own, what is department, no... what is the first rule and probably most important policy of law enforcement and military alike? But especially, of this agency." Vance asked, coming down from his spot, to stand on the stairs.

"Never leave a man behind." Gibbs muttered, almost too quietly for others to hear. The man was a Marine through and through.

"Always have backup nearby or otherwise in place. And an escape plan if needed." Tony added, thinking back to his numerous undercover ops over the years.

Vance nodded. "Always have backup, always back your partner up. Even in situations where it doesn't seem like it will be needed." He narrowed his eyes at two of his most promising agents.

"I think a stake out where we are searching for domestic terrorists counts as backup being needed." Gibbs said in a dangerously quiet voice. Ziva and McGee paled, they hadn't even considered that.

They just saw the nice neighborhood, and the friendly neighbors. The nice homes and the appearance of the area. They forgot to look at what they were doing there and let the peaceful atmosphere lull them into a false sense of security.

They looked at each other in horrified realization. What had been a harmless little joke, petty perhaps, but a joke nonetheless, had been a huge mistake.

One that could have gotten Tony seriously injured or killed. And they wouldn't have even known something was wrong until it was too late.

"We have no excuse, other than that we weren't thinking." Ziva said quietly, face red. She was ashamed, and feeling quite humiliated to be having this dressing down in the middle of the squad room, with most of the field agents assigned to the Navy Yard present.

"Ya think, David?" Gibbs asked sarcastically.

"Does that mean what it looks like?" McGee asked after a moment of silence. He gestured towards the boxes at his bosses feet.

"Don't know, what do you think it means?" Gibbs asked, tilting his head to the side.

"That we're either fired, or reassigned somewhere else." Ziva answered.

Gibbs only response was to hand over the folders in his hand. Ziva and McGee glanced at each other before cautiously opening them.

"Three week unpaid suspension? Followed by three months mandatory FLETC training." Ziva summarized after examining the papers inside. Tony didn't know whether to be relieved that they weren't going to lose their jobs over this, or disappointed in Gibbs that that was it (they were both strong assets to the agency, so he would give them one more chance, no matter how much he prefer just kicking them to the curb here and now. If, at the end of this period, they hadn't shaped up, then they would be gone. Of course, they would also need to find somebody willing to even work with them at all, they would not be coming back to his team, that was for certain).

"Job status to be determined upon completion of training, depending on what the instructors report. Final decision will be up to myself, Leon, and Tony. All three of us will have to agree." Gibbs finished, explaining the part that wasn't in the folders. Tony blinked, that was actually a pretty good decision... "Let me be clear right now, the only reason I'm not taking your badges right now is because Tony was lucky, and nothing happened." He pierced them with his stare, and was only a little satisfied when they fidgeted.

It was then that his phone rang, and he answered with an annoyed, "Gibbs." After a moment, he hung up and sighed. "DiNozzo, grab your gear. Dead Petty Officer." He grabbed his gun and badge out of his desk and headed for the elevator without another word, leaving Tony to scramble after him, grabbing his bag along the way. He never even got a chance to put his own gun and badge in his desk drawer.

"I want to see you two in my office, five minutes. That should be plenty of time to take your personal items down to your cars." Vance said, and went back upstairs after gesturing over Balboa and his team to escort them around. He would have to have a conversation with Gibbs about their punishment at a later time, right now he needed to have a little chat with the two, and secure their badge and gun in his own desk. He would hold onto them until the final decision was made in roughly four months time.

He thought better than this of these two, he couldn't believe they just left their partner to hang like that.

In the truck, it was silent for most of the trip while the agents thought about what just happened.

"You didn't say anything, because you didn't think anything would be done about it." Gibbs said, finally breaking the silence. "Because, after all these years, you still don't see yourself as worth it. What is rule five?" He asked suddenly.

"You don't waste good." Tony answered promptly. "McGee and Ziva are pretty good, though." He finished.

"Eh, they are good. That's true. After that display, they can go be good somewhere else." Gibbs said, there was a note of finality in his voice, and Tony got the hint to not argue the point. Instead he let himself enjoy the comfortable silence and warmth in his chest.

When they arrived at the crime scene twenty minutes later, in silence, it was to find that the one to call it in to the Navy Yard had left out a few very important details.

It wasn't just one dead officer. It was five.

One of them was an Admiral. Another was a foreign liaison.

Tony and Gibbs just looked at each other, they both wanted this day to end already.

This was going to be a long week...

Four months later...

"DiNozzo, conference room." Was all Gibbs said when he looked up and saw Vance on the railing above them. Was it really that time? He hadn't expected them until later.

It had been easy enough to slip back into the routine of it just being the two of them, despite the fact it hadn't been just the two of them for roughly six years now, not since he practically forced Kate to join his team and completely railroaded Director Morrow into letting her join the top team, despite her inexperience as an investigator.

During the four months, Tony had stayed in touch with Ziva and McGee. They'd even gone out to lunch a few times when they all had a chance. Somehow, their friendship had deepened since the incident with the radios. Once Tony had gotten over the hurt and betrayal, anyway. They had been angry at first, once the shock of everything wore off, but they eventually got over it once they had more of a chance to think.

Ziva had spent her few weeks on suspension in Israel. Her father had not been impressed when he heard about what happened, and he made sure to set her attitude straight when he noticed she was angry about being punished. Most of her time back in her home country was spent training and going through lectures as a result. McGee's lectures actually came from his grandmother, despite her dislike of anything government related. Being on a stake-out was no time to be playing 'practical jokes' on your partner, especially when it involved cutting off his only form of communication with his back-up.

When they went back to FLETC, they kept their heads down and did what the instructors said, although they did volunteer to hold a brief seminar regarding teamwork. The other trainees... well, lets just say Ziva and McGee stayed together and didn't really get close to any of them. The NCIS grapevine made sure that even the trainees heard what had happened, and knew exactly why two of the top field agents were there.

Tony glanced up at the catwalk, and followed along after his boss dutifully with a sigh. He honestly wasn't looking forward to deciding the fates of two of his friends.

When they walked into the conference room, McGee and Ziva were already sitting there, waiting for them. The Director was getting himself something to drink, and Agent Quinn from FLETC was sitting there as well.

"Quinn, what are you doing here?" Gibbs asked, not having expected her.

"I was their main training officer this time around." She answered, waving a hand dismissively. "I wanted to be here to clarify anything in my reports." That, and she just wanted to get away from the trainees for a little while. One of them, especially... "And, how long until you finally accept one of the Probies I send your way?"

Gibbs gave a half-smirk. "When you send one that fits with the team." Tony went to get himself some water in an effort to hide his own smirk from the Boss.

Honestly, one would think that Quinn would know by now that Gibbs was very, very picky about the people he worked with. The longest lasting Probie she sent them only lasted two weeks. A full week longer than the others she sent him.

Besides, despite her efforts for a little over a year, Gibbs still ended up building his own team, first with strong-arming Kate onto the team, and then letting McGee stick around and finally just approving his transfer to the Navy Yard from Norfolk. Ziva was the only person Gibbs ever had on his team that he did not handpick.

Gibbs, though, knew that Tony would be smirking, and lightly head-slapped him when he went to sit down. Tony just grinned innocently at him, knowing what the strength behind his head-slaps meant by now. This was just a small warning for appearances to behave.

"Alright." Leon said, shaking his head fondly at the by-play between two of his most trusted agents. Even if he didn't really like Tony DiNozzo, and took a while to warm up to him. He still hadn't fully warmed up to him. He found him rude and disrespectful, and far too laid-back for this kind of work.

However.

His file was quite impressive for his age. He was highly educated, highly skilled, he was good at his job, and...

Anybody who can successfully deal with working under Leroy Jethro Gibbs for as long as he had, and still be relatively sane and not burned out, had his respect.

The man was well known to have retired several agents who weren't anywhere close to retiring, as well as giving one of his previous SFA's before DiNozzo a stress-induced ulcer. He was very difficult to work with, and notorious for it.

"Let's get started. We all know why we are here?" He checked. He doubted any of them would have forgotten, but it never hurt to make sure.

There was a chorus of 'yes, sir's' from around the table. Three of the voices were slightly more nervous and subdued than the others. Tony was more subdued than anything, he didn't want to risk the close friendship formed after the Incident.

"Alright, I've reviewed the reports from the training instructors, and I am very pleased with what they have to say. Your volunteer seminar was certainly a point in your favor." Vance said, looking at the two of them and nodding his head. "Agent Quinn, do you have anything to add?" He asked.

She shook her head with her lips pursed. "No, they were model students, kept their heads down and completed their work well. If they were green recruits, they honestly would have been the next Probies I sent Gibbs way." She shrugged.

"DiNozzo, Gibbs? Your opinions?" Vance asked his two best field agents, who were glancing over the files right then.

"I think they've learned their lesson." Tony said quietly after a moment, relieved. The reports from FLETC looked good, and they'd had many talks over the last few months, he believed they should have a second chance. He ignored the fact that things could have gone so much worse for him, and chose to focus on the part where it didn't.

Gibbs nodded in agreement with him, "But they're not coming back to my team." He raised an eyebrow. Vance nodded his understanding and turned to McGee and David.

"Well?"

They merely looked at each other.

"We made a mistake, and we know we did. All we can do is apologize again. Hopefully, the trainees take what we said in our seminar to heart, and they don't make the same mistakes." Ziva said quietly. Her father had also forced her to give a similar lecture to Mossad trainees while she was in Israel.

Vance nodded in approval. "Now, Agent McGee, you are medically exempt from being assigned as Agent Afloat on account of your extreme sea-sickness. Agent David, you are not. However, I think being Agent Afloat would be a waste of your skill set." Both of them almost sagged in relief at hearing they weren't being reassigned to Agent Afloat.

They didn't want to be the sole cop on a floating city, population of several hundred to a couple of thousand. That was the last thing they wanted. To hear that Agent Afloat was the first option the Director had thought of...

Ziva, however, recognized the subtle threat for what it was. One more screw-up, and she would be lucky if she was assigned Agent Afloat, if not outright fired.

"However, I was having some difficulties in finding anybody else willing to work with you. Of course, I could just make it an order, but a field agent has to be able to trust the ones around them, and I can't order them to do that. So, for the time being, you two are going to work cold cases. It is my understanding that nobody else was assigned to those since Chris Pacci died and everybody else has just been picking up a few of them in their spare time. Well, now that is your sole duty. Agent David, you may be pulled away from cold cases as needed to run a few... assignments for us." He leaned back to watch their reactions to hearing their new assignment.

Ziva and McGee made a face. Cold cases? They hated it when there was a lull and they had to work cold cases in between doing paperwork. Those were the worst weeks... they didn't say anything, though. They nodded, accepting their assignments gracefully.

Vance nodded, satisfied. "I don't think I have to remind you, Agent McGee, what happened to Agent Pacci, I trust you two will have each others backs, even though the cases are stone cold and seem harmless." He raised an eyebrow, knowing they would get the reference to Royal Woods. The place had seemed harmless, and it was harboring a group that tried to bomb an after party cook-out after a girls softball game. Most of them were parents themselves, which was probably why not all of them were even in on that particular part of the plan, but still.

"Yes, sir. I won't let anything happen to us if I can help it." Ziva said, determined. She didn't know Chris Pacci, didn't know anything about him. She'd never even heard his name before, but clearly something bad had happened to him if everyone else's reactions were anything to go by.

Vance gave them both a long look, then nodded as he liked what he found. "You two can go home for the day, and come back tomorrow, ready to get back to work. I'll have somebody show you to your new desks before you leave." He hesitated. "Let me know if the pranks and hazing start to go too far." He advised. They all knew it was going to happen, federal agents could be so petty and childish sometimes, but he also didn't want them to get hurt because somebody took it too far, which was entirely possible.

Ziva and Tim looked at each other, not sure if they wanted to bother the Director with it if it did get too far.

Any pranks or hazing that happened, would be completely deserved, after all.

I've read some stories where the two of them were outright fired or convicted because something did happen to Tony. In this, they got off fairly lightly because nothing did happen. They more or less just got a slap on the wrist as a warning, although they were on their last leg. If something like that happened again, then there wouldn't have been any leniency.

*I took this idea from those episodes where Jenny was away at a conference and Cynthia was constantly having to chase him down to get him to finish the paperwork for the day. Every time she was gone, Gibbs seemed to be the one in charge and making sure the agency didn't crash and burn. Also, he leads a lot of operations from MTAC. Also, there has to be some reason why Gibbs can get away with pulling off so much crap all the time. Some of the stuff he gets away with should result in some serious consequences, and nobody seems to care at all.