When the Dominoes Fall

By 2cbetter2

Rating: PG-13 (For non graphic description of a crime scene

Spoilers: General Season 4 spoilers for Leverage; general spoilers for NCIS – basically if you know what happened to Kate and who Ziva David is then you're a-okay!

Word Count: 2270

Summary: To clear their client in a wrongful murder conviction, Hardison and Parker must pose once again as Special FBI Agents Thomas and Hagen. Written for Leverageland's Secret Agent crossover challenge of Heist #5.

Disclaimers: Don't own Leverage. Don't own NCIS. I've made zilch from this so please sue me not.

AN: This is my very first attempt at writing the NCIS characters, so you'll need to excuse any obvious character portrayal flaws I've written.

AN 2: Once again special thanks goes out to my friend aricadavidson for her feedback and suggestions – she's very much an honorary member of Team Hacker!

0o0

"This," Hardison paused long enough to bring up a picture on the screen, "Is Petty Officer Chad Domino, currently serving a life sentence for murder in the Navy brig at Puget Sound." On the screen was the picture of a nice looking, young man with a lovely, young woman on his arm. "And that is Olivia Stacey-Domino, wife of Petty Officer Domino."

"Hmm, they make a handsome couple," Sophie remarked.

"Yeah, yeah they do," Eliot had to agree with her. "You said he's serving a life sentence for murder. Who did he kill?"

Hardison clicked onto the next piece of information taken from a newspaper article with a black and white photo of another rather attractive woman. The headline read PETTY OFFICER SLASHES THROAT OF LOCAL PROSTITUTE. "This is...was Amanda Dubois, the victim and basically she was found dead in bed with our petty officer passed out on the motel room's floor beside her, covered in her blood. The murder weapon also had his prints all over it and the investigators. He swears he didn't kill her, that someone must have come into the room and killed Amanda after he passed out but they never found any evidence to support his theory."

Parker wrinkled her nose like there was a foul odor in the room. "Sounds like he did it so why are we taking this case?"

Nate took it from there. "Because Olivia came to us and despite what the evidence says, she believes in her husband's innocence, says something like this is completely against his nature, that he's devoted to her, and she believes him when he said there had to be someone else in that room."

"All right if he was so devoted to her then what he was doing in the room with Miss Dubois in the first place?"

"Apparently they had a fight loud enough to draw the attention of their neighbors and cause someone to report them to the military police. The police made him leave their house for the night and that's when he wound up in the motel with the call girl."

"A wife's devotion to her husband not withstanding, is there any concrete proof to back up her husband's claims?" Sophie asked.

"Oh according to Olivia there is but there will be a problem getting to it," Nate answered.

"Which is?"

Hardison clicked the button again and this time a logo appeared on the screen. "All the evidence files related to this case are being held by NCIS, and more specifically by their DC office."

"So what's the plan to get the files?"

All eyes turned to Nate.

They got through security at NCIS by Hardison's usual technological magic and an off the wall, agenty story Hardison as Thomas was regaling Parker's Hagen with. The security guards got so caught up in his tale they barely gave the forged badges and credentials the once over much less the twice over.

"... Hardison, Parker, because of where you'll have to go in to retrieve the files I think it's best if you go in under radio silence."With that chaos erupted forth from grifter, hitter, hacker, and thief with Eliot's voice being the most forceful.

The moment the elevator's doors had closed, Parker started pacing with nervousness. Hardison watched her for a few seconds then reached out to flip the emergency stop. Parker turned on him in a hurry and asked "What did you do that for?" She reached out for the button but he kept his hand on it.

"I did it 'cause you need to calm down and pull yourself together, woman! 'Cause if you don't you're gonna get us busted by Agent Leroy famous-for-going-with-his-gut Jethro Gibbs!"

Parker wrinkled her nose. "Leroy Jethro? Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of name is Leroy or Jethro?"

Hardison smiled. "Don't know but please do not mock the man to his face for the naming choices of his parents. Now are you calm enough for us to get this over with?" She nodded and his pressed the button. "Just remember what Sophie said."

The elevator's bell dinged and the doors slid open.

"You want to send them into a building full of federal agents under radio silence?" Eliot growled at Nate.

Nate didn't back down as he was used to his hitter's growls by now. "Yes, I do." Before Eliot could respond to that the mastermind turned to the hacker to ask, "Hardison, you tell me if you think you and Parker can make it through security with the earbuds without getting caught and you can keep them."

"Eliot, man, he's right. Without getting into all the 'geeky' details you always find so fascinating," Hardison said, a smirk in his voice."Nate's right. There's a real chance we'll get caught by security if we walk through the door with our comms."

With one last deep breath, Hardison took the lead by exiting the elevator first, setting out in the direction where they'd been told they'd find the desks of Special Agent Gibbs and his team. Three of the four desks were occupied with the three agents Hardison knew to be on Gibbs' team, and they didn't seem too busy at the moment as they were carrying a conversation across the office.

"So McGee, when can we expect your next book to come out?" The lone female agent of the group asked.

"Yeah McSteamy, I can't wait to read the next sweltering love scene between Agent Tommy and Agent Lisa!" chimed in one of the male members of the team.

"You might be waiting a while since I seem to have hit a brick wall in my writing," McGee replied.

"Are you hurt, McGee?" the female asked, with obvious concerned.

"I'm fine, Ziva. It's just an expression which means I've got writer's block at the moment."

"Ah, well I hope you resolve your block soon."

"Thanks, I hope I will too." McGee looked up from his computer screen and saw two unfamiliar agents standing nearby. "Can I help you?"

Hardison cleared his throat. "I'm Agent Thomas, and this is Agent Hagen. We're from the office of FBI Special Agent Fornell. We need to speak with Special Agent Gibbs about obtaining some information from one of your past cases."

"Agent Gibbs is in a meeting right with the Director. I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. What case do you need to speak with Gibbs about?" He walked around his desk with a hand extended for Hardison to hand over their paperwork. "Hey McGeek, this looks like this is your specialty!"

McGee came over and looked over the paperwork. "Yeah I can you find the information you're looking for. Shouldn't take too long."

Agent McGee however had been wrong about how long it was taking and 90 minutes later they were still there trying to find the file in question because of some sort of technical glitch. The glitch that had happened thanks to Parker secretly managing to install a search program Hardison had written to find the real files they were looking for in the NCIS database since the plan called for them to be looking for innocuous information instead of the file for the Domino/Dubois murder.

In the time they'd been in the office, Agent Gibbs had return from his meeting with the Director, was introduced to the two FBI agents, and told what they were looking for. Much to Hardison's annoyance the seasoned lead field agent had allowed his technical minded agent to keep helping since all they were doing at the moment was catching up on paperwork.

"Do you need something to do, Agent Hagen?" Gibbs asked Parker suddenly.

Hardison fought to keep his eyes on the screen as Parker shook her head. "Why would you ask that?"

Gibbs gave her a knowing look. "Because for the last 20 minutes you've sat there with your eyes glazed over, clearly not interested in what your partner and my agent are doing to retrieve your files."

Looking bored was definitely better than looking nervous over the fact her and Hardison were both stuck in a building full of federal agents who would arrest them in a split second if they knew who they had working on their computers.

"Umm, no I'm fine. Thanks, sir. Not bored at all," Parker replied.

Gibbs watched her for a few more minutes as she tried to look more engaged in what Hardison and McGee were doing. Thankfully she didn't have to keep the act on too long because Gibbs was called away to another meeting in some place called MTAC.

"Gear up, we've got a dead Marine staff sergeant," said Agent Gibbs as he re-entered the bullpen several minutes later from nowhere or that's how it seemed Parker.

Agent McGee looked up from the computer he was helping Hardison (Parker wanted to laugh out loud at that one) locate the file they needed for their client. "Uh boss?"

"Yeah, McGee?"

"I should probably stay here and help Agent Thomas find the files he's looking for."

Hardison barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at what McGee just said because he knew he could find what they needed a whole lot faster without having the agent looking over his shoulder. He also knew trying to get rid of the resident techie could make Gibbs suspicious so out loud he said, "Yeah, I'd... really appreciate Agent McGee's help." He was so glad they'd been forced to have the comms turned off for this job because he knew Eliot couldn't have passed on the opportunity to add to his annoyance with this situation.

"All right, McGee, stay here and help Agent Thomas. Agent Hagen?"

It took a second for Parker to realize Gibbs was talking to her. "Y-yes?"

"You've have had training for crime scene photography, correct?"

"Uh..."

"What she means is yes she has, Agent Gibbs," Hardison interjected, giving Parker a look that said Pull it together, girl! "But she's still what you might call a probie, hasn't really had much of a chance to use all that she learned at Quantico yet."

"Oh, right! Yeah I've not had much of a chance yet!" Parker echoed too cheerfully.

With the look Gibbs gave both of them Hardison was pretty sure they were both busted but then he turned his gazed to the only female member of his team. "Agent David, you'll be assigned to watch Agent Hagen when we get to the crime scene."

"Very well."

"All right let's get moving, people."

"On your six, boss!"

Parker shot Hardison a look as she followed the NCIS agents to the elevator, a look that made Hardison worry even more because she was smiling her crazy Parker smile.

Oh lord! Hardison thought and he sent up something part silent prayer, part plea that Parker wouldn't blow their cover by completely weirding out the federal agents she was accompanying.

"Hey boss, do you know how many probies it takes to change a light bulb?"

Parker saw Agent David roll her eyes and smirk a second later when Gibbs said, "Button it, DiNozzo."

A click was followed by a flash which in turn was quickly followed by a growl.

"Parker!" Eliot grated out her name while swatting at her. "Get that thing out of my face!"

Nate sighed and rubbed his forehead at the noise, "Guys! I'm trying to read here!"

Eliot grabbed his jacket and said, "I'm going downstairs, and you if follow me with that camera..." He left the threat unfinished, and so the thief hit the take button again before running out the door. "Parker, I..." The rest of the hitter's threat was cut off by him following her out.

Hardison followed them at a more slow pace. "I'll see you two later."

Sophie sipped her tea, waiting in silence for Nate to finish reading over the murder investigation file, and when he closed it she asked. "Well? Is Olivia right about her husband's innocence?"

Nate nodded, "Yeah I think she is but there's some follow up work we need to do before we can take this to the Navy justice department. It'll give me a chance to bring back my Jimmy Papadokalis persona."

Sophie pouted at this. "But I wanted to use my new lawyer persona Hardison has established for me for this one, Leona Ducksworth."

Nate cringed at the name. "Leona Ducksworth, seriously?" Sophie nodded. "We'll see whose persona works best later and in the meantime why don't we pick this up first thing in the morning and go join the others downstairs?"

Sophie nodded. "Probably a good idea and if we hurry we'll get down there before Eliot smashes Parker's new camera to bits."

End