THE GHOST AND MRS. MURE

Summary: "No one's the real thing… some of us just have fewer lies to tell." It seems as if the lives of everyone associated with the Office of Special Projects were based on lies. The only problem was determining who was telling the truth and who was telling the lie. Spoiler alert and Tag to 06x16 "Expiration Date"

A/N 1: I know that there are some people that have been patiently waiting for the more chapters of Quinn, and I posted another one recently for all of you. I watched the episode "Expiration Date" on Monday night, and then the plot bunnies kept pounding my brain until I started this story.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan, for teaching me to play with the fantastic characters and sets that they have created. Since I don't own them, they made me promise that I return them by their curfew. Although they might be slightly (?) battered and bruised, I did send them home. All the other original characters that you do not recognize, are slaving away for me, trying to come up with an original idea for the next story that I might write.

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The Ghost and Mrs. Mure

2008

"No one's the real thing… some of us just have fewer lies to tell."

G. Callen had never been to India. Granger had ordered him to attend a meeting with NCIS European staff in Rota, Spain for a week. His bedroll could be found in one of the bungalows of the Visiting Officers Quarters. Shannyn LeCompt, a cryptographer and linguist whose specialty was Eastern Europe and Russia, was seen going to his quarters every evening to spend the night with him. It was just a series of routine meetings, and a routine rendezvous for the Special Agent from Los Angeles.

Daniel Gregg got off the plane in New Delhi. He had last been here some six years ago when the board of directors sent him to do an on site evaluation of their latest corporate purchase, New Delhi Design. Now he had come to again visit with the owner, Mrs. Carolyn Mure, and inform her that her creations were going to be sold in some of the poshest stores in New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

But neither of them were the real thing. Both of them had lies to tell.

Daniel Gregg was never his name. The man didn't even know what his first name was. He just went by the initial "G". He left his cover story in Rota, and covertly flew to New Delhi, by way of Rome, under the cover name of Daniel Gregg. The CIA needed someone to pick up a vital piece of information from one of their deep cover operatives, and didn't want to use one of their people. They went to NCIS and asked to borrow their ghost, Agent Callen for this mission, because he had done a similar mission for them in some other classified location. Assistant Director Owen Granger saw this as an opportunity to earn a favor from the CIA, and arranged for the mission. The NCIS spook, who could take on any persona he chose, was going to meet with the CIA operative, someone who was his direct opposite.

Mrs. Carolyn Mure was her real name. She had lived in New Delhi with Michael, her husband of eleven years, until he died in 1991, from an industrial accident at one of the warehouses he owned just outside the New Delhi suburbs. She returned to Michael's native home in Scotland, for the reading of his will. There were rumors that the family was somehow tied to Rowallan Castle north of Kilmarnock, in Scotland, but evidently the only claim to fame that many on Michael's side of the family had was being born out of wedlock. She found out that her husband had been hated and disowned by the rest of the family. All she had was a small insurance settlement, so turning her back on her family and home, she set out to establish her own business. She sold a few of her designs to one of the smaller fashion houses in New York six months before she became a widow, and was invited to come there to learn how to make her designs into the finished product. She had no idea that it was all initiated by the CIA, who wanted to set her up as a deep cover operative in India, where they were starting to work on nuclear weapons research.

She set up her sales shop in the wealthier area of the capitol, but her factory was located in one of the poorer sections. She paid her cutters and seamstresses a living wage, much more than most of the women could earn anywhere else. No one seemed to bother her people or her buildings. Word on the street was that if you hurt her or any part of her business, you would get a visit by people you would never, ever want to meet again. The CIA might have had a hand in this, but no one would ever say for sure.

When she was given a request for one of her garments to be delivered to a member of India's nuclear research committee, she was made to understand that man was now her target. She made a beautiful gown for his wife without charge, asking her to wear it as a sort of "free advertisement" for her designs among government officials. She also showed the official her beautiful body, with her Western interpretation of the sexual positions described in the Kama Sutra. After several months of this, she started to pull the required information out of him. It was never a whole lot, and nothing he considered very damaging, at least not as damaging as the scandal would be, if word of his affair would ever get out.

Over the next six months, she kept getting snippets of information on India's nuclear weapons program development. She kept putting these little snippets together and writing them on rice paper that was stuck into the hollow of the ribbons of her designs that were sent to the design house in the States. But then she came across a bit of information that she felt she could not trust to this pipeline. This she felt had to be communicated in person. The Company did not know what she had, but they agreed to her request, and set about to get an agent to her to pick up the information.

Owen Granger was always a strictly by the rules person. His father was an old school US Army colonel, who ran his family like he ran his regiment. Granger was recruited by the CIA shortly after his graduation from college. After a few short years he left the company because of their failure to abide by the rules that were supposed to govern their actions. Their operating agenda seemed to be, the hell with the rules, just get the job done, any way you can. Granger's ethical upbringing would not allow him to act under these conditions. G. Callen operated the same way, and Granger hated that.

Callen had found his way into the CIA, after bouncing around in the FBI and DEA. No one knew why he moved over to the CIA, but it was rumored that there was a female agent involved who wanted to a closer relationship with him. Whatever the reason, they welcomed him, because they found him to be a true ghost. He could assume an identity without any trouble, blending in with his surroundings so well that he always seemed to disappear. No one could remember what he looked like, unless they got a close up view of his eyes. They were a cerulean that could look to the very depths of your soul. But once you looked into those eyes, that is all you remembered of him, so unique and expressive they were. Nothing at all stood out to burn his image into your memory. This was the person that the Company requested to retrieve the information from Mrs. Mure.

It was with a perverse satisfaction that the request came to the desk of Owen Granger. Both he and Callen had bounced over to NCIS. Granger hated the agent for the same reason he left the CIA, the man played fast and loose with all the rules. That was why the man was transferred to the Office of Special Projects in Los Angeles, and when Lara Macy couldn't rope him in, he became the problem of Henrietta Lange. But Granger still kept an eye on the younger man, and any time he could make his life miserable, he didn't hesitate to do it. Owen Granger had no compunction for loaning out the agent to the CIA.

Although Callen grumbled loudly about having to do it, it was more because the order came from Granger than because he didn't want to do the job. He had never been to India, and he was eager to see another part of the world that he had never visited before. His only requirement was that his backup was done by Eric Beale at OSP rather than the CIA. Even though it was a simple "get and grab" operation, Callen approached it as any other one in which he would be involved. He always found that the more carefully he prepared, the less problems he encountered. If something unexpected did happen, he could always count on his unique natural abilities to find a way out.

2014

"No one's the real thing… some of us just have fewer lies to tell."

Both of the historic rivals, India and Pakistan, were known to have nuclear weapons. Both officially denied having any. But relations between the two countries were going downhill fast, especially with the uncertainty of the new Indian government, led by the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party. There was a extensive rise in the cross border shelling along the disputed border areas of the Kashmir. Both sides had suffered several deaths among the people on their side of the line.

The CIA was worried that these border clashes might escalate into a full fledged war. Members of the Indian government and military officials increased the bombardment of threats against Pakistan. A close official of the new government even went so far as to pledge a "fitting reply" if the shelling by Pakistan did not stop. What this "fitting reply" would be was never mentioned, but it certainly would be an expansion of hostilities, not a decrease.

There also were rumors that India was upgrading its production of nuclear fissionable materials. Again, the official version was that no weapons grade materials were being produced in the country. Again, this was one of those lies that everyone acknowledged, but no one believed. Were the new types of ballistic and cruise missile being developed to carry conventional weapons, or were they already nuclear capable? The official answer was that any weapons that were already deployed and those that were being developed had to be conventional, because India's nuclear capabilities did not extend into the area of weapons. They were a peaceful country. Why would they need something like that?

Someone had to find out the truth. Word came down to Mrs. Mure for a new order of gowns. She went to work immediately to satisfy the demands on that account. Slowly but surely the tiny pieces of information kept piling up. It took her close to six months before she had what was required. But the results were staggering, even to someone as far out of the mainstream of the spy game as she was. "Officially", among those who were allowed to know, the nuclear concept of India was that of a defensive strike as small as possible, and only in a retaliatory, strike back mode, with no first use of nuclear weapons permitted. But how tempting would it be, knowing they were there at your disposal? And it wasn't like there was just a couple that the rest of the world had to worry about. Her source estimated that there were at least 80 to 100 warheads already available, with more being developed to meet the country's needs.

Mrs. Carolyn Mure again felt that this information was too extensive and too valuable to be trusted to their normal channel of delivery and requested a face to face hand off again. The CIA, pleased with the way their borrowed ghost had successfully completed his mission six years before, again sent the request into NCIS, to borrow "Daniel Gregg" for another visit to New Delhi on behalf of his board of directors. Approval was quickly granted, and Deputy Director Owen Granger reserved the right to deliver the news to Agent Callen himself.

As Callen arrived at the mission early one morning, he found Granger waiting for him in the bull pen.

"Morning," Callen grumbled to him, knowing that finding the Deputy Director waiting for him to arrive could not indicate that this morning was going to be anything close to good.

"Agent Callen, it's so nice to see how punctual you are where work is concerned," the older man greeted him.

Callen knew that this was going downhill fast. He might as well just ask the man what he needed from him. "Granger, I know you don't like me or the way I work, but you do know that I get things done. So just tell me what you need, and stop trying to make nice this early in the morning."

"Very well. Pack your bag, Callen, you are going on a road trip" he said, a sinister smile coming across his face.

"And just where am I going? ...Sir?" the last word was sarcastically added.

"Officially, you are going out to the carrier Ronald Reagan, to assist the present agent afloat in his duties. Unofficially, Daniel Gregg is going to visit New Delhi Design, to get pick up some new patterns and finished fashions for the head office."

Callen became serious immediately. He had learned what information he had carried back with him the last and realized that the CIA contact there, Mrs. Mure, would not ask for a personal hand off unless it was vitally important. "When do I leave, sir." he asked, all sarcasm dropped from his voice.

"As soon as Jones comes in, you can meet with her over at the auxiliary computer station. She will probably know more about fashions than Beale and will backstop you better than he could ever do. She will arrange transport for you through Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the earliest possible flight tomorrow. You should be back with us by the end of the week."

"Fine" was all the younger man said, his mind already working on the intricate pattern of lies that would make up his life, one more time.

2015

"No one's the real thing… some of us just have fewer lies to tell."

Ella Desai was a Indian nuclear analyst, who was supposed to be in the U.S. under NCIS protection so that she could testify to the illegal deals that she suspected her superiors of doing. She had wanted to hand over her information to CIA in exchange for US citizenship and protection from her government. Because of her importance, Sam had taken a bullet, aimed at her, when he and Callen first tried to take her into protective custody. She was now in one of the interrogation rooms at the boat house, with Callen and Granger interviewing her.

Callen threw a pad of paper and pen over toward her. "Write down all the weapons and places that they are stored for me." He got up and left her to that task, as he joined Granger. They both watched her as she busily wrote down the information required of her.

Granger looked at Callen, "What do you think about her?"

Callen shook his head, "I really don't know for sure. Maybe we will get our answer in just a few minutes, though."

Ella put down her pen, and rubbed her eyes. She looked around, waiting for them to come in and talk to her. She knew they were still watching her.

Callen opened the door and both he and Granger walked in and sat down on the other side of the table. The agent took the pad of paper, spun it around so he could read what she wrote, "Ella, why are you just trying to tell us only about the weapons that India had six years ago?

Ella looked at him with the sincerest expression on her face. "These are the only ones my country has. If there were more, I would know about them and tell you.

Callen shook his head, "Our operative brought us news of these weapons and places back in 2008."

"Then your operative got it wrong," the analyst said. "This is all there are in India."

"That operative did not get it wrong. I was that operative." Callen snarled.

Ella's head snapped up in shock, when she heard what he had said.

"And I am the one who sent him in last year to get the updated number, which is a lot more than you have listed here."

Ella was crushed. She knew her lies had been exposed, and there was nothing she could do about it.

"This interview is over, now!" A booming voice entered the examination room ahead of the man who opened the door and entered the room.

Granger looked up at him and growled, "And just who are you?"

"CIA Agent Doug Emmerich. I am taking control of your prisoner." he told her.

Ella felt her value go up immensely again, as the CIA's interest in her appeared to be as great as it was before. She got up and eagerly went with Agent Emmerich.

Granger looked at Callen and asked him, "How long do you think they will put up with her and not realize that she is really a double agent?"

"Well, if Sam and Thapa really were the targets instead of her," Callen surmised, "then she was definitely part of it. All this was nothing more than to get the CIA to believe her story. And, as you see, the CIA couldn't wait to get their hands on her. So now, it's gonna be a question of who's lies they believe to be the truth, and whose truth they dismiss as lies, the information that you had me bring out last year, or the information she is trying to peddle now."

"No one's the real thing… some of us just have fewer lies to tell."

When all of their lies had been exposed to the light of truth in their after mission reports, Callen wondered where this case would finally end up on a balance scale. Sam had been shot, his family at home and at OSP went through hell waiting to see if he would survive his wound. Thapa had been killed, but his government, his handler, and six rogue gurkhas were necessary to bring him down. That was enough to drop the pan on that side down to the bottom. Was the fact that Ella Desai was finally found out for what she truly was, and all support for her, by either the US or Indian government, was completely dropped, enough to balance the scale? She was on her own, for a long, long time, in a small prison cell, unless she offered the CIA a list of names of those who were in on it with her.

Callen didn't think the scales would ever balance out. He couldn't put Michelle and the kids through something like this again. Hell, he couldn't go through something like this ever again. And what about Sam? How often could he be put through an experience like this before he snaps. Then there was Thapa. He really liked the little gurkha, and would have loved to work with him again. But he was now gone forever. No, the scale could not be brought into balance. If anyone said it could, they would be lying.

"No one's the real thing… some of us just have fewer lies to tell."