This is my 38th NCIS Mystery, the Eighth story of my Fourth Season. It follows 'The Phobos Affair' by three days. In the end of that story, on Monday, August 6, Director Jennifer Shepherd had sent Gibbs and his Team home following an overextended week, then had a clandestine conversation with Tony DiNozzo at which she presented to him an assignment that, if accepted, would run many times longer than the months spent on his UC Rene Benoit mission.
It is now Thursday, August 9 and the team is - hopefully - well rested, because there's a lot of work to do.
NCIS and its various successors are owned by Belisarius Productions. Specific LA Credit to Shane Brennan. The usual legal Disclaimers about characters and money apply. I only own Rev. Siobhan (O'Mallory) McGee, Apprentice Pathologist Dr. Samantha Sky and original Agents. You can find all my stories listed in order in my Profile.
I love the way Barrett Foa and Renee Felice Smith give long, paired interviews where they answer fen questions, because I glean so much from them, like their favorite foods, their pet names for each other, the kind of scenes they'd love to play and so forth. I pulled several things from each interview I could access to enliven this story.
I received some nice inspirations from a work called 'Tales from the Mission' by fellow FanFicker (is that a word?) Serotonin2501. Thank you. You'll want to look up his (to date) 67 contributions. Don't let the number of chapters daunt you, they're short and pretty sweet.
I also thank Gina Mae Callen, Administrator for several Facebook NCIS groups such as NCIS:LA, NCIS&NCIS:NOLA Fan-fiction Writers, who provided incalculable help and without whom this story would not be what it is.
An interesting aspect of Henrietta Lange is that she is above such trivialities as PC, and therefore you will hear no 'Ms.' from her.
This Mystery follows events depicted in 'The Supervillain Affair', which occurred some 10 weeks ago during the Memorial Day Weekend, and deals with the consequences of that case. My stand-alone stories 'Princess Nell' and 'To Serve All My Days' occurred in the intervening time between that Mystery and this one.
Rated T or NCis-17
Please Review.

The Best Revenge is Revenge
by JMK758
Chapter One
Accusation

Catherine Bachman, Mark Esposito and Jeremy Cintron, with their families captives of the mysterious Jackson McGillicuddy, were removed early Tuesday morning from the steel cell they'd shared with families and beloved by the silent, black masked, fatigue uniformed soldiers who had held them prisoner for upwards of three days. Yesterday one of the soldiers had shot thirteen year old Chloe Bachman as a lesson when McGillicuddy had told them he doesn't threaten. The lesson had gained the prisoners' enmity far more than their terrified compliance.

The wound in the girl's side had been more bloody than life threatening, having entered an inch into and exited from her left side above her belt, but it proved their captor has neither mercy nor regard for life except as that life exists to serve his purposes.

The soldiers had returned minutes later with a basic First Aid kit for the girl, their only concession to humanity, and it had been barely adequate to halt the bleeding sopped up by abandoned clothing, disinfect the surrounding flesh and cover the wounds. Pleas for real medical help were ignored. No answer was given by the masked men before they'd taken their AK-47s and departed, nor had additional clothing been provided.

Now the three have been taken, hooded and gagged as they'd arrived, from the thirty by thirty foot steel chamber, leaving behind George, fourteen year old Ben and thirteen year old Chloe Bachman, Jodi and nine year old Jose Esposito and Rita Fisher, Cintron's girlfriend who has come to deeply regret their date.

Blinded by black hoods and silenced by ball gags, they've been forced to climb into a truck, the rear of which was lowered on squeaking treads to bang shut and seal them in.

The drive was long, but the many turns confused distance. Sound from outside the truck was distorted and frequently absent, street noise indistinct so that none could say any particular area was familiar. When, a half hour later, the truck stopped it could have been more than thirty miles distant.

x

They were grabbed and pulled to their feet before the metal door rumbled upward and other hands pulled them out, the exchange as silent as their kidnappings and hopeless as the captivity in the steel chamber, as frightening as the shooting of Chloe Bachman. They were pulled forward, their black hoods only brightening slightly as they were roughly guided to and through a doorway.

They were pulled up short, the metal door behind them slams shut with a crash that echoed though a huge space and, as roughly as they'd been treated thus far, their black hoods were yanked from their heads, the ball gags yanked loose from behind their heads and ripped from their mouths. If teeth were lost in the vicious pull, they're certain none of their captors would care.

In fact, sadistic pleasure was the only emotion they're sure would be felt by the soldiers.

The space before them was tremendous, two hundred feet wide, three hundred long and, by the windows in the distant walls, suitable for a three story aircraft hanger with windows in the second and third floors only. In the center, reflecting the beams of twenty overhead spotlights, stood a twelve foot tall device neither Bachman, Esposito nor Cintron had ever wanted to see.

The silver metal a hundred fifty feet away glittered in the spotlights but the scientists knew this was not the device they'd worked for over three years to design, develop and build. Six foot tall in its body yet extended cannon-like to a height of twelve feet at the muzzle, it was a duplicate of a device that should never have existed, though the original remains safely guarded by two thousand legitimate soldiers in a place as secret as Area 51 is famous.

The sixty thousand square foot floor was crowded with stations and equipment of seeming infinite variety but this highlighted device dominated everything.

x

Before them, much closer but pale in magnificence compared to the distant device, was the white haired man who thus far was the only one to speak to them in their three day captivity, the one who had had a young girl shot as a demonstration of ruthless power. "Welcome," Jackson McGillicuddy said and his voice had reverberated in the steel hanger, "I trust you slept well."

To this outrageous greeting there could have been only one answer and Catherine Bachman, the memory of her shrieking daughter bleeding on a steel floor sharp in her, did so in four long breaths. That the man before them is a sadistic monster none of them doubted, that he is ruthless he had already proven.

"As I told you last evening," McGillicuddy said, unfazed by the vitriol, "the device before you, a copy of what you once created for the U.S. Government as 'Operation: Dragonfire', has been recreated from plans obtained at great cost of life and yet does not function."

The easy dismissal he gave to that 'great cost of life' further showed, if any embellishment had been necessary, the character of their captor and the madness of his scheme.

"You will have access to twenty nine technicians and adequate resources. Your assignment is obvious, and the price of delay or failure I need not elaborate upon."

Each passing day has been woefully similar. In an unknown hanger untold miles from their loved ones, they toiled upon a monstrosity that should never have been built. The original could destroy whole cities in seconds, now a monster wanted a second one.

That was Monday, August 6.

ooo

"You're never going to get it," Supervisory Special Agent G. Callen insists three days later as he walks beside his larger counterpart Sam Hanna down the corridor to their desks. The left two facing ones are occupied by SA Kensi Blye and LAPD Detective Martin Deeks, already deep into their duties but not so deeply that they cannot be pulled out by the next episode of the 'G and S Banter Hour'.

'If it's Thursday,' Kensi thinks from beside Callen's desk, 'this must be Belgium, and I wish I were there.'

Actually she's in the city's old Water Administration Building, though the Spanish Mission style headquarters looks much better now than it probably had as a City Administration building in the old days. Still, she thinks, perhaps it would have been better in one sense: no dueling partners. Maybe.

There's an ancient and utterly disregarded 'Condemned' sign beside the main door; 'Warning: Imminent Hazard' it says. The property is not condemned, of course; NCIS posted that weather worn sign years ago to keep the curious kids away from their Secret HQ, but she thinks that perhaps some day the city is finally going to notice it, come down and clear the place out - and not with Deeks' smelly fruits - and thereby put her out of her misery.

"I get it," Sam assures his partner as he steps around the desks to his own, his back to the wall so he can command a view of the tremendous room. "You have a need for privacy. I do get that." He reaches for his desk calendar, rips off the August 8th sheet, crumples and throws it away.

"That's not what we're talking about," Callen says,

"It's what I'm talking about," Sam insists, sitting back and getting comfortable. Kensi hates to see him do this; it usually means he's willing to extend the debate, which can be made to last for hours - or so they seem to. "I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm saying you should get out more often, meet people."

"I meet plenty of people at work." Since he's kept under wraps the progress he and Joelle Taylor have made in the past half year since the malware case this past winter, few have any idea how well he's hidden his romantic life, which leads Sam to point out that

"They're not the kind you could bring home to mother."

"Hetty's my mother."

This makes Sam pause before he decides "That's just scary."

"You have to admit she could handle anyone I brought home."

"But how many that you'd bring home could handle her?"

Callen glances to her. "Kensi could."

'Oh please. Don't drag me into this.'

x

But she's rescued by the unexpected, the unannounced intrusion of two men in suits into their secure enclave, two men who stride up the corridor, pass the four Operatives and arc left to the elevated section that constitutes the center of Operations Manager Henrietta Lange's domain.

The four stare at the newcomers, irritation at being bypassed without even a glance dropping down to interest. That the two men wear suits where outside attire, with the temperature already 80, is generally tee shirts and shorts makes them stand out like dry thumbs on a mermaid.

The two speak to the small woman who runs the Office of Special Projects, yet none of their words cross the distance. Though this is by no means unusual, Lange preferring her privacy even in the midst, it's still unpleasant to four people for whom obtaining information on what's out of the ordinary is as essential as breathing.

"I wonder why they're here," Deeks muses with notable inflection.

"Know them?" G. Callen asks.

"Detectives Clause and Frisone. Haven't seen them in months."

One of the men hands Lange a folded paper, which she opens and peruses. From her expression, the paper doesn't bring good news.

Lip readers all, the four Operatives are at a disadvantage. Clause and Frisone sit with their backs to them while Lange, if she doesn't want to be read, is not.

Deeks is out of his chair and across the room before any of his partners can object. As Detective Liaison between the LAPD and NCIS, he can normally be read into whatever his counterparts are here for, but there's still enough uncertainty that he's cautious to approach directly along the sight line of his boss. When she doesn't wave him away, he comes up onto the elevated platform and steps to the side of Lange's desk. "Hey, guys," he greets the two Detectives, "haven't seen you in a while. What's up?"

x

"He's a big help," Sam Hanna says thirty seconds later. The man, a perennially unkempt and painfully loquacious contradiction to the Police Department's Undercover life, is in position to communicate valuable information but with the exception of an 'are you sure?' he hasn't said anything worthwhile.

For a man who frequently gives the impression that he's paid by the word, this is doubly disturbing.

Hetty Lange, seated facing them full on, is unreadable despite how much she says, to the point where Hanna and Blye stop trying. All they can see is that the woman is grim, therefore the news is bad, but that they'd known before and she's playing all cards very close to the vest.

'No,' Callen thinks as he continues the surveillance. 'She's sewn them into her vest and lined it with Kevlar.'

When she picks up one of the white phones before her, her conversation is blocked by the receiver.

The conference lasts for over four minutes, and when she puts the receiver down her aspect is even more grim.

She rises, the two men do as well, and she leads the three down the steps out of her open enclave, Deeks trailing. He looks even more unhappy than the boss.

As they approach, the three agents rise but Lange holds up a hand, and turns it to a downward pointing finger. More mystified than before, they sit back down as Lange leads the three men up the stairs to the second floor.

Deeks, as he passes, keeps his eyes forward, his expression stony.

x

Operations, a tremendous bastion of computer hardware and the most sophisticated software in the free world, is the domain of Eric Beale and Nell Jones. Nicknamed by some unremembered wag as 'the Wonder Twins', they're literally the long and short of Tech Operations and Intelligence Analysis.

Eric is tall and string-bean thin to the point of near emaciation, perpetually pushing the attire envelope, but with a sharp mind that can grasp computational intricacies that bog down lesser life forms. His hair is blond, very short and wavy and his black framed glasses seem designed for Clark Kent and generally accomplish the same purpose.

Whoever coined the phrase 'devastatingly intelligent' had been thinking of Nell. She's petite, coming up only to her partner's chest, with short red hair that frames a heart face and honey brown eyes that seek the greatest mysteries. She'd shortened her auburn locks in May down to a pixie cut and dyed it a far more vibrant red for the Undercover identity of Betty Willoughby, then kept the color for the past two plus months because Eric likes it.

While Eric wears a button down tye-dye shirt over khaki shorts several years too old and several inches too short for his lanky frame, Nell is clad in an olive blouse over pine green skirt. They're seated facing their workstations, their backs to the door, Nell on the left, deep in the examination of some obscure cyberspace mystery.

x

"Miss Jones?" Hetty calls, by that announcing their presence. The pair turn, mildly surprised to see two unknown, suit-encased men standing be the sliding door with their fellows.

"Yes, Hetty?"

"Would you come here please?"

The young woman leaves her station and partner behind and crosses the room past the huge display monitor that takes up most of the side wall. As she approaches, Deeks steps past her into the room, leaving her attention on her boss and the two visitors.

She stands a head taller than the boss, making them both seem valleys to the visiting hills. This, however, has never had a discernible effect upon either woman. Hetty exists in a field of self-confidence which Nell frequently strives to emulate.

But the grim manners of the four, most particularly Hetty's whom she has known to greet cataclysms that could stop entire cities with a resigned sigh, sets her nerves on edge. "Yes?" she asks, allowing caution and suspicion to step with heavy tread upon her tone.

"These are LAPD Detectives James Clause," she presents the taller man, then the other, somewhat shorter and some twenty pounds heavier yet taller than either of them, "and Barry Frisone."

"Nell Jones," Clause says, "you are under Arrest on suspicion of Murder."

x

"WHAT?"

Clause pulls a small notebook from his jacket pocket and reads aloud the writing on the back of it. "You have the Right to –"

"HEY!" Eric is out of his chair which crashes with the loud bang and he's across the room in a rush but Marty Deeks, hands up, stands before him. He doesn't restrain him, he's just in the way.

"Mr. Beale, stand down," is Hetty's command as Nell looks him to silence.

She doesn't want him to defend her, even as he'd once stood up to Assistant Deputy Director Granger of her behalf.

This time she's sure he won't get bogged down by rectitude.

x

"You have the Right to remain silent," the taller suit resumes reading. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of Law. You have the Right to an Attorney. If you cannot afford an Attorney, one will be provided for you." He puts the pad back into his pocket. "Do you understand the Rights I have read to you?"

"Yes," she admits, barely understanding anything. What just happened? Has she really been Arrested?

"Do you wish to waive the Right to remain silent?"

"She does not," Hetty declares before Nell can open her lips.

A look between them is all that is needed. Nell really wants to say a lot, but she'll obey her Mentor's order – for now.

"Miss Jones... Nell," Hetty says, "I have already contacted Council, which will be dispatched to assist you as soon as possible."

Nell looks to Eric. Her friend is blocked by Marty Deeks and such is their respect for the command of Henrietta Lange that neither will defy her, even now when each wants so fervently to do so.

x

"Miss Jones," pulls her attention forward to the tall man.

"Special Agent Jones," is Hetty's firm correction.

"Special Agent Jones," the man says as he pulls from his jacket a folded paper and hands it to her. "This is a Warrant for your Arrest in connection with the Murder of Grekor Kanyicska."

The floor opens beneath her feet and she falls into the hole, but when she opens the paper that is the name and charge she sees. Kanyicska, after the death of Rene Benoit, the infamous La Grenouille, is - rather was - the most powerful American Arms Dealer and someone she has had too much cause to know too well.

He'd been reported dead on Sunday, four days ago.

Clause hands her another paper which she also opens, hardly needing the words: "This is a Search Warrant for your apartment, which Officers are at this moment executing. Anything found within the terms of the Warrant will be used in aid of your Prosecution."

Already dropped on the first floor with broken legs and shattered spine, another hole opens under her and she crashes to the bedrock.

Cold she hadn't noticed in the long drops that destroyed her body and left her crumpled in the rubble freezes her deep within. The ice spreads throughout her body as she thinks about how much there is in her laptop for them to find.

x

The clicks of handcuffs being withdrawn from Frisone's pocket is more than Eric can stand. "You can Not take her out of here like a common Criminal!"

"Mister Beale."

Eric wants to push past Deeks, to tear into the pair, to defend his partner, but those two words from Hetty Lange hold him in place. In his seething brain a minuscule voice, one that he'd ignore if he could, whispers that anything he would do he could not win at and it will make Nell's situation worse.

"Guys," Marty steps in, his own handcuffs clicking out and he steps before Nell and takes her right arm, "you'll find there's little 'common' about Nell."

Handcuff Regulations specify that cuffs are to be attached with the arms behind the back, backs of hands together, the bands ratcheted firmly in place between the carpal bones and the radius and ulna to allow each hand only a few degrees of motion. Marty secures her hands in front, three inches above the wrists and one notch short of a firm fit. In fact, with her hands downward before her, the cuffs slide down to their wonted positions at her hands.

Marty looks to Frisone and Clause but sees in their eyes that there'll be no challenge. They are arresting a Federal Law Enforcement Special Agent, and if she does nothing to make them regret the courtesy thus far shown, she may keep it.

xx

Callen, Hanna and Blye, prevented from eavesdropping on an unknown issue, have been reduced to speculating while they await appropriate briefing, so it's with no special concern that they see Marty Deeks precede Hetty and Nell down the steps, followed immediately by the two visiting Detectives while Eric stands at the top of the stairs. Mild concern shoots up a notch at the distress etched on his face but rockets into the stratosphere and explodes as Marty rounds the turn and they see Nell's wrists shackled in silver handcuffs.

"What the hell?" "What's going on?" "What are you doing?" is a barely intelligible jumble as the outraged Agents move to intercept, but they too are halted by a restraining hand raised by their Operations Manager. They can do nothing as the three men escort the red headed young woman down the corridor toward the door.

Hetty stands before her agents, having no doubt that she holds their absolute attention, as much as that of the staring man at the top of the stairs.

"We have known for several days that Grekor Kanyicska had been killed on Sunday the fifth and his organization is in some degree of chaos as they reorganize, and that their fellow Arms Dealers are alert for any sign of weakness. What I - what we - did not foresee is that Miss Jones has been arrested for his murder. Mister Callen, I want you to pull everything on his operation, something that you have already started to do but now you have a motivation toward greater speed and thoroughness. Mister Hanna, everything on his personnel, focusing on those who have emerged as the most likely to pick up the ball in the shifting hierarchy."

"That's his lieutenant, Richard Burgoyne," Sam says. "He moved into the center seat practically before the body cooled. He might still be in it today."

"Indeed. It is possible he will even be there tomorrow. However, such seats often go through as many changes in occupant as those in the Italian government. Miss Blye, you have his customers and competitors, and you will each make all use of Mr. Beale's talents and resources. And now, if you will excuse me, I have numerous telephone calls to make."