This is my twenty-third NCIS Mystery and the third of my Third Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.
The usual legal disclaimers apply. I don't own anyone except Rev. Siobhan O'Mallory and original Agents.
Please Review.
Rating: T or NCis-17.

Zabeth
By JMK758
Prologue

Zabeth locks the portal, three heavy bolts snap into place to hold the steel door secure against anything an enemy could carry. Another equally skilled operative might penetrate her defenses, but she doubts any of the weak-willed civilians she's encountered so far could accomplish the task.

She unzips the black cat-suit from neck to groin and pushes the form-fitting material from her bare shoulders. The Kevlar suit, proof against short-range hand-held weaponry, fits her snugly enough to pull every male - and some female - gaze to her body. Its ostentation shields her by drawing eyes to where she wants them and away from her face.

She strips the tight protective armor from her body and secures it inside a steel closet. Clad now in equally protective Kevlar bra and cycle shorts - an operative cannot have too much protection while under cover deep in enemy territory - she reaches for the small handle at the right side of her bra, just under the cup.

The handle is less than an inch long, barely notable black on black. She won't draw it, of course; it'd taken far too much time and patience to prepare the garrote wire that crosses back and forth under her breast. A small slit in the cat-suit, a necessary break in her defenses, allows her to pull the half-meter wire free. Thence it is just a short time and her target is dispatched.

In a sleeve under her left breast, equally hidden from the crude detectors of the enemy, even to the scanners in their transportation facilities, is a two inch silver needle no thicker than a sliver. Hidden under her bra but reached through the body armor, it's just as accessible through the armored suit or without it. A small repository contains her most potent poison. Only a squeeze is needed. Virtually undetectable by the unimaginative resources of the enemy, it is potent enough that her target will be dead before his body reaches the ground.

In the front elastic band of her black shorts, as easily reached through a carefully obscured slit in the front of her suit, is an equally effective neurotoxin. It's a nerve inhibiter, designed to paralyze the target. It will stop respiration immediately. In a one point eight meter tall, eighty-four point two three seven kilo man such as her target, he will be helpless, unable to move and will asphyxiate within four point two minutes.

x

These things, deadly and silent, are designed for the point-blank, hands-on dispatch of her target. It sometimes requires her to bring natural talents into play to get close to the target and she is equally skilled with weapons or, if need be, bare hands. She prefers, however, long-distance assaults and on the wall before her is an excellent selection of resources.

The long-range weapons are for use against not only her target but any who might attempt to interfere with her mission or her escape.

x

She hadn't expected her mission to change so suddenly from infiltration to elimination, but such is the life of an Undercover Operative.

New orders have come in. Missions of this type usually follow a four-fold pattern, the first three of which are more common: infiltrate, gain trust and obtain information. In fairly rare situations, they move on to the fourth phase: eliminate the subject. The first phases can take weeks, months, even years.

But now there are new orders.

This operation is now in Phase Four.

Chapter One
Moving

Ziva David steps off the elevator into Operations and heads for the bullpen closest to the floor to ceiling windows, which prime position she shares with the other members of her MCR Team. The bullpen had taken days to clean, to remove the blood and human detritus from, when a madwoman had blown herself up in its midst. Following a week-long 'hiatus' where the agents, with the aid of therapists and crisis counselors, had tried to put their lives back together the way workmen had tried to put the bullpen back together. A week of personal 'recovery' time had mirrored what was done - better - to the room.

Blood and worse had been cleaned from metal, cloth, plastic and glass. What paperwork couldn't be salvaged had been replaced from copies but much was gone, unsalvageable. NCIS documents were replaceable, the tiny touches that made a workplace homey could almost be salvaged or recreated - bless Abby for her care and ingenuity - but not everything could be restored or recreated.

Yes, it was much like their lives after this ultimate invasion. Their secure place, within and without, had been violated and some things will never be the same again.

This is their second day back but the first had been more than enough to batter them with the unexpected changes.

Rounding the half-wall of her cubical, she's about to toss her backpack over her desk to the floor but there's someone in the way.

"What are you doing at my desk?" she demands, her already tenuous good humor vanishing.

"I'm not at your desk," Senior Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo tells her with a disarming smile. "I'm at mine."

She's about to challenge this absurd claim, preferably with her version of a 'Gibbs wake-up call', when she observes all of his possessions on the desk, and then the desk itself. "You are right - this is your desk."

"Told you," he reminds her with that same disarming schoolboy smile, the one she never trusts and so frequently wants to hit.

x

Ziva left-faces to where DiNozzo ought to be but finds that Tim McGee - and his desk - occupy that spot. She turns further still and Michelle Palmer favors her with a shrug, smile and wave.

Extending the unpleasant scan, she finds that Gibbs' distinctive desk, rather than replacing Palmer's, is completely out of position, blocking what until now had been the rear exit of the bullpen.

Her own desk, with everything that had been upon it meticulously preserved, occupies Gibbs' old place. Completing the turn, she demands, "What is going on?"

Tony shrugs. "Well, after you cut out an hour early–"

"I had an appointment." It was with her crisis therapist and that's none of his business.

"Gibbs decided to make a few changes," he continues. "He said as long as changes were made he'd make a few of his own. He wants to keep a better eye on us, so for the last few hours of the day he had McMoving Man and I play a new version of musical desks - with the desks."

"He could see us all just fine."

"Tell him that. For years I've been sitting over there, suddenly I'm looking at things from the other side. Everything's in the wrong direction."

"Tell me about it," McGee gripes from where Tony used to sit. "I had all my systems wired with exactly enough wire, not a thing hanging, everything in neat rows. It took me until after midnight to get everything configured over here."

"Oh, I so feel for you, Rand McProbie."

x

Ziva turns to Michelle at McGee's old spot, now a stage closer to the front. "And what do you think of this?"

She shrugs, smiles and glances at Gibbs' station before assuring her that "I'm sandwiched between two macho, macho men. I'm happy."

"You are married."

"Pretty soon so will Tim be, that hasn't stopped him looking."

"That true, McGoogle-eyes?"

"No, Tony, that's not true." He glances around. "I just have to look at things differently now." The thing Tony - and Michelle - had implied is none of anyone's business.

"Well, I think it is crazy," Ziva doesn't even care if Gibbs could be standing right behind her.

"You be sure to tell him that when he gets down from MTAC," Tony advises.

Ziva continues on to her new position, Gibbs' old one, and throws her backpack to this floor. "And until now I thought the decisions that manage the Mossad were arbitrary.

"One cannot fathom the inner workings of Gibbs," DiNozzo tells her philosophically.

"According to Siobhan," McGee adds from behind her, "Gibbs' mind is like the Peace of God."

Ziva whirls on him, already fed up with this month. "And how is that?"

"It surpasses all understanding."

x

"Well, as long as he's up there for a while," Michelle says, getting up from her chair, "I'm going to get some fruit juice."

"Hang on," DiNozzo says, getting up as well, "I'll join you, I want some coffee."

"Me too," McGee says. "Bring you some, Zee?"

"Yes, thank you."

xx

Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge of the Headquarters Division of NCIS and head of one of twelve Major Case Response Teams, is having a bad morning and quite willing to share the pain.

He'd been, in spite of his most determined efforts, kept solidly out of the loop on all things NCIS, and now that he's back he's catching up and hates what he finds.

The fallout of the 'Millennium Debacle' and the revelation of how enemy agents had infiltrated the services - and how many highly placed military officials had been suborned - continues to spread. Already two Navy Admirals, an Army Colonel and a Marine General stand accused of charges ranging through espionage, sabotage, treason and murder. Even if these high ranking officers are the tip of a frigid iceberg, there are no accurate figures yet of how much deeper through the various ranks this conspiracy goes.

That so many supposedly loyal officers could be induced to betray their country and their oaths for personal gain is nauseating. Not even NCIS can lay a claim of immunity from this cancer; it had infected one of their most trusted agents, and that infection had killed half a score of loyal agents and left invisible scars on more that will be bourn through a lifetime.

The list of the suspected in the Navy and Marine Corps, men and women whose honor and integrity Gibbs and his friends would have - no, had - fought for, seems to grow daily. Granted that this is an aberration and, objectively, the number remains miniscule - the tiniest fraction of a percent - the emotional toll is out of proportion to the extent of the cancer. It's hard not to give in to outrage, just as it's sometimes hard to remember that a suspicion is not an accusation is not a conviction.

When the words 'Semper Fidelis' are rancid upon the lips of some men and women, it shakes more than faith. To a Marine those words express the essence of integrity. The betrayals are keenly felt, and the emotions of the faithful are volatile indeed.

x

While the fallout of the 'Millennium Debacle' had eased pressure on his team for a while - someone had to be kept for the hundreds of non-Millennium concerns, once the kingpins had been identified it fell back on NCIS, Army CID, Air Force OSI and others to find and root out the cancerous rank and file. And while the numbers involved were, admittedly, the most miniscule fraction of a percent, any cancer upon integrity sickens the soul.

Gibbs stalks out of MTAC, having had more than his fill of the statistics and sickening details and quite ready to reach his desk and bury himself in mundane wor, but first he wants two minutes to sit and relax with his favorite coffee. Glancing down over the metal rail into the cavernous Operations Center he halts. Rather than getting that moment to relax, he feels his blood grow hotter than any coffee.

xx

Alone for a few quiet minutes, Ziva works to put the morning's weirdness into perspective and get to work. She opens a file on her computer, the final report on the Hapburg case, but only gets through the first page before she senses a presence and looks up.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs stands before her desk, his former space, his expression an excellent impression of a thundercloud. "Doing a little redecorating, Officer Da-veed?"

"No, I – that is - you –"

"I don't want to hear it."

"Whoa!" Tony DiNozzo's voice cuts through the bullpen as he, McGee and Palmer halt at the entrance. They look about with evident surprise at the new configuration, particularly Ziva seated at the desk in the boss' position. "What's this? Did we miss something?"

"Apparently Ziva's idea of redecorating," McGee interjects.

"Must've taken you all night, Zee-váh," Tony says.

Michelle remains silent, not committing herself. The three enter and survey the woman's supposed handiwork.

"But I - you - he - I - I–!"

"Excuse me," a woman's voice comes from behind the trio. They turn and all five agents find a blonde woman looking apprehensively at them. Her blue uniform jacket features one medal bar at her breast and her shoulder boards display a single gold rank stripe.

She's escorted by a female agent, but the Ensign, her blonde hair windblown, her eyes telegraphing her distress, gives the woman no chance to make introductions. "Someone please help me stop a murder."

x

"Special Agent Gibbs," SA Patricia Abbate, miffed at being cut off, introduces "Ensign Carolyn Stillwell of the Enterprise."

"How can we help you, Ensign?" Gibbs asks, the supposedly innocent trio clearing a path for him as though imitating the Red Sea. Gibbs considers the analogy appropriate, for he's ready to lay down law such as Moses had never dreamed.

"It's my sister, Elizabeth," Ensign Stillwell explains, looking up to the towering agent, her voice drowning in apprehension. "I need you to stop her before she kills someone."

"Sit down, Ensign," Gibbs reaches behind DiNozzo's desk in David's former position, appropriates his rolling chair and escorts Stillwell through his team. He places the chair before his own desk at the bullpen's former exit and extends his hand in invitation. Undismissed, Abbate waits near the entrance.

Gibbs sits behind his desk, not liking the open space at his back nor the disorienting change in vantage. He'll change his people's vantage shortly.

"Thank you," Carolyn says, utterly failing to get comfortable in the seat, not realizing she feels more exposed than Gibbs does.

"Now," the Senior Agent directs their visitor, "who is your sister going to kill?"

"Bill."

DiNozzo, standing before his desk in Ziva's old post, smiles. At a warning glare from Gibbs, he keeps his silence.

"Bill who?"

"Sorry," Stillwell shakes her head, flustered. "I can barely believe I'm even here. This is such a nightmare. Bill Rolonio, he lives in Greenbelt, Maryland."

A brief flicker of eyes tells McGee to search for data on the potential victim.

"Why is your sister going to kill Mr. Rolonio?"

"I'm sorry." She gulps in air. "Perhaps I should start at the beginning?"

"Be a good idea."

x

Stillwell visibly works to organize her thoughts. "Elizabeth and Commodore Rolonio, you see, have been dating for–"

Gibbs leans forward. "Commodore?"

Stillwell backs away in her seat, immediately realizing her faux pas.

The rank of Commodore, abolished decades ago and since merged into that of Rear Admiral, had once referred to a Captain placed in charge of several ships. There are no serving Commodores and, so far as Gibbs knows, few living men who had ever held that rank.

"I'm sorry," the flustered woman says, shaking her head. "This has got me so scared I can't even think. It's like I've stepped into a nightmare. I can't believe any of this is happening."

"Tell me," Gibbs says.

"Boss?"

"What is it, McGee?" He only looks past the woman after finishing the question.

"I've tracked William Rolonio and, after a fashion, Commodore might apply."

Gibbs is usually impressed by the computer expert's speed, but won't say so aloud. He opens his mouth to ask but:

"What, British Navy?" DiNozzo cuts in, sounding equally dubious.

McGee manipulates a few controls on his computer and on the plasma screen between his and Michelle's desks appears the image of a thin, brown haired man in his early thirties. He wears a gold uniform shirt trimmed in black at the neck, a gold sunburst badge at his left breast while wide gold bands gleam about each cuff.

"Starfleet."