Chapter 41
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
11:45 a.m. EDT
—we know little about what’s going on in Washington other than what’s already been reported. The Washington Navy Yard was attacked two hours ago. The entrance to the facility was destroyed by a bomb, and CNN has multiple-sourced reports of ‘massive’ gunfire within and near the facility.
At this hour, Anderson, the facility has been secured according to the same, single source you and I have: the White House. The District is still under martial law, in effect, as civilians have been ordered to shelter in place at their places of work, or their homes, or-
-Excuse me, Jim. I need to break in with a couple of news items we’ve just learned about. The first is a car bomb has exploded outside the New York Stock Exchange, where trading had been suspended right after the Navy Yard attack, before resuming at 10:10 a.m. Eastern. This happened literally seconds ago…we can’t contact Alison, who normally would be covering the day’s trading for us. The second item concerns some sort of attempted attack on Andersen Air Force Base in Guam about 15 minutes ago.—
—footage from NBC affiliate KUAM, as you see, shows a massive fire at one of the entrances to Andersen Air Force Base, which is an important staging ground for Allied forces in any potential conflict—
—we can see large plumes of smoke coming from the area of the Stock Exchange all the way here at ZNN’s offices here in Manhattan—
—(a reporter from WCBS-TV in New York is speaking with a woman in her early thirties who’s slightly shaking despite it being 82 degrees and humid in the area. They’re standing outside a Starbucks in Lower Manhattan)
(Reporter) Ma’am, we’re from Channel 2. Would you tell us who you are and what you heard and saw?
(Woman) I’m, uh, my name is Erin Reagan. I’m an assistant district attorney for the State of New York. I was walking to, uh, to work, I was in Duane Reade filling a prescription when I heard this ‘BOOM’ (she spreads her hands wide) and everything froze for I don’t know how long. I was here on 9-11. I saw the second plane hit the tower. I remembered what that was like. I thought when I heard the explosion that might have been another…The next thing I know I’m close to the checkout register near the entrance, and I see one of the windows has this giant crack on it. I hear noise outside, me and a few other people walk out and see people running and I hear cop and fire sirens and see haze on Broadway, on the other side of the Exchange-
(Reporter) You were at a Duane Reade on Broadway just north of Morris?
(Erin Reagan) Yeah. Anyway, I look up and I start to see smoke above the buildings across the street, and this guy comes out of nowhere, he’s wearing a security guard uniform, and yells at the crowd that they blew up the Stock Exchange and we need to get out of here now. So everybody starts running, or going as fast as they can, we all start running south away from the explosion. I ran, I don’t know, five blocks before I ran out of breath. I realize I’m in front of Battery Park, and see police telling people to get inside. That’s all they said, ‘get inside’, so I walk fast to a Starbucks nearby, and I go in and it’s packed and people are saying the Russians bombed the Stock Exchange.
(Reporter) And you’ve been here since.
(Erin Reagan, more composed than when she began the interview) Uh-huh. There are a lot of rumors now. The trains are shut down and the entire city is on a shelter-in-place order and martial law’s been declared. My father is the chief of police and I can’t reach him. My brother’s a detective and I can’t reach him either. All the phone lines are busy. I can’t even call home to check on my daughter, or my grandfather, or Danny’s wife and kids. Do you know anything?
(Reporter) Your father is Police Chief Reagan?
(Erin Reagan) Yes. Have you heard anything that would confirm these rumors?
(The Reporter realizes she’s asking him a question, and puts his finger on his earpiece to make sure he can hear the anchors at the WCBS studios) That’s news to me.—
Washington
Navy Yard, NCIS headquarters
Gibbs walked off the elevator onto the floor where he and his team worked each day, expecting a disaster zone. At first glance, however, everything appeared to be normal.
The clocks along the left and back walls were undisturbed, as were the portraits of the NCIS most wanted criminals on the left wall. To his right, the hallway leading to his team’s bullpen, the stairs and the head was empty, undisturbed by debris. Other than the floor being almost completely empty, it seemed undisturbed by the chaos caused by the attackers who detonated a bomb at the Navy Yard’s main entrance and began shooting towards the complex at anything in sight.
The six Marines with him were the only other persons authorized to be on the floor at the moment. Procedure in case of an attack on the Navy Yard required the Marine contingent on site to secure the buildings before NCIS personnel were allowed to return to their workstations. Two other Marines were already there, near the back elevator, and four of their comrades would arrive in short order. The Marines, plus Gibbs, would proceed to sweep the floor for insurgents and other unauthorized persons and unwanted surprises.
Everyone else — including Gibbs’s team and all of McCallister’s ‘suits’ — were ordered to remain in their shelters until given the all-clear by Marine Colonel Jedidah Smith, who was in charge of Navy Yard security. Gibbs got clearance because Colonel Smith trusted that Gibbs could take care of himself – and that Gibbs, a fellow Marine, would find his way there one way or another.
As four of the Marines split off, Gibbs and a Marine the size of a professional football linebacker headed towards the stairs to check the men’s and women’s heads. Gibbs stopped at his team’s bullpen to see if any damage had been done, and that’s when he noticed the numerous divots in the windows overlooking the Yard and the Anacostia River. The windows were installed a year ago and said to be all but impossible to be penetrated by weapons used by local criminals and insurgents and most military forces. Of course, the Soviets and their World Pact partners – like the Allied and non-aligned powers – were constantly working on bullets that would break through such windows, along with much more destructive projectiles.
None of the windows were broken, but Gibbs noticed a couple of holes in one of the upper windows. He squinted at the window, then began walking to his desk.
“Sir?” his Marine partner asked, as Gibbs opened a drawer. He took out a pair of glasses and put them on, then grabbed a Nikon digital single-lens camera, walked back to the windows and began taking pictures.
“Two of the bullets made it through,” Gibbs explained. “I’m guessing MTAC was the target.”
“‘Made it through’? How can you tell who was targeting what from those two holes you’re looking at?”
Gibbs lowered his camera and turned to the Marine. “We know the ‘who’, Sergeant. The location of those ‘holes’ tells me someone was trying to shoot at someone, or something, above floor level. There are two things on this floor that a shooter, or sniper, can see from outside this building: the stairs, and MTAC.”
“There were a lot of people on the floor when the attack began,” the Marine said. “Someone could’ve been shooting at people running up the stairs.”
“All personnel working in this building were told this morning not to take those stairs until the windows were reinforced, because they would be potential targets for a sniper,” Gibbs replied, having resumed taking photos of the bullet holes in the window. “Everyone on this floor, including my people, got away from these windows as fast as they could when the attack began. They either ran, or crawled.”
“Crawled?”
“My agents’ desk right behind us are in clear view of anyone outside. DiNozzo, McGee and David hit the ground the moment they heard gunfire outside. They crawled to the back wall, then ran like hell for the back stairs.”
“Ah, okay. So, if there was no one on the floor to be a target, then why shoot ‘up’?” the Marine said, pointing upwards. “If you wanted to take out MTAC, wouldn’t you use a man-portable missile launcher?”
“Not if you were shooting at someone upstairs,” Gibbs said. “Like someone you thought might be the Director.”
When Gibbs finished taking his photos, he and the Marine went up the stairs and found confirmation of his theory: there was a hole just above the ‘M’ of the MTAC sign, and another just above a panel to its left, next to an elevator door. Neither bullet had entered MTAC itself, but the casings were found embedded in the wall.
Gibbs, Colonel Smith and Director McCallister — who arrived at the Navy Yard shortly after Gibbs began taking photos of the bullet holes in the wall — watched the Marines extract the damaged casings, then closely examined them.
“Point three-zero caliber,” the Colonel said as he, Gibbs and McCallister looked at the two casings atop the seat of a folding chair. “Also known as a 7.62-millimeter Russian caliber.”
“I’d like Abby to look at them in the lab to be sure,” Gibbs said.
“You’ll get her, Gibbs,” McCallister said. “I’m sure she’ll verify what Colonel Smith just said. There’s one weapon that comes to mind that can hit those targets” — he pointed at the wall — “from distance: an SVD.”
“Dragunov sniper rifle,” Gibbs added. “Better be glad you were working from home when all this went down.”
McAllister ignored the Colonel’s glare. “If we’re done here, we need to talk. Navy Yard wasn’t the only place hit.”
“I’ve heard about the New York Stock Exchange and Guam,” the Colonel said.
“It gets worse,” McAllister said.
A few minutes later in McAllister’s office, he, Gibbs and the Colonel looked at a map of the United States superimposed on the large flatscreen monitor on the wall opposite the director’s desk. The map was marked with numerous red, yellow and orange dots.
“A power plant in rural Kentucky southeast of Cincinnati was attacked; dozens dead, more injured,” McCallister said. “Someone detonated a car bomb at the Bridge of the Americas Port of Entry in El Paso. A stolen truck made a run towards the Hoover Dam and was destroyed by Marines when it refused to stop. A stolen minivan packed with enough TNT to bring down a building tried to do just that in Metropolis. Police stopped the vehicle three blocks from the Daily Planet building. There was a shootout; the driver and his accomplice died, but not before killing three police officers and 16 civilians. And a woman pulled out a machine gun inside a shopping mall in Montana and shot at least 30 people before getting her head blasted off by a local. All of that, gentlemen, happened within the last two hours.”
Gibbs eyed the red dot over Baltimore. "What's going on there?", he said, pointing to the dot. "You know I recruited DiNozzo from Baltimore, when he was a detective. He hasn't been able to contact his former colleagues since the riots started there a few days ago."
"The riots started back up," McCallister replied. "O'Malley and the heads of those citizens groups had come to an understanding, when somebody wearing a BPD SWAT uniform tossed a couple of grenades at the protestors."
"Wearing a SWAT uniform," the Colonel said. "Spetsnaz."
"Shot two uniformed officers before he was gunned down by a legit SWAT member," McCallister added. "Didn't matter. Some of the more radical protestors got the crowds stirred up and attacked police at three locations. Now they're descending on the business district. O'Malley's ordered the whole city shut down. Governor Ehrlich is sending the state National Guard to lock down the entire county. O'Malley's running the city from Towson; he ordered the city government to evac there. Half the city's trying to join him, to get out before the Guard shuts down the roadways."
“Spetsnaz here, in the U.S., on the ground committing acts of terrorism, and I’d bet they’ve done a good job covering their tracks,” the Colonel said. “We know the Soviets are behind this, but there’s no hard evidence yet. Of course, when the gloves come off…” The Colonel’s voice trailed off.
None of the three men spoke the obvious: in the event of impending war with the West, Soviet doctrine dictated terrorist operations would be conducted within the U.S. and its allied countries, the intention being to destabilize those countries and create as much chaos as possible. The CIA and similar Western government agencies would do the same within the USSR and its World Pact allies. The purpose is to create so much domestic instability that the enemy can’t act when war breaks out.
Gibbs remembered that from his past anti-terrorist training exercises, and he also remembered what a retired Naval Admiral once told him: “’Spetsnaz blowing up stuff in New York, Peoria and everywhere else means one thing: War is coming and nothing short of an act of God Himself will stop it.’”
The morgue
Ducky and Palmer had been among the first NCIS employees to be allowed back to their regular workplaces, because their expertise was needed to examine the bodies of the 11 killed during the attack on the Navy Yard.
With Marines standing guard inside and outside the morgue, Ducky and Palmer put their surgical gowns over their flap jackets, and helmets over their surgical caps before starting on the first victim: a 26-year-old clerk.
Kate stood nearby, giving Ducky and Palmer plenty of room to work while close enough to see what they were doing. She was there because Ducky had convinced the guards she would be handy as an extra assistant. He really wanted to keep an eye on her and monitor her emotional and psychological health. Too much had gone on in the past few days for Ducky to make a detailed profile of Kate after the Indianapolis explosion. After her breakdown, Kate’s demeanor abruptly changed, stoic like stone, locking up whatever she felt or thought deeply inside.
Looking at Kate standing with her arms folded, her face as unreadable at stone, he found himself angry at McCallister for ordering her to stay on the job. Ducky knew she needed time to properly grieve, and to be around those who loved and cared for her. Neither putting her back to work nor putting her with friends who had to concentrate on work much of the time wasn’t what she needed.
What surprised Ducky was Kate going along with the director’s directives without complaint. He expected her to walk off the job, or demand to return home to see her surviving relatives. Instead, she wanted to stay in Washington. He wondered if going back to Indiana right now was too much for her to bear, and if that was the real reason she had decided to stay in Washington.
Ducky decided to resume his work. Upon looking down at the cadaver on the table, the concept of death suddenly imprinted itself on Ducky’s mind: the victims in the morgue, those killed in Indianapolis, the murder of Jenny Shepard, and the potential deaths of billions more in the not-too-distant future.
He shivered and nearly dropped his scalpel.
“Are you all right, Dr. Mallard?” Palmer asked from the other side of the table.
“Yes, I’m quite alright, Mr. Palmer,” Ducky replied. “I merely felt a sudden chill. Shall we continue?”
Palmer, thankfully, didn’t prattle on in response as he usually did, silently making a Y-incision on the cadaver instead. Ducky looked over to Kate, still looking on silently, and cursed himself for not being able to stop what he was doing to give her his undivided attention.
The door into the morgue suddenly opened, and Ducky looked up to see Gibbs enter. The team leader glanced first at Ducky and Palmer, then at Kate. She began to approach him but stopped with a raised hand from Gibbs, who walked towards the autopsy table where the medical examiners were working.
“Long day, Duck,” Gibbs said when he stood next to Ducky.
“Indeed, Jethro,” Ducky said as he examined a gunshot wound on the chest of the corpse on the autopsy table. “Meet Samantha Mathis, a mailroom clerk out for a walk when we were attacked. This poor woman’s heart exploded instantly when she was shot by her killer. This wound in her bicep came before or after she was shot, but it didn’t bring about her demise, as the shot to the heart had already killed her. Also, she didn’t suffer, unlike two of our other guests.” Ducky turned his head back towards the drawers in the corner of the room. “They were shot in such a manner that, from what I’ve been told by a couple of the Marines I spoke with earlier, they bled out, probably aware of their fate and unable to do anything about it.”
“Wish I could tell you different, Duck.”
“Children.”
“Duck?”
Ducky laid his scalpel down on the table and turned to Gibbs. “One of the Marines informed me he saw one of the attackers. A boy, probably no older than 13 or 14. The regime that rules Thailand with brutality takes its boys and turns them into violent killers. Murderers, who did this.” Ducky gestured around the morgue. “The Congressman Daniel Inouye once said it was ‘one of the horrors of war, that you can train a person, train them to hate, train them to kill’.”
“’It’s a terrible thought’,” Gibbs replied, finishing the quotation. “On my way here, someone had a TV set on. Someone detonated a bomb on the Golden Gate Bridge. Thirteen police officers were killed by unknown assailants trying to attack an elementary school in Nebraska. Straight out of the Russians’ playbook.”
“It’s begun,” Ducky said. “Jethro, Mr. Palmer, Caitlin” – he glanced at Kate, who had moved near the refrigerated slabs – “a myriad of choices out of our hands have led us here. Ms. Mathis,” – Ducky looked at the corpse’s face – “I cannot stop the madness, any more than I can turn back the clock and prevent you from meeting your fate the way you had. What I can do, my dear, is ensure that, as long as you are in my care, that you are treated with dignity and respect. My assistant, Mr. Palmer, will lightly swab the wound on your shoulder for residue. Jimmy, please.”
Gibbs nodded at both men. “Do your jobs. I’ll be back later. Duck, I’m going to take Kate for a walk.”
“Of course,” Ducky replied, and Gibbs turned towards Kate. He gestured his head towards the door, and she followed him into the hall, and into the elevator. After they entered the elevator, Gibbs hit the switch stopping its movement and turned to Kate as the lights dimmed.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“Fine,” she said without emotion.
“How are you really doing?” he asked her again, this time more gently. “It’ll stay between us, and Duck.”
“Really, Gibbs, I’m fine,” Kate replied, trying to maintain a stoic façade in front of Gibbs while she looked away towards the door. Even so, she couldn’t hide a tear leaking from the corner of her eye.
“You’re not,” Gibbs said. “I’m not. No one here isn’t ‘fine’—”
“We were attacked, Gibbs. So, yes, you’re right. I’m not ‘fine’.”
Gibbs put a hand on her arm, a simple gesture the usually reserved woman didn’t allow many people to perform. Kate met his gaze, and moments later she reached out to hug him, and the tears began to flow as she wept.
Soon afterwards, after her eyes had dried and she had regained enough of her composure, Kate broke the embrace of the man who had become her second father, then spoke Clair's name.
“Clair?” Gibbs replied.
“She had a…thing for me from the beginning, and it freaked me out. I…we…didn’t know if she was one of McCallister’s creeps, or brain damaged, or what. When...when Indianapolis happened, I forgot about her. But she didn’t forget about me, and to her credit, she didn’t take advantage of me. She never really took advantage of me.”
Kate paused, and at Gibbs’s demeanor, continued.
“Today, she found me and said she wanted to tell me something she thought could actually help me. First, though, she apologized for her actions, although she did say that ‘in another time and place, we might not only be good friends, but more’, that she knew I wouldn’t act on feelings for a coworker and that she respected me for it. Then she told me why she wanted to talk. She read my file, with the director’s permission, just like she read yours and all our files, so she knew my background. She used that to remind me of the crap I fought through just to get here, and that I was…strong.”
Kate paused, her voice weakening, and regained her composure.
“Clair reminded me I still had family, back home and here. You, Abby, Ducky, Tony, McGee, Ziva, Palmer. She told me I was strong, Gibbs, and had people who loved me, and that I still have my faith, and because of all of those things that I would survive.”
Kate looked at Gibbs, wondering if anything she just told him was true.
“She’s right, Kate,” he said, embracing her as she broke down in tears once again.
7 p.m. EDT
--This is ZNN Tonight, with John King, live from Washington.
‘Terror Grips the West’. I’m John King, reporting from an undisclosed location somewhere in the nation’s capital.
It’s been more than nine hours since the terror attack on the Washington Navy Yard opened the floodgates for dozens of incidents in the United States and its major allies. The Chicago subway system was shut down this morning after a mustard gas attack at a station inside the city’s famed Loop. Later, a bomb inside a stolen FedEx truck exploded when it was rammed by a Denver police cruiser before it could reach its intended target: a still-undisclosed terminal at Denver International Airport. Terrorists are being blamed for the deaths of 41 people by two hand grenades in Baltimore, where protestors had reached a tentative agreement with city officials to end unrest; instead, the city is in chaos, the Maryland National Guard having shut down all roads leading out of the city.
That's just the beginning. Car bombs exploded on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Bridge of the Americas in El Paso. At least 15 people, local law enforcement and retired military veterans, were killed defending the Blue Valley Elementary School in Blue Valley, Nebraska, against an attack by unknown assailants. Miraculously, there were no casualties among those in the school at the time.
Saboteurs managed to disrupt power to millions along the west coast after attacks on several power stations. Three people died after a woman randomly shot targets at the entrance to Fort Hood before she was killed by base security personnel. In London, the British History Museum was shut down when a bomb exploded in the facility; 33 adults and 17 children are dead, dozens more injured. An explosion in the Golden Mile entertainment district of Sydney, Australia killed at least 24 people. A soccer match between two of Italy’s premier clubs was called off by threats of shooters lying in wait at Milan’s main stadium.
The questions authorities are trying to answer at this hour are who is behind the bombings and why. No one, including any of the known Islamist terrorist organizations or the Mexican cartels, is taking credit for the attacks. However, within the last hour, the Soviet Ambassador to Canada claims weapons found at the scenes of the various attacks can be traced back to Al-Qaeda and the Mexican-based Reynosa Cartel. Mikhail Vorontsov’s allegations to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are being denied by multiple government and military sources…--
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
11:45 a.m. EDT
—we know little about what’s going on in Washington other than what’s already been reported. The Washington Navy Yard was attacked two hours ago. The entrance to the facility was destroyed by a bomb, and CNN has multiple-sourced reports of ‘massive’ gunfire within and near the facility.
At this hour, Anderson, the facility has been secured according to the same, single source you and I have: the White House. The District is still under martial law, in effect, as civilians have been ordered to shelter in place at their places of work, or their homes, or-
-Excuse me, Jim. I need to break in with a couple of news items we’ve just learned about. The first is a car bomb has exploded outside the New York Stock Exchange, where trading had been suspended right after the Navy Yard attack, before resuming at 10:10 a.m. Eastern. This happened literally seconds ago…we can’t contact Alison, who normally would be covering the day’s trading for us. The second item concerns some sort of attempted attack on Andersen Air Force Base in Guam about 15 minutes ago.—
—footage from NBC affiliate KUAM, as you see, shows a massive fire at one of the entrances to Andersen Air Force Base, which is an important staging ground for Allied forces in any potential conflict—
—we can see large plumes of smoke coming from the area of the Stock Exchange all the way here at ZNN’s offices here in Manhattan—
—(a reporter from WCBS-TV in New York is speaking with a woman in her early thirties who’s slightly shaking despite it being 82 degrees and humid in the area. They’re standing outside a Starbucks in Lower Manhattan)
(Reporter) Ma’am, we’re from Channel 2. Would you tell us who you are and what you heard and saw?
(Woman) I’m, uh, my name is Erin Reagan. I’m an assistant district attorney for the State of New York. I was walking to, uh, to work, I was in Duane Reade filling a prescription when I heard this ‘BOOM’ (she spreads her hands wide) and everything froze for I don’t know how long. I was here on 9-11. I saw the second plane hit the tower. I remembered what that was like. I thought when I heard the explosion that might have been another…The next thing I know I’m close to the checkout register near the entrance, and I see one of the windows has this giant crack on it. I hear noise outside, me and a few other people walk out and see people running and I hear cop and fire sirens and see haze on Broadway, on the other side of the Exchange-
(Reporter) You were at a Duane Reade on Broadway just north of Morris?
(Erin Reagan) Yeah. Anyway, I look up and I start to see smoke above the buildings across the street, and this guy comes out of nowhere, he’s wearing a security guard uniform, and yells at the crowd that they blew up the Stock Exchange and we need to get out of here now. So everybody starts running, or going as fast as they can, we all start running south away from the explosion. I ran, I don’t know, five blocks before I ran out of breath. I realize I’m in front of Battery Park, and see police telling people to get inside. That’s all they said, ‘get inside’, so I walk fast to a Starbucks nearby, and I go in and it’s packed and people are saying the Russians bombed the Stock Exchange.
(Reporter) And you’ve been here since.
(Erin Reagan, more composed than when she began the interview) Uh-huh. There are a lot of rumors now. The trains are shut down and the entire city is on a shelter-in-place order and martial law’s been declared. My father is the chief of police and I can’t reach him. My brother’s a detective and I can’t reach him either. All the phone lines are busy. I can’t even call home to check on my daughter, or my grandfather, or Danny’s wife and kids. Do you know anything?
(Reporter) Your father is Police Chief Reagan?
(Erin Reagan) Yes. Have you heard anything that would confirm these rumors?
(The Reporter realizes she’s asking him a question, and puts his finger on his earpiece to make sure he can hear the anchors at the WCBS studios) That’s news to me.—
Washington
Navy Yard, NCIS headquarters
Gibbs walked off the elevator onto the floor where he and his team worked each day, expecting a disaster zone. At first glance, however, everything appeared to be normal.
The clocks along the left and back walls were undisturbed, as were the portraits of the NCIS most wanted criminals on the left wall. To his right, the hallway leading to his team’s bullpen, the stairs and the head was empty, undisturbed by debris. Other than the floor being almost completely empty, it seemed undisturbed by the chaos caused by the attackers who detonated a bomb at the Navy Yard’s main entrance and began shooting towards the complex at anything in sight.
The six Marines with him were the only other persons authorized to be on the floor at the moment. Procedure in case of an attack on the Navy Yard required the Marine contingent on site to secure the buildings before NCIS personnel were allowed to return to their workstations. Two other Marines were already there, near the back elevator, and four of their comrades would arrive in short order. The Marines, plus Gibbs, would proceed to sweep the floor for insurgents and other unauthorized persons and unwanted surprises.
Everyone else — including Gibbs’s team and all of McCallister’s ‘suits’ — were ordered to remain in their shelters until given the all-clear by Marine Colonel Jedidah Smith, who was in charge of Navy Yard security. Gibbs got clearance because Colonel Smith trusted that Gibbs could take care of himself – and that Gibbs, a fellow Marine, would find his way there one way or another.
As four of the Marines split off, Gibbs and a Marine the size of a professional football linebacker headed towards the stairs to check the men’s and women’s heads. Gibbs stopped at his team’s bullpen to see if any damage had been done, and that’s when he noticed the numerous divots in the windows overlooking the Yard and the Anacostia River. The windows were installed a year ago and said to be all but impossible to be penetrated by weapons used by local criminals and insurgents and most military forces. Of course, the Soviets and their World Pact partners – like the Allied and non-aligned powers – were constantly working on bullets that would break through such windows, along with much more destructive projectiles.
None of the windows were broken, but Gibbs noticed a couple of holes in one of the upper windows. He squinted at the window, then began walking to his desk.
“Sir?” his Marine partner asked, as Gibbs opened a drawer. He took out a pair of glasses and put them on, then grabbed a Nikon digital single-lens camera, walked back to the windows and began taking pictures.
“Two of the bullets made it through,” Gibbs explained. “I’m guessing MTAC was the target.”
“‘Made it through’? How can you tell who was targeting what from those two holes you’re looking at?”
Gibbs lowered his camera and turned to the Marine. “We know the ‘who’, Sergeant. The location of those ‘holes’ tells me someone was trying to shoot at someone, or something, above floor level. There are two things on this floor that a shooter, or sniper, can see from outside this building: the stairs, and MTAC.”
“There were a lot of people on the floor when the attack began,” the Marine said. “Someone could’ve been shooting at people running up the stairs.”
“All personnel working in this building were told this morning not to take those stairs until the windows were reinforced, because they would be potential targets for a sniper,” Gibbs replied, having resumed taking photos of the bullet holes in the window. “Everyone on this floor, including my people, got away from these windows as fast as they could when the attack began. They either ran, or crawled.”
“Crawled?”
“My agents’ desk right behind us are in clear view of anyone outside. DiNozzo, McGee and David hit the ground the moment they heard gunfire outside. They crawled to the back wall, then ran like hell for the back stairs.”
“Ah, okay. So, if there was no one on the floor to be a target, then why shoot ‘up’?” the Marine said, pointing upwards. “If you wanted to take out MTAC, wouldn’t you use a man-portable missile launcher?”
“Not if you were shooting at someone upstairs,” Gibbs said. “Like someone you thought might be the Director.”
When Gibbs finished taking his photos, he and the Marine went up the stairs and found confirmation of his theory: there was a hole just above the ‘M’ of the MTAC sign, and another just above a panel to its left, next to an elevator door. Neither bullet had entered MTAC itself, but the casings were found embedded in the wall.
Gibbs, Colonel Smith and Director McCallister — who arrived at the Navy Yard shortly after Gibbs began taking photos of the bullet holes in the wall — watched the Marines extract the damaged casings, then closely examined them.
“Point three-zero caliber,” the Colonel said as he, Gibbs and McCallister looked at the two casings atop the seat of a folding chair. “Also known as a 7.62-millimeter Russian caliber.”
“I’d like Abby to look at them in the lab to be sure,” Gibbs said.
“You’ll get her, Gibbs,” McCallister said. “I’m sure she’ll verify what Colonel Smith just said. There’s one weapon that comes to mind that can hit those targets” — he pointed at the wall — “from distance: an SVD.”
“Dragunov sniper rifle,” Gibbs added. “Better be glad you were working from home when all this went down.”
McAllister ignored the Colonel’s glare. “If we’re done here, we need to talk. Navy Yard wasn’t the only place hit.”
“I’ve heard about the New York Stock Exchange and Guam,” the Colonel said.
“It gets worse,” McAllister said.
A few minutes later in McAllister’s office, he, Gibbs and the Colonel looked at a map of the United States superimposed on the large flatscreen monitor on the wall opposite the director’s desk. The map was marked with numerous red, yellow and orange dots.
“A power plant in rural Kentucky southeast of Cincinnati was attacked; dozens dead, more injured,” McCallister said. “Someone detonated a car bomb at the Bridge of the Americas Port of Entry in El Paso. A stolen truck made a run towards the Hoover Dam and was destroyed by Marines when it refused to stop. A stolen minivan packed with enough TNT to bring down a building tried to do just that in Metropolis. Police stopped the vehicle three blocks from the Daily Planet building. There was a shootout; the driver and his accomplice died, but not before killing three police officers and 16 civilians. And a woman pulled out a machine gun inside a shopping mall in Montana and shot at least 30 people before getting her head blasted off by a local. All of that, gentlemen, happened within the last two hours.”
Gibbs eyed the red dot over Baltimore. "What's going on there?", he said, pointing to the dot. "You know I recruited DiNozzo from Baltimore, when he was a detective. He hasn't been able to contact his former colleagues since the riots started there a few days ago."
"The riots started back up," McCallister replied. "O'Malley and the heads of those citizens groups had come to an understanding, when somebody wearing a BPD SWAT uniform tossed a couple of grenades at the protestors."
"Wearing a SWAT uniform," the Colonel said. "Spetsnaz."
"Shot two uniformed officers before he was gunned down by a legit SWAT member," McCallister added. "Didn't matter. Some of the more radical protestors got the crowds stirred up and attacked police at three locations. Now they're descending on the business district. O'Malley's ordered the whole city shut down. Governor Ehrlich is sending the state National Guard to lock down the entire county. O'Malley's running the city from Towson; he ordered the city government to evac there. Half the city's trying to join him, to get out before the Guard shuts down the roadways."
“Spetsnaz here, in the U.S., on the ground committing acts of terrorism, and I’d bet they’ve done a good job covering their tracks,” the Colonel said. “We know the Soviets are behind this, but there’s no hard evidence yet. Of course, when the gloves come off…” The Colonel’s voice trailed off.
None of the three men spoke the obvious: in the event of impending war with the West, Soviet doctrine dictated terrorist operations would be conducted within the U.S. and its allied countries, the intention being to destabilize those countries and create as much chaos as possible. The CIA and similar Western government agencies would do the same within the USSR and its World Pact allies. The purpose is to create so much domestic instability that the enemy can’t act when war breaks out.
Gibbs remembered that from his past anti-terrorist training exercises, and he also remembered what a retired Naval Admiral once told him: “’Spetsnaz blowing up stuff in New York, Peoria and everywhere else means one thing: War is coming and nothing short of an act of God Himself will stop it.’”
The morgue
Ducky and Palmer had been among the first NCIS employees to be allowed back to their regular workplaces, because their expertise was needed to examine the bodies of the 11 killed during the attack on the Navy Yard.
With Marines standing guard inside and outside the morgue, Ducky and Palmer put their surgical gowns over their flap jackets, and helmets over their surgical caps before starting on the first victim: a 26-year-old clerk.
Kate stood nearby, giving Ducky and Palmer plenty of room to work while close enough to see what they were doing. She was there because Ducky had convinced the guards she would be handy as an extra assistant. He really wanted to keep an eye on her and monitor her emotional and psychological health. Too much had gone on in the past few days for Ducky to make a detailed profile of Kate after the Indianapolis explosion. After her breakdown, Kate’s demeanor abruptly changed, stoic like stone, locking up whatever she felt or thought deeply inside.
Looking at Kate standing with her arms folded, her face as unreadable at stone, he found himself angry at McCallister for ordering her to stay on the job. Ducky knew she needed time to properly grieve, and to be around those who loved and cared for her. Neither putting her back to work nor putting her with friends who had to concentrate on work much of the time wasn’t what she needed.
What surprised Ducky was Kate going along with the director’s directives without complaint. He expected her to walk off the job, or demand to return home to see her surviving relatives. Instead, she wanted to stay in Washington. He wondered if going back to Indiana right now was too much for her to bear, and if that was the real reason she had decided to stay in Washington.
Ducky decided to resume his work. Upon looking down at the cadaver on the table, the concept of death suddenly imprinted itself on Ducky’s mind: the victims in the morgue, those killed in Indianapolis, the murder of Jenny Shepard, and the potential deaths of billions more in the not-too-distant future.
He shivered and nearly dropped his scalpel.
“Are you all right, Dr. Mallard?” Palmer asked from the other side of the table.
“Yes, I’m quite alright, Mr. Palmer,” Ducky replied. “I merely felt a sudden chill. Shall we continue?”
Palmer, thankfully, didn’t prattle on in response as he usually did, silently making a Y-incision on the cadaver instead. Ducky looked over to Kate, still looking on silently, and cursed himself for not being able to stop what he was doing to give her his undivided attention.
The door into the morgue suddenly opened, and Ducky looked up to see Gibbs enter. The team leader glanced first at Ducky and Palmer, then at Kate. She began to approach him but stopped with a raised hand from Gibbs, who walked towards the autopsy table where the medical examiners were working.
“Long day, Duck,” Gibbs said when he stood next to Ducky.
“Indeed, Jethro,” Ducky said as he examined a gunshot wound on the chest of the corpse on the autopsy table. “Meet Samantha Mathis, a mailroom clerk out for a walk when we were attacked. This poor woman’s heart exploded instantly when she was shot by her killer. This wound in her bicep came before or after she was shot, but it didn’t bring about her demise, as the shot to the heart had already killed her. Also, she didn’t suffer, unlike two of our other guests.” Ducky turned his head back towards the drawers in the corner of the room. “They were shot in such a manner that, from what I’ve been told by a couple of the Marines I spoke with earlier, they bled out, probably aware of their fate and unable to do anything about it.”
“Wish I could tell you different, Duck.”
“Children.”
“Duck?”
Ducky laid his scalpel down on the table and turned to Gibbs. “One of the Marines informed me he saw one of the attackers. A boy, probably no older than 13 or 14. The regime that rules Thailand with brutality takes its boys and turns them into violent killers. Murderers, who did this.” Ducky gestured around the morgue. “The Congressman Daniel Inouye once said it was ‘one of the horrors of war, that you can train a person, train them to hate, train them to kill’.”
“’It’s a terrible thought’,” Gibbs replied, finishing the quotation. “On my way here, someone had a TV set on. Someone detonated a bomb on the Golden Gate Bridge. Thirteen police officers were killed by unknown assailants trying to attack an elementary school in Nebraska. Straight out of the Russians’ playbook.”
“It’s begun,” Ducky said. “Jethro, Mr. Palmer, Caitlin” – he glanced at Kate, who had moved near the refrigerated slabs – “a myriad of choices out of our hands have led us here. Ms. Mathis,” – Ducky looked at the corpse’s face – “I cannot stop the madness, any more than I can turn back the clock and prevent you from meeting your fate the way you had. What I can do, my dear, is ensure that, as long as you are in my care, that you are treated with dignity and respect. My assistant, Mr. Palmer, will lightly swab the wound on your shoulder for residue. Jimmy, please.”
Gibbs nodded at both men. “Do your jobs. I’ll be back later. Duck, I’m going to take Kate for a walk.”
“Of course,” Ducky replied, and Gibbs turned towards Kate. He gestured his head towards the door, and she followed him into the hall, and into the elevator. After they entered the elevator, Gibbs hit the switch stopping its movement and turned to Kate as the lights dimmed.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“Fine,” she said without emotion.
“How are you really doing?” he asked her again, this time more gently. “It’ll stay between us, and Duck.”
“Really, Gibbs, I’m fine,” Kate replied, trying to maintain a stoic façade in front of Gibbs while she looked away towards the door. Even so, she couldn’t hide a tear leaking from the corner of her eye.
“You’re not,” Gibbs said. “I’m not. No one here isn’t ‘fine’—”
“We were attacked, Gibbs. So, yes, you’re right. I’m not ‘fine’.”
Gibbs put a hand on her arm, a simple gesture the usually reserved woman didn’t allow many people to perform. Kate met his gaze, and moments later she reached out to hug him, and the tears began to flow as she wept.
Soon afterwards, after her eyes had dried and she had regained enough of her composure, Kate broke the embrace of the man who had become her second father, then spoke Clair's name.
“Clair?” Gibbs replied.
“She had a…thing for me from the beginning, and it freaked me out. I…we…didn’t know if she was one of McCallister’s creeps, or brain damaged, or what. When...when Indianapolis happened, I forgot about her. But she didn’t forget about me, and to her credit, she didn’t take advantage of me. She never really took advantage of me.”
Kate paused, and at Gibbs’s demeanor, continued.
“Today, she found me and said she wanted to tell me something she thought could actually help me. First, though, she apologized for her actions, although she did say that ‘in another time and place, we might not only be good friends, but more’, that she knew I wouldn’t act on feelings for a coworker and that she respected me for it. Then she told me why she wanted to talk. She read my file, with the director’s permission, just like she read yours and all our files, so she knew my background. She used that to remind me of the crap I fought through just to get here, and that I was…strong.”
Kate paused, her voice weakening, and regained her composure.
“Clair reminded me I still had family, back home and here. You, Abby, Ducky, Tony, McGee, Ziva, Palmer. She told me I was strong, Gibbs, and had people who loved me, and that I still have my faith, and because of all of those things that I would survive.”
Kate looked at Gibbs, wondering if anything she just told him was true.
“She’s right, Kate,” he said, embracing her as she broke down in tears once again.
7 p.m. EDT
--This is ZNN Tonight, with John King, live from Washington.
‘Terror Grips the West’. I’m John King, reporting from an undisclosed location somewhere in the nation’s capital.
It’s been more than nine hours since the terror attack on the Washington Navy Yard opened the floodgates for dozens of incidents in the United States and its major allies. The Chicago subway system was shut down this morning after a mustard gas attack at a station inside the city’s famed Loop. Later, a bomb inside a stolen FedEx truck exploded when it was rammed by a Denver police cruiser before it could reach its intended target: a still-undisclosed terminal at Denver International Airport. Terrorists are being blamed for the deaths of 41 people by two hand grenades in Baltimore, where protestors had reached a tentative agreement with city officials to end unrest; instead, the city is in chaos, the Maryland National Guard having shut down all roads leading out of the city.
That's just the beginning. Car bombs exploded on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Bridge of the Americas in El Paso. At least 15 people, local law enforcement and retired military veterans, were killed defending the Blue Valley Elementary School in Blue Valley, Nebraska, against an attack by unknown assailants. Miraculously, there were no casualties among those in the school at the time.
Saboteurs managed to disrupt power to millions along the west coast after attacks on several power stations. Three people died after a woman randomly shot targets at the entrance to Fort Hood before she was killed by base security personnel. In London, the British History Museum was shut down when a bomb exploded in the facility; 33 adults and 17 children are dead, dozens more injured. An explosion in the Golden Mile entertainment district of Sydney, Australia killed at least 24 people. A soccer match between two of Italy’s premier clubs was called off by threats of shooters lying in wait at Milan’s main stadium.
The questions authorities are trying to answer at this hour are who is behind the bombings and why. No one, including any of the known Islamist terrorist organizations or the Mexican cartels, is taking credit for the attacks. However, within the last hour, the Soviet Ambassador to Canada claims weapons found at the scenes of the various attacks can be traced back to Al-Qaeda and the Mexican-based Reynosa Cartel. Mikhail Vorontsov’s allegations to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are being denied by multiple government and military sources…--