Inter-agency Nightmare 7/?
"DiNozzo." The team was not scheduled, but Vance wasn't at all surprised to find him sitting at his desk. Before he could ask, the back elevator opened for Ziva, who was apparently delivering breakfast downstairs. "David."
"Sir." Now standing next to Tony, Ziva nodded her own greeting, but didn't say anything.
"Would I be correct in assuming that Dr. Mallard and Miss Sciuto just happened to chose today to come in and catch up on their paperwork?" Some days Leon felt more like a kindergarten teacher than the director of a national agency. "I've heard from the SecNav. Call everyone up to my office, I'm only saying this once."
It didn't take long before the group was gathered in Vance's office, eager for word. He looked around at the worried faces as he leaned back in his chair. "As I've said, I've heard from the SecNav. Gibbs and McGee will not be charged with treason..."
He had to wait for the shouts to die down and for them to be ready to listen again. "However, they will be staying with the Air Force for a little longer."
"Why?" As usual, Tony was the spokesman for the group.
Vance knew this was coming. "In exchange for the charges being dropped, McGee has agreed to help them with something. Gibbs, of course, is staying there to watch his back."
"What in the hell did Probie get the Boss tangled up in? What can he do that the Air Force can't?"
"First off, DiNozzo, it was Gibbs that got them into this, not McGee. It was this agreement that got them out of it."
Abby chewed on her lip as she thought it through. "So, they're out of it, but not actually out of it? That doesn't make any sense."
Before he spoke, Vance activated the room security, putting up the barrier that would prevent anyone or anything from listening in. "Whatever they stumbled onto, even I don't have the clearance to be read into it. It's not just Air Force and they answer directly to the President. The fact that McGee is working with them and the two of them haven't been shot tells me that Gibbs and McGee have managed to earn some pretty highly placed trust."
Ducky knew immediately what the Director was saying. "An attempt by any one of us to find out more will undermine that hard earned trust. For Jethro and Timothy's sake, we must stay completely out of it. Their lives may very well depend on it."
"I don't like it."
Ziva laid her hand on Tony's arm. "We do not have a choice."
---NCIS---
"It's time you see what we do here." General Hammond stood and led them out of his office and into the briefing room. Tim stopped and stared at the etched glass window he'd been too nervous to notice on his way in.
"A star chart?"
Jack gave him a friendly nudge to keep him going. "You ain't seen nothing yet, Bucky." They all followed Hammond to the large window that overlooked the Embarkation Level. Hammond let them just stare for a few moments.
"Gentlemen, this is the Stargate. As you'll see in just a moment, this is the gateway to the universe."
"Wow."
"Oh, yeah." Gibbs had to agree with McGee A massive ring was the center feature of the room, made of an unknown substance. Metal filled the center in a spiral pattern and a ramp led up to it. A voice came over the intercom.
Inbound traveler.
As they watched and listened, a remote transmission code was received and the center of the ring spiraled open. Both men were dumbfounded when the wormhole opened up and a group of soldiers stepped through.
Close the iris.
The wormhole shimmered for a moment longer and then collapsed as the metal shield spun back into place. Jack grinned at the stunned expressions. "The iris is to keep out unfriendlies. They're kinda like door to door salesmen - you let one of them get a foot in the door and they just keep coming."
Gibbs nodded, but he hadn't looked away yet. "Are there a lot of unfriendlies out there?"
"Oh, more than you can imagine. There's some good guys out there, too." Jack reached out and turned McGee away from the observation window, herding him up to the computer level. "There's also some unfriendlies right here on Earth that want to get their hands on alien technology for their own purposes. You ever heard of the NID?"
Following along behind them, Gibbs nodded as McGee gave a snort. "Yeah, they make the CIA look like alter boys."
"That's a pretty good way to describe them. In fact, I might borrow that someday, thank you. Anyway, while we were looking for you, we found someone else had been playing in our sandbox."
Exiting the elevator, McGee continued the analogy. "You want the bully kicked out of the playground."
Jack nodded enthusiastically as he punched in his security code for the door. "Yeah, sure, that works."
Carter was waiting for them with another man. "Welcome aboard, this is Mr. Edwards, who is in charge of our computer system."
Edwards immediately shook Tim's hand. "Agent McGee, it is such an honor. We've tracked the activity to the files about P3X-518, so it is especially troubling."
McGee was already sitting down and familiarizing himself with the system, but Gibbs turned to O'Neill for an answer. Jack looked worried. "That's the planet where the members of Dickerson's team are being held hostage."
"So, they're alive?"
"At the moment, but we're only about twelve hours away from the deadline."
"Demands?"
Jack glanced down. Even though McGee was already working on the computer he was listening intently, so Jack decided to kill two birds with one stone. "Okay, short version. Many thousands of years ago, a race called the Goa'uld came to Earth, looking for host bodies. They took humans from all over the planet and spread them out throughout the galaxy, so they'd have a steady supply of host bodies, slaves and servants."
"Hosts?"
"Those are humans on the other planets? That originated on Earth?"
Jack shrugged, wishing he'd asked Daniel to sit in on this. "Okay, Dr. Jackson is much better than I am at explaining all of this, but..."
Carter exchanged a look with Edwards and cut in. "No disrespect, Colonel, but we're all better at explaining this than you are." She turned to McGee. "Yes, the natives on P3X-518 are humans, descended from what we believe are one of the tribes of Central America. They have not progressed much, themselves, but there is some pretty advanced technology on the planet that controls them - weaponry that kills and it's not like any other Goa'uld technology that we've run across. There's actual electronic controls, hundreds of them, all over the planet. The natives believe we must somehow be responsible since we have our own technology and they won't release our people unless we disarm the weapons. We free their people, they free the hostages."
Edwards jumped in. "We've been trying to figure them out, hack into the programming, if you will, but we're stumped. Of course, we're not hackers, so it's slow going. But this weaponry..."
When he paused, Major Carter picked it back up. Most Gao'uld weaponry reacts to the naquadah in the blood of the Gao'uld or a Jaffa."
"Naquadah? Jaffa?"
She smiled, usually this was a six week course for new recruits. "Naquadah is a heavy mineral. It's what the Stargate is made of. It can also be made into an explosive or other weapons. It's naturally occurring outside of our solar system and the Gao'uld have traces of it in their blood. Jaffa are honored slaves that carry an immature Gao'uld inside their bodies."
Gibbs couldn't quite hide the discomfort on his face. "That's a honor, all right."
McGee might have agreed with Gibbs on that, but he had his own questions, his fingers flying as he talked. "You said that the Gao'uld weapons react to their blood? What happens when a normal human tries to use them?"
"A weapon that was designed strictly for Gao'uld use is nothing but a chunk of metal for the average human." Carter glanced up at O'Neill for a moment. "That being said, both Jack and I have had symbiotes share our bodies. That means that we both have traces of naquadah in our blood."
"Does anyone at the NID have naquadah in their blood?"
"No."
"Can it be introduced to the blood in any other way?"
"I don't believe so, but we've never studied that to be honest. Why?"
They were investigators and Gibbs already knew where McGee was going with his line of questioning.
"The NID might have been trying to get their hands on the Gao'uld weapons, but until they figure out a way to get the naquadah into their blood, these new weapons are the next best thing."
Carter was already thinking of possible ways to give naquadah exposure. "Damn it, I should have thought of that."
"We're criminal investigators, we look at things a little differently. What are these weapons capable of?"
While McGee continued to work on the computer end of the problem with Carter and Edwards, Gibbs and O'Neill reviewed the range and firepower of the weapons situated on P3X-518.
---NCIS---
Five hours after they'd started, Gibbs and O'Neill had exhausted every possible option to physically shut down the weapons. There were too many of them surrounding the village to be taken out all at once, and destroying one would trigger an attack mode in the rest. The villagers had tried fleeing in the past, but the weapons were airborne and mobile, capable of tracking great distances.
Gibbs looked up and saw Tim lean back in his chair, his fingers interlaced as he stretched him, and a pleased look on his face. "Progress?"
Carter was grinning. "You might say that."
"You got them booted out of our system? For good?" O'Neill moved to stand behind McGee, trying to make sense of what showed on the computer monitor.
"Better."
"Way better, Sir." By now Carter was almost bouncing on her toes.
While Carter and McGee looked pleased, Edwards was in awe. "That is so amazing. I would have never thought of that." He looked up at O'Neill. "Can I keep him?"
"He's just on loan for now, Edwards. Anything past that, you'll have to talk to the big guy. So just what did he do?"
"Actually, General Hammond should sit in on this, too, Jack."
At Carter's request, O'Neill quickly made the call and a few minutes later, George Hammond joined the group. "I hear you've made some progress already, son. That's good to hear."
"Thank you, General. I've definitely confirmed that it's the NID hacking into your files."
"Can you block them?"
Tim turned to look directly at Hammond. "I can, but the moment they're blocked, they'll know and start looking for another way to get what they're looking for."
The General knew he was right, even if it didn't make him happy. "All right, what do you suggest?" Before Tim could open his mouth, George held his hand up. "In English so the rest of us can understand."
O'Neill had just been about to ask for little words, so he pointed at the General and grinned, an old joke between them. "Yeah, that."
McGee glanced over at Gibbs, remembering similar requests, usually accompanied with headslaps. Gibbs' eyes also held traces of amusement as Tim started to explain.
"Okay, I've basically created a virtual world version of your mainframe and shunted them over to it. The files are still there and intact enough that they won't notice a difference, but the details in the virtual files are being changed. Using a randomizer, things like chemical compounds being discovered are being changed just enough that any attempt on their part to recreate anything will fail."
"Sneaky and devious, I like this kid." Jack was nodding as he thought about it. "Can they get from the virtual mainframe to the real one?"
"No. If they ever discover the switch, they'll have to start from scratch breaking into your system and we've added extra protocols and failsafes to make it much harder for them and much easier for you to detect the attempt."
"I really like this kid." Jack rubbed his hands together. "So, in other words, you've got the NID chasing their tail. What happens when they see that new missions aren't being added to their version of our computer files."
"They are being added - randomized versions, that is." McGee turned serious. "Honestly, I don't know how long they'll be fooled, but the longer it takes, the more evidence against them you'll have."
"Excellent." Hammond looked beyond pleased. "Under any other circumstances, we wouldn't be in quite this much of a rush, but do you have any ideas about our problem on P3X-518? I assume you saw what we have so far."
"I've been studying it while the virtual mainframe built. I'm no expert yet, but I think I've got the gist of it." McGee would have liked more time to study the strange symbols and code, but time was running out. "Do we have video of the actual devices, to see the interface?"
O'Neill and Carter looked to the General. Abstract computer files were one thing. Showing video of an off-world expedition to civilians was an entirely different matter. Tim sensed the problem. "Even just a still image of the device would help. If I'm going to teach Major Carter how to shut it down, I need to see what she's up against."
Hammond turned to O'Neill. "Set them up in the briefing room with both the video recovered from SG-5 and from the reconnaissance mission your team did."
"Sir?"
"We're asking the darn near impossible, the least we can do is to give him every bit of knowledge on the situation we have."
"Yes. Sir."
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