Ritzmann was still sitting at his desk when Gibbs walked into his office.
"Ah, Jethro I hope you had time to think. I'm a little curious about who visited you though. You were supposed to be isolated," Ritzmann said, watching Gibbs closely for any reaction.
"I was alone…" Gibbs looked defiant.
Ritzmann arched an eyebrow, "So who were you talking to?"
"Gee, I guess I must be getting old and senile. I must have been talking to myself." The sarcasm in Gibbs' voice was clear.
"Well, no matter. It is up to you Jethro… Do you want to have your wife and daughter back?"
"Of course I want them back… What do you want me to do?" Gibbs asked.
Ritzmann indicated for Gibbs to sit at the desk, and he produced some documents including schedules and maps. "In 1997 there was an assassination of one of our operatives. It will be up to you to stop it. All of the details are here. You will need to read and memorise all of the relevant information."
Gibbs looked through the documents. "You need me to go to Ireland? Travelling will require recourses."
Ritzmann smiled, "It is a common miss conception that time travel is purely a temporal thing and that geographical location remains the same. This is not so. In fact if you were to travel through time without changing your physical location it would almost definitely be fatal."
"Oh?" inquired Gibbs.
"Well, if you think about it, the earth is travelling through space all the time. The earth orbits the sum; the sun is orbiting the centre of our galaxy along with everything else. So if you were to travel through time alone without changing your location in space, you are just as likely to appear in space or in the middle of a rock." Ritzmann looked at Gibbs again to ensure that he was following his explanation.
Gibbs nodded. "So what degree of accuracy do you have with your geographical placement?"
Ritzmann seemed shocked by the question. "With modern GPS we can be accurate to within 10 feet."
"And how good was GPS in 1997?" asked Gibbs, getting straight to the point.
"We will choose an unpopulated area to place you. You might have to put up with appearing 10 feet or so above the ground, but you should be ok," Ritzmann said with a smile
"And how many days before I have to save your guy will I be arriving?" Gibbs continued.
"Between 10 days and a month. Remember, I did warn you that there was a margin for error," Ritzmann said with a slight air of apology. "There is an organic component to our control system. It is called The Montauk Chair. It allows us to directly use the power of the human mind to influence the control of our systems, giving us a greater degree of flexibility, but there is a slight degradation in our accuracy."
"If you lose accuracy why do you use it?" asked Gibbs.
"We find that the human connection has a beneficial influence on the sanity of our travellers. Our first subjects were sent without the human connection, and they arrived at their temporal and physical destination totally insane," stated Ritzmann with an air of regret.
Gibbs took this information on board without comment. "And once the task is accomplished, what then?" Gibbs looked at Ritzmann, waiting to see the lie in his eyes.
"Once you have completed your mission you can go about your own business and save the life of your wife and daughter. Having done so you will…. How can I put this? You will cease to exist."
"What?" Gibbs asked sharply.
"Once you have saved the lives of your wife and daughter you will not join NCIS and having not joined NCIS you will subsequently not be called to investigate the demise of Commander Ritter so you will not be sent back in time," stated Ritzmann with confidence.
"Isn't that what would be called a paradox?" Gibbs asked. "If I do not go back in time, who will save your operative?"
"You will have to trust me on the intricacies of our operation. He only needs to be saved once." Ritzmann was again studying Gibbs reactions.
-----
At 2345 in the evening the Sears Hardware store was quiet, so it was the work of but a few moments for McGee to locate and purchase a chain saw. Within a few moments, they were on their way again and would be back at Camp Hero within the hour.
-----
Drake was sitting on the beach when Kelly appeared beside him. "You must not trust Ritzmann," she stated simply.
"Ok, so how do you know so much?" Drake asked in anger and confusion.
Kelly smiled kindly, "Once you have been dead for a little while a certain amount of arcane knowledge becomes available to you. You must have noticed something by now?" she asked.
Drake thought about it for a moment. "The only arcane knowledge that I can think of at the moment is that all of the works of Emily Dickinson can be sung to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas, and Capers are in fact buds of the nestersion flower that have been pickled. Other than those two facts, I don't know anything now that I did not know before."
Kelly laughed, "Well you have been dead for only a short time, we should not expect miracles," she became serious and sat beside Drake. "My mother and I have a plan. We must stop Ritzmann from sending my daddy back in time, and we must change the time he sends you back to."
Drake looked stunned, "And how are we to achieve this?"
"We need the team; McGee, DiNozzo & Ziva are all about to arrive back at the base. We need to talk to them and fill them in on our plan," said Kelly. She went on to explain the plan to Drake.
After the concise explanation, Drake was forced to bring up one small problem. "But Kelly, none of the team can see or hear us… How can we fill them in on the plan?"
"John, I'm sure you will think of something. I have to go. I'll see you in the Time Transport Room in 90 minutes." And with that, Kelly was gone again.
"Damn!" said Drake. He knew what he had to do, but he also knew that getting it to work in 90 minutes was going to be difficult. "Oh well, time to wake up a dotty old lady," he said, and with that Drake vanished.
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