Gibbs knew that Shannon had been right in what she said; in his heart he knew that to change anything would be wrong……a disaster. But he was tempted.
He would give anything to not be close to the possibility of changing the past but he knew that Ritzmann would not just let him walk out and he had no real opportunity to do anything useful.
Too many armed guards, not enough information about what is going on here. He knew that if he was going to stand any chance of getting this place closed down then he would need to know who the operations were helping, who was really in charge.
He still did not know what he would do if he had to go through the time portal….
He knew what he needed was back-up, he would be quite happy to see the dead Brit and he knew that to be a clear indication he was in trouble.
----
Drake had given Mrs. Mallard detailed instructions as to how to find the entrance to the base. He had relayed the plan that Shannon had shared with him and Mrs. Mallard had told Tony what he needed to do. So long as nothing went wrong things should work out ok; well that is what Drake kept telling himself.
----
Tony, McGee & Ziva were searching the rocks to find the entrance that Tony only half believed would be there.
"There is a cave entrance here." called Ziva in a hushed tone.
Tony & McGee joined her and peered into the blackness.
"We have to go in there?" asked McGee.
"No we have to collect moss samples from the entrance…. Of course we have to go in Probie!" Tony half shouted at McGee. His voice echoed in the darkness.
"Ok Tony. Take it easy." said McGee, shocked by Tony's out burst.
They each checked their gear and turned on their flashlights before entering the cave in single file.
It was dark and damp but there was a definite airflow.
Tony bent down and examined a set of footprints in the sandy floor. He pointed them out to Ziva who nodded.
"Those are Gibbs' foot prints, he definitely came this way," said Ziva quietly.
Tony looked around and then looked up and said, "He didn't come back this way."
After moving quietly down the tunnel a little further they found a set of steel doors. They were unlocked and opened easily.
The other side of the doors were well lit, dry, man-made tunnels. The three of them stepped into the light and put away their flashlights and drew their weapons.
"Well what do you know the dotty old bird was right…." said Tony, looking around in amazement.
"Dotty old bird?" enquired Ziva.
"He means Mrs. Mallard," informed McGee.
"Ah… I see," said Ziva, obviously still puzzled.
They approached the end of the section of tunnel they were in and were faced with the choice of turning left or right.
Tony signaled that they should turn right. At intervals of 20 feet were sets of double doors, Tony stopped at the second set and tried the door. It opened and the three of them entered. The room was lined with ammunition boxes. Ziva opened one of the boxes and muttered something under her breath. They collected a few of the packs of explosives and placed them in the empty backpack that McGee was carrying.
"You are sure that these are safe?" McGee asked.
"It is quite stable unless it has a detonator cap inserted into it." said Ziva. She turned and looked at Tony. "You are sure that we are doing the right thing?"
"I'm not sure of anything at the moment Ziva. But Mrs. Mallard has been spot on with her intel so far and once we find Gibbs we can ask him what he thinks." said Tony, trying to sound confident
"We can only ask Gibbs if….." Ziva started to say but was cut off.
"Shut up Ziva! We will find Gibbs, end of conversation." said Tony not wanting any negative influence on what they were here to do.
"I was only going to say…." Ziva tried to go on.
"Well don't!" snapped Tony and he went to a stack of boxes in the corner of the room. Opening one of the smaller boxes he withdrew a handful of detonator caps and placed them into his jacket pocket with care.
Ziva located a box of timing devices and placed several of them into the backpack with the explosives.
McGee was looking increasingly uncomfortable. "So are we actually going to blow this place up?" he asked.
Ziva looked at Tony, who gave his best Gibbs stare as a response.
Tony opened the door to the storeroom door and peered around it. The tunnel was empty. After creeping along what seemed to be miles of tunnel passing numerous doors just like the one they had passed through to acquire the explosives the found the stair well. "We need to go down 4 levels," said Tony. "We need to be on our guard, there will be people down there."
-----
Drake appeared in Ritzmann's office.
"So where do you want to send me, or should I say when?" asked Drake.
"So John, you have decided to join us?" Ritzmann asked, there was suspicion in his voice.
"Well I think it is my best shot to actually be involved in some real ongoing operations," said Drake lying convincingly.
Ritzmann looked at Drake. "Ok, be in the portal room in 15 minutes."
5 minutes later all the lights went out. The whole base was in darkness and alarms started to go off.
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