Gibbs and Ziva raced down the halls of Dartmouth Hospital to the OB/GYN Wing, Kathleen had gone into labor. Jace was already there, he had called Gibbs who brought Ziva along for the ride. Reese, Holloway, and Wesson were already outside their room. The doctors had cleared them to go in, Jace was on the right side of the bed clenching an ice pack in his left hand, and was cooing the babies with Kathleen. Kathy's parents were already there on the left of the bed.

"They're beautiful," said Gibbs. "Sorry, we're late."

"Don't be, we got here ten minutes after the birth," said Kathleen's mother, Zoey.

"Have you decided on names?" asked Ziva.

"Imogen, Maryse, and Shannon," said Jace, pointing to each one respectively.

Gibbs smiled with approval, he was overjoyed to become a grandfather. His only regret was that his wife didn't live to be a grandmother and that his daughter didn't live to be an aunt. Nonetheless, he was proud of this moment and didn't want a thing to change.

. . .

6 months later

The team was on an Arleigh-Burke Class Destroyer, the USS-Bainbridge, for a reconnaissance operation. Their target was a drug lord with ties to Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and growing Islamic cells. Once they had the intel they needed the NCIS agents were tasked with connecting the associates with known crime syndicates.

Jace and Holloway were surveying an exchange between the drug lord and a Hezbollah lieutenant. Their orders were to watch and support, they weren't to engage unless attacked.

"Alpha-One to TOC, we have eyes on two groups each with several tangos, one with two technical vehicles, over."

Jace focused his scope on the vehicles, the drivers staying in the trucks, and two sentries manning the machine guns. Holloway adjusted the audio equipment, and the visual and audio feed was being directly sent to the operations center. They seemed to be arguing over money and drug shipments.

"Last I checked Hezbollah used S-vests as an offensive measure, right?" asked Jace.

"That's right."

"So why is the driver wearing one?"

Holloway closed in on the driver and saw that he was holding a detonator. He called it in, but the vehicle blew taking out the other and the sentries nearby. A hail of bullets struck the drug lord and his guards out of nowhere. Jace prepped his rifle, looking for a target, just then an unmarked helicopter rose into their line of sight. They prepared for engagement, fortunately, the aircraft left the vicinity without a shot fired. Jace went for his radio.

"Alpha-Two to TOC, what the hell was that?"

The rest of the platoon arrived to pick them up and escorted them back to the ship.

. . .

The SEALs were in a makeshift conference room aboard the USS Bainbridge, the agents were briefing them on what they gathered about the aircraft.

"The aircraft was a Eurocopter AS350 AStar, an HB350 L1 to be exact," said Marrows. "It's an armed helicopter particularly used by the Brazilian military."

"Four months ago a shipment of six aircraft disappeared on its way to Brazil," said Ziva.

"Any leads—"

Julian didn't get to finish his question, Tony came in with news. He was carrying a laptop.

"We got Director Shepard on the line."

"The shipment was stolen by La Grenouille," said the Director. "We suspect that he was profiting from arrangements between terrorists, Narcos, smugglers, the likes."

Jace raised his hand. "Who did he sell the helos to?"

"I don't believe he did, I think that he reneged on an ongoing deal he had between clients in the Middle East."

"Motive?" asked Holloway. "Arms dealers don't just turn on their clients, it's bad for business."

"That's what you need to find out, your platoon will be augmenting the investigation."

At that, the Director hung up. The operators disbursed, and Holloway got a hold of Jace.

"Talk to your dad, I'm not buying into this 'arms dealer gone mad' theory."

"My thoughts exactly, there's something personal about this with Sheperd."

. . .

Jace, Ziva, and his father were still in the conference room, the other agents were in the alternate processing evidence collected from the scene and the rest of the platoon was training.

"The director had Tony discreetly gather intel on La Grenouille's activity in the States," said Ziva.

"For how long?" asked Jace.

"Since I retired," chimed in Gibbs.

"I don't need to point out that your boss has a personal stake in this," said Jace. "I need to know if what she gave us is actionable."

Gibbs handed him a folder, it contained transcripts from intel from the investigation of the stolen aircraft and other exploits of the Frog. There was data about a cargo freighter carrying stolen military weapons and equipment.

"A load of military weapons, for who?" asked Jace.

"The weapons are going to be sold to a Middle Eastern black market ring," responded Ziva. "Allegedly the ship belongs to Rene Benoit."

"Why hasn't anyone already been on this? Boarded it?" asked Julian. "This ship has been at sea for months, refueled at a variety of ports, and has even crossed paths with US Navy ships."

"So far everything we've got is circumstantial," said Gibbs. "Didn't sit well with the Director when she got that memo, ships due to bound to enter the Arabian Sea in five days."

"So our job is to board and search a vessel that's at least thousands of units large and look for WMDs and the likes?"

"Yup."

"What's our planning timeframe?"

"Three days," said Ziva.

. . .

The SEALs sailed along the port side aft of the ship in NSW RHIBs, climbed their way up, and split into 4-man teams. Once they did an initial sweep they gave the SWCC operators the go-ahead to board. So far they encountered no resistance, there was no sight of the crew. A small enough one must've been keeping the vessel moving, based on their sightings they must have been below deck.

"Alpha-Two to TOC, we have boarded the target, no sight of the crew, over."

"Understood Alpha-Two, ISR shows no tangos above deck, over."

Julian, Reese, Wesson, and Holloway went to check the bridge, but still no sight of the crew. They took everything that could be of intelligence value: the ship's manifest, cargo information, etc. Holloway got a transmission from one of the deck teams. They were created with assortments of AR-15s and carbines, others had varieties of military explosives.

"This isn't right, all this cargo and not a single crewmember on site," said Jace.

"We've got nothing on thermal or infrared," said Reese. "We've got less than two hours until we're in Arabian waters."

In the TOC the agents were watching everything from the body cameras. The ship's VBSS teams were on standby and the MARSOC Marines arrived the day prior. Director Sheperd was watching from MTAC back at NCIS.

"Do we have enough, Director?" asked Gibbs. "We've recorded everything so far."

"Not yet, there should be more intelligence inside the captain's quarters."

Jace and the rest of his team entered the quarters, finding a safe within the closet. Once they breached it they took everything inside. Jace attempted to use his radio but got nothing but interference. Everyone else tried their comms but got the same results. Jace swept the room, trying to find the cause, finding the source.

A bug.

The SEALs made their way topside, Holloway instructed everyone to evacuate and set the charges to blow up the ship. Once they made it to the RHIBs, they saw a series of surface-to-air missiles approach from the horizon. The Bainbridge fired their missiles to intercept as the operators made their way back to the ship. Brooke set the charges.

"Fire in the hole!"

As the freighter went to kingdom come Julian got a hold of the TOC.

"Alpha-Two to TOC, what the hell was that?!"