United Under Fire

Wolves In Sheep's Clothing

Jace had just gotten off the phone with Vance, retired Admiral Chegwidden was representing his father. In the meantime, he was looking into a SEAL mission that had taken place in the Middle East, Lieutenant Chad McBride had been sent to Iran to surveil a nuclear arsenal development. It was unusual, an operation like that would have been meant for a four-man recce element. A single operator, let alone an officer, would never have been sent on an operation like this.

Captain Dominik Wayne was the CO of the JSOC Operations Theater in the Middle East. He had been uncooperative with Director Vance, leaving NCIS having to ask Jace to do some digging. After McBride deployed JSOC lost contact with him, however, not before JSOC had flagged a new radical group the Brotherhood of Doubt.

He relayed the info to Vance, he couldn't call the team, Parsons had them under a microscope. Walt and Zoey were watching the triplets, he hoped that the DOD wouldn't have his home under surveillance.

Jace had dealt with men like Parsons before, Lieutenant Vincent Rome his platoon OIC in Team 3 before Victors, was far from SEAL material. He had been a textbook cake-eater, refused to go outside the wire, and avoided going into the field every chance he got. He took the credit for every successful operation the platoon planned. However, when an HVT body snatch had fallen into their AOR the LT opted to let another team handle it, but the platoon had enough of it. They drew up dozens of combat plans but the Officer never let up, kept saying 'command won't have it". However, they later discovered he had never sent the plans up the ladder.

The other SEALs pressed Jace to use his connections within SOCOM to go over Rome's head. A few of his father's friends from Desert Storm were in charge of the AO; Jace had served under them as a Corpsman, and one call from Gunnery Sergeant Leroy Jethro Gibbs could change it all. The body snatch had turned into a hostage rescue and they knew the area best, Jace made the call.

Rome had gotten out of going with them by operating the TOC and had placed an expeditionary combat camera operator with them to monitor their activities. They managed to save the hostage and detain the HVT without casualties. However, the real challenge took place once they got back to base, the HVT had busted his jaw, accusing the sailors of brutalizing him.

They complied with a full NCIS and JAG review, Rome left the platoon to hang, if it weren't for the timely intervention of Commander Harm Rabb and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah McKenzie careers would have been destroyed. They had focused a part of the investigation on why the platoon hadn't responded to a series of incidents or QRF requests in the theater. Rome had been adamant that the platoon win hearts and minds over combat, something the entire team had credited him for.

This prompted them to look into the platoon's deployment history, they found that the lieutenant had barely spun up with the other operators. An officer or not, Rome was expected to set an example and maintain a standard.

Jace recalled Chegwidden's expression when he heard about the lieutenant's conduct.

"This man is in my Navy?! And he's in charge of SEALs?!"

The then-Admiral was outraged at Rome's lack of conduct and insulted that he had somehow earned the Trident. As a result, Chegwidden had Rome's Special Warfare Insignia pulled and sent to a stateside post.

Had the situation gone in another direction, even in the slightest bit, careers and lives would have been destroyed.

Jace snapped out of his internal preoccupation and left to relay his findings to Vance.

Once Jace got into the Director's office he activated the SCIF.

"Everything about the operation is unconventional even for JSOC, sir," said Jace getting to the point. "The Lieutenant shouldn't have been deployed by himself, it's against protocol. As for the mission, we've gathered a ton of intel pointing towards an Iranian nuclear arsenal."