Chapter One: Watching
"We planted that camera almost an hour ago, why isn't it up yet, Mcgee?" Leroy Jethro Gibbs practically bellowed the question at his youngest field agent.
"It's coming up now, Boss." Mcgee reported, his slim fingers dancing over the keyboard. DiNozzo stepped up beside the boss with his arms folded over his chest as the image of the basement he had just left appeared on the flatscreen. Tony was still wearing his blue jumpsuit with the logo of the furnace repair company on the chest. Gibbs yanked the matching cap off his Senior Field Agent's head and tossed it in the direction of the messiest desk in the bullpen, piled high with papers, magazines and a Twinkie wrapper. Ziva ducked out of the line of fire as she joined the team to watch a figure bent over a desk at the far end of the basement. Toni had seen that desk empty an hour before, when he'd tinkered with the furnace – and planted a camera.
Now the desk was occupied by a pile of tools, paper, ink jars and a young girl, who bent over the work space with great concentration.
"We can add counterfeiting to the list." Ziva observed.
"Along with contributing to the delinquency of a minor." Mcgee added.
"She's gotta be well under eighteen." This from Tony, who would know.
"Fourteen at the most." Gibbs concluded, and the edge in his voice sharpened at the thought. Nothing angered the silver-haired ex-Marine more than a child being mistreated, especially a girl.
The girl's back was to the camera, but every few minutes she rose to get something, or turned to look in the direction of the basement stairs. When she turned, Ziva felt Gibbs stiffen. The girl was young, innocence tarnished by a bruise on her chin, a black eye, and a greenish shadow on her throat. She moved with the stiffness of an old woman, and silently, each team member's temper rose a few degrees. Just when Mcgee moved to his desk to crop a picture for facial recognition, the sound of the basement door opening made the whole team freeze. Heavy, booted feet stomped down the stairs and the girl's shoulders hunched a bit more with each resounding step. He spoke to her, and the four agents leaned in for a moment to listen before realizing there was no sound.
Gibbs sent Mcgee - who was scrambling for his desk - a death glare that could have peeled the paint off the walls. When the sound came on Mcgee breathed a sigh of relief but stayed at his desk away from the watery blue gaze.
"Make sure the back room is ready, and get those finished before you come upstairs." The man was saying.
"That's Kingsley." Tony reported softly.
"Back room?" The girl repeated, more sharply than anyone expected.
"Yes, back room." Kingsley growled.
"But you said you…you can't-" She jumped to her feet, her young face angry with protest.
"Do as I say!" Kingsley growled, slamming his hand onto the desk top. Paper and ink bottles flew to the floor, but as the man stomped away the girl turned, courage rising in her young eyes. She was glaring at his back as she spat out the word, "no."
He stopped. Froze. The girl's chest was heaving but she held her ground, even as Tony, Mcgee and Ziva held their breaths, and a tightness began to weave its way into Gibb's chest.
"What was that?"
"You said you wouldn't bring anymore girls. You said no more! I help you with every scheme you dream up. I work twenty hours a day. My fingers bleed and my eyes swim and I don't protest, but its not right what you're doing to those girls."
The words were out now. Ziva found herself proud of the courage and force of them, but still, in the depths of her soul she heard her inner voice pleading with God for mercy – for the girl's sake.
Kingsley wound his fingers through the girl's hair and pulled her face toward his. Ziva's hand found itself clutching the place in her belt where her gun normally was.
"You work for me every day because I'll kill you if you don't and because no one else wants you. You're a worthless piece of trash and the only thing you'll ever be good for is a quick thrill."
"Guess I can't make any more money then, if I'm that worthless."
"What the hell is she doing?" Mcgee asked fearfully.
"She's pissin' him off." Gibbs said simply, and then proceded to turn inward on himself. His expression cold as granite, eyes closed, arms folded over his chest as he and his team watched the beating that followed. There was no way they could help those girls if they stepped in now. Knowing how many others they would save by holding back didn't make it any easier, though.
"Your own father didn't care enough to find you! What makes you think I care enough not to kill you?" Kingsley shouted at the girl as he stepped back from her crumpled, shaking form.
"My father is an agent – he was a Marine and now he's NCIS and he'll rip you apart if he ever finds you." She screamed the words a hundred times louder than she meant to, and it took him off guard. He stepped away even further. "How did you know about your-" the phone rang upstairs, stopping his shocked words. He growled and turned toward the stairs just as the team realized that Tony had stepped away and pulled out his cell phone.
"Hello, Mr. Kingsley, this is Dillon from the Warm and Toasty Furnace Repair shop. I'm just making a follow up call to ensure quality of service."
The girl pulled herself off the floor, biting her lip to hold back the tears. "Don't, you're not a baby." She admonished herself as she began to pick up the items that had fallen from the desk.
"Find out who she is." Gibbs ordered. "Now."
Leroy Jethro Gibbs couldn't take his eyes off the face of the girl. Fourteen years, his mind whispered, that same age that she would have been if…. He shook his head against the thought, and headed upstairs to see Vance.