Elf Lord Chapter 1: Waiting, a ncis fanfic

This is my eighth NCIS Mystery, all following one progression. The list of stories grew so long that I move it, with summaries, to my Profile
NCIS is © Belisarius Productions. I make no money on this and I own none of the characters. I do own Reverend Siobhan (Sha-vawn) O'Mallory and original Agents.
Rating: T or NCis-17.

Elf Lord
by JMK758
Chapter One
Waiting

McGee and DiNozzo stand in the musty, trash-lined back staircase on the third story of the four floor walk-up. The sun hasn't risen. Their backs are pressed to the wall on either side of the brown rear door. Marine Private Jimmy Carstairs should be within the quiet apartment and, with any luck, they'll catch him as off guard as Federal Law allows.

Gibbs, Lee and David are at the front door, guns drawn and ready. All five wear Kevlar vests under their black 'NCIS - Federal Agent' jackets. Sigs are ready, safeties off. Synchronized digital watches count down the last ten seconds toward 5 a.m.

DiNozzo gives one last silent signal. When he kicks the door, he'll go in high and left, McGee low and right.

Four seconds to 5:00. DiNozzo steps out and readies himself. At zero an authorative shout of 'FEDERAL AGENTS' fills the air from the front entrance, two doors splinter as one loud crash and the two teams move in.

DiNozzo and McGee have broken into a bedroom. Unoccupied. McGee checks the other side of the bed, DiNozzo the closet. 'Clear'. Snapped reports of 'Clear' come from the other side of the apartment as the men move out, check the kitchen. The only other room is to the left, the living room occupied by the other team.

"DiNozzo and McGee coming out," Tony announces. They get Gibbs' acknowledgment before they do.

They gather in the large living room, put their weapons back into holsters, inspect the fruits of their surprise raid.

The living room is a factory. All the equipment for the preparation of various forms of narcotics surround them. "Home office," DiNozzo concludes, "just like we figured."

Hundreds of packets of white powder are piled high in the room. Separation and preparation tools fill the room.

Their source was accurate. Jimmy Carstairs is about to make a connection that will lead him from the lower echelons to a larger market, and the men and women of the Corps are to be his patsies.

"Home grown for now, but where's the farmer?"

"Could he have been tipped off?" They had seen him enter the building twenty minutes ago, and both exits had been covered.

"I never put it past anyone," Gibbs declares, looking about the apartment. With both doors smashed open, there is no way to disguise the raid. Their opportunity to catch their quarry in the act has vanished, but they will still catch him.

He could, of course, have left via the roof or be hiding in some other apartment, but they can't smash down every door. "Photos, bag and tag. Ziva, Lee, on guard."

The adrenaline rush over, there is time now for the collection of evidence. This will be used in the eventual Court Martial. Jimmy Carstairs, age 19; occupation, drug dealer with large ambitions and small skills, will not become a drug lord.

He has a better shot at becoming a serf.

With Lee and David on guard near the front and rear, alert for their returning quarry, the men begin the search.

DiNozzo, finishing sketching the triangulated scene while McGee takes pictures, makes what he considers to be the most significant insight into the mind of their quarry. "His brain has rotted."

Gibbs, attracted by the declaration, joins his Senior Field Agent at a large bookcase. "What have you got?"

"No wonder he turned to a life of crime. His brain is dead," DiNozzo announces, waving his hand over the books and DVDs packing it. "Conan, Red Sonja, Xena Warrior Princess, Hercules, Young Hercules, Kull, Sorceress, Hawk the Slayer... We're not gonna have to worry about this clown, he'll soon be dead of 'Sword and Sorceryitus'." Gibbs' hand comes up fast. "Thanks, boss, but mine isn't the one that needs a jump start."

"What's wrong with 'Sword and Sorcery'?" McGee asks from beside one of the multitude of bags, pausing in placing them into a large Evidence bag. "For decades it's been a popular form of entertainment and a legitimately recognized genre in fiction."

"Did you not see how popular it was at the Hotel Maritz?" Ziva asks, referring to that memorable case during the Memorial Day Weekend some four months ago. It was, at least, memorable for her.

"I thereby rest my case. Didn't you see all the broohaha's walking around in those ridiculous costumes all weekend?"

"I noticed that you could not rip your eyes off the Xenas or Red Sonjas," she reminds him with a smirk.

"I'm not the one who dressed them."

"No, you wanted to be the one who un-."

"A little less bull, people," Gibbs cuts them off, "and maybe we can be done by breakfast. Or do I have to remind you that that's the sort of thing we had to deal with that killed five people on the Carson case?"

Suddenly the thought is no longer as funny.

It takes over an hour more to document and collect the evidence. When they're ready, the teams leave as they had come. Gibbs' car is in the front of the building, DiNozzo's in back. He and McGee descend the rear stairs, boxes in one hand to leave gun hands free.

"Tony, what have you got against fantasy entertainment?" McGee asks. To him it's just a convivial way to pass the return trip, but DiNozzo is not feeling convivial.

"Nothing, Probie, I feel it's great - for starting fires in fireplaces and lining bird cages."

"Come on," McGee says, leading the way down the flights, "you must have found something you like."

"I never read it. That stuff'll rot your brain."

"You recognized Xena."

"Hot chick in leather who wears a low cut top, skirt down about to her hips, who does high kicks and flips? That's not 'Sword and Sorcery', McWizard, that's Biology."

"There's a lot of fine work in the field," Tim insists, feeling he has to defend his stand. "What about Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Joanne Kathleen Rowling?"

They exit the building, turn right toward the car parked across the street by an unbarracaded construction site just beyond the sidewalk. "Come on, Probie-Wan Kenobi, not even you - oh, pardon me, 'Thom E. Gemcity', would stoop to writing an 'S&S' novel."

"I already am," he says as they step out into the street, dawn having come while they wre working, "for the past couple of weeks."

DiNozzo can't believe he's hearing right. "What, you'd fry your neurons with that trash?"

"You and Gibbs have called me 'Elf Lord' for so long, it inspired me to try my hand at it."

"Really?" Tony is delighted. This is a fertile field from which to harvest a bumper crop for his favorite game 'Torment the Probie'.

"I was working on it this morning, in fact," Tim continues, unaware of the danger he is walking into. "I woke up with an idea for the next scene and couldn't get back to sleep until I put it down on paper. I was just building to the climax when Gibbs called to rush me down here. I had to drop everything and run."

"I know just how you feel, Probie."

"You do?" He seriously doubts it.

"Yeah, I hate it when the phone rings just as I'm about to climax."

Tim looks up to Heaven in appeal. "Why didn't I see that coming?" He tries one last time to get through to his friend. "Listen, Tony–"

A bang comes from behind them and holes the rear window of construction truck, a huge yellow Caterpillar twenty feet further away on McGee's side.

Dropping the boxes, they turn, pull their guns and separate. DiNozzo goes left, Tim right toward the curb and the open construction site. A man is a hundred feet away, crouched in the open door of a red car on DiNozzo's side. He fires again. His second and third shots go wild. The Agents return fire, spread out with better angles than the lone shooter.

They're also far better marksmen. Their shots shatter his window, just miss his head. He dives into the car, starts it and stomps upon the accelerator. The car screams forward in a cloud of vaporized rubber. It rockets at Tony and Tim. They continue firing. The windshield, already holed several times, shatters. The car veers directly at Tim.

There's no cover, no car parked nearby. The construction lot to his right extends to the curb and blocks his escape. Backpedaling, he can't find anyplace to run.

DiNozzo runs to him, leaps into the air, prays he's high enough to avoid the front grill, prays he'll make it before the windshield slams into him. He shoves Tim backward toward the curb, his momentum still enough to carry him clear.

The car slams his shoe before he falls flat upon the ground. A massive crash to his right. He keeps his eyes on Tim as the man staggers backward, unable to halt himself. He trips over some debris, topples backward to the ground–

And vanishes.

Tony, unable to believe what he saw, leaps to his feet. A large hole hadn't been visible an instant before. Rushing to it, he looks down to the bottom of a twelve foot drop. A gray tarpaulin is draped about an unmoving man-sized bulk.

He hears a yell from his left, looks to the far corner. Gibbs, Ziva and Michelle round the corner, attracted by the aborted gunfire and loud crash. Looking back into the pit, he sees a steadily enlarging blotch of red near the top and looks back to the running trio. "Hurry!" he yells, "NOW!"

Tony scrambles down into the debris-covered pit and prays he's not too late.

Gibbs skids to a halt on the rough debris surrounding the huge hole, looks down into the pit. Tony is removing a portion of the bloody gray canvas, uncovers McGee's face. Rather than the required steel slab, someone had covered the hole with only a tarp and McGee had fallen into the trap.

He's not moving. Blood pools behind his head. Tony pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and presses it carefully to the wound. Gibbs starts to climb into the hole.

Ziva and Lee also move to follow but there's not enough room for them in the debris filled pit "No," Gibbs commands. "Ziva, call it in. Lee, check Carstairs."

Ziva doesn't want to remain up top, looking down at the spreading blood behind the head of her greatest love, but Gibbs point cannot be denied. As Lee moves off to comply with her order Ziva, not caring about the crumpled wreck pressed into the ten ton machine, yanks out her cell phone and stabs '9-1-1'. She watches tensely as the two men strive to staunch the flow of blood. A moment later she hears a woman's voice.

"He's dead."

Ziva's heart turns over before she looks up, sees Michelle beside her, realizes to whom the woman had been referring. Distantly she hears another woman's voice in her ear. "911 Operator, what is your emergency?"

Minutes seem like hours. Sirens have stabbed nerves. Apprehension grips hearts and steals breath.

There was no room in the pit for more than three men. Gibbs and DiNozzo had to give way to the Paramedics who very carefully secure the unconscious Tim McGee onto a stretcher. Then the men, including Ducky and Palmer who had responded to Ziva's call for assistance, ease the stretcher out of the hole. They level it onto a gurney and into the maw of the waiting ambulance.

By Ziva's watch it is forty-six minutes since Tim fell before he is eased into the conveyance. In that eternity he has not moved. He hasn't made a sound. Ziva holds herself silent, unwilling to ask why he hasn't made a sound. She doesn't want to hear the answer.

Ducky directs Jimmy to prepare the body of James Carstairs as they normally would. A doctor of the living, he'll ride in the ambulance with the Agent. As he boards the vehicle Ziva meets Gibbs' eyes. To him alone will she show the silent apprehension she has hidden from the others.

He nods in acknowledgment of her plea.

Before the ambulance doors close, she boards the van.

xxx

Hospital waiting rooms all over the world are the same. They're white, they're quiet, they're isolated, they're filled with the stink of fear, frightened families and friends praying for the best and fearful of the worst. The people don't talk, or if they do it's in soft voices and whispers, as if normal speech would drive away hope. Twenty people are separated from the world by glass and silence, gathered together into knots of fearful hope or sit alone with their dread. They wait for word; word of hope - word of despair - word of life - word of death.

Confined with them Gibbs, DiNozzo, David and Lee wait. Brief words pass, attempts at hope, attempts at communication, but they grow fewer and briefer as an hour becomes two. Near the end of the first hour Jennifer Shepherd arrived, but she can get no further. Jimmy Palmer arrives in the second hour and brief quiet questions resume and dissolve. The shroud of silence, apprehension denied and pervasive, covers everything.

"I can do more here," Palmer explains to Shepherd. "I don't need a lot to find out how Carstairs died. He was shot six times and crashed into a caterpillar at 60 miles an hour because he was trying to kill Agents DiNozzo and McGee." There's sustained anger in his tone, as though he would challenge an order to go back to Autopsy.

She doesn't force the choice.

Palmer and Lee eventually gravitate to a corner, not speaking but trying to offer support in silent presence. Lee sits tensely, fingering her silver jeweled engagement ring, not even noticing she's doing it as Jimmy holds her hands.

Gibbs notices that as they begin to converse again in almost silent whispers she clutches in her right hand the inch wide ornament on the silver necklace which Jimmy had given to her to celebrate their engagement, the silver five pointed star within a circle, within which is a Christian cross. Her manner is focused, and this time not on the man whose hands she holds in her left.

Gibbs and Shepherd stand aside in the far corner. At her arrival they had spoken briefly about the Carstairs case but that had quickly died. Now they stand in silence, waiting. Neither wants to think of the number of times they've done this and the too many times that waiting had been rewarded with grief.

Tony steps up to Ziva who stands at the door. She's staring through the glass to the long view up the white corridor. She watches intently for any news approaching; a doctor, a nurse, anyone. He puts his hand on her shoulder, pretends not to notice her trembling.

It is not a Doctor or Nurse Ziva ultimately sees approaching the Waiting Room, it is the black clad figure of Abby Sciuto hurrying to them. She does not run down the corridor, but her stride eats up the distance nonetheless.

When she yanks open the door she suffers the same loss of voice the rest of them have. Her words, intended to be strong if anxious, come out in a barely audible whisper. "How is he?" "We do not know," Ziva whispers tightly, fearing if she raises her voice she will scream. "They will not tell us!"

Abby reaches out to comfort her but Ziva backs out of her reach. For months they have fought over Tim McGee. Now is not a time for touch - if after today there will ever be.

Abby sees the brittle look in the woman's eyes and doesn't try to reach for her again. Looking to Tony, she whispers: "How long?"

"Since the accident, four and a half hours. We've been in here more than three."

Abby glances at her watch. It's nearly 11:00 in the morning. "No one told me!" she declares, voice tight, anger barely held in check. It will do no good, she knows, to give vent to it. If not for an overheard phrase in the Cafeteria during a break….

"Ducky's in with him."

"Then he's in good hands." She tries to believe it, tries to sound assuring, looks back to Ziva.

"For whatever hap–" Ziva can say no more, her lips hard pressed, her breath seized. Abby turns to try to comfort her but she takes a step back, turns and walks further into the room. She is not moving away from her post at the door - she is walking away from Abby.

Uncertain, rejected twice, Abby crosses the room to Gibbs and Jenny. Gibbs doesn't back away from her hug, he knows she needs to receive it even more than to give it.

The main door, momentarily unguarded, is opened. A white clad blonde woman steps in, looks over the twenty plus people. Most of the room aims their full attention upon her. "Special Agent Gibbs?" Gibbs steps forward from her right. "Would you please come with me?"

It is a signal for every agent to crowd about her. "Please," she appeals, hands raised to halt the rush, "I was told to bring Special Agent Gibbs."

Ziva steps up to her. "I am coming too." Her voice is as brittle as Gibbs has ever heard it.

"Are you his wife?" the nurse asks uncertainly.

Ziva is trapped, unable to lie, but Gibbs steps in. "I'm his Boss."

Jenny cuts in a half pace in front of him. "And I'm his Boss;" she turns to the others. "All of you stay here."

They follow the nurse into the Emergency Complex. Neither of them dares to hope or allow fear to invade. They can remember making this or similar treks before - and all too often there was grief at the end.

They walk past the wounded and the sick, past the groaning and the crying, past the hopeful and the nearly dead. They pass families and friends fearful or sobbing. They do so silently, each locked in their thoughts, guarding against thoughts they will not allow.

They follow the woman through the length of the Emergency Complex and out its back door. They want to question this but before either can speak, forty feet away down the silent white corridor Ducky rises from a chair. They increase their pace, but he pulls off his white fishing hat, holds it in his hands. Jennifer stops dead. Her heart seizes up. She hasn't seen him so grim since the days after Caitlin Todd had been murdered.

She glances at Gibbs. His face has turned to stone.