This is my thirteenth NCIS Mystery and the second of my Second Season. The series began during the Memorial Day Weekend of the 4th Season, it's now November.
The numerous Affairs in my series are, of course, an Homage to Ducky from his U.N.C.L.E. days.
In 'Dark Night' Jimmy Palmer asked Michelle Lee to marry him. She said yes. They plan to wed in six months, on May 1. In 'Butterfly Affair', Jimmy was shot and is currently hospitalized.
The usual legal disclaimers apply. Details on Naval Station Norfolk have been changed.
Please Review.
Rating: T or NCis-17. Death, Intrigue and Mystery.
And for all those who have been steadily campaigning for more Ducky, I am pleased to present – more Ducky.
Salarium
By JMK758
Prologue
Petty Officer Third Class Bill Clarke waits in the black, anonymous Government Issue car, watching the attractive women who pass him headed into, away from or past the twelve fifty-foot-long steps which lead up to the plaza. The expanse is surrounded by numerous tall white buildings which constitute the business mall. It's 8:30 on a Wednesday morning and he has been here for more than half an hour, with nothing to do but feast upon the delights offered on this early and unusually mild November morning. There are a reasonable number of fluttering skirts to hold his attention until he sees Lieutenant Commander John Megalo pause at the top of the steps.
One glance at the uniformed Commander gasping and clutching his chest is enough. Clarke is out of the car, running around the front of it, but by the time he reaches the steps the man has collapsed backward out of sight. Bounding up the steps three at a time, he reaches the sweating, writhing man in only a moment. Megalo's stentorian breathing strains his lungs as he clutches his chest, his body convulsing.
Clarke grasps the dark dress blue uniform coat and yanks with all his strength, ripping the buttons off, pulling the man's tie loose and then ripping the white shirt apart, but nothing he can do can ease the officer's gasping.
Frightened, uncertain what is happening, Clarke looks about, seeing a number of men and women scattered widely through the plaza. "HEY!" he yells, grasping their attention, "someone call 911!"
The man under his hands goes still, no longer breathing. Clarke presses his ear to Megalo's chest but hears nothing. He reaches behind the unconscious man's head, tilts it back, pinches his nose and blows two hard breaths into the quieted lungs. He interlaces his fingers upon the center of his chest and pushes twenty sharp rhythmic thrusts.
Wiping Megalo's perspiration from where it had smeared his own mouth, Clarke bends down again and blows two more deep breaths and then starts another twenty sharp thrusts. Two more breaths, dry the moist sweat from his lips, then more strained efforts.
It's hard work, Clarke can't pause for even a moment and he wonders how long it will be before help finally arrives. He grows breathless as he alternates efforts. He's about to breathe again for Megalo but his own breath comes short. He stops, unable to push again, unable to breathe. He tries to draw air, tries again, but something is wrong. He can't catch his breath. No matter how fast he breathes, no matter how hard he gasps for air he can't….
Chapter One
Sky
It's rare for Tony DiNozzo to have an opportunity for a quiet morning with Ziva David in the Operations bullpen, but at this moment, minutes into the nominal start of shift, neither Gibbs nor McGee are present. For Tony, it's too good an opportunity to pass up.
"Ziva, you doing anything tonight?"
"No, why do you ask?"
"I was thinking; you, me, a candlelit dinner in some upscale restaurant far from the Navy or Marines." He hadn't had her attention before; now he certainly does.
"Well, this is a surprise."
"Why so surprised that I'd want to spend the evening in the company of an exceptionally beautiful woman?"
For a moment Ziva is uncertain. Part of her is flattered, and she has to admit to similar thoughts regarding her partner, especially after the pain inflicted upon her by McGee, but another part searches for 'the catch'. As she stares deeply into the man's telltale eyes, she's amazed not to find it.
"I think I would like that."
"Then it's a date."
"On one condition." Tony allows his face to ask the question. "That we tell no one of this."
"I can live with that."
xx
Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard pauses at the Autopsy entrance doors to allow Abby Sciuto to enter the huge room first. "After you, my little lotus blossom."
Abby smiles, entering the dark room through the sliding doors. Ducky occasionally calls her by this nickname, which never fails to please her; though she's never understood the particular significance of the choice. She's always thought of herself as more of a Deadly Nightshade.
They'd met at the elevator near the fourth floor Café, Abby continuing down past her lab in hopes of receiving an update on her friend's condition. As he turns on the series of switches beside the door, the bright lights fill the large room, life coming back to this bastion of the dead. "How's Jimmy?" she asks as he removes his hat and coat and hangs both up on the stand near the door.
"As well as one might expect," Ducky assures her. It's been twenty days since he'd been shot, the wound confining him to Bethesda Naval Hospital, too distantly northwest of the Navy Yard. "I saw him last evening. Agent Lee was with him when I arrived, which came as no surprise at all."
"I'll bet." The young woman has spent every evening, every free hour, at her fiancé's side in the near three weeks since he had been shot by a gunman at the clean-out of the 'Wing Warehouse' in Rock Creek. Sixteen kidnapped and surgically altered young women had been rescued in that assault upon a horrific experimental laboratory, with Jimmy the only casualty on NCIS' side. "How much longer will he be laid up?"
"His physician and I both agree he could be fit for light duty by Friday. He'll come out on the day after tomorrow, and report here part time on Monday. I intend to monitor him quite closely, I assure you."
"I'm just relieved he's going to be all right," Abby confesses.
"Yes, he was quite fortunate – or as fortunate as one could be who has been shot in the neck. The bullet only nicked the left side of his jugular vein; not a mortal wound but an unnerving one nonetheless. I have seen him every day, saw him last evening as I said, and I expect him to make a complete recovery."
"I'm sure Michelle's making sure he's getting excellent care." Abby says with a smile.
"Indeed."
x
"I'm sorry your new assistant didn't work out. I guess you have Autopsy all to yourself again." Patrick Harper had been working with Ducky for the past two plus weeks, since just after the murderous assault. She'd quickly tagged him with the nickname 'Seamus' after the Sci-Fi character on 'Andromeda', much to his ongoing displeasure. But yesterday morning his Clearance to enter the Navy Yard, having been rapidly established to allow him to substitute for Jimmy on very brief notice, had been revoked upon final evaluation. Abby cannot recall the last time she had seen Ducky so angry as at this high-handed maneuver.
"Some things are just not to be," he admits philosophically. "Mr. Harper was quite competent. If not for an indiscretion two years ago, he would have passed the Navy's rather stringent Security checks and would be with us still. One would think it would take less time for them to do a sufficient background check and satisfy themselves."
"I guess that leaves you as your own assistant for a while," she looks about the large Autopsy room. "Kind of sucks."
"Not entirely, no. The days are long past when I will work both sides of the table, so to speak. I expect my new temporary Assistant even as we speak."
"Oh? Who, Gerald?" She had expected her old friend to have been the first choice and had said nothing when he hadn't been. Of course, now the man may have another chance.
"Sadly, no, Mr. Jackson is unavailable, even on a temporary basis. He had been my first choice, but he is employed as an Assistant Medical Examiner with the city of Annapolis and cannot get away. No, I have been in touch with George Washington University yesterday morning. I asked for recommendations and they sent me the names of three Medical students." He crosses to and sits down at his desk, picking up and displaying a blue folder.
"As there remains only a week for which I will require his services, and basing my decision upon the Grade Point Averages and other more minor particulars, I have selected a Samuel Sky. Well, 'Sam' on the record. I don't know why they allow only so small a square; someone named George would have a time squeezing six letters in. Anyway, he is in his fourth year Medical and impressed me by having maintained a firm 4.0 GPA for all four years. He has studied at Providence and Walter Reed, where he trained for a year in General Pathology and requires only three more years of Forensic Pathology before he may legally qualify as an ME. He will be an MD in the coming Spring and if his performance matches his test scores he should do well."
"So he'll be an ME in just over three years or so?"
"The hands-on experience here will do him good, and I prefer someone skilled rather than not. At my age I have no desire to begin a training program; I prefer someone who can come in knowing the difference between a maxillary and a gluteus maximus."
She must clamp her hand over her mouth against the 'jawbone of an ass' joke, but manages to make the urge pass quickly. "Aww, come on, Ducky, you're not old."
"No, my dear, that is kind of you to say, but I know full well that there are more days behind me than in front of me."
She bends down and hugs him. "You only passed the midway mark yesterday."
"Thank you, my dear," he says, patting her arm when she releases him, referring as much for the hug as for the compliment.
"So, when do I meet Sam Sky?"
He takes the folder, drops it back onto the desk. "I expected him already. But when I arrived, before I went up to breakfast, I called the Pass & ID Office to check on his arrival. They informed me there was a problem with verifying ID's this morning; their computer was not functioning, which I did not find at all surprising. I advised them to contact Timothy and to get Mr. Sky through as quickly as possible."
Abby looks at her watch. "Well, I'll have to meet him later, time to wake up Major Mass Spec." She heads for the door, calling back "let me know if he's cute."
"The Major?"
She flashes him a smile, continues out the sliding door to the elevator as he picks up the file again and opens it.
The transcript doesn't tell him much more than academics, the man's name, address and age – 22 since August 26. "They get younger every year," he muses. There are, at least, an impressive set of Academic scores to offset the insufficiency of age.
xx
As he finishes the report on a male shooting victim for Fred Higgins' team, an investigation in which a young Marine stands implicated, the doors behind him part and he turns around. He's annoyed, however, to see that the person at the door is not his new Assistant.
A young woman with a shock of short pale blonde hair flashes him a smile as she enters and crosses the room toward him. As he stands up, Ducky has a moment to evaluate her. She's several inches shorter than he; he judges her to be five foot two. Her hair, styled in a pixie cut, compliments her peaches and cream complexion, and she wears a brown calf length skirt and matching vest over a white blouse. To the vest is affixed a plastic NCIS Visitor's tag.
"Doctor Mallard?" She has a smile that seems to fill her face.
"Yes, may I help you, my dear?"
He has only one body presently in storage but not ready for release, the aforementioned shooting victim, so he's not expecting anyone other than Mr. Sky, who he supposes he will eventually meet. He wonders, with a flash of annoyance, just how much longer 'Pass and ID' is going to take with the man's processing – and why he hadn't been told about this person coming.
"Hi, I think you're expecting me?" she shakes his hand.
"Indeed? And you are?"
"Samantha Sky, but please call me 'Sammy'," her smile falters slightly; undoubtedly, he realizes, due to the disconcerted expression on his own face. "I'm your new Assistant?"
"Oh, dear."
x
Her expression stings his conscience. "I'm sorry, Miss Sky, that was horribly discourteous of me. You're – you're just, well, not quite what I was expecting."
"I get that all the time," she says with a grin. "People always expect me to be taller. My whole family's over six feet, but I'm afraid I'm the runt of the litter."
"No, it's not that, I–" He's saved by the beep of the intercom on his desk. "Would you excuse me please?" He turns to the desk, grateful for the moment to think as he sits down and pushes the visiphone button. "Autopsy."
/We're heading out, Ducky,/ Tim McGee's image and voice come from the device. /Two Naval officers have just been found dead on Army Navy Drive./
"I'll be right out." He shuts off the device and stands, finding his new Assistant smiling up at him with happy anticipation. "Well, Samantha Sky, as I said, you are not exactly what I expected, but we shall have to get acquainted on the job."
"Great! Lead the way, Doctor Mallard."
"Call me Ducky."
"Okay," she tells him brightly, "but you call me 'Sammy'. I never go by Samantha."
"Really? It's such a lovely name."
"My dad certainly thought so, but I dropped it when I was twelve to keep peace in the family.
This seems an unusual move. "Why would a name be a matter of peace?"
"After Mom found out that he had a thing for, and named me after, Elizabeth Montgomery."
xxx
Gibbs' car, with Ziva riding shotgun and Michelle in the back seat, pulls up to the curb in front of the white, black and blue MCRT truck bearing Tony and Tim. They stop behind the open door of an Ambulance. Gibbs had noted before pulling in that there's a black GI car, well distinguished by its indistinctiveness, parked in front of the Ambulance, its driver door partially open.
A crowd fills the sidewalk on each side of the cordoned area. Police keep the curious away from the steps leading up to the plaza by yellow Crime Scene tape stretched from handrails on either side of the stairs to parked cars and along the long width of the stairs. Gibbs is the first one to the tape and displays his ID and shield for the uniformed Officer before he ducks under, followed by the rest of his team. The stairs extend over their heads, but by the time they've cleared the third step they can take in the scene.
The yellow tape surrounds the plaza to a perimeter forty feet wide by fifty deep, though it is near the stairs where the two bodies lie. Both are in uniform, the Commander's dark jacket open, tie removed and shirt torn open. Next to his body lies that of a Petty Officer Third Class, his blue uniform his only identification as he lies face down beside the Commander's body.
The faces and hands of both men are bright pink.
x
Two EMTs stand twenty feet from the bodies, speaking with three uniformed MPDC Officers. Gibbs heads straight for the Police Sergeant, displaying his shield and ID. "Special Agent Gibbs, Special Agents DiNozzo, McGee, Lee, Officer David. What've you got?"
"Several calls came in to 911," the Asian man tells him, "but when we rolled up half an hour ago almost everyone who had been in the plaza was gone. By the time we got to them the men were both dead and there was only one witness who was brave enough to stay behind. He said your Petty Officer was giving CPR, then suddenly started gasping and dropped."
"Why do you suppose that is, Sergeant?"
"Two military men keel over dead within seconds of each other? I'm not really sure I want to know. If I didn't have to be here I wouldn't. We cordoned off the area, but we're not getting any closer."
"You notice their color?"
"Kind of hard not to." The bright pink skin of both men is utterly unnatural.
"Ever see anything like it before?"
"Nope, and this is as close as I'm getting to seeing it now. This one's all yours."
Sometimes it is refreshing not to have to deal with the all-too-frequent squabbles over jurisdiction, but there are times like this that he misses them.
x
Gibbs notes with approval that his team is documenting the scene and taking testimony from the police and EMTs, not needing direction from him. McGee, with the camera, had begun at one corner of the cordoned rectangle, taking a panoramic view of the scene. Now he's circling the area for a series of medium shots while Ziva notes the details of each picture in her notebook. When he's finished with the close-up detail shots, it will be time to move in, but Gibbs is sure no one will be anxious to touch the bodies before Ducky and Harper arrive.
The M.E. van has arrived and Ducky is climbing the stairs, carrying his black satchel. But he's followed by a blonde girl who looks barely more than twenty; below Lee's height, five two he judges. She makes Ducky, with five inches on her, look tall. Short haircut, did they call it 'pixie'? Independent, not a fashionista? Brown calf length skirt and matching vest over a white blouse, not at all bad on the eyes, as DiNozzo would say at his most irritating, but what is she doing trailing Ducky? The NCIS Visitor pass attached to her vest will admit her to Headquarters, and obviously Ducky must have vouched for her to get her past the Uniformed Officer at the tape, but who is she and what the hell is she doing on his Crime Scene?
As soon as Ducky sees the bodies he stops. "Oh, dear."
"Oh, ditto," the girl agrees.
Ducky turns to her and hands her the black bag. "You'll find surgical masks in the side compartment," he says, pointing to the appropriate end of the satchel, "put one on and distribute to everyone."
Gibbs watches as the girl kneels on one knee, puts the bag down, unzips the end compartment and pulls out two blue masks, hands one up to Ducky, then passes a handful to Tony.
"And there are latex gloves in that front compartment." She passes a set to the man and pulls on a set. His fits, hers are long on each finger. She puts on the mask.
Ducky looks down at the bodies and then crouches down, balancing on the balls of his feet so he may examine them more closely, the woman joining him. "Looking at these bodies, what would you say the cause of death is?"
She's obviously surprised, but looks over the pair. "No apparent wounds to either body, the skin bright pink... Cyanide? One of the azides?"
"Precisely."
x
"Ducky," Gibbs tone tells the man that neither of these bodies is the one he's concerned with at the moment. He doesn't bother to ask 'where's Patrick Harper', confident he'll find out.
The girl stands up, showing herself to be three inches smaller than Lee, and looks up at him, pulls the blue mask down and favors him with a dazzling smile. "Hi, I'm Sammy," she holds out her gloved hand, the latex loose at the end of each finger. Gibbs doesn't take her hand, but it's enough for Ducky to turn his attention from the bodies at his feet.
"Oh, yes, sorry. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, my new temporary assistant Miss Samantha– I mean Sammy Sky. Jethro, she will need a more appropriate ID if she is to be assisting at Crime Scenes."
"I'll get right on it," his tone carries his 'I'm not a Personnel Manager' message quite clearly, then he turns to the girl, "How do you do?"
"Pretty good when I'm not making an idiot of myself," she assures him with a wide grin.
x
Even as Sammy looks up at this formidable gray haired man, an equally tall, dark man seems to appear out of nowhere beside her.
"I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo and I'm very pleased to meet you." His voice is so honeyed she could use it for complexion cream.
x
DiNozzo likes the pale blue of her eyes; they seem to go so well with her equally pale, pixie length blonde hair and bright complexion.
She extends her hand, "Sammy."
Before he can take it Ducky, who remains crouched down beside the bodies, looks up at her. "You are forbidden to speak to Agent DiNozzo without supervision, my dear." He'd meant it in a semi-bantering manner, as much a hint that he wants her to go to work, but she takes the direction seriously, looking up at DiNozzo.
"Sorry," she says with a shrug and a bright smile to take away the sting before moving away to step around the other side of the Commander's body. She sets down the black bag, pulls the blue mask back up over her mouth and nose and crouches down so she may examine the corpse as closely as Ducky is doing.
DiNozzo stares at them, disconcerted at the aborted introduction. He listens to their quiet conversation, Ducky going over what to look for on the body, when a sharp slap to the back of his head jars his vision. He turns to Gibbs, who just raises an index finger in warning. "Yes, boss," he complies, annoyed at both men but knowing he may do nothing about it.
The fact that, when he does return to work, both Ziva and McGee are grinning at him doesn't help his mood. "Come on, Magoo, stop staring at the lady and get to work."
"I wasn't staring…."
x
"Do you know what killed them?" Gibbs asks, noting that this is the first time the man has used such precautions as masks at a crime scene in a very long time.
"I have three suspicions, all of which are equally nasty. Be absolutely certain you do not touch either of these bodies. In fact, I should appreciate your keeping a respectable distance." He looks up at the young woman crouching opposite him. "The same goes for you too, my dear."
"Kinda hard to assist you from way over there," she points out.
"Then you do not touch anything that I do not specifically direct you to touch."
"Yes, doctor," her earlier bright spirits are dimmed by apprehension.
x
"What can you tell me, Duck?" Gibbs asks after about a minute of watching the pair work over the body. Ducky has the corpse's white shirt pulled from his pants and doesn't look up from the indicator of the liver probe stuck into his side.
"Commander Megalo," he says, reading the I.D. pinned to the uniform, "is laying on his back and he is dead." Interrupted by a giggle from the other side of the body, he looks up as Sammy claps her hand over her mouth.
"Sorry," she says through her mask and covering fingers, though the blue material can't hide the fact that she is still grinning broadly despite her embarrassment.
"Yes." In all his years as a Medical Examiner, he has not had an Assistant who giggled at him, no matter how sardonic his comment. "Well, according to the liver probe he has been dead," he withdraws the probe and turns it toward Samantha, "how long?"
"One hour, Doctor," she tells him.
Though she's no longer grinning, what he can see of her smile is still quite confident, as are her eyes. "You're certain?"
"Yes, sir." The dubious look in his eyes strikes at her confidence, but she rallies quickly, determined to prove her competence in so simple an area. "Liver temperature drops at an average of one and a half degrees an hour. That says 97.1 Fahrenheit." His gaze does not change. "It's 66 degrees out, even the temperature under his body would have been raised slightly before his body started to cool, so there would be little bleed-off from contagion. 98.6 minus 97.1 is 1.5, that's one hour."
"Will you go on record as certifying that Time of Death?"
She catches his tone this time. "No, no I won't."
"Why not? A moment ago you were certain."
She starts to look chastened, but that lasts only an instant before her assurance is back, this time in admission of her mistake. "Because I didn't see him die, nor did I see if anything could have affected his temperature to make it higher or lower before we took it. Also, liver temperature falls at an average rate, not a precise one."
"Exactly," Ducky tells her, satisfied and glad she was wise enough to amend her decision. "Lividity, temperature, the onset and reduction of rigor, stomach content, these things give us sufficient information on which to base a preliminary judgment, but they must be taken in concert, and it is also true, as you stated, that neither of us were witness to this man's demise.
"When offering testimony, as you shall be called upon to do in Court, we cannot say precisely when he expired, but offer only a reasonable approximation. It is up to the Field Investigators to determine the time with precision.
"There are, as you know, two times of death, Physiologic and Legal. The first one is the time when heart, brain and autonomic functions have ceased; the other is when the body has been declared dead by a competent authority. There can be any length of time imaginable between the two, but both must be taken into consideration. Now, we have determined an approximate time of physiologic death, it remains only to establish a legal one."
"Oh, that's easy," she looks at her watch and gives a time four minutes in the past.
Ducky regards her closely. "How do you make that determination?" He had said a 'competent authority'; hardly the description of a Fourth Year Medical Student.
"That's when you said to Agent Gibbs 'Commander Megalo is laying on his back and he is dead'."
x
Ducky is quite taken aback; that detail had slipped his mind in the framing of his lecture. "Quite. Now, as to physiologic death," he continues to cover his chagrin, "I try to avoid establishing a time with less than a four hour margin. Since a four hour range would clearly offer negative numbers, how would you answer Agent Gibbs' query?"
She looks up to the man towering above her. "He probably died sometime within the last two hours."
"Okay." Gibbs is satisfied with this. He already has a more accurate witness statement. "How did they die?"
She looks down at the body again; then to Ducky, who nods that she may touch the bodies with her gloved hands. She examines Megalo's closely; neither man saying a word of direction. She looks under his shirt, examines his face, particularly noting the pink flush to the skin which is reflected in that of the other man beside him. She lifts Megalo's eyelids to look into his eyes, then under them, finds the tiny red spotting of Petechial hemorrhaging under the soft tissue. She examines his hands, then those of the other man, performs the same examinations throughout his body and finally looks to Ducky. "I don't know." Ducky points up to Gibbs; she looks up into his stern expression. "Wrong answer?"
"Wrong answer," he tells her grimly.
"I'll find out and let you know?"
"Better."
x
When Gibbs turns from them, Ducky directs Sammy's attention to the other body. "Let us examine our Petty Officer. Tell me, when we turn him over, what may we expect to find?"
Even while saying this, he's glad Abby isn't present to point out his earlier determination not to begin a training program. It's simply natural for him to do so.
"Well, let's see," Sky begins, considering. "Lividity is fixed after six to eight hours, so the blood is still fluid enough to move if we turn him. It'll have been pressed out from the areas under pressure from the body on the cement. So there will be an almost exsanguinated area surrounded by a ring of accumulated blood."
"Will there be any lividity at all?"
"After an hour or less, I doubt it. Not enough time."
"And if we do find livor mortis, will that remain?"
She considers carefully, looking at her watch. "I don't think so. Livor mortis takes four to eight hours to fix. Then the blood will have seeped out of the vessels and stained the tissues. After an hour, we're still dealing with shifting lividity."
"And if it is fixed?"
She is even more cautious about this answer. "Then something affected the blood, or the vessels to make the blood seep through. There's simply not been enough time, and I don't remember cyanide or any of the azides doing that."
"So you cannot state whether either body has been moved?"
"No."
"Very good. Now, knowing what we may expect to find, let us see what we do find."
xx
Gibbs looks at the collection of white buildings that surround the plaza. "McGee, David, find out where they went and what they were doing here."
McGee passes the large camera to DiNozzo and is about to proceed across the plaza with Ziva, but she gives him a sour look and ducks under the perimeter tape, more walking away from him than to a destination.
DiNozzo's tone, when McGee turns back, is commiserating; quite unusual for him. "Well, at least she's not giving you a 'wake-up call' with a hammer."
McGee is annoyed as he watches the departing woman. "I'm just wondering how much longer she's going to be giving me the cold shoulder."
Tony has never minded the collapse of his co-worker's love affair, as it has served to open the door to possibilities of his own, and though his words are superficially sympathetic, he has none at all. "Well, let's see. You start out with her as your one true love, run into your former love, bring her into NCIS and in the process see her almost as often as you do Ziva. You never do manage to keep your feelings for O'Mallory secret even while telling one and all that Ziva's the only one for you. Then, six weeks ago while you're doing 'the bad thing' with Ziva you call her 'Siobhan'. She kicks you out of the bed – literally – and less than two weeks later you're dating O'Mallory." He looks to where Ziva has already entered the nearest building on the right. "Yeah, I'd give it ten years."
"Great."
"McGee, I'll give ten seconds for you to get your ass into one of those buildings and start interviewing people."
"Right away, boss," he passes the large camera to Michelle and heads for the yellow tape.
"Nine!"