This is my 37th NCIS Mystery, the Seventh story of my Fourth Season.
I occasionally delve into interviews with the Casts of the various NCIS incarnations for Easter Eggs I can use for my stories. I had been working for weeks on a story that would not come together when I came across a very chilling video by Pauley Perrette, and within minutes I had the concept and outline for this story. There are two versions out there, the one referenced in this story is the acoustic version that appeared on the Official NCIS album. Thank you, Pauley.
NCIS is owned by Belisarius Productions. The usual legal Disclaimers about making money and taking Characters that belong to others apply. I only own Rev. Siobhan (O'Mallory) McGee, Apprentice Pathologist Dr. Samantha Sky and original Agents. You can find all my stories listed in order in my Profile.
My many Affairs are a homage to David McCallum.
This story begins on Saturday, August 4.
Rated T or NCis-17
Please Review.
The Phobos Affair
by JMK758
Chapter One
Connecting Fight
Catherine Bachman opens the front door and her husband George and teenaged Ben and Chloe carry the grocery bags into the house. It hadn't been easy at all to get the fourteen and thirteen year olds to do their share of the shopping, particularly not on a Saturday morning. Chloe had been vocal in her complaints, but that hour of teenage carping had been nothing like the piercing shriek the girl emits as soon as she crosses the threshold.
Six men, clad in Army fatigues but with black masks across their faces, line the living room, a row of AK47s converged upon the Bachmans.
"What the hell is–?" is as far as George gets when one assault rifle joins the other two pointing at him, three weapons converging on his heart while the other rifles keep their aim upon Catherine, Ben and Chloe.
Catherine has been scared many thousands of times, but never has she felt such horrific fear as that which kicks her heart to mad racing, tears at her breath until she's sure she's going to pass out.
The man on the far left brings his weapon up on the strap along his left arm and secures it to his back, then picks up a bag from the floor, comes to and around the four and shuts the door.
"Please," Catherine starts but the out thrust weapon pushed toward her face silences her. Her pounding heart nearly seizes. She's sure her last second is in the huge barrel inches from her eyes but the missile isn't launched.
The man behind her brings forward a perforated red ball upon leather bands such as is used in Bondage playacting and forces her mouth open, pulls the ball in. It catches her hair in the cinch as he secures the strap behind her head. He pulls the strap hard through the fastener so that when he's done the leather pulls the sides of her mouth back and she barely has room to place her tongue.
He clutches her arms, pulls them back hard, wrists crossed, and secures another leather strap about her wrists. She cries out through the ball as he cinches the leather much too tightly so it digs into her wrists.
A black hood is pulled roughly down over her head and it pounds upon her shoulders with brutal force, making her alone with her terror. Her head swims, her heart pounds so hard, so fast, she's sure she's going to faint.
Racing heart slamming in her chest, breath fast through the holed ball, Catherine listens as her husband, then her son and daughter are secured as mercilessly.
xxx
The first moment that MPDC Officer Coco Martin realized something was wrong was when she heard the screams. She'd been directing traffic on the corner of 18th and Avenue M, near the intersection of Rhode Island and Connecticut Avenues NW, since 0800, coming on in the height of DC Rush Hour, the August heat already softening the asphalt under her feet.
The screams, from half a block to her right on the north/south street, are joined by squeals of tires and shouts of startled pedestrians as a man, dressed in dark pants and white shirt with equally dark tie bursts from the right side into the street. He dashes around suddenly halted cars and runs awkwardly toward them as she immediately extends her arms in urgent signal to halt traffic in both directions.
The man runs up the street, evading stopped cars as though they're trying to attack him and Coco hears Andrew on his radio calling for assistance. She knows, as the man makes a stumbling, screaming way, that she has no choice in her next move.
The stumbling man runs into the intersection.
"Wait!" She does the one thing her training has taught her never to do; she grabs his arm since the only other choice was to let him get past. She pulls him about and in a second the terror on his face etches itself into her mind before he shrieks.
He tries to push her hand off his arm, not fighting her effectively, and it only results in his falling to the ground which, in the baking morning sun, must be hot enough to cook him.
He covers his face to shut out – what? His screams rise in pitch and then with one arm he flails wildly as the other protects his face.
"Wait a minute!" She tries to get through, to assure him that he's in no danger. "Stop! No one's gonna hurt you!"
She'll never know if she might have gotten through to him for at that moment the horns from behind her start, then those from left, right and front, imbeciles filling the air with discordant blatts and blonts of frustrated jabber because they happen to be nine seconds late for whatever nonsense is so vital to them.
The man shrieks, throws his hands and arms over his head, tucks his legs up and bends his spine forward into so tight a fetal position she thinks it must hurt.
With every blatt and blare and onnnk he tightens further, screaming wildly, and Officer Coco Martin knows that for the foreseeable future no one is going anywhere.
xxx
Jimmy and Michelle enjoyed their Saturday midmorning at their favorite Georgetown Breakfast nook and a leisurely walk home, all set for a relaxing day off, phone off the hook, computer off, just blissful solitude. It's the close of a week that began with the 'Locked Room Mystery', which came hours after they'd returned from LA, and Michelle and her partners had spent the past five days of their nominal Suspension while working with Dr. Cranston, whom Agent DiNozzo persists in calling 'Doctor Kate's sister'. During this time they've also been helping out the other Alpha Shift Teams since they cannot work a case of their own. The Letter of the Law does have to be followed at some time - or at least in some fashion..
Now it's Saturday, they're free, breakfast out is a pleasant memory and they climb the three stories rather than use the elevator to their apartment. Michelle is mildly surprised that Jimmy chose to take the stairs, a significant change from his 'delicate condition' obsession, but she realizes the method to his madness when she gets three steps up and his hand snakes up under her miniskirt.
She yelps and, despite the heat, with cries for mercy, she runs up the steps with Jimmy in hot pursuit, very difficult in her red high heels with his hand constantly regaining it's target under her miniskirt despite her giggling efforts to escape. This time he's not driving her crazy with his excessive solicitousness, he's chosen an older way to drive her mad.
She slips on the third floor landing, and it's only the knowledge of what he'll do to her on the stairwell that makes her grasp the banister and yank herself up, still unable to keep his fingers away for more than a second in her mad run.
Darn his greater reach, longer legs and higher desperation!
x
She has to pull the fourth floor landing door inward and in that lost second he's beside her and pushes the crotch of her panties aside. But she bursts out of the stairwell and escapes him, runs to the far right corner, awkward in heels not meant to be run in, but the chase is too short. His longer legs overwhelm her efforts and before she can get her key into the door she's captured, giggling, pinned forward into the corner. His right hand snakes under her arm to cover her breast and the red heels betray her again, keeping her high so it's easy for him to slip his hand under her skirt despite her efforts to use her left hand behind to push his invading hand away. She can't protect her breast as his hand slips through her light windbreaker, not if she hopes to get the key into the lock and escape.
That she's giggling throughout her protests, not caring about the noise they're making, rather ruins the effectiveness of her struggles.
His fingers behind her push her moist panties aside as she shoves the key in. His index and ring fingers spread her lips, she twists the key and knob and gets in before his questing middle finger can.
But she can't make it through the doorway in time to block him out and backs away, a helpless captive as he closes and locks the door before turning on her.
She makes one final backward step and he's upon her. When she can't defeat his strength but is captured in his arms, she decides that giving in to his clinging to her body and pulling at her clothes isn't so bad, and she drops the pretense of wanting to escape.
But when he kisses her quite thoroughly she feels her skirt rise behind her, his hand slips along her panties and up, and he finds something he didn't need to discover: her Sig at the small of her back in her inner skirt holster.
x
"You're kidding," he exclaims as he pulls inches back, his face now above her as she's bent back. He's obviously amazed – he does amazed so well – that she was armed at breakfast.
"Am not," she counters, pressing her hands to his hard chest in a hopeless effort to hold him off, or at this moment up. "Aside from Carry Regs, I need to protect myself from rampaging Satyrs like you."
He reaches down further, his cupping hand invades her panties and she pushes away from the kiss - does he find discovering her armed to be an extra turn-on? - as if he needed it - but she can only bend her upper body back and his eyes slip down from hers.
"No," she says firmly, pushing against his too hard chest.
"No what?" he asks, holding her up with right hand clutching her cheek, left hand both supporting her back and unhooking her bra – how do guys develop that talent? Even as she pushes, the windbreaker has fallen away and the tiny firm bumps that spear her blouse are under his eyes. Some protection this already opened bra has been. The chase and touches, then firm grabs, make it so she can't deny the evidence displayed through her tightly disheveled blouse.
She pushes harder. "No, we are not going to do the nasty on the living room carpet," she declares as she makes him let her straighten up - but his hand inside her panties still cups her left cheek, pressing her crotch to his. "If you insist on shagging me, at least do it on the shag." She has no intention of doing it there either; they'll use the bed and not because the white shag carpet has just been thoroughly cleaned of Alan Stephens.
She pushes away, escapes from his hand out of her panties, backs past the couch and left to the doorway to the short corridor of bathroom and closet. "Give me one minute to change out of these," she waves her hands over her blouse and miniskirt, "then I won't care if you rip the rest off."
"You'll care," he says as she starts down the short all, but she pokes her head back into the room.
"No, you will. You're replacing everything you tear."
x
He lets his answer be a grin and she dashes down the short hall. He pauses, allowing her a slow count of fifteen before he'll chase and capture her. If she hasn't gotten enough off and safe, that's too bad.
The next sound he hears coming from the bedroom is her cell phone, and his mood is instantly shattered. It's Saturday mid-morning, they've worked OT every day this week, ten hour days, she with Kevin Lamb's team and the damned thing is playing 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor'. But it runs for the full thirty seconds before she stops the notes.
He can't hear her low words through the two doorways, but he doesn't have to. He hears the sharp clap of her phone being slapped closed followed, quite distinctly now, by the most fiery blast of obscene Chinese epithets that he's heard in months.
xxx
Ten thousand impatient, anxious, rushing, apprehensive and determined people make use of Reagan Airport's massive Terminals this late Saturday morning, the fourth day of August, and though the perception is deceptive Tim McGee feels each and every one of them pass him and his wife Siobhan in the cavernous building. It seems every person on the East Coast has crammed into the steel and glass cave. Hundreds of people around them await planes or connections to same or arriving passengers, families or friends, loved and hated ones; and the fact that they're among said waiting does little for his mood.
According to the lighted chart over the distant ticket sales station, the plane from Connecticut has arrived on time. His wife's family should come through the gate a hundred yards before them in a matter of moments, but something doesn't feel right.
Something. Shav doesn't feel right. The anticipation of seeing her sister, brother-in-law and niece is there, but the flavor he feels from her isn't what he'd thought it would be after the past weeks of preparation.
Granted the preparation had been for October, as Tony DiNozzo will never forget for he's still paying the price of his curiosity and lack of discretion.
Originally Lenore had set up with Shav that they would watch six year old Bridget in October while the Morehouses were to go to Florida on a Second Honeymoon. Now the journey is to Utah, the divergence and rescheduling connected to her husband Bill's promotion and the need to open and set up a house, arrange schooling and the thousand other things connected with moving over a thousand miles away.
A little over two weeks ago the woman had called to announce the change in plans. The trip would be made today, not in October as they'd originally planned and been prepared for, and they would take charge of little Bridget in mid-Summer rather than the cooler - and statistically less busy - Fall. This change in plans had come in while he was tied up with James Sullivan and his designed-for-murder drone, immediately after which the team was Suspended and they'd taken a most surprising Pacific cruise, to be hard followed by the 'Mystery of the Locked Wall'. He'd make that totally surprising case into a book, as the ending had been exceptional, except he's already working on his fourth. Still, a fifth book could be in the works, and L.J. Tibbs' team could use an infusion of new blood.
Thank God that the Suspensions are a thing of the past, thanks this past week to Dr. Rachel Cranston, sister of their late teammate Kate Todd. She'd met with all five agents plus Abby and Jimmy, at no little trouble due to the chaotic schedules over extended days, and if she did or did not fudge the final results he doesn't want to know about it.
Things, at least at NCIS, are back to normal - what's that? - after solving that locked room mystery, as evidenced by this very busy week. The team hadn't been able to work on a case of their own, but since the eleven other teams had worked eleven cases while they'd cruised – and done more – in the Pacific, the five agents had spread out over these past five days to enhance their colleagues. Gibbs had bolstered Melanie Kelman's team, itself something Tim would have paid good money to watch closely since Gibbs had to take second place under the much younger and newly minted SSA Kelman, while Tony assisted with Fred Higgins' workload and Ziva had aided Rosa Arnell's Beta Shift team. He and Michelle had worked with Kevin Lamb and Lisa DuBois during Janet Levy's continued convalescence.
He thinks for some moments of the woman, no longer hospitalized and being tended by her parents. He'd visited her a few days ago and what he'd seen hadn't inspired hope. Something in the woman he knew hadn't carried into this new phase of her life. Whatever it is that defines an Agent, and he has yet to quantitatively identify what that is, is changed in her.
Will she return to NCIS? He prays she will, both for the recovery and restoration of her spirit, but only time and prayer will tell them.
x
"Timmy?" Though she speaks to him, Shav's staring at the distant gate where, for a few moments, it stands vacant, left between bustling crowds.
"Yes?" He comes back to the present, hoping he hasn't been missed.
"This is as good a time to mention it. You weren't truly long around my family in March."
"No. I'm sorry." First there was the Case of the Romulan Assassin Zabeth, then the Wedding itself, the Reception, delayed departure and thus the rush to this airport. Details became a bit of a blur despite his best efforts. "I know I should've–"
"Oh, no, hon, I didn't mean it that way. I just wanted to mention - not that it's important - but Bridget, it's silly, but she - I don't even know why I'm bringing it up now."
"What?" Her brogue is sharpened, not so anyone else would notice it, but he knows her well enough to read her feelings now in what she says, but in the unconscious inflections. Shav's not usually scattered; in fact, she's frequently more clear thinking than he is, but she's not comfortable now, and it's not anything serious, but
"Well, it's... silly, but..."
"What?"
"Well..." He can hear that it's going to come out as an admission. "The fact is that Bridget can never seem to get my name right."
'Not get Siobhan right?' "What does she call you?" he asks with a smile.
"AUNT SHABBY!" screeches from the gate to the far rear of the terminal with such force as only a six year old's lungs can drive it. Siobhan turns in time to see that the next crowd has already begun to emerge and a small rocket launches from the knot of startled passengers who had been in front of her before parting like a launch gate, the diminutive missile targeting her with deadly accuracy. Tim can virtually see the smoke trail.
Siobhan takes half a step forward, kneels on her right knee with leg behind anchoring her, left leg squared and braced, an instant before the warp speed collision.
Tim feels his own skeleton reverberate in sympathetic harmony as Shav's arms encircle Bridget and the girl launches a high pitched spiel that few professional Auctioneers can attain on how excited she is to see her and attempting to tell her every possible detail concerning the flight. Tim misses every third word and isn't too sure about the others.
x
Siobhan had gripped the juggernaut at the instant of impact to prevent her from bouncing off and now watches over the ecstatic girl's shoulder as her sister Lenore and Bill Morehouse separate from the scattering throng and approach them in a more human manner. Bill, a short man who, in Tim's opinion, could benefit from several months in a gym, follows a half step behind his wife.
Lenore, taller than her husband, looks to Tim much like her younger sibling, similar red hair and build, with some distinctions of face he can only think of as 'hardness' as opposed to Shav's 'softness'. Tim had little enjoyed the years they were together while he was a Junior and Senior and dating the young aspiring Writer and vivacious Cheerleader at Bethesda High. It's not anything he can really fault Lenore for, but he remembers a manipulative upper classwoman and, from what little he's come to know of her in the past two years, the older sister is little changed.
Tim greets the couple, determined to be civil while his wife works her way to her feet, an exceptional challenge against the clinging, madly babbling six year old who seems determined to bring her up to date on every second since their mid-March nuptials in a single breath.
x
"We're so sorry to do this to you," Lenore tells him, the picture of contrition Tim doesn't believe. "We only have an hour lay-over but way over there on the other end of the terminal. Thank you for taking care of Bridget this week."
"No problem." This he can say without hesitation, because he views seven days with the babbling powerhouse as less of a chore than an hour with her mother.
Siobhan manages to shush her niece for a few moments, long enough to greet her older sister and brother-in-law with hugs and kisses, but that and a few short sentences are all the leeway the girl seems willing to give. "Aunt Shabby Uncle Timothy it's going to be so much fun I've been looking forward for weeks and weeks and weeks to see you Micky says he doesn't believe we were going boy will he be surprised did you know we're moving to Utah we came in a huge plane have you ever been on a plane we could see everything when we flew in we flew over so many cities but I knew this was Washington because it's so white and I had snacks on the plane they fed us roast beef, salad, corn, roll and chocolate pudding and I could get up and walk around and–"
"Bridget!" from her mother halts the deluge. "You'll talk Aunt Shabby's ears off."
x
The girl looks up at her mother, turns to Siobhan and says sadly and with utter contrition "I'm sorry I hurt your ears."
Charmed, Siobhan comes down on one knee and uses her hands to smooth the girl's disarrayed brown hair. In that and her eyes she'd taken after her father. "Nooooo. That's all right, honey, you didn't really talk them off."
"I like the way you talk, aunt Shabby," she says with a smile that seems to wrap itself about her face. "You don't talk a bit like mommy."
That Tim can agree with. Though both women were born in Ireland and the O'Mallory family had immigrated when Shav was nine, Lenore eleven, they'd taken quite different paths. Siobhan had tightly embraced the land of her birth in culture, manner and language while Lenore had determinedly assimilated, sloughing off the 'Old Country' in favor of the 'American Way'. In the few words the woman had spoken he'd detected no trace of the 'Old Sod', as though she'd carved that portion of her out of her life.
The years have etched these and other differences into them to the extent that the women are more alike in appearance than within.
He's heard Connecticut coming from Bridget's mouth, and on some undefined level Tim is sad.
"No, no I don't," Shav says, continuing to brush Bridget's hair with her hands, her brogue bringing the O's to a much rounder tone while stresses are on the consonants. "And while we're on it, I think it's time you can pronounce my name right. It's Siobhan," she says, accentuating the 'sha - vaughn'. "Can you say that? Siobhan?"
"Siobhan."
"That's right," she says, quite contented to get past it, but Bridget is giving her blank face.
"Then why does mommy say you're Shabby?"
x
Her eyes shift slowly up to the standing couple. Lenore looks like she would like the floor to open up under her and in those seconds Tim, who knows his wife so well, sees what thoughts she's not revealing to the child. But the gaze she turns back to Bridget and the smile she favors her with are as kind as ever. "I don't know, dear."
"Is that like when mommy says you're a nun? Ooops, I mean 'should be' a nun?"
"Really?" She hugs the child, but the gaze Bridget can't see Tim isn't sure is icy or fiery. He knows the temperature for his wife within himself, however, but he remains as silent as Bill. But when Shav releases the girl and Bridget can see her again her face is as bright as ever. "No, honey, I'm not a Nun. I'll explain it all to you later."
"Okay." Siobhan starts to rise, the polished floor being quite hard through her skirt but Bridget halts her halfway up when she says "But mommy says you're not allowed to teach me any Irish. I'm English," she announces with such pride as only a child can attain.
"Really," she says, holding the crouch, and this time her tone is empty. Though she says it to Bridget, Tim can hear the coolness invade her tone and realizes that she's having a hard time keeping warm for the girl with the ice growing in her blood. When she does straighten the warmth she'd shown her niece is absent from her face. The balance struck, in fact, leaves no temperature at all and her tone, sweet for Bridget's ears, doesn't match her words. "An bhfuil náiriú tú ag dom, nó le tú féin?"
x
"Perhaps," Bill Morehouse says, "we should get on to the Gate."
"Good idea," Tim says, his tone carefully neutral, for while Shav's had been kind, her eyes had blazed. She'd asked if her sister was shamed by her, or by herself, and any possible answer to that would not do Bridget a bit of good. "You wouldn't want to miss your flight. Nice seeing you again." He shakes hands with the man, reading in his expression all the humiliation he has to. He's frequently felt sorry for his brother-in-law; however, for the sake of family harmony over the head of the child, it's a good idea to separate the sisters. "Good luck in your job. Have a good flight."
"Nice seeing you again. Lenore, let's go."
Their parting from their daughter is heartfelt, the purest emotions displayed thus far. Bridget has the hardest time, which delays the departure for several minutes, but eventually the Morehouses are lost to view, Bridget waving frantically well beyond the last second.
"So, honey," Siobhan says, crouching rather than kneeling again, "we're going to have a whole week together. What would you like to do first?" They know that the first experiences the girl has will help against the separation pain she already feels.
"I don't know." She's already morose and Tim pulls out his cell phone to check the time. They have no definite plans for the day, having left the morning to wherever it leads. He finds the unit off and switches it on, half an ear turned to the conversation under him. Ten fifty six, the screen says, but as he partially puts the unit away again it rings. A look at the screen makes him sigh.
x
NCIS uses a system of his own devising and he'd long ago begun to wonder if that brainchild had become a mistake. If one Agent calls another and cannot make a connection, the caller's unit will keep trying until the target phone comes on, then alert both ends. When he reads the name of said caller, he feels no better than the girl does.
"Oh, no." He knows he has only seconds before the connection is made, and in fact it's only nine seconds. He turns on the speaker feature; Shav might as well hear whatever this is. "Yes, boss?"
/McGee, where've you been?/ demands the voice from out of the speaker. He's not given time to answer this aggravated inquiry for Gibbs immediately continues with /you're needed in MTAC./
He restrains himself from saying either 'It's Saturday after a fifty hour week' or 'If MTAC has a problem they have Technicians, and Cyber Crime can fix anything.' He knows it's not a technical issue. "Boss, we're at Reagan Airport picking up our niece and we have only the one car."
He can read Siobhan's thought in her expression but before the woman can speak a voice from near her hips pipes up. "Can I see where you work? Huh, can I? Can I? Pretty please? Huh? Can I? Pretty please?"
He looks down, rather impressed by her perceptiveness and swearing he'll never introduce her to Sammy Sky. Just the thought of those two in the same room fills him with dread.
"No, I'm sorry. Your aunt Siobhan can drop me off and the two of you can go somewhere."
"But I've never seen a Maktak!"
He restrains a chuckle; Gibbs is still on the line and can certainly hear every word, but then he decides "You know, sure. Why not? I'm sure you two can find plenty of things to do in the Navy Yard for however long this takes." He hopes that time will be brief indeed and looks to the phone in his hand. "Boss, I'll be ri–"
The dial tone cuts him off.