This is my 32nd NCIS Mystery, the Second story of my Fourth Season and it'll have a lot of surprises. 'NCIS' is owned by Belisarius Productions while Dr. Maura Isles hails from 'Rizzoli and Isles', which is owned and produced by Hurdler Productions and by Ostar Productions. By a not too great coincidence, she is portrayed by Sasha Alexander, the former Kate Todd.
The usual legal Disclaimers apply. I make no money on this and 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.
This story takes place in the second week of June, moments after the end of 'The Ventriloquist Affair'. Ducky is presently enjoying a well deserved vacation in Edenborough with Dr. Jordan Hampton, his place having been taken by Dr. Maura Isles of Boston.
Rated M for Mature, NCis-21
Please Review.
Who Knows What Evil Lurks?
by JMK758
Chapter One
The Hunt
Newspaper Reporter Gina Lollobrigida steps out into the night and the parking lot of Gorman's Pub with her colleagues Pete Wishom and Judi Atwater, and it takes the three of them to steady the hulking Alex Cocheral. 'How can someone so big hold his liquor so horrendously?' Gina thinks, not for the first time as she turns Mount Cocheral in the general direction of Pete's four by four.
"Gina, look," Judi commands, points to her other side, far right to where two woman pull in a perverse tug-of-war on a garish scarf wrapped tightly about a kneeling man's throat.
With a blast of horror, Gina recognizes the strangling man. "HEY!"
The women look toward them, then one of them, the blonde twenty-something she'd seen inside earlier, pulls a lever and slides the white door of the van open. They pull the man to his feet, literally throw him into the cabin and scramble in after him.
"STOP!" Gina yells, abandoning her grip on Cocheral and probably any sense of self-preservation as well. A second later the van's motor roars to life and it screams out of the parking space with a shriek of rubber.
Gina yanks her cell phone from her jeans pocket.
xx
Leroy Jethro Gibbs grabs his light jacket, sufficient for basement garage, then the few feet from his car to front door, his mind on his bed. McGee's at his desk, working mostly by monitor light, for the Operations Division lighting is off except for desk lamps.
McGee's working, though probably not too hard at 2116, on the Scalici case but Gibbs knows he's actually killing time waiting for his wife Siobhan, who's up in her office with the Palmers, and he thinks he's fooling someone.
Whatever the Palmers are saying to the Priest, they've been saying it for over four hours, but he's not going to get involved.
Pretty pointless to wait for her, Gibbs thinks. The couple came in separate cars, she this afternoon from her Church, but McGee clearly still doesn't seem to have the hang of marriage. He still considers the opportunity to spend the first available few minutes with his wife to be a priority. He'll learn - or he won't.
Tony and Ziva are the only ones who used a measure of sense; they've gone home or to more pleasant pursuits.
Pulling on his jacket, he heads for the bullpen's exit. Normally it's the entrance, at this hour it's the exit.
He waves a good night to McGee, wonders how much longer the wife's going to be but this isn't his concern - not like the aggravating ring of his cell phone. He doesn't pause, just pulls out the offending instrument. "Yeah, it's Gibbs and if no one took a shot at the SECNAV I'm taking one at you."
/Jethro it's Gina Lollobrigida someone just kidnapped Anthony DiNozzo./
x
Short stop, sleep blasted from his body by the urgent rush. "Where and when?" he demands of the reporter while waving sharply to McGee.
/Corcoran, a third of the block below 17, Gorman's Pub parking lot. I came out in time to see two women choking him, then shove him into the back of a white Chrysler minivan and rip out of here hard enough to leave streaks thirty feet long./
"Did you get the license?" he already has his pen and pad in hand. McGee's watching, fingers on his keyboard.
/Too dark./
"Keep people away." He slaps the cell phone closed, triples his pace to the elevator bank and his command voice fills the otherwise empty Operations Center as he slaps the button.
"McGee, GPS on DiNozzo's phone Now!" He slaps the call button and, this late at night, doesn't have to wait. The car's already here. "Get Palmer out of whatever she's doing, have her meet me in the garage. DiNozzo's been kidnapped," are his final words as the elevator door closes.
xxx
Gibbs spins the wheel right hard enough to challenge his '71 yellow and black Dodge Challenger Hemi to stay under control and survive for another year. He'd come up North Capital to R, turned left on 16th toward Scott Circle and accelerated beyond his normal pace.
A hard right onto Corcoran, two thirds of the street the wrong way before he might encounter properly directed cars, then he jerks right again to jump the curb into the dark parking lot. He twists the wheel one last time to avoid parallel black marks of what might well be the departing kidnap vehicle. His stomp on the brake piercingly announces his arrival to any who hadn't noticed his entrance.
Michelle Palmer, next to him, clutches at the door frame in a white two-handed grip, her normally almond eyes wide circles of terror. He's out of the car barely an instant after hitting the brake and she'd better follow fast.
x
Three white Metro PD units turn the otherwise dark lot into a red and blue strobe fest that he wishes would be put out. If he can find someone highly enough ranked he'll do it but for now he cares about getting the scene secured and getting answers.
He's called Ziva but she's in Maryland and highway traffic is limited, three lanes merging into one for a long stretch of late hour congestion in the Capital.
He sees Gina Lollobrigida leave another woman and two men and walk toward him from under the inadequate glow of the parking lot's single light atop the pub and he grabs and flips open his phone. The ringer signal is quickly cut off, he cuts the answer off before the first syllable. "McGee, you got that GPS fix?"
/His phone's off. I'm still trying to access the phone he still uses for Jeanne Benoit, thank God for habit and privacy issues, but I can't get a fix on the location. Something's distorting the signal./
"You've got two minutes, McGee." Lollobrigida stops before him; he has neither time nor interest in socializing and they know each other well enough. "What happened?"
"Much as I told you, not much more. Agent DiNozzo had been at the bar when I saw two women approach him."
"Descriptions?"
"Late 20's, early 30's. The light inside's as good as this," she waves her hand to the darkness staved off by one large light above Gorman's Pub's entrance and not much helped by the blue and red irregular strobes from the three RMPs.
There are many people blocked from leaving by Metro, but Gibbs notes that Palmer's talking to the other three people near that entrance, the ones Lollobrigida had left, and they seem to be asking more questions than they answer. Palmer had better have learned the value of 'no comment' as she collects the full story.
x
"What were they doing?"
"DiNozzo was at the bar when they came over to him. A few minutes later, as my friends and I were getting our stuff together, I saw them already walking out together."
"And then?"
"When I came out I saw them playing tug-of-war with something wrapped around Agent DiNozzo's neck. He was trying to fight them but they were out of reach. I yelled, started for them just as Agent DiNozzo went limp and they forced him through the side door of a white Chrysler minivan. "I found his gun near where the van was parked. It's still there."
They walk to the site, it's about five feet from the tire marks. He doesn't care if Metro, who he hopes he'll have time to deal with, have photographed or processed the weapon, it's not a major clue. He does use his phone to photograph it, he's learned how to do that much, before he scoops it up and pockets it. DiNozzo will want to use it when they find him.
Gibbs' cell phone signals him before he can return it to his pocket.
/Boss, I managed to get-/
"Where, McGee?"
"Signal is stationary 3.5 miles Northeast of your position, McMillan Park."
Gibbs remembers this area too well. Months ago it had hosted a County Fair; it's probably nearing time for the next one and last year there were scores of private generators that probably play havoc with McGee's tracer thingies.
"Get Ziva heading there. You keep on that signal and alert every Agent in the area." He slaps the phone closed, double time back to his car. "PALMER!"
She's smart enough to run.
xx
McMillan Park is tremendous, bordered by McMillan Drive, Bryant St, 1st St and the western border of the McMillan Reservoir. This, Gibbs recalls as he warps most of the physical laws of motion to cross the city, is the site of the County Fair where they'd caught McGee and O'Mallory on what had become their unofficial first date.
He barely pays attention to the lone guard shack as he turns off the street and blows past. If the Security Guard, whose startled face barely registers in passing, calls the Police on the speeding intruder, so much the better.
Best would be if he's already called about the white van.
The area is already about a third filled, based on what he remembers from last year's search for McGee, with the stuff of festivals. Trucks and vans and barely assembled booths and other structures dot the acres of grassland and do nothing but block views.
Last year the search was for a 'derelict' Agent who'd taken the day off while they worked a case, and that hunt had been motivated mostly by annoyance at being unable to reach the man by phone and return him to work.
This search is far more urgent.
x
Guided by that formerly misplaced agent through the speaker phone in Palmer's raised hand, he rockets through the area, caring less about the laws of driving than he had about the laws of motion.
/Continue on your course, you're headed straight to him. You're within three hundred yards./
"We're within three hundred of a building, McGee." Three football field lengths away, the single story brick structure is barely illuminated by the high tower lights.
/Last year there were few buildings in the park. Administration, the rest rooms, a maze..."
"It's the maze, McGee, tell us about it." He can see the wooden ticket booth set beside the entrance as he skids the car to a stop on the mown grass.
/Shav and I never went in, but it's supposed to be one of the biggest mazes on the East Coast./
"Would be."
x
"We're going in. Where's our backup?" he demands as he and Palmer get out, Sigs drawn.
/Ziva's about twenty minutes away. McCawley's team is about fifteen behind you./
Gibbs slaps his phone closed. The maze building ($4 to enter) is brick, sixty five feet to a side and too dimly illuminated by distant light towers, only a third of which are lit. If square, it's a potential 4,225 square feet.
He and Palmer take positions at opposite sides of the side by side entrance and exit doors and he checks her face. Anxious but no fear shining in her eyes. Good.
Presumably the maze doubles back upon itself. He signals silently to take their own sides and he grabs the handle of the left side Exit door, finger-counts down from three and he yanks while she shoves the Entrance.
"FEDERAL AGENTS DON'T MOVE!" His voice cuts and echoes through the tremendous room even before they see what challenges them.
There's a clear barrier between the agents, which extends from floor to eight feet high. Before them are far more barriers.
They have an almost unobstructed view of DiNozzo seated tied to a chair way at the opposite side over 20 yards away. There are far too many clear barriers doubling back and forth between them. The motionless agent's head is slumped down to his chest, his jacket off, both sleeves rolled high and he's heavily bound to the chair.
A blonde and a brunette woman in skirts too high and blouses too low turn about at Gibbs' commanding bellow. The Agents see there's an intravenous bag hanging from a stand beside DiNozzo with a tube leading into his left arm.
x
Immediately the women bolt for what at first looks to be the white wall but it's a door painted to match that barrier. It slams open with a muffled bang as they run through it into the night.
"Get him off that!" Gibbs commands as he turns, runs back out.
For an instant Michelle's confused. The maze appears to be clear barriers, glass so clean she can barely see it beyond the distortion of dozens of floor to eight foot high panes between her and the motionless man.
An arrow points to her right, the only help she can find and she takes the directed path. Left turn, left and right turn further along, then there are two possible turns but the left points her toward DiNozzo, right turn, left, she's headed for hi- No! Dead end, barriers on all sides.
Turn around, go back, turn left, get to the two choices, take the other route. DAMN! The glass is so clear she can barely see it. Left turn, choice, right points toward DiNozzo, left turn, long passage, right turn and now - No! Blocked again. Gotta go back.
Hurry! Faster! Correct the wrong turn, right, run, left, left, run faster, right, choice. Which one? She chose wrong twice already. Look through a hundred panels. DiNozzo's so still, the bag dripping whatever's flowing into his arm. Right! Left, left, right, long passage, left, right, right, right - NO! Looped into a box!
Turn around! Hurry! Hurry! Right, left, long passage, run! Left, right, right - DAMNIT! Blocked again! Back, another choice, left points her in the right direction. Hurry! No, blocked! GODDESS DAMN IT!
x
She's near the far right wall but less than half way across now. Several wrong turns have sent her back too many times, eroding her progress.
Furious even more than frustrated, she draws her Sig. She'll make a straight path, let NCIS foot the bill. She aims to DiNozzo's right, nearly forty feet away and about ten feet clear and fires.
The blast deafens her. It's far louder than in the basement firing range. She nearly drops the gun to clamp her hands over her pulverized eardrums but resists the instinctive defense and keeps hold of the Sig.
The bullet punched a hole in the pane, the one beyond and bounced off the third, about thirteen feet away. The holes are nothing, two holes with circular cracks around them. She aims a few inches off those and fires.
x
The thunder nearly shatters her eardrums but her urge to scream comes not from the pain but from the second set of neat holes. This bullet penetrated three layers but she actually watched the bullet bounce off the fourth. Her ears ring so loudly she can't even hear her frantic breaths.
DiNozzo hasn't moved. Whatever it is still drips into his arm and who the Hell builds a maze with shatterproof glass?
Enraged, she kicks the glass but can't even hear the result of the useless gesture for the loud ringing.
Forty feet to go, a hundred wrong turns. She could empty her clip and do no more than deafen herself and that damn bag continues to drip that damned whatever that she can't stop!
x
There's only one thing she can do. Gibbs doesn't like it, no one likes it when she 'cheats' so she always restrains herself, but this time they can lump it. She can't get to DiNozzo, not in this damned maze, but she can reach him.
She forces her frustration and anger down as best she can. There's no place for them and they only interfere with her magic. Press it down, relax, relax. Feel the essence of the Goddess around her.
Reach out. Reach out. She extends her hand, action helps to focus thought and she reaches past the barriers, one after the other, further and further, reaches for DiNozzo, reaches for the needle stuck in his arm. She can see it, she can focus on it, she can virtually touch it. Forty something feet away and she can almost touch it, sticking there in his arm. She can almost feel it.
Now focus. Touch it. Hold it. Pull it out. Pull. Pull.
x
It's not moving. WHY is it not moving? She can see it. Pull.
More power. She needs more power. Pull. Pull. She can feel it. PULL! PULL! It's not moving. Damn it, why isn't this working? Damn it! It works. It always works. WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?
She tries harder still, focuses until she can feel the needle between her fingers. She pulls harder - harder - but nothing's happening!
Her hand, her arm trembles with the sustained effort and she fights, forces more power - shoves more power through her arm. Her hand's getting hot. With this much raw force she should be able to move the chair with him on it! It has to work. It does work. WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?
x
Anger breaks the connection. She's lost it. "DAMN IT!" She pounds her fists on the fractured glass. "DAMN IT! DAMN IT! DAAAMMMNNN IT!"
It should've worked, but she can't stand here screaming and pounding on a wall. She has to reach DiNozzo, she has to save him but she can't get through the maze, she can't magick the needle out, she can't -
x
Wait! There's a way. She'd been so frustrated, so mad that she couldn't think. She doesn't have to pull across forty feet, she doesn't have to exhaust herself forcing the material world to her will, she only has to save Special Agent DiNozzo.
x
She lays down flat on her back and tries not to hear the ringing in her ears, tries to push out the anger and frustration. She can do this. She can do this.
She closes her eyes, hurries to control her erratic breathing, forces herself to ease her tight muscles, rushes through the relaxation phase, fights to break the bonds between body and essence. Normally the process, when she's calm and relaxed, takes a few minutes but she doesn't have minutes.
She should do this within a Circle of Protection, but there's no time. She has to do this now.
She fights to force the angry frustration out of her, fights to relax, to cast the Projection spell that will free her from her body.
It's a strange sensation, trying to force what normally comes so freely if she had the time and if her heart wasn't pounding like a jackhammer.
She fights the frustrated rage, tries to smother it with calm. She starts to feel the duality, the sense of being two rather than one. She's never tried this without preparation and protection, never did it outside a Circle of Protection but there's no time and it's working. This is working where her power had failed her before.
x
She feels the duality grow sharper. Second by second she feels the distinctiveness, that curious 'side-by-side' sensation within her body.
Then, as it should, the sense of the physical starts to fade. More and more the awareness of her body, what she feels, steadily fades until she's less and less aware of the physical, of sensation, of her body. The material world, her body, the cold floor, all become less and less distinct, fade, fade...
It's gone.
x
She opens her eyes, eyes that aren't really here, but when she opens those eyes as she would her physical ones she can see. The ceiling above, the glass walls, they're there, still distinct, but she knows that to her now they're meaningless - shadows only - no more significant than her body.
She sits up, using the same will that she would to move her body but her body doesn't move. She just sits up, moves as she would normally move but doesn't. She simply does.
She stands up, using the same will and intent as she would to move her legs, coordinate her body and stand up, but when she turns and looks down...
It's always odd, this looking down on her still body. Her chest rises and falls but she has no sensation of it. It's like looking down on someone else, someone alive and identical to her, yet distinct. She's always imagined that if she had an identical twin sister, it would be like this, watching her sleep but without the sensation.
x
But there's no time. She turns because she wants to turn and she moves because she wants to move and she faces the clear holed barrier, the dozens that had so frustrated her - and she walks forward.
There's no sensation. She's moving because she wants to, passes through one barrier after another, no sensation, no touching, she just walks and knows she's passing the obstacles, walks up to DiNozzo.
The last barrier is behind her and she stops before him. He looks horrible. He's not moving, barely breathing and his skin has a sickly pallor. She also sees why she'd failed before. The tube is taped with three inch wide tape to secure it to his arm right up to the thick needle end and the needle is taped over the insertion point. The tape is bunched about the needle end and the needle... her brute force had moved it and if not for the Goddess-damned tape -!
No, she can't let anger get her. Anger will break her separation as effectively as a touch on her physical body would and she'll snap back into her flesh faster than her physical eyes can blink. She must be calm, she must stay calm.
No force she could apply could move this needle out against this much unknown resistance. If she had been able to see, maybe, but moving the needle back and out had been hopeless.
Okay. Even now, standing next to the bound man, she can only think of one effective treatment she can render. The tube is soft plastic and if she can bend it, crimp the flow, she can save DiNozzo.
She doesn't have to reach out and fold the tube, simple will is enough. She wants the tube bent and watches it fold over, crimp tight, held against itself. As she watches, the flow from the bag stops, no place to go.
She can hold this. She's not as powerful as someone like Kendra Little, but she can hold a piece of soft plastic folded indefinitely, and when Gibbs arrives he can-
The door far behind her slams open against the brick wall and startles her, almost makes her lose her concentration. She can only see forward; it's not like she actually has eyes or a head to turn. If she allows her concentration to falter for just an instant to perceive what's behind her the tube will open and she might just snap back to her body and have to start over again.
And whatever deadly poison had been flowing into DiNozzo's arm will resume and may kill him before Gibbs figures out the maze.
She has to ignore everything around her and hold this tube.