Alternate Target
Chapter 1
Summary: What if Mac wasn't Coster's target
Disclaimer: I don't own what DPB, CBS & Paramount & NBC have copyright on. I only went left as they went right.
Spoilers: The Stalker
Pairings: Mac & Harm, Traci & John Marshall, Jack Keeter & Meghan O'Hara, Sydney & AJ, Loren & Tuna (Dave Medwick), Diane & Bruce Carmichael
March 17, 1998
1830 hours Local
Apartment in Georgetown, DC, NW
As she walked into her 3rd floor apartment she reached for the light switch just inside the door buck. She dropped her keys at their usual place onto the table by the door. She went to the back of her sofa and dropped her overcoat and cover over the back and her briefcase on the floor at the end table. She kicked off her regulation pumps, unbuttoned her uniform coat and undid her tie, collar and a couple of buttons down. She entered the bedroom and shucked the uniform coat. She untucked her uniform shirt and unzipped her skirt and let it drop to the floor. She went into her bathroom and used the toilet. As she sat on the bowl she undid the French braid that held her long hair in a regulation coif and rolled her thigh band hose down from each leg. She picked up her black lace panties from her ankles and dropped with the stockings into her hamper followed by her uniform shirt. She reached behind to unclasp and take off her matching black lace bra. She hung the bra on the coat hook mounted behind the bathroom door. She stood in front of the full length mirror and admired her nude form and stretched to release the tension of the day. Being that she lived alone, she strode nude back into her bedroom. She picked up her skirt and uniform coat and hung them neatly on the dressing chair, knowing that she would be wearing them tomorrow. She turned away and thinking that it was the easing of the tension of the day she was starting to feel tired and sleepy. She readily pulled the flowered pattern duvet, blanket and sheet down and crawled under the covers. Before she drifted completely off to sleep she looked out to the living room saying to herself, "Oh darn it, I didn't turn off the light." Even with that, she succumbed to the sleepy feeling and fell into a deep slumber.
About an hour later three men used a key and entered her apartment uninvited. They were wearing matching coveralls, black ball caps, 3-mil black latex gloves. One wore a full fanny pack and carried a medium sized duffel bag bulging with material. Another pulled a larger empty duffel bag with a stiff frame, retractable handle and wheels in behind him. As they entered the apartment, the one with the full duffel bag took out a gas meter and after reading it said, "The gas is dissipated." He went over to the wall vent in the bedroom and removed the grill. He pulled out the gas tank with an electronic valve and put them into his duffel bag after he emptied the duffel bag of its contents onto the floor. The contents consisted of a medium sized yellow Nerf ® ball, a swagger stick with a long leather thong attached to each end, 2 large rolls of 3" white surgical tape, 1 roll of 1-inch clear derma tape, a package of 4 inch wide moleskin bandages, a few rolls of brown sizzle twine and a few 1,000 feet rolls of 4 inch clear stretch wrap with a wrapping handle.
The man went into his fanny pack and took out a syringe and a vial of phenobarbital. He expertly filled the syringe and injected the barbiturate into the top of her left ass cheek. He wasn't as careful as he thought when he recapped the syringe.
He took a pen light, bent down to be level with her sideways turned face, opened and shined the light in each of her eyes and checked her pupils. He saw that they remained fixed and dilated and said, "Okay, the bitch is out for a while. Let's get to work and wrap her up."
They pulled the covers the rest of the way from atop her, exposing her nude body to their gaze and turned her over onto her back. The one who injected her opened a steri-pack containing a nasal oxygen tube and expertly threaded one end through her nose passed her nasal passages and down to her throat leaving a long end extending from her nose. They opened her mouth and inserted the Nerf ® ball so that it completely filled her oral cavity. They held her jaw and lips closed and taped a couple of strips of moleskin bandages across her lips. Then using the roll of white tape, they completely wrapped the lower half of her face from under her nose to under her chin. They wrapped more tape vertically from under her chin across the top of head over her ears several times. One took the roll of clear medical tape and tearing off some strips taped her eyelids closed.
They turned her over and crossed her wrists at the small of her back. One placed the swagger stick along her spine. He tied one leather thong, around the vertical axis of the wrist cross. He tied the other leather thong tightly but not contrictingly around her neck. Then another wrapped the surgical tape around both axis of the wrist cross. After her wrists were taped together, they closed her hands into fists and wrapped them with the white tape. While they were doing this, another was tying her legs. He took her left leg, pulled it against the back of her left thigh, and tied the ankle to the thigh. Then he did the right one the same way. They wound some tape from her wrist cross to down between her legs so that there was a double strip of tape around the top each thigh on either side of her pubic mound. This was done to hold her bound hands to the small of her back. They wrapped each of her feet the same way of her fists. They took an oxygen mask, threaded the nasal tube through the hole, attached it to the front of her face and pulled the elastic band around to the back of her head tightening the band to secure the mask firmly over her nose and mouth. They took up the roll of stretch wrap and completely wrapped, mummifying, her head, leaving her long hair dangling from under the wrap at the nape of her neck. They lifted her up on the bed so that she was kneeling on her kneecaps with her thighs spread. As one held her up the other two wrapped her torso completely with the stretch wrap. The left her well-endowed breasts exposed as they crisscrossed the wrap over her shoulders and between the breasts. They turned her over onto her front and pulled her body so that her hips went to the edge of the bed. As one held her up by her kneecaps the other two wrapped her legs and the rest of her body.
They finished wrapping her and moved her into the middle of the bed and laid her on her side. They positioned the large duffel bag on its side open behind her. They rolled her over so that she went into the duffel back lying face up. They attached a small oxygen tank to the nasal tube, placed it on one side of her in the bag. They adjusted her body so that she was completely in the duffel bag and zipped it closed over her.
"That tank is good for about 4 hours; just enough time for us to get to the cabin. If she wakes up, the way she's wrapped, she won't be able to move."
They lowered the bag with her bound, gagged and wrapped body therein onto the floor. They did a cursory check of the bedroom to ensure they didn't leave any trace of them behind and left the apartment. They avoided the main elevator and carried the duffel bag down the back staircase and deposited it into the back of a black panel van. They drove away into the night.
They didn't know that they left one item behind in the apartment.
March 24, 1998
1030 Local Time
JAG Headquarters,
Washington Navy Yard, SE
Washington, DC
Secret Service Agent Meghan O'Hara walked up the steps of JAG Headquarters and into the lobby. She was not a happy woman. She showed her service credentials as she spoke with the Marine corporal on duty at the reception desk. "I'd like to see Admiral Chegwidden please."
The corporal barely resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow in question as she asked, "Do you have an appointment, agent?"
"No I don't, but I have a warrant." She pulled a slip of a folded blue bound document from the inner pocket of her jacket. She didn't need to unfold it.
"Let me call up to his yeoman, Agent O'Hara." The corporal picked the phone up a spoke with, "Petty Officer Tiner. We have an Agent O'Hara with a warrant that needs to speak with Admiral Chegwidden. ~ Yes I'll send her up. Thank you"
As Meghan received the visitor's pass, the corporal asked, "Do you need an escort Agent O'Hara?"
"No I know the way," She said as she walked to the elevator.
As she exited on the 3rd floor, she ran into "Sarah!"
Major Sarah Mackenzie turned and smiled as she saw her cousin, "Meghan, what are you doing here?"
"I'm here to see Admiral Chegwidden. Loren hasn't been seen in over a week."
"Well let's go speak with the admiral. He may be able to shed some light on where she is," Sarah said in reassurance to her cousin.
The two women walked together to Chegwidden's office. Tiner announced them and after the usual knock and enter Meghan went up to the front of AJ's desk and without preamble asked, "Where is my sister?"
AJ was taken aback for a bit. He was going to reprimand Meghan, but he saw the look of concern mixed with fear on her face. He answered, "First of all have a seat, both of you. I assigned Lt. Singer TAD for a month to Hawaii. I gave her the week to get her personal affairs in order for the assignment."
"Yeah she told me the same thing in the email she sent me, which I read while I was on a trip with President Bartlett. She also said that she wasn't due to fly out until tomorrow and wanted to have dinner with me before she went. After I came home yesterday, I went to her apartment to do that. I found that she wasn't there and that she hadn't even started packing."
"How do know that?"
"Her empty suit cases were still in her closet, her uniform was still on the dressing chair and her dirty laundry was still in her hamper. The bed looked like it hadn't been slept in for a while. And I found this."
She took an evidence bag that contained a syringe cap.
"Where did that come from?"
"I don't know. It was on the floor between her nightstand and her bed. Loren hates needles. I had it tested at our headquarters' lab. It had a trace of phenobarbital in it. My gut tells me that Loren's been kidnapped."
"Have you called the police?" Sarah asked.
"No not yet. I came here first to see if anyone knew anything."
"Well even though that syringe cap is very suspicious to you, it's not to the DC Police. They won't act based solely on that and your gut feeling. We need to call someone who will act," AJ said as he picked the phone up. He saw the worry and stress that Meghan was demonstrating. That 's what caused him to act.
Sarah and Meghan heard his side of the phone conversation as she said, "Yes Agent John Marshall please. ~ John? I have a case of a possible missing lieutenant. ~ Yes, one of mine, Loren Singer. ~ Her sister Meghan is here, and she is not happy. Loren wasn't home when Meghan went to meet her as planned. ~ No she hasn't called the police yet. ~ There's not enough to go on besides a syringe cap with traces of a barbiturate and her gut feeling. ~ Okay thanks Meghan will be here in Major Mackenzie's office."
"He'll be right over with one of his team members a new member, Kate Larkin" AJ replied to their questioning faces.
"Oh yeah I know of her. I replaced her on POTUS' detail. She took a bullet in the shoulder for Bartlett when he was shot last year," Meghan replied.
Well let's see what his investigation brings. Major, I know you want to help find your cousin and since you just wrapped up your latest trial with Mr. Rabb, you and your fiancé can assist in the investigation, carry on."
"Thank you, sir," Sarah said as she braced to a quick attention before she and Meghan turned and walked out of the office.
They stopped at Lt. Commander Harmon Rabb's office. Sarah knocked on the closed door. Harm looked up, smiled and beckoned her to come in. Sarah only went in enough to tell him, "Get it in gear Hammer. We have a new case. Come on into my office."
Sarah waited for Harm to exit as they walked into her office together. Harm was delighted to see Meghan as they shared a familial embrace.
"So, what's up?" Harm asked as they settled into their chairs.
"Loren's missing," Sarah began and explained the rest of Meghan's suspicions.
"So, who are we getting to look for her?" Harm asked.
"NCIS. John Marshall is coming down the street with Kate Larkin. We'll figure out what to do after we speak with them," Sarah explained.
As the three waited they chatted about stuff in general, just to ease Meghan's tension.
"You hear from Keeter lately Meghan?" Harm asked.
"Yeah, he's working with Bruce Carmichael in Navy Intelligence."
"So, he finally gave up flying for that three-letter agency and settled down to do some honest work," Harm joked.
"Yeah after that cluster fuck job you two did in Cuba a few years ago, he finally agreed to go work at the Puzzle Palace."
Sarah and Harm shared a laugh as there was a knock on her office door. Harm got up to let NCIS Special Agents Kathryn 'Kate' Larkin & John Marshall.
After Sarah waved them in, John asked, "So what do we have?"
"My sister Lt. Loren Singer is missing. I found this (She showed the syringe cover.) in her apartment. I think she's been kidnapped."
"So, based on that, you're thinking kidnapping why?" Kate asked.
"We planned to have dinner today before she left on her TAD to Hawaii. Also, she knew she was going, and her bags still weren't packed," Meghan explained patiently.
"Okay I can roll with that. No offence, but I had to ask," Kate explained.
"No offence taken. So, what do we do next?"
"Let's go to her apartment with our MCRT team. That's a possible crime scene. We'll see what we can find," John explained.
They all agreed as they all left the office.
Same time
Cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, WV
Loren Singer was hung from a rafter in a musty smelling room. She had no idea where she was and she was trembling from the fear of the unknown. He wrists were still crossed at the small of her back, but now they were tied with rope. She felt that there were yards of rope wrapped around her. Her arms were tied to her body at three points, around her waist, and above and below her breasts. The ropes that suspended her were tied to the waist ropes, the ropes tied around her breasts and a harness of ropes tied behind her shoulders.
Her legs were tied together unbent at the ankles and above and below her knee joints. There was a rope going down from her neck to her upper knee ropes that was pulled so that her feet were suspended off the floor.
She was still gagged and rendered sightless, but this time the gag was a rubber ball attached to a webbed strap head harness that also had a padded blindfold attached to it. She was drooling uncontrollably from the ball gag. She had been hung like this for a long part of the week after she'd been taken from her apartment.
When they arrived at the cabin seven days ago, the man in charge paid his two accomplices saying, "I'll see you guys in the city later."
One replied with a sneer, "Thanks, enjoy your unwrapping?"
"Uh huh," was he said as he walked them to the door and watched them drive away. After he closed and locked the door, he went to the middle of the one room cabin and moved a low table from in front of a couch. He removed the rug which revealed a trap door in the floor which he pulled open. He brought the duffel bag over to the trapdoor and hooked the handle to a hook coming from a block & tackle hanging from the ceiling. He lowered the bag down to the basement floor and climbed down a ladder after it. He opened the bag to extract his victim. He was glad to see that she was still breathing. He set about to unwrap her body.
Loren stayed asleep long enough for him to tie her into the configuration she was in now. As he set about tying her, he muttered to himself, "This will soften her up for all the other activities I have planned, since I saw her at that JAG Office; just like the other four bitches that were here."
Now he had come back to the cabin for the weekend. He sat and looked at Loren in her torturous state. After a while he got up and went to put Loren into another barbaric position.
As he reached her he bent down near Loren's ear to whisper, "Now that you're softened up, it's time to teach you who's boss."
1315 Local Time
Loren's Apartment
Georgetown, NW
The four friends from JAG met up with John's NCIS Major Case Response Team (MCRT). They went about tossing the bedroom. When they went in, they saw that the bedcovers had been pulled back up but not as neatly as Loren usually left them as she learned in the Naval Academy.
They pulled the bedcovers off the bed and started to examine the fitted sheet. Kate shone an ultraviolet light on the sheet and asked Meghan, "Is Loren sexually active?"
"With only one guy. Her boyfriend Dave Medwick, who's an aviator on the Enterprise. He's currently deployed since the New Year."
"Yeah here's her latest letter to him," Agent Michaela "Mike" Quinn said holding up a stack of stationary from the writing desk in the corner.
"It figures it's been that long. There's no indication of fluids on the sheet," Kate said as she started to lift the pillows up. "Hello what's this?" she was looking at a piece of bandage backing about 4 inches wide. She had Mike photograph it before she picked it up with her tweezers and put it into an evidence back. She looked round the room before she asked, "See if there is a box of this type of bandage in the bathroom shelf or in the medicine cabinet."
John went into the bathroom to look. He came out saying, "Nothing like that in here." He also checked the kitchen cabinet with the same negative results.
Examining the backing he said, "That's wide enough to cover from your chin to under your nose."
"Yeah, that's what worries me. Where's Turk with that warrant. We need to see the building's security videos?"
At that they heard Brian Turgue come in saying, "You ask and I deliver." He handed the signed search warrant to John.
"Okay Turk, you Harm and I will look at the video. Ladies I'll leave the rest up here to you," John said as the guys walked out of the apartment.
Kate continued scanning the bed with the UV light on the sheet. As she got to the edge she said, "I think I got something. Mike go and check the bathroom waste basket. See if there are used pads or tampons in there."
"What do you have?" Sarah asked.
"I found indications of fluids at the edge of the bed. If what I suspect is right, they should have been in the middle of the sheet not the edge."
Mike came out of the bathroom showing a used tampon in an evidence bag. "She was on her period. This was in the waste basket."
"I thought so. Come look here at the edge of the bed." When Meghan and Mike looked Kate used the UV light and pointed saying, "See how the fluids are here. Whoever took her, pulled her or held her off the bed right here."
Meanwhile the men were in the 1st floor Security room looking at the building's video surveillance system. "Good thing these guys have hall cameras on every floor and they back up their system every week on these flash drives," John was saying indicating the stack on the Surveillance desk. They started looking at the videos from a week ago, the last day Loren was seen at JAG Headquarters, along with the operator of the system.
"Okay we have Loren arriving at her apartment at 1830. Okay fast forward a little bit." The operator went forward about an hour until Harm said, "Stop!" They saw three men enter the apartment with a key. "Okay let's see when they came out." They went forward for about another hour until John said, "Okay stop. Look at the large duffle back on wheels. It looks a little more firmly packed than when they went in with it." They went back to the timestamp of the men's entry and saw what John was talking about as the sides of the duffle bag were sagging in when it was wheeled into the apartment and was noticeably fuller when it was wheeled out.
"That's how they got her out without anyone noticing. Can we see the cameras covering the exits?" The operator accommodated the request as they viewed the camera covering the service exit at the rear of the apartment building. "They saw brief views of the three men, but not their faces as they were obscured under ballcap bills as their heads were purposely held down from the camera's range. They were about to turn away in disappointment when Harm exclaimed, "Wait a minute; back up a bit." The operator did so until Harm said, "Stop, now go forward in slow motion." The video advance until Harm said, "Okay stop!" He pointed to the full face on the screen, "I know that guy."
"Who is he?" Turk asked."
"He's a DC Police lieutenant named Coster."