This is my 30th NCIS Mystery and the 10th of my 3rd Season. With the year of story time completed and our return to the Hotel Meritz and the Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention, we've come full circle since 'The Superheroine Affair', hence the title of this story.
Belisarius Productions owns NCIS and NCIS:LA and the usual Disclaimers apply. I own such original characters as have not appeared on either series.
For a full list of all Mysteries, One-Shots and Side Stories, please see my Profile.
The numerous Affairs in my series are homage to David McCallum.

The Supervillain Affair
by JMK758
Prologue

Friday Afternoons are worse than any other times for sad duties such as this, Doctor Donald Mallard thinks as he uses the silver door of his store room as a mirror with which to adjust the somber black bow tie above his somber black suit.

These occasions are sad enough in the most hopeful times, but when hope is distant and death too immediate, the future seems as dim and distorted as his own image.

'I have lost too many friends,' he thinks, 'and yet I go on, seeking answers for their deaths and justice for those who cannot speak for themselves.

'Perhaps that's why I'm so maudlin, because this time I can give good news to no one.'

Looking into the slightly distorted image - it's a door, not a mirror - is too much like looking into his past and knowing he can offer no help. Abby had appealed to him in her lab office two weeks ago with such faith...

ooo

She'd clasped her hands together in a begging posture. "Ducky would you do me a favor I really really need this."

"Well, when you put it like that, how could I resist?"

"You remember my friend Dawn Caldwell?"

It had taken a moment; she was no customer of his. "Oh yes, we met this past July." It's by no means his favorite memory. "She's a kindergarten teacher, as I recall." The young woman had been brutally raped, and she had been the first of many, a number made unconscionably high by the intricacies of lawful jurisdiction which had kept NCIS out of the case and had caused the first major break between Abby and Gibbs.

"Twenty years ago I used to baby-sit for her. She was six and I was twelve."

"A daunting chasm at that age, a meaningless blink now."

"Well, I'm going to see her in Jefferson Parish, right outside New Orleans. We're going to catch up and she video-chatted me a few days ago and I'm really worried she's acting strangely I can see there's something wrong but I can't put my finger on it and I was wondering if you could Psychologically Autopsy her and tell me what's wrong my mind is so stressed out I can't read–" Ducky held up his hand to stem the verbal deluge.

"I shall endeavor to do my best. What do you have for me?"

"I record all my vid-chats, you never know what can be important."

"Well, if you would call up the footage, we'll give it a go."

x

Abby quickly turned to her computer, typing as though afraid he might change his mind. "I've set the system for split screen. Please help me."

He was surprised she'd appeal again. Her distress was like a floodwater that rushed over and decimated her landscape. "Of course."

Abby pressed a final button, the screen came alight with herself on the right and a 26 year old blonde woman on the left and a cacophony of music in each of their backgrounds, Classical for Miss Caldwell, noise - sorry, 'Brain Death' - for Abby.

Dawn Caldwell was actually thinner than he recalled, he'd hoped it was a mis-memory on his part and settled in to watch the footage.

x

"Sunshine!" the Abby on the screen exclaimed over some of her more raucous music.

"Hi, mom."

Abby adopted an old-lady gravel. "Don't you 'mom' me, you young whipper-snapper."

"Haven't snapped a whip in my life," Dawn countered with a bright grin. In the background Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor, 2nd movement' commenced, so screen-Abby used her remote to turn off 'Brain Death'. Ducky appreciated the gesture, it was easier to concentrate and Bach was much more conducive to thought. "Oh, not true, I have."

Dawn curled a long blonde lock about her right index finger and Abby finally prompted. "And?"

"It took two weeks for Bobby-Ray to finally forgive me, but that's another story. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready. Flight's booked - First Class, I've got to indulge sometime, so why not for my overdue vacation? Bags are packed. I'm ready for two weeks of Mardi Gras."

Dawn's fingers halted their hair twirling. "Mardi Gras was months ago, you either missed it or else you're really early."

"It's always Mardi Gras when Abby Sciuto returns to Jefferson Parish."

"Amen."

"'sides, I couldn't make it then on account of the wedding."

"Wed- wha- wait! You got married?"

"Not me. Friend of mine. Remember Tim McGee?"

"The guy you were running a boiling fever over? Only yeah. So, he did go and marry his partner after all?"

"Nope, he married a priest." Screen-Abby's face became a mask but all expression fell off Dawn's, all tone vanished from her voice.

"I didn't know he was gay," she said through near-motionless lips. Abby's laughter only disconcerted Dawn more. "Bi?" made her laugh harder.

"No, the priest's a woman," Abby assured her when she could get enough breath. "We have them up here."

"Oh, yeah! Didn't I meet her when I was up there?"

"Yep."

"So, neither gay nor bi. Good. You almost ruined a whole year's worth of wet dreams." She ran her left hand fingers through her hair, pulling at the ends.

x

Abby had slapped the control. "Oh God, I forgot how personal that got."

"Never fear, my dear. I shall maintain all due discretion when I write my report."

He recalls her expression, she'd looked like her heart crammed itself in her esophagus at the thought of any of this being committed to permanent record until she realized he was conning her. Her slap of his arm was more a downward stroke of fingertips and she'd restarted the images.

x

"Pipe down, YoungStar, he's too old for you."

"Not if you could date him, Vamperstein."

"Seriously, Sunshine, I'll send you some vids of the wedding. But why the call?"

"No, I'm just double-checking," Dawn continued to run her fingers through the straight blonde locks that frame her face and brush the tabletop. "Remember, you're staying with us, room right next to mine's all fixed up. No excuses."

"I'm sleeping with Kevin?" Abby lit her eyes.

"You wish. Kev's in the Air Force, long time now. Staff Sergeant."

"No way. Kevin Caldwell couldn't follow an order if it was to collect his salary."

"Times they do change. Love you."

"Love you too, Sunshine."

"June 3rd."

"Be there"

"or be a squircle," they finished in unison and Dawn cut the image.

x

The recording had vanished and he'd looked up at the scientist. "A squircle?"

"A square circle. Just one of those silly 'kid-things' that carries through the years. Can you help me?"

"This thing she does with her hair…?"

"She never does that."

"Then that could well be significant. I note she pulls harder in times of stress, less so when discussing pleasant matters. Her reference to sexual matters seems to give her the greatest stress, but there is a definite note of concealment. Her focus had an inordinate amount of sexual connotation for so brief a conversation. As I recall, when I met her in July she'd not only been assaulted but actually–"

"Yes, that's why I was hoping, seeing how things went with Jimmy, that you'd have some insight into what she's feeling." As Jimmy had shot and killed George Franklin to rescue Megan Wood, Dawn Caldwell had shot her attacker to save a more helpless victim.

"I do indeed," Ducky said, unable to mask his grim tone. "What was the aftermath of that incident?"

"I don't know." He'd turned more toward her, amazed she can give such an answer. "The reports the gang wrote were enough to keep her out of jail, 'third party defense', but beyond that I don't have a clue. I tried to get a look at the legal records, the medical records. I can't."

"Interesting." He hadn't believed a word of that, still doesn't, but the fact she'd feel she had to lie to him while begging his help was telling. "And the result of your backdoor search?"

"I've been too scared to do one." This was more and more atypical of Abby Sciuto, and he supposed his face had said that quite plainly. "I didn't. I was scared she'd find out I was sneaking into her records."

That lie he could see as plainly as Doctor Palmer's wife, newest on Jethro's team, would have and it saddened him again that she would try. "Whereas I, as a duly authorized Officer of the Court, have the front door access you lack."

"I'm sorry."

"Never fear, my dear." He stood up, signaling their non-conversation was at an end. "I shall make discreet inquiry into her health and let you know what I find."

"Thank you. I love you, Ducky."

ooo

Well, thus far it has not gone as he would have hoped. Abby's apprehensions had been most certainly well grounded. What he'd found had made clear to him that her reasons to be too frightened to look were justified. But he has looked, he's seen, and now only a few more details must be confirmed before he must crush his friend's heart.

But before then, he has an equally sad duty to fulfill.

Chapter One
Too Many

The late Friday afternoon is fittingly overcast as Heaven stands witness to the gloomy Memorial Service. That this Service takes place on the first day of the Memorial Day weekend only enhances the dark pall that covers all, but mostly it's because the murder of the one they mourn is unsolved and he lies unavenged. In the grove near Building 111 men and women stand at near attention surrounding the most recently dedicated tree.

By tradition, when an NCIS Special Agent makes the ultimate sacrifice for God, Duty and Country, a tree is dedicated together with an appropriate plaque to mark that Agent's service. Nearly three years ago the last tree so dedicated was to memorialize Caitlyn Todd. For more than two years NCIS had been collectively fortunate, then in the span of too few weeks last spring and summer nine trees, the most ever dedicated at any one time, were marked.

Director Jennifer Shepherd had sworn on that occasion that she would retire or resign before she'd order any trees to be planted to supplement the few that remained undedicated.

Now a gleaming bronze plaque identifies yet another tree, the raised lettering hailing 'Special Agent Christopher Drakis'. Though the raised text gives a capsule summary of his career, no one can miss, in the dates raised below his name, that he'd laid down his shield at 33 years of age.

At the Service's conclusion men and women stand where they are as a Marine bugler raises his instrument to his lips and the mournful notes of 'Taps' flow like tears across the field.

As the notes draw at each phrase's end and the final one to a full sixteen count there are few dry eyes among the Agents. Whether they knew Chris Drakis well or not, the notes tear at hearts.

x

There is no military call of dismissal, men and women slowly depart in their time, singly, in pairs or small groups.

Tim McGee steps away from among his teammates toward his wife who stood beside the tree as she led the Service and still hasn't left that solitary post.

Where others are generally clad in black, befitting the moment, her black is a calf length skirt topped by light blue back button Clerical blouse and crowned by a stiff white collar encircling her throat. Draped from her neck down to her thighs is a purple stole adorned on each end which flutter gently in the light breeze with a plain gold embroidered cross. She's facing him as he approaches but she's not looking at him, she's staring strictly ahead.

When he's ten feet away he sees her fine trembling, her locked eyes, her careful tight breath and draws no closer. Shav will not cry in public, not even with him save for one time, and she's a hair's breadth from breaking.

He knows why; that music tore at them all, but as a priest she must maintain composure in the saddest of times or she feels her duty to comfort others is compromised. He turns away, back to his team, for a single word, any gesture of comfort will shatter her.

"Tonight," she whispers tightly behind him.

He looks back, says only "Sixteen," and moves off.

It's already 1500 hours.

xx

The silence that smothers Gibbs and his four field agents lasts only until they reach the third floor Operations Division and their bullpen. "It's been three weeks since those bastards blew Chris Drakis up with his house," Gibbs declares as he leads them into the enclave. "What've we got to show for it?"

His demand carries his usual fire and Ziva, McGee and Palmer look to DiNozzo.

'Sometimes it sucks to be Senior Field Agent.' He'd been Team Leader for a time, it'd been on his watch that Palmer had come aboard, so it falls to him to remind his frustrated senior "Not our case, boss."

"I know that, DiNozzo."

All the Alpha teams had been in MTAC when Director Shepherd had given that assignment to SSA Fred Higgins and his team, all others being tied up with the Wetzel / Hudson / Presit / Galert murder spree; but now that case is in the 'accumulate evidence against the accused' phase and it's obvious that Gibbs, galvanized by the Service, is chomping for more hands-on work.

He doesn't want any more. After twelve grueling days on duty including a weekend rotation, he and the others have looked to the three-day weekend with the hunger of a starving man given carte blanche at Gelbard's.

He suspects they're about to lose it.

x

He bites the bullet and reaches for the plasma screen remote, more inclined to bite that instead. He presses the activation button but, nothing prepared, he must turn to his computer to call up the image of a familiar man in dark brown suit and seated next to a furled flag.

"Christopher Drakis was Special Agent Afloat on the Aircraft Carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, still docked here at the Navy Yard until the SECNAV gives them the green light to get underway. He's not about to do that while the Roosevelt's a double Crime Scene, terrorist theft primary and murder secondary.

"Drakis caught the flu in the final days of approach from the mid-East, did a fast End-of-Tour check-in with the Director and retired to home. The following morning his house blew up, scattering parts up to three quarters of a mile away. Metro, Fire and our Investigations conclude his stove was tampered with as was his kitchen light. Gas filled the house which, because of his flu, he never smelled. That was supposed to kill him, the sabotage to his light was the backup. He flipped the switch and ka-boom."

"Meantime," McGee grabs the ball when DiNozzo pauses for breath, "an inspection of the Eisenhower revealed twenty-five pounds of uranium, processed down to talc-fine silver/white powder, is missing."

x

Ziva yanks the ball from him. "The theft was incredibly inept, and it only succeeded because of its suicidal foolhardiness. Four of the Engineering crew sent the stuff out in the ship's garbage, exposing themselves to potentially toxic levels of radiation. They could not get off the ship or the plot might have been revealed sooner than it was, but they got the uranium out. A garbage truck drove through and out of the Navy Yard. Said truck was found, with moderate levels of radiation contamination even with the brief exposure, on the southeast border of Shenandoah State Park and Special Agent Baxter and his team are trying to track the driver and crew."

She pauses to inhale and McGee grabs the ball back. "Abby has tire impressions would most likely be found on a 2001 Pontiac."

He doesn't hold it long, Ziva's got her breath. "The crewmen who engineered the theft and handed off the uranium are presently being held under heavy guard at Bethesda, where they hide behind a wall of anarchistic polemic."

Gibbs gives her a 'what?' look, then looks to Michelle Palmer, the only person to remain silent during this outrageous recap. "Don't you have something to say?"

She shrugs, smiles a weak smile. "Good luck?"

x

Not helpful, but he won't cross the room for a head slap. Not only doesn't he strike her, this for nearly a year, but the sentiment is sincere and accurate. In nearly three weeks, even with suspects behind literal bars, having been treated for inhaling the almost microscopically fine atomic fuel, neither Baxter's nor Higgins' team nor anyone else is close to finding the missing uranium nor discovering what some unknown person or persons will do with it.

"What do you have?"

"None of the men have called for lawyers," she says, "which after all this time tells me they don't want to risk even Lawyer/Client privilege."

"Or that they're stalling for something," DiNozzo says.

Michelle takes it. "They're keeping mum about everything on this case."

DiNozzo takes it back. "Except when they brag about the New Order."

"Where have we heard that before?" McGee asks.

No one needs to answer, it's the ultimate rhetorical question. Though McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison seemed to have been dealt a crippling blow following the Millennium debacle and the capture of Herbert Morrison and Antonio Crocetti, Jackson McGillicuddy is still out there and, to date, has been disturbingly quiet. It would be no surprise if he reared his unidentified but probably ugly head in this case.

x

"DiNozzo, pull the reports Fred Higgins and his team filed on the hunt, see if they missed anything. You three, keep working on piecing together our case."

The 'Strangers on the Train' murders of William Wetzel, Wilfrid Hudson, John Galert and Robert Presit and the planned assassinations of Edward Elbourne and Del McCourt had yielded a mountain of evidence, much of which is still being sought, discovered, tabulated and cataloged. Four victims, two missed victims, six conspirators - four of whom were actual murderers; the inventory of evidence has already hit triple digits. These Court cases - already determined to run separately for each defendant - will last for months and Gibbs and his team will have to testify, quite probably several times.

Solving complex crimes like this one is a true pleasure, gathering the minutia for use in Court not so much. That, Gibbs supposes, is why his mind keeps leaping back to their close-to-home mystery.

x

"DiNozzo, how did they get in?"

For an instant Tony's unsure if the 'they' refers to the murderers of Wetzel or Presit or

"The ones who blew up Drakis," he concludes in time. Kelman's reports had been generally available, he knows the boss wants to be sure everyone's on the same page. "Best theory is the back door. What's left of it, when it landed on a neighbor's lawn, having completely sailed over the intervening neighbor's, shows signs of a pry bar. Pity."

Had Chris Drakis noticed the signs of break-in - was he too sick for more than a cursory glance as his apparently still locked rear door? - he might still be alive.

"Was he working on anything that might have gotten him targeted?"

"His files say no. While 6,000 plus seamen aren't all going to be candidates for Good Conduct Medals, most of his cases didn't rise much beyond the petty. There were the usual gambling incidents but only two had any hints of funny business. There were two 'Dear John' messages that led to 'Disorderly Conduct' charges. The COB got them pushed down the scale, a dozen extra Watches each balanced the scales as far as the Captain was concerned."

"There were three Sexual Harassment accusations brought forth during the tour," Michelle reports. "One was resolved and the sailor had a formal Reprimand placed into his permanent file, the other two are still pending but they had remained in the level of harassment, not physical."

"There were four drug related incidents," Ziva says. "It appears the source was a store frequented during a Shore Leave, an authorized store which has since lost its status and is now on the O-L list, but I do not believe that the penalties would be worth a murder charge. Still, I am working with Special Agent Kelman along this line as a possible motive."

"Whoever blew up his house," DiNozzo summarizes, "probably had an accomplice here on the mainland. Most people don't know where Agents live. Whoever booby trapped his house had to get there, possibly know he was sick enough that he wouldn't react to the gas leak or else thought he'd pass out before being able to stop it, and then they had to get back out without waking him."

"No matter how much Nyquil he had taken," Ziva counters, "Drakis was a trained Federal Agent. I still have trouble believing he would have slept through a break-in, been unaware of the accumulating gas and then would set off the booby trap that killed him."
"And he never even investigated those four bastards in Engineering, not even for being late for duty?"

"No indication," she says. "Painful as it is to consider, Special Agent Drakis' murder seems to be, in the words of Special Agent Higgins, 'a distraction'."

x

"DiNozzo, what do we have on the Engineering crew?"

"Petty Officer Second Class Frank Hodge was the ranking officer and he was on Alpha shift, 0800 to 1600." Four staggered pictures appear on the plasma screen, the upper two faces shifted left from the bottom two and DiNozzo points to the top left one. "That's one reason, by the way, why no one picked up on the conspiracy until it was too late. PO3 Kevin Cotto was also on Alpha while Seaman Carlos Sosa was on Beta and Seaman Albert Sparks stayed awake all night on Gamma."

Gamma shift was and always has been the least preferred shift. Coming on at low twelve, if you're on deck you learn the real meaning of dark on an overcast night when the nearest street light is a thousand miles away.

Tony uses his keyboard for a few moments, then presses a button on the remote control and the image before the sensor expands to fill the screen. "Kevin Cotto is twenty three, PO3 and fairly unremarkable. Born and raised in Bloomfield Illinois, mother deceased, father works for a shipping company."

He reduces that image, points and clicks on the next. "Seaman Carlos Sosa on Beta Shift, unimpressive record; in fact all four of them went out of their way not to go out of their ways and draw attention to themselves, which on a ship with 6,000 sailors all competing for promotion and the perks that can go with it should have drawn attention to them.

"Seaman Albert Sparks, same undistinguished career, is nearing the end of his enlistment, four more months to go. Safe to say he's not getting an Honorable Discharge."

"Also safe to say," Gibbs counters, his impatience for progress giving force to his words, "that the gang was under a deadline. Steal the fuel by September or do the job a man short."

There's no question in his mind about Sparks re-upping. A man that pretty much coasted - in so far as a Sailor can coast - through his first term signing on for a second would have raised eyebrows.

"All right," he looks at his watch. It's after fifteen thirty and, much as he'd like to hold them, he has no justifiable reason to. Their own case is in the 'post-arrest, evidence gathering' phase, which is why he feels no guilt in stepping into Fred Higgins', Melanie Kelman's or anyone else's. Pressed, he'd say he was simply having his team help and supplement them, if he cared to say anything at all.

Being Deputy SAIC has its own perks.

x

"DiNozzo, if Higgins people haven't solved this by Tuesday, you also have Cotto, David: Sosa. Palmer: Sparks; McGee... get plenty of rest at this convention of yours, 'cause when you come back you've got ring leader Hodge. Find that uranium."