AN: I've been interested in other forms of storytelling for a while, now, and thought I'd return to the epistolary form I tried in my story "GOATS." This one's a little bit stream-of-consciousness, but I've got a plot in mind. Just hope I can get there before Brennan & Co. do. Let me know what you think.
A special thanks to Kensifernblye, who's also got a story, "Kensi's Journal" based on Kensi's journals in Afghanistan. They kindly agreed to let me write in the journal form too. I just hope I'm not stealing their ideas. Their story is much recommended, so take a moment to check it out, too!
Standard Disclaimer applies: All characters property of Shane Brennan, NCIS: Los Angeles, and CBS.
Feb 28, 2014
Dear Daddy,
I don't know how much you know about what I've been doing since you left, but I wanted to bring you up to date on—well, me—just because I've got a lot of time on my hands lately, and I've had a lot of time to think.
Owen Granger gave me your sniper's journals, and I've come to realize just how helpful they were to you. So, here I go. I don't know how good my journal will be, but I hope it will help me.
They say children either become like their parents, or become completely different. Me, I think I've become a bit of each. Would you believe it? I've become a sniper, just like you.
Standard Operating Procedure forbids me from telling you where I am right now, but you should know that I'm with you. You've been—now, and for always—always in my heart. So here I am, sitting in a sniper's blind, watching the trail my target might, possibly, perhaps maybe might, take. (Headwind, ten knots, quartering right-to-left: at 600 meters, aim 6" right and use an effective distance of 650.) It's all very frustrating, but you know as well as anyone how it comes with the territory. Yes, I launched a reconnaissance drone this morning, but it's being controlled from back in the States, so it's just me, and my scope, and my thoughts. Those drones are really pretty cool: I bet you wish you'd had them. Basically, it's a RC flyer mounted with a TV camera, but it's a lot quieter, and it can be controlled by satellite, so I just launch the plane and sit back while the specialists fly it around looking for intel on my target.
After you died, I went back to the house and lived there for as long as I could. The sheriffs came and took it just as I finished my junior year of high school. Mom was no help, and I didn't want her help anyhow, 'cuz I thought she had dumped you. I've since learned that she was just protecting us from your unit, Oscar Sierra. For a long time, I stayed the angry young girl. When I went to see Titanic, I had a daddy, and when I came home, I didn't. I could crash with my friends a few nights, but spent most in our tent, loving the smell of campfire and cologne that you left with it. When I got into college, I could start living in the dorms again.
Everything seemed really "off" about your death, so I decided to investigate. They told me you'd been driving drunk, but I couldn't believe, especially not after Uncle Frederick. I decided on a degree in criminal justice, and joined the Naval Criminal Investigative Service: it was the CID when you served. As a Navy cop, I got to poke around in all the files about your accident. Maybe you remember Hetty Lange? Well, she's my boss now, and Owen Granger is her boss. He's over here as my handler-spotter-tormentor.
Was he as creepy when you knew him as he is now? I wish I could hear.
Love,
Baby Girl
Mar. 4, 2014
Dear Daddy,
I got a surprise yesterday, and I'm still shaken up by it. I was sent over here to take down someone known as "the White Ghost." He's a westerner who's somehow fallen in with the enemy, and become their assassin. Problem is, nobody had a picture of him: "ghost," and all that. It didn't help that we don't have much human intel. All these techno-toys just don't replace moles and good undercover work. Well, we'd been hunting him for three months now, and finally Granger dispatched me to make the kill, so I motorbiked for twenty kilometers and found my perch on a ridge right above them. Just as I exhaled for the shot, he turned, giving me the full frontal profile I needed, but then I saw his face. It was Jack! My ex-fiancé.
You never met him, but he was sweet and brave and courteous. A marine. He was my gentleman adrenaline junkie. You would have liked him. We were engaged right before he left for his second tour in Afghanistan. He came back wounded and with a bad case of PTSD, and I tried to help. The drugs and the counseling the VA gave him helped, but not enough. Never enough. Well, he fell into a funk and one Christmas Eve he just up and left. His family and I tried to find him, but nothing worked.
It took me a long time to get over Jack, but just as I finally started seeing someone new, who should show up but Jack! On the far end of my sniper's scope. I took the shot, but missed. He and his guards started shooting at my perch, and I took off. I think he even saw me.
What a waste! We're winning this war, dammit, and he's going to die on the wrong side of it, all because the V.A. was too cheap to give him enough counseling. He was so patriotic, so loved. It's tearing me up inside, but I've got a job to do, and Granger's breathing down my neck to do it.
Gotta go now. More later.
Love,
Baby Girl
0030 Zulu 3/10/14: Depart Camp EagleStrike. One drop of perfume on tee shirt from laundry bag.
0200 Zulu 3/10/14: Set camp along lonely road. Light fire first.
0400 Zulu 3/10/14: Find perch with good view of camp.
0500 Zulu 3/10/14: Break camp along lonely road. Leave tee shirt.
0530: Contact Eric. Launch Drone. Wait in perch.
Dear Daddy,
Thank you, thank you for your help. After I wrote yesterday, I had an idea. It had been drifting around in my mind since I saw the White Ghost, but now it's starting to take form. Even tho' Hetty likes it, Granger would have a cow if he knew what I was doing: a screaming, purple, headstand cow. You'd love it.
0830: Call from Eric: here come Jack and his team.
0945:
Jack and his team just left. They came up the road, screeched to a halt just past my "camp." Jack got out, searched all over the camp and sniffed my tee shirt. Then he looked around and saw my perch. He spent the next few seconds scratching with his shoe in the sand, looked at me, looked down, then got back in the car with his team.
I'll give them another thirty minutes before I check it out.
2315:
K VII J
That's all he wrote. I thought that meant he wanted to meet at 7 local time, but now I'm not sure. Same perch. Watching again. Maybe it's just tough for him to shake his handlers as it is for me. Or the roads are hell. Or it's a setup.
Gotta go. Here he comes.
Love,
Baby Girl