Imperfect Men

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AN: Sorry this took so long. -_-

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Chapter Two: The Lockdown

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Coffee didn't taste like it should.

Gibbs ignored the rapidly cooling Styrofoam cup, sitting so unappealingly on the corner of the small tray beside him. He didn't need coffee. This was a hospital; knowing why he came here and just how long he'd be staying was enough to keep him alert. Thinking about yesterday's kick-in-the-gut reality kept him awake; caffeine was redundant. Watching Abby get to the scene, groggy-eyed and confused, just in time to see paramedics pull Ducky's stretcher into the ambulance…so the last thing Gibbs needed right now was coffee. What he really needed, he couldn't get. Not yet.

He stared intensely at the occupant of the hospital bed. The rise and fall of Ducky's chest didn't quite time up with the beeping of the heart rate monitor, and the pale yellow glow of the room in mid-afternoon light got on his nerves. Outside it was a beautiful day. Right here, right now, inside this room, it was bleak. He'd seen so many hideous things, but since he entered the room and sat down on the vinyl chair, he couldn't take his eyes of the ugliest sight of all. A good friend, in a coma.

Once or twice, he had started to apologize, and even though he knew it was appropriate, he just couldn't make himself finish the words. 'Sorry' didn't cover the mistake he'd made—a mistake that had nearly cost Ducky and Palmer their lives. He knew Palmer at least wouldn't hear the same out of his right ear.

Doctors made it clear that Duck's condition was unpredictable. With the number of burns to his arms and body, fractured bones and head trauma, they estimated that it would take weeks at least, not days for him to wake up. Then there was always the possibility that he wouldn't open his eyes. Given the circumstances, Gibbs wouldn't blame him if he never did.

Director Sheppard shut the NCIS complex down for twenty-four hours for a security intervention, to ensure that the incident had not been the work of terrorists, amongst other reasons. Only special personnel were given admittance to the building, and the investigation of Petty Officer Amy Simpson's murder was put on hold. Officially. Unofficially, Gibbs doubted the President could have ordered a complete halt to the case. Nor would he have allowed it. Jenny knew that, of course. She'd even told him that she would do anything within her power to help his team find out who put the bomb inside Simpson's body.

Gibbs finally turned to glance at the clock on the wall. He'd sent DiNozzo to wait outside thirty minutes ago. He numbly dragged his fingers through his hair and stood up. For a long minute, he stared at Ducky's face, listened to the characteristic blipping of the heart monitor, and allowed his carefully concealed anger to broil. Then he faced away from the bed, opened the room's door and entered the hallway.

DiNozzo still stood where he'd left him. Immediately, Gibbs was thrown an expression that asked the question of the hour..

Rather than giving the usual report, Gibbs slowly stepped up to the younger agent and looked at him meaningfully. "If anything happens, DiNozzo…anything. You call me. Is that understood?"

Tony blinked at him, but was no less honest when he replied. "Yeah, boss."

It was a guarded answer, short and precise. They both knew that if one of them had a shred of evidence to work with right now, they would be knocking down doors and performing whatever (legal or illegal) action they needed to bring down the one responsible. Without another word, Gibbs stepped around DiNozzo and walked briskly down the beige corridor.

He didn't make it far. He reached the ICU's waiting area and found a familiar wet-eyed faced standing right in front of him, her arms crossed and hair falling out of its pigtails.

"Gibbs!" she cried, or would have if her voice hadn't been hoarse from (quite possibly many hours of) trying to stay calm.

"Abby, I told you to go back home. Three hours ago," said Gibbs, stopping to point towards the hospital's exit. "This time it's an order. Go home."

"How is he, Gibbs? Did he say anything? Didn't he at least blink or nod, or sigh, or—" The young forensic expert babbled, ignoring everything he had just said. An overtired, immensely distraught Abby weighed down by the burden of helplessness was not an easy person to dismiss. "They say that people in comas can hear everything that's around them, and maybe he's trying to talk to us, because really Gibbs, he's okay, and Ducky's probably really worried that we're worrying about him, so someone has to go in there and tell him that we'll be just fine—

"Abby."

Her rant came to a screeching halt as Gibbs placed his hands on her upper arms, in an effort to make her focus. "Get some rest. I need you at NCIS tomorrow, finding out everything you can about that bomb."

She blinked at him, as though absorbing the importance of his words, and finally nodded her head. "Okay, Gibbs. I'm…going to turn around, and leave. Promise me I'm the first one you'll call if something good…or bad…happens!"

"Abby…"

"Promise! C'mon, am I really asking that much, Gibbs?"

He focused his grip and turned her body around. "I promise," he said firmly, and gave her a gentle push. "Now, go home."

Gibbs watched her wander to the elevator doors and push the 'down' button. When she finally vanished and the door closed behind her, he turned to the door on his left that lead to the public stairway. He didn't hurry down the steps in the event he might run into Abby again, but cut through the small crown in the lobby of the hospital to reach the main entrance. For a long minute, he stood at the window and gazed at the faces of the people passing by on the street. Then he caught a glimpse of the face he was looking for.

Jethro passed through the first set of doors of the vestibule and exited onto the sidewalk. A dozen paces to the unmarked car parked at an unused meter, and he opened the door to duck into the driver's seat.

"Tell me you found her, David," he said to the passenger, without glancing over. He turned the key in the ignition and let the engine hum to life. Using Ziva's last name was an indication of the mood he was in.

"Betty Jenkins left D.C. with three other members of her motorcycle gang three days ago, and returned the same night of Simpson's murder," Ziva explained in return, locking her eyes on his face. "Since then she has not returned home, or contacted any of her friends or family. The only lead I found was with her cousin, Marian Seymour. She's a dentist on the east side of town, at this address." She handed him the bottom half of a notepad. A badly written house address was scrawled there, in handwriting he didn't recognize. "Her mother gave that to me. She also volunteered herself to be a witness should this 'go to trial'."

"Witness." Gibbs' voice was on the verge of snapping into a frustrated growl. He looked at her. "How can she be a witness to a murder she wasn't even there to see?"

"Not for Petty Officer Simpson. Apparently, 'Black Betty' is in the habit of breaking the law in her own ways. Her family doesn't seem impressed."

"And no one knows where this woman is?" he demanded, putting his hands on the wheel.

"I was hoping we could ask Mrs. Seymour that same question." Ziva's eyes had a dark, pressing gleam behind them. "Unless that isn't all right with you, Agent Gibbs?"

"Like hell it isn't," he growled, turned the steering wheel and launching the vehicle into mid-afternoon traffic.

-

This wasn't a meat puzzle. It was trying to turn jam back into strawberries.

Before Jimmy Palmer lay the largest pieces of Petty Officer Simpson's remains. Some were the size of his fist, a few were still intact, like part of the trapezeous muscles and a segment of her skull, and a few dozen were in pieces no bigger than his thumb…including her thumbs. The rest lay in shallow glass trays, hardly more than paste mixed with bone shards, glass and drying tissue and blood. All of it was evidence. But not a single piece told him more about this case than the constant ringing in his ear.

He had suffered nothing broken—just bruised and scraped. He had a slight burned on his right cheek and his eardrum had shattered, but after a few hours at the hospital and a few thousand milligrams of ibuprofen, and he was allowed to come to work inside the NCIS complex. He was both a witness and an assistant ME. And if Director Sheppard hadn't stretched the rules to let him in, he wouldn't be staring at a 3D puzzle with no end.

Five meters. That was all that was between him and Dr. Mallard when the bomb went off. It was powerful enough to throw him off his feet and…severely injure Dr. Mallard—even liquefy some of the body's remains, but somehow he'd been the one lucky enough to be left standing here. And Dr. Mallard wasn't.

Thirty minutes ago, he'd hunched over the silver table and started to pick pieces of plastic and metal out of scarce pieces of burnt tissue, but nothing here was big enough to give to Abby…when she got back, that was. He was alone. He didn't know what to look for. Why had the Director called him back here rather than an ME who knew something about this kind of thing? All this work with no one to talk to…

And there, underlying all of his other complains, was a sickening thought. Palmer realized there was moisture tickling the side of his nose. He tore off one glove and touched his face, expecting to see some of the victim's blood come away, but the liquid was clear.

So the fact that Dr. Mallard wasn't coming back soon, and might not return at all, had occurred to him. Something about working with a jam puzzle made him forget how horrible he felt inside.

This was one screw-up he would never forgive himself for.

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Trees surrounded the tiny glade that overhung Marian Seymour's house. It was that kind of house that they put into commercials—pretty, white, with old-fashioned glue-on shutters and a paved driveway. Perfect lawn and a professionally grown garden brimming with lush purples and whites every good house owner should have. There was a red truck parked in the driveway. Ziva took one glance at its license plate and an alarm went off in her head.

"Agent Gibbs," she said, as they both closed their doors behind them and stood on the pavement. She nodded very gently towards the vehicle.

It was the truck they'd put the BOLO out for. The one at Theater Park.

Ziva stuck close to Gibbs' back as they climbed the driveway to the porch of Marian's house. Gibbs opened the screen door and knocked a few times, while his counterpart stayed back a step or two and peered guiltlessly into the cracks between the curtains of their would-be host's curtains.

They waited a dozen seconds before Gibbs knocked again—harder this time. Then the door opened, and a slightly hunched over old woman appeared, with a light blue cardigan and extravagant earrings in both her lobes. She blinked up at them.

"Hello..?" she said meekly, looking between the two. "Can I help you…?"

Expecting some kind of explanation, Gibbs glanced over at Ziva as she stepped up beside him. She smiled politely. "My name is Officer David, and this is Special Agent Gibbs. We're from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. We're looking for Marian Seymour…are you her?"

For a moment, the senior regarded them with doubtful surprise. "Of course not," she said, less accusingly than matter-of-factly. "Marian is my daughter. Are you telling me she…did something wrong? Marian is a good girl."

"We're not here to blame anyone for anything, Mrs. Seymour," Gibbs informed her patiently. "We just need to ask her some questions about a family member of yours."

Mrs. Seymour frowned as she put a hand on her wooden door. "Marian's at work right now. Don't you two have badges or some kind of hoo-haw like that you're supposed to show me?"

Both agents of the federal investigative service were halfway to reaching for their badges (which were logically supposed to be back at NCIS, had there been no lockdown), when Gibbs' cell phone went off. Ziva procured her badge and displayed it for the skeptical older woman while the Special Agent flipped open his phone and turned away to answer it.

"What is it, McGee?" he said.

There was an evident pause on the other end of the line. A pinprick went through Gibbs' chest. "McGee," he repeated, louder.

"Boss," came a voice edged with a little panic and disbelief. But it was McGee, and not what Gibbs had jumped to suspect. "Uh, I know this is going to sound a bit crazy, but…there's a body in front of my door."

Ice ran through his veins. "A dead one, McGee?"

"Y-Yeah," the reply came. "I think…it looks a lot like Petty Officer Simpson."

That was what dispatched Gibbs into full alert mode. "McGee, you are not to go anywhere near that door. Is that understood? Go to a room as far away from that door as you can. And whatever happens, do not answer it for anyone but me."

Gibbs snapped the phone shut before he could get positive answer from the other end, because he needed to make another phone call. Now. He punched in the number, ignoring Officer David's and Mrs. Seymour's surprised looks.

"Rain check," he told Ziva as he marched back onto the driveway, her only steps behind him.

"What was that about?"

Gibbs clutched the cell phone, knuckles tightening against his jaw as he continued to walk. "They're targeting us."

TBC