Second part of the Ring Cycle - Please play the song while reading. It's going to enhance the experience.
Soundtrack of this chapter: Die Walkure Segunda Parte - Parte 1 de 5 in youtube
PART TWO - DIE WALKÜRE
Waltraute:
To the wood guides she her staggering horse
Grimgerde:
From fierce riding
How Grane pants!
Rossweisse:
So fast none e'er saw Valkyrie flying!
Orlinde:
What lies on her saddle?
Helmwige:
That is no man!
Siegrune:
See, a maid bears she.
Gerhilde:
Where found she the maid?
(…)
Valkyrie:
Sister! Sister!
What has beffal'n?
Brünhilde:
Shield me and help in direst need!
(…)
I flee for the first time,
And am pursued:
Warfather follows close!
Valkyrie:
Lost are thy senses?
Speak to us! What? Fleest thou from him?
Ha! Speak!
Pursues thee Warfather? O say!
(…)
What madness urged thee this deed to do?
Lost one! Brünhilde, lost one!
Another night in the opera is on and after two long acts the next one starts with the animated clapping of the audience to the entry of the conductor, who waves enthusiastically at them before turning to his Wagnerian orchestra and with only a swing of his baton he conducts the crescendo of the introduction of the third act of the second work of the Ring circle.
Once more the team is sitting in their privileged position watching another opera at the Metropolitan and it is a repeat of the previous night.
McGee is slightly suspicious that Gibbs has ear plugs to endure this and the next two nights they will be subjected to several hours of music that definitely doesn't fit the older man's tastes. He's too relaxed at his seat and there's even a lazy smile on his lips as the women ran on the stage, singing in strident voices the powerful song of the Amazon warriors.
Abby is enjoying the night almost as much as Ducky, as she somehow found the full libretto online in German with its equivalent English version so both were carefully following the singers as they sing about their sad fates, their lost hopes and doomed loves – spotted here and there by betrayal, broken marriages and incest – the fate of the gods is once again doomed by their own actions.
Ziva and Tony have settled down to their fates and are slightly snoring one supporting each other, twitching slightly at the parts where the soprano's voice fills the theatre.
As the story unfolds he thinks about the endless attempts of the Valkyrie Brünhilde of being a good child, blindly obeying the orders of her father – The Ruthless War God Wotan - and right at the end, when she finally decides to make one single decision on her own, keeping true to her own consciousness, she is punished.
Let's just forget the several years of devotion, trying to abide to her father's wishes, regardless of how stupid and senseless they seemed to be: there goes Brünhilde doing her father's biding again and again until the day she decides finally to stand up and act according to her own mind.
Only one slip and her fate is sealed.
Her punishment is harsh and cruel, done by the hands of the loving father she had dedicated her whole life to obey.
As Brünhilde contemplates her future banishment in a long wailing song, McGee is sure that her story is painfully familiar.
The blind dedication and obedience, the docile servitude only a dominant personality could impose onto a biddable mind of a child.
The Valkyrie sisters sing in despair as Wotan arrives, announcing the terrible anger that will rule his decisions and acts towards the rebellious child. He casts his daughter away from the immortal realm, reducing her to be a mere mortal, as she will never be like him again.
Forsaken immortality: Now that's a punishment worth to the Gods.
Daughters of a God, created only to do his biding and choosing the warriors worthy to partake ale in their father's royal hall – Valhalla, the hall of the God's – the warrior princesses wail and cry as they are sworn fealty to Wotan, unable to break such vow to protect the fragile Sieglinde and her unborn son as well as the rebel Valkyrie Brünhilde.
As Brünhilde cries and wails McGee considers his own situation: he would never be up to his father's standards, regardless of what he did and which path he chose. His choices would always be wrong because they weren't what his father had chosen for him.
He didn't go into the Navy service.
He became a Federal agent instead.
He didn't bow to his wishes.
He gently pats the letter carefully folded in his front pocket, but he doesn't need to read it to remember each word printed in it. His mother's careful and delicate handwriting informing him of the fate of people from his long gone past, which he carefully left behind never to revisit again.
He quietly shakes his head trying to banish the unpleasant news of the impending birth of a child to his high school sweetheart. Nathalie had been a bright girl with whom he shared a good part of his last year at school, even planning to take her to prom before…
No… he wasn't going to think about the accident.
No. That's a door definitely shut in his mind, locked with several keys and with a huge cupboard placed in front of it, barricading it forever.
He sighs and tries to pay attention to the plot of the opera but the acting on the stage is strangely familiar.
As any good-for-nothing father, Wotan is implacable to throw in Brünhilde's face the dept of her betrayal. She tries to negotiate but it's for nothing. She's banished, even though she had done exactly what he really had wanted, not what he had asked her to do.
For obeying the real will of the God Wotan, she is punished.
In a last act of a loving father, he circles her resting place with fire, promising her that only a true hero with a pure heart and not controlled by the gods may raise her from her slumber. As the fire – fake fire, of course – takes the stage, Wotan goes on and on saying that none who fears his spear may cross the fire.
McGee bites his lower lip, wondering what kind of curse his father threw at him in order to keep him the way he was today.
The song reaches a soft finale for this night of music and singing and the whole audience claps wildly. Abby kicks Tony's shin and he immediately wakes up, startling Ziva out of her slumber. They jump up, automatically clapping, some with more enthusiastic than others. Gibbs discretely yaws, hiding it behind the palm of his hand and going back to clapping.
There is the traditional moment that the conductor goes up the stage and both he and the singers bow to the audience.
The house comes down as the singers bow in thanks and they are all smiling wildly at the magnificent performance when the unthinkable happens: as all three lead singers are standing on the front stage, bowing happily to the audience, something snaps from the ceiling and falls towards the stage, its descent only stopped by a rope strategically placed and that makes it swing as a pendulum over the heads of the singers staring horrified at it.
They all watch horrified as the singers, well known for their priceless and purest tonal range, scream in their highest pitch as a body of a dead woman hangs over their heads, her face purple thanks to the lack of air caused by the rope tightly woven around her now broken neck.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Is it wrong to be glad that there's no more opera tonight?
Not that McGee is happy that someone was murdered. No, he would never be happy with the useless and senseless loss of human life.
He is just happy that he was free of attending the opera again. His ass muscles are aching from the hard seats of the theatre and his mind has the strange habit of wandering away during the music, playing tricks and putting people he knew on the main roles of the tragedy.
The road you didn't take hardly comes to mind, does it? The door you didn't try, where could it have led? The future is paved by past choices or present actions, yet how can one be fully content knowing the infinite number of possibilities of 'could have' and 'would have' that permeate the edge of one's consciousness?
It is in this pensive state that he follows Gibbs and the team towards the backstage, where the cast of singers, musicians and stage helpers has been substituted by the circus of CSIs, LEOs and techs as the stage has just become a crime scene.
The Met has been slowly emptied of their patrons; the musicians, singers and staff from the theater had been taken backstage to be interviewed about the happenings of the night; the body of the poor soul still hung from a rope coming from one of the upper platforms used to support the thousand dollar scenario utilized in the Met production.
Who knew their trip to NY would end up in murder?
Sounds like opera to me.
Gibbs flashes his badge immediately being granted access by the cop guarding the small access door, so he leads the small troupe of NCIS agents towards the man talking to one of the distressed sopranos, who is obviously close to a nervous breakdown. Obviously she is not used to dead women hanging from ropes. The cop finishes taking the soprano and one of the backstage staff gently guides the trembling woman away. As she goes away, she throws a glance filled with sentiment to the dead woman, her face expressing the dept of her turmoil before finally getting lost in the melee of the people in the stage.
Gibbs once again presents his badge and team to the cop, who immediately frowns.
"What are you doing here? This is not your jurisdiction."
"No, it's not." Gibbs pockets his credentials and immediately grows an inch or two, glaring at the cop who is surprisingly not intimidated by Gibbs' sour face. "We're witnesses. We were on the Grand Tier floor and we've watched it all. We would like to offer our services."
"Listen Agent…"
"Gibbs," the marine offered, seeing the serious look in the cop's face.
"Agent Gibbs, I have the very best team of investigators from the NY Crime Lab working on the scene. I appreciate the offer but as you can see, we have everything under control."
Just at that moment, a pale man with spiked hair and glasses shouts to the cop, taking his attention away Gibbs. He was standing on some stairs and taking pictures of the woman and was staring at her frowning. "Hey Mac, we're taking her down. There's something here you'd better see."
The cop, who was obviously the boss on the scene, gesture to Gibbs and his agents to take a few steps away as another agent approaches the stairs and take position under the other one who gently cuts the rope a few inches above the knot.
The two men work together and slowly lower the dead woman to the floor, both reverently laying her on the stage polished wooden slabs. The second man, a thin black man with glasses kneels beside her and immediately starts taking photos and making the preliminary exams.
Ducky takes a step forward. "Ah… agent... Mac?"
The first cop looks at him. "Detective Mac Taylor, at your service."
Ducky smiles politely at the cop. "May I take a look? I am a Medical Examiner for NCIS."
Mac throws a questioning glance at the thin black man who shrugs, not bothered with this new addition. "The more, the merrier." He mutters.
Mac gestures to Ducky, who eagerly approaches the fallen woman and the two men currently examining her. The other agents keep a respectful distance as they hadn't been invited into the investigation yet.
"Her injuries are consistent by strangulation. The bruising around the neck indicates the tracheal trauma which happened when the neck snapped under the strain of the rope."
"Correct Dr…"
"Dr. Mallard. But please call me Ducky."
"Dr Sheldon Hawkes, NY crime lab. I agree with your assessment, Dr. Mallard. But that's not what caught Danny's attention. Take a look at this."
The dead woman was in one of the intricate period costumes of the opera, full of skirts and underskirts. Her arms were bare and there were no signs of struggle or defensive wounds. But there was a strange message written in them with what looked to be lipstick on the same color of the one in her lips.
LOOK FOR THE TRUTH
LOOK FOR ASIM AND HETTIE
"I think she wanted to tell us something." Tony mutters, receiving a nod from the two crime scene investigators.
"And she found a hell of a way - loud and clear - to make everyone around listen to her." Mac said solemnly.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
The body is taken to the NY morgue for further examinations. Ducky looks pleadingly at Mac, eagerly expressing his desire to help with the proceedings as that was his area of expertise.
Besides, he would never sleep in peace if he couldn't help that poor soul who had lost her life in such tragic way. What kind of despair would lead such a young child to a helpless act?
Mac looks at the team of investigators and, after considering his options, shrugs and gestures to the team to join his CSIs, letting them brainstorm a little their ideas and what they had witnessed with what Danny and Sheldon had collected from the scene.
"Any idea of who are these Asim and Hettie people?"
"It seems that we will have to ask our stars." Mac mutters darkly as he looks towards the backstage where the singers were all gathered talking about the death of one of their own.
"You know what's funny about this whole thing?" Tony asks walking around the elaborated stage of the Met theatre, poking his head in the grooves of the stage and touching the fake rocks. "These folks should be used to death. I mean. This is opera, man. Wagner! It's a bloodbath from the beginning to the end."
"I did not know you were a fan, Tony." Ziva says. "As far as I know, you slept through the whole first and second act."
"Duh… so did you." Tony makes a pouty face at her, earning giggles from Abby and glares from Gibbs. "But hear me out, this is drama, right? The whole point of the plot is murder. Not real murder anyway, but murder nonetheless."
He turns to McGee who is looking up at the rafters where he could see two CSIs examining the platform where the woman had jumped for her demise. "Hey, McRomeo. Have you ever heard the reader's digest definition for opera?"
"No, Tony. But I'm sure you're about to tell me." McGee said in a morose tone of voice, barely paying attention to Tony.
"Any opera - the dramatic opera - is like this: The soprano falls in love with the tenor. The alto comes between their romance, there is betrayal, crime, passion, " Tony's voice becomes louder as he numbers the emotions shown in the play. "… and then, murder… right at the time the bass comes and ends everyone's party. Aha!" Tony stands right in the middle of the stage, his arms wide open, imagining the whole theater overflowing with people clapping at his performance at the stage.
Danny and Sheldon just look at the strange Fed with curious eyes, exchanging amused grins for a moment before going back to work.
"Whatever he is drinking, smoking or snorting, I want some." Danny mutters as he pushes his glasses over the bridge of his nose, just to receive a well placed elbow hit on his middle from his colleague and friend.
Sheldon stands up, shaking his head as he bags the rope used as a murder weapon. "But this is all fake. Special effects and carefully prepped theatrics. None of these were real. These people are not used to real lifeless bodies hanging from their stage."
"And considering the star cast we have for this play," Ducky mutters, his gaze going to the very fat soprano standing by a cop in the back of the stage, throwing horrified glances in their direction, "we might prepare ourselves for a long and windy battle of wills."
"Are you expecting trouble?" Mac asks, his eyebrows going up at the older M.E.
"Oh, dear. Are you not? These are stars, well-known for their talent and their skills. You can be assured that we will see a fine collection of egos clashing when you finally interrogate them."
"We just need some answers. We won't interrogate them. Much." Gibbs added darkly, just to receive a knowing look from his friend.
"Sure. I've seen you in action, my friend. These people are not the sort of cads and rascals you are used to. Be prepared to face a lot of resistance."
Ducky walks away, leaving both teams staring at his tuxedo clad figure as he walked out of the Metropolitan stage and leaving them standing paralyzed in the middle of the stage just waiting for the other shoe – or curtain – to fall.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
The interrogation of the cast of the Met was a disaster. Each soprano, tenor, alto and bass was questioned about the dead woman and most answers were evasive at best.
They could say about the singer, the pure voice that could hold people enraptured by its pure tonal colors, but very few could talk about the young woman behind the voice.
"Aleksandra was a great mezzo soprano. She was fantastic when we played Verdi." The famous fat soprano said, her gaze clear and attentive as she looked at the NY Detective and the NCIS agent.
"What can you tell us about her friends, family… did she have a boyfriend?"
"Oh… We weren't close. My schedule does not allow me to mix with the lower cast."
"Lower cast?"
"Yes, the figurants and the singers of the choir." Noticing the puzzlement in the faces of the two cops, she elaborated with a wave of her carefully manicured hand. "Let me explain. When we are on a full-fledged season we perform five days a week from Wednesday to Sunday. While the performance itself starts at eight pm we need to arrive at five for donning the costumes and makeup. Besides that there are classes at University and workshops and rehearsals and dinners with Met sponsors and…"
"I get it, you are very busy. But don't you even talk with the other singers?" Gibbs asked, not seen any kind of emotion towards the dead woman besides bafflement at the untimely death. There was no bonds of friendship between the lead soprano and the poor third or forth whatever choir singer.
"I see no point in doing that. They come and go with the seasons. Every beginning of the year the Met have new backups taken from everywhere in the world. The turnover is very intense as we have applicants from music schools from all over the world who request for a trial period at the Met."
"So you don't have any idea of Aleksandra's personal life."
"Dear detective, most of the time I don't even remember their faces, much less their names. Aleksandra just happened to beep in my radar as she had so much talent… but now it is all gone."
Gibbs glanced towards Mac, his face clearly showing that there was nothing that woman could add to their investigation. The detective sighed, aware that their talk was over.
"Thanks for your help, ma'am."
"You're welcome, sir."
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Questioning the lead bass and the two altos was also for nothing. They moved from the main cast to the choir, which ended up filling the small precinct with people in leather thighs and green makeup imitating frog skin and several skimpy clad ladies who were the Valkyrie choir.
As the detective and agents diligently questioned each person of the cast, the background history of the late Aleksandra Hoffner started to unveil.
She was a single child, born and raised in Atlanta. At five was already singing at church and at nine her mother had already enrolled her for private music classes. As far as the few colleagues knew, no father was ever mentioned in her conversations. At twelve she was already performing with the local orchestra and at fifteen she was granted with a scholarship for a top school in the area. She later on received a scholarship to Italy where she studied at the Accademia Santa Cecilia and left it straight to be a regular in the extras at the Met.
She was a quiet woman, with a joyful attitude towards life and quite centered in her studies and her art. Not the type of person who would tie a thick rope around her own neck and jump from a platform over a stage in front of a theater full of people.
After questioning another Valkyrie clad lady, both Tony and Tim were tired all the way to their bones as they led one of the last Valkyries out of their interrogation room. It was three o'clock in the morning and they had been awake since six am that Friday as part of the gift they had bought for Ducky included several tours at the museums during the day and the opera tickets at night. And the dawn of Saturday was mere hours away.
So they were quite distracted waving the Valkyrie away when a woman shrieked from the other side of the room, running towards them with a grin in her face. Both men exchanged terrified and puzzled glances when that mass of lace and soft woman flesh jumped into McGee's arms, still shrieking and nuzzling his neck.
"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh"
"Uhm… Ma'am?" McGee poked the lady's shoulder, despite her arms being firmly wrapped around his neck and she was presently still shrieking.
"You never have any normal fans, McGorgeous."
"Ma'am?" McGee tried again, and the lady finally took a step back and grinned up at him.
"I can't believe it! It's Timmy Whinny?"
"What? How do you know that name?" McGee couldn't contain his horror at hearing his long lost nickname. One he had sworn never to utter again.
"Timmy… whinny?" Tony was barely containing his glee at the apparent source of gossip in front of him.
"I can't believe it's you!" The pretty lady with a painted face and sparkling grey eyes shouted, barely restraining her enthusiasm.
McGee gulped as he tried to disentangle himself from her octopus like arms. "Yeah… it's… me." He threw a desperate look at Tony who was just watching the scene barely containing his mirth. "Ah… but who are you?"
"Me? Oh gosh, of course… the makeup." She took a step back and self consciously touched her face, the skin totally covered with the bright makeup used for the stage of the Met. "I was so excited to see you again that never passed through my head that you wouldn't recognize me like this. It was so long ago."
"Yes, Tim, it was so long ago. How could you forget your… fairy?" Tony asked sarcastically, pointing to the strangely clad lady in front of the younger agent.
The woman grinned, shining perfect white teeth beneath her bright green lips, her skin literally glittering with the makeup carefully applied around her eyes, cheeks and lips giving her an almost ethereal look.
"Valkyrie." She corrected Tony, before looking at McGee. "I was curious when the girls said that they were interrogated by a Timothy McGee from NCIS. You always wanted to be a Federal Agent, always playing around with your little gun and chasing away bad guys threatening Sarah."
"You knew Sarah?" Tim folded his arms, trying to look beyond the makeup and figure out in his memories who that woman was.
"Of course! I even helped her when she fell from her bike while being chased from that dog… I think his name was…. Porky, dorky…" She frowned trying to find the right name, at the same the hammer of knowing hit McGee's forehead and he gasped.
"Yorky." McGee muttered, staring at her surprised. "Oh, God. Jane?" There was a note of incredulity in his voice as he looked her over, seeing someone very different from his childhood memories.
Oh, boy. Very different.
The woman grinned, jumping excitedly in front of him. "Yes!"
"Oh my God." He gulped, trying valiantly to keep his eyes on her face but they stubbornly lowered to her gracious bust carefully covered with thin embroidered veils in a corset and her long legs in delicate thighs. "You… you…"
"Yeah… I know." She shrugged. "I've changed a lot. Gone are the pimples and the extra weight, the bucked teeth… and the glasses." She pointed to her own face, showing her carefully made-up eyes blinking rapidly. "I've had surgery five years ago to get rid of them."
"Wow…" McGee gulped, glancing at Tony and noticing the predatorial glint in his eyes. "Wow… you look…. You look…" He finally found the appropriate answer. "… different."
"Well… it's been - what? - sixteen… no… eighteen years since we've last seen each other. Right after Sarah's broken arm."
"Yeah, she … fell from a tree trying to climb to our tree fort."
"Yeah…" Both McGee and Jane looked at each other for a long moment, lost in the memories of the past.
A door slammed to their right making them jump apart, breaking the spell they had fallen into as they remembered riding their bikes down the street to school, playing tag in the backyard, just being kids and innocent and fun.
Gibbs came out of the next interrogation room with Detective Taylor, his eternal glare falling directly on his agents. One could even hear him growling low in his throat, sign that he was displeased with whatever he was seeing.
Jane bit her lower lip, deeply aware that she wasn't wanted around. She grinned impishly to McGee, "I think you have to get back to work… and I have to get back to mine. Ah…" She looked around, finding a pen lying around a close by desk. She walked up to it and grabbed it, running back to McGee's side.
"If you are staying in New York and want to …" McGee blushed brightly, but smiled at her impish grin so similar to the one of his memories, minus the bucket teeth, of course, "… grab a coffee or just chat about the past, give me a call." She opened his hand and scribbled a NY phone number, closing his hand over the number as if to protect it. "It was good to see you again, Timmy Whinny."
Still grinning, she leaned on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, leaving him with a startled expression on his face as she left, crossing the room in cloud of cloth, lace and sparkly things, running to join her sisters Valkyries who were giggling away across the room, all of them throwing come-hither at the young men. Detective Flack and Dr. Hawkes joined them, throwing knowing smiles at the ladies and at the mute struck agent.
"A Valkyrie, uhm? You are a very brave man, Agent McGee." Flack muttered, noticing the teasing glint in the other NCIS Agent's eyes.
"Uhm… what?" He blinked dazedly at them, trying to undo the spell he had fallen into.
"Valkyries are the virgin daughters of Wotan, the all powerful God, devoted to bring the fallen warriors to the Valhalla." Flack said, noticing the confused look in McGee's face as he explained the plot of that night's opera.
"What? What are you talking about?"
Hawkes laughed, clapping McGee's back lightly as he explained. "It means that it takes a hero to go over her father to claim the warrior maiden, McGee. Good luck."
"Uhm?"
The three men left, leaving McGee to puzzle about the mystery presented by their words and by the strange appearance of one character of his long gone past.
- TBC -