Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Crossed over with

NCIS

The Dying of Skid317

by Lancer47

STFarnham

See Part 1 for notes.

Chapter Six

There's a gigantic gray area between good moral

behavior and outright felonious activities.

I call that the Weasel Zone and it's

where most of life happens.

Scott Adams (Dilbert)

Gibbs answered the phone, "NCIS, Gibbs."

"This is detective Simms, we found something of yours down here at an exploded warehouse. A bunch of navy-gray ammunition cases, all but one full of grade-A heroin, imported courtesy of the US Navy."

"An exploded warehouse?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah, a meth lab explosion."

"And the one case that didn't have drugs in it?" Gibbs ignored Detective Simms' implied criticism.

"It was full of ammunition."

"Was?"

"Well, why don't guys come on down here, and you might as well bring a Navy armorer, or whatever the hell you call 'em, to collect some of these giant cartridges, at least the ones that're still in one piece."

"It's just rifle ammunition Simms, big rifles to be sure, but it's not that dangerous. You can handle it safely."

"No way, this stuffs been in a fire, our guys won't touch if they don't have to. And since it says US Navy all over the damn place, we don't have to."

Gibbs thought he could hear 'nah nah nah nah' in Simm's tone of voice. "Stop worrying Simms, we'll take of it."

"Oh yeah," added Simms, "There's also a Navy-gray van with 'U. S. Navy Official Vehicle' stamped on the side parked in the former warehouse. You can have it back if you want."

"We'll be there in twenty. Don't touch that van, my guys will process it."

Gibbs and Ziva arrived at the site of the former warehouse behind McGee and DiNozzo in the NCIS van. Ziva said, "What is that smell?"

"The remains of a meth lab. Didn't you have those in Israel?"

"Yeah, meth is global, but it wasn't my department. I'll remember the smell now though."

A Navy gray flatbed truck pulled up, escorted by a couple of military police cars. A Chief Gunner's Mate in a khaki uniform swung down from the cab and followed Gibbs and Ziva into the middle of the mess left by the explosion. A Hazmat team finished up on the other side of the building while crime scene technicians worked on the less damaged side.

"So Detective Simms, what do you have?" asked Gibbs, "I mean besides the stolen van." DiNozzo and McGee started poking in and around the van.

Simms and Walters pointed out the pallet of ammunition cases. Most of them were scattered and partially buried under broken roof trusses. The sheet metal panels that formed the roof had mostly blown off and into the street.

Simms said, "We have one survivor, he's in the hospital. Don't know if he's gonna make it or not."

Gibbs asked, "Do you know where he was when the explosion occurred?"

"We found him lying on the floor next to the workbench."

The Chief looked into a few of the ammunition boxes and said, "The fucks this? Looks you need DEA, not me or my crew."

Ziva said, "Well Chief, you do need to record the serial numbers off those boxes and you and I will see if we can figure out where the ammunition that used to be in those cases ended up."

Simms added, "Yeah, plus one of the cases had ammo in it. A mistake I think, it would have been the thirteenth case and from the tapes of their conversation they only appropriated twelve for their own use."

"I guess thirteen really was an unlucky number for these guys," said Ziva.

"Look over here on this bench," said Simms.

Ziva and the gunner walked over, stepping carefully over the shattered remains of the roof, and looked at the the bench, still in one piece, and the vise tightened on an empty brass shell. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Hmmm, amateur gunsmithing I see. And this shell detonated in the vise – you can see the powder burns, the empty primer hole, and the brass is extensively deformed." He looked up and eyeballed the trajectory, "This caused the explosion?"

"Most likely." said Simms, "It's not difficult to imagine the bullet plowing through the wall and into their meth lab. Probably a shock to the people working there – they actually had a pretty impressive setup."

"Yeah, half the power of the detonation went out the through the primer hole, and the lack of a barrel allowed the rest of the gases to dissipate more rapidly than usual, so I should think the bullet would have had all the power of a rock thrown by a baseball pitcher. If it wasn't for the meth ingredients being there it probably wouldn't have done much damage."

"Yep, that's our take on it too, for now anyway. The survivor, who's name is Robert Ransom, must have been standing right about where you are because he took the primer right in his chest. It lodged in his ribs and we think may have been what caused him to fall to the floor slightly ahead of the explosion. Mind you, he caught some of the blast, he's still pretty fucked up."

Ziva poked around on the bench and came up with pieces of pipe. "Looks like they were planning on making pipe bombs. Here's all the parts anyway. I suppose they couldn't figure out how to explode the shells reliably."

The Gunner's mate asked incredulously, "You think pipes are easier to explode than bullets?"

"Well, apparently they thought so, but I guess someone has seen the error of his ways – for a fraction of a second anyway."

--- ---

The next day Detective Simms arrived at NCIS and stalked towards Gibbs from the elevator. He carried a fat cardboard file box, which thumped heavily as he dropped it on Gibb's desk.

"What's this?" Gibbs asked.

"An interesting discovery," said the detective, "another connection between our vics."

"Oh? And after you assured me there couldn't possibly be any other connection, other than being members of the same gang?"

Detective Simms looked a little uneasy. "We were wrong, there is another thread. But you're not gonna like it."

"Out with it detective, we need all the available information," said Gibbs.

"We just figured out that seven of the ten murdered vics were out on bail for the multiple rape of one Angela Ruiz. There were five others involved in the incident, but they have yet to be identified, but the two sailors and your dependent might be three of the missing. Plus at least one of the vics from the warehouse explosion – fits one of the descriptions anyway."

"Damn!" said DiNozzo, "details?"

Simms said, "About a year and a half ago we were called to a crime scene in the warehouse district. We found the remains of a man named Julio Ruiz. He had been nailed alive to a wall and shot in the abdomen."

DiNozzo and McGee winced, Gibbs and Ziva were impassive.

The detective continued, "His sister, Angela Ruiz, was found naked and bloody, lying on the floor in front of her dead brother. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten. We identified and arrested seven of her assailants. She said there were twelve of them."

"And what happened then?" asked McGee.

"Ah, well, nothing much. They all had what the DA considered unassailable alibis, even though we had excellent physical evidence. So they let them all out on bail."

"BAIL? For murder and rape?" asked Ziva, outraged.

"Well, we never could identify which one committed the murder, or even if it was one of the seven we arrested – their GSRs were negative. They blamed the others, of course, and they all stayed silent about the identities of the missing ones. And since bail is allowed for rape, they all got out."

"You gotta be shittin' me!"

"Also," Simms was feeling a little disconcerted, "the judges around here aren't too particular when the victims are members of gangs."

"So this Angela was part of the gang?"

"Well, she denied it, of course, although she couldn't deny that her brother was part of a gang. But I don't think anyone believed her, 'cept maybe me and my partner. The case was going forward though, I don't want you to think it was being ignored. But we don't have enough room in our jails for any but the most violent."

"Multiple rape and murder isn't violent enough for you?"

"Actually, the victim wasn't rich enough, or connected enough, right detective?" said DiNozzo, speaking from experience, "or, and we say this softly, perhaps she's not the right color."

"Maybe that slowed things down some, but look, the first trial in the case was scheduled for six months from now. Our evidence is good, we would've easily convinced a jury to put those guys away for a long time! Eventually."

"And what about our first victim, the fourteen year old Marcus Worthing, Jr., murdered on base within a couple of blocks of his home?" asked McGee.

The detective looked at his notebook and said said, "As I said, he could have been one of the perps. He fits the description. And your two sailors also fit, if we can compare DNA we can verify them one way or the other."

Ziva said, "So you believe a then thirteen year old boy took part in a gang rape?"

"Yes."

Ziva shook her head sadly, "So, what's the theory? The victim, Angela Ruiz, is going around shoving tent stakes into the chests of her assailants? Is this girl some kind of martial arts expert now? After her attack she went and joined a gym and has been working out twelve hours a day for eighteen months?"

"Um, well, no. As far as we can tell, she hardly ever left her mother's house after the attack."

"So she's some kind of Amazon woman?"

"No, actually. She used to be a straight 'A' student, very studious, she was. Not so much on the athletics."

"So she has an avenging angel? Older brother, cousin, uncle, father? Maybe she's in another gang now? Or someone scary got out of prison and is taking care of things for her? Or could she have hired some dangerous people?"

"We haven't been able to find anything like that, so far."

"Are you looking?"

"Oh yeah, you betcha. Here, I'll leave all this stuff here, my captain is calling me, I hafta go now."

After Simms hurriedly left, the agents divided up the reports and started reading.

After a few minutes, McGee said from behind his computer, "Our sailors happened to be on leave the day of Ms. Ruiz's attack." The others looked up, nodded, but had no comments.

DiNozzo, after skimming though a few hundred pages and glancing at the crime scene photos, leaned back in his chair, stretched, yawned, and said, "Hey boss, mind if I take the rest of the afternoon off?"

Gibbs frowned and asked, "What for?"

"I thought I'd take my girlfriend to the matinée."

"You thought that, huh?"

"Yeah, well, there's nothing critical going on here."

"There isn't?"

"Nope."

"We have two murdered sailors and one murdered dependent, as well as a string of civilian deaths."

DiNozzo leaned back in his chair and yawned, "Yeah, we'll get around to it, tomorrow maybe – since all the perpetrators are all dead except for two in custody I don't see any reason to do a rush job."

"And suppose this vigilante goes after them, DiNozzo?"

"Well, I don't suppose anyone wants to put a protection detail around them. There'll be plenty of time to find this perp later."

"Yeah? And suppose this ninja assassin decides to continue his campaign? There's plenty of targets in the District."

"Well, there's no sign of that so far."

"Yeah? You don't think it's possible that the meth lab explosion could have been on purpose?"

"I doubt it boss, I mean really, disassembling 25mm shells next door to a meth lab should make them eligible for a Darwin Award. It wasn't the smartest thing they could've done."

"DiNozzo! You can't have the afternoon off! Follow up on the drug end. We absolutely can not have Navy ships being used to import heroin. You and Ziva go to Norfolk and interview the the crew of the Blackett Strait. And find out who stole the van and how the hell did they drive into the Navy Base in Norfolk, load up what they wanted from the armory and drive off without any apparent trouble. The more I think about that, the angrier I get."

Chapter Seven

"Wait, so how come Buffy's driving?" Xander asked tensely.

"Cuz she rented the car and didn't put anyone else's name on the lease agreement. At least, that what she said," Willow said with a dark glance towards Buffy.

"So if Buffy gets hurt fightin' a big bad, or even a medium sized bad, and one of us has to drive her to the hospital, we wouldn't be insured?" asked Xander, "that could suck big time, because if one of us has an accident, Buffy would have to pay for it out of her pocket."

"Actually," said Willow, "I'm a little more worried with Buffy at the wheel."

"Shut the hell up you guys," said Buffy, "if you don't like my driving, get out and walk!"

"Sorry Buff, you're doin' fine," anxious Willow and nervous Xander chorused.

As they went around a corner on two wheels, Faith asked, "What's wrong with Buffy's driving? I drive the same way."

And Angela shrugged in agreement, "I don't see a problem."

Buffy hit the brakes, twisted the steering wheel, and the car went sideways with a screech of tires. Then she hit reverse, released the brakes and applied a little gas. A moment later she slammed to a stop, perfectly parked, nose out, exactly between the lines in a spot near a vast cemetery. Everyone got out, Willow and Xander a little shaky, and looked around. The night was bright with moonlight shining off the gravestones.

Angela shivered a little. "It's awfully quiet here," she commented.

"Mmmm," said Buffy, "you notice that sour feeling in your stomach? And maybe a slight buzz in your head, kinda like the buzz from an old fluorescent light. That's the warning you get when vampires are nearby. There's not many though, probably only one, maybe two. I think we'll split up. Angela, you come with me and we'll head that way. The rest of you guys go the other way. We'll more or less follow this curved road and meet up at the opposite side."

As they walked off, Angela asked, "Isn't splitting up a bad idea? I mean, in every horror movie I've ever seen, this just results in people getting killed."

"First of all, Faith and I are confident in our abilities, having done this for a lot of years. Secondly, I know the enemy, and I know the numbers. I think there's two vamps here tonight: I'll bet you one's hanging around waiting for another to rise. I'm going to get the experienced one, and you're going to get the new one."

"But, but I've never fought a vampire before!" Angela cried.

"Then tonight will be your first, and you will either slay or die. Think of it as a test. Just remember, for thousands of years there was only one Slayer at a time, only one to stand against all the vampires and demons in the world. The urge to go out and hunt alone in the night is built in; you've been doing it, but you got sidetracked into chasing the wrong prey, understandably I think. You'll find you can do this." Buffy tossed her a stake, "Aim for the heart."

They walked companionably across the freshly mowed grass towards the back of the graveyard, where the freshest graves had been dug. Both were alert, both scanned around, looking deep into the shadows, occasionally looking behind, constantly watching in all directions. They went through a copse of trees and when they were almost to the other side, Buffy held up her hand and motioned Angela to wait. Angela realized there was someone sitting negligently on a gravestone. She could feel her heart beat faster as she watched Buffy.

"Hello," said Buffy with a worried tone of voice, "I'm lost, do you think you could direct me to the nearest phone?"

"Sure! Aren't you the cutest little thing? I could just eat you up!"

"You scampy vamps, you guys never come up with anything new, do you?"

"Huh?"

"Typical," said Buffy, "not too quick on the uptake either."

Angela watched the figure get up and stalk towards Buffy. She had a nearly uncontrollable urge to leap out and stake it herself, but she followed Buffy's directions and watched from the shadows. She remembered to keep looking around, too, just to make certain no others surprised them.

The vampire shook his head and allowed his fangs and true face to show. "I'm as smart as I need to be to chow down on dumb girls strolling in the graveyard at midnight!"

Buffy sprang into action and kicked him with her right foot. "You sure 'bout that?" she asked as she somersaulted over him and kicked him twice more before landing on her feet. She blocked a roundhouse right and went under his guard with her own fists. Then it looked to Angela as if Buffy suddenly got bored – she shook her right hand and a stake fell into her hand from her sleeve. She stabbed the stake into the vampire's chest, and he promptly turned to dust. Buffy turned to Angela and signaled with her fingers to join her.

"One of the worst failings of Slayers is a tendency to trade punches far more than necessary," Buffy lectured, "we get caught up in the fun of fighting and forget to just thrust and move on. And no dirty jokes please, I've heard it before. The thing is, sometimes our instinct is off a little, and my guess it's because the population of the world is much higher than it used be which has caused vampires to hunt in bigger groups than they did in centuries past. So we have to be focused on the kill and overcome the instinct."

"Do all vampires go poof like that?" asked Angela.

"Yep, very convenient of them."

"Yeah, I'll say."

"Unfortunately, other demons aren't so accommodating. Them we have burn or bury. Huge landfills make handy demon dumping grounds."

"Oh, sounds like fun," Angela replied sarcastically.

Buffy suddenly raised her chin and glanced left and right, as if she had just acquired the scent of prey. "Notice anything odd Angie?"

Angela looked around, puzzled, until she noticed a freshly filled in grave. Something was moving under the dirt. She watched fascinated as a clawed and bloody hand popped up, followed by an arm and finally a whole, thing. Something inside screamed to her: kill it! kill it! So she stabbed a stake into its chest and it went poof!

"Wow," said Buffy, "first time out and you hit the heart dead on."

"Well, I have been practicing after all."

"Yeah, but you aren't supposed to practice on people."

"Yeah, well, I'm not sorry I did."

"I'd like to send you to England, to the Council Headquarters. I won't sugarcoat it, they're gonna look at you with a little disgust at first. Oh, Giles won't, but some of the others won't be very nice. But, you need some counseling that I can't give you, and I trust the new council. Seeing as I was instrumental in rebuilding it, I should."

"What's the Council?"

"Let's sit and talk before we meet the others."

--- ---

It was two days later when DiNozzo and Ziva got back from Norfolk. "Hey Boss," said DiNozzo as he sat down behind his desk.

Gibbs looked sour as he asked, "What?"

Ziva answered, "The case is broken."

DiNozzo continued, "Yeah. Some of the fingerprints in the stolen van belonged to one Stanley Jonson, deceased in the warehouse explosion. We also found Thomas Wilson's fingerprints in the van. We think Wilson sneaked Jonson onto the base and stole the van straight from the motor pool. Then Jonson drove up to the armory with all the right paperwork to transfer ammunition to another part of the base. They helped load him up and he drove off. He couldn't have drove out the gates though, not with that load, until we found one of the civilian gate guards had a recent deposit in his bank account of forty thousand dollars. Ziva threatened to cut his balls off and he confessed to allowing the van through."

Ziva looked shocked, "I didn't say anything like that!"

"No, you didn't say it, but you do have that look about you at times."

McGee nodded agreement, "Yeah Ziva, you don't need to say it, but the message gets across just the same."

Ziva looked oddly pleased.

"Let me see their fake paperwork," commanded Gibbs.

Ziva handed it to him. Gibbs put on his glasses and spent a few minutes reading. He idly scratched under the cast on his hand and wrist. He put the papers down and leaned back. He said, "Damn, these would have fooled me. Transferring a few boxes of ammunition to the Naval Gun Testing Facility – perfectly reasonable. Especially after a long deployment. Did you check to see if the paperwork on the other end was done?"

"We checked Boss. Guess what, it was there. If the armory had called to double check, it would have been confirmed. They didn't call, but it's hard to fault them. On the other hand, the Testing Facility paperwork wasn't complete. They had slipped in just the right piece of paper for an overworked secretary to answer a question over the phone in the affirmative, had it been required. The Wilson brothers were very smart dudes. Too bad about their lack of ethics."

"And the guard?"

"Charged, bank account frozen, and jailed."

Gibbs went up the stairs to see the Director. He brushed past her secretary and sat down in front of her desk. She handed a manila folder to Gibbs and said, "A report from the DEA. It seems your sailors found a supplier in Afghanistan, murdered him, and took the money and the drugs both."

"Hmm, only one loose end left then. Who killed them?" said Gibbs.

Jenny leaned back in her chair said, "You know Jethro, years ago, before I joined NIS, when I was police officer in a small town so midwestern that even my apartment house had a picket fence around it, my department was involved in a joint operation with the FBI. We were trying to trap a serial killer and I was the bait. It succeeded beyond expectations; much to everyone's surprise, especially mine, we trapped two serial killers, unfortunately I was trapped with them and my backup was on the other side of town. I managed to subdue one, but I was running out of options when the other started after me. So I pulled a pen out of my pocket and told him it was a pen-gun. He didn't believe me, so I shot him."

"He called your bluff," said Gibbs, "a dangerous thing."

"Yeah, well, the only problem is that pen-guns are illegal, even for police officers. My point, Jethro, is that I killed a guy who threatened to rape me, but hadn't actually done it yet, with an illegal weapon. But no one charged me; they could have – in fact it was your humorless friend in the FBI, Special Agent Fornell who elected to look the other way."

"Are you saying we should ignore ten murders?"

"I'm saying, if it happened to me, I would have done the same, given the opportunity."

"It's easy to say you'd kill 'em all when it's hypothetical. Actually doing it is harder."

"Didn't stop you, did it?"

Gibbs looked away with a pained expression and then changed the subject, "What are you telling me to do, director?"

"Angela Ruiz is a person of interest, not a suspect. You don't need to go out of your way to find her, no APB, no warrant, and definitely no SWAT team. If you do find her, question her gently."

"But what if she murdered ten men, no matter that she had good reason, suppose she did it?"

"First, she's a rape victim and I'll thank you to remember that when dealing with her. Secondly, you're going to have to show me how she did it, because I don't see how she could have, at least based on the evidence you have collected so far."

"Good point."

--- ---

Buffy and Angela met up with Willow, Faith and Xander a few minutes later at the opposite side of the cemetery.

"So," asked Faith, "how'd you do Angie?"

"She her got her first vampire with her first thrust," said Buffy, sounding a little like a proud parent. Buffy noticed Faith's expressive leer and quickly added, "Don't say it! I know what you're thinking – don't say it!"

"Spoilsport."

They took another turn through the graveyard, but there were no vampires, demons, not even any ordinary sociopaths. Eventually, they made it back to the hotel, where Xander flipped on the TV. When the TV news came on with the story about the warehouse explosion, complete with the information about the deaths of most of the senior members of the Skid317 gang, all watched intently.

"Wow," said Willow, "it looks like no one's gonna have to slay the Skids, they're dropping like flies."

"I'd rather be stabbing them," murmured Angela quietly. The only people in the room who heard her had slayer-hearing.

End Part Three

Notes:

Lauren Holly played Max on Picket Fences (1992-1996). I imagine that Max quit the Rome, Wisconsin Police Department, had good reason to change her name, and joined the (then) NIS. Jenny's little reminisce is from an episode that I am relating from memory and I hope I remembered it right.

I had the mistaken impression that Joe Spano (Agent Fornell) had a recurring role as the FBI agent on Picket Fences. But in fact it was actually Sam Anderson, who (in the small world department) went on to play Holland Manors on Angel.

I see more crossovers in the future when the DVDs for Picket Fences comes out.

--- ---

This story came to an end sooner than I expected. Nothing left but the epilogue.