04 – Trust her?
"Wow, now that was a shocking story" McGee was the first one to speak again after Kathy had rushed out of the room.
"Shut up, Probie!" Tony still stood frozen on the exact same spot Kathy had shoved him to when jumping out of her chair. He had a hard time believing what he just heard. Could this be all there was to the dark secret of Kathrin Westmann? Or was that just a story she had made up, another one that would prove true to any checks, just like the rest of her history did when they were interrogating her on the Williams-case? Hell, this was like digging for gold in an iceberg – the more stuff you remove from the top, the more comes up from underneath the water.
"You still alive, DiNozzo?" He suddenly realized Gibbs was talking to him.
"Sorry, boss, I just don't know what to think about this story. A little hard to believe, a little too close to the waterworks. Well, at least for women."
"That's why I asked McGee to get Abby and check up on it. The Europeans don't put fake Internal-Affairs-Investigations into any of their files. If this story is fake we'll find out. But if it's true – will you finally start trusting her?"
Tony looked up at Gibbs, stunned. "Why would you think I don't trust her, boss?"
"Tony, I may be grumpy and strange, but I'm not stupid. I know you and I know when you fake it. And with Kathy – you faked it big time."
"Does anyone else know?" Tony felt bad about the whole situation, but there was nothing he could have done differently about it.
"Don't worry about that. McGee, Abbs and Ducky have no clue. Neither does anyone else. Only…"
"Only what, boss, you're killing me here! I don't want to be known all over NCIS as the asshole that doesn't trust the new team member!"
"Only I'm not 100 sure about Kathy. She has a very decent profiler-training and is incredibly intelligent. She might have picked something up, Tony. If her story turns out to be true you really should talk to her."
"Yeah, I guess I really should. I know it's crazy, but I just couldn't get rid of the strange feeling, it didn't seem like us to screw up the research on her history, no matter how top secret it was. And I didn't want to be a pain in the ass about it, so I decided to just keep it to myself. Until I found proof for my instincts. Or against them. It was not my intention to shout you out, Gibbs." Tony looked at Gibbs, serious trouble and conflict in his eyes.
"I know that, DiNozzo, don't worry about me. I appreciate your being alert. Saves lives. Just need to calibrate it a little better."
They followed McGee down to the lab together. Abby and McGee were already frantically typing on their laptops.
"Got anything yet, kids?" Tony asked when they entered, although he was not sure which answer he actually wanted to hear.
"No, not really" Abby replied without looking up or slowing down her typing, "the Germans have top-notch firewalls and security-codes on all their systems. I am very impressed."
"Not the answer I'm looking for, Abbs" Gibbs bent down and looked over her shoulder.
"Patience, oh glorious crime-fighter" Abby smiled back at him, "even Pros like us need a little time to hack into systems like that. Plus, you don't want the European Secret Service on your ass, so we better cover our trail, right?"
"Got me, Abbs. Good planning. So how much longer do you think you'll need?" Gibbs was getting impatient now.
"Should be in the ESS database within the next ten minutes or so. The main server is in Berlin, lucky for us they're asleep at the moment. Lucky you, Gibbs, that you have two geniuses hackin' their asses of for you." Abby grinned.
"I'll get us something to drink, be back in ten" Gibbs said, already on his way out.
Tony was nervous. He couldn't do anything so he started pacing around the lab. Luckily Abby and McGee were so concentrated on cracking the codes they didn't pay any attention to his constant tapping.
He was feeling like he was going insane. Gibbs was right, of course, Kathy MUST have realised that he had reservations against her. Now what would be more horrible: being right and proving the woman that he could easily fall in love with an impostor – which would break his heart – or being wrong and having to explain to her why he hadn't trusted her? A question that he couldn't even answer to himself? Wow, he'd rot in hell either way…
"Got it!" came a shout from Abby, "you lose, sucker!" she smiled at McGee, who grimaced at her. They would always see any task like this as a competition, no matter how good they got along.
Then the three of them were looking at each other. They were all curious to dig into the files – but Gibbs wasn't back yet, even though the ten minutes were already over.
"So, what do we do?" McGee looked at Tony, one eyebrow raised.
"Why do you ask me that? I won't make any decision and get my butt kicked all over the place when it's the wrong one. It's a no-win-situation! You know that, Probie, what are you trying here?" Tony replied, barely able to speak, he was getting more nervous by the second now.
Truth was, he couldn't decide whether he wanted to know the truth or not. If he could stop the world from turning right now – he would.
Abby and McGee were still looking at him.
"What? You know I'm right! Whatever we do is wrong, right?"
In this moment the door opened and Gibbs returned with an extra-large cup of Caff POW and four coffees.
"Did I allow you to take a break, techies?" he snapped at McGee, who unfortunately was sitting closest to him.
"Well… uhm … boss – it's not like that … we … uhm …"
"We, what, McGee?" Spit it out already, man!"
"We're in boss, we were just waiting for you to return before we started checking the files." McGee talked so fast even Abby had trouble understanding him. But not Gibbs.
"Get going already, open the damn files!" Gibbs said while handing out the coffee and getting closer to the big screen.
"There you go" Abby hit some keys on her laptop and the file flashed on the screen.
It took them only seconds to read the lines. Abby had opened the overview sheet. Tony froze. He heard Gibbs breathe out sharply and McGee made a sound like he was getting sick. He heard all that but it felt like it came from a parallel universe.
Kathy had obviously told the truth. But from the overview sheet alone it became very clear that the reality must have been much worse than what she had shared with them. The short notes indicated a massacre worse than anything any of them had ever experienced.
Abby was looking at the screen, eyes wide open. How could anyone not have killed themselves after THIS had happened to them? Of course McGee had filled her in on what Kathy had told them upstairs but she was still shocked to read it now.
"You want me to pull out the detail-files, Gibbs?"
Tony had to sit down at Abby's question. The short version was already more than he could take, he would definitely not be able to do as much as look at the details of the cases.
"No, Abbs, we've seen enough" Gibbs said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
"So I'll just save this and get out of the ESS systems then."
"No, Abbs, we're not saving any of this. Just get out and I suggest we all try and forget what we've just read" Gibbs said quietly.
"I am such an asshole!" Tony really felt like throwing up now, "How could I be so out of line, Gibbs, why didn't you just stop me?"
He looked at Gibbs, in despair, as if he was going to die.
"Tony, in our job everyone has something really horrible in their past that is crucial for team- und trust-building. Kathy knew about Kate, she knew that this was OUR past and she know that she had to share her nightmare with us in order for us to trust her and that's what she did" Gibbs said to him, his voice soft as if he was calming down a little child after a bad dream.
"She was right with everything she said about the revenge-thing, wasn't she, boss?" came McGee's voice from the back.
Gibbs just nodded.
"Well, I just hope you don't try anything stupid should you get the permit from the White House. I don't want any more of my friends getting killed!" Abby said with a thin voice. She was still in shock.
"We're not asking for a permit any more "Gibbs said.
"That's why it took you so long to get back with the drinks – you went to the director before coming back. You knew Kathy had told the truth, how did you know?" Tony was still too weak to get up from his chair.
"I have a friend at the ESS who told me the story about two years ago. He didn't mention the name of the female team leader back then but when Kathy started telling the story I knew she was talking about the same occurrence." Gibbs was still looking at the screen that was black now.
Tony finally managed to get up. He walked to the door and left without a word.
"Where's he going?" Abby looked at Gibbs with raised eyebrows.
"Apologising to Kathy would be my first guess" Gibbs answered.
Abby took a deep draft of Caff POW and smiled. Tony had the hots for the new girl, that was for sure.