Timing Interlude

Chapter 4

September 7, 1997

2215 Local Time

Portsmouth Holiday Inn

It was very late in the evening when Traci was released from the emergency room. Seeing how late it was she, Gail, Harm and John had decided to stay the night in Portsmouth.

So being that Gail was the only civilian and was not eligible to stay at the VOQ at Norfolk, they checked into the local Holiday Inn where they managed to get adjoining rooms. Naturally the guys and gals got separate rooms.

When they got to their hotel room Harm called Diane to let her know of their plans.

While Harm had his wife on the phone John asked to speak with her to ask, "Hey Di can you please pick Sarah up and bring her home? She still can't drive with her leg yet."

"Sarah and I have already planned to do that. She called me earlier when she figured that you all would stay the night being it was so late. I mean that's what a sister is for anyway," Diane sweetly said.

John laughed and said, "Thanks Di. Tell Sarah I love her and I'll see her tomorrow."

"Tell her yourself John, she's sitting right here," Diane said.

Sarah got on the phone and asked, "How's Traci?"

"She's fine. She's staying in the same room as Gail," John told her.

"Good don't worry about me, I'm fine. Diane and I will stay at my apartment tonight. It will be our first girly night ever. It'll be fun."

John laughed again saying, "Well in that case I'll leave you two to have your 'girly night'. I love you Sarah."

"I love you to John. I'll see you tomorrow." Sarah replied lovingly.

They hung up on each other.

John told Harm, "They'll stay at Sarah's in Georgetown. Sarah said something about it being their first 'girly night' together."

Harm shared a laugh with John then he asked him, "You should make Sarah an honest woman and marry her. Don't wait."

John looked at him sideways. Harm was giving John his own advice back at him. John answered with a simple, "We'll see."

Harm smirked at him.

In Gail and Traci's room just before they turned out the lights Traci felt the need to express her gratitude, "Mrs. Grayson I .."

"Please lieutenant, call me Gail. Mrs. Grayson is my mother in law. Every time I hear Mrs. Grayson I turn around looking for her," Gail said.

Traci smiled as she replied, "Okay Gail and it's Traci. Anyway I just wanted to say thank you for coming with John and Commander Rabb to find me. I really appreciate it."

"Oh Traci it was the least I could do," Gail said as she smiled indulgently.

The two shared a quick hug and then they got into their separate beds.

Traci asked, "I see you carry a weapon. Why?"

"Well I used to be a cop in Washington Heights, New York. That's upper Manhattan. I still have the carry permit. When I drive around Los Angelis I like to have it near me. A lot of carjackings happen out there. I feel safer," Gail explained.

"Have you ever had to use it?" Traci asked.

Gail told her story, "Yeah one night in my third year on the job I did. A guy robbed a liquor store on upper Broadway. The owner set off a silent alarm. The perpetrator came out of the store waving a machete. When my partner and I rolled up we had our weapons drawn as soon as we saw the machete. We told him to drop it, but he came at us. He was on my side of the car coming right at me. I guess he thought me being a girl I wouldn't have the guts to fire. Well I put two in his chest. It turns out that his post mortem drug screen showed high levels of PCP. It was ruled good shoot."

"It must have been really tough to deal with that," Traci commented.

"Yeah it was. After that I was snapping at everyone, my partner, my family. I was hell to be with. I found out later I was dealing with Post Traumatic Stress. That's when I decided to go into law school. I just didn't want to have that kind of responsibility any more.

It was just a coincidence that John and I started Fordham Law the same year. Everyone thought we were attached at the hip. We had the same class schedule."

Traci laughed at that then she asked, "What was John like in law school?"

Gail continued, "As you know he can become very intense. (Traci nodded at that.) Well back then he was more than intense, he was in a foul mood. He had just broken up with his girl friend and he was fighting with his mom over his career choice. So seeing he didn't want to live at home and I needed someone to study with I told him to stay with me at our Aunt Margaret's house in City Island, 15 minutes down the road from Fordham. Her children are a little older than us and they were married with their own families. So she had some extra rooms and she was glad to put us up. She liked having young people in the house again. There were times when she came down in the morning and found us asleep at the dining room table drooling on our legal pads."

Traci laughed at that to.

Gail continued, "So anyway because he was dealing with his family situation and I was dealing with my PTSD we really needed each other. As we progressed in law school we started to have a lot of fun, going to mixers, fraternity parties. I met my husband at one of the mixers. There were times we went to the police range and shot a lot of targets up. It helped to get a lot of aggression out."

Traci smiled at that and said, "That was a nice story." Switching tracks she asked, "So where do we go with this investigation now?"

"Well John wants to shake the Sons of Fire tree to see what comes out. We might find someone to say Peter wasn't involved in their pipeline."

"That should be interesting to see,' Traci said.

"Yeah me to, I'd like to be there to see how he works," Gail agreed.

They switched off the lights and went to sleep.

September 8, 1997

0800 Local Time

Norfolk NCIS Office

Norfolk, V A

When they decided to stay the night in Portsmouth, Gail had gone out to get a change of clothes and underwear at the local shopping mall, while the three officers had their overnight bags already prepared.

When they left the hotel the officers all had their navy uniforms on while Gail was wearing what she purchased, a pair of jeans, a white man styled button down shirt and a red camisole. She wore the same shoes from the day before, power executive stiletto pumps.

After breakfast they met with Pocchi and Weatherly at the local NCIS office on the Norfolk Naval Base.

John asked, "Are you familiar with the motorcycle gang the Sons of Fire?"

It was Weatherly who answered, "Yeah they're a real pain in the ass. We get a lot of reports of them harassing the Navy personnel. They are all ex military or Hell's Angels wannabes. They are always trying to weasel their way onto the base, showing fake or expired identification cards, following supply trucks and trying to catch anything (she held up both her hands with two fingers each forming quotes) falling off. They hang out at a bar in the seedier side of Norfolk called the Drinking Lamp."

"What they don't have their own clubhouse?" Harm asked factitiously.

"No they don't. They're locals without jobs and they just started hanging out together. They don't even have jackets with logos. Like I said before they're Hells Angels wannabes. The name 'Sons of Fire' was as close as they could get without the real Hell's Angels coming down on them." Pocchi said.

"Is there any chance that Commander Tate is letting things fall off a truck for them?" Traci asked.

"Well given that he may be the one that attacked you and he is not in today, I would say he is a strong suspect," Michele replied.

"The BOLO on his car came up negative because it's still parked in the employee lot at the hospital. Michele and I are going to his residence next," Pocchi told them.

"Well when you do that, we'll go the Drinking Lamp and speak to the Sons of Fire." John added. He looked at his cousin and asked, "Any chance that outfit can be sexed up a bit?"

Gail said, "Turn around boys." After Harm, Chris and John dutifully complied Gail took off her shirt and camisole. The she put the shirt back on, but instead of buttoning it back up she took the front tails and tied them in front just under her ample breasts. She pushed up on her breasts, adjusted her bra so that she could show more cleavage. When she turned around she undid her pony tail and fluffed her hair out some.

"Six months of undercover work in the NYPD Vice Squad," she said to unasked questions in Harm's and the others' stares. John just smiled. Again he was doing something unexpected to push the case forward.

1300 Local Time

Drinking Lamp Bar

Norfolk, VA

John had a denim jacket and jeans and scuffed work shoes on. He wore the jacket over his white tee shirt.

He had his Berretta in a holster at the small of his back under his outfit. He had his sunglasses on as he and Gail got out of his Camaro outside the Drinking Lamp. They walked past the line of motorcycles parked outside the bar. Gail was really working her role of his girlfriend. She had the gum snapping and the nasally city girl accent going. (Think Marisa Tomei in 'My Cousin Vinny.) As they walked into the dimly lit bar they had to remove their sunglasses. They went up to the bar and ordered drinks. John said, "Give me a beer."

Gail said, "I'll have a Manhattan." The Manhattan came out nasal sounding like Miinhainttan.

The bartender told her, "We only serve beer or straight liquor. We don't do any fru-fru mixed drinks."

"Okay, then give me two fingers of 'Jack'," Gail said putting her hand on the bar. She held her pinky and index finger out with her ring and middle fingers close between them to indicate the level of 'Jack Daniels' she wanted.

The bartender filled up a tumbler glass for her. She gulped it own in one shot. John just sipped his beer in an effort to hide his smile. He knew Gail could hold her liquor.

Gail gravitated to the pool table in the rear of the room. She and John had seen a group of men in denim jackets gathered around there. They both figured that the gang would make up the majority of the bar patrons at this time of day.

Gail saw that there was no money on the rim of the table to indicate who was playing next. So she went over and slapped a $5.00 dollar bill on the rim saying, "I play winner."

One guy who was shooting stopped, looked up at her and said, "Hell darlin' I'll play ya now."

"Rack em up sport," Gail said snapping her gum.

"The name's not sport, it's Rock," Rock said.

"Okay 'Rock," Gail said. She then asked, "What are we playing?"

"Eight ball, we'll lag to see who breaks," Rock said.

"That's okay sport, you can break," Gail conceded.

Rock grimaced at the use of sport again but he racked the balls. He asked, "What are we playing for?"

"How we play for $5.00 a ball?" Gail asked.

"Fine by me," Rock answered and then took his shot. While he broke the rack good enough, no balls were sunk.

"Nothin'" Gail said.

As Gail walked around the table and examined her options she was humming a tune. John recognized it as 'Fools Rush In'. he took a sip of his beer to hide his smile. She finally settled her self and called her shot, "15 Ball in the corner pocket." She took the shot. The cue ball smacked loudly against the 15, which rolled true to the corner pocket. She proceeded to run the table never giving Rock another shot. When she sunk the 8 ball she held out her hand, that's 8 balls times $5.00 a ball that makes it $40.00 you owe me."

Rock was incensed. "No fair lady, you didn't even give me a chance to take my shot."

"Well sport you had your shot at the break. It's not my fault you didn't sink anything sport," Gail said.

It was the last 'sport' that set Rock off. He advanced on Gail. Gail still had her cue stick in her hands. As Rock got close enough she swung the fat end across his head. As the stick broke in two over Rock's head, he staggered. Gail advance d on him. She hauled off and p u n c h e d his nose, hard. His nose collapsed and blood began to flow and Rock went down. Gail stood over him balancing on the balls of her feet in a fightin g stance waiting for him to get up.

As John watched the game he sipped his beer some more. When the game was over and Rock approached Gail ready to assault her, he put his beer down to watch the coming fight waiting to see if he needed to intercede. As Rock advanced on Gail he said softly to the bartender in a sing song voice, "Big mistake."

The bartender replied, "That little girl of yours is in a lot of trouble."

"No I'd worry about your friend there," John countered.

The bartender looked at him skeptically, but he settled in to watch the spectacle.

John winced when Gail snapped the cue stick across Rock's head. He winced again when Gail punched Rock's nose and he went down. He saw the group of men go over to Rock, looking like they were ready to join the fight. John took his Berretta out and loudly cocked it saying, "Uh, uh, stay out of it boys. It's still fair fight."

They all backed up knowing he got the drop on them. Rock looked over at John as he held the gun at the gang. He decided to stay down.

Gail was the next to speak as she said, "Look Rock I'll forgive the debt if you give me some information. What do you say?"

Rock wiped at his nose, he asked, "What are you a cop?" Rock asked.

"No I'm a lawyer. I need information," Gail told him.

"What kind of information?" Rock asked.

"Do you know Peter Tierney?" Gail asked.

"Who's he," Rock answered.

"He was the guy the other day that tried to get the Sons of Fire to back off his friend. He tried to pay his friend's debt to them. Well the Sons said no because they didn't want to give up their drug pipeline." Gail explained.

"I don't know about any drug pipeline. He didn't owe us any money and there was nothing to give up. The only thing I know of a pipeline is when this guy named Limon came to us a couple of weeks ago. He said that his bookie sent him to set up a pipeline of stuff we could sell. I didn't know what he was talking about so I told him to come back when he had something to sell. I thought he was going to get some truck or machine parts, you know cast offs from the base. They're always throwing good stuff out. We just take whatever they don't want and try to resell it. Limon said he could get us real good stuff to resell. He didn't deliver anything to us. The next time I saw him was when he and your friend came and ran over our bikes," Rock said.

"Do you know the name of Limon's bookie?" Gail asked.

"Limon said his n ame was Tate," Rock said.