Hey guys, so I spent this afternoon writing this chapter to the sounds of thunder as there is a massive storm approaching… I can't wait I always enjoy a bit of thunder and lightning (insert bohemian rhapsody here)
Thanks for the reviews and feedback from Agent striker and Smush 68, also a big thanks to FanasyFlinger, andrewjeeces and mykidmom, and everyone else for reading. Reviews are always welcome, especially if you have a random word you would like me to include in the next chapter.
I do not own NCIS or any of the characters, and with that out of the way, enjoy
Tony and Ziva had set up in the captains Stateroom, and were interviewing everyone involved in the latest brawl. Each submariner had their turn in the hot seat.
First up was Locks, who walked into the room with a sullen look on his face, he was still visibly upset by his friends sudden death. Tony, who was standing up against the wall, directed him to sit down across from Ziva. He raised his eyebrows when he saw her, but he said nothing, sitting down and slumping in the chair.
"Your name?" Ziva asked.
"Steven Locks ma 'mm" he replied. She quickly made a note on a piece of paper.
"Can you tell me what you did yesterday while the fight was on?"
"I was fighting ma 'mm" he replied.
"Who with?"
"ahh.. Andrew McGregor and Robert Cox, I think I took a swing at both of them." Locks replied, Ziva jotted it down.
"Can you tell me what the fight was about?"
"Long story, Tucker and McCormack never got along, Tucker had been bragging that he had slept with Charlotte at last port, and McCormack knew that they had dinner together. He was upset, he said something that he probably shouldn't, and Tucker took a swing. I tried to pull Nick away but Night took a swing at me, and before I knew it there were 30 of us."
"And afterwards"
"McCormack was having an asthma attack so I took to Hunter for treatment. Then I helped Tully and Hunter bring back Wilson, Foster and McGregor. When we got back, McCormack had already…"
"Did you know McCormack well?"
"He was my best mate on the sub, I was going to be the best man at his wedding"
"That's good, you can go" Ziva dismissed. He nodded, stood up and left. Tony walked over to Ziva and looked over her notes.
"What do you think?" he asked
"Andrew McGregor was the man knocked unconscious who left on the boat we arrived on. If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Locks that put him there, but he didn't kill McCormack."
DiNozzo nodded and returned to his spot against the wall. "Next!" he called
A few submariners later, it was Matthew Tucker's turn to be interviewed. He sauntered into the room, chest out, head up, sporting an impressive black eye. He too looked surprised to see Ziva sitting down at the table. Tony pointed him towards the seat, Tucker turned and faced him, sizing him up before biting his lip and sitting down in the chair.
"Your name?" Ziva asked.
"Matthew Tucker"
"And what were you doing yesterday while the fight was on?"
"Throwing punches ma 'mm" he replied with a smile.
"At who?"
"Nick McCormack, threw some good ones too, but he only landed one on me" he replied, pointing to his eye.
"You're not upset he's dead then"
"Not really" Tucker replied, Ziva and Tony shared a quick look before she proceeded.
"Why were you fighting, Locks claims that you started it"
Tucker laughed, "Yeah, Locks would say that. McCormack took a swing at me; I retaliated purely in self-defence."
"So you deny that you claimed to have slept with his fiancé?"
"Oh, I did, Charlotte's an old friend, we had a lot of… catching up to do."
"So was that the reason for the fight?"
"I don't know ma'am, Nick McCormack was a strange man. Who knows why he decided to take a swing at me."
Ziva nodded, writing it down "After the fight?"
"Went back to my Berthing compartment with Jefferys, Anderson and Night. Stayed there until my shift."
Ziva nodded and scribbled down almost a few notes before dismissing him. Tony came over once again. She looked up at him, relaxing in the chair. "He has an attitude problem, but I do not think that he killed our submariner. We don't even know if he was killed yet."
"Well 5 down" Tony smiled "Only 23 to go"
Next in was Robert Cox, a small man, of both stature and presence. Ziva continued her routine and asked him the same questions as she had with the others.
"Did you know him well?"
"Sure" he replied, "I mean everyone knew McCormack. He was very, outspoken. Never kept what he was thinking to himself. If he thought you were doing something wrong, he'd say so, no matter if you were a cook or the commander. Gave a lot of people a lot of strife. "
Soon followed Shawn Gillard, who took a similar view.
"Yeah, some people loved him, some hated him. He gave Jefferys a bad time, the commander was sick of him. But Tucker was definitely his main adversary on the sub; those two were constantly at each other's throats. "
Soon up was David Night who was very confident as he strolled into the room. Tony, getting tired from spending almost forty-five minutes resting against the wall, pulled up a chair. He placed it reversed up against the wall and lifting his leg over the back he sat down, resting his arms on the seat back in front of him.
"Where were you during the fight?" Ziva asked dryly, the question had become tiresome after the 17th or 18th time she asked, each time getting the same answer.
"Fighting with the rest ma'am" Night responded
"Who with?"
"I was watching Tuckers back, took a few swings at Locks, one or two at Hudson, maybe one at Rob"
"And afterwards?" Ziva asked making a note, gradually over the hour her writing had become messier and messier, developing from a neat cursive to an illegible scrawl. Every now and then she would stop, and pay attention, making sure an important word of alibi was clear. But her hand was getting sore from pages and pages of observations, and as long as she could half tell what she had written, that was okay with her.
"I went back to my berthing area with Jeffery's and Anderson"
Ziva's eyes snapped open; calmly she looked up to look at him. "And after that?"
Night shrugged, "We talked and waited for our shift"
Ziva flicked innocently through her notes, looking back up and him, staring straight into his eyes. "Matthew Tucker is also meant to be in that Berthing compartment, where was he?" She asked calm and collected.
He shrugged again "Probably went to see Hunter or something, I don't know ma'am"
Ziva lifted her head and nodded, "You may go."
Tony yawned and stood up from his chair, giving his arms and back a big stretch. "What was that about?" he asked tiredly
"Matthew Tucker's Alibi was that he returned to his berthing compartment after the fight. But Night disputed it, one of them is lying."
"Well which one did that look to the left thing?" Tony asked, cracking his neck.
"Not Night, but I wasn't paying that closer attention to Tucker. I'm not sure"
More Submarines were interviewed, each with their own alibi and each with battle wounds from the last fight. 24, 25, 26, 27, and finally, number 28, the last submariner who was involved in the fight that Ziva and Tony had to interview. After this, there were still the officers, the bystanders and the witnesses to question, but getting this last man out of the way would allow Tony and Ziva to take a breath of fresh air so to speak before they both went stir crazy from sitting in that small room.
Stanley Jefferys stepped in, and like everyman before him, paused upon the sight of Ziva. It had taken 28 men but when Jefferys entered the room, he looked from Ziva to Tony to Ziva and back to Tony.
"Who is she sir?" he asked, face scrunched up in confusion.
"I am special agent Ziva David; I am a part of NCIS"
Jeffery ignored her "Women aren't meant to be on submarines" He told Tony.
"Do you have a problem with me?" she asked.
Jeffery turned towards her and considered his answer for a second. "Yeah, I think I do."
Ziva turned her head and shot a look at Tony, who nodded, stood up and swapped seats with her.
"Your name?" Tony asked.
"Stanley Jefferys"
"What were you doing yesterday while the fighting was going on?"
"Getting payback, fair and square, threw a few, copped a few, did nothing wrong" he replied defiantly.
"Who were you fighting with?"
"Locks, Gillard, Cox, Hudson. Would have happily knocked out McCormack, but Tucker didn't give me the chance" Jefferys replied, Tony nodded and wrote it down below Ziva's notes. His neat printing a refreshing change from the messy scrawl above.
"And afterwards?"
"Went back to my compartment with Night and Anderson… and Tucker… he was there to"
"How well did you know McCormack" Tony asked, tapping the pen against his chin as he listened.
"Hated the bastard, never had a good word to say about my cooking, always complaining. You try cooking for 120 people; it's not easy I'm telling you. There he was expecting 5 star meals, someone needed to put him in his place."
"Not a friendly relationship then?" Tony asked.
"No sir, not at all"
"Right, you can get back to your station Petty officer." Tony told Night, waving him away. Night stood up and began to leave, shooting a quick look at Ziva before walking out the doorway.
Ziva stretched out her arms and stood up, snatching her notepad from Tony and flicking through the many pages of notes she had written over the last few hours. "I do not like that man" she said simply.
Tony used his two hands on the edge of the desk to push back on his chair, leaving just the two back legs of the chair on the ground. "Well in terms of suspects, Tucker sure looks the worst."
"I don't know" Ziva replied "A lot of people were angry, anyone of them could have walked in and strangled him or smothered him with a pillow. It would not have taken much."
Tony smiled up at her "Not everyone gets homicidal when they get angry Ziva" he beamed
She whacked him with her notebook, and in self-defence he brought his hands up to defend himself, forgetting about balancing himself on the chair. It tipped and he fell backwards onto the floor.
He let out a groan and curled up into a ball, rolling off the chair back and onto the floor.
Ziva laughed, and began to walk out, leaving DiNozzo on the floor. "Didn't your parents ever tell you not to swing on your chair" She smiled "Come on, let's see how Palmers going, see if we are hunting a murderer or not."
Tony groaned and slowly got to his feet, limping out.
McGee sat in the Sqaudroom typing; the only sound in the room came from the ZNN sport reporter that was on the TV behind Tony's desk. Almost everyone in the building had left and gone home, leaving 2, maybe three still working in the building. One was McGee, then Ricky Forrest from the threat assessment squad who was working to the left and down the corridor. Finally, the last agent in the building was Gibbs, but McGee didn't know where he was or what he was doing, so he didn't know whether to count him as working or not.
Out of all the teams in the building, Gibbs' faithful fighters were by far the most frequent to occupy the building afterhours. And McGee would usually be joined by Ziva and Tony, sleeping or not it was still nice to have them here when he worked through the night. Gibbs would disappear for an hour or so before reappearing and working frantically for the next two.
McGee looked up from his work, scanning over the empty room. He stood up and walked over to Tony's desk, flicking on his desk light. McGee grabbed a pile of Tony's yet to be finished paperwork and flicked through them. Case reports, pay slips, you name it, it was there. For a moment McGee considered stealing a few folders, stashing them in his desk until Vera from accounting came looking for the outstanding files. Tony would not know what hit him, and it would make for an interesting show, but then, McGee would never do that to Tony.
But then... Maybe this once…
"How's it going Tim?" Gibbs asked, arriving back into the sqaudroom after a long absence. McGee dropped the files back onto the pile, which swayed and fell, spreading all the manila folders and pieces of shiny white paper across Tony's desk and the floor surrounding it. Tim quickly bent down and began to gather them all up again into a messy stack which quickly slid out of his hands and back onto the floor.
Gibbs chuckled and took a sip of coffee, "Leave it McGee, What have you found?"
"Right, most of the crew have met before, especially the brawling ones. This is the first time the 34 submariners on report have ever been together as one on a crew. They have been on the same crews before, but only groups of 5 or 6, never all in the same place at the same time.
As far as previous reports go it's pretty quiet. There's the usual, smoking, drinking, the occasional insubordinate conduct to McCormack, Locks and Anderson. McCormack has a few complaints under his belt, nothing major and they have all been dismissed. His crewmates think that he is a bit to of a free speaker, and his blunt honesty has resulted in many complaints. But none of them have ever amounted to anything.
Back to relationships between the crew. We have Locks and McCormack. They have been on their previous 4 deployments together. Locks was to be best man at the wedding and every Friday they had on leave, their credit cards suggest that they spent the afternoon drinking together.
Tucker and Night, close friends away from the Navy, this is their second deployment together.
Now this is where it gets interesting, Tucker, McCormack and Charlotte Williams all went to high school together. I made a few calls a couple of hours ago, well as many as you can at 11 at night. From what I understood, Tucker was originally Charlotte's boyfriend, He then became close friends with McCormack through Football and Charlotte dumped him in favour of McCormack. From what I hear Tucker has always been very bitter.
A few weeks ago, Charlotte and Tucker met for lunch one day and then dinner the next, that's all I've got so far, I'll get back to work and keep digging" McGee finished with a small smile.
"No, that's good McGee, get some rest."
McGee looked up from his desk "You sure boss?" he asked
"Yeah I'm sure" Gibbs replied, staring up at the plasma and taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes shifted to the small TV behind Tony's desk, the ZNN news had moved on to the weather, and the reporter in a small red dress was gesturing to a large patch of dark blue on the radar map.
Out the window, light flashed and the sky rumbled. A storm was coming, it was coming fast.
And it was big.