Gone were Alice's B&W striped tee, anorak jacket, and skinny jeans. Gone were her trinkets: teal friendship bracelet from the time she volunteered in Masai Mara, Coral necklace from Vietnam.
'What's with the blazer?' Deeks asked Alice wearing a sleek black suit when he saw her leaning over her desk, reading a book carefully.
'Inspiration.' She said absent-mindedly.
'What?' Callen asked dumbfounded.
'One of the greatest journalists in the world was killed yesterday, for the truth which he believed in. I,' gesturing to herself, 'intend to uncover the truth and bring another photojournalist home.' Her voice cracked a little when she said "photojournalist", but she was determined to get Jonathan back home.
'What has the blazer got to do with inspiration?' Sam asked, eyebrows raised.
'This,' gesturing to the suit now, 'was what Andrew McKay wore every damn day. And this, is a tribute to him.'
She went through another page of Jonathan's reminder. It took a little time, since he wrote in a different kind of shorthand, and she was advancing slowly. Heck, maybe there was software that could translate from shorthand. She climbed up the stairs two at a time, and went into Ops.
'Umm... Hello. You must be Eric,' she said to the man calling the shots on the monitors.
Eric turned around on his chair and did an awkward bow. 'Yes, Madame, it is I,' in a faux French accent. 'Who might you, the adventurous stranger who dares invade our lands, be?'
'Uggh... Alice Duranty. I started working here yesterday.'
Eric got up and gave a deeper bow. 'What could I, valiant knight, do for you?'
'A lot. I was wondering, if there was any software or anything, that could translate from shorthand? The thing is, I use Gregg, and this book here, is written in Pitman. I need to translate fast.'
'Oh, my dear woman. How I wished I could help you, but bad fortune has befallen upon us, for there does not exist such software.'
Alice ran down the stairs and started translating. Hetty interrupted, and told her that she had to trace a bunch of bills that had been transferred through different accounts, different banks, all over the world. Alice stared at the number of files of bank paper trails in front of her. She opened the first file: everything in fine print. She removed huge, Harry Potter style reading glasses from their case, and set to work. She had to put this out of her way as fast as possible, so she could get on with finding Jonathan.
After about an hour, she was about halfway through her files. A huge sum, put into a bank in Los Angeles was about $200 each in banks in Shanghai, Beijing, Mumbai, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, D.C, among others. She looked at the others for a second, not allowing herself to be distracted for more. Callen and Kensi were supposed to be reviewing NCIS applications and resumes from across the country. She didn't know what Deeks and Sam were doing, but it seemed to be as tedious as her job. In the next hour, she found where each and every penny was. After going to above mentioned places, the money was simply scattered across different branches across the city. She put the bundle aside and removed Jonathan's leather reminder.
An hour later, after going through the entire reminder, nothing. She looked at the time. An hour before lunch; her meeting with Jillian, Jonathan's sister. She tried to call her friends back at the newspaper again, but to no avail. She sighed and wondered if she would be more useful in finding Jonathan at the newspaper, but did not let herself get lost in idle thoughts. She logged on to Jonathan's email. She would under normal circumstances consider this wrong, but who cared now?!
Password:
Jonathan had 2 emails IDs. One for work and one for personal use. She knew the password to his personal account but not this one. Eyebrows creased, she took a wild guess, and put in the name of Jonathan's camera: Talbot.
Password: ******
Login successful!
Giving out a sigh of relief, she went through Jonathan's emails, taking specific interest in the ones shared with McKay. Nothing much. Just a few deadlines, and a copy of their tickets to the Middle East. Many emails had been exchanged between him and Alice. He would send jpeg attachments of pictures that he clicked and she would send him her articles, to see if they complemented each other. There were lots of mails from and to their common editor: Rachel Baer. She looked into each one of them. There wasn't anything. There were a few mails from Wiley, but nothing special. She went to the older mails. 1 mail stood out.
Andrew McKay (no subject)
That caught her attention. McKay wasn't the sort of man to send a mail without a subject. He believed in everything being orderly and labelled. The body of the mail read:
ILuvZacEfron
Pword:HighSchoolMusical
Huh. Strange. Why would McKay mail Jonathan that? Whose ID was it anyways? McKay's teen daughter? She logged off Jonathan's ID and logged into the Zac Efron ID. There were nil emails, either in the inbox or out. She quickly browsed through the page, with successful results.
'What might you be doing, Ms. Duranty?' Hetty asked from behind her suddenly, scaring the life out of her. She had been intensely focused on the reminder and email first, she hadn't noticed the anyone around her. 'I thought I had assigned you a job to do.'
Alice quickly put down her laptop lid before Hetty could see anything. 'I'm done with that.'
'And what would you be doing now?'
'Ugghh...' she had been told that this woman was the ultimate lie-detector, so she found no point or reason to lie to her. Also, McKay supposedly trusted this lady and was friends with her. That was how she got this job. 'McKay died yesterday. Jonathan Clarke was kidnapped. They knew something. I was... trying to find out what.' She told her new boss.
'Ah... You're trying to finish the job. Making sure he didn't die in vain.'
'It's not only that.' Alice got up, buttoning her suit, towering above the operations manager. 'There were some bad people trying to hide something, and they were willing to kill for it. I, for one, am very interested in getting them the justice they deserve.'
'Oh. What have you found until now?'
'Not much.' Alice admitted.
'Well, I would like to help you, if you may require my help. After all, Andrew was a dear friend, who did not deserve to die such a tragic death.'
Alice thanked her, and opened the laptop again. Her eyes fell upon the time at the bottom of the screen. A quarter hour to lunch. She logged of the Zac Efron ID and gathered a few things in her purse and left for The Oak.