Chapter Four
Hyrkanian steel
Tony DiNozzo rides the elevator to Operations, still basking in the glow of the night. It's not easy juggling two half-lives, and when the red Psych Ward band about his wrist had been replaced by one of platinum, keeping the halves separate grew significantly harder. But he's up to the challenge - any challenge.
It's well for him that he has such a wellspring of self-faith, for when the elevator doors open his three colleagues are on the other side. McGee and David each grab an arm and his half-step forward becomes several back. "Good morning to you, too."
"Dead Navy Lieutenant outside Norfolk," Gibbs informs him, pushing the button.
Ziva is more forthcoming when the doors close. "She was jogging beside I-564. Nearest they can tell, she was killed by a passing vehicle."
Unfortunate, but hardly a Major Case Response Team callout, unless... "Lemme guess. She's R&D."
"You got it," McGee assures him.
"Think it's the same 'hitter'?"
"You tell us, DiNozzo," Gibbs says. "She was impaled through the back with a sword."
xxx
The body of Lieutenant Carla Stratton lies on the side of Interstate 564. The right lane is blocked to allow room for the Investigators to work, which causes early morning commuters to make their displeasure quite vocal. Several Military Police vehicles have been positioned well before the trail of evidence leading to the body, plenty of space on the side of the road reserved for the collection of evidence.
Highway Patrol had responded to the initial calls. It was unamazing to the skeptical among them how many had reported the killing and how few had remained to render aid or to volunteer information. The tally is many and none.
Finding the victim to have come from Naval Station Norfolk two miles down the road, they'd passed on the report and secured the scene without any of the tedious jurisdictional squabbles so prevalent in the higher ranks. By the time NCIS rolls up, Naval MPs have taken and are ready to surrender charge.
Gibbs can see that they don't want to, this victim one of their own. But they know that, for the case to be solved quickly, it must be put into the hands of the detectives.
x
The woman's body has not been moved. She lies on her side, arms and legs bent into uncomfortable positions were she alive, scraped and dirty from her rolling fall. That roll had been disrupted by the foot of steel that juts out of the middle of her chest. Her head is bent backward, her blonde hair spills across her face and a pool of blood covers the paved road shoulder about her. It appears, pending Ducky's determination, that the blood had drained by gravity rather than flowing via a beating heart.
Gibbs' first concern, while his team collects physical and photographic evidence, is to interview the MPs and Highway Patrol officers. He approaches a Petty Officer Third Class, equivalent to a Marine Corporal; late twenties with the look of eagles so prevalent among Navy or Marine personnel. "Tell me about her, Jacobson," Gibbs instructs, reading the ID unobtrusively enough that he seems to know the man.
"Well, sir, I can tell you what you've already worked out; this was no random attack. Some guy didn't just say to himself 'I think I'll pack a sword in my car and stab the first jogger I see.' He knew she was going to be here, sir."
"How did he know?"
"She's here every morning. 0800 she leaves the base, 0830 she turns back, she's through the gate at 0900, shower, breakfast, at her post by 1000. You can set the Station clocks by any of those points."
Much as Gibbs appreciates predictability, in Stratton's case it was not an advantage. "What do you know of her that's not in the files?"
"Not a lot to tell, sir. She's part of a Special Unit, I don't know much about it or her. She's Navy, but not quite the same as us; Special Operations beyond Special Ops. The regular guys can get assigned to guard the place, but no one gets in without Special Clearance - and getting an Audience with the Pope is easier.
"She doesn't socialize much with the rest of us; none of them do. Once they're in Bunker 1, they're there until they come out."
"So you don't know her?"
"Not personally, she's just a file. There's tens of thousands of people, long term and transient. Norfolk is 17 square kilometers; hard to know them all."
"Anyone know her, Petty Officer?"
"I know she doesn't date much, because she seems to have one rule. You want to ask her out, you keep up with her - and you don't come back winded."
"Around here, I'd don't expect that's a problem."
"Oh it isn't. But she's very good, a marathoner who can hold her wind in flat out sprints, but she doesn't fail to let you see that she's better than you. She'll work up to your best speed, push you to the wall and then take off like a jackrabbit. Once or twice of that is one thing, too many times and word gets around. Soon no one wants to play."
x
"She wasn't well liked?"
Jacobsen looks around. "Far be it from me to speak ill of an Officer - or of the dead - but she didn't let you forget she was better than you. Never said it, at least not in my hearing; just showed it. She wasn't what I'd call a role model, sir." His tone conveys there is more to the story and Gibbs wants it all.
"How so?"
"Well, sir, an Officer, like say Captain Parker, is supposed to have standards he wants to inspire you to reach, particularly by having them in his own life. But Stratton's standards were unreasonable: she demanded perfection."
"There's nothing wrong with demanding perfection," Gibbs comments as he continues to write.
"No, sir. But begging your pardon, sir, I'm sure you expect perfection as an ideal from your Agents but temper it with the knowledge that you'll never get it. People are flawed; they can't give perfection. Most reasonable people realize that and make allowance for it."
"Are you calling me unreasonable, Petty Officer?" Gibbs asks with quiet menace, not glancing up from writing in his pad.
Jacobsen looks at him apprehensively, fearing he has overstepped his bounds; until he sees the incipient smile on the taciturn Agent's lips and relaxes.
"No, sir," he assures Gibbs, recognizing he's been had and giving points for the ploy as the Investigator looks up. "But Lieutenant Stratton couldn't seem to temper her expectations. She wasn't nasty or anything like that - that would fall below the standards of perfection - but she always managed to convey the sense that you were a disappointment."
"So, no one really wanted to fraternize?"
"An Enlisted man fraternizing with an Officer doesn't happen, sir." The look they exchange conveys that the 'Party Line' is alive and well. "But if they did, she wouldn't get many takers. A man doesn't like to feel he's not 'measuring up'."
"Can you think of anyone who'd want to kill her?"
He's surprised by the implication, at least in his face. "No, sir. I can't speak for what happens inside Bunker 1 and I don't know anyone who can, but outside it she never went out of her way to offend anyone. Like I said, that wouldn't be perfection. But not many people associated with her so far as I know. Stories get around. The average man, if he were looking for companionship, just didn't bother to try."
xx
Gibbs, confirming that his team has interviews with other MPs and Highway Patrol well covered, returns to Ducky. He's examining the body of the young woman.
She lies on her right side, canted forward, her arms and legs in the disheveled position she'd landed in following her rolling spill, a fall disrupted by the foot long shaft of steel jutting outward from between her breasts.
"I'm my own Assistant this morning," Ducky tells him the very obvious before he can even ask for a report. "Mr. Palmer was late this morning for some reason. He's rarely tardy - in fact he's usually in before me and often departs after I have retired - but this morning he seems to have overslept. At least that was what he told me when I called him to divert him here."
"What do you have?"
"Our young friend here," he indicates the still woman between them, "appears to be in her early thirties, no distinguishing marks I can locate at the moment, but I take it you already have a suitable identification."
"Lieutenant Carla Stratton, Special Special Operations."
"And I trust you've determined what makes her operations so special?"
"No idea, yet. That's part two."
"Oh. Well, the cause of death is, as you see, this piece of sharp metal extending from her back through her chest - I measure the blade at 33 ½ inches. Her body is covered on all sides with numerous abrasions doubtlessly received during her presumably spectacular fall. These scrapes," he points them out, "as well as her broken neck, are consistent with an uncontrolled tumbling and rolling fall. As she appears to have made no attempt to protect her head or any other part of her body my conclusion, based upon this and her wound, is that she was dead even before striking the ground." He rises from his crouch.
"As you can see, she fell with such force that the sword bent slightly, impressive for steel of this thickness and giving adequate indication of the forces involved. The initial direction of the blade was almost straight forward. I theorize her assailant approached in a vehicle and therefore did not have to thrust forward. The posted speed limit is 65 miles per hour, which is more than enough to get this degree of damage."
"The initial spray starts nearly twelve yards back," Gibbs tells him. The area where she lies is awash in blood.
"Yes. She would have been driven forward with great force. And as you can see from the front of her body," he points to where the woman, lying on her side but almost face down, is held off the highway by the blade, "she was sliced side to side as she rolled to a stop."
"Time of death?"
Ducky crouches back down, withdraws and checks the digital readout on the long spiked thermometer that had been buried deep in her side. He compares it to the thermometer clipped to his shirt. "Given the ambient temperature and allowing for a buildup of heat in running nearly two miles from the entrance of the Station, I put it about 8:00 to 8:30."
"Consistent with her schedule for the outward lap."
x
"McGee!" The Agent approaches quickly from down the road, holding his camera. DiNozzo, a few feet closer, joins them. "What do you make of the sword?"
"It looks like a fantasy sword and that bothers me."
"It certainly bothered her," DiNozzo observes and finds that he'd drifted into Gibbs' range. "Thank you, boss."
"Why?" Gibbs asks McGee, ignoring the chastised agent.
"Because I could swear to you I've seen it. I can't place it, but it looks familiar. The pommel, gripe and guard are … I feel I've seen it." He pulls out his blackberry, brings up a picture, then another. "No." Another. "No." He scrolls through the images, becoming more frustrated by the moment.
Gibbs looks at the small images as best he can as they flash by. He decides he will have to take the younger Agent's word until he can see them on a proper screen. Certainly it can't be for any need of glasses. "Always carry pictures of swords in your thing, 'Elf Lord'?"
"Er, no, boss. But with the identification in the report, I downloaded a load of pictures over wireless link while we were on the way - for comparison. I–" Gibbs holds up his hand, halting the man's uncomfortable admission, his expression showing he'd been riding his friend.
"Let me know when you find it." He turns up the road.
"I can't find it." McGee reports, having come to the end of the list. "There are thousands of choices; I just don't have the memory for all of them." He glares at DiNozzo.
"I didn't say anything, McGoogle."
"I'll have to get back to my computer to narrow the search."
"When you do ID it," Gibbs says, "any way of telling which manufacturer supplied our killer?"
"I would have to subject it to rigorous examination - that is, Abby would have to subject it to rigorous examination - but from what I've seen in the pictures they're pretty much identical. A lot of what I've seen comes from Toledo."
"Not Ohio, I take it."
"No, boss. Spain." That city has a long held standing as the premier sword manufacturing city, a centuries-old proud and well justified reputation. "I can't say that they come from one manufacturer, but I can find out."
"You do that."
x
Gibbs walks over to Ziva, who'd commenced taking pictures at the first spray of blood. She'd tracked the damage back to the body while ignoring the suggestions of passing motorists. "What have you got?"
"Nineteen offers for rides, two proposals and sixteen pussy calls."
He thinks this one over. "Cat calls?"
Her answer is delayed by a yell from within a Toyota. "No, Gibbs, this time I think I am right."
He decides not to pursue it. The woman is a walking inspiration, but he knows her to be as deadly as she is inspiring. Too bad her admirers don't know that.
"What about the body?" A whistle cuts him off and Ziva offers the driver a rude direction, something Gibbs can't quite bring himself to call her on.
"Oh, you mean her body," Ziva clarifies, annoyed. "It looks as though she was stabbed about 35 feet back and then–" Her report is cut by a particularly unimaginative suggestion. Gibbs has had enough.
"Come on."
"Where?"
"The Station." He had planned on making it his first stop of the day, this incident only confirms that the base is the focal point of their investigation.
"Good. At least there I shall be free of Neanderthals."
"Nope. They'll just be better dressed."
xxx
Gibbs and David had arrived in his car, McGee had ridden with DiNozzo, allowing the team to split up later to pursue separate investigative paths. Gibbs' first stop is the Base Commander's office. Commander Harold Letzkie, Executive Officer in charge while his CO is on Leave, receives them in his office under the escort of his Yeoman Samuel Geleta. Letzkie is a tall man in his late forties with receding black hair, his deep blue uniform jacket laden with medal bars and his shoulder epaulets bear the three gold bars of his rank.
"Special Agent Gibbs, Officer David, I've already been informed of the murder of Lieutenant Stratton." Letzkie has worked with these agents before and greets them with a handshake before sitting back down behind his desk. "Thank you for getting here so fast."
"We were already on our way over regarding Captain Morris."
The Commander looks at him blankly. "Morris? Why about Morris?" Isn't their first concern going to be a dead Officer?
The question gives Gibbs pause. "He's dead, Commander." Letzkie's eyes go wide. "He and his wife, in the parking lot of La Chateau Julienne last evening."
Letzkie's expression clearly shows how little he likes getting the news last. He slaps the intercom button. "Geleta - get in here!" It takes less than three seconds for the door to fly open, admitting the startled Yeoman. "Did you know that Captain Morris is also dead - since last evening?" If anything, Geleta's surprise is considerably less guarded than his superior's.
"No sir!"
"Answers - ten minutes!"
"Yes, Commander!" He salutes and vanishes.
Letzkie takes a moment to compose himself. "Well, this is embarrassing," he admits.
"Yes, sir."
"What happened to them?"
"Short answer; he was shot and she had her throat cut." He's not willing to let any of the details out yet, not even to the man's CO. Even the News services which had been on the scene had received a vastly edited version of the events.
"Two attackers?"
"Too soon to tell definitely."
"Of course."
"Do you know why they were at that Restaurant?" Gibbs does know, he wants to know who else does.
"Yesterday was their 30th Anniversary. Morris told me last week he had something special planned. He wanted to pull out all the stops, make up for the long hours he had been putting in here."
"I understand that Captain Morris worked in Research and Development."
"He heads - headed - up a Special Project. Lieutenant Stratton was on his team."
Gibbs isn't surprised. He can even hear the capitals. "What were they working on?"
"I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs, I can't tell you that."
"We have full Security Clearance," Gibbs reminds him.
"I know you do, but that's not the issue. I can't tell you what they were working on because I do not know."
x
Gibbs could ask how the Executive Officer of the base, nominally in command, could not know about something under his direction but does not do so. Letzkie's displeasure is quite evident. "The Pentagon has designated this project as 'Need to Know' and has decided that, as XO, I do not need to know. Fine, I've followed worse orders. They don't mind if I don't like it. I know nothing of it beyond its name; 'Project Dragonfire'."
Both Gibbs and Ziva carefully school their expressions. First 'Dragonclaw', now...
"Does the Captain need to know?" Gibbs wouldn't put it past the Pentagon brass to keep even the Station's commander in the dark if it suited their needs.
"He does and I've just been on the line with him when I found out who had been attacked. Apparently the Pentagon places a great deal of stock in this group. Captain Parker's in Norway and he's getting the next bird back. I expect him within three hours."
"All right. For the moment we'll proceed without the 'need to know' what they were up to. Can you tell me if anyone would want either of them dead?"
"Captain Morris was an okay guy personality-wise. Lieutenant Stratton could be somewhat stand-offish, but she lived on the base while Morris and his wife had a home off-base. That makes a lot of difference."
"How so?" He knows the general, wants the specific.
"They're on a strict gag order, can't talk about their project. When you can't discuss what you do with anyone, it pretty much limits conversation. Morris had a good out, he and his wife have friends and a life outside these gates."
"How many people work with them?"
"There are seven other principle scientists, Doctors and Professors beyond their Naval standings, and a staff of over ninety assistants, not to mention a steady stream of scientists from MIT, NASA, CalTech, NSA, the whole alphabet soup going in and out. No one gets through that door without the highest of Security Clearance and Special Clearance from the Pentagon.
"They're housed in a guarded Bunker in the northern quadrant with their own power, their own computers. They have access to data from scientific facilities all over the world, but their contacts are carefully screened and restricted and their computers have the best firewalls and safety screens money can buy. They're completely independent and isolated."
"Like their own country."
"Own fort is more like it. Bunker 1 is heavily guarded, completely secured. Everybody gets searched, you can't carry a microbe out. The top echelon doesn't even answer to us unless they want to - and they don't. Morris answers to the Pentagon, the man he reports to is on nickname basis with Bush."
Gibbs doesn't need a map drawn. This level of security is far beyond the usual and will hinder every aspect of the investigation. But what about the job is enough to lead someone to murder? "I'd like to see Lieutenant Stratton's quarters before I interview the rest of the team."
"I can let you in her quarters, no problem, but I doubt I can authorize you to have access to the surviving members of that 'Think Tank'."
"No problem," he tells the Commander, pulling his cell phone from his black jacket pocket. "Our Director knows some phone numbers."
xxx
Ziva uses the key provided by Station Security to unlock the bachelor quarters assigned to Lt. Carla Stratton and allows Gibbs to enter first. This is a Secondary Crime Scene and they enter with guns drawn. The rooms hadn't been screened before or after Stratton's death, they can't presume there are no intruders or dangers. They sweep the rooms rapidly and efficiently. They're alone.
"Looks like a hotel room," Ziva says.
"Normally they start out this way, but don't last."
"This one has."
The main room is a combination living room / bedroom, the double bed directly inward from the door, between two tables, each with a lamp upon it and room for little more. The lamps as well as the overhead light had been controlled from the switch by the door, though they could work independently as well. On the Agents' left is a smaller kitchen and the next is the bathroom with shower. There's nothing more. It does resemble the sterile environment of a hotel room in that first moment when the door is opened, when nothing of the eventual occupant is imprinted anywhere.
The room is immaculate, the bed extending toward them from the far wall made with tight military precision. Gibbs knows that he could toss a coin upon the taut blanket and it would bounce off onto the floor. All the other furnishings are precisely placed. The room looks like it could be photographed for a magazine spread.
The only thing of significance in the room is a closed laptop computer on a table at the right wall. Gibbs notes that it's hooked up to a telephone jack. 'So much for restricted computer access.' Perhaps that rule applies only to Bunker 1.
x
Gibbs had been in many of the bachelor quarters in the various buildings on the tremendous base, none before this had been so bereft of personality. Every place, no matter how brief the occupancy was to be, took on something of the nature of its occupant.
"How long did you say she was here?" Ziva asks.
"Three years."
"Is it possible she just moved into these quarters?"
"Not according to the file. So far as I can see, that's the only personal thing here."
At odds with the orderly room is a tall poster in a thin wooden frame set next to the main door, directly in sight of anyone sitting or lying upon the bed. The image is five feet tall and truly striking. It depicts a red haired woman apparently on the top of a frozen mountain, except that her attire consists entirely of a metal demi-bra of what looks like gold coins or golden mail, more likely the latter for all the benefit it would give the woman. It is wholly insufficient for containing her assets, while her lower attire would not make a suitable thong, except that it is also composed of the round metallic links. It's apparently no more than draping triangles, front and back, the rear triangle only slightly larger than the uselessly small front one. Ornate decorative shoulder barriers protect maybe a three inch wide range of her shoulders. The only things suitable for the weather are lined boots, though Gibbs cannot see the point of them when the metal worn at breasts and hips must be cold enough on the frigid mountain to freeze her –.
She stands in a provocative action pose; silver sword raised high over her head while before her lies the headless body of some unknown humanoid creature slowly freezing on the icy ground. Of the head there is no sign.
"Who is it?"
"Someone significant," Ziva quips. That much is obvious from it being apparently the only personal item in the entire room.
"You don't know?" he demands. She's too far away for a wake-up call, something she clearly knew before speaking.
"Tim would," she assures him, recalling the secret he had revealed to her alone at the Hotel Maritz during the 'Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention'. She's certain that this information, innocuous as it is, is not breaking her promise.
Gibbs looks about the Spartan room. "Was your apartment ever like this?" Though he had been there before, he wonders if the Mossad Agent, with her years of caution in preventing anyone from knowing enough about her to risk her safety, kept her private life as much of a mystery.
"Not mine. You can tell someone's home."
x
Ziva faces the large, colorful poster, pulls out her cell phone and opens it, takes a picture. Then she hits the conference call and speed dial buttons and Gibbs' phone rings a moment later. A final connection is made and McGee's voice acknowledges.
"McGee," Gibbs says, "there's only one thing of interest here. Who is this?" He signals to Ziva, who transmits the image. They need wait only a moment.
/That's 'Red Sonja'. The painting is by Boris Vallejo./
Gibbs can see the name 'Boris' written large in the lower right corner. "Tell me about her. Why would she be in Lieutenant Stratton's quarters?"
"Well, she's a fictional warrior from someplace called Hyrkania. She was a contemporary of 'Conan the Barbarian', both characters created by Robert E. Howard. According to the legend, she was the sole survivor of the annihilation of her village, was gang-raped by all of the warriors, in consolation of which she was given extraordinary fighting skills and strength by a goddess. She was so good no one could beat her, and because of her rapes she swore that no man would ever touch her - romantically or carnally - unless he could beat her in a fair swordfight."
"Anyone ever do it?"
"Conan."
"Thanks, McGee." Things are starting to fall into place. The races now make sense. "What've you learned?"
"Ducky's about finished, he and I have secured the body."
"You and DiNozzo get on to Morris's place when you're done there."
"Right, boss."
xx
While Ziva searches the rooms, opening drawers and cabinets, Gibbs takes in the setting as a whole. "Stratton was a creature of habit," Ziva concludes. "She could be found on that road at a specific time. The Morris's were on their 30th Wedding Anniversary and apparently it was no secret. Anyone who wanted to kill them had only to wait."
"Who knew they were going to Julienne?" The Station's XO knew only they were going 'out', not where.
"Anyone in the Bunker?" she speculates
That is starting to sound like the most likely place to start - if the Director can get them the access they need quickly enough. He is about to point this out when he sees Ziva freeze and then turn sharply toward the poster. She tugs her phone out and flips it open with a snap, stabs the 'redial' and 'conference' buttons as Gibbs pulls his own phone. A moment later, "Tim, describe that sword to me."
/Blade 33 ½ inches, the guard is a curved silver that comes forward in hornlike projections pressing against her back, while the pommel is semispheroid, the curved portion outward, the inner side straight and – yes! That's where I've seen it!/ he exclaims triumphantly. /Red Sonja!/
"McGee, I want DiNozzo to get over to Morris's now. Look for anything there that will point to Dragonclaw, Legolas' arrows, 'Lord of the Rings', anything. We'll pick you up, we've got Stratton's laptop. I want you to pick it apart."
/Right, boss. But I can tell you something right off about 'Lord of the Rings'. Nikita Morris' company published the most recent edition./
xxx
In the cavernous chambers of Union Station a tall man wearing a brown leather jacket approaches a bank of lockers and puts his key into one of them. He withdraws a black plastic bag containing a small cardboard box. Closing the locker, he casually strolls away, in due time reaching the rest room. He has to wait a moment for a stall to become available and then he enters, undoes his belt and lowers his pants, sits down with the package on his lap. He opens the cardboard box, finds in it 250 used, non-sequential $100 bills. This, added to his payment for the first execution, actually a 'two-for', brings his sub-total to $50,000.
The Contract has 7 more to go.
Re-boxing the money, he rebags the box, restores his clothes and exits the stall. He washes his hands and leaves the restroom, the bag dangling from his hand as he walks, unnoticed, toward the exit.