Chapter Four
Psychological Autopsy
"Since we have time," Gibbs says levelly, reasonably to the woman who's been using her detonator switch as a sword to punctuate her frantic, too often screamed demands, "why don't we talk?"
"Fuck talking. I'm done talking."
"About what?"
"No. No way." She looks sharply among the agents, particularly at DiNozzo and McGee, both motionless to her right. "You two, get over there where I can see you." She stabs the small detonator box in her right hand toward the space between Gibbs' and David's desks. Slowly, ultra-cautiously, the men leave their desks and enter the limited space between their partners.
"Sit on the floor, hands on your laps. You two," she turns to Gibbs and Ziva bookending them, "hands flat on your desks."
Their movements slow and deliberate, they won't allow their faces to show the fear that makes their mouths dry and their hearts pound. There's barely enough room for the two men to sit, and their bodies block Ziva.
x
Seething, Ziva can barely contain her frustration. Earlier she might have had a chance, now Tony and Tim block her path. To get to the woman now she now must move to her right, take the long way about. She might have been able to act had the woman gotten close enough, but now there is no hope.
She glares down at Tony when the blonde woman glances at Gibbs. If he had been less attentive to the woman's body he would have seen that over her breasts she did not possess a Visitor Pass. She was not escorted. But he did not look for her Pass, or her escort, he looked for her-
But now she is trapped, unable to save her team. She is the warrior, she has thirty-one distinct ways of disabling the woman and getting control of the detonator, and now she is blocked by her own partners.
x
DiNozzo wishes he'd used the Head earlier, thinking irrelevantly how unlikely it is that their captor will allow him a break. 'I'll hold it,' he thinks. 'For the rest of my life.'
He doesn't feel the guilt Ziva feels he should, is oblivious of her opinion. He hadn't had the chance to act while crossing the room since the woman had backed out of reach. He can only hope Gibbs has a plan. Their lives are in his hands.
'How come when I'm sweating so much, have to pee this badly, my mouth has to be so damned dry?'
x
Tim McGee, tucked in next to Gibbs' desk, tries to focus his thoughts on something other than his terror. Once he might have thought 'This'd make a great book.' Now only one thought can fight through the fear.
'Shav. Oh, Shav, I'm so sorry. But you're safe. If I never see you again, if I don't make it, at least you're safe. Forgive me, Shav. I'm sorry if it has to end like this. I love you.'
x
"Not fair," the woman mutters furiously, pacing the length of the bullpen, her hands slicing the air. "All planned, every bit - and that bitch isn't even here.'
The detonator, a single button on top of a three inch square, inch-high black metal box, shakes in the blonde woman's trembling right hand and the agents hold their collective breath. If her thumb slips from the button with her frantic gesturing, none of them will ever know it; the explosion of twenty-five cylinders wrapped around her torso will obliterate the entire floor.
x
"Why?" Gibbs asks, wishing he had some water.
She whirls on him, her hand squeezing the detonator so hard her hand shakes. "Never mind why. You don't get to ask why."
"All right," he says flatly. This woman can be pressed only so far, and her body language screams that she's near her edge. "You want to kill us, fine. I can see that." He tries not to see the disbelief in the eyes of his team. "But do you want to notify your family? Let them know what's happening to you?"
"Got no family. Got nothing. And it's HIS FAULT," she screams as she takes a step toward McGee, detonator thrust at his slamming heart. "I should-" She halts, but though fear spikes in his eyes they discover that's not what stops her.
"No. All of you," she declares, visibly restraining herself. "All of you at once, but especially you," she stabs the air before him. "You go first," she tells Tim, her voice rough with hatred.
x
McGee, forcing the thought through a bramble of terror, wonders how much distinction that'll be when those bombs go off. Not much. Now, however, they have a clue, maddeningly incomplete though it is.
In some investigation all five of them had been involved in - but apparently one for which he, in particular, gets the blame or the credit - this woman has lost much, possibly everything.
She's determined to wait for Michelle, to include her in her grand scheme of revenge, but what created that need?
Michelle had joined the team for several months during Gibbs' aborted retirement, had been transferred back to Legal upon his return. She'd worked with the team in the incident with the Chinese sex slaves, then after the Wiccan affair she'd officially rejoined the team when Abby had been stalked by a madman and she's been with them ever since. Months of time, from Summer through March. Dozens of cases.
Which one set this woman off?
xx
"I want to know how this woman got into a secure facility," Jennifer Shepherd tells Capt. Adam Clements, head of NCIS Security. The burly, blue-uniformed officer is equally outraged that a stranger could hold a roomful of men and women hostage with a band of explosives strapped about her, then to narrow her targets to four enemies. Caprice had kept it from being five, and only that luck has kept those agents alive.
"I'll find out," Clements assures her, anxious to get on the job. "I'll ring you as soon as I do."
He no sooner leaves than Dr. Donald Mallard enters. The older man looks haggard. "Director," he addresses her formally, itself testament to his stress.
"Ducky, I need a psychological autopsy," she gestures to the silent tableau on the large wall-mounted screen, "so we can prevent this from turning into the real thing."
"Amen to that. I've been watching downstairs. Unfortunately Autopsy does not boast a plasma screen, so I've had to make do with a desktop monitor."
"Use this one. Abby's working on a solution," she says, fervently hoping the woman finds one. She hasn't had time to ask what scientific marvels the scientist's creative mind might devise. As a counterpoint to the lack of motion on the screen, actions in this office have moved very fast indeed.
"Agent Palmer is outside," Ducky tells her. "I left her with her husband and rather leapt the queue."
When the Examiners had arrived Michelle, ignoring both himself and Cynthia Sumner, had gone immediately to her husband. Mallard knows that, over the past few months, the woman has been cultivating the image of a strong and confident agent, but the lives of her friends are on the line and she's helpless to do more than watch the drama unfold on Sumner's plasma screen. Under these circumstances, he also knows that little can beat the therapeutic value of a good hug.
"It's fine," Shepherd says. "The only thing I want her to do for now is to stay out of Operations."
"Yes, our subject has been adamant about having her return, and with a very literal deadline."
x
Shepherd doesn't miss his prodding, any more than she'd missed his gaze on the pistol at her hip. "We have less than three hours to solve this. What can you tell me?"
"Sadly, so far little more than you've figured out for yourself." He adopts his comfortable pedantic role to mask his own worries. "She is highly stressed and not confident at all; her method of enforcing control consists of intimidation and screaming at her captives. Despite her commanding position she feels little control over the situation, therefore she must constantly strive to renew that sense of control. Her personal timetable is badly skewed by her inability to take out all five of her enemies in one surprise assault."
"Do you think she'll detonate if Agent Palmer doesn't show?"
Ducky doesn't want to admit that "It is only now that I can see her face larger than a half of an inch, all too often in profile or less. I need more time to study."
"Best guess."
He's already answered this question, yet strives to give the woman something more. "The more frustrated her plans become, the less certain our friends' chances become. I shall have to give you more wh-"
/STOP LOOKING AT ME./ The scream from the plasma screen makes them jump. They see the woman is confronting Ziva, who glares at her.
Their hearts climb up their throats as Ziva maintains her contact.
/I SAID STOP FUCKING LOOKING AT ME./
"What is she doing?" Shepherd gripes.
"Goading her into getting closer," Ducky answers the rhetorical question.
/Ziva./ Gibbs' rock-hard voice forces Ziva to glance away, to back down.
"Thank God."
"This time," Ducky shakes his head, "I shall not."
xx
'Blast,' DiNozzo rants silently, longing to take this woman on, 'I almost peed my pants, but I wish Ziva had gotten her closer. I know it's Gibbs' play, and she's due a head-slap if we get out of this, but I wish she'd succeeded.'
He tries to look to Ziva on his right without moving head or even eyes. His mouth is dry as the Sahara and though bathing in his own sweat he feels his bladder is about to burst. 'If not for that desk,' he gripes, barely able to see his trapped partner, 'Ziva and I - and the Probie, could take her out. Sure; all I need is fifteen seconds to discuss it with them.'
x
Gibbs keeps his forced calm as a bitter counterpoint to her frantic peaks. "She's worried too." He knows Ziva had been planning her attack. Let this woman get in reach, she'll be dead. 'That's why we're stuck behind desks.'
"You," the woman gestures sharply at him with the detonator, her thumb rubbing the button, "you scared?"
"I'm scared." Gibbs doesn't mind admitting the truth, especially if it'll please her, however momentarily. "We're all scared."
"Good! You deserve it," she finishes bitterly.
"Why?"
"DON'T ASK ME THAT."
"All right."
x
Gibbs fervently wishes he knew what he could ask that won't set the woman off. Every time she screams at them his heart jumps and he knows his team fares no better. The sweat's rolling down DiNozzo's face, McGee is wide-eyed and white as his shirt, Ziva betrays nothing to the stranger but he knows her; in her eyes he sees the predator. Of the three he has to watch Ziva most closely because, given a chance, she'll act.
But can she be fast enough? The madwoman has only to release the pressure of her thumb on that button and they'll die so quickly that none of them will hear the blast.
He wishes he had some freedom of movement. The only other times he'd faced down someone with bombs strapped to his body or cuffed to his wrist he'd had freedom of movement, could take action. He wasn't trapped behind a desk. He'd been alone in the school, his team was safe. When Abraham had Sharif's bomb cuffed to his wrist they were together but had freedom of movement and with Lee Sung and that huge blockbuster bomb at the Pacific Rim Society his team had been free and he'd ordered them away - though they'd disobeyed. Now they're all trapped, held motionless by an unstable woman with a hair trigger and a death wish.
x
He wishes he had some water. He can fake calm - years in the Marines and as a Federal Agent have taught him how to do that - but he doesn't want to die. He'd told this woman the truth when he'd admitted he was scared. They all are. The younger agents to his right show it with varying degrees of control, but he knows they all feel that same pounding of their hearts, the same rush of cold fear that grips deep in his chest.
He doesn't want to die.
x
"What did McGee do?" he asks when it seems safe, to draw out anything he can. She's blamed McGee above them all. Maybe he can focus on that.
"What, you think if you can apologize it'll make everything all better?"
"No. No, an apology isn't going to help."
"Fucking right."
"What will?" He feels it's the most pointless question he's asked in months, but if he can keep her talking...
"I want you to be afraid."
"We're afraid."
"I WANT HIM AFRAID," she screams, thrusts the detonator box at McGee, who presses back into the partition.
"He's afraid. Aren't you, McGee?"
"Yes, boss." He's barely able to force his voice above a whisper.
"How afraid?" she demands.
He licks his lips with dry tongue. "Very afraid."
"You deserve it."
"Why? Please tell me what I did."
"YOU TOOK HIM AWAY FROM ME," she screams, stabs the detonator at him.
McGee's heart stops, then resumes pounding like it wants to break out of his chest. His back nearly melded with the partition when she'd thrust the detonator like a sword. He doesn't want to ask, but the ball seems to have been passed to him. He doesn't want it. "Did I kill him?"
"IT'S YOUR FAULT."
"What happened?"
She stabs toward him with the box. "NO. SHUT UP. SHUT UP.SHUT UP!"
xx
Abby Sciuto's heart leapt into her throat when the woman broke, certain her friends were dead. She swallows terror down and clamps her hands over her mouth to smother a scream when her door beeps as it opens. She whirls, sees Jennifer Shepherd lead Ducky and the Palmers into the room, but doesn't waste breath asking how any of them are; their eyes tell their stories. She turns back to the plasma screen on the wall before her, barely able to tear her gaze from it for more than a second.
"I'm running my Facial Recognition program," she says tersely, pointing over her shoulder to the computer on the freestanding console behind her. On the screen, turned about so she can see it from the plasma, women's faces flash almost too quickly to resolve. "I could sure do with some fingerprints."
The image on the screen, the bullpen seen from the overhead security camera, is silent. None of the trapped agents further test the woman's fragile self-control.
"She has to have touched something," a woman's tense, strongly accented voice comes from the far corner. The four newcomers turn to find Rev. Siobhan O'Mallory seated on a stool. She stands up and approaches them, and her eyes hold the same fear they feel.
Shepherd had forgotten that today's Tuesday, the priest's regular day on duty here as NCIS' Chaplain. She won't ask what the woman's doing here rather than in her office, not with her fiancé facing almost certain doom. "As soon as we can find out how she got into the building, we may find something she touched."
"Meantime we have to stop her," Abby declares. On the screen, the woman paces relentlessly.
"Have any ideas?" Shepherd prays the scientist has a dozen.
"Not a one."
/WHERE IS SHE?/ the woman's scream snares their attention.
xx
"Driving," Gibbs answers succinctly, not moving. It's difficult staying in one position for so long, but he must only do it for the rest of his life.
"She better get here."
"Told you, it's two hundred miles."
"I KNOW HOW FAR IT IS." The mad woman's shrill voice abuses their nerves. "That BITCH isn't getting out of paying for what she did!"
This is interesting. It finally gives Gibbs something more to work with. Whatever she's worked up about has happened only within the past year. "I thought it was McGee you blamed most."
"It's his fault everything happened, but she can't escape paying for it either."
"What's her part?"
"Never mind."
'Okay, come back to this later,' he decides behind his mask. "But McGee started it?"
The woman whirls on McGee and for a horrible instant Gibbs thinks he's pushed too far.
"IF NOT FOR YOU NONE OF IT WOULD'VE HAPPENED!"
"I'm sorry," McGee blurts out, unable to help himself.
She advances on him, holds the detonator inches from his face. "It's too late for apologies."
Tony readies himself to clutch her hand in both of his, keep the pressure on the button while the others take her. Another few inches. Just come another few-
She pulls back, resumes her pacing and Tony must swallow his frustration.
It tastes like bile.
xx
"He should've grabbed for it," Jimmy says, not caring which 'he' it'd be.
"It's a dead-woman switch," Abby retorts, her eyes locked on the screen. "If her thumb slipped and he didn't have control then it's over."
"Is there anything you can do?" Shepherd demands. "Something to lock her muscles?"
"Not instantly, and it'd have to be instantaneous." She turns to them. "We need a miracle."
Oddly, it's not O'Mallory she fixes on, it's Michelle Palmer. But the petite young witch stares up at her in wide-eyed horror.
x
'Oh Goddess.' She can't believe the woman just said that. 'Can you know so much of your precious hinkiness and still not get it?' "I haven't got any."
"'Chelle?"
She whirls on her husband. "Jimmy, don't you think that if I could I would?"
Shepherd had seen much, heard of more, most of it too incredible but "Michelle, you know I never put any stock in your brand of ... magic ... but if there's a chance–"
Michelle turns on her, her heart wrenched. "Director, I swear–"
"Agent Palmer," Ducky says, his calm, quiet tones more penetrating than any exclamation. He holds them all for a moment, trying to bring down the tension before he speaks. "In my travels I have seen much to convince me that there is more in this world than I can ever see. What you did for your husband that afternoon we rescued those unfortunate women in the wing laboratory I would classify as a miracle."
"Ducky - oh Goddess - my talents are - my best - my most effective talent is healing. Outside a Circle my powers are limited. I can't do what I could do in a ceremony, or with other members of my Coven. I'm not the Goddess, I don't have miracles."
"What can you do?" Shepherd demands. She can barely believe she's asking the question, but she will if she has to.
Michelle gulps, faces the woman - and sacrifices most of her privacy for her friends. "I can influence people if I'm not opposed, but I can't counter will. I can give strength or take it away, weaken her so much she'll collapse but that's not what we want."
"I should say not," Ducky cuts back in, trying to be a voice of reasonable moderation.
"I can influence people into doing things but I can't fight her will. I'm sorry. I would if I could.
"No, my dear, it was unfair to expect more."
xx
Ziva is furious and doesn't care if it does show. Gibbs is the tactician, can present a calm mask. Tony would probably hesitate in striking a woman, Tim certainly would, but she would have gotten the device. It was so close to Tim. She would have snapped the bitch's wrist and got control of the box. In the moment the woman had threatened McGee, four methods were open to her.
Maybe she can goad her again into coming close enough.
xx
"What can we do?" Shepherd demands. "Look," she touches the screen at the point where the wire connects the detonator box to the first bomb. "We can get someone on the MTAC platform. A marksman can sever that lead. Who's our best shot?"
"Gibbs," Abby says. She ignores Shepherd's glare. "No, wait, Melanie Kelman."
"That's right." Michelle agrees. "Special Agent DiNozzo once told us he lost a hundred dollars to Martine Joswig because she bet him that Melanie was a better shot than he was. Melanie put seven bullets through the same hole her first shot made in the shooting range target downstairs."
"She's part of a team going for the next Olympics in shooting," Jimmy declares.
Shepherd might care if the situation were less tense. She pulls her cell phone out.
"Forget it," Abby counters. "It won't work."
x
"Why?" Shepherd is thoroughly tired of hearing that something won't work.
"Because the most common 'dead man' switch feeds an active pulse until it's cut off. Slicing the wire would be the same as her letting go of the button."
"Most common? What are the chances?"
"Eighty / twenty - against."
"Damn."