Chapter Seven
Mapped Out

Special Agent Janet Levy is very comfortable on the green wooden bench in the K SW / Makemie Park, watching the children across the pond. They're close enough to watch yet far enough distant that she can't hear their play, so she can read Divergent in peace. Not one to look for omens in light reading, she does admit that the saga of Tris' struggle to be the person she wants to be does offer some reflection of her own state.

She suspects, however, that even with the passage of book time rather than as long as it'll take her to reach the back cover, Tris will have her answer first.

When a woman sits down on the bench three feet to her left she spares a quick eye flicker; fullsome blonde hair, blue tee shirt and jeans, she doesn't know her and returns to her book.

She's taken to sitting here on this bench by the pond a few weeks ago. She'd tell anyone who asks that she's meditating, but with a book and a lot of effort and determination to not think about what has overwhelmed her life over the past weeks nor to think about her future, this is the very opposite of meditating.

"You know," the woman to her left says, partially impinging on her attention, "no matter where you go, you can always seem to tell a Jew. Just by looking."

Another eye flicker, this one not as casual yet equally unseen. The woman is looking across the pond at the children and women. Unfamiliar voice, mid-western accent, she definitely doesn't know her despite her belief that she can intrude. Unaddressed, she ignores the comment.

"I don't know, is it the clothes?" Now Janet actively ignores her, focuses upon Tris' challenge.

"Is it the hair?"

She glances up and ahead, again without moving her head, and among the children playing across the way are three young mothers with the five children. There's nothing particular about the three shades of brown hair arranged in a cut and style she's seen all her life. But she ignores with greater effort this shallow intruder who would encroach upon her privacy.

"Yes, it must be the hair. It always seems to have that sense of Jewness about it."

x

She darts the briefest possible glance left, only a microsecond longer than the others. The woman isn't looking at her but ahead at the families. Janet keeps her own eyes down, holds her gaze locked on her book. There's no one else around, the ignorant woman may be talking to her but she's not going to be pulled into this.

"They should get a style like yours, instead of the Jew cut."

She'd long ago given her hair over to one of the range of Regulation VST styles, then since leaving the Troopers and joining NCIS she'd kept away from 'ethnic' styles, but the distant woman in the middle, the one with the lightest short brown, wears her hair exactly the way she used to wear her black–

'The bitch has got me thinking about hair.'

x

She'd come here to not think of anything but Tris' travails in the book on her lap and turns several degrees right, hoping the idiot will get the message that she's being shut out.

"Know who's got the worst fashion sense? The Hasidics."

'It's Hasidim, bitch.'

"The women dress like they're trying out for the Faux Pas Olympics. I've never seen anyone with such horrible taste."

'Keep pushing it.' She fingers the silver star under her blouse, not sure if she should take it out and embarrass the idiot or leave it covered and not make herself a target.

It's not that she minds a confrontation, she can certainly handle herself with mouth or fists; however this imbecile wants to play it, but she's not worth it. Shylock had said it well in Merchant of Venice: 'Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.'

"The men are even worse. Winter, summer, same long black coats and big hats, especially the round furry ones. They look like furry space stations."

'But then look what happened to Shylock.' She stares as hard as she can at the open page before her.

"But furries aren't haseeds, are they? What are they called?"

'Hrrrrrrr.'

"Still they do dress just as bad. Those white strings hanging below coats or even vests, they don't even know how to cut them off so they don't look so ratty all the time, right?"

'One more word, bitch. Just one more f*cking word.'

"And those little hair curlies the guys wear by their ears, makes them look like they've got Shirley Temple hair jammed under those hats."

She stares hard enough to burn through the paper and the idiot ratchets up a warbling, off-key rendition of "On the good ship, Lollipop–"

Divergent flies away, she's on her feet, fists clenched as she looms over the idiot.

"Listen, you blonde goy bitch, I'm Has–!" Astonishment replaces Fury as she sees the face grinning up at her. "LEES? WHAT THE HELL?"

"Boy, I knew you have a thick skin but it's thicker than a rhino's if that's what it took to get under it."

x

Their hug, more a squg for Janet, is as emphatic as the tongue lashing, or more if necessary, would have been. They disengage but what she really wants to know from her partner is "How did you find me?"

"Easiest. I asked your mom and dad."

"Of course. I never recognized you. You're generally not that much of a bitch."

"Thank you. I think."

She retrieves her book from the ground and sits back down, closer now. "Why the wig?"

She tugs a lock. "No wig. See what you miss when you disappear for weeks at a time?"

Janet gives her a closer inspection. A self-done job is often one solid color but this has the highlights and shading of a professional. "Good job."

"Driving Kev crazy."

"Why?"

She laughs. "I think he's trying to figure out how to ask if the carpet matches the drapes without me filing a 1561 on him."

"There is no safe way."

"I wouldn't really do it even if he did, but I'd love for him to try so I can throw him a good scare."

"I think that's the thing I miss most about the job, you and me ganging up on him."

"He gave as good as he got in the practical jokes, though he did have to work twice as hard." She settles back on the bench. "So, speaking of that, when are you coming back?"

"What is this, another ambush?"

"It's the $64,000 question. Everybody's asking, and I do mean everybody. There's even a Pool."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Blame Anthony DiNozzo, of course. Surprised you didn't hear, it's been up for a month. It's running heavily to Mondays, less to a Friday and long odds on a Saturday. Give me a Saturday and the exact date and time and we can clean up."

Janet looks out across the pond and to the playing children.

x

"Jan?" She has no answer, just continues to stare. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking you should stay out of the pool."

"Oh, no, honey."

"I just don't know any more. Doctor says I can, I passed the physical, the psych, coming up for my firearms proficiency on Monday - they're pushing me, said I had to take them to keep my Leave; they lied through their teeth but I took the tests anyway… but the more I think of what to do, the more I don't know." She sighs heavily, pushes the paperback into a pocket it barely fits. "You know, I used to dream of a future here. There. Maybe even my own team, maybe some day Director - SECNAV - Something. But Bob had us, and what more he wanted was just so horrible…."

"You're not Bob DiMarco."

"Of course not. But neither am I Lisa DuBois."

"No, they're gonna carry me out of NCIS feet first – after I'm the Director."

Levy sits back and stares up at the clouds which offer her no suggestions. "But I don't know about me, not anymore. I saw it as a career, now I don't know."

"What would you do? Go back to VST?"

She shrugs, meets her partner's eyes. "I could. Virginia," she says with heavy nostalgia. "So long with them, so many years as a Federal Agent, I could probably go back a Lieutenant, possibly make Captain in five."

"Have you been talking to them?"

She sighs. "That's kind of where it all falls apart, isn't it?"

"So then what?"

x

For a long time Janet says nothing.

"You know," Lisa says, "when Bob did what he did, killed all those other Agents – I can't even think their names, they're 'the Agents' – I nearly left."

"I know." It'd been a horrible time for all three of them. Kevin hadn't wanted Team Leader, neither of them wanted Senior Field - not that it mattered for a team of three - but she thinks they'd all been in shock. She wonders if she still is.

"I just couldn't bear to be a part of something that had a Bob DiMarco in it," Lisa says, still sounding like she's looking back. "But you're the one who talked me out of it, through it; you and Siobhan O'Mallory, you out, she through."

"Sure, you're blaming me now. It's my fault."

"Yep."

"So, for your revenge, now it's your mission in life to talk me out of quitting?"

"I can think of worse. But what I can't think of that's worse is being there without you."

"Now if you're going to get all maudlin on me."

"Hardly."

"But wait now, you going out of NCIS feet first, I thought you were the one planning the family."

"Still am," she uses the same tone she would to declare water is still wet. "Two, a boy and a girl.

"So it's two now."

"It is this month. And I've got their lives all mapped out from birth to well past college. The boy will be Jean, and even if people get it wrong and say John it'll still be okay."

"By then people will have forgotten Picard."

"My daughter's name is Gigi. Jean DuBois," she says in dreamy tones, eyes to the blue sky. "Gigi DuBois."

"Wouldn't your husband have something to say about that?"

Her eyes come down. "Well, I suppose I could go that route."

"Is traditional."

"And I will need someone to sit for them while I'm in the Field."

x

"So, all mapped out, huh?"

"Well, since I didn't have you to springboard off of, I had to do it all myself."

Janet had done a lot of spring boarding in the past two and something years as Lisa's maternal plans evolved and were frequently all over the theoretical map. It was going to be all boys, all girls, two and one, three and two, four and five (!), but the one thing that stays the same is that Lisa is going to be a mother… and Janet's sure she'll be a good one.

"So, Jean and Gigi - DuBois - and you've got them all mapped out."

"Yep. Jean is going to be in NASA. He'll command the first Colony on Mars."

"That'll make people forget Picard. And Gigi? A model, I presume?"

"No way! Up and down a catwalk, never once crack a smile? No, she's going to be a Concert Pianist with the Boston Philharmonic."

"How about Jean plays the piano while Gigi goes to Mars?"

"Don't be silly, women can't be Astronauts."

Janet's bray turns the heads of the women and children across the pond and she must clamp it down with both hands. "Sorry," she says but Lisa can barely understand the muffle.

x

"So, pianist and astronaut," Jan prompts. It's better than that five and four who were going to be the first Major League Mixed Baseball Team. "Well, before you buy a tuxedo and a rocket pack, remember: 'Woman plans and God laughs'."

"She does have a nice sense of humor."

"And you keep Her so entertained."

"I do, don't I?"

"Especially when you're tormenting Kev."

"Exsqueeze me? I torment Kevin? We torment Kevin."

"Not lately. I'm out of the Torture Patrol." The Soul Patrol was a Women's Wrestling team infamous for their dirty tricks and dirtier assaults, but emphasizing their split can only lead back to maudlin thoughts. "So, what's next on the Bitch Parade?"

"A series of kidnappings too long to get into this evening. We're going to interview the girlfriend of one of the victims and I sure hope she's home because she's one of those people who doesn't have a landline."

"Good luck." She remembers stakeouts and by no means fondly. "Then?"

"Then God's going to be really annoyed with me because we have to come in in the morning."

"You trying for a seven day week?"

"Never that few, you know it automatically turns into twelve. We found a whole garbage bucket full of shredded paper, fortunately long strips, which we have to put back together. If we're lucky, they'll be the answers that'll break this case open – and if we're not they'll be printer instructions."

"So you're going to skip Saint Mark's."

"I know. Printer instructions."

Janet looks at the sky. "Well, I hate to run, but you've got Stake and I've got Cholent and if I'm late the Wrath of God has nothing on the worry of mom."

"I'll walk you."

xxx

It's 1640 when Jimmy Palmer rides the elevator up, trying not to think of how some day it'll be the last time. They have an 1800 showing with the Real Estate Agent and he's torn. He's lived here for so many years, it'd been his bachelor pad since he'd moved out of the house he'd shared with his mother and then so long with 'Chelle since their wedding but she's right, this is no place for a baby. And she's right, he was being selfish to link himself to a place.

He breaks the thought off. He'd been thinking as a newlywed husband, not a father, but he has to start thinking, seriously thinking, as a young father.

Putting his key in the lock, he opens the door and is fairly surprised to find 'Chelle standing in the middle of the room not dressed for seeing the alleged new house but wearing a scarlet demi-bra that holds her treats out to him and a very, very small pair of scarlet panties.

"We have to leave soon," she says.

He only thought he'd been surprised. "You're going to wow her."

"Not yet." She comes to him and hugs him tight. "I've been waiting for you," she purrs, pulls him down into a hot kiss. She backs up, guides him right sideways to the couch and any words he might say are silenced by her mouth.

He's very happy while they kiss to explore her already hot body, and in quick time both hands cover and mold her firm breasts. Her kiss is punctuated by her prying at his belt, she pulls down his zipper, undoes the clasp and pushes his pants down.

She breaks the kiss and pushes him onto the couch, kneels before him, spreads his knees and delves into his whites to free him.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to do this for me."

She giggles, traps the base of his already solid shaft between both thumbs and forefingers and aims it. "Oh you So don't get it." She kisses his darkening head and glances up, eyes alight as she grips him. "I'm not doing this for you," she bends low and says before she takes him in "I'm doing this for Me."

xxx

"I have SECNAV now, sir," the MTAC technician reports from his control console at the left wall.

"Thank you," Kevin Lamb says, leaving the comfortable theater seat for the dim well. A moment later the multi hued vertical test bars vanish to an image of Clayton Jarvis. The gray haired man's suit looks too well pressed for this hour in the undoubtedly well air conditioned building. He didn't drive eight hours round trip from 0400, visit a Bunker and three - soon to be four - homes and isn't looking at a late evening / night before the true investigation begins in the morning. He only has to take the report.

"What did you learn, Agent Lamb?"

'That rank has its privileges and Politicians have better ones. But no, that's not true. I learned that in High School.'

"More than I'd expected. Agent DuBois and I feel we're on the cusp of a breakthrough."

"Do you now?"

"Of course, the Investigation is still in its early stages. We've been to Bunker One and to the homes of the three missing Scientists and learned quite a bit." He has no intention, however, of revealing details like the video from the Bachmans' security camera or the shredded papers from the Espositos' garbage. He doesn't know what's on the papers, and when he finds out he'll tell Shepherd first.

"One of them, Jeremy Cintron, is dating a local woman, a Ms. Rita Fischer. We're on our way to see her immediately and I have high hopes that she'll be able to shed significant light on this case."

"Well, keep me informed, agent Lamb."

"Will do, sir." The image is replaced by the test screen. 'Now to see Shepherd and give her a report that's not top heavy with bullshit.'