Chapter Eight
Hunt
NCIS Special Agents Lisa DuBois and Ziva David, having obtained from SA Janet Levy positive ID of the man who'd assaulted and raped her, are only half done with their task.
"Jan, I need you to think hard," Lisa says, leaning above her partner's head so Janet need not exert herself to look at her. She holds the color photograph of PFC Kurland's formal Marine portrait before Janet's eyes. "Do you recognize him? Do you know him?"
She can see confusion in her masked friend's eyes, probably because she's already answered a form of the question when she'd told them he'd beaten her.
"Honey, you were targeted. He was at the Golden Sphinx, but he left before you did, got to your building before you did, got to the elevator before you did, pressed your floor. And when he left, he put his uniform shirt in a trash can eight doors east of your building before going back to his car that you said was parked right across the street from your door."
Despite the pain, Janet manages to nod. "Yessss."
"Jan, who is he? He was never a suspect, never a victim, never a witness. We've never had anything to do with him. NCIS has never had anything to do with him. Who is he?"
Janet stares up at the picture, stares for a long time. "I... don't... know..."
"Jan, honey, there has to be a connection. You were Virginia State Police for six years. Could it be from there?"
She stares harder, longer. "I don't know."
xxx
"That's not good enough," Kevin Lamb declares to the uniformed Marine Captain seated before him. He is not going back to the hospital to tell Janet Levy that their quarry has slipped through their fingers.
"Perhaps if you tell me what the issue is," the facility commander says, "why you want to talk to him, I could-"
"We want him on Suspicion of Assault and Rape of a Federal Agent."
The sledgehammer method is one he'd learned years ago from the senior agent behind him, and this time it's as effective on both the Captain and the Corporal as he could hope.
"Whatever we can do," Captain Malone says, "we will."
"Has he a cell phone?"
When Malone looks to Corporal Danvers behind them, they turn to the woman. "I'll pull his records immediately, Captain."
"DiNozzo," Lamb directs, "work closely with the Corporal."
The man has Point in this Investigation, so Gibbs says nothing about how large a mistake this order could be.
"Gibbs, you and I should speak to his Division."
xxx
As soon as they're outside the offices Gibbs is on his phone. "McGee, Kurland took a flight out of Reagan at 0500 yesterday. Find and track him." He snaps the phone closed before the man can answer.
Lamb looks to him but says nothing. He's well familiar with Gibbs' abruptness.
It's a short trip to the section where Kurland worked and there they find the senior officer, Lieutenant Carl Remington. The lab resembles every Science Lab Gibbs has ever seen, and the only one he's ever liked, to some degree at least, is Abby Sciuto's. He wishes the woman were here now to, as DiNozzo would say, speak the geek.
"In this section, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, we're doing advanced work in Submarine systems, specifically in Stealth work so they can't be detected by the enemy. We're always under the clock and under a budget a field mouse couldn't live on," the tall black man says. Though it's mid-afternoon the man looks like he's just put on the pressed uniform.
"What can you tell us of Private Kurland?"
"A good Marine, very reliable. Intelligent, but you have to be to work here. He gets along well with everyone."
"No one gets on well with everyone."
"Well," the man says with a you-got-me shrug, "in the beginning you know how it is. Guys come in from Civilian life, they have a period of adjustment. Everyone does. Lots of guys build up their triceps and abs pretty well before they learn how to be a Marine on more than the field. Kurland was one of those guys. Came from money, and after he leaves he'll be going into more. Grandfather started a Wall Street office way back when, father made it big and saw the writing on the wall before the collapse in '80 whenever, managed to diversify and also sock a lot of cash away until the Street recovered, so he floated where a lot of guys drowned. I hear from him his father's very sick, that's why he took a Leave. If senior dies, Harry will inherit a ton."
"Kurland good at business?" He had better be; he'll need bail money.
"Neither know nor care. He's good at Tech, very good, and that's all that matters to me. Guy's bright, sharp and quick, learns what he has to at warp speed and doesn't need to be hand held. When you've got fifty Marines doing important work, last thing I need is someone who can't handle his share of the load."
x
"Ever hear him talk about NCIS or Federal Agents in general?"
"Nope. Listen, I've answered your questions but what's up? You're not here to ask if anyone 'talks about' NCIS."
"No, Lieutenant, we're not," Lamb says. "He ever have any trouble with women?"
Remington's eyebrows jump up and he brings them back down. "What sort of trouble?"
"Trouble getting along."
The undertone in the words conveys more than the phrase itself and Remington pauses, evidently trying to frame a careful answer. "We have two women on the staff and, well, neither of them seem to like him. It's nothing I've been asked to take notice of so I don't. They say they're uncomfortable, get 'vibes', but I can't hear about vibes and, quite frankly, wouldn't feel comfortable if I did have to address anything like that."
"We'd like to speak to these two women," Gibbs says. "Learn a bit about vibes."
xx
The first woman brought to the Conference Room to meet the agents is Private Patricia Court who, clad in Fatigues, cautiously eyes the two men with what started life as distrust but quickly grew up. She'd been brought from her station without explanation and introduced to the two stern NCIS Agents. Standing behind the offered seat, "Am I in trouble?" is the first thing she wants to know.
"No, Private, you're not," Lamb tells her in what he apparently tried to make a reassuring tone. Not even Gibbs feels reassured; he's been watching the mounting tension the man's been exhibiting since yesterday morning at Monroe. "Please have a seat."
She pulls back the chair and sits down ultra cautiously, as though her entire body were made of raw eggs. She no sooner touches the seat when she blurts "I haven't done anything, and whatever's happening I'm the last one to ask! I don't know anything about anything!"
"That include Private Harold Kurland?" As Gibbs had intended, this interrupts her fearful rush. She'd been quite unprepared for the Agents being interested in someone else beside her.
Whatever Court is afraid of, for the moment he doesn't know if it's related to this case, but before leaving here today he will. When someone's this afraid, there's a reason.
"Whaaa... What about-? I mean, what about Harry? I mean, Private Kurland?"
"You notice anything unusual about him?"
"Like what?"
If this is vibes or a concrete issue, he doesn't want to narrow her focus. It's up to her to do it. "Anything at all."
"Well... he's... you know."
"No. I don't know." He tries to keep his tone level, inviting, but he has the feeling this conversation is going to be less like fishing and more like dentistry. She's still afraid, but of what he doesn't know.
"Well, I... I don't know."
"What is your relationship with Private Kurland?"
"Who says we're having a relationship!"
'You do,' he's tempted to say. "What would you say your relationship was?"
"Well..." Now she's looking around at everything except him. If there were a fourth dimension, she'd be looking there too. "I don't like him, you know? He gives me... I don't know, I just feel uncomfortable around him. You know? It's not like he does anything, I just... he feels creepy and I can't tell you why. He's a gentleman, never did anything, it's just that I get these 'vibes', you know, when he looks at me. It's like he's x-raying me. You know?"
Gibbs doesn't want to repeat himself, repeating can be narrowing so he lets silence answer her. Normally, people feel compelled to fill silence, and he's hoping she'll fill it to overflowing.
x
"I can't explain it. He's doesn't bother me, I've never had a bit of trouble with him. It's just a... a feeling, you know?"
"Like he's x-raying you," Lamb prompts. Gibbs wishes he hadn't. The last thing an Investigator should do is guide a witness. He's going to have to coin a Rule about that for his own people. What would that be, 71?
"Right. Like I can read his mind and there's only one thing on it when he looks at me."
Neither Gibbs nor Lamb can object to the concept, but the vagueness does nothing for them. If they arrested a man who had x-ray eyes the planet would be one vast prison, and they'd each have cells of their own.
He'd opt for one with a Southern exposure. There are days when Mexico seems mighty appealing.
"Can you give us an example?" Gibbs asks, but isn't surprised when the eventual answer is
"Not really. Like I say, I can't remember his actually doing anything. It's just a feeling, you know?"
x
And in her turn, Private Louise Costello is considerably less helpful.
"Save me from Women's Intuition," Lamb says as they walk back toward Malone's office. Gibbs wonders how he gets on with Levy and DuBois, but considers sending DuBois and David out tomorrow to follow up on these women.
Court was definitely afraid of something, but until he knows what, and if it's in any way connected to this case, it will do little good for him or Lamb to press. See what the women can dig up tomorrow.
xxx
They know that PFC Kurland left for his two week Leave at 2000 hours the evening before last, also know that he was identified by employees at the Golden Sphinx around midnight, suspect he assaulted Levy at about 0130 in the morning and departed at 0500 from Reagan airport. What they're interested in now is what he's done since landing in Los Angeles.
When they return to the Captain's office they find Tony working quite closely with Corporal Danvers, following his instructions to the letter. He crosses the room immediately as they enter, however, probably hoping they won't have noticed his leaning over her desk.
"Boss -" he glances from Gibbs to Lamb, who had been given Point on this Investigation, "Bosses. Corporal Betty ak ah Corporal Danvers has been very helpful. I have Private Kurland's cell number and passed it on to McBell. He says it's off, but I've contacted Henrietta Lange at the Office of Special Projects. Her people will be ready to pick him up as soon as it goes on."
Before Gibbs can answer his cell phone rings. He pulls the device from his pocket, notes the name on the screen and turns the display briefly to the men.
H. LANGE
xxx
Gibbs, Lamb and DiNozzo, having returned to NCIS for additional work and Abby's and McGee's updates, are out again after sunset at Reagan Airport at to meet the 2145 arrival from Los Angeles. It was a five hour flight from the west coast, so they know the OSP Agents' bioclocks still read 1845.
Rather than waiting in the Terminal, the men take advantage of their gold shields to meet their counterparts, after the regular passengers disembarked, about a hundred feet behind the jet.
Three men meet the trio; the middle man, six foot, lean, high and tight, flanked by a shorter man with a buzz cut and a mountainous black man with even less hair.
Gibbs notes the heavily worn Olympus sneakers on their quarry's feet.
"Here's your package," Special Agent G Callen says as his partner Sam Hanna unlocks his handcuffs and Tony DiNozzo locks on his own.
"Listen, guys, I keep telling you I didn't do anything," Kurland protests. He doesn't try to fight his way out; restrained with five to one odds leaves no hope.
Gibbs, however, is convinced this is the right face. He's seen it often enough in the past two days and they need only Levy's final identification of her assailant. That will be done by a photograph taken tonight; it'll settle the legal requirement until the woman can leave the hospital.
"At least tell me what you think I did!"
Since Gibbs ignores the demand, no other agent will answer. Jennifer Shepherd's orders from yesterday remain quite clear: the man is not to be spoken to except in Interrogation or Holding. Every conversation other than with his Lawyer is to be recorded, and these subjected to careful analysis. This case will not be lost by any random technicality.
x
Kevin Lamb herds the prisoner toward the distant car, keeping more control over his emotions than over the cuffed man.
"Good to see you," Gibbs says to Callen, not ignoring the larger man while addressing his old friend.
"How's Nell?" DiNozzo asks. He'd seen much of the Agent on the final day of the Memorial Day weekend convention, but far less than McGeek and his wife had. However, what he'd seen of her in that climactic dénouement is burnt into his brain.
"She's good. Sends her love. And we bring our gratitude. We said it over MTAC but this is better." Grateful handshakes all about. Nell Jones had suffered terribly under Grekor Kanyicska until the Washington Agents had rescued her.
"Yep. I thought she'd burn out every circuit in Ops."
"Bet she wouldn't cry at his funeral."
"No bet," Sam says. "She's said so often she wants him dead that I'm thinking about taking the Contract."
Callen checks his watch. "Love to stay and talk, but Hetty wants us back an hour ago."
"You guys are going to invent a new form of jet lag."
"Tell me about it. Bye."