Chapter Nine
Fallout
Gibbs walks into the Forensics Lab and immediately cringes, blasted by Abby's white radio inches from his right ear. Wincing at the cacophonous assault, he turns and reaches for the radio but surprise halts him. Resting on the wall and supported by the radio is a huge white poster board which declares in large red letters trailing blood 'TOUCH THIS AND DIE!'
Abby is seated at her freestanding workstation, staring intently at the computer monitor that displays lines of computer code he doesn't even try to interpret. With anyone else, and at any other time, he'd simply pull the offending machine's plug and batter down protests. Instead, he steps beside the workstation into her eyesight and, the distance from the unit not helping, gestures to her in a complex ballet of hand motions.
She gets off the stool, crosses the room, removes the sign and lowers the volume to one-twentieth its fatal setting. "Gibbs, do not talk to me unless you're bringing me a body to autopsy."
"Ducky does the autopsies."
"Ducky is a gentleman, unlike these bastards. He'll share."
x
He doesn't want to think about that. "How can you think with that racket?" He's asked her that several times over the years, but has yet to receive a comprehensible answer. He doesn't hold out hope this time either.
"Don't want to think, want to do. If I block out everything but work I won't be able to feel anything about things like this." She restores from a minimized screen an image of herself dressed in an inviting smile, standing before a bed, her hands reaching low to her shaved vulva, her fingertips spreading...
Gibbs turns off the monitor.
"I wish it were that easy," Abby declares hotly.
"What can make the hunt easier?"
"Evidence storage has a load of artillery, some of it unregistered, awaiting trial on several cases." She doesn't wither under his glare, knowing he knows her well enough. She decides to let up on the hyperbole; he's always on her side. "All right. Fakes of our people have appeared on over twenty websites, going back about a month. The ISP addresses are routed from all over the planet, some of the images are simply reposts. Several of the originals are from temporary IPs created on public sites; the system generates a random number, deletes it when you log off, useless garbage. The bastards are probably using a flash drive to upload the images, but using so many ISPs it's making the original source a nightmare to pinpoint. There's so much inter-sharing and reposting that I can't give you a first source, 'cause there's no guarantee the first one who posted to a site is the first one who created the pictures."
x
"What do you need?"
"Time to establish a trace to every website in existence that's posted them, including private blogs."
"Difficult?"
"Normally no, but fakers have their own sharing system, if you can call it that. They download and repost at will, most times without ever asking, sometimes without even acknowledging the source."
"We know they came from 'We' magazine."
"So I heard. You didn't see me upstairs on the balcony but I saw you. Tell Tony he looks cute when he thinks he's going to get torn limb from limb."
"I'll be sure to let him know. Did throw a scare into him."
"Won't change him a bit."
"I know."
x
The banter, for what little half-hearted effort they could raise, falls away. "How are your people holding up?" He hadn't had more than the barest summary of the meeting in MTAC.
"My people," she scoffs. "I have people. Well, Gibbs, my people are pissed and out for blood. We're violated, invaded, raped and looking for justice, preferably through some of that unregistered artillery I mentioned. I have an out; in the pictures taken of me for 'We' my hair was down and blocked most of this," she touches the spider web tattoo at the left side of her neck, "so though I have sixteen tats the pictures those bastards are showing show none."
Only for a moment do her feelings slip through, but in a consistently happy person like Abby that slip is significant.
He takes a step forward, his arms open, a gesture he'd offer no other person but, to his surprise, she holds up her hands. "Keep away from me, Gibbs! I don't even feel like hugging you, if you can believe that. I don't trust myself. I might get it in my head you're having too good a time and I won't be responsible for what happens."
"You won't do that," he assures her.
"I know. It was hyperbole. But I'm scared."
x
"Scared?" He's seen her scared, this isn't it. This is mad and vengeful.
"Not for me, I have artistic deniability, but sometime - soon - someone who knows one of 'my people' is going to find those pictures, and then what? McGee found them by accident... or so I heard," she finishes with uncharacteristic suspicion.
"He did."
"After a month of them being up. But what about if a husband or parents or a neighbor or...?"
Gibbs has had the same fear. Every minute that more and more of these random creations circulate around the planet, the inevitable grows closer. "We'll find them, Abs. We'll stop them. I swear it."
Despite her earlier words, she rushes to him, throws her arms about him and clings tightly. Her lips by his ear, her voice is tiny and lost, having none of the élan or self assurance that characterizes Abby Sciuto. Her body trembles with the effort to hold her emotions. "Save us, Gibbs."
xxx
In the fourth floor office Supervisory Special Agent Kevin Lamb shares with his team mates Janet Levy and Lisa DuBois, the mood is grim and, save for the soft clicking of computer keys, the quiet is heavy and smothering.
"All right," Lamb says from his place near the door, glancing first at the clock on his desk, then to the two women at facing desks at each corner to his right, "wrap it up." It's already an hour after nominal quitting time. He'd said this an hour ago but, tense from the hunt, both women had volunteered to stay; but Beta shift is in place and well briefed and the past hour has been more stress than progress.
"Don't want to," Janet says flatly, not looking away from her monitor.
Lisa, already starting to close down her system, looks across to her partner, then left to her boss. Neither woman is a clock-watcher, but they've had enough stress for a decade, and when the boss ends the day with his usual order - for a second time - he's never been met with flat refusal.
"What've you got?" Lamb asks, leaving his desk to join his partner. Janet has a website open, he doesn't need to ask which of the score of identified sites it is.
"I'm trying to track 'Faker Zero'," she tells him. It's the same thing she'd said earlier, but then with less emphasis. There's more than emphasis under her words.
x
Rather than one of the dozens of pseudonyms that proliferate on the web, 'Faker Zero', the target of several teams, is the one who posted the first manipulated image on the Internet.
Unfortunately, while a few sites date their image postings, the majority do not, necessitating hacking into them, but that's simply not an option. The Legal Department is working on getting warrants for the files, otherwise prosecution would be a waste of effort, but to this point Legal's efforts have been unimpressive.
"Any progress?" Lamb knows very well she'd've said so, quite emphatically, if she'd made any. This is his way of emphasizing, still somewhat mildly, 'go home'.
"I found three 'Faker Zeros', files uploaded on the 6th, so you know what that's worth."
"Then pick it up tomorrow."
"You go." She keeps typing. "Please." He doesn't answer. She looks up. "Plausible deniability."
He lays his hand across hers, stilling her fingers. He doesn't have to say 'you know better'; his eyes say it.
"Come on, Jan," Lisa urges, "let's get a drink." She throws her jacket over her arm. "Better yet, let's get roaring drunk."
Janet looks up at her partner, fire slipping through the cracks. "How can you stand that this bastard's done this and is getting–?"
"Good night, Jan," Kevin says.
x
Defeated, Levy sighs heavily, gets up and reaches for her jacket hanging from the stand behind her, pulls it on as the telephone rings and Lisa picks it up at her own desk. Janet turns to her Supervisor, unsure what to say. He doesn't hint that she has to say anything at all.
"Jan," Lisa says, "it's your mom."
Levy turns from her boss, relieved and happy to have one bright speck to the day as she picks up her phone and presses the flashing button even as Lisa starts for the door.
"Hi, mom, how's everything? What? Wait, calm down." Lisa and Kevin both turn back. "No! What do you–? Wait. No! I di– What do you mean he–? He can't do that! All right, they can't– Calm down! I didn'– Will you stop and let me talk? No! That's ridic–! Mom! They can't do that! Because it's wr– Yes, I know that bu– Stop it, let me ex– Mom? No, don't you dare hang up! No! I– Mom? Mom? DAMN IT!" she throws the receiver at the desk. "I have to go!"
Ducking around them, she runs for the door. DuBois hurries after her but stops at the open door, watches her partner sprint for the elevator and looks back to her team leader.
Neither of them have any guesses.
xxx
Jennifer Shepherd puts the receiver down upon the telephone with exaggerated care, exaggerated because she wants to release a burst of rage upon the inoffensive rectangle of plastic, metal and wire. Conversations with the Directors of the Army CID and Air Force OSI have revealed the unsurprising fact that they were unaware of the electronic assault being waged against the women within their own agencies.
Once she revealed the attack to be more general than either of her colleagues then wished to believe, she'd received assurances from the two men that Investigations would be undertaken but it took considerably more effort for Shepherd to press that it be a coordinated effort. After too much talking it was decided, in turn, that the CID and OSI would coordinate under NCIS' lead, as the Navy's investigation has a day's head start. It was further decided, to Shepherd's relief and greater satisfaction of accomplishment that said Investigations would be conducted under a news blackout.
About 25 minutes ago Cyber Crime informed her that the number of 'hits' on the agents have been moderate for the material involved, and confirmed her belief that publicity can only serve to attract attention to the sites and cause much greater harm.
Apprehending those responsible is the highest priority, and in that effort each Agency will send one Liaison Agent to work with NCIS, which has the lead because their Investigation is already a day underway. Lt. Col. Hollis Mann from the Army and Lt. Genevieve Howland from the Air Force will arrive at the Navy Yard in the morning.
She'll assign Mann to Gibbs' team, they've worked well together, and Howland to Melanie Kelman's team; same reason. She doesn't want any one team so overstaffed that they can't function, and if she can get someone from the Coast Guard Investigative Service, that agent can be tied to either Higgins' or Lamb's team. Best to have everyone working the Alpha 0800 - 1600 shift.
She picks up the phone receiver, reaches to punch in the code for Juliana Ryan, Director of CGIS, certain at least that convincing her and garnering cooperation will take far less time than either of the previous calls.
xxx
Tim McGee had sat beside his silent bride during the long trip north, back to their apartment in Silver Spring. She'd sat unmoving, her head back against the headrest, eyes closed and he hadn't disturbed her. They'd entered the apartment building, ridden the elevator upstairs, and the silence had smothered them. He wonders for the fiftieth time what to say when every question that comes to mind, every sentence he can find, sounds utterly stupid and will probably sound worse to her.
He's angry for both her and himself and has trouble separating the two angers. Today, tonight, should be shared in bliss. They're married, they're home, today should be one unending celebration and this bastard has ruined it!
And he can't even give vent to his own outrage. She's had a worse day. He turns back to her; she's locked the door but doesn't move from it. "Shav?"
She looks to him and he can see the exhaustion in her blinking eyes. That's one way he's long ago learned to read her; when she's especially tired she blinks more rapidly than usual, completely unaware she's doing it. "Shav, please say something."
"I don't know what to say," she admits dismally, her voice a thousand miles distant.
"How did it…? What did …?"
x
She knows he's hunting for something that'll sound sensitive enough. Normally that's no problem, but today nothing on Earth can be enough. "I talked. We talked. I had as many as four in the office at a time – I never do more than one, or two if I'm counseling a couple, but if I tried that I'd never come home. It's just … too big."
"And who counseled you?"
She shakes her head.
"Come here."
She shakes her head.
x
After a long time, he asks "Do you want me to make dinner?"
She sighs. "I'm not hungry." She leans tiredly against the door. "I'd probably vomit anything I try to eat."
"I'm so sorry I couldn't be with you." She shakes her head; again the denial of his comforting. They're just back from their Honeymoon, they should be inseparable with anything short of a crowbar. "How do you feel?"
She looks down, unable to keep his eyes, depression seemingly making it too hard to hold her head up. Her red hair curtains her face; annoyed, she brushes it away and looks back up, hooking her hair behind her ears so she can see him. The stiff, two inch high white collar encircling her neck has pressed a curved line across her throat.
She doesn't have the strength to force the depression from her face. The day feels so heavy. "I don't know how I feel, a chuisle. I can't even sort it out. This isn't..." she sighs miserably. "This isn't like I'd pictured my first day of wedded bliss in my new home."
"How did you picture it?" She locks eyes with him, surprised. "How did you picture it?" he asks again, unwilling to let her slip away from the question.
x
She forces a smile at the memory, the image, the plans now long gone and impossible to recover. "I'd be here already when you got home; Jethro always makes you work late. I'd have dinner ready, inch thick beefsteak smothered in mushrooms and butter, corn & carrots, exactly the way you like it. I'd have just slippers and an apron on, and we'd put the phone in the closet. I'd serve you dinner, sitting on your lap; I'd have to serve you because your hands would be too busy..." She looks down from his eyes, the barely attained joy vanishes. "And now that ... that ... person has ruined everything."
"Then cry, scream, hit something, throw a tantrum, break something. Get it out."
Her half-smile is so obviously forced. "I don't want to throw a fit, Timmy; I want to pray for some way to deal with this.
"Is it working?"
She looks away. "Of course it is." She shakes her head, even sadder, knowing she's wasted the words; when she couldn't keep his eyes she'd as well as said aloud 'I'm lying'. She can't keep the truth out of her voice; her brogue has been thickening by the moment despite her best efforts as the emotion she'd hide wells up in her, batters at her and she won't let any of it out. "No."
He steps to her, embraces her, but it's a few seconds before she can reach for him. "I spoke to a lot of women today," she says into his shoulder. She'd already told him. "But it was more psychology and Liturgical advice and plain listening than anything else. There were so many who needed to talk that we seemed to get lost. After a while I was getting lost, it was hard to remember what I'd said to whom. Things started to blend and I couldn't keep them straight. I tried to get them to find some way to help each other, to knit together, because I – I'm one person... and I'm…."
Emotion has battered her so much she doesn't dare say another word.
x
"You're hurting as much as they are," he tells her, feeling no need to say it other than that it'll get her talking. She nods so sharply her chin stabs into his chest. "Tell me." She shakes her head, again the refusal. "Didn't you tell me that mercy–?"
She clutches his shirt in her fists and for the first time the anger reaches her voice. "I don't want to be kind or merciful or understanding! I want to hurt those men the way they're hurting me!"
She rips away from him, retreats back to the door, blocked from going further, blocked from escaping, appalled by what she'd just done, by what had just come out of her mouth.
"We will," he swears. If he keeps no other promise to her for the rest of his life, he'll keep this one.
x
"But that's not the real me," she tells the door. "I'm supposed to be above that if I'm going to bring others above–"
"You're not above that."
She whirls back on him, shocked, but then she calms, smiles though her smile is forced. "Timmy, I know what you're trying to do but it won't work. Jenny told me the tale of the boxing ring." His face goes blank. "Oh, that's right, 'Special Agent Gibbs' doesn't talk. He got Jenny in the ring downstairs one day and got her mad enough to work her anger out on him. But I'm not a fighter."
"Well, we could try what Michelle and Jimmy do when they're having a hard time."
"What?"
"They have sex." She laughs, probably her first laugh in hours, shaking her head in wonder. "Or so I've heard."
"Heard from who?" she asks archly. She suspects Michelle and Timmy talk about more when in that bullpen, and almost certainly alone, than cases.
"Priest on one side of me, Witch on the other, Deputy Medical Examiner on the third; I'm taking the Fifth."
x
But she can't keep the mood up, false though it was. "I… honestly don't know what to say anymore. I'm talked out."
"How did it start?"
She sighs, misery almost drowning her, strangling her voice until her brogue becomes so thick even he begins to have trouble understanding her. "About how you'd expect. I walked down the hall shortly after you left, after the meeting in MTAC ended, asked the first woman I saw how she was holding up and I've been at it ever since."
He figures that's why she'd been so silent, needing time to unwind from the tension. "I guess you had to deal with a lot of tears."
He's not sure what's in the look she gives him.
x
"No tears," she tells him definitely. "We're humiliated, embarrassed, angry; but for a woman to be driven to tears she'd have to feel frustrated and helpless and your women are not helpless. I dealt with Field Agents, Computer Experts, Analysts, various Forensic specialists, even a Special Agent Afloat who'd just rotated from the Roosevelt yesterday; Agents of all kinds and they are not helpless. They're using their skills to track down these… people… and they're doing it with a vengeance. Anyone whose skills won't help – document analysts, handwriting and fingerprint and so forth – are pitching in where they can with that vengeance, so their 'sisters' can concentrate on what's really important: solving this."
"And what about you?" he asks this as kindly as he can.
She shakes her head. "You'll get no tears out of me. I'm humiliated, but I'm not going to cry ov–"
x
It takes a long moment for her to regain her voice. He gives her that time, reading the torment in her face. But it's a point of pride with Shav; with all she's endured: Morley, Samson, Whitney, she doesn't cry. Not in public. And much as he hates to admit it, he qualifies as public.
"I called George..."
McGee knows Donaldson, Rector of Saint Mary's, well enough to know the man won't push.
"I called him to tell him what happened, why I'm taking an extension on my Leave but I told him it's because I'm so badly needed here, not that I'm too ashamed to show my face at Saint Mary's, wondering if the next person I see has seen those…." She turns away from him.
"Shav–"
"NO!" she whirls, but she fights the blast of anger down, remembering who she's snapped at. "No... Like I said, for a woman to be reduced to tears she'd have to feel helpless against what these… people… are doing and… your agents aren't helpless. If anything, they're frustrated because the law is slow and is getting slower, but they're not helpless."
He's not sure what to say. He'd been concerned about her, now his partners, but she knows it and still won't let him in - or rather, herself out.
x
She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "Timmy, I really only want to lie down. I've talked myself out today. I'll fix something later."
"You want me to make dinner?"
She shakes her head. "I'm depressed, not suicidal." She sighs; but her smile is forced and the joke didn't help at all. "No, hon, I'm not... I just want to be alone. I haven't been alone all day."
"I know." He lets her pass; she crosses the living / writing room into the bedroom and closes the door.
x
Alone, finally alone, Siobhan goes to her dresser, a recent addition to Timmy's almost Spartan bedroom, and reaches back under her red hair, detaches the clip that holds the inch high stiff white collar about her throat and sets it upon the dresser. She's exhausted, emotionally more than physically, so exhausted she doesn't even want to undress yet, but to lay down with the stiff circle is to ruin it.
Laying down on the bed, she turns on her side, grasps Tim's pillow and pulls it close, pulls it tight to her face to muffle her sobs.
xxx
Jimmy Palmer watches his wife closely as he closes and locks their apartment door. She stands, stiff with anger, in the center of their living room and though her back is to him he doesn't have to be psychic to feel the anger that fills her to bursting. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm done talking." She turns on him, anger drowned in hot rage that's been simmering all through the drive to Georgetown. "Talking doesn't do anything. I'm going to do something about this."
"You've been doing something about it all day."
"No I haven't! I've been talking and researching and letting Special Agent Gibbs do the interrogating. You men shouldn't be doing this, we should. We're the ones who've been violated, and talking and researching and trailing doesn't do a damn thing! Do you know what Special Agent Gibbs had me do just before we left?"
"No," he admits very carefully.
"He had me getting warrants for the photographers' bank accounts, to see who's gotten rich in the past month."
"Well, isn't that a regular first–?"
"Special Agent Gibbs doesn't do warrants! He goes in and busts heads and maybe, when it's all over, if he thinks of it, he'll send me back to do the paperwork!"
"Well, this is so big, you know, so many victims, so many Agencies, maybe he can't, you know, go in and bust heads? They're going to go by the book."
"If we go by the book these damned bastards are never going to pay because their damned abuse is protected by the damned Constitution!" She sees in his eyes he wasn't ready for this. "Fakes are legal if you include a disclaimer saying they're fake and 'don't depict the real person'."
This is outrageous. "Then what can you do?" When she doesn't answer he reaches out to her, wishing he could think of something real he could do.
"I know what I can do," she declares, "and I'm going to do it!" She shoves off from him and marches resolutely into the bedroom.
x
When he follows down the hall, she's pulling her Wiccan supplies out of the cabinet she uses for an Altar and setting the box onto the bed so she can wrestle the cabinet into the center of the room.
"'Chelle," he says carefully, "what are you doing?" He knows what she's doing; he hopes to get her to think about it.
"You can't be any part of this, honey." She flaps open and spreads on the dresser top a black velvet cloth inscribed with a silver five pointed star within a circle.
This angry determination is a side of her he's never seen and it frightens him. Again he tries to get her to see what she's doing. "Part of what?"
She's not hearing him. She bangs glass-enclosed candles upon the altar and returns to the box. "I'm going to bind that bastard."
"What bastard?"
"The bastard that's doing this to us!"
"But you don't even know who he is."
"I don't have to know," she declares, slamming a bowl she normally treats with great reverence onto the altar. "His evil intent will bind him."
"'Chelle, what are you going to bind?" he asks even more cautiously. He's occasionally seen her make her preparations for a Wiccan ceremony, though he's never participated - but he's never seen her do it while she's angry.
"I was considering his sex life. A little erectile dysfunction beyond Viagra's ability to help sounds about right."
"'Chelle..."
x
She carries the incense and brassier from the box and sets it within the silver star. "Go away, honey, this doesn't concern you."
It sounds very much like it concerns him. "Didn't you tell me this is illegal? Something about the Power of Three?"
She sets down her wand, but this finally grasps her attention and she looks up at him. "Huh?"
"Something about whatever you do comes back on you three times?"
"That's the 'Rule of Three' and I'll risk it."
"I really don't think you should."
"Jimmy, right now I really don't care what you think!" She sees the effect of this slap. "I mean I care, I love you, I adore you but this is none of your business. Now I have to concentrate so I really need you to leave."
He steps to the altar and picks up her wand.
"Put that back!" she snaps, surprised and then outraged that he'd even touch it, let alone try to remove it.
"No. Not until you come to your senses."
x
She slaps her hand down upon the altar, outrage consumed by flaring fury. "We have a deal, remember? I leave your medical stuff alone and you leave my magical equipment alone." She reaches for the wooden wand; he holds it high over his head. Between his being nearly a foot taller and his longer arms she doesn't have a chance, but this only makes her angrier. It's intolerable, first those bastards violate her and now–
"I'm not playing with you, James," she grates between clenched teeth, incandescent eyes searing his. "You do not touch my things. No one is to touch a Witch's equipment. Now give it back."
"No."
She tries for a reasonable tone, but looking up at him and her wand held high overhead, it lasts half a second. "I am really getting pissed with you, James. Give me my wand and get out of here!"
He backs out of her reach. "Or what? What will you do?"
She thrusts out her open hand. "I said 'GIVE IT BACK!"
x
He's slammed away from her, drops the wand as he crashes into the wall, a look of horrified astonishment on his face. She's as surprised; she hadn't directed any power - intentionally.
He clutches his chest, astonishment washed away by agony as she hurries to him, tries to help, but he convulses, intense pain contorting his face. He's so much larger than she is that she can't keep him upright as he falls past her, crashes to the floor with a guttural scream.
"JIMMY!"
x
He convulses on the floor, clutching his chest, his agonized cries terrifyingly loud. She falls to her knees, terrified, not knowing what's wrong. "Jimmy, I'm sorry! I–" He screams in horrendous torment.
"OH GODDESS, NO!" she cries, appealing toward heaven. "I DIDN'T MEAN IT! GODDESS, NO! HELP HIM! PLEASE HELP HIM! I'M SORRY!"
She puts her hands upon his chest; Healing has always been her specialty but she doesn't know what's wrong and is too terrified to think. She can't direct anything, can't even see through tears of panic and Jimmy gives one long, soul-searing scream and collapses, utterly still, eyes wide, his face slack, a mask of death.
"NOOOOOO!" Michelle shrieks, gathers his limp body into her arms. He's not breathing, motionless as death. Eyes stinging with tears, she snatches at the cell phone at her belt.
x
"And this is how you feel when you didn't intend to hurt someone," Jimmy says, picking his head up and smiling at her.
"I – you - you - Bastard!"
"Am not. But you needed the kind of lesson a spanking isn't going to teach."
She leaps to her feet, he falling to the floor; her emotions short circuited by outrage and panic and relief and joy and anger and he's looking up at her serenely while she's battered by madness.
x
But then, as they stare into one another's eyes, not speaking, her heart and gasps slow and anger and distress fade with by the realization - and reluctant admission - that he's right. She'd been willing to abandon her discipline and her dedication to the Right Hand Path, to use what she knows and what she can do to hurt, to get revenge. She'd been willing to violate the First Law, and to risk the consequences, ignoring - or not letting herself think - that sometimes the consequences of hurting someone guilty can hurt others as well.
It takes many long moments for her to recover, to wipe away tears of relief and grief and joy - and the urge to kick him.
"I won't thank you for that," she declares, dropping to her knees over him. "I know what you tried to do - I love you - but you're still a bastard."
He grins up at her. "You're welcome."
xxx
Ziva kicks the heavy punching bag as hard as she can, feeling the impact jar her leg and spine, all the way to her shoulders. It is an inefficient kick; she normally gets more power and doesn't feel the impact but she wants to feel it. She wants to experience every kick and punch as she attacks the heavy target with savage brutality, releasing all of her hatred and fury. She gets ready for another devastating assault on
"TONY!" He is standing right in front of the bag, in front of her foot and she barely pulls the low kick back in time to allow the possibility of an Anthony the Third.
It is only then that she fully appreciates the image he presents. He is wearing a full set of hockey goalie protective equipment, even to the mask.
"Boards ... don't hit back," he says in curiously accented tones.
"It is not a board, it is a bag, and you look like the Michelin Man."
"Bruce Lee to Bob Wall, 'Enter the Dragon', 1973, directed by Robert Clouse–"
"I do not care, Tony! Go find yourself a hockey puck."
His eyes scan every inch of her, down and up through the gym clothes plastered to her body. "I thought I just did."
She cannot believe his arrogance. "What did you say to me?"
"What, not only are you losing your edge but your hearing? That last kick was pathetic. You can't take on a real man in your condition."
"You show me a real man and we will see. Until then, go away and leave me alone."
He reaches out and squeezes her left breast. Astounded, she batters his hand away. "DiNozzo!"
"What, never heard of a sports bra?"
"You do that again and I shall–" He reaches for her right breast and is immediately airborne.
