A/N Well... finally I am posting chapter 9 and I know that it's been a long wait but work has meant that I had very limited time to write. The other stories I've uploaded recently have been tweaking already drafted work or half drafted pieces. This is the first full chapter I've written from scratch and it took a while to find my rhythm again but it's good to be back and hopefully the next chapter will be easier. I already have made a start on it, so work permitting, I'll get it to you soon. Thanks to everyone who has been encouraging me to post this chapter. I appreciate your interest in the story although I am a little surprised because apart from my most loyal of readers who faithfully leave reviews to all my (and thank –you so much guys) I wasn't really sure that people were all that interested in this story. I hate writers who hold readers hostage refusing to post unless they get a predetermined number of reviews but it often seems that that sort of bad behaviour gets rewarded. *shrugs* Just a wee bit ironic that when I stopped writing then people left me reviews. Anyway, to reassure everyone, I know exactly where this story is headed and how it will end – I don't abandon stories and this one is especially dear to my heart and will be finished. Just to tease you a little *smiles coyly* I think that you'll enjoy where it's headed. It made Arress pretty happy lol
Last but not least I have done some major tinkering since Arress beta'ed this so you know the drill - all boo boos are my bad. :)
An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everybody Blind
Chapter 9 The Devil is in the Details
10th April 2012
Dr. Jimmy Palmer:
I carried the plates out to my ground floor courtyard and placed them on the table before sitting down and indicating that my guest should start eating. As I dug in to my own fresh salmon and salad, I considered what I had ferreted out about said guest. I'd Googled Dr. Spencer Reid, a profiler from the FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit, who had contacted me wanting to meet and discuss… well, initially he hadn't gotten a chance to tell me what he wanted to discuss. When he'd called back he revealed that he wanted to talk to me about Tony, I'd also called in markers with Fornell, Tim and Dr. Mallard because I found as an ER doc, it was always best to know as much as possible before you step into a trauma room and I guess that mentality just carries over into my everyday life. I wanted to be prepared when I sat down the profiler, too.
So, anyway… according to Tobias, the BAU had been involved in profiling Tony right back in the early days when they were first trying to locate him, but almost three years had passed without any sign of him, so I wondered why Dr. Reid was contacting me for after all this time. No one had bothered to talk to me then, so why bother now? If it was the postcards he was going to be sorely disappointed because I didn't know how to unlock any secrets that might be lurking within or even if there were any hidden messages.
Although I admit that I was rather curious to meet the famous Dr. Reid - someone who graduated from high school at the age of 12 and had a slew of degrees, including several doctorates. I've never met anyone before with an IQ of 187 who can read 20,000 words per minute – how is that even possible? – and has an eidetic memory, just wasn't someone I got to meet too often or never. As I said, I'd talked to Dr. Mallard and was surprised to learn that Dr. Reid had also been in touch with him recently, too, and he'd profiled the profiler. Of course he had, bless his little Scottish cotton socks. Apparently according to the good doctor, achieving the number of degrees that Dr. Reid had at such an early age was highly suggestive of an autistic spectrum disorder, especially Asperger's Syndrome and apparently the profiler was socially awkward, although not as much as when he was younger, which again was consistent with Asperger's.
That being the case, I decided that it would be easier all round to talk if we were somewhere private, so I suggested he come to my place. That way I could cook something simple and we could talk in peace. Truthfully, I was hoping that he had some new information since Gibbs had returned to DC after running out of leads to chase down yet again. I knew that Abby and Dr. Mallard had been trying to suggest to Gibbs that he was on a fool's errand and that he should accept that Tony was gone, either by design or because he was dead. But in typical Gibbs' fashion he'd apparently become highly aggressive – yeah, go figure - and stormed off, insisting that he had to find his former senior field agent and set things right. That man was absolutely single minded – I have to give him that much, but it is a shame that he was also so myopic when it really mattered.
Everyone spoke in hushed awe about Gibbs' almighty gut, but me - not impressed. Ziva played him like a cheap pawn shop guitar, but it was more than that. The whole team from Special Agent Todd - may she rest in peace - to Tim McGee, had always treated Tony like a joke, a piece of crap really. Insubordination had been a constant and I knew that he'd been adversely affected by all the crap his team, including Gibbs, had thrown his way. If the team had been pulled into line earlier like it should have been, things might have gone down very differently and this situation with Ziva David might never have come about.
So, here I was, hoping like Hell that Dr. Reid had something fresh to bring to the table – no pun intended, but trying not to get my hopes up either. As I surreptitiously studied him, I had to admit that he didn't fit any preconceived stereotype of an FBI agent. The guy was slender and fine boned to the point of seeming delicate, even perhaps bordering on anorexic, and yet even a cursory glance at his history suggested he was a lot tougher that he looked. In one regard he did remind me of Tony in that they were both talkers, both liable to veer off on a tangent when they found a topic that interested them and I guessed that like Tony, Dr. Reid wouldn't give away a lot of personal stuff either.
As he finally got down to business, revealing that he'd spoken to Gibbs, Abby and McGee, among others, who had worked with Tony, I felt rather disappointed. It seemed that I was the last person to be consulted, and while I was used to be ignored and underestimated when I worked at NCIS since I was just the ME's assistant, I was accustomed to my opinions and insights have more weight given to them now. Not to mention that in lots of ways I felt like I knew Tony better than his team mates. He rarely let his mask slip around them, Hell, I don't think that most of the time they were ever aware that he even had a mask, or if they did, how much he hid behind it. They were all supposed to be ace investigators – Gibbs with his gut, Cate as a profiler, Ziva as a spy and McGee as a genius, and how was it that it took a lowly autopsy gremlin that wasn't taken seriously to see that Tony was so much more than what he showed the world?
It seemed that Dr. Reid, who might be socially awkward, was still quite adept at picking up non-verbal body language cues.
"Dr. Palmer, I didn't mean to imply that by seeking out your insights last that that was in anyway a reflection on the importance or quality of data that you might choose to share with me. Actually, if anything, the fact that Special Agent DiNozzo maintained contact with you tells me that you were close to him and would have insights into his thoughts and character that others didn't. In fact, it was why I wanted to leave you to last because I place a great deal of weight on what you have to say and I didn't want it to prejudice my impressions or the profile I was working on prematurely."
Okay, so I had to admit that that made me feel much more confident that he would listen to what I had to say. I'd begun to wonder if he had gone to the Caitlyn Todd school of profiling, in which case he was pretty much wasting both our times. Still, never let it be said that Jimmy Palmer was a glass half full kinda guy who had become jaded and cynical and would give up on a buddy… so I talked about Tony. Then I got up and made up a pot of coffee and grabbed mugs and fixings and a fruit platter out of the fridge, before sitting down and continuing to share my observations with the eminent BAU profiler. At the end of a couple of hours I was done, my throat dry and I walked into the kitchen to fetch some bottled water so I could rehydrate.
As I drank, I wondered if the profiler was going to share his impressions with me or tell me why after all this time he was re-profiling Tony. Something must have sparked this fresh round of fact finding – had there been a sighting? Watching the FBI agent as he sat on the sofa obviously deep in thought, I decided that if I didn't ask I probably wouldn't get any answers, and as an ER doc I liked getting answers to questions. Heck, in my own way I was probably just as nosy as Tony, even if my curiosity ran more towards such intimate details as bladder and bowel emissions, blood counts, liver, kidney and cardiac enzymes etcetera, and Tony's were more along the lines of character vices, secrets and love lives. Still, it made us both voyeurs of a sort!
So Jimmy me-boy I coached myself mentally, here goes nothing. "Dr. Reid, umm Spencer," I amended as I remembered we'd agreed a while ago to dispense with the formalities of titles. "When you first made contact with me, you alluded to wanting my help because you were writing a paper for Psychology of Violence on the serial sexual predation and marginalised populations. So, can you explain why you would need my assistance, and what possible connection does that have with Tony and his disappearance? You're not suggesting that he is a suspect – he's no killer!"
Man, it wasn't as if the FBI haven't tried to accuse him wrongly of murder twice before, not to mention Ziva and her father getting in on the act. Damn it - I should never have agreed to talk to this profiler. Little naïve Jimmy Palmer thinking that the glass was half full; what a sap I am! And I'm obviously not skilled in keeping my thoughts and emotions from being telegraphed to Dr. Reid, either.
"Relax, Jimmy, I think that Tony is connected, but not in the way you think. I don't think that he is a killer or a sexual predator going around stalking disenfranchised subpopulations. But I was attempting to explain what had been put down to a statistical anomaly where there had been a small increase in the apprehension rate of killers who were focusing on indigent populations or subjects acknowledged as being most at risk of becoming victims. Targets including runaways, sex workers and drug addicts, for reasons which I'm sure I don't need to explain to an ER doc. Or that the three target groups often overlap and intersect. They all share one important characteristic in that they are easily missed and are much less visible than groups from higher socioeconomic groups. And it is a sad fact that LEOs aren't given the resources to solve their assaults and murders as they would more middle class or high profile victims."
I nodded. Yep, it was true. It stunk, but it was true.
"So, anyway," He continued. "The fact that some small pockets of reduced rates of crimes of violence and close out rates in these subpopulations in the last 30 months made me curious. As I said, I discovered the anomaly while I was writing that journal article in Psychology of Violence and I started digging. And serendipitously at the same time, Special Agent Fornell requested that we create a new profile on Special Agent DiNozzo."
"Why," I queried.
"Why did he ask for a new psychological profile? How long is a length of string? There are a lot of red faces at the FBI, including the BAU, over the fact that one wounded NCIS agent was able to vanish and the resources of the entire agency and various other law enforcement agencies haven't been enough for us to locate him in almost three years, not even a trace. Not to mention that the power brokers up on the Hill aren't too pleased, either, so Tobias decided to start from square one and asked us to do the same. And, well, apart from statistics, one of my specialities is seeing patterns where others don't and since I was also focusing on his biographical data at the same time - that's where the serendipity came in." Spencer stopped and took a breath and I glared at him for daring to stop.
"Well, I noticed that all the locales where the anomalies occurred had LEOs working the cases who had in their jackets mentioned that they'd worked in Philadelphia PD, DC Metro PD, Baltimore PD or Peoria PD which …"
"Are all places that Tony worked as a cop or an agent," I finished breathlessly. This had to be more than a coincidence, surely. When I said as much to the profiler he smiled.
"Yeah, that would be my surmise, too, especially since the times Special Agent DiNozzo worked at the various locales correlated to the times when the LEOs did, too. And really, it shows one of the flaws in the first profile we created. Even the least flattering appraisals by his team mates conceded that he was a talented investigator. It stands to reason that he would have needed something to keep his brain active. Of course, going back and starting from scratch it becomes even clearer that Tony isn't just talented, he is truly gifted, and like any gift it would be impossible for him not to utilise it, especially with his strong sense of altruism. A college kid that runs into burning building to save people and then turns down a life of corporate wealth to help others – well, of course, he was always going to be looking for ways to help others once again." He concluded.
I nodded because stated like that it was totally logical. "But, I mean Tony was on the run and trying to hide from an assassin. Who would have ever thought to look for him amongst the law enforcement community? That is totally crazy when you have a Mossad trained assassin on your tail, right? Surely, it was the first place you looked?" I argued.
"That's why it is brilliant," Spencer grinned. "Once we checked out his cronies and put out an alert initially we discounted the possibility that they would aid and abet his disappearance and never bothered to check again. It is not something any of us would ever predict and hopefully, not Rivkin either, and that's probably how he's managed to stay one step ahead." He grimaced at their faulty logic.
"We all forgot Tony is a genius at being undercover and merging with his environment. So, it looks like he may be using his vast network of cop contacts to fly low under the radar, and looking at the statistics based on the crimes he's solving, he highly mobile, not staying in one spot for too long. The problem is that I haven't been able to detect a pattern to his movements, and that's why I am here reworking the profile. Why I'm trying to get inside his head to try to figure out where he is going to go next."
"How about figuring how he is living? Tony always said you had to follow the money," I stated, knowing that Tony hadn't touched any of his bank accounts or credit cards.
"Well, in the absence of any other explanations, we have concluded that his police contacts are supporting him financially and we are looking into proving it – well, Tobias is," Spencer amended.
"I don't know how he is supporting himself, Spencer, but I'll promise you this much... Tony is not accepting money from his buddies. You need to find some other explanation, because my friend would see that as being the ultimate in weakness. He has an absolute abhorrence of ever being a burden to anyone and since he was disowned at twelve years old, he has made it his personal mantra to look after himself to the point that he would starve before he would accept what he would see as charity. Look for another explanation. You won't have a hope in Hell of finding him until you do," I vowed, absolutely certain that I was right on this score.
The profiler stared at me speculatively, before nodding once. "Okay, I'll keep looking for alternative explanations," He assured me.
"What did you mean about unflattering appraisals from his team mates?" I questioned him, returning to something he'd already mentioned. There was only Gibbs and McGee left for him to talk to, and I couldn't believe that Gibbs would be disparaging about Tony, not when he was combing the country for him.
"I have his personnel file, Jimmy. It has all of his NCIS six monthly appraisals in it from his superior (Gibbs), and also those rating him on his performance as Senior Field Agent from his subordinates, and the ones they completed on him as Senior Agent when Gibbs retired temporarily. Frankly, neither Officer David nor Special Agent McGee was impressed. Plus, I have appraisals from Special Agents Caitlyn Todd and Vivian Blackadder, and I've tracked her down and talked to her, too. "He saw my confusion at that name and he smiled and said, "Vivian was on the MCRT before Agent Todd. Actually, while she was less than flattering about Tony, she was even less so about Gibbs. Guess getting fired might sour you a little," He commented drolly.
I didn't know Blackadder since she was before my time, but if she was trash talking Tony then she was an idiot. Actually, they were all idiots. I wondered if he would give me some clue about where they were with their new profile. I didn't want them to screw it up again because this was the closest we had come yet to having a snowball's hope in Hell of finding him. We had to get it right because we might never get another shot.
"Spencer, can you tell me about the new profile?"
He nodded enthusiastically and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Sure, Jimmy, I would appreciate your thoughts on where we are up to so far. So, I already touched on the aspect that Tony is driven to use his investigative gift because of strong altruistic motivations and that he is exceptionally skilled at blending in which helps him work under cover. But I guess I've realised this time around that Tony is far more complex than anyone ever realised… well, obviously, he would never have been able to evade everyone and leave absolutely no trace of where he's been otherwise, apart from the postcards, and that was information he voluntarily chose to share with you."
The youthful profiler frowned as he reviewed what he had said. "Obviously, when I said that he was smarter than everyone realised, I wasn't discounting what you told me earlier… I meant everyone else that I'd spoken to previous to today."
I nodded but didn't speak, hoping that he would continue because I was curious to find out about how he'd arrived at his conclusions.
Spencer grinned, obviously understanding I was using silence to wait him out and encourage him to speak. Oh course he would, Jimmy, I scolded myself. He's a hotshot profiler!
"Anyway…" He started. "This time around I got hold of Agent DiNozzo's academic transcripts for all the various boarding schools he's attended including Rhode Island Military Academy, Ohio State University, and the Police Academy. It was certainly very enlightening, especially when viewed en mass with all his other records. "
"Tony," I interrupted. "If he was here he'd tell you to call him Tony."
"Alright, Tony then. I found out that Tony was tested on numerous occasions as a child and his IQ was found to be 146 give or take a couple of points' variance. Yet, when his IQ was tested upon entry at OSU it had dropped to 122 points, which while still above average intelligence, is still rather a significant drop. His grades also showed a similar drop from a range of 97 – 100 percent across all his courses to when he entered college, where it dropped down to 85 percent. Any time he's been retested since then or taken examinations or assessments he tests at 122 points - no variance for his IQ on the Wechsler or Stanford Binet – and every damned test he scores 85 percent exactly." The FBI agent looked across at me to gauge my reaction.
"Did Tony have some sort of traumatic event or head injury between the time of the last IQ test at RIMA and the 122 at OSU?" I asked, trying to find an explanation for the anomaly. Intelligence testing wasn't my bailiwick as an ER doc, but I knew enough to know that a drop of twenty plus IQ points was not normal. And although I knew Tony was smart (and 122 was above average intelligence), hearing that he'd tested three standard deviations above the norm as a child placing him in the 99th percentile was still a bit of a shock. I was pretty sure that Abby and McGee were probably in the high 140's and I wondered what had happened to cause the shift.
Spencer shook his head. "No, nothing documented, but judging by his earlier medical records when he was living with his parents and his worrying ability to acquire injuries, it is conceivable that something happened during the school semesters that was hushed up." He looked at me to see my reaction, but I just nodded contemplatively. It seems he had drawn similar conclusions to those I harboured, and I wondered if he'd studied Tony's medical records and x-rays too. More than likely, I concluded.
"And if there wasn't conflicting evidence then I'd accept that as a highly likely scenario, but it doesn't add up. For a start, when Tony was testing in the 140's there was always a natural variance of one or two points in either direction. That's normal and expected, yet after his dramatic drop in IQ, it sits stubbornly at 122 – no variance at all. Now, that isn't normal or expected. Even if there is only a variance due to test administers' variance, there still should be some sort of variance at some point. Likewise, the statistical improbability of scoring 85 percent exactly on every single test you take is astronomical. In short, I don't believe it."
I stared at the man whose IQ was vastly superior to mine, but I could still see what he was intimating. "You're suggesting that Tony faked the drop in his IQ and the drop in his grades? How and why would he do that? What purpose would it serve?"
Spencer shrugged. "For someone of superior intellect it is possible to manipulate the results, not to mention that it is pretty clear that he must have an eidetic memory, judging by the way he is able to reel off case details, not to mention reams of information about movies that drive his co-workers crazy. And if he knew the answer to every question on tests and exams he takes, it would be a piece of cake for someone in the 99th percentile to calculate how many answers you would need to get wrong to consistently achieve a score of 85 out of 100. And unless someone with statistical training bothered to look at his academic transcripts, then he was probably fairly safe. Let's face it; he's gotten away with it for this length of time already. The why though… I'm not so sure…I'm betting that you might figure it out if you put your mind to it. Seeing you know him well, you might come up with a plausible explanation."
I thought about what I knew, which wasn't all that much since he didn't share a whole lot. Tony didn't talk all that much about RIMA or his earlier years at boarding schools, but he was quite effusive about his time at OSU. It was where he found a family of sorts when he joined a fraternity and won a spot on two varsity teams. And seemed to have been given a lot of attention from the opposite sex, so he seemed to have found a place where he felt comfortable and dare I say, happy?
"Maybe he decided that he would be more popular with his peers if he wasn't so smart. Tony is actually rather sensitive and a lot more introverted than he lets on. And he doesn't speak a lot about his time at school… I can see a brainy kid that was gentle and complex, he would maybe get a hard time from the other kids," I theorised. "He talks a lot about his time at college…sounds like he was happy there, but doesn't talk much about the time before that."
Spencer frowned as he considered what I'd said. "He reinvented himself completely. Probably been doing it to some degree or another for all of his childhood since he's what the developmental experts call a resilient child instead of ending up a recidivist juvenile offender, sociopath or serial killer, which by rights with his background he had every chance of becoming. But this time he must have decided to totally reshaped his whole persona and managed to fool everyone into believing that he was a big dumb jock, not an intellectual."
He picked up some transcripts he had with him and reread them, his baby faced countenance puckering in concentration as he thought. "You know, Tony chose to project some annoying characteristics as defence mechanisms to stop anyone get too close and detecting his deception. Still, given that Agent Todd was a profiler and that Scuito and McGee also have IQs that are three standard deviations above the norm, they should have picked up on a couple of things that Tony didn't manage to hide. I know he drove his team mates up the wall with his quoting his movies, but as I said, they should have picked up on the eidetic memory, but they also missed out on obvious signs like his deductive and inductive reasoning, but also his analogical reasoning, too, which couldn't have been more obvious if it bitten them on the butt."
And then the profiler was off before I could get clarification about what he meant. "His brain's mental process of transferring information or meaning from one domain (source) to another domain (target) to describe the relationship/similarity between the source and target is a form of thought that has been used from the most primitive of cultures to make sense, try to understand or explain the unknown. But scientists also use analogic reasoning, too, when they build conceptual models. I'm sure you are familiar with Neils Bohr's analogy of the solar system to describe his theoretical model of an atom?" Dr Reid enthused and I was reminded of Tim when he was on a rant about his string theory or some obscure theory in computer science. "Tony was using movies to detect patterns in crime scenes and evidence by association, resulting in him being able to understand new concepts or evidence by comparing it to his existing knowledge, which as a heuristic for facilitating efficient processing and storage of data is extremely elegant."
I wasn't totally comprehending where he was coming from before, but with that last bit he'd totally lost me, and before I had the chance to ask he was off again enthusiastically. "Did you know that Einstein said that imagination was more important that knowledge and that his own analogical reasoning is responsible for many of his greatest discoveries?" Spencer's eyes were alight with joy. "And that Henri Poincare said that mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, saw analogy as a shared abstraction. They understood that analogous items didn't have to share a relation - that they could share an attribute, idea, a pattern, a regularity a philosophy or even an effect. They both also used comparisons, metaphors, allegory (image) to help argue their case." And here as he drew breath again my synapses that had been struggling woefully to keep up with his superior intellect finally started jumping up and down and shouting 'Bingo.'
I was picturing Tony in the bull pen having detected a pattern or something that he could make sense of based on his investigatory experience or knowledge and he was in playful teaching mode. How he used movies to drag along his slower, less perceptive team mates, and how it was almost like he was using analogy to transfer information that he already possessed. I was starting to see where Spencer was coming from.
"I've never heard of analogical reasoning, Spencer. Why are you so critical of Tim and Abby having never noticed Tony using it so much?" I asked, curiously. I mean, of course, I've heard of analogy in the linguistic sense but this was a much, much broader concept, and I could see how it fitted into inductive reasoning, divergent thought and problem solving – all of which Tony excelled at.
The profiler squinted slightly as he formulated his response, and I noticed that he had a nervous energy that reminded me of Tony. The man was practically never still and Spencer reminded me of a little of a hummingbird whose movement was so fast that all you heard was a hum. He smiled gently. "Well, because artificial intelligence studies analogical thought and reasoning extensively in order to develop computer programs, so because both of them have an interest in AI and computer science, I would expect them to be familiar with the process when others such as an ER physician aren't, Jimmy," He explained before getting that 'wow, I love talking about this stuff' look on his face.
"And do you know what's really neat about analogical reasoning and Tony?" He asked rhetorically. "Researchers have discovered a strong link between analogical thought and superior sensory perceptual skills, and guess who has extraordinary hearing, eyesight and smell? Not sure about his sense of taste, but as an athlete I'm betting his sense of movement and proprioception are above average, too. Everyone always comments upon Tony's situational awareness when he's in the field when they talked about him, which probably is what makes him such a great field agent, and that makes sense with his sensory perceptive hypersensitivity. They all of them give him a huge advantage."
Thinking about all we've discussed today, I feel pretty overwhelmed. Clearly as much as I know my friend well, there are parts of him that I have never had a clue about either. I can't help but wonder; what if we'd know all of this stuff earlier? Could we have found him and brought him home three years ago? Who was Tony DiNozzo now and could he come back after so much time? I guess we may never know the answers. Woulda… shoulda… coulda. If only…
An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everybody Blind
Leroy Jethro Gibbs, 5th April 2012:
Gibbs rose from the lumpy bed in the run-down motel in the one-horse town he'd stopped in last night after another day of fruitless searching. He still had a few more leads from Fornell to chase down before he headed back to DC to regroup and touch base with Abby and Ducky, and hope that something fresh had come to light. Hobbling into the shower and turning the hot water tap up as much as he could tolerate, he groaned appreciatively as his tortured back muscles began to relax. Hour upon hour of driving in his truck and sleeping in crappy beds at cheap motels and bed and breakfasts had long since taken a toll upon his body. His failure to find any trace of Tony had also begun to weaken his spirit and resolve.
Gibbs knew he wasn't the same smug cocky jackass he used to be; someone who'd been so damned sure that he had all the answers and that everyone should kowtow to his opinions and his needs. Being on the road with no one as backup or to lick his boots was as good a way as any of curing a raging case of self-importance. In fact, these days most people regarded him with undisguised pity instead of the fear and awe he used to engender. Gibbs had always seen himself as extremely competent and capable; someone who could lead others and easily impose his iron will on other highly competent individuals and who never ever wasted useless energy racking up regrets. Really, the only thing in his whole life he could ever honestly say he regretted was his failure to protect Shannon and Kelly.
But it was a completely different kettle of fish now – there was nothing like failure to knock you off your perch, which is what had indeed occurred, since he had been so damned certain that he could find DiNozzo easily. After all, knowing him as well as he did and working with him for eight years, how could Tony hope to hide from his mentor? He just knew that he would be able to find him even if others couldn't; ESPECIALLY when others couldn't! Yet clearly, he had underestimated the situation, along with his unshakable belief in his famous gut that he was all fired certain would lead him to DiNozzo. It seems he had badly misjudged his former 2IC's ability to disappear off the face of the planet. Furthermore, his failure to locate him had left him with a multitude of complicated and conflicted thoughts and feelings that Gibbs was hard pressed to identify, let alone deal with.
He was furious at Tony for being able to evade him, seemingly so effortlessly… furious at himself for not being able to find him when it should be eminently doable. He was also paradoxically proud that Tony was effectively managing to flip the bird to the whole law enforcement community, along with the self-serving politicians and a crazy Mossad assassin and his revenge fuelled boss; all who wanted to find him for their own selfish motives. It was the ultimate David versus Goliath scenario, and the former gunny would have gotten a perverse pleasure out of DiNozzo's effective F/U to everyone if he hadn't also been on the receiving end of it. Gibbs was also experiencing the decidedly uncomfortable experience of having a whole bunch of regrets about how he had been fooled by Eli David and his daughter, and how that had influenced his behaviour when Tony needed him to have his six. How he'd let Vance toss his senior field agent under the bus, all for the sake of Gibbs' inability to let go of his grief, which had made him vulnerable to a former Mossad spy who'd been able to use his weakness against him. His inability to deal with his pain had caused him to hurt not only his girls by not letting them go, but eventually DiNozzo had paid the price, too.
Oh, sure, Sec Nav had ordered him to follow Vance's lead, so he had stood by and done nothing as Leon Vance had insisted that Tony must 'take one for the team' in the subtle game of diplomacy in placating Mossad. But since when did he the All-Wise-and-Powerful Gibbs ever do anything simply because he was ordered by TPTB? If he was being honest, he'd done it because he had found himself in the invidious position of having to side with one member of the team over the other, especially when he could identify with the pain and anger that Ziva was experiencing. Sec Nav ordering him to follow Vance's play for the good of the agency has absolved him of the need to have DiNozzo's six, and so he'd been the good little soldier and watched while his SFA, his innocent SFA, was thrown to the Mossad wolves, and had done nothing to protect him. He never even put it on the record that he objected to DiNozzo being dragged to Israel to answer to Eli David for doing his job.
He had let DiNozzo go off alone with Officer Hadar without backup, apart from his pathetically weak question to Leon (and even that was after he'd already gone) about whether he would see him again. And to be brutally honest, it had only been paying lip service to the notion of having Tony's back since it was really too late to do anything. Considering Ziva's disturbing answer to his inquiry about Tony's continuing existence, which really should have been enough to clue him in about the danger that Tony faced, it should have been enough to force him to observe rule one. After all, he himself had been angry enough to avenge Shannon and Kelly's deaths by seeking out and killing the man responsible for his girls' assassination, so he had no excuse for not taking Ziva's threat seriously. He knew that it was not a light-hearted piece of banter.
Then there was the equally disturbing fact that Ziva believed that she and her father had the right to take the life of a US federal agent, which was outrageous. And people had the gall to accuse him of being a megalomaniac! Though, in hindsight this David family or was it Mossad mindset was breathtaking in its egotism, and how could he have ignored it? Why on earth didn't he notice that Ziva had no compunction about stating it in front of Leon Vance, or that Vance didn't protest or even bat an eyelid? So, really, he shouldn't be at all shocked to find out that she had attacked an injured and unarmed Tony, or even that when he rejected her demand to choose her, that she had felt entitled to carry out a retribution killing? The question he should really be asking himself wasn't why did she do it, but why not?
When Eli had interrogated DiNozzo, he had also stood by shoulder to shoulder with Vance, knowing that he was never going to interview him, since having Ziva on his team for four years, he knew exactly how they 'acquired' information from suspects, and it inevitably involved inflicting physical pain and suffering. How…why had he stood by and let it proceed with nary a word of protest? Sure, he'd been proud to see his SFA get one over on the Mossad director, but he'd let that bastard Eli David hurt Tony when the NCIS agent had done nothing wrong – unlike that scum sucking dirtbag Rivkin, who they'd treated with scrupulous politeness when they had detained him in LA, a sharp contrast to DiNozzo's treatment. So Gibbs had plenty to feel guilty about, and that was apart the fact that he needed to deal with the unwelcome news Lieutenant Cameron had delivered that his grief had paradoxically left his wife and daughter languishing in a limbo, trapped between life and death. So, it was the height of irony that he now also found himself trapped.
Ironic because although Gibbs was desperate to face up to his demons so his girls could finally gain their freedom and finally move on to do what they needed to do, he couldn't. Not because like before, he wasn't ready to let them go, but because the knowledge that Tony was still alive and therefore redeemable had become his overriding obsession. He knew at some subconscious level that he couldn't have saved Shannon or Kelly, but he wasn't a fool and he knew that with DiNozzo mistakes had been made by many, and that equally he'd made plenty that had forced his agent into fleeing for his life. Knew that those actions had shattered the team and decimated the agency. There was simply no way that he could focus on freeing his girls from the purgatory he'd imprisoned them in, however unintentionally. Not until he had redeemed himself by bringing DiNozzo home, ensuring he was safe, and God help him, to apologise to him and make things right.
While Tony had taken off in an attempt to save those people he cared most about, he had ironically ended up sentencing them all to a limbo not unlike what Gibbs had had created with Shannon and Kelly. And to free them like he desperately wanted to, he first needed to locate his stubborn, noble, self-sacrificing, brilliantly adept undercover agent – a man who had saved his six on too many occasions to calculate, and if he was being painfully honest, Tony had brought him back to the land of the living with his humour, admiration, loyalty and his desire to please him. He'd managed to breech what should have been impenetrable emotional barriers that Gibbs had erected to keep everyone out, and he couldn't help but think about the adage that his mom had always preached, he'd never even realised let alone appreciated what he'd had until Tony was long gone.
So, here he was, trapped in a never-ending karmic loop (too much time spent around Abby) that he couldn't break free of (irony much) at the mercy of his senior field agent, and it didn't matter that Tony had resigned, he would always be his SFA. To break free of his obsession, which frankly made his Captain Ahab/Ari fixation look like a Sunday school picnic, he had to find DiNozzo, who didn't intend to be found, and fix the mess he'd helped to create. The problem being that it was like chasing a ghost. Gibbs had never really believed that Tony could stay hidden once he got his head out of his ass and hunted him down. He was Leroy Jethro Gibbs after all, but it would seem that DiNozzo was even better than he'd given him credit for.
Abby, despite her desperate desire for him to find Tony, had burbled some rubbish about the grasshopper excelling the Master that no doubt his SFA would have gotten the significance of. All he knew was that Tony had proved that he was beyond doubt the best agent Gibbs had ever worked with, and damn it, because at this rate the only way this could end was if Rivkin found him and killed him. And how the hell he was supposed live with the guilt if that was to happen?
Gibbs knew that the last almost three years had not been kind to him… how could they be under the circumstances? And knowing that in a few days he would be returning to DC, he was prepared to encounter fierce opposition from Ducky and Abby. They had begun to worry about him and beg him to stop searching. He knew that the rest of the team was beginning to question if Tony was still alive, or if he was, that if he hadn't been able to hunt him down in the last 30 months then the chances of finding him were diminishing by the day. He knew that Fornell privately agreed with their assessment, but also knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't be dissuaded.
What Abby and Ducky couldn't understand, because he would never be able to explain to them, was that he had no choice. How could he explain his visitations from Lieutenant Dave Cameron and the revelations he shared? He just couldn't see himself explaining that if he wanted to deal with his demons and save Shannon and Kelly from his self-created limbo they were caught up in, he first had to save DiNozzo. They would have him committed before he could say "ya think". They wouldn't understand that Gibbs needed for him to still be alive and he had to find Tony so that they could both move forward with their lives.
From Gibbs' perspective, he simply had no other choice but to keep pursuing his target and hope that eventual Tony would slip up. but not to the degree that Rivkin would be able to find him. And he knew it was still a real risk; that the assassin hadn't given up the search either, because unlike his SFA, the failed Kidon assassin was sloppy and had left a trail. There had been plenty of sightings of Samuel Rivkin asking questions about his quarry, and even inflicting some minor assaults on a few guys who were unfortunate enough to bear a striking resemblance to a certain Anthony DiNozzo. So he was girding his loins for a Battle Royale with his friends when he went home, since he couldn't give up on Tony– that would in turn mean giving up on his girls, and after more than 20 years they deserved more.
Frustrated with the lack of progress and his crap load full of feelings and damned annoying thoughts, he shut the door on all the mental torture deciding to get his ass into gear and out of the shower. As a Marine and an agent he'd never been one to linger in a shower – that was DiNozzo's thing but over the course of these many months he'd found that a long hot shower was his faithful friend and helped loosen up his tortured muscles pretty effectively. The downside was it made him brood on stuff that couldn't be solved by worrying. Sighing, he reached for the scratchy motel towel to dry himself off when his spidey sense became aware that he was not alone.
Quickly, he assessed what he had around him that could be utilised as a weapon since his gun and knife were outside in the bedroom area, and he decided that in a pinch, the generic shampoo that DiNozzo wouldn't be caught dead using could be used to blind the interloper while he got him in a choke hold. Just as he was about to leap around the shower curtain a lazy drawl disarmed him.
"Kind of you Leroy, but I washed my hair already."
"Damn it, I told ya before, Dave. Stop sneakin up on me. At least give me a sign." Gibbs groused.
"Oh that's rich, coming from the person who revels in sneaking up on his men and agents. Not gonna happen Gunny – think of it as a little bit of divine retribution." Lieutenant Dave Cameron smirked at the naked Gibbs.
"Can we at least do this outside and let me get dressed?" Gibbs grumbled, figuring Dave was back to whoop his ass like he did periodically.
"Bashful much, Gunny? You used to be a bit of an exhibitionist. Not like you've got anything I haven't seen before." Cameron taunted him.
"Nope, but there's not enough room to swing a cat and I don't like being crowded, Loo."
"Fine but don't take all day, Leroy." Disappearing before Gibbs eyes, he scowled. He hated when Dave did that because it was a constant reminder that he wasn't a dream like he'd originally convinced himself.
Wrapping the towel around his lower torso, he wandered out to grab some clean clothes, dressing quickly.
"Okay, what do you want?" He grumbled eager to get it over and done with.
An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everybody Blind
After his tête-à-tête with his guardian angel, devil's advocate, tormentor, moral conscience… not exactly sure how to describe his dead XO but he guessed giant pain in the butt would be the closest to the truth – unsurprisingly, coffee was the first thing on his agenda. Many other things might have change in the last 30 months, but he was still addicted to caffeine, maybe even more so, inasmuch as for a good 70 percent of the last almost three years since Ziva's death, he had been on the road searching for Tony. That meant that he couldn't afford to indulge his passion for drinking bourbon, which left him with just coffee as his crutch to help him get through each soul destroying hour as he searched without ever coming closer to finding his former senior field agent.
As he sipped his mediocre coffee, vowing to go and get some good stuff on his way to Harrisburg Pennsylvania, his eyes fell upon the letter that he had until now resisted opening. It was the farewell letter that DiNozzo had requested that Tobias pass on to Gibbs, along with the other members of Tony's team. He'd been arrogantly positive that he'd find him relatively quickly and easily and hadn't wanted to open the letter, feeling was unnecessary. When the hunt had dragged on, he'd still resisted opening the letter, regarding it as an acknowledgement that he'd failed, which he'd never do, and he'd stubbornly clung to this view. Yet last night, in a fit of depression, he had again been tempted to open it, and finally decided that Tony might have left some sort of clue in the letter to indicate where he was or what he was doing. So, he had finally caved and opened it, knowing that it would be painful. He fully expected it to be full of anger, hurt and recriminations, and he couldn't blame DiNozzo….not one little bit.
He picked it up to reread it again in light of the rather heated discourse this morning with Dave, since he needed to figure out what the Hell his XO had been beating around the bush, trying to tell him. Last night he'd been overcome by the desolation, guilt and self-blame within. Definitely feeling like his self-proclaimed second B for bastard was well and truly deserved and undeniably not something that he should proud of.
Gibbs,
Know how much you hate apologies so I'll just say that I know how badly I screwed up. Jenny is dead because of me and now so is Ziva and I know that you can never forgive that. I'm leaving before I am responsible for anyone else dying… should have left before Sacks bought the farm but I didn't and he paid the price.
I know you're pissed I didn't tell you about Ziva attacking me in Israel and ain't hindsight a bitch 'cause I can see now that I should have… but at the time? Anyway Fornell was right… I did think that you would already know – you are always ten steps ahead of us that it's easy to think of you as all knowing and omnipotent. Plus I didn't want to screw Ziva and her reputation – she was my partner which was why I went to see her the night Rivkin was killed. I wanted her to explain… I wanted to protect her... I wanted her to be innocent.
But if I am being honest...there is another reason, albeit a selfish one why I didn't tell anyone (well voluntarily anyway) about Ziva pulling her gun and threatening to shoot me. I didn't report what had occurred when Ziva knocked me to the ground and held her gun to my chest and thigh because with everything that happened before during and after me taking one for the team I was afraid that you wouldn't take it seriously. Or maybe even worse, that you would justify her behaviour and defend the indefensible. And if that had happened it would have destroyed me to know that rule # one was a complete sham - at least as it applied to me.
I'm sorry that it meant you had to choose me instead of Ziva – if I had come clean you'd have picked Ziva to stay on the team and she would still be alive but Gibbs, it was my bad so you have nothing to feel guilty about. No more than you should feel guilty about your wife and daughter.
Look after the team. It will hit them hard and they'll need you to stay strong for them. Don't worry; you will never hear from me again and that should help to lock away the past. I know you must hate me because of Ziva and if it gives you any comfort, then know that I hate me too.
Thanks for all you've done for me even if I wasn't worth the trouble…I've only ever brought you grief even if I never intended to. Still as Ducky would say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. My father must be laughing fit to bust since he said I'd bring anyone down who tried to help me. You really should have left me in Baltimore.
I'm sorry for ruining all your lives (and we all know I'm weak so rule six doesn't apply here.) Like I said this will be the last time you have to deal with me – it is the very least I can do for everyone.
Regretfully
Anthony D. DiNozzo
Gibbs grimaced after reading it again, finding it no less painful for reading it a second time. It had been agonizingly short and unsentimental, but it had cut him to the quick. He'd also finally understood Fornell's resentment the day he arrived in the safe house too late to prevent Tony taking off because he'd been wallowing drunk in his own guilt and hurt and once again had failed to observe his own rule number one. His SFA had overheard the conversation he'd had with Fornell after he had found out about Ziva's death when he was feeling guilty for not choosing her over DiNozzo. He had assumed that he was unconscious and run off his mouth without engaging his brain, and had done even more damage to his injured SFA. Was it any wonder he had taken off and made sure Gibbs wasn't able to find him? Who could blame him?
All this time, he had been imagining the anger and recriminations in the letter that would be directed at himself and shied away from dealing with it. Anger there most definitely was, but it was turned inward to attack the writer of the letter, not Gibbs. The former Marine sighed, realising if he didn't have his head so far up his ass, he absolutely should have expected this. DiNozzo was the world champion at blaming himself for the ills of the world when he had no culpability, and no doubt his less than stellar childhood was responsible for his irrational need to take the blame for everything. So, after being forced to kill his partner, of course he was always going to feel overwhelming guilt, and no wonder he was so determined to protect everyone from himself. And Gibbs wondered if, NO, when he brought him back home to DC after all this time, what sort of shape would he be in after dragging such a gigantic albatross around his neck for three years?
He had to admit that he was beginning to feel a certain uncomfortable kinship with his loyal Saint Bernard. He'd always been a control freak, insisting on being the alpha wolf, damn sure that he could bend the universe to his will by the sheer force of his personality. He was a Marine, a sniper, a black ops operative and a federal agent for Pete's sake, and people gave in to his often totally unreasonable demands rather than risk pissing him off. Yet it was becoming increasingly apparent in the most fundamental of ways his control was a pathetic, sad illusion, since by demanding control and refusing to listen to others, he'd ended up unknowingly exacting a terrible price, one that Shannon, Kelly and now Tony were all forced to pay for. And in order to fix it, he had to find said Saint Bernard, who was loyally hiding from them in order to protect the team, and he was no longer sure he would emerge victorious. Of all the times to have underestimated DiNozzo, this was surely Gibbs' biggest bete noire.
He was just hoping that Lieutenant Dave Cameron had handed him the key to bringing DiNozzo home; that was IF he could just figure out where the right door was.
End Notes
As per my beta's recommendation I'm going to define a few terms used by Spencer and Jimmy in case you were wondering:
Recidivist: One who lapses into a previous behaviour or condition; especially: a habitual criminal – recidivist adjective
Heuristic - Adjective 1. Serving to indicate or point out; or stimulating interest as a means of furthering investigation. 2, encouraging a person to learn, discover or solve problems on his/her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error: a heuristic teaching method 3, of, pertaining to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial and error methods 4. Computers, Mathematics pertaining to a trial and error method of problem solving when a algorithmic approach is impractical
Proprioception: The unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself
