A/N thankyou to everyone who left comments for the last tag – I appreciate all your thoughts.
MJ- Left for Dead just happened to be the next episode in the series. Here you go and I hope this meets expectations. Maddy - have added your suggestion to the list :) Earthdragon – not being from US and it being back in 2003, I guesstimated the cost of the monitor – if you have more accurate pricing I'm more than happy to edit it :) And apologies to people who needed to do extra laundry due to bladder issues. No need to issue a warning for this one. It is not a humorous tag and is longer than average (for the series that is) altho it's still far shorter than some of my chapters (16,00 words). Just saying… you might wanna grab a coffee or a cuppa tea.
Thanks go as usually to the rest of the Trippies for their contribution and to Arress for the superfast Beta and her extra suggestions including the title. Thanks for the extra technical assistance to RCEpups - you guys are all awesome. Oops…I almost forgot that the idea for this plot came about after a suggestion by Acrwdof1 which I've taken and tweaked a bit. Might still use the original idea later… Anyway thanks everyone :D
Series: There's Always Tom Morrow
Title: Damages
Episode: Left for Dead
Characters: Tom Morrow, Michelle Lee, OC Joe Landers
Tom Morrow was waiting for Joe Landers, head of Legal, to report to his office for a meeting to try to figure out how they were going to handle this latest crisis. Lately, there had been a lot of crises, way too many fires to put out. For example, the bomb on the USS Foster that had a lot of people up in arms and the fiasco with the Marines after Gibbs bulldozed his way onto a training flight and dragged DiNozzo along, too. Gibbs was technically still a reservist, but his second in command was a civilian who also had zero jump training, yet he hauled him along on a lame-brained and unnecessary night jump. Unsurprisingly, all hell had broken loose when he'd been pushed out of the plane, landing far off the target zone.
The only silver cloud in that particular SNAFU was that the agent somehow managed not to break his neck. Trained paratroopers were still shaking their heads over it, saying it was a miracle. Morrow figured DiNozzo was half feline.
The damage to reputations, to the agency, and the MCRT that all these crises, these fires, had caused was immense though. Marine and Navy personnel had contacted him, requesting that Gibbs' team not be assigned to their cases since they had huge concerns about how the cases would be conducted. The truth was that Gibbs was now seen as a loose cannon by many people; they felt he was clearly unstable. Unfortunately, Tom was having a hard time denying those accusations, even before this latest crisis.
Then there had been the matter of the worsening relationship with their sister agencies, lately it was the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA that Gibbs had been pissing off. Gibbs was an equal opportunity employee when it came to pissing off the various alphabet agencies - Tom had to give credit where it was due. If it was a federal law enforcement agency, he despised them on principle as far as Tom could see. Thought they were incompetent, mired in bureaucracy, and lived to thwart his obsessive drive to solve the case at any cost. Sometime Tom wondered what had possessed Gibbs to work for NCIS, since it was a federal agency too – perhaps he'd have been better off as his own boss – a PI or a body guard. Morrow figured he certainly would have been.
Still, all of that paled into insignificance, including his musing about his infuriating agent in comparison to this latest FUBAR from Gibbs and his team though. Their agency was now being sued by a highly respected multinational corporation Bombe Fermentdeckung Fabrik's and a partner of the US Navy to boot, which wasn't exactly a good look for NCIS or the Navy. The law suit was alleging gross negligence leading to BFF headquarters being blown up and severely damaged by a killer who NCIS supposedly had in protective custody at the time of the bombing.
There had been casualties – two dead and eleven wounded in the explosion. The only silver lining barely detectable by Tom in this storm cloud was that the blast was highly concentrated since the bomber, who was one of those killed, was also the company bomb maker and had thankfully limited the extent of the explosion. The building was badly damaged, but structurally could be repaired – at a cost. The human cost wasn't as easily fixed though. What a freakin' mess!
Morrow was expecting Lander's knock on his office door. Cynthia was off sick today, which meant there was no one to announce people's arrival in the outer office. So, he was quite surprised when instead of Joe entering his office, it was a young Eurasian female smiling somewhat nervously at him as she approached his desk. He identified her as one of the young up and coming lawyers in the Legal Department, Michelle Lee, who'd joined the agency a couple of years ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School.
"Joe had to leave suddenly, Sir," she explained apologetically. "His wife went into labour unexpected - six weeks prematurely. But he sent me to do the briefing in his stead, since I've been helping out on this case, reviewing the evidence. He said to read you in on the situation for him as it currently stands."
Tom smiled. "Good. Well then, have a seat and let's get started shall we? SecNav wants a sitrep later today, so where are we at?"
Michelle sat down at the conference table, putting her leather satchel and her laptop on the table and began organising herself, settling in before beginning the briefing. She closed her eyes momentarily and took a deep, deep breath. Morrow figured that wasn't a good sign in a lawyer, even a baby one, nervous about briefing the director.
"So, it's the boss' opinion, and I have to concur, that the case against NCIS doesn't look good, Director. First off, you need to suspend Probationary Special Agent Todd and Senior Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs, if you haven't done so yet."
Tom frowned. Joe had recommended that he place Todd on suspension without pay and strongly suggested that he should also consider doing the same with Gibbs, but SecNav had vetoed suspending Gibbs.
"Why is that, Michelle?"
"Well, playing devil's advocate here for a moment, Sir, we need to cut our losses, because Todd, maybe even Gibbs, are probably beyond redemption."
Tom felt his stomach drop and he eyeballed the lawyer sternly. "Explain it to me... and no legal mumbo jumbo, please."
"Yes, Director." She nodded, wondering if her boss had deliberately manoeuvred her into this briefing since she was going to be the bearer of all the bad tidings and not him. Although she'd watched ER – there was such a thing as false labour. What did they say about shooting the messenger?
"How BFF's legal team will most likely spin this to the jury - NCIS already had the killer in protective custody. Plus, she'd made threats to blow up a Navy ship repeatedly, so we had been forewarned of her intentions... "
"No, she said that there was a bomb on a Navy ship, which isn't the same thing," Tom corrected mildly. "She didn't make threats. And there wasn't a bomb on board a Navy ship, it was a mock-up of a Navy ship on the BFF campus."
"Close enough, especially the way the plaintiff will phrase it and the jury will see and hear it, Sir. Plus, McNeil is dead and Todd is the main witness to what she actually said, so that's not great news for us. What with Probationary Agent Todd's credibility issues as a witness, to wit, being fired for ignoring fraternisation rules in her last job... "
Tom interrupted her again. "She resigned, Ms. Lee."
"Yeah, right. Only because the powers that be would have kicked her out on her butt anyway. We all know she simply got in first to protect her record. 'Resigned' looks so much better on a CV than 'fired'."
The lawyer made an involuntary moue of distaste and Tom wasn't sure if it was because of moral outrage, or merely a lawyerly one of antipathy relating to Todd's credibility as a witness.
"She broke off the affair with her lover to try to save her career, but only once NCIS began their murder investigation, but see, here's the problem. It wasn't 'til AFTER Major Kerry's death and the attempt on the President's life when it was clear she wouldn't be able to keep it quiet that she suddenly discovered her principles and resigned. Her first impulse was to hide her affair. Hardly creates an impression in the jury's minds of an ethical and honest federal agent – or a trustworthy witness for that matter," Michelle observed cynically.
Tom smiled internally at the self-righteous indignation that only the very young and idealistic are capable of carrying off without seeming too obnoxious. Much as Lee's analysis and recounting of the events was harsh and definitely unflattering, he had to admit that it was consistent with how it would be portrayed in court by the plaintiffs.
"But to return to the case, she essentially abducted Jane Doe, AKA Suzzanne McNeil, from the hospital – insisting that the woman lie to the doctors, who'd refused to discharge her until she'd regained her identity. So, Todd provided her with a false identity – her cousin's, and coached the killer to lie to her doctors so Doe could be discharged into her custody." She looked at Tom and shrugged.
"Devil's advocate, Director – on the stand they'll portray her as a liar, someone whose word can't be believed, and that's going to damage her credibility even further and, therefore, the agency's as well. How do I know? It's what I would do – pretty standard courtroom tactic. To not do so would be grossly negligent on their part.
"They'll no doubt also attack her because she's on the MCRT as a profiler and yet she failed to make the connection that McNeil was starting to get her memory back or that she was being deceptive. While a regular agent could be excused from picking up on subtle tells that her memory was coming back, a trained profiler would be expected to pick up on those indicators and draw the correct conclusion. She did not!
"Even worse, she failed to realise that McNeil was dangerous even when she read her personnel file. The plaintiff's attorneys will likely point out that Todd refused right from the beginning, to consider the possibility that McNeil was anything other than a victim, which as a profiler she shouldn't have done. They'll also be quick to highlight just how much time she spent with her, one on one, or that despite the fact that McNeil slipped up and revealed she knew the victim's cause of death, Todd failed to notice it when she should have.
Michelle paused to take a sip of her coffee, pulled a face that Morrow interpreted as her beverage being cold and carried on as she tucked a strand of long black hair behind her dainty ear.
"They'll paint her not only as a very inexperienced investigator and an incompetent profiler, but arrogant in failing to listen to her superiors, who were far more experienced. They'll have the jury questioning why NCIS hired her initially and then continued to let her work so independently, which will damage the agency's credibility. They'll demand to know why a trainee wasn't being closely supervised. It could end up costing us a lot of money in terms of damages awarded against us if we lose," Michelle cautioned somberly.
"But she was a probationary agent, so surely the jury will cut her some slack?" Tom protested, wondering now if he should have had the SecNav sit in on this meeting. Even as he was defending his agent, it occurred to him that BFF's legal team would dig into her past performances since joining the agency and question why she'd been allowed to stay on the team and work with such minimum supervision.
"Sir, Todd was cautioned on numerous occasions during the course of the investigation to remain sceptical of the Jane Doe woman and her story, but she didn't even try to maintain detachment. There's inexperience, which is excusable, and then there's criminally arrogant, which is not. As far as Todd knew, a Navy ship was going to be blown up, placing potentially hundreds if not thousands of US Navy and Marine personnel lives in imminent peril. Yet her main priority throughout the case, right up to the moment of the bomb exploding, was to find out Jane Doe's real identity because she felt sorry for her. To that end, she wanted to release Doe's photo to the media until Special Agent Gibbs vetoed it because he didn't want the person or persons that attacked and buried her to know she was still alive."
"But Todd's only been with the agency for a short time – she's a rookie," Tom argued, clutching at straws again.
"Maybe... but the lawyers for BFF are going to ask her, under oath, if she'd still been serving in the Secret Service on the President's protection team, would she have been so gullible about Suzzanne McNeil. Would she have put her empathy for her and her own desire to discover Doe's identity before protecting the life of the POTUS. Pretty sure she's going to have to answer with a HELL NO!, unless she wants to commit perjury."
"And then they'll want to know why she turned into a cream puff when it was our brave service men and women whose lives were on the line," Tom observed wryly.
Michelle nodded soberly. "Exactly. It's going to look very bad, Sir. The plaintiff's lawyers are going to have a field day ripping her reputation apart." She shuddered grimly and shifted slightly in her chair. "You know how it is. Every minute detail examined, every action, thought, and decision she made is going to be put under a microscope and analysed with the benefit of hindsight. A bloodbath!" she concluded.
Tom had to admit that it was looking pretty dire for the probationary agent. Although he'd been defending her to Lee, he'd always been less than thrilled about Gibbs hiring such an inexperienced investigator for the MCRT, and one who'd resigned due to sexual impropriety. He was aware it was always going to be Todd's Achilles' heel, especially when it came to giving evidence in court, if smart lawyers did their homework. It sure looked as if it was going to come back and bite her on the ass, the agency too. Gibbs' impetuosity could very easily end up costing them a lot of money in damages if the jury ruled against them.
Michelle seemed to have been pondering something else before she decided to proceed. "BFF is going to make a big deal out of the fact that McNeil was in our custody when she was allowed to go back to her former office and gain access to highly volatile explosives; explosive material which caused a great deal of damage to the building, killed her and Stephen Brauer, and injured a number of its employees. DiNozzo, even right up to the end, questioned how McNeil knew where her office was when she was supposed to have amnesia. Probationary Agent Todd's response to his quite reasonable questioning of her behaviour was highly insulting, bordering on insubordination.
"Todd, to the bitter end, was still in denial. She insisted upon seeing McNeil as a victim, which circumvented her ability to correctly interpret the available data or at least have doubts and proceed with scepticism. Sure, the penny finally dropped – but too little, too late. People died, people were injured, the building was badly damaged, and there's no way to get around that."
Tom nodded. "Okay, so I've already suspended Probationary Agent Todd without pay. Sounds like irrespective of the outcome of the lawsuit, this case was the death knell for her career – not just in NCIS, but in law enforcement generally."
The lawyer nodded. "Probably, Sir, unless a miracle happens." Privately she figured that would have to be an Act of God which took out the whole of the BFF Corporation – here and in Germany- in order to save her, or NCIS either. The most expert opinion in the NCIS Legal Department and that of several of the judge advocates from JAG was that NCIS were royally screwed!
Sighing regretfully, since he didn't like having to be the one to end a nascent agent's career, Morrow turned his mind to other matters. When the ship is in danger of sinking, you jettison everything you can't save and focus on what is still retrievable. Pragmatically, Caitlyn Todd was gone and he needed to try to save the rest of the agency, hard as it was to make the tough decisions. It was after all why he got paid the big bucks and got to sit in the big chair with a fine view of the Navy Yard.
"So, explain to me why you feel that it's necessary to suspend Gibbs as well. I'm going to need some damned good reasons in order to convince SecNav it's justified. He and Gibbs go way back," Tom informed her dourly.
The young attorney looked longingly at the director's coffee maker, probably thinking that they had a long way to go before they'd finished the briefing. Tom snorted. "Help yourself, Ms. Lee." He gestured at her empty mug and his coffee machine.
Not needing a second invitation, she jumped up, clutching her mug tightly, and made her way to the coffee machine before pouring herself a cup. Smiling gratefully at him, she offered, "Can I get you one too, Director?"
Tom considered her proposition seriously, before he sighed and accepted. "Thank you, I'll have one too. My wife wants me to cut down on my caffeine intake, but she doesn't have to deal with Gibbs' MCRT and a lawsuit, plus an impending meeting with SecNav." He accepted the full mug of his steaming brew, sniffing the aroma appreciatively. "Right, where were we?"
"Discussing the suspension of Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs."
"Okay, make your case," he ordered the legal officer a little gruffly.
"Right, well, Gibbs assigned Probationary Agent Todd to interview Suzzanne McNeil at the hospital. After receiving her initial sitrep via the telephone, he knew that she was already getting too involved with Jane Doe, as she still was at that point. He specifically mentioned to Agent DiNozzo that Cate said 'her eyes...they just pleaded for help' and observed she'd bonded with Doe before she'd talked with her. Right then he could have - no, he should have taken steps to ameliorate the situation," Lee opined disapprovingly.
"Then when they were at the hospital, Todd announced that she was taking Doe home with her under protective custody to recover from the traumatic retrograde amnesia." The young lawyer paused, looking penetratingly at Morrow. "My understanding is that probies don't get to call the shots in investigations? That the team lead or, in their absence, the SFA assigned the tasks to be carried out."
Morrow nodded in agreement and said, "It is," even if he gathered it had been a rhetorical question.
"Okay... well, back on track. Not only did he not veto it, but he was aware that she wilfully lied to the doctor at the hospital about the medical status of a patient because he called her out on it. Yet he did nothing to stop her. At that point, as her supervisor, he became an accomplice to the deception." She shook her head at his negligence and stupidity.
The thought occurred to Tom that perhaps Todd's eagerness to break the law and ignore rules was what Gibbs admired about her. Flouting fraternization rules was hardly what most people would consider to be a desirable trait in a future employee. Did he recognise a kindred spirit in her rule breaking, since DiNozzo as a cop, was a pretty straight shooter?
That break and enter of the eco terrorist's abode having been typical of how far he was willing to overstep the mark in extreme circumstances and it was a typical cop move. While he pushed the envelope mentally, he rightly didn't believe in colouring outside the lines. Not when it came to law enforcement. Tom focused back on what the young lawyer was saying.
"Yet as her senior supervisory agent, Gibbs failed to bench her, he didn't censure her, or give her to a different assignment on the case and have someone else take over the protective custody duty. And BFF's lawyers are going to demand to know why not, Director. Hell, I'd also like to know that," Michelle declared rather heatedly.
Tom winced. Me too, Michelle, me too. "Okay, so that sounds bad." Not as if they would be able to claim they didn't know the score about her getting too attached to the Jane Doe, as Gibbs had already acknowledged it.
Michelle was now staring at the screen of her lap top, checking on some facts before continuing to deliver her shocking legal perspective.
"So, our investigation shows that for some reason, although Todd is essentially untrained as an investigator and has only been on the job for three months, she already has form when it comes to ignoring the chain-of-command. And yet she was never disciplined, never even reprimanded. Similarly, there have also been at least two other cases where Probationary Agent Todd became overly involved with individuals in cases the MCRT investigated since she joined the agency.
"One of which resulted in a bomb exploding on board the USS Foster; which isn't going to look too good in court," she observed somewhat unnecessarily. "So, we wouldn't be able to claim that we weren't aware of her tendency to get too emotionally involved in cases and letting it affect her judgement negatively."
Lee looked up from the laptop again and shot a serious look at the director. "Our Legal Department's modelling of the plaintiff's trial strategy predicts that BFF's legal team will also set out in court to systematically destroy Special Agent Gibbs' credibility and, to be candid, he and the agency have given them plenty of ammunition to do so, Director. There's an extremely unfortunate piece of footage from the security tapes at BFF, for example, that won't help at all, Sir. You'd better take a look," she advised the director glumly. Honestly, talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
She fiddled around with her laptop before calling up a file. When she motioned for the director to direct his attention to her computer screen, he pulled the computer towards himself and manipulated the keys before moving it aside. He picked up a remote control and pointed it toward his giant screen on the wall and Michelle's footage began playing before their eyes, as it would in court. It showed Special Agents DiNozzo and Gibbs in the foyer of a rather modern building and Gibbs was obviously not happy. But then Tom concluded, that was nothing new – the former Marine had permanent emotional constipation, or else he had chronic and severe haemorrhoids.
"This was the foyer of the BFF building just an hour or two prior to the bomb being detonated," Michelle explained the context of the footage briefly.
Tom nodded. It appeared that DiNozzo was giving Gibbs a sitrep and either he didn't have the information that Gibbs demanded or he'd made some sort of flippant remark (at least in Gibbs' view). Whatever the catalyst, the result was highly unfortunate since Gibbs assaulted his senior field agent right there on CCTV, whacking him on the side of the head, just above the right ear. The normally unflappable NCIS agent looked momentarily shocked, although he valiantly tried to carry it off, rearranging his hair casually as he regained equilibrium.
Unluckily, having the whole incident caught on tape meant it could be analysed minutely and the Legal Department, obviously in anticipation that the BFF legal counsel would do just that, had gotten in first. No doubt to learn how much collateral damage they needed to be prepared for in court since his legal team were a bunch of extraordinarily skilled professionals. Slowing down and freezing the footage, it was stark by the expression of shock, mortification, and anger on the special agent's face as he was assaulted by the man Tom knew that he considered a mentor and, until recently, his trusted partner.
Damn it! He'd had Gibbs on the mat numerous times over his sudden head slaps that had started cropping up after the mummified remains of Lieutenant Mark Schilz had been discovered. It was obviously not only against NCIS protocol, but also Department of Defence guidelines, but Gibbs, with the staunch support of SecNav, brushed it off as a management technique – a wake-up call he'd called it. According to him, a slap to the face was humiliating (Tom figured his three ex-wives had probably provided him with plenty of experiential research opportunities), but a slap to the back of the head was merely a wake-up call. Tom had called it assault and told him so, stating it was humiliating to treat grown adults, highly trained professionals, in such an infantile manner.
The trouble with Gibbs' half-baked philosophy, apart from it being assault, unlawful, and against agency and DoD rules, was that DiNozzo didn't look like he was asleep or goofing off, nor was he a young green agent. Then there was the fact that Gibbs was obviously angry – the legal eagles had freeze-framed footage of Gibbs' facial expressions as well. Getting in before the opposition, undoubtedly. The SSA was clearly furious and just as clearly out of control. He certainly didn't look like a calm and competent team leader, rather he looked like an impatient, inept bully taking out his anger issues on someone who couldn't fight back.
Finally, and probably the most damning point that Tom could see, Jethro hadn't held back in his delivery at all. Nor was the delivered blow a slap to the back of Special Agent DiNozzo's head, but had clearly landed above his ear. Tom was pretty sure that it could've ruptured his eardrum or worse, damaged his hearing and threatened his career as a field agent.
Tom shook his head, disgusted. Frankly, while Gibbs seemed to think that whacking someone upside the head as he called it, was harmless and not humiliating, Tom begged to differ – on both counts. There were several extremely delicate and vital structures that were located in the temporal region of the brain and at the back of the head that were critical to maintain life support, not to mention the vision processing centre of the brain was also located there. It was stupid and criminally negligent to go around whacking people there and, in his humble opinion, highly humiliating, and he was pretty sure he wasn't the only one to think it either.
After Michelle played the footage several more times, he was mentally assessing how this would play out in court and concluded that Gibbs was an idiot! Bad enough that he openly flaunted the agency regulations and assaulted his subordinates in the bullpen, but the sheer arrogance of him doing it out in public was going to be very costly. He tried to think of anything they could use to mitigate the bad impression that this was going to cause the agency. It could end up costing them a massive amount of money, not to mention a very big black eye in terms of their reputation. As director he was furious, but also very mindful of his responsibility to mitigate the damage done, so he desperately grasped at straws.
"The fact that Special Agent Gibbs is a decorated Marine, a war veteran, has to count for something in terms of his reputation, surely?" he questioned, despising himself for how querulous he sounded, even to his own ears.
"Actually, the plaintiff's legal team are going to be able to turn that to their own advantage too, should they decide to," she said, ignoring his groaning. "Gibbs, as you pointed out, is a Marine, awarded a Silver Star amongst his other commendations. He's a NCO – a gunnery sergeant used to commanding other Marines. He's trained by the Corps to lead the very best this country has to offer, so there's no excuse for his shortcomings as a team leader - no room for us to argue that he didn't know what he was doing.
"The fact is, he routinely ignores the chain of command, both within his team and outside of it. The head slaps are a prime example of him thumbing his nose at the regulations and protocols of the agency. It's also an example of ignoring chain of command within his team as he does it to his second in command in front of the junior agent, but never head slaps his junior agent. Double standards much? Then there's the fact that he continually plays the probationary agent (with no investigative training) off against his second in command who has years of experience. The competition seems to be aimed at winning his favour, which apparently includes handing out plum assignments, such as taking part in interrogations and getting to accompany him out into the field.
"In terms of sheer number of cases investigated, his 2IC probably has more investigatory experience than he does, by the way, since it's my understanding that cops work on multiple cases at a time. This making team members of unequal rank and experience compete for his favour isn't something that would be condoned or tolerated by the Corps, so the litigants will paint him as a power obsessed, hot head who's more concerned with creating a personal fiefdom for himself than competently doing his job per his training."
"He'll cite his almost perfect solve rate, which is the best in the agency," Tom stated.
"And the lawyers will cite the conviction rate of the MCRT, and the deficit between the two when his cases get thrown out of court on technicalities," Michelle shot back primly.
Tom looked at her steadily, wondering if all this was really likely to be raised or if the Legal Department were just being pessimistic.
As if she could read his thoughts, she smiled at him humourlessly. "Joe ran these issues by several litigators who specialise in civil suits. We're going to contract them as expert legal counsel for the court case if we go to trial. We also consulted a judge advocate since Gibbs was in the Corps – plus is still a reservist. And we interviewed several NCOs - gunnery sergeants and master sergeants, as potential expert witnesses to get their opinions on his leadership practices - pre and post Corps.
"Which, strangely enough, have shown a marked difference ever since Probationary Agent Todd joined the MCRT. The head slaps and ignoring the chain of command and letting her make crucial decisions about cases and assignments that she isn't qualified to make, all seem to have happened since she joined the team."
She let the director process this for several minutes before continuing to hammer more nails into the agent's coffin. "This video of him head slapping his 2IC raises several more issues," the lawyer declared cautiously.
"Good Lord, isn't that enough?" he muttered despairingly.
She shrugged. "BFF will milk as much out of the footage as they possibly can, especially with the jury. They're smart enough to know that the more times they get to show it to the jury, the more they'll retain it in their consciousness and the higher the damages they'll award against us."
Tom thought it was a really bad sign that she wasn't even pretending that there was even a small chance of them winning.
"You see, the plaintiffs will use the video to point out that Gibbs is not averse to correcting his team, correcting them emphatically. That he was prepared to go so far as to use methods which were unlawful and in direct contravention of procedure to ensure his team complied with his standards. They'll depict him as a team leader who's uncompromising, tough, impossible to please, and doesn't care what others think about how he disciplines his team. Then they'll point out the massive inconsistencies between Agent DiNozzo's actions in him making a harmless joke about Stephen Brauer's PA (and yes, FYI, we interviewed him) and Probationary Agent Todd's performance.
"They'll explain in minute detail every single one of Todd's infractions, mistakes, acts of insubordination, and failures to follow the chain of command and ask why. Why would a leader who's such a hard ass boss with DiNozzo, not discipline Todd at all - despite all her mistakes and insubordination? Why would he be so inconsistent? By the way, they'll go back and establish that he's also doggedly authoritarian with other male agents he's had on his team, such as Stan Burley, yet he's inexplicably permissive with Agent Todd. No record of any disciple or consequences, even for serious infractions; not even a head slap which he describes as merely a wake-up call."
Lee rolled her eyes theatrically and Tom smothered the slightest of smiles. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who thought that was a ludicrous statement.
"They'll produce a glossy, multi-coloured graph showing how many times he should've responded and didn't, and they'll ask the jury why that is."
Tom sighed. Michelle was doing an excellent job of playing devil's advocate, but something told him that she had yet to deliver the KO blow. Bad as the comparison between the two agents was, with Todd's performance versus the senior field agent's, he was sure there was a coup de grace that she had held back. Lawyers loved to catch people with their guard down, and he braced himself for its delivery.
"And?"
"And worst case scenario - they know about the scuttlebutt going around NCIS regarding Gibbs' real agenda for hiring her is because he's interested in Todd sexually. BFF will argue that since all this started with Todd's hiring, it appears that Gibbs may have highly questionable reasons for why he's favouring Todd, such as sexual intent or favours. They could, for example, insinuate that he may have certain nefarious expectations, such as setting her up so that he can use her failures to force her into a sexual relationship."
Worst case scenario indeed! Tom felt old and beaten. He'd failed the agency in not standing up to Gibbs, who in retrospect was wildly out of control. Morrow hated politics, but the truth was that he'd surrendered control of his agency to a power hungry politician in SecNav and a power hungry maniac former Marine, essentially letting him do whatever the hell he wanted, even when it violated policies and procedures. Once this FUBAR law suit was done with, if the agency still existed of course, it was probably time to consider his future.
Seeing how defeated he looked, Michelle sighed. She knew that the director needed to know the harsh truth about the case. She just wished that someone else got deliver the bad news. This must be what it felt like being a cop or an agent and having to go and tell the family that their loved one was dead. Honestly, why would anyone want to be an agent or cop? Desperate to offer some sort of placation, she felt like she was grasping at straws. Lee was pretty sure she'd scuppered any long-term advancement at NCIS, since no one liked the bearer of bad news, and this wasn't just bad news, it was catastrophic news. Feeling powerless, she decided to just get it over and done with, then go back to her office and start updating her resume.
"Sure, we're leaving no stone unturned in turns of modelling worst case scenarios, but this is also pretty standard SOP, Sir. They're going to hit us with the fact that Gibbs should've known Todd was going to get too emotionally involved in the case because she had done so with the other case. One that also involved a bomb that exploded and left the Navy with a massive damage bill.
"Co-incidentally or not, that case also involved her deciding to assign herself to a crucial investigative task, which should've been given to someone more experienced. And look how well that turned out the first time. There should've been some reaction to her performance, yet it went unchallenged by her superiors. Not good," she observed succinctly and perhaps superfluously.
"And unfortunately, the parallels between the cases don't end there, Director. She got into trouble in the case of the USS Forster because she wasn't able to separate her own religious convictions from her profiling when she discovered Seaman Russell McDonald was Catholic, and she wouldn't countenance him committing suicide. So, she was overly focused on proving that he hadn't killed himself. Similarly, one of the reasons she decided that Jane Doe wasn't dangerous was because the killer told her she had memories of being in church. Another tragic example of her personal bias – her religious beliefs - leading her to draw faulty conclusions, with disastrous consequences.
Morrow grimaced. "Gibbs will claim that she's a rookie and he was letting her learn by making mistakes," the director claimed, as he rubbed his face with his hand, wishing this was all a horrific nightmare. Even as he uttered the words, Morrow knew how ridiculous that statement was, and so would the hardworking taxpayers who would have to pay for those mistakes. He could feel a stress headache starting up and wondered if it was too late to book in with his favourite masseuse and head it off before it turned into a full-blown migraine.
Lee snorted, letting him know her thoughts about it too. "Of course he will, and we'll argue that point of view too. Because we have to make some sort of case, obviously, but it's unlikely to garner much sympathy with the jury. Yes, newbies have to learn, but the plaintiff's lawyers will argue that they should also be under close supervision while doing so, and that it needs to risk managed. They'll argue they should be allowed to make minor mistakes that don't involve explosives and public safety. They'll also point out that she hasn't learnt anything from her previous mistake, so that effectively negates the effectiveness of that line of reasoning."
She sighed, since no lawyer relished the thought of losing a case, and they were facing a crushing loss. There was yet to be a decision made about whether they should even go to court or be considering settling out of court, but it was looking increasingly likely that it would be the recommendation of the Legal Department.
Tom ground his teeth in frustration. It was time to take a stand and tell SecNav to take a hike. Gibbs, for some unknown reason, had chosen to let Todd ride roughshod over him as team lead. He handpicked her... because she had balls and was a profiler... although honestly, Morrow failed to see tangible evidence that she actually had any skills as a profiler…at least the sort that NCIS required. The director agreed that she had balls, but that wasn't always such a good thing – not on its own, and Jethro failed to keep her on a leash. Now, he was going to have to bear the consequences of his actions, one of which was that Morrow had no choice but to suspend him too. Time to demonstrate to BFF, the public, and everyone in the agency, including Gibbs, perhaps especially Gibbs, that he was not above the law. He had to obey rules just like everyone else.
Epilogue: Four months later
Joe Landers metaphorically wiped his brow, sighed deeply, uncrossed his fingers and toes, rubbed his lucky rabbit's foot, vowed to buy a lottery ticket in gratitude for finally settling the law suit out of court. The last few months had been incredibly stressful given the ramifications if they hadn't managed to settle with BFF. The way that juries awarded damages in civil suits these days, made it really risky to chance going to trial in this case, so this was definitely the lesser of two evils.
They'd finally been successful in persuading SecNav of that highly unpleasant fact of life after Gibbs had to be deposed at an evidentiary hearing. They'd even employed a jury specialist and witness coach to work with him to try to mitigate any damage he might cause giving evidence. Pretty unsuccessfully. He'd swung between passive-aggressive refusal to answer the BFF attorneys' questions and explosive bouts of anger where he tried to intimidate them and make it all go away.
While this was his usual modus operandi to deal with issues he didn't want to confront, they weren't a viable option in this situation. The jury expert's opinion was that if Gibbs didn't pull his head out, NCIS would lose, which wasn't exactly a revelation, but that they would likely have astronomical damages awarded against them definitely had been – at least it had been to SecNav. The truth was that BFF could easily argue he was a loose cannon with anger management issues and that the agency was fully aware of them, and let him carry on regardless, without imposing any controls upon his behaviour. Clearly, now it was a matter of mitigation and SecNav and the Secretary of Defence conceded that there wasn't really any other choice but to settle the suit out of court.
Finally, the details of the settlement were done and dusted and Joe was going to take his long-suffering Legal Department out for a well-deserved dinner. Now they could get back to just dealing with mundane matters like obtaining search warrants, preparing briefs, and prosecuting cases which ended up going to trial. He could hardly wait! He just had to deliver that employment contract to Director Morrow's office as he'd requested and then he was going out to celebrate.
~o0o~
Tom Morrow watched Gibbs stalk out of his office, resignedly. He'd given Jethro a chance, but the former agent wasn't in the mood to compromise, so he had no choice but to show him the door. It was mandatory, even SecNav and SecDef were adamant that Gibbs be forced to sign a new employment contract before he was allowed to return to work again. They required that he sign a contract agreeing that he would uphold all NCIS rules, regulations, protocols, and procedures. It specified that he must uphold the chain of command at all times, that he would refrain from all insubordinate behaviour, nor would he incite or encourage it in his subordinates, and that he cease using any type of corporal corrections in subordinates, not limited to but including head slaps.
Gibbs had read his new work contract and hit the roof, claiming it was an attempt to interfere with how he ran his team and ran contrary to the carte blanche he'd been promised. Tom had snorted at the obtuse man raging in his office against the powers that be. Of course it was a much needed attempt to muzzle him. He was damned lucky to get a second chance – if it had been anyone else, they'd have already been out on their ass.
After the absolute balls up he'd let happen and the amount of money he'd cost the agency and the tax-payers, they had no choice but to make sure it didn't happen again. The fact that Jethro refused to acknowledge or accept that he bore a lot of responsibility for the harm inflicted in this case was indicative of his stubbornness. Morrow felt it was also the natural progression of that idiotic Rule #6: Never apologise, which seemed just a hop, skip, and a jump from the current situation – never accept responsibility for anything that went wrong.
The truth was that two people had died and almost a dozen were injured, some seriously. One of the security guards was a quadriplegic and another was in a vegetative state. Most had permanent disabilities and while nowhere near as momentous, the structural damage to the building was significant. There was no sweeping it under the rug – and looking to the future, there had to be new protocols enacted to try to prevent it occurring again. And there must be consequences for what had occurred, of which Caitlyn Todd had been the inevitable first casualty. Tom was sad that she had to go, but there had really been no other choice.
Her career as a law enforcement professional was over without a doubt. He'd heard she was thinking about teaching feminist theory at a community college in Indiana or personal protection classes for women. Although she'd made a rookie mistake, the truth is if she hadn't been so insufferably sure of herself, if she'd been willing to acknowledge she didn't know what she was doing, then she might have taken direction from people who did. And then he just might have gone in to bat for her.
Of course, he still wasn't sure why Gibbs had allowed her to come in and throw her weight around, although some scuttlebutt in the DC office was that he liked domineering women and he fancied her. Since he had a score of ex-wives who were reputed to be royally dominant bitches, there may have been some truth to the theory. In the end, it was academic and she had been given her marching orders. Fortunately, as she was still in her probationary period, it had been relatively simple to terminate her.
Gibbs was more problematic since he and the SecNav were tight, but Davenport simply couldn't afford to have another fiasco like BFF happening again on his watch. Even now, it had probably sounded the death knell for his political career, which was why he insisted that Gibbs had to sign the new employment contract to continue working at NCIS. While Tom had had his doubts that the stubborn former Marine would agree to sign and be bound by the parameters set out – reasonable as they were, Davenport was going to be shocked he'd walked, Tom was certain.
Sighing, he reached for his intercom to inform his PA, Cynthia, to schedule Gibbs' exit interview for some time later in the week. Gibbs has intimated that he could easily get a job at another agency where they wouldn't dream of hampering him like NCIS wanted to do. Morrow wished him well, although privately, he thought Jethro was deluding himself. Gibbs was a good investigator, a good agent, but he'd come to the conclusion he was a terrible team leader since he thought he was a law unto himself and that he was indispensable. The NCIS director very much doubted that anyone would find those attributes attractive and offer him a job, especially at his current rank and level of seniority.
Gibbs might have been a big fish in a little pond at Naval Criminal Investigative Services but, with the possible exception of Coast Guard Investigative Services, most of the alphabet agencies were much larger ponds and Gibbs was just a small fish. Granted an annoyingly bad tempered one, but still a minnow or a guppy in terms of political clout outside of his military home base. The alphabet agencies were gossip mongers and everyone would know about BFF and the outcome of the lawsuit against NCIS. The likelihood was that they'd refuse to touch him with a ten-foot barge pole, so the former Marine was a durned fool not to have grasped the second chance they'd offered him. He seriously doubted he'd get a better offer – any offer. Still, it was typical of Jethro's oftentimes churlish disposition.
Although Tom had known him for years and considered him to be a friend, he wouldn't miss all the angst and complications of being his boss. To be honest, lately he felt like instead of being the director of a federal law enforcement agency, he was little more than Leroy Jethro Gibbs' glorified pooper scooper, cleaning up after him.
Now, he had to find Gibbs' replacement. As Lee had pointed out, DiNozzo actually had more overall investigative case experience and, also important, he was well liked and respected by the other NCIS teams, which was a bonus. Plus, the agent had a lot of police contacts and related well to uniformed and plain clothes cops alike. The senior field agent was well regarded by their sister agencies; since Gibbs wasn't a team player, it always fell to his 2IC to liaise with them anyway. And finally, he'd brought Gibbs' closure rate up with his addition to Team Gibbs.
Maybe it was time to investigate if he was ready to run the MCRT, or at least be groomed to take it over shortly. Yes, Gibbs had claimed he was grooming the young agent to take over from him, but Morrow didn't think that head slaps and ignoring rules and regulations was such a good grounding for the team leader of the major case response team. Still he had good instincts when working with people, in spite of Jethro's rules.
Tony had mentioned how he'd pleaded with Gibbs to do something – say something to Todd after the bombing and he'd refused. Jethro argued that she knew she'd made a mistake and no one could undo what was done or make her feel better. While that much was probably true, it was still a leader's responsibility to care for their team and encouraging her to acknowledge her mistakes may or may not have made her feel better. But it may have made her more open to examining her actions, to learning from her mistakes, to changing and growing. If this was a snapshot of Gibbs' method of dealing with her mistakes and weaknesses, it truly was no wonder that she hadn't learnt anything from any of her previous blunders.
There was infinitely more to being a leader than yelling and handing out assignments - like teaching your people, especially when they screwed up. Not by ignoring 'it' like an ostrich burying their head in the sand, but by acknowledging errors and shortcomings, using them as a teaching opportunity resulting in their evolution as an agent and a person.
Maybe if Jethro had ripped her a new one earlier on in the piece when she first screwed up, then they all might have totally avoided this tragic situation.
Finis
End Notes:
Next Episode is Eye Spy