Chapter Ten
Cherem
Tim McGee drives to work alone today, his wife having said she would leave later in her green Fiesta, intending to arrive at about 9:00. It's normally only on Tuesdays that they work together at NCIS and yesterday, their first day back together from their honeymoon, could've gone infinitely better. Rather than resuming her duties at Saint Mary the Virgin, Siobhan's returning to the Navy Yard today, her assistance in high demand among her NCIS sisters.
The elevator doors open on three and McGee's about to get out when Leroy Jethro Gibbs puts a hand to his chest and walks him backward into the car. The doors close and Gibbs throws the Emergency switch to halt the car. The lights dim to blue, the lights under the handrail come on to supplement them. "Morning, boss."
"Morning, McGee." Neither man considers adding 'good'. They've had precious little yesterday and expect none today.
"Can I…" he glances around the empty car, "help you, boss?" Shifts are changing, there are going to be a lot of aggravated agents who'll find the main elevator out of service. He also considers it a very ominous sign that Gibbs had so obviously been waiting for him.
"McGee, I don't know a lot about computers," that fact is almost legendary, "but you do. What'll it take to get those pictures of our people off the Internet?"
"Well, er, it'd take a ... I suppose a Court Order, if we could find the Internet Service Provider and if there were only one or even a few–"
"McGee, do you see a pentagram hanging from my neck?"
"Er, no, boss."
"I'm not asking about courts. I'm asking can you get those pictures ... of our people ... off the Internet?"
"You mean delete them?"
"Yeah."
"Like a virus? Attack the web?"
"Yeah, like that."
"Well, er, boss... isn't that illegal?"
"If it were legal I'd be asking you about it out there."
x
"Uh..." Yes, he did wake up this morning. He did drive in. He really is standing here and Leroy Jethro Gibbs just asked him to do something so illegal that he's not sure there's a word for it. "Well, I could, uh, I could design a ... a bot." Thinking on his feet isn't so easy in the Bizzaro world. "It could seek out, detect and destroy certain files, then self-delete before an anti-virus program can identify it, but first copy itself with a few changes in parameters, spread through the Internet, self-propagating and self-deleting." 'I'm not really saying this, am I? We uphold the law, and Gibbs makes sure we do it.'
"I can, er, program it to last a set number of generations, then go extinct. It could obliterate a great percentage of the files; the few I miss would be lost among the crowd of Internet porn."
"That's good, McGee. Get started on that." Satisfied, he turns, reaches for the switch.
"Boss," Gibbs halts, "er, attacking the Internet, sabotaging it… it's a Federal Offense."
Gibbs turns back, nearly none-to-nose with him and his eyes say quite eloquently how much he cares. A few seconds later he moves again to give the elevator back to their arriving and departing colleagues. He flips the Emergency switch, the lights change to normal but, unsummoned, the car doesn't go anywhere.
'Did I drug myself this morning and not realize it?' "Boss, what about ... what about evidence?"
"We'll have evidence. When we catch this bastard we'll have his computer," he turns back to McGee, and McGee doesn't want him to, "but how long do files last on the Internet?"
"If they're not deleted? Forever."
"I'm not going to leave those pictures on the Internet forever. When our friends are in their eighties and nineties, those things will be there. Take this," from his jacket pocket he pulls a paper, presses it into McGee's hand, "keep it, and if you need it, you use it. Understand?"
"Er, yes."
Gibbs pushes the open door button, the barrier parts and he leaves.
The lights are the only things that are normal.
x
When the doors close and the car starts to descend, called to the lobby, McGee can't believe it. Yes, it did happen. Gibbs just ordered him to... He looks at the paper in his hand and his blood freezes. The message isn't typed, it's handwritten in Gibbs' distinctive script.
'April 3: I ordered Timothy McGee to attack the Internet to destroy picture files. SSA Leroy Jethro Gibbs. DSAIC'
xxx
SSA Kevin Lamb and his partner Lisa DuBois get off the rear elevator, the main one apparently out of service, and walk down the long hall to their fourth floor bullpen. Unlike many other teams, mostly those on Beta and Gamma shifts, they don't use the cavernous Operations section downstairs. Their former team leader Bob DiMarco had believed in keeping the team focused by using an office, and when Lamb had been promoted from Senior Field, he'd seen no reason to change a policy he'd wholeheartedly supported.
As they approach their office, Lamb glances at DuBois beside him. "Still no answer from Jan?"
DuBois shakes her head. They'd breakfasted together in the café on 6 and confirmed that neither had heard from the woman all night. He'd called her cell when she didn't meet them as was her usual routine, but he got no answer.
Levy had run out of the office last evening after receiving a call from her mother and had been incommunicado ever since. They'd not blamed her for that, the entire day had been extraordinarily stressful, more this time on personal levels rather than professional, but there was obviously some family distress that'd sent Janet out of control. She'd been gone from the Navy Yard long before either Lisa or Kevin had left but what's unusual is that she hadn't returned any calls since.
Neither of them is particularly worried; there are protocols for emergencies and Levy has used none of them. They'd known - or rather expected - that they'd see her for breakfast, but when she hadn't shown by the end of the meal Lisa had called once again, once again only getting her voice mail.
When they enter the office one mystery is easily solved; Janet is already at her desk at the far left corner of the rectangular room. "Hey," Lisa calls, unbuttoning her jacket, "missed you for breakfast. How're your folks?"
Levy doesn't glance away from her screen as Kevin goes behind his desk beside the door and Lisa heads to the right corner for her own. The women's desks face one another from opposite corners.
"Hey, girl, you..." DuBois greets brightly and Levy looks up, "look like shit."
x
This is a different enough morning greeting to snare Lamb's attention. Levy, rather than replying, reaffixes her attention on the monitor screen before her.
"Jan?" Lisa tries again as Kevin approaches.
"What?" seems to come from a thousand miles away.
When Janet raises her head, Lisa sees the bolts of blood that sear both eyes and it's then that she realizes her friend is wearing yesterday's clothes. She's evidently showered, maybe downstairs but "Have you been here all night?"
"Yeah. Been trying to identify 'Faker Zero'. Got three probables and a possible."
"Good work," Kevin tells her, "but you didn't have to stay up all night doing it."
"Yes I did."
"We've been trying to reach you," Janet tells her.
"Phone's dead," she says as distantly, glancing at her open cell phone on the corner of the desk next to the charger. "So'm I."
Kevin and Janet exchange concerned looks over the woman's head. This lifelessness goes not only beyond fatigue, it goes beyond anything they'd ever known from her.
"How did things go with your mom?" Janet asks in an effort to draw her out.
"What mom?" Janet asks dismally. "I don't have a mom."
Kevin Lamb hasn't used his 'boss voice' since a week after being appointed Team Leader. He hadn't expected to have to. "All right, Levy, snap out of it now. What's bothering you?"
"Janet Levy's dead."
x
That's the second time she's said this and Lamb is done plucking answers out of the ether. "What do you mean you're 'dead'?"
For a moment it seems the woman is about to cry, but she forces it back. "I got to the Synagogue last evening late for my funeral, but I wasn't allowed past the entry. Rabbi Silverstein had someone put this on a table for me to pick up." She pulls from her pants pocket a crumpled ball of paper, smoothes it out on the desk and passes it up to him.
He tilts it to show Lisa the distinctive angular Hebrew writing before holding it up to her. "Mad dogs and Englishmen, remember, Jan?"
She shakes her head, won't touch the paper, dabs her eyes with a crumpled tissue. "It's a magillah of Cherem."
"Levy."
x
Janet is clearly trying to focus her thoughts, to fight back tears. They give her the half minute it takes for her to look up and speak to them. "My family is Hasidim - I'm Hasidim - and my parents never liked that I don't follow the traditional ways."
It's an unnecessary reminder of what they've known for years. She'd explained to them long ago that she could hardly follow the traditional customs of dress or appearance either as a Virginia State Police Officer or as an NCIS Agent: 'I can't be in a firefight as the sun's setting before the Sabbath,' she'd told them, 'and say to the perp I'll be back tomorrow evening, or work a Crime Scene and not touch a body or evidence - and Undercover Ops would always be out.'
The pair know it'd been a difficult decision for their friend, but it's clear now that it's a decision that's caught up with her.
x
"What happened last night?" Lisa DuBois asks, trying not to press, but her partner and friend had said - twice - that she's dead.
Janet fights to steady her voice, to keep from giving in to the humiliation of tears. "Mom called. She said Dad and the others were at the Synagogue declaring a Cherem. By the time I got there it was over. No one would speak to me. Rabbi Silverstein ... told someone to set the ... Proclamation on the table." She can't meet their eyes.
"Jan," Kevin says compellingly. She eventually looks up. "Roman Catholic and Lutheran here."
She fights to steady her voice. "It's an Excommunication. I'm Ostracized. Cast out. I'm not alive anymore, not even recognized as a Jew by some. No one may talk to me, come closer than six feet; I can't buy, I can't sell, I can't go to Temple or participate in–"
"WHY?" Lisa's outraged. She'd known Jan's family didn't like that she'd chosen to make concessions from strict observance of Jewish laws, but she can't imagine them taking this extreme step after so many years.
Tears trickling down her eyes, no longer regarded or wiped away, Janet confesses that "I've been dead to my family ever since someone showed them how I shamed them by posing for a bunch of nude pictures."
x
Lisa bites back a dozen outraged shouts ranging from 'but you didn't' through 'they can't do that when it's not your fault'. She turns to their Supervisor, seeking advice or inspiration.
"We can prove they weren't of you," Kevin says, but Levy shakes her head.
"No you can't. I tried. He won't listen."
"But we have plenty of proof–" Lisa tries.
"No you can't!"
"But–"
"Don't you understand?" she cries, leaping from her chair to confront her friends, the rolling chair toppling over with a crash. "You can't, because when I tried to make him see reason and he wouldn't answer or even look at me, I realized that this is the last straw! He doesn't care if I did or didn't pose for them. As far as he's concerned, I've embarrassed the family for years and I've turned my back on our faith and practice for the last time! I'm dead, dead to all Jews, dead and unburied and finished."
x
When Kevin Lamb finally tries to answer this he still considers it too soon. "Jan, I have no idea what I can say. If time off were going to help I'd give it; if bringing your family all our evidence would make a difference I'd pack the car full this second. Tell me what we can do."
"Time off means nothing to a dead woman–"
"You are not dead!" Lisa explodes and ignores Lamb's signal. "This is unfair!"
"I told them that," Janet replies dismally.
"Lisa, would you excuse us a minute?" Kevin asks, cutting off Lisa's retort. "And ... We'll be back."
"I'm not going anywhere." She stares at the offending paper which makes as much sense to her friends as the situation does. She uprights her chair from the corner, sits down, shoves the paper off the desk and it flutters to the floor. "Got nowhere to go."
x
When Lisa closes the door she looks up at the tall man and moderates her shout to a whisper. "What're we gonna do?"
Lamb waves her to follow, walks away from the door. A moment later Lisa catches up. "I know what I'm going to do," he declares. "I understand Jews respect people who meddle." He stops, considering them far enough away. "I'm going to take the pictures we have of her from the web, shots with a dozen different body types, and I'm going down there and meddle that father until he does whatever it takes to reinstate Jan. Meantime..." he looks down at his friend speculatively, "we know next to nothing about this Cherem thing. Talk to people, find out where we stand."
"And if they decide they can't talk to or come within six feet of her?"
"Then I'm going to use Special Agent Gibbs' method to educate them."
xxx
"What've you got, DiNozzo?" Gibbs calls for the report before reaching his desk.
"Gamma shift identified fifteen probable suspects who might be 'Faker Zero'." This hard fought target is the one who'd originally received the image files from 'We' magazine's records and posted the first fake, the one who'd initiated the cascade.
"Any of those fifteen work for 'We'?"
"No. I'm checking likely connections of friends and acquaintances."
Fifteen is far too many. It narrowed the field somewhat but not enough. "You and McGee. Share the load with Kelman, Abby and Cyber Crime. I don't want 'probable', I want definite." He looks to the women on either side of him, they're attentive, anxious and as stressed as greyhounds waiting for the release of the electric rabbit.
"Palmer and David, let's not forget we have a wounded Marine." Both women look to him, surprised - then this gives way to stunned. He can almost hear their thoughts; 'what does Campbell have to do with this issue?' "Why'd he get shot?"
"The popular theory," Ziva reminds him of yesterday's conclusion, "is that he was walking beyond the target when he was shot."
"'The popular theory is bullshit'," Michelle says, sotto vocé.
"You got something, Palmer?"
"Err, no sir." She hadn't meant to be overheard. "That is, no, Special Agent Gi–" She nearly wilts under his glare. "Actually, that my Rule 6: 'The popular theory is bullshit'."
He's pleased she's begun the formation of her own Rules but: "Find me a theory that isn't."
"That rule," DiNozzo observes, "ranks up there with 'truth is stranger than fiction'."
"Actually it does. Number 5 is 'Truth is stranger than the best lie'. Once you've sorted through the alibis, sometimes the truth is weirder than the excuses."
"Like when?"
"The vampire John DeKalb."
He nods, giving her this round.
xxx
Gibbs, alerted by 'Pass and ID' about the arrival of his Army counterpart, elects to go down and wait the few minutes in the main lobby to meet Lt. Col. Hollis Mann near the Security Scanner rather than upstairs. When she'd last visited NCIS, the Army CID Investigator had worn her usual field attire, but today she's in dress blue, medals and insignia gleaming on her crisp uniform.
"What's with the brass?" he asks.
"I was on my way to a Retirement Ceremony when I got diverted," she says, her voice tight.
x
"Well, Jethro," she says when she retrieves her weapon from the x-ray machine's tray, "your Director gave mine some pretty shocking news."
"No one's happy about it. You didn't waste any time getting in."
"I saw some of the pictures before I came in, particularly the ones of myself. I'm looking forward to some target practice." She pushes her gun into its holster.
"I'll see if we can leave you something."
"How're your people holding up?"
"A lot of itchy trigger fingers." The elevator doors open and he leads her aboard.
x
The moment the doors close she reaches for the controls and throws the silver 'Emergency Stop' switch. The car jerks to a halt after rising only a foot, the main lights go out and are replaced by blue backup lights from above them and from under the hand rail.
"Holly?"
It's very rare for someone, particularly an 'outsider', to usurp his method of gaining privacy. She turns to him and he sees both a woman and an officer, both of them restraining much. It's quite some time before she says anything, and when she does her voice is ultra level, carefully controlled. In all the time they've spent together, in the various stages of their relationship, he's never known her to be this tightly constrained. There's violence just below the surface, caged like a tigress. "There are a lot of angry people, Jethro."
"I know," he assures her, able to imagine from how his own crew is taking this situation, how those members of NCIS' sister agencies are coping. Normally he wouldn't care, openly; now he's crossed his own line and he has to.
"We have the four photographers, two in Holding being kept quiet by Jefferson, the others in Interrogation 1 & 2 waiting for us to break them."
Mann knows the familiar softening-up process so very well, she uses it regularly. Keep the subject isolated, let him or her stew, to wonder when the Interrogators are going to come in, let their fear argue with them for a few hours. This time she doesn't have the patience for a few hours. "I've seen some of the pictures,' she reminds him. "Pictures of me."
"And?" He'd much rather be taking action, but at the moment action must wait.
"Well, they're not as good as the real thing." She tries for a smile; it doesn't reach her eyes and it's as false as her tone.
"You gonna be able to do this?"
"Oh, don't doubt me," she warns; her hand, perhaps subconsciously, kept close to her weapon. "I'm doing this." But she deliberately moves her hand away.
He reaches for the switch. "Then let's get it done."
xx
Greetings in the bullpen are cordial but perfunctory; there's little inclination to socialize and even the normal casual banter is silenced by tension.
"I'm waiting on Campbell's shooting," Gibbs 'reminds' David and Palmer, his tone warning them of the consequence of his having to ask again. While they wait on their simmering photographers, there's still that outstanding case to occupy time.
With his team assigned, he has some minutes to work with Mann upon the testimonies of the four Paradise Publishing photographers. If there's only one bright aspect of this case for Gibbs, it's the opportunity to share some daylight hours with this intriguing woman. Though the circumstances are far from pleasant, and he can't say to her any of what he would if they were alone, he'll make the best of these hours for the company.
Mann begins evaluating Suzanne Blake and Harry Shaster while Gibbs focuses on breaking, if he can, Aaron Comer's and Deborah Norwich's alibis.
Aaron Comer had photographed NCIS agents while and his associate Suzanne Blake had taken pictures of Army operatives, while Harry Shaster had covered the Air Force and Deborah Norwich had photographed the women of the Coast Guard.
At a silent exchange with Gibbs, he uses his color printer to produce three papers and Mann sticks them into a blue NCIS folder and they depart for Interrogation Two. Gibbs will observe this particular exchange; it'll be disconcerting for the female photographer to be interrogated by an Army Colonel on a Navy base and Mann's looking forward to confronting Suzanne Blake.