Crossing the Same River
Chapter 10
Jen was no happier when she climbed out of bed only four hours later, and truth to tell, Harm wasn't feeling all that happy with the world either, but nevertheless he forced himself to go for his morning run, an option which Jen, somewhat grumpily refused as she shuffled off into the bathroom.
Harm took advantage of running solo by pounding out an extra lap of his normal route, so it was just over an hour later that covered in a light sweat he returned to the apartment. Opening the door the unmistakable aroma of grilled bacon assailed his olfactory nerves and while he had been prepared to risk teasing Jen about her not running this morning, there was no way, looking at her still disgruntled expression, that he was about to twit her on her choice of breakfast menu.
Jen looked up as the door opened and tried for a smile, but in Harm's opinion she missed that by a good country mile. Nevertheless, she said, "there's a bowl of pancake mix, and a full jug of coffee waiting for you."
Harm quickly crossed to the breakfast counter and swooping in he quickly planted a butterfly kiss on Jen's cheek, "Thanks, sweetheart. I'll be about ten minutes, and then I'll be ready for breakfast – in fact, I'm pretty ready now!"
Jen wrinkled her nose in disgust, "Eewww… You stink! Shower first, then breakfast!" but then made another attempt at a grin.
"Aye, aye, ma'am!" Harm said obediently, and then with a wink and a broad grin headed for the bedroom and bathroom.
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Harm and Jen left the old warehouse in their usual two-car convoy, but this time it was Harm who got the jump on Jen and was in the lead. He kept a close eye on his rear-view mirror while he drove, worried about Jen, despite his outward show of insouciance, but it seemed that no matter what her state of mind, Jen was smart enough to put everything else out of her head while she coped with the DC morning traffic.
Nevertheless, it was with a sense of relief that Harm pulled in to a parking bay on Sicard Street parking lot and saw Jen pull into the nearest vacant spot three bays down. They both climbed out of their cars, and Harm as was becoming his routine walked across to Jen to walk with her as far as the NCIS building door, but to his dismay, she held up her hand in a 'stop' sign and with a wan smile said, "Not today, Harm, I need to focus… I'll call you at lunch, okay?"
Harm frowned but nodded, "Okay, but you make sure you do!"
"I will," Jen promised, "And Harm… thanks…"
"Thanks for what?" a puzzled Harm asked, but Jen merely gave him another weak smile and turned to walk across to the NCIS building. Harm watched her go, his heart breaking for her, even as he admired her stance, head up and shoulders back, moving freely and with grace, as if she didn't have a care in the world. For some strange reason he found that he was shaking his head as he watched her pass through the NCIS door and with a frustrated mental shrug, he turned on his heel and heading for the JAG building.
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Jen exited the elevator and walked through the bull pen to her desk, "Gibbs in yet?" she asked Ellie Bishop as she passed the blonde's desk.
Bishop looked up a faint expression of surprise on her head. Everybody in the team know when Gibbs usually appeared, and this morning that wouldn't be for another ten minutes. "No… why?" she asked.
Jen didn't reply, but headed determinedly for her desk, leaving Bishop to mutter sarcastically, "Oh… that's why, okay, then…"
Both Tim Mc Gee and Sam Hood, called out "Morning, Coates" as she passed their desks and this time Jen managed to respond with a half-smile for each before she sat at her desk and immediately locked her weapon in its top drawer.
Hood turned to McGee and made an exaggerated face of inquiry, to which Tim could only shrug and hold his hands open in ignorance.
Normally Jen would have spotted the byplay and almost certainly would have had something to say, but this morning she was so absorbed in her thoughts that she missed it entirely, occasioning another shared and baffled glance between the two male agents.
Absorbed in her thoughts she might have been, but she kept an ear tuned for the swish of the elevator door, looking up each time it was activated, and fretting over what she was going to say to Gibbs when he finally arrived.
But eventually he did arrive and within a minute of his usual time. Jen waited until he had locked his sidearm away and taken a good sip of his coffee before she got to her feet and walked around to face him over his desk. "Uh, Boss?" she said nervously.
"Yeah?" he frowned up at her.
"Boss, we need to speak…" she said uncertainly.
Gibbs eyed her shrewdly, "Yeah we do. Small conference room! McGee… make sure we're not disturbed."
"Yes, Boss!"
Gibbs hauled himself to his feet and gave Jen the benefit of his basilisk-like stare, "With me, Coates!" he snapped and strode off down the hallway to the small conference room, Jen hurrying to keep up with him.
Entering the conference room, Gibbs gave a grunt of satisfaction at finding it empty and pointed towards a random chair, "Sit!" he commanded and then propped his hip against the edge of the long, highly polished table. "Well… what did you want to speak with me about…?"
"Um… I was involved in an incident last night, Boss, and I had to use my sidearm…"
"Yeah, I know!" Gibbs snapped.
"You know?" Jen gasped, "How?"
"I know because the director called me at zero Christ hundred hours to let me know that one of my team had taken it upon herself to eradicate certain undesirable elements of Washington society! And he knows, before you ask, because he was called at an even earlier hour by the Watch Captain of the One Oh Four Precinct just to let him know that one his agents was shooting up the neighbourhood! The Director was not pleased at being woken at that hour of the night, he didn't care how much he pissed me off but he left me in no doubt as to just how pissed off he was!"
"It wasn't like that, Boss!" Jen protested.
"No? Then suppose you tell me just how it was!" Gibbs ordered her.
Jen took a breath and described what happened from the moment that she and Harm had turned into the alley leading to the old warehouse. "So once he started to raise his weapon Boss, I didn't have much choice." Jen finished.
Gibb pursed his lips, "Sounds like a good shoot to me. What did the cops on the spot say?"
"They weren't really interested in what I had done, the older cop especially seemed as if his attitude was the guy had asked for it. Once they had taken my statement, and Harm's they left."
Gibbs relaxed slightly, "So this punk tried to rob you when you were walking home. He pulled a weapon on you, but you got your shot off first?"
"Two shots, Boss, I aimed for centre of mass, but was a little high. He was still breathing when the EMTs took him away."
"Okay… but if it was a fair shoot, why are you so het up?"
"Well… we're busy, and an agent involved shooting… you're going to have to bench me until the agency can set me up with counselling and a psych eval and investigate the shooting."
"Hell, I just investigated the shoot. And as for counselling and a psych eval… We'll get the eval done today, and I don't reckon you'll need much counselling."
"I don't know, Boss… that's the first time I've had to use my weapon…" Jen faltered.
"You fired in defence of yourself and yours. You have nothing to worry about. Now…" Gibbs pulled his cell phone from his pocket and quickly tapped in a number.
"Hi, Rachel? This is Gibbs. How busy are you? Can you do an eval for one of my agents this afternoon? About fifteen hundred hours? Yeah, that's fine, thanks."
Gibbs let Jen have one of his lop-sided grins as he folded his phone away, "You're right, we're busy and I can't afford to have you tied to a desk for however long it takes for the in-house shrinks to get to you. That was Doctor Rachel Cranston. She's worked with us before and has full clearance. She'll be here to speak with you at fifteen hundred."
Jen just stared at him and Gibbs features knitted in a frown, "Well what are you waiting for? Haven't you got any work that needs to be done?"
"Uh… Yes, boss. On it!" Jen stammered and then fled the room.
Gibbs lingered for a few moments, his grin playing on one corner of his mouth before he shook his head "Kids today," he murmured and then closing the door behind him he sauntered back towards the bull pen.
Gibbs had just taken a load of Jen's mind and this time when she walked into the bull pen she was able to respond to McGee's inquiry, "Everything okay, Coates?"
"Yeah, I think so, I just got to work something out with a Doctor Cranston this afternoon."
The name meant nothing to Hood or Bishop but McGee sat up a little straighter in his chair, "Cranston? Rachel Cranston?"
"Yeah, why, do you know her?
"Um, yeah, we've met," Tim admitted and then fixed Jen with a stare, "What's going on?"
Jen cast a quick look around to see if Gibbs was lurking anywhere, and not seeing the grey-haired agent she shrugged, "There was an incident last night, and I got caught up in it. So, the agency says I need to see a doctor, and Gibbs fixed it for me to see this Doctor Cranston, instead of waiting a couple of weeks for the in-house guys."
"Sounds like Gibbs," Tim agreed just as the team leader hove into view around the edge of the partition that divided his team off from EW J Barrett's team.
"What sounds like me?" Gibbs demanded sending a level blue-eyed stare at McGee,
"Uh… Coates was just saying that you fixed her up with seeing Doctor Cranston instead of wasting time waiting for our own psych team."
Yeah I did, but that doesn't mean you can waste time beating your gums, when we've got an open case. What have you got on the thirty second battalion? Well, somebody say something, dammit!"
Jen stayed silent, as did McGee and Hood, but Ellie Bishop stood and took the couple of steps needed to stand in front of Gibbs' desk, "Uh… it might not be anything, Gibbs, but when I took Mrs Keeler's letters back to her, she invited me in for coffee, and while we were talking, I noticed that she was fiddling with a chain around her neck. I… uh… kind of asked if she was okay, with the fiddling, and everything, and she pulled the chain out from under her shirt. Gibbs, it was a fantastic pendant, in what looked to be like gold with a red stone in the centre of each link. She said her husband had sent it to her from Afghanistan. I asked if it was a birthday or anniversary present, but she said it was neither, it had just come out of the blue. Gibbs, it was beautiful, exotic, and I said it must have cost a packet. She agreed and said she just hoped that Staff Sergeant Keeler hadn't blown all his savings on it."
"And?" Gibbs asked impatiently.
"Well… it was Afghan, and it looked old… and there have been reports of artefacts going missing, looted from palaces and museums and places like that and I just wondered… Well, maybe Staff Sergeant Keeler found out something he shouldn't have, and he was keeping hold of this pendant as evidence for when he blew the whistle…"
"Or he might have gotten into something, and found he was in too deep?" McGee suggested gravely.
"Or Bishop might just be on the right track. It wouldn't be the first time… Remember Jet and that dog handler a few years back, McGee?" Gibbs responded with a grin.
McGee blushed, "Uh… yeah… not one of my finest moments that case…"
"Hey, you did okay on both cases, and we got the bad guys from that shooting – civilian contractors in that case."
"Yeah… but if Keeler found out that maybe the battalion command was involved in dirty work, and threatened to blow the whistle, or even just let it slip that he knew what was going on… well, that would kinda point the finger at them for his killing," Hood said, obviously uncomfortable with the thought of rogue Marines, especially those in authority.
"It happens," Gibbs said shortly and Jen and Tim exchanged a glance aware that Gibbs, even after all his years as an NCIS agent, disliked seeing Marines as anything less than perfect.
Gibbs nodded, "These things happen. But we generally find out about the in the end, and we do, the bad guys tend to end wishing they had been better Marines and better people!" Gibbs looked around the bull open while he thought and then came to a decision.
"Okay, Bishop with me again. We're going to pay another visit to Mr Keeler. McGee you and Coates drag a net through the computer cobweb thingy and come up with everything you can on missing Afghani precious objects."
"What about me, Boss?" Hood asked.
"You can let your fingers do the walking; find out what happened to the uniform Staff Sergeant Keeler was wearing when he was shot, and especially his body armour."
The chorus of "On it Boss," was ragged, but good enough to satisfy Gibbs, who stood, clipping his weapon onto his belt, "Let's go, Bishop!"
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Diane Letterwood looked up and then stood as Harm walked into her office as she replied to his "Good morning, Yeoman Two!"
"Good morning, sir! I'm still putting the first sight file together, but it shouldn't take more than about five, ten minutes more."
Harm nodded, "Fine, but unless there's anything urgent, it can wait until you've laid hands on a fresh brew of coffee, and then you can bring them both in together."
"Of course, sir" Letterwood answered with a smile, but then as Harm disappeared into his own office, she sat down again with the beginnings of a frown on her face. The captain had sounded cheerful enough, and at first sight his expression was pleasant enough. Enough to fool anybody who didn't know him. But Diane Letterwood flattered herself that she was beginning to know her boss and there had been a trace of… well, something in his voice, and she thought that she had seen a shadow in his eyes.
Harm hooked his cover onto one of the branches of the hat-tree that stood just inside his office door and crossing to behind his desk, he sat, and leaning backwards in his chair, he steepled his fingers and once again ran through the events of last night and this morning. Jen hadn't shown any signs of being upset by the incident, and that he put down to the training she had been given, and of course was also, at least in part, due to her psychological make-up. No, she had been more perturbed by the end of the evening turning sour and the lateness of the hour when they'd finally gotten to bed, both to fall asleep almost the second their heads had hit the pillows.
He was sorely tempted to call Jen and ask how things had gone with Gibbs, which was what she seemed most concerned about, but a reality check told him that she would barely have had time to broach the subject with him, so with a sigh, he sat back and waited for his coffee. And the first sight file.
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Tim and Jen worked in silence for about twenty minutes searching the net for any leads to 'looted or missing artefacts Afghanistan' – or at least that was what Jen had typed into her browser search engine – when she gave a low whistle.
Tim looked across at her from where he had been trying to get the on line translator application to translate into English a page that looked as if it might be promising, if only he could figure out what the original language was. The application had told him that it wasn't Pashto and he couldn't figure out what other language an afghan government body would use on the web. "Found something, Coates?" he asked.
"Yeah… I'd say so…" Jen said slowly, and "some of this stuff looks as if it came straight from the Arabian Nights!"
"Looks?" Tim asked.
Jen grinned, "Yeah, I just searched for missing Afghani artefacts and went straight to images. But this link looks as if it might be what we're looking for…"
Tim crossed to stand behind Jen's shoulder and looked at the array of images on her screen, "Wow…" he breathed, "That is some pretty fancy stuff! But how did you find it?"
Jen kept looking at the images of intricately worked and gem encrusted gold jewellery and nodded, "Yeah… this is a list and photos of stuff that went missing from the State museum in Lashkar Gah. The museum was badly damaged last year by an explosion. We blamed the Taliban. They deny responsibility and say the damage was caused by a US drone strike." Jen clicked the back button on her browser and started to read out loud, "'in the aftermath of the explosion a large number of pieces from the antique pre- and early Moslem collection went missing. They are thought by some to have been destroyed in the blast, but the museum authorities insist that if that were the case, then at least some remnants of melted precious metals, and precious stones should have been found in the rubble. According to museum authorities no such wreckage was found, and they have published an illustrated list of the artefacts they claim are missing.'" Jen paused and clicked on the link at the foot of the page that sent her back to the collection of images.
Tim nodded and looked at his watch. "Okay, bookmark that page, and keep looking. We've got another hour I reckon before Gibbs and Bishop get back. Hood, how you doing on that uniform search?"
Sam Hood looked up with a frustrated frown in his face, "Needle in a haystack job! The chances of that uniform surviving this long after the incident are zero – and Gibbs must have known that! Hell, I know that! When a dead or wounded Marine is brought in to the medics, the first thing they do is cut his uniform off! The body armour might have survived for testing, to make sure it was up to spec, but the uniform…Nuh-huh, that would have been burned weeks ago!"
"Have you got anything? Anything at all, otherwise Gibbs is going to be mightily pissed," Tim warned Sam.
"Well, I've got the name of the Doctor who was the battalion medial officer for that tour. And I've traced her. She's at the base medical facility at MCAS Yuma."
"What good will that do?" Jen asked, interestedly.
"Well, she may just remember the Staff Sergeant, and help us out. She's the sawbones who filed the autopsy report, and I gotta admit, I'm kind of curious to hear why she listed that round as a point three oh eight instead of seven point six two…"
"Yeah, I'd kinda like the answer to that my own self," Tim agreed, "So… go ahead, call her."
"Uh… It's Saturday, Tim." Hood said, as if explaining something to a child.
McGee shot him a dark look, "Gee, is it?" he answered with heavy irony, "Delilah and myself were supposed to be heading down to Fredericksburg, remember?"
Hood grimaced, "I suppose that doesn't make you flavour of the month?"
"Exactly… but the point I was trying to make is that if we're working on a weekend, then, given that hospitals have patients twenty-four seven, there's a fair chance that your doctor will be working too!"
"Good point! On it!" Hood replied with renewed enthusiasm, and lunged for his phone.
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It was rising twelve thirty hours and Jen was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger. She had now bookmarked half a dozen pages for Gibbs' attention when he and Bishop got back from visiting with Mrs Keeler, but finding new information was getting more and more difficult, as several promising leads turned out to be duplicates of pages she had already bookmarked.
Tim McGee was not only feeling the same hunger pangs, he was also feeling the same frustration as Jen, each new page he uncovered just seemed to repeat the first three original pages he had found, and some of them were no more than one column in a newspaper. He had however discovered that the second official language in Helmand Province, Afghanistan was 'Dari' a variant of Farsi spoken in Afghanistan but then to his frustration found that the on-line translator refused to translate Darsi (or Persian/Farsi for that matter) into English.
Jen sympathised with Tim and tried ease his frustration by pointing out that the Darsi pages were probably just the original of some of the translated pages he had already found.
"Yeah?" Tim had grumped, "And you think Gibbs is 'probably' going to be happy with that 'probably'?"
"Umm… thinking about it, no… no, he's probably not," Jen grimaced.
"Ya got that right, Coates!" Gibbs snapped as he strode into the bull open, Bishop trailing helplessly behind him. Gibbs dropped into his chair and deposited his sidearm in the top drawer of his desk and glared around at his team, "Well, whaddya got?" he demanded.
McGee stood and picking up the remote control unit for the large screen he clicked it once and the screen sprang to life covered in a cascade of reproductions of newspaper pages.
"There are records of artefacts, mostly of gems and precious metals, going UA from museums and 'palaces' in Afghanistan. This report here…" Tim, highlighted one page, bringing it to the front of the cascade and highlighting it, "Covers the partial destruction of the Provincial Museum in Helmand Province and the subsequent discovery that a number of small but highly valuable pieces of the pre- and early Moslem collection were missing." McGee paused, "The wrecking of the museum and the discovery of the missing exhibits was about two thirds of the way through thirty-second battalion's last tour."
"About?" Gibbs glowered.
"I… uh… haven't run the numbers boss, but the battalion deployed in February and came home in January. The museum explosion took place in late October…"
"And Staff Sergeant Keeler was killed in mid-November… Okay. Now, is there any way of telling whether this piece…" Gibbs extracted a padded envelope from his jacket's inside pocket and shook its contents out onto his desk.
Jen craned forward to look at the piece of jewellery. She didn't see how anyone could fail to recognise, once they had seen it. It was a chain of two rows of gold strands, each strand about three inches long and separated from its neighbours by a small, red stone, set in some sort of flower, but what really caught her eye was the pendant. This was about two inches long by one inch high and showed the in profile view of the upper body of a long-haired, bearded male figure in ancient robes, his hair and beard elaborately curled and his lower body covered by what looked like a bird's tail, and with the bird's wings apparently issuing from his spine and stomach. And what was more important to Jen's mind, it was prominent amongst the illustrations of missing museum artefacts.
"That's a faravahar, an ancient symbol of Zoroastrianism – an old pre-Moslem religion," Jen hastily added as Gibbs' eyebrows began to knit in a frown.
"A what?" he demanded.
"It's called a faravahar, Boss… it's a kind of non-Christian Angel…" Jen added rather helplessly.
"Oh…" Gibbs' frown cleared, "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" he demanded "And you know this how?"
Jen reached it for the remote unit as Tim offered it to her, and with a couple of clicks she recalled her first bookmarked page and brought it up, enlarged onto the big screen, "There , Boss, second row, three in from the left…"
"It is one of the most widely known Zoroastrian symbols," McGee tempered Jen's enthusiasm, "and there's no way of saying conclusively that what we've got here, is the same item posted on the screen."
"Ya think?" Gibbs demanded, but then as was his habit, he continued without waiting for an answer, "Ya wanna know what I think? Hell, if it looks like a duck and waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then I say it's a God dammed duck. That's what I think!"
Bishop had remained silent throughout the discussion, "So it looks like some elements of the thirty second battalion looted the museum after it was damaged and stole a number of exhibits?" she now said slowly, as she began to mentally fit together the pieces of the puzzle.
"Yep, beginning to look that way." And although Gibbs appeared to be agreeing with Bishop, his tone dripped with sarcasm, as if to say he believed that Bishop was stating the blindingly obvious.
But Bishop had worked for Gibbs long enough not to be fazed by his surliness. She knew that Gibbs was action oriented and sometimes jumped the gun and sprang into action before the picture was fully complete, and so completely unperturbed, she continued, "So, if that is the case, there are a couple of questions to be answered. How did Staff Sergeant Keeler end up in possession of one of the stolen items? Why did he keep it? To sell on? As a present for his wife? Or for evidence? Was he killed because he was one of the perpetrators, or because he was about to blow the whistle on the real bad guys? That's always assuming of course, that he was killed by one of his own battalion, or at the instigation of one of the battalion."
Gibbs gave a grunt that might have signified approval but added, "A pretty fair summation of what we got, Bishop. But the problem is, you just asked more questions than we have answers. So I suggest we start learning what those answers might be! Hood! Any luck on that uniform?"
"Not yet, Boss, and I reckon that's a dead end. The uniform he was wearing when he was shot would have been cut off him, and probably burned."
"H'mm, true enough," Gibbs conceded, "But his flak jacket?"
"That should have ended up at Aberdeen Proving Ground, but it's an Army facility and mostly run by civilians. The only people I can get hold of are low level admin types. Everybody apart from those guys taking phone messages is off for the weekend."
Gibbs exploded, "I don't give a damn where they are, who they are or what they're doing! I want answers – today – God damn it!" he yelled. He took a couple of breaths before he spoke gain, aware now that he had attracted the attention of Agent Ben Dury, the head of the duty MCRT for the weekend.
"Y'all need ta watch that blood pressure, Gibbs," he drawled lazily in a manner that he knew would only increase the grey-haired agent's BP.
Gibbs knew he was being baited, but refused to bite. He took another two or three deep, calming breaths before he asked, "Anyone got anything else for me?"
"Well… I managed to locate the doctor who was attached to the thirty second for that tour, and she should have been the one who took reception of Keeler, and it was her signature on the autopsy," Hood offered the other fruit of his morning's telephonic labours.
"Her signature?"
"Yeah, Boss, a Lieutenant Commander Christina Greenwood. She was a Lieutenant in country, but got promoted the day after she got back to the States. She's now assigned at MCAS Yuma… seems she has an affinity for the Corps," Hood finished with a grin.
"Or maybe she's married to a Marine and has gotten lucky with spousal co-location," McGee observed.
"Maybe," Gibbs agreed absently, his attention still focussed on Hood, "Have you spoken to her yet?"
Hood shook his head, "She was in the OR when I called, but I left a message saying it was urgent that she called me back."
"She hasn't called back yet?"
"Not yet, Boss… but if she's operating, she could be in there for some time…"
Gibbs grunted in acknowledgement and fell silent while his four agents exchanged glances. At length Gibbs spoke, "Okay, let's sum up… At first sight what we appear to have is a connection between Staff Sergeant Keeler and the looted museum. What we don't have is any connection between the rest of the thirty second and the museum. If we're right, and remember we have no proof either way, Staff Sergeant Keeler robbed the museum, but before he could sell or send his loot back to the states, he was KIA. Or, someone or someones from the thirty second looted the museum, and somehow Staff Sergeant Keeler found out and acquired that one piece, that very distinctive one piece, as evidence, and was then killed by someone in or linked to the thirty second battalion to stop him from blowing the whistle. In other words we got nothing!"
"Uh… I wouldn't say that, Boss," Bishop demurred.
"No? Why not?"
"Well… his letters, Boss. We know from talking to his wife that Keeler grabbed face time with her when he could, and that he sent e-mails, but he wrote her real letters too, and just that he wrote real letters with pen and ink – not ball point – suggests to me that he kinda held onto old fashioned values… like loyalty, honour, truth…"
"They are not old fashioned!" Gibbs snapped.
"No, Boss, maybe not, but they are not as widely esteemed as they once were," Bishop defended her position, "And besides, having read those letters, particularly that last one, when he said he'd stumbled across something fishy… Well, that kinda tells me he wasn't involved in what was going on…"
Jen nodded, "I'd say the same, Boss, speaking from a psychology point of view."
Gibbs glared at her and then turned his attention in the two male agents, "Either of you want to join in with these two bleeding hearts?"
"Yeah, Boss… what Bishop and Coates have said kind of makes sense," McGee answered.
"Huh! And what about you, Hood?"
Hood nodded, "Yeah, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, 'innocent until proven guilty'."
"Or Semper Fi?" Gibbs asked shrewdly.
To Jen's surprise the big former Marine blushed, "Yeah, I guess there's some of that too," he admitted.
Gibbs allowed himself a world-weary if not outright cynical grin, "Much as I would want it otherwise, I've found over a lot of years that there are a lot of Marines who are bad Marines and don't do the Corps any credit, or show it to its best advantage!"
"So where do we go from here, Boss?" El Bishop asked.
"Well, if the stuff was stolen, I can't see any Marine being dumb enough to hold on to it, so it most likely would have been sold. So the easiest way is like always, follow the money…"
"There are about eight hundred Marines in that battalion," McGee pointed out.
Gibbs nodded, "But, if we are correct, then Keeler was murdered to shut him up, by deliberately sending him to an exposed OP, over his objections as a Staff non-com Scout/Sniper. An OP which had been in use for two days running before the day of the shooting. Take that together with the skimpy entry in the ops Log and that unsatisfactory AAR, I reckon we'd be looking for someone in the battalion with pull. Start with the CO, XO, S-1, S-3…"
"And don't forget the Sergeant Major!" Jen interjected.
"The Sergeant Major?" Bishop asked, "Isn't he kind of low down in the pecking order?"
Gibbs grinned mirthlessly, "He may be enlisted while all the others are officers, but he's probably got more influence in the battalion than the rest of 'em put together! But why him especially, Coates?"
Jen shrugged, "Not sure, Boss, but there was just something about his attitude when we went to Quantico… he was unnecessarily hostile and obstructive before we'd asked our first question. Remember, McGee, how even on the HQ steps the S-1 had to tell him to power down!?"
"That's true," McGee agreed while Hood nodded his head in silent agreement.
Gibbs looked at his team, "Well, whaddaya waiting for? Get to it!"
With a further chorus of "On it, Boss," the four standing agents scattered to their desk and in a few seconds the only sound that Gibbs could hear was the tap, tap, tapping of computer keys. Hiding a smile he sat back and while he watched his team busy at work, he reviewed their progress and what they had revealed of their thought processes as far as they pertained to the case so far, and was well satisfied with them.
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Harm put down his pencil and leaned back in his chair, stretching his back and shoulders as he did so and then looked at his watch. With a muffled curse he leaned forward and stabbed the call button on his intercom, "Yeoman Two?"
"Sir?" Diane Letterwood's reply came back instantly.
"What are you doing out there?"
"Just catching up on some filing, sir."
"Is there anything there that can't wait until Monday?"
"No, sir, not really."
"You have a boyfriend, don't you?"
"Yes, sir. An FC One at Sea Systems…"
"Okay, then you've done enough for a Saturday. Go home, call your boyfriend and go somewhere and do something! And I'll see you on Monday morning!"
"Yes, sir, but…"
"Yeoman Two, was there anything I just said that made you think it was a suggestion?"
"Uh… No, sir."
"Then get out of here before I write you up for DDO!"
Unseen by Harm, Diane Letterwood grinned. Despite his threat she knew that the Captain would never write her up on that charge, and anyway it was gone eleven hundred hours, and she hated working Saturdays, so, "Aye, aye, sir! But can I get you another coffee before I go?"
"No! Just get out of here!" Harm retorted even as he bit his tongue to prevent a laugh.
Three minutes later, Letterwood tapped on his door frame, "I'm leaving now, sir," she said as she poked her head around the door in answer to Harm's invitation to enter.
Harm nodded and indicated the legal pad on his blotter, "I won't be too long behind you. So, thanks for this morning Yeoman Two! Oh, and don't say it was a pleasure! Weekend working never is!"
"Of course, not, sir!" Letterwood smiled and was gone, the door closing with a soft 'click' behind her.
Harm had intended to spend no more than the next five minutes finishing the last few notes he was making with the view of raising them as points on the next Branch Reorganisation Meeting with the thought, very much to the forefront of his mind, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!' But the minutes slipped past and it wasn't until he sat back again, the last of his notes completed, shaking his wrist to un-cramp it, that he realised he had spent more than an hour making 'those last few notes'. With a muttered "Oh crap!", he capped his pen, "To hell with it!", he added and then slid the pad into the centre drawer of his desk and carefully locked it, then he rose from his chair, crossed to the door, snagging his cover on the way, and made his way to the elevator and rode it down the first floor, where he checked out at the CP and then finally left the building.
Once outside, he took a deep breath of fresh air and looked around. Jen's car was, as far as he could tell, still in the parking lot across the street, the comparatively few vehicles parked up on Sicard Street on a Saturday helped in seeing that, so after a moment or two's thought Harm turned and made his way along to the NCIS building, hoping that he could maybe pull Jen out of the office. The thought of sitting in the apartment on his own all afternoon, just waiting for her had just lost all the appeal it might ever have had.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Harm submitted with good grace to being escorted by a Marine Corps MP Corporal up to the MRCT bull pen. He had protested that he knew the way, but the thirty-something, unsmiling desk Sergeant had been unsympathetic. Polite, but unsympathetic, "Sorry, sir. I know I've seen your ID, but it's SOP that all visitors are to be escorted at all times within this building. For the safety of our personnel and the visitors too."
Harm knew that once the sacred cow of SOPs had been invoked that all protests would be futile so with a nod and a half-smile he had turned to the young corporal and said, "Lead on, then please, Corporal!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" the young Marine replied and walked with Harm towards the elevators.
The desk Sergeant watched them with a scowl on his face, "If there's one thing I can't stand more than squids, it's squid officers!" he muttered
"Did you say something, Sergeant?" the young PFC at the desk looked up at his non-com.
"Nothin' that you need bother about. Jus' get on with that log!"
"Yes, Sergeant!" The PFC didn't need to be told twice when Sergeant Delacroix was in that sort of mood!
"This is it, sir!" the Maine Corporal said to Harm as the elevator door swooshed open, but he made no move to follow Harm as the officer stepped out of the elevator. "Not coming with, Corporal?" Harm asked lightly.
The Corporal shot him a quick glance and gauged the Navy Captain's mood, "No, sir. There's nowhere else you can go on this floor, an' I reckon that with half a dozen armed agents up here, I'd pretty much be an unneeded spare part!"
"There's something in that, Corporal!"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Harm left the elevator behind him and walked the few steps needed to bring him into sight of the Team Gibbs area of the bull pen, his subconscious registering the soft hiss as the door closed, to find himself the object of scrutiny for five pairs of eyes.
Gibbs was the first to speak, "Captain Rabb, what brings you to us this morning?"
"Oh, I was just wondering if you were going to take a break for lunch," Harm said carelessly, but with his eye on Jen, "I wanted to ask Jennifer a couple of questions…"
Gibbs looked at his watch and grunted in surprise, "Hell, it's nearly thirteen hundred, people. The Captain's right, let's take a break. See you all back here in thirty minutes… except for you, Hood. You need to stay by your phone, in case your doctor calls back!"
El Bishop caught Hood's eye and grimaced in sympathy, "I'll bring you back a sandwich," she offered, "Any preference?"
"Uh… beef on whole meal, with mustard?" Hood asked with a smile of thank.
"On it!" El smiled and then with McGee at her shoulder headed for the elevator, while Gibbs left his desk and made for the stairs leading to the mezzanine and MTAC.
Jen let out a long breath and looked quizzically at Harm, "And what sort of questions does the big. Bad lawyer have for the poor little NCIS Agent?" she asked in honeyed tones.
Harm nearly replied, but then his ears caught the poisonous sugar overload in Jen's question and hastily revised what he had been about to say. "Well, I was just going to tell you that I'd secured for the day and ask if there was anything you wanted me to do while you were still tied up here?"
"And you couldn't do that by 'phone?" Jen demanded.
"Well, I could have done, but then I wouldn't have been able to see your beautiful brown eyes," Harm smiled.
His flattery was so apparent that Jen caved, "You're bad!" she chuckled, "Now, what was the real reason you came over?"
Conscious of Hood sat at his desk no more than a couple of steps away, Harm deliberately kept his voice low, "Well… I was a bit worried about the way you were all tensed up this morning… but you seem more relaxed now?"
"Yeah… you can thank Gibbs for that," Jen grinned and then went on to recount her earlier meeting with her team leader, finishing with, "So although I'm still on desk duties, I'm seeing this Doctor Cranston at fifteen hundred, and I'm not worried about that. In fact I am just so relieved that Gibbs took it so calmly and there won't be any long delays in settling the issue. So with any luck I'll be home by about seventeen hundred. We've covered a lot of ground today, but we can't do anything much more than check computer records until Monday…"
"Or not," Harm half agreed, "Gibbs has a way of achieving results by using unexpected methods…"
"M'mm… As he proved this morning, with me!" Jen grinned. "Now, somebody mentioned lunch?"
"Yeah, but we haven't got much longer," Harm replied as he checked his watch.
"Then it'll have to be the sandwich concession downstairs," Jen grinned. "The only problem is that you'll have to sign out at the CP…"
"Doesn't matter, if I can't drag you out of here, there's not much point in hanging around, so I was going to have to sign out anyway."
"Well, if you're going to abandon me…" Jen pouted, but with her eyes dancing as she retrieved her weapon and clipped it to her belt.
"Nope, not working," Harm grinned as they walked towards the elevator, "Not feeling the guilt at all!"
"Damn! But if you are going home, there's a list on the fridge door; we need to stock up on some groceries…" Jen suggested.
Harm groaned. He knew that Jen knew he detested grocery shopping, he hated the drudgery of wheeling a shopping cart around a store and he found the standing in line waiting for a cashier to be one of the most frustrating experiences known to man. "Really, we really need groceries?" he queried.
"Well, unless you want to live off canned mystery meat for the next week then yeah we do. I mean I don't mind the canned meat, but I know you wouldn't want to eat canned meat," Jen continued, just barely accenting the mention of the meat.
"Okay, okay…I get the message," Harm growled unhappily, regretting the passing of his bachelor days when he did his grocery shopping on an almost daily basis, a quick in and out at one of the mom and pop stores on his way home, with a maximum of about half a dozen items in one paper sack.
He sent a darkling look at Jen as she giggled in triumph. "C'mon, let's go meet with El and Tim, 'cause they'll be there too!"
Tim McGee and El Bishop were at the sandwich concession, and once Harm and Jen had paid for their food and drinks, Jen led them straight to the table occupied by the two NCIS agents, "Tim, Ellie, I'd like you to meet my fiancé, Captain Harmon Rabb, JAG Corps. Harm, this is Tim McGee and Ellie Bishop…"
Tim grinned, "Ah, Coates' mystery man!" he said cheerfully, ignoring a flash from El Bishop's hot brown eyes. "Pleased to meet you, Captain!"
"You'll have to excuse Tim," El replied, "But he's right, it is good to meet you." She paused, and then smiled before she added, "We've heard such a lot… well, no we haven't, we've heard nothing really about you; Jen's been infuriatingly tight lipped!"
"Well… it was kinda need to know, and DiNosey didn't, but know he's temporarily hors de combat, then there's no harm in the rest of you knowing." Jen said before she took a bite from her sandwich.
El nodded and swallowed the sip of coffee she had just taken, "M'mm… have you told Sam?"
Jen grinned and shook her head, "Not directly, but he was at his desk a few minutes ago, so if he hasn't guessed, then he shouldn't be an agent."
"Oh… he'll have guessed alright," Harm said with a flash of his smile that made El, married woman or not, catch her breath, "It's not many women who can bully their male friends into doing the week's grocery shopping – especially when she knows it's something he hates."
"Or pretends that he hates!" Jen twinkled.
Harm paused in the act of carrying his sandwich towards his mouth and held it mid-air, a pose that made him look like some classical orator about to proclaim that Carthage must be destroyed, while he cast Jen a further distinctly unfriendly look, "Nope, one that he really, really hates!"
El Bishop laughed, "Tim? As a married man, you must have some thoughts on the matter?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm with the Captain! There's nothing worse than grocery shopping… Oh… except for going clothes shopping with Delilah!"
"Thank you, Tim… and it's Harm," Harm grinned.
El shook her head and looked sorrowfully at Jen, "It must be a guy thing; Jake says pretty much the same…"
Jen shot a quick look at Harm and Tim and then turned back to El, "Men…" they sighed in chorus and then sadly shook their heads.
Harm said goodbye to the three agents as they all left the sandwich bar, El carrying Hood's promised sandwich in a carry out bag along with a can of soda for him. Harm watched the enter the NCIS building, with a parting smile from over Jen's shoulder just before she passed through the door, and with a discontented sigh he turned in the direction of his parked car.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
"Anything happen while we were gone, Hood?" Tim asked as they re-entered the bull pen.
"Just Gibbs asking where you three were," Hood replied.
All three in an almost choreographed movement checked their watches, "Uh… when was that?" Jen asked as El placed the carry out on Hood's desk.
"Oh, about three minutes ago," Hood grinned. He knew he shouldn't, but he was enjoying this. When all was said and done, he was the only member of the team not to have been able to take a lunch break.
He had to fight back the smile that threatened to spread across his face as his team mates almost threw themselves into their chairs and raced to reboot their computers and simultaneously secure their sidearms. But it seemed that they had no sooner composed themselves when Gibbs appeared on the mezzanine above them.
"So, you finally made it back," he observed.
"On time, Boss," McGee replied on the behalf of the trio, who despite being back at their desks on time managed to look remarkably guilty.
"Did I say you were late?" Gibbs asked mildly.
"Uh… No boss," McGee answered sending a furious glance at the now broadly-grinning Sam Hood.
"So, why so defensive, Tim?" Gibbs inquired.
"Uh… Um… Well…" but Tim was saved, literally by the bell, as Hood's desk phone rang.
"Hood!" Sam listened for a moment and then said, "Yes, that's me, and I did leave a message, but could you hold the line a moment, please, ma'am, while I put you on speaker phone so my boss and the rest of the team can hear.
Gibbs ran lightly down the flight of stairs from the Mezzanine while the others stood and then drifted to form a semi-circle in front of Hood's desk.
"Okay, ma'am, we're all set up here now," Hood spoke into the phone as Gibbs joined his team.
"Well, how can I help you, agent Hood?"
"Ma'am, we understand that you were the battalion medical officer for the Thirty Second Marine Battalion at FOB Guam last year?"
"That's correct, agent."
"Ma'am, do you recall receiving the body of a Staff Sergeant Keeler of the Scout/Sniper Platoon. That would be in late October, ma'am."
"The name is familiar, but please bear with me while I check, agent. H'mm… yes, I have him in my records…"
Hood puffed out his cheeks in a silent sigh of relief."
"You carried out the autopsy ma'am and we have a copy of that, but there's one thing on it that has us slightly puzzled…"
"And that would be?"
"Ma'am, in your report, you described the bullet that killed Staff Sergeant Keeler as being a point three oh eight calibre round. We were wondering why you didn't classify it as a seven point six two millimetre bullet."
"Initially I did, but it was pointed out to me that it couldn't have been a seven point six two the marks the rifling left on the bullet were inconsistent with a seven point six two calibre weapon, and came from a point three oh eight weapon."
Gibbs frowned, as far as he was concerned that was arrant nonsense, so he interrupted, "Doctor Greenwood, this is Special Agent Gibbs, the agent in charge of this inquiry. Where did you get that information from?"
"From the battalion's Sergeant Major, a man called Connolly. He explained that the marks on the bullet showed that it had been fired from a rifle like the British AWI, and not from a US made weapon that the Marines and Army use."
Gibbs blinked, that was pure bullshit, but he couldn't expect a doctor to know that, so he merely remarked, "Ma'am, if this inquiry shows that Staff Sergeant Keeler's death was not through enemy action, or an accident, then it is possible that disciplinary proceedings will be initiated. You may need to be prepared to travel and repeat under oath what you have just told me."
There was a moment's hesitation, and when Doctor Greenwood did answer she sounded slightly uncomfortable, "I did wonder… I heard some speculation… scuttlebutt I guess you'd call it, that Keeler's death wasn't as straightforward as it looked. But that sort of talk was stamped out pretty quickly by my Chief Corpsman and the non-coms in the battalion… they said it was bad for morale and unit cohesion…"
"Do you know what happened to that bullet, and to Staff Sergeant Keeler's uniform and body armour?"
"The bullet was passed to the OIC of the MP platoon at the FOB, the 149 Platoon I believe, under a First Lieutenant Linda Kutuzov. The uniform was burned… it was soaked in blood and was classed, like they all are, as a bio-hazard. The body armour was returned to battalion supply for transmission to Aberdeen Proving Ground for testing. I do have images of both bullet and armour on file, though."
Gibbs frowned, images were not ideal, but if the objects themselves were missing they might suffice.
"Thank you ma'am, can you fax or e-mail them to me?"
"Of course, what's the e-mail address?"
Gibbs looked blank and Jen thought almost panic stricken, but Sam Hood stepped smoothly into the breach, "Just send them to me, please, ma'am 'S dot Hood at NCIS dot Gov',"
"Will do agent, Hood."
"Thank you, ma'am. We'll get in touch again if we need to." Gibbs closed the conversation.
"I'm glad I could help, Agent Gibbs."
Hood broke the connection and Gibbs looked around at the expectant faces, "Well, Boss?" Tim McGee dared to ask.
Gibbs said nothing as he returned to his desk and sat down while the others drifted after him. He sat book and gazed at then for long seconds before he spoke, "Coates, looks like your instincts were right. If the good doctor was telling us the truth, Sergeant Major Connolly is definitely up to something."
"How so, Boss?" Jen asked.
"Because he fed Doctor Greenwood nothing but pure bullshit. The British sniper rifle fires the same round and has the same six lands and grooves and one in twelve inch right hand twist as the Marine Corps M40 sniper rifle; the Army's M24 has slightly different twist and only five lands and grooves. All three rifles are the same calibre and can fire both seven point six two and the point three oh eight Winchester, but," Gibbs paused for emphasis, "there is no way you can tell, with the naked eye, which bullet was fired from which cartridge! Connolly lied to the doctor!"
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Harm precariously balanced the two large grocery sacks in his left arm while he took the keys from between his teeth and fumbled the correct key, unseen and one-handed into the lock and then nudged the door open with his hip, d then with a sigh of relief deposited both sacks on the breakfast counter.
Glaring in disgust at the two blameless paper sacks, he shook his head reprovingly, and then turned to close the apartment door. "What I really need now, and before I even think of unpacking you…" another venomous glare at the groceries, "Is a good, strong, hot cup of coffee, so you are just going to have to wait on my convenience!"
Having made his decision clear to the totally unresponsive food items in the sacks, Harm set about brewing a pot of coffee, and only when that was done, did he take to the couch and sitting down, rolled up his pants leg to insect the oozing graze on his shin, courtesy of an impact with a shopping cart, badly driven by a middle-aged housewife who hadn't been looking where she was going. "Thumb up her butt and her mind in neutral!" Harm muttered crossly as he recalled the impact which had nearly pained and startled him unto uttering an obscenity out loud in public. Instead he had merely gritted his teeth, and assured the woman – who seemed to think it was entirely his fault – that he was okay and that no damage had been done.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Jen covered the mouthpiece of her phone with a hand and tuned to look at Gibbs, "Boss, have we got a case number for this inquiry?"
Gibbs grunted, "Hang on… make it 'MCRT 1-23-2012', okay?"
"Thanks boss!" Jen turned her attention back to the phone, "Hello, Sergeant, the NCIS case number is MCRT 1-23-2012. Got that? Good, now can you please release the evidence and send it to us please!" she finished in exasperated tones.
"Yes, ma'am, now we've verified your identity and gotten a case number, we'll be more than happy to ship the item to you!"
"Thank you, Sergeant, but please be sure to mark it for the attention of Special Agent Gibbs!" Jen said with exaggerated patience, and practically slammed the phone back down.
"Problems, Coates?" McGee asked.
"Damned Jarheads!" Jen exploded, "I swear God only put them on earth to test the patience of the rest of us mere mortals!"
"Hey, I resent that!" Sam Hood called out, but Gibbs the other former Marine in the room just grinned, but then while Hood had been busy on his own phone, Gibbs had been able to follow Jen's battle with a bureaucratically minded evidence room Sergeant at the 14th MP Company, the parent unit of the 149 platoon that Doctor Greenwood had cited.
Jen turned her sweetest smile on Hood, "But you had the sense to get put before you leaked all your brains out through your ears," she said in the sort of voice that would have caused Harm, or indeed any of her former juniors at JAG to head for the tall timber just as fast as they possibly could.
Hood wasn't quite that enlightened, and failed to identify the hidden warning in Jen's tone and took a deep breath prior to responding. That breath gave Tim McGee, a married man who recognised the signs of an impending shit storm, to intervene.
"Leave it, Sam!" he warned the other man and then turned to Jen, "Coates, why don't you take five, go grab a coffee or a soda from the machine down the hall?"
Jen hesitated a moment and looked to her right at Gibbs, who nodded and said quietly, "McGee's right, take five. You sound like you need it after that call!"
Jen nodded, "Thanks, Boss!" but she left the bull pen guiltily feeling that just like a toddler throwing a tantrum she had been sent to the naughty step.
Gibbs waited until he judged that Jen had left the bull pen and then said, "Good work, McGee!" And then with a grin he turned to Hood, "And you are going to have to learn to read female voices and body language, that is if you want to escape serious bodily harm. Uh-huh, take it from someone who has survived three divorces! I know what I'm talking about!" he added after it looked like Hood was about to interrupt.
Jen punched the button for a sugar-free soda, half expecting the machine to eat her money and then refuse to produce the drink, but the poltergeist that Jen was certain inhabited the bowels of the drink dispenser must have picked up on her mood this afternoon and tamely let the chosen drink roll down to the delivery slot.
Jen popped the soda can and leaning back against the window ledge she took a sip of the not quite ice-cold drink. She closed her eyes and let the cold liquid in her mouth slowly trickle down her throat, while she held the now moisture beaded can to her forehead.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" a strange voice, with a touch of laughter in it, asked.
Jen's eyes shot open and she turned to look at whoever it was who had accosted her. She found she was looking at a casually but smartly dressed brunette with shoulder length hair and laughter lines around her eyes. Jen judged the woman to be in her late forties and she had a visitor's badge pinned to her jacket lapel.
"Can I help you, ma'am?" Jen asked, casting a quick look along the hall for the Marine who should have been riding herd on the visitor.
"The boot's on the other foot, I think. That is if you are Jennifer Coates?"
"Yes, ma'am, but how…"
"I'm Rachel Cranston, we have a fifteen hundred hours appointment, remember?"
"Oh, yes, of course, but…"
"But, I'm a bit early," Rachel agreed. "And if you were looking for my guardian angel, Agent Gibbs sent him back down to the CP before he told me where you are. He also said we were to use the small conference room. I think I remember where that is, but if you'd like to lead the way?"
"Yeah, sure thing," Jen replied and so, soda in hand, she led the visiting doctor along the hall to the designated room.
Once in the room Rachel Cranston pulled out a chair about half-way along one of the long ides of the table, and Jen, almost automatically started to walk to the other side but was stopped by the psychologist, "No… come and sit next to me Agent Cotes… or do you mind if I call you Jennifer?"
Jen stopped in mid-stride, "That was a dirty trick," she observed without rancour.
"Oh, what was?" Rachel asked innocently. A little too innocently for Jen's liking as she took a seat next to Rachel and half turned it so she faced the other woman.
"The instruction and the question, both coming at once, to try to throw me off balance!" Jen retorted.
"Oh… so you've come across that gambit before?" Rachel asked.
Jen sighed, "Look, let's put our cards on the table. I do not have your experience in the field, but I do have a bachelor's degree in psychology and I am about halfway through working for my masters. So, yeah, I recognised your attempt to knock me off centre, just like I recognised your deliberate deflection of my response by asking me another question."
Rachel Cranston threw her hands in the air in a gesture of surrender, "Okay, you got me!" she admitted with a laugh, but then became serious again, "Gibbs tells me that you were involved in a shooting last night, so the purpose of this meeting is to discover if you are ready to return to full duties. What do you think|?"
"What do I think about the purpose of the meeting, or what do I think about returning to full duty?"
"Either, or both… No, don't answer that just yet. Firstly tell me what happened last night."
Jen took a deep breath, "I had been out to dinner with my fiancé, a Captain in the Navy, and we were walking back to our apartment when a guy jumped out of the shadows and tried to rob us…"
Rachel listened intently as Jen talked. She was listening not only to the words that came from Jen's mouth, but also the speed in which they were delivered and the tone in which Jen spoke and all the time she was observing the younger woman's body language.
"Then the EMTs took him away and we – my fiancé and I, after a short argument with the police, persuaded them to come up to the apartment where we wrote out our statements for them."
"What was the argument about?"
"Uh… it was late, and if we'd gone down town with them like they wanted, it would have been hours before we had gotten back home."
"You weren't afraid of being arrested?"
"No, why should we have been? I shot in self-defence and in the defence of my fiancé. I have absolutely no doubt that if I hadn't have been armed, one or both of us would have ended up with a bullet somewhere inside us."
"How did you feel after the shooting?"
"At first, with the adrenalin rush I felt… triumphant is the word, I suppose. But after things had calmed down, I felt sick and a little ashamed."
"Well that's pretty normal. How do you think you would react if faced with a similar situation, but instead of your fiancé it was a member if your team at risk or maybe a civilian bystander?"
"Uh… much as I'd hate it, I'd shoot to defend me or mine, and those guys out in the bull pen… well they're mine just as much as my fiancé us. As for a civilian bystander… we may not have taken an oath to serve and protect, but we did take an oath to uphold the constitution and the laws of this country, and if a lawbreaker endangers anyone by his actions, I will challenge him, and I will back up that challenge with force, with deadly force if that's what it takes."
Doctor Rachel Cranston smiled, "Okaay... Jennifer – you never did say if it was okay to call you that – as far as I'm concerned your answers and your body language tell me that you feel a modicum of guilt, but that is only to be expected and you are coming to terms with it like any normal, well balanced individual would. I shall tell Gibbs that in my opinion you are fit to return to field duty, and he shall have my written report on his desk by Monday zero nine hundred."
"That's it? It's over?" Jen could hardly believe her ears.
Rachel Cranston smiled, "Sure… there was no point in dragging it out with all the little trick questions we use… and it would have been pointless anyway, you were sharp enough to spot my two early attempts, and I'm pretty sure you would have spotted any further tries, so why bother?"
"Thank you!" Jennifer exclaimed.