A Man Revealed

Gibbs heard Tony's quiet admission and looked at him with concern and curiosity, he felt guilty and anger at both Ziva and himself well up when he saw Tony covered in bruises and gingerly holding his ribs.

Seeing that the other two didn't hear Tony he decided to give a few quick orders before taking Tony down to Ducky. "I want to know who he is by the time I get back or else!"

Leaning down beside Tony he said quietly "Come on let's get you down to Ducky."

Twenty minutes later Ducky was about midway through his examination when Director Vance walked into the room. Gibbs seeing him immediately went over to him. "This is what I was trying to tell you Leon, she attacked Tony and the rest of the team just stood there. I am her boss and it is bullshit that I can only give her a tap on the wrist by suspension and remedial training. If it were any other person I would have their job for this kind of stunt, probably even more than that!"

Vance sighed "I don't know what to tell you Gibbs her father is the director of mossad if we piss him off we could cause an international incident and taking action against his daughter would definitely fall under pissing him off."

"So she is just allowed to get away with this!" Gibbs growled "He could have been killed Leon."

Leon sighed "I apologize Gibbs I should have listened to you when you said that you needed to stay by the bullpen. I may be your boss but I would like to think of myself as your friend also and when you said it was important I should have listened, that apology goes to your boy too after all he was the most effected by my interference."

Gibbs nodded "I should have kept you in the loop, I will remember to trust you if there is a next time, which I hope to avoid."

They stood in silence for a few moments while Ducky finished his examination with a small sigh of relief Ducky informed them that Tony, while sore for a few days, would be just fine the worse of it was some deep bruising.

When Tony was sitting up Gibbs asked "Tony you said you knew the victim, could you tell us how?"

Tony thought for a few moments before "You said his name was Jason Gallows right?"

Gibbs nodded knowing that Tony would get to the point once he had his thoughts in order.

Tony nodded "I wasn't sure it was him until you mentioned the phoenix tattoo with its wings spread, when I knew him his name had been Jace Summers and he was a trainee like me. Every trainer gives their slaves a tattoo when they finish training with different variants depending on when they were trained. It's kind of like a clothing brand so if you like a friends slave you can get on more or less like it by buying one from the same trainer. Our trainer was a man named Alexi Phoenix which is why his tattoo will always be variations of a phoenix. I remember Jace so well because we were in the same batch. We had been two of twelve people Alexi was training at the time, Jace was much better than me especially in the beginning he was obedient and could do nothing for hours but finish with an order in a matter of minutes, while I was too eager to please and would wind up trying to anticipate your needs, not really something you want in most slaves."

"One day we were getting close to one of our midway exams when these two men in those dress clothes that military people wear came into the compound. Saying that they needed someone for a special experimental assignment, they had heard about the Hollow and wanted to see if they could turn them into super soldiers. They walked down the aisles of cages and they stopped by Jace apparently Alexi had told them how obedient he was and thought he would be the perfect person to try it with. I will never forget what happened next they looked at him with this cold look in their eyes and they said "Break him."

"Just like that, like he was nothing. The next day Alexi took Jace away and gave him the Kuseka, I can still hear him screaming and begging. When they brought him back he was barely breathing and had this look in his eyes, like the lights were on but no one was home. Two days later they had given him the tattoo and the military guys had come and picked him up."

Gibbs and Vance watched on in shock as Tony got this haunted look in his eyes as he told his story as if reliving some unspeakable event which they both realized with dawning horror he probably was. Gibbs nodded sadly when Ducky made eye contact and gave a quick explanation on what exactly Kuseka was seeing both Ducky and Vance's questioning look.

He watched Vance pale before Vance turned to Ducky and said "Could you watch Tony for a moment I need to speak with Gibbs for a moment."

Ducky nodded "I'd be happy too."

Vance gestured to follow him and they took the elevator up to his office, Vance sat heavily in his chair his head in his hands after a moment Vance breaks the silence "What have we done Jethro, as a nation what have we allowed to be done to those poor people."

Gibbs sighed "Leon for them this is all they know, they are taken at 8 years old, and they are trying to pass a legislature that says they would be allowed to test at birth in high risk families."

Vance looked up at him and said "Since when is it ok to treat human beings like that, training them to want to be a slave until the day they die or else be tortured to death! What's worse is no one cares! No one has ever asked what they must go through to make them like they are, no one asks why they sell them barely human in dog cages! How is it that there are so many whistle blower groups that show you when something is off and not once has anyone ever looked into what they do to turn regular 8 year olds into obedient slaves with hardly any free will and if you ask them or most dominants no desire! Tony would get in trouble for trying to help people to anticipate what you need before you realized you needed it and they punished him for it. What have we done, what have we become that we can turn away from the suffering of close to 25% of the population."

Gibbs watched as Vance seemed to age right before his eyes when the silence lasted a few moments he finally said "Vance you saw Tony tell me what did you see?"

Vance thought a moment before saying "I'm not sure."

Gibbs smiled "Why don't we go back down to autopsy and you can tell your concerns to him and listen to his response."

Vance nodded and together they went back down to autopsy Tony sat and listened as Vance repeated his speech and Gibbs watched Tony's reaction turn for surprised to thoughtful and finally to a kind understanding as usual Gibbs's gut hadn't led him wrong and he knew whatever Tony was about to say would probably help.

Once Vance had finished Tony said quietly "Thank you, I don't think anyone has ever apologized to me before, but it's alright now once you're out in the real world slaves usually think of training as the trials by fire. But I passed the trial and I was lucky enough to find Master Jethro and he led me to a group of people, who even though we've only known each other for a short while, have already become the closest thing to family I ever had. Abby is like a sister and Mr. Ducky a grandfather and Miss Kate and Mr. Mcgee could probably be siblings too if they would just let me show them who I really am and see what I am really like. Even you Mr. Vance your kind of what I would imagine an uncle to be like. So you see even though training was terrible and I will probably always have nightmares about the things I've seen and done, I am a survivor and being here with master and you and Mr. Ducky and Abby it makes all of those things worth it."

Vance nodded all of them had tears in their eyes from the brutal honesty and genuine happiness in Tony's eyes and voice. After that Vance decided to head up to his office and Ducky told Gibbs that he had a cause of death.

Tony kneeled by Gibbs feet as Ducky walked over to the covered table and removed the blanket "Time of death was about 12 hours ago and the cause of death was rather strange I will admit there were multiple signs of sexual trauma and very severe internal bleeding from multiple places but the strange thing is that the bleeding wasn't the cause of death and the dismemberment had been post mortem"

Gibbs watched as Ducky showed with one finger that all the word carving as well as an apparent beating and more that had taken place before he died. "Well then Duck, what killed him then?"

Ducky looked up at him "That's the strange part Jethro the cause of death was he simply died the organ trauma is severe my best guess would be his heart gave out. There also appears to be an injection site on his right elbow maybe from some kind of sedative, although all of the tests I've run so far have come back clean. It is rather puzzling."

Something in Gibbs's gut started screaming that he was forgetting something, then it clicked. Tony had said last night that the twin drugs metabolize very quickly so it is almost impossible to find them in an autopsy.

Gibbs looked down at Tony and asked "Tony you mentioned that Kuseka and Valencia both metabolize quickly is there any way of telling if any is still in the blood stream?"

Tony thought about it for a moment "There might be a way, but I'm not sure if it will work."

Gibbs smiled "Show me."

Tony nodded and stood up "As you know Kuseka binds itself to just about everything nerves, organs, sometimes even blood cells and then it keeps spreading. Mr. Ducky is there any way that you could get a blood sample from the heart?"

Ducky went quiet for a moment before saying "Possibly, let me try."

A few moments later he showed a nearly full syringe of blood "Alright my boy what now?"

Tony found a Petri dish and emptied the contents of the syringe into the dish "Since it binds itself so tightly to the body it usually stays in at least one place usually the place where your body gave out. You said that Jace's heart gave out so the last spread point would have been that. The Kuseka then lies dormant and within about 15 days neutralizes itself as the tissue dies. Since it's still active all it needs is some living cells to start working again."

After Tony said this he grabbed another syringe and Ducky drew blood once that was done he held the syringe over the half of the dish that was still empty "Now if my blood turns black we know it was Kuseka if it turns a neon green or blue we know it was Valencia."

That said Tony emptied the other syringe having just the edges overlap, in a matter of seconds Tony's blood began to turn black and within two minutes started to sizzle like it was trying to boil. Tony looked up at Gibbs "I believe you have your answer Master."