Disclaimer: The below character belong mostly to the BBC and CBS
Finally some action/drama! :) Hope you enjoy.
Chapter Ten
Tony stretched and gave a yawn as the third Petty Officer left the mess hall. "Why do we always get the crappy jobs?" he complained to the others. "I hate interrogating people for no reason."
"There is always a reason, Tony." Ziva reminded him. "We just do not know what it is yet."
"This is a crappy job?" Gwen raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Seriously? You people have no idea." And Ianto gave a nod of confirmation. Tony leaned forward again with a frown, curiosity getting the better of him as always.
"Why? What's the crappiest job you guys have ever had to do?" He asked.
"Do you want the whole list?" Ianto asked, deadpanned. Tony opened his mouth to reply, but Ziva glared at him.
"Uh... no... We've got more people to interrogate." Tony said, and Ziva nodded.
"Now that is the right answer, Tony." She told him, before going back out into the 'waiting room' to collect the next Petty Officer. Tony threw an apologetic look at Ianto, who nodded in understanding. Ziva had just entered the room with the pale looking Petty Officer when her phone rang. Muttering a curse in Hebrew, she led the Petty Officer back outside before answering it.
"Ziva!" It was McGee. "Have you interviewed one Petty Officer Tom Harris?" Ziva frowned and repeated the question to Tony who shook his head.
"No." Ziva told the junior field agent. "Why?"
"Ok. Leave him for Gibbs. Abby just identified the partial print as his on that clean locker in their dorm." McGee rushed.
"You think he did it?"
"Can't be sure until Gibbs interrogates him, but it's looking that way." McGee told her. "Him and Jack are on their way over now, thought you could do with a few minutes' notice of that."
"Ok, thanks McGee." Ziva told him before hanging up and turning to the three inquiring faces of Tony, Gwen and Ianto.
"Abby found a match to the print we pulled off the locker." Ziva told them.
"And?" Gwen questioned.
"And it matched Petty Officer Tom Harris." Ziva replied and Tony glanced at the list of Petty Officers.
"He was next." He told them. "That pale faced one."
"This one?" Gibbs suddenly walked a strong grip on the Petty Officer's shoulder; they were followed closely by Jack.
"Yeah boss."
"Look, I haven't done anything wrong, really." Petty Officer Tom Harris blurted to anyone who was willing to listen.
"Really?" Jack cocked an eyebrow, disbelievingly.
"Well... I mean... not really... uh... not actually... honest, sir." Harris stuttered, as though he was not only nervous, but also afraid.
"Sit down." Gibbs barked at him, roughly helping him into a chair.
"Ok, ok." Harris complained at Gibbs' slight violence. "Geez!"
Gibbs ignored him as he turned to face the others. "Tony, Ziva, take Mr. Jones and Ms. Cooper over there to observe." he pointed to the other side of the mess hall.
"Of course, Gibbs." Ziva replied and gave a slight not of the head so the others followed.
"What about me?"
"You're staying here, Captain." Gibbs told Jack. "I'm sure you can come up with a few questions that are relevant."
Jack nodded, but took a step back as Gibbs leaned over the desk, inches away from Petty Officer Harris' face.
"You going to tell us where you got the cocaine, Petty Officer?" Intimidated Gibbs.
"Cocaine? What cocaine?" Harris blinked innocently and Gibbs rolled his eyes. This guy was reminding him of a typical argumentative teen, despite his slightly jumpy manner.
"That's fooling nobody, you know that. We found your finger print right above drug reside."
"But I cleaned that -" Tom Harris began, before he realised what he had said. The young Petty Officer sighed, and tucked his hands into his jacket pocket. "Well it was worth a try. I got it from Reilly, alright."
"Our dead marine sold you the cocaine." Gibbs' tone was quizzical.
"Yeah, it was only because he wanted to get rid of it." Tom Harris fidgeted slightly.
"Why was that?" Jack asked and the Petty Officer's glance flickered up to Jack's face.
"He wanted to stop taking it. He'd been on coke for a while, but decided to give it up. I think he was afraid of getting caught by the Commander or something. They didn't get along well."
"We know. Did you go ashore when you ported in the UK, Petty Officer?"
"Yeah?" There was a quizzical tone in his voice.
"Did you go to a place called Cardiff?" Jack asked.
"Maybe. I can't remember its name, but everyone in our dorm took a bus to another city; we didn't stay in Portsmouth. Wanted to get away from everyone else, you know."
Gibbs sighed and pulled out the picture of the Millennium Centre once again. "Did you see this?"
"Yeah, hard to miss that was." Harris frowned slightly. "Why? Is that in this Cardiff place?"
"Yeah." Jack told him. "Now, are you going to tell us why you brought one of these back with you on board the USS George H.W. Bush?" Jack pulled out a picture of a Weevil.
* * * * *
"There is something about this Tom Harris that really beetles me." Ziva said, from where she watched the interrogation from the other side of the room.
"Beetles?" Ianto raised an eyebrow.
"She means bugs." Tony told him, before glancing a concerned look at Ziva. "What is it?"
"I do not know. I just have this strange feeling."
"Uh huh, like when we were aboard the Chimera?" And Ziva nodded.
"Sort of, it is a similar feeling."
"Don't worry, Gibbs'll break him, he'll confess, you know the drill and then we can all go home." Tony assured her, but didn't fail to notice the frown still present on Mossad Agent's face.
* * * * *
"My God, what is that thing? Is that a mask or something?" The Petty Officer cried out.
"No, that's an Alien, Harris." Jack told him firmly, kneeling down to be at eye level with the Petty Officer. "An Alien that you mistreated, pumped full of cocaine and set lose on this ship." Jack's voice rose with anger as his sentence progressed.
"I didn't. Reilly was my friend, I'd never set that thing on him." Harris looked wildly at the two leaders of their separate organisations.
"We never said you set that creature on Reilly, only that you set it lose on the ship." Gibbs reminded the young Petty Officer.
"Ah..." Harris' shoulders slumped as he, again, realised he'd said the wrong thing.
"Why'd you do it, Petty Officer?" Gibbs asked, his voice quiet; the calm before the storm.
"I..." Harris shifted uncomfortably in his chair, both his hands still in his pockets.
And it was at that moment that Ziva realised. And on the other side of the room, she could only watch as Harris looked up at Jack and Gibbs, a strange glint in his eyes. It was mere seconds from that glance to the now hysteric Petty Officer leaping up and producing a small gun from his jacket pocket.
Tony was the first to react, closely followed by the other three on the opposite side of the mess hall. "We're federal agents, drop you weapon, Harris!"
"Drop it." Gwen yelled.
"No, you drop yours or both your bosses get matching bullet holes." Harris replied, an edge of hysteria in his voice. None of them dropped their weapons; merely lowered them, slightly.
"Why are you doing this, Harris?" Gibbs calmly ask him.
"It's all my fault." The Petty Officer was panting, a crazed look in his eyes. "All my fault. I didn't mean to. It was meant as just a prank. I swear that's all it was. That thing, that creature was all subdued when I first saw it outside that Centre thing you showed me." Harris jerked the gun in Jack's direction, gesturing to him; the Captain didn't even flinch. "It was easy to smuggle back on board. I knew the cameras and how to avoid them. I persuaded the others to go ahead, so they wouldn't suspect anything."
"What did you do with it?" Jack asked, his voice equally calm.
"Kept it down in one of the unused store cupboards. No one ever goes down there anyway. I just wanted to scare him, it was a prank." Harris repeated, the aimed somewhere between Gibbs and Jack. The former was kicking himself for not cuffing the Petty Officer when he had the chance. "I didn't think it would go all crazy when I gave it the coke. I just wanted it to act a bit scarier so I could frighten my friend."
"It's an Alien, Harris. What did you think would happen!?" Jack yelled at him.
"I dunno! I thought it was an experiment gone wrong or something."
"Just lower the gun, Harris and we can just forget all about this." Gibbs negotiated.
"Forget it?" The Petty Officer gave a sarcastic laugh. "I caused the death of a friend. Nothing is going to reverse it. I'm going to shoot you all and then blow my brains out."
"You really don't want to do that." Gibbs told him, slowly reaching out to Harris and ignoring Jack who had moved to position himself directly behind him.
"The hell I do." Harris told him, his voice lowered to a whisper as he lowered his gun slightly, directly pointing at Gibbs' heart. On the other side of the room Tony, Ziva, Gwen and Ianto had all come to an unspoken agreement to shoot Harris if he pulled the trigger.
He did.
It all happened so quickly, before the bullet had even left the barrel, four anticipated bullets hit Harris squarely in the chest and he collapsed in an instant; the gun skidding along the ground and out of everyone's reach. At the last possible second, before Harris' bullet could hit Gibbs, Jack who had cleverly got himself into the right position, pushed the NCIS boss to the side, sending him sprawling.
The bullet hit Jack, directly above his heart and he fell to the ground. It was all a blur for Gibbs who only saw flashes of painful images of the last person who took a bullet for him; it hadn't ended well for her either and after that Gibbs had sworn he'd never let it happen again.
"Jack!" Ianto and Gwen knelt beside their fallen leader and Gibbs bit back a curse.
"Yan…" The Captain's voice was strained.
"It's ok, Jack." Ianto told him. "I'm here."
"I'm sorry, Ianto." Jack grunted and he lifted a hand and caressed young Welshman's cheek. "I'm so sorry." Jack held Ianto's gaze for a few strong seconds, before Gwen interrupted by pressing a cloth to the Captain's wound and applying pressure.
Ziva, Tony and Gibbs could only watch as the others tried in vain to save Jack. Everyone in the room knew that there was no hope and Jack soon closed his eyes, signalling what appeared to be the end.