Disclaimer: I do not own the characters to NCIS. They are owned by CBS. It's been a long time since I've seen that season, please forgive me if I've overlooked anything and point them out in a review. I hope to make a few more chapters to make this feel like an entire episode. Enjoy. If you enjoy it, please leave a review.
"We" Ziva said as she watched through the one way mirror, "He said 'we'. He had a partner".
"Who's 'we'?" Tony asked, "You had a partner. I knew you weren't smart enough to come up with this on your own," he came around the desk quickly and sat on the edge of it just to his right and leaned in face to face, "You tag teamed him. That's the best way. You harass him at work and your partner gets him at home. Is that right?" He kept going not giving Salvador a chance to answer, "No. You did one better. You stole his stuff, including his art supplies, and your partner would ruin his career with bad fitness reports because he couldn't do his work. Am I right?"
"No!" Salvador screamed, "Well-yes."
Buckling his eyebrows and smiling Tony knew he was close, "C'mon, Salvador. Looking at you I know you have something on your chest you just want to get out. Now, tell me!" When the suspect hesitated for a moment the Italian slammed the palm onto the desk with a crack that startled Salvador in his seat. Salvador was losing control, the complexion in his face was fading, eyes wide with fear, mouth dry, and hands trembling. He was caught and knew that he was going down with the sinking ship, and the only way to save himself was to take someone with him.
Clenching his fingers together in a tight ball, Salvador lowered his head, nearly muttering, "It was Commander Tanner. He ordered me to do it."
Scoffing at this, Tony got up and walked around casually towards the one way mirror, hands thrust into his pocket and biting his lower lip pretending not to believe him. "You're pulling my leg, Salvador. You're just saving your own ass now," shrugging his shoulders, "Hell. That's what I would do."
"No! No!" Salvador spoke up, "I-I got proof. When we couldn't make Zimmerman break, he told me to have him killed. I told him I knew a-a junkie that would do it for $5,000."
Looking over his shoulder Tony had an incredulous smirk on his lips, "You expect me to buy that your commanding officer forked over $5,000 to have one of his own men axed off? You're giving me nothing, Salvador. If you really want to help yourself, you need to give me something solid. I need a phone conversation, a recording, hell a receipt! Anything other than your word, because after everything you've been telling us up to this, your word is worthless."
"Ouch" Ziva smirked enjoying the show.
"Now that we got him," Gibbs began, "I'm going to have a talk with Tanner" but before he could leave the room his cellphone vibrated. It was Abby. Answering it hoping for good news, "What do you got, Abby?"
The tech had sadness in her voice, "Gibbs, I'm sorry, but I ran all the fingerprints, but couldn't recover Tanner's. I did get Salvador's and the shooter's on the weapon and the money. I ran everything hoping that Tanner had so much as coughed on them...but there's nothing here. I'm sorry."
Though disappointed about the no evidence, Gibbs knew that it wasn't Abby's fault. "You did good, Abby. Keep at it" before hanging up. He carefully entered the room where Tanner was sitting rather restless, his thick arms crossed on his stomach. When seeing the Marine enter he became nervous over their last meeting, but Gibbs showed no malice as he sat across from him, no paper or evidence in hand except for the waivers. Placing the papers before him Gibbs said, "You know why you're here?"
Looking at Gibbs with his beady eyes Tanner drew a breath slowly, "I would certainly hope that I would be told by your people after being forced to come here so early in the damn morning" he complained, "I've been waiting here for hours and no one has told me a thing!"
Gibbs was careful and calm with his words, "You're here, commander, because one of your people has been shot, and you don't seem to care that those responsible are in your unit."
Tanner scoffed at this, rubbing both palms against his tired face, "What is with you people? NCIS is suppose to take care of major crimes and here you are worrying about a sailor being shot. Hell, he's not even dead. What's with all of this attention?"
"We're giving him the attention that you didn't give him" Gibbs said coldly with his eyes staring intently at the officer, but still not raising his voice, "You seem like the kind of person that loves to abuse his rank. I'm a Marine and we're suppose to hard on each other, but you are the kind that beats and torments the lower ranks because you think you can be a bully and no one can step up to you. And the one person that didn't give in to your torments is now on a machine in a hospital."
This had Tanner surprised. He couldn't speak for a moment. Gibbs slid the papers in front of him. "What-what's this?"
"These are your waivers to speak to us, to waive your right council."
"Why would I need that? Am I under arrest?"
"No" Gibbs nodded, "Not yet."
"Not yet? Hang on just a moment, Agent Gibbs" nervously holding up a hand, "Are you trying to connect me to what happened to Zimmerman? How? What's your evidence?"
Not wanting to give in just yet, Gibbs sat there staring at him with a thin smirk on his lips. He knew the 'evidence' against Tanner was essentially Salvador's word against his own, but he could make him break if he was careful. "Salvador rolled on you."
"He did?"
"Oh yeah" Gibbs nodded, "He was able to give us enough for us to have this sit down, including the five-grand that you gave him to hire the hit man. A junkie neighbor." Now that he had poked him Gibbs waited for his reaction.
Tanner sat there with his hands slowly moving onto the cold surface of the desk, fingers outstretched. He drew a breath, but didn't show signs of breaking, "Agent Gibbs. I know that you have a job to do, but if you honestly think that you can get me to break and confess to something that I didn't do, then you obviously don't know who I am."
That was a surprised turn, but Gibbs didn't show it on his hard face.
Tanner continued, "If you had any real evidence against me, I would be handcuffs by now and sitting in a cell. Salvador is just trying to take someone down with him. What he did is horrible, and I hope that he gets the hangman's noose for it, but I didn't do it."
"Damn" Ziva sighed as she watched it.
They couldn't get Tanner, but they got Salvador. Despite the latter's loud claims, they didn't have enough to arrest him just on his word alone and the money could easily be explained away. Though bitter, the team were still glad they got at least one of them. Gibbs left the interview room and had everyone gather at their desks. The hours of interviews had taken their toll that they were near dead on their feet with McGee nodding off in his chair as Gibbs came to his desk to grab his piece, "Type up your paperwork. Charge Salvador with attempted capital murder. Let the others go home" then he headed towards the elevator.
"Where are you going?" Ziva asked.
"I'm going to visit an old friend"
It was a long and quiet drive to get to the Pentagon. Gibbs parked his vehicle, entered the building, checked through security, and headed towards his destination without saying a word. He knew where he was going. The sun was now above the horizon and people were filtering in to their offices. He came to one door, entered and approached the secretary behind the desk.
"Can I help you?" the old woman asked.
"I'm here to see the SecNav" Gibbs replied.
"And you are?"
"Agent Gibbs. NCIS" showing her the badge. "I'm an old friend."
The secretary picked up her phone and dialed. When she mentioned who was there the door behind her immediately opened and an old man walking tall and proud came out with a beaming smile on his face. "Gunny, how are you?" the Secretary smiled giving Gibbs a firm handshake. "You haven't age a day."
"No. But I do feel like it" Gibbs quipped as they went into the back.
The office was big with a large oak desk the Secretary of the Navy sat behind and a wall to wall bookcase behind him filly with books, picture frames, and mementos from his many voyages on the seas and the walls were lined with pictures of him the President, celebrities, and his family. "Have a seat" he offered to Gibbs while going to his desk and sitting down in a black leather chair. "It's always good see you, my old friend. But, let's cut to the chase. You wouldn't be coming to me unless it is something important..."
"It's the Zimmerman Case" Gibbs sighed.
"That sailor shot in the park?"
Gibbs nodded.
"How is he?"
"Barely hanging on" Gibbs sighed. "We have two people right now. One has confessed his involvement and is pointing the finger at his partner that he was involved, but...we don't have anything solid to hold him on."
Bell sat for a moment to think. Zimmerman. The name was familiar. "Oh yes!" rising back from his seat and around his desk. "I've meet so many people that the name eluded me for a moment." He singled out a black framed picture on the wall to Gibbs' right and took it down before coming back. "Yes. I remember him now. A talented artist. He drew this one for me. My father was on the USS Cyrene, the same ship that Don Rickles served on in World War II" presenting the picture to Gibbs. Like all of Zimmerman's other work, it was a finely done pencil drawing of a profile of the ship with his father underneath showing his medals. "Such talent. He was able to do that all in 3 days" holding up three fingers from his right hand. "Imagine that. Hard for anyone around here to do anything in such a short about a time" he jested. Then, he remembered where he was.
Gibbs handed back the portrait, "Salvador fingered his boss, Commander Tanner, of giving him the money and the order to kill Zimmerman."
"Why?"
"Zimmerman and two junior officers went to CID with claims of a toxic command; favoritism, hazing, physical and mental torture, you name it. When they found out about it, Tanner transferred the officers and kept Zimmerman in constant fear to the point he thought about killing himself. However, we don't have enough on Tanner to charge him with that. The only thing we can possibly get him on is destroying Zimmerman's property, but we can't talk to him right now as he's on a machine to stay alive."
Secretary Bell sat there for a moment in surprise. There had been a lot of horrible commanders, but he couldn't believe that there would be someone that would go to the extreme of killing one of their own.
Gibbs continued, "When we searched Tanner's office we found many commendations and awards that were suppose to be given to Zimmerman for his work, but Tanner refused to give them. Part of his scheme to make him break."
"When I was presented this picture" tapping the Cyrene now laying on his desk, "I wrote up a special commendation for Zimmerman."
"That was in the stack we recovered" Gibbs said.
Bell's face contorted into a frown. "I have no reason to doubt you, gunny. Rest assured, I'll convene a Special Courts Martial for this. I'll need your paperwork on what you recovered and so forth, but rest assured, Tanner's days are done here in the Navy."
McGee, Tony, and Ziva sat at their desks the paperwork stacked before them. McGee finally nodded off in his chair. Ziva and DiNozzo let him sleep. They were tired, but now Ziva had a game going to see who was to be last man standing for Gibbs when he returned. Tony said, "I drank a lot of coffee" trying to get at her.
"Caffine is never the right thing to stay awake" Ziva warned. "It is a drug and when a drug finally runs its course through your body, you will crash."
"I once stayed awake for 90 hours straight" DiNozzo replied from his desk.
"That's cute" Ziva smirked, "But in training for Mossad, I stayed up for 2 weeks on a mission in Gaza" holding up two fingers to him."
"I think you're lying" he hesitantly responded.
"Try me."
He wanted to. DiNozzo reclined in his seat, stretching his tired arms above his head then bending at the elbows with the palms holding up his heavy head, all the while staring at Ziva whom stared right back. It went on for several seconds, trying to wear each other down physicality. "You better keep your eyes open" DiNozzo warned, "If I see you so much as nod off..."
"Are you trying to be the boss?" Ziva asked.
"I am the boss," Tony smiled, "Here, the Director is in charge of everything and Gibbs is in charge of this team. When he's not here, i'm in charge."
"Why are you in charge?" the Israeli wondered.
"I'm senior. You're on probation and Sleeping Beauty over there is senior to you, but not senior to me."
"That's cute" Ziva said, but their conversation was interrupted when McGee suddenly leaped from his feet knocking his chair back into the cubicle wall. "That's it!" McGee he announced loudly.
"What's what, probie?" DiNozzo asked having nearly fallen out of his chair at the suddenly action.
Without another word McGee grabbed his laptop and rushed out of the room leaving the others in a stunned silence.
Where McGee took him was a long and quiet ride to the hospital where Zimmerman was in intensive care. His condition was dire, so he wanted to make sure that he could at least see those that cared about him one more time. He spent several minutes in the waiting room plugging in information for his Skype account and when he was allowed in he was able to see Zimmerman up close for the first time. His heart nearly fell. He was asleep with his nose connected to plastic hoses pumping oxygen into his body, his chest bandages from his many surgeries to recover the projectile and fragments. His face was pale and frame thin. The heart monitor was beating beside him giving his blood pressure as well. He was tough to be able to hold out for so long, but at the moment he was asleep and he didn't want to wake him, until his brown eyes fluttered open.
"W-who...?" Zimmerman weakly began to ask.
"Sir, I'm Agent McGee of NCIS."
"Why..." Zimmerman asked.
"I'm investigating your attack," McGee began but then he stopped to think that perhaps he was asking why he was in the hospital. He brushed those aside, "Sir, I know that you have a lot of questions, but I have some people here that might want to talk to you, if you're up for it."
To his surprise, Zimmerman nodded ever so slightly.
"Good". Beside the bed was a food tray. McGee moved the tray towards the bed and placed his laptop and opened it so that webcam was facing himself while he activated the program. Pulling up his Skype he sent a request to Brannan. What they were doing was breaking the rules, but if the staff of this hospital knew that this might be his last time, then they would be willing to break the rules at least once. The connection ringed for several moments before she accepted. The image was blurry at first but when it focused she said, "Agent McGee. How are you?" she was tired as they were several hours behind them on the East Coast.
"I'm good, lieutenant, but someone here would like to speak with you" McGee nodded then turned the laptop around to Zimmerman and her face fell.
It was hard for her to see her friend with tubes inside of him, but he was awake and spoke garbled, "Hi"
Brannan immediately leaned in. She couldn't believe it. He was awake and talking. "Hi, sweetie. How are you feeling?"
"I...barely...feel..." his voice becoming weak and faded.
Brannan's eyes began to water up and she wiped them away with the tips of her fingers. "I know. I hope you're doing okay. Good news is, we're going to be heading back to Japan soon. I can get a hop back to you."
Unable to say anything, Zimmerman nodded.