A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed; I appreciate it! We're now entering the boondocks, and oh boy, it's gonna be quite a ride!
As always, reviews, favorites, follows, and constructive criticism are welcomed and appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS. I don't take credit for actual dialogue used in the episode, "Mind Games" (3.03), even although some of them have been altered to fit this story. Any resemblance to dialogue from other TV shows, movies, or elsewhere is purely coincidental.
Chapter Eleven:
Cutting the Past Out
By GallaudetLurker
June 18, 2005
9:28 AM
Abandoned farm
North of Waverly, VA
A white Ford E-series van with reinforced windows pulled to a stop in front of what appeared to be an abandoned, dilapidated Gothic-style barn on a grassy clearing. The words 'Sussex State Prison' were displayed on its sides and 'Sussex County, Bureau of Prisons' on the back, both printed in black. Several heavily-armed state troopers got out of their escort vehicles; two of them walked over to the back of the van and opened its double doors.
A man in his mid- to late thirties stepped out, clad in a bright orange prison jumpsuit, his hands and feet manacled. The heavy and thick leg cuffs rattled as he took several steps toward the large Gothic-style barn, flanked by the guards, one of them pointing a shotgun at his back.
Upon reaching the barn, with a gesture from one of the officials, the troopers pulled the large double doors open. They cautiously crept into the largely-deserted barn, keeping a lookout for anything out of the ordinary among the bales of hay that sparsely littered the barn's floor.
The prisoner jerked his chin upwards toward the top of the barn's ceiling. "It's up there."
One of the prison officials escorting the prison, an Officer McGraw, raised his eyebrows skeptically before his superior, Warden Sam Kelleher, nodded for him to get up the nearby ladder to the loft. As McGraw did so, Kelleher looked at the prisoner, a slightly irritated expression on his face.
"I hope this wasn't a total waste of my time, Boone," he said. "You promised us bodies."
The man known as Boone smirked. "One thing at a time, Warden. I promised you, after all, and I intend to keep it. As I said, my...souvenirs are up there in the loft." He gestured toward the barn with his hands as much as his manacles allowed him, the chains rattling slightly as he did so.
The Warden's brow furrowed in confusion. "Souvenirs?" Boone's reply was to smirk as several pigeons flew out of the lot, nearly catching McGraw off-guard.
"Found something!" McGraw's voice called out several moment later. "I'm not exactly sure what it is," he began descending the ladder, carefully holding what appeared to be a large glass jar. One of the steps gave away, however, and McGraw let out a startled yell as he plummeted to the ground; the jar fell from his hands and shattered on impact, its contents scattering on the floor.
The concerned yells of the officials at McGraw's welfare were soon replaced by exclamations of disgust.
"What the hell is that?!" Kelleher scrunched his face up at the contents, looking like he was about to hurl.
Boone's grin widened, his eyes twinkling sadistically. "Those, my friend, are my souvenirs."
Scattered across the ground in front of the assembled officials and state troopers were dried, severed remains of human tongues.
"They were always my favorite sexual organs," Boone mused as he looked at the tongues, a wistful expression on his face. The Warden's scowl deepened and he rounded on the prisoner.
"Where are the girls?"
Boone's grin widened. "Close," he drawled. "But you have to give me a little something in return for them, Sam."
The Warden gritted his teeth as he took a step toward Boone. "The only thing you're going to get from me is your last meal!" he turned to the state troopers. "Take this animal back to death row."
As the troopers grabbed Boone's arms, ready to drag him back to the van, Boone opened his mouth. "What about the victims' families? I'm their last chance for closure, after all!"
The Warden looked like he was debating with himself whether to listen to what this prisoner had to say or ignore him and order him to be violently tossed into the van like the rabid animal he truly was. He let out a long sigh, looking like he was going to regret it.
"What is it you want?"
Boone's eyes gleamed, his smirk widening.
"Not much, just the man who put me in these," he put up his wrists. "NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs."
"Still, you shouldn't have done that."
Gibbs chuckled at Kate's grumbling and even more at the glare she was shooting at him. He glanced at the numbers that steadily blinked on the position indicator near the top of the elevator doors. They had just passed the second floor and were heading toward the third.
"Can't help that I like to be on top," Gibbs raised his coffee cup to his lips to hide his grin. Kate's glare intensified as her face began to turn red.
"Yeah, especially when you were pinning me to the floor, manhandling my poor body like there was no tomorrow! I'm gonna be sore for the next several months, no thanks to you!" She shot back, throwing her hands up.
Gibbs' eyes twinkled under the elevator lights. "I thought you liked it rough, Katie."
"Not the way you do it, Gibbs!"
Laughter rumbled out of his throat. "Well, you sure weren't complaining last night." Kate's blush intensified.
"Given the way you were holding me there, how was I supposed to complain? You always like to keep at it right to the very end!" Gibbs raised an eyebrow, his smirk widening.
"You sure we were talking about wrestling just now?" he casually sipped his coffee once again, trying not to think about the way his body had reacted when she had squirmed under him, as Kate began to sputter. The elevator doors opened and he stepped out before she could get a word out.
"Why—you—I—" she took a deep breath as she trailed after her boss. "You always cheat at wrestling, and you know it, Gibbs!" she protested, her face still tinted red.
"Hey, what you call 'cheating'," Gibbs pointed out as he turned around and raised a finger. "I call it 'winning'." Kate rolled her eyes.
"Figures!" she huffed, shaking her head.
Gibbs chuckled as he turned around again, only to stop in his tracks, Kate nearly bumping into his back, when he saw what was displayed on the plasma screen. Staring back at him was a familiar, smug face of the man who terrorized the District in the nineties – and who had long been an elusive predator. Not for nothing was Kyle Boone known as the "Tongue Stalker" during that time.
"The hell's he doing on my screen?" Gibbs growled as he glared at the screen. Seeing that damned face brought back long-dormant memories, unpleasant ones.
"We heard you were interviewing Kyle Boone, and we assumed that we would be providing backup," a familiar female voice made him jolt out of his impromptu glaring match with Boone, and he turned to its source, his eyes widening slightly.
Standing in front of him was the Pentagon-based NCIS Special Agent Paula Cassidy.
As he stared at the blonde, he thought back to the last time he saw her, when she pounced upon a terrorist mastermind to stop him from detonating a powerful bomb strapped to his body that fateful day in April 2007. She succeeded, pushing him into an adjoining room and slamming the revolving wall shut behind her, but at the expense of her life as the ensuing explosion consumed her body and that of the terrorist, sending shockwaves throughout the floor they were on. Although they had a tense relationship at times, her death had greatly saddened him, although not so much as DiNozzo, who visibly looked devastated.
"Boss?"
He blinked out of his thoughts, his vision refocusing to see the concerned faces of Kate, DiNozzo, McGee, and Paula looking at him. He sighed inwardly; he had to stop doing this whenever he came face-to-face with a long-dead person. It was rather unbecoming of him.
"You were saying something about Boone?"
DiNozzo and Paula exchanged looks. "Um, as I said, we found out that you would interview Boone and thought we'd help you out," Paula spoke up. "The Governor of Virginia has requested you to talk with him, and he's on standby at the MTAC."
Gibbs swallowed, looking around the bullpen. "Find her a desk," he said as he began walking toward the stairs.
"Which desk, Boss? There aren't any around—"
"Find one, DiNozzo!" Gibbs snapped as he bounded up the stairs. A minute later, he was standing in the darkened MTAC, looking at a live-feed screen of Governor Charles Norin, who was sitting at his desk in Richmond.
"With the recommendation of Director Shepard here, I have decided to request that you meet with Kyle Boone in order to ascertain the locations of his undiscovered victims. Will you do it?"
Despite his knowledge of the future, Gibbs wasn't looking forward to meeting Boone again. The man had played games with him back in 1995, dangling false promises only to renege on them at the worst possible moment (among other things). He'd rather undergo a root canal procedure, without anesthetic, than relive the summer of 1995 all over again.
And besides, even if he accepted right away, it wouldn't do much to expedite Boone's execution, which was already scheduled for Saturday.
"With all due respect, sir, why should I meet with him? It would only be a waste of time."
Norin leaned forward in his desk. "Perhaps, but if there's a chance – however slim – that he would tell you the location of his victims, we have to take it."
Gibbs cocked his head. "Somehow I doubt it. I spent five months interrogating him. He wouldn't budge back then, why would he do so now?"
"Perhaps he wants to re-evaluate his life choices now that he's facing imminent death?" Norin suggested, intertwining his hands.
"Somehow, I don't think it's in his interests."
"Well, it's been a decade. People change."
Gibbs couldn't disagree more. "Not Kyle Boone."
The Governor raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. "Are you refusing to meet with him?"
Gibbs shook his head. "No, sir. I'm just wondering about why I should go over to entertain a homicidal maniac who tortured and killed twenty-two women."
"But the hundreds of family members who lost a daughter, a sister, or a mother would receive some closure, and what better to do that than a person who brought Boone to justice on their behalf?"
Spoken like a true politician, Gibbs thought, but didn't voice it aloud. "You do realize that he wouldn't be willing to tell us the locations of the victims, right?"
"There's no harm in trying," Norin said. "Either way, he goes to the electric chair on Saturday. But it would be better if we got one last confession out of him. Will you do it, Agent Gibbs?"
Gibbs heaved out a sigh, glancing at Jenny. "I suppose so." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the self-satisfied look in the Governor's eyes and the proud expression on Jenny's face as she spoke to the Governor in turn.
Giving the Director one last glance, Gibbs headed out of MTAC and descended the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the others turn their heads to him.
"Where you going, Boss?" DiNozzo inquired as Gibbs passed him, grabbing his overcoat from behind his chair.
"Sussex State Prison to interview Kyle Boone. Be gone the rest of the day," he replied, heading toward the elevator.
"Do you want me to go with you?" Kate called out, not seeing DiNozzo raise his eyebrows. Gibbs turned to the brunette, the corner of his lips curling up. As much as he wanted her to go with him, he didn't want her to be anywhere in the vicinity of Boone. He didn't want his Katie to be the last thing Boone saw before he went to the electric chair, if he could help it. After all, brunettes were Boone's favorite victims.
"Nah, you stay here, Katie," he said as he began putting his overcoat on. "Do some report work, keep DiNozzo on his leash, something." He ignored DiNozzo's indignant "Hey!" as he entered the elevator.
"We moved Boone to Death Watch on Monday," Warden Sam Kelleher was explaining as Gibbs followed him through the front doors of Sussex State Prison into the front reception room. "That's when he decided to talk."
Mightily convenient, Gibbs thought.
"We do things a little different here in Virginia. The condemned get a choice: lethal injection or death by electrocution. Boone is the first one to choose the latter," the Warden continued as they made their way toward the isolation ward that Boone was held in.
"He deserves worse." Gibbs meant it with all his heart. He noticed something out the corner of his left eye and turned his head to see the person approach him. His gut clenched.
"Special Agent Gibbs?" the person spoke, extending a hand in greeting. "I'm Adam O'Neill, Kyle Boone's attorney." Gibbs narrowed his eyes slightly at the slick lawyer who had been secretly committing the killings on Boone's behalf. He didn't want to grasp the hand who had strangled the lives out of many an innocent woman, but then a thought came to his mind.
"Pleased to meet you." He grasped O'Neill's hand and squeezed it too hard, making the lawyer wince in pain. This could easily be passed off as a Marine thing (and it was).
"I appreciate y-your coming," O'Neill groaned as Gibbs continued to maintain the pressure. "I, uh, I understand that you're reluctant to, but I, ah, truly believe that my client's intentions are sincere here." He all but let out a relieved sigh when Gibbs let go, massaging his hand. Kelleher quirked an eyebrow.
"The day I arrested your client, we found two human female tongues in his refrigerator," Gibbs said, subconsciously fisting his hands.
"I'm familiar with the case, Agent Gibbs," O'Neill said smoothly. Gibbs' jaw clenched.
"Really?" he all but spat out. "You familiar with the names of his victims?" O'Neill looked taken aback.
"Uh, look, I'm not here to talk about the past," the lawyer pointed out. "I'm trying to save a man's life." Gibbs inwardly snorted at this.
"Boone wants a deal?"
O'Neill shook his head. "No, he wants the chair for his crimes. I'm hoping to get him life in prison."
"How noble of you," Gibbs said sarcastically. O'Neill blinked at this, looking over at the Warden in slight confusion.
"Agent Gibbs, I'm trying to do my job here, like you are doing yours. Perhaps together we can both help the victims' family find some closure."
"You want closure? Be there Saturday, you'll be able to see them get that."
"Ehm," Kelleher cleared his throat, catching their attention. "Right this way, gentlemen," he gestured toward the ward.
"Actually, Mister Boone wants to meet with Agent Gibbs...alone," O'Neill pointed out, glancing at Gibbs.
"Fine by me," Gibbs said. O'Neill looked surprised, as if he was expecting him to object or something.
Kelleher led the way to the ward. As they reached the sliding door that led to a vestibule outside the tiny cell, the Warden turned to him. "There's a guard out here if you need him." Gibbs was partly-listening to him, his eyes fixated on the man who was reclining on his bed in the cell ahead. The man who should be dead all over again.
He walked into the vestibule, the door sliding open and closing behind him as he stopped before the cell door.
Right on cue, Boone's eyes opened and his face broke into a wide grin. "Nice to see you again, Jethro. I wasn't sure if you'd come, but here you are!"
Gibbs gritted his teeth at the maddeningly confident expression on Boone's face. He did not look like a condemned prisoner slated for the chair, but an overconfident frat boy whose rich father would get him off the hook.
"You have two minutes. Start talking." Not that he expected Boone to tell him right away.
"You know, you look nearly the same, except for the hair," Boone sidestepped the question. "When did it go gray?"
"Where are the bodies?" He knew where, of course.
"We'll get to that," Boone said dismissively with a wave of the hand. "There's a few things I need to ask you."
"Let me guess, they're about your 'souvenirs'?" Gibbs remembered Boone's tendency to collect the tongues of his victims after killing them. It was one of his calling cards, and he shuddered to think what he probably did with them back then.
Boone blinked, his grin widening. "Wow, how did you know that?"
Gibbs cocked his head slightly. "Lucky guess."
"Huh, here I thought you would bait me or otherwise denigrate my rep. I guess you're really showing your age."
Gibbs let his lips curl a little. "Baiting never worked on you anyways. Where are the bodies?"
Boone sat up on his bed. "Can't we just chat for a bit? I'm sure you didn't come all the way here just to ask a few questions about bodies and yadda dadda," he said. "How's the wife? She left you, didn't she? I tried to warn you about that. Women can't understand men like us, always nagging and bitching about shit."
"Better to cut off their tongues, right?"
Boone guffawed. "Oh, I always love your sense of humor! I must admit, I've missed it."
"You're about to miss it, given that you have three days left. How does that feel?" Gibbs said sardonically.
Boone shrugged. "Terrified, actually." he didn't look terrified at all. "Weird, considering my former activities."
"Yeah, weird, considering that you're somehow in several places at once."
Boone laughed. "It sure looks that way, huh?"
"It looks like a copy-cat killer to me, don't ya think?" Gibbs said with a casual shrug. Boone blinked before he smirked.
"Wow, guess your age didn't quite catch up to you yet. And isn't the two minutes up?"
"Extended it by two more minutes." Boone raised his eyebrows.
"That's a tad generous, don't you think?"
"Found that I missed talking to you," Gibbs remarked, and Boone let out another guffaw, slapping his knee.
"Now there's that Gibbs humor again!"
"You want more of my humor, you tell me where the bodies are."
"Aw, come on," Boone protested. "If I tell you, then you'll leave and never come back. That's not a nice thing to do to a condemned prisoner who's on the verge of electrocuted, isn't it?" Gibbs narrowed his eyes slightly.
"It wasn't a nice thing to kidnap, rape, and kill innocent young women, and cut out their tongues as some prize, wasn't it?"
"Come on, you don't believe what they said, do you?" Boone threw his hands up. "I may have committed vile, unspeakable deeds over many years, but I can assure you that rape wasn't one of them." Gibbs knew he was lying.
"I don't know, you look like you were into that kind of thing."
"Ouch, that was a low blow," Boone feigned hurt, putting his hand over his chest. "You really have changed. The old Gibbs would never say that."
"Age changes people. One last chance: where is the dumping ground?"
Boone smirked. "Oh, wouldn't you like to know?"
"Wouldn't you like to know what's it like to be slowly fried in that chair?" Gibbs growled, wishing that Ziva had been in NCIS at this time. She would've easily broken Boone down in less than a minute. This 'game' had gone on long enough, it was 1995 all over again.
"I see you haven't cut back on the caffeine like I told you."
"See you Saturday." Gibbs turned around and walked toward the sliding door, slamming his palm on the button.
"Wait! You can't leave! Come on, I was only messing around with you," Boone cried out, making him stop in his tracks. "You're here because you're following orders like a good Marine, right? I'll tell you where they are, where they all are, I swear! There's more than twenty-two, Jethro. Lot more."
Gibbs wordlessly passed through the sliding door, getting his cell out. He was about to press the speed dial number when a thought struck him. With a reluctant sigh, Gibbs flipped the cell closed and turned around.
"Changed your mind, Gibbs?" Boone chuckled when Gibbs re-entered.
"Decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. For that, you get three minutes instead of the usual two."
Boone laughed. "Oh, your generosity overwhelms me. Surely a man like me shouldn't deserve it."
"You said you would tell me where the remains were." Gibbs went straight to business. "Out with it."
"Oh...that's the thing," Boone pretended to be conflicted. "I don't want to ruin your generosity. No, really, I don't. But, you see...well, I'm not sure if you know it or not, but I have a—"
"Scrapbook, I know." Gibbs interrupted.
Boone blinked in surprise, raising his eyebrows. "Damn! You've always had a knack for that kind of shit. That's how you caught me, after all." the serial killer laughed aloud. "But you are right, I do have a scrapbook. But that's kinda the thing...you see, I need to see it one more time, just to refresh my memory. It's not what it's used to be, y'know."
"Don't worry, it's gonna be fired up in a few days."
Boone chuckled and shook his head. "That's what it is, Jethro. You find the scrapbook, I will help you. I swear."
"One minute left. I suggest you use it wisely to tell me the locations."
"Fine, since you asked so nicely," Boone shrugged. "The victims are located in..." he trailed off.
"Forty-five seconds."
"Let me think about it a bit. As I told you, my memories' not what it used to be."
"Thirty seconds."
"Gosh, you can be so impatient." Boone tsk-tsked, shaking his head. "But very well."
"Twenty-four seconds."
"Jethro, I can't focus properly with you pressuring me like that," Boone chided.
"You want pressure? You have thirteen seconds on the clock!"
"I guess I'll have to make the best use of it, then," he then thought about it, or pretended to. Gibbs couldn't tell. "The victims...they are in..."
"The state of Virginia!" Boone laughed.
"Time's out. Enjoy the electric chair."
"Don't forget the scrapbook!" Boone called after Gibbs' retreating back.
He walked over to Kelleher and O'Neill, who were standing outside the ward.
"It went well, I presume?" O'Neill inquired with a polite smile. Gibbs politely ignored him.
"Didn't get any headway with Boone," he explained to the Warden. "I want him transferred to NCIS right away."
"What? You can't do that, you have no—" the lawyer was cut off when Kelleher nodded his assent. "This can be arranged."
With a nod of satisfaction, Gibbs gave O'Neill one last penetrating glare before he left.