Chapter Twelve
Inquisition
Michelle hadn't recognized Tim hanging from the long chains; how could she with Tim McGee standing behind her? Now at a whispered word of warning she ducks to her right, avoids a punch from behind, completes the turn to the 'McGee' she'd entered with. Her foot comes up in a high arc, her heel slams into the side of his head. The kick knocks him aside even as the Sig is ripped from her grip. She twists to the side, realizes that, momentarily blinded by the bright light, she hadn't seen the two men and a woman enter behind them.
Moving as quickly as she can, she attacks with feet and hands, knees and elbows, offering no mercy. She's fighting for her life and Tim's. Kicking and slashing, ducking, weaving and leaping, she calls on all her karate and judo skills, NCIS training and Mossad coaching. Lashing out as hard as she can, she keeps out of the reach of the four, moving with Ninja-like silence, taking every advantage her smaller stature allows.
The men move like bulls, probably used to slugging it out toe to toe with other men. She realizes they have no idea how to fight a smaller woman who knows how to use her stature and her skills.
A hard kick to one man's face knocks him spinning in the air to fall flat upon his face. A judo throw of the fake McGee body slams him to the concrete floor. She doesn't try to get in a 'crotch shot' but when one of the men leaves her an unguarded target she's ready. His falsetto scream slices through the small room as he crashes to the floor.
When the three remaining assailants, considerably worse for wear, surround her, Michelle changes her tactics. Rather than silent devastation, her piercing screech deafens everyone, including herself. She renews her vicious attack. A punch to the throat drives the bogus McGee into the wall. Vicious kicks knock the second man over a table. She'd tried very hard to break at least one of his ribs, sorry she hadn't managed it.
She turns to meet the charge of the blonde woman and an instant later pain explodes in her lower back. The third man's fist slammed into her left kidney. She's stunned by the incredible pain, unable to move. He grabs her and throws her backward to the floor. She slams so hard her head bounces off the concrete and four bodies pile atop her. Her wrists are grabbed, pinned to the floor and hands tear at her blouse. The material shreds loudly.
"Hold on," the woman's voice cuts through the press of bodies, "what do you think you're doing?"
"The bitch kicked me in the nuts!" one angry voice retorts as Michelle manages to look up past a shoulder up to the bruised face of Tim McGee, the real Tim McGee. She's trapped at his feet. "As soon as I stop hurting, she's going to pay!"
Tim, held suspended above them, kicks at the men as hard as he can, but backed to the wall he can get no force.
The three men continue tearing at Michelle, ripping off the pink Victoria's Secret silk bra that Jimmy was the only one ever supposed to see.
"Wait!" the blonde woman, the one she's sure the bogus McGee had described yesterday, commands.
"You wait!"
"Bulls in a China shop," she exclaims. "We've been trying for two days to break him - and if you break his jaw he can't tell us the code."
They stop their forceful stripping, Michelle's blouse and bra long gone. With her arms pinned over her head, she struggles but can't hide herself.
The woman turns to McGee. "You'll die before you give up that code." He nods sharply, defiantly. "But you'll talk before you'll see anything happen to this lovely young lady, won't you?"
x
The men shift positions. The pseudo-McGee holds Michelle's arms high over her head, the other men each taking one of her legs. Despite her struggles, they spread her legs wide. Trapped on the concrete in front of Tim, clad now only in her skirt and panties, she tries not to blush, tries not to think of her exposure.
She can't fight them. Struggle though she does, she's trapped under their strength. The real McGee, suspended against the wall, continues trying to kick at them, but in their frenzy the men ignore the blows.
One of them, angered by Tim's relentless attacks, gets off her and hits him, a vicious punch to one of his livid wounds. A harder assault to his burned flesh makes Tim writhe in silent agony. Grimacing, unable to breathe, he hangs, gasping for air as the phony McGee and the other two men drag Michelle out of the wounded agent's reach.
"Whatever they do, Agent McGee sir," Michelle cries, trying to ignore her exposure, "whatever they want, don't give it to them!" She neither knows nor cares what it is; if it's important enough for him to hold out through two days of torture, she doesn't want to become the thing that changes his mind.
Tim's warped twin traps her wrists crossed over her head, leans his weight on her and his free hand squeezes her breast tightly.
Michelle bites her lips to hold them together. The pain is horrendous but she won't make a sound. He squeezes tighter, the agony stops her breathing. She concentrates only on enduring the pain. He twists hard, the agony increases a hundredfold but she keeps silent.
"Idiot," the blonde exclaims angrily, kneeling down between Michelle's spread legs and knocking his hand away, "you have no idea what you're doing."
Michelle, freed of the horrendous agony, gasps deeply, finally able to breathe. It's hard but she manages to hide the lingering pain and look upward, meeting the fake McGee's eyes, breath returning in urgent gasps. She smiles in mocking triumph. "My last boyfriend -" she gasps, "- hurt me worse."
The imposter draws back his fist and Michelle smiles more sweetly, ready to shift aside if she can goad him into striking. 'Maybe he'll break his fist on the cement,' she hopes.
x
"Stop, you imbecile," the blonde woman bites. Still kneeling between her widely spread legs, she reaches under Michelle's skirt, tugs her panties aside. The helpless Agent looks up at her, tries to hide her fear as she strains for escape.
Michelle's determined to show nothing of fear. Her lips clamped tightly together, she will give this bitch nothing. She feels the woman's questing, probing fingers past the yanked aside crotch of her panties and braces herself to show nothing, no matter what the blonde monster does.
"When it comes to the really sensitive parts," the blonde bitch tells her fellows with a feral grin, "only another woman really knows how!"
Michelle flings her head back and shrieks.
x
Helpless, pinned by the three men, Michelle writhes helplessly under the woman's vicious assault. She refuses to scream again, clamps her lips together between her teeth. The false McGee summons one of the men to take hold of her arms. Michelle can't close her legs past the sadistic woman's body before her ankles are secured again.
The evil clone gets up, faces his captive original. His stolen jacket is torn, his face scuffed and bleeding, but he projects himself the merciless victor. "See that?" he points to the suffering woman. "That's just the beginning unless you give us the code."
Tim stares at Michelle, whose tiny cries forced from clamped lips are testament to horrendous pain as she struggles, helpless, and his heart breaks.
"No."
x
"What is it with you?" the doppelganger demands of his suspended captive. "You've got all those cunts falling all over themselves for you. Ziva, Abby, they'll endure anything for you. I took Ziva to your special spot but she didn't like how I played your game. Seems she's not into biting, being punched or raped on the steps." He grins in sadistic delight at the horror in his captive's eyes. "But that's nothing compared to what I did to that other one. I raped her in the elevator just like we're going to do to this one. She didn't even report you."
Tim stares at him in horror as his twin grins triumphantly.
"But what screams - how she begged me to stop-."
"Who?" Tim can't endure it anymore. The bastard raped Zee and another of his friends? Who?
"I don't know, she was just another twat in one of those black jackets." he smirks. "She tried so hard to keep it closed, but I was more interested in what she had between her legs. And she couldn't believe her Tim McGee had her on her back and was giving her the porking of her life! She was so sweet. She shrieked her head off when-"
"WHO?" Tim's yell crams the room with his fury, drowns out Michelle's muffled cries.
"Don't know. The redhead," 'McGee's' grin is pure evil as the horror blooms in his captive's face, "the Irish one."
x
Even held upright by heavy chains, Tim's rage lets him charge his doppelganger. All he wants is his upraised hands about the monster's throat! "You bastard - I'll kill you!" he rages, face contorted into a mask of murderous fury. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
The imposter places his hand on the bloody wound on Tim's chest, pushes hard as Tim falls away, driven back by a blast of agony.
"You'll watch as we take turns now with this bitch, and you'll remember your screaming girlfriend as she lay under me on the elevator floor begging me to stop. All you have to do to save this one is to give up the code."
He releases Tim and leaves him hanging, gasping in pain. He goes over and pushes the woman out of the way, interrupting the agonizing torture that has Michelle writhing in agony. He opens his belt. Michelle's skirt is about her waist, her panties broken at the crotch.
"Imbecile," the blonde woman pushes him away, "you think rapeis the worst thing that can happen to a woman? Every man thinks of that. She's obviously been trained to endure it." She leans harder on Michelle's knee as the naked Agent looks up at her, defiance blazing in her eyes. "Get some ropes; secure her there," she points to a floor to ceiling pipe by the door. "And there," she indicates the heavy desk across the room. As the two men hold Michelle's arms above her head and her legs spread wide, the blonde woman reaches for her but looks up at Tim. "By the time I'm done, she won't ever let her boyfriend near her again."
"Goddess, please help me!" Michelle implores in a desperate whisper. She tries her best to endure the intimate attack. Her pleading whispers to a host of women's names, none of whom they may know, are the only sound she'll allow herself to make.
A sharp twist of her tormentor's hand, Michelle's body arches in agony, her shriek reverberates in the small room.
xxx
At Gibbs' direction DiNozzo takes a well needed break, leaving Reignforest in the Interrogation Room to stew in the lingering heat. He's not pleased to learn that Gibbs had directed Ziva to leave the thermostat alone. Sweat runs down his back, making him itch. The brilliant plan is starting to backfire.
No matter how confident DiNozzo manages to appear in the room, he knows their case hinges on one piece of evidence they don't have - the rifle. Without it, they can't lock down Reignforest's guilt. Without it Dewey might just accomplish the unthinkable - allow a murderer to walk free.
Feeling he needs to blow off some steam, DiNozzo takes the stairs downward to the lowest sub-basement. In all this talk of guns he needs to squeeze off a few rounds, perhaps imagining Riegnforest as the target.
NCIS has an outdoor target range at which every Agent must regularly prove his or her ability on a regular schedule. However, it also maintains a three person range in the sub-basement off the garage and, some would note, conveniently below Autopsy. There is no rating or evaluation here; you may compete against yourself or a fellow Agent. It's not unknown - though neither sanctioned nor admitted - for several pieces of green paper to ride upon the results of an afternoon's practice.
When Tony opens the soundproof steel door gunfire blasts his ears, causing him to wince at the full effect directed out the half open door. Of the three shooting stations just within the long room, the middle and right ones are occupied. Seeing the two women already using the range, DiNozzo takes a pair of safety earpieces and goggles and dons the first against the loud shots even while deciding there are certainly far more effective and pleasant distractions than guns.
Even from behind, their heads and ears covered by heavy earphones that muffle the loud reports of the guns in the enclosed room, they're unmistakable. In the center spot is Supervisory Special Agent Martine Joswig, her hair drawn back into her characteristic long pony tail. She stands about an inch over Ziva David's height, a fraction shorter now because her legs are braced to the limit of her blue skirt to balance against the kick of the gun.
To her right is a taller, willowy woman with long light brown hair and a respectable figure that, if he weren't emotionally attached to Jeanne Benoit he might...
Then again, maybe he would not. Melanie Kelman, in her mid-20's, had joined NCIS straight out of college and had spent the past three years turning down his attentions. She'd said she doesn't believe in dating within an organization, certainly not among people of differing ranks.
But then, after years of Joswig's saying she wouldn't use a Senior Field Agent, not caring for the division within her team, she'd recently promoted Kelman to that rank, his own rank, so maybe...
x
Joswig stops firing and presses the button on the platform before her, drawing the target quickly sixty feet to stop before her. The target is a representation of an armed man holding a terrified female hostage. Her body is in front of his, preventing a shot to the heart. The only available shot is to the assailant's head, a difficult shot indeed at nearly twenty meters.
"Not bad," DiNozzo grants, alerting the women to his presence. They turn to him. "Good grouping," he says appreciatively as he pulls off his earcovers. There are six bullet holes in the head, two to the neck - each of the latter still an ultimate kill shot. The remainders are still to spots that would incapacitate a live target. The women remove their own headpieces. From the front, each of them are even more interesting than from the rear.
"Thanks," Joswig says. With her hair drawn back she looks even younger than her thirty five years, and Tony takes a moment to appreciate the depth of her brown eyes.
"Not as good as the Maestro, of course," he tells them, "but respectable."
"Who, Gibbs?" she asks with a baiting smile. She'd trained with Gibbs under Mike Franks before Jennifer Shepherd had come aboard after the restructuring of the original Fed Five.
"I was referring to myself, actually." He doesn't care for Joswig's smile. "I happen to be the best on our team." That earns him an even more dubious look.
"Maybe, but you're nowhere as good as Melanie."
"Really?"
She shrugs. "Sorry, you just never will be," she says dismissively.
"Ho hooo; that sounds like a challenge. The Probie better than moi?"
"Martiā¦."
Joswig's smile just broadens more, her tone becoming even more openly dismissive of his talents even as she ignores Kelman's tone. "She just is. You can't shoot as well."
"Well, why don't we see about that?" Willing to play along with her, he'll give her Probie a lesson in marksmanship. He draws his Sig and checks it. "Best of one clip," he pushes the button controlling the target to his right in front of Kelman to bring it sliding forward even as he replaces Joswig's target sheet with a fresh one.
"Wanna make it really interesting?" Martine asks, making the offer sound particularly juicy as Kelman reaches for the fresh target. Her body language screams that she wants out of this, but that she won't go against her Supervisor. Fine with him.
"Define 'interesting'." He suspects he knows.
"A hundred dollars?"
This makes Melanie hesitate again, and while she replaces the clips, Tony having a chance to look it over. All are attempted head shots, she'd hit with reasonable grouping on six but one is to the left of the man and one had gone right through the hostage's nose. Remembering a years ago real life contest with Kate where an ear had been an issue, he's sure he can do better.
He'd heard of Joswig from other Agents. He knows she doesn't gamble but if she does bet, and it's a hundred, then she considers the bet to be a sure thing. He'll show her a sure thing.
He knows all too well what the firing range is like. Prior to the ear issue, admittedly on the outside range and with Gibbs watching, it had cost him his favorite cap and Kate Todd her palm pilot. But that was three years ago, and it's Kelman's boss who's watching now and who's about to lose a C-Note. Granted on that day he'd also hit the paper hostage, but that was her ear, not through the middle of her face.
He grins, wanting this contest now. "You're on."
x
"Marti..." Kelman protests again, her increasing discomfort allowing her to finally break in on her boss.
"Not backing out, are you, little lady?" DiNozzo challenges. Having seen that grouping, the miss and the fact that she'd killed the hostage, he wants the hundred dollars. She looks like she's going to back out but Martine fixes her with her eyes and shakes her head.
"No," Melanie says quietly, her tone making it quite clear she doesn't want this, but she'll fulfill her boss' intentions.
"I'm looking forward to dinner on you, DiNozzo." Martine declares confidently.
"Then you'll be dining on crow," he assures her. The push of two buttons sends the targets sliding sixty feet back to the far wall. "Lady first."
"No, you go first," Joswig says. "We insist."
"All right." Smiling confidently DiNozzo resets the headpiece over his ears, puts on the safety goggles, picks up his Sig and takes careful aim at the distant figure. The target jumps only slightly as he puts the first bullet through the center of the perp's head, a definite kill shot. It moves a bit more when the nose is pierced, the remaining six bullets move the target as slightly as most of them stitch across his forehead.
When the weapon is empty, he presses the target button and the large rectangle slides across the room. Eight shots, all to the head, though he'd put one in the man's mouth just for style. "I think I'll order lobster topped off with a bottle of their best champagne."
"Don't drink it too quickly," Martine advises as Melanie sets up for her own volley. DiNozzo watches with interest, appreciating her form as well as her technique. She levels the gun, takes a calming breath and lets it out slowly, relaxes and fires.
x
The target before the far wall moves slightly and DiNozzo sees the small hole appear in the center of the assailant's forehead. The gunman is dead. 'Not bad,' he grants silently. Kelman's second shot several seconds later, however, doesn't move the paper, nor does the third. The woman continues firing, squeezing off one shot after another in a slow, steady rhythm. None of her shots register on the large paper.
DiNozzo starts to feel bad for her, fearing she's slipped under the pressure. Her boss had trapped her in this bet and he considers calling it off. Winning is one thing, but this is no contest at all. How does someone with such poor aim qualify for a carry permit, let alone...?
When Kelman is finished she presses the button, drawing the incriminating paper back across the room. There is only the single hole in the center of the man's head.
He tries not to let them see his ambivalence. "Well, ladies, I hate to say 'I told you so'. Your first shot was good but, as you can see, the others," he waves his hand over the unmarked paper, "clean misses."
"Not exactly," Melanie maintains.
"Come on, we all saw it." He doesn't want to think the woman is going to be a poor loser, but, "One hole, seven misses. Sorry, but that dinner is going to taste so good."
"Look again, my friend," Joswig points at the target with a triumphant smile. "That's one bullet making the hole - and seven more through the hole."
x
Tony looks, looks again, gets up to the paper until his nose is virtually touching it. He sees the very slight damages to the fiber on all sides of the hole, which is only slightly larger and more irregularly shaped than a single bullet can manage.
"I - will - be - damned!" He turns back to the grinning Senior Agent, then to her less amused companion. "How the hell did you do that?"
"Simple," Kelman assures him. "I'm intimately familiar with this gun. Factor in resistance of the muzzle, compensate for micro-expansion as the barrel heats and adjust the trajectory. It's simple math."
"Simple math." He takes out his wallet, counts out a hundred dollars and hands it to her. He doesn't mind losing, he's far too impressed. "Just one thing, how come your other target wasn't like that?"
She shakes her head. "That wasn't my target, we just got here." She hands the money to Joswig. "I was waiting until Marti shot her clip. I don't know whose that was; someone who didn't police his work."
Tony smiles ruefully. He hadn't asked if Kelman had fired at it. Well, at a hundred dollars this life lesson has come steep; but if he has to lose, it's good to lose to - and be impressed by - someone so phenomenal.
"You know," Martine says, enjoying the moment, "I just wish this range had those cameras pointing in like on the public ranges. I'd love to have had a picture of your face when you saw that grouping." Tony suddenly freezes, then he feels his mouth slowly falling open. "Agent DiNozzo, are you all right?"
He snaps himself out of it. "Ladies - Dear Ladies - I hope you enjoy that dinner and that you'll allow me the chance to take you out on another. Right now, I have to fly!" His hug of each of them comes so quickly neither can protest or push him off. He's out the door before either woman can say a word.
xxx
Kevin Dewey confronts Gibbs and David in Observation One. "How much longer is this going to take?" he demands. "We've been sitting in that sauna for over two hours waiting for your man!"
"Sorry the AC's still on the fritz," Gibbs tells him with almost a little sympathy. "If you wanna leave, you're welcome to. We're keeping him. If my man doesn't have any questions right now-"
"This is outrageous! Two hours ago you had no evidence against my client and you still don't! Your claim to jurisdiction is specious at best. It was Lassiter who was found allegedly impersonating a Federal Agent, but you cannot charge the dead. You have no evidence against my client to connect him to that impersonation, let alone any involvement in Lassiter's death. Even if he confesses under interrogation you have no jurisdiction and I intend to file a Motion to Sup-" the door behind him flies open and DiNozzo sticks his head in,
"Sorry I'm late," he says with a disarming grin, then looks to Dewey. "Coming in now? Can't start without you."
x
DiNozzo reenters the smaller room with Dewey in his wake. Reignforest glares at him. It's hard to tell which of them is angrier at the Agent. Tony knows Gibbs would love to apply the coup-de-grace personally, he determines to make the show suitably satisfying for his friend. He shuts the door and sits down, placing the papers he carries face down upon the table before him.
"Agent DiNozzo," Dewey says, "despite this delay, if you have no further evidence against my client then we are finished here."
It gives Tony deep satisfaction to ignore this empty bluster. "You claim to know nothing of the gun used to kill Marie Lassiter?"
"That's right."
"It was, in fact, a Marine M40 A1 Sniper Rifle firing a Lapua Winchester .308 Hollow Point Boat Tail. A pretty powerful piece actually, capable of accurate placement at 1000 meters. But it's not a novice's weapon, and a precision shot against a moving target, even if it's moving away in a straight line, is a difficult one. I know of only one person who could make it, well now maybe two." He turns over the uppermost paper. "Most of us would need practice."
It took DiNozzo two hours to locate footage from a security camera at a public firing range not far outside Brightwood. It shows Patrick Reignforest holding just such a rifle as DiNozzo had described, aimed at a target outside the covered shooting area, the awning of which houses the camera. Beside him stands Marie Lassiter.
"I don't suppose you remember this either?" The next paper is a reproduction of a scanned credit card receipt, dated 8 months ago, from a Sporting Goods store and bearing Reignforest's signature. The receipt is for a box of .308 Winchester Hollow Points.
SSA Harry Grant and his team had turned up the original receipt in quick order once Ziva, searching through Reignforest's financial records, had told them where to look.
The next paper DiNozzo turns up is an Ebay record from an on-line store specializing in military and police clothing. It's for an NCIS Federal Agent's black jacket and cap, paid for three weeks ago by Marie Lassiter.
"Terrible when things slip through the cracks, isn't it? That's one of the beauties of the electronic age we live in. No record is ever lost."
Reignforest sits staring at his folded hands. He hears Dewey beside him advising him to say nothing. He ignores him.
"She was obsessed," he says quietly. "Even in death she wanted her revenge - revenge she could never get in life. She wanted to take him down, ruin him as she felt he'd ruined her. The only reason I agreed to help was that the pain she was suffering was so horrible this was a quick way to end it."
DiNozzo stands up and steps around the table. Silver handcuffs click as he pulls them from his belt. "Patrick Reignforest, you are under arrest for the willful and premeditated murder of Marie Lassiter." Turning the unresisting man around, he attaches the first cuff. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of Law."
DiNozzo continues the bland recitation, not caring if Reignforest is listening or not. It's being recorded.
x
Ziva turns off the speaker next to the window, looking up at her boss. "Dewey is right, we cannot use that confession. This case has always been Metro PD jurisdiction." Now that Gibbs' plan is finished, she truly wants answers. The face Gibbs turns to her is grim indeed.
"I don't intend to prosecute. I'm handing all this back to Carpenter." He feels he owes the Homicide Detective Lieutenant, not just for the Hotel Maritz but for the Joralemon case as well. "He gets everything; all the physical evidence, Ducky's autopsy and whatever Abby found. He can use all that to build a case that will put this bastard away for-." He shuts himself up, turns to the door, but though he opens it Ziva's words make him pause.
"But he can't use the confession."
"I'm not giving him the confession," he tells her, looking back. "Carpenter gets the evidence," he pulls the door after him, "the confession is mine."
