Chapter Fourteen
Capture
Tim seethes at his desk and tries to keep his emotions in control so he can work. He'd found the others gone when he and Michelle had returned from Leger's job with the confiscated computer.
The first thing he'd done was to copy the hard drive onto his own higher capacity system, then he began exploring. What he finds fills him with rage.
Palmer had returned to her own desk where she works as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. He suspects she doesn't want to risk an explosion any more than he wants to give her one.
He's about to call her, to ask if she's made any progress when Ducky Mallard's voice comes over the partition behind him. "How are you, Timothy?" His tone conveys he knows the answer.
"How am I?" McGee demands as he turns around and feels his control drain out, "I'm going crazy is how I am. We don't know what happened to Shav and every second I spend looking is–" He doesn't want to contemplate what could be happening to the woman.
"I understand. These are much too stressful times. If there's anything I can do, I am at your service."
"I don't want you in this!" Tim stops, appalled, "Ducky, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that like it sounded."
"No, my boy, I quite understand. I too hope to be nothing more than a distant observer in this drama. What have you found so far?"
Tim fights to rein in his impatience. "No credible hits on our BOLO. Wherever the others are they left me a note. There are dozens of garbage hits, she's been spotted everywhere from Annapolis to North Carolina, all worthless. The church printed reams of 'Missing Person' flyers with two recent pictures, one full length in her cassock and collar from the Christmas Pageant, the other a close-up from the party off our BOLO so her current hair style is shown in the close up. Volunteers have plastered their neighborhoods and other churches in the Diocese have done the same.
"Every block in the city probably has a flyer by now. Three of our teams are working on tips, FBI is taking most of the out-of-Staters, Metro and Capital Police are working the in-District ones. I've called so many times they don't even say 'hello' anymore; they just say 'nothing McGee' and hang up."
"Well, you can't-"
x
Whatever he can or cannot do is interrupted by Gibbs, DiNozzo and David entering the bullpen. "Duck?" Gibbs says to the man behind the partition.
"Oh, Jethro, I came to express my concern about–"
"Thanks, Duck. We're picking up Leher. Palmer, get me a warrant."
Michelle turns and looks at Gibbs as though he'd asked her for his personal Genie. Her gaze takes in the darkening Washington skyline. In mid-winter the sun sets early, it's late afternoon and the sky's already dreary. "Sir, the courts are closed."
"I don't want an argument, Palmer, get me a warrant before I leave here if you have to go to Staples for it, and this is what I want on it-"
"Boss?"
"Don't even ask, McGee."
"I was going to say bring in his computer. Whatever he did at work, he'll've done a lot more of it at home."
Gibbs nods, doesn't say that he'd made that decision long ago. "You've got a problem, McGee."
"Only one?" He bites back the sarcasm, realizing his personal distress will buy only so much latitude and he's probably already maxed it out. "Sorry, what's that?"
"Why would Leher steal a Ford 350 when he's got his own car? Why switch plates with the Windstar?"
"The Lehers drive a Buick, a family car. No way to hide Shav like if she's in the van."
"Barely works, and for time it stinks. Find me another answer."
"I will."
As Gibbs walks out, he hears the man mutter 'if I have to beat it out of him'.
He doesn't turn back.
xxx
Siobhan wishes she could've stayed unconscious. She's so battered by the brutal attacks she can no longer tell one pain from the next. Again searing dry pain, intimate and worse than ever, overwhelms all others. She's grateful she can't see the marks inflicted upon her. Perversely, in his beatings he has spared her eyes, doubtless to drive home the bitter fact that they're useless. She lies on her left side, unable to force herself to move but she can feel, with an indefinable sense, that she's not alone.
She hasn't begged for mercy and won't now, no matter how terrible the pain. "Whatever you're going to do, get it over with."
From before her she hears a sharp click, one that sounds familiar but difficult to identify. Too late she remembers it; it's the same sound as from the igniter used to light the charcoal for incense, a long metal rod attached to a butane–
Flame sears her right breast. She shrieks, rolls away clutching her burned flesh. "YOU PERVERTED BASTARD!"
Her rage ignited, she turns back, lost to fury. She struggles to her feet and launches herself at where she thinks he might be, swings her fists wildly, heedless of the danger. She doesn't care if she might hit a wall; so enraged she doesn't feel pain, for the moment driven beyond rational thought, she only wants his body under her fists.
Her fists collide with nothing, but she's too furious to care or to listen for her target. Again and again she swings blindly, hopes for just one touch.
Behind her she barely hears the click and the searing metal runs a tongue of flame down her back. She jumps away, unable to keep from screaming and swings back, missing again. "YOU FUCKING SOULLESS MONSTER!"
Her words echo accusingly and stab her soul. A few days ago no such epithets would ever cross her lips. Terror and pain have drowned under rage as she swings again and again, drives forward, trying to hit something.
The punch to her face is so devastating she's spun around, crashes to the cement floor and collects an unknowable number of additional bruises. She curls her body, he's on her, forcing her onto her burned back. She flails at the unseen monster getting atop her body. She swings at him but another punch slams into her cheek, drives her head back into the cement floor.
Stunned, she can't fight the legs that get between hers, force her open, tear at her. She pushes against him, actually forces him up. A hard fist crashes into her face, her head slams onto the floor.
x
She doesn't know how long she lies stunned, only that he doesn't rape her while she's nearly unconscious. She can't fight him and the pain too so she stops struggling. She tries to put herself outside her body, to endure what she can't prevent. She lies still, no longer fighting.
"I can't stop you, you fucking bastard," she says bitterly. "Go ahead, prove to yourself you're a man."
She clamps her lips shut. She hasn't given him any tears, any satisfaction in the use and abuse of her body. Though the pain is unbearable, her flesh rubbed raw, she will not scream or cry this time either.
In her endurance she will not satisfy him.
She's surprised that he gets off her. She's too battered to wonder why, just feels his legs holding hers apart. She can barely think, barely wonder.
She hears a click between her spread thighs, realizes too late this isn't more rape!
Her screech echoes off the cement walls.
xxx
Gibbs stops his car in front of the Leher home, inspecting the snow covered one-story building. Tracks in the white carpet lead from front door either to the opening in the ranch style fence or the attached garage and several tire paths have been gouged in the snow. Despite his best efforts, traffic detours delayed him from his customary pace. The sun sits on the horizon, casting almost blinding reflections in the bare wood's white carpeting as he, DiNozzo and David get out. The lot immediately opposite the house is overgrown and undeveloped, trees rather than houses cast their shadows onto the Leher house. In six hours January 2 will end, it's almost 40 hours since the priest was kidnapped and the grim agents can only hope they're close to rescuing their friend.
They approach cautiously, Ziva to the rear to cut off escape and Gibbs looks in the front window. Two women; one middle aged, one still in her early teens, sit on the couch and an easy chair watching television. Gibbs signals DiNozzo to keep his Sig in its holster; he intends to bring them all to Headquarters for separate and hopefully revealing interviews.
He bangs on the wood. "Federal Agents - open this door!"
x
Barbara Leher opens the door, obviously surprised at the rude summons. Her eyes dart instantly to DiNozzo, so expressive they can tell she hadn't expected to see him again. "Yes?"
"Mrs. Leher," Gibbs grasps her attention, "we're here to see your husband."
"He's not here," she blocks the door, clutches the wood tightly. "He's at work, he won't be back until six thirty."
"Your husband hasn't been to work since he was Suspended on the 23rd." The sledgehammer blow has the effect he'd intended, the papers he produces from his coat are the follow-up punch. "We have Warrants for his arrest and to search the house and seize any evidence we find related to the kidnapping of Reverend Siobhan O'Mallory."
It takes no effort to push the door aside.
x
"You're wrong!" Barbara Leher gasps, aghast as she looks up from the damning papers to see the man and woman she'd met yesterday enter and go into their bedroom and den. "Gabe's at work!"
Gibbs barely glances at the appalled girl who stands by the television.
"Your husband was suspended," he tells the woman bluntly, "for collecting internet porn on his office computer. I don't know what he told you and I don't care. I'm only interested in getting Reverend O'Mallory back safely."
"Gabe didn't do anything to her!"
The glare he gives her would make DiNozzo run. "You've no idea what he's capable of." He glances down the hall, sees Ziva enter the back room. "Computer, laundry, everything - and don't forget any sneakers."
She nods, already channeling the same intimidating manner he displays. They could be mild, but they want the pair afraid.
"Agent…"
"Gibbs."
"Agent Gibbs, you've got it all wrong."
"Enlighten me."
"My husband is a good man. He goes to church every Sunday, he's on–"
"You have any idea how many sick bastards are described to me as 'good men who go to church every Sunday'?"
"Where are you taking our computer?" the girl demands as DiNozzo comes out of the short hall and sets the plastic wrapped tower onto the carpet by the door.
"Evidence," he tells her succinctly.
"Mom, they can't do this."
"Shut up," she exclaims, turns on Gibbs. "You can't do this! This is insane." Her attention is ripped from the tall man as Ziva comes out of the bathroom carrying a large bag of clothes. Barbara breaks away to try to rip the bag from her. "You put those back!"
Ziva pulls the bag behind her, "Mrs. Leher, if you attempt to interfere you will be arrested for obstructing an investigation and a lawful search and seizure."
"What kind of obstruction will it be if I knock all your teeth down your throat?"
"I suggest that you do not try."
"Those are Gabe's clothes." She lunges for the bag, but Ziva again whirls them out of reach.
"That is precisely why we need them."
"Give them back!"
Gabriel Leher steps through the front door and halts when he sees the black coated agents, his computer in a bag and a woman holding his clothes in another bag. He turns and bolts, the grey haired man a second behind him.
x
Leher leaps from his porch, his flight awkward. Gibbs stops at the door, Sig raised, ignores the shrieking pleas of the restrained women behind him as he chooses his target. Streetlights give him enough to see in the winter dark. Leher runs across the plowed street, heads for the white carpeted woods on the opposite side and Gibbs squeezes the trigger.
In front of the fleeing man a branch severs, peppers his face with wood dust and snow. He skids to a halt.
"Next one's through the back of your head!"