Chapter 21
Gibbs straightened and rotated his shoulders, then without another word headed for the corridor. Cassie and Andrus trailed behind him, only to see their Director, whom Andrus had only met once before, with his hand on the door of the Interrogation room, speaking quietly to Gibbs. Each nodded once, no doubt, Andrus thought, getting their game plan together. Vance looked up at the two of them, gave them a smile and thanked them for their good work. Gibbs had already thanked Cassie, much to her surprise, as they'd moved the prisoner in the evidence garage. This night had surely been full of surprises. Now both men disappeared into the room and Andrus held the door to Observation open for his boss.
Walking in, Gibbs noticed the guards had apparently started to remove the duct tape but must have slapped it back on since there was moisture on the table. Pointing to it, he asked the prisoner, "You do that?" Her small piggy eyes narrowed and she nodded. He leaned in, "Unless you stop doing that, you're going to live the rest your life with duct tape or a muzzle, is that what you want?"
Eyes full of hate glared at him. He shrugged and stepped behind the prisoner, "You care if we leave it on, Leon? I'm thinking we don't need to hear her talk, we have all the evidence we need and she's been read her rights."
"That's true, but in reality that doesn't really matter, she has no rights, she's a spy as well as a murderer, she's going straight to Gitmo."
"Ok, well, I guess we'll just read the charges then, shall we?"
"Works for me."
"Svetlana Stacevyko, also known as Natalie Ivanov and Natalie McGee, you are charged with the 1986 premeditated hit and run murders of U.S. Navy Commander Daniel McGee and his minor child, Patrick McGee. Further, you are charged with child endangerment, neglect and child abuse in the 1982 beatings of minors Timothy McGee and Patrick McGee. Additional charges include fraudulent claims to the US Navy and ABC Life Insurance Company for amounts over $500,000 each, which earn you additional felony counts. You are also charged with covert operations, i.e., spying for not one but two foreign governments on American soil and forging false documents: passport, marriage certificate and citizenship papers. You are also charged with claiming false citizenship, supposedly gained through a phony marriage with Commander McGee."
"Normally, I would ask you if you have anything to say, but since you insist on perpetuating your wild pig act, guess that won't be necessary."
Vance pulled a chair out, across and down a bit from the prisoner, staying out of spitting range. Gibbs returned to his spot behind the prisoner, now noticing a certain trembling in her feet. Good, she was starting to break. She tried to speak to Vance from behind the duct tape.
"Can't understand you with that tape. Would you like a pencil and paper, oh sorry guess not, your hands and arms are shackled."
Gibbs leaned down and whispered in her ear in Russian, "We've got you for all counts, have all the evidence we need so we don't need to hear you talk. You still think you want to live the rest of your life with that duct tape on your mouth?"
Stacevyko yelled as best she could behind the tape, then sat back, well tried to sit back, between the uncomfortable chair and her chains, she didn't get very far. She looked at Vance, a pleading look in her eyes. Gibbs noticed her feet and legs were trembling even more; yep she was ready. He gave a little nod to his boss.
"Did you want something, Prisoner?"
The woman nodded and touched her shoulder towards her mouth.
"Does that mean you're ready to cooperate, no spitting or screaming?" She nodded.
"Ok, I guess she's ready to be civilized, wait a minute, let me get ready."
Vance pulled the box of tissues towards him, giving her a mocking glance. She made a sound deep in her throat, but Gibbs knew they had her. She may have been a spy, but she apparently flunked Interrogation 101; she certainly fell apart easily enough. Then again, he mused, she'd had a nice comfortable life on the proceeds of the Navy death benefits and the life insurance. Obviously, she'd gotten a bit soft and much older than when she was trained in covert life. He wondered how she had ever managed to find a second employer. Must talk a good game. Abruptly taking her chin and turning her head toward him, he ripped off the duct tape.
After her scream had died down, Gibbs smiled down at her, the smile of a predator who had just taken its first bite, "It was going to hurt however we did it, might as well get it over with."
Vance cleared his throat. "Now, what is it you wanted to say?"
"The evidence, I do not believe that you have any evidence. My husband and stepson were killed in a horrible accident 20 years ago. I lost everything that day, the money was nothing."
Gibbs leaned in and said to her, in Russian, "That was a pretty poor performance, I'm sure you can do better than that." Outraged, she cursed him in Russian and he laughed at her and told her to speak in English so that both agents could understand her.
"You know nothing of my life with the McGees, the older one, Timothy, he was such a brat, too smart for his own good and his brother followed his every word. And the little girl, she was just as bad, a horrible little bitch."
"Really? Tell us, how old was this little girl when you murdered her father and brother?"
"Three, she was three and I DID NOT MURDER THEM. You cannot have proof, it is impossible."
"I see, well that's interesting and tell me, what happened to the two McGee children you did not murder?"
"Timothy was badly injured in the accident, he died soon after."
"Oh that's too bad. And the little girl?"
"I sent her away."
"Where did you send her to, a school, relatives…where?"
"Uh…to a school, yes a school."
"And where is she now?" Gibbs noticed her feet were now literally dancing on the floor she was so nervous. He signaled Vance, time to close in.
"Dead. She disappeared when her brother died in a knife fight when he was 12, the stupid idiot. The little girl disappeared after that."
"Who died in the knife fight? Her brother? I thought Patrick died when you used your car to hit the station wagon at such an angle that the propane the commander had in the back exploded. Also, I thought Timothy was thrown through the rear passenger window, later dying of his head injuries and multiple broken bones, after being in a coma at Children's Hospital in Oakland for a few days. The McGees only had the two boys, so where did this third brother come from? A knife fight, at the school? I don't understand."
"No, no, he, I don't know, it was Timothy, all right, it was Timothy who died in the knife fight. He did not die of his injuries from the car; I only wished it. The fight was not at the school, it was after classes, in the evening."
"And how do you know this?"
"Because I…" she shut her mouth.
"I see, not feeling like sharing that information. Well, that's all right because we already have that information. Timothy was not involved in a knife fight; according to the dozen witnesses we interviewed, he was attacked while helping serve dinner at the homeless shelter he and Sarah were forced to live in after you abandoned them. OH, by the way, that's two, no three more charges against you, 2 charges of abandoning a minor, reckless endangerment, oh my, that's up to 3 counts of that, and conspiracy to murder a minor. That one brings you an automatic death penalty, and you're up on at least two counts. We'll have to see if we can add to that as we find out what happened to little Sarah."
Vance leaned forward, his turn. "Why did you do it? What possible reason could you have for killing those children? Even after you'd murdered their father and brother, drove them away from their home, took everything away from them and then still paid someone to murder the boy. You were their guardian, their father trusted you with their lives. Why?"
"He was too smart. He knew things, too many things. I saw him writing in those books, but …" She swore in Russian, "I could never find them. And I didn't want to take care of them for the rest of my life."
"I see and what prompted the original murders?"
"I did not… Очень хорошо, у вас win." Her shoulders slumped, "Dan came to me and said he wanted out of the marriage, said it had been a huge mistake. I could not allow him to find out the marriage was not real, and I was afraid the boy would tell him about my phone calls and packages; if we were no longer married, I could be deported or disco.." Again, she stopped speaking.
"Or discovered as a covert operative for the Soviet Union, is that it?" She turned her head away and then nodded.
"Well, that's all right, you did that yourself when you tried to sell the FBI a 'bill of goods' recently. It was not difficult to find out who your new employer was. What happened, did you spend all your blood money?" There was no response from the prisoner.
"She's not talking, Leon, let's see what she has to say about her life as a spy". The woman visibly flinched and Gibbs, still standing behind her, gave Vance a hooded look, ready to swoop.
"Who are your current employers?" She told them, as they had suspected it was a Middle Eastern radical group.
"That clears the runway for your trip to Guantanamo Bay; confirms you working with a terrorist group. Maybe we can get you an upgrade to, I don't know, a semi-private cell, if you give us something to work with."
She looked up, a glint of hope in her eyes. "I did not tell you the whole truth about Timothy's death. When he died in that knife fight, he was replaced by a young sleeper agent who took his identity. That is why the girl had to disappear, she would have known." Gibbs wasn't sure what made him feel sicker, the repetition of her lie using a slightly different scenario, or that she would have done that to Sarah, would have killed a 6 year old without any thought.
"Ok, that was how long ago, nearly 20 years? That's not going to do much toward getting you that semi-private room. But that's ok, if you want to live in an open barracks with thirty other women, only being allowed outside once a day, that's fine by me. What would pique my interest is what you've done for your current employers." Vance calmly responded to her story.
Her shoulders slumped. "They will find me and kill me."
Gibbs leaned in just enough to make her jump and said, "That's just tough, isn't it? Didn't they teach you that in spy school? Oh, but that was so many years ago now you might not remember."
She sighed, "All right, I will tell you." And she did, giving them names of her contacts, the intel she'd passed, dates and locations. She also told them what information she'd passed to the Soviet Union before the collapse in 1991. She paused, her eyes resuming their sly cunning look. "That's all I have."
"No, I don't think it is. I think you have this written down somewhere, in a log or a notebook, maybe on a computer?"
She shook her head, "No, no computer, too hard to learn and too easy to break into. It's a notebook, like that one, only bigger." She pointed to Gibbs slim pocket sized paper notebook, "There are 30 of them."
"Where?"
"In my house."
"In Tampa?"
"Yes."
"Where in the house?" She told them, it was old-fashioned but still worked well. The Tampa team had had orders to arrest, not to search the house, now they would go back to search.
Vance sent a text to Agent Andrus, figuring Cassie was already on the phone with her Probie. She was, ordering Wilson to take two agents and search Stacevyko's house, specifically the three spots where the woman said she'd hidden her notebooks. Her last order to Wilson was to report to her or Andrus as soon as he'd located the notebooks. Dwayne agreed; a little excited to be back in on the case again. Whatever case it was. Andrus had already texted another Team Leader, explaining the situation, the need for absolute discretion and received a text that the Team Leader understood and agreed to provide backup to Wilson. Andrus updated his boss and she texted Vance with the plan. Now they waited.
Vance and Gibbs looked at each other, knowing this was icing on the cake. They had captured this murderer, broken her and now had her covert opts information in hand from both of her employers. Vance gestured to Gibbs and they stepped outside Interrogation, well away from any possibility of Stacevyko being able to hear them.
"I'm calling SecNav, this is our collar; we're going to take the damn credit for ALL of it, Gibbs."
"Waiting for the notebooks?"
"I'm inclined not to. I'll tell SecNav the information she's given us is not verified but I also strongly suspect the FBI has at least some of the information."
"Sounds good to me, Leon. Whoever's coming for her is later than I thought they'd be, your plan obviously worked!"
"Huh, well hold off on the kudos until you see us being congratulated on bringing down a murdering spy!"
Vance called Secretary of the Navy Davenport and updated him with the results of their own covert operation. Gibbs heard enough to know the old Admiral was excited to hear the news. When Vance ended the call, he turned to his Lead Agent. "I have my orders, to verify the notebooks and place her in our lockup. It's our collar, all of it."
Gibbs nodded, relieved this had gone well but also thinking of the lives this bitch, what had Ziva called her, a Hebrew word, oh yeah, zona, the lives this zona had destroyed, mostly in an effort to maintain her comfortable American life. None of the intel she'd passed seemed important enough to have killed the McGees. No, that was to prevent her deportation. She had no loyalty, no scruples, morals or ethics, no friends, she had murdered the only family she had, she had nothing. A comfortable house, big screen TV and maybe a decent car. At what price? He wondered idly what else they would find she'd done, were there other bodies strewn in her wake? Saying this aloud to Vance, the two looked at each other and as one, turned back into Interrogation.
"All right, now where we were? Ah, waiting for confirmation of the notebooks and what information they contain. What else have you done, Svetlana Stacevyko? Who else got in your way, whom else have you killed?"
"Why should I tell you, I have given you all the information you wanted." A sullen response or was it sheer exhaustion?
"And now we want more. Are there others you have killed? It's odd, really, because for years you seemed to be an upstanding member of your church, that would be the Russian Orthodox, yes, so it would seem you had a conscience or some sort of emotion at some point in your life."
The woman looked towards the ceiling. After a few long minutes, she started talking again. "There are 3 others. One in Texas, in Houston, he was a lover who became suspicious, I believed he was an undercover agent. One in Bayopolis, a contact who…disrespected me, and the last in New York City. He was…," the woman sighed, deeply, "my confessor, a priest. I confessed all to him, and then I was afraid he would break his vow, so I…silenced him."
"What does that mean?"
"I killed him, YES, I KILLED MY PRIEST, I WILL BURN IN HELL NOW, there is no hope." She looked up at them, "That is all, I only had the 2 employers and that is all the information I passed and…the people I have killed."
"We'll need names of the victims, the date they died and the locations where the bodies are buried."
"Those…those are all in my notebooks."
"Very well, we'll wait until we have the notebooks."
"What, how long will that take? I have…what do you call it…she half turned to Gibbs, again standing behind her and spoke in Russian. Gibbs replied, "Claustrophobia."
"Ah yes, I have that, I cannot remain in this room much longer, it is too small, too airless."
"Then give us the information we need for your 3 other victims."
"Bah, very well." She proceeded with the names, dates of death and the locations where the bodies are buried.
Gibbs, wishing very much for his own team to be on this, looked at Vance, who gave him an understanding nod. Slipping out of the room, he called DiNozzo.
"Boss, what's going on, it's been so long, we were really getting worried!"
"We, DiNozzo?"
"Yeah, I'm with Tim and Ziva, at their place."
"Good, that's good, I'm glad. Got some work for you to do. Want to put me on speaker?" He waited for a second, "We broke her, guys, got everything we expected plus more and SecNav has already announced the arrest, she's ours. The whole kit and caboodle, she's our bust. And she's going to Gitmo for the rest of her miserable life." He paused as his team cheered. "Yeah, good work, all of you! Tony, take me off speaker…Ok, we have three other murder victims, have the locations and general description of them, need you to come in and start coordinating the searches, I want those bodies found and shipped here. Just you, DiNozzo, for now. She believes Tim and Sarah are dead, like to leave it that way; I guess she hasn't caught onto the fact we haven't charged her for their deaths. Anyway, I'd just as soon you get this started tonight, Tony. Don't have to work all night at it, but get it in motion."
"Got it, Boss, on my way." Gibbs disconnected, satisfied that his team was back in action. Tim and Ziva could jump in tomorrow as soon as the prisoner was out of the building. He turned but this time he headed for Observation, poking his head in and finding Cassie on the phone with what sounded like Wilson.
"That's great, Dwayne, how many?"
"40, 10 more than she said."
"Ok, get them back to the office, and courier them up here to Agent Gibbs tomorrow morning. Hold on, Gibbs is right here."
"Wilson, just wanted to say great job tonight, you and your team." Gibbs handed the phone back to Cassie and gave her the smirk that was almost a smile.
"All of you," he turned to include Andrus, "Thank you, don't say it often, but you all surely deserve it." He left the room, leaving a stunned Agent Yates behind him. She turned to Andrus – and the tech, "Did that just happen?"
The tech's jaw was still in dropped position, he shut it and tried to form words, finally…"Yes Agent Yates, I saw it, I heard it, Leroy Jethro Gibbs just thanked you, publicly and handed out a compliment to your agent on the phone."
"Have things changed around here that much?"
"No ma'am, I've worked here 10 years and I've never seen or heard of him thanking anyone before."
Andrus laughed, "Come on, he can't be that bad!" Cassie and the tech just looked at him and shook their heads.
Gibbs re-entered Interrogation to find Vance still questioning their prisoner. When Leon looked at him, Gibbs leaned over and whispered, "Wilson found all the notebooks, 40, not 30."
Vance nodded, and then continued with his question, "Do you have any regrets, besides the priest?"
"Only the little one, Sarah. I wished I could have kept her with me, but then I would have had to kill her brother there in the house, in San Leandro," Seeing their questioning looks she added, "The house I rented after leaving the base in Alameda, the one I brought the boy to when he left the hospital. I did not have the stomach to kill him directly and there were too many people around. Sarah was already attracting attention with her cries for Patrick and Timothy; I could not risk more. So I sent them both away, to their fates."
"Which you've already told us you arranged."
"Yes, it is as I said."
"You told us Sarah disappeared after the knife fight. What really happened to her?"
"The man I paid to kill Timothy took her; he told me he strangled her. I wept for that one, but there was no other way for me to be safe."
"Do you have anything else to add, any more crimes?"
"No, that is all. I am empty now. Do with me what you will." The two men looked at each other. It was such a melodramatic statement; if the situation hadn't been so serious, her crimes so close to home, either might have laughed.
A/N: The phrase "Очень хорошо, у вас win" means 'very well, you win." in Russian, if the online translation site is correct.