Chapter Twenty Six
Another Nightmare
After the unsettling public confession displayed on their plasma screen, and which they know is in every electronic mailbox throughout NCIS H Division, things too slowly return to normal for Gibbs and his team. When Michelle Palmer returns to her desk, dry but red-eyed, McGee takes a wire, plugs it into his cell phone, pushes a button for his home phone and, a few seconds later, his lovely wife's voice is in his ear.
/Hoigh, bindle, you're coming home?/
She sounds delighted to hear from him this Saturday early afternoon, since they'd expected to spend the day together but for the immensity of this case. His whispered words will wipe away that delight. "Get on the computer," he says as quietly as possible. "There'll be an email from Tony with an attachment. Play it and call me right back."
He cuts the circuit, realizes too late he'd forgotten to include any of his usual endearments, not even 'mo vourneen' - beloved. But there'll be another chance, he estimates in about four minutes, so he returns to his work.
Almost five minutes later the earpiece chimes and he pushes the button on the cell phone hidden on his lap.
Shav's voice this time is hushed. /My God, this isn't how I'd... This is out of control./
"What are we going to do?" Silence. "Shav?"
/I'm driving down there./ Silver Spring is nearly an hour away through Saturday city traffic. /I need to see him face-to-face, we can't do this over the phone. This ends now./
For the first time - ever - she hangs up without a final endearment.
xx
"Gibbs?" Ziva's call doesn't turn his head. "Gibbs?"
"Which one is it now?"
"Mrs. Hudson calling from–"
"Handle it." She can only stare, incredulous. Granted they have plenty of evidence about Machinist Mate Wilfrid Hudson and testimony from his hospitalized widow, but she's never known Gibbs to duck out on anything.
She knows his problem, it's hers and that of all the other agents on three entire teams - plus an extra hand. They have a vast amount, Tony would say a 'ton', of evidence but like with five different jigsaw puzzles of impressionist art, there's no single distinct image to build to and the pieces they have don't fit together.
x
"Palmer, you say Mrs. Hudson dropped the Divorce Petition?"
"She let it expire after he went to sea. She says she hoped that, after eleven months, they could reach a reconciliation."
In the background Ziva's words are a series of aborted attempts, each one carrying more effort to be diplomatic than the previous.
"DiNozzo, what about Insurance?"
"Each of our victims had the standard Navy insurance, they took four hundred thousand, which is pretty good for $26 a month. All listed their wives as beneficiaries though Lieutenant Commander Wetzel, being a family man, took care of his kids equally; the wife gets two, the daughters get one each."
"No particular clauses?"
"Pretty much the standard, though Galert had another policy, 70 grand. But the Navy isn't going to pay out unless and until we close the case."
"No. That's why–"
"Special Agent Gibbs?" The woman's voice comes from above their heads, all the Agents turn their gazes upward to see Cynthia Sumner at the rail before MTAC. She takes a full step back, mindful of her skirt, though she doesn't actually look at DiNozzo or McGee. "Director Shepherd needs everyone in MTAC immediately."
x
When Gibbs and his team descend the ramp to the dimly lit well before the multiple computer screens it's clear 'everyone' is defined as his team of five plus Fred Higgins, Susan Bourne, Max Crawford and Sol Mitchner together with Melanie Kelman, Patrick Larsen and Kenneth Templeton plus one.
"What's she doing here?" Shepherd demands, pointing to the 'plus one' behind Larsen.
Kelman, who's just touched down in the well, is surprised by the woman's intensity. When presented with such from the boss, she prefers to fall back on formality. "With respect, Director, Miss Wetzel is assisting us in researching Machinist Mate Wilfrid Hudson's murder."
"I'm aware of that, Special Agent Kelman. That does not clear her for MTAC."
"My apologies." The words come hard. Melanie, attention on the summons, hadn't thought particularly about Wetzel's presence until it was too late. Wetzel's a Pre-Probationary Trainee and Shepherd's right, but it grates to be publicly called on it before her own team and that newcomer.
"Escort her out."
"'She' and 'her' each have ears, Madam Director." Karen Wetzel's voice rings through the chamber.
x
Seconds of silence follow the fade of that declaration and Shepherd turns slowly to the woman still midway on the ramp. Templeton and Larsen have joined their boss, a show of solidarity, but Wetzel stands alone.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I can hear every word you say, and though you speak of me in the third person you want me to leave so you have to admit that I'm standing right here."
Shepherd takes a step forward, face and voice equally stony. "Young lady, do you know who I am?"
"The woman who's humiliating my assigned Supervisor, and Special Agent Gibbs will tell you how I take to that."
x
Shepherd, utterly incredulous now, steps closer past the men and women so she's at the base of the shadowed ramp, Wetzel halfway up. Wetzel does know exactly who she is, they'd met the other day, so she's either suicidal or–
"Special Agent Gibbs already scared all the hell out of me," the girl says, "so you're too late, I'm fresh out."
Shepherd closes to within inches of the blonde woman, and is tall enough that even on the ramp she tops the newcomer and stares deeply into her shadowed eyes, but she finds no fear. She decides, after several seconds, that "You are either exceptionally brave or incredibly stupid. Which is it?"
"I'm not altogether sure, ma'am. But it'll cost you an Appointment as a Special Agent for us to find out."
More searching, more minute inspection. Then: "I look forward to that discovery. Don't come back with the wrong answer."
"If I do, Director, I'll never know it, because you'll be putting me into Arlington."
Now she does smile. "Have a seat."
"Thank you, ma'am."
She sits down between Patrick Larsen and Kenneth Templeton, but doesn't let her breath out until Larsen surreptitiously nudges her arm with his elbow.
x
Shepherd returns to her spot. She'd heard about that slap, a story like that doesn't stay on one floor for even fifteen minutes, so she'd looked forward to testing the young woman who'd fought Leroy Jethro Gibbs to a standstill, and she'd wound up very nearly with the same score. She wishes she could extend the test, for she's discovered courage - hopefully not foolhardy - coupled with fierce loyalty that some day she hopes will be at her own back.
Unfortunately, there's no time for more tests. Minutes count and their enemy already has too many against them. She directs all but Supervisory Special Agent Fred Higgins to seats; he stands with her and addresses the assembled agents.
x
"There's been a major development in the murder of Special Agent Afloat Christopher Drakis. We now believe his murder was a distraction."
While the men and women process this outrageous declaration, Higgins directs the technicians operating the Communications control panels at the left wall to open a channel already in holding.
A tan uniformed Navy Captain appears in medium close-up, silver eagles glinting on his shoulders. Karen Wetzel is the only one who doesn't recognize Benjamin Mingassi, commander of the Aircraft Carrier Eisenhower. A brief courtesy introduction, standard for such large gatherings, is all Higgins requires before commencing.
"Captain, would you tell us what you told my team and I earlier today?"
"Since the death of your agent, we've been conducting our own investigation based on probable reasons why someone might want him dead. Accent on the probable. We never imagined it might be used to cover the insane.
"Twenty five pounds of uranium is unaccounted for."
x
The declaration shoots through the security conscious group and Higgins gives them a few moments to appreciate its significance before continuing. "Can you tell us how this happened?"
"Four of our Engineering crew are under arrest. They didn't disappear with the uranium, making the theft less noticeable until a thorough inspection of the vessel for Operational Readiness uncovered the loss. Since then, we identified the guilty parties and have them for you. There may be others, but these four have taken refuge behind a wall of fascist rhetoric about Revolution and the New Order."
"How did they get the materials off the ship?"
"At great personal risk and they're each paying for it. They couldn't use any of the anti-radiation safeties or protocols or we'd have noticed, so they took the uranium out with the ship's garbage."
x
The foolhardiness of this scheme is staggering. Refined Uranium is a silver/white metal processed to fine powder. Improperly contained, it could be inhaled with tragic results. Those men might well have received massive, perhaps fatal doses of radiation. Without treatment, they're almost certain to die in the most horrific, prolonged torment.
The agents can see where threats the Navy can inflict will be meaningless against this almost unthinkable breed of suicide bomber.
"We're arranging transport to Bethesda, where they'll be treated for radiation poisoning. You can interrogate them there."
x
When, at Shepherd's signal, the technicians terminate the contact, she turns to the assembled agents. "I've already sent word of this to the Reagan's Captain Clausen, since it's too likely both ships were hit, in which case the deaths both teams are working on are probably another distraction."
"They're not," Gibbs saw movement to his right and countered a second before Wetzel could protest. Her father's murder a 'distraction'? "The murders are too specific, too well thought out and timed."
"I agree," Shepherd says, "but we have to be sure."
No one needs to expound on the dangers of twenty five pounds of finely ground and processed radioactive nuclear fuel.
"Kelman, your team will turn over what progress you've made on the Reagan murders to Gibbs and assist Higgins' team. Find that stuff before someone builds dirty bombs from it."
x
Dirty bomb, a phrase that strikes dread into every population's defender. Detonate a sufficient quantity of concentrated fissionable material by bringing it to beyond Critical Mass for even a second and you get a titanic explosion, radiation showers and untellable damage and loss of life - but the effects, while dramatic, are brief save for the long term radiation poisoning.
Such devastation as that brings not only a short and agonizing life to the initially exposed but consequences to generations yet unborn. Large regions, probably entire cities, will be uninhabitable for hundreds of years; food and water contaminated to unimagined extents; birth defects, mutation, devastation that spreads like cancer throughout the fetus in the womb...
A dirty bomb jumps right to the level of eternal nightmare. Explode a standard bomb a mile up and radioactive uranium, no piece larger than a speck of dust, rains down upon vast areas and their people. Depending upon where - and the strength and duration of the exposure thousands, millions, could suffer the massively deteriorating effects of radiation poisoning - and the fates of their children and future generations are unimaginably horrific.
There is, to many of their minds, no worse a way to die - or to be born.
x
"What about the radiation net?" Sol Mitchner asks.
"The grid is always active," Shepherd says, "and since the discovery of this theft it's been widened to include as much of the Washington suburbs as possible. No contacts."
"So the uranium is either very well shielded or not in Washington."
"We're working along both those premises. If the uranium is hidden, we'll know the moment it returns or is unsealed."
Left unsaid is that by then it might be too late.
xxx
"Ziva, McGee, you're with me," Gibbs announces fifteen minutes after the meeting in MTAC has broken. He had first ordered his team to investigate, though he doesn't believe it, the possibility that the four murders aboard the Reagan could also be a 'distraction'. That investigation is best handled by the officers and crew of the Reagan. The consensus is that, if it is a distraction, it's for something grander than nuclear bombs. It smells of the grandiose schemes of the McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison gang when they hijacked the USS Millennium.
McGillicuddy and Crocetti have been captured but Morrison is still out there, yet fifteen minutes into the expanded search he's called two of his team off. "Where are we going, boss?" McGee asks as Live gathers her supplies.
"To visit Valerie Clausen," he says as though stating the very obvious while scooping weapon and shield from his drawer with one hand and snatching his cap and field jacket with the other.
McGee flashes Ziva a 'well, why didn't I know that?' look.
"We've been looking for connections between the four sailors and the only one there seems to be is that they're all married. Valerie Clausen is their Den Mother. Address?"
DiNozzo announces it, it's in the Mount Rainier section of Washington.
xxx
Perry Street is zoned to private homes suitable to a Captain's salary. Though Wetzel and Galert also had homes they aren't half as expansive as their CO's. A moderate walk from the street along paving stones through a manicured lawn and Mrs. Valerie Clausen answers Gibbs' knock.
Clausen is of an age with her husband, but the blonde woman's demeanor is far less stressed. "I have some tea on, or do you prefer coffee? Sorry, instant is all I have." Her tone clues them that the mixture is probably at the back of a shelf, used for the gatherings the woman hosts.
Both Gibbs and McGee decline, though David accepts the prepared tea. They prefer to accomplish their goals of finding information, or at least reasonable clues, and even instant would provide too long a distraction.
"We understand you're den mother for the Reagan wives," Gibbs says when they're settled in overstuffed chairs that border the living room carpet.
"I've rarely heard it described like that," she says, her tone indicating that she doesn't care for the allusion. "That's hardly uncommon."
"No, Ma'am, it isn't," he says far more respectfully. Though the 'post' as head of the wives' group is somewhat symbolic, it's common for C.O.'s wives to step up and be the glue that holds families together over periods of long, often tormentingly dangerous separation.
"You know about what's happening aboard the Reagan."
"How could I not? Not only has my husband been stuck aboard for four days rather than one, but since the Recall order my phone's been ringing off the hook. I only silenced it for this, but there'll be half a dozen calls to return when you're gone. Some men didn't even get off the ship yet."
As much as Gibbs would sympathize, this opens another question. If the rotation of Leaves isn't complete, how did the killers have any idea when to strike with the precision they used? He'll order checks on the victims' phones; maybe someone tracked their targets this way.
x
"We understand you coordinated the wives and girlfriends in the area."
"Of the thousands in the Reagan crew, three hundred ninety three live in the immediate Maryland / Virginia / DC area. Not all are married, but we assist all families as needed. It's actually become a full-time job."
"Do you meet here?"
"Within reason," she says, glancing about the spacious room and, by extension, the house. "Not everyone can come, and only on holidays do we get really significant numbers. Then I organize some outside activity. I'm not a Counselor, I'm not a Therapist, I just make time and place available. We have a back yard with a pool."
"How often do you meet?"
"On the first and fifteenth of each month, so every time's a different day and no one's inconvenienced."
"Do you keep records of what goes on at these meetings?"
"Certainly not. Oh, I keep a record of those who attend; if I see someone's not participating I'll reach out to her or one of my cell leaders will. We don't want anyone to fall between the cracks, as it is."
"Cell leaders?"
Valerie smiles as though to say 'think I could do this alone?' "Nearly four hundred is way too many for me, and sometimes once a fortnight isn't enough, especially when word hits that there's any trouble, dangerous action and so forth. This situation has already set records for phones and I hope for decent weather because the next gathering on the first is going to overwhelm this house." She puts down her tea cup, sits back with a sigh that speaks of more than physical fatigue.
x
"We encourage everyone to pair off into small groups, they set them up as they like, move between one or another as they wish. A lot of wives have grown pretty close to one another and we encourage that. We're not a formal group, the main body schedule of the first and fifteenth of the month is as formal as we get."
"But you keep records of who is in what cell?"
"Only, as I said, so someone doesn't fall between the cracks."
"What about the four wives of the murdered men? Presit, Wetzel, Galert and Hudson?"
"They're all active, in fact they were all here last week on the fifteenth."
"Then they know each other?" McGee cuts in.
"Yes," Valerie says, taken aback by his intensity.
"Boss, when we spoke to Mrs. Hudson at the hospital and introduced Karen Wetzel, she said she doesn't know a Wetzel."
"No, that's impossible," Clausen says. "They sit together at every session, Michelle and Ruth. In fact, I'm pretty certain they're in the same cell."
Gibbs keeps his tone level. "Can you get us a Roster of this cell?"
"Of course."
xxx
"Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo," he greets the caller and is surprised by the voice on the other end.
/Anthony, it's Siobhan McGee./
Tony sits up straighter, feels the blood drain from his face. He's never known McGee's wife to call him directly, and he's only called her once. They've only ever communicated face-to-face but in light of his 'mea culpa video' he's unsure how this is going to go. "Yes," he says, a non-committal response.
/Could you come up to my office?/
Worse by the moment. The last time he was summoned to the Chaplain's office on four, it did not go well. He, however, isn't going to show fea– apprehension. "Sure, be right up."
He's glad only the Probette is here, he doesn't owe her an explanation of where he's going.
xx
He knocks on the door, distinguishable from the others only by the white on brown sign on it. Two seconds, it opens and Tony's heart sinks. She's wearing her uniform; black calf-length skirt, light blue back button shirt, inch-and-a-half high white collar encircling her throat, her flame red hair flared to frame her face.
This feels so much like being summoned to the Principal's office, only a dozen times worse. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"
"No, Anthony. Come in, please."
When he's in and she seals the door behind him, leaning for a moment against it, she looks to him to be preparing to say something he probably won't want to hear. She turns to him, visibly gathers herself.
"I'm sorry."
x
Tony doesn't think he could be more surprised. For the first time he doesn't have an easy movie reference to cover this situation. "I thought that's my line."
"Not when I've backed you into such a corner as would make you decide to create that film," she says, her brogue heavy with her embarrassment. "I had hoped to make you think, not to humiliate you."
"I have thought. A lot. Good old Tony DiNozzo has been nowhere in any of this. I never meant to hurt you."
"Nor I you."
"Don't resign. Too many agents need you."
"I won't."
He can read in her expression the same thing that's in him; they've both taken this as far as either of them can stand. "I'm sorry."
"I forgive you."
x
It takes him several moments before he can say it, and even then it comes very hard. "But I need something more."
"I know." She steps past him and, to his sparked apprehension, locks the door. Then she returns to her desk at the far end of the rectangular room, removes from upon it an embroidered band of purple cloth, five inches in width and, when she holds its middle and lets it unfold, seven feet long. She kisses the cross embroidered at the middle and drapes it over her shoulders, lifts her red hair from under it as he goes to sit upon the couch.
xxx
The RonRay Wives Group participation records are on a laptop computer. Valerie Clausen brings it out to the dining room table and sets it up. Normally Gibbs would direct McGee to take over this part but he wants to watch how the thing plays out. A too familiar feeling is building in his gut.
The first file that opens is a spreadsheet, names down the first column, dates across the top and multicolored cells extend from left to right. Many are sporadic, some stretches of moderate length broken by white space, a sparse few are solid bars since they represent not only the main fortnightly gatherings but all the sub-groups as well. Clausen's is one dense bar, there are two more before the alphabetical list falls out the bottom of the screen.
"What do the colors mean?"
"They indicate sub-group gatherings by group, the blue ones are the regular meetings here while the black borders around any cell mean she attended but didn't open up or participate. Some don't always express themselves, they may prefer silent commiseration, but too many blacks I consider a warning sign that Outreach is needed."
"Can you isolate particular ones?"
"Of course." He gives her the short list and when the other rows vanish from the screen what's left is chilling.
The four bars start out with slight variety but, from eight months back, they're perfect matches of blues and oranges.
"Do any others match these?"
Valerie restores the full sheet and, after a few moments manipulation there are three other names that, commencing seven months ago, are synchronized; Regina Elbourne, Dierdra Mimran and Marie McCourt.
"Who runs this Orange group?"
"Dierdra."
How many others in her group?"
A last manipulation of rows provides a total of eleven names including Mimran's, but the participation of the remaining four is sporadic and seems quite independent of any other of the four names.
"We'll need Mrs. Mimran's address and phone." He's gratified to see McGee already has his little mini-computer thing out and is busily checking names. He reads on Valerie Clausen's face that she realizes some of the depth of his concern.