Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 36
A/N: Sorry about the long time since the last update; I meant to update on Thursday, then FFN was acting up and I couldn't post a chapter, and then yesterday I had my PT test... yes, yes, I know, RL sucks and all that. At any rate, you get a chapter today.
And since it has been so long since the last post, a brief refresher. The whole terrorism thing turned out to be one big dead end, after involving Mossad officers and captured undercover operatives, the State Department, DiNozzo's father, and an international arms dealer. Lyndi Crawford, Kirkan's (and McGee's) publisher, got an email from the kidnappers demanding a ransom for Dr. Alyse Aachen. The publishing house agreed to pay the ransom, as long as Kirkan went public with the abduction. The information that came forward after that pointed them in the direction of this being an inside job, possibly orchestrated by medics at the base hospital. The commanding general of Camp Phoenix, however, was not so thrilled with NCIS getting further involved in his business, and name dropped threats against anyone he could if they tried doing anything without his permission.
McGee frowned as he tried to focus on the search open on his computer. When Tony and Ziva had headed up to MTAC to talk to Stan Burley, Kirkan had filled him in on exactly what Bryan Lindemann had said, which gave McGee a few places to start. For one, the helicopter pilot had said 'medic', not 'corpsman', which meant that the kidnapper—or at least one of the kidnappers—was probably Army, not Navy, although McGee certainly wasn't going to neglect to search Navy corpsmen and risk Gibbs' wrath at only doing half of his job. Just as he told Tony, though, there were a lot of medics, and if he did a thorough background check on each of them, he'd be working on that long after the United States left Afghanistan, whenever that would be.
His next step would be to try to figure out why somebody would want to kidnap the wife of a successful writer, and that required getting into their heads, something that he was definitely improving on recently, but it was still far from his best skill. That was something in Gibbs' department, something that Tony could certainly hold his weight doing, and when it involved someone who dabbled in the spy game, it was right up Ziva's alley. But unless the bad guys spent high school digging pudding out of their backpacks and climbing out of lockers, or spent their free weekends in role playing games, he was out of his element. He just had a hard time relating.
"What've you got, McGee?" He blinked in surprise at the words and stared dumbly up at his boss, watching Gibbs hand over a cup of coffee to Kirkan, who accepted with a nod. He wondered just how long he had been working on the search; it couldn't have taken Gibbs that long to get to the coffee shop and buy two large black coffees, could it?
He blinked again to see Gibbs watching him with an expecting look. "Uh, doing a search on the medics and corpsmen at Camp Phoenix, Boss," he finally said, and Gibbs just kept staring. He remembered that Gibbs hadn't been there when Tony and Ziva arrived with Kirkan, so he started over. "One of Kirkan's friends—." He stopped talking when Gibbs turned from to the former Marine, with the same expecting looking that he just used with McGee. On cue, Kirkan summed up the story again for Gibbs' benefit.
Gibbs nodded slightly before turning back to McGee. "Ziva and DiNozzo?"
"MTAC. Bahrain." McGee grimaced slightly at the one-word answers; he was becoming Gibbs and Tony. If this continued, he'd have to unlearn all his computer skills, become antagonistic toward his father, and find a female partner to have an inappropriate relationship with.
Gibbs looked like he was ready to say something, but he didn't get the opportunity, the sound of heavy and excited footsteps interrupting their conversation. "You guys are going to want to see this," Abby said, her words coming out in a rush. "So, you know that email account that we set up for tips, the one that Peter gave out at the press conference? I've been going through the emails. We've gotten, like, five hundred emails since the press conference, so that's a lot to go through. Most of them are the 'oh, I'm so sorry your wife got kidnapped' sort, and some are from some real nutjobs—I saved those emails in case you felt like going on some sort of vendetta later, Gibbs—but then I found this." She had been loading something to McGee's computer as she spoke, and with a definitive push of a button the remote, it was on the plasma.
As if the scrubs and brown hair—as well as the context—weren't enough to tell that it was Dr. Aachen, Kirkan's sharp intake of breath confirmed it. She was curled up on a military-issue cot, a gray wall behind her. "As you can see, we haven't hurt Dr. Aachen. She's just fine, and she'll continue to be fine if we get our money. Set up a private Swiss bank account, deposit the money, and email the account number to this address. We're waiting."
The video stopped, and Abby rushed in to explain. "So, it was sent from the same account as the ransom note. I've been trying to find things in the background to try to pinpoint an exact location on base, but—"
"But it's the most generic military setting there is," Kirkan interrupted, his voice slightly shaky. He waved dismissively at his own words. "Sorry. Continue."
"That's quite alright, good sir," she said with a wide grin and cheesy accent before returning to her analysis. "It was filmed from a cell phone, which really makes no sense, when you think about it. I mean, that far away from your standard cell phone towers, it really just becomes a camera, and if you want a camera, you should probably buy a camera. The quality—"
"Abby," Gibbs said warningly.
"Right. Not relevant." She stopped and frowned. "Actually, that's all I've got," she confessed.
"I have been working on a psychological autopsy of our kidnapper," Ducky said, getting everyone's attention. McGee frowned; he hadn't even noticed the medical examiner's arrival. "He—and it is almost definitely a he—is young and military trained. Addressing the email to 'sir or ma'am'—"
"Ducky, we already knew he's military," McGee interrupted. "That was sent from base." He flushed slightly at interrupting the talkative medical examiner; that was another Gibbs or Tony thing to do. "Have you seen the latest we've gotten from them?" he asked to cover it up, pulling the remote from Abby's hand to replay the short video. They all watched in silence, although it didn't escape McGee's notice that Kirkan seemed to get even paler than he already was.
"Ah, yes," Ducky said when it was over. He continued, unfazed by what he had just seen. "He has nothing against Dr. Aachen and is viewing this as a business transaction between him and Mr. Kirkan. In the email, he does not refer to her by name, only as 'Gregory Aachen's wife'. And I'm sure, Mr. Kirkan, you would be relieved to know that he does not wish your wife any harm."
"Except for the whole kidnapping thing," Kirkan replied. He flushed slightly at the unintentional snide tone, still feeling shaken up by the short video of his wife that he had now seen twice. "Sorry."
"You're quite forgiven. I understand the significant amount of stress you must be under right now. One of my good friends from medical school—"
"Unless Dr. Aachen is your good friend from medical school, I don't want to hear it," Gibbs interrupted.
"I am afraid her medical education was a number of decades after my own," Ducky replied with a slight chuckle. "But I do see your point, Jethro. I believe our young kidnapper, or kidnappers, as the case may be, want this business transaction to take place, and take place soon. They just want the money. This has nothing to do with Dr. Aachen as a person. In fact, they probably respect her professionally, for her position of rank if nothing else, which is contributing to their discomfort with the idea of having to hold her longer than necessary."
"Could he be a medic?" McGee asked with a frown. Ducky seemed to think about that for a moment before nodding.
"That would make sense," he agreed. "It would also explain how he knew the connection between Dr. Aachen and Mr. Kirkan."
"What's going on?" They all turned their attention to the stairs to see Tony and Ziva descending from MTAC. They quickly caught them up to date on the video and Ducky's analysis before Tony relayed their conversation with General de la Cruz and two-thirds of the Bahrain field team.
"Wow," McGee said when they finished. "The general is an ass." Tony snorted and Ziva smirked at the words. "So what now?"
"We keep looking for the bad guys," Tony replied without missing a beat. "You get anything from searching the medics?"
"Not yet," the junior agent admitted. "I was trying to figure out how to narrow down the search, beyond just 'not flight trained.'"
"Finances." They turned to face Gibbs. "If it's not personal, it's the money. Look for someone who needs money." They all stood there, unmoving, for a few seconds before Gibbs turned and walked away, and McGee realized at that moment just how little Gibbs had done on this case—he was letting Tony and Ziva do all the thinking and heavy lifting. He frowned as he returned to chair to begin to modify his search, trying to figure it out. It probably wasn't his personal relationship with Kirkan, as Gibbs had done a lot more on cases involving people he was a lot closer to, including a former commanding officer. McGee was pretty sure this was Gibbs' subtle nod to DiNozzo, to give his approval at his senior field agent wanting to move on.
"Finances," McGee echoed dully. "Right. Got it, Boss." His eyes were back on his computer screen, but he could see Ziva frowning at him out of his peripheral vision, and was sure she was wondering just what had gotten into him. He didn't look up to acknowledge her, though, because that would require explaining his thoughts and feelings about the whole situation to her, and he wasn't sure if she would get it. Actually, to be honest with himself, he wasn't sure he would be able to explain it. It had been just about seven years since he had come to work in the MCRT full-time, seven years of working alongside Gibbs and Tony, and he never really gave much thought to what would happen when the team split up. Sure, the team had been split up, but his confusion over that situation only lasted two days, before Vance pulled him into his office and explained what was going on and what he needed McGee to do, and so that entire summer, he knew that the team would be getting back together and everything would be normal again. And although he didn't really feel that way, he couldn't help but liken Ziva to Yoko Ono, as if none of this would be happening if she hadn't shown up. He knew that was ridiculous, and knew that that wasn't the case at all—if anything, Ziva's presence had probably kept Tony around longer than he would have stayed had she not been there—but that thought had unintentionally popped into his head, and now he couldn't get it out.
He didn't know how long he had been sitting at that computer, trying to narrow down the search and rule out suspects, but he knew it was enough time for Kirkan to wander to the break area when his phone started ringing practically non-stop with interview requests from news shows and magazines, Tony to do at least ten things to annoy Ziva, Gibbs to come back with a new cup of coffee and do something at his computer, and for Abby to come back upstairs and ask if he wanted to go to lunch. After all of that sitting and searching, though, he finally felt like he was going somewhere. "Boss," he began, not sure if he should be directing his comments at Gibbs or Tony; both looked up. "I've narrowed our mystery medic down to a few possibilities, and at the top of that list is Specialist Adam Jenkins." He turned on the plasma screen to show the Department of the Army photo of the enlisted medic. "He's a 68W—Combat Medic. Spotless record, high marks on his personnel evaluation reports, and one of his stated career goals? Helicopter medic. Deployed with his unit to Camp Phoenix six months ago, which was five weeks after his daughter was born. And that's when things got complicated."