What Mrs. Mallard Said - 38
Author: GataChica
Rating: M
Warnings: sexual situations
Spoilers: Untouchable, Bloodbath
"Mr. Harper, how long have you been a Security officer?"
"Twenty-two years. I was trained as an MP in the Marines, and when I left the Service due to a minor medical problem, I was offered the job of Security Officer at Quantico."
"What kind of medical problem?" Ziva asked.
Harper was clearly uncomfortable, but she persisted. Finally he said, "A bladder defect. I kept getting infections and they had to do surgery."
Ziva already knew this, of course; it was right there in his file. But her aim was to make sure he was who he said he was. She had already taken his fingerprints and sent them up to Jake, to be compared with the ones McGee found on the vending machine. Now she was questioning him, not just on the night before, but also on his background.
"How long have you been working here?"
"Almost nine years. I was at Diego Garcia for a short time, then moved to Pensacola. Stayed there 4 years then got transferred here."
She spent several more minutes questioning Harper, after which she felt reasonably certain he was telling the truth. His background check was clean; all that was left was to prove that his fingerprints did not match those of the "green blur." She was ready to question the second officer, Dodgson.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Jake was running the security officers' fingerprints, as well as the suspect's, through AFIS, but he didn't expect anything from the officers. After all, they had been thoroughly vetted before getting jobs in Security; if anything had come up, they would never have gotten past the front door.
However, he was not the type to leave any stone unturned.
He was taking prints from the phony bomb when his computer beeped, signifying a match on the fingerprints. To his surprise, the officer named Dodgson was identified as a man who had been sent to prison for assault seven years before. However, he had spent the last three years at a high-security mental hospital, and had been released only a few weeks before.
Almost immediately another match came up, not as good as the first, but still substantial. A partial pulled from the vending machine matched both Dodgson and the former inmate, at 70% accuracy. There had been some blurring, most likely caused by a thin latex glove.
Jake picked up the phone to call Tony, but at that moment Tony walked into the lab.
"I know who it is! It's Dodgson!" Jake pointed to the computer and the fingerprint matches.
Tony wasn't surprised to find out that Dodgson's print matched Mercer. He immediately called Ziva. "Have you talked to Dodgson yet?"
"No, I finished with Harper but I can't find Dodgson." Her voice sounded both embarrassed and worried.
"Didn't you lock him up?" Tony realized his voice was high with tension, and that he must calm down. "Call Security. We need to hold him; he's our guy."
"Will do."
"Dammit all!" Tony exclaimed. Then another realization hit him and he raced for the staircase leading down to autopsy. It seemed to take forever for him to get down the stairs and to the door. Through the glass he saw Abby, Ducky, and Palmer standing like statues, facing the wall he couldn't see. Obviously Mercer was in there, probably pointing a gun at them.
Faintly he could hear a voice penetrating the sound-proofing. "You can't make me believe this! How could you love him? He's old. He can't take care of you, but I can. Abby, please! Mawher told me all about you; I just want to keep you close to me and safe for the rest of your life! That's all."
Tony could see Ducky's lips moving but couldn't hear what he was saying. Stepping back, he called McGee to come down there. Ziva appeared just as he disconnected; fortunately she had taken the stairs as well, so there was no elevator ding to announce her.
"McGee's coming. I want you to go around to the other entrance. We'll try to wait for him, but if you believe the guy is about to shoot, go ahead and nab him."
She nodded, moving down the corridor swiftly but noiselessly.
Abby was sweating, but that was the only outwardly visible sign of the terror she was feeling. They had been caught completely off guard when this crazy guy who looked like one of their Security Officers had stormed into autopsy, brandishing his gun. Ducky tried to get in front of Abby as protection, but it became clear that Abby was what the man was seeking. He didn't really care about Ducky or Palmer; they were just annoying distractions that he would brush away like a fly.
His voice was paradoxically gentle at first, considering the way he was waving the gun around. He proclaimed his love, then tried to get her to say she loved him too, or at least to come closer and talk to him. She didn't move. She couldn't move.
That was when he began shouting, becoming more and more delirious. "I just want to keep you close to me and safe for the rest of your life! That's all."
Ducky couldn't keep quiet anymore. "By safe, you mean smothered! You're obsessed, man! If I allowed you to take Abby, you would never let her out of your sight."
"Shut up, old man!" Abby watched as he moved closer to Ducky, coming to a stop with the gun to Ducky's forehead.
She finally found her voice. "No!" she cried. Instinct drove her to kick at the gun, which went flying out of his hand and across the room.
At that moment Ziva and Tony charged in from the two entrances, guns pointed at the little man, who had also fallen backwards from the force of Abby's kick. "Don't move!" shouted Ziva. McGee followed them in, providing extra backup.
Abby felt a sudden dizzying wave of relief, then she realized that when she kicked at the gun she had also caught her fiancé on the nose. "Oh, Ducky, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I bet that hurts like hell." She ran to get him some paper towels while Ziva, Tony & McGee handled Mercer.
Ducky's nose was bleeding and it did, in fact, hurt like hell, but nothing to approach a gunshot to the head – or even worse, a gunshot to Abby's head. He shuddered at the very thought.
Abby was crying. "Sweetheart, can you forgive me?" She dabbed at his nose with a paper towel.
"Of course I can, dearest. I might be dead if you had not done it," he reassured her while keeping his nose pinched. This caused his voice to sound funny, and she began to giggle and cry at the same time. The tension of the last few days finally began to dissipate as she hugged him tightly.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Thirty minutes later, the stalker had been arrested, and Tony was returning to his desk to complete paperwork on the case. As he was sitting down, his phone rang. He didn't even stop to check the caller ID.
"Anthony DiNozzo, at your service," he answered. He was feeling very satisfied with himself.
"Tony, I'm surprised you haven't called."
"Boss? Why would I call? Besides, we've been a little busy here."
"Didn't Abby or Ducky tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Jenny had the baby, two months early."
"Oh!" Tony was taken aback. "Is she okay? Is the baby okay?"
"So far, yes on both counts." Gibbs paused for a moment. "What have you been busy with?"
"Well, boss, you're not going to believe this…"