Chapter 54
Thanksgiving Eve
Boston
FBI field office
Sean Cavanaugh leaned against a wall near one of the interrogation rooms, exhaled in frustration, and lightly punched the wall behind him.
That did not go unnoticed by the FBI agents and personnel still in the building an hour and a half before midnight, and a few minutes later Special Agent Daniel Todd made his way to the Boston Police Department Lieutenant.
"That's not gonna help," Todd said to Cavanaugh, who was rubbing his knuckles. "Lemme take a look."
Cavanaugh's hand had only a few scratches, and the wall hadn't taken any damage.
"Don't worry, Danny, I'm just blowin' off steam," Cavanaugh said, loudly for the benefit of anyone else in the hallway. "And I ain't gonna beat the crap outta Pike," he whispered low enough that only Todd could hear.
"Can't do it myself; sure can't let you do it," Todd replied, in a whisper. "Not that I haven't thought about it."
Cavanaugh looked at him in frustration, and then over at the room where the former interim medical examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - T. Pike - had been hours ago.
"Pike lawyered up," Cavanaugh said as he and Todd walked to the break room. "Idiot's smart enough to do that. Dumb enough to run his mouth."
"The guy's not going anywhere, Sean," Todd replied. "We're watching him, and we told him and his lawyer both that he's not to leave town. Besides, there's that thing."
"Thing? What thing?"
"That thing I'm about to tell you about. Let's get some coffee, go back to my office and I'll tell you about it."
Washington
Leroy Jethro Gibbs' basement
Gibbs stared at the frame of the boat in his basement, and wanted to work on it a bit before settling in for the night.
Between the debriefing he had via audio back at NCIS with Tony DiNozzo, Jenny Shepard, and FBI agent Seeley Booth, and the discussion he and FBI agent Fritz Howard just had with agent Todd and Lt. Cavanaugh, sleep wasn't coming anytime soon.
"Probie!"
Mike Franks - Gibbs's former boss, when NCIS was the Naval Investigative Service, and Franks led Gibbs' team - walked down the stairs into the basement, trailed by Jane Rizzoli.
"Probie, I brought Jane with me, just like you wanted."
"Good," said Gibbs, who - after assuring Howard that Franks was an authorized (and retired) NCIS agent - informed Franks and Jane about a conversation FBI in Boston had taped.
"Our Boston field office recorded it, and played it back for agent Gibbs and myself in its entirety," Howard said, as he, Gibbs, Franks and Jane huddled around a table in the basement. Howard then began to summarize the recording, and the conversation he and Gibbs just had with Todd and Jane's boss, Cavanaugh.
"Earlier this morning," Howard said, "T. Pike talked with a Middle Eastern male who identified himself as an Al-Jazeera reporter, wanting to interview Pike about 'reverse gender prejudice in the American workplace'."
Jane rolled her eyes at that, and Gibbs couldn't resist a chuckle in response.
Pike gave the man a long history and told how he had been "held back" by Maura Isles and her "friends in Boston PD" - resulting in more eyerolling by Jane - then went on a long rant about how Jane and Maura were leaving, their jobs intact, covered by Cavanaugh, Korsak and Boston PD. He said he didn't know where they went, but "probably got married and honeymooned" in Provincetown or "Paradise Island".
Pike also told the male that he was going to "question as many people as possible" at Boston PD to get the truth behind Jane and Maura's departure.
The male told Pike "I can help you", following up with claims to know people within the governor's office and Congress who could "overturn this atrocity to your career"; all the male needed was information on Jane and Maura, which Pike readily agreed to turn over.
"In case it already wasn't obvious to all of you, Pike's an idiot," Jane remarked.
"You're not the first person to make that observation," Howard replied. "Now here's the part that has us concerned. Pike took the call on his home phone; because Pike had been labeled as a person of interest by the Bureau, due to his professional and personal jealousy of Dr. Isles-"
"And didn't Haswari target the guy as somebody he could use potentially to help him get close to Jane, here, and her girlfriend?" Franks asked.
"Yes," Howard replied. "FBI and Haswari targeted him as a person of interest, for different reasons, and because of that we put a trace on his phone. Turns out, the guy he talked with was based in Somalia. He tried to hide his location. We were able, though, to trace it to an internet cafe in a coastal town known as one of the places the Fighters of God use for their activities."
"A commonly used location?" Gibbs asked.
"They've used it before, for posting messages on the internet," Howard said, "and we ran voice recognition on the guy Pike was talking to."
"Let me take a wild guess who that might be, and it's not bin Laden," Jane said.
"It's an exact match for Ari Haswari himself," Howard replied.
"So you know where the bastard is," Franks said. "Seems simple to me; send somebody in to either find him and bring him, or blow the son of a bitch up-"
"He moves around, Mike," Gibbs said. "Never stays in one place very long. He's almost as hard to find as bin Laden."
"So you're saying," Jane said to Howard and Gibbs, "that the guy threatening Maura - and Kate, and me - talked to T. Pike and asked him to give him information on us both."
"Correct, though Pike probably didn't know he was Ari Haswari," Howard answered. "Pike may have lawyered up, but we can get him to talk, under the Homeland Security Act. If he refuses, he's looking - at best - at life in Gitmo."
Upstairs, Tony DiNozzo and Seeley Booth finally arrived in the neighborhood, having driven up from Richmond - and dropping off NCIS assistant director Jenny Shepard at the Navy Yard. Kate Todd and fellow NCIS agent Paris Summerskill arrived at the same time, and all four walked into the house.
After Gibbs and Howard debriefed the group on Pike's conversation with Haswari, everyone mingled upstairs - except for Gibbs and Tony, who headed down to the basement to talk shop - and about Director Tom Morrow's comments during the MTAC meeting earlier that day.
"Here," Gibbs said, opening a bag of potato chips for Tony, and opening a bottle of beer for him. "You're probably hungry after being out there a while."
"You're right, Boss," Tony said, sitting at the table next to the boat. "Put hundreds of miles on the car, nearly got pulled over by Roscoe Coltrane and friends, and drove waaaayyy out into the sticks to listen in on the assistant director talking with Ari's sister."
Gibbs and Tony talked about director Morrow's decision to make Stan Burley the Senior Agent on Gibbs' team, and Tony got to the point.
"Boss, I can be senior agent. I can lead the team if something happens to you-"
"Tony. I know that. I believe that. I believe in you. On this, I gotta follow orders."
"Boss, what else did the director order? Anything else I should know about?" Tony asked, frustrated and a little angered. "Anything else I'm gonna find out about in some meeting, over the phone?"
"DiNozzo," Gibbs replied. "You are one of the best young agents I have ever met, ever worked with. Yes. The Director has more confidence in Stan to lead the team if something happens to me. But the Director hasn't worked with you like I have-"
"Damn right-"
"He hasn't seen what I see in you. And for that matter what I see in Kate...Morrow will see it soon enough. Maybe one day, sooner than you think, you'll lead your very own team."
"...really?"
"Yeah...but keep in mind everything I've tried to teach you - including what we talked about last night."
Tony recalled his spying on Jane and Maura in Gibbs' - no, their - room.
"Kids don't lead teams in NCIS," Gibbs said. "Men do. Tony...when you think, and act, like a man, you're damn good. Remember what I told you your first day on the job."
"Rule Five. Don't waste good."
"Remember that, DiNozzo, and keep it up, you can go as far as you want."
Boston
Maura Isles' house
Detective Vince Korsak drove by Maura's house - just to make sure everything was okay - and saw the lights were still on.
He found an open spot up the street, walked to the house, and - after being frisked by one of the FBI agents on site - greeted Angela Rizzoli and Tommy Rizzoli.
"Angela, Tommy, you're more than welcome to join me for dinner tomorrow," Korsak said, as the three sat in the living room.
"Vince, we'd love to," Angela said, "but we have to get approval to go anywhere."
"She's telling the truth," Tommy said. "Even if Ma goes to buy groceries she has to have two of those agents with her."
"At ALL times," Angela complained, then whispered, "I'm lucky they're not standing next to me when I use the restroom-"
"MA!" Tommy shouted as Korsak looked away in embarassment. "We don't need to know that-"
One of the FBI agents - April Wilson - walked up to the three, apologizing for the inconvenience, reiterating that the Rizzoli family - including the father, Frankie Sr. in Florida - had to be guarded by FBI 24/7. And that any prolonged visit to someone's house had to be approved by the FBI.
"Check out the family, the house," Wilson said. "This late, we can't do that. If we had known-"
"It's alright, Agent Wilson," Angela said, forlornly. "We understand that."
"However...as long as we know who's coming here, and we can clear them, there's nothing to prevent you from having people come over-"
"Really?" Angela.
"Really. And I understand that all of your friends and associates have been checked out by the Bureau. Even Jane's criminal informant."
"Rondo?" Korsak said, increduously. "You checked out Rondo?"
"Had to," Wilson replied. "As far as Thanksgiving is concerned...there's nothing stopping him, or pretty much anyone else you know and work with, from coming by. We'll even cater."
"You'd cater?" Angela said. "I can't ask you to do that-"
"You guys cook?" Tommy said.
"I know a few recipes," Wilson answered. "Mamma's a chef down in Atlanta. And the food has to be cleared anyway. That means a potluck's out of the question, but the FBI does up a nice Thanksgiving dinner."
"How nice?" Korsak asked.
"Bring your friends and find out."
"Now there's an idea," Korsak mused. "How many people?"
"However many the living room can fit."
Korsak and Tommy proceeded to make some phone calls.
Detective Barry Frost agreed to come by, and asked if he could bring his mother and her 'friend' - Wilson agreed to do background on the two immediately - and Frost also offered to find Rondo and bring him by.
Roz Framus said she could come by. Lt. Cavanaugh agreed, after dinner with his brother Max, and told Korsak he was going to formally ask his cousin Jordan to be the interim M.E. tomorrow.
Tommy called Giovanni, who said he'd like to come by, and asked if Jane and Maura were alright.
Angela called Susie Chang, who called the rest of Maura's team.
Korsak called Frost back, and asked if there was a way to have it to where Jane and Maura could see everyone via a webstream; Frost said he'd need a capable laptop with webcam, and streaming connection - and Wilson said the FBI might be able to "arrange" that.
"That would be great," Frost said. "It'd be great to do that for them tomorrow. Hopefully all this will be settled before Christmas."
"Barry, I hate to say it, but it looks like they both are gonna be down there longer than that," Korsak said, resignedly.
Quantico, Virginia
FBI Headquarters
It had been a long day for Tobias Fornell, one that wasn't quite over yet for the senior Bureau agent.
Before leaving the building, Fornell sat back at his desk and leafed through a manila folder full of photos and bios of four agents the Bureau hoped it would not have to put into the field.
Two were Bureau agents, two recruited specifically for the mission of posing as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Caitlin Todd, Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles.
This mission came from the FBI Director, who said in a closed meeting that the Bureau "grossly misjudged the threat posed by Haswari, trusting him to provide intel on Hamas when he clearly intended to double cross the United States and its ally".
It's fitting that the man who approved what we did with Ari would cover his own ass by putting four agents' asses on the line, Fornell thought as looked at the photographs.
One photograph struck him, that of the young woman who was Kate's 'body double'.
Isn't she on sick leave, Fornell thought, before going back to her file, and the note attached to it.
The agent's name was Amy Sutton, and Fornell heard rumors that her illness was worse than officially let on...as in terminal.
The note on her bio was interesting: effectiveness in field est. 6-8 mos.
Also of interest was the note about her upcoming 'procedure' in San Francisco.
Fornell looked up the doctor assigned to the surgery: Jackie Colette, Presidio Medical Group. He looked up her info, saw her photo, then doublechecked her against the 'Kate list' and saw she was on it.
Why are they having this woman do the procedure, and what exactly is she going to do, Fornell mused. Sutton doesn't really look like Kate, but I guess if you had the right surgeon...
My god...
They're making her LOOK like Kate Todd.
Fornell closed the folder, and saw the CONFIDENTIAL label on it, meaning that he couldn't tell Gibbs or anyone outside the agency about this 'mission'...officially.
And definitely not this soon.
