A/N: The anticipated southerly change wasn't as strong as expected so homes didn't burn, thank goodness. The weekend saw much cooler temperatures here and as a bonus, we got a small amount of rain – maybe 4 or 5 mms but more rain is being forecast for later in the week, possibly up to 10 mms. Hopefully they're right, although it still isn't anywhere near enough to put out the mega-fires, what it does do is it gives everyone some desperately needed respite and it gives us a chance to backburn. It gives exhausted firies a chance to catch their breath before the heat and extreme conditions return. It helps people to assess the fire damage and deliver critical first aid and food to our wildlife. For example, instead of aerial water bombing yesterday, choppers were busy around here dropping a ton of carrots and sweet potatoes to a mob of starving rock wallabies. It also gives volunteers a chance to carry out the grim task of burying hundreds of koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and wombats who perished in the fires, not to mention all the non-native animals who perished too.
The rain has bought us some respite, not a resolution. We still have a long hot summer ahead which inevitably means more fires or flare-ups of existing ones. We're still in drought and our precious water is in even shorter supply since many dams were emptied by aerial bombing ops to save lives and properties. What we do when our water runs out is unclear – no one wants to talk about it. What is clear is that this crisis is far from over and things need to change when it does – not go back to business as usual. Thank-you to people who have been generous in their support of us during this catastrophe.
This chapter is longer than usual. I was considering a cliff-hanger, but I decided to just go ahead and add the extra two thousand odd words, even if it does mess with my symmetry.
After fielding several phone calls from investigators from sister agencies and PDs about ongoing investigations, the Naples field office wanted some advice on an investigation which had stalled. Tony often kicked it around with other teams when they hit a brick wall. Due to his reputation for pulling a rabbit out of his hat, people would call on him, although Tony felt that it had more to do with having a fresh set of eyes look over the problem than with him per se.
Then there were a couple of job inquiries to deal with. An agent from San Diego and an agent afloat who heard that they had a vacancy on the team. He told them both to fax him their resumes, even though he could tell pretty much after five minutes chatting with them that they wouldn't last on Gibbs team, that's assuming he even made it back again. Tony doubted that the Marine would want to work with them, either.
At that point, Tony was ready to stretch his legs and get a drink. Wandering to the break room to make himself another cup of tea, he allowed himself to consider the conversation he and Jess had shared that morning over breakfast.
"So, T, it occurred to me a while ago that Senior might be tempted to send his mysterious associate to visit retribution on his pet physician after our little tête-à-tête. We did kinda lead him to believe that the doc ratted him out, ya know."
Of course, Senior didn't know that Stevenson hadn't just spilled his guts about his abuse of his son, but he'd also colluded with them so that the Saudi royals and Prince Al would think he'd tried to doublecross them. If he did find out, Tony knew his sperm donor would definitely want to go after the sleazoid doctor.
Tony sipped his coffee. "True, Jessie, but I guess the question is, do we care?"
Jess grinned, a predatorial smile that made him feel nostalgic. She could be such a badass sometimes.
"Nope, not at all... but we still might need him for something," she observed calmly.
Tony shrugged. "Yeah, you're right, of course, Pardner. And besides, just because he's a douce-bag, we don't have to be like him."
So, Tony and Jessie had called in favours from the LEOs in Dorset. They were going to keep their eyes and ears open and check out any suspicious strangers coming to town to look for Stevenson.
To be honest, Tony was kind of hoping that Senior would go after the shady Marcus Welby wannabe, so they wouldn't have to go through the dangerous process of getting Senior's associate to come after Jess. Wandering back into the bullpen to continue catching up on the never-ending pile of paperwork, he sat down at his desk, wincing at the thought of how she would react if he as dumb enough to mention his fears to her.
She would kick his ass, rightly pointing out that she was a highly decorated, exceptionally capable cop, with more years of experience than him and he knew all that. He didn't think he could cope if anything went wrong though. More importantly, Tia had already suffered far too much trauma in her young life, plus she adored and depended upon Jess emotionally. Seeing how seriously Tia had reacted when Senior had drugged Megan, he could only imagine how bad it would get should Jess be harmed even slightly. With her finally doing better, he didn't want anything to jeopardise her progress.
Getting antsy even thinking about all the ways in which what they had planned could go wrong, he stood up agitatedly. Tony shuddered suddenly at the thought of what it would entail if they actually went through with the whole charade of him wanting to be Senior's heir again.
The bottom line was that to make it work and convince Senior's associate he was willing to sell his daughter to get an inheritance, he'd have to fake a massive fight with Jess. Then she'd need to move out of their place, so she was an easy target to lure Senior's unknown associate. They'd already discussed the mechanics of the operation from a logistical and practical standpoint and Gibbs had offered them the use his place in Alexandria for the sting. In fact, they were going to be checking out his house in Alexandria sometime in the next day or two.
However, no one considered what their trap for ensnaring Senior's minion would mean to his daughter. They'd been so focused on the end prize of locking him up that they'd failed to consider Tia's reactions. It had been incredibly short-sighted of them, although he'd also been focusing on finding links between Reid O'Leary and Senior, discovering instead a link to Dennis Cooper. That had certainly been a surprise.
Tony recalled how badly his daughter had fretted about Jess when she and Jimmy had gone to confront Dr Stevenson. Plus, her reaction to what had happened to Megan Jardine when Senior tried to snatch her- Tia had been beside herself with worry. They really should have factored in how just much it would affect her.
Any apparent conflict between them which was serious enough for Jess to move out of their home would impact dramatically on Tia. Even if they told her that it was a sting, she would still be badly affected by knowing Jessie was making herself a deliberate target. She'd fretted about Jess being absent when she'd travelled to Dorset for one night so he could only imagine how stressed his daughter would become if Jessie moved out for an extended period.
Feeling his stomach lurch at the thought of how much damage he could have inadvertently done to her emotional and psychological recovery, Tony bolted out of the break room, racing to make it to the head. He ended up in one of the cubicles, hunched over the toilet bowl, losing his stomach contents as it hit him that even if they were trying to protect her from Senior and his henchman, what they planned to do would in all likelihood still end up traumatising her.
As he puked, Tony cursed himself for being a stupid self-indulgent idiot, too busy focusing on how dealing with Senior was making him feel that he'd missed what was right under his nose. What a pathetic parent he was!
Tony vowed to find another way to checkmate Senior and locate the bastard who kidnapped daughter. There was always another alternative.
He stood up and made his way to the basin to wash out his mouth before he headed back to the bullpen. They needed to ditch the current undercover plan and come up with another option. He resolved to talk to Jess about it tonight and come up with a plan 'B' together.
He had to convince her to drop their old one for Tia's wellbeing. The price of sticking with a flawed plan was just too high to pay.
~oOO0o~
Jess sighed. The atmosphere in her beloved Tahoe was awkward, to say the least. She and Jethro Gibbs weren't exactly bosom pals.
Hah! That was an understatement if ever she heard one, she chuckled softly, looking at the stony-faced passenger beside her.
Truthfully? They detested each other and probably always would. She thought they'd quite happily shoot each other if it wasn't for the fact that they both knew how much their mutual antagonism distressed Tony. Their antipathy also went way beyond the normal cop versus federal agent professional rivalry too - it was personal.
In the detective lieutenant's honest opinion, Gibbs was an arrogant SOB who was an awesomely craptastic leader – using fear and intimidation as a poor substitute for proper leadership skills. In her view, he'd bullied Tony into believing he was a far less capable agent than he truly was. He conveniently ignored the chain-of-command, except when it came to himself, preferring to pit his team members against each other and sow dissension in the ranks. In her estimation, because he was threatened by Tony's skills.
For his part, Jess was pretty certain Gibbs hated her because she was Tony former training partner when they were both cops in Philly Police Department. As his partner and his training officer, Jess and Tony had a longstanding and trusting relationship that, as far as she could see, was the antithesis of the one he had with Tony. His consisted of Jethro forcing his 2IC to jump through hoops, ever smaller and higher hoops, in order to gain an ounce of his oh-so-precious approval.
Plus, aside from their professional relationship, her own intuition was screaming that he was jealous of the time T spent with her and Tia. And that was plain crazy because of course Tony was going to choose to be in his daughter's presence over spending time sitting in Gibbs basement swilling that pathetic piss Gibbs called bourbon.
She would never dream of asking Tony to put their friendship before that of his daughter. Especially seeing he'd been deprived of being her father in a tangible sense for her entire life. Plus, Tia had experienced a huge upheaval and multiple traumas this year. Knowing Tony as well as she did, if she was ever stupid or arrogant enough to expect him to put her needs before Tia's she had no doubt whatsoever who he would pick.
How Gibbs could fail to understand that simple truth, she couldn't fathom. For someone supposedly a hot-shot investigator, she thought it demonstrated a basic lack of understanding of what made Tony tick. Of what made any decent father tick.
Of course, it was fairly obvious to people in the DC law community (who she'd discovered, gossiped like a bunch of old washerwomen) that Jess didn't get along with Gibbs and that he in turn barely tolerated Lawless. The prevailing wisdom from the peanut gallery was that Gibbs didn't approve of Tony and Jess' relationship, which everyone assumed to be a romantic one.
Presumably, a lot of his disapproval was because he thought that she'd affect Tony's performance in a negative sense, getting in the way of him doing his job. Granted, Tony had become less focused on NCIS when Tia and herself came back into his life again. And that shouldn't have been a big surprise – he had more to his life than NCIS and his teammates. Plus, there'd been tangible threats to his daughter's safety. Of course, he was going to be focused on his family – and surely you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.
Some people read a lot more into Gibbs disapproval of her, though. They felt that Jethro was jealous of her. Not just jealous in the sense that she took time away from Tony spending time with Gibbs, but because they believed that Gibbs wanted to be with Tony as more than his work partner and his boss.
Frankly, she thought that was a ridiculous scenario, incredibly absurd since didn't Jethro already had three ex-wives and was also a widower? Plus, according to Tone, there was a veritable parade of titian-haired females who'd shared his bed over the years.
So clearly the former gunnery sergeant liked women, but Jess conceded that it was possible that Jethro was bi-curious or even bisexual and just kept his male partners quiet. Hell, perhaps Gibbs really was gay, and he was just so far into the closet that he was ready to drag four innocent females into loveless sham marriages to feed his own arrogant self-delusion of being straight.
Okay, Jethro was (in her admittedly very biased opinion) egotistical enough to have not given a thought to the women he married. It was always about him.
So, yeah, almost anything was possible but if he did have feelings for Tony, she could pretty much guarantee that the feeling was unrequited. Well, as much as anyone can state that about someone else's feeling of course. She'd known T for a long time though and talked about a lot of stuff. Especially how he ended up seconded to go undercover for undercover Vice ops in more than one police department. Almost exclusively, he was sent in undercover as a gay male sex worker – which Tony firmly believed was due to his looks. He often felt as if his undercover skills came a very distant second place in superiors choosing him to do the job. Apparently, many people assumed he was bent and therefore it would be easy for him to fit in.
After yet another request for him to go undercover as a gay sex worker, Tony had been so pissed off that once again his looks were the yardstick used to judge his usefulness. It was a sore point with him because his parents had traded on him to help impress business associates and society doyens. He'd been unhappy that even in the police force he fit the stereotype of guys with good looks and or ripped bodies must be gay.
Not that Tony was obsessed with body-building. Jess was sure that aside from the fact that he was athletic and regarded his body as a machine which required him to keep fit, so he could take down perps and more importantly, run them down when necessary, he never was interested in becoming a muscle-bound, bicep bulging, no-neck hulk.
Jess had often wondered if it had been the reason why he'd agreed to go undercover in the Macaluso crime family. His success at bringing them down when others had failed had absolutely nothing to do with his looks and everything to do with his undercover abilities.
And just for the record, Jessie much preferred his lithe runner's physique to a pumped-up he-man. She'd always found it was a turnoff to go out with a guy who had bigger boobs than she did, but then T's body or his looks weren't the best things about him by a long shot. It was his caring empathetic nature and his incredible loyalty which had always impressed her, right from day one when she'd become his training officer.
While T was as comfortable going undercover playing a gay prostitute as a straight escort or gigolo, he wasn't interested in other guys, sexually. In fact, as far as she knew, he wasn't interested in anyone, not since that Franco-American little bitch...um doctor had ripped his heart into hundreds of pieces. Slowly, Tia seemed to be healing it, but Tone was definitely not interested in dating anyone.
And from what he'd shared with her about Senior, he'd deliberately chosen to pursue a professional sports career to piss him off. If he'd been gay or even bi, Jess was pretty sure Tony would have relished rubbing the fact of his sexuality in his sperm donor's face since the mere thought of it would have horrified the horrible old POS.
Glancing at the perpetually angry man in the passenger seat of her SUV she couldn't help chuckling at the idea that all the other facts aside, Gibbs would be carrying a torch for Tony for all this time and NOT do something about it. If he was interested in him, no way on earth would Jethro prevaricate for years.
The guy who made your average alpha male look like a shrinking violet would have made a move long before now. He never struck her as the type to dither over something he wanted. In fact, Emily and Tia had far more ability to delay gratification than Jethro did. She simply couldn't credit how Gibbs could have been a sniper.
Anyone who said his failure to put the moves on Tony was due to his stupid rule about not dating a co-worker, was living in La-La land and had shit for brains. Gibbs didn't give a damn about following his own rules when it was even the slightest bit inconvenient. If he was interested in someone on his team, he'd ditch that rule without a moment's regret or claim it was for casual hook-ups, not to stand in the way of real adult relationships.
For some reason she couldn't fathom, people saw the attraction between Tony and Gibbs when all she saw was an aging despot, who needed to belittle Tony to make himself feel good. In her view there as nothing loving or romantic about their relationship at all – it was toxic.
Perhaps some presentiment made Gibbs glare at her, irritated. Which only made her laugh even harder.
"Care to share it with the class, Lawless?" he growled at her, not appreciating being out of the loop.
Jess debated internally (for all of a millisecond) about telling him what she'd been laughing about before deciding that he would not see the funny side of it, so she fibbed. Well, she wasn't exactly lying, since she'd thought it was pretty funny earlier in the day when she'd heard the details from some of her colleagues. Although, strictly speaking, it wasn't what she'd been laughing at right at that moment.
"Oh, just thinking about Congressman Greg Sully – he landed in a pretty embarrassing position last night and Metro unies ended up bailing him out."
Gibbs grunted, which apparently was Gibbs-speak for, 'Tell me more.'
Shrugging she obliged. "See, the callgirl he was with last night set him up with the media and his wife. Left him naked and handcuffed to the bed in a motel room, his ass in the air with a carrot rammed up his butt. Seems the good congressman had a fetish for root vegetables as sex toys.
"Anyway, Laya Luvonme called his wife, claiming to be one of his staffers (which in a way was sort of true, when you think about it) and told Mrs Sully that he needed a lift home. His little mousey wife nearly castrated him when she discovered what his 'working late' actually entailed. The unies got called out to the motel after someone reported a domestic disturbance."
Gibbs snorted in genuine amusement. "What's with these moral crusader types? Preach family values, acting like pious self-righteous buttholes but secretly they're amoral sex-crazed degenerates?"
Jessie nodded, "Yeah, whenever I hear a politician declare that they're standing on a family values platform, I know dammed well that they'll have the local sex workers on speed dial and, more often than not, it will be male prostitutes, too. But they're also the same politicians who'll yell the loudest that gays don't belong in the military or they claim to be devout right-to-lifers but pay for their mistress to have an abortion because they want to do it sans condoms." She observed with the world-weary cynicism of a veteran street cop.
"What happens now? Did the press release the story?"
Jess looked happy. "Holding it back until tonight's bulletin. Laya mentioned that he was a regular, not a one-off. She also revealed that there might be a love child or two back in Georgia. My guess is that DC finest investigative journalists and the worst of the gutter press, including the paps, will have descended on Savannah, Georgia as we speak trying to verify the story."
"Or getting vox pops from his constituents out on the street."
Jess chortled, "And his parishioners at his local church. He's also a bible thumper from way back, too."
"Of course, he is," he deadpanned wryly, before admitting, "Yeah that's pretty funny." Gibbs' face crinkled in that half-smile of his.
"So, why'd the pro set him up? Not like he's the first congressman to have sex with a whore," he observed mockingly. "Most of their repeat business is politicians away from spouses and constituents, wanting some fun. "
"True but Laya was using her 'night-time job' to pay off an MBA at Harvard Business School and she'd asked the congressman for a job in his office when she graduated in a couple of months."
Gibbs quirked an eyebrow which Jess learnt was Gibbs-speak for 'yeah and what happened next? '
Grinning predatorily, she said, "He turned her down flat; the pompous jerk said that he didn't employ people of her character, it wouldn't be proper. Plus, he informed her sanctimoniously, he only hired the cream of the academic crop to work in his office."
Shaking his head at such idiocy, Gibbs quipped facetiously, "Whoa! Yeah...can see how she'd get riled up nuff to jam a carrot where the sun don't shine."
There was a moment of shared amusement which passed between them which was...well it was just weird. Still, Jessie told herself, Schadenfreude was an emotion which seemed to be universal – the popularity over time of those franchised versions of Candid Camera, Funniest Home Videos and latterly, that show, Punk'd seemed to bear that hypothesis out.
Plus, as LEOs, they regularly came in contact with these so-called family values types, although DC, not surprisingly was rife with them. Seeing them get their comeuppance was particularly satisfying for the cops. To Jess it ranked just a fraction behind the satisfaction she felt when one of those odious tele-evangelical fraudsters got to do the perp- walk-of-shame in handcuffs in front of a baying-for-blood media scrum. SO GOOD!
Although... their shared moment of joy at someone's misfortune, richly deserved though it was, had felt uncomfortably like a feeling of kinship. Gah! That felt so wrong considering their months of mutual and passionate enmity, even if it was mostly masked by overly polite civility. And it wasn't the only instance of amity between them, either. In the last couple of days, Jess had the feeling that something had shifted in the former Marine.
What it was...well she didn't have a clue, except it seemed to have happened since Tia had introduced Gibbs to the awesomeness (her goddaughter's words) that was Meercat Manor. She wasn't sure if they were correlations or a direct cause and effect. If life hadn't been so hectic, she would have investigated the matter thoroughly. As it was, with Mel's sudden improvement and the whole trip to prison meeting with Senior and T's resulting detour to Guiltsville, she'd been quite preoccupied.
Still, Gibbs had volunteered for Jess to use his house in Alexandria as a base, so they could set up DiNozzo Senior and his henchman. Apparently, it wasn't the first time it had been used to set perps up. Ducky was loud in his praise for the idea, but Jessie was pretty sure his enthusiasm was mostly because he was desperate to keep Gibbs away from his home and especially the basement for as long as possible. If it was being used for their sting, he'd be forced to remain at Tony's place until the trap was sprung.
Although the consensus was that Gibbs' home was a good option for their sting, she had insisted on checking it out for herself. Detective Jessie Lawless hadn't reached the rank of lieutenant by taking other people's word when making operational decisions without wanting to check things out for herself, particularly when her butt was on the line
Thus, she and her nemesis - or perhaps that was too strong a word, an antagonist was more accurate a term – were heading to Alexandria so she could check out his place for herself. Yes, she had been there once or twice before socially with Tony and Tia, but she hadn't been assessing the place from a strategic standpoint of setting up a perp. Planning an op to catch a killer was not something she normally did when attending a backyard barbeque on the off chance that her best friend's father would threaten her goddaughter.
If the place lived up to its reputation, hopefully, they could get this sting up and running by next week. The longer it dragged on the harder it was on Tone. After their midnight cocoa session with Tia a few weeks ago, he'd been doing a better job of acting like he was handling things better, but Jess knew better. He was running an undercover mission in his own home, so he didn't freak out his daughter.
She thought back to how scared he was when he first set eyes on his daughter in the hospital, convinced that children hated him, and he wouldn't be able to be the father to her that she needed. He was such a good dad but that didn't surprise her in the slightest – he'd always excelled at looking after others. With Tia back in his life, his protective nature had kicked up tenfold, though.
Pulling up at the unpretentious craftsman double-storey Alexandria home, Jess decided that if Gibbs wanted to head on down to the basement, she wasn't going to try to stop him. If he did mess up his knee even more than it was already wrecked, then so be it. She wasn't about to play the role of minder, nursemaid or nanny – Jethro was a big boy.
As he clambered out of her SUV, grumpy that he was banned from driving until after his surgery (well after he recovered from the arthroscopic procedure and rehab) he stomped gracelessly up the four stairs to the porch. His non-verbal body language screaming out that he didn't want or need help. Jessie wasn't sure if it was specifically her who he didn't want help from or if it was a refusal of help from the world at large.
She thought that even though he didn't like her, it was probable that he didn't want to accept help from anyone – the stubborn ass.
~oO0Oo~
Trailing along behind Gibbs into his home, Jessie decided to get a general overview of the house and the property to identify any weak spots in terms of being ambushed by DiNozzo's henchman. Jessie was eager to get this show on the road because the longer it dragged on the harder it was going to be on Tony and Tia. It was like anticipating ripping off a Band-Aid – better to get it over and done with as soon as possible because the anticipation always made it much worse than it needed to be.
Jessie noted with amusement that the first thing Gibbs did when he entered his home was to make straight for the coffee pot. He looked momentarily bemused before asking her, "Has DiNozzo been here since I was injured?"
"I think he and Ducky have dropped by to pick up your mail and some extra clothes and books. Problem?" she inquired.
Just looks like things have been moved around some," he responded curtly before continuing to put the coffee on. An awkward silence supervened, and Jess decided to get started.
'I'm going to check out the interior of the house first before I suss out the backyard," she told him.
He shrugged. "Knock yourself out," he replied and even though it was a catch-phrase, Jess wondered at his subconscious word choice. He could have picked 'go right ahead' or 'make yourself at home' but she shrugged, heading downstairs to the basement and working her way up again. She noticed the small dark space under the stairs and the high small window, which was probably at ground level outside the house, plus the half-completed boat.
Methodically she surveyed the basement, taking a number of photos before climbing back up the stairs to check out the ground floor. She carefully noted all the doors and windows and even a fireplace in the living room. Once again, she took photos before she headed upstairs. On the upper level, she paid very close attention to any trees which were substantial enough to make it easy for an intruder to climb through a bedroom window. Looking around, she observed almost automatically that most of the house was sparsely furnished and therefore she wasn't liable to trip over clutter in the dark.
In one way, it made it more difficult for someone to hide in the house and ambush her, which was a good thing of course but the house had an air of being trapped in a time warp and it was sad. If a house was actually capable of feeling lonely or unhappy – Jess felt like Gibbs' house would definitely feel lonesome – and not just because of Jethro's recent absence.
~oO0Oo~
Jethro heaved a massive sigh of relief when Jessie Lawless finished checking out the basement and the ground floor level of his home which he'd purchased with Shannon all those years ago. As soon as she climbed the flight of stairs up to the second level, he hurried across the kitchen as fast as his damned stupid knee would permit and opened the door to the basement and proceeded to descend the bare wooden flight of stairs. Gritting his teeth against the sharp knife-like pain that bloomed in his wrecked knee, he realised that perhaps Duck and the other quacks might have been right about him not attempting stairs.
Goddamnit, that hurt a lot more than he'd been anticipating. Trouble was, now he was four steps down, there was nowhere for him to rest or to turn around and come back up again. At least not without help. If there was someone watching his six and giving him a hand, he might be able to shuffle around and the narrow step and go back up, but he was damned if he'd sing out to Lawless and be beholden to her. No, the only course of action was to suck it up and continue to descend the stairs to the bottom where he could have a breather. He'd worry about how he was going to get back up out of there later.
He just had to hope that his stubbornness hadn't made his knee worse or that the ortho quack, Dr Cavanagh could fix it. Maybe they'd give him a brand-new stainless-steel kneecap and he'd be back in the field before he knew it. God knows, the whole mess with Ziva and Eli David and the attempted assassination of Leon and the death of Deputy Director Craig, the agency was in an uproar. They needed the MCRT back on deck ASAP. Not just to handle cases but as a morale boost to the whole damned agency. It was imperative that he returned swiftly.
Gibbs had been around the block enough times to know that Leon's close ties to the David family would be the death knell of his professional and political career. He was, in effect a dead man walking, and probably had been even before Eli had cooked up his Machiavellian scheme to push the State Department into taking a more direct approach to terror.
Thankfully, it had failed due to a patriotic and diligent Mossad Officer, Amit Hadar, whose courage and outstanding instincts had foiled his sick plan. Jethro did wonder if Eli had thought that by framing the terrorists for an assassination of the head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services agency, Ziva's espionage activities would be pardoned. Did he honestly expect that she'd be released to carry on the War against Terror?
Probably. Crazier things had happened.
As much as he was furious with Ziva for deceiving him over and over again, and ultimately being responsible for his injury, he was shattered that she hadn't taken the plea deal she'd been offered when she was first arrested. Now it was off the table and with the number of counts of espionage continuing to mount, and at the very least, being an accessory to murder after the fact, if not complicit in a federal agent's death, if she was found guilty, she was facing a lifetime of incarceration. That's if she managed to avoid the death penalty.
As much as he hated her betrayal and all the crimes she'd committed, he still had paternal feelings for her. Maybe because Ziva was so good at her goal of getting under his skin, his inner voice admitted, but GODDAMMIT – he didn't want her to face a firing squad either.
He was so caught up in the maelstrom of his feelings for his surrogate daughter that he didn't pay much heed to the fact that someone walked over to the door and descended the first couple of steps. After all, he assumed that Lawless had figured out where he was and was heading down to nag him to death about his knee.
Assumed wrongly, as it turned out. He realised much too late that he'd ignored one of his own rules, rule number 8, to be specific - never take something for granted, double-check it.
Three things happened almost simultaneously – he heard a "Fuck you, Probie," felt an explosion of pain in his already injured knee that made him scream in agony and collapse on the ground even as he heard the unmistakable report of a .22 calibre handgun. Gibbs noted automatically that it was a so-called Saturday Night Special, which although not the biggest handgun, at close range had packed a sufficient punch to make him feel like his knee had disintegrated.
He also instantly recognised the voice of his former boss, Mike Franks. Jethro couldn't believe that Franks was back in the country when he knew there was a warrant out for him on premeditated murder. How stupid was he?
But even more to the point, he couldn't believe that Mike had shot out his knee – the knee that his former boss and mentor knew he'd injured in the Corps during Desert Storm. Of course, his former boss would have no way of knowing that he'd injured it and required surgery, but he'd still deliberately targeted his weak one, just like that drunken prick Rivkin had done.
~oO0Oo~
Coming down the stairs again from the top floor, Jess made for the mid-1960s retro kitchen and exited out the back door. She spotted that Gibbs was nowhere to be seen and immediately figured out that the stubborn sonofabitch had headed down to the basement, despite all the medical advice warning him against tackling the stairs. Ducky was going to be pissed but honestly, she refused to feel guilty because Gibbs was an adult and if he wanted to ignore medical advice - well it was his knee, not to mention his job.
She wandered around outside, noting that Gibbs' fences weren't exactly impenetrable. Jess did note that the neighbour on the left-hand side had a really noisy (yappy) Scottish terrier that would make it difficult for someone to use the backyard to gain entry to Gibbs' place. That's when she heard the unmistakable sounds of a single gunshot ring out inside Jethro's home.
Pausing long enough to call 911 for backup, Lawless ran back into the house, her weapon drawn. The police lieutenant was eternally grateful that she had spent so much time getting the lay-of-the-land. At this point, she would proceed as if there were multiple intruders in the house and they were gunning for Gibbs. After all, it was his house, and besides, no one would have been expecting her to have been there with him.
She dismissed the thought that it might have been a suicide attempt because although she knew he was worried about his job, he was still determined to return to the field. She knew that Gibbs had been acting odd, especially around Tia, who seemed to have affected him in a way that neither she nor Tony could figure out. Still, not even Gibbs, despite being a selfish asswipe, couldn't possibly delude himself about how much his death would affect her goddaughter, should he be tempted to make the ultimate selfish decision to top himself.
No, Jess would assume that someone who was pissed at him – and she'd wager that there was a long list of antagonists - had decided to exact revenge on the former gunnery sergeant. If, however, he'd been overcome with despair and decided to end his life, she would make him wish he'd never been born. Even if she had to hound his ass down to the depths of Hell and drag him back – kicking and screaming. No one was going to do such a goddamned awful thing to Tia on top of all the shit she'd already had to deal with. NO ONE!
As she focused on clearing the kitchen and making her way across to the dining area and living room, Jess was very mindful that there could be more than one perp on the premises. She had no intention of blundering in and getting herself shot. Her baby Dees would never let her hear the end of it. Carefully clearing the ground floor, she slipped silently upstairs to make sure it was clear too.
As the seasoned cop reached the top of the stairs, a scream of agony rang out through the house. At least it answered Jess' doubts. Gibbs was still alive, and someone was in the basement torturing him. Cursing the fact that her backup was still en route, she refocused on the task of clearing the top floor of the Alexandria house of additional perps. Verifying that the rest of the building was free of intruders, Lawless made her way back down to the ground floor, calling central dispatch with a sitrep and a stern reminder for them to come in san sirens.
Learning that the ETA of the unies and the EMT vehicle were still several minutes out, and hearing Gibbs and the assailant communicating, she decided to sit tight and wait until they were in position. Cracking the door open just a fraction, she could now hear what was being said.
~oO0Oo~
As his initial bemusement slowly morphed into a comprehension of what was going on, numbness was beginning to envelop him. Gibbs recognised the signs that he was going into shock. Mercifully, his nervous system had shut down his body's ability to feel pain – probably because it understood that he was currently in a life-threatening situation. He needed to either fight or flee and pain would make that impossible.
Trouble was, that there was nowhere to run to. Mike was blocking his only escape route and even if there was another way out, he wasn't going anywhere. He was lying on the ground and he didn't seem to be able to stand up – let alone run. As for the notion of fighting, he wasn't armed and although he had a handgun – a Beretta hidden down here in the drawer of his workbench, that was at least five feet away. He didn't think that Mike was going to let him crawl over and retrieve it.
Jethro decided to give it a try anyway. What did he have to lose? Trying not to think about whether he could shoot to kill Mike if he managed to retrieve his gun, he decided that doing something was better than simply giving up. So, he started dragging himself across the cold cement floor, noting absently that he hadn't done a very thorough job of sweeping up the sawdust.
As he inched closer and closer to his weapon, Franks smiled sardonically and shoved his gun back into the pocket of his generic tan courier jacket. Jethro observed automatically that it looked like a Raven Arms .25 calibre. Mike continued to descend the flight of timber stairs slowly and Gibbs was not feeling optimistic about his ability to reach his own gun.
Mike was no fool. He had to realise Gibbs was looking for a weapon and still his movements were slow and measured. Franks let him get to within 18 inches of the workbench when he suddenly appeared beside him and trod cold-bloodedly on his shattered kneecap which would definitely need a knee replacement now, even if it hadn't needed it after Rivkin's ministrations.
Howling in agony, despite his attempts at stoicism, Gibbs shot up into a sitting position, trying to shield his leg from further attacks by his mentor. HIS MENTOR HAD SHOT HIM!
Why hadn't he seen this coming?
Meanwhile, Mike had managed to procure Jethro's Beretta out of the workbench drawer, and he dropped it in Gibbs' lap, in a cavalier and typically arrogant fashion.
"Is this whatcha lookin for, Probie?" he asked sardonically.
Gibbs glared at Franks. "There are no bullets in it, is there, Mike?"
"Nope. Good thing, too. You'd really shoot me?"
"Why not, Mike? Not imagining the bullet in my knee."
"Yeah, but YOU had it coming, you yellow-bellied bastard. If it wasn't for me, Shannon and Kelly's killer would still be taking up valuable oxygen and dealing death to other families."
Gibbs knew that was true – Mike had handed him, Pedro Hernandez, on a plate and covered his ass when the Marine Corps tried to stitch him up for the killing. He owed Mike a lot.
Taking his silence for acquiescence, Mike snarled. "And for fuck's sake, Probie, give me one good reason why you'd rat me out to the fibbies? What did I ever do to you?" he demanded as Gibbs scowled back at him, finding it hard to communicate or to think due to shock.
"Kobach was scum and you know it!" Franks declared proudly, without an ounce of remorse. "They shoulda given me a big fucking medal for taking out the trash, not tried to extradite me from Mexico for Christ's sake."
Gibbs pulled off his pale-blue Sears polo shirt and wadded it up, using it to stem the bleeding. Knowing Mike deserved an answer, he finally replied, "Because I had no choice, Mike. You got too damned arrogant. You were sloppy when you killed him. Ziva and Tony heard the shots and figured out pretty dammed quick you executed him."
"Ziva's an assassin." Mike scoffed, dismissively. "She wouldn't have blinked about me taking out Korbach, Probie. She understands these Ruskies are mafia and they're nothing but trash. They ain't worth shedding a tear over."
Gibbs privately agreed with him, but he was finding it was extremely difficult to have this conversation. Hell, he hated jibber-jabber at the best of times. These were not the best of times.
Franks continued his interrogation. "Plus, Little Miss Mossad would have kept her pretty little mouth shut if you'd told her told to. So, it must have been that dammed class clown of yours, that holier than thou Eye -talian SOB, who kicked up a stink."
When Gibbs didn't contradict his assumption, he continued his virulent diatribe. "Don't get how you can work with someone like that, Jethro. Someone who won't get down in the mud with the real men and do what has to be done. Shame he didn't cark it when I knocked him out."
Gibbs shrugged mentally. He was relieved that Mike hadn't killed DiNozzo, of course, he was, but he could also see how Mike would think otherwise. Franks was facing a charge of premeditated murder and a long stint in federal prison. Just because he decided to get rid of piece of human trash.
"A real cop knows ya don't rat out another cop," his former boss continued to rant at him, wrathfully.
Gibbs by now was feeling way too woozy. He had no desire to get into the whole rigmarole about DiNozzo blurting it out during an argument, and Fornell, unluckily, being in the room and forcing him to report it. Inevitably, it would lead to explanations about him ordering McGee to hack into the WitSec database. A sitrep that he didn't want to get into with his mentor since it wasn't his finest hour. Probably because they'd gotten caught doing it – he thought cynically. If they'd gotten away with it, Jethro doubted he'd have lost any sleep over it.
While he couldn't muster up the energy to call out his old boss about his attitude to Tony, he did manage to call him out on coming back.
"What the hell were ya thinking, Mike?" he demanded furiously, his anger seeming to overcome the lethargy which had increasingly embraced him.
"Coming back here was loco. You shoulda stayed gone in South America. Someone will recognise you and you'll be doing life in a federal pen."
"Hah, I doubt that very much." Franks scoffed, as he strode up and down, arrogantly glaring at his wounded former probie. "I had no choice but to come back and find out why you'd turned into a two-timing coward who decided it was okay to screw over your partner. " He smirked in satisfaction as he saw Jethro cringe.
"Not just me you fucked over, Probie. This has ruined Layla and Amira's life too as you damn well know. You should have stopped DiNozzo from squealing like a pig. I've lost everything because of him."
"So, you going to kill me too, Mike?" Gibbs demanded, shocked at the waves of anger pouring off the old Marine and threatening to engulf him as well.
Mike sized him up for more than a minute, playing with him like the apex predator he was, before slowly shaking his head. "Nuh, no need. I figure that your knee is fucked up so bad now, you'll never go back into the field again. Reckon that's punishment enough, " he concluded, cheerfully.
"Aint got nothing but your job, Probie. Ya couldn't even stay retired, for five minutes when you came down to stay with me. You need to save everyone cuz ya couldn't save your gals. You're a pathetic excuse for a Marine, Jethro. No one's gonna want a washed-up old crip like you," Franks jeered at him, brutally.
Even as he smirked at his protégé triumphantly, Gibbs was genuinely shocked to feel a visceral reaction which he realised was relief. It stunned him since it suggested he wasn't ready to pop his clogs just yet, even though he'd always believed that he'd run gratefully into the arms of death. Particularly if he was given a chance to do so without endangering the lives of others.
Although he was pissed beyond measure that Franks wanted to cripple him, Jethro apparently wasn't quite ready to start pushing up daisies as he thought he'd be. Ha, who knew!
"But I think I might pay me a visit to DiNozzo at the naval yard. Invite him out for a couple of beers and chew the fat. Ya could say we have some unfinished business."
As he bemusedly considered his existential crisis, Mike's newest threat made him feel as if someone kicked him in the nuts. WHAT HAD HE DONE?
Dispassionately, Gibbs knew that Mike Franks was one helluva vindictive sonofabitch and that unfinished business was an ominous euphemism for making DiNozzo pay. He realised he should have manned up from the start and not put the blame on Tony. Unfortunately, now, if he told Mike what had really happened, he'd just think he was trying to protect his senior field agent. Still, he had to do something, even if it as too little, too late.
"DiNozzo's too smart to let you ambush him, Mike." Gibbs tried to talk him out of his idiotic plan for revenge.
"He was pretty damned easy to fool when I managed to slip away from him when he was 'supposed' to be protecting me from Arkady," he snarked. "Waste of space. Don't know why you've kept him around so long."
"That's because he thought he was supposed to be protecting YOU from the Russian thugs. Didn't tell him to watch out for you attacking him. Why would he think a former fed and his boss' former mentor would cosh him when his back was turned?" Gibbs told him, pissed off since, by disparaging DiNozzo, Mike was trashing his judgment too.
Franks shrugged. "Anyway, as you said – everyone thinks I'm down in South America. No one's looking for me here."
He struggled valiantly to get up and tackle Franks but realised that for once, he couldn't save the day. It sucked and Gibbs wanted to hit something – or someone. Mike had well and truly knobbled him, and troublingly, he also knew what his former boss was capable of. He was a spiteful bastard who'd have zero qualms about harming, even killing DiNozzo. Truth be told, he'd feel perfectly entitled to do it.
How ironic that the only thing he had to try to save Tony from harm was to try to talk Mike out of exacting revenge on his SFA. DiNozzo frequently accused him of being a functional mute. And it was true – he hated talking – he preferred actions over words any day of the week. It was a helluva lot easier to just pull out his Sig and shoot a dirtbag than try to reason with them. The only deterrent to action as far as he was concerned was that unfortunately there was a truckload of paperwork when you fired your weapon.
Resigned to doing what he could though, he tried to dissuade Mike since he'd kinda got him in this mess, after all, he gave it a red hot try. Not that he was feeling sanguine about his chances of being a success. Still... he had to try.
"DiNozzo won't be easy to ambush." He told his mentor," and it was the truth. The former cop had always had a huge issue around trust. What happened since Shepard had used him on a personal vendetta and then Gibbs and the team spying on him hadn't helped at all. But in light of how paranoid he'd become since Tia had come to live with him (which had turned out to be totally justified too) and Ziva's espionage activities, it was extremely unlikely he'd let Mike get near him.
God, he hoped not!
"You should forget payback. Go back to Layla and your granddaughter." He urged him. "They need ya, Mike."
Mike must have sensed the conviction in his voice because he stared at him for a long time before nodding. "Maybe you've got a point, Probie."
Gibbs heaved a sigh of relief, but it seemed his relief was premature, though.
Mike regarded Jethro slyly. "But if he thought he was coming to the rescue of his boss and mentor, he'd come running to your aid. "
Gibbs felt his stomach drop. "Not. Happening. I refuse to be bait, Mike."
Mike gave a sardonic bark of laughter and walked over and stepped on Gibbs' shattered knee, ignoring his screaming. While Gibbs was writhing in pain, he reached down and grabbed Gibbs' cell phone from his trousers pocket.
"Don't need ya help, Probie. All I hafta do is send him a text and he'll come running like the loyal Saint Bernard he is. You trained him; Rule 3 is sacrosanct, after all. Everyone on your team knows if they ignore it, you'll tear them a new one. So even without your help, you'll be helping me out, ya see?"
Gibbs did see and he didn't like it. "I won't let you, Mike"
Franks chuckled nastily. "Can't stop me, Priobie," he mocked his protégé and Gibbs knew that was probably true.
"Maybe he can't, but I sure as hell will. Police - put your hands up. NOW ASSHOLE!"
Gibbs heard Lawless order Mike to surrender. He'd forgotten in the melee that she was upstairs. After the initial sense of relief, he felt she needed a warning that Mike was a dinosaur – a chauvinist who didn't think females were tough enough to be field agents. He thought they were better suited to taking victims statements and providing tea and sympathy for grieving victims.
There was no way he'd surrender to her – his macho pride was too strong. In his arrogance, he would back himself against a female with a gun, any time. Plus, he would feel justified in shooting her since she was a threat to him, and he'd shoot to kill. He watched on, in the thrall of horror as Mike turned, pulling his gun out of his pocket, prepared to fire and he groaned.
Three shots rang out and he realised they were from a police-issued semi-automatic handgun, a Glock, not the .25 calibre handgun that Mike had used on him. Franks dropped the gun as Jessie stood at the top of the stairs, holding her gun prepared to fire again. She proceeded to descend the stairs cautiously, continuing to watch Franks who was lying on the floor not far from Gibbs.
He managed to drag himself over to the handgun and tossed it towards the stairs. Jessie stooped to pick it up, keeping her eye on Mike. Looking at Gibbs, she asked. "All clear?"
He nodded. "Yeah, just Franks."
Lawless raised one eyebrow. "He just has the .25?"
"Probably has a backup or two," he admitted shortly.
She stared at him assessing his condition. "There's a bus waiting down the street." Continuing to aim her gun at the wounded former NIS agent, she made a phone called.
"We're down in the basement. Send the EMTs in once the unies have secured the shooter. We have a wounded federal agent and the shooter has multiple GSWs. We'll need a second bus."
Gibbs groaned. What a mess. "Will he make it?" he asked the brunette police lieutenant. To be honest, he wasn't sure what answer he was hoping to hear. Mike was his mentor, but if he recovered, he would likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
Lawless shrugged offhandedly. "I wasn't trying to kill him, so probably."
Now that the crisis was over, Gibbs felt an incredible lethargy overwhelming him. He wondered as he zoned out if Franks would decide to rat him out about Hernandez. Unlikely, since to drop him in it, he would have to admit that he had also conspired to kill Hernandez too. Then again, maybe his mentor was so pissed off, he'd cut off his nose to spite his face. There was nothing Jethro could do.
And if Franks was right it wouldn't matter all that much. With his knee likely fucked beyond repair, his life was over anyway.