Silent Misery R&R - Chapter 34
by HidingInSight
Fornell dropped Gibbs at the main gate of NSA Bethesda 25 minutes later. The base was home to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and more than 40 other 'tenant' organizations involved in medical care, research, and education on behalf of the U.S. Armed Forces. Though the base itself had only existed since 2005, the originally named Bethesda Naval Hospital had been in operation since 1940. In that time, it had undergone a near continuous series of upgrades, renovations, reorganizations, and expansions that had turned it into the world's largest military medical center.
Among the dozens of buildings on the almost 250 acre property was an outpatient center, containing the offices of more than 100 primary care doctors, specialists, surgeons, and other practitioners who helped keep America's military healthy. On the third floor, NCIS had a small suite of offices where agency applicants underwent pre-employment physicals and psychological exams before final job offers were made. He'd heard that NCIS Forensic Psychologist Jacqueline Sloane had been assigned here a few months before. It wasn't a glamor job, but as she'd said, it was an important one. If nothing else, to keep the psychos out of his office.
Gibbs had met Sloane a year or so before. He'd discovered she had excellent insight into the human condition and an interview style that immediately put people at ease. The subjects she interviewed seemed to really want to help her, to give her everything she asked. He had yet to hear of a case where she wasn't able to get what she was looking for out of someone's head. That's what had put her on his short list. That, and the fact that she'd learned something about him late one night that was embarrassing and potentially reportable, and as far as he knew had told no one.
Though he knew much of her professional skills, he knew very little about her personal life. He'd read her military service record and knew she'd served seven years in the Army, spending most of it in Afghanistan. She'd been taken prisoner along with the rest of the team she was working with and had been the only one left alive when a squad of Force Recon Marines rescued her from the Taliban nine months later. After almost a year of physical and psychological rehab, the Army had determined over her objections that she was no longer fit for service. She'd reluctantly taken an honorable discharge along with a disability pension. The specific nature of the alleged disability was classified above Gibbs' pay grade.
Despite the free ride she had unquestionably earned, Jack wasn't satisfied with sitting back and enjoying her forced retirement. Still determined to make a difference, she'd joined psych services at NCIS. That was about all he knew about her. But it told him everything he needed to know about her character.
After presenting his credentials at the gate, Gibbs moved across campus on foot. It was a beautiful day, but his mind was turned too far inward to enjoy it. Arriving at the outpatient center, he climbed the stairs to the third floor and found a door marked with the NCIS seal. A sign hung on a plastic hook below the seal announcing the office was open and instructing visitors to "Come in Please."
Gibbs took a breath and entered. He found himself in a small waiting room with gray-painted walls containing a dozen or so orange plastic chairs and four brown block-like end tables. Two young men and one woman sat in the chairs and all three looked up when he entered. Looking around, Gibbs noted various recruiting and OPSEC posters framed on three walls, a large LED TV mounted on the wall adjacent to the door, and the same ticker box that ran constantly in the NCIS squad room running below the TV. A receptionist window was to his right. Gibbs presented himself to the young man behind the counter.
"Dr. Sloane," he said.
"Agent Gibbs?" When he nodded, the receptionist continued: "She's expecting you. One moment." He picked up a phone and dialed an extension, spoke briefly before hanging up.
"She'll be right out," he said. Gibbs nodded again and stepped away.
Before he had to make a decision about where to sit, Jack appeared. A smile quickly turned to a look of confusion at seeing Gibbs alone. He saw her note his casual dress, saw her eyes linger a moment more than a glance on the remaining bruising on his neck, and saw her confusion deepen.
"Good morning, Gibbs. Is she on her way?"
"No," Gibbs said. "Mind if we go in?" Jack nodded and beckoned him to follow.
They moved down a short hallway to her office at the rear of the suite. She stepped back and gestured him inside, pushing the door shut behind them. It made the same thud when closing as did the doors to interrogation: It contained sound baffling. That was something, anyway.
Jack's office was a comfortable size for what it contained. To the left was a desk with two client chairs in front of it. Straight ahead under the window was a tan leather couch with a brightly-colored blanket woven in the Navajo style tossed over the back. Two comfortable-looking chairs upholstered in shades of brown and tan sat at right angles to each other just inside the door to the right, a pillow square on each in colors matching the blanket. In the back right corner was a dark blue upholstered rocker recliner with a tall goose-neck reading lamp on a table next to it. Bookcases covered most of the wall space on the seating half of the office. On the wall above the desk was the only art in the room, a large painting of a classic psychiatrist's 'ink blot.' Gibbs considered it for a long moment before turning his focus to Jack, who had taken a seat behind her desk. Gibbs sat in one of the chairs in front.
"So what's going on?" she asked. "And what happened to you? You look like you've had a tough couple of weeks."
Gibbs saw her scan him, saw her look closer at his neck, notice the darkness under his eyes, glance down at where his hands were resting in his lap and notice the abrasions there. He felt an absurd desire to put his hands in the pocket of his hoodie and only barely refrained. He steeled himself and spoke.
"We've been working a case involving a high-level street lender using rape as consequence for non-payment."
"That's new," Jack said with a grimace. "How many victims have there been?"
"More than a dozen that we know of, mostly spouses and children of the debtor."
"Children?" she asked, looking startled.
"Males and females, 16 is the youngest we know about."
"Bastards," Jack said with a growl. "How did we get involved?"
"Navy Lieutenant's husband racked up gambling debts, went to the street to pay. The vig was late, they went after her. She came to us. She was the first we knew about. Abby found the rest."
"Is she the one you need me to interview?"
"No," Gibbs said, and stopped.
"Okay," Jack said. When Gibbs didn't continue, she did. "So … who is it?"
"Me," Gibbs said. She blinked.
"You? As in, you?"
"Yeah." He held her eye, waiting for her reaction.
There was a second of stillness, a second while that penetrated, a second while she waited to see if he was making some kind of bizarre joke. When he didn't smile or otherwise show he was, she nodded and her voice softened.
"That's a tough deal, Gibbs. I'm really sorry to hear that." She leaned forward over her desk slightly. "You said it happened a week ago?"
Gibbs bobbed his head several times in acknowledgment. "Last Tuesday afternoon."
"Was it personal? Did someone in your family owe them money?" she asked.
"No. We were searching a building, they were there. We got caught."
"We?"
"My senior agent. Tony DiNozzo. He was there."
"Was he assaulted as well?"
"No."
"I'm glad. Does the rest of what you told me on the phone stand?"
"Yes."
"So you're having dissociative episodes?"
"Yes."
"And you're hoping that dealing with the memories will help soften the impact and stop the episodes?"
"Yes."
"But first you need to sit for an interview."
"Yes," he said again.
"Okay. I can help with that." She sat back in her chair. "How are you feeling?"
Gibbs shook his head. "Not what I'm here for." It was an echo of what he'd thought when Daniel asked the same question last night. Unlike Daniel, Jack pushed a little.
"But it can't hurt," she objected, lightly.
"No. Not yet," Gibbs said firmly, cutting off any further discussion of that. "I need you to take a statement, get as much as you can without triggering an episode. Then I can work on forgetting about this and getting back to work."
"There are no guarantees we won't trigger anything, and I'm not sure that forgetting is a good option, if it's an option at all. But whatever happens, we'll work through it and get what you need. Okay?" A nod from Gibbs.
"Have you talked to anyone else about what happened yet?
"Kid on a rape crisis line. Last night."
"That's good. Anyone before that?"
"My … significant other. A little."
"How's she taking it?" Jack asked.
Gibbs's eyes narrowed while he considered how to answer that. Apparently, a lot more people knew about his relationship with Tobias than he'd thought a week ago. But he still wasn't ready to announce it from the hilltops. The relationship – whatever it was – was no one's business. It's not that it embarrassed him, really. He just didn't want the hassle that would inevitably occur when it did become common knowledge.
On the other hand, he was about to give her the keys to everything else in his head. So what the hell. In for a penny and all that.
"He's handling it better than I would have expected."
To her credit, not so much as a blink of surprise. "I'm glad to hear that. You're going to need someone. As much as you think you can muscle through this on your own, you're going to need someone."
"I need information," Gibbs countered. "Everything else can wait. We've got the bastards who did this in custody, but only until the end of the day, and we're short on the kind of details that make cases. If I know something that can help, my team needs to know it too, now."
Jack nodded again. "Understood. And I can do that. I just want to be sure you're stable enough to handle it. Sexual assault isn't like any other injury, physical or emotional. There are…"
Gibbs raised a hand to cut her off. "I know. I've heard it already. I'm fine."
She scrutinized him for a moment, looking for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, she nodded. "You're not fine, but okay." She took a breath. "Come, let's get comfortable." She gestured to the seating side of the office. Gibbs stood, examined the options, and picked one of the padded chairs. He tossed the pillow onto the couch.
Jack had returned to her office door and opened it long enough to hang a 'do not disturb' sign on the knob. Then she sat in the chair facing him, a few feet between them.
"Before we launch into the hard part and start talking about what happened to you, I want to give you a little background on what's happening in your head, and how we can get around the defenses your brain is putting up, to try and get the memories out without being blocked by dissociative episodes. Is that alright?" Gibbs nodded.
"Okay. The memories from traumatic experiences are a lot like blast shrapnel: They hit hard and can go deep. The best way to deal with shrapnel is to remove it immediately. If it's not removed, the body handles what's left behind in one of two ways: It either surrounds the foreign body with tissue so it doesn't move around, or pushes it out over time. You with me so far?"
Gibbs nodded.
"Good. The same thing happens with memories of trauma. They go in fast and deep, and over time, they either get buried, or they emerge. The goal in treatment of emotional trauma is the same as treatment of implanted shrapnel. We want to get to the trauma associated with the memory before the brain starts to bury it. The faster you can deal with the trauma, the less likely it'll become a problem down the line."
Jack paused. Gibbs waited.
"The best thing to do would be to start dealing with it now. Actually, a week ago would have been better. But since you're not ready to do that just yet, we need to find a way to expose the raw memories without actually dealing with them. By doing it the right way, we might even be able to slow the imprint of the memory, to make it easier for the brain to choose to push it out later instead of holding it deep."
She stopped again. Still, Gibbs waited.
"Staying with the analogy, the deeper the brain buries a memory, the harder and more painful is it to retrieve, just like a piece of shrapnel that's been left behind. The surgery to retrieve a piece of buried shrapnel can cause its own problems. You can damage surrounding tissues, spread infection, cause a stroke or heart failure, all the complications that can happen in any surgery. Recalling memories that the brain has buried has risks too. But because it's the brain working on itself, and because the brain's base purpose is to protect itself at any cost, sometimes it just refuses to let the memory emerge. You disassociate, or worse. Still with me?"
Gibbs made a sound of assent. Jack continued.
"To get your brain to give up the details without shutting you down, we have to convince it the memories won't hurt. There are a couple of ways to do that, but the easiest is to temporarily remove you from the story. If we trick the brain into remembering events as if you were an observer instead of a participant, the emotional impact changes. And if you change the potential impact, the brain isn't as nervous about letting you remember."
"Grounding techniques. You convince yourself you're not there," Gibbs said. She'd taken a lot longer to get there than Gibbs himself had last night. Jack nodded.
"That's certainly one way to do it, and it's a good tool for long-term recovery. But it takes a lot longer than you've got. The kind of results you're looking for need a more aggressive tool. More a sledgehammer than a lock pick."
"Okay," Gibbs said.
"If we had the time, we'd use a variety of techniques, including grounding, to bring the memories out where you could deal with them. But as you said, we don't. We need to get past the brain's defenses to get to the memories, the details, right now. One way to do that is with drugs, which I don't usually recommend. The side effects can be … unpredictable. Sometimes alcohol will get us there, but again, unpredictable, especially in someone used to good booze." She stopped, smiling at him.
He didn't smile back. They'd shared drinks one night after Jack's work had helped him close a particularly sticky case and she knew his predilections. It was the same night he'd gotten a little too drunk, and a little too verbose, and told her something he shouldn't have. But that wasn't the reason he didn't share the moment. He was counting the remaining options in his head, and he didn't like where he thought this was going.
"So without time, drugs, or alcohol, we have to find another way to manipulate the brain." When she saw suspicion forming in his expression, she asked, "Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Gibbs cleared his throat. "Probably. But tell me anyway."
Jack nodded slightly. Of course he knew. The man was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. Still, she thought he needed a little more priming before she came out and said what she was pretty sure he didn't want to hear.
"Well, we make you as physically comfortable as possible, get your body to relax. Then we talk a little, about other things. Things you're comfortable talking about, that'll get your brain to relax. Then we come in from the side, slip in under your brain's defenses. A few suggestions, a little psychological sleight of hand, and the details emerge. Sometimes without your conscious mind even realizing what's happening."
Gibbs held her gaze for a long moment, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, he prompted her. "You're talking about …"
"Hypnosis," she said when he didn't. "Yes."
As she suspected he would, Gibbs immediately shook his head. "I don't like it."
"Why not?" Jack asked gently, as if only mildly curious. "Don't you trust me?"
"That's not the problem," Gibbs said. He thought about it, trying to come up with an answer. "It's …" He shook his head again.
"It seems like a loss of control, which I know hits you in all the wrong places. But it's not. Not really. No one can make you do anything under hypnosis that you wouldn't choose to do if you were fully aware. You won't be unconscious, or under anyone else's control. You'll be perfectly safe. And I promise I won't try and make you cluck like a chicken." She smiled again.
"How do you know it'll even work?" Gibbs asked.
"I don't. But from what I know of you, I think you're a good candidate."
Gibbs took a breath, still hesitant. She was right, this kind of thing pushed all of his buttons.
"We'll know pretty quickly if it's not going to work," Jack said, "and if it doesn't, we'll try something else. But I promise you, Gibbs, this is the fastest and easiest way to get what you want. Let me do this, and I can have you out of here with everything you need to know within … an hour and a half. Maybe two."
Gibbs knew hypnosis was used by law enforcement in a variety of situations, primarily having to do with witness recall. It was a risk, because sometimes defense attorneys would claim recalled memories were planted while the witness was under hypnotic suggestion. Gibbs himself had involved a hypnotist in a case only once, in a situation similar to this one. McGee had witnessed the murder of a woman who had herself witnessed a murder of a sailor a few days before. The young agent had developed a bit of a crush on the woman, and when he saw her being attacked from a window in an apartment across the street, he'd run to the victim's side without clearing the room. The murderer had knocked him unconscious and in the aftermath, all he could remember was the image of the woman lying dead on the rug. They'd used hypnosis to help him remember details that eventually solved the case.
At first, Gibbs had been skeptical. But he couldn't argue with the results, then or now. He hated — absolutely hated — the idea of letting Jack poke around in his head while he wasn't aware enough to protect his real secrets, but she was right: There weren't a lot of other options. He took a breath.
"Okay. But I'm warning you right now, Jack. You do anything stupid …"
"I know. And I won't. You have my word."
He held her eye for a long moment, then nodded.
"Good," she said with a nod. "Turn off your cell phone and get as comfortable as you can. You can sit back, lay down, whatever you think will help you relax the most."
... to be continued ...