Title: Shaitan

Author: Redwing/CSIphile

Disclaimer/Summary: All on the first chapter.

AN: Thank you once again for all the lovely reviews. I really do appreciate them so please don't stop! This chapter is a bit shorter than the others, not sure why that happened, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.

AN2: Kat, the answer to your question….Marines are stationed at all military bases, I just choose to pick on the Navy in this fic.

AN3: I'm surprised no one has asked yet…Shaitan is an Islamic word meaning evil spirit. Seemed to fit in my crazy guys case.

Chapter 3: Of Marines and Men

Elliot walked out into the late fall warmth and sighed. They were having a heat wave of sorts in New York. As he and Tony approached the car Elliot removed his suit jacket and flung it into the backseat. Tony followed suit, removing his light jacket. They piled into the car and waved to the other group as they pulled out.

The second they hit the street Elliot turned on the AC and rolled up his sleeves.

"So," he started. "How long have you been with NCIS?"

"Two and a half years now."

"Where were you before? Cop somewhere?" he asked with genuine curiosity.

"Baltimore Homicide…"

Before Tony could get anymore out Elliot burst out laughing and glanced at the young man who looked utterly confused by his outburst.

"Seriously? Baltimore?"

"Yeah? What's so funny?"

"When were you in Baltimore?"

"99 through the beginning of 2001." Tony's face was covered in confusion.

"One of the other detectives…Munch. He's former Baltimore Homicide."

Sudden understanding crossed Tony's face and he snapped his fingers in Elliot's direction. "John Munch?"

"Yeah, you know him?"

Tony grinned. "I knew of him. He left nearly a year before I got in, but his name was legendary."

"Wow, you missed a real treat."

"I've heard," Tony remarked.

Elliot made the turn onto Lex and heard Tony make a "huh" sound.

"Huh, what?"

"What?" Tony repeated.

"You just said 'huh."

"Yeaaah." He drew it out and pointed to Elliot's right forearm. "Were you in the military?"

"Yeah, Marines."

"Of course," Tony muttered, it was just his luck, one marine to another.

Elliot raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?" It was his turn to be confused.

"Gibbs is a former Marine MP."

"That's it!" Elliot exclaimed as he pulled into a parking space just outside the still marked crime scene.

"That's what?"

"I knew something about Gibbs was familiar, he has that Marine attitude."

"Yes, yes he does." Tony said as they got out of the car and saw Olivia pull up right behind them.

As the other group got out and approached, Olivia called to Elliot. "Hey El! Guess what Gibbs is?"

Without missing a beat he answered. "A Marine."

That stopped her in her tracks for a second before she looked at Tony and knew the answer. "Ahhhhh, I see."

Elliot waited for Gibbs to draw nearer to him. "Always good to meet another Marine."

"Likewise." Gibbs responded and they shook hands again before walking toward the scene a mere hundred yards away, Olivia and Elliot leading.

"Guess what Tony was?" He quizzed her, leaning in slightly to her personal space.

"What?" she asked and stepped around a fire hydrant.

"A Baltimore Homicide cop."

Again Olivia stopped and turned around, looking at Tony with an amused expression.

"No kidding."

"Nope."

"DiNozzo…." Gibbs warning tone called from behind Elliot. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, boss! I swear. Apparently the infamous John Munch is a detective here in SVU."

"Who?" Gibbs asked distractedly as he looked around at the buildings.

"Gibbs! Munch, I know I've mentioned him. He was there before I was. Huge conspiracy theorist."

"Ahhh of course. Now, can we focus here, DiNozzo?"

"Sure, boss."

Elliot and Olivia had stood by watching the conversation with mild amusement. To Elliot, Gibbs and Tony reminded him of Fin and Munch.

Walking to the entrance of the alley Elliot stopped. "Well here we are."

"Good, Kate…"

Quickly she cut him off. "Pictures."

Tony chimed in after her. "Sketches."

"CSU already did that," Elliot offered.

Gibbs turned to him. "No offense, Detective, but we like our own photos."

Elliot merely shrugged and looked at Olivia; she shrugged back at him and they watched the two get to work.

Gibbs turned to the two NYPD. "The neighborhood was canvassed?"

"Yup."

Gibbs seemed to consider this a moment before turning back to Tony. "Tony, let Kate handle it. We're going canvassing."

"But…" Elliot started to protest.

"Again, no offense. But I'd like to talk to a few people myself."

"Whatever helps," Elliot said. "Liv..."

"I'll be right here."

Without speaking all the parties understood that this wasn't an average killer, and no team member would be left alone.

Just over an hour later the men returned to find Kate still drawing and Olivia talking to what looked to Elliot to be a homeless person. As he approached he heard the tail end of the conversation.

"…UNLV shirt. Yup, got it. Thank you, sir, hang right here, would you?"

With that she turned back to the group, a large smile covering her face. Elliot smiled in return, he knew that look. She's got something.

Elliot heard Tony talking to Kate as he and Gibbs approached Olivia.

"What do you have?"

"My new buddy Mel over there informs me that he saw a tall male, brown hair, average weight wearing a short sleeved UNLV shirt and jeans exit that alley about 9:30 last night. Nearly ran him over. He headed north to the subway platform on Lex."

Gibbs seemed to pause to digest this information before speaking. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, said he had a tattoo on his forearm. Looked military to him." Suddenly she looked at Elliot and indicated with her hand to follow her. "Melvin!"

The homeless man turned to her and smiled slightly, happy to see the pretty brunette coming back toward him.

"Hey Melvin. C'mere." She paused and grabbed Elliot's shirt, pulling up the sleeve to expose his forearm. "Look anything like this?"

"Yeah, yeah. A little bit, but it was a little different. The wording…"

Olivia released Elliot's arm and thanked Melvin, telling him to wait so they could get a thorough description of the tattoo that kind of looked like Elliots'.

Gibbs had been strangely silent and Elliot was about to ask when he spoke. "It's a Marine."

Elliot suddenly understood. Gibbs couldn't picture one of their own doing this. "Yeah, or maybe a wannabe who got the tattoo to pretend he was."

Gibbs shook his head. "No, that's why it's been so precise, no evidence…nothing. We suspected military, but I...I guess I hoped it couldn't be."

With that the other man turned back towards his agents who were just putting their stuff away. Elliot leaned into Olivia, his lips brushing her ear.

"He's a little intense."

"You think?"

Elliot just smiled at her.

Gibbs met with Kate and Tony on the sidewalk.

"Anything?"

Kate just shook her head. "Not a thing."

"Nothing, boss."

Gibbs let out a big sigh and looked around again.

Kate asked, "You guys have any luck?"

"No, but apparently Olivia did. A bum was knocked over by our possible suspect. Caught a glance at his tattoo, Marine bird-ball-and-anchor."

Immediately Kate's face fell. "Well, we thought it could have been military…"

"I know. Lets go." He was more short than usual.

They both nodded and followed him silently back to the cars.

Arriving at the stationhouse, Gibbs immediately followed Melvin into the room and watched silently as he gave a description of the tattoo to the sketch artist. He was unable, however, to remember the mans face. Kate and Tony had taken over the crib, Kate downloading the pictures from the digital camera onto the hard drive of her laptop. Tony, meanwhile, compared the sketches against the ones from Detroit. They only carried the previous cases full file with them and then just a skeleton file of the other cases. Due to the sheer amount of paper bringing all of it was logistically impossible.

Kate was staring at the pictures in frustration when Gibbs came up the stairs, startling both of them with a not exactly cheery greeting of "hey".

"Gibbs," Kate said evenly after nearly jumping from the chair, Tony just looked at his boss with a slightly annoyed expression.

"We've got a pretty good drawing of the tattoo, but the only thing it gives us is that our perp is a Marine. His tattoo doesn't have the typical division markings on it, or else Melvin couldn't see them. I'm going to have Abby run a search on dishonorably discharged Marines in our age range and see what we get."

Sighing, Kate went back to the pictures. "This is so frustrating Gibbs! Nine victims and all we have is a hair we can't match, a cotton fiber and a tattoo. How many Marines are dishonorably discharged? And we don't even know when he left! Or a clue about his age! Useless!" With that she flung her hands in the air and made an aggravated noise.

"We WILL get this guy Kate," Gibbs said, his voice determined.

"Yeah? When Gibbs?" She turned in her chair to face him. "How many more women are going to die before we get this guy? We have maybe a day before he does it again and moves on!" She is yelling by the end of her sentence.

"Kate…" he started softly and looked at Tony, who put down his file and headed to the stairs, disappearing. "Kate..." he squatted next to her, but was quickly cut off.

"Don't," she said, raising a hand at him. "Just…don't. I'm just tired, that's all. I'm sorry."

"Never apologize," he said, staring at her intently.

She smiled slightly. "And which rule is that again?"

"It's not." He stood and held out one hand to her. "Come on, it's nearly three, let's get out of here. We'll go to the hotel, find our rooms, and get a little rest before coming back. Plus, I really think DiNozzo could use a shower."

She laughed lightly and took his hand. "All right, let me collect the files."

He nodded. "I'm going to find Tony before he gets into trouble."

"Good plan," she called as he headed down the stairs.

"So…Olivia. I found out your partner is a Marine. What's your story?" he asked as he leaned on her desk.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Your partner, he's a Marine. Seems logical for him to be a cop. Why are you?" Olivia sighed internally and wished, just once, that Elliot was there to save her.

"Because I wanted to help people," she said and stood up, heading to the lockers. He followed, leaning against them and staring at her.

"Oh, come on. Everyone gives that answer."

"Well, in this case it's true."

The kid had tilted his head and nodded. "Fair enough. Do you date much? I mean…if your job is anything like mine, it's nearly impossible."

Oh god, she thought and really wondered where Elliot was. "I really don't think…"

Just then Elliot walked into the room, took one look at them, and gave Tony a narrow expression. The younger man quickly moved back from her, only succeeding in bumping into his boss, who had just appeared down the stairs.

Gibbs had watched Elliot look at Tony with an angry expression and in that second understood the closeness he and Olivia shared; something slightly more than just partnership.

"Tony…." Gibbs hissed as Tony swiftly got out of his way.

"Yeah, boss."

"Grab your gear, we are going to the hotel." With that he dismissed Tony, who promptly went up the stairs, and turned to Olivia who had moved back to her desk. "If you guys don't mind, we'll head over, set up a little bit and be back later."

Elliot nodded. "Go ahead, get settled in. We'll let you know if we hear anything."

"Great, thanks. Know of a good place to eat around here?"

Elliot looked at Olivia and she nodded at him. Gibbs watched the silent interaction with interest.

"How about this, come back to the station say 6:30 and we'll take you to the local bar. Good food and lots of NYPD," Elliot propositioned.

Gibbs considered it for only a second before agreeing. "Sounds good."

The two had nodded and Elliot watched the NCIS agent leave.

Once Gibbs was out of earshot, Elliot turned to his partner and smiled lasciviously. "So, what do you want to do for our three hours?"

She merely rolled her eyes at him. "Paperwork, El. Paperwork." With that she handed him a couple of files and sat at her computer.

Elliot looked down at the files disappointedly. "That really wasn't what I had in mind, Liv," he muttered and turned, sitting at his desk.

"I know…" she whispered over the desks and raised her eyebrows at him suggestively.

tbc……………………………psssst…don't forget to leave a tip and review.