'It's a Wonderful Life' at JAG
Chapter 5
Disclaimers: I don't own any of the JAG characters. I don't own any product or label mentioned for the purposes of telling this story. I don't own the rights to the story or movie 'It's a Wonderful Life.' Any similarities to situations or persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
Spoilers: Any JAG episode is fair game. Remember… the order of events and their results will be entirely different than the show. This is definitely AU.
A/N: Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback and for the good thoughts and prayers in a tough and trying time. This is a great community!
A/N: This chapter sets up the next; it is full of detail that is essential to make the story work. Hold on to your hats! I promise it will all come together next chapter. (Smile)
A/N: Thank you Karen for your beta reading skills.
Rating K+
In the heavens above Northern Virginia…..
XO Gabriel and Lieutenant Clarence watched as a very dejected Commander Teddy Lindsey stood out in the parking lot of JAG Headquarters. He was leaning against his vehicle, looking up at the window of Admiral Chegwidden's office.
Commander Lindsey had tried to talk with Admiral Chegwidden about his possible selection on the O-6 board. Surely, the Admiral had no ill will against him. When he had been able to catch up with the Admiral yesterday, he had been very uncomfortable when he tried to speak with him. He knew for a fact that the SecNav had tried to put in a good word for him. He believed that connecting with him would help the Admiral remember how good his selection might be for his own career.
The Commander's cell phone ring tone pulled him from his reverie, he answered. "Commander Lindsey"
"Teddy, we have the final results of the O-6 board."
He waited in silence.
"You weren't selected."
"I see."
"I know this is a disappointment to you, but I want you to know that I did speak with Admiral Chegwidden and the board was reconvened, but they ended with the same result."
"I understand."
"I hope you do understand that if I were to intervene further, it could jeopardize both of our careers. It could be construed at undue command influence. I don't think it would be advantageous for either of us to have that on our records."
"Yes, sir" The Commander's responses were controlled and automatic.
"You've been doing a great job for me Teddy, your time will come." The SecNav tried to be reassuring but he knew Lindsey was terribly disappointed.
"Yes, sir"
"I'll speak with you tomorrow."
"Yes, sir." Lindsey slowly closed his cell phone as he returned his attention to the window of the office it was his ambition to someday occupy. His time would come. This set back only made him more determined to advance and throw every last one of Chegwidden's little 'clique' out of JAG Ops, and if possible the Navy, forever. He just had to find a way in.
The commander was startled from his thoughts by an unfamiliar voice. A beautiful young woman stood before him in a Naval Lieutenants uniform.
"Excuse me, sir, but aren't you Commander Lindsey?"
"Yes, I am." Commander Lindsey was still trying to compose himself.
She offered him her hand and he shook it. "Lieutenant Loren Singer, I've only just been assigned to JAG Ops. Pleased to meet you, sir. I understand you work with the SecNav…. it must be fascinating work."
"Yes, it is." He mustered a smile.
"I would love to hear about it sometime." The lieutenant smiled sweetly and took one more step closer to him. She was not inappropriately close, but she was making it clear that she wanted to know him better.
"I would love to tell you about it." He recognized the look of someone who could be similarly ambitious.
"I'm finished for the day, sir… and if you're not busy?"
"No, and you can catch me up with things at JAG. I was assigned there before my present tenure with the SecNav."
"Yes, sir. That is what I understand, I'm sure you are missed here at JAG Ops." Singer wanted to flatter the man, she hoped, without being too obvious.
Commander Lindsey had found a way inside, as if the fates had heard his thoughts, and if what he suspected was true, he had just met someone as ambitious as he.
"Shall we?" The Commander opened the car door on the passenger side of the vehicle.
"Oh, thank you sir."
This could be the beginning of a very fruitful relationship.
0800
Monday
February 12 2004
Nelson Residence
The former Secretary of the Navy Alexander Nelson watched his television screen as the ZNN reporter spoke about the scene behind her. It was the newest SecNav Sheffield, flanked by two of JAG's best senior attorneys, Commander's Harmon Rabb and Sturgis Turner.
Nelson had heard about Secretary Sheffield 'volunteering' to be tried in The Hague. It had disgusted him; he believed it was grandstanding, pure and simple.
Nelson thought back to the Senate hearings, hearings convened after an operation that saved the lives of everyone in the Seahawk Battle Group. Someone had alerted a Senator, with a great deal of influence, that the staff of the Judge Advocate Generals office had been utilized and operated without the knowledge of upper level personnel at the Pentagon and at the CIA. He had been hung out to dry, while the staff at JAG walked away from the incident without a ding on their records. Rabb had even been decorated… again.
Nelson had lost his position in the new administration, he had been surprised to be kept on after the last election, but any good will he had been able to garner since then, was gone. True, he was an appointee of the previous administration, but he felt he had served the President well.
This had all been too easy; for Sheffield to have been his primary accuser in the Senate hearings and then to have stepped into his place. He had been betrayed and the only other people who were as deeply involved as he, were being promoted, not punished.
He had not heard anything from or about Clayton Webb, but that was not unusual. He had heard, from his former assistant, Commander Lindsey, that the CIA operative had been transferred to South America, for no apparent reason. Teddy seemed to feel that there was more to it than that, but he really had no way of knowing.
He appreciated that Lindsey kept his ear to the ground for him. At least the Commander had not lost his job; though Chegwidden had sat on the O-6 board that refused to promote him. No one deserved promotion more than Commander Lindsey, to the former SecNav's mind.
1045
November 30, 2004
Office of the Secretary of the Navy
Washington D.C.
Teddy Lindsey happened to be very busy, at this point in his career, busy in some very serious self promotion. He had stumbled upon something that would exact revenge so complete and so sweet on his 'friends' at JAG that anything he had to endure up to this point was worth it.
He had kept his position as one of three assistants assigned to Secretary Sheffield, after the former SecNav's dismissal. If truth were told, Teddy Lindsey had been instrumental in informing the then Senator, Sheffield of the 'secret' joint mission utilizing members of the JAG corps and the CIA. He had a great deal of assistance; of course, Lieutenant Loren Singer had been his primary source of information.
Nelson had never suspected him and didn't to this day.
Today had begun like any other and then as he was going to enter the SecNav's office, what he heard was a gift, he thought, right out of heaven.
He had walked up to the SecNav's nearly closed door, to overhear Deputy Director Kershaw speaking with his boss.
"I don't have to tell you Mr. Secretary, how many careers and perhaps lives are at stake if this information gets into the wrong hands. One of Webb's sources for that information is living in the US under an assumed name. Russia may be our ally in the war on terror but it is a fragile truce. They will come after anyone they think will compromise their standing in the world. If the world community believed they had taken American POW's from Vietnam, during the Vietnam War, the damage to their creditability of their government would be enormous It could jeopardize their standing on the UN Security Council. Vietnam and the MIA issue still cast a long shadow in this country and elsewhere."
The SecNav considered what the Deputy Director had just said and then he spoke.
"I don't even want to think about what a Senate committee could do with this. They'd roast half of JAG Ops on a spit. I'm sure you have nothing to fear from anyone at JAG, they stand to lose most and they are the only ones who know. As for the other issue, Rabb isn't going to pursue something that he knows nothing about."
"The missions that Rabb and Mackenzie assisted Agent Webb with, unwittingly or not, place them in a very precarious position. The fact that we now know, but cannot confirm, that his father was, in fact, transported to Russia from Vietnam, must never come to light. They must have complete deniability. There is also the possibility of a child, of an American MIA, conceived while he was living in Russia; even the suggestion could be explosive."
"It is my understanding that Rabb's father is dead and there was never a body recovered. I don't see a problem."
"The problem is that Rabb and Mackenzie were in close communication with two KGB agents, an Agent Sokol, and another named Mikhail Parlovsky. Parlovsky is dead, but Sokol could be anywhere. They spent a great deal of time unaccompanied by anyone while they were in country, in Russia. Who knows what kind of contacts they made? It is in your department's best interest to keep that out of the press, to say it would harm the influence and prestige of the Navy and every administration since 1968, would be an understatement. Wasn't the JAG himself involved in that mission?"
"According to my predecessor, Chegwidden went to Russia to recover his people; he had no idea what he had walked into, until Agent Webb told him." The SecNav looked at the deputy Director over his spectacles and sat more deeply into his leather chair.
"Unfortunately Webb can't corroborate any of this; he was killed on a mission in Paraguay last year. Since that time, it has come to light that we have a rogue agent, someone who had access to everything Webb knew about that time."
"I see."
The Deputy Director walked back toward the door and Lindsey made a hasty retreat. He could barely contain his composure, what he had just heard gave him a way of ruining the careers of everyone he believed had wronged him at JAG.
All he had to do what get enough documentation to fill in the blanks of the story, and then spin it in the direction he wanted it to go.
He hadn't seen Loren in awhile, all he needed to do was put the 'carrot' in front of her. All it would take would be the possibility of a nice political job at the Pentagon, or better yet, a job with him at JAG. That is, after he cleaned house.
1845
December 2 2004
Benziger's Bar
Georgetown
Lieutenant Loren Singer sat across from Lindsey, so full of information and herself she could barely contain it. She believed she had learned enough from that idiot Lieutenant Roberts to allow Commander Lindsey to clear the way for her senior attorney's position at JAG.
Commander Rabb and probably Admiral Chegwidden were as good as out of there. Too bad they didn't have anything on Turner. Singer wasn't overly concerned; he was too much of a boy scout to be a threat anyway.
If anything came back to her at JAG, she could merely say her source of information was 'dear old' Bud. She had taken a immediate dislike to Lieutenant Roberts when she came to JAG, everyone seemed to be falling all over themselves to cover his six, now they would see who they had been protecting…a bungling idiot.
Getting Roberts to open up about how this had come about, had been ridiculously easy, all she had to do was pretend her admiration for Commander Rabb and throw out what little she knew about the situation, and helpful Bud, filled in the blanks.
"Well, what do you have?"
"According to Lieutenant Roberts, Commander Rabb first heard the rumor about POW's being transported to Russia from a CIA agent, his name is Clayton Webb. He told him about the possibility of this book that had the names of American POW's that had apparently been transported to Russia. There were these SOG agents… another name for the CIA in Vietnam… involved, at least one of them was a double agent and they both knew where Commander Rabb's father was in Russia….but listen to this…"
Teddy Lindsey's mouth was watering. This couldn't get any better.
"I have a friend who works for State, and she once worked for an associate of Agent Webb's before he was killed. When I told her about the information I was looking for and about Agent Webb's connection to it, she said she'd ask around, discreetly, of course."
"And?" Teddy was losing his patience.
"She called back today; she said an agent, Edward Hardy, worked with Agent Webb before he was killed. Hardy says he has information that he was sure you might want. He refused to go through his former secretary; Hardy says he wants to meet with you, privately."
The hair stood up on the nape of Lindsey's neck. This could be all he needed or it could be a trap that would land him in Leavenworth.
He already had enough pressure in the SecNav's office, dealing with another woman who had no business in uniform. Lieutenant Commander Traci Manetti. She had actually been working at JAG, when they were short handed. It was a mystery to him that Chegwidden could use her help and not his. Sheffield claimed to be a close friend of her father, but Lindsey thought he knew better. They always seemed so secretive; something had to be going on.
"When? Where?" Lindsey refocused on what Singer was saying.
Singer took a phone number out of her pocket and handed it to the Commander. "He wants you to call him at this number."
1745
December 10 2004
Jefferson Bridge
Arlington, Virginia
Commander Teddy Lindsey stood on the bridge at its center, directly over the Potomac. It was just starting to get dark, though the lights on the lampposts on each side of the bridge had yet to come on. A man passed behind him and Lindsey tried to discreetly watch him, waiting to see if it was the person he had come to meet.
The man walked nearly 20 feet away, and then stopped to look out at the river. He dropped his keys, and slipped a large manila envelope out of the inner pocket of his overcoat as he retrieved his keys, he placed the envelope on the walk, near one of the posts. He never looked at Lindsey, he did not acknowledge him at all, the man merely walked on, leaving the bridge and walking along the shoulder of the road. He eventually got into a car that was parked nearly a quarter mile down the road. Lindsey could not discern his plate or even the model of the car from that distance.
Once the man left, Lindsey walked over and picked up the manila envelope, he placed it inside his coat and made his way, as quickly as he could, to his vehicle. He sat in the front seat, tempted to tear open the package, but he feared discovery or worse yet, that the man would return. He went back to his office at the Pentagon, the manila envelope and its secrets, sitting on the front seat beside him.
Once he got back and had locked his office door, he sat down at his desk with only the small desk lamp on and opened the package. As he read, he began to smile, more and more broadly, and then he began to laugh. This was perfect, this information had cast suspicion on every one he wanted to punish, even the JAG himself.
According to these documents, Webb was a double agent; who suspected that Rabb's father had been transported to Russia because he had agreed to cooperate with the KGB. Commander Rabb and the then Major Mackenzie had multiple exchanges of information with known Soviet Agents. Chegwidden had also played a role in the trip, they had taken to Russia in 1998. He had them all. Not one of them would escape the harsh scrutiny of a curious press and power hungry politicians of every stripe, competing for the most favorable publicity.
All he had to do now was get the SecNav worried about the Navy receiving bad publicity and allow him to 'suggest' a way to curtail it. He had a friend at the Globe; maybe he should give him a call.
At that same moment, outside the building….
Edward Hardy sat in the large secured parking lot at the Pentagon. He sat in his vehicle, parked next to Lindsey's, the one he had shadowed all the way over here. This ambitious little sycophant would be his salvation. Webb had, in fact, suspected Hardy had turned rogue and had nearly uncovered Hardy's double agent status in Paraguay. Now, any suspicions Langley might have about him will surely die, as Agent Webb had. The bigger story and all of the Company's energies would go into covering themselves in this scandal; they would be too busy to follow up on whatever Webb had told them, if he had the chance to tell them anything.
In the heavens above Northern Virginia….
Now Lieutenant Clarence understood, this man was not only going to destroy Commander Rabb's career but the memory and honor of his father and of his extended family at JAG. Him, his wife, and his mentor at JAG would all lose their careers; all of their families would be destroyed.
Now he understood the reason the Commander might want to throw everything away and why he must stop him.
A/N: Singers role at JAG comes much later in this story and she had much less status, but no less ambition. (Smile)
A/N: Just a reminder that this story is sooo AU. I should call it 'Scrambled JAG.' LOL! I know I'm pulling people and numerous situations from all ten years of JAG and not in the order that they occurred. Just letting you know, again, I know. (smile)