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Dressed in the more formal "Blues" uniform, Maj. Cassidy felt less like she looked out of place in this plush and very austere office, but in her heart she still knew this was not a place most Marines got a chance to visit. She was standing in the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, and everything in there reminded her of that fact. The pictures of the Secretary vacationing with the President, the one on his desk with all the Joint Chiefs in the White House Press Room, the one on the wall behind his chair that showed him shaking hands with all the living, former Presidents, the award for his service during 9/11, the plaque from the heads of NATO on the shelf beside his desk. Everything screamed out to her that a simple Major in the Marine Corps should remember every single detail, because she was likely to never see it again, but at the same time she was afraid to come out of attention and turn her head. And by no means was she about to take a seat, unless the Secretary directed her to do so. Just when she thought her brain would explode with all of the possibilities for her being summoned into the SecDef's office the man came striding into the room.
The Major came to full attention and gave the SecDef a proper Marine salute. "Maj. Cassidy, reporting as ordered, Sir."
The SecDef simply took his seat and laughed at her fine attention to detail and protocol, "Enough of that Major… I know this is the Pentagon and all, but our time today will be much better spent if we can forget about all of that for a little while." He gestured towards one of the chairs, "Please, at ease, and take a seat… We have some talking to do, Major."
"Yes, Sir." The Major took her seat with fine military precision and laid her cover neatly on her lap, with the SecDef chuckling the whole time.
"I see that stuff is deeply ingrained into your psyche at this point, you don't even know how to let it go, huh?" He pulled out a folder from his center desk drawer. "Here ya go… I thought you might like to see the result of your work from last week, Major."
She leaned forward and took the folder from him, then glanced at the label; Furmansky et al. "Sir?"
"There will be a press conference this afternoon, but it looks like your assessment of Gibbs and his team was dead on, Major… They took both suspects into custody early this morning, catching them in the act of abducting their next victim. Looks like a slam dunk case, even for the U.S. Attorney's office." She started leafing through the pages to see what they had discovered since she left NCIS headquarters that day. "Seems your profile was also dead on… They had the one man under surveillance before you had reached the Beltway that day… Second one was ID'd less than twenty four hours later. Once they had all they needed to make an arrest that would stick, they moved in, and like I said, got 'em in the act."
After making a quick survey of the folder the Major looked up, "Sir, if the one man is Naval personnel, why is the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case."
"Good catch, Major… Seems the boy was on his way out of service… He was on a mental health hold, and has been for more than a year… Personnel was just waiting for the paperwork to go through before giving him a psych discharge. So, in order to placate the DOJ, we threw them a bone and let him be tried as a civilian. That, and the other guy was drummed out some time ago, and the case is stronger with them being tried together." The SecDef leaned forward, "And in the interest of justice, we felt it was more important to get the killer convicted of a high crime, than the dupe." He leaned back again and casually threw to the Major one last compliment, "It would appear you were more than right about your 'UnSub2.' We don't even know how he got into the Navy. Psych has him with barely an eighty I.Q., and we're not even sure he understood all of what was happening after the abductions."
The Major thought about it a moment and nodded her head, "High functioning autistic?"
The SecDef looked a little thrown by her question, "I didn't give you the psych report… How'd you know that?"
"It was a consideration in my assessment and profile, but I didn't have anything to back up the supposition, so I refrained from including it in the report. I wasn't sure if the obsessive tendencies were pure psychosis or, in addition, a trait of autism." The SecDef just shook his head and chuckled.
"Well, I guess that pretty much cinches it for me, Maj. Cassidy." It was the Major's turn to stare at the SecDef with a look of surprise and confusion.
"Was there anything else of interest concerning my report, Sir?"
The SecDef had an almost playful expression on his face, "Well, it seems that your 'UnSub2?' He was the grandson of one Petty Officer Edwin Flanders serving under Cmdr. Stanley Wychovski, as one of his Deck Bosses. Talk about your intimate knowledge of Naval operations during WWII?"
This time the Major felt confident enough to join the SecDef in his laughter, "Well, sometimes I even surprise myself with those things."
Just as she was about to lean back in the chair a little the SecDef spoke up again. "Major, I have a few problems that you need to address for me."
"I'll do whatever I can, Sir." The Major was instantly straight backed again.
This time, his expression had passed playful and right on to devilish, "My first problem… Is with your uniform."