I wanted to warn you that things are going to get dark in the next couple of chapters. This Crow dude is a really sick bastard. If you stomached my old story Sleepwalker, you should be able to stomach this, but… maybe not. it's going to be explicit and the darkest of dark. The research I did made me ill. We get to see a tiny bit of Crow at the end of this chapter, and you'll get a small taste for his proclivities. A future chapter will have a bypass option though because I understand that not everyone can stomach that kind of reading. I'll explain when the time comes. Until then, I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Eight
Bishop and Abby were sitting quietly in the lab when a sudden bustle of noise started drifting in from down the hall. They both smiled at each other, anxious to see the rest of the team again. They were eager to get moving on the case and having them all together again to put their brains into the process was just what they needed.
"Abby!" Elly exclaimed as they came into the room. "I can smell coffee! You beautiful goddess!"
She giggled as she smiled at him, and Bishop found herself grinning at the camaraderie that this team had.
Everyone began dropping things on the evidence table and lining up behind Elly to pour themselves a paper cup of coffee. Sugar and creamer were dumped in some cups and soon they all stood around stirring and sipping. Elly's eyes closed at the taste of the drink that he knew would bring him the much-needed energy boost.
"What have you found out?" Ziva asked, coming to look over Abby's shoulder at the computer.
"Well, Devon isn't in any of the photos."
"But we know a little more about Kroger," Bishop said, picking up her own coffee without realizing her need to mimic the team around her.
"What do you got?" Tim asked, coming to look over Bishop's shoulder.
"He's a freshman at NYU," she said. "I would say that he's studying engineering, but he's failing out."
Tim nodded as he took a drink of his coffee.
"He's been in some trouble," Abby said, nodding at Bishop to continue.
"Yeah. He's got a fairly fresh prior," she said, looking around at the group to find them all staring at her, ready to drink in whatever she told them. "He was caught setting someone's car on fire."
"How'd he do that?" Elly asked.
"He smashed in the window with a brick and then tossed in an incendiary using a Christmas ornament full of a mixture of gasoline and Styrofoam."
"Odd combination," Greg said, leaning against the evidence table.
"Not really," Abby said. "It's widely known on the internet as a crude homemade napalm. I've never had to test the compound before, but it could be kind of fun."
"You just want to blow stuff up," Elly said with a chuckle.
"Who, me?!" Abby asked, the picture of innocence.
Tim shook his head, but he was smiling, and Abby was glad to see it. This case had him stretched quite thin. It took a lot to get under Tim's skin, and this definitely was.
"What did he give as his reason for doing it?" Greg asked.
"He said it was a dare," Bishop said.
"Doesn't sound like a dare to me," Greg returned. "Sounds like a test run, or even an initiation rite."
"Yeah, that's what we were thinking," Bishop said before popping some Cracker Jacks into her mouth.
Ziva noticed out of the side of her peripheral that Sommers was hanging off to the side, watching them casually but not participating in the discussion. She almost felt sorry for him. He looked like he wanted to say something on a couple of occasions, but kept opening his mouth and closing it again. After the third or fourth time, she looked directly at him and nudged her head to indicate he should come closer to the group. He gave her a one shoulder shrug, and she nudged her head towards them again. Sommers sighed and took a few steps towards them until he was standing at the end of the table.
There was a brief moment where no one was speaking, and Ziva nodded at him. He opened his mouth and almost stuttered as he started talking.
"I've seen it before," he said. Everyone turned to look at him, waiting. "My brother is EOD for the Navy."
The room was silent. He'd never mentioned his family before. "Oh," Abby said. "He's shown you this before?"
"He was obsessed with this kind of stuff as a teen. Had a chemistry set, the whole nine yards. And my dad encouraged it. He was Army and wanted… well he would experiment on this kind of stuff with him, just in really small batches of course. They'd figure out how to make things, and then figure out how to unmake them, or extinguish them. Couple of pyros, really."
"So how does it burn?" Elly asked.
"It burns hot. Very hot. Like 2000 degrees hot. And it's sticky, so when the heat would build up in that little ornament, depending on the type of course, it would've exploded fairly quickly, and the gelatinous goo would spray, or splatter at least, and it's damn near impossible to put out. Styrofoam is polystyrene, which is why it burns so hot, but slow. And there's a way where you mix in just a little Vaseline or citronella, soak cotton balls with it, and use them as firestarters on camping trips."
"Good to know," Ziva said, giving him a slightly encouraging smile. She started wondering if there was more to Sommers. She'd never seen him lack confidence, always going for gloriously arrogant instead, but at the mention of his family he seemed uncomfortable. As she thought about it, it echoed of when she first met Tony. Tony however wasn't petulant like Sommers. She decided to prod at that later.
"Are there any other cases of people setting cars on fire in New York?" Tim asked. "Maybe there were others given the same task."
"I looked," Bishop said. "Though there were a few things that jumped out at me as possible initiation rites, none of them involved this kind of incendiary."
"What other things jumped out at you," Greg asked.
"Well, there's all sorts of things. It's New York. There's plenty of gang initiation associated crimes. The ones that I'm feeling caught up on are someone pouring gasoline around the perimeter of a church and lighting it on fire. Thankfully it was a stone church and there wasn't much damage. And there was an odd incident where a tree was set on fire in Central Park. They said it had been sprayed down with a chemical compound, but it burned so fast that the tree didn't take much harm."
"Sounds like they were testing a chemical out, but it burned too quickly. Did they say what the chemical was?" Abby asked.
"No, and the FBI took over the investigation."
"Oh, we can get that easily enough," Abby said, turning to her computer. "Can I have the date of the incident?"
"You've got access to the FBI's files?" Bishop asked.
"We have a channel in right now because we're working on uploading their information into our cold case database," Elly explained. "It's only the basic style cases that we can get to. Anything sensitive is still blocked. They have these different tiers of sensitivity within their own system. Kind of like classifications, but not as strict."
"Hmmm," Bishop said, shrugging a shoulder. "It was this past December 1st."
A moment later and Abby pulled up the file. "Got it. Let's see…" She browsed it for a moment and then brought up something on the screen. "Looks like a butyl based fluid. Most of it burned before it could be examined, but they found some on the grass below the tree."
"Like a rocket fuel?" Tim asked.
"Could be?" Abby said.
"When was the date of the car fire?" Greg asked.
"December 19th."
"Looks like they tried one fluid, and it failed. Then they tried another and were caught."
"Why didn't Kroger get put in jail?" Elly asked.
"He was arrested, but they let him out on bail. He's not a priority offender, so he's awaiting a court date." Bishop sighed.
"He's a possible terrorist, but he's not a priority offender?" Sommers rolled his eyes and then looked at Ziva, who shrugged back.
"He's not from New York originally," Bishop said. "He's from Maine. He had a spotless record before this arrest."
"What do you know about his childhood?" Greg asked.
"Not much yet," Bishop said. "He seems to come from the standard nuclear family though."
Greg shrugged and took a deep swallow from his coffee, which kicked off a chain reaction of half of the group doing the same.
There was a sudden flurry of chimes and ticks as everyone but Sommers and Bishop got a text message. They all pulled their phones out to look at it.
"That's the call," Tim said. "Director wants all of us in the conference room."
"I will get started on all of this evidence," Abby said, looking at the boxes lined up on the bright metal table.
"Find us something good," Tim said, kissing her temple as he walked by and making her grin.
Bishop saw and smiled, then picked up her coffee and computer. "Thanks for the Cracker Jacks, Abby."
"You're welcome!" Abby said. "Come visit again soon!"
A couple of moments later and Tim, Bishop, Greg, Elly and Sommers were all squeezed into the lift. The only person who had any energy left to climb the stairs was Ziva. They got to the bullpen at the same time though. They spread out to drop their stuff on their desks and then wandered up the steps to the conference room. Ned and the Director were already sitting in there, both taking notes.
Tim realized there was an introduction to be made. "Director Vance, I'd like you to meet Ellie Bishop, the analyst from the NSA we've been working with."
The Director got to his feet, reaching out to shake her hand. "You've really shaken things up around here," he said with a smirk.
"Ummm…" Bishop looked at the group next to her and then back to Vance. "Thank you, sir. I think."
Vance chuckled slightly, but his smile put her at ease.
"You've got amazing people. It's been an honor to work with them," she said with a small smile for him.
"They're a hell of a bunch," Vance said, gesturing for her to take a seat next to him. The rest of the group found places to sit as well and Vance began.
"We've had an interesting hour. Wanted to fill you all in." Vance was impressed to see the rapt attention of everyone at the table despite how exhausted they all looked. "We've gotten a lot of information from NSA Hadley and Staff Sergeant Melbourne."
"We can use it," Elly said with a shake of his head.
Vance spent the next ten minutes giving them the rundown of everything they'd found out. Ned had gotten to his feet and started drawing it out on the whiteboard like a roadmap or flowchart. Elly watched him closely, taking in the way his shoulders were squared and confident, and he realized he was witnessing Encyclopedia Ned right now. It reminded him of one night before they were dating when Ned had turned over the placemats at dinner and started drawing out the plans for the current operation. He liked having the visual. The information on the whiteboard was good, too.
"To summarize," Bishop said, looking at the whiteboard when they were all finished sharing their information. "Davis knew about the location of 20 or so women that the INIS was going to have the CIA train to be undercover spies. Mark may have known the location and was going to meet with an INIS bigwig to arrange their training. Carmichael is somehow involved, but other than being deployed with Davis we don't know for sure how. Devon is Mark's handler and is in Spain right now with my director operating a safehouse of sorts for all of the people Mark has ever worked with on this CIA project. Crow is a terrorist mole in the NSA and has gathered together two groups of kids on each coast to terrorize people. One of those groups has helped torture and murder Davis, Carmichael, and Mark, and killed one of their own."
"I think that sums it up," Ned said with a nod.
"We now have half of the motive," Ziva said, thinking it through.
"Crow was trying to get the location of the 20 women. But why? What's in it for him?" Greg pondered aloud.
"Is he a true believer, or is he being bought?" Bishop asked.
"Or is it blackmail of a sort?" Tim asked. "They've resorted to torture. I wouldn't put blackmail past them."
"The language on the message boards that Crow uses is very… persuasive," Ned said, the room looking up to him where he was standing in front of them. "But it's almost like a used car salesman kind of approach. He's selling the idea to the group, the jihad."
Bishop looked skeptical. "Yeah, but the extent he knows radical Islam is… well it's obvious that he's maybe read the Quran or has a copy of it he refers to, because he quotes it, but its' not polished."
Ned nodded. "It's like he's a convert himself, or an outsider posing."
"Does it matter?" Elly asked.
Greg turned to him. "If he's a true jihadist, nothing is off limits. If he's in it for the money, there's a limit. A value to what he's getting. If I told you that cutting off your pinky finger will earn you ten million dollars, you may consider it. If I tell you to cut off Ned's arm, you wouldn't. There's limits when it comes to money. When it comes to radicalized, extremist religious views, there usually isn't. Everyone has different value amounts on actions. Combining the two though has a lot of dangerous potential. I don't think we should rule it out. Take the Brand and Mortaire situation we dealt with in the spring. They weren't paid very much, but they also had racist ideals that sweetened the pot for them. Or maybe the other way around." Greg turned back towards the whiteboard with a small shrug once he saw Elly nod his understanding.
Tim looked at nothing in particular as he talked. "The bodies were left on the river banks where we would eventually find them. Carmichael's body was obviously left as a message. Kroger looks like he just got in the way. I want to know what the message is going to be with the feet."
"Are they a message or a clue?" Ziva asked.
"I'm not sure what the clue would be," Elly said. "I mean, it's a couple of feet. Unless that's meant to be a measure of distance, which I know is only something my deliriously sleep deprived brain is thinking up, then I don't get it."
"Did you recover his shoes?" Ned asked.
"No," Tim answered. "I've just got a bad feeling that it means the killing isn't over."
There was a moment of silence at that exhausting and sobering thought.
Greg looked around the group, trying to focus on the objectives. "Okay, so now we know what they're after, and that's being handled by Spots. And the NSA and FBI are tackling this Only group. So that leaves us with trying to pinpoint where The Children of the Prophet are and who Crow is."
"Bishop should have an email from Hadley with a list of NSA agents that are potentially Crow," Ned said. "We should probably start there."
"And I should be getting copies of the discs from the marina's video footage today to begin scanning it for the abduction of Sergeant Davis," Ziva said.
"We need to take turns getting a few hours of sleep," Tim said. "We're going to need it when we locate these people."
"Agreed," Vance said. "Why don't you split up. Take five hours each. Run home, shower, nap, eat and come back. Then the next group goes."
"I'd rather stay and start working through the list," Bishop said.
"Abby has a futon in her back office," Tim suggested. "You should at least catch an hour or two. That's a lot of research for a muddled brain to take on. You can't make any mistakes. This is treason we're talking about. You need to have a clear head for that."
Bishop nodded. "I can agree to that."
"Do you need Dorneget for a while, Director?" Tim asked.
"No. We have a meeting in MTAC at 1400 with Director Spots. I want him there. Send him in the first wave. I'll need his head in the game."
"Dorney, Ziva and Sommers. Go home. It's going on 0800. Be back at 1300. We'll regroup, pass on our info, and then switch out."
Ned looked at Elly, then at Tim, and then back at Elly. Ziva and Sommers got up to leave, and Elly got up, too. He looked at Tim, "Just gonna…" he gestured to Ned, and Tim nodded.
"Bishop, can I talk to you a minute?" Ned asked, quietly.
"Yeah," she said, getting up to step out as well, feeling like the meeting was dismissed. The five of them left, and it left Vance, McGee and Parke in the room.
"What else?" Vance asked, noticing that McGee was waiting for folks to leave.
"Should I leave?" Parke asked.
"You can stay if you'd like," McGee said. "You may be able to give me some advice."
Parke nodded, giving Tim his full attention.
"Sommers ran off earlier," Tim started, looking at Vance with a forlorn expression. "I don't know where he went. I texted him to figure out where he was, and he said something about how he wasn't going to be on the team much longer, to which I found out meant that he'd said something inappropriate to Critten, which caused Dorney to snap at him and say something about how he wasn't going to be around much longer. He went AWOL for a while, missed our briefing before we left for the warehouse. It took me threatening going directly to you to get him to meet us there. I don't know what to do with him. I feel like I'm babysitting him."
Vance sighed and nodded. "Is he getting in the way of the investigation?"
"When he's present he's doing his work, but he keeps ticking people off with his snide comments. He's toxic."
"Agent Parke? Any observations?" Vance asked.
"Yeah, actually. He's been a total ass. He has. But then in Abby's lab just now downstairs he was acting… different. Cautious. Maybe he needed the wakeup call?"
Vance nodded. "When he gets back, pull him aside. Tell him that you talked to me about his stunt and that I'm not happy and will be taking it up with him after the case. See if that changes his tune. If he settles down, great. If he continues to be a problem, then I'll make sure he's escorted off the property. This is too big of a case to deal with a problem child."
Tim sighed in relief, getting to his feet. "Thank you. I'm going to go check on Bishop and her list. See what damage I can do there. It will be nice to be behind a computer for a little while and do something productive."
That left Vance and Parke. Vance looked over at him. "How's he doing?" he asked once the door was shut.
"He's leading fine, but he's on edge. This case has him flustered. I don't blame him though. If my first case as a leader was hunting down a treasonous double agent in the NSA that tortures people and recruits kids I'd be a basketcase. He's doing much better than basketcase. I'd say he's snippy, but driven. And he seems out of his comfort zone, but in that kind of way that makes you grow. He's fine. Getting some research under his belt will calm things down for him. Help him focus on what his strengths are."
"And the others?"
"Sommers is the only one that's had a problem following his leadership. Actually, I think everyone has stepped up and taken full reins on their… specialties. I'm seeing Ned really get into the profiling of this Crow asshole, Elly is confidently but cautiously working with Bishop and Hadley, and both are acting more professional than usual. I haven't gotten a chance to work much with Ziva and Sommers, but she seems to be almost taking him under her wing.
"At first, I kind of thought that Tim was pawning him off on Ziva, but I don't think so. Ziva seems to know how to handle Sommers best, which is really strange because he's such a misogynistic jerk. She was encouraging him to work with us when we were debriefing in the lab just before. It was subtle, but I saw it. And Sommers surprised us all by talking about his family connections to EOD and his knowledge of explosive materials."
"If I remember correctly he has a brother in the Navy and his dad is a veteran as well."
"Yeah, he was Army. It's interesting. One minute he's acting like he hates us all, and the next he's panicking because he's going to be kicked out."
"I appreciate you keeping me up to date on everyone. Without the Gibbses I haven no way to really gauge how things are going without getting too in the weeds, and I can't do that to McGee."
"Definitely," Parke said. "McGee is nervous enough about leading this ragtag group. That will destroy his confidence before it's built. There's some powerful personalities here. I'll try to steer them in the right directions if they start trying to topple the tower."
"Are you sure you're okay with doing this?" Vance asked. "I don't want you to feel like you're betraying your team's loyalty by reporting this kind of thing to me. I know you all value that loyalty."
"This is fine. I wouldn't hesitate to let you know if I was uncomfortable with it. If it was a day to day kind of thing, it wouldn't be happening. But for this week, with the GIbbses gone, I'm fine with it."
"Good to know," Vance said, raising an eyebrow at the candidness of his agent. He had come to respect that about his people. If they were brutally honest with him he felt he could trust them more. He also respected that Parke wouldn't have been willing to do this every day. That would've made him uncomfortable. He felt bad for asking him to spy on his own team as is, but he was honest about not wanting to interfere with McGee's chance to take on a leadership role. He knew that until the young agent had done so he wasn't going to grow into those shoes. He needed him to develop those skills.
He got to his feet and Parke didn't. "You coming?"
"No, I'm going to call Tiffany really quick and update her on where things stand. It's about 8:30. She's usually thrown up a couple of times by now. I just gotta get the courage to hit the talk button."
"Pregnancy hormones?" Vance asked sympathetically.
"Oh… you have no idea. We call her the Prego Monster."
"Jackie was a nightmare the first trimester with each of our kids. It calmed down once the morning sickness stopped."
"Hers did stop. But we got some news on Friday that has me worried. And she's supposed to be on bedrest, and I've had to leave her home alone. I just hate this."
Vance sat back down giving his agent his full attention. "What was the news?"
Parke sighed. "The baby is turned in a weird way, so they're watching it closely. There's a fifty-fifty chance right now that she'll end up needing a C-section. There's still plenty of time for her to move, so we're not too worried about that. But Tiff has developed diabetes suddenly, and her blood pressure is through the friggin' roof and I… I don't know what I can do to help her other than be there with her. And I'm here, chasing down murderous asshole terrorists instead of being home to keep her calm."
"A lot of women develop diabetes when they're pregnant. Jackie's best girlfriend was attached to a bottle of orange juice through her entire pregnancy. It was like her sugar was never high enough."
Parke nodded and twirled his phone on the table. "Yeah. I know. And the psychologist in me knows the hormonal issues that cause her to say the things she says and do the things she does, but it's not making it any easier."
"She taking digs at you?"
"That's putting it lightly," Parke said, a sardonic grin on his face as he nodded, unable to meet Vance's eyes. "One minute it's the emotional equivalent to Elly or Ziva giving me a karate kick below the belt, the next she's bawling her eyes out as she realizes how horrible she just was to me and begging my forgiveness."
Vance cringed. Jackie had been hard to live with, but it never got personal like it sounded Parke was getting. "You know better than I do that pregnancy hormones are no excuse for verbal abuse," he said calmly.
"I know," Parke said with a sigh. "And we've talked extensively about it. It's getting better. She's catching herself more. But that's just it- she's catching herself. She's thinking these things about me, she's just not saying them. I can tell you this much- we won't be having any more kids because I can't go through this again. I'm getting myself snipped. We can adopt from here on out. I've always wanted to do that anyway."
"This sounds like more than pregnancy hormones," Vance said.
"Her past is just as disastrous as mine, if not worse. We have a rule though that I won't shrink her. I'm her husband, not her therapist."
"Smart rule."
"Yeah. All I can do is love her and talk to her about how I feel. It's up to her to do the rest."
Vance nodded. "Go ahead and call her. I'll let McGee know you need some time." Parke gave Vance a sad smile of thanks and watched him leave. He stared at the phone for a long minute, willing himself to press the talk button. He didn't know what he was going to find on the other end of the line. Was it the Prego Monster? Was it his wife needing him home to help her? Was it going to be okay? He took a deep breath and finally dialed the phone. Waiting wouldn't make things magically better.
********WDYG?********
Ned led Bishop to the end of the hallway by the elevator to talk to her semi-privately.
"What's up?" she asked.
"Hadley asked that I pass on a message to you."
"Oh?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"He asked that you call him, and he said that he's sorry that he didn't tell you everything sooner."
"He should've thought about that before," she said defensively, but with a hushed tone. "He's kept information from me like I'm a suspect, Ned! I trusted him! I thought he trusted me! Then, no offense, but he opens up to you and Director Vance instead? No. I'm not accepting his apology. He's going to have to regain my trust."
"Not to defend him, because you look pretty mad right now, and I'd hate to defend him and have you… I don't know… hit me or something, but he was really distraught. He's been trying to get in touch with your director to get clearance to tell us, and you, this stuff, and finally he caved in MTAC and just gave it up. He wasn't cleared to tell us what he just told us. He said the only reason why he was telling us was because he's up shit creek without a paddle, and everyone at the NSA has turned on each other."
Bishop looked at the ceiling for a moment with a huffy sigh, then looked back at Ned.
"And he said that he wanted you here with us because he thinks you're the best shot at finding this creep and if you were there you'd be wrapped up in the drama."
Bishop looked down the hallway to where Elly was patiently waiting out the conversation. "He's still going to have to make it up to me."
"Call him though, if for no other reason than he may have other things he's only willing to tell you that he wasn't willing to tell us in MTAC."
"Fine," she finally conceded, and then turned to walk back over to the stairs that would take her down to the bullpen.
Elly smiled tentatively at her as they passed each other. He strolled up to Ned, hands holding their opposite elbows as he gave the other man a shy smile. "So much for snuggles," he said quietly.
"Damn McGee," Ned pouted.
Elly laughed. "More like damn terrorist prick."
"Okay, yeah, but still. That dumbass better be ready for me to kick his ass when I find him, because he's standing in the way between me and snuggles with my fiancé."
"I'd like to watch that," Elly said, trying not to step in closer to Ned. Ned smirked and turned towards the elevator and pressed the button. The door opened immediately for them, having last shuffled someone up to that floor. They stepped in, but no buttons were pushed.
"Come here," Ned said as the doors shut. Elly stepped forward into his embrace, and they breathed each other in for a long moment. "I need to go get some sleep."
"I wish I could go with you. I'm not really cool with this whole 'ships passing in the night' crap we've got going on."
"Me neither, but it's just today. We'll catch this guy, get the truth out of him, and then round up his brats and sleep for hours wrapped in each other's arms."
Elly pulled back, his arms still around Ned's chest. "And somewhere in there, amazing sex."
"Pssshft!" Ned scoffed. "Duh!"
Elly laughed, which made Ned laugh, and they shared a quick kiss. "Go get some sleep, sexy," Elly said, slipping out of the embrace but holding Ned's hand as he pushed the button for the next floor down.
They regretfully let go of one another's hands as they stepped off the elevator and into the bullpen.
Elly realized that Greg wasn't in the bullpen when he got there, and after a quick glance up at the catwalk he saw Tim coming from the conference room. Greg wasn't with him. He glanced around and then decided he must've been in the head. Ned smiled at him as he passed his desk with his pack.
"Love you," he said quietly.
"I love you, too," Elly said. "Sleep well."
"Good luck," he returned, then disappeared from view.
"I may have something here," Ziva announced loudly enough for both Elly and Tim to hear. Elly got up and made his way to the MCRT's side of the bullpen.
"Whatcha got?" he asked, leaning back against Gibbs' desk to stare at the plasma.
Tim got up to join them as Ziva beamed a photo at the screen. "I was checking my email before I left and found this. Frank at the marina sent me this photo. He pulled it from the video from two Fridays ago. You can only see the faces of these two young men, but Frank says that they tased Davis, and then dragged him into this van."
"There's like five kids here," Elly said.
"Well, they obviously knew what they were up against. Tasing a marine to get him to cooperate is actually pretty smart unfortunately. They don't have to get within a fist swing's proximity until he's compliant." Tim pointed out the two kids whose faces could be made out. The security camera was surprisingly high quality. "Neither of those kids are Kroger."
"No, but this one here looks like it might be from behind. You can see the blonde hair poking out from under the hat. He seems like the right build," Elly said, pointing to a young man in the bottom left of the photo.
"Send this to me," Tim said. "I'll add it to the BOLO. You need to go home and rest."
"Yes, I do. I just wanted to know what was going to be the outcome of your conversation with Vance about Sommers first."
Tim nodded. "He stays, but one more screw up, one more reason to make me want to strangle him, and he's gone for good."
Ziva nodded. "Understood." She turned around and sent Tim the photo before locking down her computer and gathering her belongings.
She made her way to the garage slowly. She had a few hours to breathe, and she was in no rush. Dion would already be awake when she got home, and probably getting dressed to go to the restaurant. She wouldn't be able to sleep until he left.
As she made her way to her car she noticed that Sommer's car was a row from hers. She wasn't sure why she did it, but she went up to it and tapped at the window before opening the passenger side door and getting in. Sommers lifted his head from his arms that were wrapped around the steering wheel. He looked utterly exhausted.
"You've got one chance," she said calmly. "Vance has decided to give you one more chance to prove that you can be a valuable part of this team, or you're gone for good."
Sommers shook his head and looked out the driver's side window, then let his head collapse back onto the seat rest. He sighed.
"I don't want to do this," he said. "I never wanted to do this. This isn't what I wanted to do with my life. It's what dad wanted though, and I wanted to make him proud. He was so proud of Aaron, at least when he got over the initial shock that he was joining the Navy instead of the Army. But he was proud. I'd always been the screw up. Could never get the trophies and accolades that Aaron got. Wasn't the quarterback, or the homecoming king, or Mr. America." His chest popped with a scoff. "Heh. I thought I could do this. For him. But I can't." He turned and looked at Ziva. "I didn't want to be an agent. I wanted to be in forensics. When I told my dad I was going into criminal justice though, he thought it meant I was going to be a cop. And suddenly… he was proud of me. Finally. He…"
Sommers shook his head. "I'm not a cop. I'm not an agent. Can I do it? Sure. But my heart isn't in it. And my head sure isn't in it. But I thought I could make him proud of me finally. So, I changed my course load, and I focused on investigations instead of forensics. And it's interesting, it is, but it's not… me."
Ziva thought of the precision and care Sommers had used to take the fingerprints off of Davis' Mustang, and again with the stepladder at the warehouse. She thought about him finally opening up the least bit about his family and showing his knowledge of explosives in Abby's lab. It made sense.
"I should be proud. My dad is. His son is not only a cop, but a federal agent. I've tried to be what he wants me to be for so long now that I don't even know myself. I hate who I've become. And I have no idea why I'm telling you all of this."
Ziva thought for a long moment. "My own father is the head of Israeli Intelligence, Mossad. I have been raised my entire life to be a merciless spy. And I fulfilled my duty for a long time. There were limits though. A time came where I had to choose for myself what I was willing to do, who I was willing to be, and where my… heart… belonged."
Sommers looked at her with wide eyes, and Ziva's fingers found the Star of David hanging from around her neck. "My place was here. With these people. They are good people, and they believe in what they are doing. They trust each other, and they rely on one another, and they give each other the opportunity to fulfill their truest self. And they offered that to me.
"We all use our skills to the best of our ability. We bring out the best in each other. If you give them the chance, and show your interests and skills, they will help them flourish. But that does not mean that you are going to do what you love all the time. We all do things we do not enjoy. What you need to decide is how much you are willing to open up to them. How much will you let them see? Because what you have shown us so far has not been pleasant. Your attitude has been reprehensible. You're arrogant, self-absorbed, rude-"
"Well don't hold back on my account! Damn!" Sommers said with a dark chuckle, shaking his head.
"I won't hold back. I am your partner. It is my job to guide you, direct you, teach you, and make you a part of this team, and your attitude has made that impossible. If you do not want to be here, then go. But if you do want to be here, if you want the chance to be a great investigator, or to find a way to prove yourself worthy enough to be a part of the forensics team, then you need to stop being such a dick."
"Wow, did you really just call me a dick?" Sommers asked.
"Yes, because there is no nice way to put how you have treated everyone in this office, because you have been the opposite of nice. You are not above any of us, but you walk around here like we owe you something. You complain about every task set before you as if though you are better than it and shouldn't have to do it. You not only make no attempts to be a part of this team, but you directly insult the people around you who hold your future in their hands. Like it or not, you are at the bottom here and it is going to take earning respect before you make it even a single rung up."
"What do I do?" he asked quietly, staring forward out of the windshield.
"You make a decision. You either admit that this isn't for you, and you leave. Maybe go back to school and continue your education in forensics. Go do what you really wanted to do, and meanwhile face your father. Or you stay, ask for forgiveness, make amends for your rough start, and you let your team guide you down a path that will lead you to a role you're better suited for. But that's going to take putting in the time and effort. It's going to mean earning your stripes. And it's going to hurt before it gets better."
Sommers sighed. "I need to think about this."
Ziva nodded. "Yeah, do you. I will leave you with one final thought. These people are my family. If you do anything else to disrespect them, or if you do anything to hurt them or bring them harm, you will have to deal with me."
Sommers looked up into Ziva's eyes, fear in his own, and nodded cautiously at her. She nodded back once and let herself out of the car.
********WDYG?********
Tony and Jethro left the front entrance of the hotel and Tony looked at his phone to make sure they were going in the right direction.
"It's two blocks east and three blocks north," he said, slipping his phone in his pocket.
He and Jethro strolled casually down the walkway. They'd finally gotten out of bed and decided to walk to a restaurant not too far from them for a good lunch. They were only a half block away from the hotel when Jethro folded his hand into Tony's, entwining their fingers. Tony smiled.
"Feeling brave?" Tony asked, echoing their walk in the snow months before.
"Proud," Jethro said with a smirk, remembering when the question was first asked.
"Same here," Tony said. "Very proud actually." They were quiet for the next block, simply enjoying each other's company.
"What do you want to do after lunch?" Tony asked, finally breaking the silence.
"I don't know. Maybe take in the market? Find a good bottle of wine or two to take back to the room with us tonight."
"I like that idea. We can go ahead and pick up anything we wanted to bring back as souvenirs. Get it out of the way."
"Abby was still trying to get me to agree to go to that crypt. She wanted pictures. I told her that I wasn't spending my honeymoon underground with a bunch of dead bodies."
Tony laughed at the tone of voice and expression that Jethro suddenly sported. "You sure? Maybe we can stray from the tour and give her a freaky story that would make her entire year."
"I'm not having sex with you in a crypt!" Jethro spluttered.
"You know, of all of the places I've dreamed about having sex, a crypt is not one of them. Or a graveyard. I just never really understood that one."
"That's really good to know," Jethro said with a chuckle.
"There's plenty of other places on my list. Don't need to add the creepy to it."
"Where else is on that list?" Jethro asked. Tony looked at him with a raised eyebrow as he saw that Jethro almost looked shy in that way that made him weak in the knees.
"Let's see. The conference room," he said.
"A or B?" Jethro asked. He could see them eventually getting away with B, but not A since it had a giant glass wall.
"I fantasize about A, but realistically I know it will never happen. I'd be happy with B."
"You and your exhibitionist side," Jethro said. "You get off on the idea of someone watching us."
"You get off on the idea of someone catching us. Not that different."
"I guess," Jethro said, his mind getting caught up in the thought. He was interrupted by Tony's next suggestion.
"I've always wanted to have sex against a big hotel room window," Tony said, winking at Jethro when he looked.
"Our room does have a nice big window."
"Exactly!" Tony said. "And what's even better, is we know that we aren't going to run into anyone we know here. Knowing our luck we'd get a room in DC and Abby would walk by or something."
"Now that would make her year," Jethro said.
"Yeah, but if McGee is with her, which knowing our luck and intimate relationship with Murphy's law, he would be, we'd never be able to show up in the office again."
"You want to take advantage of our anonymity while we're here," Jethro said, his thoughts straying to a whisper of a plan.
"Would be our best shot at it. That big window… should probably wait until our last day here so that we don't run into people in the street that have seen us."
Jethro nodded his agreement to that. "Anything else special that you want to do while we're here and anonymous?" he asked with a smirk.
"Actually," Tony said, feeling his face flushing a little bit. "I did have an idea."
"Oh?"
"I was thinking about finding some kind of nice leather cuffs for the bedroom. Genuine Italian leather. Soft and sturdy."
Jethro raised an eyebrow at that. He enjoyed the rare chance he got to tie Tony up, but if he used cuffs he'd be able to restrain him to the bed and undo them quickly if Amira woke up. He approved of the idea.
"Got any place in mind for that?" he asked.
"I may have done a little research."
Jethro chuckled again. "Looks like we're going on an adventure."
"I like that!" Tony said. "It's our honeymoon. It's supposed to be an adventure. We're in Italy! Beautiful, romantic, seductive Italy. I want to explore everything possible. The art, the food, the history, and our sexual boundaries."
Jethro raised an eyebrow at him again. If Tony wanted to explore their sexual boundaries, he had an idea forming that would require calling in a favor from a friend, but it could make their trip extra memorable. If Tony wanted to push the boundaries, he would push them. Hopefully he didn't freak Tony out in the process.
********WDYG?********
UntamedFury: We've got a problem
Crow: What's going on?
UntamedFury: One of these brats is going to ruin everything for us.
Crow: What happened?
UntamedFury: Maxx had a run in with some jerk at the FBI.
Crow: Define "run in"?
UntamedFury: He was out recruiting like they were told. FBI pulls up in their cars, gets out, starts swarming the street. Maxx is spotted, takes off running. They chase him down. Then he does something stupid.
Crow: Just spit it out! What the hell is happening?
UntamedFury: He shot at them. Thinks he hit one. He took off before he could find out how bad. We've been listening to the scanners, and other than the ambulance call there has been nothing. They've gone radio silent.
Crow: If you took down an FBI agent you're on your own. I can't be connected to that. I'm sorry.
UntamedFury: What the hell?! The brat killed him- not me. You're going to just abandon me out here?
Crow: This is too important for childish screw ups! Do you know what is going to happen to him if that agent is dead? He's going to be hunted down, and the rest of you with him. And when they catch up with him, he's going to be killed. Oh, there will be no fair trial. He, and anyone found with him, are going to be taken into federal custody, never to be heard from again. May even end up at Guantanamo Bay.
UntamedFury: Please! I don't know what to do! You can't leave me out here. Please, Crow! We've been through too much together. I thought I meant something to you.
Crow sat back staring at the phone. He loved when he begged. His mouth curled up into a sinister smile as a thought came to him. He may not be able to follow the original plan, but he could still get his fix.
Crow: If you want to make it up to me, a price needs to be paid.
UntamedFury: What do you want?
Crow: A true test of your… loyalty.
UntamedFury: What is it? I'll do anything.
Crow: A sacrifice must be made.
UntamedFury: What kind of sacrifice?
Crow: You will sacrifice Maxx. You will kill him and send me the video. Tie him up first. Tell the others that he must die so that the rest of the cause may flourish. Allow him to repent for his ways so that he may be welcomed into paradise for the work that he has done. Then slice his throat. Give him an honorable death with no carving to trap his spirit. Then take his body and dump it somewhere that it can be found so that the police will have nothing to go off of- so that they can't trace him back to Only. They should stop sniffing around once their killer is caught. Then go under for a few days. I'll be in contact after I have a chance to check that the search has stopped and the trail has gone cold.
UntamedFury: That's going to be a hard sell to the group.
Crow: No it won't. I believe in you. After all, he will be the fall of Only! You know that it's jihad tradition that one life is not worth the entire organization. We must prevail! Only can be a huge asset to our war, but only if you are untraceable. Maxx is a liability right now, but by dying he will be a martyr! It will turn his shame into honor.
UntamedFury: Haha! You almost sound like you actually believe this shit. Okay. I'll do it. Who should help me? I can't do it by myself. I'll need help to move the body.
Crow thought about it for a moment. He was torn. A part of him wanted Michael to help, because he was a kindred spirit in a way, and he wanted to feed that darkness. Another part of him wanted Zack to help because he was just so damned innocent, and he wanted to see if he could awaken his dark side. To taint him. Why not both? he decided.
Crow: Michael and Zack. I feel they are being called to this test.
UntamedFury: Okay. When should we do it?
Crow's eyes closed as he imagined what he was going to witness and had to take a deep breath. He pulled up a schedule on the phone and thought for a moment about how long it would take him to get home and alone in his bedroom.
Crow: Six hours. You have six hours. It won't take long for the FBI to start tracing him back. You need to do this soon.
UntamedFury: I understand. I'll be in touch soon.
Crow: Good. And X? Try not to have too much fun. They can't be scared away. Keep it simple.
UntamedFury: Damn, Crow. You ruin all my fun!
Crow: We'll have some fun on Friday in Minnesota.
UntamedFury: Can't wait.