Flashbacks and Memories (Part 9)
By Jenny Taylor
"So…what happened mom?" The aquanaut of the family asked, getting a bit impatient. "What happened to Aunt Trisha?" Jaycee took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she begins to retell her mother's tale.
"It started a month after the wedding of your parents…"
26 years earlier in the International Criminal Investigation Squad's Headquarters, Washington DC
Special Agent Trisha Anderson walks into the office, with a mug of black coffee in one hand and a large file in the other. The office is a very large room, the size of a large hospital ward without the beds, is divided into sections of teams, each had their own desks, computers and filing cabinets for all the members of the chosen teams surrounded with shoulder height, fabric covered wall dividers.
Trisha walks over to the section where her team is based. There were 4 members in her team, there was herself, Patrick McGee, Robert DiNozzo and Jason Pride.
Patrick is a well built, mid-thirties man, with his brown hair neatly combed in equal measures. He may be a bit shy when it comes to interrogating the opposite sex, but he's a damn good computer genius which comes in very handy when it comes to hacking terrorists' hardware.
Robert is a tad younger than Patrick, but he's slim and handsome and more experienced out of the 4 of us now. He can be charming, very cocky and immature most of the time, but when it comes to investigating terrorists, like now, his immaturity flies out of the window alongside with some of his cockiness and goes straight down to business.
Jason is the youngest and newest member of the team. He's a younger version of Robert but instead of the short, chocolate brown hair that Robert has, he sports a long, blonde hair which he has tied up in a form of a ponytail. He's has some of the skills that Patrick has and some of the immaturity of Robert.
Trisha walks over to sit in her office chair, places the file that she's been working on her desk and takes a sip coffee as she stares at the desk where Robert now occupies, in sorrow. All but Jason felt the emotions of shock, sorrow, anger and determination.
It had been just 2 weeks ago when they lost a senior member of the team to terrorists, which that role is now filled by Robert and Jason had just been brought in to fill the 'newbie' desk, which was vacated by Patrick, who was the newbie and now occupies Trisha's old desk and she filling Robert's.
Jason senses the negative atmosphere emitting from his new team of investigators. He had been told by the Senior Director, when first transferred from NCIS, that the team was a very close-knit team and had been tasked to find the most elusive and dangerous terrorist on the world's most wanted list, Seth Gorgon Pluto.
Seth is a master of disguise, master blackmailer, rapist, murderer, torturer, kidnapper, explosives expert and bloody damn good marksman. No-one knows his true image and they only about half a dozen aliases, which sadly under one of them, had gotten close to the team, shot and murdered the senior member and team leader, Richard Gibbs.
Trisha sighed as she and her team looks at their newly appointed team leader, Robert. He had previous experience in being a team leader in his personal investigations, but it was only temporary and now the Senior Director had made him a permanent leader to his team.
Robert shook his head, drinking his own mug of coffee, trying to clear his mind from the grief of a colleague, who was his boss and an old, trusted and unpredictable friend. He places his mug back onto his desk, stands up, takes a deep breath and begins to address his team.
"Okay guys, I need updates on this guy." He turns to Patrick. "Patch…"
Patrick shakes his head in disappointment. "Sorry Rob… I'm mean boss, but this terrorist has disappeared into thin air again. It's a high possibility that Seth has disguised himself again, making him harder to track."
"Not what I wanted to hear Patch. I need this snake in the grass found! ASAP! Before he strikes again!" Robert scowled in anger and disgust.
"Erm guys…" Everyone turned to the owner of the voice. "Forgive me for saying this, but…"
"But what kid?" Robert shot a look at him that tells the newbie that his boss doesn't like being interrupted, but he lets Jason continue to voice his thoughts. Jason felt uncomfortable under that look, but presses on, hoping that his thoughts might help the team to get closer into catching the terrorist.
"Could it be possible that… your old boss… was murdered because he got too close?"
Everyone looked at each other, before looking at the newbie slightly perked up with interest. "Too close to what Jason?" Robert asked, his voice filled with a mixture of anger and curiosity.
"Erm… to finding his hideout maybe?" Jason shrugged under the gaze of his teammates, before looking at them feeling a bit frightened to hear what the possible responses might be.
"Or getting close to another alias he's working under." Jason inwardly sighed a relief as he and the others turned to face the only female member of the group.
"What are you gettin' at Trish?" Robert asked curiously at his newly appointed second-in-command before looking down at the file on her desk, which she has just picked up as she stood up.
"This is the file that Gibbs was working on before he was murdered, Brigadier General Henry Vulcan Magnes. It's a possibility that Brigadier General Magnes could be Seth and that Gibbs is trying to find hard-core evidence to prove it." She said as the others stood up and walked into the centre of their sub-office as she joined them and showed them the file.
"Soooo… What do we know about this general?" Robert asked them curiously.
"Not much I'm afraid boss…" Patrick replied sadly and formally.
"I've never heard of him, boss." Jason interrupted feeling a bit lost.
"That's because you had just come from NCIS, kid. Generals don't usually involve with naval stuff." Robert snorted sarcastically, making Jason cringe in disgust, before turning to face Trisha. "Soooo, I take it that you decided to take up the file that Gibbs was working upon yourself?" He spoke with worry and concern as she receives the said file back.
Trisha nodded slowly in response. Robert walks up to her and places his free hand of comfort on her shoulder as his chocolate eyes meets her honey coloured eyes. "Take it easy Trish… and be on your guard at all times, because… if this file is somehow connected to that snake…"
Trisha cuts him off with a wave of her hand. "I know Rob… I'll be careful, ok." She said in such a way that Robert knew that she'll be alright and she left no room for arguments, but it didn't ease his worry for her, especially when they had got a very close working relationship, which is now even closer ever since they lost their old boss to Seth.
Robert nodded in acknowledgement and moved his free hand from her shoulder to her cheek, his eyes filled with worry as she spoke softly and quietly to her. "Just be careful okay! I'm not in the mood to lose another friend. Any problems just call me okay!"
Trisha again nodded in response. "I will Rob, I will." She replied softly as Robert stroked her cheek with his thumb. Patrick's face is filled with worry and concern and feeling the same as Robert as they are feeling concerned and worried about being apart and sleeping in their own apartments alone, particularly with Trisha as she's the only female in the group.
Jason on the other hand can see and sense the atmosphere emitting from the senior members of his team. Their actions had made him worried and decided to give them a hug which surprised the others.
"Hey, what's with the hug-fest newbie?" Robert asked as he was the first to get hugged. Jason pulled back from his boss and voiced his reason.
"I thought that you guys need a bit of cheering up, you know…" He half shrugged.
"Well… I'm not the hugging type of guy really." Patrick spoke, shaking his head and backing off from the group, feeling unhappy, not only on what Robert had discussed with Trisha, but also from the unexpected action from Jason.
Trisha accepted the hug from the newbie. "Thanks Jason, as my dad used to say 'Hugging is the answer to all of life's problems'." She smiled.
"Shame it can't be said into finding and catching Seth." Patrick spoke miserably as he sat down on his desk.
"Trust you to be a downer on the team McGee." Robert snorted, looking at him in disappointment.
"Well, someone has to be the voice of reason, especially when we've been working on this case for nearly 5 years and still nowhere near into catching the brute." Patrick retorted back.
"Guys," Trisha intervened making the boys turn to face her as she spoke. "It's getting late, we're tired and I'm certainly not in the mood for you two fighting again." She looked squarely at Patrick and Robert, whom were slightly stunned by her words.
"We don't fight. We're just…" Robert started but stopped in mid-sentence when he saw the look that Trisha is giving her. "Ok, ok. We got it Miss No-Nonsense." Backing-off in mock surrender, before addressing his team. "Okay everyone. Get some rest and we'll start working on this general geezer in the morning."
Everyone agreed, picked up their stuff as Trisha packed the said file into her backpack, picked up her coffee and followed the others into the elevator down to the parking lot. Once they arrived at the lot, they parted ways towards their vehicles.
Trisha entered her Blue Jean coloured Ford Explorer SUV, slung her backpack onto the passenger seat, started the engine and drove out of the parking-lot, then out of the secured area and then left onto Constitution Avenue NW. She continued heading east past the US Capitol onto Constitution Avenue NE and on towards the District of Columbia.
She continued in her general direction until she reached the entrance to her garage, which is situated behind her apartment. Using her remote control key, she opened the garage door, drove in, pressed the button on her key to shut and automatically lock the garage door, turned the engine off, got out of her SUV picking her backpack up at the same time.
She shut and locked her vehicle and walked over to the back door. She fished out her house keys, inserted it into the lock and then turned it until hearing the latch in the lock signalling that it is now unlocked.
She pushed the door open, setting off the infra-red intruder alarm. She steps into her kitchen, turns to her right and waved a contactless key over the keypad sensor to disable the alarm. She closes the door and then walks towards the stairs in order to get to her bedroom. Once she has entered her room, she places her backpack onto her bed, opens it and withdraws the file. She takes it and heads towards her bedroom door, which it's unusually thick for a normal door.
She opens the door a little ways and then opens a secret compartment in the spine of the door, she carefully pushes the file into the small, but very secret space. She closes the compartment and then heads back to her bed to remove the backpack. After placing her backpack in its normal storage space, she gathers up her PJ's and heads to her on-suite bathroom to perform her nightly ritual.
About an hour later, Trisha emerged from her bathroom, dressed in her PJ's while using a towel to dry off her damp hair in one hand and a pile of dirty clothes in the other. She went to down to her kitchen and threw her dirty washing into the laundry basket, next to the washing machine. She went over to a cupboard to retrieve a tumbler and then she walked over to the kitchen sink to fill the tumbler with water.
While taking her drink, she walked over to the intruder alarm mainframe and activated the night-time setting. While the alarm was setting itself, she retreated back to her bedroom, places her tumbler on her bedside table, got herself into bed and then fell to sleep.
A couple of hours later, she was rudely woken up when a couple of armed masked men burst into her bedroom. Before she had a chance to react, two men, one on each of her arms, pinned her to her bed and a third masked man quickly followed the man on her right, holding a piece of cloth and shoved it onto her nose and mouth. She tried to scream and struggle, but it became futile as the scent of chloroform sends her into the emptiness of sleep.
"Your mom was kidnapped!" All the boys exclaimed in shock horror, looking at Jaycee as she sat in silence after finishing the first part of her mom's ordeal with the terrorist.
"By whom Jaycee? By whom?" Alan asked getting part excited part curious and part worried by the story so far.
"Calm down Alan." Scott hissed, forcing Alan to back-off from his questioning as they look at their cousin's face. Tears were starting to run down her checks again as she relives her past and the story which her mom told which will have an effect on the remains of her family.
Scott again rubs circles on her back to comfort her and waits until Jaycee stops crying before speaking softly and calmly to her. "Jaycee… I understand that this is hard for you but… do you want to continue or we can stop here and wait for another time."
"No!" Jaycee spoke with determination mixed with sadness, she doesn't want to continue, but she knows that these boys deserved the truth whether they like it or not. "I want to continue, because… (gulp) this next part on what I'm about to tell you, explains the reason into why I disappeared and why I was left at my grandparents."
She looked directly into the eyes of all the brothers whom are present, hers was filled with a mixture of determination and sadness. The boys braced themselves for the incoming chapter of their Aunt Trisha's ordeal.
"So… What happened next Jaycee? After she woke up I mean." Gordon asked feeling that he's going to regret asking that question, but yet it is vital one that would help Jaycee to continue with the story.
"When she woke up…"