"Grab your gear! We've got a dead Petty Officer on an aircraft carrier. His last act was sending a file to us. McGee! Abby is working on decrypting it. Go help her. Kate, Dinozzo! We're going to the USS John. F. Kennedy. Let's move!" yells Gibbs as he marches into the bullpen, and starts grabbing his stuff.
I hop up and grab my bag, sig and badge. Then I look over at Kate who is trying to reach her bag from the floor around her growing stomach. I wait for a moment, watching her, knowing she'll be annoyed if I help her. I've been doing everything in my power to prove to her I am changing. I've been to every doctor's appointment, I've driven her home every day, I massage her feet and back whenever they're sore, I constantly run errands for her, so she doesn't have to walk, and I've helped her shop for baby things, but she still holds me at an arms length.
After another couple moments of her straining, I hurry over and pick her bag up, handing it to her.
"I could've done it." She mutters, snatching it out of my hands
In like an hour, Kit-Kat
"I know Kate." I say instead, as she rifles through the bag, looking for something. I grab her sig and badge, leaving them on her desk, before she notices.
I hurry to the elevator, where Gibbs is waiting, and a few moments later Kate follows.
"About time." Grumbles Gibbs, hitting the elevator button.
We arrive at the boat a half hour later. After weaving through intense security, we head up onto the main deck.
Gibbs walks up to a colonel.
"We're looking for this man." Gibbs says, holding up a photo of the lieutenant who found the body, and Gibbs' ID.
"He's training a group over there." Answers the Colonel, pointing to where a lieutenant was yelling at his men, a group of about ten.
We walk over and catch what he's saying
"Come on Men! Five more! Five! Four! Three! Two! One more! Stop!" he yells and all of the men stop their push-ups.
"Lieutenant?" Says Gibbs calmly,
The man turns and barks, "Who are you?"
"NCIS. I'm Special Agent Dinozzo." I answer
"I take it he's an agent," he jerks his head in Gibbs' direction. "Who's she? The witness?" he says, condescendingly as he looks Kate up and down, eyes lingering longest on her pregnant stomach, which shows obviously through her shirt.
I swallow my fury and take a half-step defensively in front of Kate.
"No. She's very special agent Caitlin Todd. We need you to answer our questions now, sir. About the death of a Petty officer." I say stiffly.
He and I stare at each other, his mustache twitching, before he backs down
"Yes sir. A moment." The lieutenant says, turning back to his men "Five minutes, sit ups! Go! Go! Go!" he yells and all of the men snap onto their backs and start.
He then turns back to us and says "Make it fast."
Gibbs leads us to a small overhang so we can all talk in private.
"You were the one who found the body?"
"Yes. I take it you know that already?" He grumbles
"Was there anything unusual about the body?" Questions Gibbs, ignoring the lieutenant's rude comment
"Not that I could tell." Shrugs the lieutenant
"Kate, Dinozzo, go and find the Petty Officer's bunk and search." Orders Gibbs
"Yes Boss." I say, before Kate and I walk away. We ask for directions twice before we get to the Petty Officer's quarters.
"You didn't have to do that you know." Kate says as we snap on our latex gloves.
"Do what?"
"Defend me. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption for the man to make, considering you don't see many, or any, active pregnant agents, especially not agents as pregnant as I am." She explains
"I didn't like his tone or the way he looked at you." I defend
"It's also a crime in the navy to go and get yourself pregnant while on duty so no wonder he was rude." Kate says, calmly
"Yeah, but I am just as much to blame as you and I wasn't getting scolded so I stepped in- oh. Did we know the Petty officer was involved with drugs?" I interrupt myself
"Uh, no." answers Kate, turning to look at me
I hold up a bag of cocaine I just found in his pillowcase. "Well he was."
"Great." Kate rolls her eyes "Just what we need."
"How about you go tell Gibbs, and I'll see what else is here." I suggest.
"Sure Tony." She says, heaving herself up off her knees using the bedside table, and hurries down the corridor.
I keep digging around the bunk, trying to find anything and everything that I can.
I find some heroin in his chest, in a secret compartment.
"Ah, Boy." I sigh as I remove it.
"It is a problem, isn't it Anthony?" mocks a voice from the doorway.
I turn my head up, one hand reaching for my gun.
It's Ari.
We make eye contact right before I notice the gun he has cocked in his right hand, pointed at me almost lazily.
"I've got Caitlin. If you don't come with me I'll take her somewhere where you'll never find her." He smirks at me as he speaks.
I raise my hands above my head and stand up, kicking my sig partly under the bed. I don't know if he's telling the truth but I can't take the risk if he is.
"Alright." I sigh, and he walks forward, taking my gun.
"Come with me." He whispers, and I let him lead me down the corridors, up stairs, hiding from everyone. As he does, I make tiny niches in the wall we're walking by with my knife – Rule 9.
Finally, we stop and I see we're in one of the ballasts of the ship, where water is poured in and out to balance the ship.
"You wont need this, my friend." Ari grins, catching sight of the knife and taking it away from me, leaving it on the floor behind him.
He ties my ankles together and my wrists behind my back, gagging my mouth. Then ties my feet to the floor of the ballast. With a wave, he climbs out of the basin and leaves. Just as he shut the door it begins to fill.
I quickly do the math. I am six feet, two inches, the extra rope plus the hook on the floor gives me another four, which totals to six foot six. The whole container looks like a perfect ten foot square. I've been in here about a minute, and the water's already risen a foot or so. That gives me six minutes, give or take a minute, before I'm submerged, another two max before I drown. Shit. I immediately begin to wrestle with my bonds trying to free myself, but it's impossible. He tied me too well. The water rises another three feet, and I am now floundering as it lifts me from the floor. I make muffled yells as I strain to keep my head above the water. Another foot of water comes in, and I am now upright in the water, my chest and head still above the waterline. I wriggle and cry out, but no one can hear me and I can't loosen the rope, though it now cuts into my skin due to the friction of my attempts at escape, tainting the water red with my blood. The water is up to my neck, and I have to stop struggling because the waves I create are splashing into my face making it impossible to breath. As I the water stills, it reaches my chin. I start spitting as the water reaches my lips, blowing air to inhale. I panic as it covers my lips, tilting my head back to grab a few more mouthfuls of air, before it covers my nose and mouth. I hold my breath, fear filling me.
I don't want to die!
But even as I think that, my lungs burn with the need to get more air.
