Deep Lacerations: Chapter 15
Thanks for your reviews! Keep them coming-it's good for my self-esteem :)
Agent Tony DiNozzo glanced up at the dinging of the elevator and gave a low wolf-whistle, a wide grin on his face. "It's like GI Jane," he commented.
Agent Sonja Gracy rolled her eyes as she tossed her black beret on her desk. "I'm not Demi Moore," she said dryly, as if that weren't obvious. "I'm not shaving my head, and I won't be marrying any guys in their twenties when I'm over forty."
He grinned again, amazed at how different Gracy was in uniform. Her long hair was secured in a utilitarian bun at the nape of her neck, her already subdued make-up even more minimalistic, revealing more of the brown freckles over her nose and cheeks. The shapeless digital camouflage covered her long, lean frame, and he could see a few links of her dog tag chain around her neck. But more remarkable than her clothing was her attitude. Dressed in her Army Combat Uniform, she was more focused than she had been since she arrived at NCIS that Monday, her stride long and confident, her chin held high. There was little evidence of the broken, silently grieving widow who would smile politely at the people around her, her eyes never showing any mirth. Hell, it wasn't even until he saw her in uniform that he realized she had been acting like a broken, silently grieving widow. "How are the kids?" he asked, somewhat awkwardly, trying to figure out how he had been working with her for the past few days without knowing that she had children, or had been married, or lost her husband to terrorists in Iraq.
She turned to him, a quizzical expression on her face. "Fine," she said slowly, as if trying to figure out why he was asking. He was spared any further embarrassment by the sudden appearance of Ziva and Gibbs in the bullpen.
"Morning, DiNozzo, Major," Gibbs greeted. Tony muttered something in reply. Sonja rolled her eyes at the greeting. "You ready to go to base?"
Gracy shrugged a shoulder. "Sure," she replied, feigning indifference. Although she was now stationed at Ft. Belvoir, the same base where they were headed, the same base where her husband worked before his last deployment, CID headquarters were nowhere near the INSCOM building, and the thought of returning there got her heart beating a little bit harder.
Instead of responding, Gibbs turned to face Gracy, standing less than a foot from her. Without saying anything, he adjusted her shoulder pocket, lining up the Velcro seams. "What are you doing?" she asked with a frown.
"I expected you to be in your class A uniform," he replied, doing the same to her other shoulder.
She pulled her arm away. "You said it's a subliminal message, to make them think I'm one of them," she said. "Everyone wears ACU these days. If I show up in my damned class As—which I'm not even sure still fit—I'll stand out like a sore thumb."
He nodded slightly and turned to examine the front of her uniform. He reached out and fingered the two subdued black pins at her left collar bone, above the 'U.S. Army' tape. "Airborne and Expert Field Medical Badge," he said, an eyebrow cocked. "Those are impressive insignia."
"I did airborne training during medical school, and then during residency, I got bored and decided to train for the EFMB. I was hoping to trade it in for a Combat Medical Badge someday, but I left the Army before I got a chance to do that."
He nodded as if accepting the explanation, smirking inwardly at the thought. The Expert Field Medical Badge was only awarded after a battery of tests, including a written exam, land navigation course, weapon qualification, forced road march in hundred degree heat with weighted packs, and medical obstacle course, among other things. Army medical personnel had to act more like Marines than doctors to earn it. Less than ten percent of everyone who trained for it earned it; people don't go through that just because they're 'bored'.
He reached to adjust the rank insignia at the center of her chest, earning him a glare and a rather forceful slap of his hand to move it out of the way. "My uniform is squared away, Gunny," she snapped.
"Not quite," he said. "You're forgetting something." Without another word, he ripped the Velcro medical command unit patch from her left shoulder. "You're not a doctor anymore, remember?"
She frowned. "I didn't even think about," she admitted.
"I figured as much." He stepped over to his own desk and opened the top drawer. He pressed the CID patch to the newly freed shoulder, ensuring that it was perfectly centered. "Now you're squared away. Let's go."
Gracy adjusted her beret before stepping out of the NCIS sedan, squinting into the winter sun and shivering slightly in the cold. Back when she was a pathologist with the Army, she used to sneak into her building in warm civilian clothing before changing into her scrubs. She had forgotten how poorly insulated the ACUs were, even in the long-sleeved undershirt she wore.
The unit secretary didn't leave them waiting long before waving them into Colonel Lars Hauser's office. "Sonja," the gray-haired colonel said in surprise as they entered.
"Colonel," she said formally before smiling. She stepped forward and gave him a quick hug.
"Lange nicht gesehen," he said as they separated.
"Ja, stimmt," she replied.
"You speak German, right?" DiNozzo leaned down and whispered to Ziva. She nodded.
"He said it has been too long, and she agreed," she whispered back. Listening for a few more seconds, she continued, "He has offered his sympathies and then she thanked him. Now he is asking about Madeline and Nathanael. Her children, yes?" DiNozzo nodded, having read Agent Gracy's personnel file the night before. "Apparently, 'Maddie' is improving and is still seeing a counselor. 'Nate' is in pre-school and is enjoying it." Gibbs' loud throat clearing interrupted not only Ziva's whispered translations, but the German conversation taking place in front of them.
"Sorry, Agent Gibbs," Gracy apologized. "Colonel Hauser and I are both first generations Deutsche." She turned back to the colonel. "Sir, Special Agents Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Anthony DiNozzo, and Officer Ziva David, from NCIS."
"What can I do for NCIS?" Hauser asked, addressing Gibbs, who handed over a picture of Captain Spencer Hawke.
"Captain Hawke was murdered at Quantico a few nights ago. We understand he worked for you on Calypso while he was deployed."
Hauser exhaled deeply as he all but collapsed into his chair. "Yeah. He was new to the project when he arrived in country. It was his first deployment and he was still learning the ropes when I left, but he was a good kid. Hard worker, never complained." He glanced over to Gracy before returning his attention to Gibbs. "Major Scott Gracy, my XO, brought him under his wing and showed him around, had his back. We were a bit of an unusual unit—our officer to enlisted ratio was closer to that of a medical unit than your typical intelligence one, so even though Hawke was a captain, he was still fairly junior. Scott made sure that none of the soldiers, sailors, or airmen had a problem taking orders from a young Marine officer." He shook his head slowly. "I still can't believe Scott's dead, and now Hawke?"
"Anyone have a reason to be taking out your officers?" Gibbs asked.
"You think they're related?" the colonel asked with a frowned. "But Scott was cap—," he cut himself off and glanced over at Agent Gracy. "Killed, in Iraq, and you said Hawke was killed at Quantico."
"Whoever killed Captain Hawke staged his body to look like Scott's," Gracy said softly. "They wanted to make sure there's no doubt that the two are related."
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, before turning back to Gibbs. "So now you want to know about Calypso, right?"
"That would be nice."
"There's not much I'm cleared to tell," Hauser said, no apology in his voice. "We are a surveillance satellite system, that's about all I can tell you." He shook his head. "I never thought Scott's death had anything to do Calypso, and I said as much in my report. When he was captured, he was outside the wire, leading an Intelligence op that wasn't related to Calypso at all."
Gibbs raised his eyebrows at this. "You let your XO go out on unrelated missions?"
"Scott was a good officer," Hauser argued defensively. "He was a good leader, and he was a damned good intelligence analyst. He knew when something was critical. That mission was time-sensitive, and their usual Arabic expert had just broken his leg. If they waited for the replacement, they would have missed their window of opportunity."
Gracy frowned, attempting to cover it up when Gibbs glanced over at her. He guessed that wasn't the explanation she had been given. "And that wasn't related to Calypso at all?"
Hauser shook his head. "No. Calypso is entirely about gathering intel, not acting on it; we're not operations. I can't even see how the insurgents would know that it exists."
Gibbs nodded. His gut was telling him that Hauser was hiding something, but he wasn't sure what. "We'll keep in touch," he said as he rose from his chair. The other three agents followed his lead.
"Sonja," Hauser said, stopping the CID agent. He pulled a small manila envelope from his desk drawer. Her breath caught, recognizing the pouch from the countless identical ones she had received over the years. "These came the day he left on that mission. I was going to give them to you after we got back from Iraq, but…" His voice trailed off as he handed it over.
She understood what he wasn't saying, that he didn't come visit her because he didn't know what to say—her husband had died under his command. "Danke," she said softly as she poured the dog tags into her palm, allowing the cool metal chain to slide through her fingers.
"I know he's never worn them, and you probably have fifty sets of those around, but I thought you should have these."
Gracy smiled slightly as she rubbed her thumb over the punched letters. "Scott had a bad habit of losing these things," she said. "And the ones he didn't lose, he gave away as soon as he got a new set. I don't think I have any around the house." She looked up, a sad smile on her face. "Thank you, Lars."
The colonel smiled in reply and drew Gracy into a large embrace. "Tut mir leid, dass das passieren musste," he said softly into her ear.
Turning to face his partner as they left the office, Tony couldn't help but see Ziva frowning at Hauser's words.
A/N: So I wrote this a couple of days ago while I was watching the episode "Corporal Punishment". I liked the part near the end, when Gibbs was adjusting the Marine's uniform. The thought of Gibbs around someone in an Army Combat Uniform, which is just about completely Velcro (really-I feel like a kindergarten bulletin board when I wear it) made me laugh, because the pockets and patches always manage to get themselves crooked, so I just had to add a scene along that theme. Oh, and the rank patch really is in the center of the chest, which is somewhat awkward for us women.