The Director's bolted upward; her coffee mug coming perilously close to being swept off her desk and onto the carpet as did so. "Your brakes were cut? Are you sure, Enrique?"
"That's what the garage told me, Jen," Commander Alvarez said. "They called the police in—of course, the matter will be referred to NCIS through channels. I'd pulled off the road as soon as I noticed the problem, and phoned for a tow truck. And here's irony: this is 'Drive Safely Work Week' Today's subject is 'Being Inattentive'."
"It's a good thing you pulled off then!"
Alvarez told her about the mysterious phone call that had prompted his visit to NCIS. "I don't know who the other person she referred to was…"
Jenny blinked, then slowly sat back down, her eyes widening. "McGee…"
"Yes, that would fit. He was—Jen, he's all right, isn't he?"
She was already on the phone. "Jethro, get up here. Immediately."
A few minutes later, Alvarez was filling Gibbs in. Alvarez rubbed his hat in his hands, and said, "Where's McGee's car now?"
"I don't know, but I'll find out," Gibbs said, grimacing. "And that's all this 'Nell' person said to you?"
"That was it. Quite a little mystery we have."
"More than a mystery, if someone was out to kill you and McGee. That's a crime."
"Well, of course. But how does poor Dawn Peskarev fit into all of this?"
- - - - -
Shortly afterwards, at his own desk, Gibbs hung up his phone in frustration and addressed Ziva and Tony. "The police won't have a report on McGee's car until tomorrow morning. The body shop it's at is being balky. The police think it's because they picked up one of the shop workers on an outstanding warrant a few months ago."
"But we have a case?" asked Ziva.
"Yes, we have a case, whether McGee's brakes were cut or not. Alvarez' were, and with that implied threat by this 'Nell' person…I want a full background check on Peskarev. I want to know everything about her, down to where she had breakfast this morning. Move, people; move!"
- - - - -
"Jethro, you are every bit aware as I am that just because an outsider claims murder, that doesn't make it so." Ducky frowned at his surgical implement, set it down, and frowned at Gibbs for asking such a question.
"True. But we can't overlook an attempt at murdering a Naval commander. There might be a connection. Any progress on Peskarev?"
"I sent some tissue samples to Abigail a little while ago. They were ...odd. You can see if she's turned up anything."
- - - - -
"A Caf-Pow! Thank you, Gibbs, my bringer of exlixer! Life-sustaining liquid! Nectar to this goddess! I was starting to run dry!" She hugged him.
"Got anything on Ducky's tissue samples?"
She released him from the hug. "Not entirely, but we're making some progress. This is really interesting stuff, Gibbs! Look!" she said, steering him toward a screen. "These are carbon nanotubes. Well, we don't have any right here, this is an illo I got off the 'net. They're strong but very flexible, like soft tissue, such as you find in a stomach lining."
"Is that what's inside Peskarev?"
"Oh, no. Even though what you're seeing here is millions of nanotubes forming a wall just two millimeters thick, they're still not appropriate for replacing human tissue as a synthetic biomaterial. But it's believed that combining these with other polymers may be a replacement for some human tissues down the road."
He gave her a look, so she hastened to add, "and that's all very well and good, but how's that relate to our case, Abby? Well, I'll tell you. Ducky found the lieutenant's tissue to be really thick. Really, really thick. Thick like a...tough old piece of meat. Ewww, not a nice comparison, I guess..."
"Abby!"
"Sorry. There is a point, and I am getting to it. I haven't found the mysterious substance yet, but my money is on something like this, a carbon-based polymer, that's been engineered to form a tougher wall."
"Why?"
"Why did they—whoever they are—do it? Answer that question, and the magic will be revealed.. Get me more data to work on, Gibbs."
"Got anything else?"
"Are you including weird stuff I haven't gotten to yet? Jimmy also brought over this container of other strange tissue. The stuff that came off the lieutenant's body after death. Think about that. It came off her body."Being Abby, she managed to look both dismayed and delighted.
"The stuff that McGee held back."
"Held back? That doesn't sound like Tim...Anyway, that'll be next on my list. I should have an answer the next time you suddenly appear."
"I don't 'suddenly appear'."
"Well, okay; you make strategic moves, Gibbs. Just like you suddenly…"
She turned back around to him; found he was gone. "…disappear."
- - - - -
Alone in his small apartment, after spending a half hour on the phone with his car insurance company, Tim tried sleeping, but found he was too wound up to fall asleep. They're going to rip me to shreds when I get back to work, Thursday or whenever. How did I let things go so wrong?!
Sighing, he logged onto his computer and into his NCIS account. Wonder if they've compiled anything yet on the lieutenant…? To his surprise, they had. The team's daily activity log listed a peculiar phone call Commander Alvarez had received from someone who would only identify herself as 'Nell'. The report was very sketchy, and alluded to some car trouble the commander had had without going into specifics. Tim didn't have to pull down the report sig to know that this was Gibbs'; his style was all over it. Nothing yet up from either Ziva or Tony; they must be still... investigating.
In frustration, he logged off and tried to nap once again.
- - - - -
Gibbs, Tony and Ziva were going at the task at full throttle. "Yes, Peskarev was born in Russia," Ziva reported from her search. "Family was able to emigrate to Basel in 1980 when she was 7 years old; then to the U.S. in 1986. Older brother served in Operation Desert Storm; died there. Family became U.S. citizens in 1992; 'Americanized' their first names. Father was a respected university professor. Mother worked with an emigree program. Both died in a car crash in 2003, leaving her with no close kin here. There's an aunt and an uncle in Montreal. Never any reason to question any of the family's loyalty to the U.S."
"She was considered an outstanding officer on the Naval base," Tony chimed in. "Had one tour of duty in the Persian Gulf; otherwise has been stateside. The only chink in her career came about in late May when two of her fellow lieutenants, Brad Colchester and Jerome Eisen, were reassigned and she was stuck doing their work as well as her own. No replacement for the two men was coming soon. She got very frustrated, some of the people on the base say. Prior to Colchester's and Eisen's departure, she was well-liked, fun, outgoing."
"Any mention of 'Nell'?" Gibbs saw them shake their heads, and wished Tim was there to set his Web hounds on 'Nell's trail.
"A couple people on base, uh, four people, heard her mention a 'Nell' over the summer. It would come up as peculiarly random commentary, though,' said Tony. "No one knew who she meant. Fleeting, random comments, like, 'I don't know what Nell would say about that,'. Sometimes called 'Little Nell'. No one questioned her about it; they could all see that she was under a lot of stress."
"How about 'Nell's in her background?"
"Ah...that was going to be my next action," Tony said, accepting glumly that it was going to be late before he got off work.
Ziva saw her cue. "I'll check with her landlord, her neighbors, and so on."
- - - - -
Ducky looked up when Gibbs came in. "Ah, good timing, Jethro. I've received poor Lieutenant Peskarev's medical files and had just gone over them."
"Sum them up?"
"That's a trifle hard to do; there is so much speculation in them, you see. Part of the problem is that our lieutenant was so overworked that she often missed appointments. Missed four this summer alone."
"What was she being treated for?"
"Now that is the interesting part. She had been the picture of health for years—last problem had been appendicitis, in 2000. Are you familiar with Morgellon's syndrome, Jethro?"
"Enlighten me."
"Yes, then. It's only been named in the last few years. It relates to a perceived disorder of the skin. Patients report that their skin is itching or crawling, and to them there are varied things causing it: things crawling under the skin, such as parasites; fibers on their skin or just below the surface, and so on. Naturally, physicians find nothing out of the ordinary. It's written off as a mental disorder of unknown etiology, usually, though not all physicians are in agreement on this. Some call it 'delusional parasitosis'."
"After the parasites believed to be under the skin?"
"Exactly. The lieutenant complained to her physician of some concentration problems, occasional fibromyalgia, and itching, as if something under her skin was trying to get out. She said she scratched a lot. A broad range of allergy tests was done; came up with nothing. Didn't even suffer from hay fever, lucky thing. Medicine was going to be considered in the fall, after more tests were done. If she kept her appointments."
Gibbs glanced at the body on the table. "So do you think you're going to find parasites here?"
"Jethro, I have ceased being amazed at anything I find here anymore."
- - - - -
After getting a few hours of downtime, Tim logged back onto NCIS from his home computer, and read the reports Ziva and Tony had made. No direct hits on Nell, or Little Nell yet, but the name seemed to lurk in the shadows with every contact they made. No Autopsy report yet...waiting on report from the Lab, Ducky's terse note said. The Lab. Hi, Abby, Tim mouthed, wishing he was there to see her, to enjoy watching her work, to catch her scent, to just take in the swirl of dark hair and white lab coat...
He scratched his wrists, his knees, his neck; wondering why he felt so itchy...or was it crawly...?