Chapter Eleven
Strategy and Prayers
The horrific deaths yesterday of Tony DiNozzo and Abby Sciuto, murder and fiery crash, both within less than an hour, have devastated NCIS. Director Jennifer Shepherd tries not to forget that there was another death, Abby's friend who was traveling with her into that crash and inferno that had left them charred, blackened and desiccated flesh, but it's mostly for her friends that she grieves.
A commander, Director, whatever the role, knows there is responsibility and regret whenever someone under their care dies, but it's agony when these deaths are of friends.
But though she's cried several times in the privacy of her home and office, she must force aside expressions of grief for a time, for a thousand duties await the Director.
Forcing a mask over her grief, she reaches for the intercom button at her left. "Cynthia?"
/Yes, Director?/
The tone may sound professional, but Jennifer knows her well enough to know Sumner is masking as much as she is. "Send her in."
x
The door opens a moment later and Dr. Maura Isles steps in. The honey-blonde woman is still disconcertingly enough like the late Caitlin Todd that today it's harder than ever to look at her.
Already two more trees have been ordered for the 'Grove of the Fallen' beside the building. When they arrive and have been planted, the Memorial Service will commence. Abby and Tony had been good friends, had worked jointly for years, so it's fitting they be remembered jointly.
But before then there are answers needed, though she hardly wants to ask the questions.
"Sit down, Doctor."
When Isles does so, settling her above-the-knee black dress, she uses no preamble. "I've done the preliminary examinations on Age- on Tony DiNozzo and Abby Sciuto this morning. There are no surprises, of course. I can tell you my initial finding on Ms. Sciuto is that she died from blunt force trauma to the left Parietal and Temporal bones when the fragments penetrated her brain. I believe that death was instantaneous."
There's little reason to continue.
Shepherd is grateful Isles limited herself to a few facts; she's in no state to listen to a long dissertation.
"The woman she was with, Ms. Caldwell, had been taken to the DC Morgue. I spoke to the ME. The Cause in her case is suffocation; her platysma and sternocleid-. Her neck was broken."
Shepherd is grateful for Isles' amendment, and for the way she'd been concise earlier in reporting on Tony's death. The woman's written reports, which she will read, have to be clear and precise, and when she's called back to Washington to give Expert Testimony against Harper and Vasser, Isles will have to be detailed, but this morning she doesn't want and can't deal with much more than 'Tony was poisoned and died' and 'Abby was in a crash and died.'
She has to get her mind on something else. Sadly, there's no lack of hardship. "How is Jimmy Palmer?"
For the first time Isles' professional demeanor slips. She'd known Tony, she'd met Abby and interacted a few times with her but she'd worked closely with Jimmy. "I spoke briefly with the doctor who did the surgery, but under HIPAA laws governing confidentiality, I could get no specifics."
Jennifer has the connections to get more details and they'd nauseated her. His wife Michelle, as the now penultimate act of a mad decline - before taking nine hostages in a Maternity Ward - had bitten his penis an unknown number of times. She hadn't severed it, that's a small mercy, but the damage is horrific and will take months to heal. "What are his chances?"
"Of recovery?" Shepherd nods, unwilling to trust her voice. "If I'd examined him I could give you more definitive information. Right now I could give you statistics you've probably looked up already."
"I have. They're not good."
Maura sighs. There's no upside to any of this. "The doctors' first priority will be to restore urinary function. The sexual function will be secondary and involves appropriate blood flow as well as the functionality of the so many interconnected systems. The male reproductive system is far more complex than people realize. The epididymis, the deferent duct, the vas deferens through seminal vesticle and the ejaculatory duct must all function as a unit. He may or may not recover those functions. It's far too early to know for certain."
"But he probably won't?"
Isles' gaze drops to the floor, away to the left. "Probably not."
x
Shepherd should get to that hospital, but Gibbs and his people are handling Michelle and there is nothing she can do for Jimmy but stand by looking and feeling uncomfortable about his wound.
x
If she goes there she will undermine Gibbs' efforts. He is the Team Leader, the SSA, but these are all her people and she should -
x
"Perhaps I should get back to Autopsy," Isles offers and Shepherd realizes she's been quiet for quite some time.
"Yes, thank you."
Isles gets halfway to the door, pauses and turns back. "I understand Ducky is on his way back from Scotland?"
"His plane left over an hour ago. He should be in later today." She realizes how dead, and how distracted, her tone was and wishes him - and Doctor Hampton - a safe flight. Normally she wouldn't give it a second thought, but so much tragedy, so much death in so little time...
She forces the image of that plane going down into the Atlantic from her morbid imagination.
Isles is gone without another word and Jennifer is alone again. She doesn't want to be alone.
x
She gives what she feels is enough time to assure that Isles has passed through the outer office - she's not certain the woman would even pause - then gets up, crosses the room and opens the door.
Cynthia's hand instantly covers her mouth, but can't cover her eyes nor the distress that suffuses the rest of her face.
"It's okay."
"I'm sorry, Director," she says. Neither woman can help that the words are out if turn.
Focus. Focus on work. Bury the relief that might come from commiseration because they must.
"I, uh." Cynthia tries to reorder her thoughts. "I've..." Deep breath, hold it, talk through the release. "I've tried to reach Agent DiNozzo's father, but the man travels so much... The man travels so much on business the best I've been able to do is leave messages in various cities and hope he can be reached. The only cell phone contact number is no good."
"We have to find him before the..." There's little point in continuing, the woman knows her job. "What about Abby?"
"There was no chance, ZNN jumped on releasing the names long before anyone could stop it. Abby's contact information was on Ms. Caldwell's computer, I've already heard from her family. They found out about their daughter from ZNN, so pulled Abby's information off Dawn Caldwell's computer to call here."
Jennifer can read in her Secretary's face how that conversation had gone. "Did you reach Abby's folks?"
"There are two brothers on her record, a biological brother here and an adoptive brother in Louisiana. I left messages for each to call but it's too late." She turns the laptop around.
The image is a familiar Facebook page called 'SciutoScience', Abby's public Page where she posts information on Forensics and, in particular, her latest challenges. Her smiling face is at the upper left, the banner is a wide angle shot of her lab.
"The site has over forty five hundred Followers. There are already over 800 Goodbyes and Prayers."
xxx
"Michelle," Metro PD Lieutenant Bob Cotto says with well trained calm, "we're trying to help."
The Asian woman, reputedly a Federal Agent, walks from one bassinet to the next along the line, each crying baby in reach of the phone's cord, and she trails the gleaming scalpel above soft flesh.
It's hard to hear, for the ceaseless weeping of nine babies comes through both the muffling glass wall and his cell phone.
The woman hasn't demanded that the six Officers with him or the three NCIS agents leave, but though the ten of them are armed she never for more than an instant takes the scalpel far from one of the weeping infants.
Her attire, a fictional Vampire's erotic, skimpy costume, perhaps intended as a distraction, perhaps for some psychological purpose he hasn't learned but which is probably extremely important to her, reveals too much of her body and too little of her motives.
x
She obviously enjoys the power she has. No one can approach the only door at the right end, no one can draw a weapon without being seen. The ten tense men and woman know she can't be killed quickly enough to prevent at least one baby's death, possibly more injuries from flying shards of glass.
The noise of nine wailing babies is maddening, but she seems to enjoy it. Each time it starts to abate she does something to start it up again.
"What's that she's wearing?" he asks the older man.
When he doesn't answer it's the black jacketed woman who says "Vampirella."
"What's it mean to her?" He'd already learned from her that last night, before coming here, she'd bitten her husband's penis multiple times, nearly severing the appendage.
"It is her husband's favorite sexual fantasy figure," the woman agent asserts, "though I suspect the black leather boots have a lot to do with it."
"Favorite fantasy?" She nods. "Bet it's not anymore. "
x
So far Cotto has learned too little. She says she hates the babies, but there's too little to get a handle on her. Federal Agent yesterday, vicious assailant of her husband last evening, ambitious murderess of nine babies today.
Oh, and her lawyer is on her way, no doubt to muddy the situation.
"Michelle, talk to me."
/Don't want to talk,/ she says, barely heard over the din.
"What do you want? How about some food? Hungry?"
/Eating plenty,/ she says with a feral smile, her gaze scanning the row of screaming babies.
x
He knows that's not so. She'd brought her wounded husband into Emergency - after trying to bite off his penis, he reminds himself with a shudder - and that was last evening. She'd been held overnight without more than water until Charges could be determined. When her husband - amazingly - refused to file any she'd been released this morning. It's now after 11:00 and the only food she's had is her husband's blood.
"I'm hungry. It's late. Don't you want -?"
/DON'T EAT FOOD!/ Her scream nearly deafens him before he yanks the cell phone away. It also sets the wailing, which had been diminishing, back up and to a higher pitch.
"All right," he says as he cautiously returns the phone to his ear. He doesn't dare press. She's already proven herself too unstable, even without the outrageous assault last evening, which gives him too clear a picture of what perversity she's capable of with these babies. How did such a person become an NCIS agent?
And, conversely, what broke her?
He wishes he could spare more time to talk with her colleagues.
x
"Michelle," he tries again, repeatedly using her name in hopes of establishing a bond, "what happened?"
/Nothing./
That's a monstrous lie. He hardly needs to see the expressions on her colleagues' faces.
"You know what? I think something did happen to you, something horrible, something so horrible you-"
/SHUT THE F*CK UP!/ She throws the receiver on the floor hard enough for it to bounce the length of its coil and rebound back near her feet.
x
Since she doesn't move to pick it up, or to threaten any of the babies, he uses the moment to address the agents a yard to his left. "What happened?" he asks their leader.
"She screwed up day before yesterday and a member of our team died. Another agent, rushing to help, got killed on 267."
"I heard about that." Few in DC hadn't. The cataclysmic crash had snarled afternoon traffic for hours. "I'm sorry." It's little enough to say when nothing more can be said. "That's what set her off?"
"We don't know what did."
"Try."
Gibbs takes the cell phone. Inside the raucous room Michelle glares at the ten, sharing the ire evenly.
x
McGee's cell phone rings. He takes it out of his belt case and is about to silence it until he sees 'Shav' displayed on the screen. "Honey?"
/A grá, I'm down the hall in a too small room trying to help with nine hysterical mothers and an assortment of family and losing ground by the minute./ For her to admit that much means it must be twice as bad. /What's the situation? What can I tell?/
"Nothing. It's a standoff. No, don't say that." What can she say? "Michelle is holding a scalpel in random order to nine babies, and looking into her eyes I'm scareder than I've been in years."
/Scareder?/
He ignores her humor, doesn't care. "Whatever made her do this, she's scarier right now than a country full of Bin Ladens."
/I could try talking to her./
"No." He remembers Mary Whitney and the standoff in the Bullpen a few months ago. He never wants to experience a moment like that again - though they had at the Comic Art Convention - yet that time the rash denouement had been his, not hers. "I need you to do what you do best. Pray. Metro has a Negotiator and Gibbs is working her too."
/Special Agent Warm and Fuzzy. Is it working?/
"No."
x
Time and again Gibbs, borrowed phone to his ear, tries to coax his agent to pick up the receiver by her feet. Finally, with a growl of deep exasperation, she crouches and snatches it up, quickly resuming the scalpel at a boy's chest. /WHAT?/
"Michelle," Gibbs tries with his kindest tone, quite a challenge, "why do you hate those babies?"
/'Cause I do. Told you that./
"That's not an answer."
Before he can get an answer the door at the corridor's left end opens and a Metro officer admits a black woman. She's only five nine but in a thousand dollar suit she presents an air of formidability that draws every eye to her.
She walks directly to Gibbs but her eyes are locked upon Michelle until she reaches him.
"Special Agent Gibbs, I'm Kendra Little."
"I know." He hadn't met her when Samantha Sky had been accused of the murders of Karen Huston and Wendy Langley and Abby, dear sweet Abby, had retained her for the girl, but he'd researched her. Further, he'd sent for her and no one else could've gotten through.
She turns toward Michelle, stares for a very long moment, then looks up at him. "We need to talk. Now."
xxx
Gibbs follows the woman, and two men and three more women, into a vacant double room halfway down the outer corridor. He hadn't wanted to leave the Maternity Ward but they're making no progress and if this can help...
He closes the door behind him right on Rev. Siobhan McGee, who he hadn't noticed was a quarter second behind him. She's in her usual light blue Clerical shirt, black skirt and wrap-about white collar, and is halfway into the arch when the door caught her.
"Excuse me." His tone says 'what are you doing here?'
"Timmy told me you were here," she says past him to Little.
"You're welcome, Mother," she says, backed up by the other five, "but we have little time and must work quickly. These are my Brothers and Sisters, the most powerful Witches of Rising Star Coven."
"What's going on?" Gibbs had had enough of the escalating madness.
x
"Special Agent Gibbs, I know you're not ready, probably not willing, to hear this, but whether or not you're willing to believe it, it's true."
"I've had it with this," his anger rides a tempestuous sea of frustration. "I've lost two very good friends within an hour - "
"Unless we can stop that creature in there, they're just the beginning," Little declares.
"The beginning? I have an agent who just about bit the penis off her husband and now she has a scalpel to nine babies' throats. "
"No she doesn't."
x
The certainty of the woman's declaration halts him. "What?"
"When I heard what Michelle Palmer had done I thought I knew what had happened to her. When I saw her I knew I was right." She glances at the men and women ranged behind her as though bringing them into the explanation, which to Gibbs is no explanation at all.
"When I looked at Michelle I saw more, and worse, than her. I felt waves of malevolence like a tsunami of evil, of hate. If I were to see her aura, I believe it would be black."
Siobhan steps around him. "What are you saying?"
"You know, Mother, that evil is very real. Michelle has been embraced by evil, corrupted by it, overwhelmed by it; and I believe the only way to save her is Exorcism."