Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 7
A/N: It's been suggested to me that giving a summary of what has happened will help keep things straight to you, my dear readers, since I can't keep with my usual chapter a day pattern. So, to sum up, Lt. Alyse Aachen, MD, an internist at a detainee facility in Camp Phoenix, Afghanistan, was abducted while speaking to her husband, Peter Kirkan, who is a reporter for Stars and Stripes(the US Armed Forces newspaper), as well as a fairly-recently-made-famous novelist (under the pseudonym Gregory Aachen). He also happens to be one of Gibbs' former Marines from his time in the Corps, and turned to his former gunny for help. Abby and McGee are currently analyzing the video of the abduction for clues, Gibbs and Kirkan are speaking to Director Vance, and Tony and Ziva just spoke to Mossad control officer Raanan Thal, who may have information that can help them find Dr. Aachen, in return for NCIS' help in releasing one of her operatives, captured by the United States military a few weeks before.
And now, back to the story.
Cynthia was on the phone when Gibbs and Kirkan left Vance's office, probably trying to fit someone into the director's schedule, based on the frown on her face and the serious glare she was giving the computer screen. Not wanting to disturb her—nor caring about her work—Gibbs left the outer office without a word, headed for the stairs to rejoin his team at the bullpen.
"Where's McGee?" he asked DiNozzo. Judging from the frustration in her voice and the seriousness of her tone as she spoke on the phone, Ziva was trying to get an appointment with someone important. Although he didn't like Ruthven's decision to change the parameters of Ziva's work, he had to admit that having someone so well connected in the anti-terrorism circles had its perks.
"Lab," the senior field agent replied, his attention still on the computer screen. He glanced up at his boss to see Gibbs still staring at him. "Went back down to work on the video some more with Abby."
"Boss!" All three men turned their attention to the excited voice coming from the elevator.
"You have something this time, McGee?" Gibbs asked dryly. The junior field agent flushed and nodded.
"Actually, some questions," he admitted. "For Mr. Kirkan." He nodded toward the author. "Uh, Abby and I went through the video again, and we noticed that the man who abducted your wife—uh, Dr. Aachen—seemed to have been waiting in her office, so we were wondering—"
"McGee!"
"Right. Does she call at the same time every day?" His words came out in a rush, as if trying to get to the point sooner.
Kirkan blinked at the question, then shook his head. "Yes, she calls at the same time every day, but no, it's not at the time she called last night." He frowned. "She usually calls when she's done with sick call, which I guess would be before she went over to the detainee center, although I didn't realize that that's where she was going. It's usually about an hour later than she actually called me. She doesn't always call from her office, though."
"What do you mean?"
"She usually calls from the office," he explained. "But sometimes, if it was a slow day in sick call, she'll call from her quarters—well, the hut that she shares with five other O-3's that serves as her quarters. Sometimes she calls from an office in the hospital itself." He frowned again. "There would be no way of knowing that she was going to be in that office at that time, unless—"
"Unless whoever was behind the abduction was also behind the attack on the convoy," Gibbs finished. He turned to Ziva, saw her still on the phone, and turned to DiNozzo.
"No idea, Boss," the senior field agent said quickly. "We talked to one of Ziva's contacts in Afghanistan; she hadn't heard anything about the attack. She doesn't know who's being held at Camp Phoenix, either, but is under the impression that it's a short-term facility, only used for medical care before the detainees are taken to their definitive location." He paused and glanced over at Ziva, who looked over at him and nodded slightly. "The contact is a control officer. She had an operative picked up by a US sting a couple weeks ago, has been trying to track him down since. If he's been moving around the system since then, there's a chance he might have heard something about Dr. Aachen or plans to take a doctor. Officer Thal, the control officer, is also willing to trade some other intel and whatever her operative knows if we can convince whoever is holding him to let him go quietly."
"Sounds like it's worth looking into," Gibbs replied, glancing over at Ziva again, who had just finished her conversation.
"Ten minutes with the director, right now," she said, rising from her chair. DiNozzo also got up until Gibbs' stare prompted him to return to his seat.
"Don't think it takes two of you to brief the director," he snapped. "You find Colonel Davis yet?"
"William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas," DiNozzo replied promptly. "He's the internal medicine residency director, was in Afghanistan for a three month deployment. Got his number but haven't called him yet." He held out a slip of paper, which Gibbs snatched from his fingers.
"I'll handle this," he said. "Check in with the Bahrain office and all the field offices in CENTCOM, see if they've heard any chatter about terrorist cells or detainees wanting physicians. McGee, keep me posted on anything Abby gets from that video. Kirkan, go through all your correspondence with your wife since she's been deployed, find me anything that I can use."
"And what are you doing, Boss?" DiNozzo asked before he could stop himself. Gibbs turned his glare in his direction.
"I'm going to see how helpful Colonel Davis is willing to be," he snapped, snatching his phone from the cradle as he took a seat at his desk.
---
"I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs, but I can't—"
"Dr. Aachen is missing, Colonel," Gibbs interrupted. "We have her abduction on tape."
"You've said that already," Lt. Colonel Samuel Davis, MD, replied patiently. "But even if I could tell you about the detainees, which I can't—it's a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not to mention doctor-patient confidentiality and national security—it won't do you any good. The detainees stayed long enough for medical treatment and that's it. I seriously doubt anyone I treated is still there."
"Who knew Dr. Aachen was taking over for you in the detainee center?"
"All of the internists in the clinic, all of the surgeons who operated on detainees, the MPs, any JAGs involved, and, of course, the patients, but they didn't know who we are. According to the Geneva Conventions, we are required to identify ourselves as medical personnel, but are not required to give any personal information—them knowing our names, ranks, and serial numbers isn't necessary for us to treat them."
"Did Lt. Aachen ever share that information?"
There was a pause on the other end of the phone as Dr. Davis considered this. "Not that I observed," he finally said. "Our terms in the center overlapped by a couple of weeks, enough time for me to show her the ropes and make sure she knew what she was doing. She introduced herself as a physician of the United States Navy. I never heard her give her name. That's not to say she didn't start doing it after I left, but I don't see why. It's not as if there was any concern about the detainees getting their physicians confused or knowing who to sue for malpractice." He paused again. "Even if she did, though, I don't see what difference it would have made. Them knowing her name wouldn't have given them enough power over her to abduct her."
Gibbs knew that the physician had a point and let that particular question drop. "Any problems with the detainees?"
"Surprisingly enough, no," Davis admitted. "They were either too sick to make any threats or too grateful for the free medical care. Can't guarantee it wasn't the same under Lt. Aachen—some of the hard-core Muslims, especially in the Taliban, have issues with female physicians in general—but it actually wasn't a bad assignment. To be honest, we had bigger problems with the MPs and JAGs."
"How so?"
Another long pause. "I guess you can say that the lawyers liked following the laws a little bit too much," the lieutenant colonel said. Gibbs had to grin at the phrasing. "Over here, we're still feeling the effects of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and the JAGs like to make sure that there's zero impression of improper treatment. We got scolded quite often for not allowing the prisoners to smoke or have their required exercise time every day. We tried explaining that we're a hospital and nobody is allowed to smoke, and that not all detainees are well enough for recreation time, but, well, there's a reason why lawyers and MPs didn't go to medical school." There was another pause as the words seemed to sink in to Davis, and he was quick to add, "Not that they're stupid, it's just... well, there are things you pick up by being incredibly over-educated. Or in the case of the lawyers, there are things you lose by going to law school. Like common sense." He chuckled slightly at his own joke. "I don't think any of the JAGs or MPs would ever get frustrated enough with the medical system to kidnap a doc from her office, though."
No, probably not, Gibbs thought to himself. To Lt. Colonel Davis, he asked, "What can you tell me about Lt. Aachen?"
The question was met with silence, probably as Davis processed the change in subject. "She's a good kid," he finally said. "I didn't spend too much time with her—our stays only overlapped by two months, we're a couple of ranks apart, she was staying in the Navy and Marine section and I was with the other Army officers, we both had our own groups of friends, those sorts of things. At work, there was the standard good-natured inter-service ribbing, but she took it well and gave as good as she got. She wasn't too talkative about her private life. I knew she was married—she wore a wedding band—but I didn't know her husband was Gregory Aachen until the day before I headed out. My wife had sent me his latest novel about two months before, one of the other Navy docs saw it as I was packing up my office and started teasing Alyse about it. She laughed it up with them, said something about being glad people were buying it because she wanted to use the royalty checks to go on a long cruise with her husband when she got back from deployment. I didn't understand the comment until Commander Rodeback explained that Gregory Aachen was actually Alyse's husband, said it was a pseudonym. His real name is Patrick Kirk or something like that."
"Peter Kirkan."
"Yeah, that sounds right. That was about as far as we got talking about that. Other than that, I don't know much else about her. I'm pretty sure she doesn't have any kids—people always start talking about their kids a couple of weeks into the stay, and she never did—but that's about it. She lived in Bethesda—we compared places to go out and which bars have the better beers, based on what I remembered from being a med student out there—but somehow I don't think that's relevant."
"Thanks, Colonel," Gibbs replied. "I'll let you know if we have any other questions."
"Sure thing, Agent Gibbs. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful about the detainees. Can you let me know if you find her?"
"When, Colonel," Gibbs corrected. "I'll let you know when we find her."