Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 16
A/N: I am absolutely exhausted from an incredibly rough night on call, which means that posting today probably isn't my best idea ever, but these things happen (just remember that any errors you might find are a result from sleep deprivation). In the last few chapters, we discovered that Ducky is looking into the backgrounds of Peter Kirkan and Dr. Alyse Aachen, and discovered that Dr. Aachen is on medication for severe headaches. We also discovered that she is still alive and being held, but without her headache medicine. And that Kirkan is dealing with sleep deprivation issues of his own. As far as our usual team, Tony and Ziva have spoken to Special Agent Kim Tomblin about working with Mossad to gather intel about the abduction, which allowed Gibbs to put the pieces together and realize that DiNozzo has been trying to get his own team so he and Ziva could move away, for the sake of Ziva's career.
NCIS Special Agent Kim Tomblin tapped her pen against her knee absently as she studied the list of names released from the State Department, comparing it to the 'Dummies Guide to the Taliban'—the official Department of Defense report, updated monthly—open on her computer. Well, technically, it was Stan Burley's computer, sitting on top of the Special Agent in Charge's desk, but his chair was much more comfortable than hers and had a better view of the office, so she was using it in his absence. She figured he wouldn't mind too much.
She sighed as she drew a line through another name, marking another one of the detainees briefly held in the medical facility at Camp Phoenix as 'confirmed dead'. She wondered if the State Department was being this difficult on purpose, giving her a list of names that included those who had died from their injuries while at the hospital. If so, they had succeeded. She was getting so frustrated with the process that she was tempted to just forget the idea, toss the whole list in the shredder, and return to the cases she had been working on before DiNozzo's brief crossed her desk. She was a crime scene investigator, dammit, not a paper-pusher. She didn't like making lists and checking them twice. She just hoped Stan was having more luck in Afghanistan than she was having in Bahrain.
"Kim?" She glanced up at the sound of Special Agent Todd Freiler's voice, the junior field agent assigned to the Bahrain office. "State's here."
"Oh, goody," she said dryly, leaning back in the chair with a heavy sigh. As if she didn't have enough to deal with, being left in charge of the office with only Freiler and the groups of analysts and intelligence officers to help out while Stan played cowboy in Afghanistan. She leaned forward to release her ponytail, shaking her hair out slightly before pulling it back again. It was something she did absently when filled with nervous anticipation, and Stan teased her about it incessantly. He often asked what she did back when she was in the Corps and wore her hair tightly braided every day. She often came up with a clever answer, but to be honest, she couldn't remember. Sometimes she wondered if she did anything at all. Despite having completed two deployments in five years, her old career seemed much less stressful than her current one. At least when she was an MP officer, she didn't have to deal with the State Department.
She took another deep breath to steel herself as she pushed the chair back from the desk and rose to exit the large office she shared with the other two field agents on the team. To her surprise, Freiler began to follow, instead of take a seat at his desk as he expected. "You coming to watch?" she asked dryly. He grinned.
"It's not everyday I get to watch a train wreck happen in front of my eyes," he said, sounding almost gleeful. "I can't wait to see you treat State's stuffed shirt."
She gave him a brief glare. "Do you want to get permanently assigned to the Baghdad subordinate office?" she asked.
"You don't have that kind of power," he replied, but she thought she detected a touch of fear that she just might. She returned that with an almost malicious smile.
"But Stan does," she informed him. "And I'm his favorite." Freiler didn't have anything to say to that as she smirked and headed toward the building lobby.
It wasn't hard to identify the 'stuffed shirt' from the State Department; most NCIS employees at the Bahrain field office were fairly low-key and dressed as such—Tomblin's light khakis and fitted tee-shirt was just about par for office professionalism. "Can I help you, sir?" she asked as she approached. He turned toward her and frowned.
"I highly doubt that," he said stiffly. She got the impression that he was just as happy to be there she was to have him there. "I need to speak with the Special Agent in Charge."
She barely resisted the urge to turn and glare at Freiler's barely concealed snort of laughter. "Actually, sir, for the moment, that would be me. Special Agent Kim Tomblin. It's nice to meet you." She offered her hand, lowering slowly when the only response she got was a disbelieving and rather discomfited look. "And you are?"
"Moser Bedford," he replied. "State."
"Yes, we were told you were coming," she said, trying to be patient and failing miserably. "Listen, there's a lot that needs to happen, so—"
"I'm sorry," he interrupted, "but if this is some sort of joke—I really need to speak to the senior agent."
She stiffened, drawing herself up to her full five feet nothing, wishing she was wearing her heeled boots instead of her customary brown tennis shoes; as if that would make a difference when standing next to a man easily ten inches taller than her. "The SAC is Special Agent Stan Burley," she said slowly. "He's in Afghanistan right now, interviewing the base MPs and the detainees—"
"We did not give anyone permission to engage the detainees," Bedford interrupted loudly. They were beginning to get some curious looks, causing Tomblin to loose what little patience and restraint she had left.
"Let's take this into our office," she said forcefully, heading back to the field agent division without waiting for a response. There was a bit of hesitation, but then she heard Bedford and Freiler following. She glared at Freiler, making his ears pink significantly as he reluctantly sat at his desk. She, in turned, remained standing, leaning against Stan's desk, her arms crossed over her chest. She stared at Bedford unflinchingly, and for a second, she remembered what it was like to be a twenty-five-year-old Marine captain glaring down a room full of Iraqi police recruits, forcing them to pay attention to what she had to say. "A Navy physician was abducted from her office," she finally said, her voice careful and measured. "We got permission from SecNav to investigate that to the fullest extent, and that meant that Special Agent Burley had to fly up to Kabul to assess the situation on the ground. I'm sorry if you don't approve of the situation, but that's what it is, and while he's there, I'm in charge down here, and you get to work with me."
Bedford flushed at the take-charge tone in her voice, and she got the impression that he was exactly as she pegged him as soon as she found out he was coming: some mid-level Middle East 'expert' who thought he would finally get the chance to exert some power, for once in his undistinguished career. "I was hoping to deal with someone with more…experience."
Freiler choked back his laughter as a cough, and even Tomblin had to smile slightly at that. She was quite accustomed to being underestimated at first glance—she knew she looked young, and at five feet tall and a hundred pounds dripping wet in full uniform with combat boots, she didn't exactly project an image of physical superiority. "Sir," she said, purposely annunciating the honorific, "I have a bachelor's degree in forensic science and a master's in Arabic studies and speak the language fluently, spent five years as an officer in the Marine Corps, was deployed to Iraq twice, and have been with NCIS for almost five years, the last eighteen months as the senior field agent under Agent Burley here in this office. If you can find someone with more experience to work with, be my guest. You'll be doing me a favor." She waited a beat. "If you can't, I would like the location of a Mossad operative being held under the name Kazem Shirazi. And I'll even say please."
The middle-aged man and younger woman locked in a silent battle of the wills, each thinking that the other would break first. As it turned out, it was neither. "Actually, Kim, you don't need Mr. Bedford's help for that," Agent Freiler said from his desk. He glanced up to see his senior field agent staring at him expectantly. He turned the computer monitor toward her, even though he knew she probably wouldn't be able to read it from where she was standing. "I found him."