Chapter 2: FBI thorn on the side.
Women are never happy with the lot the Fates bestow upon them, are they? Well, back to the story.
Of course the Queen was brokenhearted as she could not give a heir to her beloved King. In her sadness, she wandered to the woods where she met someone who gave her a small sparkle of hope.
In some versions of the story they say it's an old hag, in another, a soothsayer. Either way, the person gives very specific instructions towards the young queen, that should be followed without any deviation.
If she followed the instructions, in one year time the Queen would conceive and would hold in her arms a child.
The Queen eagerly heard the advice and ran towards the castle, in a hurry to obey the strange orders.
In the soothsayer version, the Queen should eat two red onions which would magically appear under her bath tub after she returned to her Castle and bathed. She should eat them without delay, but she should peel them carefully before eating them.
In the old hag version, the Queen should eat at sunrise one of two roses which would magically appear under a upside down platter the Queen would have left in a corner of the garden in the night before. If she ate the red rose, she would have a boy. If she at the white rose, a girl.
Do you think she followed the instructions?
Nope.
In the first version, in her hurry to fulfill the enchantment, the Queen ate the entire first onion, without peeling it. The second onion was carefully peeled before being eaten.
In the second version, the Queen chose the white rose and ate it, as a girl would never go to war and die senselessly. But the Queen found the rose so delicious, that she ate the red rose too.
And that's when her problems really began.
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Both Gibbs and SSA Thoureau walked a few feet away so they could butt heads privately, away from curious ears of their junior agents. That left us and ... what's her name? Laura. Laura Mackenzie.
"So, Agent Mackenzie, how long have you been an FBI agent?" Tony stood up and walked towards the brunette agent, who glanced briefly at him before slapping latex gloves on and walking towards Jimmy's side, observing the corpse being loaded onto the gurney.
"I've been a field agent one year, agent...?" she looked at him, silently asking his name.
"I'm Agent Anthony DiNozzo, that's Agent Ziva David and that's Probie extraordinaire, Timothy McGee." Tony looked her up and down, with that little sarcastic smile that always irritate me. "So you're a probie too."
"I beg your pardon. Probie?" She looked confused at him, uncertain of his meaning.
"Ah... that's how..." I started explaining, just to gulp when the turns her green eyes focused on me. "Ah... that's how we at NCIS call Junior agents. They are Probationary agents so... for shorter, Probie."
"Ah..." She glanced down, not really keeping her gaze on me. "I see." She turned to Ducky, "Doctor, I'll list the M.O. characteristics of our killer and could you please tell me if they match?"
"Certainly my dear," Ducky said, standing up.
"Your victim died on his knees, with a very shallow but precise cut on his tummy which dislodged his internal organs. He used a very sharp blade to make the cut, probably a hunting knife. There were binding marks on the wrists and and finger marks on his right shoulder of where the killer held him down as he made the cuts."
"Correct my dear. But in this case, he also cut our marine's throat, hastening his death."
"Really? But that doesn't fit the profile." She approached him and saw what he pointed for her, "He always cuts them down and waits until they bleed out. The cause of death on the last two cases were hypovolemic shock."
"Not in this case. Here this poor man had his airways perforated, so he died very quickly."
"Are you sure this is the same killer?" Ziva asked, noticing her confused looks at the corpse.
"It has to be. The dumping site fits and the timeframe fits. He's been killing one man by disembowelment every forty eight hours." She glanced again at Ducky, "have you checked his backpockets?"
"Yes, there wasn't anything. Just his wallet." I said, just to receive another glance.
"May I see it?"
Tony, who was the one responsible for bagging and tagging, went to the evidence box and brought a plastic bag with a man's wallet in it.
"There's nothing out of ordinary in it. Just money, credit cards, Ids," Tony said while Laura kept checking the wallet with gloved hands until she found a flyer of a local amateur theater in it, carefully folded. "So what, the guy likes drama. Who doesn't?"
"That's not what I'm interested. This is his signature."
"A theater flyer?" Ziva's voice is incredulous.
"No, this." Laura turned the flyer around, showing the back of the flyer. In it, carefuly painted with some kind of ink, was an stylized circle.
"That's not art class winner material... what's that?" Tony asked, silently asking for the paper so she gave it to him.
"Why a handdrawn circle would be important?" Ziva asked, trying to look at the paper in Tony's hand.
"That's not a simple circle. It's an ouroborus. If you pay attention to it, you will notice the wings, tongue, mouth and eyes of a dragon." Laura said and pointed the features she mentioned. Indeed, now that we all knew what to look for, we could see that it was a circle made of a single stroke, but there were wings and the small tongue and eyes...
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony asked, turning the paper upside down trying to figure out the right side to look at the picture.
"The ouroborus is an ancient symbol, usually depicted with a snake or a dragon eating its own tail. It means the ciclycal movements of time, the eternal return, the constant recreation of one self."
"The phoenix rising from its ashes." I muttered, just to receive a nod from Laura. Oops, since when I'm calling her by her first name in my head?
"It's been used frequently in religious and mythological symbolism, as well as in alchemical illustrations."
"So our killer is an alchemist." Tony asked, looking at Laura with a small smile on his face.
"That's not what I said." Laura said point blank.
"But you've just said that's used in alchemical illustrations." Ziva said pointing to the drawing.
"Yes. You asked what is the meaning of the ouroborus, I gave you that. We have no idea yet what's the meaning of the ouroborus for our killer. He has left a paper with that drawing in the pockets of each of his victims. This one is a flyer of a drama theater, the previous one was a flyer of a dry cleaning service. His first victim, it was on the back of a flyer of a christmas play in a elementary school north in the city."
"Any relation between the flyers?" Ziva asked, glancing back at Gibbs who was still shouting at SSA Thoureau.
"None we could find yet." Laura said, following Ziva's gaze and cringing at SSA Thoureau shouting at Gibbs' face.
"If they are fighting over jurisdiction, are we even allowed to share information on the case?" I had to ask and it was the first tiny smile I saw in Laura's face that day.
She looked at me mischievously, before wiping all emotion from her face. "I don't play politics. I leave those games for Thoureau as he likes them. I'm here to solve the case."
"But won't that create problems for you?" I asked to her back, as she walked away to the small lane beyond the bushes which had protected the corpse of our marine from the curious eyes of those jogging in the park.
It had been a dog who had given the alarm on the body.
What a way of starting a morning run with your puppy, uhm? I bet that lady won't ever bring her poodle here to this park anymore.
"I'm always in trouble with Thoureau. Don't worry, I can handle him."
She looked up and down the lane, before turning to me. "It doesn't make sense. He always took his time with the victims. He wanted them to suffer."
"Maybe he was interrupted." I suggested, just to receive a blank look from her.
"He always was careful with the dumping sites so he could take his time with his victims. What was different this time?"
She leaned down, looking at the ground. "Maybe..."
She pointed to some track marks on the floor, so we both knelt on the floor to investigate.
Meanwhile, as we got accquainted with one FBI agent, Gibbs was having the displeasure of discussing jurisdiction with the other Fed.
"This is our case, we were investigating it first." SSA Thoureau said, his annoying smile dimming a little before Gibbs, who was unwilling to let his marine's death go to a bunch of incompetents – in his opinion, of course, not mine.
"It's my marine dead over there." Gibbs pointed to the body that Ducky and Palmer were loading on the morgue van.
"I think you would agree that in this case it's just a coincidence that your victim is a marine. What takes precedence is the investigation of the serial killer."
"Please, do you really think I'm letting you anywhere near my marine?"
"What about a joint investigation? We could share information?"
"Over my dead body," Gibbs barked at the Fed, turning his back and stopping when Thoureau showed his slimy side.
"Then I'll have to take that to your Director, as when I spoke to him half an hour ago he had guaranteed I would be received with open arms and full cooperation."
Gibbs turned around very slowly, glaring at the smirk on Thoureau's face.
"You've spoken to Vance before talking to me?"
Thoureau shrugged, unaffected, "When I was informed of the crime scene and that NCIS was already on site, I asked around. Then I went straight to the top." Thoureau took some steps closer, stopping right before Gibbs. "Why ask permission if we can ask forgiveness later on. Isn't that one of your rules, Gibbs?"
Gibbs just glared at him for a long time.