Chapter 7: Administrative leash

Gibbs turned to Vance, his cold eyes daring him to contradict what Vance had seen with his own eyes. Meanwhile Vance was ready to cut some throats, and he was eager to start with that little arrogant one.

"I've seen enough." Vance started taking two steps at a time until he stood behind Thoreau, who in no moment stopped berating his agent for sharing information with Gibbs' team.

"Agent Thoreau." Vance said in a very unpleasant voice, eager to get that man and rip him apart just for the fun of it.

"Just one minute, I'm teaching a junior agent her proper place in the chain of command." He muttered with a murderous glare towards Laura who paled and looked to the floor, her shoulders sagging and she was on the brink of tears for the humiliation she was going through.

"I believe she already knows her place." Vance said, waiting until Thoreau turned to look at him, "And you need to learn yours."

"I don't understand, Director Vance."

"Agent Gibbs reminded me that, as team leader, he might not have a choice on whether or not he gets to work with the FBI. However, he has the choice of picking who will work with his team."

"I don't understand."

"Well, I pick her." Gibbs said with a smile, making Laura lift her gaze from the floor and look surprised at the smiling senior agent.

I could feel her surprise as she hitched a breath, staring fascinated at Gibbs while Vance advanced towards Thoreau. "You see, in NCIS we give the proper value to agents who like sharing information."

"You can't do that. She's a junior agent. I'm the Senior Agent here."

"Ah… I can. If I get to pick someone to work with me, I'd rather pick one who acts and thinks like an agent, not someone who is in it just for politics."

"I'm her Senior Agent. I've been assigned to her so I could teach her proper procedure."

"No, you're not her Senior Agent. You're her administrative leash!"

If she could, Laura would have dug a hole in the floor and hidden herself inside. As it was, she made herself as small as possible between the two senior agents growling at each other and took another step back, but she ended up bumping against my chest again. She jumped lightly but I was not about to let her get away, so I firmed my hand on her shoulder and squeezed, feeling her sigh and relax against me, her head lowered and her hair falling as a curtain hiding her face.

Gibbs turned to Vance, who was watching everything with speculative eyes.

"You want me to be cooperative with the FBI? Fine, but I pick who works with my team. If I have to get a new Fed, I want the one who actually thinks like an agent, not the bureaucratic dead weight."

"Agreed, Agent Gibbs." Vance nodded, accepting Gibbs' idea.

"You can't do it. She has no field experience." Thoreau still tried to negotiate, looking at the Gibbs and Vance and still trying to inject himself in the investigation.

"My team. My rules. My terms. The FBI wants in. Fine. Then she stays. She's FBI. That must enough."

Thoreau sighed and pointed to Laura, "She's under disciplinary supervision."

That brings Gibbs to a stop and makes Laura try to fold over herself even further, but there was nowhere to go. I was behind her, Tony and Ziva were each at one side and in front of her were Gibbs and Thoreau.

Not an easy choice to make.

Gibbs studies her for a long moment, as she nervously twisted the case folder in her hand while Thoreau simply waited for Gibbs to give up on her. But Gibbs wouldn't be the boss if he weren't a man to follow his gut.

"Why were you put on probation?" He asked her, but Laura kept her eyes down and murmured something that none of us could hear.

"Could you repeat that? I couldn't hear you the first time."

"I assaulted a superior officer." She muttered, finally lifting her eyes so she could look at Gibbs.

"Really?" Gibbs even sounded surprised at that, as if it was hard to imagine her attacking anyone with that size of hers.

"Yeah."

"How badly?"

She cringed, but answered anyway. "I broke his nose."

"Why?"

She didn't answer, preferring to study instead the pattern of the carpet of the bullpen. Gibbs decided to change the approach.

"Did you have a good reason for it?"

That got a response, because she looked up at him and said in a firm voice, showing all her anger and disgust at the situation. "Yeah."

Gibbs shrugged, turning to Vance with a smile. "Good enough for me."

He finally turned to Thoreau and he had the great pleasure of pointing to the elevators that lead to the door. "She's in, you're out. Now go."

"You can't do that!"

"I've just done it. Watch me."

Thoreau huffed and glared at Laura, who finally dared to look at her former supervisor, recoiling a little at the anger and hatred in his eyes directed towards her. He finally smiled a political smile and nodded, "Fine, you keep her. But after this case, she's back to my side and we'll see if she will have any future in the Bureau."

With that threat in the air, Thoreau turned his back and went to the elevator, sending a glare at us before boarding it and finally leaving the bullpen. Once he was gone, it was as if a heavy cloud of hatred was lifted, making the air lighter and the day brighter.

"If that's the kind of attitude I had to deal with everyday, I would have certainly cut his throat while he slept in the first chance I had," Ziva said, turning Laura who was staring at the closed elevator doors in shock, as if she couldn't believe he was gone.

I went around her and made her look at me, one of my hands gently touching her chin and I noticed that she still seemed to be in a little bit of shock.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I..." She blinked repeatedly, her gaze still at the elevator before looking at me with those big green eyes filled with wonder and surprise. " I... I..."

"Hey, Kid." Gibbs called out, making Laura look at him with huge eyes surprised at him coming into her defense.

I felt her tensing up as Gibbs approached her, her fight or flight instinct in full force as she waited for his next words, probably expecting for the same kind of verbal abuse she was used to receiving from Thoreau.

"Impress me."

I felt her deflate under my hand, looking confused at Gibbs as she couldn't hold back her astonishment, "ah... what?"

Gibbs took another step, towering over her figure and making her look up to keep looking into his eyes. "I said... Impress me."

"Impress you. Right." She ran to his desk and grabbed a few folders and rushed to give them to him. Gibbs opened one of them to find several pictures of people killed in the same manner of his dead marine, "Our unsub is a need driven killer, he stalks a particular type of victim and he lures his victims to what he considers the ideal killing ground."

"What would that be?"

"He killed in places that, despite having a huge number of people in its vicinity, were devoid of cameras and circulation, which implies that he had studied the place enough to know where possible surveillance cameras would be. He picks the place and then lures his victims there."

She picked the pictures of the three victims, including our Lieutenant, and showed them to Gibbs. "He has a very specific victimology: He kills white, late twenties early thirties athletic men, who are in the height of their vigor or strength, yet they seem incapable of fighting him off. Initially we had considered the hypothesis of a blitz attack until we found a very strong anesthetic in the victims' blood stream, which had been injected in the neck vein of the victim and would have rendered a pugilist into a puppet doll in a matter of seconds after being administered. Your coroner might be able to certify that the same has happened to your marine. And finally we have this."

She gave him the signature, the ouroborus card, "The ouroborus represents the endless task, without beginning and end. He identifies himself with it and he wants us to know that, that his task is not done and the process he is going through is going on and on, and the only one way to stop him is to catch him."

She finally shut up, looking eagerly waiting for Gibbs' verdict. "And that's it."

Gibbs stayed in silence as Laura tried to get her breath after her long exposition. She closed the folder in her hand and just waited for him to say something, anything.

Finally Gibbs nodded and took a step towards her, staring down at her, "If you ever try to break my nose, make sure you have a damn good reason for it, or I'll flatten you where you stand." Having said that, he smirked at her shocked face and went to his desk, leaving her staring at him in confusion.

I smiled at her as she looked at me, trying to figure out if Gibbs was for real or not. I nodded and went to my desk, eager to go back to my searches.

"McGee?" Gibbs asked with his firmly on his monitor.

"We've identified the missing little girl, her name is Jessica Stern." I said, putting a picture on the plasma.

"Family has been contacted?" Gibbs turned to look at the smiling blond girl in the plasma.

"Her parents are on their way."

"Ziva?"

"We've requested the teachers and parents to check with their kids if anyone has seen something out of ordinary. A little girl mentioned to her father seeing Jessica being taken. She's also on her way with her parents."

"Good, you handle that interview." Gibbs noticed Laura still standing lost in front of his desk, "Kid, take a chair and sit with McGee, help him with the searches, okay?"

"Aye, sir."

"Boss." Gibbs muttered, making Laura stop as she ran to the neighboring cubicle for a chair. "Never call me sir, either Gibbs or Boss."

"All right, Gibbs." She smiled lightly, grabbed a chair and pushed it to my side. She then gathered the opened folders on Gibbs' desk and moved them to their box, dragging them to my side of the bullpen and started checking them one by one, working with me the whole afternoon as we went searching for any relation between our victims.