One Less - Part 33

by joykatleen

DiNozzo took Fredrick's abandoned chair and hit play on the recorder.

"I have often struggled with sexual sin," Goetz's voice, softer now, came through the speakers.

"Go on," the priest said.

"I was in love with a man," Goetz said.

"Yes," the priest said. Of course he knew that.

Goetz proceeded to lead Father Thayer through the set up: Years ago, he'd started to feel attraction toward other men. He hadn't acted on it at first, but the attraction had grown. He knew it was wrong. The urges he felt became harder to overcome, and the power of temptation eventually grew stronger than his will. Experimentation had lead to a lifestyle he knew was sinful. He'd tried – hard – to stop it, but he hadn't been able to. Then, he was assaulted.

"The attack was horrible. One of the most traumatizing experiences of my life. The recovery process has been incredibly painful." Goetz took a breath.

"After the attack, I was searching for purpose in what I was going through. Eventually I started thinking that maybe this was God's way of..." His recitation paused, the silence lengthened, and the priest moved to fill it.

"Punishing your sin?" the priest offered.

"Yes," Goetz said with apparent relief. Gibbs had to give him credit: Goetz was handling this like a pro.

"Did it change you?" Thayer asked.

"In many ways. My... friend... left me. While I was recovering, away from temptation, I realized I couldn't keep living that way, sinning against God. I begged the saints for God's forgiveness. I begged He would help me, make me stronger and more able to resist temptation."

"Were your prayers answered?" the priest asked.

"Yes. I haven't felt that need for a long time."

"So perhaps your injuries had a higher purpose?" Thayer asked.

"Maybe... maybe God was trying to teach me something. It certainly changed things."

"Perhaps the men who attacked you believed they were doing God's work," Thayer suggested. "Helping you overcome your sin and return to God's path."

Gibbs leaned forward, waiting for it. So far, the conversation was going exactly as Goetz had predicted it would.

Goetz said nothing for a long moment. Then: "Why would God allow that?"

"The Bible tells us that God disciplines those He loves and punishes those He accepts as His children. Punishment doesn't always come as a lightning bolt from Heaven. Sometimes God uses His people to direct His discipline toward those who need it."

Again, a pause. "I don't understand," Goetz said. "Are you saying God told those men about my sin? Then told them they had to attack me, to break my legs, that it would somehow help me?"

"I don't claim to know the mind, or understand the method, of God," Thayer said. "You said your injuries brought you to a state of conviction of your sin. A sin you had been struggling with for many years. It is possible this was what was necessary so that God could get your attention, get you turned in the right direction."

"I know I'm weak, and sometimes I've probably needed God's intervention," Goetz said, his voice dropping again. "I can even admit that the attack on me changed my life. But I can't believe I'm worthy of a sign from God. I'm not Moses, or Joseph. I was just a sailor, caught up in sin. They didn't know me. So how could they know my sin?"

"It was not necessary that the substance of your sin come in a sign from God. Others knew of it."

"No they didn't," Goetz argued. "I told no one but God."

"Those who shared your sin knew," Thayer said.

"I only loved one man. He didn't tell anyone," Goetz said. "We were always very careful. No one ever saw us together."

"God saw you," Thayer said.

"I know He did," Goetz said. "But I can't believe God whispered my secret sin to some stranger in Greece."

"I'm sure He did not," the priest agreed. There was silence, the only sound the recording of Goetz's breathing and the low hum of digital playback. There were more sounds of movement – Goetz rising from his knees, if Gibbs had to guess – then Thayer finally spoke.

"Sometimes a priest must make difficult decisions, to ensure God's will is done on earth, and to protect His sheep from the dangers they fail to see or choose to ignore. Sometimes a priest is called on to do things that are... not easy to reconcile with the oaths he has taken."

"I don't understand," Goetz said.

"You had been struggling with sexual sin for a long time, my son. You spoke of it repeatedly, long before you finally confessed the immoral nature of your desire. I had been praying fervently for the Lord's hand to guide me to how I might help you overcome temptation. Finally the Spirit showed me that if I shared the burden, God would use others to do what I could not."

"What did you do?" Goetz asked softly.

"I struggled with it. I really did. But in the end, I did what God told me to. At the time, I didn't understand why I had to do it. But knowing how it helped you overcome, helped you to finally find your path... now I understand."

"What did you do?" Goetz repeated.

"I prayed for guidance, and when the Spirit provided it, I asked someone to help you overcome your temptation."

"Help me?" Goetz asked. "This was helping me?" A slapping sound that Gibbs recognized as Goetz hitting one of his leg braces.

"Sometimes God's discipline is difficult to bear," Thayer said. "But in the end, it results in freedom from sin and a closer walk with God."

On the recording, Goetz took a loud breath.

"So you told someone about me, told him to punish me for my sin?"

"I followed the leading of the Spirit and asked another sailor if he could help you. We prayed together, and he heard from God. He received his mission and did what was necessary to complete it. And in the end, you were delivered from an evil that had been tormenting you for many years. God's will was accomplished in your life."

"I don't understand, Father," Goetz said. "You asked another sailor to find me while I was ashore in Crete, to attack me and break my legs?"

"I told him to pray and to seek God's guidance as to how he could best help you. He did what he did, and it changed your life for the better. Didn't it?"

There was a pause, and when Goetz spoke again, his voice broke. "Why did it have to be this way?"

"Your sin was threatening to destroy your soul. The work that you were doing, that we all do, is inherently dangerous. You could have been called to eternity at any moment. You had tried to overcome the sin on your own, and you weren't able to. You needed help, and through the grace of God, we were able to provide it."

"Who was it? Who did you and God choose to attack me, to end my career? To destroy my life?" Goetz asked and sniffed hard. Gibbs and DiNozzo exchanged a look of sympathy and surprise. The Master Chief was crying.

"Your life was not destroyed. Your path was changed, but your life – and your soul – are very much in tact."

"Tell me who it was!" Goetz insisted. "Don't I have a right to know who else knows about me? About my secrets?"

"I'm sorry, my son. That I can not divulge. Just trust me when I say he was doing God's will."

"How could it have been God's will?" Goetz cried. "When you told another sailor about my sin, you put me at incredible risk. I could have been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged and lost everything. Would that have been God's will, too?" Goetz was trying to control his emotion and clearly losing the battle.

"It didn't happen that way. You were able to escape your sin and still follow the path God has set out for you. Because of your sin, you had become a bad example for other men. Now, free of that burden, you can once again serve God in a manner that is pleasing to Him."

"But I was serving Him. I was saving lives, giving men a second chance to get right with God. I was doing what God had always asked of me."

"And now you're teaching the next generation, so others can pick up where you were no longer able to serve."

"I was able!" Goetz shouted, making both men in the NCIS office jump slightly. "I was serving God, doing His work. Nothing about my sin ever impacted my service. To God, my country or the Navy."

"Get a grip, Master Chief," DiNozzo said softly. "Don't lose it now." Gibbs felt the sentiment.

In contrast to Goetz's rising emotion, the priest's voice was steady and firm. The voice of a teacher stating indisputable facts to a recalcitrant student. "You were not serving God in a manner that was pleasing to Him. You had become a bad example to other sailors and you had to be removed, before the evil you could not fight infected others."

Gibbs was amazed and saddened at the crap the priest was spouting. He wondered why any gay man would stay with the Catholic church, live his life subject to that attitude. How could any man stand to be told his God thought he was evil because of who he was attracted to?

There were a few loud, wet breaths as Goetz tried to pull himself together.

"I'm not the only man in the Navy who struggled with this sin," he said. "Why did I have to suffer like this? What's so special, so particularly evil, about me that I alone was chosen to be dealt with so harshly?"

"Very good," Gibbs murmured.

"Oh no, my child, no," Thayer said, and now there was sympathy in his voice. "You're not the only one. God's choice of discipline for you was indeed harsh. But it was commiserate with your sin and what was required to bring you back into His light. There are others struggling with lesser and greater evils. Others who have had to suffer as you have so they too could be freed from their sin."

"Others who were punished like I was for loving men?" Goetz asked.

"A few," Thayer said. "Struggle with sexual sin is not uncommon among sailors and Marines so far from home. It is only the nature of the sin, and the grip the sin has over a man's life, that makes it more or less evil, and therefore more or less needing of God's direct intervention. There are others in my parish who are just as trapped in sexual sin as you were."

"So there are others whose sin you've been moved to reveal? Who have been punished by man at God's direction for lusting after other men? For being evil?"

"You are not evil, Ian. Your sin was evil. You are a man, with man's sinful desires. All men are tempted. It only becomes evil when you embrace it."

There was a rustling sound and Goetz sniffed again. Gibbs could imagine him wiping at his face, his shirt rubbing against the tiny microphone.

"There are others who struggle as you did," Thayer said. "Some – through prayer, fasting, and a commitment to God's Holy word – are able to overcome. Some, like you, are unable to save themselves and need God's intervention. You are not the only man in my parish who struggles with this sin. And you're not the only man whom God has called me to help."

"Got him," DiNozzo said.

"Almost," Gibbs said. And to himself, he added: Come on, Master Chief, take him just a little further.

There was another pause, more breathing. Goetz's voice. "I knew a young man, a couple years ago. An O-2 named Brisbin. He... felt like I did about other men."

"I know he did," Thayer admitted. "We often spoke of it."

"He was mugged, in Spain. Was that God's discipline too?"

The priest hesitated. "Like you, Ben struggled with his desires. He told me on many occasions that he wished God would step in and 'fix' what was broken in him, the thing that made him seek out immoral pleasures. But he, too, was unable to resist, and in the end, he needed our help."

"How'd it work out for him?" Goetz asked. "Did having him beat fix him?" There was a touch of sarcasm in Goetz's voice and Gibbs hoped he wasn't about to let it get out of hand and blow the whole thing.

"I don't know if he still struggles with temptation or not. I haven't been in touch with him since he left my parish. But I know he was removed from the Navy, as you were, and he has gone on to serve the Lord in other, less dangerous ways."

"I have been in touch with him," Goetz said. "He's not serving the Lord at all right now. The attack left him deaf, and he hasn't taken it well."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Thayer said. "Sometimes God's plan is beyond our understanding. I'm sure Lt. Brisbin's future is safely in God's hands."

"There've been others, too, haven't there? Others who needed your help? Besides me and Ben?"

"It's my job, and my responsibility as a man of God, to help those in need, in whatever way I can."

"How can you believe this is helping? You're ordering men to commit crimes, to break the laws of God and man. To hurt people."

"I am asking them to pray, to seek God's direction, to hear from the Spirit how they can help men overcome temptation."

"You gotta give him credit for trying," DiNozzo said, and Gibbs stared him into silence.

"By passing on information you learn during confession, you're violating your vows. The Seal of the Confessional is inviolable. The Church says it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray a penitent in any way, in words or in any manner, for any reason."

"The Holy Church requires that I do what God commands me, even if I can't reconcile it with Church teachings. When there is conflict between God and Church, God wins every time. I don't pretend to understand why God has chosen this method of allowing me to serve my flock. But he has, and I will not fail in my mission."

"So you'll keep doing it? Telling other men things that penitents intend to be confidences between them and God?"

"I will keep doing what God instructs me to do, even if I don't understand it. And I will take my joy in knowing that sometimes, as in your case, it helps those who have struggled for years find peace."

"I don't understand," Goetz said.

"I know," Thayer said. "There is no way you could." They fell silent for almost a full minute.

"Are you ready for your penance, my son?" Thayer said.

The priest finished the liturgy and offered Goetz a blessing, then there was the sound of Goetz rising. They exchanged farewells, the door to the chapel opened and closed, and DiNozzo and Gibbs heard Goetz's crutches on the steel floors.

DiNozzo stopped the recording.

"How can he still be Catholic?" he asked.

"Got me," Gibbs said. "I sure as hell wouldn't be."

"You think the church really thinks that way, that being gay is evil?"

"Hell, I don't know," Gibbs said. "But the church certainly doesn't condone violence as a way to get people to stop sinning. Not anymore, anyway." A pause as something occurred to him. "I want statistics on 'don't ask, don't tell' discharges of personnel assigned to carriers since 9/11. Can you find them?"

"Uh, maybe?" DiNozzo said uncertainly. He turned to Fredrick's computer and started working. After a minute or so, he turned back to Gibbs. "I can call McGee," he said.

"Do it," Gibbs said and DiNozzo picked up the desk phone.

It was idle curiosity, really. Something to occupy his mind while they figured out what to do next. What he wanted to do was march – okay, hobble – down to the chaplain's quarters and arrest the son-of-a-bitch for conspiracy to commit assault and murder. But he wasn't sure they had enough yet. Goetz had been right: The priest had come awfully close to admitting that he was running this thing, but hadn't quite crossed the line. With what they had now, the priest could just claim ignorance. He didn't know what they were actually going to do. After all, asking them to help wasn't the same as asking them to commit assault. He could even claim that he told them not to physically hurt anyone, that they did it despite him. Still, Gibbs wasn't sure how they could get more outside of interrogation.

The door banged open and Fredrick stuck his head in. "Okay to come in?" There was a trace of sarcasm, but not much. Gibbs waved him in. He was carrying a tray of food and coffee cups.

"Well?" Goetz said as he entered behind Fredrick. "Is it enough?"

"We've still got some work to do, but you brought us a hell of a lot closer," Gibbs said.

Goetz sat in the empty chair. Fredrick put down two plates, utensils, and four mugs of coffee. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, a brownie. Light lunch for reporting day. Gibbs pushed himself over to the table. DiNozzo hung up the phone.

"He'll call when he has it," he said to Gibbs. "Hey, thanks," he added to Fredrick and joined Gibbs. Fredrick sat on the edge of his desk.

"So what's next?" Goetz asked.

"We arrest him, then find the rest of the players," Gibbs said. He took a bite of meatloaf. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. It had probably been made awhile ago.

There was the sudden sound of alert tones from 1-MC, the shipboard public address system. The four men all looked up at the speaker. Old habits die hard.

The message was a thirty-minute warning for 'all aboard.' Guests were to be escorted off ship as soon as possible, and all hands were to be at their assigned duty stations or in quarters for general accounting by 1600 hours.

"I don't think arresting him's a good idea," Fredrick said when the PA clicked off. Gibbs looked at him.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Master Chief gave me the gist of what Thayer said. He hasn't taken responsibility for any of it, and he's not likely to," Fredrick said. "And we don't have any names yet. Arresting him now is a gamble. He may just shut down, and we don't have enough to force him to talk."

"You have another suggestion, Special Agent Fredrick?" Gibbs asked as he ate. His tone was somewhere between annoyed and just humoring him.

Fredrick pushed ahead despite Gibbs's apparent attitude. "Leave him with me. I'll see what I can find out."

"What makes you think you can find out anything Master Chief Goetz and I can't?" Gibbs asked. Moving closer to annoyed now.

"Look, Gibbs, I know you're still pissed at me. You don't have to prove it."

Gibbs just stared at him. If the kid thought he could take him on, let him try.

"He's got to be suspicious," Fredrick said, ignoring the glare and looking at DiNozzo instead. "There's been an extra NCIS agent aboard all week. You've been seen interviewing a sailor Thayer knows is gay. Now you come aboard and the three of us have been locked in here all day. Then Master Chief Goetz, one of the victims, shows up unexpectedly and spends an hour talking to him about it. If he's not already circling the wagons, he's certainly gonna be when we bring in Lewiston's crewmates."

"Okay," DiNozzo said. He, too, was tucking away his meal.

"He believes he and the people he recruits are doing God's work. I'm Catholic. If you two leave, and we sail without arresting anyone, I can approach him and try to convince him you're giving it up for now, because you can't find any hard evidence. I'll tell him I've been protecting him, covering up the evidence, because I believe in his mission. You guys thought I was, and I agree it looked bad, so maybe he'll buy it."

"To what end?" Tony asked, taking a sip of coffee.

"If I can convince him I'm absolutely on his side, I'll tell him I need to know who to protect, past and present, to keep you from getting any further. If he really believes I'm willing to doctor the records, provide some alibis or something, he might give me names."

Gibbs and DiNozzo exchanged glances across the table. That could actually work.

"What about Lewiston's pals?" DiNozzo asked. "The seven we've identified. You know they're going to hear through the grapevine that the ship sailed without him and Fazio."

"We lock down the platoon," Gibbs spoke up. All three men turned to look at him. "You said six of them are from the same platoon. We get the Captain to ask their CO to lock them down at their base for a few days. Isolate the 40 guys, communications blackout. No one'll have any reason to think we're only looking at six of them. And we'll find some reason to hold the other sailor at Navy Medical until we're ready for Thayer."

"The CO's not going to like that, especially if they're in the middle of something," Fredrick said. "They can't just lock up a bunch of FAST Company Marines without an awfully good reason."

"But it could work," DiNozzo said and turned back to Gibbs. "You think you can talk the Captain into setting it up?"

"McNally won't be the problem," Gibbs said. Then to Fredrick: "Can you do it? Get him to give you names?"

"I can try," Fredrick said.

Gibbs shook his head. "Not good enough. If we're going to lock down a platoon of Marines, and let this ship sail with Thayer still aboard, I'm gonna need more than that. Can you do it, or not?"

Fredrick thought it through for a moment. "Yes. I can do it," he said finally.

"How long?"

Fredrick shrugged. "We've got to let him relax a bit first," he said. "Put some space between today and when I talk to him. We'll be at sea two days before we make Charleston Monday afternoon, then another day to Jacksonville before we start the Atlantic crossing Friday next. Five days altogether. If I approach him in Charleston, I can get it done before Jacksonville."

Gibbs considered him. "Alright. You've got your shot. Call the Captain and set us up a meeting. Soon as he's got a few minutes. See if you can get the Marines' top man on video conference. You want in on this, Master Chief?" He turned to Goetz.

"No thanks," Goetz said. "Just let me know when you need me to testify. Otherwise, I'm done."

"One more thing before you bow out?" Gibbs asked. Goetz cocked his head in question.

"Come up with a reason why a perfectly healthy sailor needs to leave this ship and spend a couple days at Navy Medical."

"Not a problem. Give me his medical record, I'll make some adjustments."

Gibbs smiled at him, then turned back to Fredrick. "You got that?" he asked.

Fredrick nodded. "I got it." He went for his computer.

to be continued...

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