Okay, I lied, it'll be four chapters tonight. I wanted to get you through this next part.
Chapter Nine
February 5, 2011 – 6:13am
When Jimmy's sobs had finally stilled and Ducky's tears were drying on his cheeks, Vance moved forward and sat down behind the driver's seat. Ducky looked at the director; but Jimmy's face was turned away, hidden by the shield of Ducky's arms.
"Director?" Ducky asked quietly, knowing the man wasn't there just to offer his support.
"Homeland Security has the scene; it is now officially a terrorist attack," Vance said in a low tone. "The group responsible for the bomb has sent letters to all the major news networks, claiming responsibility and promising more to come."
Jimmy couldn't face them yet, but he had to know. "What's so important about this place?" he asked, his voice slightly muffled by Ducky's arms.
"It wasn't the building, it was the interstate that they were most interested in," Vance told them. "The building was just the easiest way for them to get the explosives in place without being seen. These guys knew exactly what they were doing – they must have set up the bomb after the second shift left for the night, and they had a remote trigger set up so they could detonate it at exactly the right time."
Ducky frowned. "The right time for what, Director?"
Vance sighed and shook his head, his eyes lowering briefly. "The right time for the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon to be passing over on the interstate."
"Is he –?"
"Yes, Doctor Mallard, he's dead, along with his driver and several members of his staff."
Still sniffling just a bit, Jimmy sat up and turned around so he could face the director. His face was pale, where it wasn't red from crying, but his expression was – focused was the best word Vance could come up with. "How did they know he'd be there when he was?"
"That's a good question, Mr. Palmer. I wish we knew." Vance rubbed his face with his hands, an unconscious gesture that spoke of how tired he was. "As of yesterday afternoon, he was supposed to be heading toward New York last night to see his sister in the hospital. Sometime yesterday evening, he changed his plans. And between 10pm and a quarter til 5, these guys managed to get everything set up here. How did they know?"
Jimmy wrapped his arms around himself, hands grasping opposite elbows in lieu of anything else to hold on to. He was reminded of the time when Gibbs had left for Mexico and left Tony in charge of the team. Tony had desperately needed someone outside the team to confide in and to bounce ideas off of, and had turned to Jimmy. That was when their friendship had started to grow, with Jimmy supporting Tony, and with Tony showing his trust in Jimmy's judgment.
But that wasn't what Jimmy was thinking of now. Instead, he was remembering how it felt to think like an agent would, however limited his experience in that area might be. He remembered how his ability to play devil's advocate had helped Tony think through the complexities of a crime until the answers became clearer. Though it hurt more than he could have imagined back then to step into that role at anyone's side other than Tony's, Jimmy turned his mind to the question at hand and began looking at the different angles that he could approach it from.
"Do we know for sure that the chairman was definitely the target?" he asked. "I know he's the one that they got," he continued, holding up a hand to forestall Vance's obvious response. "And Rule 39 applies there as much as anything else. But –"
Vance held up a hand of his own. "Wait, which one's 39?"
"'No such thing as coincidence,'" Ducky muttered.
Jimmy nodded, his eyes unfocused as he tried to pin down the ideas in his mind. "So we know a bomb got set up under that overpass, and we know that it was detonated when the chairman was driving over it. Well, being driven, anyway – I'm sure he doesn't drive himself –"
"Mr. Palmer."
Jimmy ducked his head. "Yes, thank you, Doctor." Despite the seriousness of the situation, Vance couldn't help but compare the two before him to Gibbs and DiNozzo, though the headslap was verbal in Ducky's case. "What I mean is, that interstate is a major route in to the Capitol for anyone who lives in this area. What if the plan was to set up here and wait for someone important to come along?"
"On a Saturday?" Vance sounded skeptical, but not in a 'you're out of your mind' kind of way; it was more a 'you may be on to something, can you drive your hypothesis around this obstacle?' kind of way.
"Or Sunday, or even Monday morning," Jimmy responded. "The news said that the offices would be closed all weekend. Whoever planned this had to know the shift schedule here, so they'd know when they'd have the greatest window of opportunity."
Vance nodded thoughtfully. "That's one possibility, Palmer. Of course they'll be looking at everyone connected with the businesses here to see if they're connected to the group as well. But how would they necessarily know when someone of interest was close enough? We're not talking about the Presidential motorcade, after all."
Jimmy drummed his fingers against his arms as he considered. "I guess that does rely on them having a spotter who knows what he's looking for," he conceded. "It can't have been on a timer, like you said, and just 'happened' to catch the chairman at the right time – Rule 39 sees to that. So maybe the chairman was the target, and someone on his staff – his personal staff, I mean, not the Pentagon Staff –"
"Palmer." This time it was Vance who steered Jimmy back on track.
"Right. – So someone who works for him is maybe keeping this group informed on his movements, and someone else works here, and they put two and two together – no, that just sounds ridiculous –"
"Director Vance." One of the MTAC techs quietly interrupted them. "I've got Assistant Director Morrow from Homeland for you." The man held out a headset.
As Vance took the headset and moved to the other end of the van, Jimmy suddenly realized that he'd been rambling on at the Director of NCIS, a man who'd been a capable field agent for years before he'd joined its administration. Part of him wanted to crawl under the seat of the van and hide, but he dismissed the idea on the grounds that Vance could have shut him up anytime he wanted. Everyone else did; there was no reason to think that Vance did not also have that skill.
It was several moments before Jimmy became aware of the fact that if he held his breath, he could faintly hear Vance's half of the conversation; but by that point, Vance was simply thanking the Assistant Director and assuring him that NCIS was at Homeland Security's disposal. As soon as that conversation was finished, the other tech was waving another headset at Vance.
"Reminds me of when Tony was carrying two cell phones," Jimmy commented quietly.
"Hush, Mr. Palmer."
Vance's responses this time were brief monosyllables so soft that neither Jimmy nor Ducky could make them out. But something in the set of the director's shoulders made Jimmy instantly wary. Whatever he was talking about, Jimmy was absolutely certain he wasn't going to like it.
Vance pulled the headset off and passed it to the techs without looking. He moved past them on his way to the front of the van; the look that the two techs gave their boss once his back was turned was one of worry, and pity.
His heart pounding in his chest, Jimmy opened his mouth to ask – but Ducky's gentle hand on his arm prompted him to shut it again and wait for Vance to speak.
"I wish I had better news," the director said, and Jimmy felt his stomach drop. "The rescue crews have found some of the agents who were inside when the bomb exploded. They – believe they've found the bodies of our team."
Both men picked up on the hesitation. "They believe, Director?" Ducky pressed.
Vance nodded. "They've asked me to come identify them."
"We're coming with you," Jimmy insisted.
"It's not good, Jimmy," Vance objected. "I know that of all of us, the two of you have seen more than your share, but trust me on this. You don't want to see them this way."
Jimmy closed his eyes, the image of Ziva's horribly burned body vivid in his mind. He understood where the director was coming from, but… "You're right, Director, I don't want to see it." He then opened his eyes and looked directly at the man. "But I have to. Please, Director. Tony –" his voice caught, and he had to swallow and try again. "Tony and I were breaking Rule 12."
Vance's brows furrowed as he searched his memory. "You were…?" His voice trailed off. He couldn't possibly be remembering the right rule – could he?
Ducky came to his rescue. "Yes, Director, Jimmy and Anthony have been together for several months now. Jethro didn't know, but I did."
Vance didn't attend the agency directors' card game just for the gossip; he had perfected his poker face years ago, and could pull it on at a moment's notice. This he did now, calmly returning Jimmy's gaze with an expressionless stare of his own as he considered. Finally, he nodded. "One condition. You two stay back until I've made the identification. And if I tell you to keep back, you don't come any closer. Trust me at least that much, alright?"
The two autopsy men nodded. Moments later, they were out of the van and following Vance across the rubble-strewn parking lot toward one of the banks of floodlights – a different area from before, Jimmy thought, though he wasn't completely sure. The altered pattern of the explosion's destructive force threw off his sense of direction and position; in the end, he put his memories of before out of his mind and trusted to the director to lead them through the mess.
When they reached the area illuminated by the lights, Vance directed them to wait while he went forward, alone, to speak with a group of FBI and Homeland Security agents. Stuffing his hands in his pockets to warm them, Jimmy looked at the ruins around him. Such a waste, he found himself thinking. Why do people think they can make the world better by destroying parts of it?
"You're expecting logical thinking from crazy people, Palmer," Jimmy remembered Tony saying to him once. "So who's crazier, them or you?"
He didn't know, didn't understand, the drive that kept him going, that kept him focused on the bombing as if it were just another crime scene and not the end of his world. Every time he started falling apart, that drive pulled him back together, like an elastic band being snapped into place. He didn't understand it, not at all.
He glanced toward Vance and the agents. They were still standing in the same place, still talking. Why? Shouldn't they save whatever they were discussing until after Vance had ID'd the bodies? Where were they, anyway?
Jimmy studied the area they were in. The rubble was as high as his hip in places, and strangely level. He couldn't believe the building had collapsed this uniformly; he was no expert, of course, but this just didn't look right. A quick look around showed him another, much larger, mound of rubble several feet outside the 'footprint' of the building. So that was probably over here… Jimmy slowly began piecing it together. They dug down through the rubble here, and moved it over there as they went. Which meant that that stuff was on top of this flat area here. Then they stopped and called Vance over to identify bodies – only I can't see any bodies. Which means…
The crumbled remains of the building before him took on a sinister aspect as Jimmy realized – They were here. And the building collapsed here. On top of them. We won't – He felt the blood rush from his face as he finally figured it out. We won't find whole bodies here. That's why Vance isn't looking at the bodies. He's looking at –
The shock hitting the rubble-strewn ground on his hands and knees jarred Jimmy back to his senses, and was loud enough to catch Ducky's attention as well.
"Mr. Palmer?" Ducky hurried to his assistant's side and knelt down carefully next to the younger man, who was apparently struggling to not vomit at the crime scene. "Jimmy, what is it?" he asked.
Jimmy didn't hear him. Now that he knew what he should be watching for, he lifted his head and looked again at the area illuminated by the floodlights. The larger chunks of the destroyed wall cast confusing shadows, making him doubt that what he saw was real…
There. A scrap of orange. A piece of brown leather. A bit of tan cloth, the same shade as McGee's trenchcoat. A longer length of dark cloth – Tony's coat.
All jumbled up together. All splattered with blood. And then his mind finally processed what he was seeing around those items…
This time, when Jimmy fainted, he didn't have as far to fall.