WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER
Chapter 4
As Gibbs returned with a fresh coffee (where does he get those, anyway?), Tony jogged up to him.
""Ey boss, custodians have the elevator camera and audio online and ready to go. We just need to let the teacher know, so she can activate it from the inside."
"Good. Get her on the phone," said Gibbs as they arrived at the SWAT command truck. Janine Michaels handed over her phone to Gibbs.
"She's *1, Agent Gibbs," the young woman said when the gruff agent took the phone from her.
Dialing and putting the phone on speaker, Gibbs looked over blueprints as it rang. And rang. And rang. Just as he was starting to get frustrated, it was answered. "Miss…"
"No, honey, hold it up to my ear…..that's my nose, Deeny, my ear…..my…..(sigh)…where's your ears?…..Good! Now, see if you can find mine, they're in the same place as yours…..(oomph)…not that high up, kiddo, I can't hear anything…..down just a little…little more…..whew! Finally! Hello?….whoops!"
There was a loud clattering sound that caused everyone at the truck to jump. "Pick it up," they heard from a distance. "Pick…you know what, just slide it over to me…..there ya' go…" The three younger agents could see that Gibbs was rapidly losing patience.
"Sounds like she dropped the phone, boss," said DiNozzo, trying to placate Gibbs. "Shutting up now, boss," he said, contrite, at the glare he got from the older man.
"Here, wait, let me come down to you….ok, that's as far as I can go….ok, good job, Deeny. Hello?" Gracie asked, breathing hard from all the maneuvering.
Gibbs grimaced. "Can you hear me now, Miss Lind?" he asked, not a little sarcastically. He hated delays. Ziva, Tim, and Tony shared a look, hoping Gibbs didn't make this woman trapped in an elevator with three kids cry.
"Uh, yeah," came the voice from the elevator, "but I've kinda got my hands full at the moment, so talk to Deeny for a minute, ok?" There was a clatter.
The three younger agents could see their boss' face turning red. "That was brave," murmured McGee.
Ziva turned away so Gibbs wouldn't hear. "And very foolish."
McGee and Ziva turned to Tony, waiting for his comment, and he did not disappoint. With a dreamy, far away look in his eye, he raised an eyebrow and said, "I think I'm in love with that woman." 'She's got guts,' he thought to himself, 'giving Gibbs the brush-off on the phone, not once, but twice now. Damn, but that's hot!' He was so far away in his dreams, he missed Ziva and Tim rolling their eyes at him.
Meanwhile, Gibbs was almost apoplectic. In the middle of a crisis, this teacher just hands off the phone to her student? What the hell? "Miss Lind?….Miss Lind…..'ey! Miss Lind!…"
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Inside the elevator
One shirtsleeve still caught in the sleeping boy's hand, Gracie held an open pen in the other, and was trying - not too successfully - to hack through the fabric and cut it off at the cuff, so she'd be able to use that hand again. She looked over at Adina, who was holding the cell phone away from her ear.
Adina looked up at her teacher with raised eyebrows. "Dih deddin'" the young girl said, and Gracie could hear the agent on the other end yelling for her.
"Still yelling, huh?" She translated the girl's speech. "Well, he'll just have to sit in the quiet chair for a while then later, won't he?" She smiled when the little girl laughed. Moments later, Gracie heard her assistant's voice come over the phone.
"Deeny, it's Miss Janine. Tell Miss Gracie to push the red button under the speaker next to the door….tell her to push the red button."
Adina looked at her teacher. "Mi' neen day puts ded buh-uh aw duh-uh."
"Yeah, sweets, I heard. 'Push the red button by the door,' right?" She smiled when the little girl nodded. "Let's see if I can reach that far, still attached to Dante. Tell Miss Janine, Miss Gracie said 'ok'." Due to her position, and the position of the kids and the hardware, she couldn't….quite…..reach. She smiled as she listened to Adina on the phone.
"Mih' neen? Ih' neeny. Mih Dayt-zee tay 'O-day.'" (Miss Janine? It's Deeny. Miss Gracie says 'okay')
Gracie could hear Janine translating for everyone on the outside. "Deeny, tell Miss Janine that I can't reach it, but I'll figure something out."
The little girl nodded, pigtails bobbing. "Mih' neen, Mih Dayt-zee cah eats, uh dee fih-er tum-din ow." Adina smiled at her teacher, proud of herself for having delivered such an important message.
"Good job!" Gracie praised. She could hear the silence on the other end of the phone as Janine was trying to figure out what, exactly, Adina had said. She heard over the phone, "did she say they can't eat?" said a male voice. "No, no, that wasn't Deeny's 'eat.' Eats, eats, eats…" Janine repeated in thought.
Gracie spent a few minutes trying to get Adina to press the red button for her, but as usual, under pressure, the girl forgot her colors. "Kyle, I know I'm asking a lot honey, but can you reach over and push that red button, if I hold you up?" She smiled in relief when the boy nodded happily. Putting her hand under his armpit, she supported Kyle as he stretched and pushed the correct button. "'Atta boy! Good job Kyle!" Gracie always got all mushy inside when she saw the sense of pride in her students' eyes. "Ok, now what that button does is, turns on a video camera so the people outside, the ones working to get us out of here, can see and hear us, and make sure we're ok. And we'll be able to talk to them, too." She pointed to the speaker that was part of the elevator control panel. "See those dots there? That's where we'll hear them from, and they'll hear us from."
"Tee-bee?" Kyle asked, hopefully.
"Sorry kiddo, we won't get tv in here. But you'll get to talk to real-live government super agents," Gracie said, turning back to her stuck sleeve, hacking away with her pen. She just needed to make a hole big enough to fit her finger into, so she could rip the sleeve.
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Out at the Command Center truck
Four special agents, two maintenance engineers, and a SWAT commander stood around the computer, waiting for the video to come up, anxious to see how the teacher and the three kids were coping, trapped in the elevator as they were. The scene that opened up before them….well, to say the least, it confused them.
"What is she doing?" asked Ziva, trying to make sense of the picture on the screen. "Why is she stabbing herself with a pen?"
No one answered her. They couldn't - they were just as befuddled as Ziva was.
"Yes!" shouted the young woman on the screen as she succeeded in making a hole in her shirtsleeve. The group watched as the teacher tucked a finger in the hole and began pulling. "Don't do this at home, guys. No ripping your clothes on purpose. This is a special situation," she said to the kids. The little girl with pigtails to rival Abby's nodded. "Ped-oh di-dayshun." The teacher smiled at the young girl. "Right, 'special situation.'" With a strong pull, the sleeve began tearing. As the hole became bigger, the teacher grabbed an end with her teeth and finished off the rip with a flourish. "Woo-hoo! Free!" she said happily, waving her formerly caught up arm around in celebration.
Gibbs sighed. He didn't have the patience for this. "Miss Lind?" he barked, feeling just slightly sorry that he'd caused the children to jump at the sudden sound of his voice.
"Agent Gibbs, right?" Gracie asked, as they watched her drop to her knees next to the boy with the walker.
"Yeah. Listen," Gibbs began.
Gracie grimaced. "Uh, look, I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs, but I've got to get Kyle sitting and take his braces off. He's been holding himself up with just his arms all this time. Just a few minutes, ok?"
Tim and Ziva's mouths dropped open in shock. Miss Lind had put Gibbs…. GIBBS!….off for a third time! Tony just got that far away look on his face again. "She shoots him down even on video…I think I just met the girl I'm going to marry," he said dreamily. Tim and Ziva rolled their eyes.
The group watched - some of them more impatient than others - as the teacher, Gracie Lind, moved the walker to the side and took the young boy, Kyle, by the waist, pulling him to her. She slipped a hand under his knees. "Ok, bud. On the count of three, ok? One…two…three…" On three, she gently but forcibly pulled the boy's legs out from under him, supporting him in her hands. She took great care to settle him on the floor and make sure he was comfortable. "Ok, now let's get these braces off, ok?" Gracie turned and folded up the walker and propped it against the wall, then turned back to the boy and began tugging on the latches and hinges on the intricate braces on his legs. Just as she was starting on the second brace, the little girl sneezed.
The group watching the video "Eeeeew!"-ed all at the same time at the gunk that dripped out of the girl's nose. But they saw that Gracie never even looked at the girl. She used one hand to continue unlatching the brace, and with the other, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a tissue, and wiped the girl's nose, with barely a glance at her, tucking the used tissue into a pocket in the girl's jeans. With the braces finally off and set aside, Gracie took a minute to gently massage Kyle's legs, hoping to avoid spasms or cramps from having him stand so long.
Gracie finally turned and looked at the camera. "Ok, Agent Gibbs. You've got my divided attention. But talk fast, never know what might happen with these guys," she joked. At least, Gibbs hoped it was a joke.
Gibbs grimaced. "Look, Miss Lind, I don't think you understand the seriousness of this situation…"
Gracie interrupted, "Agent Gibbs, I know you're going to tell me that you're in charge, and out there, that may very well be. But until each of these three kids is out of this elevator and off school property, they are my first priority. If I have to choose between an order from you, or the safety of these kids….the kids win every time," she said angrily.
Rubbing a hand over his face and up through his hair, Gibbs said, "I'm not denying that the safety of the students is important. But when you're 'playing around' in there, it makes our job out here - getting you out of there - a little difficult," he argued.
"Playing…. 'playing around'? You think I'm 'playing around'?" Gracie took a step closer to the camera. "You ever been stuck in an elevator with three 3 year olds, Agent Gibbs?"
Gibbs looked over his shoulder at his field agents with a raised eyebrow, thinking to himself that sometimes the three of them were like three year olds. "I think I know the feeling," he joked, giving his affronted agents a half-smile.
Gracie crossed her arms over her chest. "Then you know they need to be constantly entertained and engaged, or tantrums could occur. These kids can't just sit calmly and patiently, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for you to get us out of here. They've got about a five second attention span. So things have got to be happening all the time to keep things on an even keel….."
Standing between Tony and Tim, Justine sighed. "Might as well get comfortable and settle in," she said, leaning against the truck. "This could take a while."
Tim joined her at the truck. "Why's that?"
Shaking her head, Justine said, "Gracie is like, a big advocate for our kinds of kids. Doesn't like it when they're discriminated against, skipped over, taken advantage of…." She looked over where Gibbs was running a hand over his face and up through his hair in frustration. "Your boss just opened up a big ol' can o' worms. She can do this," Janine pointed to where Gracie was still lecturing Gibbs, "all day long."
Barking from behind him alerted Gibbs to the presence of the bomb sniffing dogs. "Dogs are here," Gibbs said to Gracie, getting up and leaving the computer. He walked over to his friend Tobias Fornell. "It's about damned time, Tobias," he groused.
Fornell raised an eyebrow. "Hey. Do you know how hard it was to get these dogs here? A 'thank you' would be nice."
"Thank you," Gibbs growled. "It's still about damned time."
Fornell shook his head with a smile. "You're welcome." He fell into step with Gibbs as they walked toward the SWAT Command Center, Gibbs filling his old pal in on the situation, bringing up the teacher's attitude as they joined Tim, Ziva, and Tony. Fornell chuckled. "Someone hung up on Gibbs before he could hang up on them! Can't wait to meet this woman!"
Ziva and Tim rolled their eyes. "Don't get Tony started," warned Tim.
"Yes," added Ziva. "He thinks he's in love with this woman because she puts Gibbs on hold."
Tony looked offended. "What?" he asked. "Can I help it if her bravery in the face of danger makes me hot?" he defended himself.
Seeing the dogs about to enter the building, Gibbs started to go back to the elevator video, but changed his mind. "Hey, Romeo," he called to Tony, "go tell your 'girlfriend' that the bomb squad is coming in with the dogs."
Tony's face lit up. "Really, boss?" he asked happily. At the stare he got from Gibbs, Tony started off. "On it, boss!" He rubbed his hands together with glee.
The rest of the team watched as Tony swaggered to the video set up. "Twenty bucks says she drives him crazy in five minutes or less," said Tim quietly to Ziva. She smirked.
"I will take that bet," she said just as quietly, "but I think he will last until one of the students needs her attention. Tony will not be able to stand it."
"Sucker bet," said Gibbs from behind them.
The young agents looked contrite. "Sorry boss." "Sorry, Gibbs."
Gibbs smirked. "I'm in for twenty. But I give him until her first rant. Tony can't go more than 5 minutes without talking about himself. It'll drive him nuts."
The two younger agents, Fornell, and Gibbs all smiled a knowing smile.
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A/N - Not really sure I like this chapter, but it has it's moments. So please leave a review and let me know what you thought of it. Thanks!
A/N 2- I receive no monetary benefits from this NCIS ff. NCIS, it's affiliates, CBS and their affiliates do. I have no ties whatsoever to ANY of those entities. Sad, really, when you think about it.
R E V I E W ! ! ! !