Reading Time: 129 Minutes
Title: A Greater Sacrifice
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Eureka – minor crossover
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Episode Related, Fantasy, Kid!fic, Paranormal/Supernatural, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairings
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Discussion of suicidality, suicide missions, canonical level of violence
Word Count: 200,260
Summary: When Anthony DiNozzo is told by Director Vance that he must take one for the team, following the death of Mossad Officer Michael Rivkin, never did he imagine that the cost would prove so high. After a year filled with taking one for the team, Tony decides that he is not going to Tel Aviv, until he is blackmailed into going along by opportunistic politicians who see a chance to change the balance of power. Forced onto the plane taking Rivkin’s body home, an injured Tony isn’t sure that he will make it out alive or if there is anything left for him to come home to.
Artist: Lailath Quetzalli
Chapter 16
Dr Yair Selman, Head of Pulmonary Medicine at the Aharon Private Medical Clinic, looked around the case conference room at the trio who had arrived to be with the patient, Mr Paddington. The first to arrive less than a day after Paddington had been admitted was an American Naval doctor. Commander Brad Pitt was an internationally renowned expert in infectious diseases who also possessed extensive experience in pulmonary medicine, particularly regarding this patient. Yair was furious that Paddington had been forced into using an experimental protocol to carry out a mission when it was clear he was not a fit for due to his pulmonary medical history.
Selman was frankly very shocked that Dr Avigail Deitsch hadn’t been far more diligent about the welfare of her research subject. Officer Amit Hadar had stated that Paddington had expressed his concern about the poor state of his lungs, but, it seemed his concerns were brushed aside. Deitsch had gone ahead with the protocol they were being so tight-lipped about. Of course, the fact some asshole quack medico back in the US must have deemed him medically fit to fly, despite the presence of bruised and cracked ribs combined with his lung disease, deserved to have his licence yanked. Yair had no doubt that the twelve-hour flight in an unpressurised plane had certainly exacerbated the swelling of his trachea, which almost killed him onboard the helicopter flight to the Aharon Clinic when he needed intubating. So, he could empathise with Dr Pitt, who was even more pissed off than himself that his patient had been risked in such a cavalier fashion.
There were the two female doctors, a mother and daughter, if he wasn’t mistaken, since both shared the same last name. Although he wasn’t exactly sure of their relationship with Paddington, it seemed to be more of a personal one. Not family, though, since neither were his next of kin. Yair had already talked several times to Director Thomas Morrow, Deputy Director of the Department of Homeland Security, who was his official medical proxy. Still, the two ladies were clearly highly invested in this man, and Yair was more than a little bit curious about their connection to him.
Dr Adam Hersch was the fifth occupant in the room; apart from the brief introduction of the scientist, Dr Selman didn’t inform the rest of the group why Adam joined the medical conference. So far, no one asked what his role was, and sitting there with a thick file in front of him, Yair thought that the three doctors probably assumed he was there to give a second opinion or an update. Neither of which was the case. Adam Hersch was a research scientist at the Chavaleh Foundation (meaning gives life) who cooperated closely with the Israeli Government on medical research projects. He was also Officer Liat Tuvia’s uncle by marriage, having married her father’s sister, Ghila Hersch nee Tuvia. Ghila, like her husband Adam, worked as a geneticist for the Chaveleh Foundation. For now, Adam Hersch seemed more than content to remain silent, observing the dynamic of the three foreigners and taking their emotional temperatures, which would be important soon.
Dr Selman started with a quick progress report about Mr Paddington’s medical status. “So, as well all know, Mr Paddington’s physical condition remains relatively stable – there are some bibasilar crackles in his lungs, which Dr Pitt assures me are are normal due to the interstitial scaring present after he survived a y-pestis infection some four years ago.”
Yair looked over at Brad for confirmation.
“Yes, that’s correct, but I am currently detecting minor rhonchi in conjunction with the bibasilar crackles, probably indicating fluid accumulating.”
Jeanne Berkley looked concerned, as did her mother Helen. “So we could be looking at the start of a respiratory infection or pneumonia?”
Dr Helen Berkley added, “That or bronchitis?”
“It’s not unexpected, given his interstitial scaring and being on a ventilator for the last six days. Which is why we have been trying so hard to wean him off the ventilator,” Dr Pitt shrugged. “We’ve added mucolytic meds to the regimen, obviously, but time isn’t on our side.”
Jeanne scowled. “What were they thinking, letting someone with interstitial lung disease fly on a long-haul flight after being in a fight causing trauma to his thorax and throat, let alone undergo a crazy scheme of being sedated to the point of near death?” she demanded rhetorically.
Still, while her mother, Brad and Dr Selman agreed with her, it wasn’t at this point in time really material to the case conference.
That said, Dr Pitt replied briefly. “As highly improbable as it sounds, Deputy Director Morrow has informed me that no one bothered to consult a doctor before he left the US, despite Mr Paddington expressing his concerns that due to the state of his lungs, it would be a virtual suicide mission if he was forced to undertake it. Regardless of what happens with Tony, people will be charged with this failure, he said tightly.”
Yair nodded. “I have held similar talks with our people, and they will also be bringing Dr Avigail Deitsch in to question why she ignored Mr Paddington’s protests about having interstitial lung disease,” he revealed.
What he didn’t tell them, because it didn’t change anything at this point, was that Orli Erbaz had revealed that she believed Dr Deitsch could be desperate for the mission to succeed so the government could seize Eli David’s secret kompromat files. Instead, he moved the discussion along to the current failure, the third one that had taken place that morning to take Paddington off ventilation. They discussed the other two previous attempts, too.
Brad chimed in, “ I think we have been so mindful of the threat of pneumonia or a lung infection that we have been too aggressive in the three failed shots, but that isn’t going to work. We need to turn down the ventilation in much more gradual increments than we have been doing.”
Yair said, “I endorse that approach. We still have a couple of drugs we have yet to try, and I think that perhaps combination drug regimens rather than a single drug are also worth trying. I suggest that along with doing everything we can to reduce any mucus buildup and continuing IV antibiotics, we give it 48 hours to see if there is a discernible improvement.”
Helen Berkley, who was an internist of considerable experience, nodded.
“Challenging his lungs in gradual increments, giving them a nudge into starting to take up the slack, does make sense,” she conceded. “But as a plan B, we’ve tossed around a transplant, and that must surely be our best option if this doesn’t work,” she said.
She glanced at her daughter Jeanne, who seemed distraught but also displayed some other emotion he couldn’t identify. Seeing Dr Pitt glancing at her comprehendingly, Selman more than ever realised there were undercurrents about her relationship with Paddington. Whatever secrets she had though didn’t materially affect the treatment course they were considering, and resolutely Selman put his curiosity to one side.
“Yes, the transplant. As I’m sure you’re aware, this normally is carried out as a heart-lung transplant. Theoretically, this would seem to give Mr Paddington his best chance, especially if we cannot coax his scarred lungs into performing their critical function but there are obstacles,” he stated.
“If it is a question of money, “Jeanne interrupted, “I have access to a considerable amount, I can easily pay for it.”
“No, that was not one of the obstacles I was referring to. It seems that your Secretary for Defence and our Minister of Defence have pledged to pay for whatever medical needs Mr Paddington acquired while undertaking the mission on their behalf,” Selman assured them.
Brad snorted in frustration. “Well, that’s mighty generous of our government since they were already responsible for his ongoing medical costs for his lung disease when he was infected with y-pestis at work,” he huffed.
“I agree, seeing as they blackmailed him into taking on this crazy mission which he knew was extremely risky, they definitely should pay for any treatment he requires,” Helen Berkley, equally acerbically. “So if the issues aren’t financial, then, what are they?”
“Mostly practical considerations. Mr Paddington is not on any transplant list, and it would take time to provide the medical workup needed. Plus, we don’t even know whether he suffered a hypoxic brain injury before he was able to be intubated. Given how rare transplant organs are, transplant programs are probably not likely to see him as a good candidate for receiving a set of heart/lungs,” he said honestly.
All three doctors knew he spoke the truth; candidates placed on the list to obtain precious transplant organs were screened exhaustively.
Brad reluctantly conceded, “And even if they were to overlook the uncertainty of his possible hypoxic injury, Paddington needs one STAT. Unless we coax his lungs into working a lot more efficiently than they are right now. He might not even survive the wait, especially if he contracts another bout of pneumonia – even bronchitis could prove deadly for him on the ventilator,” he said grimly.
“Even if we can overcome those particular hurdles, there is still the issue of his security the longer he remains in Haifa…in Israel. We don’t know how long it will take for the government to deal with the security threat; the plan I understand from Officers Hadar and Deputy Director Erbaz was to get him out of the country as soon as possible because while we are a private clinic and pride ourselves on maintaining our clients’ privacy, people do talk sometimes. The longer he is here and ventilated, the more people will talk about him…it’s human nature. Should we belabour the point of his anonymity too strongly, it draws more attention to it,” Yair pointed out, looking concerned.
“What you are trying to say is that a transplant is not an option then?” Jeanne Berkley snapped at him, her incredibly blue eyes seeming to spit sparks at him as the bringer of bad news.
“No, Dr Berkley, I’m not saying that. If you wish, we will pursue it as aggressively as we can, if Mr Paddington’s medical proxy decides (based on your advice) that is what he wishes to do. I’m merely pointing out all the difficulties that may make it very difficult to get a set of organs. But I could be quite wrong about that…I hope that I am.”
The beautiful, fiery young doctor subsided back into her chair with a harrumph, and knowing she was scared about the prospect of losing her friend, Selman didn’t hold it against her. She obviously cared about Paddington a great deal, and Yair was empathetic about her lashing out, even if it had been directed against him.
Helen regarded him carefully. “Do you have a third option we’ve yet to consider, Yair?” she asked, glancing over at Adam Hersch. “Is that why Dr Hersch is sitting in on this meeting?”
Brad and Helen turned their attention to the fifth individual in the room. He stared back at them placidly and shrugged before exchanging an enigmatic look with Selman.
Yair nodded. “Maybe. I asked Dr Hersch to look at Mr Paddington’s case to determine if he might be a suitable candidate for their latest experimental treatment,” he explained.
“Dr Hersch isn’t on staff at the Aharon Clinic?” Brad clarified.
“No, I am the director of research for the Chaveleh Foundation here in Haifa,” he answered, his voice was low-pitched and somewhat rumbling. About eighteen months ago, Yair’s colleague Dr Devorah Kauffman referred a patient to me who was in desperate need of a liver transplant but was refused a donor liver. We were looking for candidates to participate in our experimental therapy in conjunction with Global Dynamics, our US partners in our research, and we were… successful in saving the patient’s life,” he said cautiously.
Brad looked perplexed. “That name seems familiar. Global Dynamics…I just can’t figure out how I’ve heard of them,” he said, looking frustrated.
“If you work at Bethesda then it’s probable that Global Dynamics was looking for recruits to join various clinical trials since they work under the exclusive auspices of the US Department of Defense, just as the Chaveleh Foundation works under our Defence Department umbrella. Both organisations work on highly classified projects,” Dr Hersch explained.
Helen seemed to become impatient. “What exactly does Chaveleh’s research have to offer Mr Paddington?” the internist asked brusquely. “Are we talking about some experimental drug to improve his lung function?”
Adam Hirsch grinned at her, his saturnine features breaking into a grin. “Not one to beat around the shrub, I see,” he said, a twinkle in his almost black eyes. “No, it isn’t a clinical trial of some drug – almost all of Chaveleh’s research is based on gene therapy, but I’m afraid that’s all I can reveal unless you are prepared to sign NDAs. Both governments have agreed that you can be read in, provided you read and sign our non-disclosure agreements.”
Brad wanted time to think about it. “I need to discuss this with Mr Paddington’s medical proxy,” he said slowly. “Can we have a little time to think about this?”
Hersch nodded. “D.D. Morrow has already been read in, having a peripheral knowledge of Global Dynamics and Eureka. He anticipated you would want to discuss this option with him and has already organised a video conferencing call in fifteen minutes. We will reconvene in four hours if you decide to sign the NDAs that both governments are adamant about before I can supply you with additional details.”
Dr Selman rose along with Hersch. Before he left the room, he pointed to the small kitchenette off the conference room, little more than a closet-sized annex. “Please feel free to help yourselves to refreshments,” he said before departing discreetly behind the research scientist.
~oOo~
The three doctors all took the opportunity to grab a coffee and help themselves to the plate of hummus, pita bread, carrot sticks, celery, and olives in the small refrigerator. They nibbled on them, chatting in a desultory fashion as they waited to speak to Tom Morrow. None of them were expecting miracles since as far as they knew, while gene therapy held out a lot of hope for the future, it was still very much in its infancy.
Several hours later, after a conversation with Tom Morrow, who had already been read in on the gene therapy proposal, they had adjourned to Tony’s room to check on his status. With Yair already starting on the new drug regimen, using a combination of drugs that he was attempting to titrate for maximum effect and minimal side effects, Brad also adjusted the dose of the mucolytic drugs, to try to stave off what all three medicos knew would probably be fatal – a bout of pneumonia or an infection.
Helen checked the incision where they’d inserted a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy feeding tube (a peg tube) that was placed yesterday, so he was able to be fed. The stoma looked normal, with no sign of infection or inflammation, which was a positive sign, as was the fact they could get some much-needed nutrients into his body
Meanwhile, Brad was listening to his lungs. After he completed his examination, Jeanne asked if she could borrow Brad’s stethoscope and listen to his lungs too.
“So these rales that I hear in his middle right lobe and lower left lobe – these are usually present?” she asked Brad.
“Yes, ever since he was infected with y-pestis four years ago,” he confirmed.
“So he already had interstitial lung disease when we were together,” she mused. “I guess that explains why he freaked out when he had a minor cold, I just thought he was a hypochondriac, “ she confessed.
“Yeah, no. That would have been me drumming into him, the danger URTIs posed to his lungs,” Brad confessed darkly. “Of course, it still didn’t stop him from acting rashly in the heat of the moment. I was livid when he dived into the Potomac River in mid-November last year to pull two drowned victims out of a submerged car. After he freed them, he somehow got them both up onto the dock, which was no mean feat since no one was around to assist him. Tony then successfully resuscitated both individuals despite the difficulty that would have posed, even someone with perfect lung function.”
Helen looked astonished. “That is an incredible feat, even for someone without lung disease. He must be incredibly fit to compensate.”
Yes, he was a promising college athlete until I ended his shot at a professional basketball career when I broke his leg in a Michigan versus Ohio State football match. Got a helluva a lot of hate mail over that tackle,” he sighed remorsefully. “But after surviving the Plague, which had been genetically engineered to be resistant to antibiotics, Tony worked his butt off to survive it and then to recover.”
“So last November, diving into dirty frigid water, how did that affect his lungs?” Jeanne asked a little huskily.
“Six percent reduction in lung functioning,” Brad replied soberly. It could have been a career-ender, if not fatal, but he rode in with the two victims. Had the EMTs alert me about his condition and we were ready when he arrived. Spent a week in hospital with a moderate case of bronchitis and doing intensive respiratory therapy.”
Helen shook her head. “And the two victims, did they survive?”
“Yeah, both of them. One was a young woman in her mid-twenties who completed her Master’s degree in science several months later. Morrow said that she stood up at his funeral yesterday – well, his fake one, of course – and gave a moving speech about him saving her life.”
“And the other victim?” Jeanne asked curiously.
“His boss, Gibbs,” he said reluctantly.
And for his heroic if dumbass efforts, Brad concluded silently, the guy he saved was complicit in him being dragged to Israel to be unlawfully interrogated about killing a highly skilled assassin who had no legal business being in the USA, let alone running around killing people. Sure, Gibbs didn’t know of the plan by Vance and Davenport to let Ziva’s father kill Tony but he also didn’t stop them dragging him off to a foreign country to be illegally interrogated or bother to ensure he was medically cleared to fly.
Brad would never forgive Gibbs for tossing Tony to the wolves, and he hoped like hell that the former Marine didn’t have a moment of peace once he realised that he’d picked the wrong side. At least, he hoped that Gibbs regretted not standing up for what was right.
Sighing at the fallacy of Tony believing that Gibbs would have his six, even after he failed to speak up when Director Vance ordered DiNozzo to report for Agent Afloat duty with less than 24 hours’ notice, was unconscionable. It left Tony with no regular means of organising sufficient quantities of medications to last him for the length of his six-month deployment. The Buckeye was lucky that he had Brad’s private contact details so they could scramble to get prescriptions written and filled in time. However, Gibbs knew that the infirmary aboard a carrier wasn’t equipped to treat Tony’s lung condition, should he require it because he had signed off on the notification that was now in Tony’s personnel file. It prohibited him from working as an NCIS agent on board navy vessels unless it was for investigative purposes and only for a maximum of four days.
As Tony’s former team leader and immediate superior, he should have been protesting, raising holy hell regarding the assignment and lodged a formal complaint with the Human Resources department. Fuck, he should have gone to SECNAV if that’s what it took to get those orders rescinded; but he did none of those things. As far as Brad was concerned, Gibbs was a disgrace to the Corps he purported to represent. He might assert there was no such thing as a former Marine but Dr Pitt disagreed, averring Leroy Jethro Gibbs did a gawd awful job of upholding their motto sempre fi.
“Surely Agent Gibbs knew about his lungs. So why didn’t he ensure Tony had medical clearance to fly?” Jeanne demanded.
“Yes, there are OHSA regulations, not to mention agency protocols that need to be met after an agent is injured,” Helen insisted.
“There are, but they were ignored, which is why Deputy Director Morrow is so furious. He is determined to see they don’t get away with their negligence.”
“That doesn’t help Tony, though,” Jeanne said frustrated.
Changing the subject, Brad told the two Dr Berkley, “After speaking to Tom, I’ve decided to sign the NDA. I want to know what the hell Chaveleh and Global are doing. I work at Bethesda with veterans and active duty service personnel who might benefit from gene therapy. If it is as advanced as they’re hinting, even if it’s still in the experimental stages,” he told them with a shrug. “I want to know”.
Seeing their expressions, he told them, “But I understand why you might be reluctant to sign up since sections of our government have already put you in danger. Being read in on the program could further endanger you and given, your situation, Jeanne, I think you should think very carefully before signing up.”
Helen, who had been staring at Tony as he spoke, nodded. “I agree, Brad. I can see why you want to know all the nitty-gritty details – since you’re in the Navy and work with service men and women. But for us, there are fewer tangible benefits in either of us knowing, and it may even be dangerous, so I think we should pass and leave the details in your capable hands.”
“Tony asked Director Morrow to be his medical proxy, so while he will listen to my opinion, ultimately, he will make the decision he believes to be in DiNozzo’s best interests,” Brad pointed out.
Seeing that Jeanne had remained silent, holding Tony’s hand, Helen approached her, picking up her other hand. “What are you thinking, Darling. If you want to know, I’ll sign the NDA too. I’ll defer to your decision,” she said as Jeanne began to cry.
Brad stepped out of the room to give them some privacy. It was such a Charlie Foxtrot that Brad didn’t honestly see how it could ever be resolved. Tony and Jeanne had hurt each other badly and betrayed the other’s trust. Tony had deceived Jeanne about who he was and why he’d dated her, at least to begin with. Then he made the fatal mistake of falling in love with the beautiful doctor. While she was undeniably attractive, Brad didn’t think that was why he’d lost his mind and fallen head over heels for a mark during an undercover mission. Tony hadn’t shared a lot of details about the op with him, but he’d revealed that the mission had turned out to be an unsanctioned one, and that was not what he’d been led to believe. Plus, when he’d started wooing Jeanne, he was under the distinct impression she knew that her father was a notorious illegal arms dealer, indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths over his career.
By the time Tony realised that Jeanne didn’t know anything about what her father really did for a living, he was far too compromised to get out. He’d had some unrealistic fantasy that when Jeanne eventually found out why he was trying to bring her father down, she would forgive him, and they would live happily ever after. A delusion that seemed very much at odds with his playboy image; it made Brad intensely curious. He often wondered about who Tony DiNozzo was underneath his many masks, though he would never betray his trust by going rooting around. So, it had been a surprise that over a few beers, as they watched the Michigan v Ohio State game last year, he’d mentioned his ill-fated engagement to a music teacher when he was a homicide detective in Baltimore.
Brad thought he’d gotten some insight that after having had his heart broken by his fiancée, Tony had consciously or subconsciously decided to never allow anyone to get that close again. He couldn’t blame him…he had a vague idea from a few snippets that Tony let slip, plus his insistence that he didn’t want his father informed he was dying of the pneumonic plague and that his childhood was far from a happy one. Yet it was way more complicated than he had believed when Tony mumbled something after consuming more beers celebrating his beloved Buckeyes trouncing Brad’s Wolverines. A conversation that started innocuously enough soon turned Brad’s blood to ice.
“Should have known after the first time we dated it was a bad idea hooking up again,” he said drunkenly.
“You dated Wendy before?” Brad had asked curiously, not prepared for Tony’s unfiltered response.
“When we were at RIMA,” he said, owlishly as if Brad should know this already.
Confused, to say the least, Brad asked, “But hang on, Buckeye – back then RIMA was an all-boys school wasn’t it? So Wendy couldn’t have gone there.”
“Didn’t go there; she worked there. Wendy was my music teacher,” he giggled drunkenly. “Taught me piano and Sex Ed,” he joked.
“How old were you when she taught Sex Ed?” he said, getting a bad feeling.
“No, it was just me she taught Sex Ed to. Keep up, Wolverine.”
Something seemed to occur to him. “At least I always thought Wendy only taught me Sex Ed…but maybe not,” he looked disconcerted.
“How old were you when the Sex Ed started, Tony?” Brad asked gently, even now knowing that as a mandated reporter, that bitch was going down.
“Fifteen. Ms Miller made me promise that if anyone ever asked about my first time, I’d tell them it was with a Rockette. She got hold of a Rockette costume so I wouldn’t have to lie,” he said before slipping into a doze, unaware that Brad, who had been shocked into sobriety, even though he’d pretty much matched DiNozzo, brew for brew.
When Brad started making discreet enquiries about Wendy Miller with a friend of his who worked in Child Protective Services, he learnt that there had been almost a dozen complaints about her predatory behaviour, losing her teaching license, turning instead to investigative journalism. She also had a three-year-old son and was divorced. After reporting that a patient had confessed that she had sex with him when he was fifteen and was his music teacher at RIMA, which by definition was statutory rape, he’d thought hard about getting Tony to make a formal complaint against her.
However, in the aftermath of the debacle of his undercover mission with Jeanne, Brad honestly didn’t think it was in Tony’s best interests to deal with the fallout. Instead, he sent a series of anonymous letters informing the editor of the Evening Tribune that their investigative reporter was a serial sexual predator of young boys when she was a music teacher. He was still thinking about her son but figured that he would talk to Tony about her son since he was too young for her to sexualise him (he hoped). Paedophile predators usually had a victim type they stuck with, and Brad was hoping that was the case with this bitch, too. He figured they still had time to do something about her later before he was at risk, but now, after this debacle, later might never happen. Still, learning about his encounter with a predatory teacher helped to explain how Tony ended up, being ensnared by a spider’s web of the toxically unhealthy undercover relationship that had been utterly doomed from the get-go.
Part of him wanted to hate Jeanne Berkley for all the damage she caused his friend, but Brad had to keep reminding himself that she was just as much an unwitting victim in what had turned out to be an unsanctioned undercover mission by a woman with a brain tumour who was desperate to take revenge on Jeanne’s father. Yet, how ironic was it that this was the second time DiNozzo had been hurt by a deranged female with a brain tumour – the first one was responsible for the biohazard attack at NCIS that wrecked DiNozzo’s lungs four years ago and almost killed him.
Man, Tony had the worst luck!
Contemplating the situation as it now stood, his friend’s ill-fated relationship with Jeanne left him vulnerable to being coerced into doing the bidding of the cadre of politicians who were desperate to get rid of Eli David and supremely uncaring about how that was achieved, so long as they were safe. According to Morrow, who used to be Tony’s boss, if they had merely threatened him, he would probably have disappeared, and they wouldn’t have found him. But Tony’s feelings for her made it impossible to put his own well-being ahead of the woman he fell in love with, even after she tried to send him to jail by falsely accusing him of murdering her father.
Hell, the fact he’d personally pulled strings with the FBI and the ADA not to charge her with perjury or interfering in a crime was probably a giant red flag to the people in the State Department that Jeanne could be used as leverage to blackmail him. Even now, if he were to survive, and that was far from a certainty, the lie he’d told her after her false accusation of murder, in a clumsy attempt to cut their emotional cord that connected them once and for all, permanently setting her free, had been in vain. Even more than ever, their lives were inexorably intertwined. It was a mess of epic proportions, and with Jeanne’s guilt, her terrible betrayal of him, her own hurt and now her unbidden gratitude for his sacrifice to save her, there was too much baggage. Pitt couldn’t see any way they stood a chance of making things work, but he also knew that they couldn’t just cut their ties easily, either.
Brad despaired over the prospect of the kid who started out as a football rival and then became his patient, and now was a good friend, having to go through even more heartache. Crazy to think that this started out as misguided loyalty to a teammate who wasn’t even a federal agent but a liaison for Mossad. He heard the door open softly. Looking up from the chair he’d sunk into several minutes ago, Brad noted that Dr Helen Berkley had emerged from Tony’s room unaccompanied.
“I thought I’d give Jeanne a little bit of time alone with Anthony,” she informed him sadly. ”This is really taking its toll on her. I wish she hadn’t falsely accused him, and I know she regrets it too, but it was a terrible thing she did.”
Brad neither agreed nor disagreed with her verbally. Instead, he said, “Tony was angry and hurt, but it didn’t stop him calling in favours with the FBI and the federal district attorney’s office to ensure she wasn’t charged with obstructing a federal investigation or even just making false statements in a murder investigation.”
Helen looked pained. “Tom Morrow already informed us of what he did. I hope I can thank him for making sure Jeanne wasn’t charged. I regret not telling her of my suspicions about Rene when she was old enough to understand,” she said sorrowfully.
“You knew who her father was?” Brad asked.
She grimaced. “Good heavens, no. I would have never married him if I did. Gradually, over the years, I realised he was hiding things, but I just thought he had a mistress. It was not uncommon in France, and I was right, and he did have a mistress,” she said.
“By then, I did suspect that there was something dodgy about how he made his money, so I divorced him and returned to the States with my daughter when she was thirteen. But I thought it was some financial crime, tax evasion or insider trading. It never entered my head that he was a major arms dealer.”
“It must have come as quite a shock,” Brad stated diplomatically.
“Oh, it did. I had a child with this man. I felt like such a fool. If only I had dug deeper when the French police came sniffing around, but worse, I never told my daughter of the suspicions I had about her father.
“It would have been difficult to tell Jeanne that you thought her father was a criminal,” he said tactfully.
“Better than the way she found out. It would have given her a chance to come to terms with the reality that a man like Rene Benoit, who lived by the sword, was probably also going to die by the sword,” she said cynically.
In good conscience, Brad didn’t dispute that, nor did he even try. He nodded though sympathetically.
“It seems to me that Jennifer Shepard and Jeanne, when she accused Anthony of murdering Rene – they weren’t so dissimilar when you think about it. They were strong, driven professional women who refused to acknowledge their fathers’ choices and ethics (or lack thereof) and ultimately, their own actions that caused their downfalls. Now, that I know that Anthony prevented her from being charged, I’m doubly grateful for what he did for Jeanne.”
“Tony is a good man,
Later, when Brad returned to the Aharon conference room, he was sans the Berkleys, and he thought everything considered, it was probably for the best. Being read in on such a highly classified program was not without risks, as he was aware of himself. So, it was with some degree of trepidation, that Brad had waded through the massive non-disclosure document, signing his name to indicate he would not share any proprietary information. Tom had already indicated if he failed to keep that oath, he would likely end up in some super-secret prison. Still, his curiosity was immense, and he knew it would drive him mad not to know what was going on if Morrow decided on the gene therapy option to try to save Tony’s life.
After getting read in on the Chaveleh Foundation and Global Dynamics gene therapy program, he was astounded by how far advanced it was from everything he knew of the field. Granted, he was far from an expert in gene therapy, but this seemed far and away beyond where other research projects were. They had successfully extracted stem cells from specific organs, thus avoiding the need for cord blood or embryos, and been able to switch stem cells into overdrive. In the almost four years, that they had been working with the technology, they had yet to encounter any side effects. Although the Chaveleh researchers had not regenerated lung tissue, having successfully regenerated kidneys, livers and pancreas, Global Dynamics did have one successful case.
Unfortunately, the patient didn’t survive, but not due to their lungs failing to function again. The victim had been one of their own scientists, working on another project when he’d been injured in a catastrophic lab explosion, and he’d been badly burnt. He had second and third-degree burns to over sixty-five percent of his body, plus his lungs and trachea had been burnt as well. The scientist’s airway and lungs had healed, thanks to the revolutionary gene therapy, but their attempts to regrow such a large amount of skin had proved unsuccessful, and unfortunately, he died.
After Tom and Brad hashed out the options, Brad admitting that the current treatment regimen was a long shot at best, they started considering taking up the offer of Chaveleh and Global to treat Tony with their experimental gene therapy.
“Even if the current drug combination and the gradual challenging of his lungs to start functioning does work, Tony is still going to be left with scarred lungs that will progressively deteriorate, and his lifespan will be severely diminished. Even with a heart-lung transplant, if it is feasible (and there is no guarantee that it would be), it would require him to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life. Again, his lifespan would likely be severely decreased, since transplanted organs do not last as long as original ones,” Brad outlined succinctly and rather bleakly.
“And the gene therapy, if it works?”
“Even if it is only partially successful in regenerating his alveoli, then it is a much better outcome than the two other options in terms of longevity and quality of life, Sir. Tony would not cope well with infirmity, he would go crazy,” he said in all seriousness.
Tom huffed. “Oh, you’re not wrong about that. Even when they were confined to the office for any length of time, there were all manner of outlandish pranks that everyone knew he was responsible for, we could never prove it, though,” he joked. “ I always suspected that he recruited others to help carry out his mischief; he was exceedingly popular amongst the janitorial and security staff.”
Digressing, Brad asked, “Why do you sound so surprised by that?”
“Because most agents tend to act as if the security and especially the janitorial staff are invisible,” he said. “But DiNozzo was on a first-name basis with most of them and knew about their families. Since many of them work nights, they all showed up for his ‘funeral service’. Leon Vance was not happy.”
Laughing sarcastically, Brad pointed out, “Well, aside from all the nights he worked late, I’d hazard a guess, based on snippets about his childhood he has let slip sometimes, the domestic help practically reared him when he was at home long enough to need looking after. He may have come from a wealthy background, but I think he was more comfortable hanging out with the hired help.”
Tom, sitting at his desk back in D.C., considered Pitt’s theory momentarily before responding. “You know, that makes a whole lot of sense, and it also fits in with his network of informants. He used to contact the cafeteria staff or the barber at the Pentagon when he was looking for intel on high-placed Pentagon staff. Likewise, he would talk to the cleaners about who was having intermarital sex in Congress and the Senate. Tony said that most people treat them as if they are invisible, mute, or imbeciles and don’t bother censor what they say or do in front of them.”
“Like house elves in Harry Potter,” Brad quipped whimsically.
Chuckling, Tom nodded. “Too true. But returning to the gene therapy, if it is completely successful, what are we looking at in terms of Tony’s prognosis?”
“Theoretically, if it was a complete success, he could expect to have a normal lifestyle and live a normal lifespan, but, honestly, I’d be thrilled even if they can achieve even a fifty percent improvement in his lung function. It would be life-changing!”
“I must say, it sounds like a no-brainer, then. Let’s do it!” Tom said, trying to sound upbeat, hoping he’d reached the right decision.
Seeing that Brad seemed less than sanguine about the decision, now it was made, Tom asked, “You have reservations, Commander?”
Startling at the use of his rank, Brad shook his head. “No, It’s the best option, although obviously I wish it wasn’t necessary. No, my qualms are about how Tony is going to cope with all of this if he pulls through.”
Morrow steepled his forefingers and frowned. “How so?”
Brad took a deep breath, his face the picture of concern, of an empathetic doctor regarding their patient or the fears of a caring friend individual their friend. Tom wasn’t entirely sure which hat he was currently wearing.
“I’ve only seen him periodically, but since the debacle with Dr Berkley and his being sent away as agent afloat, he’s been struggling badly,” he confessed. “This complication with the Berkley ladies is unfortunate…it’s going to open all the old wounds and create some new ones unless I’m mistaken. But…” he paused delicately before continuing. “It’s also potentially life-changing, so I’m worried about how he deals with this. He’s already had to face so much betrayal over this situation.”
“You’re right, it is a mess of epic proportions. I did tell him, though, right before they sedated him. I debated whether I should, but he sounded defeated, like he’d already given up. I wanted to give him something that he would fight for, but, to be honest, I’m not sure that he really took it in.”
“Well, we know he’s a fighter. We have to pray that he keeps on fighting,” Brad said diffidently.
Chapter 17
Tony watched his mother Lucinda as she lovingly fingered the keys on what looked to be a perfect replica of his baby grand piano, technically it had belonged to his mother before he inherited it after her death. It had been one of the few things that had belonged to her that he had been allowed to have after her death. Mind you, it probably had more to do with his current stepmother wanting it gone from the Long Island home than because Senior gave a fuck about his mother leaving it to him than any genuine munificence on the part of his sperm donor.
After she requested that he play for her, Tony opted to play some of his original compositions, including the one that he wrote after he arrived home from the Chimera mission, where they had boarded a ghost ship and found a lone sailor who appeared to have died of haemorrhagic fever. It was a darkly atmospheric piece, foreboding, angry and cynical at The Powers That Be that sent them to investigate without giving them the benefit of a full briefing. They had barely escaped with their lives after the Russians blew it up. But it was full of frantic panic, fear of contracting yet another deadly disease and betrayal at his team members, including their ME, who had not an ounce of empathy for his very real fear of getting sick again. Gibbs’ callousness he was used to, after working with him for so many years, but deliberately forcing him to carry around a diseased and dead rat (later determined to have haemorrhagic fever) was purposely cruel.
It seemed fitting somehow to play that piece. He knew that Gibbs had let him down once again, which was why he was here in this place, but aside from the strong feeling that this betrayal was unpardonable, Tony was foggy about the details of why he was there. Not that he minded spending time with his dead mother, who declared that, unlike her, he was not dead. Not yet, anyway.
He wondered if this was some fantastic dream even as a part of him argued that he learned new things about his mum that he had never known. His ‘father’ was certainly never disposed to speak of her, claiming it was too painful, and Tony believed that. The stupid jerk didn’t have the cojones to be with her as she lay dying in a hospital, having the help drop Tony at the hospital daily to wait by her deathbed in her last days, not that he understood she was dying. He was too young to make that leap for himself, and no one bothered to tell him.
As to the notion of this being a dream, Tony’s cynical untrusting side pointed out that if it was a dream, the whole narrative that she was an accomplished Lieder singer would have been pure fantasy. Somehow, he hoped this interlude was real, that he had been given a wonderful glimpse of who she really was. Then there was Mimi, his very first nanny, who according to Lucinda, had been an old friend of hers from England who he hadn’t even remembered until his mother mentioned her name. Wasn’t that proof of a sort that this wasn’t some figment of his imagination or a scarily vivid dream. Should he ever wake up from this…thing… this so-called mind construct of Lucinda’s, he could look for proof that his mother had been a professional singer and attended the Royal College of Music back when she lived in London.
However, if it was only a dream, then chances were that he never even remembered the details of what he’d dreamed. On the off chance this was somehow real, he needed to seize this opportunity to learn why his loving mother – who roamed the New York coastline with him all summer long, searching for a dragon when he was six years old – had suddenly metamorphosed into a monster. Someone who absolutely terrified the small boy who adored her.
But how did he ask his mother why she turned into a monster before his eyes?
Finally, he settled for a pathetic, “What happened, Mum?”
She recoiled as if slapped. “Why did I become someone who terrorised her own son?”
Tony’s expression desolate, he nodded feeling his eyes brimming with unshed tears and his throat choked up, making speech impossible.
“Oh, my Darling, I’m so sorry,” she apologised, contritely.
There was an awkward silence as she tried to collect herself. Taking several deep breaths, she began speaking, her voice quivering.
“After that magical summer together, I left to go on a three-week tour of some US states and several cities in Canada. That was where everything started to fall apart,” she said stealing a quick glance at her son.
“That’s when I started to notice that something was wrong with my voice – there was a metallic quality that I could hear in my upper register. It was as clear as a bell to me, yet no one else seemed able to hear it. As a soprano, my upper register had always been clean, pure, but something was terribly wrong.”
Lucinda started softly began playing.
“At that point, my whole entourage probably thought I was losing touch with reality, but I knew my voice better than anyone. My voice was my instrument, and I had played it every day of my life since I was fourteen. After the tour ended, I started to attend doctors… ear, nose and throat specialists who examined me and could find nothing wrong.”
“What happened?”
“Doctor after doctor insisted everything was perfectly normal. A few doctors took me seriously, but they couldn’t find anything abnormal.”
Having a bad feeling, Tony asked, “So then what?”
“They started diagnosing me as hysterical, hypochondriac, depressed, suicidal, anxious. They even told me I was suffering from performance anxiety or a fear of performing. I went to psychiatrists who prescribed Valium and Xanax; it didn’t fix my voice. Then I went to a psychoanalyst who wanted to see me five days a week and blamed my psychosomatic symptoms on hysteria and on my deep-seated resentment at my father for forbidding my career as an operetta singer and then his and Mother’s death, abandoning me when they were killed.”
Tony snorted at that – he had never been a fan of shrinks, but psychoanalysts, were all certifiably insane in his opinion. Not to mention as well as money-grubbing charlatans and leeches, latching onto wealthy clients and bleeding them dry for years.
“I tried biofeedback and cognitive therapy, and I sought out voice coaches who also couldn’t hear what I did. As well as the Valium and the Xanax, I was drinking, which was stupid and dangerous, and I started doing cocaine with your father. Xanax made me angry and aggressive, but I refused to admit it – I kept telling myself it was because I wasn’t able to perform anymore. After all, I was physically compromised by all the crap I was putting into my body.
Lucinda started playing her baby grand, loud and discordant passages that evoked memories of those two years before she became too ill to physically scare him.
“One quack had the unmitigated effrontery to tell my problem was that I was conflicted because of my selfish desire to perform when really I knew that my duty was to have more children.”
“What? You’re kidding?” Tony blurted out. “This was 1980, not the 1950s, for …er heaven’s sake,” he managed to prevent profanity from slipping out of his mouth at the last minute.
Lucinda’s faint moue of censure showed that his save hadn’t been good enough to fool his very genteel upper-crust English mother. He gave a nod of acknowledgement before realising how bizarre the situation was.
“Of course, aside from making me angry and aggressive, the more I swallowed down the stuff the psychiatrists convinced me I needed because I was crazy, and the alcohol and cocaine that I was abusing, the less able I was to sing. I probably would have been able to keep performing for at least another year before the laryngeal cancer made it impossible for me to sing,” she said grimly.
“I half convinced myself I was crazy after no one would believe me. I sank into a morass of depression and spent most of the time half inebriated or high on cocaine, but even if I had been sober enough to be aware of the cough and hoarseness in my voice and the reduction of my vocal range, I very much doubt that anyone would have taken me seriously at that stage.”
“Confirmation bias,” Tony muttered to himself. “When were you finally diagnosed, Mum?”
“About nine months before I died, Anthony. By then, the tumour was big enough for my doctor to palpate when I complained about my sore throat. I had surgery to remove it, which further affected my vocal cords and had chemotherapy, which was horrendous and ultimately proved futile. Your father reacted badly to the diagnosis. I think he probably felt guilty that he doubted me when I first insisted there was something wrong with my voice. Soon he was spending a lot of time travelling for business.”
Tony thought back to when he finally realised that his mother was ill, and not in the ‘I wasn’t feeling well, and I drank your sea monkeys thinking it was my mint julep’ type of sickness. His father, to the best of his memory, hadn’t been around very much, and, even though he wasn’t close to his dad, he used to wish that he was around to witness the daily torture sessions at the piano with his mother and stop them. While Tony used to love to play before she turned into a shrieking banshee, at the height of her illness, she would whack his knuckles with a ruler when he made the minutest mistake. Verbally, his mother berated him for being lazy and stupid, and he developed a phobia about playing the piano. He only overcame when he was at RIMA, and the beautiful young music teacher, Wendy Miller, offered him private piano lessons.
His father all but abandoned Lucinda as she lay dying in a swanky private hospital – it was Tony, who as an eight-year-old child, was far too young to understand the severity of her illness, was beside her right until she drew her final breath. Senior claimed to be too busy to go and see her; later as Tony matured, he realised his father was too gutless to be there for the women he’d vowed to ‘be there in sickness and in health’. Of course, Tony understood now that Senior was hitting the bottle pretty hard and according to his mother, doing cocaine. He guessed he should have been shocked, but hey, in 1982, all the rich and famous crowd were supposedly partaking – it was practically de rigueur, and Senior was always someone desperate to be part of the in-crowd.
“That’s when I embarked upon my obsession with Louis XIV style furnishing, decorating all the bedrooms in the mansion on Long Island, including the one that my seven-year-old son slept in every night and ended up giving him nightmares,” she admitted, shamefaced. “Of course, letting him watch vampire movies with me when he should have been sound asleep in an age-appropriately decorated bedroom was an equally horrible parenting choice,” she conceded regretfully.
Seeing that Tony had opened his mouth to speak, she got in first, “Yes, I know you loved to watch old movies with me, but there was a difference between seeing the African Queen, Casablanca or the Maltese Falcon and letting you watch Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee playing Dracula, which was an outstandingly bad parenting choice.”
Considering how the combination of Dracula and his over-the-top Louis XIV décor in his room – from when he was seven up until he left the Long Island home at 12 years old, never to return after being disowned and sent off to RIMA – had freaked the shit out of him, he couldn’t argue with her.
“It did give me nightmares,” he said candidly. “But to be fair, you were sick,” he said.
“And drunk and stoned most of the time,” she told him sternly, not wanting him to let her off the hook for her failings.
“Yeah, okay. That, too. But Mum, whatever happened to Mimi?”
“We were partying one night, and your father goaded her into trying cocaine. She always disapproved of us taking the drug and tried several times to persuade me to get clean. He got her drunk, which wasn’t hard. Miriam didn’t have a head for liquor – she would sip a glass or two of wine at dinner, not the hard stuff. Once she was tipsy, he convinced her to try cocaine before she condemned it, which was a dumb argument…”
“But Mimi was drunk,” Tony finished. “What happened?”
“She overdosed,” Lucinda admitted tearily. “If we had called the EMTs immediately, she might have survived, but Tony was ranting about the investors pulling out of his latest resort he was building if he was hit with any drug charges. He had Jorge, his chauffeur, drop her in the parking lot of the local hospital, but they didn’t find Miriam in time to save her,” she told him, tears leaking out of her green eyes and running down her face.
“Guess that explains why Jorge disappeared back to Columbia so suddenly,” Tony mused cynically.
“No, his mother was ill,” Lucinda protested.
Tony didn’t correct her, but he heard the cook, Elena and Luisa, the housekeeper, gossiping about how the ‘migration police’ were suddenly looking for him. Tony figured out later, when he became a cop, that his father probably ratted him out to get rid of him. Likely his father gave Jorge a few thousand dollars to buy his silence and packed him off home, or more disturbingly, had a fixer arrange for him to take a dirt nap somewhere remote.
Even if Jorge’s remains were discovered at some later point, it would be difficult to identify the bones of someone who entered the States without authorisation. He knew, having worked a few cases like that over the years. Tony was also cynical enough to know that if his sperm donor paid a fixer, he made sure it couldn’t be traced back to him. His younger self had also learnt by eavesdropping on his father’s servants that all of them were in the country illegally, and therefore, Senior was able to pay them a pittance for their services. Obviously, his mother hadn’t a clue, though.
He wondered how his life might have been different if Mimi hadn’t died. He would have had someone who loved him to help him survive his mother’s illness and her death. Someone there to support him through the landmine that was a homeschooled little kid, grief-stricken by his mother’s death with little opportunity to socialise with kids his own age, thrown into attending snobbishly elite private academies where he was bullied unmercifully.
Mimi would have taken his side and told him that he wasn’t a freak or an idiot for not being up on pop culture instead of his encyclopaedic knowledge of old films and classical music. Nor for his private tutoring in ballroom dancing and English-style riding that his mother had insisted he needed after she turned into a frightening monster. Given his small stature back then, he was the perfect target for being bullied, and his peers couldn’t resist making his existence an absolute misery.
Even his mother would have had someone to support her as she had to face the reality of her terminal illness, sans the emotionally useless husband, had Mimi been alive. He was only eight, but he remembered his father’s long absences and the tears and fighting that inevitably followed when he came home, smelling, in his mother’s words, like he had been living in a cheap bordello. Tony was far too young back then to understand what she meant, but when he was older, Tony figured out that Senior had been seeking solace for Lucinda’s terminal illness in the arms of other women. Women whom his mother probably suspected were high-end prostitutes and she was probably right.
Plus, if Mimi hadn’t died, then she would have been with his mother to the end, giving her friend the comfort and support that Senior was incapable of and that her eight-year-old son couldn’t give her, because no one had shared with him how sick she was…that she was dying. It was only on that last day when he was dropped off at the hospital by Carlos, the chauffeur who’d replace Jorge, that his mother told him she wasn’t coming home from the hospital, that she was going to heaven to be with God and the angels, that he knew how sick she was. If his nanny hadn’t died, he felt sure she would have prepared him better than how it unfolded and helped him make it through the horrendous aftermath of her death.
He also couldn’t help wondering if his father had deliberately overdosed Mimi – combined with getting her drunk, it would have been a convenient way of ensuring she never persuaded his mother to enter rehab. Senior would not have wanted negative publicity regarding his family to be reported in the gossip magazines because it might put off investors. Although from the number of times, he’d been on the point of bankruptcy before a rich heiress or dowager ended up marrying him and saving his ass, Tony considered him more of a highly canny grifter than a successful businessman.
When he woke up… okay, if he woke up, Tony amended his thought, he fully intended to check out the investigation and autopsy of Miriam Liston to learn about her death. Had his parents ever been questioned, after all, she was their employee and residing at their home in the Hamptons or had Senior managed to bribe the police chief to look the other way? He wouldn’t put it past the devious bastard to make a sizeable donation, to the widows and orphans’ fund of the Southampton Village Police.
Although thinking about going back, he couldn’t seem to remember why or how he came to be here, just that he was somehow close to death. But not dead…at least not yet. Which begged the question, did he really want to go back. Why not stay here with his mother. It was nice here. His piano was here and his mum. What did he have to go back for?
“What are we doing here, Mum,” he asked her abruptly.
“Waiting, Anthony mine,” came her peaceably reply.
“For what?”
“For decisions to be made, factors to be weighed,” she told him ambiguously.
“Can you and I just stay here together? Please?”
She affectionately ruffled his thick dark blonde hair that when he was six, kept falling into his eyes and annoying him. “No, unfortunately, I wish we could. I’ve loved being able to be here with you, able to hold you, to speak with you. But this connection via this mind construct…it is only possible because you somehow opened up a dimension where you were close to death, and I could cross over to wait here with you.”
“But wait for what? I don’t remember, was I shot again or stabbed?”
“Neither, dear one. It’s your lungs. You’re on a ventilator because your lungs aren’t functioning, and the doctors are fighting to make them work again,” she said.
“What happened, did I come down with pneumonia again?” he asked his mother, anxiously. Tony didn’t want to go through that again!
“No, it was a mission,” she said, being annoyingly vague on details.
“He sighed. “Well, I wish I could just stay here with you. We might even find ourselves a dragon in this place if we concentrated hard enough,” he joked.
“I think you need to go dragon hunting with your son,” she told him sadly. “This place… this Honah Lee is illusionary,” she gestured, with her hands to indicate their environment. “ “It is nothing more than a resonance of our past. You, my son, should embrace your future, not dwell in the past, which is a mere phantasm.”
He laughed a little hysterically. “Kids hate me, Mum, and I’d make a lousy parent. I wouldn’t have a clue how to be a father.”
Lucinda smiled, “You would love them and accept them for who they were, Anthony mine.”
He shook his head, knowing, with his upbringing, he’d make a terrible parent. After all, Senior had kind, loving parents and a stable childhood and, he still turned out to be an awful parent.
Changing the subject, he asked, “So I’m not dead, but I am on a ventilator because my lungs aren’t functioning. If they’re trying to get them working but they can’t, then I’m going to die? Have I got that right?” he asked Lucinda.
She nodded tearfully. “But you have to fight, Sweetheart, don’t give up,” she implored him.
“Why?” he asked. “I’m tired, Mum. Tired of having to baby my lungs. To run because I have to remain healthy; I used to run because it made me feel good. Now it hurts after the first mile or two, but I have to force myself to keep going, to stay fit enough to qualify for field status.”
It had always been one of his favourite ways to unwind after working a case, but now it was a chore, and he had to force himself to run five miles four to five times per week. The first mile was tolerable…at least that was what he told himself, but every additional mile he ran was painful torture, especially during the colder weather.
“I’m tired of having to avoid allergens that irritate my lungs and avoid crowds during the cold and flu season,” he groused, hating himself for his physical vulnerabilities that made him feel weak. His father and Gibbs’ rules ringing in his ears about weakness, letting him know he was a fuckup.
“I’m fed up with having to remind my boss that being out in the cold or wet for hours at crime scenes is not good for my lungs. And having to put up with caustic comments from him and my oh-so-empathetic teammates if I refuse to go into smoke-filled bars. Or when they imply I’m some kind of hypochondriac when I end up freaking out on a research ship where there is haemorrhagic fever that I’m particularly vulnerable to because my immune system is shot. Why can’t I stop fighting and stay with you?”
When his mother hesitated, Tony whose self-esteem had always been lacking, imagined the worst. “It’s okay, I know I killed people, I can’t expect to be here with you,” he said looking around, defeated.
He stared at two figures walking along the shoreline Even though they were too far away for Tony to make out any details, he felt that there was something familiar about them. It was easier to focus on them than to face his mother.
“What? No, Anthony Mine, it isn’t that. You are a good, caring person. Any mother would be proud of who you’ve become, my darling. You have only ever killed people who threatened your life or someone innocent. You are a good person. Never doubt that for a minute,” she exclaimed fervently.
“It’s just that there are people who need you to go back, which is why you must try to fight. It isn’t your time.”
Tony felt a wave of pure anger wash over him, leaving him breathless and weak, driving him to his knees in the sand. Suddenly, as if someone had opened Pandora’s Box, it all came crashing down on him. The reason why he was on a respirator, and his lungs were refusing to work.
How he went to Ziva’s apartment, seeking answers to the question as to why Tabal’s laptop had been found with the ISP wi-fi addresses on it that showed it had been connected to the internet at her address.
He remembered how he wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, that there was a rational explanation for what Abby had found. Otherwise, if what he believed was true, Gibbs would be devastated by her betrayal since he trusted Ziva implicitly.
Yet instead of Ziva being there, he’d found Michael Rivkin instead and when he tried to arrest him on suspicion of killing the federal agent from ICE, the Kidon assassin attacked him and tried to kill him.
His mother, seeming to understand that Tony was experiencing an epiphany, sat at their piano, started playing the opening chords and melody to a song he found somewhat familiar even if he couldn’t immediately identify it before she began to sing…
Although you see the world different than me
Sometimes I can touch upon the wonders that you see
And all the new colours and pictures you’ve designed
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
…it was familiar, oh yeah…now he recognised it! It was a song by Carol King and Gerry Goffin called Sweet Child of Mine. Now that he had identified the song, his attention shifted back to processing the deluge of painful memories.
Tony remembered the fight, realising how lucky he’d been to get away from Rivkin, despite him being injured. The senior agent had managed to regain possession of his gun that he’d lost when Rivkin threw the vodka in his face when he tried to cuff him. Rivkin refused to surrender, and they fought viciously. Eventually, the assassin came after him with a shard of broken glass from the coffee table, intent on using it as a shiv to kill him. Tony, who was seriously wounded by then, was forced to kill him. He had no other choice!
He recalled that Ziva was beside herself in fury, accusing him of murdering her Israeli lover because Tony was jealous of their relationship. How Gibbs handled her with kid gloves, not reaming her out for lying to them about her relationship with Rivkin when Gibbs asked her. He didn’t even bother to ask her why her apartment had been used to connect a laptop they found in the dead terrorist Abin Tabal’s hotel room, or why she covered up Rivkin’s involvement in espionage against the US and the death of ICE agent Tom Sherman. Ziva had been lying to them for weeks about Mossad and helping to carry out an illegal mission on US soil, which was highly illegal. Yet Gibbs treated her like a fragile victim – to be coddled and indulged instead of a suspect.
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
As Tony listened to his mother sing the song’s refrain, he watched the two figures coming closer and realised that one was a female and the other a small child. The small child stopped periodically to play with the waves that rolled up onto the shoreline, trying to catch them, but they always retreated. He turned away, finding it too overwhelming.
Instead, Tony focused on remembering how he had been ordered by Director Vance – again totally illegally, into going to Israel without legal representation or even an opportunity to seek legal advice. Supposedly, he going to Tel Aviv to answer to Ziva’s megalomaniac sperm donor, aka her father and director of the Mossad, about why he’d killed a Mossad operative who was resisting arrest. An operative was going around killing terrorists, spying on US intelligence agencies, and killing one and doing his level best to kill Tony, too and he had to justify his actions.
You don’t need directions, you know which way to go
And I don’t want to hold you back I just want to watch you grow
You’re the one who taught me you don’t have to look behind
Oh yes sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
Yet Tony did need to figure out how he got into this mess… he needed to remember who had betrayed him, as painful as that may be. He NEEDED to look back!
Tony recalled his desperate last-ditch appeal to Gibbs to help him because he had a very bad feeling about what might happen should he go to Tel Aviv. He rarely (as in never) asked Gibbs for help, only to have the guy who’d always promised to have his back effectively wash his hands of him. His boss told him to stop bellyaching and thinking of himself for once and to take his consequences like a man.
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
Ha. What a hypocrite Leroy Jethro Gibbs was, talking about bellyaching when the former gunny was always taking his anger out on people at work who hadn’t hurt him or his dead wife and child. He was always forcing others to pay the price for something they were not responsible for!
On the flip side, Tony had always put the team’s needs well ahead of his own. ALWAYS!
He’d subjugated his own personal and professional desire to be a senior supervisory agent to have Gibbs’ six when he returned from Baha, in Mexico after quitting NCIS four months earlier. Gibbs returned with a furry caterpillar on his lip and a memory with more holes than Swiss cheese. Tony could have been in Rota, Spain right now instead of here in this limbo, all because he stayed on the team to protect them from Gibbs’ spotty memory.
When she’d come back from that trip home to Israel a few weeks ago and started hiding stuff and deliberately lying to them, he’d put Ziva’s welfare before covering his own ass. He should have reported her to Vance when the terrorist computer revealed it had been used from her apartment. Although, given the alacrity with which he’d declared Tabal’s death a suicide given that a trained Kidon assassin was running around DC, flipping them the bird, Tony had little faith that the director would have even questioned her.
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
Had he accepted the SSA position in Rota, he would have had a damned good excuse to break things off with Jeanne before it became serious. Damn his pathetic neediness for love and affection, that caused him…the consummate undercover operative to fall head over heels in love with a woman who saw through his bullshit and still love the guy he never let people see. The smart, caring, goofily romantic guy who just wanted to love and be loved and accepted despite all his flaws and imperfections.
Nobody’s gonna kill your dreams
Or tell you how to live your life
There’ll always be people to make it hard for a while
But you’ll change their heads when they see you smile
Seriously, how ironic were those lyrics because Tony felt like his dreams had all died? The day that his undercover identity was blown by the fucking CIA when they blew up his much loved Mustang was emblematic of how badly his life tanked. It all went up in flames and the only good thing about it was by a quirk of fate, he and Jeanne weren’t inside it when it went up. After breaking her heart when she learned the truth of who he was and who her father was, his life had been intolerably hard.
And with this shit with Ziva lying to them constantly and his failed attempt to apprehend Michael Rivkin, he failed to see how anything was going to get better. Gibbs would always take her side, no matter how much she lied to them, sold them out to her father, or protected Mossad operatives in the US illegally and interfered in their investigations. Just imagine the shit show if Tony or Gibbs had been in Israel tracking down a terrorist cell and assassinating it with no thought to their security issues. It would cause an international incident – he had not a single doubt about that.
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
He looked at the adult and young child strolling along the shore. Something was disturbing familiar about them, although they were too far away for him to make out any details. Was it him and his mother when he was a toddler?
He turned his attention back to remembering everything that brought him to this inflexion point in his life…or quite possibly his death. He needed to remember… he needed to come to terms with how he arrived here in Honah Lee… in this space, somewhere between existence and non-existence.
Gerrit Driessen – that slimy unethical little prick – a fixer for that Anna Elliot, acting Secretary of State, coming to Tony’s apartment just as he decided to seek independent legal advice from a lawyer. He had seriously been considering declining to get on board that C-130, which was flying Rivkin’s body home to Israel.
And how come! Why was everyone forgetting the extremely salient point, that Rivkin was in the US carrying out an illegal mission? He killed terrorists, spied on the US and killed an ICE agent, and he would gladly have killed Tony if he could have, He killed Tabal, set him up to look like he was the spy and killer of Agent Sherman, and it was blatantly obvious, to Tony that Rivkin stole Tabal’s laptop and planted his own, neglecting to wipe the network location memory. Since when was a killer, a criminal afforded the honour of the US flying his body back to Israel like some fallen hero? It was obscene just how much Leon Vance kowtowed to Ziva’s daddy!
The times you were born in may not have been the best
But you can make the times to come better than the rest
I know you will be honest if you can’t always be kind
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
Yes, the last few years hadn’t been the best. His entire life had been a struggle that certainly didn’t encourage him to fight to stay alive. What did he have to live for? He obviously didn’t deserve happiness, loyalty, or friendship. He had tried his best to be a good person, and he knew he could be annoying, insecure, juvenile, and envious of others, but he never deliberately harmed people. In fact, he had willingly given his life to protect his teammates or innocents. He was loyal and followed orders, even when he disagreed with them. He tried but, no matter what he did, he ended up alone and betrayed by people he was supposed to be able to trust.
Driessen, Elliot and their cronies at State had taken it to its zenith when they decided to throw him to the wolves. Good old Gerrit turned up and announced that Ziva and Eli intended to kill him when he set foot in Israel to save face for Tony killing one of his much-vaunted Kidon assassins. And presumably, to divert attention because Ziva had been shown to have lied to Gibbs – not that Gibbs appeared to give a fuck about that, too busy empathising about her loss of her duplicitous lover.
Tony had thanked Driessen for the intel and told him had already decided not to go to Tel Aviv, and that was when the fixer, told him that they still wanted him to go. They had a risky no, an insane plan to fake Tony’s death and bring down Eli David. It seemed Daddy David had cemented his place at the top of Mossad, thanks to a bunch of secret files on influential people that he used to blackmail individuals, including people in high places in the US government.
With Tony’s dodgy lungs, he would have to be suicidal to agree to the plan Gerrit’s mob and the rebel group within Israel had cobbled together when they learned of the plan for the NCIS delegation to escort Rivkin’s body back home like he was a fallen hero. And he was bummed at Ziva, Gibbs, and the Director for not having his six, but no way was he suicidal. Okay, maybe not then… but after that asshole blackmailed him with Jeanne Benoit’s death and his being charged with treason he didn’t have much choice. That’s the thanks he got for helping McGee and Gibbs access the file that the dead Petty Officer Vargas illegally downloaded, a highly Top- Secret plan code-named Domino that would have had catastrophic consequences. Meanwhile, Vance and SECNAV were sitting around with their heads stuck up their asses, trying to protect their jobs.
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
And really, what choice did he have, knowing that Driessen and his bosses were ruthless and wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice Jeanne to the CIA in their desperate bid to get rid of Eli David.
Were they motivated by self-preservation… were Driessen or Elliot part of Eli’s Kompromat files?
Were Vance or SECNAV being blackmailed by Ziva’s daddy or were they just craven power-crazy opportunists prepared to sacrifice their country’s security for their own benefit.
But really, it didn’t matter why they were doing it, he supposed. The bottom line was that Tony wasn’t prepared to risk Jeanne’s life. Driessen and his cronies fucking knew it too; may they all burn in Hell because Tony didn’t have any expectation that they’d be held accountable in this life. He was furious with Jeanne falsely accusing him of murdering her father in cold blood, but, as angry and betrayed as he was by her, he still loved her…always would love her. Knew that there was never any way they would reconcile because he had betrayed her, so badly that she had wanted revenge by accusing him of murder.
And though Tony understood that he’d hurt her, how was he ever supposed to trust her again, even if she could forgive him. It was a tragedy that he never thought he would get over but, he never wanted her to be hurt, much less killed because of him. He never would be able to live with the guilt of killing someone he loved.
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
If agreeing to what was probably a suicide mission, letting some crazy scientists inject a cocktail of drugs into his bloodstream to mimic death, meant safeguarding her life, then what other option was there? He was between a rock and a hard place, and Driessen knew it. Tony had no choice but to acquiesce to Elliot’s demands, even when he knew that his lungs were not up to the task. Guess that explained why he was hanging out here in Honah Lee with his mother while the doctors tried to coax his scarred lungs into functioning again.
Even if they managed to persuade his lungs to work and, that had to be a big ‘if,’ then how long before they finally gave up the ghost. He was tired of fighting, so why not accept the inevitable. He knew when he agreed to do the mission, he probably wouldn’t survive it.
Now, he just had to persuade his mother that he really had no one who needed him; that fighting to survive was senseless.
He looked at Lucinda, her waves of golden blonde hair in a loose, messy bun with errant tendrils escaping and trailing down her graceful neck as she sang the refrain, one more time. Her green eyes stared lovingly into his own green ones as she sang:
Child of mine
Child of mine
Oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine
Tony felt her love envelop him, and he was grateful he was given this chance to spend time with her…the loving mother he had all but forgotten. The monster she’d become before her death eclipsed all of the good memories he had of her for his first six years. At least, he thought so, until she brought him to this place that reminded him of long-forgotten memories in his sixth summer spent adventuring together. Magical and priceless memories, buried but truly, not forgotten.
Now granted this gift of time with her, even if it turned out to be a vivid dream or a figment of his imagination, it was still a gift he would treasure. It was, in effect, granting him a chance to overwrite some of his many horrific memories or, at the very least, be able to finally put them into context.
For that alone, Tony would be forever grateful.
—
Notes:
Sweet Child of Mine
By Carol King and Gerry Goffin
Chapter 18
Experiencing Lucinda’s unconditional love for him, after being deprived of it for what felt like an eternity, was wonderous but also overwhelming to the love-starve Tony. As overpowering as it was to feel her love and acceptance after being without it for almost three decades, he didn’t know how to deal with it, yet it didn’t stop him from sucking it up like a thirsty sponge. After Lucinda died, Tony bent over backwards to try to be the son his father seemed to want, but no matter what Tony did, it was never good enough.
So, finally, he stopped trying, he stopped caring about what his father thought. He stopped loving (and hating) Senior when Tony finally figured out in his twenties that unreciprocated love and affection weren’t love at all – it was hero worship. But stupid idiot that he was, he went and transferred the love and affection he’d tried to give to Senior onto his teammates and look how great that had ended up. How could he be so stupid!
Yet, in this place and time, he was finally reminded of what unconditional love and acceptance felt like. It left him breathless, and not because his lungs were shot. It made him feel all warm and fuzzy, he felt invincible, like he could scale a skyscraper if need be. It calmed the desperate need for him to hide his true self away from plain sight in case his ‘team and colleagues rejected him, which was just plain dumbass since they already did it on the regular anyway. They made an Olympic sport out of humiliating and tearing him down all the time.
He opened his mouth to speak, but he noticed his mother look over his shoulder, and he turned on his heel to see the gold-blonde boy, who he realised was much younger than he thought. He was no expert on kids, but the bambino looked like he was only barely up and ambulatory. He still looked like a baby – all chubby legs that were somewhat bandy-legged, large head and big eyes, little chubby hands and mostly toothless gums. But more pertinent, his mother or whoever the female was, who was with him just minutes before, seemed to have vanished into thin air.
“What the hell! Why is that baby wandering along the shore?” he exclaimed. He took off at a run that ate up the distance between them, hoping he wouldn’t need to go into the sea to rescue him or render resuscitation. Reaching the baby surprisingly quickly, he suddenly found himself in a quandary. What to do now?
Checking, on the woman that had been accompanying him and finding no sign of her, impulsively, Tony reached a decision. He scooped the munchkin up into his arms, expecting the child to scream blue murder. After all, kids hated him, he mused as he strode rapidly back to his mother, but the babe seemed to be a remarkably cheerful individual, babbling random nonsense syllables, and chortling uproariously as the small kid poked his chubby bubby digits into Tony’s face, including his eyes and mouth and up his nose.
Handing the little imp over to his mother (grateful the kid wasn’t screaming his lungs out just from being around him), Lucinda accepted custody of the small boy eagerly. She carried him over to the lounger where she cuddled Tony earlier, proceeding to hug the child thoroughly, crooning to him as his eyes grew heavy. He thought it was the Skye Boat Song she sang to him since she used to sing it to Tony too.
Watching them, he noted that the only photo he’d ever recalled seeing of himself as a baby was the family portrait in his mother’s music room, where she’d taught him to play the piano. It had obviously been taken by a professional photographer, and a comprised of Senior standing behind Lucinda, who was nursing Tony on her lap. He was maybe six months old and had been grinning, revealing several baby teeth. He wondered what happened to that portrait – it disappeared after his mother died. The only photo he had of his early childhood was taken just months before her death, outside a movie theatre in New York City at the last movie she’d taken him to see – The Little Prince. Somehow, he managed to nick that photo even as Senior purged all other photographic evidence of his mother’s existence from the Long Island house.
From his misty memory of that portrait of himself as a baby, he could see certain similarities – they both had the same coloured hair. Although, as Tony got older, it darkened somewhat. Their smile was spookily similar, but their eyes were different. The waif’s eyes were startlingly blue, but both had long, thick eyelashes that various girlfriends had commented upon covetously over the years.
It made him whisper so he didn’t wake the sleeping child, “Is that me when I was a baby, Mum. Did you conjure him up like all the rest of this?” he gestured inquisitively.
Staring down at the sleeping baby, cradled on her lap, she was silent for the longest time. So long, he wondered if she had heard him. He debated whether he should ask her again when she spoke lowly.
“No, Anthony Mine, this baby is not you,” she told him, running her elegant pianist forefinger from his temple down his chubby baby cheek to his dimpled chin. She then began tracing the pouty lower lip that was relaxed in repose and moving on to trace the full cupid bow of the munchkin’s upper lip with a feather-light touch that didn’t wake the sleeping boy.
He was about to ask then who the hell it was and what he was doing turning up like this in his mother’s mind construct. Surely she must know who he was and why he was here when his mother suddenly stared at him, her eyes locking onto his own.
“This baby is not you,” she repeated herself, “But… he is of you,” she said solemnly.
“Of me,” he blurted out, stunned. “You’re trying to tell me that he is my son. But I don’t have a son… or daughter either,” he told her emphatically.
Shaking his head, perhaps to deny what she said or to try to process it, he finally said, “So what is this? Some some kind of Ghost of Christmas future? This is like…if you fight to live…this is what your future will be, Mum. You’re saying I will have a son one day?”
“No, my Anthony. I’m saying this is your son lying in my arms. He already exists and has just celebrated his first birthday a few days ago, and how precious he is. Just like his father,” she said, looking ridiculously young to be a grandmother, but then, in her mind construct, Tony appeared to be six years old, and how bizarre was that to be referring to him as a father.
Anthony, you say no one will miss you if you were to give up fighting for your life and die, but I’m here to tell you that your son will because he never got a chance to know you. He will always wonder what his life would have been like if you had survived. And just like you do, he will blame you for not fighting hard enough, not loving him enough to live for him,” She rebuked him kindly yet firmly. “He will wonder what is wrong with him that you left him.”
“I don’t blame you, Mum. You had cancer. It wasn’t a choice you made,” he protested immediately, even though he knew that deep, very deep down, he did resent her for abandoning him. For condemning him to a loveless existence with Senior, even if, as an adult, intellectually, he knew she had no control over the cancer that was spreading like wildfire through her body.
Tony, though still feeling completely shell-shocked, quickly did the maths. He assumed that this was still late May or June 2009. His mother said that the boy had just had his first birthday, so counting back nine months from late May 2008, that put the date of his conception somewhere in late September 2007. Apart from Jeanne Benoit, he’d never been with anyone else, not after he’d finally given in to her demands for intimacy after putting her off. He knew, having fallen for her, that adding sex to the relationship was going to cement his feelings for her, and it did. That’s when he’d thrown caution (and commonsense) to the wind and started to fantasize about their future together once Rene Benoit had been charged and sent to prison. Admittedly, it was idiotic, but he was too awash with oxytocin from being in love to think at all, let alone rationally.
But the point was that he hadn’t had any one-night stands or brief flings during the time when the little boy must have been conceived.
“Sorry, Mum,” he said, feeling rather ridiculous having this conversation with his mother in the body of his six-year-old self. “But it isn’t possible.”
Something of his discomfort must have been communicated to her because Lucinda closed her eyes and concentrated until he was transformed into his current biological age.
Grimacing, he said, “Thanks. Having this discussion with my mother but looking like a six-year-old was just plain creepy. But as I was saying, I was only ever with one woman when this little guy must have been conceived, and we made sure we used protection,” he insisted.
“Are you sure, Anthony? Contraception isn’t 100 percent foolproof. And there can be times when you forget. When you’re tired or stressed or…” she paused, looking somewhat disconcerted.
“Overcome with passion?” Tony asked, phrasing it more delicately than feeling horny, in deference to the fact he was having this highly embarrassing conversation with his mother …his dead mother. How mortifying was this, he thought, feeling himself going bright red.
But he considered what she’d said about contraception not being foolproof, and he recalled that terrible night after Paula had died at the hands of the suicide bomber and saved his life. She saved everyone by jumping on the suicide bomber and forcing him back through the hidden door into the former magic shop, taking the brunt of the IED that Jamal Malik had triggered, dying a heroine in the truest sense of the word. By rights, Special Agent Paula Cassidy should have been awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award for her valour, and sacrifice, but they gave the award to Gibbs again. Gibbs, who once again, thumbed his nose at ‘The Man’ by refusing to turn up and accept the damn award. He could have turned up and dedicated it to Paula if he didn’t want it.
But that night after the bomb exploded and took his friend away, he’d turned up at Jeanne’s apartment, devastated at Paula’s death, to tell her that he loved her after some of the last words he’d shared with Paula had been her advice that life was too short not to tell someone you loved them when you did. Of course, it was a far more complicated situation than Paula had ever known. It had arisen partly because of his irritation with Jeanne, as he had already told her he loved her before, many times. When they said goodbye to each other on the phone, or when he left her to go home or to work and after they made love, Jeanne obviously hadn’t believed him.
So, while he understood her insecurity stemmed from her previous relationship, her fiancé cheating on Jeanne with her best friend, part of him was irritated that she didn’t believe him when he said it to her. Probably the part of him that acknowledged he was deceiving her…just not about his feelings for her. He may have lied to her about who he was and how they’d met and was lying to himself about the fact that once she learned who Tony really was, they could still make things work, but he never lied about loving her.
Not until after she had turned up and accused him of killing her father and after Shepard had forced her to admit that she made the whole thing up, he’d been hurt and angry. Ziva goaded him into telling her their relationship had meant nothing, that it was all a lie to set her free, and he’d done it. He lied to Jeanne and hated himself ever since because he suspected it hadn’t set either of them free. Ironically, the first and only time he lied about loving her was when he told her he didn’t!
But the night of Paula’s death, he’d taken Paula’s advice about not having regrets and turned up on her doorstep, an emotional wreck and proceeded to tell her that he loved her as he cried for his friend. Somehow, it seemed to penetrate when all the other times he’d told her hadn’t, and they’d proceeded to have amazing make-up sex for what seemed like hours. It was their first serious fight and also their first bout of make-up sex, and both of them were worn out and falling asleep at work the next day. However, during one of their bouts of sex, the condom had broken, and both of them had been on tenterhooks for weeks until Jeanne was able to confirm she wasn’t pregnant.
Tony was terrified of being an abusive father. Jeanne was still trying to complete her medical studies, so she hadn’t welcomed the prospect of having a child right then, even if she said she wanted children one day. But that incident had taken place back in early April 2007. There was no way that this little guy was conceived back then.
“Yeah, Mum, I’m aware that condoms fail sometimes, but we had one failure, and that happened back in late April of 2007.”
“How can you be so certain of the month, Darling?” she quizzed him.
“Because it was the same day that Paula Cassidy, my friend and former lover, died at the hands of a suicide bomber. She was fractionally faster than I was to jump on the bomber and push him into another room that shielded everyone else. That’s how I can be so positive it was the 5th of April 2007.”
Her eyes full of pain, she nodded. “I’m so sorry, Sweetie. Of course, you will never forget that day,” she affirmed softly. “You obviously cared about her a lot.”
Tony didn’t reply or tell her that he had felt much more strongly about Paula than she felt about him. There was no point. Instead, he was scouring his memory, trying to remember what had happened in the last month before all hell broke loose when the CIA decided to blow his cover by blowing up his car, presumably with him and Jeanne in it, to keep Rene Benoit in line. Honestly, while there were some resemblances, it was probably only generic things, like lots of kids had pouty lips, full cupid bows and long eyelashes. His mother must be mistaken – there was simply no way he could be Tony’s son.
Yet even as he started to explain that he couldn’t be the little guy’s father, no matter that there might be a few generic baby features in common, Tony suddenly recalled the final phone call he’d had with Director Tom Morrow. Morrow was his former director at NCIS when he’d first joined the MCRT, recruited by Gibbs to replace Stan Burley. Tom assured Tony that Commander Brad Pitt had already left for Tel Aviv, accompanied by DHS Special Agent Annie Henderson as his protection detail. He had felt better knowing his friend would have his back if he needed him.
Tom had also confirmed for a second time that he had the burn notices issued by the CIA from two years prior, rescinded, plus a pardon from the President for his illegal access to the Pentagon servers. While it had been a serious security breach, Tony hadn’t realised at the time, the full extent of what he was doing, but he did help identify and deal with a threat to national security. Now, if he survived and anyone like Driessen and Elliot ever tried to use it to coerce him into doing something against his will, they could no longer hold the threat of him being charged with treason over his head.
Tom finished up their final phone call by telling him that per his request to get Jeanne and her mother out of the US to safety – they were currently in France with a protection detail watching their backs. Jeanne requested that Tom thank Tony for protecting them both, especially after her appallingly bad behaviour in falsely accusing him of murdering her father. Finally, as Tony was psyching himself up to let the Israeli scientist cum doctor fill him full of drugs so he would appear to have been killed, Morrow had dropped a bombshell on him before he hung up the phone.
“One last thing that Jeanne requested I tell you, Tony, although, to be perfectly honest, I’m not so sure that this is the right time,” he said, and over the encrypted phone line, Tony could hear the hesitation in his voice.
“Maybe not, but we both know that now could be the only opportunity I’ll get,” he replied, bluntly as he watched Dr Avigail Deitsch eagerly preparing a scary number of syringes to inject into him.
He wondered if this was how an innocent man wrongfully convicted of a heinous crime felt right before he was executed. Maybe not…he at least had a chance to make it out alive. Maybe not a good one, given the status of his lungs, but an outside one, so the situations weren’t truly analogous.
“Yes…well um, if you’re sure,” Morrow demurred awkwardly, clearly not convinced but allowing Tony to make the final decision, maybe because it might be the last one he ever made.
“Dr Berkley as she now calls herself, wanted me to tell you that she is sorry for not informing you of this last year, but you have a son who is 12 months old, and his name is Zavier Berkley. She said he was conceived on your last night together before your Mustang was blown up.”
Tony had absolutely zero memory of anything that was said after that. He wasn’t sure if he had replied to Tom, maybe on auto-pilot or if he just hung up ala Gibbs. He imagined he felt like he’d been coldcocked because there was no way, on earth, he could have seen that coming right out of the blue to hijack him before Dr Deisch injected what she proudly referred to as the Romeo and Juliet protocol. What had he been thinking and feeling as she sedated him before effectively slowing down his vital functions to place him in a limbo between life and death?
Sinking to the ground as the final relevant memories fell into place, he stared at his mother and his son…Xavier in alarm. Tony felt a wave of panic beginning to sweep over him. Deliberately, he tried to avert the panic attack by focusing on the message from Jeanne – he was conceived on their last night together. He forced himself to recall the painful details. The MCRT just finished up a case where a taxi driver had smuggled a mafia goon, hidden in his cab, into NCIS. Mario Vincetti’s job was to prevent his Mob Boss employer, Joey Scarlatti, from being convicted at trial and incarcerated. Abby’s obsession with polystyrene had alerted them to the intruder and had caught Vincetti trying to sneak back out in the cab.
Afterwards, the rest of the team had planned to head to a bar for drinks, and Tony had headed straight to George Washington Hospital to spend Jeanne’s tea break with her. Of course, with his luck, he ran into a couple of drug smugglers, Nick Kerry and Bernadette (Bernie) Watson, in the elevator as he rode up to Jeanne’s floor.
The pair were there trying to retrieve a shipment of heroin, which the drug mule and Bernie’s brother, Devon Watson (a drug mule who was body packing drugs) smuggled in from Caraccas, Venezuela. Devon Watson was on his cell phone texting when the drug mule stepped in front of a cab at the airport, badly injuring his leg. Kerry, a really nasty piece of work, tried to make Jeanne discharge Devon Watson without surgery. Meanwhile, Devon’s sister was strung out, needing a hit of heroin, which Tony had instantly noted when he rode up with the pair in the elevator on his way to meet Jeanne. Bluntly he told Kerry to take down to take Bernie down to the ER and get her some much-needed help, to which Kerry had basically told him to get fucked, pegging him as a cop immediately. When Devon started crashing, even after denying that he was carrying drugs, it was damn obvious to Jeanne, Tony, and the rest of the medical staff that one of the condoms must have broken, and whatever drugs he was carrying were leaking into his system. Had he admitted it earlier, they could maybe have saved him, but at that point, his death was inevitable.
Incredibly, although he continued to deny that Devon had been smuggling drugs, Kerry tried to intimidate Jeanne into signing over his body to Bernie so she could take him home. Like a pet who died at the vet, not a human who would require an autopsy by the Medical Examiner, which was pretty brazen of the dealer, not to mention very cold! Of course, an autopsy was the last thing that Nick Kerry wanted, so he tried to abduct Devon’s body from the morgue to get hold of the drugs Devon smuggled in. After one unsuccessful attempt that was thwarted by a wards man, Kerry refused to give up and when the security guard was busy trying to find a lost little girl, hearing that Nick Kerry and Bernie were sighted heading back to the morgue, Jeanne, furious at Devon’s needless and stupid death sallied forth to stop them. Tony had gone racing after Jeanne, who was too angry to think logically, hoping to stop her from doing anything stupid and getting killed. Because he was undercover, he wasn’t carrying his firearm, or his backup piece and they ended up being taken hostage. Tony earned a fresh concussion after being coldcocked by the gun Kerry had concealed previously.
He threatened to shoot Tony to force Jeanne to retrieve the drugs from Devon’s intestines. With a scalpel in her hands, she stabbed Kerry in the upper arm, who dropped his gun while Tony managed to grab it and fire off a warning shot, forcing Kerry’s surrender. Meanwhile, Bernie was so desperate for a hit of heroin that she ended up with her head in her brother’s intestines, snorting it straight from Devon’s bloody entrails that Jeanne had slashed wide open including the condoms, wanting to make it problematic for Kerry to collect the drugs and earning his ire. Bernie had been utterly uncaring about how horrifically inappropriate her behaviour was, too driven by the physical craving and the terrible pain of withdrawal to care. Then, after the cops had arrested Nick, Tony and Jeanne had given lengthy statements about what had happened to them. And really, that had been the icing on the cake of a very long week, when Gibbs was supposed to be filling in as the NCIS director in Jenn Shepard’s absence at a security Conference but was trying to micromanage the MCRT and terrorising Cynthia when she tried to get him to do the director’s job. All Tony wanted was to fall into bed with Jeanne and sleep for eight uninterrupted hours.
Yet it was not to be. Jeanne dragged him down to the ER to be examined, even though he knew from past concussions that this concussion wasn’t all that serious. Although, he couldn’t exactly explain to her how he knew that, now could he? As far as Jeanne was concerned, he was supposed to be Anthony DiNardi, a film professor at GWU. Nerdy academics weren’t usually experts on what degrees of concussions they collected during hostage situations, so he had to play along with her. After the ER doc had given him the all-clear to go home as long as he had someone who could do regular concussion checks, Jeanne dragged him back up to her floor, insisting on setting him up in the Doctor’s lounge, which also had a small room with a pull-out sofa. Thanks to the romantic machinations of the two nurses, whom she was friendly with, the delightful Annie and Carly, they convinced her to finish the rest of her overnight shift, keeping her doctorly eye on Tony.
The pair had sealed the deal by telling her that they would page her if necessary, and probably knowing those two as he did from hanging around with Jeanne, they hung a sock on the door, so no one interrupted them. Jeanne, while incredibly fearless when her dander was up, had never been in a life-threatening situation before. So, it was almost inevitable that they had life-affirming thank-God-we’re-alive-sex, even if he did have a mild concussion. More than once, in fact, but Jeanne had done most of the work; Tony was a willing albeit somewhat passive participant. Now he thought about it, Tony distinctly remembered having sex with her at least three times, possibly even four times. Although the last time was fuzzy, given his state of exhaustion.
He had joined her for a quick meal in the hospital cafeteria when Jeanne received a Code Blue and raced back to the third floor, trying to save Devon Watson. He’d intended to blow off Ziva and the others meeting for dinner drinks after the case since he was dead on his feet, but then, what with being held hostage, he forgot them.
Anyway, Tony reminded himself, looking at the sleeping child in Lucinda’s lap, when he was with Jeanne, he always carried a couple of condoms in his wallet and his car. Although they kept a box back at Jeanne’s apartment, she had a kink. A pretty harmless one, where sometimes, she liked having sex in public places. Mostly, in Tony’s Mustang, but occasionally in quiet places, at night near public monuments. Hence, he always carried a couple of rubbers in his wallet, wanting to be prepared for the slightly naughty exhibitionist doctor, should she be in the mood. So, if his memory served correctly, and they had ‘thank-God-we’re- alive- sex’ three or possibly four times that night, did Jeanne have a couple of extra condoms? In her own inevitable adrenal dump that occurred in the hours after they overpowered Nick Kerry, had she been too blasé or exhausted to think rationally, about taking precautions when they’d used up Tony’s two rubbers in his wallet?
Given that this child was here, it seemed highly likely that’s what had happened, and right now, he really didn’t know what to think or, more importantly, how he felt. Was Xavier Berkley his son, and if so, how on earth could he possibly be a decent father to the boy, given his upbringing and the fact that his so-called adopted family (at least according to Abby) made no attempt to hide the fact they thought he was an idiot. Hell, Abby, who knew him the longest in the pre-Kate years, had only days ago, dressed him down harshly for stomping on the bug Rivkin planted on the window at SECNAV’s place during the intel summit.
She refused to listen when he declared his innocence. After eight years at NCIS processing scenes and six more as a cop, you’d have to be an utter imbecile to deliberately destroy evidence that could have led them back to Rivkin. Yet clearly, she thought he was an idiot. Later, she apologised to Tony after McGee confirmed, that Agent Forster-Yates had destroyed the listening device in front of Gibbs, Fornell, Ducky, Ziva, and himself. He’d realised a split second before she stomped on it what Foster-Yate was about to do. Although Tony yelled at her to stop, the stupid bitch ignored him, evidently deciding she knew better.
If he ever survived this nightmare, Tony planned on talking with Tom Morrow about ICE Agent Julia Foster-Yates. Her criminally insane unilateral decision to destroy the bug was a classic case of a boneheaded ‘let’s bolt the barn door after the horses have already bolted move.’ Hell, that moron knew she was not included in the investigation into Tom Sherman’s death. If the damn bug had been intact, Abby wouldn’t have lost precious hours trying to put it back together to trace where it was transmitting to, and maybe they could have caught Officer Rivkin dead to rights. They might have prevented this crap-show with Tony trying to protect Ziva and ending up being betrayed by his team leader, because of it.
Betrayed by Director Vance and SECNAV, betrayed by who knows how many members of the cabinet because they wanted to get hold of Eli’s Secret Kompromat files and burn them. Maybe he should sue them all and then retire to a tropical island, he thought frivolously. If he ever survived, he reminded himself, which was looking pretty unlikely at this stage of the game.
But obsessing about Forster-Yates or that damned listening device sure as hell didn’t help his inner turmoil about what he was going to do about Xavier Berkley. All Tony knew was that he’d be an awful, no, a horrendous father to any child, even a hypothetical one.
A real-life living, breathing, flesh and blood-human? He’d screw the kid up but good!
He couldn’t even train the probies without turning them into insufferable smug entitled jackasses, and they’d already been adults when he got them to train.
How much worse of a debacle would he make with a one-year-old child who was way more fragile, much more impressionable, and still forming his own personality.
Aw hell! He’d ruin the poor kid for sure.
What if Tony turned the kid into a heroin addict, and he ended up like poor Bernie Watson?
Surely, Xavier would be far better being brought up by Jeanne, who was a far better person than he was. The kid would be a lot better off never exposed to a messed-up person like him. Jeanne had her mother to support her in bringing up Xavier. He was sure Helen and Jeanne would do an exemplary job of rearing him so that he grew into a kind, intelligent person. Maybe the little boy would be a doctor like his mother and grandmother. He remembered the one time he’d met Jeanne’s mother and how freaked out he’d been because he knew she’d immediately see just how out of his league Jeanne was.
And he’d been right. Helen Berkley had been far from impressed by Professor DiNardo, even disapproving of his expensive Italian shoes, and DiNardo was a far better person than Special Agent DiNozzo would ever hope to be.
Plus, she would despise him for what he’d done to her daughter, and how could she not? She was right to do so. As for father material for her grandson, well… he couldn’t blame her if she didn’t want him anywhere near Xavier, either. Hell, he agreed with her that he’d be nothing but a toxic influence on a child.
But that begged the question, what was Xavier doing here anyway? What was he doing, toddling around in this mind construct of his mother’s? How was he here? Lucinda was here because she was dead, and she had created this dimension she’d modelled after a childhood song. And he was here too because he was straddling the existences between being alive and dead. Xavier, as far as he knew, wasn’t dead, nor on a ventilator close to death.
So he asked Lucinda why and how Xavier had popped up in her land called Honah Lee.
“Because his mother Jeanne Berkley brought him to your hospital room to spend some time with you when you’ve started to deteriorate, Anthony. She wanted him to get to know his father, and I think she always thought that one day when Xavier was older, he would get the chance to meet you. But she is realising the only chance they have might be right now. They both fell asleep by your bed, and her mother put him on your bed with you. When they were close to you and asleep, I pulled them into this dimension where Jeanne thought it was a dream. When she woke and left your room and went for a walk, she couldn’t remain here, which was why Xavier remained here alone,” she explained.
Tony shook his head. This whole dimensional mind construct thing had just become even more bizarro by the minute. Frankly, he was still unsure if he bought into all of this emo stuff. He’d never been one for all the touchy-feeling crap, unlike Abby. Abbs, despite a PhD in forensic science, was into a whole boatload of new age stuff like tarot and crystals – even if she did hang out with a bunch of nuns when she wasn’t working at NCIS or Habitat for Humanity.
This whole experience was making his head feel like it may explode. The thought that this was just some incredibly vivid dream was far easier for his brain to accept than that this was really happening. that he was here in a parallel dimension at the same time as he was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up into a respirator and fading fast.
Hang on a minute, Tony swiftly replayed what his mother had told him and was horrified. “Jeanne is here…well, not here,” he gestured, “but in Israel? With Xavier and her MOTHER? Who hates me?!” he blurted out, dismayed.
“Well, Jeanne hates me too… and I can’t blame her…or Helen Berkley for that matter,” he conceded guiltily.
“Neither Jeanne nor Helen hates you, Anthony,” his mother informed him. “They are grateful for you saving their lives, especially in light of Xavier. He could have ended up as collateral damage or an orphan, so they both realise how much they owe you. And yes, all three of them are in Haifa.”
“But why come here?” he whined. “And why bring a baby here…it’s too dangerous,” he opined anxiously.
“Because I suspect, although I can’t say for sure, that Jeanne feels horrible about accusing you of killing her father. Plus, guilty about her not informing you that you have a son. She thought that Xavier would have a chance to get to know his father when he was older, and now she realises that may never happen. Maybe she’s hoping that he will be able to reach you and make you think that there is something worth living for… something worth fighting for.”
Tony gave her an old-fashioned look, but she smiled at him, unrepentant. “As to your question as to why is Xavier here? I wanted him to have the experience of meeting you, and I wanted you to hold him. I wanted MY baby to have the opportunity to meet his own son, to get to know him and hold him in his arms at least once,” she said tearfully.
“And, yes, I admit that I was hoping that when you had a chance to meet him, it would convince you to keep fighting to stay alive, Anthony Mine. You’ve developed an infection, and the doctors think you’ve given up. They’re battling against the clock – they have a highly experimental treatment they’re preparing in the labs with some stem cells they collected from your lungs. If it’s successful, it could heal your scarred lung tissue,” she told him. “But you’ve got to hold on and fight.”
She stood up and walked over to him, motioning him to sit at the piano bench and gently deposited his son into Tony’s arms.
“Hold your son. He won’t bite. Get to know him,” she told him firmly.
Part Four: A Greater Revenge
“When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung by bees.” – Joseph Joubert
Chapter 19
Morrow had just hung up the phone with Dr Pitt, who gave him a status report on DiNozzo. Things were not looking great, although on the positive side, Dr Alison Blake (former Department of Defence agent) and the CEO of Global Dynamics had flown in from Oregon to personally carry out harvesting Tony’s stem cells two days ago. Right now, on the ninth day since Tony was placed on the ventilator after he went into respiratory distress, Dr Blake and Dr Hersch were in Chaveleh’s labs, working around the clock. They were preparing the harvested cells using their patented process, amping them up to creating, in essence, super stem cells that would immediately target Tony’s scarred alveoli where his new and improved stem cells would launch into uber healing mode. Well, that was everyone’s hope. Unfortunately, his condition had taken a turn for the worse just before they began the harvesting procedure; he’d developed an infection that the doctors had been holding off for days now.
Brad confided in Tom that he felt Tony was giving up and stopped fighting, which was obviously a bad sign. In all likelihood, it would be a race to see if the treatment could be ready in time to save him. If he had given up, their window of opportunity for this to work just got a lot narrower. This news made him concerned for DiNozzo and even more furious at the NCIS director and SECNAV, not to mention his murderous rage at Eli David and his arrogantly entitled and deluded daughter. Feeling frustratingly impotent and wishing he could fly over there to be with Tony, Morrow tried to comfort himself that at least DiNozzo wasn’t alone if the worst came to pass. Brad was by his side, and Jeanne Benoit…umm, Berkley was there with the son he never knew about. He would not die alone.
Tom wanted to fly to Haifa, but he knew that if he did, it would attract undue attention in Intelligence circles and could easily tip off the Davids and SECNAV. It potentially placed Tony and his medical team in further danger. So far, they’d been lucky flying under the radar because the Berkleys had come via Cyprus. They hired a tourist yacht to sail to the port of Haifa rather than flying into Ben Gurion airport and travelling there by road. Sailing in on a yacht and mooring at the private marina the DHS agents who were their protection detail, could hide in plain sight as crew. But if Tom tried to sneak in, someone was bound to notice and report it up the chain of command, so he had to resign himself to staying in DC and carrying on as usual.
To keep his mind busy, he’d thrown himself into investigating Trent Kort’s claims re Leon Vance not being Leon Vance but Tyler Keith Owens, which, given his obsession with boxing, was rather ironic, Tom thought. Did a young Tyler notice that his parents had given him the initials that spelled out T.K.O. and decide he was destined to take up boxing? At times, Tom wondered how obtuse some parents could be when giving kids a name that might become an albatross around their necks. He recalled a surgeon, Dr Carver, who dug a bullet out of Morrow’s shoulder, back when he was a field agent. Tom always wondered if his last name had influenced his career choice, although Morrow supposed it might be worse; his doctor’s name might have been Butcher.
As he smiled a little at his whimsical mental meandering, he relocated from his desk to the conference table in his office as he prepared for the briefing from his agents, vis-à-vis the first of a series of status report on the investigation into Leon Vance and Philip Davenport. While they waited for the Israelis to take down Eli David, Tom’s investigation needed to be highly discreet. He didn’t want to put Tara Kole in danger if Trent Kort was to be believed, then the Langley analyst, Roxanne Saunders, who uncovered the identity swap, had met with a sticky end, not a simple accident as claimed at the time of her death.
That meant until Eli David was in custody, Tom had no intentions of directly approaching Tara Kole for DNA. However, he did send several agents to follow Kole discreetly to try to get a DNA sample surreptitiously for testing. That way, they could confirm or deny if Tara and the director were siblings. If the match was positive, obviously, the result wasn’t admissible in court but, he could always get a warrant later when they didn’t have to worry about alerting Davenport, Vance/Owens, and Director David.
Honestly, he didn’t know if he was rooting for the DNA to be a sibling match between Kole and Vance or not. In terms of national security issues, it would spark a huge crisis if he were a ring-in as Trent Kort claimed. And there was the consideration that there was no telling just how compromised he was…how compromised the US might be because of his duplicity and sheer bloody-minded stupidity. Sometimes, these people, such as the NCIS Director who liked to rub their smarts in everyone’s faces and got off on bragging about their Mensa-esque levels of genius, were, in reality, shockingly gullible or just plain idiots. When it came down to having even half of the common sense possessed by the average mug in the street, they failed, dismally.
Plus, even if it were petty and childish, Tom conceded that if true, there was also the unpleasant issue to be considered that DHS… specifically, Morrow would owe Kort a debt of gratitude for the heads up. The Deputy Director found that notion extremely distasteful, particularly for someone like Tom, who prided himself on being a pretty upstanding guy! Not that the deputy director was a Saint or anything. He had done some things that he didn’t like, but he never revelled in getting down and dirty the way spooks like Trent seemed to do. He was pretty sure that on an objective scale, Kort probably ticked a lot of the boxes as a sexual sadist, and the thought of being beholden to the CIA operative was disconcerting, to put it mildly. Tom always felt a strong compulsion to have a long, hot shower to wash away the taint he felt after being in the spook’s presence, even when it was a mere passing encounter.
With that unpleasant thought, his executive assistant, Ewan Greenley, announced that his next appointment was waiting. Tom told him to send them in. He watched as his two agents, team lead Benton Ames and Suzette Lankton, filed in to update him on their trip to Chicago after he sent them DNA hunting. After smiling politely at the boss, they sat down and began. Ames told him they posed as a couple to make their interest in Kole less obvious to anyone watching her, which was lucky, as her husband, former crime boss Joe Banks, was very protective of her and had several men shadowing her.
“Hardly a big surprise after the NCIS director had his tame Mossad liaison officer and his golden boy, Timothy McGee, waylay her bodyguard, abduct her, then forced her to fly to DC as bait. The NCIS director used Kole to draw Banks to his home territory to try to force him into confessing to killing his buddy, who we believe was the other individual who took part in the conspiracy to swap identities,” Morrow said dryly.
Lankford gave a throaty chuckle. “When you put it like that. Sir, I can also see why Banks is so protective of his wife,” she said drolly.
Agent Ames grinned, “Well, as you warned us to be discreet, it took time to get hold of a sample, but finally, the good wife here managed to snaffle up an empty water bottle that Ms Kole discarded in the trash while shopping.”
Suzette smirked. “Sir, with a patronising jerk like that for a husband, I’d like to request a swift no-fault divorce,” she joked as her team leader rolled his eye at her.
“Done!” Morrow retorted, chuckling playfully. “Consider yourselves divorced. So, just to be clear, they had no idea you were tailing them?” he said, doublechecking.
The last thing they wanted was to spook the Banks and have them contact Leon, not that he thought they would. It was more probable that they might go to ground, and DHS wouldn’t be able to collect a DNA sample duly authorised by warrant when it was appropriate.
Ben smiled widely. “Extremely unlikely, Sir. Agent Lankford, the ex-wife is awesome, he teased. She engaged in a huge shopping spree on Homeland’s dime,” he tattled on his 2IC.
At signs that the Deputy Director was working up to a bout of apoplexy at the thought of dealing with the finance department, Ames guffawed.
“Chill, Sir. Suze returned it all later after we’d dropped the sample off at our Chicago Lab,” he calmed his boss.
Lankford nodded impishly. “One of the best damn undercover agents I’ve seen gave a series of talks at the FBI a couple of years ago on working undercover. He said if you were trailing someone of interest in a shopping mall, the easiest way to blend in was to go shopping yourself. Nothing stuck out more like a sore thumb than someone looking but not buying anything. His tip was to buy up ostentatiously and hide in plain sight. Just reminded us to check the returns policy before purchasing,” she said, looking suddenly wistful.
“Damn waste that DiNozzo died like that.,” Ames muttered as Suzette nodded gravely.
Although Agent Ames and his team had been read in on the possibility of Leon Vance being an imposter, Morrow had not read them in on the fake death of DiNozzo for his safety. Besides, the ways things were looking, it was highly probable that he may not survive.
Tom said, “Agent DiNozzo was a most skilled undercover agent.”
Lankford nodded. “I’d forgotten that you worked with him, Sir,” she acknowledged gravely. “Anyway, Ben got a call from the Chicago lab minutes ago but didn’t share. Wanted to tell you first,” she said, looking at her superior expectantly.
“It’s a match for Director Vance’s,” Ames confirmed grimly.
“Damn!” Tom exclaimed. He was expecting it, but it was still a blow. “Alright, I’m going to approach the NCIS medical examiner discreetly to see if he will give us ‘Tyler Owens’ DNA if he ran it during the autopsy,” Morrow said, deciding he’d invite Donald Mallard over to dinner.
Both agents nodded soberly, knowing what a massive shitstorm this was going to turn into. Of course, Morrow mused, someone with a lot of juice might decide that fake Leon Vance needed to take one for the team and then become a martyr …like Jenny Shepard had done to save NCIS’ reputation, ensuring that hundreds of convictions weren’t inadvertently subject to immediate appeals. It would be terribly ironic for the dumb schmuck but tragic for his wife and children, he thought furiously.
“But even if it confirms that Vance and Kole are siblings, not Owens and Kole as they claimed, we still need to be prepared and ready to roll on this the minute we get the okay from the Department of Defence and the Attorney General that we can proceed to investigate this publicly, so we don’t waste any time on this. I need you to prepare warrants but wait on submitting them for collecting DNA samples on Ms Kole, Leon Vance and the man who was buried as Tyler Owens,” he ordered tersely.
Benton Ames nodded. “As well as an exhumation order to dig up Tyler Owen’s body,” he stated the obvious.
“Yes, we will need to disinter him. We already have forensic evidence that he suffered a detached retina, which was surgically repaired, he said, looking satisfied. “Plus, put together photo arrays to interview Leon Vance’s former fellow Marines at the Academy and Naval College in Rhode Island when we get the all-clear. Just don’t do any digging until we have approval. This needs to remain on the down low, or Ms Kole could be in grave danger of being disappeared by her brother or his friends in low places,” he said, thinking of the Frankenstein recruits being trained
Langford looked grave. “Too true. She is basically the lynchpin, so to speak!”
The trio of experienced agents continued to chart their various steps in outlining the case, particularly how to prove, conclusively, that SECNAV knew about the substitution and covered up the NCIS director’s identity swap.
“And you believe that the swap was probably made after Leon Vance’s detached retina occurred, Sir,” Ames clarified.
“It would make the most sense, practically. If fake Vance enrolled in college, right at the beginning of his enrolment, he was unlikely to encounter anyone he knew from the Naval Academy who have taken up their commissions. Plus, his sudden passionate interest in cryptology when at the Academy he was totally disinterested in computers and associated subjects is suspicious,” he said logically.
They also discussed how to prove that SECNAV knew about the swap. Davenport would no doubt maintain when it came out that he had no idea about Lieutenant Vance and Tyler Owen swapping identities. Although it might be hard to prove that he knew, it didn’t wash with Morrow. After all, an exhaustive security check was done when he was vetted to become the director. Tom was positive, that Fake-Vance had to have had help to cover up the substitution, especially before he had enough clout to manipulate the hard copy and the digital ones, too.
However, proving Davenport was complicit before, during or after the fact, was a lot harder to prove than the actual identity swap because Davenport was a consummate politician. Not to mention, SECNAV was as squirrely as they came. But on a brighter note, in terms of bringing him down vis-à-vis the shocking and utterly abhorrent Frankenstein Project, he’d definitely left himself much more vulnerable to being burned on that score. Tom felt unbelievably sickened at the thought he’d willingly sold out the men and women he was supposed to be protecting to create a private militia for hire. IF what Trent Kort alleged was true, and since he’d implicated himself in the operation, it seemed likely it was true, even if it was uncharacteristic of him to admit to it. Not that Tom believed, even for a minute, that Kort wouldn’t have ensured he had himself a get-out-of-jail-free card. The spook had the survival instincts of a cockroach and was as nigh near impossible to kill.
Agent Lankford was frowning even as she sipped some of the excellent coffee their boss organised with Ewan Greenley to have on hand for meetings with his agents.
Now, she decided to share her inner dialogue. “Why would SECNAV cover up the fact that the director of NCIS is not who he claims to be? With all due respect, Sir, NCIS isn’t exactly all that big or influential, not like the FBI, or DEA,” she said with an apologetic smile at Morrow.
Tom bowed his head in acceptance – NCIS had always been small fry in the view of many in the federal arena but its involvement in terms of access to military intel allowed it to punch consistently above its weight. That didn’t endear itself to a lot of the Feds, so after the boneheaded moves by the two directors appointed after Tom left, he could appreciate colleagues’ antagonism towards them. Plus, Gibbs’ high-handed arrogance certainly didn’t do the small federal agency any favours with regards to their reputation, even though DiNozzo had always bent over backwards to reach out and create strong networks with most of the other agencies, Langley being the exception to that collegiality. Given that they’d tried to ice him and Dr Benoit and had destroyed his Mustang… well, who would exactly grudge him for his animosity towards the folk at Langley?
Agent Ames shrugged his shoulders as he pulled a wry expression. “Probably because Vance and the Director of Mossad are pretty damn chummy with each other; a lot of people say they’re too close. Plenty of rumours flying around before Director Shepard’s death that she was a little too friendly with the whole David family,” he said as both agents turned to see what Tom’s reaction was to Benton’s theory.
“That’s probably a large part of the equation,” he said, offhandedly. He’d heard the rumours that Jenn Shepard had been one of Eli’s numerous conquests while she was in the Middle East. Tom could not conclusively confirm or deny the gossip; however, Shepard had certainly been very close to Eli, Ari, and Ziva.
“Well, if Shepard was intimate with Director David, then they were discreet enough not to leave a trail, since consorting with foreign intelligence operatives would have seen her eliminated from consideration to be appointed, as director,” Morrow pointed out mildly.
“That or else Davenport covered it up to give him a back door to Mossad via Eli or something to hold over Shepard’s head to coerce her into doing what he wanted, even if it stepped over the line. Of course, neither option was mutually exclusive,” Ames concluded cynically.
Tom wasn’t too surprised when Ames had essentially come up with Tom’s rationale about why Davenport may have covered for Jenn Shepard.
When Suzette demanded to know on what basis Ames had to accuse Shepard or if he was speculating, Benton shrugged at her.
“Nothing concrete, but it does seem unusual that both of his picks for the NCIS director were successful appointees from minority populations,” Benton pointed out cynically.
Langford argued huffily, “Women are NOT a minority! Statistically, we tend to slightly out-number men,” she grumbled.
Benton chuckled at his prickly 2IC. “I meant in terms of the pool of agents in managerial roles in contention for the top jobs,” he told her soothingly.
“And why do you think he would deliberately choose a director based on those subgroups?” Tom asked, keen to see if Ames had thought his thesis through to its logical conclusion.
“Because they are more likely to feel beholden to him for the considerable bump in their salary, not to mention increase status, access to rub shoulders with the powerbrokers that could later be used to launch a political career,” Ames said, proving again that he posed a healthy dose of cynicism based on some not so pretty reality.
“Not to mention that once they are appointed to the top job with all its accompanying perks, he could then hold the threat of removal over Shepard and Vance’s heads if they don’t toe his line,” Lankford mused.
Tom nodded. “Actually, I know of at least several occasions where he did just that,” he confirmed. He recalled DiNozzo’s account, using that exact threat to keep the newly appointed Vance from reporting the unauthorised removal of information (Domino) by threatening him, and then when he learned that Gibbs and Vance had let the mole steal the file and being misled about the whole elaborate war game.
“Plus, I imagine that being the first female director of an armed federal agency and the first person of colour appointed director of NCIS might make them reluctant to rock the boat. If your generic white guy is removed, then people don’t immediately say it that shows that white males are incapable of leading a federal agency, but if you’re the first woman or non-white guy, people will be quick to judge. They’ll say it proves that females are too emotional to be in leadership roles,” Langford said.
Tom was loath to admit it, but she definitely had a point. When he told her so, she looked relieved. But even though he thought her argument when applied to Shepard, probably gave Jenny more credit than she was entitled to, he didn’t say so. A threat of removal would be far more effective because she was obsessed with avenging her father by killing La Grenouille than any considerations about her being a torch bearer for women who might come after her. He was unsure if Vance was any more capable of feeling a responsibility to those people of colour who came after him because how much more selfish and narcissistic could you get than to impersonate someone else for decades?
Still, as a general principle, he could see how genuine individuals might feel an enormous weight upon their shoulders by being the first to become directors. As a white middle-class male, it was definitely not something he’d ever had to deal with. But he wondered if they might finally appoint a non-heterosexual director one day and, if that should come to pass, how much pressure would an individual have to shoulder for the right to be appointed. He suspected that it might be a highly onerous and thankless task.
One that he was never faced with, although his own stint as director was not without its own challenges. Most of them were to do with Leroy Jethro Gibbs and his unique ability to do what he damn well wanted and Tom’s fruitless attempts to control the man’s behaviour and his lawless attitude. Well, those days were long gone, and he didn’t regret his lateral move to Homeland, except, of course, that had he stayed, this whole debacle with the Davids would certainly have never come to pass.
Aside from the very valid reasons why Philip Davenport might have been willing to cover up Leon’s identity or, for that matter, an affair with Eli David if Jenny had been foolish enough to indulge in one, there was a very massive elephant sitting down in the room which these two agents had no knowledge of. It was, of course, because it was need-to-know and incredibly dangerous knowledge to possess. Only a handful of people had been read in so far.
But one reason why SECNAV may have chosen to appoint Vance to the top job was that Leon Vance, aka the real Tyler Owens, had come up with the whole blueprint for Frankenstein. Although Tom was sure that if caught up in the fallout, Owens would try to weasel his way out of responsibility by claiming it had been a purely theoretical college paper. Of course, he couldn’t share these thoughts with his two agents. Tom had a different team investigating that extremely concerning state of affairs. With such hugely critical issues and the need for absolute discretion, compartmentalisation of intel just made sense. After all, terrorist cells used it as a model for a damn good reason.
Knowing this pair of perceptive and skilled agents were waiting to see what he’d say, he nodded. “Probably that is a big element of why Philip Davenport would want to have Vance as the director. I also suspect that having someone like Vance, who laid himself open to being corrupted, could prove extremely useful. He could order him to divert resources away from a sensitive investigation or even to stymy it if it involved SECNAV’s cronies or he felt it was too politically damaging,” he said gravely.
Tom was already sure that he pressured Vance to soft-pedal the investigation into ICE agent Tom Sherman’s death and the fact that Mossad… Kidon, to be precise, was hunting down and killing a terror cell on US soil. From what little intel that Tony had mentioned, the NCIS director closed down the investigation into Abin Tabal’s death far too fast, happy to adopt the theory that Tabal had spied on the intelligence summit and killed Agent Sherman, even if he only intended to render him unconscious. Owens/Vance closed it down, even though Dr Sciuto still had to finish examining evidence, to wit…Abin Tabal’s laptop or what they wrongly assumed to be his laptop. All because Sciuto had used the listening device that she tracked back to the damned laptop they wrongly assumed was Tabal’s. Seemingly, it was enough for Leon to justify declaring he committed suicide, declaring it was their smoking gun and ordering the case closed.
Leon had been so damned hasty (to the point of gross negligence, in Morrow’s experience opinion), there was an extremely strong case to be made that he bore a portion of the blame for Rivkin’s demise, along with Ziva David’s wilful blindness and lies plus, her father arrogant disregard for US sovereignty. Had the case still been pending, it was plausible that Dr Sciuto would have reported her findings vis-à-vis the laptop’s internet location log-in information to Gibbs or Fornell as the two senior agents on the case. Tom was damn sure that if Owens Vance hadn’t declared the case closed, Gibbs would have been stalking around the halls of NCIS like a vampire looking for blood, waiting on any and all information that his team, including Abby, could produce. He would have been right there and immediately realised the implication that Ziva or her ‘guest’ were involved in the infiltration and death at SECNAV’s foolish intelligence gathering. Just as Tony did.
Vance’s precipitous declaration that the case was closed, which Gibbs, Fornell and Ducky had all meekly gone along with, and he wasn’t sure why they had done so, had in a large part been the real catalyst for what followed. Enter stage left one sceptical and brilliant investigator in the guise of Anthony DiNozzo. He simply couldn’t accept the idea that Tabal had killed himself and left all the incriminating evidence tied up in a neat bow, confirming his involvement in the intelligence summit. When DiNozzo walked into Dr Sciuto’s lab after everyone else had gone home, the dye had already been cast.
DiNozzo, of all the agents in the investigation, firmly believed that Michael Rivkin had killed Tom Sherman, and remained behind at the office, prowling around like a cat on a hot tin roof, hoping that Abby would once again pull a rabbit out of her forensic hat. One that would exonerate Tabal of being the spy at the ‘poker game’ and force them to reopen the Sherman killing. He remained convinced that Abin Tabal’s supposed suicide was a red herring and chaffed at the thought that someone (Mossad) used Tabal to get away with espionage and caused the death of an ICE agent. Tony was a real bloodhound when he caught the scent of his quarry, and he was convinced that Rivkin was involved, despite Ziva David’s protestations of his innocence.
Then again, according to several agents present during a knockdown drag-out brawl between Tony and the Mossad liaison over the illegality of Officer Rivkin’s actions, while in Los Angeles, systematically executing Tabal’s cell, she failed to accept he had done anything wrong. Indeed, she seemed to think the USA should be exceedingly grateful to Rivkin for doing their job for them. So Tom could hardly fault DiNozzo for not believing her when she insisted he was in DC, on vacation to spend time with her and had not killed Agent Sherman.
The bottom line was that Sciuto had remained behind in her lab after everyone else left (bar the sceptical DiNozzo), and Morrow was not surprised. Despite her sometimes erratic personality traits, Dr Sciuto was the consummate forensic professional. She hadn’t been willing to go home until the last shred of forensic data had been squeezed out of the evidence collected at the scene of the terrorist trainer’s death, and handed to her for processing, even after the Director deemed the case solved.
With Tabal’s death already declared a suicide, the case closed, and the team leader departed for the evening, there was nothing remiss with her sharing her findings with DiNozzo. Especially as there were negative findings regarding the laptop, including the fact that it had been effectively wiped with one minor exception. The minor exception at first glance, may seem inconsequential but, Anthony DiNozzo was desperate to find something to unravel the neat bow that Tobias Fornell claimed the case had been tied up with, permitting the director to call it closed. And that exception he grasped at like a drowned man might clutch at straws, telling Dr Sciuto to check it out anyway. When she opened the laptop’s internet memory location log, Tony knew instantly that Director Vance was wrong.
It was their SMOKING GUN!
Tony had admitted in his notes that he dictated onto his personal cell phone, recorded during the ride over to Ziva David’s apartment, that he’d told Abby not to tell anyone about the laptop being used at her place, not until he had a chance to confront the Mossad liaison first, quoting Gibbs infamous Rule 1 – never screw over your partner. What a shame then that Gibbs never seemed to follow that one when it came to DiNozzo, though, Tom thought in disgust.
And Tom felt a flood of remorse because Tony had been conditioned since joining the federal agency that one of his chief duties as Gibbs senior field agent was to ‘HANDLE HIM’ as one might a fractious child, trying to head off possible temper tantrums and massage his oversized ego. Of course, DiNozzo knew immediately that Ziva’s betrayal would cut Gibbs to the quick, and he sought to spare the man’s feelings, knowing Jethro saw her as a surrogate daughter. Tom felt guilt and regret because he must accept partial responsibility for Tony seeing himself as Gibbs’ keeper since he’d tacitly encouraged him in the role when he’d first started at NCIS and had shown an uncanny ability to soothe the savage beast.
Tony had once admitted to Tom that although Steve McQueen was his all-time screen hero, he considered the famous lion tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams a close second. Not for the first time, Morrow wondered if it was because, in the lion tamer, he saw something of himself and his job of keeping Gibbs calm in the job description of lion taming. Preventing Jethro from ripping people’s heads off in the bullpen, in the office and out in the field when he came in contact with members of the public and others in law enforcement did bear uncomfortable parallels to what Gebel-Williams was famous for. Honestly though, with the benefit of hindsight, Tom realised that if Gibbs needed a minder to do the job, then the man should have been fired long ago!
Saying a silent apology to the man who lay in a hospital bed a world away in Haifa, depending on a ventilator to keep him alive, Morrow reviewed those verbal case notes Tony had sent him before he left for Israel for what seemed like the nth time already. Even knowing he probably wouldn’t survive, the exceptional investigator had still wanted to cross every T and dot every I before he departed. After quoting Gibbs’ rule 1, he had speculated briefly on the two most likely explanations for Abby’s findings. Either Ziva was completely clueless about everything, which seemed farfetched, or she was lying and thus interfering in a federal investigation. Tom Morrow was going with the second explanation, and in his heart of hearts, he thought DiNozzo had also thought so.
Tony was convinced that Rivkin breached the intelligence summit and killed Agent Sherman (either with deadly intent or by accident), then executed Tabal after obtaining the intel that Eli desperately wanted, including Tabal’s laptop. Lastly, he believed that Officer Michael Rivkin staged the crime scene to frame the terrorist and make the assassination look like a suicide, to frame him. His objective seemed clear – to shift the blame for his own epic failure at SECNAV’s house away from himself, using his mission specs and an almost wiped-clean laptop to fake the scene of the crime. Tony just couldn’t prove it until, just like at SECNAV’s place, Rivkin messed up, leaving the internet memory location log intact.
Tom really wished he could quiz DiNozzo on his brief, yet cryptic verbal note he made sometime before the ones he’d made on his way to Ziva’s apartment to confront her about the laptop found at Abin Tabal’s motel room and why it had been connected to her internet account.
Tom stared at the Note to self: Reminder to lodge a formal complaint with JF-Y’s supervisor after the case wraps, for 1. Wilful and unauthorised destruction of highly significant evidence for locating a suspect at a crime scene, re: treason and espionage, plus the death of a federal agent. 2. Passive-aggressive threats made to Abby Sciuto regarding destruction of crucial evidence. Could have changed the whole case if the bug was not destroyed. JF-Y’s attitude was unprofessional and threatening. Recommend she attend FLET-C for additional training.
Tom knew that JF-Y referred to Special Agent Julia Foster-Yates, the head of the ICE protection team guarding SECNAV and the heads of FBI, CIA, and ICE. As Tom knew (from the four years that he’d been DiNozzo’s director at NCIS), an intention to file a complaint against the team leader was unprecedented and out of character for the senior field agent on Gibbs’ team. Which told him that something had ticked off DiNozzo very badly, and Tom wondered what it was. As ICE ultimately fell under the auspice of the DHS, as did the Secret Service, he felt obliged to get to the bottom of it. His gut telling him that this was something serious – Tony wasn’t one to make complaints against fellow agents, particularly from another agency.
Further intriguing him, Morrow found another note to himself on Tony’s phone regarding the case. He intended to ‘rip Probie a new one for his gleeful enjoyment when JF-Y had made physical threats to harm Abby so she couldn’t process evidence, following Abby’s anger at her destroying a major piece of evidence. McGee should have reported JF-Ys behaviour and attitude. It was inappropriate, especially since she was in the wrong. He’d further stated in quick, clipped sentences that told Morrow that Tony was fuming, that once Gibbs found out about the incident in the lab, with McGee taking JF-Y’s side, he would likely insert his size nine boot so far up Tim’s ass he would spew shoe leather.
Okay, that sounded like a serious incident, Morrow concluded. He doubted if anything would be done about it after everything that happened. Although, if Tony didn’t survive, Tom vowed to follow it up personally – he wouldn’t have left those notes to himself if it had been something petty or trivial, so Morrow felt an obligation to follow up on it.
He was still hoping against hope that he could get the details of the incident from Tony’s own mouth, though.
Chapter 20
Later that day, after meeting with his various team leads, pursuing different tangents in DHS’ case investigating Philip Davenport and Leon Vance, Tom attended a meeting with the Secretary of Defense. Robert Joyner Bose had requested Tom give him a sitrep on where they were at currently in the investigation. SECDEF was not impressed by what he’d learned so far – Tom estimated that his state of mind was probably sitting at DEFCON 2 levels already. He also didn’t need to seek out the services of a psychic to predict that at the end of this briefing, Secretary Bose would have reached DEFCON 1 status, and he expected heads would roll.
Morrow just prayed his own wasn’t one of them. First off, because he wanted to be there, ringside when they arrested Davenport and Vance and interrogated them both. And secondly, he owed it to DiNozzo to ensure that it was done by the book, even if he didn’t make it. Especially if Tony didn’t make it.
Damn, that pathologically ambitious conniving bitch Anna Elliot for putting DiNozzo in such an impossible situation. He already had some of his ‘off-book’ contacts that he’d cultivated over the years, digging into her private life. He was bound and determined that she was not getting a promotion to Secretary of State after her foul coercion of DiNozzo. Morrow refused to permit her to be rewarded from forcing Tony into doing what amounted to a suicide mission for her political gain.
Not even if he needed to sink down to her level and play dirty to make sure her career was over, because there was one thing that Tom had learnt over the years. Most people had secrets they weren’t proud of, and he was damn sure that the Deputy Secretary of State would be no different. Elliot would rue the day she decided it was a brilliant idea to use and abuse Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo to further HER career at his expense.
When he was shown into the office of the Secretary of Defense for their meeting, Robert Bose rose out of his chair, and the two men shook hands cordially. Tom had always found quite a bit to admire in the man. Bose, a former Air Force General, was a very effective Secretary of Defense and had been an equally fine officer. Despite having retired from active duty a few years ago, he still looked as fit and trim as he no doubt had been when he was a fighter jet pilot of much renown. And although Tom was decidedly straight, that didn’t mean, he was blind. As a trained observer, he could see that by most objective definitions, Robert Joyner Bose was an extremely handsome, and fit guy.
Of course, an appraisal of his indisputable attractiveness might have also been forged, in part, by listening to and observing the reactions of others. Quite a few of his agents, young and some not so young, females and males, had expressed admiration for his ‘good looks.’ Ewan Greenley, Tom’s executive assistant, who had been pivotal in Morrow’s successful transition into Homeland after his transfer from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Ewan’s observations might have played a part in the deputy director’s assessment of Bose’s physical attributes too. Tom was aware that Greenley was either bi-sexual or gay (though Morrow never asked), and he had no problem with a person’s sexuality as long as the individual pursued consensual relationships with individuals of legal age.
As he greeted Bose, who had directed him to call him Robert (not Rob, Bob, Robby, or Bobby), once again, Tom was struck by the guy’s arresting good looks. His still blonde hair, which, admitted was looking a little greyer than it used to, was cut in a fashion that was more military than styled to be telegenic. His eyes were blue-grey and piercing, and his physique was fit but not in a way that suggested he spent hours lifting weights in a gym and swallowed down protein supplements. He was wiry and athletic, and his charismatic presence oozed out of every pore. In fact, while he outwardly looked like the poster boy for a right-wing Neo-Nazi faction that was becoming increasingly emboldened the further away they became from the horrors of WWII, Bose was an increasingly rare species as a politician. He was ethical and egalitarian and had promoted a racially diverse workforce within his portfolio. He also had strong links to several humanitarian organisations, such as Habitat for Humanity, taking a leaf out of a former president and naval officer’s book and turning out to help build housing for the underprivileged. He was constantly fighting to improve the standard of living for military members and their dependents and increase funding for veterans’ housing, health, and welfare.
All in all, the guy was a great Secretary of Defense – a respected and highly skilled operator, very adroit at playing the political game when fighting for the rights of his constituents (military personnel and their families) and an all-round decent individual who seemed to be oblivious of his matinee idol good looks. That or he just felt that it didn’t define who he was. Tom had the honour of working with the retired general quite a bit since leaving NCIS for Homeland, and Tom admitted that Robert didn’t miss much. So, it was likely that Bose didn’t want to be defined by something as superficial as his genetics.
After greeting Tom, he directed them to his conference table (not his desk with its inherent power-play of me top dog, you underling) and, communicated to Morrow that this was about sharing of data, not chest-beating, trying to one-up him or political posturing. It telegraphed to Tom that Bose intended this to be a meeting of professionals drawn together in a common goal – to serve the people, including the men and women who served under them. This was not about figuring out how to take advantage of the situation for political advantage.
It was also nothing less than he’d come to expect of the man, and Tom was damned relieved that SECDEF hadn’t been of the faction pushing for DiNozzo to clean up their mess. Frankly, Tom would have been shocked and angry to discover that he would have been involved with Elliot, but it was a damn relief to have SECDEF on their side. Robert Joyner Bose had been livid when he found out what had gone down, and if he had any say in the matter, Davenport and Leon Tyler Owens-Vance were toast!
“Thanks for coming down, Tom,” he said, his voice having a surprisingly gravelly quality to it that caught many people by surprise. According to Greenley, he thought it sounded sexy. “So, what can you tell me about new developments thus far?”
As one of the leading cabinet members in charge of sorting out this Charlie Foxtrot of a situation, and not surprisingly, one of two departments kept out of the loop to bring down Eli David, he and the head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Elaine Woods were leading the charge against the Acting Secretary of State and her faction and the hopefully still clueless Philip Davenport and the NCIS Director Owens/Vance. Anna Elliot no doubt decided that neither the Secretary of State nor AG Woods would have agreed to be a party to her plan and treated them like mushrooms. Bose left in the dark, was enraged by her excuse that she thought he might have been consulted by SECNAV since Bose was Davenport’s boss. But he was enough of a pragmatist to recognise that on the surface, it was rather suspicious that he had no idea they were hatching such an outrageous plan.
Bose already sought out Morrow’s opinion on the matter. Tom had agreed that it was likely that someone in the DOD must have had an inkling, about what they were up to. Either, they deliberately colluded with SEVNAV in keeping the plan to drag Agent DiNozzo to Israel to ‘take one for the team’ from reaching SECDEF’s ears or had been negligently incompetent. Regardless, it demanded consequences, which was why Morrow had urged Robert to launch a full investigation into his department. He needed to target people who should have known what was happening in SECNAV’s bailiwick, because it was possible, unfortunately even probable, that some people might have been compromised over the issue, courtesy of Eli David’s Kompromat.
At this stage, it was hard to determine just how many people might be compromised by those damned files. Bose had cussed like a sailor despite being a former flyboy, immediately agreeing to cut a swathe through his own department.
Tom had been sympathetic. “Don’t feel too bad, Robert,” he told him. “It seems likely that at least every third man and his dog in Washington are honourably mentioned in Eli’s damn files. Your department, if tainted, won’t be the only one.”
“When the Israelis hand over Eli’s files pertaining to US citizens, a lot of people are going to be retiring, either voluntarily or forcibly,” Robert predicted sourly.
Morrow said, somewhat cynically, “That’s if they stick to their end of the bargain and hand ‘em over in full or even surrender them at all.”
“You think they’d do that,” he asked almost rhetorically before answering his own question. “Yeah, dumb question, it’s what we’d probably do in their shoes, hold something back for a rainy day,” he mused.
Tom just shook his head and gave a ‘who knows’ shrug.
“I think the wisest course will be to assume the worst scenario and do our own investigating. It is hard to believe that no one at the DOD heard any chatter about what Owen-Vance and SECNEV had agreed to vis-à-vis the Davids after Rivkin’s death. After all, it was a real black eye for the reputation of the much-feared Kidon Unit that a lowly federal agent got the best of one of their trained operatives in a hand-to-hand contest.”
Scowling, Robert agreed. “We know that a part of that feared reputation is hype that they are unbeatable, so when a regular federal agent, not even Spec Ops trained, survived the Kidon assassin’s attempt to kill him, it was highly damaging to them.”
“Agreed, Agent DiNozzo’s survival didn’t just mean they lost a man, but the deterrence value of the Kidon Unit suffered a serious blow to their standing in terrorism circles.”
He paused to let Secretary Bose digest that before commenting further, ”The other issue is that people under Davenport’s command should have reported his action to the DOD and didn’t.”
Bose’s expression was arctic, agreeing to ask the IG’s department to start discreet but urgent inquiries. “At least until after the Israelis make their move and arrest Director David.
“What-the-fuck is taking so long?” he’d groused.
Once again, Tom had shrugged impatiently. “They say they are still trying to identify all of his upper echelon who are loyal to him before they move in one fell swoop and arrest them.”
Bose had stared at Tom intently. “You believe that?”
Tom had given him a so-so gesture. “It is possible, but I think they are still trying to locate the exact location of his dirt files so that if he refuses to give them up, he can’t extort concessions out of them,” Tom opined, already having devoted a lot of thought to their motives.
“Fair nuff. I’ll brief the IG,” he had said with a cynical sigh.
Before their current meeting got underway, he offered Tom a hot beverage and receiving a grateful assent, he ordered coffee for them both as he stared at Tom closely. Morrow knew he was desperately short of sleep, worried about DiNozzo, and the Secretary of Defense was probably taking in his ragged appearance.
When the coffees had been delivered by Robert’s aide, a pretty soldier in her late thirties, she looked at her boss when his back was turned with doe eyes, though Bose seemed oblivious to her attentions. He crossed to his desk as she closed the door and enacted the SCIP protocol to ensure that everything they said would remain completely confidential.
“Before we get started, you look pretty rough, my friend. How is DiNozzo doing?” he asked sympathetically.
“Not so great,” Tom admitted. “The doctors are not terribly optimistic at this point.”
He then proceeded to vent, expressing what he’d like to do to the SECNAV and Owen-Vance – some of the more lurid fantasies included smearing their butts with honey and situating them on fire ant nests, dropping them in shark-infested waters or handing them over as a gift to a cannibalistic tribe in the mountains of New Guinea. Robert had liked the handing them over to cannibals option, feeling there was a karmic symmetry in that scenario. Finally, after letting Tom vent in a rare show of his emotions, he responded to the news that DiNozzo had developed an infection, and the odds looked grim.
“Such a waste of a brilliant agent,” Bose exclaimed in frustration. “The man espoused the qualities of the Corp far more faithfully than his boss or Leon ever did.”
Seeing the wince of his colleague, Secretary Bose launched into the purpose of their meeting.
“I note from your referencing the NCIS director as Owen-Vance that you now have proof that the man isn’t who he claims to be. Isn’t really a medically retired Marine, he isn’t Leon Vance?”
Smiling with a feral display of teeth, Tom replied. “Just got back DNA confirmation a few hours again. With the caveat that it was carried out without warrants at this point,” he told Bose. “The NCIS director is a full sibling match to the DNA profile of Ms Tara Kole, who is supposed to be, according to her birth certificate, a full sibling to one Tyler Keith Owens,” Tom told him grimly.
“Well, S-H-I-T!” Bose cursed loudly. “What a Charlie Foxtrot! I mean, we suspected it after Kort’s file, but confirmation of him actually being Owens … the consequences are huge. And if SECNAV was a party to this, or even if he just turned a blind eye to it, then I’m going to make sure that he ends his days in a facility that will make Gitmo seem like a damned vacation retreat by comparison. Just how compromised are we?”
“No idea at this stage,” Tom retorted. “And we may never learn the full extent of how compromised we are by all of this,” he stated furiously.
“It’s one thing to expect that foes might try to place a mole in our midst to have them rise up to such an important position, but for a guy off the street to be able to carry it off… well, it kinda beggars belief, Tom. What do we know about Tyler Keith Owens; could he have been recruited by the Chinese, North Korea, or Russia?” he asked, naming three of the most likely possibilities.
“My team, the one that confirmed Owens-Vance is the brother of Ms Koles, are already on it,” Tom assured him. “So far, they determined that Owens has a juvenile record for stealing expensive cars and taking them for joyrides as a minor,” he said. “Plus, there were a couple of incidents for fights, underage drinking and smoking pot when he was a minor in Ohio,” Tom reported.
“And this is before he turned up in Chicago?” Bose clarified as Tom nodded. “Well, I guess that explains why he never tried to enlist, or if he did, he got rejected,” Bose commented acerbically.
“Actually, it was the second. Owens tried to enlist at the same time as Leon Vance – the real Leon Vance, but Owens’ application was rejected by the Marines because of his juvenile record,” he reported.
“So here’s what I don’t get,” Secretary Bose spoke slowly. “What was his intention in swapping identities, if your supposition is correct, he did it after the real Leon Vance was given a medical discharge. He had to know that he would never serve.”
“To be honest, Robert, I just can’t imagine Owens-Vance as a Marine. I think he might have initially applied to the Marines because his friend Vance was enlisting, and he didn’t want to stay in Chicago alone. At one time, the pair were reportedly as close as brothers. The second theory is that it was a way for him to get an education. He is indisputably very bright but, with his background, there was no way he’d have been accepted into an elite college. Nor could he have afforded it,” he said.
“Makes sense, but to what ends?” Bose pressed.
“Okay, pure speculation on my part…”
“Yes, but you also know the guy, you’ve worked with him in the field at NCIS, even before you were appointed as director. Was this his plan all along, attend the War College, get a fancy degree, and go into law enforcement or intelligence and counterintelligence?”
“Just my personal opinion, but he never struck me as the type to strive for a career in law enforcement. Not the type who believed in the whole serve and protect ethos. He was always intensely ambitious, and career obsessed, so my best guess would be that he hoped to get a top-notch degree, and then he could hawk his ass to the corporate world. Maybe land a high-paying job in defence work with the military on cyber security and counter-intelligence matters.”
Bose considered that scenario carefully. “Okay, I can buy that. But how did he end up at NCIS then?”
“Near as my team has been able to discover, given that we have had to investigate everything incredibly discreetly, it was his paper on the idea of recruiting psychologically at-risk individuals or people who met the profile for sociopathy or other personality disorders. It caught the eye of people like Davenport and Jarvis. As you already know, once identified, and recruited, the next step was to train them to become elite assassins, part of an ultra-super clandestine unit of men and women. His theoretical project envisaged it as a quasi-military organisation, which could dispatch government enemies who were unreachable by more conventional means,” Tom said, a distasteful expression on his face as he took one last sip of coffee.
“Operation Frankenstein!” Bose hissed in outraged indignation. “His twisted version of Special Forces but using the dregs and the disturbed rather than the best of the best.”
Tom eyed him dispassionately as he noted the retired general’s eyes were practically sparking like lasers at the thought of damaged men and women from the armed services being targeted. Especially anyone who was psychologically vulnerable to exploitation or blackmail. He’d already heard the SECDEF’s feelings on the matter when he’d briefed him the first time about Kort’s allegations that Operation Frankenstein existed. Even with the stringent recruitment of Spec. Forces, including psychological assessment, to weed out vulnerable recruits, given the rigours of what they were asked to do, it took a painful toll on many of them, and they were the best and brightest. The idea of those idiots deliberately recruiting disturbed individuals or those without morals or ethics terrified both men, as it should. The potential for all hell to break loose was immense, and neither individual wanted to contemplate it.
“The bit about them being hired out to private individuals so that they not only became self-funded but generated income for their bosses/politicians, sounds like Langley mentality, but the self-funded bit is pure Davenport,” the Defense Secretary said scathingly.
“Yeah, but to be fair, from what we’ve been able to determine, given the constraints we are operating under,” Tom said, referring to the need for everything to remain secret until the Israelis moved, “based on that damn paper, Owen-Vance never advocated the whole “Killers 4 Hire concept. As you say, Davenport or Kort dreamed up that one.”
“If Kort was involved, why would he blow the whistle on the whole operation?” Bose mused, still incensed at the idea of service personnel being exploited like that.
“A good point. Maybe, Kort has another agenda,” Tom mused slowly. “Leverage perhaps… he’s been in the business long enough to know he won’t live a long life. Spooks and assassins never do. Perhaps he got a tip-off that he was about to be the target of a burn notice? Perhaps he wants to negotiate by turning whistleblower or states evidence.”
Looking completely disgusted by the topic of conversation, he shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know what his game is, but I do know that while I don’t trust the man as far as I can throw him, he seems to have been on the money about the identity swap and Owens-Vance’s college paper.”
Bose considered what Tom had said, nodding slowly. “Fair nuff, Tom. So our theory is Davenport notices him because of that damned paper he wrote, decides Owens-Vance is someone who he wants on his six and pulls strings to get him recruited to NCIS. Who approached him?”
“NIS Agents Riley McCallister and Witney Sharp. Back in the day, Tyler-Leon told me not long after I met him that they spun him some BS about being short of agents who could do undercover intelligence ops in Europe. They wanted him to join NIS, the forerunner of NCIS,” Tom explained.
“Why was it BS?”
“Because intelligence operations had shifted, in line with what was happening in the real world. The Middle East was increasingly volatile, and the Cold War was over. But McCallister had a bee in his bonnet – he refused to accept that the Soviet Union, at that point in time, was no longer the threat that the Middle East, with the terrorist organisations springing up all over the place, was posing to US security.”
The Secretary of Defense continued to press. “Why was McCallister so unwilling to accept the facts?”
“Honestly, I think it was probable that Riley saw that his best shot at being the director (which was his cherished ambition), would be due to his expertise in all things European, the Soviets and the Cold War. He was woefully unqualified to continue running intelligence operations in the Middle East, where all the up-and-comers were working.” Tom said disgustedly.
“Hell, even that old reprobate, Mike Franks, who was as old school as they come, as in if the perps refused to talk, then you tortured them until they did saw the writing on the wall. He recognised the shifting threat to the Middle East and the terrorist cells, proliferating and posing a threat. Anyway, that Op that McAllister recruited Owens-Vance for was decidedly hinky. I’m certain it wasn’t the critical mission he told Owens-Vance it was when he recruited him while he was still studying…even Tyler-Leon conceded that it was odd. Well, apart from the target trying to assassinate him, which pointed to a mole in NIS, but they were never located,” Tom said.
“Right, so he was brought into NIS on the strength of his Frankenstein paper, which placed him squarely on the outskirts of what most people thought was acceptable, and it was something that Davenport probably orchestrated. From his jacket, he seemed to have had a fair amount of success in intelligence and counterintelligence, which would have been another thing Philip would have zeroed in on. Not much of his career was focused on investigative cases,” Bose noted, gesturing to his personnel file on the conference table.
Although Morrow had read Owens Vance’s personnel file when he was NCIS director, that was more than four years ago. He picked it up and looked through it again to refamiliarize himself with its contents, along with any new additions, before he made an observation.
“Remarkably like Jenny Shepard’s background. She also had very limited hands-on experience in investigation.”
“Right,” Bose muttered, casting a surreptitious glance at his watch, wanting to move on. “Well, anything else you have to brief me on?”
“A few things, Robert. But if you have other commitments, I can come back another time,” Tom offered helpfully.
“Trained observer,” he smirked. “No, I have two hours before I have to attend a finance meeting,” he said, not bothering to hide his distaste. “I was just checking on the time because I was wondering if you wanted to make it a working lunch. My aide could place an order for us for some Thai food, sushi, or there’s an Ethiopian place not too far away that delivers lunch if you’re feeling adventurous,” he said teasingly.
Tom smiled. “Lunch sounds good, Robert. My day got underway early, and I skipped breakfast, he said easily. “As to cuisine, I don’t mind, although Lynnie would tell me something healthy,” he said with a laugh, referring to his beloved wife, Lynette Morrow.
The Secretary laughed, too. “And that’s why I really like you, Tom. Ever since Charlotte passed away last year, no one ever talks about their spouses to me,” he said wistfully. “It’s like they think if they mention their wives, husbands, lovers, significant others, I’ll burst into tears or become intolerably maudlin,” he said, referring to his wife of almost twenty-eight years who died last year from breast cancer.
In deference to Tom’s lack of breakfast, the Secretary ordered Ethiopian food, which he said was spicy but healthy because they used a lot of vegetables in their cooking. He instructed his aide to make sure she ordered plenty of injera, which he explained was an Ethiopian flatbread. It was made from teff -an ancient grain and injera was the basis of most Ethiopian dishes. He also ordered a chicken stew called Doro Wat and Shiro Wat, which was a dish made from chickpeas or bean puree with spices including berbere (an Ethiopian spice blend made from various native and non-native spices) and finally chose, Beyainatu a vegetarian plater traditionally served atop of injera.
While they were waiting for lunch to arrive, Tom began to fill Bose in on one of the contributing factors that resulted in Tony going alone to confront Ziva at her apartment to explain why a terrorist’s laptop had used her internet account in her apartment?
“So, let me see if I’ve properly grasped what you’re saying, Tom,” he said as a preamble to his summarising.
Tom was mildly amused because General Robert Bose was undoubtedly one of the smartest men in the government. He didn’t have difficulties analysing data, but Morrow nodded agreeably, playing along with SECDEF.
“So, the NCIS Director Leon Tyler Owens Vance ignored accepted investigative procedure, declaring the case closed that started out investigating who breached security at Davenport’s poker game and killed ICE agent Sherman. He did so because it appeared that a terrorist committed suicide because there was intel and a laptop found at the scene that linked it to the bug found at SECNAV’s. However, we have confirmed, based on transcripts that Mossad turned over to us of a conversation that took place between Eli David and Leon Tyler Owens Vance where the Mossad Director admitted that Officer Rivkin, on the Director’s orders, killed Abin Tabal and faked the scene to make it look like a suicide. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct, Mr Secretary, Tom responded formally. “But also, we confirmed it because Abby Sciuto determined that the laptop recovered from Tabal’s hotel room actually belonged to Michael Rivkin. The destroyed laptop found at Ziva David’s was Tabal’s laptop. Rivkin swapped them over.”
“I was getting to that,” Bose mock scowled. “Right, and the NCIS director prematurely declared the case closed based on the autopsy findings of the terrorist. He did so even while knowing that Dr Sciuto, their world-renowned forensic pathologist, had NOT finished examining all of the evidence collected from the crime scene? Is that what you are saying, Tom?” Bose asked in a low clipped, tone.
“Yes, Sir. That is exactly, what I’m telling you,” Tom confirmed.
“And based on this premature closure, the investigators, including Gibbs, and crucially the Mossad Liaison, Officer Ziva David, left the building once the case was closed. Only two members on the investigative team remained behind and they were Dr Sciuto and Special Agent DiNozzo, the senior field agent?” Bose continued in a dangerous I’m not fucking impressed tone.
Tom nodded. “Again, Mr Secretary, your grasp of the situation is masterful,” he confirmed formally.
“No need to blow smoke up my ass, Tom. Why didn’t Sciuto and DiNozzo head home like everyone else on the investigation if the case was closed?”
“Well, I would be speculating about Abby, but she may have wanted to finish examining the last piece of evidence so she could hand it over to the evidence clerks. It could also be that she had doubts about the suicide finding and wanted to make sure all her evidence was properly analysed, in case anything came back to bite NCIS on the ass…”
“Which it did!” Robert interrupted irritably.
Yes, Sir, that it did. Plus Abby in my experience, can sometimes be prescient, about things, particularly, if they involve members of the MCRT, whom she regards as family. We need to ask her about it, when we are finally able to launch an investigation into how this happened,” Tom opined.
“Agreed! You implied that you didn’t know why Sciuto was still there. Does that mean you know why DiNozzo didn’t go home?”
“He said that he didn’t believe that Tabal had committed suicide, that it didn’t sit right with him. He claimed that it was all too neat. He was still there, hoping that Abby might find something that proved it wasn’t suicide. Tony already suspected that Rivkin planted the bug at the intelligence summit and killed Ice Agent Tom Sherman, albeit probably unintentionally. He intended to render him unconscious, but Sherman stroked out.
Tony believed Rivkin had also killed Tabal and made it look like a suicide. After all, that would be child’s play to an operative with Kidon training to commit murder and make it look like a suicide. Plus, it wouldn’t be the first time a Kidon assassin killed someone accidentally,” he said, thinking of when Ziva David killed a suspect in the NCIS elevator.
“Obviously, Agent DiNozzo had a point. Did he tell you why he thought the scene was staged?” Robert asked curiously.
“Because everything was too neat – Gibbs has a rule – says there is no such thing as coincidences. Rivkin disobeyed a court-obtained FISA warrant, and repeatedly refused to leave the country when ordered to do so, suggested he was on a mission. He’d killed or tried to kill all the other members of Tabal’s cell and was continually calling Ziva at work or dragging her off in the middle of the case. It was too many coincidences for Agent DiNozzo to swallow.”
“Good instincts,” Bose stated.
“The best! As was the point he made about the crime scene. Why would the terrorist go to the trouble of wiping clean his laptop, but leave clear evidence that he had infiltrated the intel-sharing summit with all of the mission specs plastered up on his wall instead of burning them too?”
“Did he have a theory?”
“Yeah, he did. He believed that all of the mission specs for infiltrating the SECNAV’s house were planted by whoever had really done the job. That the same individual (a professional operative) killed Tabal to frame him and make NCIS believe the terrorist had bugged the summit,” Morrow said sombrely.
“And they fell for it, hook, line and sinker.”
“Uh huh,” Tom agreed, disgusted at the sloppiness of the investigators, just as Bose was notified that their lunch was there.
They moved down the other end of the conference table, so they didn’t spill anything on their files. Tom studied the injera, a sour flatbread that Robert said was a staple of Ethiopian cooking. It looked rather like a crepe but was thicker, yet not quite as thick as a pancake and apparently was used as the basis for eating many of the dishes. The SECDEF explained that traditionally, you tore off a piece of injera and used it to scoop ingredients onto the bread to eat them. Although, in defence of Tom, his aide provided serving spoons to scoop the Doro Wat and Shiro Wat onto bite-sized pieces of the flatbread. The deputy director soon discovered that the beyainatu was actually a kind of vegetarian mixed platter of Ethiopian dishes like pureed red lentils cooked with berbere sauce, yellow peas, spiced collard greens, cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables that he didn’t even recognise.
He watched Robert, who seemed most adept at this business, of eating with his fingers, as he casually scooped, rolled, and dipped his food using the injera bread while continuing to chat. Tom was definitely impressed. As they continued to break pieces of injera off and dip it into some of the dishes or for the chicken stew Doro Wat, Tom used the spoon, dishing it onto larger portions of injera and rolling it up before eating it. Tom decided he quite liked the flavours, although they were definitely exotic…and spicy but not unbearable hot like the Indian curry Beef Vindaloo. At first, he wasn’t sure about the injera, but the more he ate, the more accustomed to the sour quality he became.
“I’m betting, based upon your level of dexterity in eating with your fingers, that you order food from this restaurant quite a bit,” Morrow said, conversationally, as he struggled hard not to make too big a mess.
The Secretary of Defense chuckled, sounding wistful. “Then you’d lose that bet, Tom. Tirakau’s Table only opened up a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been dying to try it. Charlotte and I fell in love with Ethiopian cuisine when we took a trip a few years ago to Egypt and Northern Africa, back when she was in remission. The ancient Christian churches in Lalibela are just incredible! They were hewn out of the rock and thought to be built back in the 12th and 13th centuries. We also visited Yemrehana Kresto Church, built of wood and stone and constructed inside a cavern in a mountain. Luckily, the Ethiopians had built a road from Lalibela in 2000 because before that, you had to trek the 9 klicks on foot or mule. Charli loved to travel, and we’d talked about taking that trip for years,” he said sadly.
Tom didn’t say anything for several minutes.
Finally, he said, “I’m glad you both got to take that trip, Robert. In our line of work, it is always easy for yet, another crisis to make us put it off until a better time.”
Bose nodded. “Cancer taught us there was no better time than today because there may not be a tomorrow,” he said. “Present company accepted,” he said with a cheeky smirk.
Morrow rolled his eyes at the play on his name. “Really, Robert? You just had to go there,” he grumbled as the Secretary of Defense chuckled, and the awkwardness of their conversation dissipated.
“So if we go back to the decision to close the case, it’s fair to say that if the case had remained open, Gibbs team would have remained in the building. Then when the Mossad liaison officer’s address on the internet memory location log was discovered, which Rivkin neglected to wipe, Gibbs would have immediately interrogated her, demanding to know what the fuck was going on. Even if she refused to cooperate, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to join the dots that it wasn’t Tabal’s computer. It was planted at the scene, most likely switched with his real one.”
Tom took over,” And even if Ziva David refused to reveal where Officer Rivkin was, then, Gibbs would have put out a BOLO on him and checked to see if he’d flown out. One of the first places he would have checked was Ziva’s apartment, and he would have taken McGee, Fornell and DiNozzo with him. If Rivkin had been stupid enough to resist arrest, then it would have been impossible for Eli to claim that the takedown (either alive or dead) was anything personal. Tony wouldn’t have been dragged off to Israel because the FBI would have raised a shitstorm if Leon Tyler Owens Vance had tried to drag their FBI Agent along and ‘take one for the team.”
“Exactly, plus after the Ari Haswari fiasco a few years ago, the FBI and Mossad’s relationship has been strained,” Bose agreed. “And seriously, can you imagine if he tried to make Gibbs go and justify his lawful actions to Eli David. Gibbs would tell Owen-Vance to go and engage in a solitary act of self-pleasure if he tried to make him justify himself for diplomatic reasons.”
“That’s an excellent point, Sir. From my experience trying to discipline him over the years, he’d have told the director, ‘To bite me.’ And honestly, I really can’t imagine that he’d let the director force McGee to go either, although I could be wrong.”
“Yet he stood there while Leon-Tyler forced Agent DiNozzo, who was injured and not cleared to fly, on a 12-hour flight that was dangerous to his health, and Gibbs did nothing to stop it. So much for Sempre fi, Gunny!” Bose said with much contempt.
Tom pushed back his chair, looking at the remains of their meal. “Looks like you overordered,” he said, rather stating the obvious.
“Yes, their portion sizes are certainly generous, aren’t they? I’ll eat the rest for dinner or lunch tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that their flavours will intensifies,” he said unconcernedly. He was silent for several minutes as they cleaned up their meal and stowed it in his refrigerator.
Finally, he turned to Tom and asked, “The director accused DiNozzo of failing to follow procedure (which is rich, coming from him in light of what you revealed with the premature move to close the case) by going to Ziva’s apartment without backup. DiNozzo claimed he did so because he was trying to protect Ziva if it was really Rivkin and she hadn’t been involved in the deaths of Tabal and Sherman.”
“Yes, Sir,” Tom confirmed.
“Do you believe him?”
“Do I believe he was looking out for his partner? Yes, I do, because Gibbs’ first rule is ‘Never screw over your partner,’ but as a cop, Tony never needed Jethro to teach him that credo. Although I believe it is more complicated than just looking out for the liaison officer, he was also looking out for another partner,” Tom told him.
“Who?” Robert asked, with a touch of asperity.
“Gibbs.”
“Why the Hell would he be worried about screwing over Gibbs?”
“NO. Not DiNozzo, Mr Secretary. Tony was worried about Ziva screwing over Gibbs. It was common knowledge when it comes to women of a certain age who need saving, Gibbs is vulnerable. He treats them as surrogate daughters to help assuage the guilt he feels about the death of his own wife and daughter. It makes him susceptible to being manipulated.
“Which DiNozzo was well aware of after working with him for eight years. From what I heard, Ziva profiled every member of the MCRT for her brother, Ari Haswari, and he no doubt used the data to choose who to target when he killed Caitlin Todd. Whether his father deliberately encouraged him to take out one of the MCRTs has never been established, but I have my suspicions, including who really took out Ari Haswari,” Morrow observed.
“Okay, what do you think happened?”
“Knowing Gibbs for years, I think he manipulated Ziva into killing Ari, or at least he believed he’d done so.”
“Why on Earth would he do that?”
“Because he can be a right mean sonofabitch when you cross him. Ziva refused to believe that Ari was a terrorist and that he’d killed Todd. Jethro wanted to prove to her that he was right, and she was wrong. From chatter I’ve heard from several sources, Gibbs didn’t know she and Ari were half-siblings. If he’d known, he would never have demanded she kill Haswari – not a female who was roughly the same age as his dead daughter. He’s also a chauvinist as well as a sonofabitch. Trent Kort might have intimated to me that her father knew Ari had gone rogue and already ordered his half-sister to kill him.”
The SECDEF stared at him in horror. The father of three could not comprehend such depravity, and he proceeded to cuss, using language so blue that it would make the proverbial sailor blush. It might have included a fair amount of blaspheming, too.
“What no one really knows is… did Ziva genuinely not know that her brother had gone rogue or was it all part of a clever ruse cooked up by her and her father to manipulate Gibbs. To further entrench her as his surrogate daughter and give her a place on his team…”
“Where she could access sensitive data and handle Mossad operatives like Rivkin on US soil from inside NCIS,” Robert mused, extremely unimpressed. “So DiNozzo was trying to protect Gibbs’ precious feels about his surrogate daughter? Christ on a cracker! How much do you think he knew about David?”
“Judging by the arguments that other agents report that he had with her in the bullpen about Rivkin while the assassin was in LA, merrily assassinating that terrorist cell, Agent DiNozzo was deeply suspicious of her. I assume that didn’t just magically go away after Gibbs got back to Washington.”
“Am I the only one that sees a pattern here where Ms David doesn’t see that her brother, who she is handling, is really a terrorist or her lover, who she is handling is out of control and making errors that bring him to the attention of NCIS in LA and then DC. Either she’s a liar and a pathetically incompetent handler, or she’s terribly gullible for a feared Kidon operative,” Bose mused.
“The similarities in both cases struck me too. I’m just not sure if it is wilful blindness, she’s lying through her teeth, or she’s utterly incompetent.”
Shaking his head, Bose said, “Maybe all three. Right, so DiNozzo was looking out for David so he could protect Gibbs. Which is bullshit, by the way. It’s not his job to be protecting Gibbs’ delicate sensibilities because of his surrogate daughter. Where the fuck did DiNozzo get a dumbass idea that it was his responsibility?”
Guiltily, Morrow filled him in on how subtly and not so subtly it had been communicated to DiNozzo that he needed to handle his boss’s temper tantrums and evil moods for the sake of everyone else’s sanity. Probies and junior agents, administrative staff, other agencies and police departments and members of the public needed to be protected from the fallout, and part of his job was to throw himself on the live grenade that was Gibbs-on-a-tear. His task was either to disarm him by drawing fire or to shield everyone else if he couldn’t.
The Secretary of Defense stared at Tom, incandescent with rage. He was literally too angry for words.
Finally, after about ten minutes of deep breathing and meditating, former Lieutenant General Robert Joyner Bose opened his eyes and said, speaking slowly.
“Right now, I’m too angry to continue this discussion, Tom. We’ll convene later. Come back at 1730. That gives me time to calm down, maybe beat the crap out of the punching bag in the gym before we finish our discussion.”
A much, chastened, Tom nodded. “Yes, Mr Secretary. I’ll clear my calendar.”
“Good, because I have some thoughts on how we should proceed, but right, now I can’t even…” he trailed off. Clearly, the man was struggling not to yell or throw things.
Wordlessly, he shut off the SCIP security mechanism, and Tom departed the building, his tail well and truly between his legs.
This story is so engrossing, I haven’t been able to put it down! Finding out what happened to Tony’s mother was so painful, but it is sadly typical for doctors and husbands to disbelieve a woman’s legitimate medical issues until it is too late. The false diagnosis of mental health issues, which resulted in presciptions of brain-altering medications, is an entirely believable scenario to explain Lucinda’s cruelty to Tony. I think I am on my third box of Kleenex (sniffle).
The corruption being uncovered is mind-boggling , and I really enjoy the tremendous amount of thought and detail that you include in your analyses of procedure, the law, and the step-by-step process of unravelling the truth in multiple simultaneous investigations. I am always annoyed at writers who gloss over the important logistics — this is fiction based on reality, not Hogwarts, so things getting “magically” accomplished breaks my suspension of disbelief. In contrast, your extensive research and deep examination of the real-world consequences of canon is so immersive, that I feel I have been transported into this fictional world 🙂
I am even angrier at Jeanne, though — after falsely accusing Tony of murder, she managed to top that reprehensible act by never telling him about his son! Any descriptiion of Jeanne as being “compassionate” makes me angry, since she has chosen to actively and maliciously scapegoat a fellow victim, a good man who risks his life to help others and was manipulated and betrayed far worse than Jeanne ever was. I feel she is undeserving of Tony protecting her from the legal consequences of her vicious false accusations. For Tony’s sake, I do hope she honestly repents and works hard to make reparations, but as a canon character, I despise her for her lack of integrity.
I find Morrow’s character arc much more sympathetic, as he realizes how badly he screwed over Tony, though it was never intentional:
“ Guiltily, Morrow filled him in on how subtly and not so subtly it had been communicated to DiNozzo that… part of his job was to throw himself on the live grenade that was Gibbs-on-a-tear. His task was either to disarm him by drawing fire or to shield everyone else if he couldn’t. “
Morrow is working very hard to support Tony now, and is redeeming himself in my eyes.
I am truly resenting real life for tearing me away from this story! Thank you so much for sharing your talent and effort 🙂
At last, someone in power who doesn’t expect Tony to shield everyone from Gibbs, often by taking the hit himself.
I enjoy seeing different sides of the situation, as Tom works hard to get justice for Tony and other people caught up in events.
It is great that they making good progress and getting closer to arresting the people who willingly took Tony to his death. Given the number of conspirators and their positions, it is likely to be a big scandal, but I imagine there will also be some quiet moves to remove people while minimising public awareness scale of the crimes. It is scary to think that so many could get drawn in to such a thing and I hope you do not get nightmares when plotting all the ways someone can be betrayed and a nation let down by those in power!
I am not sure how I feel about Jeanne, as there is a vast difference between acting a role undercover and lying to incriminate an innocent person in a murder. Whilst she has every right to be angry and feel betrayed, she did not have the right to act on her feelings in such a malicious and destructive way. To find out that she also did not inform Tony about his son, depriving him and his child of that potential relationship, was disappointing.
The mad dash to Israel, when Tony already had expert medical care beyond her expertise, spoke to me mostly of a selfish need to confess. In fact, I was a little uncomfortable with her and even more her mother being included in discussions about Tony’s care, although presumably Tom Morrow had authorised it. But then I have never had the money to even consider hiring a yacht or been at such a loose end that maybe it was a relief to have something to do.