| Subject: ...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 23b part one |
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TxJAG_b
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Date Posted: 21:10:05 05/08/07 Tue
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TxJAG_b
's message, "...For Meritorious Service" on 09:04:26 05/08/07 Tue
From Chapter 23a, part three, …For Meritorious Service
“Great job, ma’am, sir, Captain,” Bud said effusively, “That was brilliant.”
“Easy Bud, don’t be too reserved,” Harm said jokingly.
Gentle laughter again rippled through the group.
0029 Zulu
Bethesda Naval Hospital ICU
Bethesda, Maryland
*
Sunday 13 July
Cassandra Ramirez’s eyes flicked open and she began gasping for air, grabbing at the breathing tube in her mouth.
The nurse on duty had just started to make her rounds on this floor when she came into the Marine Sergeant’s room. She hurried over to the woman’s side.
“Sergeant?! Sergeant Ramirez! Can you hear me?!”
Cassie stopped struggling and looked oddly at the nurse…as if she was trying to remember who she was.
“Listen to me, Sergeant. The respirator is helping you breathe, do you want me to take the tube out and let you breathe on your own?”
The Marine nodded gratefully, blinking back pooling tears, before closing her eyes again. The nurse quickly left to get the resident on duty.
*********************
…For Meritorious Service, Chapter 23b, part one
0829 Local
Batchelor/Visitor Officer Quarters
Camp Chesty Puller
Near Mirbullah, Iraq
*
Sunday 13 July, 2003
Mac was sitting on her bed reviewing her final report regarding the case. She thought back to the tumultuous events of yesterday; the trial and Harm’s sudden appearance with not one or two, but three witnesses. She remembered with a warm afterglow, the thanks they got from the crew of FIREFLY ONE and surprisingly, there was praise from Admiral Chegwidden for a job well done, despite ZNN’s exclusive coverage of the surprise ending.
Flyboy had told her he had an ace up his sleeve. ‘Stall but don’t stall’ he had told her before he left on his ‘secret’ mission. Whatever connections he had made while working at the CIA had paid off. It resulted in PFC Secord panicking and revealing he was one of the hit squad members who had participated in the killings of Lieutenant Dodge, Captain Jalloud, and Captain Butler.
Even more shocking was that Secord admitted he had eliminated all the other members of the squad – PFC Krivstad, Corporal Grearson, and Sergeant Colwell – so he could keep all the money ‘The Architect’ had paid them - for himself.
Despite the good fortune, the bitter pill, soon followed.
**~~**
As the crew of FIREFLY ONE walked out of the courtroom with the JAG Corps officers and the SJAG attorneys, Colonel Briggs’ aide stopped them. He threw them all a quick salute.
The attorneys returned the man’s salute. “Sergeant Jenkins,” Harm had said evenly, “What can we do for you?”
“Begging your pardon sirs,” he nodded toward Mac, “and ma’am, but the Colonel needs to see Lieutenant Lukens and Chief Buell in his office, ASAP.”
“Tell the Colonel we’re on our way, Sergeant,” Lukens had replied crisply. They exchanged salutes and the Sergeant headed back towards Colonel Briggs’ office.
“Well Commander, Colonel, duty calls.” He and Chief Buell again shook hands with Harm and Mac. “Thank you again, Colonel, Commander.”
“Ben?” Floyd said tentatively, exchanging a concerned look with other SJAGs “Do you want us to come with you?”
“Thank you sirs, for the offer,” Ben Lukens said quickly, “But we have to face the Colonel on our own.”
The crew of FIREFLY ONE again exchanged salutes with the attorneys before heading down the hall to Colonel Briggs’ office.
“What’s going to happen to them?” Bud asked as he watched the men proceed down the hall.
“It’s anybody’s guess at this point, Lieutenant,” Major Barnett said with some tension filling his tone, “The Colonel’s been so mercurial lately, that he could throw the book at them.”
“He could ground them, Bud, for any number of reasons,” Harm added. “The most likely one would be psych evals or pending a formal review of the incident. And he would be within his rights as the MEU’s commanding officer.”
**~~**
Mac remembered they were soon summoned to Briggs office where a heated conversation was taking place…
**~~**
“You’re grounding us, Sir?!”
“I have my reasons Lieutenant, you’re dismissed.”
“But, Sir…!”
“Lieutenant, did you not hear me? You’re dismissed.”
“By your leave…Sir.”
**~~**
She remembered Harm telling the Lieutenant that the Colonel was about to send ‘a Stinger up his six’ if he kept pressing the issue, but the pilot didn’t want to hear it.
As he strode away, Darcy Livingston had walked up to them.
**~~**
“It’s too bad about the crew of FIREFLY ONE, but Colonel Briggs has his reasons for doing this….”
“Which you put into his head, Colonel.”
“Harm don’t--”
“Don’t what, Cher? Are you protecting the Commander? Not exactly the straight arrow I thought you were MacKenzie. I’ve read your dossier, Colonel, what a disappointment…
“I wouldn’t be too worried about my dossier, Colonel. We’re going to following up on allegations of blanket parties and Code Reds within your unit….”
What are you going to do, put the gris-gris on me, Colonel MacKenzie?
**~~**
Mac had to snap herself out of those angry thoughts that scene had generated. Her mind floated back to the trial.
Even though he had been labeled a hostile witness, ‘The Architect’ had filled in all the missing parts with his testimony. After his outburst at the closed meeting Mac hadn’t expected him to be so cooperative, but maybe Secord’s meltdown made him realize the futility of trying to keep what they did a secret any longer.
Maybe.
Mac quickly hopped off her bed when she heard a knock at her door. Still thinking about ‘The Architect’s’ sudden change of heart, without really thinking about it, she opened her door.
There stood Harmon Rabb jr. on her doorstep with a troubled look on his face.
“Hey,” she said easily, giving him a diminutive smile. Her face instantly melted into concern. “Harm?”
“Uh, hey, Mac, is it, ah, all right if I come in?” the aviator/lawyer said absently, his eyes focused on her. The Marine light Colonel could tell something was weighing heavily on the Commander’s mind. And she had a good idea what it was.
“Sure, come on in,” she said opening the door wider as Harm brushed past her. He headed to her desk as she closed her door.
“‘The Architect’…Mustafa Youssef wasn’t telling everything he knew….” The tall Naval Commander said as he picked up her notes from the trial. He immediately looked up at her, half embarrassed. “Uh, do you mind if I take a look at your notes?”
In the past Commander ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead’ would have just started perusing her notes until she pulled him up short or yanked the papers out of his hands.
“Um, no, no, go ahead.” As he flipped through her notes, her curiosity was piqued. “Harm? Just what are you looking for?”
Harm gave his partner a brief smile before resuming his examination of her notes. “I know it sounds crazy Mac, but you may have written something down about Youssef’s behavior as he testified.”
Mac walked over and taking the papers in her hands, gently flipped the page. “I started making notes about him right here,” she said as she pointed to the section. The aviator/lawyer gave her a brief acknowledgement of thanks before they both began perusing the document.
“Here it is, ‘…he keeps looking at Captain Lewis…. Why??’” Harm gave his partner a knowing look. “He keeps looking at him and Darcy Livingston, Mac, because they are involved.”
Mac sucked in a breath. (Here we go, time to play devil’s advocate, again.) Even though she knew he was right about the Captain and the Lieutenant Colonel. “It’s another piece of circumstantial evidence, Harm, unless we get Youssef to talk.” She knew she sounded like a broken record, but she hoped he would come up with another way to get the evidence they needed.
Harm snorted his disgust at likelihood of getting Youssef to admit what he knew. “We’re going to have to approach this from a different angle.”
“What kind of different angle Harm?” she asked as he headed toward the door.
So he had thought of another way to get the evidence they needed. Funny, that idea made her nervous. Maybe it was because Harmon Rabb could come up with some pretty…original ways to solve a problem.
He turned back to her. “How do you feel about going undercover?”
Mac raised one eyebrow quizzically. “Just me?”
“In this particular case,” he said candidly.
So what did Flyboy have up his sleeve now? “Okay, doing what?” She put her hands on her hips.
His answer left her agog. “We need to get you into Darcy’s Force Recon unit.”
It took her a moment to get her brain back into gear. Mac began shaking her head. “No Harm, no. I haven’t been on a Force Recon mission since 1995.” She walked past him toward the door. “You have more recent experience than me doing this, remember?”
He smiled at her, “That’s true, but are you sure you want me going back into a Force Recon unit, Mac?” His tone was playful.
Her mind flashed briefly on Harm nearly getting killed as he tried to rescue that injured Force Recon soldier. “Well, you did look pretty enticing in that Marine Uniform, Gunny,” she let the light tone of her voice mask her uneasiness.
Harm smiled at the memory of her ‘inspecting’ him. “Thanks, but I think Darcy would ask too many questions about me wanting to join her unit, Marine. She and I didn’t exactly hit it off when we first met, you know.”
Mac started to chuckle when suddenly she froze as she heard that voice out of her nightmares.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He’s a fine one, Hon, you wouldn’t mine sharing him, would you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harm immediately noticed the sudden shift in his partner’s demeanor. “Mac?”
She turned back to him. “Harm, not only is this crazy, it’s dangerous! If Colonel Livingston is really involved in this like we think she is, she’s already responsible for the deaths of a half dozen Marines. Killing one more Marine and a Naval officer won’t bother her conscience a bit.”
Harm pinned her with that ‘we’re doing this no matter what’ look of his. “Mac, we have to stop her. You know it…we both know it. This is the only way.”
“Haarm,” she groaned (Please, Harm, not now….)
“Mac, the only way we can nail her is by getting to her from the inside. You do want to
nail her, don’t you?”
That stopped Mac cold. “What are you implying, Commander? You know I want to nail her as bad as you do, but we *need* more.”
“And this is the only way we’re going to *get more*. Trust me, Mac, this will work.”
She could see the excitement in his blue eyes, but Mac really didn’t care about what he wanted at this point. She didn’t like the way he was trying to manipulate her into this. “I shouldn’t have to prove anything to you, Commander,” she said sadly and turned away from him.
Harm stopped, stunned. Then his shoulders sagged as Mac walked away. In times past, Mac would have risen to his challenge, but he had forgotten that things were different now.
“You’re right, Mac, you shouldn’t have to prove it to me.” he said quietly. “I-I shouldn’t have done that to you, it wasn’t fair. I just want to get her Mac. Put an end to this and stop these nightmares.”
The nightmares. She wanted them to go away too. Mac stopped again with her back to him. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily.
She walked over to the door and opened it. She was going to ask Harm to give her some time to think about this plan; instead, she found herself standing face to face with Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
He gave both of them his famous stony stare that he reserved for suspects. “Colonel, Commander, I think we need to talk.”
*~*
Marla turned off the television. Now that the drugs they had given her to enforce sleep had worn off, she was getting bored. There was nothing good on and besides, her arm was beginning to throb again, making it hard to concentrate.
She sighed.
Her eyes drifted up to the window, where she could see the late summer sun beginning to fade behind the Virginia mountains.
It made her long for the sweet smell of pine and the rugged north Alabama mountains she could see from her window back at her parent’s house. She idly thought about how much fun it would be to be able to go rafting down the Coosa river –without her injuries, of course. That made her chuckle.
It made her think about an old Doobie Brother’s song. She began singing it without really thinking about what she was doing.
Marla didn’t hear the door open. “Well I’ll build me a raft and she’s ready for floatin…”
She was startled when someone else finished the line for her…
“Aw, Mississippi keeps callin my name….”
…a male somebody.
“Pete--! Uh, I mean, Corporal Bauer, how, um, nice of you to come by….” Marla stammered nervously.
She was glad she didn’t have a mirror right now; she knew she looked like a fright. “I didn’t know you were a Doobie Brothers fan.”
“I’m not really,” he saw her deflate a little at that comment and hastily added, “But I knew you were, and I got you this….”
He handed her the CD jewel case. She looked at it for a moment before her eyes lit up.
“Wow! Southern Rock Unleashed!” She was close to squealing. “Uh, I mean thank you Pete, uh, Corporal Bauer….” She hurriedly turned the case over and examined the play list.
“Atlanta Rhythm Section, the Eagles, Ozark Mountain Daredevils--”
“--And the Doobie Brothers,” Pete said, reaching over and pointing to the group’s name. He and the Sergeant immediately became aware that their hands were almost touching.
He pulled back as did she. “Uhhh, well, anyway, I hope you like it….” He said lamely.
“Oh I do, Corporal, really, thank you….” Why did she feel like explaining how she felt to him?
The two noncommissioned officers lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
“So, um, so how are you feeling?” Pete ventured, wanting to fill this void
“My arm is throbbing a little bit--” her eyes flared open as he reached for the nurse’s call button. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle...really.”
He put the call button back on the tray beside her bed. “Oh. Well, all right.” The silence returned, but this time, it was not as cloying. She smiled at him. Pete felt the color rising on his face and something else. He smiled sheepishly at her.
*~*
Harm and Mac exchanged troubled glances.
“Come in, Special Agent Gibbs,” Mac said straightforwardly as she opened her door wider.
The Senior NCIS Agent quickly surveyed the room and its two occupants as he stepped inside. Papers, probably from the trial, were scattered on her desk. The Colonel’s bed had been sat on recently, but only by one person. Still, both of them looked as if they had been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Gibbs noticed that Rabb had now moved closer to the Colonel. There was something definitely going on here and it definitely didn’t have to do with their case.
“What can we do for you, Special Agent Gibbs?” Harm asked evenly, in a somewhat friendly tone, which still held tinges of defensiveness.
Gibbs smiled. “Still acting as spokesman, Commander?”
“When I have to,” Harm seemed to stand straighter if that were possible. Probably a posturing move. That didn’t bother the NCIS Agent.
Mac fought the urge to say ‘would you two knock it off?’ She cut off Harm’s next bravado ploy. “What can we do for you, Special Agent Gibbs?”
Gibbs stared at the two JAG Corps lawyers for a moment before focusing his eyes on the pretty Lieutenant Colonel. “You can start, Colonel, by telling me about your run-in with PFC Krivstad.”
She nodded. “We were in the middle of our JAGMAN investigation into Lieutenant Dodge’s death. I left my quarters to get a breath of fresh air. He walked up to me in the dark--introduced himself as Lieutenant Colonel Robin Glover from the MEU’s S-2 intel unit.”
**~~**
“Colonel?”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“There’s really no reason to investigate this….”
“Why not?”
“Lukens and Buell are guilty.”
“Oh, and how can you be so sure?”
“Well, the circumstantial evidence is pretty damning--”
“--the key word, Colonel, is ‘circumstantial’.”
“--and there are several key eyewitnesses….”
“--eyewitnesses can be deceived into believing things that aren’t true.”
“You’re not going to win this one, Colonel MacKenzie”
**~~**
“Why did he introduce himself as a Lieutenant Colonel?” Gibbs asked.
“That’s enough,” Harm said protectively.
Gibbs shot the Commander a threatening look. “Are you interfering with my investigation, Commander?”
Harm returned Gibbs’ steel gaze. “I’m her legal counsel, Special Agent.”
Mac gave Harm a sympathetic look. “It’s okay, Harm.” She turned back to the NCIS Agent. “I would guess he figured that would intimidate me.”
“It didn’t, did it?
“No.” Mac said firmly as she remembered his comments and the emotions they stoked in her.
**~~**
“Colonel Glover, these men deserve a fair hearing and a chance for their side of the story to be told.”
“Spare me, Colonel, I’ve heard it before--”
“Well maybe you haven’t heard it enough--”
“Colonel, you need to be more careful--”
“Are you threatening me, Colonel Glover?”
“I’m just saying be careful; this is still a hostile country, filled with people unfriendly to the United States. Soldiers die in this country almost every day—I’m just saying you should…exercise caution.”
“As for us, the sooner we can get back to our business and stop screwing around out here…the better.”
“Even at the cost of two innocent lives?”
“No one is innocent in war, Colonel MacKenzie. Have a good night. Think about what I’ve said.”
**~~**
“Did he say anything else?”
“No, he just walked away. I went back inside and told the Commander and other members of the JAGMAN team about his threat.”
(So now I have two other potential suspects in addition to Commander Rabb) Gibbs wondered briefly why he and Rabb always seemed to wind up on opposite ends of a murder investigation.
“Commander, you found Krivstad’s body, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.” Harm knew what he was thinking. They had been here before. Last time it involved protecting his half-brother, Sergei, this time it involved protecting Mac.
Now it was Mac’s turn to act as legal counsel. “Harm, don’t say anything else.”
Gibbs focused his steel blue eyes on her. “Colonel, withholding information during a criminal investigation is a charge-able offense…now, do you want to tell me the rest, Commander?”
“It’s okay, Mac, I know my rights.” He turned back to Gibbs. “I went out for walk.”
“And ended up five miles north of the MEU, Commander?” Gibbs said cracking a sarcastic smile, “At that time of night?”
“The Colonel and I had a disagreement about the case. I went out for walk to organize my thoughts.” Harm stated unconvincingly.
Gibbs reaction was unsympathetic. “And you just happened to end up going over the bridge where you found PFC Krivstad’s body? C’mon, Commander.”
“That’s right.” The aviator/lawyer said firmly, not budging from his statement. “As soon as I found the body, I called it in.”
Gibbs studied the tall Naval officer. There was no doubt in the investigator’s mind Rabb could have easily inflicted the fatal injuries that Krivstad had suffered. “Can you account for where you were during period from 2200 to 0020 hours that evening?”
Harm’s answer sounded like some bad writing out of a late night low budget crime movie. “I was with the JAGMAN team, Gibbs, we were following up leads on PFC Krivstad’s masquerade. The Colonel can verify this.”
Mac nodded her agreement, “He’s telling the truth.”
That ended any overt suspicions that the Commander could have killed the PFC, Gibbs thought to himself, so why lie about how he found Krivstad? Gibbs’ gut told him to find out.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Harm said, probing the investigator.
“About how you found Krivstad? You don’t really expect me to, do you?” The Senior NCIS Special Agent gave the former Top Gun a flinty stare. “What really happened out there, Commander? How did you run across PFC Krivstad’s body?”
Mac spoke first before Harm could say anything. “We…we had an argument…about the Commander’s…overprotective tendencies toward me…. Harm stalked off….”
“Maac!” Harm’s eyes shot open is disbelief and panic. Was she implicating him?
(Now we’re getting somewhere,) Gibbs thought, (So there is something going on between these two. I suspected it when I first saw them in the JAG Corps briefing room when we were investigating Lieutenant Singer’s death…. It wouldn’t be hard for her to cover for him killing someone else. They’re in love.) He mentally moved the Commander back toward the top of his suspect list.
Mac was continuing her impromptu statement. “…the rest of us, Commander Turner, Lieutenant Roberts and me, didn’t learn about where he had gone until he came back to the camp and told us about the body.”
“What time was that, Colonel?”
“0305 hours.” Mac unconsciously looked down at her watch and then back at Gibbs giving him an embarrassed smile. “I remember because, uh, I looked at my watch when he came back to the VOQ.”
Mac sat down on the edge of the bed, obviously relieved to get this off her chest despite her partner’s misgivings. The Commander took his place beside her, taking her hands.
“Mac,” he said softly, hold her hands and looking into her tear filled eyes. “I didn’t kill Krivstad, please believe me.”
Gibbs had seen it before…hundreds of times. An angry lover, seething over a spat, lashes out at an innocent person. He now actually felt sorry for the Navy’s top lawyer.
“Commander?” he said quietly. It was time for Harmon Rabb to come clean.
Mac looked up into Gibbs’ sympathetic eyes. “He’s telling the truth, Gibbs. If Harm says he didn’t kill Krivstad, I believe him.”
(She’s protecting him again) he thought sadly. (Defending him to the last.) “Do you have any evidence to corroborate this?”
Mac looked back at the NCIS Agent, willing her tears not to spill down her face. “I do. I interviewed the man who helped Harm locate the body. He was a local Bedouin.”
“You know Arabic, Colonel?”
She nodded. “Yes. He told me that he saw a helmeted Marine shove Krivstad out of a Hum-vee and over the bridge railing just before Harm arrived. Harm had been wearing his boonie hat that night”
Her eyes met Gibbs’ again. “Like you, I’m trained to detect when people are lying. The Bedouin wasn’t lying.”
For the NCIS investigator the circumstantial evidence still pointed to the Commander, but despite this, his gut told him differently. She wasn’t covering for Rabb.
Mac squeezed Harm’s hands for reassurance as she looked into his eyes. “I won’t let you be accused of murder again, Harm,” she said huskily, putting her hand to the side of his face. To hell with protocol. “ I love you too much to let that happen again.”
Gibbs realized he was witnessing something that had been long hidden between them that had recently come to the surface. He had thought it first it was just another relationship based on the passion of forbidden love. But this was something that he hadn’t expected to uncover in the course of a murder investigation.
Harm felt the warmth and determination of her statement, but declaring this in front of Gibbs was not what he had expected. “I love you too, Mac” Harm said softly to her, affirming how he felt about her, ignoring the fact that Special Agent Gibbs was observing them. And why not? Their secret was out in the open at least in this particular case.
However, deep down Harm was shocked that Mac would do this, but then things between them had changed since Paraguay. And this time for the better.
Gibbs looked on as the seemingly dispassionate observer, but deep down he understood those powerful emotions. He had felt them many a time with Shannon. But their closeness also reminded him of another couple…two people in love, but also dedicated to their jobs. He thought back to that relationship where he had experienced the same kind of conflict.
Marseille, France with Jen Sheppard. His mind flashed back to those intimate moments they had shared. The dinners, the laughter, the kidding….
He had exhibited the same kind of tenderness and over protectiveness toward Jen. In the end, the over protectiveness cost him that relationship.
“He won’t be accused of murder, Colonel.” he said simply to the two JAG Corps officers.
Harm and Mac exchanged relieved looks. “You believe my story then?” Harm said as he stood.
Gibbs wasn’t going to let him off that easy. “No, but I believe her.” Maybe it was because the Commander had been so antagonistic at first.
“So where do we go from here?” Mac asked.
The NCIS Agent didn’t mince words. “We find out who did kill PFC Krivstad and the others.”
“Mac, uh, that is, the Colonel and I, have a theory about that,” Harm replied. He could almost see his partner visibly cringe at the thought of what he was going to say next.
Even though in the Senior NCIS Agent’s eyes Harm wasn’t a suspect anymore, Gibbs hadn’t made up his mind how he felt about this hotshot naval lawyer and JAG Corps ‘poster boy’.
“And your theory is?” he said blandly.
“Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Colonel Livingston are involved in the killings,” Harm stated succinctly.
Ever the investigator, Leroy Jethro Gibbs wanted more. “Involved how?”
end part one...
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