| Subject: Empty Reflections Part Seven |
Author:
Karen
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Date Posted: 17:02:20 09/14/08 Sun
In reply to:
Karen
's message, "Empty Reflections-Prologue" on 14:52:42 08/05/08 Tue
A/N: Sorry for the delay. My sister and I put in several days preparing for the storm that didn’t happen to us. Apparently, it took a hard right at Houston and missed us completely. Except for being caught between two barometric pressures and having a headache that would drop a team of draft horses for over twenty four hours we came through without even a drop of rain. I know not everyone was as lucky as we were, but we’re hoping for the best for as many people as possible.
Empty Reflections
Part Seven
Chesapeake Grand Hotel
Baltimore, MD
Harm and Mac’s room
August 2004
Saturday 0615
“Good Morning, sir,” Harm greeted Edward Sheffield, the Secretary of the Navy. He wasn’t sure what time the man rose on Saturdays, but he was positive that this powerful man shouldn’t hear of the death from anyone else.
“This better be good, Rabb,” the gruff voice on the other end of the line sounded anything but sleepy. Harm’s heart sank. If the SecNav already knew, he’d be in for a tongue-lashing.
“Yes sir. There’s been a death.”
“One of ours?”
“Yes, sir. She’s an ensign with Naval Intelligence.”
“How?” The man wanted answers, and he didn’t want to have to formulate elaborate questions.
“She fell from the roof of the Chesapeake Grand Hotel, or someplace in the vicinity, perhaps a terrace or balcony.”
“What was she doing in Baltimore, Captain?” Irritation heightened the formality of his demeanor.
“As far as we can tell, she was attending a fan party.”
“A fan party?” he repeated completely nonplussed.
“It’s a party for a TV show and its stars, sir. A social event where the actors and crew meet their fans.”
“I see. What the devil do you suppose someone from Naval Intelligence was doing at a fan party?”
“I believe it was recreation, sir.”
“Care to explain that, Captain?” It was anything but a request.
“Simple entertainment, personal amusement, sir. Ah…the way one might collect all the books from a certain author and discuss them in literary groups, or become involved in online gaming…um some people collect rides on rollercoasters…” Harm’s explanation faltered, it was a phenomenon he didn’t fully comprehend. His only association with something like this had been Bud’s fixation on Star Trek.
“Like Trekkies?” Sheffield asked dismissively.
“Yes, sir, something like that,” he answered brightly, hastening to latch on to the reference. “You know about Trekkies, sir?”
“More than I want to, Rabb.” Though his tone still held authority, the stiffness in his address deflated somewhat with this reference.
“Sir?” Harm inquired tentatively.
“We investigated them once. It was quite some time ago.” Sheffield wasn’t especially proud of his involvement with that particular incident of government paranoia.
“Why, sir?” Harm knew he was pushing his boss dangerously, but the man gave a humorless snort.
“Because at the height of the Trekkie movement they had penetrated the military so thoroughly certain geniuses on the oversight committee decided they might be a subversive threat,” he sighed.
“I see, sir,” Harm’s voice held a distinct undercurrent of amusement, and very definite tones of disbelief, but the SecNav brought him up short.
“Never mind. What about this woman, Captain?” He restored his command position with the unorthodox officer
“As far as we can tell at this point, sir, we have little more than a suspicious death. It’s possible the young woman could have fallen accidentally, but no one has come forward to volunteer any information if it was an accident. There doesn’t appear at this time to be any connection to her work that we can find. Her CO denies she was on any kind of assignment. He’d authorized Special Liberty for a three-day weekend beginning Friday. I asked him about her duties, then checked her service record and background. She was clean as a whistle, and she isn’t handling anything particularly sensitive yet. She’s only been there six months.”
“The reason I called you, sir,” Harm continued, to forestall Sheffield’s obvious impatience, “is she was a Naval officer, and she was attached to Intelligence. Whatever the prelim shows, I believe NCIS should be involved. I don’t believe the Baltimore police intend to notify them in a ‘timely fashion’. Also, I’ve been privy to some information that would indicate there may have been four other similar deaths.”
“Also Navy personnel?”
“No, sir. Suspicious deaths all connected to this production company and its star.”
“I see. So you’re suggesting it’s a serial killing, but the fact she was Navy had no bearing on it.”
“I can’t be certain, sir. The facts aren’t all in, but that’s how it looks at this point.’
“If there have been that many deaths, why are they still operating? Why hasn’t someone been caught?”
“Those are the exact questions I was asking, sir. I have a report ready for you, and one for NCIS of everything I know. Mac is faxing it to you as we speak.”
“Mac?”
“My wife, sir.”
“Ah… Colonel Mackenzie. Why is the Colonel involved? No, please don’t tell me, another one of her premonitions, correct?” He asked with exasperation. Sometimes he wondered what had prompted him to hire this officer and save his career, but he knew the answer. It was because Rabb got results.
“Er…something like that, sir. It happened in the middle of the night. Sir, if anything the Colonel is more of a witness than an investigator. What she saw in her dream…”
“…is inadmissible in court unless you can verify it independently. It will be much more useful for her to use the information to help with the investigation.”
“Yes, sir… but…”
“Captain if there’s something you’re not saying you’d better spit it out. Now!” Sheffield ordered.
“I don’t know that it means anything, sir, but there’s the possibility of an ex-Mossad agent being involved somehow.”
“There is no such thing as ex-Mossad, Captain,” the Secretary of the Navy responded icily.
“I know that, sir, but…well…if it is true…and since the young Ensign was with Naval Intelligence…”
“You think there might be a connection?”
“I can’t rule out the possibility even in the face of the other deaths.”
“Rabb, if Mossad had a renegade agent that they haven’t been able to neutralize…and it would have to be a renegade…she’d have to be dammed good,” Sheffield observed.
“I’m aware of that, sir.”
“And although you and I may not know about her, the Ensign might have…”
“I was thinking the same thing, sir.”
“As of now, you are both assigned to this case, Rabb. I’ll notify the Admiral.”
Who will take the lead sir? NCIS may not want us involved…”
“I want you involved, Rabb. NCIS is almost completely buried on another investigation that has higher priority. I might be able to dig up a junior investigator to work with you, but I can’t promise anything. In any case, you’ll take point since I assume you’ve been there from the moment it occurred, given your comments regarding the Colonel.”
“Yes, sir. She had a nightmare. We went down to investigate because she couldn’t get back to sleep, and found the police just arriving. I sort of shoved my way into the investigation.”
“Good for you,” Sheffield commended, “but how did you know…never mind I assume its all in the report. Captain Rabb, if we’re chasing a serial killer no one else has caught, I expect you to get the job done. And if you encounter a rogue foreign agent in the process…” He let the sentence finish itself, but his tone of address made his ‘suggestion’ a direct order. Harm understood perfectly.
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
“I know you will. I’ll find an investigator to help you. Lord knows the Baltimore police won’t want to cooperate with you any more than they have to, but I’ll take care of that, too. I know you’ll do your best to wrap this up quickly and avoid unpleasant publicity for the Navy. And Rabb watch your back…” It was another suggestion that was an order.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
The line went dead. Rabb had his orders and the Secretary of the Navy knew all he did at this moment. Folding the phone, he holstered it on his belt and turned to his wife.
“Shall we go have breakfast? You and Ben have to be back at the conference at 0800,” he stopped at the mirrored side table by the door to pick up his cover.
Hesitating as she joined him, he commented, “It’s strange knowing someone else has your face.”
“He doesn’t have your face, Harm,” she dismissed the thought. “Yours is full of good. There’s something dark and evil about him and the people close to him.”
Harm was taken aback by her reaction. “I wonder what he thinks when he looks in a mirror? Do you think he even knows about the similarity?”
Mac shivered at the disturbing visual connection between the two men. “It’s hard to say. He’ll certainly find out soon enough now that you’re assigned to this case.” Her thoughtful tone then turned harsh, “But I doubt he actually sees anything in the mirror. I suspect it’s just an empty reflection, like a vampire.”
He stared at her, stunned by the near vehemence of her comment. It wasn’t her habit to prejudge any situation or person. “What did you see, Mac? Can you tell me about it?”
She took a deep breath, looked into his eyes, then dropped hers and shook her head, “Not yet, not now, Harm. We have to hurry and I need time to…I just need time,” she answered, then quickly moved past him to walk out the door.
Her words left him shaking his head. Obviously, whatever it was, she had some reason to believe that Morgan was involved. He wondered if she’d actually seen the man push the girl, however, if it had been that clear he was sure she would have said so. No this was obviously more nebulous, perhaps it was one of her 'feelings'. He vowed to be on guard.
Chesapeake Grand Hotel
Coffee shop
August 2004
Saturday 0740
The young man excused his way past the crowd in the doorway and dodged precariously through the quickly moving food servers. He approached their table with a combination of determination and uncertainty. Tim McGee tried to present the swaggering confidence that his boss displayed when entering a new case, but he didn’t feel it in his gut. He shrugged slightly; perhaps he’d learn it in time.
“Excuse me, Captain,” he stopped at their table and addressed the Naval officer.
Harm looked up curiously. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m, uh, I’m Special Agent Tim McGee, NCIS, sir. I’ve been instructed to report to you. I’m sorry…I uh...I got here as fast as I could.”
Harm smiled tauntingly and looked out the window. “Where’s your tail, Special Agent McGee?”
“Tail, sir? It’s just me. The…uh…the rest of the team is otherwise involved.”
“No, I mean the state troopers that must be on your tail if you made it from DC that fast. I only talked to the SecNav a little over an hour ago.”
“Oh,” McGee smiled sheepishly, then cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure just how comfortable he should get with the infamous Captain Rabb. “I...I came from…um…near Laurel, I was almost halfway here when I got the call.”
“Laurel? Hmmm.” Harm looked at him speculatively. “That Laurel?” He asked knowingly.
“Yes, sir. That Laurel,” Tim verified feeling on more stable ground. He might have referred to Ft. Meade, however there was no point in brashly advertising his team’s presence at NSA in a crowded coffee shop. He saw a spark of respect in the Captain’s eyes, and wondered if Gibbs would approve his desire to get along with Rabb. For all of his rocky history with NCIS, the Captain had succeeded brilliantly in his career. And by all accounts, he was good at what he did. It wouldn’t hurt McGee’s record a bit to be part of one of Rabb’s successful investigations.
“Mac, Ben, this is Special Agent Tim McGee, NCIS” he presented them formally. “Special Agent McGee, Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, JAG Corps, and Sheriff Ben Farraday from Hampton Roads.
“Pleased to meet you,” he extended his hand first to Mac and then to Ben.
“Join us for coffee. Have you had breakfast?” Harm offered the young man.
“Yes, sir. Thank you,” he replied sitting in the fourth chair. “I just finished eating when Secretary Sheffield called my boss and he sent me to meet you. I would accept that coffee though,” he smiled winningly.
“You work for…?” Harm inquired.
“Special Agent Gibbs, sir,” Tim McGee replied neutrally.
“Ahh,” was Harm’s only answer. Mac watched the byplay closely, Ben was obviously completely in the dark, but definitely understood there was some kind of history here.
“Well, Special Agent...”
“Please, just call me McGee, sir, everyone does.” He didn’t add that most people called him ‘Probie’. He needed to preserve some dignity in order to work equally with these people.
“All right, McGee. Have they filled you in on the case?”
“Briefly, Captain. I received a copy of your fax to the SecNav, but I didn’t have time to read it thoroughly before I left. I just glanced at it. Are you sure there’s no connection to her…um… ‘assignment’ sir?”
“Call me, Harm. You’re not in the Navy, and we have to do this together, we both have orders. There’s no need for it to be too uncomfortable,” the big man told the young agent. “And no, I’m not certain. There is background to indicate something similar has happened before, at least four times, but no verified evidence yet to prove an absolute connection. We’re just going to have to investigate this and consider everything. I’m not out to make the case fit my preconceived notions, McGee,” Harm remarked pointedly. “I really prefer to gather all my evidence before deciding who to arrest.”
“Yes, sir,” McGee responded, but his cheeks flushed. It was a dig at NCIS, and if scuttlebutt were even half-correct, it was well-deserved. “That’s the way I prefer to work as well,” he responded looking the tall Navy man straight in the eye. “So what do we know? And, uh…” he glanced at Mac and Ben.
“Don’t worry they’ve been involved from the moment this happened. It’s all in the report. Mac’s a trained investigator for JAG. Secretary Sheffield officially assigned her to this case. And Ben is an old friend as well as a law enforcement official.”
“But with no jurisdiction in Baltimore,” Tim ventured.
“Granted, but he’s the one with the connections and sources that suggest the pattern.”
“Do we have to prove the other cases, sir…uh, Harm?”
“No, if we can get good evidence in this case it’s all we need. But if we could get the evidence necessary to wrap up the whole package, it would make the SecNav very happy.”
“Understood,” Tim replied.
“The other cases except one happened in other countries. The one exception was the death last year in Las Vegas,” Ben volunteered.
“I don’t recall hearing about that,” McGee wrinkled his brow.
“Perhaps you were still in training at Quantico when it happened?” Harm suggested mildly.
“Perhaps,” Tim flushed slightly. His newness was evident. It was his cross to bear until he paid his dues, in terms of years and investigations. He might as well get over it and use what he had.
“There wasn’t any military personnel involved in Vegas, no reason you should know,” Ben gave the fresh young agent a pass, then asked. “What’s your specialty, McGee?”
“Computer science, sir. My degree is from MIT,” he replied proudly.
“Good,” Ben responded. “That’s useful because a lot of what I have is scattered from a bunch of different sources in different formats. I’ve tried to keep it filed and organized, but in the last eight hours I’ve received new information from all over the place and its still coming in. Maybe we could get together later and do something about organizing it.”
“I have a program I wrote…,” the young man offered tentatively. “Its simple, but it works. It allows you to sort files and classify them by date, event, key word, origin. It converts all like type files to a common extension, and converts foreign language files into English. Whenever it changes a file type, it preserves a copy of the original as well. It also has a facial recognition feature, but I’m working with a pretty basic engine right now. I’m still refining that part of the program. Perhaps you’d find it useful?”
“It would save us a lot of time. We need to work fast before this bird flies the coop,” Ben stated firmly.
“Bird, sir?” He turned to Harm. “You have a suspect?”
“Right now, it’s more like a group of shall we say ‘persons of interest,” Harm used the hackneyed law enforcement term.
“Harm, we have to go or we’ll be late. The bus is just pulling into the parking lot,” Mac waved towards the window. “It was good meeting you, Agent McGee.”
“And you, ma’am, sir,”
Harm and McGee rose with her and Ben. “See you later, take care,” his words said, but his eyes translated the words to ‘I love you’. He gave her arm a brief, but lingering squeeze, and watched her and Ben Farraday walk away. It was a signal they had developed for when they were in public together in uniform. It killed him sometimes not to lean over and kiss her, but Harm was a private person and it was a requirement of their jobs that they both accepted.
Though Harm sank back into his seat, he didn’t speak again until she was out of sight. He was glad Ben was with her, he had a nagging feeling playing at the back of his mind that this case could hold danger for Mac. Whoever was responsible for these deaths, Harm had no doubt that the motive revolved around that actor, Michael Morgan. He just needed more information and more time to sort out what that motive might be, and right now, he didn’t have either.
As Ben had said, the information was coming in fast, but it was so scrambled and from so many sources, they may never find a pattern. If the information couldn’t be substantiated it couldn’t be used in court. It was entirely possible they had less than a day before their target would escape their jurisdiction, unless the police lieutenant he was supposed to meet this morning could hold their corporate jet on the ground. As the bus pulled from the parking lot, Harm turned to McGee.
“Do you have the fax I sent?”
“Yes, sir, as I said I only had a moment to skim through it.”
“Its 0755 now,” Harm glanced at his watch and signaled the waitress. “Lets get some more coffee and I’ll bring you up to speed while we wait for the Baltimore police detective. Then we’ll see if we can get you a room.”
“Yes, sir…er… Harm. The SecNav’s assistant told my boss they were having a room held for me. I’ll just need a few minutes to check in.”
“Good. First thing you ought to know about is the drugs they found in the victims’ blood,” Harm took several pieces of paper from the folder at his elbow.
End part seven
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