Entertaining angels unaware
The silence in the car was suffocating. McGee would sometimes glance at his partner sitting shotgun but she was firmly looking outside the window.
He gripped the steering wheel but could not find anything to break the silence.
"It was God's hand." she says softly, still looking outside the window.
"What?"
"It was God's hand." She repeats with a firmer voice.
"What was God's hand?" he asks confused.
"How I was the only survivor." She looks at him and answers. He looks at her briefly and turns his attention to the road. They stay some minutes in silence.
"I wasn't asking"
"You weren't asking very loudly" she retorts.
"You don't have to tell me."
"But I want to." He looks at her and nods lightly.
She sighs loudly and looks outside the window again. "I told you my father is a Baptist reverend now. He firmly believes that everything that happens is directed by God's hand. We might not see it, or understand it, or even accept it. But He is in control of everything." She says in a low voice.
McGee nods but doesn't interrupts her. He is afraid she might stop.
"Dad stopped flying after he had a terrible crash. He said that the B-52 he was flying lost power midflight. Total blackout. He truly believed he would die that day. But for, some reason, he survived. He was forbidden to fly after that. Because of his wounds, he would never be fit for it again."
"But he was alive." Says McGee.
"He was alive."
She sighs again and wipes away a tear, breathes deeply and continues. "We were investigating a kidnapping case. It stretched out for three years, eighteen people missing. Different backgrounds, different ethnic groups. All that was left were some rose petals close to where they went missing."
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"What the BAU team wasn't aware of was that the main goal of the kidnapper wasn't the victims; what he was really after was the profilers working in the case." Pause "Apparently he had created a fixation with the members of the team and created a case as a gift for them, so they could investigate it." Says Ducky.
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"We were closing on him when things went south," Pause "two of us were taken captive."
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"They were kept for three weeks, and during these weeks they were tortured, physically and mentally. The monster forced them to watch him torture and, once they were dead, desecrate the bodies of the kidnapped victims. He made them force to choose who would get to suffer and what kind of ignominy would be done to these poor souls. If they refused to choose, they would receive a beating, and still watch it happen."
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"We stayed captive for three weeks." McGee stops the car in the curb and turns his total attention to her story. She looks up at him and continues "After he tortured and killed them, he would cuff the living to the dead and wait for the corpses to rot." Pause "The stink was awful."
"But after three weeks, they found us," She smiles a tired smile "and crashed the place and released us."
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"Not everything went smoothly on the rescue mission. Trying to save one of the still living kidnapped victims, Buchanan was shot. A deadly wound. Combined with the undernourishment and the torture, she almost died." Ducky sighs and looks at Gibbs who is listening with all his attention to the story.
"It was touch-and-go for a second there, and even then she was in a coma for three weeks. They didn't believe she would make it."
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"You've seen the scar." She touches her breast lightly, a little bit over her heart where the bullet scar was. "I had a collapsed lung and a series of blood infections. Even if I survived, the doctors gave me a 50/50 chance of ever being strong enough to leave a bed again."
"But you survived."
"Against all odds."
"Was it worth it?" She looks at him "Being shot?"
"She was fifteen years old, McGee." She tells him "She had been in that hellhole for 18 months. She deserved a chance to live."
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"Her teammate was luckier. His wounds, even though painful, were not as extensive. After a two week mandatory leave, he came back to work. He passed all the mandatory psychological tests with flying colors but still was restrained to desk duty."
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"We had no idea how badly damaged he really was." She pauses and looks ahead. McGee waits patiently for her to continue. She swallows hard and finishes her tale "one night, shortly after he was reinstated, during an all-nighter, the whole team stayed over working on another kidnapping case. There was a deadline. The victim, if not found, would be dead by morning."
She pauses. "Somehow he thought he was back there. That it was the crazy game again. He simply stood, took his service weapon, attached a silencer on it, and shot each and every person in the room." Pause "They never had time to react." Pause "Their service weapons were all found still locked in the drawer of their work desks." Pause "Once he was done, he returned to his desk, put the gun in his mouth, and finished himself off."
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"Jetro" says Ducky vehemently "the only reason she is alive today is because she almost died from that bullet. If she had been in the office, she certainly wouldn't be here."
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"Why do you think it was God's hand?"
"Because I'm miracle that wasn't supposed to exist." She says softly to him. "Father sometimes says that, we, in our daily toils, can't really see the spiritual forces acting behind people's acts." She smiles "Sometimes we are manipulated like board pieces, by forces we can't fight or acknowledge, but sometimes" she pauses and smiles "sometimes, a bigger plan is set in place and we are led to fulfill it. God pays attention to the little details, and we are left entertaining angels unaware."
McGee raises his right hand and dries one of the tears which are silently falling on her face. She smiles at him, mouths I'm fine and makes and effort to gather her wits. Her professional mask comes back on, the traces of tears are erased.
"We better go now."
He puts the car in gear and drives off.
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