Nine Lives, Part Two
by Sammie
Disclaimer: Own...? "That's funny, Gibbs. Funny. WRONG. But funny." "NCIS" is not mine, and neither are Clayton Webb and Sarah MacKenzie. They are they only two non-"NCIS" characters in the story, and they get full introductions in the story. There are some verbatim quotes.
In addition, because of the amount of fanfiction I've read, there are most likely scenes and statements that look familiar. I apologize beforehand. I had no intention whatsover of ripping anyone off - your story was so incredible that those little things stuck out clearly, even in my Swiss-cheese memory.
Kathryn, Peter, and Jaime Lin are mine, and that's it.
Same thing about "Kate" Todd being spelled "Cate" Todd.
Summary: A Marine major disappears just days before her undercover assignment and winds up dead; now NCIS wants to know why. (Part One is in the "Without a Trace" section as a crossover.)
NCIS HQ
"I take two days off and look what happens." Abby's eyes went wide as she came in to see everything spread out over her tables and her floor. "What's all this?"
"Well, Abby, Major Lin, if we are lucky," Ducky replied, a little darkly. "You were quite fortunate to have missed the unloading process a few days ago."
"Isn't Dover going to help?" Abby asked, peeking into one box.
"They already are. The FBI bagged and tagged as many human remains as they could identify and boxed them all specially and shipped them directly to Dover Air Force Base. We're here to sort through everything else."
Tony winced as he looked it over. "Why do I have a feeling this puzzle is going to be one of those 5000 piece deals?"
"All the President's men couldn't get Humpty Dumpty back together again," Gibbs replied.
Abby shook her head. "This is worse than Dorn."
"Yeah, at least that puzzle had only six big pieces," Cate replied.
"How'd she die?" Abby asked, snapping on a pair of gloves.
"Blown to high heaven," Tony replied. "Bad enough to be even a pyromaniac's nightmare."
Abby made a face at the boxes. "Must've used a lot of explosives."
"It was a succession of explosions," Cate replied. "We're guessing the timed explosive attached to the hull was the starter, and after that, it was like dominoes."
"Tony, keys." Gibbs held out a hand, and Tony tossed the keys to him. "Do a background check on that fishing boat, find out anyone who was on it, and cross check them with any of Lin's previous cases. Cate, you comin'?"
"Where are we going?"
"Lin's funeral," Gibbs replied as he washed his hands in the sink, then tossed Cate the soap and started heading out.
"Why?" Cate asked, scrubbing down. At his look, she hurried after him.
"How are they having a funeral, without a body?" Abby asked as the three left settled down to work.
"Memorial service, more, I suppose," Ducky replied, then looked at the boxes and shuddered a bit. "I doubt Dover will ever find any body enough to bury."
"So why is it being held so soon?"
"Her CO and the man she was reporting to on this assignment wanted it that way," Tony replied, looking over the boxes as he gathered up his things.
"That sounds hinky."
"Considering her assignment appears to still be open," Ducky replied, "it would be logical to take care of this business quickly and then move on."
At Abby's confused look, Tony explained, "Colonel Weir and Clayton Webb are the process type. Methodical, Cate said. They take of business in the order they come in. They will take care of Major Lin's funeral first and as fast as they can so they can deal with the rest of the assignment."
ARLINGTON CEMETARY
"Don't you think it's a little gauche to be interrogating people at the funeral?" Cate asked as they made their way through the large Arlington Cemetary, toward the place where the funeral would take place.
"I'm not going to question her family," Gibbs replied. "And we are here to pay respects." His voice was unusually heavy, not the generally lighter tone she was used to.
Cate looked over at him, puzzling for a moment, and suddenly understood. Lin's death hadn't been his fault; she wondered briefly if he felt that guilty about all this cases, then stopped. Most of the time, their victim was already dead by the time they even started the case. Lin had been an exception.
As they were nearing, he tensed.
"What?" Cate asked, looking from him to the small party on the hill.
"You go on ahead," Gibbs replied, still watching the party. "We'll meet back at the car."
"What about you?" Cate asked, thoroughly puzzled.
He ignored her question. "Only if they ask, then tell them you're NCIS, and that you were working on the case before she died. Don't tell them about me or about DiNozzo, and don't tell them we're still working on the case." With that, he hurried off, leaving a bewildered Cate behind.
Cate approached the funeral site, and felt almost sorry for the major. There was barely anyone there. Lin's brother and his wife; after them, just Webb, Colonel Weir - her CO, and a Marine lieutenant colonel she didn't recognize. JAG corps, she figured, from the insignia.
"Agent Todd!" Jaime Lin turned around, looking at her with a small, weak smile. Cate could tell the younger woman had been crying. At that, her husband turned around, and Cate could see the defeated expression on his face.
"Mr. Lin, Mrs. Lin," she greeted them quietly. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to meet again, at least like this." She got a few weak, sad smiles of agreement. "I'm...I'm very sorry. We, uh, we were - "
Peter shook his head. "We know it's not your fault," he mumbled. By the expression on his face, it looked as if he believed it in his head, and was desperately hoping to believe it for real.
Cate just nodded quietly.
"Special Agent Todd," Webb addressed her warily. "What brings you here?"
Cate put on her best innocent face and shook her head. "I...I just came to pay my respects." She turned to Lin's CO. "Colonel Weir," she greeted quietly.
"Agent Todd."
Webb looked suspiciously at her. The other woman came up. "Clay?"
"Sarah, this is NCIS Special Agent Caitlin Todd," Webb introduced, still watching her with a suspicious eye. "Agent Todd, Lt. Col. Sarah MacKenzie."
"Mac," the woman said warmly, reaching out a hand.
"Cate, please," Cate responded, shaking it. "I...I was working on Major Lin's disappearance. Before this."
'Mac' nodded.
"I'm...uh, I'm sorry," Cate replied in embarrassment, successfully masking her attempt to get a little more information. "I'm sure I must've come across your name somewhere, I just didn't - "
"No," Mac smiled warmly. "I only knew her briefly." Just then her phone rang, and she picked it up. "MacKenzie. ... Yeah, sure. Be there in a bit." She smiled apologetically. "I'm really sorry, but I have to run."
Clay nodded, still watching Todd suspiciously. They eventually moved away. Soon after, Peter and Jaime Lin followed.
The colonel stood at the gravesite, staring at the headstone silently. "She was a good Marine," he replied quietly, when they were finally alone.
"Yes sir."
The man turned to her. "Look, I don't know what she was doing over there at the State Department," he said. "But she wasn't dirty."
"I never said she was, sir."
"Well, somebody is." The colonel crossed his arms. "Who is covering the investigation on the explosion?"
Cate just straightened, and remembered what Gibbs had said. 'Don't tell them we're still working on the case.' "That is up to Director Morrow, sir."
The colonel nodded a silent goodbye and head down the hill, leaving Cate alone. She could still hear the car leaving as she stood next to the grave, looking down at the simple markings. She couldn't believe it - that at the woman's funeral, not even ten people had shown up.
NCIS HQ LAB
"What've we got?" Tony asked as he bounced back into the lab. "We even got stuff sorted here?"
Abby made a face. "It looks like my little brother's Lego box."
Tony grinned. "Well, my Legos, they were all nice and organized, each different part put in a different little pocket," he bragged.
Abby looked at him, a mixed expression of surprise and disbelief, then grinned. "Tony, did you even open the boxes you got?" When Tony got a 'caught' look on his face, Abby grinned.
"I opened some of them," Tony defended himself. "Whatcha got, Abby?"
"Unfortunately, a direct ID, right here," Abby replied, holding up a melted ID card. Everything looked blurred and the colors were running together.
"You can tell whose it is from that?" Tony asked incredulously.
"Look at this." Abby waved at the big screen, calling up the program which enhanced the images. "What do you see?"
"A...K...Lin...USMC." Tony sighed. "So she really died on board, huh."
"Was there any doubt?" Abby asked.
Tony sighed. "Well, I was kinda hoping." He trailed off.
PARKING LOT
"Well?" Gibbs asked as she slid into the passenger's side.
Cate buckled her seatbelt and sat back in the seat. "There were only a few people people there. Her brother, her sister-in-law, the chaplain, Colonel Weir, Webb, and some Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie. JAG Corps, I believe, from the insignia."
Gibbs started up the engine. "Hey, look at that. New kid on the block's been doing her homework."
"How do you know I didn't screw up the insignia? And why wouldn't you go?"
Gibbs' eyes quickly scanned the entire parking lot, and he didn't answer.
"You going to tell me what's going on, or are we going to play twenty questions?"
Gibbs pulled out of the parking lot as fast as he could.
Cate, thinking he wouldn't hear, mumbled something under her breath about another woman going after him with a piece of sports equipment.
Once they were on the highway, Gibbs finally said, "To answer your first two questions: I knew you knew the insignia and I didn't attend the funeral because I recognized the Lieutenant Colonel."
Cate was taken aback. "Colonel MacKenzie?"
"DiNozzo and I worked on a case about a year ago," Gibbs replied as they continued down the highway. "A JAG lawyer from the Falls Church office was murdered. The suspect was the JAG golden boy - he and the Colonel, his words, 'are old friends.' Closer, I expect, than either'll admit."
"And you didn't want her to see you."
"Yup."
"What difference would it have made?"
"Well, it appears that right now our Colonel is singing the theme from 'The Spy Who Loved Me,' and if we need some information out of Mr. Webb, we might be able to get her to play good cop for us."
Cate made a face.
NCIS HQ
"What've we got?" Gibbs asked as he came into the bullpen, Cate following close behind.
Tony and Abby looked up from his computer. "Uh...a small fishing boat for the Delaware. Like we found out earlier, Erik Johannson, 78, single, really mad about his boat."
"What connection?"
"We questioned him back in Philly, boss. He said he didn't know Major Lin or anyone else."
"The boxes?"
"Ducky and Gerald are still trying to identify everything - including potential body parts the FBI missed - and so far they figure they've got stuff from two of the three other people on board the boat at the time of the explosion - IDs, part of a sidearm, that sort of thing. We also have Lin's ID, melted but still readable."
Gibbs nodded. "Abby?"
"We're still searching through the stuff," she replied. "Tony said, by all interviews, there were most likely three other people on board. Searching through all that" she waved at where everything had been spread out "we've got at least two different people, and I'm working on a third. I have a feeling we'll find number four, too. Well, the major."
Tony shuddered.
"Four deaths," Abby replied. "Now that's overkill." She twirled around in the chair she was sitting in, just to find the three NCIS agents giving her a look. "What?" She shrugged. "One of you was going to say it."
"Cate," Gibbs called as he left, "double check on Lin's phone records and LES's, see if anything was added in the last few days. Tony, check back with Malone, see if they have anything else."
Tony furrowed his brow, watching his boss' retreating back. He turned to Cate. "He seems a little chipper."
Cate rolled her eyes as she settled down at her computer. "Apparently he just figured out that somebody at the local JAG office has ties to our mysterious Clayton Webb, and he plans to use her to get to him if needed."
"Really? Who?"
"A Lt. Col. Sarah MacKenzie."
Tony grinned. "She was hot."
Cate made a sound of exasperation.
"So...how was the funeral?" Tony asked, more soberly this time.
"Sad," Cate replied shortly. "More ways than one. The only people there were Lin's brother and his wife, her CO, Webb, Col. MacKenzie, me, and the chaplain."
"That's it?"
"Uh huh."
Tony made a small face. "I hope more people attend mine."
Gibbs sank into a chair in Ducky's examining room, watching as the man poured over a small bit of who knows what they had found. It wasn't Lin's, but one of the others who had been on the boat at the time of the explosion.
He scooted forward and looked at the ME. "Can we get prints off that?" he asked.
Ducky sighed. "Jethro, we've already tried."
Gibbs gave a rare groan of frustration and rubbed his hand through his hair.
Ducky put down his magnifying glass. "This one is bothering you, isn't it."
Gibbs sighed and leaned back in his chair. "You should see her file," he replied as he turned himself from side to side. "Blown up, shot, you name it, it happened to her. That incident in New York? She crawled on her belly, with a chair on her back, to get to a heater. Then she melted off plastic cuffs and got out before being blown up."
Ducky nodded, looking at the agent. "You find her death too simple."
"Yeah. You'd figure somebody like that would be more careful." Gibbs gestured in frustration.
Ducky sighed. "All those years looking over her shoulder, sleeping with one eye open...she was bound to have been tired, Jethro."
Gibbs just looked at him, then sighed.
Gibbs walked back into the bullpen, only to be met by Cate and Tony, who looked like cats who had just eaten the proverbial canary. Or a lot of them. "What?"
"Major Lin...made a phone call to Mr. Webb just ten minutes before being blown away," Cate said, a huge grin covering her face.
"Let me guess, it wasn't a 'good-bye' call," Gibbs replied dryly.
"It seems we might have our turncoat," Cate replied. "Or something, anyhow."
"Actually, I've got it right here so you can listen to it." Tony waved their boss over to his computer to play the message.
Gibbs put on a pair of headphones and started to listen.
"'Hi Clay. ... Sure, I'll be sure to bring it to your house. I'll make sure to avoid the Colonel. ... No, it wouldn't be good. ... All right. See you later.'"
He looked up. "'Hi Clay'?"
"That's what I said," Tony replied. "Way too friendly. Waaay too friendly."
"And it doesn't sound like business." Cate grinned. "Abby just took a copy downstairs to clean it up and see if she couldn't figure out what all the background noise was."
Gibbs nodded to Tony. "Have Abs make me a copy too."
"Okaaaay," Tony replied, obviously not sure why. "Why?"
"We're going to pay Lt. Col. MacKenzie a little visit. With the tape." Gibbs rounded his desk, heading out. "Tony, you're with me. Cate, you go and see what Abby gets cleaned up."
"What else have we got, Ducky?" Cate asked curiously, looking over at the different things distributed over three tables.
"We've got 'em divvied up," Gerald explained as he carried another bit of something and set it on the second table. "The first table is anything we think is victim 1, top of table two is victim 2, bottom of table two is victim 3 - "
" - I thought Abby said you hadn't found anything on #3 yet."
"Oh, we found something."
"What?" Cate asked curiously, coming over to look. "Ewww," she exclaimed, looking at what looked to be a body part on the table. "I can't believe the FBI missed that."
Gerald just chuckled. " - and table 3 is going to be our Major."
Cate looked them over. Table 3 had just a few things on it. "That's not a lot for a dead major," she commented.
Ducky shook his head. "No, it is not. Gerald and I, however, still have several boxes to search. Our major may be in one of them."
"Hey Ducky, hey Gerald," came Abby's voice as she bounced in. "Oh hey, Cate!"
Cate turned. Seeing Abby in autopsy, she smiled. Abby grinned more widely at her, then turned to Ducky. "Ducky, I checked out that piece of cloth you sent down to me. I have good news and bad news."
"Oh Abigail, I hate it when you do this. All right, let's get it over with."
"The good news is that it was intact enough to analyze. And it looks certainly like it was...some piece of a woman's clothing."
"You can tell that from...that?" Cate asked, pointing at the bit of cloth in Abby's gloved hand.
"See? This is a button hole, in this ridge right here. This part is from the bottom corner of the shirt, and it's on the left. Hem on the left. Woman's shirt." Abby beamed.
"So what's the bad news?" Gerald asked.
"Victim #3 might've been a woman. There was a melted ring in one of the boxes, but it was way too small for our major's hand, even if you could...unmelt it."
"So, still no Major," Cate confirmed.
"Yeah. Oh, and this." Abby bounced her eyebrows. "Dover called. They've positively identified two people on board, and they think they have a third."
JAG HQ
"...I...I didn't know her that well," Mac finally finished, shrugging. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help."
"Had you ever met her?" Gibbs asked.
"Just a few times. First was at some...social function in Washington that they made us go to," Mac replied. "Most of what I know about Major Lin is from Clay. He thinks very highly of her abilities."
"Has he ever said anything about how he met her? How many cases they've done together?" Tony asked.
"No...I'm not really supposed to know that kind of stuff," Mac replied. "He is CIA," she added in a 'duh' tone. "I do know that they've known each other a couple of years."
"How WELL do they know each other?" Tony clarified.
"Well." Mac sighed. "It's a different...'know.'" Gibbs and Tony gave her surprised looks, at which she rolled her eyes. "Not THAT kind," she retorted. "Men," she muttered. After a moment, she said quietly, "she understands his actions in ways I don't." At their puzzled looks, she shrugged. "The...detachedness...the cold rationalization, analysis." She paused a moment, looking down at her ink blotter on her desk. "Even with loved ones."
"You seem to know this personally," Gibbs said pointedly.
Mac sighed and sat back in her chair. "I...had a run-in...with somebody," she said slowly.
Tony sat up, looking over at Gibbs, who turned his piercing gaze onto the Marine. "Colonel," the older agent said quietly. "I know this may be difficult, but we need to know."
"I...was stalked by a terrorist I trailed last year," she said quietly. "I shot and killed him. I...was having some behavioral repurcussions, and so everyone wanted me to see a shrink."
"And you wouldn't."
"I went a few times," Mac said defensively.
"And Major Lin?" Tony cut in as gently as he could.
"After...some stuff happened between Webb and me, he suggested I talk to her. Officially she was out on a case, but she was in Washington temporarily and agreed to meet with me."
"Sounds like another shrink appointment," Tony muttered.
"Yeah," Mac rolled her eyes, "that's what I said."
"Anything happen?"
Mac shrugged. "We ordered Chinese in. I talked. She listened." When they waited for more explanation, Mac sighed. "She swore a couple times under her breath, gave me the same clinical psychobabble that Webb did, and muttered something about not letting me take more assignments like that, and it was over."
"That's it?" Tony asked, a little incredulously.
"Yeah." At their looks, Mac finally said, "Look. It was just different having somebody else who was totally untouched by the matter just to listen, and...it was different hearing it from her." At their questioning looks, she sighed. "I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous, but...she's a Marine, she's had the same training I did, and it was just some small measure of comfort knowing that she most likely would've done the same thing I did."
"Not ridiculous," Gibbs replied as he made some notes. He sat up, eyed the closed door, and then asked, "Would Webb see her outside work? Socially."
Mac's eyes darted between them. "Why?"
"Just covering my bases," Gibbs replied genially.
"Clay isn't like that," Mac replied warily. "He doesn't date his coworkers."
"He's dating you," Tony pointed out.
Gibbs shifted a little as he continued to watch her. "I'd like you to listen to something, Colonel."
NCIS HQ
"So what if this whole thing...isn't about her case?" Cate replied as she watched Abby cleaning up the dialogue.
"Like, this was about our James Bond having a bunch of different women?"
"Yeah, but all in the same port," Cate replied. "Col. MacKenzie said she knew Maj. Lin."
"That's cutting it close," Abby commented.
"That would take the cake," Cate muttered. "Having this all turn out to be a murder just to knock off one of the women."
"Do you really think either of the Marines would fall for that smooth talking?"
Cate sighed. "I hope not."
CIA HQ
"That's low, Gibbs, using Sarah to try to get to me," Webb hissed as he turned around to face the two men in his office. "And then using that ridiculous story about me seeing Lin non-professionally."
"Well, that explanation you gave to her was pretty enlightening," Gibbs replied, crossing his arms and smirking. "It got me what I needed to know, didn't it?"
"And, well, we had to explore all our options. That phone call was a LITTLE cozy," Tony replied.
Webb rolled his eyes. "Please. I don't date my associates."
"You're seeing Col. MacKenzie," Gibbs replied, shrugging nonchalantly.
"That was after assignment," Webb pointed out coolly. "Unlike some," he replied, the insinuation in his voice obvious as he repeated himself, "I don't date my associates."
Gibbs just raised an eyebrow at the CIA agent, daring him to continue.
"And where did you find that information?" Tony snorted. "NCIS Soapdish?"
"Please, Agent DiNozzo, I work for the CIA." Webb crossed over behind his desk. "Apparently we have some scruples over here."
Gibbs walked up, leaning over the desk so he was nose to nose with the other man. "You read secondhand trash and you think you know somebody," he said in almost a whisper, his voice dangerously low. "You don't."
"Who was the Colonel in the call?" Tony asked sharply.
"Her CO. He's been hounding me for months after he heard that there might be rogues on the case. He wanted me to pull her."
"You didn't."
Webb gave them a 'duh' look of exasperation.
"Why was Lin aboard that fishing boat?"
"She was doing a pickup for me. I told you that in New York."
"Of what?"
"That's need-to-know."
"Well, I need to know." Gibbs took one step forward towards the smaller man.
"We spent a whole week in New York," Tony retorted. "We were looking for her without even really knowing why she was there. Some real answers now would be nice."
"You know those nine Marines being held by Serb rebels?" Webb asked, looking up from his chair.
"Yeah?"
"Well, now you know," Webb said sarcastically.
"She was picking up the ransom to pay for them," Gibbs confirmed, and watched the CIA agent roll his eyes. "And now she's dead."
"That project has been plagued by our go-betweens all turning on us," Webb replied.
"That's why you brought in somebody from the outside."
The CIA agent shrugged. "Not that it matters anymore."
Gibbs frowned. "You don't seem all that concerned that your agent just got blown to hell," he said, his voice rising a notch.
Webb rolled his eyes. "Casualties, Gibbs. At least the money wasn't lost. That's what I'm concerned with. If there's nothing more?"
Gibbs stood and stared down at the other man, snapping his jaw shut.
NCIS HQ LAB
"She appears to have been in some open air...something...during the conversation," Abby replied as she brought up the sound. In the background, they could hear cheering and hooting.
"What is that, Abby?" Cate asked.
"I cleared it up, and an opening statement...it sounds like some kind of hoagie eating contest." Abby grinned.
"Hoagie eating contest?" Cate asked incredulously.
"Oh, but it's more than that," Abby grinned. "Tony told me once that he'd won tickets to a Philadelphia Eagles football game in one of 'em. So I looked it up. Apparently the local radio station holds these contests every other week during the summer."
Cate chuckled. "They aren't even that good. Where?"
"Penn's Landing." Abby called up a map and pointed.
Cate frowned as she examined the map. "Penn's Landing is here?"
"Yeah, why?"
Cate looked more closely. "The explosion was here," she said, pointing further down the river.
Abby shrugged. "She could've made it down there in 10 minutes. It would've been close, but she could've made it."
"Not with the crowds that day," Cate replied, bolting for the door.
"You making progress on the death of Major Lin?" Morrow asked as he and Gibbs started up the stairs of the NCIS headquarters.
"Some, sir."
"Who's your prime suspect?"
"In the direct death, sir, or all those who lead up to it?"
Morrow stopped and turned to him. "Explain."
"She was ostensibly reporting to a man named Stockwell, who was reporting to a higher up. She, however, was secretly reporting directly to Stockwell's boss," Gibbs replied. "Then this agent in charge tells her to do a pickup on a boat that was wired with an excessive amount of explosives - there was barely anything identifiable after that explosion. All of our inquiries have been shot down."
"It's covert ops."
"We went to see the man. He was also rather unconcerned that Lin was just killed," Gibbs replied.
Morrow crossed his arms and looked at his agent expectantly. "So what're you thinking?"
"The major is officially DIA, loaned out to the State Department about seven years ago. Last year, she was pretty much assigned permanently to the State. Her LESs show she was paid exclusively by them," Gibbs replied. "Her boss on this one was Clayton Webb. She's directly worked two cases with him before, possibly more."
The director nodded. "I know the name. Continue."
"Webb was demoted right before she was assigned to the State Department for real. He had given JAG in Washington classified information about about the Angelshark sub. He was out in South America for a year; she works for the CIA. Suddenly now he's moved back into his original position and she disappears?"
The director nodded. "Sounds like the two are tied together."
"I don't believe in coincidences, sir."
"Do you think she is a turncoat?"
"No," Gibbs replied. "He's acknowledged on several occasions that she's not the one selling out."
"So why allow everyone else to think that?" Morrow asked.
"I don't know," Gibbs muttered. "Maybe he hopes that'll keep people looking down the wrong path. Or maybe he's the turncoat."
Morrow shook his head. "I don't think so."
Gibbs straightened. "Are you sure, sir?"
Morrow sighed. "You remember Cmdr. Rabb at the DC JAG?"
Gibbs nodded.
"You know Lt. Col. MacKenzie too, then."
Gibbs nodded. "Agent Todd saw her at Major Lin's funeral. Just her and Webb."
Morrow nodded. "The Colonel has made a name for herself from the work she did in Paraguay, posing as Mr. Webb's pregnant wife and tracking down the terrorist Sadik."
Gibbs frowned. "I'm not following, sir."
Morrow crossed his arms as he shifted on his feet. "The CIA has been having trouble with some rogue agents. We ran into Jack Canton. The Paraguay assignment was in part to test Mr. Webb."
Gibbs straightened. "How do you know all this, sir?"
"Sadik would make it tangentially NCIS business. I was kept updated."
Gibbs nodded, and let him continue.
"The Colonel was assigned to aid Webb because of her personal contact with him - first, she was a Marine and friend and wouldn't turn on him; second, putting her into the mix was insurance that Webb wouldn't try anything." The director watched as his agent's lips pressed into a thin line. "I didn't like it either, and it's a good thing her CO didn't find out.
"The long in the short of it is that Webb proved himself, enough to regain his position in the CIA as the Director of Operations. With the housecleaning they're doing, they needed to assure themselves of people they could trust.
"Now," Morrow replied, looking at Gibbs. "My question is, why bring in the Colonel? From your report, Major Lin wasn't doing anything then. Why not bring her in?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Unless SHE's a turncoat," Gibbs finished his thought, albeit with an unhappy tone.
Morrow nodded.
"I don't buy it, sir," Gibbs said quietly. "Neither does her CO."
Morrow raised an eyebrow.
"What've you got?" Gibbs asked Tony as he entered the bullpen.
"Not much. Most of it's the same stuff that we went over when she disappeared," Tony sighed, as frustrated as Gibbs was.
"Where's Cate?"
"Dunno." Tony shrugged and turned back to the papers. He ran a hand through his hair, and fidgeted.
Gibbs couldn't help a small smile crossing his face. The younger man was getting restless from sitting so long in the desk. "Tony, go check out those same locations we tromped over last time," Gibbs replied. "Look for anything that is different from the last time we checked."
Tony looked up, looking pleased. Yes, he was getting out of the house! "Thanks, boss!" He bolted out of his chair.
Just as he disappeared out of the bullpen, Cate came in, a serious expression on her face. "Gibbs, I think you should take a look at this."
Gibbs frowned and followed her over to the board she had been working on.
"Abby cleaned up the phone call, and in the background, there's a hoagie-eating contest going on." Gibbs gave her a look. "I'm serious. I swear."
"All right."
"Tony had told Abby once that he won tickets to a Philadelphia football game in a hoagie-eating contest, so she looked it up. The local radio station would sometimes hold hoagie-eating contests so that people could win tickets to the Philadelphia Eagles games."
"Yeah, they have pretty loyal fans," Gibbs chuckled. "Loyal to a fault."
"They were holding one that day, right at the time of the phone call. That puts her at Penn's Landing" Cate pointed at the spot on the map "10 minutes BEFORE she supposedly died in the explosion, down here." Cate moved her finger down the map. "You remember how crowded it was that day. We could barely move even after we pulled our weapons and starting yelling about being LEOs."
Gibbs crossed his arms, slowly figuring out what she was saying.
"There's more." Cate handed him a folder. "This is a file on Lin's second case with Webb from five years ago, involving a room temperature superconductor a Japanese scientist had developed. The CIA was going to smuggle the conductor and the scientist into the US."
"And?"
"One of the CIA agents sold out to the defunct DSD - Paul Candella. After that happened, Webb went it alone - or so the report goes. I tracked down all of the calls made during that case by both Webb and Lin."
She handed him a fat stack of papers. "The night the bust went down, Lin received a phone call from your JAG lawyer, Cmdr Rabb, on his cell phone; it only lasted about 15, 20 seconds."
"Rabb." Gibbs looked at her in disbelief. "What's he callin' her for?"
"I tracked the phone call." A slow, knowing smile crossed Cate's face. "It's not Rabb's voice on the line, it's Webb's." Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "He was telling 'Kate' to send somebody somewhere, but then there's a gunshot, and the call's cut off."
"So Webb's been turning to the major as a backup when he couldn't trust somebody else," Gibbs murmured.
"Yeah."
Gibbs looked up from the records, his brow furrowed as he stared at the map of Philadelphia. "So why, if he trusts Lin, did he bring Lt. Col. MacKenzie to Paraguay? Why not bring Major Lin."
"Well," Cate replied in understatement, "Webb has a little problem since Lin doesn't speak Spanish or Arabic or Farsi."
Gibbs mulled over the file for a moment, then said slowly, "Plus, Webb...was demoted after the Angelshark incident. He most likely didn't have the clout to dictate who he wanted on the assignment." He shook his head. "Still, if they're friends...." He left the conclusion unstated.
"Maybe he didn't want to ask her," Cate shrugged. "She'd just finished a major case and had taken some leave time."
"Did she do anything then?"
"No. She went to see her brother and his family." Cate handed him a small clipping, a small smile gracing her lips. "Print out of a clipping from the local Kentucky paper. Her sister-in-law had triplets. I saw 'em when we went out there to question them."
Gibbs read the blurb incredulously. "She spent her leave time - in Kentucky - playing nursemaid to a pregnant woman," he said incredulously. At Cate's grin and nod, Gibbs shook his head, his chuckle turning into an outright laugh at the amazing absurdity of the situation. "People are figuring this break in her record, and Webb's taking MacKenzie to Paraguay, are because he figured she was dirty," he replied, still almost amused by the entire thing. "Instead, she's babysitting."
"Yup," Cate replied, her smile getting wider.
"What else?"
"Oh." Cate pointed back to the folder. "It gets better. Back to the Candella case." Cate looked over the edge of the folder Gibbs was holding and flipped up the top couple of pages. "Look at these. Newspaper clippings, some notes."
Gibbs leafed through them, reading all the headlines about the explosion on board the Japanese freighter, and the deaths of those on board. "One of them's Webb," he murmured, then frowned in confusion. The man was quite obviously alive.
"Take a look at the autopsy report," Cate continued, pointing at it.
"According to the ME, his body was sufficiently burned by the explosion on board the freighter so as to be only identifiable through dental records...this report was then signed and delivered to the State Department THREE days later by...a Captain Kathryn Lin."
Cate just looked at him, a small, triumphant grin on her face as she nodded.
"Those bastards," Gibbs muttered. "This whole thing is a hoax!"
Story Notes:
Part One is a crossover between "NCIS" and "Without a Trace." ("Nine Lives, Part I") Originally posted to FF.net 3/21-4/2/04
Author's Chapter Notes:
NCIS investigates the explosion that killed a missing Marine major who was doing an undercover pickup for the State Department. Part Two of the story that began as a NCIS & Without a Trace crossover.
Chapter End Notes:
Part One is a crossover between "NCIS" and "Without a Trace." ("Nine Lives, Part I") Originally posted to FF.net 3/21-4/2/04