This story was originally written for Kate98, as part of the 2006 NCIS ficathon (http/community. The prompt I was given was: "team gen fic - The team functioning without Gibbs, at first fighting each other for control, but then getting their act together in a crisis. Please include everyone - even Jimmy!".
I own nothing and am not being paid.
Thank you: To my great betas, Rinne and Tweeter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony was of two minds. On the one hand, he was flattered by the implication that Gibbs felt that he was ready to take on his job. On the other hand, he wasn't that sure that it was a matter of Gibbs thinking he was ready. Normally Gibbs would have never left the team in the hands of someone he wasn't sure was capable of leading it. However, normally Gibbs would not have left in the first place. As for the job itself, while he felt he was ready for it and was happy with being promoted, he was quickly learning that being team leader was a hard job that offered countless frustrations
It also didn't help that his team members were each busy with their own personal demons. Abby had taken Gibbs' move badly and, as much as he loved her, he was getting tired of her behaving like a petulant child. McGee was even less confident than usual and although Tony enjoyed being called Boss he was getting worried about him. Ziva was depressed and moody, and a moody assassin was a scary prospect. The news from Israel seemed to weigh heavily on her. As soon as the hostilities started she contacted her superiors in Mossad and offered to come back home, only to be told that since her expertise had nothing to do with Lebanon but more to do with international terrorism she was not needed in Israel and should continue her work with NCIS. Needless to say, she did not take that very well.
There was also the matter of the cases they were being assigned. Tony wasn't sure whether it was because the director didn't quite trust him, or whether it was just a slow period. In either case, since Tony assumed charge of the team they had only handled petty crimes. It was hard to get his team united and excited when all they were doing was investigating car thefts, house burglaries and minor drug related offences.
When the director called Tony and told him that Metro PD had informed NCIS that they found the body of a badly beaten Navy petty officer in an apartment building near downtown DC, and that his team was assigned the case, Tony was actually relieved.
After seeing what was left of Petty Officer Neal Barret, Tony was a little ashamed of his initial joy at being assigned the case. The petty officer had been beaten so badly that Tony doubted that even his mother would recognize him in his current state.
"It looks like our young gentleman here was tortured for a rather long time," said Ducky, examining the ligatures that were used to tie the victim to the chair in which he was found. "You can see that his wrists are very badly bruised. He seems to have struggled against his restraints for a long period of time. Mr. Palmer, please help me untie him."
Palmer leaned in and began carefully removing the restraints. "I'll take these over to Abby for analysis."
"But that wasn't the cause of death," stated Tony.
"No," agreed Ducky. "The single shot to the back of the head is what ended his life. I wonder if you welcomed it by then, son," he said, addressing the dead body.
"Do you think they were trying to get information out of him?" asked McGee, who was sitting in front of the petty officer's desktop computer.
"If they were, they weren't professionals," answered Ziva who had just entered the room from the kitchen.
"And you know this how?" asked Tony.
"For one thing by the shape of him; it looks like they were having way too much fun. I'm sure Ducky will correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like he couldn't even speak by the time they were done with him. Also, I doubt pros would have left this behind," said Ziva, lifting up an evidence bag containing a bloodied kitchen towel. "I found it in the kitchen waste basket."
"Ziva is quite right," said Ducky. "By the time they stopped beating him, our poor petty officer probably couldn't do much more than gurgle."
"Do you have a time of death, Ducky?" asked Tony.
"I won't be able to give an exact estimate till I perform a proper autopsy, but it looks like he died around 24 hours ago," replied Ducky.
"That fits with what Mrs. Ramsey, the neighbor from downstairs, told me," said Ziva. "She said that last evening at around five she heard very loud music coming out of this apartment. It lasted for around an hour, but just as she was about to climb the stairs and give Barret a piece of her mind, the music stopped."
"So our killers used music to cover up the noise they were making," said Tony. "Ziva, check for prints on the sound system, will you?"
"I already checked," said Ziva "It's clean."
"Did you examine the CD they were playing?" asked Tony.
"I have been doing this for a whole year now Tony," said Ziva, irritated. She searched through the box of evidence bags containing all the evidence she had already collected for processing and handed Tony the CD. "I thought Abby might be able to lift some prints I couldn't find."
"Yikes!" said Tony. "Celine Dion, talk about torture."
"Yeah," agreed Ziva. "Maybe they were professionals after all."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony found Director Shepherd at MTAC. She was sitting in front of the big screens overlooking what seemed to be an ongoing counter terrorism op. He briefed her on what his team had found at the crime scene.
"Do you think the petty officer may have divulged any sensitive information?" she asked
"Well, no, for two reasons," said Tony. "First of all, Ziva and Ducky seem to agree that the beating he took was more about inflicting pain than about interrogation. But more importantly, Barret was a tour guide at the Arlington national cemetery, so unless he could talk to dead people..."
"He had no sensitive information to divulge," the Director completed the sentence for him. "So, what's your next move?"
"Well, McGee is looking at the hard disk he extracted from the victim's computer and Sciuto has a lot of evidence to process, including a towel we think the perp used to clean his hands," Tony explained. "Once I finish here, Officer David and I will go over to the national cemetery to talk to Barret's CO and his friends and see if they know anything."
"Well, it looks like you have it all under control," said the Director. Tony thought he may have been imagining it, but he couldn't help hearing more than a little surprise in her voice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
McGee was sitting in front of his computer examining the contents of the hard disk he had taken from Petty Officer Barret's computer.
On the hard-disk McGee found several encrypted files, but he had no problem decrypting them. ‘At least there's one thing I'm still good for,' he thought to himself.
Ever since Gibbs left, McGee's confidence in his abilities as an agent has deteriorated to an even lower level than normal. Even though he knew he was not very good in the field, Gibbs felt he was good enough to be on his team, and since Gibbs was always right, it allowed McGee to gain some confidence in his abilities. With Gibbs gone, and even though Tony wasn't riding him as hard as he expected him to, McGee just wasn't sure he had any business being a field agent. Maybe he should just throw in the towel and get a position as a full time computer expert.
McGee sighed and looked through the files he had just decrypted. Each file was named with what appeared to be a surname and contained biographical details of an elderly person. Each file also contained what looked like a dollar sum, ranging from a few thousand to 100 thousand dollars.
"Ziva, do you want to come and look at this?" he asked.
When he heard no reply, he stood up and looked over to Ziva's desk.
Ziva was looking intently at her computer screen. McGee was sure he was imagining it, but Ziva seemed to be paler than usual.
"Ziva?" asked McGee.
Ziva was looking at the Ynet webpage, a Hebrew news site maintained by the biggest newspaper in Israel. Ever since the war started she felt the need to check the news every time she could. She needed to know where the missiles had hit, how many civilians and soldiers were dead and what their names were.
When she first arrived in the US, she was surprised that Americans didn't seem to need to know the names of their soldiers killed in Iraq, but with time she learned a big difference between Israel and the US. It seemed that in the US only a relatively small number of people served in the military. Many times, the people who did serve came from families in which serving was the norm. That meant that many Americans lived their whole life without ever knowing anyone serving in the military. Israel was a much smaller place, and everyone served. Whenever a soldier was killed, it could easily be someone you know. A brother, a father, a child, a lover, or just someone you were at school with.
So far, since the current war started, Ziva had been lucky. None of the people who had died were people she knew. However, today her luck had run out.
Rami Alfasi was Ziva's sister Tali's best friend since both he and Tali were in the sixth grade. Her sister had an obvious crush on him, and he seemed to feel the same way. However, both he and her sister were too shy to do anything about it and Tali died before either of them confessed their feelings. Ziva had always had a soft spot for Rami. He was a gentle and innocent boy who loved her sister, and now he too was dead.
Ziva closed her eyes and said a silent Kadish prayer*. She then closed the web-browser, and turned to McGee.
"Yes?" she said, her voice even and unflinching.
"Are you all right?" asked McGee.
"Yeah, sorry about that," she replied. "What have you got?"
"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked, concerned.
"I said I was OK, McGee," she said, stepping closer to him and invading his personal space. "Now back off!"
She immediately felt bad about snapping at McGee, who stepped away from her looking hurt, scared and confused. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm fine. Can you please just show me what you found?"
McGee was still a bit rattled by Ziva's reaction, but he activated the screen and uploaded the files. "It looks like the victim was gathering information about these people. Their financial status, history, interests."
"Hmm," Ziva muttered, flipping through the files. "It looks to me like our petty officer was gathering information for a scam. The dollar sum could be how much he managed to take each one of them for."
"I think you're right," said McGee, "and I think I know how he was doing it to."
McGee took the remote control from Ziva and switched the image to another file he found on the hard-disk.
"IHOF?" Ziva asked, reading the title slide of a power point presentation.
McGee pressed the remote one more time and the words "Iraq Heroes Orphan Fund" appeared on the screen. "I think Barret convinced these people that he was raising money for the orphans of soldiers that were killed in Iraq."
"Before we jump to conclusions, McGee," said Tony who had just crept behind McGee, Gibbs style, causing him to jump, "I think you should make sure that this IHO foundation isn't legitimate."
"Ah, yes, Boss," mumbled McGee. "I'm on it."
Tony smiled at Ziva.
"What are you smiling about?" she asked. "You can't still be excited about him calling you boss?"
"For one thing Zeeva," answered Tony, "yes I can, but more importantly, I totally sneaked up on you two."
"You sneaked up on him. I'll give you that," answered Ziva. "I knew you were there."
"You did not!" protested Tony.
"Let's see, you exited the elevator, smiled at agent Weiss and then bent down and pretended to tie your shoe laces so that you could get a better look at her legs. You then…"
"All right, all right," Tony cut her off. "We really don't have time for this."
Ziva smirked at Tony.
"So, assuming McGee is right, and Barret was scamming these people, that gives us motive," Tony changed the subject.
"Yeah," said Ziva, flipping through the files, "but I doubt any of these senior citizens beat him to death."
"Wait, wait!" shouted Tony. "Give me that."
He tried to grab the remote from Ziva's hand but she swiftly moved it out of his reach.
"Please?" he said.
Ziva handed him the remote.
Tony clicked back two files.
"There!" he said.
"What?" asked Ziva.
"She's the one!" said Tony excitedly.
Ziva read the file. "You think Mrs. O'Brian, age 72, mother of three, grandmother of nine, tied our victim to a chair, beat him to a pulp and then shot him in the back of the head?"
"No, Zeeva," said Tony. "I think her sons did."
"What?" asked Ziva, feeling completely lost.
"Come on, let's go!" Tony barked.
"Where to?" asked Ziva, reluctantly following Tony to the elevator.
"Abby's lab."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When they exited the elevator, Tony and Ziva smashed right into a very scared looking Jimmy Palmer.
"Whoa Jimmy," said Tony. "What's the hurry? Are you afraid someone might spill water on you?"
When Ziva didn't laugh Tony said "…you know, cause he's a gremlin?"
Ziva ignored him. "Is everything all right, Jimmy?" she asked.
"She's in a scary mood," said Jimmy. "I wouldn't go in there if I were you."
He mumbled a quick goodbye to Ziva, completely ignored Tony who was making faces behind his back and hurriedly made his retreat into the elevator.
Abby was sitting in front of her computer in the dark. As was the case most of the time, the music in the background was unfamiliar to Ziva and Tony, but unlike most other times when the music was just very loud, this time it was very loud and almost suicidal in its depression.
"Abs!" said Tony.
"I don't have your results yet, Tony," said Abby, not even turning towards them. "I'll call you as soon as I do."
Tony went over to Abby's stereo system and turned the music off.
"Hey!" shouted Abby. "You'd better turn that music back on, mister!"
"Abby, I need you to do something for me."
"What's that?" asked Abby, turning back towards her computer rather than facing Tony.
"You told me you found DNA on the kitchen towel we gave you," he started.
"Yes," Abby confirmed. "It was an admixture of the victim's DNA and another sample, which I will be able to compare to a suspect's DNA, if you ever find one."
"I think I already have some suspects for you, Abby," replied Tony, ignoring Abby's attitude. "I want you to check whether the second sample belongs to one of the O'Brian brothers."
"The O'Brian brothers?" asked Abby, turning to face Tony.
"The very ones," said Tony.
"The O'Brian brothers?" asked Ziva.
"Yes," explained Tony. "Mrs. Gilda O'Brian that seems to have been swindled out of 15,000 dollars by our victim is the proud mother of Rick, Jack and Danny O'Brian."
"And they are?" asked Ziva.
"They just happen to be three of the most connected people in the DC area," said Abby.
"Connected?" asked Ziva.
"Yeah, you know, organized crime. The FBI has been trying to close the book on them for years," said Tony. "Abby how long till you get the results on that?"
"A couple of hours," said Abby, already concentrating on the task at hand. But first thing's first. She walked towards her stereo system, replaced the CD with a new one and turned it on. A very loud and much more cheerful song started playing and drowned out any other sound in the room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mrs. O'Brian seemed very distressed when Tony and Ziva told her what happened to Petty Officer Barret.
"Oh, such a nice young man," she said, "and so dedicated to those orphans. I was really touched by his stories. I just had to give my share."
"You gave 15,000 dollars, right?" asked Tony.
"Oh yes, my dear," replied Mrs O'Brian offering Tony another cookie. "It was the least I could do for those brave young men who gave their lives so that we can sleep safely."
"And what did your sons think about that?" asked Ziva.
"Oh, sons can be so overly protective of their old mother. It is almost as if I were the child and they the parents. They threw a fit. Said that I'd been had and that I was a foolish old woman. I tried to tell them that there was no way that two such sweet and honest looking soldiers would ever try and steal from an old woman, but…"
Tony cut the old woman off. "Did you say two soldiers?"
"Yes, my dear," smiled Mrs. O'Brian. "Neal Barret and Mark Bayliss, lovely boys, both of them."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"OK, turn here," said Tony.
Ziva took the turn without much regard for traffic, skidding the car and causing Tony to wonder once more why he let her drive. "Are you still there, Abby?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm here," Abby's voice came out of his phone, which was on speaker.
"What have you got for us?" asked Tony.
"You were right, Tony," said Abby excitedly, "the DNA on the towel matches a sample the FBI took from Danny O'Brian a few years back."
"What I don't get," said Ziva, "is why three serious career criminals so high up in the hierarchy would dirty their own hands and do such a sloppy job of covering up after themselves."
"Well, Ziva," said Abby, "some men get really crazy when it comes to mommy. I had a boyfriend once…"
McGee joined the conversation and cut Abby off before she could finish her sentence.
"Eh, Boss, I checked and Petty Officer Bayliss served with Barret. Their CO says they were very close. Bayliss just got back from a trip to California today. He landed about three hours ago."
"That's good," said Tony. "They might not have had time to finish him off yet. Ziva and I are five minutes away from his apartment."
Ziva quickly swerved the car left and right in between traffic and crossed an intersection just as the light turned from yellow to red.
"On second thought," said Tony, covering his eyes, "the way Ziva is driving, make it two minutes. Did you call Metro for back up?"
"Yes, Tony," answered McGee, "and I told them to approach without sirens."
"Good job, Timmy!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony, Ziva and four Metro police officers crept up the stairs to the fourth floor of Petty Officer Bayliss' apartment building. As they approached his apartment they could hear loud music.
"OK," Tony turned to the police officers, "Officer David and I will go in first. It looks like they are still in there."
The door to the apartment was locked, but Ziva quickly picked it open and she and Tony snuck into the apartment. It wasn't very hard to do with the music blaring at full volume.
Petty Officer Bayliss was tied to a chair surrounded by the three O'Brian brothers. It seemed like they hadn't hurt him much yet, but he looked terrified out of his mind.
"You see, sailor boy," one of the O'Brian boys was saying to him, "you really shouldn't have messed with our mother. We already taught your friend that."
Tony waited till Ziva placed herself so that together they had all three brothers in the sights.
"NCIS federal agents!" he shouted. "Don't move!"
One of the brothers tried to reach for his gun, but Ziva stuck the barrel of her gun in his back and kicked his legs out from under him. The remaining two brothers threw their guns to the floor and surrendered. They were quickly cuffed by the four Metro police officers.
"Thank god you're here!" exclaimed Bayliss as Ziva untied him.
"I wouldn't be so grateful if I were you," said Ziva. "Petty Officer Mark Bayliss, you are under arrest for fraud. You have the right to remain silent…"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I think this calls for a celebration," said Tony. "Our first big case without Gibbs, closed without any loose ends."
He, Ziva and McGee were sitting in the squad room finishing up their paper work. They had questioned all three O'Brian brothers, who didn't even try to deny that they had murdered Petty Officer Barret. After all, they were caught red handed. They did, however, seem to believe that any jury would see that they were justified in their actions, since no one should mess with their mommy.
Petty Officer Bayliss also wasn't hard to break. Ziva even got him to reveal the location of the money he and Barret had swindled out of all those old people, threatening that if he didn't tell her, she would put him in the same holding cell as the O'Brian brothers.
So, all in all, it had been a successful day.
"I'm sorry Tony," said Ziva. "I'm not really in the mood for a celebration. But you are right. We did do well today."
She picked up her bag, walked up to Tony and petted him on the cheek. She bid Tony and McGee goodnight and headed for the elevator.
"How about it, McGee? Want to go out, just us boys, or maybe we should ask Abby to come as well?" Tony asked McGee.
"I'm sorry, Tony," answered McGee, "I can't. I have a date. Hold that elevator, Ziva!"
He followed Ziva and left.
Tony couldn't believe McGee had a date, while he didn't have the tiniest prospect of one. He had been so busy the last few weeks since Gibbs left that his social life had been put completely on hold. He took a few more minutes to finish up his paper work and gather his things, and then he headed for the elevator.
When the doors to the elevator opened, he found that Director Shepherd was in it.
"Director," he greeted her.
"Agent DiNozzo," she replied.
After a few seconds of awkward silence she turned to him. "That was a good result today."
"Thank you," he said.
"I think Gibbs may have been right about you," she added.
Tony tried to bite his tongue but in the end decided to voice his thoughts. "You seem kind of surprised at that," he said.
"Yes," she replied honestly, "I am." And then just as the elevator doors opened in the parking garage she turned to him one final time. "Don't screw up," she said and left.
"No, ma'am," he said quietly and smiled, "I don't believe I will."
The end
*The Kadish is the Jewish mourner's prayer.
Author's Chapter Notes:
The team’s first big case after Gibbs leaves for Mexico. Post Hiatus, set before season 4 starts. Written for for Kate98 as part of the 2006 NCIS ficathon.