NCIS FF: With a vengeance
I waited to post it here until I had a few chapters written,. Now that I know I am really going through with this story I thought I could post it on LJ as well.
I hope you'll like it
Chapter 1: Silence
When he arrived with his team at the crime scene he thought it was a crime scene like every other. Except it wasn't. It would change him forever. But he didn't know that back then and neither did the rest of his team. Even his so famous gut remained silent for once.
They found him sitting on a chair, his body still tied to it while his hands were locked in handcuffs. There was blood on his face, showing it had been dripping from his mouth, his ears and even his eyes. The identity of him had been revealed before they had even arrived at the crime scene, so it would be clear why the FBI was taking an interest in the case as well. Trent Kort wasn't nobody after all. Hadn't been. Now all he was, was dead. Decomposition of the body showed that his dead body had been rotting on this chair for at least a week already before he had been found. The storage area at the empty Navy base was a good hiding place, considering that it had been closed for renovations which wouldn't start for months.
"What can you tell me, Duck?" he asked the medical examiner he had known for over a decade.
"It is indeed our friend Trent Kort, Jethro," the elder man in the blue jumpsuit confirmed what he already knew. "Considering the odd bleeding from his ears and eyes, without any indication of trauma, has me convinced that a full blood test will be necessary to see if he was poisoned."
"David, DiNozzo? What have you got?" he asked impatiently now that he was addressing his inferiors.
"There are drops of blood everywhere. He must have bled and walked and bled and walked. It doesn't make any sense, boss," his very special agent told him, sounding confused.
He looked around the room and followed the blood around. Tony had been right. It didn't make any sense. There were spots on the plain concrete floor, where the blood must have formed a puddle before drying into the gray ground. Then there was nothing. No drops, no spatter, no marks. Then it started again, another large spot of blood- this time on Kort's discarded jacket on the floor. Again nothing. Then bloody hand prints on the white wall. His inner eye could see Kort stumbling along the wall, bleeding, using his hands to stop the bleeding and support himself against cold plastic surface at the same time. Another spot on the floor. Urine, he could smell it. Captured, the word flashed up in his mind. Tortured, followed right behind.
"Boss, I found his cell phone," McGee interrupted his thoughts by addressing him.
"And?" He wasn't one for praise or obvious questions. As long as there wasn't anything useful on the phone he didn't give a damn.
"It seems the last thing Kort used was the internet browser on his phone. It was still open," the agent started, slightly stuttering because of the harsh treatment he received. One look of the icy blue eyes was enough and he started talking again, faster than before. " He wrote an email to a woman named Jillian Cronin. She appears to be his girlfriend." Now that was slightly more interesting. Really interesting, to be honest. Without a word he took the cell phone and squinted at the screen so he could read the message. I just want you to know that I love you. I won't be back. I'm sorry.
The message surprised him for several reasons. For one he had never pegged Kort for the guy who swore his undying love to a woman. Also, he couldn't picture him loving someone. The guy had been a constantly lying bastard, that's what had made him so good at his job. And what might have got him killed.
What irritated him most though, was the fact that Kort had used his cell phone to write one last email, but hadn't called anyone for help. Had his captor typed? Was there a secret message in the words? And why torture a guy and then let him say goodbye to the woman he loved?
His gut still didn't talk to him, didn't tell him that all of this didn't make any sense. That something was off. Instead his intestines filed all of this under "Will make sense later, when thoroughly investigated" and that was that.
"Ziva take photos of the whole room in detail," he ordered. Just in his head did he add 'So Abby can re-create the scenario later'.
"On it, Gibbs," came her reply. She had learned not to ask him unnecessary questions.
The interrogation of his girlfriend had been long and thorough and had given them zero answers, but more questions. He had expected another undercover agent, instead he had found a kindergarten teacher who hadn't the slightest idea what he lover had been doing. In her world he had been a police officer. It hadn't been a total lie.
Her grief was real, he could see it. Her four year old son was just as devastated when he learned his kind-of-stepfather was dead. Poor kid. He couldn't picture Kort with children. He had obviously been wrong. Still, he had his agents check out the woman and every aspect of her life. He even made McGee hack into the CIA and FBI databases again to check if she was maybe so deep-cover that even he bought it. She wasn't. Just a real kindergarten teacher with a real four year old and real grief.
She hadn't had checked her email when he had questioned her and when they had made her log onto her email account and she had found Kort's last tears had been very real as well, dripping on his shoulder and soaking his shirt. Crying women made him uncomfortable and she was no exception. Awkwardly he had patted her back, in what had seemed an effort to console her to his team.
Abby had been next. Without a bullet she had had the time to test the blood and urine found at the crime scene and she confirmed that it was indeed Kort's blood. And his urine. And his hand-prints on the wall. His fingerprints on the cell phone. His hair woven in between the robes that had tied him to the chair. His sweat on the handcuffs. His DNA all over the room. Only his. Like he had done it to himself. He hadn't though- couldn't.
Ducky's findings had been equally inconclusive. There had been no wounds, no hematomas, no bruises, except for those from the robe and the cuffs, no burns or any other obvious signs of torture. No sign of poison either, at least not one that the medical examiner had thought of testing for so far.
"I did however find this," Ducky said in a voice that let him know there was something strange coming his way. He looked at him, raising his eyebrows as a sign of attention and curiosity. "Nearly all of his organs failed at one point or another. First his kidneys failed, then must have somehow started working again. Then his liver started destroying itself, then stopped. The kidneys again, then the liver. The liver failure caused massive inner bleeding, which explains him crying tears of blood. In the end he drowned on his own blood. It was a slow and rather painful death."
"What does make organs fail, then start working again, then make them fail again?" he asked his colleague, without the slightest inkling of what his answer could be.
"My best guess is still poison. I suspect he was given the antidote before the damage was too great. Then he was poisoned again." It was the most unlikely cause of death he had ever been given.
"With what poison?" he asked half outraged, half dumb folded.
"At this point, my dear friend, I can't even tell you how the poison was administered." The doctor shrugged helplessly.
"Call me when you know," he barked at him, frustrated with him now because he couldn't give him the answers he needed.
He didn't leave that day or the next, and neither did his team. The result remained the same: Zilch. Kort's last assignments had brought up nothing, his cover hadn't been blown, his life had been normal- for a guy like him. Looking into all of his enemies from the past would take time, he knew that. He didn't like it. He knew that whoever had killed Kort was a pro and was looking for something. Kort had been killed for information. They were always tortured and killed for information- for what else?
His mood got darker the longer the case remained open and unsolved.
Two weeks. Fourteen days. 334 hours to be exact. That's how long it took until another body appeared. And his gut was still silent.
TBC
My first real NCIS story. The idea has been in my head for months and I thought I'd give it a try.I will tweak a few facts along the way, twist some things into knots and change one or another timeline. This has been done and hasn't been done, as far as I know.
You might have noticed that I am working without a beta reader on this story. Also I am no English native, so sorry for all possible mistakes.
I hope you liked it and keep reading. Maybe even leave a review. Thank you!
I hope you'll like it
Chapter 1: Silence
When he arrived with his team at the crime scene he thought it was a crime scene like every other. Except it wasn't. It would change him forever. But he didn't know that back then and neither did the rest of his team. Even his so famous gut remained silent for once.
They found him sitting on a chair, his body still tied to it while his hands were locked in handcuffs. There was blood on his face, showing it had been dripping from his mouth, his ears and even his eyes. The identity of him had been revealed before they had even arrived at the crime scene, so it would be clear why the FBI was taking an interest in the case as well. Trent Kort wasn't nobody after all. Hadn't been. Now all he was, was dead. Decomposition of the body showed that his dead body had been rotting on this chair for at least a week already before he had been found. The storage area at the empty Navy base was a good hiding place, considering that it had been closed for renovations which wouldn't start for months.
"What can you tell me, Duck?" he asked the medical examiner he had known for over a decade.
"It is indeed our friend Trent Kort, Jethro," the elder man in the blue jumpsuit confirmed what he already knew. "Considering the odd bleeding from his ears and eyes, without any indication of trauma, has me convinced that a full blood test will be necessary to see if he was poisoned."
"David, DiNozzo? What have you got?" he asked impatiently now that he was addressing his inferiors.
"There are drops of blood everywhere. He must have bled and walked and bled and walked. It doesn't make any sense, boss," his very special agent told him, sounding confused.
He looked around the room and followed the blood around. Tony had been right. It didn't make any sense. There were spots on the plain concrete floor, where the blood must have formed a puddle before drying into the gray ground. Then there was nothing. No drops, no spatter, no marks. Then it started again, another large spot of blood- this time on Kort's discarded jacket on the floor. Again nothing. Then bloody hand prints on the white wall. His inner eye could see Kort stumbling along the wall, bleeding, using his hands to stop the bleeding and support himself against cold plastic surface at the same time. Another spot on the floor. Urine, he could smell it. Captured, the word flashed up in his mind. Tortured, followed right behind.
"Boss, I found his cell phone," McGee interrupted his thoughts by addressing him.
"And?" He wasn't one for praise or obvious questions. As long as there wasn't anything useful on the phone he didn't give a damn.
"It seems the last thing Kort used was the internet browser on his phone. It was still open," the agent started, slightly stuttering because of the harsh treatment he received. One look of the icy blue eyes was enough and he started talking again, faster than before. " He wrote an email to a woman named Jillian Cronin. She appears to be his girlfriend." Now that was slightly more interesting. Really interesting, to be honest. Without a word he took the cell phone and squinted at the screen so he could read the message. I just want you to know that I love you. I won't be back. I'm sorry.
The message surprised him for several reasons. For one he had never pegged Kort for the guy who swore his undying love to a woman. Also, he couldn't picture him loving someone. The guy had been a constantly lying bastard, that's what had made him so good at his job. And what might have got him killed.
What irritated him most though, was the fact that Kort had used his cell phone to write one last email, but hadn't called anyone for help. Had his captor typed? Was there a secret message in the words? And why torture a guy and then let him say goodbye to the woman he loved?
His gut still didn't talk to him, didn't tell him that all of this didn't make any sense. That something was off. Instead his intestines filed all of this under "Will make sense later, when thoroughly investigated" and that was that.
"Ziva take photos of the whole room in detail," he ordered. Just in his head did he add 'So Abby can re-create the scenario later'.
"On it, Gibbs," came her reply. She had learned not to ask him unnecessary questions.
The interrogation of his girlfriend had been long and thorough and had given them zero answers, but more questions. He had expected another undercover agent, instead he had found a kindergarten teacher who hadn't the slightest idea what he lover had been doing. In her world he had been a police officer. It hadn't been a total lie.
Her grief was real, he could see it. Her four year old son was just as devastated when he learned his kind-of-stepfather was dead. Poor kid. He couldn't picture Kort with children. He had obviously been wrong. Still, he had his agents check out the woman and every aspect of her life. He even made McGee hack into the CIA and FBI databases again to check if she was maybe so deep-cover that even he bought it. She wasn't. Just a real kindergarten teacher with a real four year old and real grief.
She hadn't had checked her email when he had questioned her and when they had made her log onto her email account and she had found Kort's last tears had been very real as well, dripping on his shoulder and soaking his shirt. Crying women made him uncomfortable and she was no exception. Awkwardly he had patted her back, in what had seemed an effort to console her to his team.
Abby had been next. Without a bullet she had had the time to test the blood and urine found at the crime scene and she confirmed that it was indeed Kort's blood. And his urine. And his hand-prints on the wall. His fingerprints on the cell phone. His hair woven in between the robes that had tied him to the chair. His sweat on the handcuffs. His DNA all over the room. Only his. Like he had done it to himself. He hadn't though- couldn't.
Ducky's findings had been equally inconclusive. There had been no wounds, no hematomas, no bruises, except for those from the robe and the cuffs, no burns or any other obvious signs of torture. No sign of poison either, at least not one that the medical examiner had thought of testing for so far.
"I did however find this," Ducky said in a voice that let him know there was something strange coming his way. He looked at him, raising his eyebrows as a sign of attention and curiosity. "Nearly all of his organs failed at one point or another. First his kidneys failed, then must have somehow started working again. Then his liver started destroying itself, then stopped. The kidneys again, then the liver. The liver failure caused massive inner bleeding, which explains him crying tears of blood. In the end he drowned on his own blood. It was a slow and rather painful death."
"What does make organs fail, then start working again, then make them fail again?" he asked his colleague, without the slightest inkling of what his answer could be.
"My best guess is still poison. I suspect he was given the antidote before the damage was too great. Then he was poisoned again." It was the most unlikely cause of death he had ever been given.
"With what poison?" he asked half outraged, half dumb folded.
"At this point, my dear friend, I can't even tell you how the poison was administered." The doctor shrugged helplessly.
"Call me when you know," he barked at him, frustrated with him now because he couldn't give him the answers he needed.
He didn't leave that day or the next, and neither did his team. The result remained the same: Zilch. Kort's last assignments had brought up nothing, his cover hadn't been blown, his life had been normal- for a guy like him. Looking into all of his enemies from the past would take time, he knew that. He didn't like it. He knew that whoever had killed Kort was a pro and was looking for something. Kort had been killed for information. They were always tortured and killed for information- for what else?
His mood got darker the longer the case remained open and unsolved.
Two weeks. Fourteen days. 334 hours to be exact. That's how long it took until another body appeared. And his gut was still silent.
TBC
My first real NCIS story. The idea has been in my head for months and I thought I'd give it a try.I will tweak a few facts along the way, twist some things into knots and change one or another timeline. This has been done and hasn't been done, as far as I know.
You might have noticed that I am working without a beta reader on this story. Also I am no English native, so sorry for all possible mistakes.
I hope you liked it and keep reading. Maybe even leave a review. Thank you!