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Gibbs frowned at the ostentation that surrounded the normally monotone Navy aircraft carrier. He hadn’t expected it of Joan, who had always seemed married to her career. Nonetheless when he’d heard she was getting married and received his invitation, he’d RSVPed.
The Navy had gone all out for this wedding at sea between Private Joan Matteson and Lieutenant Eric Walker. Gibbs, was happy for Joan, though he missed his own wife Shannon like crazy. Shannon couldn’t be here as she and their daughter had died at the hands of a drug dealer.
Gibbs had chosen to continue as a Marine and fight the good fight. With his wife and daughter gone, he had nothing left to live for at home. His entire life was with the Marines.
Joan was a good woman and she deserved a happy life. Gibbs was happy to stand in support of her with the others at this wedding ceremony. It had taken some doing to actually make it onto the same ship the wedding was being held, but her friendship was worth it.
Gibbs filed in, in his dress blues, with the rest of the sailors and Marines attending this marriage of a Marine to a Navy Lieutenant. Joan had chosen to get married in her uniform as both her and Eric’s jobs would come first for them. The chance of them being stationed together was very slim.
The ceremony was beautiful and the reception a great send off for the newly married couple. The evening ended with the couple climbing into a helicopter with just married painted on it. As the wedding guests waved goodbye to the newly married couple, a shot rang out and chaos descended as blood started falling on the guests from the helicopter as it hovered overhead.
Gibbs glanced around for something that could be used to stop the helicopter from leaving. Something wasn’t right here and Gibbs wasn’t about to let whoever was in that helicopter with Joan and Eric escape if he could help it. Most of the helicopters had been taken off the aircraft carrier to make room for the ceremony, but there was another one and Gibbs hightailed it to that helicopter.
He wasn’t the only one with that idea and nodded at another Marine who joined him and took command of the helicopter. A couple other Marines piled into the back, eager to help out. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. Plus, it was one of their own.
They would get to the bottom of what was going on. Gibbs knew that NCIS would have been contacted immediately, but it would take some time for them to get here; well aside from the one agent afloat that was posted on the ship. They needed to stop whatever was happening before it was too late.
He’d already lost his wife and daughter. He couldn’t afford to lose his friend, Joan, too. They chased the helicopter that should have had the happy couple for almost two hours before it touched down.
They quickly touched down as well and all of the Marines piled out and ran over to the other helicopter. Gibbs wrenched the door open to the other helicopter. Seeing no one besides Eric and Joan, Gibbs pointed to one of the other Marines. “You call NCIS.”
Turning to another Marine, Gibbs ordered, “You call an ambulance.”
With orders given, Gibbs rushed into the helicopter and straight to Joan. She’d obviously been shot and he quickly put pressure on her wound. One of the others came and tended to Eric. Gibbs nodded at Eric.
“He’s ok. Just unconscious.”
Gibbs nodded. “Any sign of who did this?”
“Nope.”
“Damn it.” Gibbs slammed his hand down hard onto the bottom of the helicopter in frustration.
“How soon til that ambulance gets here?” Gibbs barked.
“Should be here any minute, Gunny.”
Gibbs sighed and redoubled the pressure on Joan’s wound. He didn’t bother offering her any reassurances as she faded in and out of consciousness. She was a Marine.
She knew the score. She shouldn’t have been shot on her wedding day, though. If Gibbs had the chance, he would ring the neck of the man who dared to ruin her wedding night.
The ambulance finally arrived and Eric and Joan were rushed off to a nearby hospital, probably Bethesda. They couldn’t have gotten that far from Norfolk, though Gibbs wasn’t sure exactly where they were. He hoped that whoever had called NCIS had been able to tell them enough about where they were.
The sooner the scene got turned over to NCIS the better. He wanted to head to the hospital and make sure Joan and Eric were ok. He really wanted to know who was behind this attack.
It seemed so senseless. Worse than his wife’s death. An Agent DiNozzo finally appeared to take over the case.
Gibbs was surprised to see only one man, but DiNozzo had said that his partner was at the aircraft carrier managing that scene. It didn’t really make sense to Gibbs, but he trusted the agent to do his job.
“You need any help?”
DiNozzo shook his head. “I’ll just need to take your statements and then you can be on your way. This chopper will be taken in as evidence.”
Gibbs nodded. “We’ll fly the other chopper back to Norfolk and the aircraft carrier once you’re done with us.”
“Great. Hopefully we’ll figure out what’s going on quickly.”
“You let us know if we can do anything to help.” Gibbs nodded before heading over to the other helicopter with the other Marines to wait for DiNozzo to be finished.
Tony called to have someone come out that could transport the helicopter to Abby’s evidence garage. While he waited for them to show up, he started taking preliminary witness statements from the 4 marines who had chased the helicopter. Tony was shocked that nobody had seen the shooter.
That put the pilot of the vehicle at the top of the list of suspects, but they couldn’t make rash judgements. They had to see where the investigation led. The Marines stories matched up and Tony let them go as he spotted an NCIS agent coming to transport the helicopter that contained their crime scene. Tony conferred with the agent who promised to get it straight to Abby.
Tony nodded and headed for the aircraft carrier. He’d considered going with the Marines, but had decided to make his own way there. He wanted a fresh perspective when he arrived.
This was a political nightmare. There were so many Navy and Marines at the wedding, some of them admirals that were riding Morrow’s ass.
They wanted this case solved now. There were way too many suspects and not enough cells for them all. Tony doubted that any of the Marines or Navy were involved, but you never knew.
It would be difficult to figure out who was behind this all. Stan was already on the ship when Tony arrived. “What do we have, Stan?”
“A bunch of party guests that didn’t see anything.”
Tony nodded. “You finished up, here?”
Stan nodded.
“Head back to HQ. Get started on backgrounds for our victim. I’ll catch up to you after I check out a few more things.”
“Got it, boss.”
Tony headed for where the wedding was held to see if there was evidence there. Someone had to have seen the person who shot the bride. Maybe there was a camera that would have caught movement around the helicopter.
He talked to a few people and got tapes of the helicopter. He considered talking to the Marines again, but he wanted more information before he did that. He returned to the bullpen to see what Stan had found so far.
Stan hadn’t found much, so Tony moved behind his computer to start reviewing the tapes. Before he could get far, though, he got a call from Abby. Apparently, she’d found something on the helicopter.
He gestured to Stan to follow him and headed down to find out what Abby had for them. Tony cringed as he entered Abby’s lab. She always had such loud music going.
He flicked the music off, “Hey Abbs. What do you have for us?”
“Well mystery one is an oily substance.”
“Do we know what it is?”
“Looks to be the residue from the gun making process. This could only have come from guns fresh from the factory that hadn’t been cleaned, yet.”
“Well it is the Navy. Having guns in a helicopter isn’t strange.”
”Sure. If they’ve been properly cleaned, but these ones were taken from the factory before they had a chance to be cleaned.”
“Are you sure, Abby?”
“Positive.”
“But that’s not the weirdest bit.”
“What else do you have, Abby?”
“Well that’s just it. I’m not sure.”
“Huh?”
Abby grabbed Tony’s arm and dragged him over to her evidence table. “See. What is that?”
“Does that say Elf Lord?”
Abby shrugged. “I think so, but I really have no idea what it is.”
“Well, find out. It could be the piece we’re missing to solve why the newlyweds were attacked.”
Abby nodded. “I’m on it.”
“Come on, Stan. Let’s go review the tapes and see if we can find ourselves a suspect.”
Stan followed. “Did you get anything from the Marines?”
“I didn’t actually talk with them beyond taking their statements which match up with everyone else’s.”
Stan frowned. Tony split the videos between the two of them and they got to work reviewing the footage.
“Wait. I think I’ve found the origin of our second mystery item.” Tony announced as he paused the video he was currently watching.
“Oh?” Stan stood up and moved over to stand behind Tony’s desk, so that he could see what Tony was looking at.
“Yeah. See here. One of the NCIS agents dropped it.” Tony rewound the tape enough to show the bit that he was talking about.
“Shall I summon him from Norfolk?”
Tony nodded. “Do that. Maybe he can help us solve this case too. Once that’s done, back to reviewing the footage, however. We’re still looking for our culprits related to the guns.”
Stan nodded, quickly placing a call to have one Timothy McGee summoned to NCIS headquarters from Norfolk. Tony may not have recognized the young agent, but Stan did. The guy was an up and coming computer whiz who had been doing wonders for Norfolk’s cyber security.
Not to mention he was the son of one of the Admiral’s invited to the wedding and had also been a guest there. Stan was pretty sure they had a statement from him somewhere, but they hadn’t known about this mysterious item then. Who knew what/if anything it had to do with their case.
”Um, sir. You called for me?”
“Are you the one who this item belongs to?” Tony flashed a photo of the Elf Lord item.
“Yes, that’s mine. Where’d you get it?”
“It was on the helicopter from the wedding of Matteson and Walker earlier today.”
McGee frowned. “That’s strange.”
“Why?”
“Well I didn’t think I’d brought that with me today.”
“So it ended up in the helicopter by accident?”
“No. I don’t think it was an accident.”
“So your explanation for this?” Tony played the footage that showed McGee dropping it in the helicopter.
”I’ve been investigating a gun smuggling ring at Norfolk.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You see that’s why I was in that helicopter today. I’d gotten a tip that there was something important to the investigation there. I must have dropped my Elf Lord badge when I had to leave to get ready for the wedding and not realized it.”
“A gun smuggling ring, huh? Well we found some gun residue from the gun making process in that helicopter. Do you have any suspects?”
“Oh! Yes, but I’d have to retrieve my notes from Norfolk.”
“I suggest you do so, Probie.”
“Right away, sir!” McGee quickly sped off to get what he needed.
“Were we ever that young and green, Stan?”
“Never, sir, but we came from places where we saw the worst of the world before we joined NCIS.”
“True. Hopefully this kid has saved us some legwork, however. I wonder what else is in that helicopter. There’s bound to be something more than just the oil and greasy residue if it’s really being used by gun runners.”
”I think I have something, DiNozzo.”
“What now?”
Stan played back the footage he’d found. It showed a couple of men taking something from the helicopter. They couldn’t see what from the angle they had.
“Get that to Abby. Have her search that area. Maybe they dropped something or left behind some DNA.”
Stan nodded and headed down to autopsy with the video clip in question. He couldn’t wait for this case to be over. He hurried back upstairs, certain that there was more investigating to be done.
DiNozzo finally sent Stan home. He should have gone home himself, but decided to swing by the hospital to see if Joan and Eric were awake and available for an interview. He kind of hoped that they knew who had shot Joan and they’d be able to close this case quickly.
He wasn’t one to let politics interfere with solving the case, but it was always more stressful when he had to make regularly updates to Morrow because of the high profile nature of the case. There was no way this wouldn’t have made the news. He was positive that it was going to be a political nightmare.
Unfortunately, there had been complications with Joan’s surgery and she was still in surgery so he couldn’t talk to her. Eric claimed that Joan and he had been necking in the helicopter and he hadn’t realized anything was wrong until he heard the bullet and saw the blood on her.
Tony knew that there was something Eric wasn’t telling him, but it wouldn’t do any good to press for it right now. Instead, Tony headed for home and hoped that McGee’s work would help them wrap up this case tomorrow.
“McGee. What have you got?” DiNozzo prompted when McGee returned the next morning.
”Access logs.” McGee handed a thumb drive to Stan who put it up on the monitor. “This shows everyone with access to the guns that were stolen. I’ve highlighted the timeframes that we know guns went missing during.”
“That’s good, Agent McGee. Have you been able to narrow it down any further?”
McGee shook his head. “That’s what I was trying to do when I dropped my badge. I had my suspicions that they were using a helicopter for transport and had hoped to find something on the helicopter that would tell me more, but the guns were gone or not put on the helicopter when I checked.”
“Was this the only helicopter you looked into?”
McGee shook his head again, “No. I checked all of them on that ship on a hunch since I was there for the ceremony.”
“You didn’t find anything on any of them?”
“No.” McGee frowned. “Do we have any idea who shot the lovely Marine?”
“Not yet. We think it has something to do with your gun smugglers and saw that someone removed something from the helicopter before you dropped your badge, but we can’t tell what yet nor why whoever would have come back. It’s not like the helicopter was special in some manner.”
Just then Abby came rushing up the stairs, “Tony, Tony, Tony.”
“What is it, Abbs?”
“I found the missing piece.”
“We already figured out about the elf lord badge, Abby.”
“No, not that.”
“Then?”
“It was really well hidden, but I found it when I was checking out the area that Stan told me about.”
“Abby, spit it out. What is it?”
“This,” Abby held up a receipt.
“What’s that?”
“A receipt for various car parts and a ring.”
“How is that significant?”
“Well for one, you usually can’t buy a ring from the same location you buy car parts. For two, I contacted the seller and the description of the ring matches the one that Joan wore.”
“So the husband is part of the gun smuggling ring?”
Abby nodded. “Pretty sure, though I can’t prove that yet, but I also suspect the car parts is how they were smuggling guns.”
“Breaking the guns down to their respective parts and adding them to boxes of car parts.” McGee nodded. “That would explain why we weren’t able to find their destination.”
McGee started typing on his computer. “Yes, Eric Walker was directly related to a number of car parts sales in areas that later were discovered to have illegal guns.”
Tony nodded at Stan, “Let’s go. We need to get to the hospital before Joan is released into Eric’s care or something worse happens.”
When the two NCIS agents arrived at Joan’s hospital room they found themselves in the middle of a fight. On one side Marine Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs stood protectively in front of Joan who was awake, but still in the hospital bed. Glaring at Gibbs was the husband Eric Walker, who appeared to be trying to get to Joan and failing miserably thanks to Gibbs.
The words, “She’s my wife. You have no right to stop me from taking her home,” could be heard being yelled from the corridor.
Tony nodded to Stan, who immediately stepped into the room and cuffed Eric Walker reading him his rights and taking him back to NCIS where he would be interrogated. Tony, however, moved into the hospital room. He nodded to Gibbs; receiving a firm nod in return.
“Private Joan Matteson?”
“Yes?”
“I’m NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. What can you tell me about what happened in that helicopter?”
Joan glanced at Gibbs, who nodded and offered a quiet, “I trust him.”
Tony blinked in surprise. He hadn’t realized he’d made such an impression on the Marine. That simple statement shouldn’t have been a big deal, but he could feel a warmth suffusing him from inside.
What followed was a disturbing tale of love gone wrong. Apparently Joan had met Lieutenant Eric Walker when he was on leave in Okinawa. They’d apparently fallen in love while she was stationed there and he had talked her into eloping.
This meant that when her group got called out she was on leave and was not retrieved, saving her from a helicopter crash that killed the rest of her team. She’d been understandably distraught when she found out the news and Eric had been comforting, but she’d started to get suspicious then. She talked Eric into a public wedding as an excuse for her to invite her old friend Gibbs and get his help.
They’d planned or so she thought to do a second ceremony with their families anyway. However, as the wedding grew closer Eric’s behavior grew more and more suspicious. She hadn’t even been able to get in touch with Gibbs aside from the invitation and public niceties because Eric was always by her side.
She hadn’t realized that Eric had become suspicious of her. She knew Eric still loved her. He hadn’t been the one to shoot her, but he hadn’t done anything to stop his pilot friend from doing so.
She would be filing for divorce as soon as she was out of the hospital. Gibbs seemed determined to stick by her side and make sure nothing further happened to her. Tony couldn’t help wishing that someone cared for him as much as Gibbs clearly cared for Joan.
Between Joan’s statement and what evidence she was able to point them to, along with McGee’s information they were able to easily get a confession out of Lieutenant Eric Walker as well as information on the others in the smuggling ring. As they were leaving to round up the other suspects and get them booked, Eric demanded to know what was to happen with his wife. Tony didn’t really want to get involved and said nothing as he left the interrogation room, knowing that another agent would escort Eric back to his cell.
He knew that someone would eventually explain things to Eric. Of course, what he hadn’t expected was for Joan and Gibbs to both decide not to re-up when their current term with the Marines ended and for them to ask if he had room on his team for them. They would have to go through FLETC before they could join, but Tony couldn’t say no to Gibbs and he knew that Joan went with Gibbs as much as that caused a small pang in his stomach that he did his best to ignore.
The team was getting kind of crowded as he’d already added McGee to it after his help in the investigation. McGee had been overjoyed and immediately accepted. Most teams were only 4, but Tony thought they could make it work with 5.
Especially, if Stan decided to take one of the agent afloat positions like he’d been talking about. Either way it looked like this gun smuggling case had been brought to a close and things were about to get interesting at NCIS. Tony had to admit he was looking forward to it.
For some reason Semper Magis stuck in his head when it came to Gibbs. Perhaps because with Gibbs there always seemed to be more. Still he couldn’t allow himself to think about that too much, after all Joan followed the same motto. At the same time he couldn’t help wondering what more was going to come from all of this.