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Gibbs had walked her through what had happened in this room after Kate had been killed. He pushed and pulled her into the perfect spot, unremarkable in it’s similarity to every other square inch of open basement floor.
“Do you feel that?”
He had asked in a hushed tone before explaining that she was standing in the spot where Kate’s murderer had breathed his last at the hands of his own sister. It was exhilarating and satisfying in a way that defied anything her psychological logic should have thrown at her.
But she had one last question… something she had never been able to figure out.
‘Why the head?’ she wondered for the thousandth time as she carefully closed the folder Gibbs had made her swear she’d never seen. Rachel shut away images of her sister’s body with the manila jacket.
The heart she could have understood. She had suspected at the time that Kate had been seeing someone off and on, she also suspected a Mossad agent, Ari Haswari, of being her sister’s beau. If Haswari had, indeed, been the mystery man Kate had spoken of, Rachel thought. Though with her powers of observation, coupled with her knowledge of the human mind, her opinion was firmly on the side of Haswari as lover.
She recalled those conversations, coming always late at night. The one or two times the subject had been discussed in broad daylight had always been hurried and mumbled, as if Kate had been afraid of being overheard. What Rachel had seen of Anthony DiNozzo in the last few hours would account for that Regardless of who Kate had been seeing, she would have wanted to keep her relationship separate from work.
Of course, if she were seeing Ari, the reasons for wanting the relationship kept secret were compounded. It became less about DiNozzo being… well… nosy, and more about potential national security risks. Things just kept adding up.
Again Rachel wondered about the fatal wound. Had Ari meant to wound her, to send a lover’s last message, surely he would have shot her through the heart.
No, she mused, a head shot implied logic… a cold, calculating move. Being a spy, Haswari might have seen her as nothing more than an asset. An asset that had outlived her usefulness. She shook her head… no, Kate was smart, it would have taken an Oscar-worthy performance to deceive her. So, love it seemed, had played a crucial role in Kate’s relationship with the Mossad agent.
Yet, still, it niggled at the back of her mind.
Head versus heart.
Why that shot?
Surely Ari’s bullet would have been capable of piercing the vest Kate had been wearing. The man had trained as a sniper, that much was obvious. Rachel sifted through what she knew of snipers and returned to the same piece of information that had always popped up: snipers are taught to shoot center-mass.
She sipped on a glass of bourbon, her mind circling back to the fatal shot.
Heart versus head.
She rationalized that Kate had felt no pain. Had that been Haswari’s reasoning? If so, why shoot her at all? Gibbs, or even DiNozzo, would have provided adequate targets for even a rookie sniper.
Why Kate?
Rachel’s mind whirled as she studied the glass, tinting the swirling amber bourbon two shades more green than normal. Cause and effect, Gibbs and Kate, head and heart.
What the hell had his game been? Perhaps Kate had only been a message as Gibbs had suggested. Fine… Rachel could buy that. But whose message had Haswari been delivering, Mossad or Hezbollah? Clearly it had not been his own. In sending his message, he’d sealed his own fate.
Sealed it with a copper-coated kiss.
An image formed in Rachel’s mind, between the glare from the ripples in her bourbon, of the man Kate had believed she loved.
There would have been romantic dinners, conversations, and low key dates… off the beaten path, of course, to avoid her curious co-workers. Perhaps there were breakfasts in bed, shoulder rubs at the end of a long day, and a key to Kate’s apartment exchanged. She was betting that he had stroked her hair, kissed her forehead, even told her that he loved her. Hell, maybe Haswari even believed it.
An idea took root in Rachel’s mind and she set the glass down with a thump, reaching for the folder. Flipping to a page with Ari Haswari’s biography, she scanned until she found what she was looking for.
Haswari’s mother had raised him as a Muslim.
“Son of a bitch,” she whispered.
Haswari knew that mission was over. He knew it would be his last, because Gibbs would hunt him for the message he would send no matter which agent he chose to make his example of. With his Islamic upbringing, Rachel had no doubt Ari would be expecting 72 virgins for his sacrifice.
He had changed the rules of his afterlife, opting out of the virgins in exchange for an eternity with Kate.
In the final moments before he fired that fateful shot, he had made his decision. Haswari had hoped that Kate would be the one waiting to greet him in heaven… he had simply wanted her to get there first.
The selfish bastard.