Jungle Fever (7/10)
Title: Jungle Fever
Author: Calliatra
Rating: FR15
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Characters: Tony, the whole team
Genre: Casefile
Words: 2,213 (26,461 total)
Disclaimer: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When a Petty Officer’s decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger.
Written for the Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge and the Casefile Challenge at NFA and inspired by the Chinese Whisper Challenge.
Chapter Warnings: Crimes against fashion and style.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine
* * *
Chapter Six: An Undercover Assignment
Fornell had made himself comfortable in Tony’s chair by the time Tony, Ziva and Gibbs arrived back in the squad room.
“Agent DiNozzo,” Fornell used the correct Italian pronunciation as he always did purely to irritate Tony.
“Agent Fornell, I heard you need our help again,” Tony said flippantly.
“That’s funny. I was under the impression you were trying to muscle in on an FBI case. I was just sent here to do damage control. But for some reason your boss seems to think you might actually be able to make yourself useful.”
“Come on, just admit that I have unrivaled undercover skills your FBI guys can only dream of. You know it’s true. So what’s my mission?”
Fornell pressed a button on the large screen’s remote control and a picture appeared, showing a gray-haired man with a very distinctive jaw. “Joseph Abernathy. He used to be head of Abernathy Mining Supplies, retired five years ago with a huge personal fortune.” He clicked the remote again and the photo was replaced with a one of an elderly gentleman with a very impressive mustache. “William McMurdoch, head of the billion-dollar McMurdoch Industries.” Another click brought up a photograph of a third man of approximately the same age wearing gold-rimmed glasses. “Charles Dawson, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
The pictures shrunk and aligned themselves next to each other on the screen. “They call themselves the ‘triumvirate.’ We know they’re the minds behind a well-established wildlife smuggling ring, but we can’t get to them because they’re just too careful. Usually we’d try to buy from them, but they have a closed circle of regular ‘clients’ and they only let new people in if they’re sponsored by someone already in the inner circle.”
“So how are you going to get me in?” Tony asked.
“We got one of the buyers a few months ago, he cut a deal. He’ll be your sponsor.”
“If he is working with you,” Ziva wondered, “why do you not have evidence against them? Could he not testify against the, ‘triumvirate’?”
“That’s the problem, the triumvirate always makes sure no one has anything on them. All they do is host dinner parties where their ‘clients’ are invited. The guests mention what they’d be interested in buying, but they never explicitly place orders. They’re contacted later by someone calling himself ‘Smith’ and told where to send money to have their wishes fulfilled.”
“Same guy Commander Nelson met with,” Gibbs said.
“We know Smith is actually Todd Lombard.” Fornell made a picture of a brown-haired young man appear on the screen. “He’s the personal assistant to Abernathy and he’s the go-between between the triumvirate and almost everyone else involved, making sure none of the triumvirate can ever personally be connected to anything. We have enough proof that we could charge him, and even get him convicted, but the triumvirate would just replace him and keep going.
“And kill him to keep him from talking?” Gibbs suggested.
Fornell shook his head. “That’s too messy, not their style. Their MO is to stay completely under the radar. They smuggle by faking logs and inventories, instead of having their stuff snuck over borders in the middle of the night. They forge diplomatic bags rather than bribing customs officials. They wouldn’t get involved in any kind of violent crime because there’s no way to keep that invisible. Even if a body’s never found, someone goes missing and people notice.”
“So what would they do if Lombard was going to talk?” McGee asked.
“He wouldn’t,” Fornell said simply. “For the amount of money Lombard’s already being paid, most people would willingly go to jail. If the triumvirate upped the sum, Lombard would probably happily confess to being responsible for everything. He’s got no family, no girlfriend, nothing he couldn’t give up for a few years. And he wouldn’t be in jail for long anyway, considering how much influence those men have. That’s why getting to the triumvirate through him won’t work. What we really need is someone on the inside to gather information that implicated the triumvirate themselves.”
“So why hasn’t the FBI sent someone undercover?” Tony asked.
“We did, but he was very politely asked to leave after only twenty minutes. These guys know how to identify their own.”
“Then didn’t they find out that the buyer who sponsored him is working for you?
“No.” Fornell shook his head. “Illroy isn’t the brightest,” he said with some distaste. “That’s why we can’t just make him snoop around, why we need one of our own in there. That time it was helpful, though, since Illroy said he’d only met our guy at a party and brought him along at his specific request. The triumvirate just assumed he’d been duped. They didn’t make our guy for FBI, either, they just noticed he wasn’t high society enough. We sent him to a couple more upscale parties to solidify the image of him as just a rich-guy wannabe trying to worm his way into high society, so they have no reason to be suspicious. Illroy should be able to get you in without problems.”
“Let me get this straight.” Tony said slowly. “You’re sending me undercover into a tightly knit group that always recognizes their own, and the guy vouching for my cover ‘isn’t the brightest’?”
Fornell grimaced. “He’s all we’ve got. The upside is that the triumvirate would never consider him a threat. We’ve minimized Illroy’s role as much as possible, all he really has to do is introduce you. We’ve made sure he knows your alias’ profile so he can answer, but the big three don’t put much stock in anything Illroy says, so they’ll focus on examining you personally to see if you fit their crowd. You’ll have to convince them of that on your own, but after all,” Fornell gave Tony a grin, “you seem like the right man for the job.”
“So what you’re saying is, no one would doubt for a second I’m a self-absorbed rich douche?”
“Your words, Agent DiNozzo,” Fornell smirked.
Tony became serious again. “What kind of information am I looking for?”
“They have to be taking notes in some way on the ‘orders’ the guests are placing. If you can get to those or something else tying Abernathy, McMurdoch and Dawson to the smuggling we can get a warrant. That should give us enough proof to safely charge them with illegal wildlife trade.”
“That’s great for you, but aren’t we looking for a murderer? Like the guy who poisoned Petty Officer Thorne and then chopped his head off?”
“None of them killed your Petty Officer. They’ve been under twenty-four hour FBI surveillance. And they wouldn’t order a hit, either. Like I said, it’s not their style. But I know you won’t believe me, se we’ll just say that it’s easier to get a warrant this way, and it’ll let you search for evidence of murder.”
“Okay, just one question.”
Fornell looked at him expectantly.
“Who am I supposed to be?”
*
“Gordon? Gordon? You have got to be kidding!” Tony, already decked out in full eveningwear, paced up and down Abby’s lab, clearly not pleased. “What kind of name is Gordon?”
“It’s yours,” Abby said brightly. “At least it will be for the next few hours. And it’s too late now to change the profile.”
“I should never have let you choose. Gordon Talley, I mean, seriously!”
“I don’t know,” McGee said with an exaggerated air of thoughtfulness, “At least this way there’s no chance you’ll forget what you’re supposed to be called.”
“Who asked your opinion? Don’t you have some tech stuff to do, McMotherboard?”
“I’m setting up your wire, Tony, it’s not exactly rocket science. Even you could do it.” He paused. “Why aren’t you doing it yourself?”
“I’m getting into character. A rich, pampered guy like Gordon Talley wouldn’t be caught dead doing his menial labor. Anyway, I’m the one who’s going to be doing all the hard work tonight. All you have to do is sit here and listen, so I think it’s only fair if you do your share now.”
“You’re going to a dinner party, Tony, I’m not sure that even qualifies as work at all.”
“Probie, you have no idea.” Tony sounded almost serious, and McGee looked up in surprise.
“You know what’s weird?” Abby asked. “The crates with all the animal parts, why were they still in the warehouse? Commander Nelson had them moved there on Monday, and he told Lombard. Why didn’t the ‘triumvirate’ have them picked up, if they knew Thorne knew about those crates? Even with him dead it would have been much safer to hide them somewhere else instead of just leaving them there.”
McGee looked up. “They didn’t,” he said slowly, as if it were just occurring to him. “The crates weren’t where the Commander had them delivered. The warehouse where they were supposed to be was flooded, and everything in it had to be moved.”
“Well, you found out where the crates had been moved, so wouldn’t they have, too?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the problem,” Tony said, realizing where McGee was going. “The problem was with the new warehouse itself.”
“Exactly.” McGee nodded. “It’s the security. There was almost none at the first warehouse, but at the second one the guards almost didn’t let us in, even after we showed our IDs. The smugglers didn’t leave the crates there on purpose, they just couldn’t get to them.”
“That means there’s a chance they don’t know that we took them,” Tony realized. He turned to Abby. “Can you check how far along the repairs are in the first warehouse, when the stuff is being moved back there?”
Abby’s fingers flew over her keyboard for a few seconds before she answered. “That warehouse is out of commission for at least another week.”
“That’s great!” McGee said. “That means they don’t know yet that we’ve got the crates. They don’t know we’re onto them. Well,” he paused, “not unless they’ve got contacts in the new warehouse or managed to bribe one of the guards. But they weren’t counting on the new warehouse, so contacts are unlikely. And Fornell said they don’t bribe if they don’t have to, so there’s a good chance they’ve decided to simply wait a week for the crates to go back to the old warehouse where they can get to them without anyone noticing.”
“That’d mean the triumvirate’s ‘clients’ are still waiting for their stuff,” Tony said. “Well, that should definitely make the dinner party interesting.”
“Speaking of interesting,” McGee said, “they might scan you for bugs, so I’ve added a button to cut off transmission from your wire. I’ll put it on the back of your bowtie, so you can just pretend to fix that if you have to hit the switch.”
“Ooh, we should totally have a secret code word for that!” Abby exclaimed.
“For what?” McGee was confused.
“For if he has to shut off the signal. You know, he can just say something like, I don’t know, ‘gold rush’ or some other code phrase and we would know when the transmission stops that it’s on purpose and that it doesn’t mean something’s gone wrong.”
“How is that supposed to work? It’s not like he can just go ‘Hey, nice to meet you, oh, and by the way, gold rush,’” McGee argued.
“I like the idea, though,” Tony said, attaching the wire under his shirt. “It would have to be something simple, though, that I could slip into a conversation at any point, but that you would recognize right away. I mean, if they do scan me I can’t be sure I’ll get a chance to warn you, but if I do, why not try. We just need the right word.”
“So now we’re looking for an inconspicuous word that will really stand out,” McGee summarized drily. “That should be easy.” He handed Tony the bowtie with the now-attached button.
“It is!” Abby called excitedly. “It’s a color!”
“A color?” McGee didn’t follow.
“Yeah, like red or orange or green or something. You can use a color in almost any context, but it’s still something we would notice if we were listening for it.”
Tony nodded. “That could work. It can’t be red, though, in case the conversation turns to wine. And it’s got to be a color that there’s a lot of, so nothing like orange or purple.”
“How about blue?” Abby suggested.
“That’ll work. Blue it is,” Tony agreed.
“What is?” Gibbs had entered the lab.
“Tony’s code word,” Abby informed him. “If he has to turn of the transmission from his wire he’ll talk about something blue so we’ll know what’s going on.”
Gibbs nodded, understanding.
“You ready, DiNozzo?” Fornell had entered after Gibbs.
Tony inserted an earwig into his ear. “I am now.”
“Good.” Fornell motioned towards the door, and a young, red-haired man stepped in and grinned at all of them. Everyone’s eyes immediately fixed in disbelief on his tie, which bore a blindingly garish yellow-and-purple checkered pattern.
Fornell was the only one who seemed resignedly unaffected by this presentation. “Meet Reggie Illroy,” he said, addressing Tony, “your new best friend.”
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Author: Calliatra
Rating: FR15
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Characters: Tony, the whole team
Genre: Casefile
Words: 2,213 (26,461 total)
Disclaimer: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When a Petty Officer’s decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger.
Written for the Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge and the Casefile Challenge at NFA and inspired by the Chinese Whisper Challenge.
Chapter Warnings: Crimes against fashion and style.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine
* * *
Chapter Six: An Undercover Assignment
Fornell had made himself comfortable in Tony’s chair by the time Tony, Ziva and Gibbs arrived back in the squad room.
“Agent DiNozzo,” Fornell used the correct Italian pronunciation as he always did purely to irritate Tony.
“Agent Fornell, I heard you need our help again,” Tony said flippantly.
“That’s funny. I was under the impression you were trying to muscle in on an FBI case. I was just sent here to do damage control. But for some reason your boss seems to think you might actually be able to make yourself useful.”
“Come on, just admit that I have unrivaled undercover skills your FBI guys can only dream of. You know it’s true. So what’s my mission?”
Fornell pressed a button on the large screen’s remote control and a picture appeared, showing a gray-haired man with a very distinctive jaw. “Joseph Abernathy. He used to be head of Abernathy Mining Supplies, retired five years ago with a huge personal fortune.” He clicked the remote again and the photo was replaced with a one of an elderly gentleman with a very impressive mustache. “William McMurdoch, head of the billion-dollar McMurdoch Industries.” Another click brought up a photograph of a third man of approximately the same age wearing gold-rimmed glasses. “Charles Dawson, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
The pictures shrunk and aligned themselves next to each other on the screen. “They call themselves the ‘triumvirate.’ We know they’re the minds behind a well-established wildlife smuggling ring, but we can’t get to them because they’re just too careful. Usually we’d try to buy from them, but they have a closed circle of regular ‘clients’ and they only let new people in if they’re sponsored by someone already in the inner circle.”
“So how are you going to get me in?” Tony asked.
“We got one of the buyers a few months ago, he cut a deal. He’ll be your sponsor.”
“If he is working with you,” Ziva wondered, “why do you not have evidence against them? Could he not testify against the, ‘triumvirate’?”
“That’s the problem, the triumvirate always makes sure no one has anything on them. All they do is host dinner parties where their ‘clients’ are invited. The guests mention what they’d be interested in buying, but they never explicitly place orders. They’re contacted later by someone calling himself ‘Smith’ and told where to send money to have their wishes fulfilled.”
“Same guy Commander Nelson met with,” Gibbs said.
“We know Smith is actually Todd Lombard.” Fornell made a picture of a brown-haired young man appear on the screen. “He’s the personal assistant to Abernathy and he’s the go-between between the triumvirate and almost everyone else involved, making sure none of the triumvirate can ever personally be connected to anything. We have enough proof that we could charge him, and even get him convicted, but the triumvirate would just replace him and keep going.
“And kill him to keep him from talking?” Gibbs suggested.
Fornell shook his head. “That’s too messy, not their style. Their MO is to stay completely under the radar. They smuggle by faking logs and inventories, instead of having their stuff snuck over borders in the middle of the night. They forge diplomatic bags rather than bribing customs officials. They wouldn’t get involved in any kind of violent crime because there’s no way to keep that invisible. Even if a body’s never found, someone goes missing and people notice.”
“So what would they do if Lombard was going to talk?” McGee asked.
“He wouldn’t,” Fornell said simply. “For the amount of money Lombard’s already being paid, most people would willingly go to jail. If the triumvirate upped the sum, Lombard would probably happily confess to being responsible for everything. He’s got no family, no girlfriend, nothing he couldn’t give up for a few years. And he wouldn’t be in jail for long anyway, considering how much influence those men have. That’s why getting to the triumvirate through him won’t work. What we really need is someone on the inside to gather information that implicated the triumvirate themselves.”
“So why hasn’t the FBI sent someone undercover?” Tony asked.
“We did, but he was very politely asked to leave after only twenty minutes. These guys know how to identify their own.”
“Then didn’t they find out that the buyer who sponsored him is working for you?
“No.” Fornell shook his head. “Illroy isn’t the brightest,” he said with some distaste. “That’s why we can’t just make him snoop around, why we need one of our own in there. That time it was helpful, though, since Illroy said he’d only met our guy at a party and brought him along at his specific request. The triumvirate just assumed he’d been duped. They didn’t make our guy for FBI, either, they just noticed he wasn’t high society enough. We sent him to a couple more upscale parties to solidify the image of him as just a rich-guy wannabe trying to worm his way into high society, so they have no reason to be suspicious. Illroy should be able to get you in without problems.”
“Let me get this straight.” Tony said slowly. “You’re sending me undercover into a tightly knit group that always recognizes their own, and the guy vouching for my cover ‘isn’t the brightest’?”
Fornell grimaced. “He’s all we’ve got. The upside is that the triumvirate would never consider him a threat. We’ve minimized Illroy’s role as much as possible, all he really has to do is introduce you. We’ve made sure he knows your alias’ profile so he can answer, but the big three don’t put much stock in anything Illroy says, so they’ll focus on examining you personally to see if you fit their crowd. You’ll have to convince them of that on your own, but after all,” Fornell gave Tony a grin, “you seem like the right man for the job.”
“So what you’re saying is, no one would doubt for a second I’m a self-absorbed rich douche?”
“Your words, Agent DiNozzo,” Fornell smirked.
Tony became serious again. “What kind of information am I looking for?”
“They have to be taking notes in some way on the ‘orders’ the guests are placing. If you can get to those or something else tying Abernathy, McMurdoch and Dawson to the smuggling we can get a warrant. That should give us enough proof to safely charge them with illegal wildlife trade.”
“That’s great for you, but aren’t we looking for a murderer? Like the guy who poisoned Petty Officer Thorne and then chopped his head off?”
“None of them killed your Petty Officer. They’ve been under twenty-four hour FBI surveillance. And they wouldn’t order a hit, either. Like I said, it’s not their style. But I know you won’t believe me, se we’ll just say that it’s easier to get a warrant this way, and it’ll let you search for evidence of murder.”
“Okay, just one question.”
Fornell looked at him expectantly.
“Who am I supposed to be?”
*
“Gordon? Gordon? You have got to be kidding!” Tony, already decked out in full eveningwear, paced up and down Abby’s lab, clearly not pleased. “What kind of name is Gordon?”
“It’s yours,” Abby said brightly. “At least it will be for the next few hours. And it’s too late now to change the profile.”
“I should never have let you choose. Gordon Talley, I mean, seriously!”
“I don’t know,” McGee said with an exaggerated air of thoughtfulness, “At least this way there’s no chance you’ll forget what you’re supposed to be called.”
“Who asked your opinion? Don’t you have some tech stuff to do, McMotherboard?”
“I’m setting up your wire, Tony, it’s not exactly rocket science. Even you could do it.” He paused. “Why aren’t you doing it yourself?”
“I’m getting into character. A rich, pampered guy like Gordon Talley wouldn’t be caught dead doing his menial labor. Anyway, I’m the one who’s going to be doing all the hard work tonight. All you have to do is sit here and listen, so I think it’s only fair if you do your share now.”
“You’re going to a dinner party, Tony, I’m not sure that even qualifies as work at all.”
“Probie, you have no idea.” Tony sounded almost serious, and McGee looked up in surprise.
“You know what’s weird?” Abby asked. “The crates with all the animal parts, why were they still in the warehouse? Commander Nelson had them moved there on Monday, and he told Lombard. Why didn’t the ‘triumvirate’ have them picked up, if they knew Thorne knew about those crates? Even with him dead it would have been much safer to hide them somewhere else instead of just leaving them there.”
McGee looked up. “They didn’t,” he said slowly, as if it were just occurring to him. “The crates weren’t where the Commander had them delivered. The warehouse where they were supposed to be was flooded, and everything in it had to be moved.”
“Well, you found out where the crates had been moved, so wouldn’t they have, too?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the problem,” Tony said, realizing where McGee was going. “The problem was with the new warehouse itself.”
“Exactly.” McGee nodded. “It’s the security. There was almost none at the first warehouse, but at the second one the guards almost didn’t let us in, even after we showed our IDs. The smugglers didn’t leave the crates there on purpose, they just couldn’t get to them.”
“That means there’s a chance they don’t know that we took them,” Tony realized. He turned to Abby. “Can you check how far along the repairs are in the first warehouse, when the stuff is being moved back there?”
Abby’s fingers flew over her keyboard for a few seconds before she answered. “That warehouse is out of commission for at least another week.”
“That’s great!” McGee said. “That means they don’t know yet that we’ve got the crates. They don’t know we’re onto them. Well,” he paused, “not unless they’ve got contacts in the new warehouse or managed to bribe one of the guards. But they weren’t counting on the new warehouse, so contacts are unlikely. And Fornell said they don’t bribe if they don’t have to, so there’s a good chance they’ve decided to simply wait a week for the crates to go back to the old warehouse where they can get to them without anyone noticing.”
“That’d mean the triumvirate’s ‘clients’ are still waiting for their stuff,” Tony said. “Well, that should definitely make the dinner party interesting.”
“Speaking of interesting,” McGee said, “they might scan you for bugs, so I’ve added a button to cut off transmission from your wire. I’ll put it on the back of your bowtie, so you can just pretend to fix that if you have to hit the switch.”
“Ooh, we should totally have a secret code word for that!” Abby exclaimed.
“For what?” McGee was confused.
“For if he has to shut off the signal. You know, he can just say something like, I don’t know, ‘gold rush’ or some other code phrase and we would know when the transmission stops that it’s on purpose and that it doesn’t mean something’s gone wrong.”
“How is that supposed to work? It’s not like he can just go ‘Hey, nice to meet you, oh, and by the way, gold rush,’” McGee argued.
“I like the idea, though,” Tony said, attaching the wire under his shirt. “It would have to be something simple, though, that I could slip into a conversation at any point, but that you would recognize right away. I mean, if they do scan me I can’t be sure I’ll get a chance to warn you, but if I do, why not try. We just need the right word.”
“So now we’re looking for an inconspicuous word that will really stand out,” McGee summarized drily. “That should be easy.” He handed Tony the bowtie with the now-attached button.
“It is!” Abby called excitedly. “It’s a color!”
“A color?” McGee didn’t follow.
“Yeah, like red or orange or green or something. You can use a color in almost any context, but it’s still something we would notice if we were listening for it.”
Tony nodded. “That could work. It can’t be red, though, in case the conversation turns to wine. And it’s got to be a color that there’s a lot of, so nothing like orange or purple.”
“How about blue?” Abby suggested.
“That’ll work. Blue it is,” Tony agreed.
“What is?” Gibbs had entered the lab.
“Tony’s code word,” Abby informed him. “If he has to turn of the transmission from his wire he’ll talk about something blue so we’ll know what’s going on.”
Gibbs nodded, understanding.
“You ready, DiNozzo?” Fornell had entered after Gibbs.
Tony inserted an earwig into his ear. “I am now.”
“Good.” Fornell motioned towards the door, and a young, red-haired man stepped in and grinned at all of them. Everyone’s eyes immediately fixed in disbelief on his tie, which bore a blindingly garish yellow-and-purple checkered pattern.
Fornell was the only one who seemed resignedly unaffected by this presentation. “Meet Reggie Illroy,” he said, addressing Tony, “your new best friend.”
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