This is my twenty-sixth NCIS Mystery and the sixth of my Third Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.
There are also numerous stand-alone and spin-off stories listed in my profile, which include excursions into the Mirror Universe and 3 decades into the future for NCIS' next generation..
The usual legal disclaimers apply. I don't own anyone except Rev. Siobhan (Sha-vawn) McGee, SSAs Melanie Kelman, Fred Higgins, Kevin Lamb and other original Agents on their respective teams.
This story takes place about two weeks after the events depicted in 'Exposed'.
Please Review.
Rating: T or NCis-17.

Retribution
by JMK758
Chapter One
Death in Shangra-La

The darkness of the poorly spelled 'Shangra-La' club, more bar than dance hall, suits the desired anonymity of its patrons. The nearly useless spotlights that illuminate eight inch circles upon the black dance floor are enhanced by candles at the black bar and one on each small round black table beyond the dance area, and they aid vision little more than the twinkling of distant stars beyond the black walls. The law dictates minimum ages of patrons, most particularly at four o'clock in the morning, but few present have lost the luster or manic enthusiasm of youth.

Unlined faces dominate the frenzied crowd that overfills the hardwood center of the cavernous chamber. Rotating beams of intense color reflected from mirrored balls stab eyes while shouting voices strain to penetrate the staggering discords battering the walls.

Two young women at a table edging the seething mass of bodies rely on gesture over the frenzied beats that batter their bodies and abuse their ears with merciless cacophony. They must depend upon lip reading and hope, and count themselves fortunate if they can, half of the time, rightly guess meaning.

The blonde's hair is as fulsome as her décolletage, which gives generous views below the loosely secured, backless gold lamé top with spaghetti-thin straps which fights a valiant battle for a pretense at modesty. The black pants cover her seemingly through the benefit of spray paint. The brunette's black half-dress covers her no more effectively, her upper three buttons having given up the battle, leaving her hopes of modesty dependant more upon darkness than clothing.

A tall man, coordination stolen by indulgence, staggers past the table, stops, turns and says something to the women. Rather he mouths it, as anything short of a bellow is beaten down within inches.

Frustrated at the lack of reaction, he reaches down, grabs the blonde's arm and pulls. She yanks back, he pulls harder and the brunette grasps his pinky, tugs hard and the grip is broken with a yell that's almost audible.

The young man topples backward to the floor, thin face lost in a mop of straggly brown hair. The blonde woman is gone in a moment, her more-than-statuesque body skirting the writhing crowd of apprentice dancers which chokes the middle of the dark room.

The straggly haired man, undaunted and enraged, takes more than a minute to climb to his feet while frequently resembling an overturned, inebriated tortoise. He staggers a step toward his tormentor but she deftly leans away and her feet come up to twist either side of his ankles. This crash can almost be heard.

x

Across the room, Carol Gerber's path to the Ladies' room is blocked by a side of beef almost wearing a leather vest proclaiming his allegiance to the Hell's Angels, the hill of flesh seemingly oblivious to the fact that that group would reject him on sight.

Unwilling to pay the bully's toll and finding no one willing to prevent its collection, Gerber turns back the way she'd come.

A tight grip clamps to the right side of her rump and her scream is lost in the deafening blasts only the most intellectually brutalized could consider music. She turns quickly, her foot comes up and the impact removes the necessity of paying passage for the next several minutes. The blonde woman withdraws, however, rather than taking advantage of the unbarred corridor.

When she returns to the table and plops down hard into her seat, anger spent now in violence, she tries to give voice to her feelings. Unfortunately her companion, seated across the two foot wide table, had been out of sight of the battle but is much too far away now to be told about it and they must again resort to communicating by gesture. These are much sharper and more emphatic than they had been, though an overabundance of drink, emotion and a complete unfamiliarity with Sign make communication more problematic than it need be.

x

However, much to the blonde beauty's restoration of good spirits, which have nothing to do with the questionable concoction in the glass before her, the next man to tower over their table is far more appetizing than average. Good hair and face, strong body, black pants and crisp white shirt open at the top button, erect carriage and the blonde can hope for more; yes, this one will do much more nicely.

They don't waste time trying to speak; neither can hope to be heard and, from his eye line as she bends forward to rise and the loose front of her top slips away, she knows what he wants. Certainly, in her brief bending to gather her balance before rising, she's also found what she desires.

He leads her into the seething crowd as the next sonic blast batters them, a physical impact that threatens to pound their inner organs to bruised pulp. In less than a minute the couple is absorbed into the writhing, amorphous mass.

Every electric light in the room goes out.

x

Amanda Trieste, left seated at the table on the human amoeba's edge, doesn't like the dark, the candle immediately before her accomplishes little without the aid of the inadequate dim spotlights but then her wide eyes are stunned by the first of many bright flashes that fill the room with worse than lightning intensity. She slaps her hands to her eyes in an effort to protect them from the unexpected assault. The light bursts, synchronized to and punctuating the chaotic beat of the band's next auditory assault, turns the seething mass of bodies into a series of unpredictable still images.

'How the hell did I let Carol drag me down here at one in the aay-emm, and how could I let her make me stay here at–' she glares at the watch on her wrist, twists her arm so she can see the small face by the light of the candle before her, 'at four in the fucking morning?' Amanda Trieste thinks bitterly, when she can think against the sense shattering noise, in a series of disjointed phrases. 'I'll be deaf for a week. Who can like this–?'

A particularly violent discord blasts the word from Amanda's mind and she covers her ears, wishing she had another set of hands to protect her eyes from the cosmic storm. Every flash renders the room as another still image to bright to withstand and she tries to endure the seemingly infinite number of seconds until the clubbing of her senses will finally end.

It ends in an explosion she thinks not even an atomic blast could challenge and everything goes - and remains - black. As her eyes adjust to the completed assault, the tiny candles gradually appear as scattered stars.

Ultimately the black downward pointing spotlights in the ceiling snap on, returning the room to its previous gloom.

That's when the screaming begins.

x

Some undefined sense tells Amanda that she has to see why so many women are screaming so shrilly, must learn why there's a large crater forming in the mass of bodies crowding the dance floor, and that she needs to do it now.

Bounding off her chair, Amanda fights to get between bodies, to shove people aside, to break through barrier after barrier to reach those screams.

After much shoving and yanking she breaks through to the empty center, only it's not so empty and Amanda's scream is shrillest of all.

The man Carol Gerber left with stands in the center of the circle, blood soaking his white sleeves, gore dripping from his fingers. Carol lies face down on the floor, her blonde hair spread about her head, blood covering her bare back and seeping about the protruding knife handle.

xxx

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, in the basement of his home in the shadow of the nation's Capital, pulls his cell phone from his pocket. Having given up on sleep – once awake for any reason sleep eludes him like an aggravatingly evasive fly, he'd put on jeans and favorite Marine Corps work/tee shirt and is about to commence his favorite part of the day. It's two-fold, usually done in the evening or night and not before the crack of dawn, and it consists of opening his tool box and starting work on his boat. The first, most satisfying part of the ritual is shutting off his cell phone.

It rings in his hand and he bites back an oath. 'Couldn't have been a second faster?' Next time he will be. Pushing back the temptation to dump the device into a jar of solvent, he thumb-flips the unit open. "Yeah, it's Gibbs." The message is short and by no means sweet. It's nearly five o'clock, they're not on duty for another two hours but no Gamma Shift team is available. "All right, we'll handle it."

He slaps the unit closed. Some head is going to roll, but he'll see that it bounces first.

xx

Michelle Palmer floats, utterly content, in blue water that's so clear that, if she were to turn her head she could see the fish swimming, probably with equal contentment, in the lagoon water behind her. She's nude, having left her scarlet bikini upon the white sand and she allows her arms to float loosely, her legs to drift apart, the water lapping her-

Scream! Mattress jumps hard enough to nearly fling her to the floor! Blackness! Her left hand grips the mattress, right hand slips under the pillow, closes on the gun before she hears the heavy panting beside her, feels the indentation in the mattress, her husband seated beside her.

Her eyes adjust enough in the dim light filtering through the black curtain - her insistence - to see they're alone in their bedroom and Jimmy's body heaves with his hard gasps. She lets go of the gun.

"Jimmy?"

She sits up, boosting herself on her left hand and feels the cooling moisture on the sheet behind him. Under her right hand his bare back and shoulder are clammy wet. "Jimmy?"

Under her gentle stroking of his cold wet back his heaving breaths slow and he can whisper "It's okay. I'm okay."

She's touching him and can feel his clammy wet skin, stroking him, so she doesn't believe him. "What was it?" She'd been slammed out of a very pleasant dream but knows his awakening was an escape - but from what?

"Franklin."

He doesn't have to say more. In the past year that name has been synonymous with nightmare.

x

Megan Wood's boyfriend George Franklin had killed PO2 Michael Kane in his apartment and then tried to murder Wood as she lay helpless in a hospital bed, victim of a merciless beating. Michelle, already wounded, had been pummeled to the floor, barely conscious in the private hospital room and was unable to prevent the attack. Michelle had dropped her Sig in the mêlée of trying to protect Wood. Jimmy, in an attempt to save Wood's life had snatched up her weapon from the floor and was forced to shoot Franklin. Wounding him hadn't been enough, Franklin had still tried to stab Wood and Jimmy had been forced to fire again.

That second shot had killed Franklin.

That death - or as Jimmy saw it, his first murder - had devastated him. In the following weeks he'd gone through torturous recriminations, suffered nightmares and daytime flashbacks; but with psychological help, he'd begun to be able to face what he'd done. What he'd had to do.

But the nightmares still attacked when Jimmy's guard was down.

x

"What did Doctor Gyves say?" she asks into the near darkness; he just a dark silhouette beside her.

Jimmy shakes his head. "I'm not seeing him."

"Honey?" That had been a provision of his remaining on duty, and now that he's an MD it's even more important.

Jimmy shakes his head, getting off the bed. "I need a shower."

Michelle, left behind, runs her hand over the sheet and Jimmy's pillow, bites back a sigh. "While you're showering I have to change the sheets and pillow cases, so the least you could do is tell me why." The hall light clicks on, not quite hurting her eyes, and seconds later his only answer is the sound of running water. "Jimmy?"

"'Chelle, I lay on that couch," he calls back through the hall, "and tell him everything I can and the nightmares keep coming."

x

Getting up, she turns on the lamp, touching the metal only once to bring up a one-third illumination and tugs the top corner of the sheet loose. Annoyed as she is, she understands his frustration. It had never been right, he'd never trained as an–

The blaring yell of the telephone beside her makes her jump. Who would call at this unGoddessly hour? Who'd want to interfere when she has something important to discuss with her husband, something more important than this call could possibly be? Sighing, she picks up the receiver, striving for a pleasant tone.

Sixty seconds later she's striving not to curse, yanking off her negligee and throwing it at the pillow, abandoning the bed and going down the short hall to the rainfall sounds. "Move over, honey," she says, entering the room, "I'm coming in too."

"Rrrraaaawwwwwrrrrrrr."

A moment later he pulls the curtain aside, his face reflecting his shock at her reply.