Kate heard the gash before she saw it. She stood in front of the double-mirror in the viewing room attached to interrogation, her arms folded into her chest, and the door behind her clicked open and shut. Then Tony – and she had known that it would have to be Tony, because anyone else that would have had the guts to come in would have had the good sense to come in quietly – asked, "Got anything new yet?" and it was in his voice. His enunciation had changed. Slightly slurred on the sibilant and all the letters too precise in pathetic overcompensation. Kate knew the sound and knew what it implied. She dropped her shoulders and her hands fell down to her sides, a quick and crucial gesture, like an embrace or an attack – she wasn't sure which – and hated Johnny Keller. She turned around.
She had expected a badly-busted lip. This was different – this was almost spectacular. The bruise started at the back of DiNozzo's jaw and stretched down to his mouth; there was a fresh scab in the very corner – as she watched, Tony touched it with the tip of his tongue. Keller hadn't used his fists. No one's hand left that kind of mark.
"One of them pistol-whipped you." The viewing room was too small for this kind of realization: she could hear her anger reverberating in the walls.
Tony shook his head and the bruise slid back and forth from the shadows. "It isn't what you think." The syllables were still a little mushy, but he only sounded tired, not defensive, and, because of that, Kate was willing to listen – so far DiNozzo hadn't been anything she'd thought, after all. Maybe this was just more of the same. "I was being a smart-arse. Pissed off Keller's bodyguards."
"So it's exactly what I thought." Kate smiled.
"But I got us what we needed."
"Yes," Kate said softly. "You did."
Tony looked to her. Kate's face seemed to go blurry and young, the anger and harshness from just moments ago disappearing quickly beneath watery clouds. "Is everything okay, Kate?" he asked.
Kate was silent for a moment, dropping her head into shadows and looking away. "We were really worried for you, Tony, that's all. I'm just glad you're okay."
Tony noticed the shift there, but he wasn't sure if Kate did – from we to I. He tilted his head back and smiled, the gun-barrel bruise harshly hit by a beam of blue fluorescent light. "Aw, Katie. And here I was thinking the only impression I'd made on you in the last few years was an annoying one."
"It's the only one that's stuck," Kate snapped back.
"Clearly not." Tony smiled, even though his face caught fire once more.
Kate moved the rest of the way forward and put a soft hand on his shoulder. "Half the time a dead earwig means a dead agent, Tony. I didn't know what had happened to you. That doesn't mean I want to sleep with you."
"What if I almost get myself killed? Will your true emotions surface in a moment of profound realisation?"
"Please tell me that that wound hurts, DiNozzo. A lot," Kate snarled.
"Admit it. You kind of like having me around, don't you?"
Kate smirked but didn't answer.
Tony eyes suddenly fixed on something behind her and he gleamed once more, walking over to the double glass and putting his hands on the window. "Oh my God, is that Emma Burke?" Tony's smile had suddenly doubled in size, despite the pain.
Kate rolled her eyes. "Yes, Tony. And that's exactly why Gibbs is having me question her and not you."
"Why is it that no one wants to make my life just that little bit more pleasant?" Tony asked, eyes still fixated upon the gorgeous blonde sitting on the other side of the double glass.
"Because you're a smart arse," Kate said, opening and closing the door behind her.
- - - -
Twenty minutes of silence in interrogation and Kate had watched Emma Burke go from distraught to wordless to guilty to concerned to infuriated. Five stages of grieving in less than a half hour. Tony and Burley hadn't been lying when they said bringing her in had been a "bi-polar experience".
Kate finally entered the room and sat opposite her, taking her seat quietly. Emma sat back down in her seat, leaving no room for the dignified peace that Kate had managed.
"Can you please tell me why I've been sitting in an interrogation room for almost half an hour without an explanation?" Emma's plush lips moved with grace though. She spoke as if she'd been educated well.
Kate voice was calm, almost a sigh. "I'm sorry about your brother, Emma."
Emma's eyes welled to what seemed double their size. Back to distraught again. "Please, miss, just tell me why I'm here. And tell me what I have to tell you so I can leave."
"We want to know who else was with you and your brothers on the night he was killed," Kate said.
Emma's mouth hung open slightly and her eyes dropped into the shadows of her cheekbones. "Why?"
"We believe that your brother was providing the FBI with information on Osiris. We've been told that there were two men at the club with you that night. Was that them?"
"I don't know," Emma's eyes were starting to fill. "I don't know anything about Harry or Osiris or who the men were or what they wanted with Harry."
"Did Harry know them?"
"Yes, he'd apparently invited them."
"Why to a club?"
"I don't know. To avoid being seen, I guess."
"Did they leave with Harry?"
"I didn't see any of them leave. Dean and I went to the dance floor for a few hours and when we got back, all three were gone. We didn't think anything of it at the time." A small tear finally slipped down one of Emma's porcelain cheeks.
"Did you ever hear what they were talking about?"
"Um . . . " Emma wiped at her cheek. "I remember they mentioned New York. Something to with do with New York."
"New York City?"
"Something about the ‘safety' of it, I think. It didn't really make much sense, and I wasn't really that interested, so I didn't pay much attention. Harry just said that they were co-workers and they were discussing some kind of business transaction that was about to take place. I don't want anything to do my father or Osiris, so I kept my nose out of it."
"Anything else?"
"I heard them mention the name, Roy, a few times as well. I think he has something to do with my father's work."
- - - -
"Roy Stein, CEO of the Saturn Network," Tony said, pulling up some files on his computer. "Apparently the arch rival of Osiris, been fighting with them for over a decade for the top spot in publishing and advertising."
"Senator Burke mentioned him in the interview," Gibbs said. "He said that Osiris's merger with Taylor Square was going to put Saturn out of the running."
"Gives him motive," Kate said. "But we know that Harrison was providing information to the FBI on Osiris. Why would that have anything to do with Saturn?"
"The information he was providing might've put Osiris out of the running," Tony said. "Give Saturn their shoe back in. Could've been anything really. They're rivals. Anything that Osiris loses, Saturn has to gain."
"Still," Burley said, "the FBI shouldn't be concerned with commercial ramifications of their investigations."
"Emphasis on shouldn't, Stan," Gibbs said. "Never stopped them before."
"We need to know what the FBI's getting from him," Kate said. "Those two mean were the last to see Harry Burke alive."
The four agents slowly looked to each other for ideas. They then slowly turned to the one still sitting behind his computer.
"I'm not even going to ask what you're thinking because I know it's what you're thinking," McGee said, looking up to them.
"Can you do it?" Gibbs asked.
"Hack the FBI?" McGee asked.
"You've done the CIA."
"Am I going to be facing the legal consequences if I'm caught?"
"Do you want to be facing mine if you don't?"
"O-kay," McGee said, already beginning to hack away it his keys.
"No need for that, Gibbs," a voice came from behind them. The agents turned toward the elevator to see whom it belonged to.
"And why would that be?" Gibbs answered.
"Because I'm running the case," Fornell said, taking a step toward their desks.
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