Sitting on the opposite side of the table in a kitchen/dining area of the unit to Jethro and Seb, Tony felt the sudden need to confess his sins under Gibbs' intense stare.
"Listen Gibbs, I'm having a little trouble comprehending this. Someone is going around killing innocent people just to get my attention." Tony's eyes were wide with shock and disbelief.
"We don't know that DiNozzo. The connection to you could be coincidence, or if it's not that doesn't mean it's because you pissed someone off. There are a lot of crazy people out there." Gibbs tried to reason.
Tony rubbed his forehead with one hand, trying desperately to think of who could have done this. "There was a lab rat I reported for contaminating blood samples. He was pretty pissed off."
"I'll have Puchalski look into it. Anyone else?"
"Macaluso?" Tony responded. "Mob boss, I wouldn't put it by him but he should still be in jail unless he has someone acting for him." DiNozzo looked up pitifully to the two agents on the other side of the table. "I'm sorry Boss, I don't think I'm going to be much help with this."
"We've got more now that we did five minutes ago." Fletcher tried in his own way to reassure the older agent. From the look on Tony's face it hadn't worked and from the smack he received to the back of his head Gibbs hadn't appreciated it too much either.
"We'll check them out DiNozzo." Jethro looked down at his watch and seeing the time looked back to his senior agent. "Your due in the pool in twenty minutes."
"Thanks Boss."
"Tony, I'm setting up a protection detail just incase." Gibbs said seriously, brooking no argument. Tony sighed and nodded looking far from happy.
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What Abby considered organised chaos Luis just considered a mess. Snapping his cell phone shut he looked around, he was pretty much trapped in a small patch of clear floor. Abby had been jumping around the lab from patch to patch as needed for the past half hour.
"Gibbs says to look at a case involving Macaluso and find a report Tony filed against a lab tech." Puchalski yelled over to Abby who sprang into action.
"Okay BPD hacking away!" Abby made a comical superhero pose for a second before bounding her way across the lab to her computer. Standing typing Abby bopped her head to an inaudible beat, her pigtails flailing.
"Hey Abbs, how about running a backtrace on everyone that's accessed the cases that involved the victims?" McGee sprang up from his position sorting through a box of evidence. "If the killer isn't a part of the police department then they'll have hacked in like us but we can compare the BPD ISPs with unknown ones."
Unlike Abby, Tim was a little more unsure of himself as he tried to traverse the lab floor, hopping and pausing before carefully choosing his route to where Abby stood.
"McMIT I love it!" Abby exclaimed.
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After half an hour of pacing around the edge of the pool Fletcher had taken up a position at the door leading out into the gym area where he and Gibbs had initially spoken with DiNozzo. If anyone were to try and attack DiNozzo here he doubted they'd come through the pool filtration system, unless of course Tony had somehow pissed off the Loch Ness monster.
Gibbs had ordered Seb to stay behind and "keep DiNozzo company". All three had known that meant he was to babysit. The door to the pool area opened and Fletcher moved to intercept the intruder but stopped short when he saw Luis.
"We're on DiNozzo duty." Puchalski confirmed taking his place next to Seb.
"The geek squad?"
"Doing something that involves a lot of letters." Luis shrugged and looked out at the pool where DiNozzo was swimming laps under close supervision.
"antidisestablishmentarianism?" From the look Luis gave him the answer was no. "So are we ever gonna have that first date?" Seb asked.
"Not tonight, I think Tony'd feel left out."
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"What've you got Abs?" Gibbs' voice announced his entry into the lab, one hand holding a large Caff-Pow container. Abby was huddled over a plastic box, vaporised superglue swirling within, her head popped up when she heard Jethro.
"A crick in my neck and no one to rub it better."
"Evidence Abby."
"Oh we have lots of evidence but so far it's all clean. Killer is methodical, I haven't found one stray print." Abby looked disappointed. "McGee is checking who has accessed the files, maybe we'll get lucky."
"Boss?" McGee's voice caused both Gibbs and Abby to turn their attention to him, which made him hesitate a moment before speaking. "Three ISPs accessed all three case files that don't belong to Baltimore PD."
"Well who do they belong to McGee?"
"I-I don't know yet but I'm working on it." McGee said with as much force as he could muster.
"Do it quickly."
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Ducky was sat at his desk when Jethro entered autopsy, three file folders carefully positioned so the doctor could see the contents of each without juggling.
"See anything out of the ordinary Duck?" Gibbs asked coming up behind the ME.
"The whole thing seems quite out of the ordinary Jethro." Ducky commented, still reading from the various pieces of paper. "The official cause of death for each victim is the same, insulin overdose."
"So he chopped them up after he killed them?"
"Yes." Ducky looked over his shoulder to see Gibbs trying to read the files on the desk without squinting. "And there has been no sign of the lower extremities?" Ducky asked and Jethro shook his head. "They were removed by a common circular saw according the the autopsy report."
"The third victim was found by her daughter who had been sleeping just down the hall, how could she have slept through the noise?"
"Perhaps she didn't Jethro. But the blood pooling around the body wasn't significant, the ME attributed that to it being done post mortem. She could easily have been abducted from her home and then the body returned." Ducky hypothesised.
"The neighbours would have heard something from the first victim as well." Gibbs said, vocalising his thoughts. "How would he get in and out of these buildings with bodies and not be noticed?" Gibbs suddenly perked his head up and stalked out of autopsy bound once again for Abby's lab.
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"Fold." Puchalski slammed his cards down on the circular table the three agents sat around. Fletcher smirking at Luis once again folding.
"I'll raise." Tony said from his position and threw a handful of skittles into the centre of the table.
"I'll see your cavity and raise you a root canal." Fletcher quipped throwing double the amount DiNozzo had. Tony looked down at his cards for a moment before shrugging.
"Call." He said pushing what was left of his skittles into the centre.
"No raise?" Fletcher smirked at Tony from across the table."Oh wait you don't have anything to raise with." Seb laughed. Tony smirked in return, tapping one finger along the row of cards he held.
"Are you two gonna show your cards or make stupid faces at each other?" Luis asked testily. "I still don't know why we couldn't play table tennis."
"Because wheelie here doesn't have our mad ping pong skills. Stop being a sore loser." Seb flicked one his many skittles across the table hitting Luis in the chest, he merely received a huff and fold of the arms in response. "Be useful and get us dinner." Fletcher demanded, placing his cards face down on the table to rub his stomach.
"Loser gets dinner." Tony agreed. "Winner chooses?" He raised an eyebrow in question and Seb nodded. "What've you got?"
Seb picked up his cards and after a moment laid them on the table face up. "Fuck all."
Tony let out a triumphant laugh and turned his cards over showing just a pair of sixes. "Thai?"
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"Did we get surveillance tapes from Baltimore?" Gibbs asked when he walked into the lab, McGee still hard at work at the computer. Abby bounded in from where she had been storing boxes.
"None of the buildings had any cameras." Abby said, walking over to where her Caff-Pow sat.
"It might be possible that the killer abducted the victims and then brought them back. There's no way no one noticed power tools chopping up bodies."
"I'll check the surrounding area." Abby said taking a long sip through the straw of her Caff-Pow.
"McGee?"
"I've tracked one of the ISPs to Macaluso, one his holding companies that's now being run by his brother in law Gianmarco Maldini." Tim turned to Abby and Gibbs who were looking at the image McGee had brought up on the screen of Maldini. Piercing blue eyes stood out against dark tanned skin in the picture, he was undeniably good looking.
"Get me everything you can find on him."
"That might be difficult, Tony might've spent months undercover taking a mob boss down but from what I've seen Maldini is ten times worse." McGee looked worried.
"Oh I know McGee." Gibbs didn't explain but it was clear to Abby and Tim that Gibbs knew Maldini somehow.
"Why would he be after Tony?" McGee asked. His question went unanswered as Jethro bolted from the lab. McGee turned from the computer screen to see Abby give an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders.
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The Return by tdawg
Author's Chapter Notes:
Tony spends time with Seb and Luis. McGee identifies the person who could be behind everything.