Chapter Two

There was not much to tell from the sacking of the three hotel rooms. They lifted fingerprints, but Gibbs held off on doing anything with them: they certainly didn't have access to Botswana's fingerprint database, and there was no point on bringing the authorities in unless there was reason to believe a serious crime had been committed. They could find nothing missing. The cameras had been with them, and the two laptops had been chained down and were password-protected. What the intruders had been after, they couldn't fathom.

"Garden-variety thieves," Tim mused. "Probably looking for gold or jewels."

Ziva came out of her room. "In the movies, is there not a warning sign, to try to make the, ah, 'good guys' give up and go away?"

Tony laughed. "Sometimes. But this isn't a movie, Ziva."

She eyed him and frowned. "But this is a real note." She held out a scrap of paper in her gloved hands.

Stop now, or the waters will come for you, as well.

"Interesting sentence structure," Tim remarked. "The 'as well' ending doesn't sound like American usage."

"Why only Ziva's room?" Tony wondered. "Are they afraid of her?" He snickered and then doubled over when she whacked him in the stomach. "Well, I would be," he wheezed.

"Stop clowning around and check your room for a note," Gibbs ordered. "Ziva, help me check my room."

No other notes turned up, though. This was not especially comforting; there might be something hidden in a place they hadn't thought of…something more like a booby trap. Although they hadn't done it the night before, feeling in no danger at the time, this time they swept the three rooms for bugging devices, and found them in the handsets of each of the rooms' telephones.

"We'll have to recheck the place every day, when we return," Gibbs sighed. "McGee, get me a vid connection to NCIS. I should let the Director know what's going on."

"On it, boss." Tim tapped at the computer, checked the settings, tapped some more, and they were in.

Ducky and Jimmy called to say they were on their way back, and returned within minutes. At the back of the room, Tim and Ziva quietly filled them in on what had happened while Gibbs spoke to Jenny over the computer connection.

"A burglary! In such a four-star hotel as this!" Ducky murmured. "Why, I should think we would want to speak to the manager straightaway!"

"If we don't, and don't call attention to ourselves, are we telling the crooks that we're not afraid of them…or that we're too afraid to do anything?" Jimmy wondered, and then blushed as they all looked at him.

But sometimes Jimmy was more profound than he knew. Tony smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Good thinking, Palmer. So…did you two get to sample some of the local delicacies?"

"Why, er, the lamb is to die for," said Ducky. "So moist and tender…"

"Are they serving lamb now at McDonald's?" Ziva smiled, seeing the 32-ounce cup that Jimmy was hiding halfway behind his back.

"I told you to throw that away before we got back to the hotel!" Ducky hissed to his assistant.

"I'm sorry, Doctor! It's so dry here, and I'm still so thirsty!" Jimmy took a slurp on the drink.

"We, uh, had Italian," Tim admitted. "But tomorrow, for sure, we're going native."

"As will we," said Ducky.

- - - - -

Ziva came into Gibbs and Ducky's room, bearing a map. "Our assistant police chief was not all that honest with us, Gibbs," she said. "I thought I had remembered seeing this earlier. Although this is a very arid country, there is water not too far away. Gaborone Dam, south of the city. Access is a little restricted, but there is certainly enough water there to drown people. Why would she lie?"

"Maybe she wasn't lying," said Tony, thoughtfully, joining them. "A dam in a desert country? It's probably guarded as tightly as Fort Knox. She may have considered the possibility of getting in to be too remote to be worth mentioning."

"Maybe," said Gibbs, but he didn't sound convinced.

Ducky used the second laptop to transmit queries and samples back to Abby at NCIS HQ. It was a cumbersome business; they had no access to a computer at the city morgue. He had made observations, sketches, and taken photos of samples from the morgue's microscope. He hoped it would be enough.

On the other end, Abby acknowledged getting the data. "It would have been more fun if you'd allowed me to come along," she groused.

"Your company would have been delightful, dear girl," Ducky said, smiling. "But how could you work in the lab and be here at the same time."

"Oh, good point," she said. "I'll let you know as soon as I have something."

"What have you learned so far?" Gibbs asked the medical examiner. As night tightened, even a large city like Gaborone started to slow its pace. In the adjacent small suite, Tony and Ziva were playing cards while Tim practiced his Setswana and Jimmy surfed the net.

"The men did indeed drown, Jethro. All had abrasions on the wrists consistent with rope ties. There were no other marks indicating a struggle. All had signs of a blow to the head. We'll have to wait until Abby replies, but I think we'll find that they were knocked unconscious, and their heads held under water. This was definitely murder. Not that I really ever believed that they drowned themselves and headed back to Gaborone."

Gibbs sighed. "Time of death?"

"Hard to say, considering the desecration done by the local wildlife. Around 96 hours ago is the closest I can come."

"Thanks, Duck." Gibbs strode into the next room. "Off the computer, Palmer. I need McGee on it."

"Uh, sure, boss," said Tim, settling into the chair Jimmy had just vacated. "What am I looking for?"

"Trace our seamen's movements since they left the Caygul. Get their travel itineraries, their train tickets, their cab rides, their receipts for chewing gum—whatever. DiNozzo, David—prepare to start making phone calls. Find out who they talked with here, where they stayed; get inside their heads."

Tony looked up with a faint grin. "And what will you be doing, boss?"

"Out looking for a good cup of coffee."

- - - - -

Shortly, Tim had traced the seamen's uncomplicated route to Gaborone, and their short stay at a more modest hotel, where the three had shared one room. Tony and Ziva hustled to the hotel's site about a mile away, where they soon reported back by phone.

"The manager let us into the room," said Tony. "He was unaware of the deaths. The room was still rented to them."

"And?"

"We found brochures for local tourist attractions. But the one really interesting one was the one connected with cabin rental in the Okavango Delta. Particularly since there are also brochures for small plane flights in and out of there, and notes scratched about it. And a half-written postcard to 'Ma' back home talking about looking forward to seeing animals in the wild."

"Sounds like the dam is out," said Gibbs. "Come on back; we'll get a start in the morning."

"Ah…where are we going, boss?"

"The Okavango Delta. Bring a camera. Maybe we'll get to see some animals."

- - - - -

Abby had sent them results overnight, while they still slept. The group had breakfast sent up to their room so they could be on their way as soon as possible. Ducky read from the computer over his cup of tea. "Minute, microscopic organisms found in the lungs, consisted with a very microbe-rich environment. That's your Okavango Delta, Jethro. You don't find that much diversity in the waters around a dam. I think the delta is your place of death."

Gibbs nodded. "McGee, call and confirm the four seats on the West Wings plane company that we booked last night. When Majafhe comes, someone make sure he's not afraid to fly. Or be prepared to get him some airsick pills."

Tony blinked. "Four seats, boss? With Majafhe, that's five of us."

"McGee's not going," said Gibbs, giving Tim a look of steel. "I need someone to stay here and be our connection to Washington, and to find answers if we phone in questions."

Tim looked nonplussed, but nodded. "Will cell phones work out there, in the Delta, boss?"

"We'll find out, won't we?"

- - - - -

Tim was left alone in the hotel when Gibbs and the team left, followed soon after by Ducky and Palmer. The latter two hoped to wrap up their work today and head back to NCIS with the bodies, since a military transport was available that night.

There are worse places to be cooped up in than a nice hotel with central a-c and room service, Tim thought as he sent a cheery email to Abby. He waited and waited for a response until he realized it wasn't even 6 a.m. in Washington. Even Abby didn't get in that early.

He put his mind to one of the puzzles of the investigation. If the seamen had been drowned at the dam, it wasn't too far a drive north to Gaborone. There was some sense to a murder plan like that.

If, however, they'd died in the Delta…someone would have had to make a fast plane trip back here with the bodies to lessen decomposition. Somewhere was a plane pilot who'd accept a cargo of three bodies with no questions asked. Probably for a large payment. Maybe in diamonds, as Tony seemed fixated on.

Online, he pulled up a list of small plane operators out of the Gaborone airport who flew to the Delta and then called the airport. Time to narrow the search.

- - - - -

Unlike the rest of Botswana, in the Delta the countryside was verdant. Swamps, lakes, rivers all fed tall trees and meadows. Tony exclaimed on seeing, he believed, a pride of lions from the air.

"Perhaps you did, perhaps you did not," Majafhe laughed. "They are good at hiding themselves if they wish. There are many things that look like, ah, 'tawny' in color."

"Doesn't matter," Tony said stubbornly. "I have my camera. I will find something to shoot."

"Not here to sightsee, DiNozzo," Gibbs remarked.

"No, boss." Tony put his camera away and tried to fix the location of the lions in his mind.

- - - - -

When they landed, Majafhe handled the arrangements of transportation to their lodging. The small lodge was a pretty, light-colored affair, slightly European in style, flocked by shady trees. This was a different heat here: in some ways, the humidity of the Delta was more overpowering than the dry city. The shade made a lot of difference.

With only two rooms available, Ziva agreed to share a room with Tony—warning him, publicly, that she slept with a knife under her pillow. "Don't give it another thought," he said, fingering the mosquito netting over the beds. "I think it will take me twenty minutes to get out of this, once I'm in. You could be well on your way back to Gaborone by then."

She chuckled, but sobered when Gibbs came in, looking grim.

"Majafhe and I made inquiries at the front office," he said. "The company that owns this lodge owns the identical one down the path. That's where our seamen have their room booked."

"Had."

"No, David; have. No one's told them that the men are dead yet."

Ziva turned her knife over in her hands. "That does not make sense, Gibbs. The seamen died four days ago. Has not the management been concerned about their absence, here in the wilderness? Anything could have happened to them."

"Go check it out. Take DiNozzo and Majafhe. I'll call McGee and let him know what's going on."

- - - - -

"You haven't narrowed down the plane company yet, McGee?" Gibbs' thunder came out of the receiver on the room phone.

"No, not yet, boss," Tim said loudly over the sound of the maid's vacuum cleaner. He had refused to leave the room while she cleaned, and she clearly did not appreciate him being in the way. "I'm being stonewalled a bit. Do you think I should ask Mma Motalaote of the police for help?"

"Not yet, McGee. I'm not convinced she has our best interests at heart. Keep at it, and call me when you have something. Let me give you the number here."

Tim scribbled it down. "Anything else I should be looking for, boss?"

"Tony keeps going on about diamonds. Check on any thefts of diamonds in the last week or two. I'd hate to think that our seamen were couriers, but we can't rule it out."

"Okay, boss." Tim hung up the phone, and then slumped to the floor as something hard hit his head.