Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs were back at their desks, looking up everything they could on Lieutenant Adam Collins. McGee was down in the forensics lab, looking to see what he could find on Collins' computer. It was unusually quiet until Gibbs' phone rang.

"Yeah, Gibbs… Send them up."

Tony and Ziva shared a look at the short, cryptic conversation.

"Something up, boss?" Tony asked.

"Not sure," was all the answer they got before the elevator doors opened, revealing two men accompanied by an NCIS escort.

Tony perked up when he saw them. He could spot a cop a mile away, and these guys had it written all over them, from their shoes to their haircuts. The only questions that remained were where were they from, and why were they there? The elder of the two soon answered the first question.

"Special Agent Gibbs?" he asked, his British accent causing both his and Ziva's eyebrows to shoot upwards.

"Yeah?" Gibbs replied, standing and stepping out from behind his desk.

"Detective Sergeant Ronnie Brooks, CID," he said as he and his partner revealed their ID's. "This is my partner, DS Matt Devlin. We were told you're the person to speak to regarding Adam Collins."

"What do you want with Lieutenant Collins?" Gibbs asked, his natural suspicion rising to the surface.

"He's our main suspect in a murder investigation," Matt answered. "His sister was shot in her London flat a week ago."

"What makes you think he's involved?"

"He returned from visiting her the same day she was killed," Ronnie answered. "Also, the caliber bullet used to kill her matches his service weapon."

"That doesn't prove anything," Ziva interjected.

"I admit, it is all circumstantial," Matt ceded. "That's why we want to talk to him, see if he knows anything that can help us."

"He's not gonna be much help now," Tony muttered.

Matt and Ronnie looked confusedly from Tony to Gibbs.

"Lieutenant Collins was killed two days ago," Gibbs answered, cut off by his phone ringing. "Yeah, Gibbs… On my way."

Without another word, Gibbs turned and walked away, back towards the lab. Matt and Ronnie looked at each other, unsure what to do.

"Does he always just walk away like that?" Matt asked.

"Pretty much," Tony grinned, standing from his desk. "Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, this is Special Agent Ziva David."

"Pleased to meet you," Matt replied lamely.

"He should be back in a few minutes, if you'd like some coffee?" Ziva offered, standing as well.

"Got any tea?" Ronnie asked, making Matt suppress a grin.

"I'm sure Ducky's got some stashed somewhere," Tony said, looking at Ziva.

"What've ya got, Abbs?" Gibbs asked, raising his voice above the music as he walked into her lab.

"What haven't we got?" Abby Sciuto replied, looking over at McGee, who was sharing her workspace to examine Collins' computer. "The bullet that killed Lieutenant Collins was a nine millimeter round. Striations match those from a Beretta M9. Coincidentally, that's the same make as Collins' service pistol."

"But it's not from his gun?" Gibbs clarified.

"Nope," the perky goth grinned. "I compared it to a round I fired from his gun, just to be sure. Apparently, Lieutenant Collins' gun has a small defect at the base of the barrel that affects the striations." She turned back to her computer and pulled up two images of fired rounds. "See the one on the left? That's the round that killed the lieutenant. The one on the right is the round from his gun. See that groove on the end of the bullet? I fired three rounds, just to be sure, but all three bullets have the same mark. The bullet that killed Lieutenant Collins was definitely not fired from his gun."

"Boss, there's more," McGee added. "I found several emails Collins sent to his sister in the days before he was killed. The first few seem normal enough, but the fourth email sounds like he was starting to get concerned. 'Amy, where are you? You haven't replied to my emails and you're not answering your phone. I just need to know you're okay. Talk to me, please.' There's about a dozen more along those lines, and I've checked his phone records. He called her twenty times in two days, each call lasted no more than thirty seconds."

"Sounds like he was pretty freaked about something," Abby noted. "And those calls weren't cheap. His sister-"

"Lived in London," Gibbs finished. "She was killed last week."

"Yeah," McGee replied, confused but not bothering to ask how he knew; Gibbs always knew everything.

"Get the forensics from CID on Amy Collins' murder. Good work," Gibbs said before turning and leaving, the brooding look on his face a definite indicator that there was more that he knew, and it was only a matter of time before they heard about it.

Gibbs stalked back up to the bullpen. It was bad enough when Metro or the FBI horned in on his cases. He didn't need British police on his heels. He knew there had to be a connection between the cases. It was too much of a coincidence—something Gibbs didn't believe in—that Lieutenant turned up dead days after his sister was killed, and the emails were evidence that he had been spooked about something.

When he got back to the bullpen, Ronnie and Matt were nowhere to be seen, but the looks on Tony and Ziva's faces were enough to let him know that whatever was going on, he wasn't going to like it.

"Agent Gibbs," called a voice from above, and Gibbs turned around to see the Director giving him one of those looks.

Narrowing his eyes at Leon Vance, Gibbs followed his boss up to the latter's office. There sat the two Brits, both looking slightly uncomfortable. Scared even, in Matt's case.

"I just got off a conference call with the British consulate and CID headquarters in London," Vance began as he sat behind his desk. "I assured both of them that NCIS would do whatever it could to aid the CID in their investigation into Amy Collins' death."

Of course he did, Gibbs thought, scowling at the thought of the British "coppers" crawling around his office.

"I trust that won't be a problem?" Vance finished, giving Gibbs another pointed look.

"No, no problem," Gibbs replied in a voice that any unused to him might believe he was telling the truth. "That all?"

"That's all," replied Vance, warily eyeing Gibbs.

Unsure as to what they had just seen, Matt and Ronnie followed Gibbs out of Vance's office and to the bullpen.

"We should probably start by comparing the forensics from our scene and yours," Matt started cautiously.

"Already on it," Gibbs said over his shoulder as he returned to his desk. "Status," he called out to Tony and Ziva.

"Lieutenant Adam Collins," Tony began, pulling Collins' military ID photo up on the screen. "The guy's record is impeccable: graduated top of his class at Annapolis, posted on the Guadalcanal for four years as a communications officer, then reassigned to the Navy Yard and been there ever since. According to his CO, the only thing to complain about is a case of OCD, but that Collins managed to channel that into his work, and he was an exceptional officer."

"He and his roommate, Major Harper, had been best friends since grade school, and decided to room together when they were both posted to D.C.," Ziva continued. "Collins would go out when pressed, but would usually rather stay in or work late. Harper said that Collins seemed most comfortable when it was just the two of them, or when he was around his sister. She got the offer to teach in London not long after he was posted to the Navy Yard, and it definitely upset him, but Harper said he managed to get over it and move on. He'd scrape pennies together to pay for trips to London when he got leave."

"Parents?" Gibbs asked.

"They died in a car crash fifteen years ago," Matt spoke up, causing the three NCIS agents to turn and look at them, having forgotten they were there.

"What do you know?" Gibbs asked, staring them down.

"Adam Collins left London last Monday," Ronnie stated. "According to our medical examiner, his sister was killed the same day. The bullet that killed her was fired from a Beretta M9, the same model as Lieutenant Collins' service weapon. That's why we wanted to talk to him."

"Except that Lieutenant Collins was also killed with a Beretta M9," Gibbs pointed out.

"Boss, you're gonna want to see this," McGee said, entering the bullpen and pulling a new image up on the screen. "I found an encrypted drive on Collins' computer. This guy definitely knew what he was doing. I doubt I would have found it if I hadn't been looking; he had it disguised as a backup memory drive. Once I got in, I found this."

McGee pointed to the display, an array of alphanumeric codes that meant very little to anyone else.

"What am I looking at?" Gibbs asked.

"The first column is a list of encrypted coordinates and dates. The second column is account numbers and payment amounts."

"Collins was selling military information?" Ziva asked.

"Not Collins," McGee corrected. "'M.D.' Collins monitored the computer network in the Navy Yard. About a year ago, he noticed a series of unauthorized entries to the network, accessing classified information. He kept track of the entries, tracking each one until he found out who it was. He kept detailed notes of his investigation encoded on the drive with this list. He couldn't work too fast, or he'd risk tipping off the culprit. With what he has here, a conviction would have been a sure thing. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was what got him killed."

"So, who's M.D.?" Gibbs asked.

"Martin Doral."

"Wait, Commander Martin Doral? Collins' CO?" Tony exclaimed.

"So Adam finds out his boss is selling military secrets. His boss finds out his little side job's been discovered, so he kills Adam to keep it a secret," Ronnie summed up.

"But what about Amy?" asked Matt. "Where does she fit in all of this?"

"Major Harper said that Adam and Amy were extremely close," Ziva said. "If Adam told anyone about his investigation, it would have been her. Doral could have had her killed to keep her from saying anything."

"DiNozzo, you and Devlin go talk to Doral," Gibbs said. "See if he knows anything about this."

"Sound him out, got it, boss," Tony replied, grabbing his badge and gun from his desk drawer.

"Doral's at the Pentagon, today," McGee said as Tony and Matt turned to leave the bullpen. "He's in meetings with the SecNav."

"Come on Devlin. I'll give you the dime tour of D.C."

Gibbs returned to his desk as the two made their way to the elevator.

"Ziva, take Brooks and go talk to Major Harper. See what he knows of this."

"Of course, Gibbs," she said, and she and Ronnie followed after Tony and Matt.

The clerk showed Tony and Matt into what turned out to be a rather imposing conference room, dark finishes on all of the furniture creating a feeling of being closed in. Commander Martin Doral stood by one of the large leather chairs that surrounded the conference table.

"Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, NCIS," Tony introduced himself. "This is Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin, CID. We'd like to ask you some questions about Lieutenant Adam Collins."

"We were all shocked to hear he'd been killed," Doral said as the two took seats opposite him. "He's one of the best officers I've served with. I don't know if it's possible to find someone to replace him."

"He was good at what he did," Tony concluded.

"He was more than good," Doral corrected. "He was the best. He had everything so organized, he could tell if even the smallest thing was off. If someone spent longer on the network than they should have or used their computer to look at porn, he knew."

"Can you think of any reason anyone would want to kill him?" Matt asked.

"No. Lieutenant Collins kept to himself, but everyone liked him. He got along well with everyone here."

He appeared honest, but years of detective work had taught Tony familiarity with the glint of a well-practiced liar. Matt saw it as well, and was about to speak, but Tony interrupted him.

"All right, well, thank you, Commander. If there's anything else, we'll let you know."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more help," Doral replied as the two stood to leave.

"What was that?" Matt hissed, once they were out of the building. "He was lying through his teeth."

"No kidding," Tony retorted. "Gibbs orders were not to spook him. He knows exactly what happened to Lieutenant Collins, and I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts he knows about Amy Collins."

Matt gritted his teeth in frustration as he got in the car. He wasn't used to having someone cut him off like that.

"So now what?" he asked, once Tony had started the car.

"We watch him," Tony stated plainly. "Doral knows we're snooping around through Collins' records. He'll make a move to cover his tracks, and we'll be there to catch him when he does."

They drove in silence for a while, Tony annoyed with Matt for being too eager and Matt frustrated with Tony for not doing enough to catch Doral.

As Tony came to an intersection, a screech of rubber on asphalt was the only warning they had before another vehicle slammed into the passenger side. The car was pushed half a block down the cross-street before both vehicles came to a rest. Tony caught a glimpse of Matt past the deployed airbags. Before he blacked out, he managed a thought that there was a dangerous amount of blood.

Thanks to everyone who's read and favorited/story alert-ed this fic! I had a blast writing it, and I'm glad others seem to be enjoying it as well. On a completely unrelated note, does anyone ever actually read the notes I leave on my profile, or am I just talking to thin air?