Chapter 1 – 2 Agent Gibbs Gets Rung

"Yeah, Gibbs."

This was actually a crucial time in the bullpen. Things with Chinese drug gangs and smugglers were coming to a head over in Anacostia; DiNozzo and Ziva were already there, but in the process of tangling with some drunk teenagers and needed backup.

There was a pause on the line.

The first thing he heard was giggling. "Heyyy, is Trent there?"

"Trent?" Gibbs shouted into his phone. "How did you get this number?"

"Is this Trent's phone?" More whispers and hushed giggling.

"Who is this?" Gibbs motioned for McGee to start the trace.

"Um, this is Zel. We met…the other Saturday?"

McGee's fingers flew over the keyboard. "Boss, the caller is located in a Georgetown U dorm room."

Zel persisted. "Is this Trent's phone? Where is he?"

"Trent's not here." Gibbs' voice was clipped. "Don't call this number again."

"Wait! How do I get him? She wanted his number?"

Gibbs slammed his open phone onto his desk, by proxy shutting off its power. "McGee, I wanna know who that was, why she called and why the hell she has my number!"

"On it, boss," McGee was curious too, and logged onto Facebook for some answers. Abby would want to be in on this too.

"So," Abby began, with McGee listening on. "We have…Zel Francis and Jennifer Harris. Normal, rich, spoiled Georgetown twenty-somethings without direction or focus." She turned the monitor.

"Zel has a profile picture featuring her in Gucci head-to-toe and Jen has a Myspace-type shot featuring her hip bones. They have status updates mentioning someone called Salle Silver. No information available on her. No Facebook, e-mail, credit card, nothing. Not even fingerprints. And yet she managed to send Zel and Jen on a weeklong shopping trip, and out of a week of classes."

"So this woman has no bank records? Bills? Statements?" McGee was shocked.

"She bought twenty-six thousand dollars in pre-paid debit cards with cash," Abby told him, delighted. "We do have a camera angle on her at the Chase bank."

"Tell me something I don't know, Abs." Gibbs cruised into the lab, Caf-Pow in hand. Abby reached for it.

"Nuh-uh. Show me the footage first." Abby obligingly pulled up the video on the plasma.

"First, we have the steps. She walks in with a duffel bag—totally wrong with her outfit. She goes up to the window, and requests the aforementioned. Teller gives her a weird look."

Abby fast-forwarded a time-lapse over 15 minutes. "She takes out two-hundred and sixty hundred dollar bills and places them down. You can see the manager standing behind her. She completes the transaction, Ink cards in hand, and leaves." The plasma went dark.

"So? What about her ties her to my cell phone?"

"Well, Gibbs, we haven't figured out yet. But we have figured out one thing."

"What?"

"We have Trent Kort."

McGee scoffed. "Weasel-man." The others stared at him. "What? That's Tony's name for him."

Gibbs turned from McGee and faced Abby again. "Let's find her. Bring her in." He turned to leave. "Call Trent Kort—he's going to help us find her."

As soon as Gibbs left, Abby stared at McGee with distaste. "You just had to go there, didn't you?"