3-
Investigation
"Tony, would you PLEASE stop doing that?" Officer Ziva David stared at him irritatedly.
"What?" The 'Tony' in question, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, was tossing his desk phone into the air repeatedly, then catching it.
"That. The- The Phone tossing thing!"
"Oh, the phone-tossing thing. Ah, no. No I won't stop the phone tossing thing." Tony grinned smugly.
"Ugh!" Ziva turned away from the man.
"Um, guys?" Special Agent Timothy McGee looked at Ziva and Tony "Anyone else noticed that Gibbs isn't here yet?"
"No, not at all... Thanks for pointing that out, probie." McGee's eyes narrowed. True, McGee was a probationary agent ('Probie'), but DiNozzo's habit of pointing it out was annoying.
"It is beginning to bother me." Ziva stared at the clock.
"What?" Tony and McGee asked simultaneously.
"That Gibbs isn't here! Which is what we were just ta-" Ziva was cut off by the arrival of the aforementioned Gibbs.
"Gear up. We've got dead bodies." Gibbs was business as usual.
"Excuse me, bodies?"
"Yes, DiNozzo. Bodies, as in more than one." Gibbs kept walking, the team following him to the elevator.
"Well, what is it?" McGee asked, hoping to glean some information about the case.
"We don't know. The prison doesn't know."
"Three marines dead in their prison cells. Security tapes show nothing. Prison guards say they didn't see anyone suspicious entering the prison." DiNozzo's sarcastic declaration fell on deaf ears.
"We've been over this eighty times... There's nothing here." McGee looked defeated. He had run every the security footage through every filter. There was nothing.
"The security tapes show them collapsing. Perhaps they died naturally." Ziva's conclusion was the soundest theory. But...
"All three of them within seconds of each other. Other inmates died the same way at roughly the same time. I see nothing. But there's no way this is natural." Tony looked at Gibbs
"Well is this ALL you three've got?" Gibbs looked at them condescendingly.
"You try seeing anything here." For that, Gibbs head-slapped DiNozzo.
"I'll be in autopsy" Gibbs walked off.
"What's his problem?" Ziva and McGee asked Tony.
"Longest case without a lead. Sure we've had cases with several dead leads by now, but no leads? Never." DiNozzo himself looked perplexed
"What have you got, Ducky?" Gibbs strolled into autopsy, looking at Dr. Mallard, the NCIS M.E..
"I'm afraid not much. I was able to clear access to the bodies we wouldn't normally have jurisdiction over. All 14 of them died within seconds of each other. All of heart attacks. According to Abby's machine, no detectable pathogens in any of them. You know, it reminds me of a case in the early 1990s. The prison staff actually used the cell doors to electrocute the entire prison. Of course, no signs of electrocution here."
"Thanks, Duck."
Gibbs knocked at the Director's door.
"Jethro. That was fast, solved it already?" Jenny Shepard, Director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, smiled at the investigator.
"Nope. Just wanted to tell you that the case is dead." Gibbs strolled into the office behind Jenny.
"Dead?" Jenny asked perplexedly. "You can't be serious?"
"Not a single hint of anything to investigate. All 14 of them, 3 marines and 12 civilians, died of heart attacks."
"Heart attacks?" Jenny had never seen a case Gibbs couldn't solve.
"Yep. No sign of electric shock being used to induce them, either."
"Well... I'll report this to SecNav."
"So?" DiNozzo asked Gibbs as he rotated in his chair.
"So the Director is reporting it to SecNav. That's all." Gibbs paced the room, looking annoyed. He was hoping Jenny would walk down the stairs from MTAC and tell them to keep working.
"Wow... First dead case! I say we go get a drink!" DiNozzo received 3 cross stares for this comment.
"Oh, yeah Tony. Get a drink to celebrate Failure." McGee snapped back.
"You call this failure? What else could we do?"
Their argument was interrupted by Director Shepard. "You four, you're requested in MTAC. Abby and Dr. Mallard too."
"By who?" Gibbs asked as he paged Abby and Ducky.
"The ICPO."