Abby watched Lt. Miller being shot and pushed into the panda enclosure from a fifth angle. "When they said full-coverage, they weren't kidding, Timmy."

"You should see the monitoring station they have. There's about fifty video screens so the person at the console can watch every part of the habitat at once, which seems a little stupid when you think about it. There are only three pandas. Why not just have motion sensors on the cameras and have the feed change cameras as the pandas move around?"

"Too bad we don't have that here." Abby clicked on another thumbnail screen to try and get a better shot of Miller's murderer. "Jimmy and Michelle have been on their best behavior since they got caught, but still…I bet we'd get some crazy footage."

"Especially with Tony and Ziva in the building."

"You're a little obsessed with them, McGee. I'm not sure it's all that healthy. Ziva isn't even here right now."

"But she's coming back tomorrow. Tony's got the morning off to pick her up at the airport and she'll be back to work on Thursday."

"That's good." As much as McGee liked discussing the personal lives of his closest co-workers, Abby was getting bored with it. Tony and Ziva were sleeping together. She got it. Unless they brought it into the building, she was no longer that interested. Her curiosity would be piqued again once they started fighting, but that was probably going to take some time, given that Ziva was on her second near-death experience in less than a year. She paused the video and enhanced the area around the killer's face. "I wanna ask her where she got that cool assault rifle."

McGee's eyes got wide as he looked from the monitor to Abby's face. "Assault rifle?"

"Didn't I tell you about the secret gun closet we found when we cleared out her apartment? If I ever decide to start my own paramilitary faction because you guys have gone off on some secret mission and left me with vile substitutes, I'm going straight to Ziva's."

"Should I come back later?"

Abby turned to the door. "Hey, Cynthia. Don't worry. I won't need to implement my evil plot unless Fake Director Quincy and Agent Wannabe Gibbs come back."

Cynthia made a face and leaned on the table. "Ugh, Quincy was horrible. I used to think Agent DiNozzo was the worst it could get around here in terms of sexual harassment, but at least with him you always know he's kidding. It was getting to the point where I was scared to be in the same room with Quincy. Well, maybe not scared, but nervous anyway. Oh, and I don't know if Director Shepard told you, but all the formal reprimands you got while she was gone have been taken out of your record."

"Really?"

"I shredded them myself."

Abby rushed to hug Cynthia. "Thank you! You didn't have to come all the way down here to tell me that, but thank you!"

"I actually came to ask how the case is going. The Director is getting a lot of pressure from all sides to resolve this quickly."

"She should probably ask Gibbs," McGee said uneasily. "He doesn't like it when we, um, go above him."

"That's why she sent me instead of coming down herself," Cynthia replied, winking. "I'll tell her you're on the verge of a breakthrough and you'll let her know the instant you have it."

McGee was typing rapidly. "You can tell her we just sent out a BOLO with a picture of the guy who shot our lieutenant."

"We did?" Abby asked, spinning to look at the computer screen.

"Yeah, I used that enhanced still you made a few minutes ago."

"Of course you did. Want a copy to show off to the Director, Cynthia?"

"Just email it to me."

"But hard copies are so much more impressive! McGee! Print the lady a copy of the BOLO."

"Thanks." Cynthia picked up a plastic bag and examined its contents, a leaf-eater biscuit with a few drops of blood on it that had been collected at the scene. "So Officer David is coming back this week?"

"Yup. The band is getting back together."

"That's good. That things will be all the way back to normal, I mean." She accepted the paper McGee handed her and walked to the door before turning for one last question. "You don't really have a band, do you?"

"Well, I don't. I can't speak for the mission impossible team up in the squad room. Next time there's a super secret mission, it's gonna be me, Ducky and you, Cynthia."

"Okaaaay. You two have a pleasant day."

McGee began to protest even before Cynthia was gone, "Abby, I've told you it's classified and we're not allowed to talk about what happened while we were away."

She started pacing. "Well it had to involve Moussad, because Ziva was working for them and you guys all hooked up somewhere. You ended up in Israel, and you were both in the same hospital at the same time, so you both got shot on the same mission."

"Abby, stop."

"Aha! You wouldn't be trying to silence me unless I was getting close. So it was some kind of joint mission in France, because that's where you started investigating that dead petty officer, and Israel, because that's where you were hospitalized. Did it involve terrorists? If you don't answer, I'll know it involved terrorists." She waited for him to say something, but he remained focused on the computer. "Right. Terrorists. Did you foil some kind of bombing?"

"We didn't do anything, Abby." She turned slowly to face Gibbs. "And you need to stop torturing McGee for information he's not allowed to give you. What've you got from the tapes?"

She hunched her shoulders slightly and allowed McGee to answer the question. "We got a clear view of the shooter's face, which we sent out on the BOLO a few minutes ago. There was nothing but pictures of animals and the family on the digital camera and the computer's still tracing all the calls made on the cell phone in the past few days."

"Good, let me know when you have something."

He'd taken a few rapid strides toward the door when Abby said, "We may have something!" She pointed him to footage playing on the plasma.

He squinted at the screen. "All I see is pandas running around."

"Cute, huh? They're like…penguins."

McGee's upper lip disappeared as he pondered the simile. "Because they're black and white?"

"No, because they're, like, too cute to be real. And besides, lots of penguins have other colors on them, like yellows and reds. Anyway, did you see March of the Penguins?"

"This is probably a conversation you should have with Tony."

"Don't worry, I will. Think of this as rehearsal."

"You need to rehearse your conversations with Tony?"

"Stop trying to get me off the subject, McGee! So, penguin movie. There's about a whole twenty minutes there when I was convinced all the penguin chicks were really just robotic stuffed animals some weird filmmaker put in with the real adult penguins. God, penguins with the way they walk and slide on their bellies and hatch all cute and fuzzy…"

"You're not talking about the nuns again, are you Abby?" Tony walked into the lab, buttoning his shirt.

Gibbs paused just before his hand came in contact with Tony's head. "Nuns?"

"Long story, boss. What's happening on PandaCam?" This time Tony did get slapped. "What? That's what the Zoo calls the whole panda voyeurism experience."

"Yeah, no one's explained to me why we're watching pandas frolic around."

Abby's fingers paused over the keyboard. "Frolic, Gibbs?"

"What?"

"It's just not a word I expected to hear from you, that's all. Anyway, we're not actually watching the pandas, we're watching the crowd. The shooter is visible around the railings of the panda exhibit all morning. There." She fast-forwarded the video. "There…and again there. He's there for almost two hours prior to Lt. Miller and his family arriving."

"He was waiting for them?" Gibbs continued squinting at the screen, following the shooter's progress.

"Maybe, but how did he know they'd be coming to the panda exhibit?"

"Because everyone goes to see the pandas?" Tony rationalized.

"Okay, answer-man. Explain this one." She pulled up one of the angles of the actual murder. "The bad guy is standing by the railing, like, two or three people over from Lt. Miller. Everybody is watching the baby panda climb the tree, but Miller looks to his left and sees the bad guy's gun. He pushes his wife and kids further away, then moves around behind the gunman. It looks like he tries to talk to the guy, maybe get him to come away from the crowd or something, and the bad guy grabs him. They struggle for a few seconds before anyone notices that something's wrong, because, oh my God, the adorable baby panda everyone came to see is awkwardly climbing a tree that's bending under his weight, isn't that cute…"

"Abs…"

"Right." She rewound the video a few frames. "So as soon as the bad guy notices that people are noticing, he starts trying to aim at Miller with the gun. Once he's got an angle, he fires and pushes Miller over the railing. People start fleeing with the gunshot, and the bad guy just gets lost in the crowd."

"So Miller wasn't the target."

"Doesn't look like it. I have a theory, though."

"I'm waiting, Abby."

"What if he wasn't looking for a person?"

"He just brought a gun to the Zoo and waited in the panda exhibit all morning for the hell of it?"

"No, Gibbs…I mean what if someone put a hit on," she paused for dramatic effect, "the baby panda!"

"Yeah, maybe Tai Shan has a gambling problem and since the loan shark can't get in there to break his legs, he decided to just shoot him," Tony said sarcastically.

"Maybe he was going to try and kneecap him."

"McGee!" Gibbs tone was a stern reprimand and McGee was sufficiently cowed by it.

"Sorry."

"You guys can mock my brilliant insight all you want, but when this turns out to be an elaborate scheme to provoke the Chinese, you will all come crawling back to me. Well, if there's any forensic evidence to be analyzed and we're not all screaming in panic. The pandas are technically property of China, so this could be political. Or a terrorist attack! What could be worse than killing a cute baby animal? Pandacide would not only create diplomatic problems with China, but it would break the collective heart of America." Abby returned the odd looks she was getting from her colleagues. "Y'know, I've been watching the PandaCam footage all afternoon, so forgive me if I seem a little panda-ly inclined. They really are cute. Wanna hear my story about the penguins?"

"Not again, Abs." Gibbs left the lab with Tony and McGee close on his heels.

She went back to the video to try and figure out which exit the shooter had used. "Guess I won't be giving live puppies as Christmas presents next year."