Author's Note: I hate to do this, I don't like to interrupt the flow of the story. But I forgot to add this at the beginning. I don't know anything about MI-5. I'm just sort of winging it with that. So for any of you reading who know something about it, I apologize if I'm totally off base.
The size of the room made even conversation difficult for the eight current occupants, so Wilson herded his makeshift team out into the hallway to an alcove about thirty feet away. As he turned to leave, however, he wanted Gibbs to know what the rules of play would be for this experiment.
"You are entitled to recover any evidence in this room, save for items clearly belonging to our operative. Those must be left untouched for my team to gather."
"This is ridiculous," Gibbs growled. "How am I supposed to conduct a thorough investigation if I can't have access to all of the evidence?"
"Agent Gibbs, I'm sure your director has briefed you—"
Gibbs cut Wilson off with an upraised hand. "My director gave me the order. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
Wilson sighed, imagining his own frustration had the Yanks not decided to play things his way. A conciliatory gesture wouldn't cut it with this man, though – he needed nothing less than honesty. "Look, I'm not trying to hinder your investigation. Matter of fact, my superiors have made it clear to me that I may not."
"Sure as hell wasn't what you were saying when you first got here," Gibbs replied with the smallest of grins.
"Yes, well. We all have our orders, I suppose." He paused a moment, then added, "I want their killer brought to justice as much as you do. But there are issues of national security that I may not breach. I hope you understand."
Gibbs inclined his head, a small gesture. Wilson nodded in return, grateful for the other man's acceptance, though perhaps grudgingly given, of the situation. Then he turned to his team in the hall, feeling the waves of frustration rolling off them.
"Sir! When will we be allowed in there? We need to process—"
A slight shake of Wilson's head cut off Rhian's statement and a look passed between Tony and Ziva.
'—her belongings." Rhian finished, glancing at the two Americans.
Ziva commented on it first. "You cannot even say her name?"
"We'd rather not. We don't know who might be listening, and until we know why she died, well, there are reasons," Wilson explained quietly. To Rhian he said, "Why don't you go stand by the door and watch?"
She smiled her thanks and grabbed a sketchpad that had been leaning against the wall before taking up a position in front of the door to the room. Tony glanced over his shoulder then turned and walked slowly over to stand with her.
Ziva shook her head and simply leaned back against the wall. "I'll wait here," she muttered and Wilson sighed.
"I'm off to interview the neighboring rooms to see what they heard last night. If there are any problems, do let me know."
Ziva grinned. "Problems, as in real problems? Or problems as in Tony problems?"
Wilson grimaced. "Gibbs did this deliberately, didn't he?"
Ziva laughed lightly. "I'll keep an eye on him. Go." She made a shooing motion with her hand and Wilson had an awful feeling that what had been a fine plan in theory was going to turn out to be a true disaster in reality.
Gibbs surveyed the room one more time. The look on his face said he seemed to feel that his new team had things rather well under control. Walking over to McGee, he told the agent, "I'm going to go start interviewing the neighboring rooms. Remember, we can't take anything belonging to the woman. Of course, he didn't say anything about flashing it."
Gibbs headed toward the door as Tim turned back to his task of flashing the scene when one of the two British agents spoke up.
"Agent McGee?"
Tim let the camera rest back against his chest and turned to answer Walter, who at the moment was across the room, next to the desk. "Did you have a problem, Agent Sinclair?"
"Um… I don't know what your procedures are for handling this." He indicated a small brass trashcan to the left of the desk.
"What's in it?" Tim asked, stepping closer to the can to get a better look. What he saw made Walter's question completely understandable: fragments of thick blackened paper topped with fine white ash. This would take careful handling if there was any possibility of getting anything usable from it.
Gibbs had stepped up behind Tim and Walter. Now he looked over the two men's shoulders. "Get that whole can to Abby. Might be too far gone to recover, but anything she can get us will be a plus." He looked up at both agents. "Good find, Sinclair." He gave a sharp nod then continued out the door, pushing past Tony and Rhian standing in the way.
Rhian, meanwhile, stood at the door, futilely trying to sketch the scene. She worked quickly as she craned her head to see around the agents in the room, trying to note the placement of the objects that remained.
Tony stood next to her and smiled, his sketchpad under his arm. "I've already done that. And mine are more complete." He held onto his smile as she turned a nasty look on him. Casually he opened his pad and flipped to his first sketch, which he pretended to study. Then he glanced at hers as she went back to drawing desperately.
An elevator ding caught their attention. "Better hurry," he said, turning back to her with a grin. "Here comes Ducky to remove the bodies."
She was forced to back out of the doorway to allow the gurneys in, and then again as the other team gave Ducky and Jimmy room to work. Once everyone had exchanged positions, Rhian stepped back into the doorway, still trying to draw.
Tony was right by her side, his voice irritatingly in her ear as he held out his drawings. "You know what you're missing, don't you? The placement of her jewelry. It was still on that night table." He paused and flipped a page in his book and cocked his head to study yet another sketch. "Of course, it's already been bagged and tagged for evidence. But, then, you'd know that if you hadn't been late to the scene, wouldn't you?"
He flipped to another page. "Oh, and the gun," he added, as if it were an afterthought. "Right there in the middle of the bed." He tapped a finger against his drawing and glanced sidelong at her to see her slowly tear the page from her sketchbook, fury evident on her face.
He turned and smiled at her. "If you're nice to me," he said, as she crumpled the half finished drawing in disgust, "I'll share mine with you." She threw the wadded paper at him, then flung her hair over her shoulder and turned away pointedly as Ducky called out to the small crowd in the hallway.
"Would there be two of you who wouldn't mind giving us a hand wheeling these gurneys down? It's either that or one has to sit in the room while we take the one down and—"
"Not a problem, Doctor. I'd be delighted to help you," Edward spoke up.
Tim also volunteered. "Sure Ducky, anything that gets us all out of here sooner."
"Thank you, boys," the doctor said with a smile.
Ziva, who had remained silent throughout the varied exchanges, pushed off from the wall as the second gurney cleared the doorway. "It seems to me that it must be our turn now, yes?"
Tim protested as the brunette walked into the room. "Ziva! We're not done in there yet!"
Tony grinned as Rhian strode in behind Ziva. "Too bad, Probie. Looks like we get a shot at it now." Then he followed his new team into the room.
Rhian went straight to the foot of the bed where the couple's suitcases sat side by side. Snapping on gloves, she quickly flipped over the ID tags on the handle of the first suitcase. She gave a slight nod and picked it up then laid it on the bed and flipped it open.
She had quite obviously chosen the woman's suitcase and she began to give the contents a cursory examination. Tony was at her side instantly. First, he reached for the handle of the bag, intent on reading the tag. She slapped his hand away, glaring at him, but not before he read the words "British Embassy, NYC USA" on it.
Then he leaned in next to her as she quickly but carefully lifted up several garments in the bag. Spotting a piece of black silk and lace lingerie, he snagged it and held it up, commenting, "Sexy."
Across the room, Ziva snickered. "I do not think it is your size, Tony."
Rhian shot him an appalled look and snatched the object from his fingers, but Tony merely shrugged and smiled. "It was obviously a romantic meeting. You don't bring lacy things like that for a business one. Well, I suppose it depends on the business."
Rhian's mouth fell open for a moment before she snapped it shut, doing the same to the suitcase. "This goes with us," she stated matter-of-factly. She turned and headed for the door.
"Hold on, that's part of the physical evidence. That goes back to NCIS." Tony stepped neatly in front of her, blocking her path.
Rhian sighed and looked up at him. "Yes, but it was hers. That means it's ours." She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if she were explaining it to a child, then moved to step around him. He blocked her path again and this time her glare carried more heat. "Get out of my way!"
"Sorry. The evidence goes back to Abby's lab." Tony gave her a grin as he matched her move for move, his body always remaining between Rhian and the door.
"Why Tony, you dance quite well." Ziva said in a teasing tone. "But I do not think the waltz goes quite like that."
Tony moved again to block an increasingly frustrated Rhian. "Funny. Just go find Gibbs."
Ziva was mere feet from the door when Wilson and Gibbs appeared in the doorway. Before she could explain the sight that greeted them, the other woman shouted out in fury.
"Sir! I demand that you come in here and get this… person away from me. Immediately!
Gibbs and Wilson hurried into the room to find Tony and Rhian standing eighteen inches apart, her bristling with anger and him with a rather amused smile on his face.
"DiNozzo!"
"Not my fault, Boss. She wanted to remove evidence from the scene," motioning to the suitcase Rhian carried. "All I did was block her exit. I never touched her."
Rhian stifled a scream and tried one more time to head for the door as Tony slid in front of her once more. "That's still not going anywhere."
The blonde agent took a deep breath and calmed herself, then turned to address her superior. "Sir, it's hers. That means it's ours."
Wilson looked at Gibbs. "She's right. It comes with us."
Gibbs ground out unhappily, "Unfortunately she's right, DiNozzo." He shifted his eyes to Wilson. "I want a complete inventory of that bag and access to everything in it, the second you've finished going through it." Without taking his eyes off his British counterpart, Gibbs shot, "You got that, DiNozzo?"
"Yeah, Boss." Tony smiled down at Rhian and stepped away, extending a gentlemanly arm. She gave him the same evil stare she bestowed on her partner earlier and headed toward the door.
"Oh, and Tony?" Gibbs' voice caught the other man's attention.
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Good work."
Tony beamed at the accolade, but noticed that Rhian had paused on her way to the door, near the table that held the evidence collection box. He stepped closer to see what had caught her attention this time and was surprised when she thrust the suitcase into his hands. "Here, make yourself useful," she muttered.
"What do I look like, a servant?" he sniped back at her. But she ignored him in favor of poking through the various sealed evidence bags.
"What did you do with the rest of her jewelry?" Rhian said over her shoulder, holding up one bag, containing a bracelet and earrings.
"What do you mean, 'the rest of her jewelry'? That's all there was, just that bracelet and earrings," he told her as Ziva joined them.
Rhian shook her head. "She had a locket. Small, about an inch and a half gold oval, with her initials engraved on it. She also had a ring."
"There was no locket—" Ziva began.
"Then they've been stolen, haven't they?" she bit out.
"Maybe she didn't wear them," Tony challenged.
Rhian shook her head emphatically. "She never goes anywhere without her locket and her ring."
Wilson walked over, camera in hand. "What's this now?"
Rhian pushed around a couple of the evidence bags in front of her as she answered. "Her locket and ring have been stolen."
"Appear to have been stolen," Tony cut in quickly, leaning on the words.
"Were stolen." Rhian flicked a nasty look in his direction before looking up at her superior.
"All right, we'll handle it. Lawton, and you two— what are your names again?"
Ziva spoke up, "David and DiNozzo."
"Right, you lot, then, come on. We're done here. NCSI—"
"NCIS," Tony corrected automatically.
"—will finish up and we'll videoconference with them later. Right now we have work to do back at the Embassy." Wilson turned abruptly and walked out, Lawton at his heels. Tony and Ziva shared a sigh and followed after them.
