Chapter 9

McGee was glad to be back at his desk. The car had been wiped clean, there were no prints, and it looked as if it had been recently vacuumed. As frustrating as it was for them to come away nearly empty handed, McGee was sure if there was a single shred of evidence in that car, Abby would find it.

It had been an exhausting and confusing two days. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering when the next shoe was going to drop.

The past two days had left him wondering if there was something going on that everybody was in on, but he was either excluded from or just not getting it. First Tony spent nearly a whole day being nice to him, then Gibbs goes on calling him Tim and bringing him coffee and to top it off, something was up with Abby, too.

When they had arrived just behind the tow truck delivering her evidence, Abby had none of her standard reactions to new evidence. There was no excited chattering, no bouncing around the vehicle to determine the best place to start.

She was ready in her coveralls when they walked in. Slipping rubber gloves on her hands and popping the trunk, she turned to her work without a word to either of them.

"Everything alright, Abby?" he had asked.

"Not now, Tim. I'm busy." she said, intently working through the trunk with tweezers and evidence bags.

Tim looked over his shoulder to Gibbs who was signing the car into evidence, before he walked up behind Abby and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him and he saw the redness around her eyes, she had been crying, but what was there for her to be so upset about?

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I said not now, McGee." the tone of her voice as she made a point to use his last name instead of his first caused him to drop his hand instantly as effective as if she had physically pushed him away.

He looked at his shoes for a moment, then shuffled towards the elevator calling over to Gibbs, "I'm going to go and check on the searches I'm running at my desk."

Oh yeah, nothing like a random mental tangent down misery-lane reminiscence to remind him why he'd come upstairs, or at least why he'd said he was coming up.

McGee turned to his computer, going through files and records that had come back from his various searches. After several minutes of scouring through computer files and public records McGee's blood ran suddenly cold. He pulled up the flight schedule, they had just missed their plane. He changed the tickets over to the next available flight, sending the info to his phone so he could confirm the tickets after convincing Gibbs that they needed to be in Miami with Ziva and DiNozzo.

McGee sent the other documents to his iPhone as well and bolted for the elevator.

The elevator doors opened on the evidence garage and McGee was surprised to see it had been vacated. When he had been here a few minutes earlier there were half a dozen more people working on various projects throughout the room.

And then it all clicked when he saw Abby and Gibbs staring each other down on the other side of the Stratus. He had been on the receiving end from both of them. He knew first hand that the two going at each other would have been enough to drive anyone out of the large room, though he would have given just about anything to be there for the showdown.

What the hell was Abby having a showdown with Gibbs over? He cast the thoughts aside as he considered Tony and Ziva and the new found evidence on his phone.

"Boss?" his voice sounded sheepish, even in his own head. Both sets of angry eyes turned on him in an instant. Man, up. He told himself, but the words didn't form.

"What do you got, McGee?"

He couldn't completely quell the inherent cringe that he experienced at the tone Gibbs used to ask, but he pushed on rather then stand there in awkward silence. Pulling his phone out he laid it on the table between the two and started recapping what he'd come across moments before, occassionally tapping at the screen to change the image or document.

"Kyle Rodriguez has an older brother, Tyson Rodriguez, who is doing some time in prison right now on possession with intent to distribute charges, his father is under investigation by both the ATF and the FBI, I couldn't get much, but it seems to come back to drugs there as well, however they have several open cases, but are unable to get any of them to stick."

McGee changed documents again, knowing Gibbs probably couldn't see a thing on his phone screen, but going through the motions more for calming, routine, and Abby then for his boss.

"Dominic's other friend, Jake Boyle, has no criminal record, but has had an interesting year."

Gibbs got that impatient look that told Tim to stop telling a story and give him the facts, but McGee continued without wavering, "12 months ago, Jake was an honor role student, now he is getting straight C's. He was on the school football and basketball teams but no longer participates, and get this, when he dropped everything else in his life, guess which one sport he kept up with?"

Both of the others in the room just stared at him, and stupid guy, he just stared right back? Was he actually expecting them to guess like this was some form of 20 questions? Tim shook his head and clicked over to a picture. "Boat racing."

Abby's eyes grew wide and then narrowed again as she pointed them at Gibbs, "Now will you listen to me?"

"McGee, get us on the next plane to Miami."

McGee reached around to his phoned touching the screen "Done, Boss, we should be out of here in an hour if we want to grab a few things before heading to the airport."

Gibbs nodded, reaching over and squeezing Abby's hand with just a hint of a smile before heading for the elevator. "Get that info to DiNozzo and David."

Abby gave a little excited squeal and jumped into McGee's arms. What was wrong with people this week? He wondered at the roller-coaster that seemed to be riding roughshod through his tired mind.

Twenty minutes ago Abby had been shoving him away with an angry look and now she was squeezing him so hard he thought he may stop breathing. Not that he'd ever tell Tony he was right, but in that moment, Tim knew the older agent was. Women were confusing and he didn't understand them at all.

xoxo

Tony had pulled the car up just outside the hotel, ready to head inside and get a little research done, when Ziva's phone rang, "David."

She listened for a moment as he watched her and then reached her hand over to stop him from turning off the car. Giving him directions to the marina where Jake Boyle's boat was docked and filling him in on the details McGee had given her.

"Gibbs and McGee will be here in about 3 hours."

"Should we wait for them to check this out?"

Ziva shook her head, "We know where Jake and his friends are right now, less dangerous to go while they are preoccupied then to wait and give them a chance to jump and run with the boat and whatever is on it."

"What's the plan?"

"That was McGee on the phone, he was all facts and little instruction."

"So, feeling like a stroll on a pier this fun spring afternoon? Oops if we happen across something while we're their."

It only took about 10 minutes to get to the Marina, where Tony made quick work of finding a parking spot. They strolled, seemingly casually, down the dock, eyes peeled for any kind of activity as they looked for the slip number where the boy's boat was docked.

"That," Tony said with a whistle of appreciation, "was not what I was expecting."

"This is a race boat?" Ziva asked, her brow furrowed trying to connect the facts with the large structure in front of her.

"That is a race yacht." he corrected.

The plank was down, but they had noted no activity indicating anyone was on or near the boat since they had arrived. "Looks like someone may have broken in." she said quietly, popping the snap securing her gun and resting her hand there, ready to pull it on a seconds notice.

Tony took her lead, following suit and added, "We had better check it out, could be a burglary."

And the issue of probable cause was solved, in their heads at least. A lawyer would probably have a field day with it. If they discovered anything they would just have to leave it be and keep watch until Gibbs could get down here, rustle up a warrant and intimidate a confession out of the young man.

The two agents stepped onto the gently rocking deck of the boat, pulling their weapons and communicating silently as they quickly swept the top side to make sure no one was there. Tony started down the narrow stair way first, descending into the darkness of the lower deck. The stairs came down to nearly the middle of the boat and at the bottom they broke off, Ziva heading towards the bow while Tony took the Stern side.

Tony quickly swept the single room that looked like it had probably been designed as a bedroom, but converted to some kind of dining area with a large table and a few chairs scattered around. "Clear!" he called and heard her call the same a moment later.

Holstering his weapon he began to take in the room a little more closely, the equipment, the supplies, that fine dust across the table, was that what he thought it was? Tony reached out a gloved finger, swiping across the surface before touching just the tip of his tongue to his finger. "Cocaine." he said to himself as he pulled the gloves off, tucking them back in his pocket and crossing the ship to tell Ziva they were going to need to get that warrant for sure.

He walked through the doorway talking, "Found some Coke on a table in the. . ." he stopped suddenly, staring at her.

Ziva was hunched over something on the floor, he could tell she was tense, but was doing that ninja mind trick where she focused her breathing and remained calm despite whatever the hell the stresser was that had set her shoulders so firmly. He couldn't see what she was doing with her body blocking the way so he walked right up next to her.

She was reaching her hands into a secret compartment, a two foot by two foot hole in the middle of the floor that had probably been covered with that board leaning against the wall over there.

He still couldn't see what she was doing so he crossed to the other side to get a view around her hands and stopped dead in his tracks. There, in the middle of the floor with Ziva's skillful little hands working at it was a blue oil drum with a brick of C-4 and a cell phone attached with various wires and components.

"Ziva, we need to get out of here." he couldn't hide the edge to his voice.

"It is not even activated, I can disarm this, then we go wait for Gibbs and the warrant."

He watched as she very gently adjusted a wire here or another there, looking over the handy work, trying to deduce a weakness.

She pulled one of her hands back out of the hole reaching inside the cargo pocket on her olive green pants to pull out a flash light.

She handed it to him, "Point that for me." she examined some more, "A little to the left, no, back the other way again. Yeah, that is it. That is the spot, right there."

"I love it when a woman tells me how she likes it."

She smirked at him, and then all seriousness went back to the work at hand.

"Next time try saying it a little huskier."

"Tony," he voice was low and wispy.

"Yeah, like that."

"Tony!" she said more forcefully to get his attention this time and he snapped back to the seriousness at hand. Ziva held out a hand to him, "Your knife? Mine is too big."

Before Tony could reach for the knife on his belt or think of a cunning remark to the "mine is bigger then yours is" conversation Ziva had accidentally fumbled into, the small compartment lit with a blue glow that was definitely not from the flashlight in his hands and the phone inside trilled a whimsical tune.

Tony only had a second to wonder, If I die now is that song going to be stuck in my head for all eternity?