Disclaimer: See Chapter One.
Chapter Ten
There was a race back to the AFP Headquarters building and up to the floor their assigned conference room was on. The tech that had been tracking the funds was waiting for them, his findings already displayed up on the plasma screen.
"What have you got, Hassan?" Samantha asked immediately.
"Tracked about a third of the money to a deal at the Chinatown Currency Exchange in central Singapore," Hassan replied, bringing up the location on the map.
"How much is a third?" Jenny asked pertinently.
"Two hundred and forty thousand Australian dollars," Hassan replied. "One hundred and ninety-three thousand, nine hundred and sixty-eight American dollars."
"He got through customs with that much cash?" Gibbs spat out. "How?"
"Lead casing a portion of his luggage, perhaps," Ziva answered, even though the question was directed at the Australian Federal Police tech. "Any number of ways, Gibbs. He may have been body-packing some of it."
"Do we have an ID on the he?" Gibbs asked, this time not directing his question at anyone in particular.
"With that expansive amount of cash, it's required," Hassan replied. "Julian Farrow. British passport."
"Booth, check out this Farrow character," Gibbs ordered. "Compare him to the visual we've got on the collector from Martin Place yesterday. When did this happen?"
"Three hours ago," Hassan replied. "It is hard to track so much money all over the world. This was the soonest we could trace it."
"It looks like we're going to Singapore. David, call your contacts. DiNozzo, flights. Brennan," he paused for a second, unsure of what to tell her to do, "go help your partner."
"Do you have contacts in Singapore?" Jenny asked Ziva.
"I'm sure that my contacts have contacts," Ziva replied with a smile, and then ducked out of the room to make a phone call.
"Right, Julian Marcus Farrow, British citizen from Nottingham, born 16th June 1973," Hassan announced, pulling the man's passport photo up on the plasma screen while Brennan and Booth abandoned their search and paid attention to what he'd learnt. "Not the same guy that received the money yesterday. Haven't got an ID on him yet. He's probably still in the country. Farrow flew out of Sydney last night and landed in Singapore this morning. Checked into the Shangri-La and checked out an hour ago. Got nothing else on him at the moment."
"Keep on it," Gibbs told him and Hassan nodded.
Ziva came back into the room with a content smile on her face. "I spoke to Superintendent Royan Chen of the Criminal Investigation Division. He found at least one hundred thousand Australian dollars this morning in a warehouse in downtown Singapore alone with the bodies of three women and a man that matches the description of the man that picked up the money yesterday."
"He must've slipped past customs," Samantha muttered, then turned to Hassan. "I want a list of everyone that was on Farrow's flight to Singapore last night."
"Superintendent Chen is expecting us," Ziva added, directing her comment at Gibbs.
"Got us seats on a flight to Singapore leaving Sydney International tomorrow at 1030 hours, boss," Tony announced as he came back into the room. "Singapore Airlines and their A380."
"I am sure that you're pleased about this, Tony," Ziva said with a smile.
"Why don't you enjoy the afternoon and night off," Jenny suggested. "You've been working for four days straight."
"Yes!" Tony cheered. "I want to visit the zoo."
"Taronga Zoo?" Ethan asked.
"I want to see the platypuses," Tony told him. "Or is it platypi? Platypuses? Platypi?"
"Platypuses," Ethan clarified.
"No, I'm pretty sure that it's platypi," Baker put in.
"Enough," Gibbs roared over the top of them. "This offer is not coming up twice. Get outta here. I want you in the lobby of our hotel at 0700 tomorrow morning."
"Gotcha, boss," Tony called out cheerily, and he left the room with Ziva, Brennan and Booth. The Australians, Ethan and Baker, followed behind them, having been assigned the duty of escorting them around the city.
"You really think that was wise, Jen?" Gibbs asked as he slumped back in the chair that he'd previously occupied.
Jenny hadn't moved from her seat. "They've been working for more than three days straight. It's not exactly legal, Jethro." She looked up from her computer and met the glare on his face. "There's not much we can do until we get to the scene in Singapore tomorrow."
"Hawking?"
"You're welcome to have another go at him," Samantha told him. "After all, we need the name for John Doe in Singapore."
"He won't give it," Gibbs maintained. "Let him stew for a little longer and get your guys from ASIO to have another go at him tomorrow afternoon."
"Of course," Samantha replied sardonically. "I love taking orders from chauvinist American cops from the other side of the world."
"Thank you, Detective Harris," Jenny commended, knowing that the Australian would do it anyway. She shot Gibbs a dark look.
He shrugged back at her.
"So who blew up Hawking's apartment?" Samantha asked, hoping for some conclusive and plausible suggestions.
"There will have to be an active faction of the Knights working here in Sydney," Jenny proposed. "They set up the money and the meet, and destroyed any evidence that would be left in Hawking's apartment."
"Any ideas how to find this active faction?"
"None whatsoever," Jenny replied heartily.
"In that case, I'm gonna put three guards on Hawking all the time," Samantha announced, and left the room to do so.
Gibbs didn't watch her leave the room—he was too busy focusing on Jenny at work. His 'spidey senses' were going off, and he knew that something was up with her. "What is it, Jen? Spill."
Jenny looked up from her laptop immediately and gave him a strange glare. "A decision to make."
"Okay..."
Jenny sighed as the truth came spilling, quite unintentionally, from her mouth. "My director side is telling me that we need notify Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, Interpol, Hell, everyone, of a potential grand-scale terrorist attack. My agent side is telling me that if we do that, there's a very good chance that a number of the people we alert are involved in it. We'll never know what hit us."
"This is all based on Tony's testimony," Gibbs reminded her.
"Are you saying you don't trust him?"
"No, I do. But I'm saying that he may not know what's going to happen," Gibbs explained. "How do we know for sure?"
"Of course, Jethro. This whole thing's a coincidence." She glared at him, her expression matching her tone. "Four bodies so far! These guys aren't sloppy. They've gone for centuries without detection. And now? It's typical behaviour of terrorist sleeper cells right before an attack, you know that. This is coming. And it's coming soon."
---
Ziva was amazed at how much a man in his mid-thirties could enjoy a trip to the zoo. She had to admit, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, even though there was a heavy feeling weighing on her heart, one that she suspected had nothing to do with the case. She was still thinking about what Tony had told her the night before.
"I always want to kiss you."
She wondered if he remembered saying it. Maybe she should have let him kiss her. Maybe she should have given into the demands of her heart. But the logical side that had been nurtured during her upbringing and training won out yet again, and she shied away from her feelings, burying them deep in the icebox that had only really warmed up since she joined NCIS.
"Hey, Ziva," Tony called out to her, slashing through her thoughts. She looked up at him unexpectedly. "Let's get a photo holding the koala bear."
"Koala," Baker corrected irately. "It's not a bear."
Ziva sighed and joined him in the photo. She felt Tony place an arm around her waist while the zoo keeper put the animal on her chest. Tony, somewhat protectively, put his other arm on Ziva's to hold up the koala.
"Most of the one hundred and forty species of Australian marsupials are endemic only to his continent," Brennan announced to nobody in particular as Tony and Ziva their photo.
"Yeah, I learnt that at school," Ethan commented.
"The koala non-bear, the platypuses slash platypi..." Booth began, waiting for someone to finish off his list.
"Platypuses aren't marsupials," Brennan told him. "They're monotremes."
The look on Booth's confused face, which practically screamed 'what the Hell is that' went unanswered as Tony and Ziva came back from their photo.
"So I've got tickets for us for tonight," Ethan announced.
"Cargo Bar again?" Tony asked.
"There's a party there tonight," Ethan replied, and received a slap on the arm from Baker for his trouble.
"Not the Home and Away 21st Birthday Party?!" she asked incredulously. "How did you get tickets?!"
"I know a guy," Ethan smirked. "And I told him that I was bringing American guests, including the best-selling crime novelist, Dr Temperance Brennan." He turned to her and made excessive hand gestures. "So you're coming, else none of can get in."
"Party with Sydney's A-list?" Tony asked as he walked ahead of the group with Ethan.
"Sort of," Ethan replied and then nudged Tony's ribs. "There'll be lots of hot girls just waiting to meet a foreign accent."
"Ah, there's only one foreign accent I'm interested in," Tony muttered.
Author's Notes: You know how much I wanted tickets to the Home and Away 21st B'day?! 2DayFM was giving them away. Now I haven't seen the soap since the earlier part of this decade and I doubt it could've changed very much but I still really wanted to go. Alas, I'm sick anyway. I'm updating this one tonight and I actually had to split one chapter into two, else the other would've been way over three or four thousand words. Next chapter... some light Tiva, some light BB and some seriously heavy Jibbs. I figured I'd start with the romantic portion of this fic and get the first couple introduced into the thick of it. Stay tuned.