Abby crossed her arms over her chest and looked at McGee over her table. She'd given herself the dual assignment of cheering him up and analyzing the evidence. The latter looked like the less daunting of the tasks. "Okay, we'll start with the stuff that would be easiest to fake and work our way up. Remember, we're dealing with Moussad here, so we've got to think creatively."
He nodded, the light in the lab highlighting the fact that he was still distinctly green from some angles. "Yeah. Creatively." His voice was completely flat.
"We'll start with the jewelry." She held up the first plastic bag. "Gold Star of David pendant on a gold chain – anyone who's ever seen Ziva knows she wears one like this. Easy to fake. And this," she seized a second bag, "is, like, a generic men's stainless steel analog watch with a black face."
"Tony doesn't wear a generic watch. He wears a TAG Heuer."
"Like this one! See, this is good McGee!"
"Wouldn't it be better if we could be sure it isn't Tony's watch?" he moaned.
"Tim! Loosen up! You told me that Gibbs told you they aren't really dead! You should be bouncing off the walls with happiness right now!"
"Did you ever think that Gibbs could be wrong?"
"McGee! Do not blaspheme! What were we talking about?" She looked down and saw that the bag with the watch was still in her hand. "Oh, Moussad! Okay, think of it this way – would Ziva put the wrong watch on someone whose death she was faking?"
"I don't know. I guess not." His tone indicated that he wasn't sharing her absolute faith in Gibbs at the moment.
It didn't matter; the forensics would find the way to convince him. Abby continued, "She wouldn't. And we're dealing with Ziva to the nth power here. I think we can put line through confirmation by jewelry." She leaned forward and did just that with a thick black marker on the list she'd compiled prior to setting out on her mission to prove the evidence wrong. She realized that it was an odd assignment to give herself, but it was really no different than proving the authenticity of the evidence she normally processed.
McGee picked up the bag with the Star of David. "He wore this when she was…when we were in Europe."
"Not even top secret information about your mission in France can distract me right now." She paused. Now probably would be the best time to perform an interrogation on that particular subject, which had been quietly driving her crazy for months. She shook her head. Focus on your mission. "Moving on…we've got NCIS ID cards and badges. If we were dealing with some rinky-dink operation, this would be very disheartening, but, once again, it's Moussad. They could have a whole underground factory mass-producing these things. College students are probably using these to buy beer as we speak. No worries there."
"Guess not." His eyes didn't seem focused as she crossed the second item off her list.
She wheeled a chair over to the table for him before continuing, "Next, weapons. We've got two SIG Sauers, probably too damaged to confirm by firing or…" she squinted as she inspected the two guns in cardboard boxes, "serial numbers. What's wrong with this picture?"
"We can't tell if they're Tony and Ziva's service weapons."
"You really aren't feeling creative today, Tim. We'll try again…what's missing?"
He sighed heavily. "The ring."
She blinked. "We already covered jewelry, and since when does either Tony or Ziva wear a ring?"
"Gibbs has an engagement ring."
"Gibbs is getting married again?" Visions of herself drunk at the reception flooded her mind, which seemed to be having a vicarious drunken fling because she was completely unable to picture a bride.
"No…it's Tony's. Gibbs found it with the note that said Moussad was there."
Abby backed up, holding her hands away from her body. "Hold on. Tony has a ring? For Ziva? Already?"
"Saw it this morning." McGee was nodding slowly, like a sad bobblehead. "Seemed like kind of a small diamond, but I think it's probably more about what Ziva would actually wear versus the cost of…" His breath caught in his throat. "I bet they would have eloped and told us all a few months after they actually did it. And it would have come out awkwardly, like Tony would have been asking someone in accounting to look over their taxes and we would have found out when the rumor was spread…"
She felt him jump as she hugged him from behind. He was really off if he hadn't noticed her coming up in back of him. "Tim, for all we know this is an elaborate ruse and they're exchanging 'I dos' in Tel Aviv right now. As for us…well, we need to answer my question about the weapons." She let go and circled around to the opposite side of the table.
"You already said they're SIGs. With no serials or…"
"Once I clean them we may still get the serials, but that just proves the Moussad angle. They know that we know the serial numbers, so they'd either take the real guns or fake the numbers. Considering they got Ziva's real car, it's a safe bet that they got the real guns and cell phones." She held up a bag with a shapeless lump of melted plastic goo inside. "Not that we'll be able to get anything useful from the cell glop. The real thing that stands out is what's not here."
He stared blankly at the table. "Um…DNA results?"
"Not for a few more hours. I mean what should be sitting on this table that isn't?"
"A Caf-Pow?"
"Smile when you make a joke, McGee." She reached across the table to squeeze his hand. "But I do appreciate the effort. You need to stop making yourself sick over this because they're fine, Tim."
"If they were fine, they'd be here."
"Okay, I guess safe would have been a better choice of words. Still, look at everything that was recovered from the car. The guns are here. The badges are here. The jewelry is here. What other metal things should be here?"
He shook his head. "Um…lock picks?"
"Knives! Rule number eight!"
"Eight is never take anything for granted, Abs." Gibbs set the Caf-Pow McGee had mentioned not a minute earlier on the table. "Never go anywhere without your knife is nine."
"Right. The important thing here is that no knives were found in the car. No spare magazines or back-up guns for that matter, either."
"No Glock in the glove compartment?"
"I haven't had a chance to look at the car yet, Gibbs. But we know it's Ziva's car, so if we know she keeps a gun in the glove compartment, it won't really tell us much. I will be curious to see if she keeps actual gloves in the glove compartment, because I don't think anyone does. Was there ever a time when…"
"Abs…"
"Right. No tangents. You should make that a new rule." She continued turning on the ball of her foot when she tried to face the table and spun in a full circle until she was facing Gibbs again. "Oooh! One more tangent…can I see the ring?"
She could see McGee cringe in her peripheral vision when Gibbs gave him a sidelong glare, but his eyes were soft when he turned them back to her. "I stopped by the Israeli on my way to the coffee shop and gave it to Officer Bashan to give to Tony."
"Aha! So Moussad confirmed they've got them?"
"Basically."
McGee shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "That's not the same as 'yes'."
"They told a flimsy lie that amounted to a fake cover-up for causing the accident."
"So maybe Tony and Ziva decided they didn't want to go wherever Moussad was taking them and escaped. Maybe Moussad is just trying to avoid the embarrassment of losing two federal agents and then killing them by accident when they tried to recapture them."
Abby tried to decide if McGee was wilting under Gibbs and her twin glares, or if he had just been that dejected since she'd found him vomiting in the women's bathroom. She sadly settled on the latter and tried to lighten the mood. "Prozac and group hugs to the lab, stat!"
"I'm afraid all I've brought are the dental castings, Abby, so if you're ready to…" Ducky looked up from the tray he was carrying. "Oh, everyone is present. Shall we input these into your program?"
"We shall, Ducky." Abby bustled around her lab, setting up the necessary equipment. "Fortunately, we've already got both of their dental records on file – Tony's from when that horrible experiment in personnel went haywire and Ziva's from the time that suspect claimed she bit him during his arrest."
"I thought she did bite him," McGee interjected. "He tried to put her in a headlock and she bit his hand to get him to let go."
"Right, and we had to prove it was her using her dental records. The DA ended up proving he deserved it because he was resisting arrest, so, no harm, no foul there, I guess. Okay, let's fire up the i-dental-fication software and get us a negative…spork!"
The small group of people watched the results flashing on the monitors – the two positive matches had been displayed almost immediately. Gibbs was the first to speak. "Duck…you find out how Moussad faked teeth. McGee, let's go look over that scene ourselves." He grabbed McGee's arm and dragged him to the elevator.
"I'm glad he's so sure…" Ducky muttered, patting Abby's shoulder warmly before leaving the lab.
She stood rooted to the spot in front of her computer station. Eventually, she closed the program. "Not even Moussad can fake DNA," she enthused, trying to overcome her sudden instinct that teeth were superior to gut. "Just a few more hours."