Timing in Everything: Chapter 14
DiNozzo was getting too old for this job. Even after three cups of coffee—the one from the ICU and two much larger ones from the mess hall—he still felt worn down, and knew from the glimpse he caught of himself in the mirror that his face matched. Freiler and Gabi, on the other hand, were both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—he was glad he didn't have to try to explain that one to Ziva—and without the benefit of caffeine in Freiler's case.
He had no idea how Gibbs still did it. Then again, by now, the man was more coffee and bourbon than flesh and blood.
DiNozzo had gathered the team together in a corner table in the mess hall, which was just beginning to serve breakfast. He was about to get started with the campfire—which would probably be the last before Gibbs arrived in a few hours—when Ziva slid into the seat next to him. "Sorry," she greeted, not bothering to explain why she was a few minutes late.
"No problem, Sweetcheeks," DiNozzo replied. He frowned as he tried to figure out how to word the news he had received from Dr. Pitt after his chat with HM2 Gadson. Of course, he was talking to Ziva, so the direct approach would probably be best. "The divers pulled two bodies from the water," he said. "One was Seaman Gabe Kemper. The other was Midshipman Michael Spivak."
Gabi muttered something that DiNozzo didn't quite catch, his attention still focused on his wife. For a long second, she didn't react, her expression remaining perfectly composed, like it always was when she was receiving bad news. "I see," she finally said, that façade not changing. "I will have to speak with my director to see how Israel would like to pursue prosecution of the perpetrator."
"What?" Gabi asked, her eyes wide with surprise. DiNozzo stepped in before an argument could erupt between the two women.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he said, shooting his senior field agent a warning look. "We still need to find the perpetrator. Then we can let our respective governments duke it out for punishment rights."
"I think twelve Americans dead and an attack on an American aircraft carrier trumps one Israeli death," Gabi continued heatedly.
"Israel does not take the deaths of servicemembers lightly," Ziva shot back.
"Neither do we!"
"Stop it, both of you," DiNozzo ordered harshly. He didn't like snapping at his coworkers—especially when one had as much power to make his life miserable as Ziva did—but they were starting to get looks from the sailors and Marines and dependents who had appeared for breakfast, and that was not the kind of attention they, or NCIS in general, needed at the moment.
Sure enough, Ziva turned her glare on him, and he could tell from the corner of his eye that Gabi had done the same. There was a sharp intake of breath from Freiler, who didn't like confrontation at all. "You're arguing about something that's not even our call, but won't be anybody's call if we can't get our acts together and catch this guy. There's not enough room on this boat for a turf war." There was a long moment of silence before Tony decided it was time to move on. "Freiler," he said, turning to the one person who hadn't given him problems yet that morning, "what did you get from forensics?"
"The GC/MS finished with the explosive material," he said. He glanced down at the notes he had probably jotted down while on the phone with their lab. "Uh, the material was Semtex—"
"Actually, Semtex is a trade name. The explosive does not match their formulas," Ziva interrupted without thinking. Her eyes widened slightly as she comprehended what she had just said and what that had revealed. Tony's eyes, in turn, narrowed just as much as hers had widened.
"How do you know what the explosive material is?" he demanded. Ziva's face adopted that defensive expression he knew a bit too well, the one that said she knew that she had done something wrong but was going to try to explain it away anyway.
"I spoke with Avrum this morning—"
"And how does your analyst know what my lab found?"
Ziva's lips tightened slightly and she couldn't quite meet his eye, two red flags that told him he wasn't going to like what she was going to say. "The lab was monitored," she finally admitted. He knew his surprise was evident on his face when she quickly continued, "It has been that way since before we arrived."
"Your team has been spying on my lab?" he asked slowly.
"Actually, not only the lab."
"Just how much of NCIS's operation is Mossad aware of?"
There was another ominous pause. "All of it," Ziva finally said.
"All of it?" he echoed. "The office?"
"Yes."
"Conference room?"
"Yes."
"Interrogation?"
"Yes."
"What the hell, Ziva?"
"Uh, do you need us to leave?" Freiler asked timidly. They both ignored him.
"When were you planning on telling me?" Tony demanded.
"I was hoping I would not have to," Ziva admitted.
"What?"
"I told Avrum to stop all monitoring," she said.
"And how long have you known about it?"
"I found out shortly after I took over in the office."
"And you didn't think you needed to tell me?"
"Uh, Tony, Ziva, I think Gabi and I are going to go—"
"Sit," both of the newlyweds demanded. They continued to stare at each other in a silent detente.
"I did not tell you, because I told Avrum to remove all bugs," Ziva finally said. "I did not realize until this morning that he did not do so."
"So you're telling me that you told him to stop before, and he ignored you," he summarized. "So now why should I believe that he's going to do it now?"
"Believe me, Tony, he will," Ziva said emphatically. "I will see to it myself."
He didn't respond to that, instead turning to his junior field agent. "Freiler," he barked, only realizing after seeing the younger man jump just how harsh that was. He toned it down before continuing. "The lab results."
"Uh, right," Freiler said nervously. He cleared his throat slightly. "Uh, just like Officer David—Ziva—said, the explosive is a mixture of RDX and PETN, but it isn't really Semtex. Uh, the manufacturer has set formulations, depending on what the explosive is for; Semtex 1A is for blasting, 2P is a booster—"
"Freiler."
"Right. The point. Uh, the explosive doesn't match any of their formulations exactly, but it's closest to Semtex 1A. The lab's comparing it to the database of known bomb makers, because explosives formulations are practically as individualized as a fingerprint—"
"It does not match anybody in the database," Ziva interrupted quietly. Tony took a deep breath.
"Okay," he said after a pause. "Abby will re-run the tests when she gets here, but in the meantime, Gabi, you still have contacts with Interpol, right?"
"I've only been away from my old job for a month, Tony. Even Interpol agents have longer memories than that."
"Okay. Send the results to them and go ahead and forward it to your people at the FBI as well. If it's not in Mossad's database, it's probably not going to be in anybody else's, but better safe than sorry. Freiler, anything else from the lab?"
"Uh, nothing yet. They're working on DNA and fingerprints, but with the fire and the fire suppressants, there's really not much left. They're not too optimistic."
"Again, let's hope that it's something Abby can work her magic on when she gets here in," he checked his watch, "nine hours. Gabi. What'd you get from the guys at the nuclear reactor?"
"Not much," the senior field agent admitted. "Midshipman Spivak was a hard worker, got along with everyone in the section, always eager to learn more, etc, etc."
"Well, I think we can safely scratch his name from the list of potential bombers," DiNozzo commented with a sigh. "Unless he's just really bad at it, in which case, he scratched himself from the list."
"Tony," Ziva protested, her voice quiet.
"Sorry, Sweetcheeks." And he really was sorry. Not so much for the fight about Dardik monitoring his offices—seriously, did Mossad even know the definition of the word 'boundaries'?—but for the entire case, for her having to be involved at all, for the Israelis on board, for Spivak's death, for suspecting the kid in the first place. He would apologize for all the bad things in the world if he could.
But he couldn't, so that left him with the only thing he knew how to do: finding out who was behind this latest batch of badness and making sure he was punished. "I talked to the corpsman who told Dr. Mox that Wyatt Mehler was in her office," he began. "The corpsman never actually laid eyes on the kid. Got a call from Captain Mehler that the kid tripped over an ankle breaker and hit his knee and that they were waiting for Mox in her office."
"That's odd," Freiler commented with a frown. "I didn't think Dr. Mox's office was hit all that hard."
"That's not what's odd about it," Gabi countered before DiNozzo could say anything. She turned to her supervisory agent. "The corpsman said that Captain Mehler was waiting with his son?"
"He was adamant about that," DiNozzo said with a nod. He was glad he wasn't the only one who found that a bit suspicious.
"But you talked to Captain Mehler," Gabi continued, frowning. "Did he say anything about being with his son when the bomb went off?"
"Not a word," DiNozzo confirmed. Silence fell over the group.
"So he's hiding something," Gabi finally said.
"That's what I've been trying to figure out," Tony replied with a nod. He turned to his junior field agent. "Freiler, get everything you can on Captain Mehler, no matter how small it seems." They never really knew what people think of as important; just a few weeks ago, they found out that Marine pilot had sabotaged one of his fellow pilot's fighter and struck a deal with the Iranians just because he needed the money to get his cousin out of gambling debt. He turned to his senior field agent. "And Gabi, I want you to go talk to him. See what kind of story he's giving you about where both he and his son were when the bomb went off."
"How do you want me to play it?" Gabi asked him.
"How about, 'I'm new and my boss is making me repeat everything he's done'?"
Gabi smiled at that. "I love that technique," she said, sounding a bit too eager for someone heading into an interrogation.
"That's a technique?" Freiler asked with a frown.
"Of course," Gabi said with a shrug. "You know," she said before adopting a tired and frustrated air, "'I'm sorry to bother you, sir, since you just talked to my boss yesterday, but I just joined this team and he doesn't trust me to do anything by myself yet. Never mind that I worked for the FBI for five years and was considered one of the top investigators in my unit, but no, can't send the new girl to do anything that might be valuable. So I just have to go back and do everything he's already done. As if that's going to give us a break in the case.'" She dropped the act and grinned. "Everyone's been there at some point in their careers, so they can sympathize. It really does work wonders."
"Oh," Freiler replied. He frowned before looking over at DiNozzo. "So what are we thinking? That Captain Mehler had something to do with blowing a hole in his own ship?"
"I'm not saying that," Tony replied. "I'm just saying that he's hiding something, and I intend to find out what it is."