The file didn't turn out to be very big. Inside were several check stubs with dates and amounts of checks presumably made out to Holmes.
"I'd say we have enough here for a search warrant, enough for JAG to lock him away anyway." Kate commented on the file.
"Too circumstantial. We need something solid to nail his ass to the wall. He was too cocky when we interviewed him, and he obviously didn't like Caufield. He's been on AerialNation's payroll the whole time, and they gave him a little extra to cut Caufield off before he could out them to the public." Gibbs said.
"Yeah but how do we prove it Boss?" Tony asked.
Gibbs turned to Abby and smiled.
"You want me to search his bank records? Don't you need a warrant for that?"
"Start searching, take McGee if you want him, just get it done, fast. I'll take care of the warrant."
"Okay Gibbs." She said as she motioned for McGee to join her in her lab. He smiled boyishly and followed her into the lab.
Hours later she had results.
"It wasn't hard to crack his account, he has all his money the school credit union where his kids have theirs. Needless to say the Norfolk Schools Credit Union isn't as secure as the Cayman Islands. He has almost a million dollars in there, far more than any SEAL I know should probably have."
"Do you know where he got it?" Gibbs asked.
"No way of knowing from here. The downside of credit unions like this is that they don't put their check deposits online. There's not way to trace it without actually looking at the paper trail, and that's something I can't get to from here." McGee answered before Abby could. She smiled up at him from where she was sitting.
"Good job you two. As far as I'm concerned that's all we needed to confirm we have our killer." Gibbs said.
"Yeah, but Gibbs, you said yourself that's not enough for JAG to investigate, it's too circumstancial." Kate said.
"Sure, for now. But we've got our killer, now we just need to find a way to prove it."
"Too bad we can't just ask him and get an honest answer." Tony joked.
Everyone gave him the usual eye rolling and scoffing sounds, but Kate perked up at that.
"What if we can, what if we get him to incriminate himself?"
"And how do we do that without him calling it entrapment?" Tony asked.
"It's only entrapment if we induce someone to commit a crime they never had the intention of committing in the first place. It's perfectly legal to open the door for them and let them walk through, we just can't push them through it." Kate explained.
"That's all well and good, but even assuming we could do that, what about AerialNation? If they really paid Holmes to kill Caufield they're guilty of assisted homicide, conspiracy to commit murder and a host of other things involving the actual cover up. They are the bigger fish." Tony complained.
"Then why not kill two birds with one stone. We set them both off, play them against each other, and trap them both. If we get them to incriminate themselves, JAG will have an airtight case against them." Kate offered.
"Sure. What's your plan?" Gibbs asked.
Kate smiled.
-----
"I'm sorry Agent Todd. I really don't have the slightest clue as to what you are talking about."
"Mr. Grove, this may be your last change to tell the truth before a JAG investigation begins. Shortly after that a Senate hearing may be called to investigate your company and any possible cover ups you may be trying to pull off. You might as well tell me the truth now and save yourself the trouble." Kate fired back at the AerialNation executive.
"Really Agent Todd, murder? Assassinations of SEAL officers? Cover ups of faulty equipment? This isn't some fiery novel, this is a business and the United States Navy we're talking about here. Let's show a little respect."
Kate's eyes narrowed and her voice filled with venom. "I believe respect is best shown by trying to find Lieutenant James Caufield's killer. And believe me, I'll stop at nothing to find out just who that person is." She paused for a moment before gathering herself together to lay the first piece of her trap. "So to be clear then, you've never met a Lieutenant Commander Holmes before?"
"That's correct, for the third time, I have never met this man."
"You know nothing about Lieutenant Caufield's death or his plans to go public with your cover up of faulty equipment?"
"Nothing at all, because there is no cover up."
Kate's brow furrowed into her trade mark glare. "And you also know nothing of Lieutenant Caufield passing his information to Ensign Bardok to distribute it in the case of his death?"
He appeared ready to give his automatic denial but was caught short for a moment by what he heard. Slowly though, he grouped together his thoughts and delivered his denial.
"Of course not. Really this is all a big mistake, and I hope it is cleared up quickly."
"So do I Mr. Grove, so do I."
With that she left and headed back to the NCIS office.
-----
"Well?" Gibbs asked upon her return.
"I dropped the bait."
"Tony?"
"His phone is tapped, we have someone watching the pay phones closest to the base. He doesn't have a cell phone." He answered.
The waiting game wouldn't take long to produce results. They went about other business for hours, waiting until night, and then it happened. A call was logged to Holmes' room at eleven fifteen. Holmes picked up the phone.
"Lieutenant Commander Holmes."
"Five minutes," was the breathy answer.
Holmes hung up. Tony was waiting outside his barracks with a long range listening device. Holmes got into his car and drove away from the base with Tony close by. To Tony's surprise, the man didn't pull up to the many pay phones around the base. His path took him also in the opposite direction of AerialNation. It didn't take long for Tony's cell phone to start ringing.
"Where is he DiNozzo?"
"We're a couple minutes outside the base. He's turning off onto a logging road, doesn't even look that old either."
"That's actually pretty smart. Usually when we're tracking suspects like that we expect them to use old abandoned roads like that. No one is in this late at night anyway." Kate commented on the other end of the line.
Five minutes after the phone call had been made, Holmes stopped his car in the parking lot of a lumber mill. Already parked there was black car. Tony pulled off to the side of the logging road, not wanting to risk Holmes seeing him following. He immediately pulled on his headphones and aimed the giant microphone towards the men.
"Looks like you got the wrong man Holmes." An unknown voice said.
Holmes motioned to the man to be quiet and then gestured to the black car. Both of them got in and the door was closed. Tony ripped the headphones off in frustration.
"They got into a car, I can't get anything." Tony said into his cell phone.
He then pulled out a camera with a telephoto lens and snapped off rapid shots of the two men in the back of the car. When he saw Holmes get out and head for his own car, Tony quietly moved his car back onto the logging road and moved out back to NCIS. Kate looked pleased when he got there.
"That was as good as an admission of guilt." She said triumphantly.
"We need more. And in case you didn't notice, the voice on that tape sounds an awful lot like Mr. Grove." Gibbs said.
"It is Grove." Tony confirmed.
Tony yawned, causing Kate to yawn in return. Gibbs glared at both of them and shook his head.
"Alright, go home, come back early in the morning with ideas. If we assume that they made a deal in that car we need to know what it was, and when it'll take place. Until then, Bardok is in danger, and it's because of us." He said pointedly to Kate.
They both nodded to him and left to get some much needed sleep.
-----
Kate came back the next day with a plan. She waited for everyone to assemble then launched it on them.
"That's pretty good." Gibbs admitted.
"It has a lot of holes in it." Tony punched in with.
"Like what?"
"You want to set up a fake meeting with Holmes, alright, which of us is going to do it? He already saw us all during the initial investigation."
Gibbs smiled at that and pressed a button on the phone in the conference room.
"Morgue."
"Ducky, it's Gibbs, you busy?"
"Yes Jethro I'm actually quite busy, what can I do for you?"
"Make yourself unbusy for the rest of the day."
He clicked off the phone and smiled. "Okay we have ourselves a volunteer. What else?"
"What if they have separate meeting places. Maybe that was the meeting place for tonight, what if it's a different meeting place for another night?"
"We follow him. If he heads to a different site, Ducky moves to follow and arrives shortly after him." Kate answered.
"Let's do it. Kate, set it up." Gibbs ordered.
Tony still seemed skeptical of this haphazard plan Kate had come up with, but when Gibbs says "go", he asks "how fast?"
At eleven fifteen that night, they called Holmes' number.
"Lieutenant Commander Holmes." He answered.
"Five minutes." Tony replied with an ever so slight effort to add an accent to his voice.
They both hung up and Tony lifted his night vision binoculars to see if Holmes left his barracks. Sure enough, barely twenty seconds later he was out the door and in his car heading off the base. Tony was hot on his heels, and was delightfully surprised to see him taking the same path to the logging road that Ducky was already past and waiting in the parking lot there.
When Holmes got there, he exited the car and entered the back seat of Ducky's car.
"I told you never to call me two nights in a row! It looks too suspicious to leave the base this late at night as it is!" Holmes hissed out at him.
Kate and Gibbs glanced at each other back at NCIS when they heard the pickup through the microphone Ducky was wearing.
"Something came up." Ducky replied.
"Wait, who are you, you aren't Grove." Holmes said, confused.
"Grove isn't the only one in on this deal. My company has a vested interest in making sure this is the last leak to come from your unit. Unfortunately Mr. Grove couldn't get away for the evening."
"Well whatever," Holmes said impatiently. "What do you want now?"
"We want more from you this time."
"You want me to do more than kill Bardock? Like what?" He scoffed.
Silently the team cheered at his admission.
"We have reason to believe he has the records you couldn't find in Caufield's room. This time you must find those records as well as taking care of Bardock."
"I don't think I'll have time, the jump is in two days, we'll be training during all the time before it."
"Find a way. There's more in store for you if you do."
"Alright. But don't contact me until the mission is over and he's gone!"
"Of course." Ducky said in return.
With that, he exited the car and returned to his own.
"Well I must say that went well." Ducky commented into his microphone.
"Great job Ducky. How'd you like the cloak and dagger side of things?" Kate asked.
"An exciting change of pace really. In fact this whole business with parachutes has got me thinking I might want to try it myself. You know the Chinese are said to of practiced the first uses of a parachute in the 12th century at circus like events. Diagrams were found in Leonardo da Vinci's records as well, thought it appears he never tried for a usable version. But the real explosion in parachuting as an enthusiast's sport came in the late 18th century when..."
"Ducky, this case is about a man who fell to his death, and that makes you excited to jump?" Kate interrupted.
"Well Katherine, I don't plan to be murdered by a fellow parachutist who has been paid to kill me by an evil empire in the parachuting business planning to mislead the public about military equipment failures."
"He has a point." Gibbs agreed.
Kate threw up her hands and walked away as Gibbs lightly chuckled. With the night's mission at an end, Tony and Ducky returned to NCIS to begin planning the next phase.