Chapter Twenty Five: Connecting the Dots

Tony, Ziva, and McGee spent the majority of the afternoon on the phones talking to everyone that was connected to Commander Tyrell Powell. They called his commanding officer in Iraq, they called the people who he worked with on the base in San Diego, and they called people who they were told were his friends, but not once did they talk to Commander Powell himself.

He was not reachable by phone, or so they were told. Once they were all done gathering information and the phones were silent again they sat looking tired, staring at each other. No one went first so Tony took the initiative to lead the way.

"What'd we get?" he asked looking at McGee first.

"I spoke to Captain William Thomas in Iraq, that's Commander Powell's CO over there. He said that Powell runs the surplus, tracking what is used, what needs to be ordered, how much stock is left, that sort of thing. He said Powell keeps his head down and doesn't mingle much with the other men. Captain Thomas thought that Powell was a top notch officer and had nothing but praise for him," McGee said.

"I spoke with Ensign Karen Domicello who works for Admiral Kirkpatrick. He is out of town. She said that Commander Powell was under the command of the Admiral while on base and she remembered him as a polite gentleman. She said they held regular meetings with each other in the Admiral's office but she didn't know what they were about," Ziva said when McGee had finished.

"I spoke with a Lt. Michael Malford at San Diego who worked under Powell when he was in California. He said that Powell did most of the paperwork and he just reported the numbers along with a couple other guys. Malford told me that no one else saw the paperwork that went out from Powell's desk," Tony added.

"Sounds like he was scamming somewhere, but how do you offload the extras that you neglected to report?" McGee asked.

"He'd need help. I was given the name of Captain Jericho Rogers of the Marines, by an officer that knew Powell at the base," Tony began again. "I was told these two ran together a lot. Maybe he's a link to the other men, but I couldn't reach him."

"Is he deployed?" Ziva asked.

"Not according to the records," Tony replied.

"If Powell and Rogers are always together then I bet it's a strong possibility that he is one of the five other men that come together at his house," McGee interjected.

"Find out what kind of car he drives," Tony said to Ziva before turning to McGee. "Do we know what kind of car Powell drives?"

"It's a light blue Ford Escort, four doors, but it's small, not a sedan," McGee rattled off. Tony frowned. It ruled out Powell as the stalker.

"Got it," Ziva said as she read from her computer screen. "Captain Jericho Rogers has a black four door Saturn Ion sedan."

"Dark four door sedan," Tony said smiling. "We need to find this guy and talk to him."

Abby walked into the bullpen at that time carrying another file with her. Tony looked up at her when she came around her desk. She had a slight smile on her lips as she read the contents as she walked.

"What'cha got there, Abby?" Tony asked sitting back in his chair putting his hands behind his head. She stopped reading to look up at him and then placed the file down in front of her.

"I was going through the rest of the files in the box that I found the short hand one in," Abby started. "And I found this one, which it would have been directly on top of the other one."

"Ok," Tony said sitting forward and looking at the file. "It's a case file, Abbs, for an Ensign Patrick Deeves."

"Right you are, Tony. But what really interests me are the side notes on the case. Seems like a lot of people were curious about this case and her looking into what really happened. Look at the notes," Abby continued, pointing to the file. Tony read the side notes.

"Whoa, hey, Probie, listen to this. Seems that Captain Rogers AND Commander Powell were both interested in how this Ensign Deeves case was progressing. They both contacted Commander Conrad and she wrote that she was suspicious of them on her notes," Tony said the excitement evident in his voice.

"So who is Ensign Deeves? We haven't come across that name yet," McGee said standing from his own desk and walking over to Tony's. Abby shrugged and turned to leave, her job here done. Ziva tapped a pen on the desk thinking about all the information they had just received. She started to type on her computer looking up Ensign Deeves.

"I don't know, Probie, but we better find out," Tony said as he continued to read the notes. "Looks like Admiral Kirkpatrick also had tabs on this one, has notes here to call him about the case."

"Got it," Ziva called from behind her computer screen and the two men looked at her expectantly. She skimmed the screen before looking around her monitor to talk to them.

"Ensign Patrick Alexander Deeves is assigned to San Diego. Oh this is interesting; ultimately he works under Admiral Kirkpatrick. He works in a store room, not the same place as Powell. This is smaller munitions, mostly ammunition not hardware," Ziva said. "His main CO is Lt. Adam Constra."

"Says here he was reprimanded by the Navy when he was caught by Constra for turning in faulty paperwork. Ensign Deeves claimed it was just an error in his reporting and that it was nothing more. There was a full investigation into his actions and he was cleared do to lack of evidence but seems from the notes here that Commander Conrad wasn't convinced," Tony said reading from the file that Abby had brought to him.

"So if she wasn't convinced maybe she continued to dig on the side and that's where we got the coded file from," McGee said. Tony looked up at him thoughtfully and slowly nodded his agreement.

"Sounds plausible to me, we need more proof. Who all do we have name wise now?" Tony continued.

"We have Commander Tyrell Powell," McGee said.

"Ensign Patrick Deeves, who seems to have set this all in motion," Ziva said.

"Captain Jericho Rogers, the marine that runs with Powell," Tony added. "That's three names; we're three short of six."

"We should let Gibbs know what's going on," McGee said quickly. "This is moving fast now and it seems we have likely suspects."

"Right, Probie," Tony said glancing at his watch and cringing. He should have called the boss a couple hours ago. "Let's work it through some more so it's concrete when we present it to the boss."

"Ok, we got three people seemingly connected on the San Diego Naval base, two Navy personnel and one marine. Two work in surplus and stockpiling in direct connection to weapons and ammunition," McGee said starting the ball rolling.

"I found something more," Ziva said as the other two looked at her. "I know how Rogers and Powell know each other. Powell sends the needs of the troops stationed overseas back to Rogers who handles the shipping of the new munitions."

"So he is in control of what goes out, and could easily move stuff," Tony said.

"He could be the link to shipping stolen surplus off the base," McGee added. Tony nodded at him.

"Good thinking, Probie," Tony said.

"So we got two guys changing numbers to make everything add up and we got one guy shipping out surplus," Ziva added.

"Ok, so now we just need to find out who and what the other three people involved do," McGee replied.

"They'll need someone higher up to cover them, and my guess is someone else in the numbers business to hide what they are doing. And one more most likely for contacts to sell," Tony said.

"All connected to San Diego or close enough to meet every couple months at Commander Powell's off base housing," Ziva interjected.

"Looks like we got a start," Tony said. "Keep moving, I'll call the boss man and see what he thinks. Maybe he'll join us tomorrow."

TBC…