Chapter 2
"Trouble? Why is that?" Tim was curious beyond his shock, and slight fear on confronting the man with absolutely no support around.
"I dunno," said Keating. "It's like someone's out to get me; maybe implicate me in something. I get the feeling I'm being watched."
Silently, Tim cursed the lack of any recording device. He wasn't sure this was even in protocol, gathering information in off-the-clock hours. "Have you done anything to make people suspect you?"
"I don't think so. I hope not. I try to just do my job and not bother anyone." He looked baffled. "Look, if people are still suspicious of me after that business almost two years ago, when I took your place on Gibbs' team…"
I wish I had a script! "Do you think anyone blames you?"
"For what happened to Langer? No; I wasn't anywhere near where he was when he was shot. And I think it was pretty well established that Michelle was the guilty party all around…even if there were, or may have been, extenuating circumstances. I kind of liked my time as a field agent, you know? But I wish it didn't have to come in a bloodbath."
He sounded cool about it all; detached. He did have the soul of a field agent, Tim supposed, being able to move beyond the deaths of coworkers. That was something Tim had a hard time with. "Have you ever wondered…what if Michelle had confronted you, instead of Langer?" Tim ventured.
Keating took a deep breath. "Sure. At least a hundred times. I'd like to think I'd be faster on the trigger…but Langer? He should have been. He was an experienced field agent. He should have been faster. I don't know why he wasn't."
A question for the ages.
"I'm really sure I could have held my own against Michelle; that little pipsqueak. My blood boils every time I think about her. That act of being a clumsy innocent, hiding behind a law degree…" He looked angry.
"Oh, look at the time," Tim said. "I've got to go. See you around!" He powered down his computer and pulled his gun and badge out of his desk, all the while keeping an eye on Keating to make sure he wasn't moving toward his own gun. The agent was Tim's height, but weighed significantly more than him, now that Tim had lost excess pounds. In a hand-to-hand fight, Tim wasn't sure he could hold his own against Keating.
But Keating's face lost the fierceness and the classic nonchalant look returned. "Yeah, me too. See you, McGee." He walked to the elevator and took it down.
Tim stayed at his desk a few minutes more, calming down, and drinking the last of his can of Diet Coke. Then he called Gibbs.
"Okay. I don't think there's anything we can do tonight, McGee. We'll all meet in the morning and discuss this. Be careful in the meantime."
"Be careful?"
"Going home. Don't leave the building for another half-hour. Watch around you as you go to your car. We don't know what Keating's capable of."
"Gotcha, boss. Good night."
In the conference room, with his team and Vance, Tim relayed the story of his encounter the next day. "I don't know what to think," Tim ended. "He seemed angry, but not towards me. He was almost friendly." He wouldn't say it out loud, but his suspicions of Keating had dimmed since the encounter. Maybe he was just a misunderstood, neurotic loner.
Gibbs nodded. "Ziva, you have your ticket to the ballet for Friday night?"
Smiling, Ziva almost beamed. "Yes. It will be nice to combine work with pleasure. Do we know for sure that Keating is going then?"
Keating's boss, Johnstone, spoke up. "We do know. He got a good deal on a ticket somewhere, and has been bragging about it to anyone who will listen in CyberCrimes." He rolled his eyes. "Humble, he isn't."
Friday night found the team in an unmarked van again, down the street from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the northwest sector of the District. While Tony grumbled about having to put up with something as artsy as a ballet, even from the rumpled-clothes-safety of the van, Tim and Gibbs only smiled slightly. Ziva, meanwhile, dressed in a magnificent deep red gown, was in earwig and visual contact with the van's inhabitants as she looked around. The doors to the Opera House section were not yet open, and patrons were slowly filling the large foyer. "No sign of Keating yet," she murmured. She wore a rope of pearls in her tumbling hair, which covered the earwig.
"Look for the man wearing an inflated ego," Tony suggested.
"I am at the disadvantage, Tony. I cannot see you from here," she responded.
"Find Keating," Gibbs ordered while Tony scowled and Tim laughed.
"I see him coming in now," she said. "Good. He is not escorting someone," she added, as she moved to a nearby refreshments stand to buy a bottle of water.
"There's probably only room in his car for himself and his ego," Tony said, unwilling to give it up.
"Ziva?"
"Keating! Well. I did not know you were a fan of the ballet."
"A cultured person appreciates the fine arts," he tutted. "If it doesn't offend you, might I say that you look beautiful?"
"You may say that," Ziva said, preening just a little. "Are you…you must be here with a date tonight. You are not married, I believe?"
"Not me. A swingin' bachelor," he said with an unaccomplished leer that made it hard for her to keep a straight face. "You must have someone…"
"I do. That is, I did. He is sick tonight, however, but he insisted I come, knowing how much I love the ballet."
"That was nice. Where are you sitting?"
She pulled her ticket from her small handbag and held it up. He studied his own. "Would you like to join me? I know the box office manager; I might be able to make something happen…"
"That would be fun, to be with someone I know," she smiled convincingly. "You can tell me how CyberCrimes has been treating you."
"Not much to tell," he laughed. "But sure; we can catch up during the intermissions. Be right back." He took the two tickets and walked off down a corridor. Soon he returned with a new ticket for Ziva, next to his seat. "They had an opening," he shrugged.
Ziva was happy…it was several rows closer to the stage than her original ticket had been. "The doors are opening," she said, after thanking him. "Shall we go in?"
"At least you'll be safe in there," Tony remarked in her ear, "except from men in tights."
"Leotards," Ziva almost corrected, but stopped herself from saying it out loud.
In the van, the rest of her team settled in for a long wait (particularly since none of them were ballet fans) of distant, tinny music; fluttering figures on stage (via the tiny camera in Ziva's necklace); and scattered bits of applause.
"Hey. McGoo. You ever consider wearing leotards?" Tony asked once. Tim's only response was a glacial glare.
"Yeah. Gibbs," Gibbs answered his phone. "…got it." Snapping the phone shut, he turned back to the team. "That was Johnstone. A copy was made of a top secret file late this afternoon…and the path was traced to Keating's home computer."
"Thank God! I don't think I could have lasted until the third act, or whatever it's called," Tony remarked. "We've got enough to pull him in, boss."
"Ziva, get him out to the lobby, and wait until you see us there," Gibbs directed. "Don't try to do this yourself; not in a crowded theatre."
"Yes, Gibbs. But he's not here right now; he went out to go the men's room less than two minutes ago."
"Fine. When he gets back, then."
"A shame. This is a remarkable performance, and the seats are so nice…"
Five minutes went by, and then ten. The end of the intermission approached, and patrons started ambling back into the concert hall. The lights flickered a five-minute warning to the start of the next act.
"Ziva?"
She stood up and looked back toward the hall's doorways. "He has not returned, Gibbs. Something must be out."
" 'Up'." Tony and Tim chorused. "No invading the men's rooms, looking for him, Ziva," Tony added. "What works at NCIS—" He broke off at the headslap.
"We're coming in, Ziva," said Gibbs. "If you see him, bring him out to the lobby."
A flash of their badges got the trio in, and they searched the two men's rooms on the lobby level. There was no sign of Keating. "He's gone," Tim said in weary disgust as they all met up, and Gibbs called Ziva out. "How did he catch onto us?"
"I don't know," said Gibbs. "We weren't watching the front entrance. Didn't expect this."
"His car…?" asked Tony. "Would he have had time to get it out of one of the lots?"
"He told me he took a cab here," Ziva sighed.
"I'll just check across the street," said Tim. "There's a convenience store and a pizza shop open; he might have run in there."
"I know that look, McGuilty," Tony said, poking Tim's stomach. "You want to confront Keating first, because you think there must be a logical explanation for what happened this afternoon."
Tim blushed. It was true; he'd come to believe Keating, and he knew that frame-ups did sometimes happen. Innocent until proven guilty… Ignoring Gibbs' stern look, Tim trotted across the street and went into the convenience store.
His team stood about chatting in the mild, humid spring night. When ten minutes had gone by and Tim hadn't returned, however, they grew alarmed. As a group, they too went into the convenience store.
The clerk looked nervous. "No, man. I ain't seen your guy. No one's come in here in the last twenty minutes."
"Would you like us to drag you in for questioning?" Ziva demanded.
"No! That guy said he'd hurt me if I told. Please, lady; my woman's sick and she's got a baby on the way. She's countin' on me to bring home a paycheck."
Gibbs twisted the OPEN sign on the door. "Call your boss. Tell him you have to close early." They lead the unwilling witness out to their van.
