Chapter Thirteen – Untangling the Web
Jenna had hugged Ducky twice more since the call came in about Brenna. She was so happy that her sister was alright and on her way back. She didn't want to think about what all could have happened, but she was sure she would get a full accounting of the rescue once they were all back. And Jethro…Gibbs would see all the evidence they had compiled against Sterling Lancaster. Maybe then he would understand exactly how dangerous he was and her need to run. She wasn't exactly sure why his approval meant so much to her at this point, but it did.
The ladies were waiting in the squad room when the elevator doors opened, and they could hear Brenna and McGee talking over each other. Tony and Gibbs followed behind, looking as if they wanted to smack both of them in the head.
"Tim, I keep telling you, it's not your fault." Brenna said as Jenna ran to hug her. She hugged her sister tightly, but continued to converse with McGee, unfazed.
"If I had done my job and gone in first…"
Letting go of Jenna, she told him, "You would have been knocked out sooner. At least you were able to get Gibbs' attention before that happened."
"I wasn't as alert as I could have been," McGee was explaining. "I should have…
With an exasperated sigh, Brenna grabbed him by his somewhat slumped shoulders, pulled him down toward her and kissed him square on the mouth. By the time she let him go, Gibbs and Tony were grinning widely, Jenna was smiling, Ziva and Steph smirking and Abby looked a bit upset. McGee himself was dazed and Brenna wanted to kiss him again. He really was so adorable – especially now that her lip gloss had left his mouth shining.
She looked around and saw the look on Abby's face. Trying to mend fences, she said, "He's been apologizing the entire way back here, and nothing I could say would get him to stop. Do you have a better way to shut him up?"
Abby stared at her for a minute, and then looked at Tim. A slow smile started to form and she admitted, "That's the quickest way I know."
"Oh, so you were just shutting him up," Tony said in a teasing tone. "Because if that was some sort of reward, there WERE others of us involved in your rescue." He gave her an inviting look and a wink. He had noticed Abby's reaction to Brenna kissing Tim, and wanted to divert to a topic that would be more comfortable for her. As humor was his usual diversion of choice, he did what he could to lighten the mood.
Brenna laughed. "Thank you, Agent DiNozzo," she said, standing on tiptoe to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "And thank you, Agent Gibbs," she mimicked, giving him a similar kiss. "All better now?" she asked Tony.
"Much. Thanks."
Brenna winked at Jenna, a subtle reminder to put a smile back on her face. She hugged her sister again, whispering soft in her ear, "No big deal, just breathe."
Jenna chuckled in response, and hoped no one had noticed her reaction to her sister kissing Gibbs so innocently on the cheek. She was beginning to wonder what was wrong with her: it wasn't like her to become this territorial over someone so quickly. At this point, she had already been tempted to rip out Steph's hair. Now she wanted to tear off her sister's lips. Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Sort of.
---
Sterling faced the man he had called to join him in DC. "She hasn't completed her assignment."
"That's not like Steph."
"No, it isn't. That's why I called you. This is the same information she had, with a few extras thrown in. Finish the job."
Opening the envelope, the man pulled out a name and address, work history and three pictures labeled "Abby Sciuto", "Jenna Davis", and "Brenna Davis".
"You said there were two targets," the man reminded Sterling.
"There's a sister as well. She was at college when Mike died, but if her sister had anything to do with it, I'm sure she knew about it."
"And if none of them had anything to do with it…?" he asked.
Sterling's cold eyes met his, "Get rid of them anyway."
---
"Okay, this is everything I could get from the DEA incriminating Brenna," Ziva said and brought up the paperwork and electronic logs that incriminated Brenna.
Brenna looked at the paperwork. "I never signed any of that!" Reading the codes on the logs, she said, "I don't go into any of those areas. What has he done?"
Tony put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. "Don't worry, Brenna; we'll figure this out."
"How?" she asked him.
Tony stopped smiling and said, "Probie will straighten it out." He turned to Tim. "Right, McGee?"
Tim swallowed as Brenna looked at him. "Ah, well, let's check the log program first. That should tell us if anyone has tampered with it; then we'll get the user ID code and track that to whoever changed the files."
Brenna smiled. "Sounds like a great place to start."
Gibbs stared at his agent who seemed to be knocked senseless by that smile again. "So do it, McGee."
"Right! On it, boss!" McGee ran around his desk to his computer to start looking.
"So, what have you four been up to?" Gibbs asked, turning his attention to Abby and the other ladies.
Abby bounced over and took control of the plasma. "Oh, not much; just heavily nailing Sterling Lancaster's coffin shut!" Clicking a button, she skimmed through several pieces of evidence, stopping when she found the one she wanted. "Meet Chuck McIntosh, Senior Field Agent for the FBI."
"Sterling killed him in his home office not long after I started working there," Steph told Gibbs.
"You didn't report this?" Gibbs asked.
"I told my contact and he was supposed to forward it up the line. Whether or not he did that, I don't know," Steph said.
"Plus, Jenna has an old list of contacts at your house, Gibbs. She saw these forms," Abby clicked again and the screen changed, "and recognized them to be like the ones she has. So, with the Agent's murder, we've got a great start."
"A start?" he questioned.
"Well, there is also the drug trafficking, and that's what the contact lists are for. He has them encrypted on his computer, and the program is written to delete itself if someone tries a password to unlock it that is more than two characters off," Steph informed him.
"How do you know this?"
She grinned. "I'm a spook, I know everything."
"Boss, these files have been changed. They didn't get far enough into the system to make them authentic, but they were in enough to plant this information," McGee said from his desk.
"Who changed it?" Gibbs asked.
"Looking through the log codes now… It was Adam Franklin, boss."
"YAY! So this clears me?" Brenna asked.
Ziva looked her way. "It's a start."
---
He was tired. He'd hadn't slept since he had started investigating Franklin, and the flight he'd just come off of hadn't helped his disposition. All roads had led to Franklin, and Franklin, being a man of the electronic age, hadn't bothered to stop using his bank card for purchases. He was in DC to turn evidence over to the DEA and to NCIS to clear Brenna Davis' name, and he was hoping to help the Feds capture the arrogant rat.
The guard at the gate had scoffed at his PI's license, but had let him onto the Navy Yard. The guard inside the building was more skeptical and he radioed up to have an agent escort him to the agent in charge of the DAX/Davis investigation. The agent kept his distance and stayed quiet on the ride up. He delivered him to a desk beside a plasma screen and announced their presence to the agent in charge.
"Special Agent Gibbs? I'm Daniel Carver, private investigator for DAX Pharmaceuticals. I have some information that your agency and the DEA might be interested in."
"Will it clear Brenna?" A lovely woman with jet-black pigtails asked.
He smiled at her and she grinned at him. "Yes, I believe it will."
---
"Attention Officers, be on the look-out for a black, 2003 Ford Taurus, Virginia Plates, Yankee Mike X-ray -1 1 0 Niner. Suspect is armed and dangerous. Call for back-up if spotted, apprehend with caution."
The two state troopers heard the APB and looked at the road ahead of them. "It's our lucky day. There's the car," the driver said.
"Yeah, dispatch; this is Officer Stanton. We've spotted the vehicle on HWY 360 headed south. Approaching the car in our vehicle now."
"Copy that, Officer; back-up is on their way. Be alert, the suspect is armed and dangerous. Over."
"Copy that, dispatch. Over and out."
"Let's get him," Stanton's partner said. They smiled and turned their lights on.
---
"Gibbs," he said, answering his desk phone. "What? When?" He hung up the phone and turned. "Adam Franklin was just apprehended on a Virginia highway. State Troopers are turning him over to the FBI, since his most recent crime was abducting and carrying Brenna Davis across the state line."
The two sisters shared a smile of relief. Between the evidence McGee discovered and the information the private investigator found, both Brenna and Damien would be cleared of suspicion. With Franklin's arrest, one bad guy was out of the way. Now they could focus their attention on bringing down Lancaster. They would need all the help they could get.