AN: Yes, another chapter. And yes, this will still take until almost Halloween to finish posting. I'm trying to get to a certain point by the end of this month when I have to get back and focus on revisions for my novel coming out mid-year. So once I get to that point, posting will probably slow down to once a week until probably the final month or so, when it will pick back up. For updates on how things are going, I'm on Twitter as jenniecoughlin - and there's usually plenty of McMayhem in my feed. :)

Chapter 5

Abby looked over the analysis of the skull fracture again. Even with the damage the fire had done to the gunny's skull, she'd been able to reconstruct a size and shape for the object that hit the woman. But she'd thought the accuracy was off, which might be part of why they hadn't found her killer.

The service photo they had of her showed a woman with shoulder-length hair, just long enough to pull back in accordance with regulations. But the video footage showed a woman with much longer hair, braided and pinned to her head. The braid was wrapped so it wouldn't interfere with the cover, which put part of it right where the blow had fractured her skull.

Broad and slightly curved, very likely a spade, not the shovel Ducky had first suggested. Although she'd had to listen to Ducky's lengthy explanation of the difference between the two at the time, she was glad of that now as she started running the dimensions she had calculated through the system to narrow down the list of possibilities. While one computer ran that, she continued her analysis to calculate the force of the blow and the length of the handle. She'd run this analysis when the team first caught the case, but with all the skin burned off the body, she hadn't had as much success with the wound's shape. She'd only been able to go off of the shape of the cracks in the skull. That new program, though, had let her run several simulations using the shape and size of the fracture and photos McGee had grabbed from the video of the gunnery sergeant returning from liberty to factor in the effects of her hair.

When the two computers beeped within minutes of each other, she turned and looked for Gibbs, but he didn't show up. Frowning, Abby headed to the squad room, only to find an empty bullpen.

"They're out on a case, Miss Scuito." Vance stood on the landing overlooking the bullpen.

"I think I have a lead on the gunnery sergeant." Abby bounced in place. "I got a better image of the weapon, and it's a specialized type of spade, a sharpshooter."

"Good work, Miss Scuito."

"Director, I'm not done. The shed inventory doesn't have a sharpshooter spade listed, and the shape of the spade is pretty unusual — long and skinny. Well, skinny for a spade." She grinned. "So either our killer found one there and took it with him-"

"Or he brought it for his own reasons." Vance's mouth moved into a fraction of a smile. "Does Quantico have any sharpshooters in supply?"

"I'm running that now," Abby said. "And until Bossman and the others bring me evidence from this new case, I'll go over the video footage and see if I can find anybody carrying one."

Vance nodded. "If the killer brought the spade, there had to be a reason." He paused. "She was killed in a garden shed. There were other weapons available to kill her."

"I'm already checking into similar deaths," Abby said. "I'll look at what kind of projects the spade is used for, too. Maybe that will give us a lead."

Vance nodded. "Only until the team gets back with the evidence on the current case." He outlined the details for her. "It's top priority, and high-profile. We need to solve it before word gets out."

Abby nodded. "Don't worry, Leon, we'll catch them."

"I know you will."

~NCIS~NICS~NICS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

As Gibbs stopped to get a sitrep from the MPs on the scene, and Tony and McGee started shooting and tagging the scene, Ziva stood back and looked at the entire picture, tried to imagine what had happened. She had seen too many of these in her life. The blast radius was a cone, the dead Marine caught in it like a spotlight. She walked to stand behind the origin point and crouched down, her gloved fingers examining the scorched soil. Three indentations in the field were pointed, also conelike. She explored the area around the mine's location, taking her head close to the ground to look for patterns pressed into the grass behind it.

Shaking her head, Ziva got to her feet and went to talk to Gibbs, who was just finishing up.

"Gibbs, I believe this was a homemade claymore mine," she said. "I found the location of the mine."

"Trip wire?"

She shook her head. "I did not find any evidence of one." She paused. "Despite our last case involving one, and the one used by Director Vance and my father in Amsterdam, tripwires are not as common with those as with other types of mines. A remote control is more likely."

"We're looking for somebody who was here."

"That would be my guess, yes." She paused. "And that would mean our boxer was the intended target."

Gibbs grunted, so Ziva started interviewing witnesses. There were not many — the field was reserved for the obstacle course, orienteering and sniper training, so no buildings were nearby and there were few people around. She noted what information she could and then went to find McGee.

"McGee, how easy is it to get onto this base?"

He stood up, evidence bag in hand. "Not very. This isn't like the Navy Yard or Quantico where there are museums and other facilities on site that are open to the public. There, you only need to show a driver's license and tell them where you're going. Here, you need to be sponsored by somebody here to get on base. There is a strip of land that's civilian that cuts through the base, but they keep an eye on that."

Ziva frowned. "But it seemed as though there were a large number of civilians on base as we drove through."

McGee's face squinched, no, scrunched up. "You're right, Ziva. I'm going to check into that." He started tapping his phone, and Ziva moved off to see if Tony needed assistance. Ducky and Jimmy had arrived and were examining the dead Marine, Gibbs observing and barking questions at Ducky.

~NCIS~NICS~NICS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

Abby decided to skip a trip to the coffee shop for a Caf-Pow and headed back to her lab. Her main lab computer was still searching old case files, and the one next to it was running Quantico's supply lists, so she went into her office to research sharpshooters.

The ding from the main lab sent her out there to find a big red "no results found" box on the Quantico supply search. "Ha! Got you!" She loaded up that computer with the video footage from the base and sent it to the plasma to start watching. She started 24 hours before the gunny's return to base, looking for any evidence of the spade. It had to arrive on base somehow, and then had to find its way to the garden shed. Pausing the video, she pulled up the base gate logs and started running all plates for all vehicles that had entered the base the 24 hours before the fire.

Before she could start up the video again, her main lab computer beeped. Abby rolled her chair across the room, her eyes wide as she looked at the file on the screen.

Lance Corporal Megan Walker had been killed by a blow to the head while making the rounds at Anacostia back in November 2005. The MP's killer had never been found. Balboa's team had worked the case. Abby scowled as she saw Chip's notes on the forensics forms. But her own weren't anywhere to be found, which was odd. Until she pulled up the other cases during that week and found it was the same week Tony had been accused of murder.

"Please tell me I did not miss something that would have found this guy because I was trying to save Tony," she muttered as she read through the file. But the evidence was minimal. The MP had fought with her boyfriend a few days earlier, and even though he had an alibi, Bolboa's team hadn't found any other suspects. But the also hadn't found enough evidence to link anybody — much less the boyfriend — to the death.

Abby pulled up Ducky's report and couldn't help but wincing at the skull X-ray. Her head had been cracked open, and the dent in the flesh matched the shape of the sharpshooters she'd found that fit the description of the weapon. The blow on the 2005 death was harder than on the gunny's head, but the cushioning of the hair might explain that.

Abby's fingers attacked the keyboard as she started cross-referencing the two files, looking for common elements. Both female, both MPs, both based at Quantico. Same murder weapon. The fire was different, though.

She pulled up their service records. Walker's was pretty standard. She was a good Marine, got good marks from her COs, but nothing outstanding. Her short blonde hair curled at the edges, and Abby imagined she must have decided to keep it shorter than strictly necessary to avoid major hat hair from her cover. A good marine, rising through the ranks, but nothing spectacular. Everybody liked her, based on what Balboa's notes recorded.

Ianuskewicz was different, a standout Marine who was rocketing up the ranks. She got good marks from her COs, but Gibbs and the rest of the team had found a few people who resented her quick climb, mostly older, male Marines in the MP unit. She wore her straight red hair long, pulled back while on base. She was taller than Walker, but not by more than an inch or two. Not enough to give her any information on the killer's height. Neither woman topped 5' 6" so the information that the killer struck from slightly above didn't narrow the field much. Ducky was the only man she could think of who might have been too short to strike that blow, and Marines his height were unusual.

Abby frowned and programmed in a few searches. The first looked for any dead female MPs among the unsolved cases. The second, for anybody who was stationed at Quantico in 2005 and today. She set a third search for any other dead female Marines with unsolved cases, then a similar one for unsolved Quantico deaths. Her final search — for now — looked for dead MPs. Then she set up all the searches to cross-reference for any case that showed up on more than one list.

Before she could do anything else, McGee wheeled a cart full of evidence boxes into the lab.

~NCIS~NICS~NICS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

McGee could sense Abby vibrating around the lab as she bounced among all the beeping computers, but he focused in on his own. She'd filled him in on her theory while they were testing the evidence in this case, but McGee was too busy trying to run down the background on their dead Marine to figure out why somebody would target him. He'd grown up in a tough inner-city Baltimore neighborhood, gotten noticed at a Golden Gloves tournament by a Marine recruiter. McGee made a note to look into that, since the Corps didn't recruit for its boxing teams. He also wanted to look into the Baltimore connection. It wasn't that long of a drive, and the Marine was only 21 — this could still be a grudge from his own neighborhood. He couldn't find a record of gang involvement or a juvenile record, but it would have been sealed when he turned 18.

"Abbs, you got the list of components for the IED yet?" He didn't look up from the screen. "I want to see if I can trace them before Gibbs walks in and asks-"

"Whatcha got, Abbs?" Gibbs walked in, coffee and Caf-Pow in hand.

McGee snorted and Abby giggled.

Gibbs just looked at them.

"Impeccable timing, as always, El Jefe." Abby grinned. "I'm just finishing my reconstruction of the blast pattern. McGee, the list of material is in your email."

He nodded and started looking for purchases of the chemicals used to create the explosive while Abby walked Gibbs through the blast reconstruction.

"Ziva was right — this is basically a claymore mine, although a homemade one." Abby finished up.

Before she could say anything else, McGee's computer started beeping. He looked at the screen, eyebrows shooting high.

"Boss, I've got hits on both cases."

"Hot one first."

McGee nodded. "I found the recruiter's file on this guy, and it looks like he was skating right along the line of getting in serious trouble back in middle school. A Baltimore cop brought him down to the boxing ring, hooked him up with a guy who tried to keep kids out of trouble, and that did the trick. The recruiter had managed to recruit several of the kids from that gym — the Corps gave them a way out of the neighborhood and let them keep boxing if they wanted. It was one of his regular stopping points."

"Get me-"

"I sent the recruiter's name to Tony — he might be able to track down the cop if the guy's still with the department."

"And doesn't hate Tony," Abby said.

"Right, and doesn't hate Tony." McGee rolled his eyes. "Hopefully this one wasn't dirty." At Gibbs' glare, he stopped. "Right, Boss. Still tracing the explosives."

"The other case?"

"Right." McGee tapped a few keys to bring up the file. "Looks like we have one other unsolved MP death. It's a different MO, but also somebody stationed at Quantico. This was a guy, a first sergeant, and he was shot off base while he was on liberty. He had a reputation with the women, and a couple of his girlfriends turned out to be married, so Krone's team thought it was a jealous husband. But they never did find a killer."

"Keep digging, both cases." Gibbs left.

~NCIS~NICS~NICS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

Some days, it is enough for me to watch and listen, to learn more about this team. Others, I must go and research my targets, make sure they are precise. Both are important. I note down everything I learn about the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs and his team. You never know just when a detail might be needed. There was one incident during Agent Todd's first few months on the team that I made note of. She reminded me of Sarah when I heard about it. Sarah tormented me. She didn't know her place, and neither did Agent Todd. If they had, if they had given me the respect I deserved, things might have been different. I'm glad they weren't. Because of Sarah, I have greatness within my grasp. Because of Agent Todd, Leroy Jethro Gibbs will soon begin to realize that.