AN: Sorry for the delay. I was out of town, then hurt my foot by tripping and falling on my face 10 minutes after meeting a work colleague in person for the first time. *Great* first impression. Foot's still swollen and bruised four days later, but slowly getting better. It's slowed me down a lot, though, which is why I'm just getting to posting this.
Chapter 12
Once in the elevator, Gibbs hit the emergency stop. "Talk, Tim."
McGee's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Boss?"
Gibbs just looked at him, waiting to see what the agent's big brain would spit out.
"You and Tony have more experience with serials, but there has to be some internal consistency to this guy's actions. It might be nuts to us, but it makes sense to him. If we could figure out how his signature and him targeting us fit together, that might help." McGee shoved his hands in his pockets. "And if we can find all his bodies, we might be able to figure out the common vector among his victims. The Navy Yard looked promising until we couldn't link the boxer."
Gibbs nodded. "Thoughts?"
"The heart. That can't be the victims — if they were all women or all men or all one physical type, we could guess he was getting revenge on a former lover or stalking people that reminded the killer of somebody."
"Us?"
"It could be an angry ex, or somebody angry at us for putting away a boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse." McGee hesitated. "I've got my fair share of psycho exes, and two of the four bodies represent me."
Gibbs smacked his head. "Think, McGee." He waited, but when McGee didn't say anything, he explained. "When DiNozzo's exes hate him, they target him — not the team." He could almost see the tension leave McGee's shoulders. "Even when my ex-wives hated the time the job took, they didn't brain the team with a seven-iron. Just me."
"So we can't eliminate that, but it's less likely." McGee nodded. "I'll start pulling cases where spouses and significant others still have DOD clearances. Base access is a big piece of this one."
Gibbs gave a brief nod, turned the elevator back on. Once in the squadroom, he decided to let McGee get his search-thingy running, then they were getting coffee.
~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~
Tony looked at the six carts of evidence boxes and groaned.
"Agent DiNozzo?" Dorney looked at him.
"Come on, Dorneget. Time to experience your first official Leroy Jethro Gibbs all-nighter." Tony wheeled two carts outside the locked archives and waited for Dorneget to exit before punching in his security code to lock up. He'd been skeptical when Vance had replaced the guard on the archives with cameras and a key code lock, but it was coming in handy this time. Nobody would know they were taking out so many files unless they actually saw them with the boxes. Only the security guards would know from seeing the tape, and they all knew Gibbs and Tony's obsession with the job too well to think this was weird.
"Where are we taking them?" Dorney looked confused. "There's not enough room in the bullpen unless we just keep walking around them."
Tony shook his head. "Abby's lab. We can store them in ballistics and work on the table in her office."
Dorneget nodded and followed along. When they wheeled the carts in, Abby and Ziva were just finishing up their food.
"Ziva, can you start reviewing the files while we bring the others up?" Tony almost smiled at the furrow in her brow.
"The others?"
"Four more carts." He grinned, the showy smile that said nothing.
"This will be like finding a pin in a hay pile." Ziva threw up her hands.
"It's needle in a haystack, and yes, yes it will. But since none of us wants to wind up dead, we need to find however many needles are hiding in this particular haystack." Tony tipped his head, cracked his neck. "Come on, Dorneget."
~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~
McGee punched in the last of the search parameters, then forced his shoulders back down from where they had crunched up around his ears. They needed to find this guy — fast — and he couldn't afford to let tension suck out all his energy.
"McGee, coffee." Gibbs stood in front of his desk.
"Boss?" Usually Gibbs would be halfway to the elevator by now.
"With me, McGee."
McGee felt like headslapping himself. Right. Nobody goes solo. "Coming, Boss." Once in the elevator, he couldn't stop himself from thinking out loud. "There has to be something we're missing. Those hearts he's leaving are just odd enough that Abby would have noticed if they kept turning up on cases."
Gibbs didn't say anything, so McGee kept going.
"But serials don't change their signature, usually."
"Method." Gibbs lifted an eyebrow.
"Right, they usually keep the same method, too. This guy isn't. Why not?" McGee wasn't really asking the team leader. "In three of the deaths, the cause of death was as much a pointer to who he was targeting as the victim. So maybe-" He broke off as the doors opened on the ground floor, two of the intelligence analysts waiting there.
McGee nodded at the one he didn't know. "Hey, Nikki." McGee figured he'd better hold up the pleasantries for both of them.
"Hi, McGee. Agent Gibbs." The germ-phobic intel analyst waited until they had stepped off the elevator before moving toward it. "You're working late."
"So are you." McGee was glad Vance hadn't assigned her to them as a TAD — this case was too messy.
"Middle East desk. This is their daytime, so for the next several weeks, it's mine, too." She stepped inside the elevator before the doors could close, the other agent right behind her. McGee recognized him from the coffee shop the other night.
As they stepped outside, McGee could see the glow from the stadium in the sky. A quick time check and he sighed with relief. "Game won't be over for a bit, no crowd at the coffee shop."
Gibbs just grunted. McGee hesitated. "Boss, every time we get a new body, we keep widening our search field. But with four data points — four bodies — we should have been able to start narrowing it by now."
"Ya think." Gibbs started walking faster. "Bastard's good."
"He'd have to be, if he's going to taunt us." McGee wasn't even conscious of speaking out loud. "We know he's targeting us, and he knows us well. And if he knows us that well, he's seen how you get when there's a hot case."
"Obsessive and demanding?" The Marine walking toward them grinned. "Gunny, you never change, do you?"
"I do what works, Colonel." Gibbs shook the officer's hand. "Colonel Jenkins, this is Agent McGee."
"McGee?" The colonel looked at McGee. "The admiral's son?"
McGee nodded, years of practice letting him hide the automatic wince. "Yes, sir."
"I served a tour with your father before they drydocked me here. No wonder the gunny hasn't scared you off yet."
McGee nodded. "There are some similarities, yes." He didn't want to get into them, but they were there. "Did you serve with Agent Gibbs, sir?"
"Beirut, then Colombia," Jenkins said. "One of the best snipers in the Corps when he served."
McGee grinned. "He's still the best marksman in NCIS."
"McGee."
At Gibbs' growl, the colonel grinned. "Gunny never was one for small talk. Nice meeting you, McGee." He continued past them.
When the got to the coffee shop, it was quiet, just a couple of people in there, stacks of paperwork in front of them. McGee rattled off the order for the entire team, plus a second black coffee with two shots for Gibbs, but the team leader stopped him when he took out his wallet.
"I've got it." Gibbs handed over the money to the girl behind the counter. McGee recognized her as the flake from the other day. He'd worry, but Aaron was working and the barista made note of Dorneget's medium roast with room for cream, the one difference from their usual team order.
"Long night, McGee?" Aaron said as he started brewing espresso and steaming milk.
"You have no idea." McGee rubbed his forehead. "Pretty sure we're going to be back here in a few hours."
Aaron shook his head and lowered his voice. "I would not want your job, especially not when Agent Gibbs is mainlining caffeine."
McGee shrugged. "You get used to it."
Aaron glanced over at him. "If you say so." He finished building Tony's hazelnut mocha. "I'm just glad I won't be here on your next run."
"Your shift almost over?"
He nodded. "Yeah. So I get to referee a fight between my sister and our mother." He rolled his eyes. "Last time I did that, I ended up with a black eye."
McGee lifted an eyebrow. "Younger sister?"
"Older. She'll be 40 next week." He rolled his eyes. "You got sisters, McGee?"
"One, but she's younger. And she fights with words, not fists."
"Oh, the shouting's going on now. I'll get there just in time to wade in and break it up." He passed over McGee's latte, then Ziva's tea. "Who's the medium roast for?"
"A probie who's helping us on this case." McGee started fitting the cups into the carrier Aaron put on the counter before pulling the plain coffees. "You'll probably run into him at some point this week — I don't think we're going to close this one quickly."
Aaron grimaced. "Thanks for the warning." He lowered his voice. "I'll spread the word — extra shots in Gibbs' coffee."
McGee snorted. "Gee, thanks."
He took the coffee and looked around for Gibbs, to find him speaking with a master chief petty officer sitting by the windows. McGee walked over, coffee trays stacked on top of each other. Gibbs lifted the top one off,
"Nice to see you again, Master Chief."
"Likewise, Gunny." The sailor nodded at McGee, then went back to his books.
Gibbs headed to the counter for his second coffee, which didn't fit in the trays, then followed McGee out the door.
They headed back to the NCIS building in silence. McGee scanned their surroundings, but except for more cars than usual, things appeared fine. And the cars were probably sailors and Marines who were at the ball game. He and Tony had done the same thing a few times when they'd gone to games, just to avoid the hassles and costs of the alternatives.
"You think we can find him before he kills again?" McGee ventured the question that had been on his mind all evening.
"For all we know, he already has." Gibbs' tone was just shy of a growl.
McGee didn't reply until he had managed to swipe his key card and open the door carrying the tray of drinks.
"Oh, Lord." Sam, one of the security guards, blanched. "If all that coffee's for Gibbs, we're in trouble."
"Just two of them," McGee said.
"An all-nighter, huh?" Sam let them pass through. "I'll warn Thurman to steer clear."
McGee smirked at the idea of the night janitor hiding from Gibbs, but was surprised to see a similar smirk on Gibbs' face when they got in the elevator.
"Check your search-thingy, then we'll head to the lab." Gibbs elbowed the right button on the panel.
McGee shook his head. "It'll hit my phone when the results come in, Boss. Must still be running."
Gibbs just nodded and led the way to Abby's lab. They walked in to find files everywhere and complete chaos — even by Abby's standards.
~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~
This is my favorite part. Lying in wait, my target almost upon me. This one will give them more clues, but it will not be enough. I like the dark. They can't find me in the dark. If they can't find me, they can't mock me. She can't mock me. When this is done, when the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs has tried and failed to catch me, I will disappear into the dark of night, content to let my legend live — the way my hero's could not. I could help things along, could hand them another piece of the puzzle. But the time for that has not yet come. I will save that for my first main strike. Just two days from now. Two deaths from now. Two victories from now.