Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Tim felt considerably better when he left the elevator and entered the squad room after two more days of recuperating rest.
At the familiar ding, Tony raised his head expectantly and his face lit up as he noticed the spring having returned in his Probie's step. Yeah, this was more like it. Apparently, the forced house arrest had done a wealth of good and McGee did look more like his old self again as he walked to his desk and swung off his backpack to dump it beside his chair.
As he booted his computers, he exhaled with a contented smile and directed his gaze to Tony and Ziva.
"Kayyy...So, what have I missed? I don't expect you got the case wrapped up in my absence, so can anyone fill me in?"
At that moment, Gibbs approached him and flopped a file down on Tim's desk, all the time subjecting his agent to a close scrutiny. Satisfied at seeing before him an agent that looked rested and eager to get back to doing his job, he volunteered: "Take your time to read this. It's all we got so far – which is little enough."
As Gibbs turned around to bound up the stairs to the director's floor, he shot over his shoulder: "I hope you can shed a light on this. We've got nothing connecting to a crime, here."
Both Tony and Ziva offered Tim a sympathetic smile before hurrying down to Abby's lab, leaving Tim to do some catching-up.
He rested his head in his palm as he skimmed the pages and examined both the already filed evidence, as well as what his computer came up with via the network.
About an hour later, he was so engrossed in his reading, that he barely registered someone had been so considerate to fetch him a coffee, a sprinkled donut in a paper bag sitting next to it. It brought a smile on his face and he took the sticky donut in his hand and started munching as he continued working through the evidence, only pausing long enough to go to the restroom to wash the stickiness off his hands and, whilst he was there, relieve himself.
To all appearances, both Lorraine Daring and the young midshipman, Hugh Pellowe, had vanished without a trace.
He next focused on the cellular phone evidence, but what information NCIS had gathered so far gave no indication of the presumed whereabouts of both young people. They had determined the two had still been in touch with one another after Lorraine's disappearance. He would go through the GPS search results in more detail later.
Onto the interviews then. According to what the investigators had gleaned from the accounts, there was no mention of any problems between the couple, although the parents might differ on this. I was a public secret they thought their daughter was wasting her time on that no good punk.
In short: they had nothing. Zilch.
And yet... what was it? Oh yes!
McGee's fingers danced over the keyboard with such virtuosity and various screens popped up.
His eyes widened with recognition: there it was! The call history from both cell phones had already established they kept at least in touch, and, from the way things looked, this could hardly be regarded as an abduction. No, what did attract his attention was that the GPS showed near identical locations.
"So they were together," he mused.
The screen offered locations SE of Norfolk, more specifically Virginia Beach. One call from Southside Road to a location on Norfolk Avenue. Could mean... the marina? Rudee Inlet Marinas lay close-by. This was too much of a coincidence.
He groaned with vexation.
The data was at least four days old. Because of the time interval, they could be anywhere. Most probably halfway the Atlantic, for all he knew!
This thought was cause enough for him to groan some more.
That meant 'boats'. He hated them and their rolling, stomping, dipping motion... that got his insides also into a motion of its own.
More importantly: what had his co-workers done with this information? He searched for the rest of the file, but, nope – this was all they had.
There was no sign they had gone down to Virginia Beach – or the marina – to follow up on this, what was in his eyes, an important clue.
He jotted down some notes for later reference.
Next, he brought up a set of photographs, processed by Abby, on his screen, showing a young man, strongly resembling Pellowe, dragging a girl against her will. The scene had attracted bystanders who had recorded this occurrence on their cell phones five days ago at the Janaf mall. It fitted in with the pair of them on their way to Virginia Beach. However, after enlarging them and minimizing the grain and 'dust', it revealed this was no link to this case. The thoroughly analyzed pictures showed this was not the couple they were after.
Tim sat back in his chair, fingers laced at the back of his head and eyes closed, as he mentally sifted through the data. The only valuable clues, so far, were the cell phone tracings. So it stood to reason to pick up the investigation there.
"Thanks, Abbs." Gibbs put the receiver back down with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he observed how his agent startled from his reverie, but, to his credit, recovered himself fast enough as he shared his ideas with his boss.
"I'll check the web cams near the locations. And the Virginia DOT Traffic cameras for Pellowe's car. We don't have much to go on, but this is the best course of action, right now."
He put the findings on the plasma and got up to stand beside Gibbs as he continued explaining.
"I think th..."
"Think? McGee?" Gibbs cut in with deadpan humor.
Tim frowned, his eyes goggling so much one could actually see the whites.
He puffed out his cheeks before continuing.
"There's a chance..." he pushed on, not going to let himself be bothered by Gibbs' ironic remark. "... a big chance that they have taken a boat to get away." He nodded, warming more and more to this idea... except for the actual boat thing, which made him cringe.
He tapped his lips and mumbled. "Lorraine owns a smart phone. It's a relative new one. She hadn't synced it with her computer, yet, but I can still extract the embedded file system. Check her browsing history..."
Retreating to his desk, he spent the rest of the day hidden behind his screens, checking and double checking anything of evidenciary value obtained from the internal data system of the cell phones, comparing analysises, ... all of which had him convinced more than ever that the couple had embarked on a voyage.
He buried his head in his hands, already feeling miserable. Then, with all the willpower he possessed, he brushed his aversion to all things afloat aside and took his overview of evidence to Gibbs, all the while hoping Director Vance would come down requesting his help at MTAC.
Anything that would keep him with his feet firm on dry land.