Tony sighed as he got out of his Mustang in the hospital parking lot. It had been a long and truly frustrating day. They'd gone to Townell's apartment, hoping that they'd find him there, but knowing full well that he had a 24 hour lead on them.
His apartment had been messy, but not ransacked; more like someone had left in a hurry than anything else. He and Ziva had spent a good 3 hours going over the place with a fine tooth comb, hoping to find a lead. Townell was more careful than Jacobi, however. No conveniently forgotten foreign currency or travel brochures this time. They'd bagged and tagged a bunch of evidence, which was now on its way to the FBI labs, seeing as though their forensic scientist was in the hospital. He had a hunch that most of it would turn out to be useless, but you never knew what turned up; a break in a case sometimes came from the most unlikely of sources. The only bright spot was the fact that Townell had left his laptop behind. He was tempted to give it to McGee to crack while he was on 'leave', give him something else to think about. He'd have to run that by the Boss first. He knew he had no chance of getting any information out of it; Townell worked in Cybercrimes, while he, Tony, could barely type.
After striking out at Townell's apartment, they'd gone back to the Yard to start following the usual paper trail. They'd put out BOLO's on Townell and his car, checked with Customs and Immigration to see if he'd used his passport in the last week, started running phone records, and done a background check. So far, they had nothing, except for the Trojan on Abby's computer.
He knew Gibbs was concerned about the possibility of Townell coming after Abby. He'd obviously known about Vance's suspicions and Abby's assignment, otherwise why would he plant the Trojan on her computer? Try as he might, he couldn't figure out a way to discreetly keep an eye on her without alerting McGee. He'd been a field agent long enough to know when something was hinky, and he definitely operated on high alert when it came to Abby's safety.
Tony walked along the now familiar corridors to Abby's room, hoping he'd find her awake again. Arriving at her room, he stuck his head around the door and was momentarily surprised to see Gibbs in the visitors' chair
"Hey Abs, hey Boss. Where's Probie?"He looked around, expecting to see McGee somewhere close by.
"He left just after I got here" Gibbs explained
That made sense. Abby looked a lot calmer tonight than she had last night; McGee had probably realised he didn't need to be quite so protective. Anyway, she was perfectly safe with Gibbs.
"Oh, ok. I'm just gonna wait here then" he stepped back out into the hallway, knowing that otherwise the nurses were going to come along and kick one of them out. He leant against the wall, mentally rehearsing his arguments for giving McGee the laptop. The only people on the team that had a chance of cracking whatever protection Townell had put on it were Abby and McGee, and to be honest Abby would need McGee's help even on her best day. The alternative was to try and get Cybercrimes to have a look at it, and they couldn't really be sure that there was no one else in on the scam. Surely Gibbs would see his point?
About half an hour later, Gibbs exited Abby's room, nodding to Tony to enter. He stopped Gibbs from leaving
"Hey Boss, I was thinking. Townell's laptop; I really don't stand a chance of getting through his protection, and neither does Ziva. We could give it to Cybercrimes, but we can't be sure that whoever takes it down there hasn't been compromised. Only one of us that can get into that hard drive is McGee"
"Yup"
"So maybe we should give him the laptop, give him something to do. He's gotta be going crazy"
"Already did, DiNozzo"
"Oh"
Gibbs half smirked, then turned to leave
"Don't stay too late, DiNozzo. Got work to do" he threw over his shoulder as he walked down the hallway.
Shaking his head slightly, Tony entered Abby's room. She was sitting bolt upright in the bed, her eyes dilated with fear. He hurried over to her
"Abs, what's wrong?"
She relaxed at his presence, gesturing impatiently at herself
"'It's nothing, Tony, just... don't leave me alone, ok?" Her eyes warned him not to press the point. She wasn't up to explaining whatever it was that was scaring her this badly.
"Is McGee coming back tonight?" he asked her. She nodded
"Then I'll stay til he gets back"