To Die Standing
Chapter 7
" So I was so distracted by the blood of our guy that I didn't bother checking his clothes."
" You honestly think the dirt on his clothes would give us any clues." McGee looked at Abby intensely.
" It's evidence," Abby lifted the man's pants. " It's all smudged and gross. Wonder what with. Can you look at that?"
McGee stared at the garments. Whatever it was, he was certain he did not want to touch it. He looked up at Abby, who was wearing an open, bright expression. He half wondered if she was truly ignorant, or she was tormenting him on purpose.
He took the garments.
" Thanks McGee!"
Abby then turned to her computer. " Oh come on," She exclaimed. " This program needs debugging. It entered an infinite loop! I've been using you for years, and you've never entered an infinite loop. Why now? Why now?"
" Need me to debug it for you?" McGee asked, eager to do something other than the garments.
" I can debug it." Abby replied, opening the source files. " God, I can't believe, now of all times. I hate debugging. Debugging sucks."
The elevator doors opened.
" You gonna tell me what it is?" Tony asked, as Ziva walked ahead, exasperated. " Since when did Mossad agents have friendly chats with folks in China?"
" I don't have to do the explaining, DiNozzo," Ziva retorted angrily. " Looking over on my computer when I'm not watching is one thing. Downright hacking into the memory is another." She took a brief millisecond to wonder where Tony learned to hack in the first place, then gave way back to her anger.
" Hey, it's impossible to look over your shoulder without you knowing." Tony defended, half using the opportunity to cool his partner's ire with some flattery. " And…I…was worried."
" About what?" Ziva snapped back harshly, causing both Abby and McGee to stop what they were doing. " Maybe I was leaking information. That what you were checking for?"
" No!" Tony cried, a bit dismayed. He could tell Ziva was furious. As she turned back away from him, he saw a bright flash in her eyes, like that caused by tears. She headed over to Abby without blinking. " You have anything?" She asked, in a voice that was still forceful, but less angry.
Noting her temper, Abby said cautiously, " Well, McGee's checking the pants, and I'm trying to debug this problem that suddenly came up—"
" Wait a minute," Tony broke in, breaking out of his stupor, " You're the one that's been keeping things from us! Why the hell are you angry?"
Ziva turned to Tony with a long-suffering expression. " DiNozzo, even if I were keeping stuff from you, it's my business."
" Hey…" Tony began lamely, " I didn't even see what you said…"
" That's not the point!"
Throwing up her hands angrily, she stormed back to the elevator. The doors closed behind her.
Knowing she had come down to get away from Tony, Abby and McGee did not question why she left without getting more information from them.
" You hacked into her computer?" McGee asked.
" Why did you do that Tony?" Abby asked. " That's really rude, you know."
" Hey, is anyone else wondering at all about why she's talking to some Chinese person?"
" Friend? Relative? Who cares?" Abby pushed a finger into Tony's shoulder. " I'm so feeling for Ziva right now, I swear."
" I didn't even see anything!"
" She caught you?" McGee asked knowingly.
Tony threw McGee a dark look.
" Seriously Tony! Social integrity! You don't bust into your friend's systems! You only bust into your enemy's!" She sighed. Then she whacked him. " And I can't believe you didn't get anything out of it either."
oO
Yilen set her baggage down for a moment so she could reach into her purse to take her mirror out. She looked at her face to check her makeup, then surreptuously moved the mirror to the side to look behind her. There was a man looking earnestly at her. He was dressed like a tourist. Some American, it looks like.
Yilen found it very difficult to like the US, due to the trouble their agents usually gave her. No doubt, they disliked her too, for the trouble she gives them. At the moment, however, her primary job is to get to the US and help Ziva. This agent behind her cannot know that, and no doubt he thought her up to some foulplay. Not for the first time, she wished she had a private jet. In that case she would not have to deal with stalkers at an airport.
So, should she try to lose him, or should she just take him out of the picture?
Taking him out of the picture fit her mood much more.
She put her mirror away and lifted her bags. Some parts of the airport are more populated than others, and she only needed about three seconds to take him out. Three seconds would not suffice to alleviate her foul mood, but spies learn to take what they can get.
Of all people…Ziva David. Why does this always hit the ones that are most promising? Gritting her teeth, the young, fair woman began walking briskly, fuming with repressed anger. Yes, this man will be receiving the brunt of it.
There are certain areas of an airport that are more abandoned than others. She began walking briskly in that direction without looking back, confident that the man was following. Then, with the skill of a spy, she turned and hid.
Surprised and confused, the man abruptly stopped, then looked around. He was not close enough yet, nor in the right position. She waited patiently.
Finally, the man moved close enough. She reached out, grabbed him by the neck and pulled harshly. She slammed his head twice against the wall. As the man slumped, she patted her hands off, and stepped back out, picking up her baggage.
Now she had about sixteen hours of flight to look forward to.
oO
" So…there's something going on with Ziva, and she's not telling us what it is?" Abby ran the program again. " Great! It's fixed."
" Pretty much. She has Gibbs freaked out."
" Gibbs doesn't seem freaked out to me," Abby looked up at Tony.
" Trust me." Tony whispered. " He is."
" What do you think is going on then?"
" I don't know." Tony scowled a little. " Might have something to do with her newfound clumsiness."
" Ziva, clumsy?"
" Yeah, I know."
" Wait," Abby looked genuinely concerned now, " What would cause her to be clumsy?"
Unable to resist the chance to embarrass his partner in some way, Tony quipped back, " Oh, I don't know, old age, maybe, possibly if she has a crush on someone—"
" No no no," Abby said quickly. " It's gotta be something big. Not like that."
" Well if she had a crush on someone it would be big."
" Tony, she did have a crush on someone. She didn't exactly become Ms. Butterfingers."
Tony grinned.
The elevator sounded, and Gibbs came out, holding Caf-pow in one hand and coffee in the other. " What have you got, Abby?"
" Well, McGee and I took a look at the pants—they're covered with a spore from a type of mushroom called Mycena cyanorrhiza, which is really hard to detect but we discovered it because it stains blue—"
" Abby, what does this mean?"
" Well, first of all, cyanorrhiza contains a hallucinogen psilocybin."
Gibbs stared at her. " Meaning?"
" Shrooms, Gibbs."
" Our victim was drugged?" Tony blinked.
" Not necessarily—considering it's all over his pants, he isn't necessarily drugged. I ran a check to see where we would actually find the mushroom, and there's only place that has enough to justify having enough mushrooms to crush spores into his pants, is in the botanical garden."
" Sounds reasonable." Tony looked at Gibbs.
" Were they on the second victim as well?" Gibbs asked.
" Looking through the results as we speak."
" Good work, Abby. We're heading out."
oO
The mushrooms did not look disturbed.
" If they were all over the legs," Ziva blinked, " But the spores could be in the soil."
" Here." Tony handed a bag to her. " Take a sample or something."
" DiNozzo," Gibbs snapped, " You can bag the evidence. Ziva can come with me."
Tony glanced at Ziva, momentarily confused. Ziva gave Gibbs an exasperated look.
" Now, if you will?" Gibbs demanded.
Ziva handed the bag over to Tony. It was obvious Gibbs merely did not want Ziva doing the dirty work, but neither made any mention of it.
" No one came by?" Gibbs continued questioning the manager. " Not at night?"
" I wouldn't know. The security guard would know, but I'm not sure how they work." The manager said apologetically. " I mean, we certainly don't have any signs of foulplay around here, everything looked normal."
" Do you keep leeches around here?"
" Leeches?" The manager scowled. " This isn't the Amazon. We have tropical plants here, yes, but we don't have leeches—the very idea!"
Gibbs rolled his eyes while the manager turned around, still exclaiming the absurdity of the suggestion.
" Any one of your people work late hours?"
" Joe stays late on Fridays in order to tend to the butterflies. He leaves at around eight or nine."
" And this garden closes at five?" Ziva asked.
" Yeah."
" Why so late?" Ziva asked. " Surely the butterflies can handle themselves for an extra three hours."
" Egh, he has to go around checking that everything's okay, but if you really want to know the details you should ask Joe."
" Can you take us to him?" Gibbs asked.
The manager seemed to give an apologetic shrug. " Yeah he's in the office now, I think. I can take ye to him."