Monday at 0632 -

Abby almost shrieked with glee. Almost. She and McGee had found something, lots of something, and she knew it might be enough to keep Gibbs occupied, at least for a bit. On Friday she had gone to Ducky to get some more blood and tissue samples, telling him that major Mass Spec was acting wonky and she needed to make sure the machine was functioning properly. Ducky and Jimmy had both been happy to help her out and she didn't think they suspected anything.

Now, waiting for the phone call to connect, she tried not to think about keeping things from Gibbs and Ducky and all the others.

"Gibbs, Gibbs, McGee and I found pictures of O'Neill that will tell you something about him."

He was thinking about the conversations with O'Neill and Ellison when his phone beeped and it took a couple of seconds for his brain to change gears.

"Yeah, Abbs. I'll be right there."

He hadn't seen their cars in the lot, but he'd been in for more than 30 minutes so they probably got there after him. Tony and Ziva hadn't wandered in yet. In the elevator Gibbs thought about the phone call with O'Neill.

He entered the lab to blaring music and both Abby and McGee were singing along. He turned off the sound and the two immediately turned around.

"Gibbs, Gibbs," Abby rushed ahead in her usual frenzied way. "We worked a long time yesterday and..."

Yesterday was Sunday. Gibbs glanced from excited Abby to guilty looking McGee. "Yesterday?"

"Uh, yes, boss," McGee admitted. "Abby came over and we used my computer at home to search."

"We know how important it is, Gibbs."

Lots of things were important. He should be happy that they were so dedicated, so why was he wary?

"What about the lab work, Abby?"

"Uh, well, I had a problem with my baby," and she pointed toward the Mass Spectrometer. "I got more samples from Ducky."

The doubt about everything was really heavy now. "How soon?"

"I don't know." She looked at the machine before answering. "Maybe... tomorrow."

Gibbs knew Abby was hiding something. Was it something to do with McGee? He didn't care what they did on their own time. Okay, he cared, but he didn't care enough to think about it or heaven forbid worry about it. Tim was a good man. They were both adults. He needed to get his brain back on the case. The case? What case? The man had died over five days ago and they didn't know if it was something besides natural causes.

"Get the lab work finished, Abby."

"I will," she promised.

Gibbs wasn't convinced, but she and McGee apparently had something else.

He remembered and pulled out the blue mini index card.

"McGee, talk to me about this phone number."

"But Gibbs, what we found is..."

"I know, Abby." He gave her one of his looks. "McGee?"

The soft-spoken man entered the information into the computer. Beep, beep. Click.

"The number is not registered to any known cell phone."

"It's O'Neill's number. I talked to him on Saturday."

McGee and Abby looked surprised, but didn't say anything.

"Tell me something about it, McGee."

Many seconds later, McGee had gotten nowhere. "It has weird encryption."

"Weird, McGee?"

"Different than anything I've ever seen. Where were you when you spoke to him and did he call you or did you call him?"

"I was just around the corner," he told McGee. "Off the grass sitting on a bench. I called him."

Abby moved to stand next to Tim at the other computer as Gibbs told him the approximate time of the call.

"Boss, it's like the signal went to the first cell tower and then disappeared."

"Disappeared where?"

Abby thought she knew. "It's the encryption."

McGee agreed, but disagreed. "Yes, the encryption keeps us from being able to trace O'Neill's phone, but what about Gibbs' phone?"

"You're right, you should be able to isolate that signal. It should have gone to another cell tower, but it didn't."

McGee felt like he was about to ask a stupid question, but it had to be done. "I don't suppose you know where he was when you called him?"

Gibbs thought for a second. It had been a carefree answer to his question. "He said he was hanging around Washington."

"Hmm. Hanging around where? He'd have to be close by and using the same call tower."

"That's why it only went to one," Abby announced.

A few seconds later they still weren't getting anywhere.

Gibbs had a thought. "What if I call him again?"

McGee liked the idea. "It should give us more than we have now."

"Okay, later. Why did you call me?"

"Oh oh," Abby exclaimed, her excitement back. "We used that picture of Airman O'Neill from the newspaper, the one where he graduated from basic military training and we used a program to age him to what he would have looked like in 81, 91 and 2001."

McGee looked pleased with Abby's excitement and continued with the next part of the explanation. "The computer scanned all the photos and I wrote a program that scanned other media too, and we also went to the wayback machine." He saw that Gibbs didn't care and was not as patient so he said, "Boss, we got a few hits and now we know more."

Abby interrupted. "Gibbs, the pictures may help discover things about O'Neill and Wheeler and maybe Colorado Springs."

Gibbs was interested, but wasn't going to wait forever. His look to the two said it all.

Abby knew the look and prodded, "McGee, show him."

McGee smiled. "Okay, boss." His hands flew over the keyboard. "We have O'Neill sightings."

"This picture was taken in August 1998. It's a photo of Colonel O'Neill after he witnessed a hit-and-run accident outside the US Air Force Administration Building right here in Washington, DC." McGee saw Gibbs being surprisingly patient. "We don't know why he was there... yet."

"But we will," Abby added. "Now look at the next one. Take it away, McGee."

"Years ago, a dangerous mental patient escaped from a psychiatric facility in Oregon. A citizens watch group was outraged and someone broke into the office and got a bunch of the security videos and posted them on the internet. They wanted to expose the lack of security." McGee waited a few seconds for that information to sink in. "The Oregon Attorney General and the DOJ forced youtube and other outlets to remove the videos, but..."

Abby was almost bouncing and interrupted again. "Look at this, Gibbs. It's proof that nothing from the internet is ever really gone."

McGee played a clip from the black and white footage. Jack O'Neill, wearing a leather jacket, entered the place through what looked like a front door with two other people. The blond woman was tall and slim and the black man was not only tall, but well-built and muscled. McGee played the next clip. Three people had gone in, but four people came out of the facility. The fourth was a doddering older man with wild hair and Gibbs watched as O'Neill helped him safely down the steps and out to a car.

"That older man was Nicholas Ballard. He was a world-famous archaeologist who discovered a crystal skull on a dig in Belize." McGee seemed pleased with the trivia. "The skull is displayed in the Smithsonian." The younger man grinned. "It's amazing."

Abby took the baton. "We think he was a patient in that facility, Gibbs, in March of 2000, and they got him out. He's never been seen again."

Why would they spring a guy from a mental institution? "License plate on the car?"

"Sorry, Gibbs. The original recording was VHS and the quality is just too poor."

Gibbs didn't know what to think or say. Maybe the guy was in a different psychiatric facility or had died. He didn't know and wasn't sure if he cared, but the two had found some interesting things and surprisingly, he was in a pretty decent mood. "I don't know what this information has to do with General Wheeler, but... what else you got?"

Abby and McGee were thrilled with Gibbs' response to their work. He was actually paying attention and seemed interested.

A different photo appeared on the screen.

tbc

Thanks for reading.

I don't know anything about cell phones or cell phone towers or signals etc. Sorry if what I wrote is totally out there.