Truth and Consequences

Tony sipped at a Coke and looked at the evidence spread around him on the living room floor. It had taken some doing to pull this much together. The crime scene photos had been easy, but he'd had a bitch of a time getting a copy of the full autopsy report. Ducky had only been allowed to do a brief post-mortem, so his notes weren't particularly revealing.

Subject is a caucasian male weighing approximately 74 kilograms, height 187 centimeters. COD - traumatic brain injury per GSW.

Well, duh. Back in Balto they'd call it death due to cranial ventilation. The autopsy report was a fourth generation photocopy he'd obtained by means best left unexplored. A buddy had provided a rough translation of the Hebrew--it wasn't particularly enlightening. But the grainy photos and sketches told an interesting story.

The bullet had entered the forehead dead center. The wound track showed a downward trajectory, meaning the shooter had been about 3 feet above and stage right. Lack of stippling around the wound and the place the bullet had skidded on the concrete floor confirmed the shooter's position relative to the vic.

Okay. No problema so far.

Except for one small thing. The angle was wrong. Because, for the bullet to have exited where it had, the vic wouldn't have been looking at the shooter. And that, most definitely, didn't fit. And called into question the whole self-defense angle. Based on these measurements --and he'd done them himself, so he knew-- and the position of the body, the vic was facing forward and the shooter was at about two o'clock.

Why would Ari be looking straight ahead if he was pointing a rifle up at Gibbs on the basement steps?

And why had Gibbs used his back-up Glock instead of his Sig?

It was definitely Gibbs's Glock: four lands and grooves with a right-hand twist. Tony had gone so far as to compare the ballistics with the one other time he knew of when Gibbs had been forced to use his back-up weapon.

Nobody asked why Gibbs hadn't used his primary weapon. And, it seemed, nobody noticed the discrepancy between his statement and the evidence.

It shouldn't matter, really. Ari Haswari was a piece of shit terrorist bastard who murdered Kate Todd and tried to murder hundreds of innocent families at Norfolk. He'd shot Gibbs and all but crippled Gerald Jackson with that bullet to the shoulder. And he'd seriously pissed Tony off.

But Tony hated inconsistencies like that. His mind wouldn't let it rest. And he really hated the fact that Gibbs had set this whole thing up, knowing Ari would be waiting for him at home, without telling Tony a thing about it until it was all over. Tony was his Senior fucking Field Agent. And Gibbs had left him at the office.

And brought Ziva David with him instead.

Ziva killed Ari. Ziva was Gibbs's back-up. Ziva didn't believe that Ari had turned. Gibbs had to prove it to her. What better way to do that than to let her see Ari take aim at Gibbs? She'd been on the stairs and she'd put a bullet in Ari's head while he was looking at Gibbs. That was the only explanation that fit the evidence in front of him. And, he realized, that explained a lot of what he'd seen between them since she'd joined the team. Tony paled and felt sick when he realized how much trust Gibbs had put in Ziva. Gave her his gun. Gave her his six. But Gibbs's gut had never been wrong.

Was he happier now that he knew? Not necessarily.

He knew why they'd lied to the Director and the Mossad and SecNav and the FBI.

He didn't know why they'd lied to him.

Tony gathered up the papers. He'd shred them later. Maybe burn them.

He answered his phone on the first ring. "Yeah, Boss. No. Nothing...I'm on my way."