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Tony couldn't shake the feeling that he was in the middle of a hacker summit. The walls surrounding their dead petty officer were filled with the same flashing number repeated over and over again. Why? No one knew.
There was something off about the number, but Tony couldn't put his finger on what. No doubt the factitious design was on purpose. It could only be man made, but the significance escaped Tony.
"It's a palindrome," McGee blurted.
Tony glanced over to see him staring at the number. "So?"
"There's no way that this is just a random number. There is a significance to it and it must be related to the palindrome somehow."
"We'll have to check that out at headquarters. In the meantime, what else do we need to wrap this crime scene up temporarily?"
"DiNozzo," Gibbs warned.
"Sorry, Boss. Hard habit to break."
Gibbs glared for a few more moments. Tony knew that he hated any suggestion that he wasn't the boss. He breathed a sign of relief when Gibbs sent them back to the office while he waited for the backup team to arrive and secure the crime scene.
"I think we have a serial killer on our hands." Tim gasped.
"Explain," Gibbs barked, walking into the bullpen.
"On a whim, I searched for all cases on palindrome days. This wasn't easy as the pattern varies depending on date format."
"Tim," Gibbs warned.
"Right." Tim paused to gather his thoughts. "I found three cases that looked like they matched the murder method in our case and were also on palindromes. The most recent of the prior cases was on 11-02-2011. As there have been a few other palindrome patterns, but no cases that correspond, our killer is either very specific about the pattern or there aren't only Navy victims."
"That doesn't make sense. How can a psychopath wait for nine years between killings?"
Tim shrugged.
"The why doesn't matter. Let's just find this guy," Gibbs ordered.
"On it, Boss." Tony and McGee chorused back as they quickly moved to use the information to find their suspect.
They'd finally found a couple of leads and brought in the most likely culprit. Gibbs had ordered Tim to take the interrogation in hopes of getting the suspect to talk with another geek who could sympathize with him. They really needed a confession as they had no murder weapon and needed something to get an actual warrant to search and find it. Luckily, Tim came through and they soon had a signed confession.
Tony quickly typed up his report and submitted it, grabbing his bag and getting ready to leave. "If I never see another palindrome, it will be too soon," Tony announced.
He caught the rest of the team nodding in agreement. He knew they were all glad to be done with this case.