They didn't know how many accomplices Lindau might have, or what kind of men they might be and what resources they might have. From disillusioned special forces soldiers who sympathized with Lindau’s cause to the common greedy street thug, everything was possible. The lack of hints about where the financial backing was coming from were troubling, and didn’t help them to draw conclusions at all. Cold case rotation made it possible for McGee and David to take the place of their former protection detail. Vance wouldn’t have to explain the expenses of paying other agents to keep a watchful eye on Gibbs’ home at night. It still wasn’t ideal; far from it, but it was better than nothing.
Ziva had the first watch. She would come by as soon as she was finished making a stop at the local supermarket to fill up their kitchen with the perishable essentials, like milk and bread. They didn’t want to risk splitting up or taking Sam into a shop.
Tony was sitting beside Gibbs, for once too caught up in his own thoughts to talk or make mock panicked complaints about the boss’ driving. Whenever Gibbs glanced in his direction he was staring unseeingly out of the front window.
Gibbs had informed him in detail about what had gone down in interrogation and then stepped back to observe how the younger man reacted. Tony had voiced his opinion about the results of Lindau's interrogation at the office by ranting viciously (and without accompanying his words with signs). He'd gone on and on about there being "no excuse for shoddy investigative work not even the script writers of CSI would use for their plots" just because of Landry having "sprung from some hush-hush secret military project." Gibbs didn't think Tony knew half the signs for words he was using.
“What a fuck-up.” Tony murmured.
“Language.” Gibbs took the next turn with only a little too much speed. The admonishment was uttered nearly automatically and he reached across, equally reflexively, to deliver a little head slap.
Moments later he felt a hard bump against the back of his seat and his blue eyes met with accusing gray-green ones via the rear-view mirror. It made him grin a little bit. Even better, Tony had caught the small exchange too, and it made his lips quirk in something other than anger and disappointment.
An apologetic gesture made Sam back off again, even if she still pouted and glared at her father's partner warningly.
“Hey, if I have to set a standard to live up to, you do too. That’s only fair. No more head-slaps; violence is bad!” Tony crowed impishly, and winked at his daughter.
Gibbs made sure that his younger passenger couldn’t read his lips before he answered. “Only out of the office, DiNozzo,” he said mock-threateningly, but his twitching lips betrayed his amusement. It was with a lighter heart that he turned into his driveway and parked the car.
It was Tony who volunteered to cook their evening meal, with the remark that it would give Gibbs the time and opportunity to show Sam his infamous basement with the even more infamous boat. The pancakes for breakfast had been good, but Gibbs didn’t know if he should trust Tony’s assurance that even he couldn’t spoil a simple Spaghetti Bolognese, at least as long as nobody demanded that he made the sauce from scratch instead of using the cans he had found in one of the cabinets. Tony shooed them out of the kitchen and they could hear cupboards opening and pots banging.
It wasn’t hard to guess Tony’s other motive, giving Sam some time alone with Jethro and maybe something to talk about. The girl, despite her curiosity about the until now forbidden part of the house, didn’t seem to be too keen on this plan, but she was following him gamely to the door of the basement. They hadn’t reached it fully before the noise of breaking glass and Tony’s shout made Gibbs whirl around.
“Boss! Take Sam, run!” His lover's desperate voice grew faint and he could hear someone moving up to the front door from the outside. “Tranqued me... fast...working...,” the next thing he could hear was the sound of a body hitting the floor.
Every instinct screamed at him to run to the downed man but it would only get him into the line of fire of whoever tranquilized Tony, so he grabbed the girl and shoved her deeper into the shadows of the hallway, the stairs provided a little bit of cover. He prayed that whoever was assaulting them would be satisfied with eliminating Tony from the confrontation this way and wouldn’t harm him further.
Sam had no way of knowing what was going on and she struggled with all her might against Gibbs, scratching and biting him wherever she could reach him. She had to be terrified out of her mind. Gibbs simply didn’t have the time or hands free to explain and calm her down, so all he could do was pin her to the wall with his body, silencing her with one hand over her mouth while the other was reaching for his service piece. Then he hesitated.
Gibbs' mind was racing, calculating and discarding possibilities of what he should do. There weren’t too many options open to him.
The speed and silence of the attack suggested professionals, and thus the bastards would have made sure to secure every possible exit. At least they weren’t using lethal force. Yet. Gibbs swore under his breath. Tony was vulnerable and helpless in the kitchen, even if Gibbs managed to shoot one or two of the assailants... they might switch tactics and retaliate. He let go of his gun and pulled out his cell phone instead, speed dialing a number.
“McGee, we're under attack. DiNozzo is down, multiple attackers, professional job. Hurry. And shut up.” Gibbs calmly growled into the receiver. Then, without waiting for an answer or reacting to the frantic questions of his junior agent, he put the little device on a higher step of the nearby stairs and dragged Sam deeper into the hallway in direction of the small bathroom.
Gibbs smiled without humor. Now they would see if that damned contraption was worth the headache it routinely gave him. Hopefully the ridiculously small and expensive gizmo would for once prove useful and pick up on what was going on, giving the rest of his team enough clues to help him.
Sam had caught on to the fact that he hadn’t gone insane for no reason, but was reacting to something. She had stopped struggling; instead she was panting and looking up to him with wide, fearful eyes. He couldn’t spare her more than a quick reassuring pat coupled with a fleeting attempt at a smile that he was pretty sure came out more like a desperate grimace.
Not even a minute had passed between Tony’s warning and now. Gibbs' eyes, accustomed to how everything in his home looked at any time of the day, could guess from the subtle movement of shadows that the attackers were closing in on them. He slipped into the little bathroom. It had a small window, too small for a grown man and just wide enough for a child, but that wasn’t what he was here for. Gibbs was thankful that foresight and the existing threat to Sam had made him keep the tools of his profession in his pockets even at home.
He hurriedly re-arranged some things, then pulled out his handcuffs and his Swiss Army Knife, and bent down to fasten one cuff tightly around Sam’s right ankle and the other one around his own left ankle before using the tools in the knife to damage the little lock hopefully beyond repair. Nobody would be able to pick them fast. If they wanted to take her, they would have to take him as well. To be doubly sure he tossed his keys into the toilet.
Gibbs felt a prick on his thigh and looked down. Already dizziness began to creep up on him. Oh yes, it was fast acting indeed. He pulled Sam against his body and flung his hand out. Before darkness closed in, he pressed down, and heard the sound of flushing water and someone uttering a soft swear word.
.-#-.
It was a good thing that Hebrew wasn't a language that was widely understood in the United States. Otherwise there would be outrage about the words Ziva David was currently using. The hospital staff in the emergency room were throwing annoyed looks at the woman muttering under her breath and glaring at them, but they were generally too occupied with other things to care enough about what the scary brunette was saying. The ER was never a quiet place, and they were currently being swamped with fresh patients so nobody had time to spare. People who ended up here still able to complain were by rule of thumb less in need of their immediate services than the ones who were too silent. The other loud ones were concerned relatives, and those could be dealt with after the crisis du jour was averted.
Only one female nurse was staring at the Mossad Officer with big, horrified eyes. She squeaked in fright when Ziva zoned in on her, interrupting the agent's rant about what she would do to the next staff member who refused to tell her how her colleague was doing. "What is wrong with Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo? Will he wake up soon?"
"Please, this is a hospital. It is not right that you threaten us with ...things like that," the poor nurse stuttered in Hebrew and looked around, most likely in search of one of the security guards or orderlies.
Ziva narrowed her eyes to slits and crowded the woman into a corner. "It has been hours since we arrived, there has to be some news. I want to speak to one of his doctors!"
Someone cleared his throat behind them. Ziva turned around. It was a tall and officious looking man in a white doctor’s coat. His name tag identified him as Dr. Roberts.
"Officer David, we already told you twenty minutes ago that we are not allowed to tell you confidential information about Special Agent DiNozzo. He is alive and in no imediate danger of dying, that's all I can tell you. You are not listed as his next of kin. Stop pestering my staff."
Americans and their impractical rules and regulations! Ziva huffed and icily glared at Roberts, registering out of the corner of her eye how the nurse slunk away to safety. "His next of kin has been abducted and cannot give me permission. Nevertheless I still need to know how Agent DiNozzo's exact condition, which room he is in and when he will likely wake up to be questioned."
She should have forced McGee to stay here. He was far more personable than she was, but he had insisted that he was needed to keep an eye the other agents who were working the crime scene at Gibbs' house, instead. Ziva didn't know what exactly he was hoping to accomplish, but she thought that he didn't trust the other team to live up to the standard of Gibbs' team.
Ducky had been called out on another case, so she was the only one left to watch over and guard DiNozzo. Something she would be able to do far more easily if she was permitted to be in the same room as her teammate! It was unlikely that the criminals would come back to eliminate DiNozzo after not bothering to take him with them in the first place, but who knew what went on in their heads.
It had been distressing to arrive and find the house seemingly abandoned. Equally nerve-wracking to wait until another NCIS team told them that it was secure and that they couldn't detect more than one body heat source. It had been pandemonium; an organized one, but still. Agents and paramedics had been alerted by McGee and descended onto the house like a swarm of locusts. Without either their leader or second in command present, Ziva and McGee had been relegated to spectators and secondary helpers. Vance had come out personally and was supervising the team that worked the crime scene.
The kidnappers had left Tony behind where he fell, unconscious but alive and relatively unharmed. Neither the doctors nor NCIS knew yet what had been used to subdue him. Abby was running his blood-work; they feared that the chemicals could have health repercussions. But it could have been worse. He wasn't dead; that was at least something. Ziva had stared at the still form and gray face of her colleague. The paramedics had assured the waiting team members that Agent DiNozzo was still alive, but it was troubling to see the usually energetic man being carried out on a stretcher like a wet rag-doll. He somehow hadn't looked like Tony at all, more like something that needed Ducky's personal attention and a reservation for a drawer in the morgue.
Ziva stiffened her spine and forcefully refused to be distracted from her goals by her memories. That was then, this was now; and by all that was holy, she wanted information this minute about how Tony was doing and where he was so she could stand watch over him.
Dr. Roberts was still standing in front of her, shaking his head and refusing to tell her anything beyond that Agent DiNozzo was doing all right and that they couldn't predict when he would be waking up exactly, when a third party joined the conversation.
"Uhm, Ziva?"
"McGee, I thought you wanted to work the house and try to clean up that tape of the call afterward?"
Her teammate twitched nervously and the corners of his mouth were angrily turned downwards. "Vance wouldn't let me, apparently I'm too personally involved. He said I should join you here and make sure DiNozzo is safe."
Roberts hastened to repeat his assurance that there seemed to be no immediate cause for concern about DiNozzo's continued survival and then retreated without waiting for a reaction behind the staff doors, to leave Ziva and McGee alone.
"Her personal involvement with the victim does not prevent Abby from analyzing the evidence, does it?" Ziva dryly mentioned and looked around, assessing the room for possible threats and nosy onlookers. Thankfully everyone was busy with their own problems.
"I think he just didn't want me to process Gibbs' house. He was kind of flustered when he came out to send me away. I don't know why." McGee complained.
Ziva thoughtfully brushed back her hair and looked McGee up and down. Vance wasn't someone who did things on a whim, so there had to be something in the house he didn't want McGee to see; and that was after he himself had scouted the scene. His reason was surely not to spare their sensibilities, so it was something else. There were some personal things no one wanted to know about a supervisor. Not that going through Gibbs' personal things and home was something anyone on the team with a speck of self preservation wanted to do, but Ziva thought that Gibbs would want strangers he had no control over to do it even less. Their taciturn boss would just wordlessly threaten them with dismemberment if they dared to think about anything they found in his home, as soon as this case was closed.
No matter what the males of her team thought, she wasn't totally blind when it came to what went on with her colleagues in their private lives or their inter-office ties and relationships. A blind woman would be able to detect the tension that had developed between the second in command and the junior agent in the last months. Nor had it escaped her notice that something had changed between Gibbs and DiNozzo during the last days. Something that couldn't be explained fully by the appearance of Tony's previously unknown daughter.
She shrugged her shoulders. Indeed, if she added the small hints she had witnessed in the office and what McGee had told her about Vance's reaction to the house, she could draw a few conclusions the computer geek seemed to be blind to. Israel had fewer hang-ups about homosexuals in the service than the USA; life was too short and dangerous to create problems where there were none. She would have to see if the dynamic of the team would change, if there even was cause for complaints, before deciding how she should react. If she should react at all.
But first they had to get Gibbs back and DiNozzo conscious! Everything else would have to wait.
McGee was staring at her suspiciously and Ziva wiped the smirk that had crept upon her lips away and stared back at Tim. If she was right, there was someone who would, how did the Americans so quaintly put it, have a bull?
.-#-.
Tony hated waking up in the hospital, he really did. There was no mistaking the smell of disinfectants, linoleum, and industrial cleaners and detergents. Awful. It always meant that something had gone wrong and that, as soon as the good pills wore off, he would be in a world of pain. At the moment he wasn't feeling much of anything and was still floating on a chemical cloud but something was nagging him. There was something urgent he should do. Tony wrinkled his nose and slowly turned his head sideways, opening his eyes as far as he was able with the lids feeling like they were made of lead and twice as scratchy.
The female figure silently observing him, sitting in a chair beside his bed, brought everything into focus better than a bucket of cold water could have. It shouldn't be her sitting in that cheap plastic chair, waiting for him to wake up.
"Jethro? Sam!" Tony struggled to sit up, throwing back the sheet covering him. He didn't care that he was wearing one of the backless hospital gowns and that he was hooked up on various machines, he had to-
"Lay back down before you pass out again!" Ziva stood up and pressed him back into the mattress. For someone so tiny she had a lot of power. Or he didn’t have enough, at the moment.
"Ziva." Tony croaked desperately. "Where's the boss and Sam."
"Try to keep calm or they will try to throw me out of the room. I do not wish to have to threaten them again. What do you remember?"
Tony swallowed convulsively, trying to wet his dry mouth without much success. There wasn't enough spit to water the desert that had developed there. Others would offer him something to drink, but his dear ninja colleague ignored his distress and was leaning forward so she could catch every word instead. Always with her eyes on the prize, that's Ziva David. Not that he could disagree with her dedication, especially in this instance.
"Was cooking, glass broke, felt prick on my shoulder." He raised his hand, happy that his strength seemed to come back and touched the point where he had been shot. "A dart. I was getting woozy fast, tried to warn Gibbs. Then nothing. They got him too? What happened, Ziva?"
"The kidnappers planned it well. We found a neat hole sawed into the shutters. They must have done it during the day after the agents watching the house were recalled by Vance, but before your return.”
Tony swore and honed in on the most important aspects. The other bed in the hospital room was empty. "Sam? Gibbs?"
Ziva didn't mince her words. "You were the only one left in the house when we arrived. They took both your daughter and Gibbs. We found two more darts; they did not clean up after themselves. Gibbs managed to leave some clues. Chance's team is working the case under director Vance's supervision."
He had hoped that his warning had come soon enough. Still, it could be worse. He could have woken up to the news that they found Gibbs dead and Sam abducted. As long as the kidnappers kept his missing family members together, their chances to rescue them weren't as bad. Tony avoided thinking about any other possibilities too hard. Otherwise the mental image of Sam's and Jethro's broken bodies lying somewhere, discarded like trash in the woods, would drive him insane.
"Help me dress and get me my discharge papers." Tony sat up again, much smoother than the last time, helped by the fact that Ziva wasn't hindering him this time.
"The doctors want you to stay here under observation for at least another day. Abby called ten minutes ago to say that the chemicals she found in our blood are used in common ammunition for Wildlife Preserve Officers who want to subdue and chip predators. You should be all right in a few hours. There should be no side effects but you will likely have difficulties with your balance and nausea for days. It was not meant to be used on humans."
“How difficult is it to track who bought it?” Tony set his feet on the floor and concentrated on staying upright. Abby had been right about the balance problems; he felt like his knees were made of bubble gum. "I need to be back at the office."
Ziva regarded him thoughtfully but didn't make any attempts to help him. “Abby is researching the ammunition. You will not be allowed to lead the investigation, you must know that, yes? The director is treating this as a very serious situation. All hands on deck, he said, and finding your daughter and Gibbs is a priority. The police and other agencies have been alerted.
"Where are my clothes?" Tony pulled out the intravenous needle, impatiently tugged on the patches on his chest until they separated from his skin, and then stumbled to the small locker. Not caring one bit about her presence, he shrugged off the drafty hospital gown. Ziva wasn't the kind of woman to be embarrassed by his nakedness and he couldn't be bothered to care. Ah, there were his clothes, in a plastic bag. Shoes would be tricky, but he would manage, he had to.
"Agent DiNozzo! What are you doing?" The angrily beeping machines had alerted the nurses. One of them had stormed into the room and was now trying to shoo him back to the bed, curiously making a wide berth around Ziva.
"Get your eyes checked, what does it look like? I'm outta here."
"Be sensible. You have to-" the nurse used this really annoying, placating tone of voice, like she was talking to a toddler or someone she suspected of brain damage and Tony had neither the time, nor the inclination to use charm to get around her.
Ziva must have read his intentions on his face because she went to his side, a move that made the nurse back off, steadied him so he could pull up his trousers and handed his shirt to him when he hesitated to reach down again to snag it out of the bag. His body was reminding him forcefully that the herculean task of bending down might be too much. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.
"As I understand it, you cannot stop him if he manages to leave these premises on his own and signs the discharge papers against medical advice, yes?"
The nurse looked torn between rushing in to help the struggling patient and leaving the task to the brunette woman while she tried to talk sense into the agent. “He doesn't look like he can stand, never mind leave!”
“His daughter is missing. He is not dying, he is not contagious. I will keep an eye on him.” Ziva got down on one knee and offered her shoulder to steady him while she stuck his feet in his shoes without bothering with the socks first. In any other situation Tony would dredge up an exaggerated lecherous comment about particular activities and the perfect heights to do them from, today he was just grateful.
Tony concentrated on putting on his clothes and keeping his rebellious stomach in check. Puking his guts out would not help his cause. The plague had been worse, he would manage. He spared a weak, but honest, smile for Ziva.
The nurse observed them for another minute and then sighed. “I'll call for one of the doctors to sign your discharge papers. Just let me put bandages over that.” She pointed resignedly at his right arm.
As soon as she mentioned it Tony became aware of feeling a wet warmth running down his arm. Not surprising, he had removed the intravenous needle without much care. The insignificant wound hadn't registered when compared to the roiling of his stomach and the feeling of urgency that screamed at him to get moving and busy. The nurse's fingers were gentle and professional. She even straightened his sleeves for him and hung his jacket around his shoulders before exiting the room in search of the paperwork.
“Thank you, Ziva.”
"I understand. You need to help retrieve your family." She whispered in his ear.
He wondered for a moment about her inclusion of Gibbs in that statement but let it go. "Where's McGee? And Ducky." He shuffled out of the door, Ziva at his side. She wasn't touching him but was near if he should stumble.
"Henderson's team pulled a triple homicide, thus Ducky could not come. McGee is at the office analyzing the phone call and trying to find a street camera that might have recorded the kidnappers vehicle."
"Phone call?"
"I will explain in the car."
.-#-.
People who wanted to join the military service because they expected fame, glory and a chest full of medals were the biggest fools on earth. Such people forgot that the truly meaningful medals tended to be awarded over a casket with oneself inside and one's devastated family mourning in front. Some of the most honorable and brave men and women Gibbs had served with had never gotten one of the more famous medals during their time in the corps, but he would choose them to stand at his side any time over most medal laden heroes. Whenever Gibbs saw a fresh faced wannabe soldier staring longingly at a Purple Heart or Prisoner of War Medal pinned to a Marine's chest, he always wondered if they realized that it might take being stuck in a dirty cell somewhere, alone, frightened and facing possible humiliation and torture to earn it.
At the moment the alone part was what making it hardest to keep his calm.
Upon waking, the first thing he had done was empty his stomach while frantically using his senses to check his surroundings. Wherever he was, it was damp, cold, silent and so dark that he couldn't see the hand in front of his eyes. Apart from a headache and rebelling insides he wasn't hurt, nor had his captors bound him. The cuff was still around his ankle but the connection to its twin had been sawn off, judging by the ridged edges his fingers could feel. Unfortunately his cuff had acquired a more sturdy companion that connected him to the wall and an equally sturdy ring mounted firmly on the wall via a strong chain.
No Sam. No Tony.
His shout to determine if anyone could hear him had gone unanswered.
It was just Gibbs, the short chain, and a completely dark room with cement floor and bare walls. Nothing else. The chain wasn't long enough to allow him to explore the room from wall to wall. The sounds his breathing and movements caused didn't echo so he guessed that his cell wasn't big.
It looked like Gibbs' scheme had only been partly successful. The kidnappers had snatched him too, just like he had hoped they would, but then separated him from Sam afterward while he was unconscious. He didn't know how long ago that had happened, how Sam was doing now, or if she was even in the same house or state. If they had left Tony or had taken him as well. If the other two felt as wretched as he did. Speculating about possible nightmare scenarios that could have happened was useless though, it would only drive him crazy.
Gibbs retched dryly. There was nothing left in his stomach to puke up and thanks to the lack of water and a cleaning supplies no way to get the taste out of his mouth and the stink of vomit off the floor and subsequently out of his nose.
'You don't deal in what ifs, Marine. Buck up. It's fucked up, but it could be worse. You aren't injured, they left you your clothes. Yes, the lack of water or even a damn bucket to piss in doesn't bode well for the things to come. Preserve your energy, when the opportunity to escape and rescue Sam provides itself you'll need it. Not now, while just sitting on your ass.' Gibbs used the words to center himself, sitting with his back against the wall and facing in the direction he hoped the door was. The sad thing was, it could always be worse.
If his glare was indeed a weapon like most of NCIS believed it to be, the damn cuff around his ankle would have already disintegrated. Gibbs had patted himself down and found that the lock picks and the back-up knife he had hoped the kidnappers would overlook were gone. The only things left were his will to survive and the knowledge that he had people who would do their best to find him and rescue Sam.
Gibbs internal clock couldn't tell him if it was still the same day since he'd lost consciousness. What he could say with reasonable accuracy was that he had been awake again for no more than two hours and that it was unlikely that more than 12 hours had passed. His bladder wasn't bothering him yet. It had been long enough for his nose to grow accustomed to the smell and his ass to grow numb.
A faint scratching sound made him concentrate on the direction it had come from without altering his position. There was no reason to warn possible watchers that he was paying attention. Ah, a key being turned. After hours of darkness Gibbs expected to be blinded by light spilling thorough a crack in the door when it opened and narrowed his eyes to slits to prepare for the visual assault. It didn't happen. Whatever lay beyond the door was as dark as his cell. The criminals again proved to be smarter than most of the perps he was accustomed to. Gibbs decided to use the usual playbook for such situations, even if he had his doubts about its chances for success.
“Who are you and what do you want from me?” he asked loudly but the only answer was the sound of feet shuffling over concrete and cloth rubbing against cloth. Then there was the sound of a door moving again and a key being turned. For a moment, silence returned, but an instant after that, tiny whimpers made it clear Gibbs wasn't alone anymore.
Gibbs concentrated and reached out as far as he could and his fingers encountered soft fabric and warmth underneath. Whoever it was tried to scramble away and he nearly lost his grip. The thin arm he felt gave him a clue to the identity of his new cellmate. His fury grew exponentially when continued soft pats along her arm with his hands made him realize that the kidnappers had bound her arms behind her back. The few muted whimpers he could hear from her also pointed to the presence of a gag. He pulled Sam over, murmuring reassurances to the deaf girl, knowing that they went unheard. How the fuck could he calm her down when they had taken away any chance of communicating with her?
With Sam wriggling and fighting him like a wild cat, it took much longer than it should have to loosen her bindings. Bindings that had been fastened around two bare wrists, no little bat cuff to be found. So much for Abby's doodad. The gag, a piece of cloth, had tangled with Sam's hair. As soon as he managed to pull it away, heartbreaking and discordant crying filled his ears. Her voice was hoarse from overuse.
She seemed to be frightened half to death, but not hurt. Thank god.
Gibbs pulled her into an embrace, not caring about the scratches and bites it earned him and softly began to croon and move his hand up and down her back.
TBC
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.