Peter DiNozzo had been located, he was conveniently staying at his DC residence at the moment according to the security logs of his apartment house. Of course Gibbs' team hadn't been allowed to join in on the arrest. They could only wait for Bernadette Chance and her team to bring him in.
Had Tony really complained about waiting at home a few days ago, protecting their dragonlette while his dragon mate was out frying someone crispy? And what a protector he had turned out to be, taken down by a stupid dart like some dumb animal. A desperate chuckle died in his throat and nearly made him choke. The lack of any information and him shackled to his desk made it worse. Tony stared at his monitor. He had never been the most adept at working technology and now his frustration at struggling with illogically structured databases and numbers made his head ache. Maybe he should go down to the gym and punch the sandbag, before he gave in and punch this useless piece of crap equipment instead.
Tony didn't care how McGee had managed to get access to the files. He was just grateful that it had happened. Finding a judge to sign on the warrants for the files had been easy, thanks to Vance and their initial findings. McComputermagic hadn't restricted himself to slicing and hacking through only national accounts.
Now that they knew where to look, without the smokescreen Lindau had provided, it was comparably ridiculously easy to find hints in his cousin's personal accounts. McGee had glowered in some sort of dark glee and pointed out transactions that only made sense and had purpose if you looked at them in context to their case. Why Pete had put the payments down as health investments was not detectable, they would have to ask him. Maybe it was a sort of macabre play on words, but the fact that they were redundant in light of his cousin's official health coverage payments had tipped them off to their irregularity. The rest- Tony had known his cousin to be overly meticulous when it came to accounting, it made him a good CEO but a pathetic criminal.
Pete had even listed five burn phones in his expense sheets, for fucks sake!
“The money has definitely been transferred into an oversea-account in smaller sums over the period of nearly a year and then four months ago forwarded into five different, still anonymous, accounts again. Then I lose the trail. Abby hasn't found anything either. So, possibly four perps beside Lindau.”
It wasn't the first time McGee had mumbled those words, more to himself than to his team members. Tony saw how the younger man hesitantly turned to him. “Tony, I took a look at your father's accounts as well. Apart form some ...uhm, creative juggling here and there they are clean. No connection.”
Tony closed his eyes. “You can bet that as soon as we bring Petey-boy in, father will be informed and he'll come down on our heads with a flock of attorneys trailing in his wake.”
“To help your cousin?” McGee asked.
That question provoked a tired snort. “You're kidding? Nah, to try and keep everything quiet is more likely.” He carelessly shrugged his shoulders. Tony would deal with his father when he absolutely had to, not one second earlier.
The phone rang and the men watched as their female colleague answered. Ziva had made Tim reroute the calls to her station after Tony had made one of the secretaries cry.
“I understand. Thank you.” Ziva put the receiver down. “That was Agent Chance, they were successful and are on their way back here with Peter DiNozzo in custody.”
.-#-.
Tony stood outside the area where the interrogation rooms were located and stared unseeingly at the orange walls. The rooms' walls were thick and no sound escaped outside. Surely no one had invented a scale high enough to measure the anger he felt at being unable to do anything but wait, wait, fucking wait.
As soon as the phone call had ended Tony had sprinted up the stairs to MTAC to corner Vance the second the man exited the communication center from where he had coordinated the arrest. The Director had taken one look at his agent and then lead him into his personal office where they could talk without witnesses because he knew that the following conversation would be harrowing. Tony had been forced to sit down and accept a stupid cup of coffee, decaff to add insult to injury, and the head of the agency had taken the seat across him.
The cup was ignored, the younger man's hands were too busy clutching at the smooth leather of the visitor chair. “Please Director! I can break him, I know him better than anyone here. I know his weak points, how to rile him up, how to stroke his ego. Please.” If it took going down on his knees, that was what Tony would do to get what he wanted. Pleading wasn't working though, Vance was shaking his head.
Tony desperately added, “We don't have time, if his hired goons hear that we have him- that we're onto him- they might bolt! They might kill Sa- their captives."
Vance raised his hand and cut the new attempt short. He knew how dangerous this was for the missing. “DiNozzo, I understand, but there is no way I'll let you interrogate your cousin. To do so would compromise every aspect of this case. Not that it isn't already a clusterfuck.” The last words were added more quietly and accompanied by a tired grimace.
“But-” As long as Pete spilled, Tony was of the opinion that the fucking case could be as compromised as a nuclear dumping ground in the middle of the White house lawn.
“No, DiNozzo. That's my last word.”
“Damn it, how can you sit there in your secure office, chewing on your stupid toothpick while we're wasting time! It's just like with Lindau, if Gibbs had taken him on, nothing like this would have happened. ” Tony exploded out of his chair, not caring that his insubordination might have consequences.
“I'll ignore your tone of voice, Agent DiNozzo, you are not yourself at the moment, but pull yourself together. Before you storm out of here and do something stupid, this is what we are actually going to do. Are you paying attention?”
Tony took a deep breath. “Yes.” he pressed out through his teeth.
Vance's calm tone and the prospect of finally being allowed to maybe do something made Tony close his eyes and regain some composure. Rationally he knew very well that acting like a wailing lunatic would not help but all the tension of the last hours had accumulated and threatened to suffocate him if he wasn't allowed release. Somehow it was easier to show his real emotional state to the director, who already had a low opinion of him, than to his team and the other agents downstairs.
The sun was going down outside and all he wanted to do was climb into a hand-crafted bed, ignore the insufficient thread count of the sheets and curl around his lover with the knowledge that his daughter was safely sleeping in the next room.
“We'll treat you like any other family member of a victim. O’Connell will interview you thoroughly about your cousin. Taped, witnessed and signed. Tell him everything that might help.”
That was better than nothing but not by much. They would use a detour instead of the direct route and all for the sake of bureaucracy. “Pete isn't stupid. He will lawyer up and hope that he can stall us enough so we don't find them. Without Gibbs and Sam, without the perps he hired in custody and giving him up, everything we found is still circumstantial.”
“We'll find them.”
Yeah but would they find them fast enough?
The end result was him waiting outside the hallway where the interrogation area was situated, a silent, rigid sentry, banned from helping, waiting for other agents to produce results. His two remaining team members had given up on trying to drag him back to his desk. Tony wanted to be on hand if Chance needed clarification on something. McGee leaned against the wall across from him and Ziva had sat down a little farther off on the ground crossed legged.
Suddenly the door of the observation room for interrogation room two opened and Vance stepped out, a triumphant smile on his face that made Tony step forward.
“We got an address. You were right, we played on how kidnapping his niece and a federal agent would look like in the press. Took some time and needling, but he finally gave it up for the promise of discretion.”
For all Tony cared they could have promised the little asshole a cell built of ancient brass buttons. Details be damned, they had what he wanted. “Where?”
“Four men like you suspected, professional mercenaries. Old townhouse in Alexandria, we've already called it in and teams are en route.”
Before Tony could open his mouth Vance cut him off and waved at two guards who appeared as if out of thin air, one left to his, one to his right. From their haircuts, posture and muscles, they had to be former military like Gibbs. If they had been here longer, Tony hadn't paid them any attention.
“I don't want to have to do the whole song and dance about you staying here so we won't. You can go, but we'll do it my way. James and Donovan will drive you and make sure that you stay with the paramedics, out of the way. You'll heed their orders or I'll lock you up here.”
It went unsaid that both the muscle and the medics would be there to not only care for possible injured freed victims but also, in the worst case, for Tony reacting to a catastrophe.
“And collect the rest of your sidekicks on the way out, same rules apply to them! Let's roll.”
.-#-.
How long since they had been imprisoned? 30 hours? 40? Something had better happen soon or his reactions would be too slow due to hunger and general exhaustion. And if he felt bad, Sam must be much worse. They had stopped their skin-talking game and she now preferred to just lean against him with her face pressed above his heart.
His voice had gone from tired but smooth to exhausted and hoarse. Gibbs felt as if he had never talked so much in his life and wasn't it ironic that he was doing it in the presence of someone who couldn't even hear him? Not that the little girl wasn't appreciating it, whenever he stopped talking she began to fidget. Ducky had explained to him, after Gibbs had expressed interest about why the deaf girl had been so fascinated by his stethoscope, that no matter how theoretical the wave part in sound was to hearing people, deaf ones could actually feel them with a little practice or enhancement, like a drum. Skin was not for nothing a human's biggest organ and even if feeling sound could never compensate for the lack of hearing, it added additional input to interpreting available information.
The vibrations of his chest seemed to make Sam calm. So the silver-haired man dug out more old fairy tales he had thought long forgotten and told them, intermixed with more harmless office stories to his... listener. What did he know about such things, maybe the soothing tones translated into the rumbling in his chest somehow.
The 'real' listeners were another matter. If his nearly constant talking got on their nerves, good. If he and Sam became people in their captor's minds, with feelings and hurts, instead of only marks, great. If they thought he was a middle-aged, helpless and distressed weak prisoner, even better. Best would be if the kidnappers let them go, but the agent didn't hold his breath in that regard. He had already made them make one big tactical mistake, that was better than nothing.
Gibbs' mouth twisted into a caricature of a smile and he once again checked by feel that everything was exactly how he had positioned it. He had been right. Getting Sam to use their improvised toilet had been awkward for both of them but at one point mother nature had called insistently, and they had to answer. Well, better the bucket than the floor and their noses where so accustomed to the smell now that they could ignore the used object of terror.
And it would soon serve another purpose. The former marine was now sitting on the floor with his back to the cell door, a little to the side so that who ever came through that door would have to open it completely to see them fully. His poor T-Shirt, torn to shreds, had to serve as improvised toilet paper. And if not every little piece had been torn to the most logical shapes by his teeth and hands, well, he hoped the unseen observers just found it and the subsequent fumbling, odd or attributed it to his lack of sight.
“... so your dad, in his fancy new designer suit and his shiny leather shoes, jumped in after the corporal. You have to know, little one, that those pits aren't dangerous per se, no hidden stones or ledges, just humiliating for the recruits. But they are slippery. Leather shoes and slick mud isn't a good-”
Over all the stupid yapping he nearly overheard the faint noise of a key turning in the lock. Gibbs tried not to tense up and let one of his hands travel to Sam's shoulder, squeezing it in warning. He had skin-told her what he was trying to do and hoped that she would follow his directions. The fingers of Gibbs' other hand curled around an innocent little strip of fabric and he turned around halfway.
A loud, commanding male voice further away from the cell was the first sign that something was going on, the light in the corridor was another. Gibbs narrowed his eyes and tensed, waited for the door to open fully. He could only make out the silhouette of a man, nothing about the color of his skin, never mind his eyes, but the form of the gun in his hands was unmistakable. As was the 'Hurry!” from down the hallway, accompanied by the noise of a struggle.
Gibbs didn't give his attacker time to point the weapon, he flung himself forward as far as he could to give himself and his own little surprise momentum. It all narrowed down to the perfect angle, the best moment. The shackle biting into his ankle, the hard floor hurting his knees on impact, they all didn't matter. The bucket with body waste, helped by the strips of fabric he had tied to the empty handle holes crashed into the criminals face, his own improvised version of an ancient morning star mace. It did better than he had hoped and wrapped around the enemy's neck.
One hard pull and the surprised, spluttering man stumbled to his knees and became subject to the non-existent mercy of Gibbs. The pistol clattered to the floor while its owner clawed at his eyes, shouting and whimpering. Yes, piss stung like hell when it came in contact with open eyes, surprise.
Gibbs growled and hastily reached for the weapon. It wouldn't take long for the criminal's buddies, alerted by the noise, to come looking for what had gone wrong. A hard hit with the gun's butt to the back of the swearing perp's head took care of this lowlife for the moment. That should keep him unconscious and if the hit dented his head, too bad. Shooting him had some merit, but he might need the bullets and didn't want to kill someone in front of Sam if he could avoid it.
One look over his shoulder assured him that Sam had done what he had told her. She had pressed herself against the floor to provide the smallest target possible.
Gibbs didn't want to take the time to fleece the stinking lump of criminal and decided to spare one bullet for the lock on his shackles, it would be faster, but before he could arrange himself accordingly, the sound of steps made him concentrate on the hallway again. Damn. Gibbs shielded the kid, crouched behind the unconscious body of the kidnapper as a insufficient barrier, and raised his pilfered weapon, ready to fire at the slightest provocation.
Then the hidden figure at the other end of the hallway shouted. “NCIS, drop your weapon.”
That could always be a ploy by the bad guys to draw him out, of course, but unlikely. Seems as if the cavalry had finally arrived. Whoever was there surely had a hard time trying to identify much in the dark cell apart from the legs and feet of the downed criminal that stuck out of the doorway.
“Don't think so, identify yourself.” Yeah, his voice would need some time to go back to normal, it sounded more than a little bit hoarse.
“Agent Gibbs, is that you?” the figure asked cautiously and Gibbs remembered now whom the voice belonged to. It wasn't the one he longed to hear but much better than a strangers' nevertheless.
“Chance. Took you long enough.” He lowered the weapon but didn't put on the safety. “One perp down and unconscious on my end. Sam is with me, I'm shackled to a wall. Get me out of here. How's the situation upstairs?” And then he asked the most important question. “Where's DiNozzo?”
Someone behind Agent Chance was quickly talking, forwarding information and his fellow team leader holstered her weapon and ran to him, a big smile on her face. “You two OK?” First thing she did when she reached him was to cuff the kidnapper. “DiNozzo is waiting outside, unharmed. At least that's what he was told to do but he might have strangled his guards and sneaked in. I'll never call him your faithful Puppy again, Gibbs. Evil tempered guard dog in need of a leash, yes. Puppy, no.”
Chance took a deep breath and visibly regretted it. “Ugh.”
Sam had watched the exchange and when he reached back with a hand she threw herself against his back.
“Stop talking and give me your set of lock-picks. We're tired, dirty, hungry and cold and don't want to stay here one second longer.”
Instead of taking offense at Gibbs' rudeness the woman laughed at him and threw him the tools he had asked for. It made short work of the damned shackle and gave him back his freedom.
Faint talking could be heard out of Chance's earpiece. “I'll guard the scumbag, you take the kid. Above's clear as well, they just informed me.”
.-#-.
Tony could only watch from much too far away as other agents, kited out in full gear and supported by a SERE team stormed the townhouse where his lover and his daughter were held captive. Experience and statistics told him in cold and unfeeling numbers and graphs that this was the point in a retrieve and rescue situation where the danger for the victims was highest. Not all perps took the sensible option and gave up when faced with an overwhelming police force. How would these criminals react? Would they panic and begin to shoot, would they coldly decide to eliminate their marks because they would slow them down if they managed to escape and might be able to identify them if left behind alive?
The agitated man took a step away from the ambulance in direction of the perimeter line that had been set up but that was all he could do before one of the guards he had been saddled with got into his way. “Agent DiNozzo, stop. Don't make me use force.”
The burly guard was outwardly not impressed by the poisonous glare his actions earned him. “You can't help now but it won't do anyone good if you drive yourself into a breakdown. Your daughter will need to see you calm and strong, not knocked out because you couldn't follow orders.”
On Tony's cue, a slight tilt of his head, Ziva stepped forward.
When the guard turned to concentrate on the more obvious threat, Tony reached out and snatched his earpiece before jumping back to get a glowering McGee and his little ninja between himself and the spluttering outsider. His teammates closed rank and all three of them ignored the protesting guard. Ducky, who had stood by them in silent support hung his head and sighed.
“Agent DiNozzo, this is a bad idea! Give it back, now!” Vance's lapdog demanded.
Tony put the device into his ear and spared the former owner a rude gesture. Yeah, he got it. They were afraid that he would flip or run amok if they found his family injured or dead. What they didn't seem to understand was that if it happened it didn't matter at what point he knew for sure. Now or later, he would be devastated all the same. He didn't know what he would do. Blaze down that god forsaken rat hovel of a house that barred him from reaching his loved ones, break down, drive, run, fly, …crawl back to the yard and tear Pete to bloody pieces before disappearing into the deepest, darkest hole he could find and never come out again.
All this opened a crack in his defenses and pointed a glaring spotlight on something he had refused to acknowledge, never mind look at fully. After this, if they all survived it, Tony swore an oath that he would never even touch on the time immediately after Shannon and Kelly's murders without Jethro initializing the conversation. He couldn't imagine how his lover had survived nearly intact and didn't want to brush against this wound.
If they all survived.
McGee got as near as possible while still blocking the guard so he might hear some of the transmission too. Of course the perps refused to come out with their hands in the air and without weapons. When had that demand ever been followed? Once in a blue moon, that's when.
With his eyes closed Tony listened as first one, then another kidnapper were subdued. Every loud voice made him hold his breath and send a nearly painful jolt of stress down his spine, every 'clear!' made him exhale.
“Tony... my dear boy, don't do that to yourself, that might not be...” Ducky cautioned anxiously.
“Shhhh.” Tony cut him off. Minutes seemingly stretched into hours and then he took one relieved breath and removed the earpiece. “Sam and Gibbs are alive, no visible injuries, mobile. They're being lead outside, right now.”
The communications device was dropped to the ground. If muscle man wanted it back, he could bend over and search, Tony had better things to do. Like darting ahead of the medics to the perimeter line with Ziva, Tim and Ducky in his wake. Nobody tried to stop him this time but he ignored the shouts of support and happiness that were aimed at him from all directions.
The smile on Vance's face, his teeth white and too shiny against his dark skin, agents securing the scene, medics with their bags arranging themselves around him, nothing mattered but the sight of the tall figure with a precious load in his arms that appeared in the doorway of the house.
Everything blurred around him, fast and slow at the same time and the next thing he was aware of was the unruly mop of Sam's hair under his lips and the beloved blue gaze of his lover locked with his own green eyes. There were words coming out of his mouth, undirected, unconnected, just wild babble that gave wings to his happiness and relief.
Sam had her limbs thrown around Jethro's body, her arms around his neck, her legs around his middle and she refused to let go. Even the sight of her father only made her loosen her grip with one hand and reach back to claw into Tony's shirt anchoring all three of them into a small isolated unit.
Tony nuzzled his daughter's hair, patted her down. “Oh baby, I'll never let you two out of my sight again...” If this looked strange to the watching people they could go to hell. Someday soon, when he could spare some attention, there would be time and words enough to blame the fact that his trembling hands weren't satisfied to check only Sam but had wandered to stroke over muscular shoulders, down a strong back and even dared to shyly stroke over dirty and matted gray hair.
“Tony.” Jethro's lips twitched. “DiNozzo!” was croaked with more force when the younger man could only stare back helplessly, suddenly wordless.
“You stink.” Of all the possible responses it was such an inane observation that made it out between his lips. Tony groaned and let his head sink down, resting it on Sam's head.
“Cell wasn't the Hilton,” Jethro said, the dryness not only attributable to his sore throat. Then, wrinkling his own nose, he continued, “What's your excuse?”
Only Jethro... Tony chuckled. Yeah, taking regular showers hadn't been on Tony's to do list the last two days. The banter was the needed push that shoved a world that had gone topsy-turvey on him back into the right perspective.
Tony grinned like a maniac, kissed Sam on the forehead, who looked up at him with bright but tired eyes, and then he looked around. His faithful sidekicks ��" hey, it was official, the Director had said it first- had formed a circle around the trio but beyond them paramedics, agents, police officers and Vance were playing spectators instead of doing their job. “Stop staring and move it! This is not the set of Independence Day after the last scene! Bossman and my squirt need to get warm and clean. Now!”
“They would do their job, if you'd let them,” the Director threw in and it was the signal for everyone to descend on Gibbs and Sam, with Tony and the rest of the team making sure that nobody got stupid ideas, like dividing them, no matter how unlikely that was. Every try to separate Sam from her father and her chosen guardian, Gibbs, was met with near hysterics by the little girl, no matter how much the paramedics wished to examine her in private and with only her father near, no matter how much Vance wanted to be debriefed without the girl present.
In the end the harried medics had to be content to watch as Dr. Mallard examined both rescue-es behind a makeshift wall of blankets with Sam on Tony's lap, Gibbs at her side. The Director got his oral preliminary report while the hoarse lead agent pressed the face of the now nearly sleeping girl against the crook of his neck. No need for her to be reminded of their ordeal.
After the end of his side of the story and a terse comment that he would write it down as soon as he could, Jethro demanded to know if the boss of the kidnappers was in custody.
“Locked up securely and singing.” Vance told him, but it was Tony's angry grumble that he hadn't been allowed to have a go at his nutty cousin that made him nod and relax.
“Gibbs, you, the little one and DiNozzo will spend the next few days at one of the official safe houses. Together. I don't want to see you at the office, not for one minute.” Vance clearly expected opposition to his orders because he hastily continued to speak and put up his sternest, prickliest Toothpick Face of Stony Resolve. “We have the Boss, we have the thugs but this time we will not depend on a criminal's word until we verified that all the perpetrators have been caught while you stay safe.
Maybe time would alter his perception, they would have to see, but for now the Director could have spared himself the effort. Tony could imagine a thousand things he wanted to do right now, going to work was not one of them and from his reaction Jethro agreed or he would have protested by now.
The only question his lover asked was: “Where's Abby?”
Their Mistress of the Dark hadn't accompanied them to the bust.
“Ah, Boss. Abby took the failure of her bat-bracelet very hard and holed herself up in her lab.” Tony began and then he had to stop because he didn't know what else to say. He loved the Goth dearly but he hadn't been sad that her absence during the last two days had spared him the additional burden of calming down the hyperactive woman.
Ducky cleared his throat. “Abigail is already at the safe house and I sent Mr. Palmer as company and to keep an eye on her. She said something about making the house as secure as Alcatraz.”
“Alcatraz?” Visions of heavy locks, bars and pits with snakes paraded in front of Tony's inner eye. “That doesn't reassure me. Ford Knox would be a better choice of comparison. Hasn't she seen 'The Rock' with Sean Connery? It is always easier to break INTO a prison, not out of it, that's a fact.” It was a weak joke but it made the agents around him smile.
“DiNozzo, for all I care Abs can erect a high voltage security fence as long as there's a comfy bed, a shower and a fully stocked kitchen in the middle.” Jethro grumbled and shifted the now deeply sleeping Sam into a more comfortable position.
“Yeah, me too, Boss, just not in that order.” Tony sighed. There went his plans of sleeping beside his lover. Not going to happen with the rest of the team in the house and an overprotective Abby fluttering around.
Vance used the lull in the ongoing activities to press his point home. “The house is quite comfortable. You don't seem to need an overnight stay at the hospital. Dr. Mallard can take blood for the required tests at the house.”
“The Team-” Tony began but was once more interrupted.
“Can visit you whenever they want during their week of leave but they should give you some privacy first to recuperate, don't you agree?”
Something in the Director's voice made Tony's inner watchman sit up and take notice, and from the thoughtful wrinkle between Jethro's brows, he wasn't the only one. “Director?”
Vance shifted his toothpick and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Don't worry, we'll have this discussion after your return. It isn't urgent. Enjoy your leave.”
They watched him follow Special Agent Chance to where the agency cars were parked.
“Does Toothpick always have to spoil every good moment?” McGee grumbled loudly and then indignantly glared back when his team members stared at him in astonishment.
“DiNozzo, not even three days without me and you've corrupted McGee.” Gibbs stood and made his way to the cars as well, his steps as sure and fast as ever, Tony at his heals grinning like a maniac with the rest of the team following them.
Food, shower and rest sounded perfect, for all of them.
.-#-.
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.