Nearly finished now, just this chapter and one more to go.
And I'd just like to thank everybody who's been commenting and reviewing this fic.
Title: Innocent Blood
Chapter 5/6 - Enter the cavalry
Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen/Action
Pairing/Characters: Ensemble
Disclaimer. I don't own the NCIS characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
Many thanks to FatCat for all her Beta'ing work.
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Previously on NCIS.
Chip abducted Tony from the NCIS parking garage. Jimmy Palmer got in the way and Chip shot him. Tony managed to retrieve Jimmy's phone, and Gibbs later had Abby track it using GPS. Chip's intent was to take Tony back to Baltimore and kill him in the same place that a murder had been commited several years earlier...the same murder the evidence from which had been the cause of Chip losing his job.
[Part 05]
Abby's GPS trace had given Gibbs the direction that Tony and Chip were heading but he was still none the wiser as to the their eventual destination.
"McGee," barked Gibbs when he returned to the Bullpen. "Abby's traced Jimmy's phone. Tony must have picked it up somehow and he and Chip are on the road to Baltimore."
"You want me to set up roadblocks, Boss?" asked Tim.
Gibbs shook his head, "We have no idea what type of car they're using.
Ziva opened her mouth to say something but Gibbs continued, "Chip may be a psychotic nutcase, but he's not stupid. He'll know that once we realized Tony was missing, the first thing we'd do is put a BOLO out on Tony's car. He'll have left a car of his own somewhere."
Tim spoke up, "Boss, I had an idea about that. I've been calling all the parking garages in the area to see if Tony's Mustang has shown up. I figured that if we find Tony's car then we'll know where they swapped cars and we might get lucky off a security camera, see what they're in now."
"Good thinking, McGee, but call Fornell and have him put his men on it. You and Ziva are with me."
"Where are we going?" asked Ziva as she grabbed her coat.
"Back to where it all started."
"Um Boss," said Tim as he and Ziva followed Gibbs into the elevator car. "No disrespect, but Chip has a couple of hours head start on us. Even the way *you* drive, we'll never catch up with him."
"That's why we're not driving," said Gibbs, hitting the button for the roof...and the helipad.
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Gibbs and his team spent most of the journey trying to figure out what Chip had meant about 'where it all started'. Or at least Gibbs and Ziva did, shouting at each other above the noise of the chopper. For the most part, Tim had huddled in his seat, eyes tight shut and trying to convince himself that he wasn't about to lose his lunch.
Ziva had suggested the lab where Chip used to work. "That would have been the first point of intersection between his life and Tony's."
Tim had made his only contribution to the conversation to point out that the lab was a secure facility, and if Chip *did* bring Tony there, it was unlikely that he'd be able to get a presumably resisting hostage past security. Then they'd hit a bout of turbulence and Tim had clamped his mouth firmly shut again.
Not wanting to overlook any possibility, Gibbs had contacted Baltimore PD and had them send a patrol to the lab. But he and his team had gone to the place that Gibbs felt was the real start of things...the park.
"Tony, Chip, that M.E. Stewart, the only reason their paths crossed was because of a murder. That's where this started."
Gibbs's gut had been right again. He'd insisted on his team being the only ones there, afraid that if Chip saw any uniforms then he could panic, and Tony could get caught in the crossfire. As it was, they got there just in time to see Chip holding a bone saw to the neck of a kneeling DiNozzo.
"Why couldn't you have just done like you were told?" said Chip.
"Because DiNozzo's never been much good at doing what he's told," said Gibbs, stepping out from behind a tree, gun aimed squarely at Chip's head.
All Gibbs needed was just a little more of a target. "Come on, Tony," he said to himself. "Give me the space I need." He knew that Ziva and McGee were moving around to flank Chip, but he couldn't tell if either of them were in position to get a better shot. "Just expose Chip a little more..."
To Gibbs, the next few seconds seemed to happen in slow motion. He saw Tony move...Chip's hand jerking...the saw heading straight for Tony's unprotected neck...and then the blade hit the shock collar box and there was a shower of sparks...Tony went down, and suddenly Chip didn't have a shield any more.
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Tony found himself lying on his side on the ground. His neck was throbbing painfully, almost drowning out the aches and pains in the rest of his body. He felt somebody grab his shoulder, starting to turn him over, and he reacted instinctively, kicking out wildly and trying to get away.
"Take it easy, DiNozzo," said Gibbs as he pulled Tony to a sitting position. "Are you injured?"
"I...no, just bruises," said Tony, shaking his head in an effort to clear it. "Chip!"
Gibbs nodded over to the side where Chip's bullet ridden body lay. "Dead."
"Wow, overkill much?" said Tony, yelping only slightly as Gibbs's hand made contact with the back of his head. "Easy there Boss, I've had a kind of rough day."
Gibbs appeared to relent. "David," he called. "Get Tony out of these handcuffs."
Ziva appeared, taking a lock pick out of her pocket, "And the shock collar?" she asked as she crouched down behind Tony.
Gibbs grinned, "Nah, I think I might hang on to that. Give my hand a rest"
"Boss!" said Tony, indignantly.
"McGee," said Gibbs. "Call the local LEO's and have them collect the garbage." He indicated Chip's body. "Personally I'd leave him here to rot, but I promised Ducky a piece of him for what he did to Jimmy."
At the mention of the name, Tony jerked away from Ziva. "Gibbs, I almost forgot. Is Jimmy okay? I didn't want to just leave him there, but Chip had the gun and he said he'd shoot him again if I didn't and..."
Gibbs patted Tony on the shoulder reassuringly. "Ducky phoned me a few minutes ago. Jimmy came through his surgery and it looks like he's going to be fine."
Tony breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good to know...he owes me a new hat after he got blood on the last one." The swat to his head was a welcome one.
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To be concluded
Author's Chapter Notes:
Will Gibbs be in time to save Tony?