Chapter 1
Tony got tiredly out of his car and started towards his apartment building. It had been three months since Gibbs had quit. He and the Director had decided that Gibbs was on ‘Extended Medical leave' due to the explosion. After that leave ended he would be using 15 years worth of overtime, unused sick days, vacation and medical leave. There was enough there for him to be on leave for the next year or so. It was kind of impressive, how much time Gibbs could take off without being AWOL. Tony figured he himself had at least 6 or 7 months worth, too, so he really couldn't talk. But still…
His musings about his and Gibbs overly obsessive work ethic was ended by a noise behind him. Before he could turn around or draw his gun, he felt something large and heavy connect with the back of his head.
His last thought before darkness engulfed him was that he was in real trouble because Gibbs wasn't around to watch his six. And it was Friday. If they didn't get a case- and this would of course be the one weekend that they didn't- no one would notice that he was missing until Monday morning. This was definitely bad.
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"No answer on his home or cell! Where the HELL is he?!" Ziva cried angrily as she slammed her phone down. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She looked over at the other man sitting in the office "Have you had any luck McGee?"
"Nothing." McGee shook his head. After a moment he spoke again quietly "Do, uh, do you think that maybe we should go over to his apartment? Make sure he's okay. I mean, Tony's never late." Ziva gave him a disbelieving look and McGee amended his statement quickly, "well, he's never more than a couple minutes, 20 at most."
Ziva nodded in agreement. Tony was almost always two or three minutes late, but never more than that. And ever since Gibbs had left, Tony had always been first in and last out every day. Until today. Today he was 4 hours late and counting.
"Let's roll!" She said in true Gibbs style. McGee smiled slightly, then followed her into the elevator. Ever since Gibbs had left, everyone seemed to be taking on some of his traits. But Tony the most. Tony had been pissing off people, particularly the FBI (he and Agent Slacks-sorry, Sacks- got on particularly badly), like it was his life's passion and downing coffee at an alarming rate. It was quite impressive, actually.
McGee climbed into the car and Ziva was off and running before he'd even touched his seatbelt. McGee simultaneously held on for dear life and tried to grab his seat belt while Ziva took sharp turns at no less than 20mph over the speed limit. It was times like this that made him miss the way Gibbs drove.
McGee was unbelievably relieved when Ziva screeched to a stop outside of Tony's apartment complex. He got unsteadily out of the car as Ziva strode past him to the door of the building.
But before Ziva got to the door she stopped, looking at something on the ground several feet to the left. McGee moved over to her and, following her gaze, saw a large dark colored stain on the pavement under a tree. They'd worked enough crime scenes to know instantly that it was blood.
As they walked slowly and carefully towards the stain they saw Tony's car. The stain was about halfway between the car and the door. They began to search the area around the stain, neither of them speaking for several minutes.
"McGee! Come look at this!" Ziva called. McGee turned and looked at the keys that Ziva had found lying in the dirt.
"They're Tony's." McGee confirmed grimly. Ziva took out her camera and photographed the key's location while McGee searched the bushes. "Ziva, we need to get the crime scene tape."
"Shouldn't we check to make sure that Tony isn't in his apartment first? Perhaps he simply dropped his keys. Plus we don't know that this is even human blood. Someone might have hit an animal." Ziva reasoned, unwilling to jump to conclusions.
"If he just dropped his keys, how did he get into his apartment?" McGee asked, still searching the bushes
"That's a good point. Perhaps he has 2 sets of keys, one for his car and work and one for his apartment," Ziva suggested reasonably.
"Ziva. We need to get the crime scene gear out. Now." McGee said, his voice wavering slightly. Ziva moved around the bushes to see what had freaked McGee and saw Tony's badge and gun, still in its holster lying in the dirt near the center of one of the bushes, both covered in blood. A few feet away, they found his backup weapon and his extra clips.
Ziva nodded and called Abby, telling her that they needed the truck ASAP. When Ziva told Abby the address, Abby inhaled sharply.
"But- that's Tony's apartment complex! Why- omygod! Is Tony okay? Did something happen to him? Omygod!" Abby said, all in one breath.
"Abby, calm down! We'll fill you in when we get back. Right now, we just really need you to get that truck out here ASAP." Ziva said trying to calm the goth lab tech down. Abby acquiesced, still sounding upset.
Ziva told McGee to keep searching while she headed to Tony's apartment. She tried the door and when she found it locked, she pulled out her lock picking tools and had the door open within 10 seconds. She then headed to the third floor and, upon finding Tony's apartment, she knocked on the door. When she got no answer, she started to pick the lock when an elderly woman from the apartment next door came out.
‘Young lady, what on earth are you doing to that lock?' She asked, gaping at Ziva picking the lock.
"It's alright ma'am, I work with Tony. He didn't show up to work this morning and we haven't been able to get hold of him." Ziva said, smiling at the woman in an attempt to reassure her. However, she continued to look at Ziva suspiciously and Ziva sighed and decided to try a new tactic. "Look, ma'am, I'm a federal agent and I am trying to find my boss."
Ziva pulled out her badge and showed it to the woman. "You're an NCIS agent? Your badge doesn't look like Anthony's, not exactly. His is all in English" The woman asked, still looking at her badge suspiciously, for it had Hebrew and English writing on it. Ziva smiled slightly.
"Yes ma'am, I'm a Mossad Officer currently assigned to NCIS as a liaison." She explained. She decided to try and get some answers from the woman "Ma'am, have you seen Tony lately?"
"Well, I saw him late Thursday night, coming home from work. He's been working much harder lately and I haven't actually spoken to him in over a week. Wait, did you say he was your boss?" Ziva nodded "Are you Ziva?" Ziva nodded again "Anthony said you two were partners. Isn't Gibbs your boss?" She asked curiously.
Ziva was a little surprised by how much this woman knew about their team, but pushed her surprise aside "Agent Gibbs, uh, retired a few months ago. Gibbs appointed Tony team leader before he left. That's why Tony's been working so hard lately. So you say that the last time you saw Tony was Thursday? You didn't see him all weekend?" Ziva asked
"No, which isn't that unusual, if he's working a case. If he isn't, I usually see quite a lot of him, running in the morning and he's usually in and out quite a bit, but I didn't see him at all this weekend. I don't think he's been home since Friday morning."
"Okay, well, thanks anyway." Ziva sighed and turned back to the door.
"Hang on, I've got a key…" The woman rummaged in her pockets and handed Ziva a key just as McGee showed up.
"Hey Ziva, find anything? Like Tony?" McGee asked hopefully.
"No. Not yet, anyway" Ziva sighed and turned back to the woman "Thanks. Do you mind if I keep this, just until we find out what happened?"
"Of course, dear. Just find Anthony. By the way, I'm Amelia Gotwald." The woman said smiling at Ziva. She looked over at McGee "And you must be Agent McGee, right?"
"Oh, um, yes ma'am, I am." McGee looked surprised that she knew who he was.
"Well, I'll let you two get back to work, just knock if you need anything else." She said, smiling.
Ziva turned back to the door, putting her lock picking tools away and instead used the key. She opened the door and stepped inside. It was a lot cleaner than she had expected. It almost looked like a hotel room, like it wasn't always occupied. Then again, her apartment looked like that from time to time too. Mostly when they were working a hot case and didn't go home for days at a time. Tony had been practically living at his desk since Gibbs left.
They searched the apartment quickly, but the only interesting things they found were 9 guns concealed under the mattress, inside a pillow case, in his sock drawer, under one of the sofa cushions, under the kitchen table, under the desk, behind the TV and in a coat pocket and in a safe masquerading as a VCR, which also contained ammo, two passports (only one had his name on it, but both had his picture), a second NCIS badge and ID and some cash. She was impressed, to say the least. McGee was slightly horrified.
"Wow. Tony has 11 guns. At least. And a second badge and ID. And he calls me a Boy Scout." McGee said, staring at the contents of the safe. He noticed Ziva looking at him strangely and elaborated. "Boy Scouts are always prepared. It's like their motto."
"It is a good motto. We have something like that at Mossad. Tony is smart. If he is ever compromised, causing him to lose his badge and gun, he has another for temporary use. Also, if a situation should arise where his life was in danger, he could get out of the country under an assumed name, using cash, so it will be difficult to track him. I have something similar at my place, and another location. Tony most likely has this because of the amount of under cover work he does and the number of enemies one makes as a homicide detective." Ziva explained.
"Huh. I never actually thought about that, I mean, I'm an investigator, not a spy, so…" McGee felt he should have thought of doing that.
"Tony has been doing this much longer than you have. The people he put in jail at the beginning of his career are starting to get out now. Plus Tony just has a special gift for pissing people off." Ziva smiled. Kind of like Gibbs. She thought to herself.
"Good point. And he has been pissing people off a lot lately. I think he may be channeling Gibbs." McGee said, laughing slightly.
"Probably." Ziva agreed.
"Hey… that's probably what's in that box he asked me put in my safe for him, right after Gibbs, uh, started his extended medical leave," McGee said thoughtfully.
Ziva nodded "It was probably with Gibbs until then…"
"I don't think we're going to find anything here. It looks like no one's been in here for several days. But it's not clean enough to have been wiped down." McGee closed the safe and put it back next to the very real DVD player.
"Let's go. We can interview the neighbors, see if any of them saw anything."
They interviewed all the neighbors, but none of them had seen Tony since Thursday night at around 2330, except for one man who had been out jogging early Friday morning and had seen Tony leave for work at about 0500.
They spent the rest of the day searching for anything that might resemble a lead on where Tony was or who had him. When they hadn't found anything by midnight, Ziva angrily smacked her computer. "Nothing! We have nothing!" She exclaimed.
"Yeah, well, it's usually Tony, or Gibbs that have the brilliant flashes of where to look, who to ask. And neither of us has worked with Tony long enough to know who he's really pissed off." McGee sighed, defeated.
At this Ziva got up and, without saying another word, went up the stairs and disappeared. She reappeared 10 minutes later with a slip of paper in her hand.
She sat back down at her desk, still ignoring McGee's confused expression and picked up her phone and began to dial a number.
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Story Notes:
Thanks to my wonderful beta VP. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
Author's Chapter Notes:
PostHiatus Tony gets kidnapped and we learn some things about his past.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks to my wonderful beta VP. Any remaining mistakes are mine.