"Tony!"

The anguished yell still sounded in his head. He'd never expected his Boss was capable of making a sound like that. He'd also never expected to find himself in a situation like this one: running as fast as possible towards a house that would explode within two minutes. And yet he was. All because of the woman inside, the woman he had once trusted with his life. He imagined her, probably tied to a chair, crying, frightened.

He doubled hic pace and finally reached the entrance of the large house. His hand went to the door handle. Gibbs was going to be mad as hell.


"Tony!"

He yelled at his agent, his idiot agent. Because, let's face it, you're not really sane when you're running like hell towards a freaking time bomb! He sighed. He should have left Tony at NCIS. He was too close to this case.

He set off in pursuit of his senior agent, his IDIOT senior agent. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop him – the man was stubborn as hell – but maybe he could do some damage control.


"Sylvia!"

His own anguished scream echoed in the immense hall. "Sylvia, where are you? Sylvia, it's me! Tony Dinozzo! Remember me? Sylvia!"

He stopped to look at his watch. About one minute left. Then he heard the cry, coming from a small room to the left. He quickly ran towards it and saw the woman inside. "Sylvia," he whispered.

It was exactly like he'd imagined. She was tied to a small chair, tears all over her bruised face. She looked at him with big, frightened eyes. "T-tony? O god Tony, I'm s-so sorry."

He looked down at her. He had waited so, so long for those words. "We'll talk about that later. Let's get you out of here first."

"Th-there's a-a bomb. I don't know how-how long before..."

"About thirty seconds," he answered with a grim face.


"Boss!"

He heard McGee say. McGee, also a very loyal Saint Bernard, was running beside him. "Look!"

And he looked. Someone was coming out of the house. He cursed his bad eyes and asked: "Is it Tony?"

"N-no, it's a woman. I think it's Sylvia Brown."

"Damn it Tony!" he yelled to the air. "Get your ass out of there! The bomb can go off any..."

And the bomb went off.

TBC