Note:- My best friend, Vicki gave me a three word prompt - cage, tape, shoes - this is what happened.
Pausing the tape he was watching from the evidence pile, it was all Gibbs could do not to laugh out loud.
He shouldn't find it funny at all. As a federal agent, he'd been in the same position as his friend Fornell several times over. Kidnapped, in a small cage, anything that could be used as a weapon taken from him.
There was four hours of video tape of the FBI agent being questioned and beaten. Why the kidnappers had felt the need to tape it had never been successfully answered but it all added to the evidence against them.
As it turned out, them was a small group of three Petty Officers smuggling in drugs on their ship. Had Fornell and Gibbs known that it was the same people they were after, maybe the case would've been closed before Fornell had been taken in the first place but that was by the by now.
Those first hours had nothing to be laughed at. Gibbs couldn't help the flare of pride that ran through him at how Fornell had coped. He knew a lot of lesser men who would've given up and given them information but the FBI agent had been nothing but vitriol and hyperbole throughout his ordeal. That was... until his rescue.
When Gibbs, McGee and Sacks - having finally worked out they were on the same case - had burst through the door of the abandoned warehouse no-one had expected Fornell's reaction to being freed.
Bloody, bruised, exhausted and furious, the older man had strode over to the nearest prisoner and picked him up bodily from where he was kneeling, waiting to be cuffed.
"Where, the FUCK are my SHOES?!" he had bellowed.
Every person in the room had exchanged puzzled glances, prisoners and agents alike.
The prisoner Fornell had chosen was obviously the weakest of the herd and could do little more than shake, staring at the enraged man blankly.
"Do not make me repeat myself!" Fornell growled. "They're $500 Italian leather and I swear to God if I don't get them back in the next 30 seconds, you're explaining that to my boyfriend. And trust me, you don't wanna see Jimmy in a snit!"
DiNozzo, Ziva and the other FBI agent who had come in the rear entrance after clearing the outside area all paused, wide eyed and attempting to decide whether or not it would a good idea to intercept.
That's where Gibbs had paused the recording. It was one of his own rules not to assume, but how many Jimmys in DC were likely to get pissed about a pair of loafers?
Whistling to himself, he packed everything back up ready to take down to the evidence garage. On the way back up though, he figured a pit stop in autopsy might be in order. Oh, this was gonna be fun.