Performance Test

Their suspect vaulted over a trash can near the front entrance of the convenience store and hurled himself into the safety of the shop's interior, still brandishing his gun. Gibbs and Dinozzo, who had pursued the man for the past block, split apart when their pounding feet made it to the parking lot and raced into the store through each of its two doors.

Tony stumbled over the metal floor strip at the entrance as the terrified clerk bumped him, a woman in her fifties running and screaming for safety outside the store. He regained his footing within seconds. Gibbs had progressed to the back of the store and glimpsing his senior agent, raised an eyebrow, signalling that he did not have a visual on the suspect. Tony carefully inched his way towards his boss, and both crouched to keep themselves out of sight.

A sudden crash at the front of the building caused them to react quickly, swivelling immediately to confront the noise with their guns aimed. Their suspect hit the door at a run and as it flew open to allow his escape to the outdoors, the entire world exploded around them.

Tony fought his way to consciousness slowly, not opening his eyes for a pretty long time after the dust settled. The air smelled gunpowder-charged, that gritty, metallic scent that came after a fierce gun battle. As far as he could remember, though, neither he nor Gibbs had fired a weapon.

Gibbs snapped awake as soon as his body registered a final shift of the environment. The air hung so thickly that he couldn't make out the details around him so he sat up cautiously, trying to let his eyes assimilate the other sensory details. Something heavy lay on top of his legs, effectively pinning him, and he tried to untangle himself carefully to take stock of the situation. A hurt groan alerted him to the fact that Tony was nearby, and with a shock he realized Tony's body was what held him down.

Manoeuvring gently, he pulled himself into a sitting position and extricated his legs. He crawled carefully to his senior field agent, and Tony began to stir as he approached. Once he assured himself Dinozzo was alive he stopped and gave himself a quick check over. As far as he could tell, he had no broken bones. However, his hands came up bloody, so he realized he had damage somewhere, and he prodded experimentally. His left arm felt tender, and appeared sprained, though, to his relief, didn't seem broken. One of his ribs had a definite fracture, and the worst of the blood appeared to originate from a gash over his left knee.

While Tony slowly made his way to the conscious world he inspected him, and found Tony had a deep head gash, a large cut on his right thigh, and assorted less serious cuts and bruises. He suspected that he had at least one broken rib, as well, but until Dinozzo confirmed it, couldn't be sure. Jethro worked himself into a more comfortable position and then rested as he waited for Tony to wake, mentally reviewing how they had gotten there.

The team had tracked a lead on a suspect identified as the killer of two Marines who had beaten him at games of pool at a neighbourhood bar. Witnesses unanimously agreed that the killer's immediate reaction to his loss had just been so far over the top that the patrons of the establishment suspected angel dust, or PCP, and watched him in fascinated horror. His rage terrified them.

Too paralyzed to intervene, they saw him pull a gun and shoot both Marines, then systematically grab chairs and hurl them at customers, destroying everything in his wake. Onlookers screamed then and ran for safety and cover, and after three or four minutes of sheer bedlam, the man backed his way out of the bar, firing more shots as he left.

It didn't take long before Team Gibbs had the man's identity, Devin Carver. Carver had been dishonourably discharged from the Service after two violent incidents in a three month period of time. The agents tracked him to an abandoned office building, but he managed to elude them and run to the shelter of the convenience store. Jethro and Tony pounded behind him, screaming for him to stop. He didn't, which resulted in the condition they found themselves now.

Tony came to reality finally, and started to pull himself up to sit by his boss but Gibbs stopped him. "Hang on a second before you jostle around, Tony. Let me check your pupils." He leaned down and peered into his agent's green eyes, carefully testing for signs of concussion. Finally he grunted, "Ok, I think you're good, but sit up slowly."

Tony obeyed, and Jethro helped get him into a sitting position.

"I should have seen that he had wired himself," Tony observed, rubbing carefully at his head, then frowning when his hand came back bloody.

"It got past me, too," Gibbs admitted. "I hope that clerk got far enough away before he blew himself up."

"Yeah," Tony said softly. "Looks like we just narrowly escaped involuntary amputation ourselves."

The two men took an appraising look around them. They obviously were in the rear of the establishment. The entire front of the store had collapsed into a mountain of rubble, but it appeared that some of the middle section of the establishment remained in a precarious state.

Tony spoke, "By now Probie and Ziva will have them digging us out."

Gibbs nodded in agreement before turning to look up above him. "We can be grateful for the skylight, or what's left of the skylight. It's giving us enough illumination to actually see through the wreckage."

Gibbs leaned down and scrutinized Tony's thigh. "We need to deal with that cut on your leg. It looks deep, and you are losing blood from it."

Tony winced, and observed "You aren't too pretty yourself there, Boss. That knee of yours looks bad."

They regarded each other, and what remained of the store, for a couple of minutes, deciding on their next moves.