The Ambush – Chapter 1
Gibbs nodded and flashed his badge at the two cops standing guard over the dead body.
"We found this on him," one of the cops said, handing the ID to Gibbs.
"Petty Officer Mark Stanley," Gibbs read aloud.
Tony knelt down to examine the body.
"Looks like he took two shots to the chest and he's lying on something—it looks like a gym bag," Tony said.
One of the cops reached down to pull the bag out from under the body.
"Don't touch anything; we need to wait for the coroner," Tony started to say. He had barely finished the sentence when he was interrupted by gunfire. Tony swung around, his gun drawn. As he did, he saw one of the cops fall. The other one was already on the ground, a pool of blood near his head.
Gibbs was returning gunfire, but the shots were coming from three different locations. He and Tony ran into a nearby barn.
Bullets were piercing the rotted walls of the old barn. Looking for cover, Tony found a ladder up to the loft. He knew they weren't safe on the ground floor.
"Up here," he yelled to Gibbs.
The loft was full of baled hay. Tony started stacking it in an attempt to create a protective wall from the gunfire. Gibbs made his way up the ladder and then pulled the ladder up into the loft. He and Tony crawled between the bales and took a moment to reorganize.
Catching his breath, Tony glanced over at Gibbs.
"Gibbs, are you okay?" he said, a look of confusion on his face.
Gibbs looked down at his shirt. A blood stain was expanding across the left side of his shirt.
"I think you've been shot," Tony whispered.
"You think?" Gibbs quipped sitting down on a hay bale. He was still in the adrenaline "grace period"—the time right after a trauma when the body doesn't feel pain, but he knew that would end soon.
"Here, apply pressure to it," Tony said, balling up his coat and placing it against Gibbs' chest.
Gibbs reacted slowly, still seemingly surprised by the gunshot wound, so Tony took Gibbs' hand and placed it over the coat and pushed it against the wound.
"Keep pressure on it while I figure out how to get out of here."