"Tali, here's a snack."
Tali held out her hand and her father, Tony DiNozzo, placed the treat in her hand.
"Be good for Daddy," he said as he briefly rested a hand on her curly hair.
Tali was absorbed in eating and didn't look up.
NCISNCIS
Special Agent Jethro Gibbs found himself in reflective mood on a quiet day in the squad room at NCIS. The Major Case Response Team had just closed a case in its usual forthright and efficient manner and was tackling the paperwork. There was no doubt that the team had done well and Gibbs could, secretly, feel proud of his team but he was conscious of a sense of melancholy as he looked across to the desk of his Senior Field Agent.
Timothy McGee had his head diligently down as befitted Gibbs' second in command but Gibbs couldn't help but remember a time when his Senior Field Agent would have been sitting there staring dreamily into space as he tapped a pencil against his teeth. Gibbs had come to learn that this wasn't always Tony DiNozzo contemplating his latest conquest but rather letting the facts of a case drift randomly in his head until they fell into place and he came up with a new connection. Gibbs sighed; McGee was brilliant at his job but in a different way to DiNozzo and Gibbs sometimes missed Tony's unpredictable flair. He sighed, and McGee looked up,
"Something wrong, Boss?"
"No, nothing wrong," said Gibbs brusquely. A few seconds later he wondered if he was developing telepathic gifts. His phone rang, "Gibbs."
"Ah, Agent Gibbs. This is John Sutherland. You remember …" Gibbs did indeed remember. Tony DiNozzo no longer occupied the Senior Field Agent desk because he was the CAFALO – Community and Federal Agency Liaison Officer – in Raleigh, North Carolina. He had a cabin in the coastal community of Milsom Bay which he visited as often as possible with his young daughter Tali. His cabin had once simply been a shack in the garden of local artist John Sutherland but it had been extended and improved. Sutherland, along with Millie Lacey the local café owner, had become friends with Tony and most of the team had made their way there at some time.
"I remember," said Gibbs.
"Er …"
"Yes?" asked Gibbs.
"Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you … but I … we … thought you should know that we've lost Tony."
The words came out in a rush and Gibbs felt his blood run cold with shock. "You've done what?" he demanded.
"Oh, God," said Sutherland as he seemed to realise that his words could have been misinterpreted, "He's not dead …" Gibbs breathed a sigh of relief, "At least, we don't think so."
"What do you mean, you don't think so?"
McGee and Ellie Bishop looked up in concern at the tone in Gibbs' voice.
"I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs, I'm not explaining this well. Tony was down in the Bay for a few days. And one minute he was at home and the next … well, he was gone. And we don't know where."
Gibbs listened for a few more minutes before announcing, "I'm on my way!" and putting the phone down.
"Boss?" asked McGee.
"McGee, get me to Milsom Bay. Now!"
Not for the first time, Tim wished he lived in a time when teleportation had been invented but failing that, he began scanning for aircraft on the Navy Base which might be on their way to North Carolina, "Uh why, Boss? Something wrong? With Tony?" he asked.
Gibbs was about to snap an irate answer but saw the concern in his team's faces, "He's gone missing," he said. "That was Sutherland on the phone. Guess he hoped DiNozzo had shown up here."
"But …" began Ellie.
"I don't know anything," said Gibbs, "That's why I'm headed down there. McGee, get me that ride!"
Tim and Ellie watched as Gibbs stalked out of the squad room. "What are we going to do?" asked Ellie.
"Get Gibbs to Milsom Bay," said Tim curtly.
NCISNCIS
Gibbs strode to the chopper with his go bag slung across his shoulder, he paused when he saw a welcoming committee.
"Good work, Tim," he said. "Close off the Sinclair case and then move on to cold cases."
"We're coming with you, Boss," said Tim.
"What?" asked Gibbs, "But I told …"
"And you can't stop us," said Bishop. She seemed to reflect on what she had just said and her innate honesty forced her to continue, "Well, you probably could but we hope you won't because we can help you. We can be useful."
"Bishop," said Gibbs, "You need to stay here. I'll keep you in the loop."
"Uh, Boss," said Tim, "With all due respect, I don't think you will. You need to go, right?"
"Damn straight," said Gibbs, "DiNozzo didn't stop being my responsibility when he quit NCIS. I have to go."
"And we feel the same," said Tim, "Tony's our friend. We want to help."
"Well …" wavered Gibbs.
"And we're the godparents," said Ellie, "It's probably part of the oath or something."
"The Director will never agree," said Gibbs.
Tim looked smug, "Not a problem."
"What?" asked Gibbs momentarily distracted from his worries. "He agreed to let you two go?"
Bishop looked innocent, "We happened to ask when Director Vance was in a discussion with Assistant Director Button …" she allowed her voice to trail off and Gibbs smiled grimly. A few months before, Director Vance had been sent on a secondment with a Senate Committee and Assistant Director Roberta Button had been brought in from San Diego to cover for him. The secondment was long over but somehow Assistant Director Button had managed to avoid returning to San Diego and had been shadowing Director Vance in a rather menacing way ever since.
"The Assistant Director wasn't in favour of us all going," said Tim blandly.
"But Director Vance thought it was a good idea," said Ellie blithely.
For a moment it looked as if Gibbs was going to say, good job again but instead he said, "Come on then, we haven't got all day."
NCISNCIS
"Agent Gibbs!" said John Sutherland a couple of hours later when he saw Gibbs march into Tony's front yard with McGee and Bishop scurrying behind him.
"Told you I was coming," said Gibbs tersely.
"Yes, but … how did you get here so …" John stopped talking as he realised that Gibbs' ways were probably a mystery to him.
"Does it matter?" demanded Gibbs.
"I guess not," admitted John.
"What happened?" asked Gibbs.
"Police are here," said John, "From the Raleigh Police Department. And Milsom Bay cops have been around too."
"Not what I asked," said Gibbs, "Tell me what happened."
John felt like telling Gibbs that he had told him once already but he recognised that Gibbs was anxious about Tony and decided to cut him some slack, "Not much to tell," he said. "I saw Tony this morning, he said he was working from home today …"
"On what?" asked Bishop.
"I didn't ask," said John. "Who knows? He might have been preparing for a visit to a school or getting ready for some high level investigation with the FBI. You know Tony's job, different every day."
"Go on," said Gibbs. "We can find out later what he was down here for."
"As I said, I saw him on the beach playing with Tali. He does that so she uses up some energy and is more likely to sit quietly at home while he's working."
"What about Mac?" asked Tim referring to Tony's nanny Frazer McKenzie.
"Not here," said John briefly.
"Go on," said Gibbs again.
"I went down to Millie's. Half expected to see Tony there; he often goes down mid-morning for a snack with her." The others nodded wisely: Millie's snacks (and all her meals) were well worth a trip.
"But he wasn't there?" asked McGee.
"No. It's not that unusual, Tony gets caught up in what he's doing or Tali isn't being co-operative so I didn't think anything of it. I ended up staying to lunch at Millie's, went to do some sketching further down along the coast and came back after about four hours."
"And?" prompted Ellie.
"And everything looked fine but when I walked past Tony's cabin I heard Tali crying."
"Tali?" demanded Gibbs, "You mean she was on her own?"
"I didn't take any notice to start with," said John, "Tali doesn't cry a lot but she has her moments but then I was surprised that Tony didn't seem to be trying to calm her down. He doesn't leave her to cry for long. So I knocked on the door to see if they needed help but didn't get an answer so I went on it."
"The door was open?" asked Gibbs.
Bishop and McGee looked at each other quizzically as they wondered if Gibbs was going to criticise Tony for following his former Boss's example.
"During the day most people around here keep their doors unlocked," said John. "Anyway, I went in and found Tali sitting on the floor crying."
"And no sign of Tony?" asked Tim.
"No. Tali seemed to have been left some snacks …"
"How could you tell?" asked Bishop.
"There were remains of an orange and some grapes," said John, "And some cookie crumbs. Tony doesn't usually give Tali more than one snack at a time."
"So do we think that Tony planned to go away?" asked Tim.
"He wouldn't leave Tali, would he?" mused Ellie. "This must be a mistake. He must have gone out somewhere … and had an accident … where is he?"
"That's what I'm here to find out," came another voice from the door of the cabin. "Who are you? And what are you doing contaminating my cri – incident scene?"
Gibbs' eyes narrowed at the allusion to a crime scene which had nearly slipped out but he ignored it in favour of saying, "We're federal agents, we don't contaminate incident scenes. Who are you?"
"I asked first, but in the interests of co-operation, I'll tell you that I'm Detective Colin Hardman, acting CAFALO for the Raleigh PD."
"Sure of yourself there, aren't you, Hardman?" said Gibbs, "DiNozzo's only been missing a couple of hours and you're already calling yourself the acting CALAFO."
"CAFALO," murmured Tim.
Hardman didn't reply directly, "And you are?"
"Special Agent Jethro Gibbs," said Gibbs, "NCIS. Special Agents Eleanor Bishop and Timothy McGee," he gestured towards the rest of his team. John Sutherland took the opportunity to slip away back to his own house.
"NCIS," said Hardman, "That's who Lieutenant DiNozzo used to work for?"
"That's right," said Gibbs.
"And what are you doing here?" asked Hardman.
"Heard that DiNozzo was missing," said Gibbs.
"And?" asked Hardman coolly.
"And he was one of ours," said Gibbs, "NCIS has an interest."
"I'll be sure to let you know what happens," said Hardman. "Thanks for coming."
Gibbs smiled – the smile which sent people who knew him running for cover. "We're not going anywhere," he said, "Think again, Hardman."
McGee watched the Detective squaring up to Gibbs. Hardman was probably a few years older than Tony and had a hard, no-nonsense look to him along with an athletic body which showed no signs of running to seed. "Um," he said, "You know, Detective, NCIS has lots of resources. We could help … and we know Tony well. That could be useful."
Hardman didn't look away from Gibbs as he said, "Why d'you think knowing the Lieutenant would help? You think he's run off somewhere?"
"No, of course not," said Tim, "I just meant that it's useful to know the victim."
"Hey!" interrupted Gibbs, "Hardman, get used to the idea that we're here and we're going to be investigating. No point in us fighting over it."
Hardman waited a second or two before saying, "OK. You can stay. But only because I don't want to waste time running you off and because you might come in useful. But you keep me informed … this is my case, whatever cockamamie excuse you come up with."
"Agreed," said Gibbs. "Now, what you got so far?"
"Not much," said Hardman. "Mr Sutherland went in, found the kid sitting on the floor crying …"
"Her name's Tali," said Gibbs.
"Whatever. She had some snacks and a couple of juice boxes. Mr Sutherland says it would be unusual for her to have that many lying around."
"Tony … Lieutenant DiNozzo is very house proud," put in McGee, "He doesn't like a mess."
Hardman nodded in acknowledgment, "As far as the neighbour could tell, nothing was missing. No sign of disturbance. Everything looked normal except that To – the Lieutenant wasn't there."
"Anyone else see anything?" asked Bishop.
"It's a quiet stretch," said the Detective, "Not many people pass by casually. Nobody's come forward yet to say they saw him leaving the cabin. His car's still here and his ATV. Gun's in the gun safe. We've got people searching the beach."
"The beach?" asked McGee. "You think he just went for a walk and left his daughter unattended?"
"Tide was in around the time we think he went missing," said Hardman.
"So?" asked Gibbs.
"Join the dots, Agent Gibbs," said Hardman.
"You think Tony's drowned?" asked Ellie, "But he's a strong swimmer. It's not likely."
"I don't think that's how the Detective wants us to join the dots, Bishop," said Gibbs.
"There's more than one way of ending up drowned, Agent Bishop," said Hardman.
"You think he's killed himself?" demanded McGee incredulously.
"I'm not ruling anything in or out," came the reply. "But you have to admit that the Lieutenant's had a lot of problems lately. Who knows what he might have done?"
"Problems?" asked McGee.
"Huh," said Hardman, "Maybe you don't know your friend as well as you thought."
