Author's Note: At this stage in the story, the two timelines are not strictly aligned. Please keep that in mind as you read.

Chapter 1

Gibbs strode through the open plan office, eyes and ears ahead as always. DiNozzo's desk was empty, and he could see Ziva and McGee talking, though their voices were low so he couldn't quite hear them yet. There was, however, a distinct air of oh shit about their attitudes, which implied that DiNozzo wasn't just in the head. Gibbs suppressed a sigh. Monday morning after a weekend with no work, and Tony was late. Big shocker. He'd come running in sometime in the next ten minutes, full of apologies that he would keep inside, and stories that he'd try to tell when Gibbs was away from his desk.

"I know he did not have any special plans," Ziva was saying as Gibbs came within earshot.

"That doesn't mean anything," McGee replied. "It wouldn't take much more than a great pair of legs attached to a girl in the right frame of mind for that to change."

"I suppose. Is he late often?"

There was doubt in McGee's voice when he answered. "Not really. Gibbs really doesn't like it. Rule 5, you know."

"Right." Ziva let out a deep sigh. "If he did get laid, we are going to be hearing about it all day."

"If he didn't get laid, we'll hear about it all day," McGee replied.

"At least he'd be accomplishing something," Gibbs said mildly, and they scattered to their desks. They didn't have anything big going at the moment, but that didn't mean it was chat time. Ten minutes came and went, and Gibbs began to be mildly disturbed. "McGee? Give Tony a call, would you?"

"Called him five times on his landline and his cell, Boss, no answer."

"Well, try again," Gibbs replied. McGee bent to his phone, and Gibbs turned back to his reports. After a few minutes, he looked up and McGee shook his head. Gibbs returned to the task at hand, trying to ignore the nagging of his gut. At nine it was far too early to be seriously worried.

Tony's phone began to ring, and Gibbs looked up. It wasn't the first time it had rung this morning, in fact it was probably the tenth. Two rings. Three rings. Driven by an impulse he didn't entirely understand, Gibbs rose and crossed to DiNozzo's desk and picked up his phone. "NCIS."

"Anthony, of all the adolescent pranks you've ever pulled, this is certainly the worst."

"This isn't –"

"You've got your stepmother in a tizzy, all for nothing. I want you to apologize to her and then –"

"This is not Anthony!" Gibbs said with a little added volume. Ziva and McGee looked up, and the bastard on the phone shut up. "This is Special Agent Gibbs. What practical joke, may I ask?"

"He had one of his idiot friends call my home at five this morning with a ransom demand."

Gibbs blinked. One thing he'd always known about DiNozzo was that he came from money. "A ransom demand," he repeated. Like a pair of gophers, his other agents stood up, first McGee, then Ziva. "Have you contacted the police or the FBI?"

"You clearly don't know my son very well. This is just the sort of thing he'd pull to get attention. In fact, he's probably there right now, laughing, isn't he?"

Gibbs counted to ten. "As a matter of fact, he's not. I would recommend you make those calls, Mr. DiNozzo. What was the ransom?"

"Fifteen million dollars. It's ridiculous. Tell Anthony to call when he's in the mood to be serious." There was a beep, as of a cordless phone being shut off, followed by a series of clicks as the exchange reset, and then the dial tone commenced.

Gibbs stared straight ahead for several moments, not seeing what was in front of him. Then he slammed the phone down so hard that both McGee and Ziva jumped. "Ziva, start calling hospitals and the local LEOs. I want to know if there are reports of anything that might concern Tony. McGee, you're with me." Without waiting, he grabbed his gear and headed for the elevator.

McGee caught up with him before the doors closed. "Where we going, Boss?" McGee asked.

"DiNozzo's apartment," Gibbs replied.

There was a brief pause, then with palpable nervousness, McGee asked, "What's going on, Boss?"

"DiNozzo's father received a ransom demand at 0500 this morning," Gibbs replied.

"Why hadn't we heard about it yet?"

"Because DiNozzo's father is an idiot."

"So he really didn't even call the police?" McGee asked. Gibbs just raised an eyebrow. "Is he afraid the kidnappers will hurt Tony or –"

"No!" Gibbs snapped. McGee bit his lip and turned to face front. He clearly wanted more information, he deserved more information, and just as clearly he wasn't going to ask for it. "He thinks it's a practical joke," Gibbs said in a milder tone of voice.

McGee blinked. "Oh."

The elevator came to a halt, and just before the doors opened, Gibbs said, "That man really is a bastard." Then he started walking, letting McGee keep up if he could.

Tony knew something was wrong even before he opened his eyes. After all, his place didn't smell this musty, and he couldn't see himself willingly lying down to sleep anywhere that did. Someone was pacing nearby, not in the room but just outside, and that was odd, too. The real key to the wrongness, though, lay in the handcuffs binding his wrists together in front. He lay on his side on a soft surface that felt entirely unfamiliar, and his head ached abominably. He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. Bare ceiling joists above him, concrete walls, it looked like a cellar. What was he doing in a cellar? He glanced down at his body and restructured his question. What was he doing naked and handcuffed in a cellar on an inflatable bed?

He had a burn on his chest, and he stared at it, trying to remember how he'd come by it. He didn't know for certain that it was important, but it seemed sort of likely under the circumstances. Sunday night. He'd gone out clubbing in Georgetown and had struck out completely. What happened after that? His memory was not very clear, and he really didn't think he'd drunk enough to account for the fuzziness in his head, especially since there was no accompanying nausea.

There was a radiator hissing gently in the corner, which explained his lack of shivering and shrinkage. Even in summer, cellars like this one tended to be too cool for casual nudity. He stood up awkwardly and began to explore his prison. First, of course, he checked to see if the door would open. It would not, and both the lock and the door itself felt very solid. When he jiggled the knob, the footsteps on the other side stopped.

"Agent DiNozzo?" came a deep voice. It was a man, but that was all Tony could tell for sure.

"Let me out of here," Tony demanded. "What's going on?" He couldn't think of any case he'd worked on recently that had the potential to bring about imprisonment in a cellar. Naked imprisonment in a cellar. The possibility remained that it was related to an older case, but that opened the field pretty far. He'd been working in law enforcement since college.

"Your father is giving us some trouble."

Tony stared at the door in silence for a long moment. That did not bode well. His father gave lots of people trouble, and if one of them had grabbed Tony to try and persuade his father to cooperate, they were likely to have a long wait.

"Did you hear me, Agent DiNozzo? Your father is giving us some trouble."

"What do you expect me to do about it?" Tony asked. "I'm locked in a room." He looked around again. The walls were solid concrete and so was the floor. "A cement box."

"He's treating this situation like a joke."

Trust his father to turn stupid. Tony grimaced. "Let me out of here, and I'll go tell him how serious it is."

"Nice try. Step away from the door. I'm coming in, and I'm armed."

Tony readied himself and waited. It opened out, so there was no real chance of concealment, but he hoped to get the drop on this guy and get out. He'd wind up arrested for being naked in public, but being arrested would gain him clothes and a phone call, both good things. And hopefully the situation would keep him off the sex offender registry.

He heard the thunk as the bolt shot back, but he waited. As soon as the latch clicked, he kicked the door hard, slamming it into the man on the other side. He ran through the opening, hoping that he wasn't about to get himself shot.

"Stop! Son of a bitch!"

The door opened onto a larger room with a staircase in the opposite corner. Tony took off running and started up the stairs. The door at the top opened before he was more than halfway up and a woman emerged. Her eyes widened upon seeing him, and she charged down the stairs, reaching into her pocket. When she pulled out a pale pink stun gun, he immediately recalled her from the previous night, but he didn't have time for thought, because she activated it when she was only a foot or so away. Caught between steps, Tony stumbled and fell, smacking tender and uncovered portions of his anatomy against the corners of the stairs.

"What, leaving so soon?" she asked, grabbing his hair and pulling his head up. "Good, you're still conscious. We need you awake."

By the time he'd freed his head and gotten back to his feet, the man from outside the door had shown up. He was broad and beefy, and he had a bloody nose. He grabbed Tony by the arm and punched him in the stomach, making him double over his bound wrists. "I told you to back away from the door."

"He's a federal agent," the woman said. "I told you we should chain him to the radiator."

"I'd just as soon you didn't," Tony gasped out. It hadn't been a damaging blow, but it was uncomfortable.

She stroked his arm, and he twitched away from her. "I'm sure you'd prefer that, Tony, but we must keep you in your room. Escape isn't an option."

Tony gave her his best sheepish grin. "Actually, I was just thinking that steel is a fine conductor of heat, and I'd rather not get burned."

She laughed. "I hadn't thought of it like that." Tony kept his smile on his face with an effort. That she found any part of this situation funny was mildly disturbing.

"I had," the man muttered. He jerked Tony along towards the door back to the radiator room. It was colder out here. Tony was beginning to shiver. He felt distinctly underdressed for this party, but he let himself be dragged along, watching the woman and her stun gun. She kept pace, talking to the man.

"Maybe you can set a bolt into the wall," she suggested, and the man made a noncommittal noise. She was holding the stun gun in her far hand. Tony wouldn't be able to grab it, but he could kick it out of her grasp.

While they were absorbed with each other, Tony kicked hard at her hand, sending the stupid thing flying. He shouldered the guy aside and took off running up the stairs again. They'd have to run out of people to come out the door eventually.

Gunshots in enclosed spaces were not fun. Tony stopped short two steps below the top, staring at the bullet that was lodged in the door. It hadn't gone through, which argued for either a low-powered handgun or a very solid door. Either way, it was more than enough to do damage to unprotected human flesh. Tony looked to his right and down. Big and beefy was now aiming for Tony's leg and the lady with the stunning personality had a radio out and was talking.

Away was better. Even away and shot was better, and blood trails were hard to completely erase. He grabbed the door handle. The woman hadn't had time to lock it when she'd launched herself at him with the stun gun. He pulled the door open and found himself face to face with a .44 magnum. It was persuasive. He backed down from the landing. "What is going on down here?" demanded the new man in a faintly amused tone. Tony wrenched his eyes away from the gun and to the man's face. Without the gun, Tony would not have found this man intimidating in the slightest. He was short and slight, with curly hair that rode the line between blond and brown. "There are two of you. He's cuffed and naked. What am I paying you for?" Tony would certainly not have pegged this wimpy-looking guy with a reedy voice as the man in charge, but the reactions of his people made it clear that Tony would have been wrong. They both looked terrified, and Tony caught a little of their alarm as the man turned to him. "Tony, I think you'd better go back down the steps like a good boy."

Little as he liked obeying the little prick, the barrel of the gun never wavered, and the man held it like he knew how to use it. Tony started down the stairs. The repeated boosts of adrenaline had taken a lot out of him, and he hadn't exactly felt up to par when he woke up. He was shivering again, and he really wanted to know what they hoped to get out of this. The fact that he'd seen all their faces also disturbed him somewhat. Kidnappers who let you see their faces didn't usually plan to let you live.

All three of them accompanied him into the radiator room which, due to the door having stayed open all this time, had lost a lot of heat. Both men kept their guns out, and the woman had tucked her radio back into a pocket. They stopped and Tony stopped too, not sure what to do next.

"Mr. Anthony Leonard DiNozzo." This was the little but scary guy. "Please, be seated." The only possible place to sit down was the blow up mattress, and it would put his head significantly lower than everyone else's. Tony didn't want to do it, but big and beefy twitched his gun barrel slightly, and Tony did as he was told. He was glad his hands were bound in front. They provided some measure of cover. The little guy turned to the woman. "Do you have it, Lola?"

"Of course," she replied. She reached into another pocket of her cargo pants and pulled out a little video camera. Tony swallowed. Now they were going to ask him to read something, or say something, or whatever. He didn't want to play. Especially not naked.

The little guy flipped his suit jacket back and holstered his gun in a shoulder harness that looked like it had seen a fair amount of use. Then he squatted down, resting his elbows on his knees, and gazed at Tony with what seemed to be a sympathetic expression. "Your situation got worse slightly before you became aware of it," he said. "You see, we called your father early this morning with a ransom demand." Tony nodded. It seemed to be the thing to do. "We got your stepmother, and she became hysterical."

Tony broke in. "My stepmother? Joyce? I don't think so. You must have gotten the housekeeper or something. Joyce wouldn't become hysterical if her shoes were on fire."

"Really?" Peter asked. "How intriguing. Well, regardless, the woman I spoke to first became hysterical. This led to your father taking the phone, and he went to the opposite extreme, telling us that it wasn't a very funny joke and that he would deal with you later."

Tony grimaced and shook his head. "You didn't research my family too carefully, did you?" he asked.

The man gazed silently at him for a moment, then shrugged. "I suppose I missed a few things. I'm only human, after all. But your father is the sort of staid Italian businessman to whom the first – and in this case only – son is a very important commodity, no matter what the son's choice of occupation."

Tony snorted. "Have you ever even met my father?" he asked.

The man nodded thoughtfully. "A few times. I must have misread him."

"Maybe," Tony said. He was trying to keep his responses as neutral as possible. He was dead. He was so dead.

"Now another call has been placed, at an hour by which your father must certainly have discovered that you were not where you were supposed to be, and it, too, was greeted with anger at you."

Tony shrugged. Great. He wondered if Gibbs had started looking, or if he was assuming that Tony was just late. He hoped he'd started looking, because if he relied on his father for help, he'd be dead sooner rather than later. "So, what now?" he asked. "Who are you, anyway?"

"You can call me Peter," the little guy said. "And now I need your help to persuade your father that the situation is serious."

Tony didn't like where this was heading. "I told Butch there that I would happily go explain it to him. All I need is some pants and bus fare."

Peter chuckled as he stood up. "I'm afraid that's out of the question." He looked over at big and beefy. "Butch, huh?" The big guy glowered at Tony. "That will do." Peter backed up several steps. "Go easy on him, Butch. We'll need somewhere to go from here."

Tony stood up and backed away from Butch. "Could we maybe talk about this? Some kind of . . . I don't know – I'm naked, for pity's sake."

Peter tilted his head. "You make a reasonable point. We should, perhaps, keep the proof of life PG-13. Lola, go get him his pants." She pocketed the camera and left the room. "Butch, I think we're going to have to immobilize our federal agent."

"I can take him," Butch said sourly.

"Yes," Peter said with exaggerated patience, "but I don't want a video of him dodging you. Let's tie his hands to one of the balusters."

"The what?"

Peter sighed. "The uprights on the stair railing."

Tony looked back and forth between his captors. "Look, I really don't think this is necessary. Can't I just read something? I'll look scared, I promise! It won't be hard."

"He'll be expecting something like that if he thinks you're playing a joke on him." Peter shook his head. "I am sorry, Tony. The demonstration has to be convincing." Tony started to fight back when Butch grabbed for him, but Peter pulled out the gun again. "I suppose I could shoot you somewhere unimportant," he said, and Tony got the point. He went with Butch.

When he was positioned to their liking against the stairway, Butch uncuffed his left hand while Peter covered him. He threaded the cuffs through the stair railing and closed it around Tony's wrist again, leaving Tony standing with arms above his head. It was a particularly vulnerable position, and, naked as he was, humiliating. Lola came trotting down the stairs with his slacks and took a long look at him. "It must be cold in here," she said. "How's he going to put these on?"

"Put them on for him, Lola."

"Now, that's really not necessary," Tony said.

"If you want your pants on, it is," Peter replied.

Lola went down on her knees in front of him, and Tony looked away. This was nuts. She tapped his right foot. "Lift," she said with a lilt in her voice. He grit his teeth and picked up his foot. She slipped the pants around his ankle, then patted his other foot. Then she pulled the pants up his legs and buttoned them. He didn't generally like to go commando in his slacks, but at least he was covered, although having her zip his fly was certainly distracting.

"Now I think we're ready," Peter said.

"I'm really not," Tony said.

Peter stepped back. "Lola?"

She backed up several feet and pulled out her camera. Tony straightened his neck and glanced over at Butch who was pulling on a mask and a pair of gloves. Not boxing gloves. He grimaced and looked away.