Prologue
1.38 am
There was someone in the hallway.
Inside her bedroom, agent Caitlin Todd leant slowly for her gun. Her nerves were on fire, burning with warning.
There's someone in the hallway!
She couldn't tell what had woken her. A creak, a whisper, some precognitive sense.
Her chest was tight as she listened.
Silence.
The groan of cars on the highway.
The slightest creak, as though someone resettling their foot.
She slid out of bed, ducked behind it. She could taste tension thick like glue, eyes wide against the darkness.
Outside, someone waited.
She moved slowly, taking place beside the door. Gun raised against her chest.
Waited.
What the hell are they waiting for? she thought, shaking with adrenalin.
The door creaked open slightly, and her heart jumped into her throat.
The muzzle of a gun peeked around the edge of the door like the snout of a dog, searching.
For her.
Her finger tightened.
The door roared open, and her hands leapt up.
Crack!
She fired for the first man shaped shadow through the door, rewarded by the wet crack of a skull imploding.
The second raced around the door, barrelling towards her.
Her second shot fired an instant before he hit, vanishing in the black wall of his chest. He hit like a train, smashing her into the wall. Ribs cracked, air exploded from her lungs in a yelp.
The world swirled and she was crushed.
Her mouth opened to shout and he hit her, once, twice.
Dazed, Kate watched as the gun was wrenched from her fingers. The man had her arms crushed to her front, a leg forced between her thighs. Two hands wrapped around her head like spiders; the heel of his hand nearly broke her teeth.
There was a second of silence broken by their jagged breathing. Kate could feel his heart through her shirt, hear it thundering, smell his acrid sweat.
Felt the bullet, crushed between her and his bullet proof vest.
Kate glared into the faceless black helmet, and was afraid.
She was still, breathing painfully, eyes darting. A third man was bent over the first, checking for life. She stared as he stood. All three wore the SWAT uniform, weapons standard issue.
Except for the syringe, carried in the third man's hand.
Her head was wrenched aside to bear her neck.
She wriggled and kicked in sudden fury, trying vainly to knee her captor in the crotch. His elbow dug into her cracked ribs, and she snarled into his hand.
A tiny, lingering pinprick.
She sagged in his grip.
Somewhere in the night, Abby spasmed as a similar needle found her bare arm as she fought the men that held her down. Ducky was dragged out of his bathroom, grey faced and bleeding. Anthony DiNozzo didn't wake as a needle slid under his skin.
And Gibbs…Gibbs slept on.
Nothing disturbed his sleep that night.