Author: TC1097
Title: The Ebony Road
Genre: Action/Adventure.
Summary: Tony might have to travel a dangerous dark road in order to help one of his team.
scousemuzlk—Be careful what you wish for! Longer chapters? Are you sure? I'm known in other fandoms for being rather long winded. I've had to break up chapters I intended as one chapter into two because they surpassed limitations of the boards where I was posting them (including this one). But, okay, if you're sure. Here's a longer chapter. And thanks for the review!
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The Ebony Road
Chapter II
"Tim! Answer me!"
Once again his plea went unfulfilled.
Tony pulled the phone away from his ear, just for an instant, to glance at the screen and confirm that the call had not been disconnected. Relieved to find the line linking them together still open he placed the phone back against his ear. Unlike a moment earlier there were sounds of life coming for the other end of the call. He listened intently. A faint scuffling sound, a harsh thwack, and then a louder rustling sound tumbled one after another from the far off place where his teammate seemed to be located.
"McGee! I'm going to help you but I need to know where you are."
His reassurance was rewarded with a low groan from the other end of the line.
"Are you with me McGee? You're not hurt are you?" he asked. The groan had been both music to his ears and disconcerting. The sound had meant that McGee was still with him, but at the same time it had been unusually low and almost pained.
"I…uh…I'm not sure. Tony, I feel…kind of…strange." The younger agent's distant voice finally came back over the line. It sounded like he was in a tunnel. Maybe more accurate he sounded like he was in a submarine at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Why was their connection so tenuous? So infuriatingly pathetic?
"Like injured strange or drugged out of your mind strange?" Tony asked despite not truly liking either option.
"I don't know. Everything is kind of…out of whack. Kind of surreal."
The words came over the line weaker than McGee's earlier ones. A little slurred and laced with growing fear. Tony had heard that buildup of fear in McGee's voice a few times before, not recently, but it didn't matter he knew it well enough to recognize it. His teammate was headed down the road into panicking.
"Where are you McGee? I'll come get you."
"Oh god! This is not good." The younger agent spat out but the words were more to himself than his teammate.
"McGee?" Tony tossed out loudly, demanding the other man's attention be focused back to him.
"Tony, I have absolutely no idea where I am! I don't understand how I got here."
"Don't worry about the how right now. Focus on the where, McGee."
"Uh…uh…" McGee's voice stuttered out. He sounded thoroughly lost. Not just physically either. Tony wondered how much longer McGee would be responsive. His teammate seemed to be fading in and out of being able to hold the conversation. More likely he was altered somehow, by injury, toxins, or by being under duress.
Tony propelled himself up off the floor to a standing position, phone still pressed to his right ear. His mind may have been thoroughly engaged now but apparently his legs remained half asleep. Managing to get them coordinated just enough to be set in motion he half stumbled half scrambled around his coffee table and across the living room towards his land line phone. If McGee couldn't tell him where he was then maybe their open phone connection could be informative. He snatched up the handset to his landline phone and cradled it between his left ear and his shoulder. With his left hand he began to dial NCIS headquarters.
"I'm calling into headquarters to get a GPS fix on your cell. Stay with me okay, McGee."
"No! No! Tony you can't do that!" the younger agent's panicked voice pleaded just as Tony was about to hit the last digit into the phone's number pad. Tony halted the motion and let his index finger hover over the button. Then he responded with all the calmness he could muster.
"You don't know where you are. And I most certainly don't know where you are, except that by the sound of our connection you quite possibly might be in a submarine at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea or in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, but other than that I got nothing. So GPS is our next move. After that I call Gibbs."
"No! No! No! Don't do that!"
"McGee, now is no time for embarrassment."
"It…it's not that. This is very important. No one else can know."
"McGee…"
"No Tony. It could be really...bad. You can't tell anyone."
Underneath the surface of his teammate's panicked voice there was something worse, a certainty in his protest. Tony swallowed down hard and shifted his gaze towards his fingertips as they remained poised over the keypad on his landline phone. One more number and he could have McGee's location.
"Tony, did you hear me? You can't tell anyone please!" a desperate whisper begged him. The certainty with which the younger agent was speaking spilled through Tony, churning up his gut, and finally landing in his left index finger which instead of hitting that last number diverted its course and hit the release button at the top of the phone. The terrifying decision had been made. He and Tim were on their own.
"Okay, alright, but then I need you to focus McGee. Look around and see what you can see. Maybe we can figure out where you are. While you do that I'm going to head over to headquarters. See if I can wrangle up that GPS trace on your phone."
"Tony, I'm really not feeling right. I'm trying to look…but nothing is the way it should be."
"Hang in there McGee. I'm not done super gluing your finger to pieces of office equipment quite yet. So we'll have you back at that federally issued keyboard of yours in no time."
The remark earned Tony another groan. This time it held a trace of annoyance and for some reason that made a smile seep onto his face.
"Tim, I need to know. Do you have your weapon?" Tony asked, simultaneously and silently praying that the answer would be in the positive. Ten seconds of waiting while Tony stared at the clock on the wall across the room. Three thirty five in the am. No response. Twenty seconds he waited for a reply and nothing arrived. Forty seconds he waited for a reply and silently encouraged Come on Tim! Just let me know you're still there! I'll take anything, a peep, a squeak, even an insult. Just give me something.
But none of those things ever came.
"McGee?"
Still nothing.
Tony pulled the phone from his ear once again briefly to peek at the screen and check the connection. He was grateful to find the link intact. It also thrust him back into action. He returned the phone to his ear and hurriedly made his way back around the coffee table, grabbing his coat from where it was slung over the back of the couch. His badge would be in one of the pockets. So would his keys. Spinning back around he scooped up his weapon off the coffee table then made a beeline for the door. Once there he juggled all the items that occupied his hands in order to open the door, slip out into the hallway, and then lock the door behind him. But only three strides lengths down the corridor he realized something was missing. He halted and consulted the mental checklist. Cell phone. Badge. Keys. Coat. The forgotten item popped into his mind and he about faced, marched back to his apartment door, and inserted the key once again. An instant later he popped back into his living room and began a visual search.
"Shoes! Need shoes!" he mumbled to himself as he scanned the room.
"Aha!" he exclaimed upon seeing them sticking out form underneath the couch. He rushed to their location and clumsily stuffed his feet in. Before heading back outside Tony made another attempt to get a response from his teammate.
"McGee? I'm heading out to headquarters right now. You hear me? I'm on the way."
A long string of seconds passed as Tony listened attentively. Time awarded him nothing but dead air. Practically inside the next breath he was out of his apartment, along the hallway, down the stairwell, and outside into the cool night air of October. A few more brisk strides later and he was in his car, bringing the engine roaring to life. He had tucked the cell phone in between his ear and shoulder in order to insert the key in the ignition and start the car. Now reluctantly he grasped the phone again with his right hand, hit the button for speaker phone, and set the cell in the cup holder for safe keeping.
Tony drove in a very Gibbs-like manner towards the naval yard, foot pressed down mercilessly against the gas pedal and with a total lack of regard for traffic laws. Tony pondered for an instant if Gibbs had a secret rule about driving, something perhaps along the lines of Disregard rules of the road at will or as necessary. Unlike with Ziva's driving Tony suspected that Gibbs actually knew the rules of the road but simply did not embrace them. Tony wasn't sure that Ziva even noticed things like double yellow lines and stop signs. Considering the driving habits of that fifty percent of the team it was a miracle that the other fifty percent of the team, himself and McGee, had not become traffic accident statistics long ago. Apparently miracles did happen.
In any regard Tony wasn't embracing many of those traffic laws at the moment himself, but priorities were what they were in this instance. Careening around the arc of the last turn into the naval yard he finally let up on the gas pedal. He would have no choice but to waste a few precious seconds dealing with the guard at the main gate. He pulled up beside the guard house and pressed down on the brake.
"Hey Agent DiNozzo! Late one huh? Or is it an early one?" the guard greeted him. If Tony recalled correctly the man's name was Richardson and was he a bit of a talker. The up side of that was that the guard knew him so he wouldn't have to waste time with id and formality. On the other hand, he didn't really have time for social hour so he would have to make it clear he wasn't in a chatty kind of mood.
"Either way it's not a good one!" Tony replied inside a grumbling tone.
"Sorry to hear that!" Richardson offered.
"That makes two of us!" he snapped back.
"I hope things look up soon!" the guard responded and gave a wave of the hand towards the other side of the gate, indicating that the agent was clear to enter into the yard.
"Yes, well, here's hoping." Tony tossed back. The sentiment meant more than the guard would ever know.
"That quite possibly may have been the shortest conversation I've ever had with that man," Tony commented to himself. Perhaps he had grumbled a little more intensely than he had initially planned on. He would make it up to Richardson after this was over, perhaps ask about the wife and kids or inquire if he had seen the game last night. It was never wise to have the guards ticked at you. It had a tendency to result in sudden mix-ups and concocted delays at the gate. And, in turn, head slaps from Gibbs when you were late as a result.
Gibbs. He wished he could call the boss. He denied himself thinking about the reason behind why McGee was so insistent that making that call would result in bad things. What he did allow himself to ponder was a question that had suddenly reared its head up in his mind. Why had McGee called him first and not Gibbs?
The longer the question simmered in his brain the more undesirable answers presented themselves. He decided it might be best to refocus back to the task at hand.
Parking went considerably faster and closer to the building in the small hours of the morning. Only a handful of minutes after coming through the main gate he was inside NCIS headquarters.
Unwilling to wait upon the elevator or risk encountering someone he did not wish to run into while waiting for the elevator Tony chose to take the stairs. He jogged up the steps, only slowing his pace when he reached the doorway that lead out onto the floor. Once he passed over the threshold his gait was brisk but not urgent enough to draw undesired scrutiny. The late hour, or the early hour as the guard at the gate had put it, meant the place was practically a ghost town. But Tony knew better then to let his guard down. People around NCIS headquarters seemed to have a talent for sneaking up on you at the most inopportune moments. Especially one grouchy coffee addicted agent in particular.
Tony's gaze darted around the expanse of the floor as he made his way to his desk. It was seemingly empty which Tony was grateful for at the moment.
He slipped into to the chair at his station and hit the power button on his computer. While waiting for it to boot up he again took the cell phone from his ear and inspected its screen. The line was open, but it looked like the charge on his phone was waning. His gaze shot to the computer screen. It was still running the automatic scans it went through upon each start up. He held his breath and silently commanded the machine to hurry. He wanted to be able to tell McGee where exactly he was before they were disconnected in case there might be help close by that the younger agent could get to or even just reassure him Tony had a fix on his location. Finally the log in screen popped up. Tony put the cell to his ear again. If McGee could hear him he had to let him know that soon they would no longer be connected by the open line.
"Tim. I'm at headquarters. I'm getting the GPS information as we speak. But my phone charge is running out so if I drop off the line that's why. Make sure to leave your phone on. I'll be there as soon as I can. I promise I'll drive like Gibbs. Hang in there! I'm coming."
He listened for a few seconds, not really expecting a response at this point, but doing it just in case. He had attempted to get a response from his teammate several times while he had the cell on speaker phone in the car. None of the attempts had yielded any results. This attempt was no different.
Tony placed the cell on the desk and hastily logged into the computer. Then he kept right on going as quickly as the limits of the system would allow him. Finally he had entered in the information needed to run a trace on the GPS on McGee's cell phone and set the computer to work on the task.
The image of McGee's darkened empty desk had haunted the far edge of his peripheral vision as he had worked. Now he seemed no longer able to refuse to acknowledge its presence. He let his gaze wander over to the desk and the orderly belongings that decorated its surface. The chair was pushed up tightly against the desk the way McGee made sure it was before departing each day. When Tony came and went throughout the day it was how he knew whether the younger agent had left yet. If it was turned slightly askew to one side or the other or pushed back away from the edge of the desk Special Agent Tim McGee was still in attendance somewhere in the building.
The emptiness of that chair stabbed relentlessly into Tony. It carried along with it an ugly thought. Anger chased close at the thought's heels as it raced it through his mind though. Tony chastised himself for allowing the thought to even dare to cross his mind. It was an unacceptable concept. But his mind grasped onto it despite his attempt to halt it. What would it be like to come in every morning and have to face that empty chair?
He would just have to make sure that never came to pass. He had to get McGee out of this, whatever this was, unscathed. Once he brought him back safe and sound he just might have to throttle him for getting into it in the first place.
Tony wondered what had been Tim's motivation for applying and, ultimately, joining NCIS. There were so many other avenues he could have traveled down. So many paths he could have embarked upon that could have led to more prestigious destinations. Although knowing McGee he probably had been endlessly recruited while still a student studying computer forensics at MIT. His book smarts and technical skills had more than likely done the applying and persuading for him. It certainly was not his social skills that landed him at the NCIS team. Had it perhaps been his father's occupation that edged him in this particular direction?
That idea led to the wonderment of how McGee's parents and little sister had reacted when he had told them of his job offer with NCIS. Their Timmy was going to be a federal agent? What Tony would have given to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation at the McGee family dinner table?
Tony searched his memories. Had Tim ever mentioned anything along those lines? He was a bit disheartened when he came up empty handed for any answers inside his memory. Usually he was very skilled at retrieving this type of information if he had it tucked away in some cobwebbed corner of his brain. But for the life of him he could not pull out anything useful this time around. Tony hoped that it wasn't the case that his teammate had in fact mentioned these things and that he simply had not been paying enough attention to what the younger agent had been saying to retain it.
He let out a heavy sad sigh.
Gibbs would certainly have remembered. So would Ziva and Abby for that matter. Ducky probably would have regaled them with at least one story on the subject. Even Palmer may have come up with some relevant tidbit.
Tony bit down hard on his lower lip as frustration welled up inside him. Timothy McGee had a way of embedding himself under your skin without even trying. He seemed to take great pleasure in seizing opportunities to show off his smarts and make everyone else pale in comparison. It was aggravating to say the least.
At the same time Tim was honest, well intentioned, fair, and unaware how rare it was to be genuinely that way. Tony had experienced a pang of something, protectiveness perhaps, anytime someone had attempted to steal away any shred of that endearing quality from his teammate.
"Damn it McMissing!" he snapped out and gave a harsh blow with his fist to the top of his desk. His keyboard and pencil holder jumped up from their places as the jolt of it ripped through the surface of the desk. The keyboard landed well but the pencil holder toppled over, spilling its contents out onto the desk and the floor. He started to bend down to pick them up when his phone let out a chirp and, therefore, diverted his attention. He knew what it meant but picked up the cell anyway and looked at the screen. The phone was alerting him that its charge had been drained and it was about to go dark.
He stared at the screen as it beeped several more warnings at him. Then the screen that displayed the number he was in touch with flashed and disappeared. The thin thread of a connection that had tied him to McGee was gone. The phone chirped out softly once more time and went dark.
He realized that even if he called McGee's number on the land line it was unlikely that the young agent would be able to answer it. He would charge his cell in the car and give it a try anyway.
Tony hung his head, held his breath, and closed the cell phone. Just as he did so his computer let out an attention grabbing sound of its own. Tony's head shot up and he frantically scanned the map displayed on the monitor. The program had managed to retrieve the information from McGee's cell phone only seconds after the connection had been lost. He wasn't able to let McGee know where he was but at least he had been able to find him.
Tony let his gaze focus thankfully upward, out through the skylights, for a moment and released the breath he had been keeping captive. He had feared that he might lose the chance at GPS fix if McGee's cell phone had died or in quite possibly that in his seemingly disoriented state he would inadvertently shut it off.
"Alright, let's see what we've got!" he tossed out to the open air of the bullpen. He studied the map, first seeing the indicator that pinpointed the phone's location then went about connecting that with his own present location.
"What the heck are you doing all the way over there, McGee?" he commented after it took him a long string of seconds to link the two locations to one another. But, ultimately, he decided he would take what he could get and printed the map. As it was printing Tony stood up and glanced around the floor, ensuring he had remained unnoticed. Well, unnoticed except for the security cameras which he was sure soon enough Abby would be reviewing. Tony looked straight into the nearest one and mouthed the words Sorry. No choice.
Then he looked back down towards his work station and grabbed the map from his printer. Scooping up his now dead cell from his desk he placed both items in his coat pocket. Glancing at the clock on his computer monitor he saw it was now past four in the morning.
The boss would be marching out of the elevator in a mere few hours. It wouldn't be long after that that he would know something was up. McGee's punctuality would give it away just as it had the last time he had found trouble. It would take slightly longer for the red flags to go up in regards to Tony himself given his track record of being fashionably late. Then again his fashionably late style had a track record all of its own and it wasn't a good one. He might be able to buy a little time though. He picked up the handset of the phone on his desk and dialed Gibb's desk.
An automated voice answered.
"You have the reached the voicemail of," and then the boss' voice followed after a pause, "Agent Gibbs!" then back to the recorded voice, "Press one to leave a message."
Tony hit the button marked one and prayed that one of these days McGee would finally convince their boss to record a real message. Automated voice lady had grown old years ago.
"Please leave a message after the tone."
Tony took in a breath and blew it out heavily while waiting for the sound which indicated recording had begun. He hoped the exhale would help rid his voice of any hint something was up. Finally the beep arrived.
"Hey boss! It's DiNozzo. I'm going to be just a tad late. Got an appointment I forgot about. Be in as soon as humanly possible. DiNozzo out."
His tone had come across upbeat and casual, but not too casual, so Tony felt it might buy him a small window of time. But then there was McGee. How to buy time there?
He pondered that while closing out the program and logging off the computer so it wouldn't be noticed right away what he had been up to doing. An idea did come to him. It involved a skill he had practiced quite a bit and was also one he was fairly certain nobody on his team was aware he possessed.
With the computer shut down he went about completing the task that might buy a little time on McGee's tardiness. In addition there were one or two other tasks that might be useful and completed those as well.
Tony glanced one final time over at McGee's empty chair. With his gaze fixed on the image he drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
Tony DiNozzo had come to an unbendable decision.
He didn't care for the image of that darkened empty desk at all. If that chair remained empty it meant that the team had lost one of its members and although he was unlikely to admit it aloud it also meant that he would have lost a good friend.
Turning his back on the sight Tony departed the bullpen and set out to find and bring back Special Agent Timothy McGee come hell or high water.
To Be Continued…