Chapter Two

One Week Later

"Whaddya got?" Gibbs asked, as he walked swiftly to his desk, fresh coffee in hand.

"Tony still has not checked in, Gibbs," Ziva said, her voice tinged with worry. "McGee is following up on his hunch that Marlow is involved, but has not made his afternoon report."

"I was able to get Marlow's background info," Agent Rebecca Samuels reported from her seat at McGee's desk. The key researcher in Pollock's team, she was working with Gibbs' team, since they were, in effect, two men down.

Gibbs gave her a hard look. "And?"

"I think Agent McGee's on to something," Samuels continued. "Looks like Jeremy Marlow was promoted in spite of multiple complaints of unprofessional behavior from his superiors. There have been several charges and allegations against him, yet he always comes out smelling clean. He seems almost Teflon-coated."

"Teflon?" Ziva asked, confused.

"You know, the coating some pans have so your food doesn't stick," she explained.

"What kind of complaints," Gibbs interrupted, trying to get back to the subject at hand. He was more worried about Tony than he could admit.

"He showed a pattern of insolence and insubordination. He doesn't fit the profile of a service man. He's the kind of guy that is either reformed by military service, is dishonorably discharged or serves his minimum and gets out. He's not the type to go for a career in the Navy. It doesn't make sense," Samuels said in frustration.

"Not much to go on," Gibbs remarked.

Being so deep undercover, Tony hadn't had the same opportunities as McGee to check back in with the team. After his recent near brushes with death, Gibbs couldn't help but be a little anxious with being out of the loop.

"Have we been able to get a trace on Tony's 'other' phone?" he asked.

"Abby is working on it," Ziva explained as Gibbs disappeared into the elevator.

Ziva immediately went back to work – she was as concerned about Tony as Abby and Gibbs, but she did not seem to have the luxury of expressing those feelings. So she turned those negative emotions into further motivation, fueling her efforts to find information that would help bring this case to a close and bring her friends back home.

---

"I'll ask you one more time, but that's it," the man said, raising the pipe wrench he was holding in preparation of striking another blow.

Tony kept his eyes closed, refusing to cooperate. He wasn't sure how long he had been captive, or how much more torture he could take, for that matter. "I don't know what you're talking about," Tony continued to play dumb.

"Don't play coy, pig," the man spat. "I know you're up to something."

"See. You already know more than I do," Tony quipped, earning himself a hard blow to the abdomen. He groaned and struggled to regain his breath.

"Just admit it, and we can end this quickly."

"I can't admit what I know nothing about," Tony reasoned, and then winced at the wrench again connected. He bit back tears at the intense pain that accompanied the cracking of bone. With his arms tied behind him and secured to the chair, he was not able to avoid the hit.

"Make something up," the man sneered.

"Okay, okay," Tony complied. "I'm not a cop, but I do have FBI connections."

"Oooh, a fed," the man taunted, swinging the wrench full force into Tony's chest, knocking the chair onto its back and leaving him with his feet in the air.

"I'm not a fed either," Tony explained.

"Then what's your connection to the FBI?"

"I was once married to J. Edgar Hoover," Tony said mockingly.

Tony's attacker placed a booted foot on the base of the chair and forced it upright, bringing Tony up to meet his gaze. "This is no time for jokes, pig."

"You think I'm joking?" Tony continued. "Are you saying you don't think I could get a man like Hoover?"

"Oh, you think that's funny?"

Keeping his foot on the base of the chair, the man struck Tony across the cheek with the back of his fist, spattering himself with blood and rendering the agent temporarily unconscious. Disappointed that he had let himself get carried away, he retreated to a far room to catch some sleep.

---

"Come on, come on," McGee muttered under his breath as he waited for Marlow to emerge from the warehouse he had watched him enter some thirty minutes before. Not wanting to risk his cover, he did not have his NCIS cell phone with him and was now late for his check-in with Ziva.

The sound of a gun arming caught his attention just before he heard a voice, "Following me, Gee?"

McGee's eyes widened as he took in the sight before him: Jeremy Marlow was standing right next to his car door, his weapon trained on his left temple. He swallowed hard and thought, 'What would Gibbs do? What would Tony do?'

"Out of the car," Marlow ordered.

For a brief moment, McGee considered starting the car and pulling out, but he knew there was no way Marlow could miss at this distance. A defeated look in his eye, he slowly reached for the door handle.

---

"Well, crap," Tony said when he saw a second man lead a bound McGee into the room.

"You know this punk?" his tormentor asked.

"He tried to pick me up once," Tony quipped, earning himself another blow.

McGee stared at his coworker and was appalled at the condition he was in. Covered in cuts and bruises, clothes bloodstained, the right half of his face was swollen almost beyond recognition and his left arm was very obviously broken.

"Move it, Gee," Marlow ordered as he pushed McGee toward a second chair in the room.

"No," the other man interjected before Marlow could tie McGee to the chair. "I have something else in mind for our two pigs." His subsequent laugh sent chills through McGee. What could possibly be worse than what they had been doing to Tony?