Chapter 2

"Wake up, Abby."

"Huh… What… Where are we?"

"It's morning. I have to get to a bank."

She recognized the alley through a yawn, "To a bank? Why?"

"We're going to need money," he said as he maneuvered down the narrow drive and onto the downtown streets.

"If they have people on the inside," she said, still trying to clear the early morning cobwebs from her head, "and we use a bank, they'll know."

"I know. That's why I'm going to get cash and then we're going to Baltimore."

"Baltimore?" she repeated while stretching her long legs, or at least trying to.

"Yep, Baltimore. I have a friend who owes me."

She suddenly remembered his wound, "What about your arm? We should take care of that."

Tony hadn't slept too well because of it. Once he had managed to get Abby to sleep, he had poured a bottle of water over the wound and then tied off his bicep a little better with an old rag he had found in his backseat. He would need to take care of it, and soon, but, first things first: ensure the scientist's safety. He gave her a sideways smile and said, "It's okay. I hardly feel it."

He parked behind the bank and she waited in the car while he went inside. A few minutes later, he returned, saying, "I got all the cash we need."

"But we can't use cash. Anywhere we go and pay with cash is a guarantee we're going to be remembered."

"I know. That's why we're headed to Baltimore."

"Are you sure you're up for this?" She slid back his jacket and saw the blood soaked tourniquet.

"As up for anything I've ever had to do. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine, but if something happens to you? You know Gibbs, McGee, Ziva, Ducky—Hell, even the Director… will have my hide."

An hour later, Tony drove into an industrial park on the outskirts of Baltimore and weaved his way down the narrow roads towards the warehouses. He eventually pulled up outside one of them and honked three times. As if on cue, the heavy metal door slowly raised. He drove through, into the darkened garage, and then listened as the door lowered behind him.

"What is this place?" Abby asked, hoping it was safer than it looked.

Tony was serious and replied, "Just don't say anything, don't get out of the car, and most importantly, don't remember anything you see or hear."

"Is this illegal?"

"Not very much," he said. He pulled out a wad of bills and began thumbing through it, and her eyes widened.

"How much do you have?"

"Thirty thousand."

"Where did you get that kind of money?"

"Didn't your momma ever teach you not to ask such questions?"

"She did, then she left, so now I ask. Where'd that come from?"

"If I have to keep you alive for the next three days, without being tracked, we're going to have to do some fancy shuffling. You up for it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No." He touched her arm soothingly, "Stay here and forget any faces you might see or anything you might hear. You got that?"

She nodded and watched as he got out, leaving her alone in his car. Three men approached, none of them looking like they were respectable law abiding citizens. There was an exchange of cash, some IDs, more plastic cards, and then she heard Tony say, "If this works, I'll consider wiping your slate clean."

"And if it doesn't?" the four hundred pound t-shirt clad mammoth of a man replied.

"I'll come back for the lot of you," Tony replied. Abby sensed that he was only half kidding.

For the umpteenth time, Ziva turned to see who was getting off the elevators. When it wasn't Tony, she only slightly deflated. "Where could he be?"

McGee shrugged, "No doubt saying goodbye to his latest one night stand."

"It's after ten o'clock!" she hissed.

"Tony always finds some excuse on days when we have a lot of paperwork to catch up on."

"But even Tony wouldn't be this late for work, no matter how pretty, or young, the girl may be."

Gibbs rounded the corner, "Don't bet on it, Officer David. McGee, call Abby and see if she needs help with Gambatti's laptop."

"On it, Boss." McGee listened as the phone went to voice mail. "She must be playing her music." Gibbs' stare forced him to reconsider his comment and he followed it with, "…So… I will go see her and ask her, in person, if she needs any help."

He smiled approvingly. "Ziva, did you locate the victim's girlfriend?"

"Not yet. Tony is supposed to be tracking her whereabouts, but he is not here to do that." Whether it annoyed her boss or not, she wanted him to be aware that her partner's unprofessionalism annoyed her. It didn't seem to faze Gibbs, though.

McGee entered the lab, expecting to hear the new wave music blaring, but it wasn't. "Abby?" he said as he walked towards her office. When he determined that she wasn't around, he decided to wait a few minutes. Everything in the lab looked to be normal. Her stuff was there, and the machines were ticking and hissing. After waiting a while, he picked up the desk phone and dialed, "Boss? She's not here. She must be with Ducky."

Gibbs furrowed his brow; he had just left autopsy and she hadn't been there, nor was she expected there. At this moment, his brain started playing out a scenario he didn't like. "Get to autopsy, check it out."

The Mossad officer was trained to detect nuances and she detected something different in her boss' tone, "What's wrong?" she asked, ignoring the person on the other end of her phone.

"Did you talk to Abby last night?"

"No. We left around seven and I thought she had already gone."

His phone rang again and it was Ducky. She wasn't in Autopsy and hadn't been in all morning. "Damnit!" Gibbs said. "Ziva, see what time she arrived this morning."

"I'm pulling up the NCIS personnel logs now," she said, hanging up on the person who was talking. Clicking on her keyboard, she studied the data and said, "It does not look like she has checked in yet."

"Pull the access logs and find out what time she left last night."

Ziva punched on her keyboard and displayed the previous night's logs. Gibbs walked up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. "I do not see her name," Ziva said. "It appears that she did not swipe out."

"Well, she sure as hell isn't here. So if she didn't leave, where the hell is she?"

McGee and Ducky entered the Bullpen with concerned expressions. From the steps, Director Vance said, "Gibbs! We have a problem! We've had a major security breach last night. McGee, pull the security tapes from twenty one hundred hours."

Several key strokes later, they were watching an empty hallway on the plasma. Then they watched Tony and Abby running towards them, only to watch them duck into a closet. They followed the path of their colleagues as they evaded and fought off Gambatti's hired killers. Gibbs and team were even fooled by the surprise encounter in the doorway and, like Abby the night before, wasn't sure who had been shot, until the dark suited henchman fell, and Tony lowered his weapon. Unlike the scientist, who stared at the dead man, Tony didn't waste time and grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out the door. McGee switched cameras and watched as Tony shoved her into his car and took off. In the silence that followed, they stared at the empty parking lot.

"They got away?" Ducky asked.

Vance nodded, "It appears they did. No demands from Gambatti."

"How come we're just finding this out now! Where the hell were the guards?"

"Dead. We found them this morning in the basement."

"How?" McGee asked.

"The night guards were all Gambatti's people. When the morning shift came on, they had no way of knowing the night shift guys weren't the real guards. After they cleaned up the bodies, they walked out of here this morning like nothing happened."

"Tony and Abby got away okay?" Ziva said, perhaps more to convince herself than anything.

"Check their apartments—"

"Already did," Vance answered. "Not there."

Gibbs stared at his director, knowing the best way to help his team was to keep his wits, but he wanted to fast forward through all the preliminaries and jump to the here and now.

Vance added, "You have any idea where they'd go?"

"McGee, track their cell phones. Ziva, follow the money. Did they use credit cards, debit cards?"

"Boss, their phones are off."

"Where'd they make their last calls?"

"Gibbs, Tony made a withdrawal this morning from First American Bank on Wisconsin Avenue."

"How much?"

"Thirty thousand dollars."

Gibbs looked down. With that kind of money, no telling what Tony had in mind.

"McGee!"

"Sorry, Boss," he said, trying to wrap his brain around the idea that Abby and Tony were now on the run from the Mafia. "It looks like they dumped their phones on E Street, near the University."

"Ziva!"

"BOLO out on Tony and Abby."

McGee added, "BOLO out on Tony's car."

Gibbs' mind was methodical, and he was systematically ticking off the obvious. Now it was time to investigate the not so obvious.

TBC