Chapter Four: Waiting
McGee and Tony had explored the vault without finding anything encouraging. The door was solidly closed and presumably blocked from without. The walls and ceiling seemed to be intact, except for the worrisome cracks running along them. The dust had apparently come in through the now-dead ventilation system, which may or may not mean that they had fresh air coming in. If they didn't, they had about two days of air, if that. So they would asphyxiate before they died of thirst. Neither option appealed much to McGee, but if Tony was going to be calm about it, then so would he.
And Tony was being calm. Annoying though he may be at times, that was one thing McGee greatly admired about him: he was generally good in a crisis. It was that trait more than anything else that got McGee to actually follow Tony as a leader.
After exhausting the possibility of escape, they had to resign themselves to waiting for rescue. They sat shoulder to shoulder as far away from the moaning, complaining Marine as the cramped vault would allow. They couldn't help him more than they had, they didn't like him, and McGee felt guilty for causing his suffering. They had turned off their cells to conserve the batteries, and sat in absolute darkness. It was oppressive, like a physical weight pushing down on them. McGee closed his eyes to try and pretend it was just a normal night. Eventually, he slept.
He awoke to moaning coming from Sutter. Tony stirred beside him and turned on his cell phone. McGee was temporarily blinded. As soon as his vision cleared, he struggled to his feet, legs cramped and butt numb from sitting so long. Tony joined him and they went to check on their 'patient.'
Sutter had gotten much worse in the hours they had slept. Even with the glove keeping most of the air out of his chest cavity, there was nothing they could do about the blood, and from the sound of his labored breathing he was beginning to drown in it. "We need to sit him up some," McGee said, looking around futilely for something to use as a prop. This vault was used for safe deposit boxes. With the exception of one box that Sutter had apparently opened, the rest of the boxes were closed and locked, offering nothing. The box Sutter had pulled out was now empty, the contents apparently stolen and then lost by him in the chase. They could have used the box as an uncomfortable prop, but they had already co-opted it into a makeshift toilet in one corner of the room.
The only thing they could do was sit him up against a wall. This they did as gently as possible, although he still cried out and moaned at the treatment. "Why the hell did you bomb the bank?" Tony asked again.
Sutter rolled his head to look at Tony. "Damn bitch," he said, then coughed.
"Did you just call me a bitch?" Tony asked, sounding more amused than offended.
"Fixed her good," Sutter elaborated. He wasn't referring to Tony, then.
"Wait," Tony said. "You blew up an entire bank over a woman?"
"This woman wouldn't be Stacie Keller, would it?" McGee asked.
"Stacie," Sutter murmured, confirming it. So this had been about stalking. "She said she didn't want to see me…" he broke off, coughing.
"And the safe deposit box you opened?" Tony asked relentlessly. McGee wanted to know too, but he also wished they could leave the poor man to die in peace. What did his motives matter now?
"Her box…thought she kept my letters…"
"You thought she kept love letters in her safe deposit box." Tony said flatly.
"It would prove she loved me," Sutter said with a little more strength.
"And were they there?" McGee couldn't help but ask.
Sutter looked at him, eyes opaque, dead inside. "No," he said finally, then closed his eyes again.
There really wasn't much more to say to that, so McGee and Tony retreated to their corner. "He blew up an entire bank to get back at his ex?" Tony muttered incredulously. "Not even Gibbs' ex number two would go that far!"
McGee stiffened at Gibbs' name. He had been feeling so sorry for himself that he hadn't thought about what may have happened to the rest of the team, next to the building as they were. "Tony! Do you think that Gibbs and Ziva are ok?"
"I've thought about that," Tony said. "There's really no way to know."
"Thanks. That's very comforting," McGee said grumpily. "The least you could do is lie to me about it." He was trying for funny, but it came out more desperate than he liked.
Tony sighed. "Look, Probie, there's no way to know what kind of damage happened above us."
"It felt like the whole thing came down, and the cracks in the vault…" McGee turned his phone on again and waved it to illuminate the cracks in the wall beside them.
"Stop that," Tony ordered.
"What?" McGee demanded, leaving his phone on.
"First," Tony said, holding up a finger, "we don't have that much battery power. You should save your light for when you need it. Second," he held up another finger, "I don't really want to look at those cracks, and neither do you, McGee."
McGee opened his mouth to argue, but really couldn't find a fault with the logic. As long as he was pretending that the wrecked building wasn't going to come crashing down on their heads, he could keep fairly calm about things. The trick, of course, was not thinking about it. Not looking at it. So turning off the light would be a good thing there. But he really, really hated the pitch blackness. With an effort, he flipped his phone closed, noticing with some embarrassment that he pressed a little closer to Tony as he did so.
Tony patted his shoulder. "They'll find us, McGee. Gibbs is up there. You know how stubborn he can be."
McGee decided that this wasn't the time to point out that the people above almost undoubtedly thought they were dead. Instead he said, "That first explosion, just before the main ones? It probably warned them away."
"Exactly!" Tony agreed quickly. "So they're fine, and as we speak they're digging us out."
"Why can't we hear any digging?" McGee asked, looking up into the darkness. The only sounds were their voices and Sutter's labored breathing. His hearing had cleared while they slept. Before, he was hoping that hearing loss was why they couldn't hear the sounds of rescue, but that excuse didn't exist anymore.
"Bank vault," Tony reminded him. "Probably soundproof."
"We heard the explosions," McGee pointed out.
"They were a lot louder and a lot closer than rescue crews."
McGee didn't like the 'a lot closer,' but he let is pass. "How much air do you think we have?" he asked. He checked the time. They had been in here now for just over thirteen hours.
"If there wasn't some air coming in from outside, we would be dead by now." McGee supposed Tony's words were supposed to be comforting, but they had the opposite effect. Especially since the tone wasn't particularly soothing. "Hey, what are the symptoms of hypoxia?" Tony asked, calming leadership influence obviously at war with his hypochondria.
"Uh, headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, obviously…" McGee stopped, realizing that he had had a headache for some time. It was just a dull ache in the back of his head, and could just as easily be from stress, but still. "You have any of those symptoms?"
"I have a headache," Tony said softly. Hypochondria was winning.
"Did you hit your head when the bank exploded?" McGee asked, hoping he didn't sound as desperate as he felt.
"Well, yes," Tony admitted, "but not that hard."
Thus armed with something new to worry about, McGee flipped open is phone again. "You told me you weren't hurt!"
"Get that light out of my eyes, Probie! I'm fine!" Tony protested as McGee held up his makeshift flashlight and tried to determine pupil sizes. "Uh, no concussion, right?" Tony asked, sounding less confident.
McGee didn't see signs of a concussion, but what he did see in Tony's eyes was somehow worse: fear. The great and powerful agent DiNozzo was scared. He turned off the phone. "No, you're fine," he said.
"Which means hypoxia," Tony said.
McGee shivered. "There's probably enough air coming in to keep us alive," he said, hoping it was true.
"We should try to sleep, conserve—" Tony started, when he was interrupted by wet, hacking coughing from Sutter. "Dammit," he muttered, turning on his phone. They got up and went back to Sutter. His front (and therefore McGee's jacket) were soaked in blood, as was his mouth and chin. Another violent coughing fit doubled him forward. McGee and Tony rushed to support him as he coughed blood. When he finally stopped, his breath came in weak gasps.
McGee and Tony looked at each other over the top of Sutter's head. Tony looked grim. McGee supposed he looked scared, and perhaps guilty, because that's how he felt. It wasn't so much shooting a perp. It was injuring him and watching him die slowly. And there was no doubt that he was dying.
"Help me," Sutter whispered, obviously aware of the same thing.
McGee opened his mouth to tell the kid he would be fine, but couldn't bring himself to say something so obviously untrue. He looked again at Tony. "Tony—" he said helplessly.
Tony gently laid Sutter back against the wall and let go, sitting back on his heels. "Kid—Luther, look. I know you're not feeling too good right now. But help's on the way, so you just have to hold out a little while, ok?" McGee was impressed at how calmly Tony said this.
"It's hard to breathe," Sutter said, sending himself into another coughing fit. McGee held him, but this time Tony stayed back, face in the dim light of his phone unreadable. Sutter coughed for a long time. When he finished, his breath came in tiny gasps.
"Luther?" McGee asked. The Marine didn't respond. His eyelids didn't even flicker. McGee gently tucked the blood-stained coat around his shoulders and came around next to Tony. "He's dying," he whispered, low enough that only Tony could hear, in case Sutter was still conscious.
"Yes," Tony agreed, standing. They retreated to their corner, shutting off the light so they didn't have to see Sutter anymore. "He tried to kill us, McGee. It was self-defense. No, actually, it was probably DiNozzo defense, because it was probably me he was going to shoot."
"But I missed," McGee said, unmollified. "We're trained to shoot to kill, Tony. It would have been better. Easier for him."
"Yeah, but next time you won't miss. Stop beating yourself up," Tony said.
McGee didn't think he would do that for some time. "It's either feel bad about shooting the kid or think about asphyxiation or the ceiling falling in on us," he pointed out.
"Dammit, Probie!" Tony said, exasperated. "Think about-about-I dunno, whiskers on kittens or something."
"'Whiskers on kittens?'" McGee asked, smiling despite himself.
"You know, The Sound of Music?" Tony said. "Don't tell me you haven't seen that!"
"Of course I have, it just didn't seem relevant," McGee said.
"Not like Buried Alive. That's relevant, Probie. Want to talk about that?"
McGee shuddered. "No, I do not. I don't know that movie, and trust me, I don't want to."
Nothing left to say to each other, they lapsed into silence. Darkness, fear, and boredom eventually lulled them back to sleep.
