Tony stood up and made his way to Ziva's desk, he looked over his shoulder and motioned for McGee to follow. "Something's up." Tony said as they huddled around the desk.
"Why do you think that?" Ziva asked.
"Oh come on guys, Gibbs has been acting funny all day."
"Gibbs always acts funny." Ziva replied.
"Did you see the look on his face when he saw Ducky going upstairs?" McGee and Ziva shrugged. "And now Ducky pulls Gibbs aside…something has to be up."
"You're being paranoid Tony." McGee said shaking his head.
"Think about it Tony." Ziva said. "We are working a dead end case. Our leads have gone cold, suspects have gone silent and we've probably had five hours of sleep in the past 48 and that was at our desks." Tony shook his head.
"That's not it; we've had cases like this before…my gut is saying something is up." McGee rolled his eyes and Ziva smiled.
"You're B.O. level is up, does that count?" Ziva asked. Tony raised his arms as if to smell his arm pits.
"You think its bad Probie?"
"Well…it is kind of reminiscent of two week old gym socks found at the bottom of a duffle bag."
"Ah what do you two know?" Tony said walking back to his desk as they laughed at him.
"Maybe you should ask what I know." Abby said bounding into the bullpen. Everyone turned to look at her. "I know fourteen different ways to make McGee blush." Abby said with a wicked smile. "Make that fifteen." Abby said triumphantly as she noticed his face turning red.
"Abby." Tony snapped. "Do you have something or not?"
"Testy today?" Abby asked Tony.
"Don't keep us in the dark Abby." Ziva said. "We are waiting with bated breasts." Tony began laughing hysterically. "What?" Ziva asked looking confused.
"Um Ziva." McGee said, his face turning another shade of red. "It's...well the term is bated breath…not bated breasts. The uh word bate means to moderate or restrain so bated breath would be held breath what you said is um…we are holding our breasts."
"If you need help with yours…" Tony offered with a wiggle of the eyebrows, Ziva threw a pen at him.
"Anyway…" Abby said drawing the attention back to her. "Guess what our petty officer's daughter's nick name is?" Everyone shrugged. "Rayne."
"Ok." McGee said slowly not following where Abby was going with this information.
"Well we know that our vampire said she was falling in love with two people, but she only used their first initials when she wrote about them in her journal." Everyone nodded. "We all figured the C was for Chris but we couldn't…"
"Figure out the R." Ziva finished Abby's sentence.
"Exactly." Abby replied.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Tony asked.
"Depends. Are you thinking of something incredible creepy and just down right freak'n weird?" Abby asked, Tony nodded.
"Our vampire fell in love with the petty office and his daughter." Everyone in the room shuttered.
"Talk about keeping it in the family." Ziva mumbled.
Ducky and Gibbs stood behind a two-way mirror looking into another interrogation room. Gibbs stared in disbelief at the woman sitting at the table. "How can this be Duck?" Gibbs asked. "I look at her and I see Shannon, the love of my life, the mother of my child and you tell me she isn't who she said she is?" Gibbs shook his head, nothing made sense any more. "From the very first time I laid eyes on her I knew she was the one for me. She's the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think of before I fall asleep. I would have done anything in the world to bring Shannon and Kelly back to me and I find out now that it was all a lie, I was just some pawn in her game? I loved her Duck and I didn't even know her." Ducky put his hand on Gibb's shoulder, very few times in his life had he been at a loss for words and this was one of them. "She used me to betray my country."
"I'm so sorry Jethro." Ducky felt tears welling up in his own eyes, he could feel his friend's heart breaking just as if it were his own. He hadn't told Gibbs about his daughter, he had barely gotten out the story about Shannon when Gibbs stormed out of the interrogation room they had been in and into this one. Gibbs took a deep breath and turned towards the door. "Jethro…"
"I have to Duck…I just have to." Gibbs said and opened the door.
"They've been gone too long." Tony said out loud but to no one in particular.
"Gibbs is probably trapped in one of Ducky's endless brain dribble stories and he can't escape." Ziva replied not looking up from her computer.
"Yeah well we all know that when Gibbs is in one of these moods he does not tolerate Ducky stories, especially not ones that would last this long."
"Take advantage of this little bit of down time, because you know when he comes back he'll be all over our asses." Ziva looked up and smiled, Tony shook his head.
"Something's not right." He said under his breath.
"Do you think we should go find him?" McGee asked, both Ziva and Tony looked at him as if he was out of his mind. "Well I just uh…I mean we have a new lead and I just thought that maybe he um…well he would want to know."
"No Probie." Tony said standing up. "The boss is busy with something and we are going to follow up on this lead on our own."
"Uh don't you think we should at least tell him where we are?" McGee asked.
"Probie get the car." Tony and Ziva started gathering their things.
"Maybe we uh…maybe we should leave him a note just um saying where we are." McGee suggested as he watched Tony and Ziva head for the elevator.
Gibbs entered the room and sat down across from the woman he thought he had known and loved. His hands were out in front of him, she smiled, laying her hands on top of his. "Jethro." She said softly. His heart pounded in his chest, he was aware that all the eyes in the room were on him. He pulled his hands away from hers and sat back in the chair. His eyes searched hers, looking for the woman that had captured his heart, he couldn't see her. "I knew this wouldn't be easy." She searched his eyes for any sign of emotion, she found none. "I can't even imagine what you have gone through all these years." Gibbs didn't move, didn't take his eyes off hers, and didn't respond in any way. "I don't know what I can say that might…" Gibbs cut her off.
"What is it that you want to talk to me about?"
"Jethro I never meant to…"
"If you came here to apologize you've wasted your time and everyone else's in this room."
"I haven't."
"Then say what you have to say and leave." She nodded.
"None of it was my idea. They had everything planned. Me seeing the murder, the shooting of the NIS agent, the crash, it was planned right down to the very last detail."
"Why?" Gibbs asked.
"I started giving them phony documents…bad intel…anything to buy myself some time. I had to figure out a way to get out…I didn't want to do it anymore; I just wanted to be with you and Kelly and live happily as a family.
"You wanted out?" Gibbs ran his hand through his hair. His headache was growing stronger by the minute.
"Yes because I loved you and…" Gibbs slammed his hand down on the table, everyone in the room jumped.
"Don't ever say that." He watched as tears rolled down her face. "You took away my family, not once but twice. The first time with this phony accident and now by telling me that everything I had was based on a lie. You don't know the pain I've had to live with every single day, mourning the family that I lost and now I find out it was all lies. Don't talk to me about love."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want your apologies." Gibbs stood up to leave. "I've heard enough." He headed toward the door.
"She's alive Jethro, Kelly is alive." Gibbs turned around. "I didn't know until a few weeks ago. They told me she had died in the accident, the accident wasn't phony Jethro, it was just planned." Gibbs sat back down.
"What?"
"When I woke up I was in what I thought was a hospital. They told me Kelly had died in the accident, they showed me pictures of the car, all the blood and I believed them. I know it was foolish on my part to believe anything they would have told me but I did and it cost me everything."
"I'm beginning to understand that feeling." Gibbs said quietly.
"I lost it when they told me she had died, I completely shut down for a couple weeks I did absolutely nothing, and they had me on some kind of anti depressants that kept me in a state of emotional numbness. They slowly took me off the drugs, they told me I was to continue to work for them, only I would be given a new assignment and I would never see you again. I considered going to you and telling you everything but I couldn't Jethro, I knew you would never understand. I also knew they would kill you if they found out you knew the truth and I couldn't live with the thought of…"
"I don't want to hear the whole story, just give me the facts." Gibbs said coldly.
"I began working in our headquarters, about five months ago, I told them I couldn't handle the field work anymore so they put me behind a desk. It was all part of…" Gibbs cut her off.
"And you found Kelly?"
"Three weeks ago I found a document that reported Kelly had been dropped off at a catholic orphanage, St. Michael's in Pennsylvania." Gibbs nodded. "That's all that it said, I couldn't find any more information on her, it's like she just vanished. When I tried to contact St. Michael's I found out it had been shut down years ago and all their files had been either sealed or discarded. This all happened after I had started working with the C.I.A. to bring down the organization. The C.I.A. brought me into protective custody and promised to help me look for Kelly. I don't know what happened Jethro, they must have realized I was the mole and they got to Kelly before I could. I got an e-mail yesterday that said if I don't turn myself over to them they are going to kill Kelly."
"How do you know they have her?" Gibbs asked.
"They sent me this." She pushed a picture over to him. He looked down at the photo, he felt as if he were looking into his own eyes. Only hers were not hardened by years of grief, hers were wide with fear. His mind flashed back to a night that his daughter came running into their bedroom, screaming at the top of her lungs. He had automatically sat up in bed, reaching toward the nightstand to grab his gun. Kelly had jumped into his arms, looking up at him eyes wide with fright. "A monster under my bed told me he was going to put cheese up my nose." She said as she wrapped her tiny arms around him. He had kissed the top of her head and said "You're safe now baby cakes, I won't let any monsters put cheese up your nose." With that he put her down in the bed between himself and Shannon. Those eyes that stared up at him in fright that night were the same eyes that stared up at him now.
"Where do I come into all of this?" He asked.
"The C.I.A. wants a list of all the top agents and everyone in charge of my organization. Once I am sure Kelly is safe, with you, then and only then I will give them the list that they want."
"Ok." Gibbs nodded.
"But I want you to go after Kelly." Gibbs tilted his head and stared hard at her. I want you and your team to get Kelly. No one else, I know you won't take any unnecessary risks with our daughter's life, these guys, "she looked over her shoulder at the suits. "I just can't trust that they would do the same." Gibbs nodded, she was right. The C.I.A. didn't care if Kelly lived or died, their only mission was to get the list and take down the organization and they would do what ever they had to in order to get that done.
"So they are asking for you in exchange for Kelly?" Shannon nodded.
"I'm willing to give myself to them; I don't want to try to pull any switches or anything that will put Kelly in any danger."
"They will kill you." Gibbs said flatly.
"It doesn't matter, my life ended in that car accident, everything that ever meant anything to me was taken away and I have no one to blame that on but myself." Gibbs stood up.
"When is the exchange supposed to go down?"
"Tomorrow on the Pennsylvania Maryland border." Gibbs left the room.