Dinkerly continued to gaze at Gibbs in that speculative manner. Gibbs stared back but, as if to affirm his intentions, took a firm grip on Tony's arm lest he decide to make a run for it.

The silence dragged on for a full minute and then Dinkerly laughed, "Hah! Haven't got time for this now. They might have told someone what's going on, we need to get out of here."

"What about them?" Dinkerly's companion nodded towards the farm.

"Leave it," said Dinkerly with regret, "Haven't got time to finish them off properly. We'll come back later if we can."

"But …" the other man trailed off when Dinkerly scowled at him, "Yes, Boss."

Gibbs and Tony were taken to a white van where Tony's gun was taken from him before he was placed in the back and Gibbs was directed to sit with the others in the front,

"Wouldn't want you to be hatching any plots, would we?" sneered Dinkerly.

Gibbs huffed, "Don't want anything to do with him anyway!"

"Yeah, yeah," came an obviously sceptical reply.

"What about their car?" asked Dinkerly's man.

"Leave it, Mac," was the order.

Tony tried to keep track of where they were going but, apart from the feeling that they were travelling along bumpy – and probably unfrequented roads – he could tell nothing. He hoped that the jerky movements wouldn't bring on his motion sickness, not out of regard for the van but because it would make him below par and somehow, he felt he needed to be at his best. He clung to the hope that Gibbs was bluffing.

After fifteen minutes, the van screeched to a halt and a few seconds later the doors of the van were flung open. Tony blinked against the sudden light but was quick to obey a terse order to get out.

Dinkerly seemed to have come to some sort of decision about Gibbs' reliability,

"I think we'll have ourselves some fun," he announced.

Tony glared at him coldly, he had no high opinion of what his captor would regard as fun.

"You remember, Leroy, those training sessions we used to have?" Gibbs nodded. "Although I guess they weren't really fun or not for the trainees. They were fun to watch though." Gibbs continued to say nothing, "Hand to hand fighting," said Dinkerly gloatingly, "Designed to toughen us up. That's what you said, wasn't it, Leroy?"

"Worked, didn't it?" said Gibbs curtly.

"I think we'll do it a bit differently this time though. I figure you can show the Lieutenant how good your hand to hand skills are, Leroy. Sound fun to you?"

"Sure."

"But we don't want the Lieutenant to run away, do we?" he nodded to Mac who seemed to know what to do. Tony suspected this might be almost routine to them.

Mac moved behind Tony and grabbed his arms and held them behind his back. Mac had three inches and thirty pounds on Tony and the grip was secure.

"OK, Leroy. Why don't you show your friend how hard you can punch?"

Gibbs gazed stonily at Tony, walked up to him and delivered a punch to his midriff. Tony gasped as he buckled under the blow, "Gone soft, have you, DiNozzo? All that sitting behind a desk?" mocked Gibbs.

Tony tried a look of disdain as he coughed and spluttered.

"From what I hear," said Dinkerly, "He won't be doing that for much longer. On the skids, I hear, Lieutenant. Made a mess of the job and you'll soon be out on your ear! Although, they might not have time to sack you … do it again, Leroy! And harder this time!" Tony suspected he would have rubbed his hands together in glee had one not been holding a gun trained on Gibbs. Clearly, Dinkerly was not yet convinced of Gibbs' reliability.

Gibbs threw another punch which once again landed on Tony's stomach and once again, Tony sagged under the impact. Dinkerly laughed again, "Don't stop! Do it again!"

Gibbs frowned and directed another blow. This time, Tony fell to the ground under the weight of the blow and took Mac with him. Even as Dinkerly squealed with delight, there was a blur of movement, the sound of two shots and Dinkerly tumbled to the ground clutching his right arm. Tony rolled to his feet and pointed the gun at a bewildered Mac.

"Gibbs! You all right?" asked Tony anxiously as he saw Gibbs sitting on the ground clutching his leg.

"Of course I'm not all right," snapped Gibbs, "He shot me!"

"You're OK," said Tony, "… or you will be," He went across to where Dinkerly was also sitting and took a quick look at his arm, "Huh, and you'll be OK too," there was a hint of disappointment in his voice. "Gibbs, you OK to watch them?" he asked, "I'm going to find something to tie these clowns up with."

"Get on with it, just hand me a gun," said Gibbs.

Tony found some rope in the van, "You got some sort of rope fetish going on?" he demanded of Dinkerly, "Or is it a Marine thing?"

"He's not a Marine," snapped Gibbs.

Tony tied Mac up first and then tied Dinkerly's feet together and, avoiding the wounded arm, managed to attach him securely to a dumpster.

"Why didn't you go for a kill shot," grumbled Gibbs as Tony broke out a first aid kit from the van and began to look at Gibbs' leg, "That's what I trained you to do!"

"You're welcome," snarked Tony back, "But I figured we need Dinkerly alive. To get you off the hook."

"Excuse me?"

"If he was dead, he wouldn't be able to cop to setting the fire. Don't forget, at the moment it's just your word that you didn't do it."

"Huh, I guess. Although I don't think he'll be looking to do me any favours."

Tony wrapped Gibbs wound and then moved, a little reluctantly to look at Dinkerly's arm, "Be a while before you bleed out," he commented as he put a bandage on.

Tony walked back to Gibbs, "You were right," he said.

"About what?"

"Him liking RVs," Tony gestured to the collection of run-down motor homes which occupied the yard they had pulled up in. He pointed to one which was less dilapidated, "I'm guessing that's the one your friend has been using."

"Not my friend," groused Gibbs.

"Should mean that help will be on its way," said Tony placidly.

"I guess," said Gibbs shifting position a little to ease his leg, "ICE will have found where he had an RV."

"Or Raleigh PD," said Tony, wanting to defend the honour of his own department.

"That true, what Dink was saying?" asked Gibbs, "About you losing your job?"

Tony opened his mouth to reply but, hearing the sound of a number of vehicles approaching, changed his mind and said instead, "Hold that thought. Think the cavalry have arrived!"

And so it proved. Raleigh PD had indeed located the RV which Dinkerly had rented. When ICE had arrived at the farm to find only the abandoned car, they had initiated the search of the nearby RV park.

"You've been busy," commented Agent Foster-Yates when she and her fellow agents had assessed the situation.

"Always ready to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Agent Foster-Yates," said Tony cheerfully, "And especially if they're going to do the paperwork!"

"Agent … I mean, Lieutenant DiNozzo, good to see you again. Agent Gibbs," she nodded towards Gibbs who was still sitting on the ground.

"Agent," nodded Gibbs.

"Should I ask how you managed this?" asked Julia.

"Good old teamwork, Jules," said Tony smugly, "Mr Dinkerly decided he wanted to watch some fighting and Gibbs obliged … or pretended to. Good work there, by the way, Gibbs."

Gibbs shrugged modestly, "Didn't too bad yourself, Tony. I thought for a moment I'd actually hurt you there."

Tony looked outraged, "Hurt me? With this washboard stomach and six pack abs? Even if you'd been trying, your punches would just have bounced off!" Gibbs looked at him sceptically and Tony caved, "All right, I'm very grateful you pulled your punches!"

"Well, ICE is grateful for your help, gentleman," said Foster-Yates.

"What's happened to the workers?" asked Tony.

"They've been taken into custody. I think they were almost grateful to be found. They were running out of food and water, hadn't been let out of that shed for days …" replied Julia. "EMT are on their way," she added, "I'll tell them they'll need two ambulances. I don't expect you want to go in the same one, do you, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs growled his agreement.

XXXXX

"How'd the operation go?" asked Tony the next day when he visited Gibbs in a Wilmington hospital.

"It went," muttered Gibbs.

Tony looked at his former Boss and detected something like embarrassment on his face. Gibbs had shrugged off an offer of help to get to his feet and had promptly fallen to the ground when his leg gave way. Unfortunately, he had fallen on his knee and damaged the cartilage. The bullet wound was relatively minor but the knee would take longer to heal. Gibbs had been operated on the previous day and this was the first chance for Tony to visit.

"Are you ready to explain?" asked Tony.

"Explain what?"

"Why you thought it was a good idea to attack me and tie me up?"

"I told you. Dink said you were on his back; he needed a breathing space. He seemed desperate and I thought he might be going to do something stupid, maybe even kill himself. I thought I needed to go along with him, get you out of the way for a while so I could fix things."

"Even though it meant you having to overpower me? Tie me up for hours?"

"I figured you could cope with it. That you'd …"

"What? Understand?"

Tony had to assume that Gibbs' silence indicated agreement.

"Why did you do it, Gibbs?"

"I told you."

"No, I mean why were you so willing to do it for Dinkerly? He didn't strike me as particularly deserving of you going out on a limb for him."

"I served with him. He was … one of mine. And …"

"And what?"

"He didn't cope well with me leaving the Corps."

"Explain."

"I guess I rode him hard. Hell, I rode them all hard, but Dink had potential and I was tough on him."

"And you think he deserved your help because you were tough on him?" asked Tony sceptically, deciding not to point out how tough Gibbs had been on him without apparently triggering any desire to help him.

"He made Corporal soon after I left …"

"Sounds as if he coped OK," said Tony unsympathetically.

"But he got busted down pretty quick. He didn't take the jump well."

"And that was your fault? How?"

"I don't know, I could've prepared him better … got him ready."

"He was an adult, Gibbs. If he needed your help – then maybe he wasn't cut out for it."

"If I'd been there … anyways, he didn't react well to being demoted. He quit as soon as he could and began to try to make it outside."

Tony sighed, "Gibbs, do you know why he decided to quit? Why he was being demoted?"

"I told you. And he reckoned that the officer in charge had it in for him, that he'd never liked me, and he was taking it out on him. That's what he told me at the time."

"And you believe that?"

Gibbs shrugged, "Dink had never lied to me before. No reason to doubt him about that."

"Gibbs, Barry Dinkerly is one scary SOB. When he came back to check on how well you'd tied me up … well, he seemed to enjoy seeing me helpless. He put that tape – two layers of it – on really carefully and he held my nose until I choked just to make sure that I couldn't breathe. And that was before he squeezed my neck until I passed out. Not to mention setting that fire … and the Fire Chief reckons that it was set deliberately to start slowly and produce a lot of smoke …"

"He wasn't trying to kill you then?"

"He wasn't trying to keep me healthy!" said Tony bitterly, "I figure it was all part of his mind games. He was trying to set you and me at loggerheads – he couldn't have expected that I'd take you attacking me in my stride but adding the fire in … well, that just made it even worse. I reckon he thought if I died that would be OK and that there would probably be enough of your DNA and fingerprints left to point to you as the culprit. And I didn't die, then I'd hate you and that would be cool too."

"Why would he want to make you hate me?"

"For one thing it would slow down the investigation and the other … well, perhaps you did too good a job of saying how good I was at the job. He strikes me as kind of possessive and perhaps that possessiveness has warped into hating you. And you know, he didn't have to say anything when he showed up, but he couldn't resist talking about being in control, about me being at his mercy."

"Go on."

"I checked his service record. Dinkerly was demoted because he was brutal to the Marines he was in charge of. Excessive use of force, humiliating punishments, demeaning behaviour. He left the Corps before the book could be thrown at him. And I figure that fits with what he did at the Bay – ICE have spoken to those illegals. They were mistreated, humiliated, kept hungry, cold and thirsty – and that was because Dinkerly could do it. He didn't need to – in fact, they would probably have worked better if they'd been treated even halfway decently but Dinkerly gets off on power and control." Tony gazed at Gibbs, "… but you knew that, didn't you? Is that why you had to ride him hard? To make sure he didn't lose control?"

"No! Well, not exactly. He had control issues; he had a quick temper but that's all. I didn't know about the other stuff. Tony, you know me better than that! Do you really think I'd let someone I was responsible for behave like that?"

"I'm not sure how much I know you, Gibbs," said Tony bleakly.

Gibbs gazed back impassively, and Tony knew that he wouldn't try to persuade Tony anymore.

"Is this going to happen with every one of the Marines you served with, Gibbs? Does serving with them outweigh everything else? Are they all more important than other people, than us?"

"No."

"Then why Dinkerly? Why was he so important that you did that to me?"

Gibbs sighed and, the words seemingly dragged out of him, said, "He was Kelly's godfather."

Tony sighed as well and felt a wave of helplessness sweep over him. Of course, the claims of anyone connected to Gibbs' first family would always override any other ties.

"I see."

"You understand?"

Tony managed a wry grin, "What? You reckon that it's true what they say …"

"What do they say?"

"To understand is to forgive."

"Is that what you think, Tony. You said you understand; does that mean you forgive as well?"

Tony didn't answer but stood up and said with forced cheerfulness, "Millie's pretty mad at you but she sent you some coffee brownies although she wanted me to point out that she didn't frost them – that's a sign of how big a doghouse you're in!"

He handed Gibbs the box, nodded and left.

"With Millie? Or with you as well?" Gibbs called after him. There was no reply.


AN: just one more chapter, I think.