Chapter 21

"Okay..." Tim stood up and gritted his teeth once more. Then, he jumped up and grabbed at the hatch which would open up into the shaft. He forced his hands to grip the handle and unlock it. He screamed in pain but held on and twisted. He seemed to be able to feel every single broken bone in his hands protest, but his therapy, limited as it had been, gave him enough leverage to unlock the hatch. He let go and collapsed to the floor of the elevator, clasping his hands to his chest and weeping again.

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Ziva ran to the elevator and pushed the button. Then, after a few seconds, she pushed it again.

"I told you, Ziva. It's not working." Abby started pacing back and forth. "We can run down to the main box. Or we can... I don't know."

Ziva pulled the fire alarm.

"Hey! What are you doing that for?" Abby shrieked.

"The bomb must be in the elevator... with McGee," Ziva said shortly. "It is the only scenario that makes sense."

"No, it's not."

"If I am right, this whole building could explode at any moment. If I am wrong, then it's a fire drill." Ziva began to pry at the doors. "Are you going to help or just stand there?"

Abby shrugged and began to pull at the doors with Ziva. It was early enough in the morning that some people hadn't yet shown up, but late enough that many were already out on assignment. No one was in the bullpen to see the two women frantically pulling at the elevator doors.

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Tim swallowed his pain and looked up at the hatch he still had to push open. Then, of course, he would have to find some way to pull himself up without passing out. "Okay..." he whispered in a voice full of tears. He jumped up and pushed, using his left hand to stabilize himself and his right to push at the hatch. It took two tries and the second left him on the floor again, in the throes of exquisite pain.

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Abby and Ziva finally got the doors open and peered down the shaft. About ten feet below them sat the elevator, the access hatch was open and they could just see Tim lying on the floor, could just hear his pain-filled cries.

"McGee!"

"Tim!"

Their voices echoed through the shaft.

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Tim opened his streaming eyes when heard the voices. It wasn't possible. Was it? He forced himself to sit up and look through the hatch. He could see Ziva and Abby leaning into the shaft, looking down at him.

"McGee!"

"Ziva! Abby!" That was all he could say at first.

"Are you alright?"

"The-the bomb... it's here," he finally got out. "I can't... I don't know how."

"McGee! I'm coming down." Ziva climbed into the shaft. "Abby..."

"Go down to maintenance and get the elevator working again, yes, ma'am." Abby was gone before Ziva could say another word. She smiled and climbed down.

"Are you alright, McGee?" she asked again as she descended.

"No, I'm not," Tim answered and Ziva could hear in his voice that he was only barely holding it together. "The bomber... he was here. He's probably gone now. He said he had more work to do. He forced me in here. Disabled the elevator. I tried to call. I tried to sound the alarm. Nothing worked." He was starting to ramble and his speech was becoming faster and more hysterical as Ziva reached the hatch and dropped down into the elevator.

She grabbed Tim by the shoulders and shook him gently to get him to stop talking. "It's okay, now, McGee. I'm here and we'll get out of this.

Tim made a concerted effort to get in control again. "Right. Right. I'm okay."

"You are. You're fine." Ziva released him and turned to the duffel bag. "We're both going to be fine. This is a basic timer setup. That fits with the other bombs he built. He's making a point."

"He said that the Navy was weak at its core."

Ziva carefully turned over the casing of the timer and pried off the back, revealing a network of wires. "Yes, and it looks like he's proving it by striking at every major Navy location in the DC area." She examined each wire, trying to ignore the sheer terror streaming off Tim, and then pulled one out. She sighed with relief.

"That's... that's it?" Tim asked.

"Rather anti-climatic, is it not?" Ziva said, smiling now.

"Yeah, isn't it supposed to have like three seconds left before you figure out the correct wire?"

"Maybe in the movies. If you would prefer it that way, McGee, I can always reconnect the timer and let it count down."

"No, no, I think I can live without that," Tim said, the tears threatening to spill again. He sank to the floor of the elevator again and only then did Ziva notice that his splints were off, lying forgotten in the corner. She also took in the dents in the doors and the broken telephone.

"What happened to you in here, McGee?" she asked. While Ziva knew she could easily climb back out of the elevator, she also knew that Tim could not, and it would be cruel to leave him in here alone. Since they had nothing to do but wait until Abby could get the elevator going again, she sat beside him.

Tim didn't answer for awhile. He just sat there. Ziva didn't push. She waited.

"I... I lost it... big time," he finally admitted, trying to hold back the tears. "I... I thought I was... going to die." He rested his arms on his knees, his damaged and swollen hands hanging in the empty air, his head dropping forward as if it was too heavy to hold up. Perhaps it was. "I saw the bomb. Nothing worked. I just... I lost it."

Ziva put her arm around his shoulders. "But when we figured out where you were, you had the hatch open."

"Yes..."

"What happened?"

"I remembered some things... things that my... friends said to me."

"Such as?"

"Such as, you and Abby and Gibbs. I remembered things that you all had done, things that Tony did. It made me try."

"You see, McGee? You are strong."

"Not strong."

"Yes," Ziva corrected him firmly. "You are strong. You were on the verge of saving yourself."

"I really don't know if I could have pulled myself out." He flexed his fingers just a little and winced.

"You would have. If it had been necessary. You would have."

Tim lifted his head; his eyes were red, his face scratched and streaked with tears. "I'm tired, Ziva."

"How about your hands?"

"I'm trying to ignore them."

"Is it working?"

"No."

"Well, try not to move them. We will take you back to the hospital after we get out of here. You don't seem frightened of being in here anymore."

"That's because... I'm not alone." Tim smiled and then dropped his head again.

Ziva smiled back and scooted a little closer. They sat on the floor of the elevator, five feet from the defused bomb, for another half an hour, neither one speaking, just being there. Then, Ziva jumped as the elevator started to move. It rattled downward to the basement. Neither Ziva nor Tim made any effort to get up off the floor. When the doors finally opened, Tony, Gibbs and Abby were all staring at them.

"Comfy?" Gibbs asked.

"Why, yes, Gibbs. I am. How are you?" Ziva asked, jokingly.

Gibbs ignored her. "McGee?"

"I'm just tired, Boss."

"Think you can stand up?"

"Yeah." Tim started to do so, but suddenly his eyes rolled back in his head and he would have collapsed to the floor for the umpteenth time if the entire team hadn't rushed at him and caught him before he fell even two inches.

Tim was in a foggy haze. As soon as he had made the effort to stand up, his brain had decided to shut down all conscious activity. Overloaded as it had been by his recent experience, it now recognized a chance to recharge. Tim briefly considered fighting his way back to consciousness, but there were all those kind hands supporting him. He felt so safe and secure. He managed half a smile before he passed out, the toll of the last few hours finally being paid in full.

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"Is he okay?" Tony asked.

"Depends on in what respect... in the ones that matter, yes, I think he is," Gibbs said.

"Now what?"

"Now? We get the bomb squad in here to take care of that." Gibbs pointed to the corner. "We take McGee back to the hospital and we arrest the man who did all this."

"Man doesn't even come close to describing him, Gibbs," Abby said darkly. "He's a scum-sucking, piece of slime-ridden... filth..."

"Hey, you got that from Star Wars," Tony interjected.

"...a low-life, a waste of space, a little..."

"Right, Abby, we got it," Gibbs interrupted. "He'll get what he deserves. I put in a call to Norfolk. They'll get him as soon as he checks in."

"You think he'll go back there? Won't he stick around here, make sure everything went off?" Abby asked.

"He hasn't any other time. He's so confident that no one will stop him, he doesn't even take the time to check on whether or not the bombs will go off," Ziva said.

"Good. The bigger they are, the harder they fall," Abby replied. "Can I help him fall, Gibbs?"

"Not this time. Only one free attack per year. You already used yours."

"Fine."

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"Afternoon, sir." The guard didn't seem quite so friendly as he had the last time Lyons had come through. He signed him in as usual, though, so he didn't worry about it... to his detriment. He stepped onto base and had about fifty guns pointed at him.

"Geoffrey Lyons, you are under arrest for murder, attempted murder, kidnaping and assault of a federal agent, attempted murder of a federal agent..." as the list of charges was read, he saw a group of three people detach themselves from the mass of soldiers aiming at him.

"...do you understand these charges as they have been read to you?" asked a gray-haird man who didn't sound like he could less about whether or not Lyons had understood them. He stepped closer to Lyons and whispered in a voice that sent shivers of fear down his spine. "Do you understand what you almost did? If you had actually killed my agent, you would already be dead. I would not be content to just arrest you and let the military courts deal with you. I would kill you myself and not lose a bit of sleep over it. Got that?"

The younger man put the cuffs on, rather roughly and the woman simply stared at him in a way that indicated she was dismembering him in her head. Lyons said nothing, at first, but allowed himself to be led away. Just when he got to the car, he turned back and said, "I'm relieved, you know."

"Why is that?"

"The Navy failed at every test I set them... every test but this one. There's still hope for the U.S. Navy."

Gibbs stared at him, unable to fathom how such a sane-sounding man could have done something so crazy. "Get him out of here before we all kill him and create a scandal."

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"Why, Agent Gibbs? Do you really need to ask me, why?" Lyons was entirely earnest as he sat across the table from Gibbs in the interrogation room. "You of all people should see how weak, how rotten the Navy has become. Every one of those bombs should have been found before they went off. If anyone had looked, had been troubled enough to think, they would have found each bomb and disabled it like your agents did. They proved my point."

"You were making a point," Gibbs said carefully. For the first time that he could remember, he had put his hands under the table so that he didn't leap across it and throttle Lyons. "What point were you making when you... tried to kill my agent?"

"I didn't try to kill him. It was his choice. He got out, didn't he?"

"Not through any help from you." If this man says one more word, I'm going to kill him.

"True enough. He was a distraction, but also a test. NCIS is part of the Navy. Every outpost must be tested. Your agent, to my great surprise, passed the test much better than I would have guessed. You have a good man there, worth keeping."

Gibbs' hands were clenched into fists so tight that he was nearly drawing blood. "So you have no qualms with admitting that you blew up military property, injured and killed people because it was all a test?"

"Everyone has tests, Agent Gibbs." For the first time, Lyons looked almost dangerous. For some reason, that made Gibbs feel better. "I failed one of mine, but the Navy failed much worse than I ever did."

"Washed out of your SEAL training," Gibbs noted, trying to get a rise out of Lyons.

"Yes, and they thought that I couldn't hack it. Perhaps they were right, but I am only one man. I served my country and they forgot about it. They didn't bother to test me, to watch me. I have been planning this for years. They. Never. Knew. That is a much more dangerous attitude than ringing a bell. My only regret is that I got caught before I could finish the test."

"What about Rollings?"

"What about him? He never actually saw me. The C-4 that your agent found at the house was leftover because that was the place I had Rollings leave it. He couldn't have told you who I am, but again, I am impressed with his devotion."

Gibbs stood up and left the room quickly. His only outward evidence of his inward seething was how hard he slammed the door when he left. Tony and Ziva were in observation looking about as angry as he felt.

"Can't we just kill him, Gibbs?"

"I'm with Ziva, Boss. I say we drag him out of his cell during the night, kill him, and let Abby remove all forensic traces." Tony looked over at the tech.

"Hey, I'm deaf and dumb in here," he said quickly. "As far as I'm concerned..."

"See? No witnesses, Boss!"

Gibbs smiled grimly. "Tempting, but no. Sorry. Besides, I think the entire Navy would want a piece of it; so it's not going to happen. Rest assured that he won't be getting coddled."

"Coddled? I'll coddle him," Abby said from behind them. She turned and headed toward interrogation.

"No, Abby," Gibbs said, firmly, as he held her back from entering the room.

"I want to kill him, Gibbs. I don't just want to hit him. I want him to die! We should strap a bomb to his chest and lock him in that cage he put Tim in!" Abby shouted, pulling against his grip.

"No, Abby," Gibbs said again. Ironically, her irrational rage was calming him down.

"You saw Tim, Gibbs! You saw what that...cretin did to him. You saw how broken Tim was... and still is! He doesn't deserve a trial!"

"Abby..."

"No, Gibbs! I don't want to be reasonable right now!" Abby said, her eyes filling with tears. "No one hurts my geek!"

"It's over now, Abby. Lyons isn't getting away. McGee is on the mend, physically and emotionally. Besides, if you kill him, then I'll just have to find another forensics specialist, and who else would do all the work you do?"

Abby finally stopped trying to get away and smiled miserably. "It's just not fair."

"I know. Believe me. I know, but if you kill Lyons, you'll turn into the same kind of person he is. ...Got it?"

"Yeah, Gibbs. I got it." She heaved a big sigh. "Anything for me to do?"

"No. Go visit McGee. I don't think you'd be able to do any work anyway."

"Yes, sir," Abby said and marched past him. Gibbs smiled when he saw Tony and Ziva slip out behind her. Yes, they were all healing.