This one gets bad with the gore. Hopefully two chapters in one night makes up for missing a week! :D
Chapter 21
"He should be somewhere up here. The last coordinates said that they had stopped within a hundred yards of here," Jethro said as he looked down at the phone, and then back up around him at the buildings. They were in a small business district with various shops and restaurants, but the black sedan Tony had expected them to be driving was nowhere in sight.
The phone suddenly started ringing in Jethro's hand, and he handed it off to Tony who answered it eagerly. "Ja'Rell? Is that you?" he asked.
"Thank, God! I've never been so happy to hear your voice man. Something's wrong. Pammy wouldn't go to the warehouse. She kept saying she was ready to go home, and I think she's snapped man. She just kept driving around for the past hour and a half. I kept asking her to tell me what was going on and trying to get her to talk, but she finally just kicked me out of the car, and I'm standing on the side of the road somewhere in Bethesda." Ja'Rell's frantic tone set Tony's hair on end and he sat up straighter.
"We're really close to you somewhere. What are you in front of?" Tony asked.
"Uh, looks like a coffee shop called Telly's."
"Okay, this is what you do. I want you to go in and order five large coffees to go, and we'll meet you in there."
"Um, okay?" Ja'Rell asked as Tony hung up on him.
"Coffee?" Jethro asked. Tony nodded with a smile, and looked up and down the street for a place to park. He knew Telly's was up on the corner a block away, and the parking was a bitch in the area. He found a spot and pulled in, and Tim and Ziva pulled up a few more meters away and took another spot. Tim slid a few coins into his meter, and then came back and slid more into Tony's. The four of them started heading for the corner, and Tim suddenly remembered a very crucial fact.
"Um, should someone stay out here with Dave?"
"I will do it," Ziva said. "I will call you if I start to hear noises."
"Thanks, Ziva," Tony said with a strained smile, which she returned. The three men headed into the café, and Ziva went to lean against the car.
Ja'Rell flagged them to the counter where the sugar and creamer was kept, and the four of them talked quietly as they added their fixings, except for Gibbs who started drinking his down immediately.
"It sounds more like she's suffering from an emotional breakdown rather than going rouge or turning," Tony said quietly.
"Yeah, definitely! Pammy would never turn! Something has been really off the past month though. I thought it was just because she was homesick, ya know? I mean, I was feeling it myself this summer. Going through beach honey withdrawal will do that to a guy, but this was different. I had to start picking up the slack more and more for her, and she's my partner, ya know? I didn't wanna say anything. I thought it would just pass.
"When that intel came in today, I just felt all sorts of wrong about it. It didn't sit right from minute one. My stomach was flippin' like crazy, but she was so damn excited that we had a break in the case that she took the paper and literally ran down the hall to tell Fornell. I tried to tell him that I didn't think it was good info, but she was so hell bent on making any kind of headway that she kept pushing it. Finally, Fornell just told us to go ahead and follow up on it, and if we could find a way to get in, take it.
"I kept trying to tell her that it didn't feel right, and why we shouldn't go, and finally, when Fornell started trying to call us back, I think it made too much sense. It was like she lost that little bit of hope that we were going to get out of here, and snapped. She started ranting, and driving around in loops... I swear, we must've driven by this place thirty times in the past hour. I know I should've stayed with her, but when she told me to get out, I had to. I don't know what she's going to do, but I'm afraid she's going to go to the warehouse alone."
"If you give me her new phone number, I can track it and we can go get her," Tim said.
"Thanks, McGee. That would make me feel a lot better." Ja'Rell suddenly looked at the group around him. "Wait. How in the hell did you all find me?"
"Abby told me you'd contacted her. I had just found intel that said there is no way the bombs are anywhere up here, and so we broke cover and interrupted Tony and Gibbs' interrogation of Dave Lambrusco, and then we tracked your phone."
"Wait, bombs? There's bombs out there?" Ja'Rell asked in a stage whisper, looking at them like they had three heads.
"Yeah. Two retrofitted pumpkin bombs that may or may not be radioactive," Tony confirmed in a whisper just as soft.
"Then what in the hell are we doing in here?" Ja'Rell asked quietly but fervently.
"There's already teams looking in all of the locations that they could be, and evacuations are in place. If you were to turn on the TV right now, I'd bet you'd see the ultimate frenzy breaking out in downtown D.C.," Tony said.
"What can we do?" Ja'Rell pushed, already heading towards the door.
"We need to find Pammy before she does something stupid, and then we need to get Dave Lambrusco somewhere secure so he can be treated until we get the information out of him we need."
"You left Agent David out there alone with him?" he asked as they left the building and saw the petite woman leaning against the trunk of their car.
"Eh, he's almost dead in the trunk. She's fine," Tony said with a nonchalant shrug.
"Man, you're starting to sound like one of the LCN!" Ja'Rell joked.
"That's what Lambrusco thinks we are," Gibbs confirmed.
"Oh, I get it."
"Let me go track Pammy, and we'll take it from there. Come with me, I'll need the number." Tim led Ja'Rell to his car, and Tony and Gibbs approached Ziva. They both noticed her eyes were puffy and red, and Tony handed her a cup of coffee.
"Case getting to you?" Tony asked quietly.
"In ways I did not expect," Ziva confirmed, taking a sip of the coffee Tony had practically bleached with cream for her. "I will be fine though. Just needed a few minutes to process it all. Our friend did not make a sound. I am beginning to wonder if he's even alive."
"If you two could help block the view, I should probably check on that so that we know what we can tell Fornell we have access to if the bombs are not located."
Gibbs and Ziva formed a human shield while Tony popped the trunk and found Dave slipping in and out of consciousness. "Do you think we should give him something?" Tony asked Gibbs with a wince.
"I don't know the effects any of the drugs we have would have on him. We know the ephedrine would speed the heart up, but if he is still leaking from anywhere, that would pump it out of him quicker. We should probably just let him rest for now."
Tony nodded in agreement, and closed the trunk lid on the barely-there man. Tony's phone suddenly made a noise, and he realized that Tim was forwarding Pammy's coordinates to his phone. She wasn't very far, but she was stopped.
"Are we ready to go?" Tony asked. Jethro nodded, and headed back to her car. Tony turned to Ziva, and reached out to touch her arm lightly. Her eyes met his, and he gave her a questioning look.
"I am not sure I can keep doing this," she finally said quietly enough that Gibbs couldn't hear. "I think it may be time I took care of myself for once, and found something a little less… troubling to do with my life." She gave Tony a small smile, and then walked away, leaving him standing there to watch her go. He took a deep breath, and shook his head.
"Ja'Rell. With me," Tony commanded. Ja'Rell squeezed himself into the back seat, pushing all of their belongings into a pile.
"Jump ropes?" he asked.
"It would have been a little obvious to buy rope and cinderblocks from a hardware store. Instead, I got jump ropes from a drug store, and the cinderblocks… well you know where they came from."
"Oh, yeah. Your cinderblock guy," Ja'Rell said with a nod as he turned to look out the window anxiously.
"He's come in handy much more than I ever thought he would."
"You're telling me," Ja'Rell said seriously. Jethro cast a look between the two of them, raising an eyebrow at Tony.
"One day, I expect that story."
"We've got the rest of our lives, Jethro," Tony said with a smile, then realized that he had never divulged the nature of his relationship with Ja'Rell. As they pulled out of their spot and headed towards the coordinates on Tony's phone, he cleared his throat. "I should probably tell you that Agent Gibbs and I are recently engaged," Tony announced.
"Really?" Ja'Rell asked, not too surprised to find out his suspicions were correct. "Congratulations! That's great, man!"
"Thanks," Tony said with a smile into the rearview mirror, glad to see that Ja'Rell's sentiment was sincere, if not surprised.
His phone chimed again and confirmed that they were almost to where Pammy's phone said she should be. They started looking for the black FBI-issued sedan, and sighs of relief could be heard all around as the car came into view up ahead. There were some houses and a few businesses scattered around the area, but it wasn't very busy. Tony pulled up right behind her car, and all three men got out. He approached the driver's side door with caution, and saw Pammy's head against the steering wheel. He swallowed hard, afraid of what he'd find waiting there. He was relieved when he saw her shaking and bloodless, and he very carefully opened the door. Ja'Rell was right next to him, and Gibbs was on the other side, opening the passenger door.
Tony knelt down next to her, and ran a hand down her arm gently and reassuringly. "Pammy?" he asked quietly. She sat up and looked down at Tony through tear streaked eyes, and Tony gave her a sad smile.
"Tony? Oh, hi," she said, wiping her eyes.
"Pammy, talk to me. What's going on?" he asked. She looked up and saw Ja'Rell, and started crying in earnest again.
"I'm so sorry Ja'Rell," she said between heaving sobs. "I don't know what's happening to me." Ja'Rell motioned for Tony to switch him places, and he crouched down next to Pammy and took her hands.
"Try and tell me," he said quietly. "I'm not mad at ya, Pammy, but you got me worried sick. Tell me what's going on in that big head of yours."
"I don't know," she said. "I really don't. One minute, everything will be fine, and the next, it feels like the world is crashing in around me, and I know that it's not. I know that everything is just as stable as it was the day before, but it just hits me, and it's like I can't breathe, and then I feel like I'm not even myself. I feel like someone else is in my head, telling me it's going to be okay, and to pull myself together. When I start feel like that, I can't… I can't function anymore, and then it's like he has to take over. He has to call the shots, and it scares me. He's just in there, telling me it's going to be okay and to let him take over, but he's not real Ja'Rell, I know he's not real!" She started sobbing, leaning forward on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him.
"We'll get you some help, Pammy. Don't worry. We'll get you some help and we'll make sure he goes away." Ja'Rell's eyes closed tightly as he held her, refusing to make eye contact with Gibbs or Tony. Gibbs reached forward and gently took the keys out of the ignition, and Tony's eyes met his as he realized what he had to do next.
"Pammy, I need for you to give me your gun and any other weapons that you may have on you," he demanded gently.
Pammy sat up and looked at Tony in shock, then down at Ja'Rell as she shook her head.
"Pammy," Gibbs said, startling them all. "You know he's not safe with the weapons. He can't be trusted with them. You need to turn them over before he can get them."
That seemed to make sense to her, and she nodded, taking a deep breath of resolve. She pulled the gun out of the holster on her side and handed it to Ja'Rell, who passed it back to Tony. She then reached down to her thigh and pulled another smaller piece out of a holster there, and a knife off the other side of the same leg. She handed both of those to Ja'Rell who, again, passed them back to Tony.
"Come on," Ja'Rell said quietly. "Switch seats. We'll go over to Bethesda, and we'll find someone who can help you."
"I don't want him to go away," Pammy said quietly as her eyes met Ja'Rell's again. "He makes me feel better. He tells me I'm okay, that I'm worthy of happiness, and that I'm capable of so much more. He tells me that I'm loveable, Ja'Rell. That he loves me, and so one day, someone else could." She bit her bottom lip tightly as Ja'Rell took her hands again.
"Oh, Pammy, you are lovable. You know I love ya, girl. Have since the day I met you. You don't need him to tell you that." Tony and Gibbs looked at each other in surprise, and knew they were suddenly interrupting a very private conversation. Gibbs got out of the car, and he and Tony met up at the trunk of their car.
"I wasn't expecting that," Tony confided. Tim and Ziva joined them, noticing the confused looks on both men's faces.
"Is she okay?" Tim asked.
Tony shook his head slowly. "She's going to have to be committed for a while," Tony said, emptying the clips from her weapons, and tucking them in his own belt for the time being. His eyes met Jethro's and they locked, saying much more with that expression than they ever could with words.
Tony wondered how he could have missed the emotions between his two agents, and he realized it was because he didn't want to see. It would have reminded him too much of him and Jethro, and he wasn't capable of handling that.
Ja'Rell joined the group, and Gibbs handed him the car keys. "I'm out of this one, Tony," he said, letting his eyes meet his interim teammate's. Tony saw the resolution in them, and he knew that Ja'Rell's concentration was reserved for Pammy. He nodded in agreement, and Ja'Rell gave Tony a quick smack on his arm, and a sad smile full of gratitude.
Tony watched them leave, then pulled out his phone and dialed Fornell.
"I take it your cover is over?" Fornell answered.
"Yeah. Ja'Rell is taking Pammy to Bethesda," he said quietly, getting into the front seat of the car to have a little privacy while Gibbs talked with his agents.
"What? Why? Is she okay?" Fornell asked with a voice full of concern.
"No, Tobias, she's not. She's had some kind of psychotic break, and she's delusional. She believes there's another person living in her head, and it sounds like she's both afraid and enamored with him. Ja'Rell is taking it pretty hard. He just confessed that he loves her."
"Whoa. I didn't expect that," Fornell said.
"That's what I said."
"We have bad news here, Tony. Really bad news. The bombs aren't at any of the locations that we've evacuated so far, but they aren't in any of the warehouses either. We found out that the arsenal got a request for two of the Pumpkin Bombs to be shipped for experimentation to one of the Naval Research Units out on Government Route Fifteen, but they were never received. The Research Team said that they never requested the shipment. The GPS on the trucks say that they were delivered to a warehouse a mile down the road that used to be owned by a paint company called Ultinell. Ultinell has been out of there for two years, but the deed on the building is in Antoinelli Giovanni's name."
"We have two missing bombs somewhere in D.C. that may or may not be nuclear."
"Yeah, that appears to be the situation. I do have some good news though. Frankie Giovanni was picked up by airport security, and is being transported here. He should be here in half an hour."
"How are we going to go about this?" he asked.
"I doubt we're going to get anything out of him the traditional way," Fornell said quietly.
"You want us to take a whack at him." It wasn't a question, but a statement.
"I'm thinking you're going to need more than one."
Tony shook his head. "I still have Dave Lambrusco alive in my trunk as we speak! How in the hell am I supposed to… no. You know what? Forget it. Who's transporting him?"
"One of our teams."
"Fine. Have them meet us at the cabin on Jeffery Road, and tell them they are expected to leave immediately after transfer. And remind them that I won't have my badge." Tony hung up on Fornell. He wasn't sure he would even get to Jeffery before the bombs went off, none the less get the answers they needed. He opened the car door, and hollered for them to get moving. Gibbs jumped in the driver's seat, and Tim and Ziva ran back to their cars.
"Where are we headed?" Jethro asked.
"Do you know where Riverview and Riverbend parks are?" Tony asked.
Jethro nodded suspiciously.
"That's where we're headed."
Jethro shook his head as he slipped his key into the ignition. "Who is it this time?" he asked, recognizing the darkness in Tony's eyes already.
"Frankie Giovanni. The bombs weren't in the warehouses, but they aren't in the sites Dave told us so far either, though they're still looking. We need answers, and we need them now."
"And we're being asked to do the job," Jethro said as he sped off towards the park.
"I think we volunteered for the job when we went dark to begin with," Tony said as he rested his head against the window in defeat.
"We'll figure it out, Tony. Just gotta push through, and let me help. You were on a roll with Dave, but I felt like I didn't get to take any of the burden from you. I need for you to let me help," Jethro said quietly.
Tony looked at him with the slightest of smiles. "I'll try," he said. Honestly though, he was at the point where he preferred to leave his sanity and his humanity with Jethro so he could protect them while he got his own hands dirty. However, he knew Jethro needed to interact in order to feel like he was helping, so he would try.
^NCIS^NCIS^NCIS^
"I don't think any of us are going to come out of this case without some kind of life altering experience," McGee began. "Tony and Gibbs are not only back together, but engaged. Pammy is suffering from a nervous breakdown, you're thinking about leaving the agency, Ja'Rell confessed his love for Pammy, and I… I don't know who in the hell I've been the past couple of days."
Ziva nodded as Tim drove, following Gibbs at a speed he never would have driven normally by himself. They were numb and on edge, unsure of where they were heading or why since the laptop was off, and Tim didn't even care to find out. He knew that when he got there, he would regret it, but he also knew that if they were going, it was necessary.
"Will you do me a favor? Open up the laptop and see if there's a blinking blue window. I was hoping to get an update from Abby on what she and Ducky had decided to do."
Ziva opened the laptop, but there was no blinking window.
"Oh, well," he said. He felt frazzled, and he wondered how much longer it would be before he had his own nervous breakdown. For now, he just followed Tony and Gibbs, and drank his coffee.
^NCIS^NCIS^NCIS^
Fornell was standing in the com room, running back and forth between the teams looking through the facilities that the bombs were supposed to have been placed. Teams were now flooding the major government buildings, including the one he was in, looking for a bomb the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. They were waiting for the security team from the Naval Research Unit down the road from the Ultinell warehouse to get back with them about security footage. They were checking through it to see if they could pinpoint when the most recent vehicles were coming and going from the facility, but it was going to take a while to get through, and Fornell was afraid they might not have enough time.
He knew that Tony wasn't happy about being asked to keep Lambrusco alive, and then being told that he was going to have to torture Frankie Giovanni for the information they needed. He'd never ordered Tony to torture another human being, especially knowing what he went through after the Wallingford case, but this time, it was necessary, especially knowing what Tony was capable of. He'd requested a copy of the report on the case from Vance once Tony and Gibbs went under, curious as to what they had done so he could know what to expect. Vance had turned it over surprisingly quickly, and he wasn't able to eat lunch after reading it and seeing the photos Ducky had taken.
It was beyond gruesome. The man had practically been dismembered and filleted, and he though he knew he deserved ever slice, he wondered how in the hell Tony and Gibbs had done it. When he read through Tony's vivid account of the story, he was surprised to find that Tony had done most of the cutting and stabbing. The man's eyes were missing, gauged out, and he shuddered at the memory of his soulless face.
He considered the man that had passed out on his couch so many nights, and how he had drowned himself in liquid brainwash. He now understood why more than ever. It wasn't just the break up with Jethro that had pushed him so far to the edge, but the events he had lived through shortly before that. He'd lost an agent, a friend, and he had taken out his killer in the most vicious way Fornell had ever seen a person mutilated.
He was glad to have his attention stolen by his next video conference as he tucked away a vision of Frankie Giovanni with no eyes, no arms, and large chunks of his skin missing.
^NCIS^NCIS^NCIS^
A car crunching over the gravel let Tony know that the transfer team had arrived with Frankie Giovanni. Tim and Ziva were waiting in a side room with Dave Lambrusco, who was once again tied to a chair and starting to look a little more like himself except for a leg that was going gangrene from the tourniquet. He had been gagged for not only their safety, but their sanity.
Tim was mixing a batch of truth serum, and he was tweaking the measurements to make sure Frankie would still feel everything that Tony and Gibbs did to him. He sat the needle down along the vials, and went out into the main room of the cabin to watch the arrival. Once Frankie was tied up, Tony approached Tim.
"Take my phone, and find a place with a signal. I need for you to call Fornell, and stay in contact with him so that as soon as one of us has information, you can relay it to him. I'll send Gibbs to you with info if we get it, and if you get anything from Tobias, I need for you to come let us know right away."
Tim nodded and took the phone outside, holding it up as he looked for a signal. He wandered down the gravel road that led to the small cabin that they were hauled up in, and wondered how Tony found these places. This one actually had a room in the back that was meant for butchering and skinning deer and other hunted animals, so the floors and wooden furniture were already stained with blood. He couldn't quite suppress the chill that snuck up on him, but as soon as he got a bar of signal, he stood still and made the call. He turned around as he explained to Fornell the situation, and watched the cabin for any signs that they were being snuck up on. He realized that he was actually in the position that he could easily slip back into some trees on the edge of the road and hide if he saw someone approach, but for some reason, he still felt like a sitting duck.
Gibbs had tied Frankie Giovanni down to the chair next to the table. The legs of the chair had been tied to the legs of the table, and the man's arms were tied in such a way that they were spread out along the edge of the table top spread eagle. All the while, Tony had stood next to their mobster with a gun to his head, safety off.
"You're intimidation tactics don't scare me gentlemen," Frankie announced. "I know my rights, and I know you're not allowed to do anything to me."
Gibbs came to stand in front of the man, and smirked. "You have no rights. Under the U.S. Patriot Act, and by order of the President of the United States, we are authorized to do whatever necessary to you to obtain the information necessary to protect national security. If you survive our ordeal here today, you'll be transferred to a maximum security prison where you'll spend the rest of your life under lock and key with no jury trial of your peers."
Frankie's smirk faded, and the look that replaced it was one of a man who knew he was royally screwed.
"You may as well go ahead and kill me then. I'd rather be dead than live a life in confinement."
Tony cackled, and tucked the gun in the waistband of his pants. "Oh, trust me, you'll wish you were dead long before you ever make it to confinement. I'll make sure of that if you don't give us the information we need."
"There's really just one simple question we need the answer to," Gibbs started, going over to the box of implements that he and Tony had been using. He pulled out the icepick and tossed it to Tony, who caught it easily, and immediately rammed it down into Frankie's hand that was partially resting on the tabletop.
"AHHHHHHHH!"
Tony merely stared at him as he screamed. The icepick had been slammed down so hard that it went through the hand and was jammed into the table.
"Let me preface that question with this: If you lie to us, and I will know, I will make sure that" he said, gesturing to the icepick sticking out of the whimpering man's hand, "Goes through at least ten other points in your body that will keep you from being able to fight back once you get to prison."
Frankie's eyes went wide, but he didn't say anything or move.
"I think we understand each other," Tony said with a wicked smile. Jethro came to stand next to Tony, and placed his hand on his shoulder. Tony backed up, cocking his head as he stared down at Frankie, and completely missed the concerned look Jethro was shooting him.
"There are two bombs loose somewhere in the city because of you. Where are they?" Tony asked, his voice dripping with venom that made Jethro's stomach curl. He moved to stand next to the table, close enough to be the one to place the next blow on Frankie so that Tony couldn't.
"You can hack me to itty bitty pieces, but I'll never tell you. I'm willing to let them blow me and you both to smithereens if it will give my uncle the power he deserves."
"Oh?" Tony said, standing with his arms crossed. He looked at Jethro who reached down and broke Frankie's first finger. The man screamed in agony, but didn't say anything as he looked over through red, wet eyes at the way the bones were protruding from his skin.
"Do you want him to keep going?" Tony asked with a creepy pretend concern.
Frankie shook his head, but Tony nodded to Jethro anyway. Jethro broke another finger, trying not to think about the blood that squirted all over his hand as he did so as the bone broke through the skin. He tried not to absorb the sob that broke from Frankie's throat, and he concentrated more on the man in front of him than the terrifying man that stood nearby, giving him directions.
"I'd tell him, Frankie. I'm not really sure what he's capable of anymore," he said quietly and honestly. He couldn't look at Tony, unable to watch the younger man smile viciously like he had a feeling he was. He'd seen this before, and though last time he had enough pent up anger and guilt in himself to let out that he hadn't stopped things from getting out of control, he was wondering if this time he'd be able to if he even tried. Tony was terrifying him.
Tony figured Jethro was simply acting to encourage Frankie's confession. He watched the shock of the initial pain pass, and decided to ask the question again. "The bombs, Frankie. Where are the bombs?"
Frankie closed his eyes tightly and grit his teeth as he shook his head 'no' at Tony. Jethro took Frankie's arm in both of his hands, and twisted, breaking both bones in his forearm. Frankie screamed and cried, sobbing in his pain, and he started shaking his head back and forth as he wailed.
Tony went to the box, and pulled out the smaller icepick and the curved tip fish gutter. He felt an odd sort of dangerous glee starting to filter out of him. His sarcasm was thick as he approached the restrained and wrecked man. "You know, I feel really bad for having to do this, but you really leave me no choice. You see, I'm supposed to be getting married next week, and you're standing in the way between me and my chances at happily-ever-after."
Frankie tried to jerk away as Tony cut his shirts off of his body, leaving small cuts along the way as he did so. Jethro reached out instinctively and grabbed the man's hair, pulling him back against the table so that he didn't thrash so much. He knew that thrashing would only provoke Tony at this point, and he knew the man was going to do plenty to provoke him without that.
"So, are you going to tell me yet?" Tony asked as he looked down at the head still bent back against the table, wild and desperate eyes looking up at him. "No?" Tony reached down and started running the tip of the knife blade across Frankie's shoulder, letting it leave papercut thin lines of blood in its wake.
There was a sudden rush of movement in the living room, and McGee came to the doorway, wincing for a moment when he saw the man, but turning his attention on Tony.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said. Tony approached him so they could talk quietly. "I was told to tell you that they have video footage of two large flatbed trucks leaving the warehouse with large wooden crates on them. They split off in two different directions right before they were out of view of the camera."
Meanwhile, Gibbs was leaning down to whisper in Frankie's ear. "I'm serious Giovanni. Cooperate. I don't think I'm going to be able to stop him."
Tony nodded at Tim. "Thanks. Keep on it."
Tim nodded and headed back outside. He was near the door when he realized if he stood just to the left of the building, he could get a signal. It didn't take long for him to hear another scream from inside and he wished he had gone back up the road.
Tony was back at it, running the knife blade around the base of Frankie's ear. "I hear," Tony punned, "that two trucks left the Ultinell warehouse at about noon today. It's almost five now. I take it those bombs are in place by now, and you know where they are." He pushed down hard and within seconds, Frankie's ear was hanging half-off his head. The man screamed and moaned, racking with sobs.
"Ports, oh, god, they're in the docks!" he screamed.
"Now, see? Was that so hard?" Tony asked. "Keep going though. Which docks?"
Between sobs, Frankie informed him of a ship at the West River Fuel Dock, and another at the National Harbor that the crates would be loaded on that day; a back-up plan that only a few choice people were aware of.
"And how do you diffuse them? How were you planning on detonating them?" Tony asked, the knife already poised and ready to slam into his shoulder if he didn't answer the question immediately.
"Stephanie has them rigged so that we both can call and detonate them as soon as we know the right people are clear." The exhausted defeat was obvious behind the groaning sobs that broke free as he tried to speak, and Jethro was glad they'd be putting him out of his misery soon, no matter how vile of a creature he was.
"And how do you diffuse them?" Tony repeated, almost eager to have an excuse to plunge the knife down.
"They have to be dismantled. There's no way to completely diffuse them with how they are rigged. They simply have to be dismantled." Frankie sighed in relief as he realized he had no further information to give up, and he passed out.
There were noises in the doorway, and Tony turned, expecting to see McGee. He wasn't prepared to find a barely conscious Ziva in the grasp of Dave Lambrusco, her own gun held to her head, and both of them barely on their feet.
"Tony, the needle. He got to the needle. Tim…" she said before passing out in the clutches of her captor.
"Ziva!" Both Tony and Jethro shouted, jumping instinctively to catch her, but Dave turned the gun on them, and they both froze. Jethro saw that Tony's eyes were on fire, and he looked ready to pounce.
"DiNozzo! Don't do anything stupid," Jethro commanded from behind him, his boss voice firmly in place, causing Tony to stop a moment by reflex.
"What do you want?" Tony asked, and Dave smiled sinisterly at him.
^NCIS^NCIS^NCIS^
Tim was grateful that the screaming had stopped. He'd seen what Tony and Gibbs were capable of when you put them together in a situation like this, and he really didn't want to have to help clean up their mess again. Fornell had told him he'd call back in a few minutes, that he was being pulled into a video conference with their directors and the President.
Tim went to go back into the building, and he saw the door was open to the bedroom where they had left Ziva. He saw the empty chair, and he immediately drew his weapon. Something felt wrong in the air, and he slowly proceeded towards the back room, where a black hole of silence seemed to be coming from. He crouched down as he got to the kitchen door, able to see everyone was gathered in the back room. He couldn't tell, but he thought that Ziva might have been unconscious. She looked rather limp, and his stomach turned at the thought that she might be seriously injured or dead.
He crawled around the island cabinets until he had a good view of Dave holding a gun in his marled hand. Tim had done a quick bandage job of it in an attempt to keep the man from bleeding out before they were able to use him for answers, but he didn't think would ever regain enough strength to be able to do what he was doing at the moment. He watched the scene unfolding before him, and raised his gun. He watched, and listened closely for his chance.
"What do I want?" he heard Dave say to Tony. "Oh, I just want you dead! You sick, lying bastard!"
Tim didn't hesitate. He made sure his aim was perfect, and he pulled the trigger, felt the gun cock back, and pulled it again. Both shots went right into the man's head, one of which exited the other side and sprayed the entire group in the small room with brain matter and blood. He was on his feet immediately, and all three agents rushed to pull Ziva from the man's hold.
"Nice shooting, McGee," Tony said as he rolled Ziva over and felt for her pulse eagerly. "What the hell was in that needle?"
Tim shook his head. "It was the same trio as the truth serum, only with a little extra ephedrine to increase paranoia, and a little less scopolamine to allow the pain to seep through."
"Something's not right, McGee!" Gibbs said as he bent to listen to Ziva's breath.
McGee jumped to his feet and ran into the other room. He came back with the three bottles. "He added the rest of the scopolamine!" he announced.
"Her pulse is really thready. We need to get her to the hospital," Tony said.
"I don't know if we have time for that. We need to bring her heart rate up or she isn't going to make it," Tim said, his fingers on his wrist as he looked at his watch, counting the beats he felt.
"What about the ephedrine?" Jethro asked.
"It was all in the needle, and any more might kill her."
"Jethro!" Tony suddenly shouted even though they were only inches from each other. "The coke! Get the coke!"
"Coke?" Tim asked, as Gibbs jumped up for the torture kit. "Coke? As in cocaine? Why would you have cocaine?"
"Just for this reason, McGeek. How much should we give her?" he asked, looking up as he took the baggie from Jethro.
"Uh, start with seeing if she's breathing hard enough to inhale it from her nose. Just a pinch at a time so it's easier to inhale," he said, his hands surprisingly steady as he took the bag from Tony and pinched the fine powder, sprinkling it right on her nostrils. He saw she was breathing only the smallest amounts in, and he knew it wasn't going to be enough. He put his hand out. "Knife! Someone give me a knife! Preferably one without someone else's blood already on it!"
Gibbs pulled his personal knife out of his pocket and handed it to McGee, who immediately grabbed her arm, cut into it, and began sprinkling the powder into it. "We gotta get it into her bloodstream as quickly as possible," he explained quietly. "Come on, Ziva. Stick with me." He closed his hand around the wound, trapping the blood there. His eyes were trained on the closed ones below him, willing them to open.
He thought of the day Ziva had called in for backup, having been sent to interview their witness alone. He remembered the fear that had gripped him, and he remembered how grateful she was to see him. He thought of the way she had looked at him in the bank as he explained how far Sarah Davis' ID would go, and he realized now that the look had been of vulnerability. Her voice ran through his head as she asked him if he'd ever been in love, and how she had wondered if it was worth trying.
He was about to pour even more coke into the wound when her eyes started fluttering and she gasped. His eyes closed for only a brief second, and then snapped open to make sure he could see hers, and his breath was as sharp as hers as he breathed in relief.
"I need to get her to the hospital. I don't know how much coke that was, and with everything else, she could crash any minute," Tim announced, getting to his feet and scooping her up. She was barely able to react, throwing one arm around Tim's neck, her eyes wild and glazed, and her breath coming in weird gasps.
"Go! We got the location of the bombs. I'll call Fornell and let him know what needs to be done," Tony said, taking the phone from McGee's pants pocket. Gibbs followed Tim to the car, opening the doors for him as he went, and helping secure Ziva. McGee ran to the other side of the car and got in, and was pulling away as Gibbs closed the door on Ziva.
Gibbs watched his team drive way in the dust of gravel and dirt, and he swallowed hard. He wanted to be with them, but he knew he was needed back inside.