Chapter 23

If Gibbs had thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse before, he had been wrong. Dead wrong. If he had still been in the Marines, his error might very well have cost him his life. Now he wished it was his life that hung in the balance- instead of that of his youngest agent.

Driving over to the hospital at an even more reckless pace than usual, he kept going over everything in his mind- again. He tried to think- to analyze; to keep everything in his mind rational and to avoid bringing emotion into it. But it was just too damn impossible; every single time he tried to come up with a solution or concrete steps he could take to solve the issue at hand all he came up with was either a giant blank or his own voice in his head telling him that everything was his fault. And in a way he believed it was right; his insistence that McGee go out into a dangerous area without any backup, his failure to stop Ziva from running off on her personal vendetta, his foolish decision to leave both Ziva and Abby within the reach of that bastard, and now the bastard in question escaping with his wealthy Russian oil queen. Oh yes, he hadn't thought things couldn't get any worse! How naïve could he be? And now hearing that McGee had crashed right at the exact moment the world's most dangerous terrorist with potentially the world's most destructive weapon of mass destruction had escaped into the capital city of the world's most powerful country. That was on his head too. What else could possibly happen?

That question was answered almost as soon as the ex-marine sniper stepped through the doors to the emergency unit. As he passed by the reception desk, there was a flash of movement as someone quickly stood up out of their seat and he heard a familiar voice call out to him: "Sir! You can't enter the emergency unit! It's strictly for-"

Gibbs turned towards the desk to observe the same receptionist who had given him a rather unsatisfactory welcome the last time he had been here and promptly gave her one of his infamous stares. Upon recognizing who he was, the woman straightened up, and although she didn't seem overly fazed by Gibbs' look she immediately put on a look of understanding.

"Agent Gibbs." Her tone was cordial, if not somewhat reproached. "I take it you're here concerning the latest status report of your fellow agent Timothy McGee."

"Status report?" Gibbs' tone was anything but cordial. "I receive second-hand word from your staff that one of my Agents has suddenly crashed without knowing anything about what his condition was prior to that and all you can call it is a status report?"

"Agent Gibbs, I understand your anger but we could not release that information without approval from the emergency unit staff. Agent McGee's condition was relatively stable prior to about a half hour ago. He flat-lined without any apparent warning and we had to get him into the emergency room immediately. I don't…"

"You don't what?" A new voice interrupted. Looking to his side where it had come from, Gibbs could see a very stone-faced Tony come up to the desk. "Whether he is currently alive or dead? How can you work here and not know about the status of your own patients?"

"Agent McGee is alive, Mr…"

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo." There was no mistaking the frustration in the senior field agent's voice.

"Agent DiNozzo. I can't tell you much more other than that Patient McGee has been stabilized and is out of immediate danger. He is being kept in the Intensive Care Room for further observation to make sure this does not happen again. Until it has been determined that there is no further danger to his cardiac or pulmonary system, he is under strict order not to receive any visitors."

"Override that order." It was a demand, not a request from Gibbs.

"I can't do that Agent Gibbs; I'm not authorized to…"

"Find a way to authorize it and then do it."

The receptionist stared back at him sternly; Tony, watching from the sidelines, had to give her credit for matching stares with a very pissed off Gibbs. It wasn't a feat that you saw every day. "Agent Gibbs, even if I could authorize you permission to see your agent, I wouldn't. He has been under more than enough stress over the past twenty-four hours. Disturbing him at this stage would risk further attacks that could be potentially fatal for him in his current state. I understand that you want to see for yourself that he is not in any immediate danger, but if you aggravate him in the slightest at this stage it could end up making things much worse."

Gibbs fought to keep his temper in check. He knew logically that she was right- that the less stress McGee endured the better- but that didn't mean he had to say that to her. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours- so much he should have been able to prevent- that he felt it was now his duty to keep the rest of his team safe from any more harm. If there was any hope of keeping the lives of his teammates safe, he would do it. Even if it ended up killing him.

He considered saying as much to the receptionist. However, whatever Gibbs may have been planning to say to her was interrupted by the sound of a commotion from down the hall. Gibbs and Tony both turned towards the direction of a sound; at least one loud voice coming from one of the rooms in the ER wing.

"He's my brother! He's the closest person I have in the world right now and you're telling me I can't see him?!"

"Miss McGee, I know how concerned you are for your brother, but right now it is too risky for him to receive any visitors. The strain and stress of the last twenty-four hours would be too much for him to handle…"

"Bull shit." Tony raised an eyebrow at this outburst; Gibbs remained neutral faced. "This isn't about what's best for him! Tim's far tougher than you could ever imagine. He risked his job in order to help me when I was in trouble once and he puts his life on the line for both his colleagues and people he's never even met! What does that tell you about him?"

"If you want my personal, unprofessional opinion, it means he's risking his life far too many times for his own good and it finally caught up with him. Now if you'll excuse me Miss McGee, I have a critical patient I need to attend to."

"Don't you dare walk away from me! Come back here! Where the hell are you going?"

From one of the rooms about ten or fifteen yards emerged the somewhat flustered and rather annoyed figure of Dr. Ralston, the doctor that Gibbs had met when he arrived at the hospital the first time. As he walked across to another room on the opposite side of the hall, another figure emerged after him; the obviously agitated one of McGee's younger sister Sarah. The look on her face was one of both fear and anger; Gibbs recalled seeing similar looks on McGee's face when Sarah had been accused of murder about a year previous. The two siblings shared the same emotions, even if they expressed them in different ways.

Sarah started to pursue the doctor into the other room but happened to turn her head towards the reception desk as she did so. Upon seeing Gibbs, she froze, stared at him for a moment or two, and then started marching directly towards him at a determined pace.

Gibbs stepped up towards her. "Sarah," he said in tone that coming from might just appear to be soft and gentle. "Ducky said the hospital staff told him you wanted to…"

Gibbs never got the 'see me' part of the sentence out; Sarah suddenly and loudly slapped him right across the face.

Gibbs stood still for about a whole minute, trying to process what had just happened. It was the way she had slapped him that had caught him off guard; so sudden he hadn't been expecting it at all. The sting was slightly painful but not overbearing- no, it was the fact that she had slapped him at all which hurt him more.

Sarah stood before him, her own eyes- red likely from crying and filled with both fear and anger- bore into his own. "Why Gibbs?" Though her voice was relatively steady, there was a faint tremble in it- it wasn't distinct enough to tell whether she was close to screaming at him or bursting into tears.

Gibbs stared at her confused. "Why what Sarah? What do you mean?"

"Whenever I talked to Tim," Sarah said in a low tone that was now showing more signs of trembling, "he always said how much he respected you, how much he looked up to you. He said you were a hard boss that demanded nothing less than accurate results, but never once did I hear him complain about it. He puts his life on the line every single day he comes to work. He put his career on the line to help me when everyone else thought I was a murderer."

"I know." Gibbs' tone was soft and gentle this time. "I appreciate Tim's abilities greatly; without him my team wouldn't be nearly as good as it is."

"Then why did you let this happen to him?"

The words hit Gibbs like a sledgehammer in the chest. "Why did I let…" His voice trailed away.

"Oh no Gibbs." This time there was no mistaking the fury in Sarah's voice. "Don't you dare pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. Don't you dare… You were one of the few people in the world that Tim trusted absolutely implicitly; how could let this happen to him? I haven't been able to get anything solid out of the doctors here but I get the picture that he was attacked at a crime scene doing a job that you likely sent him to do! What's the matter Gibbs? Do you feel that he needs to prove himself by going alone into danger before he can become as good an agent as the rest?"

Gibbs felt as if his chest caved in. He couldn't believe he was actually hearing this- hearing the sister of one of his top agents accuse him of directly putting him in danger. On the outside he struggled maintain his composure, even though he knew he had to set the record straight with the young woman over the whole situation. "Sarah, please try to calm down. Just for a moment. You've got this all wrong; I'll explain everything to you." He reached for her shoulders to try stop her shaking but she quickly jerked out of his grasp.

"Keep your goddamn hands off me!" She screamed, and Gibbs saw her red eyes mist over and then start leaking tears down her cheeks. "It's your fault that Tim's in here! You sent him all alone! You let him be attacked! Why?!" She hit him in the chest with an open palm. "Why?! Tell me why!" She began hitting his chest with her fists in a noticeably weak way. Gibbs caught hold of them but did not maintain a very firm grip; there was no need since the fight was already starting to go out of the young woman.

"Why, why, why…?" The tears starting to stream down her face, Sarah stopped her feeble attempts to pull away, and instead slowly leaned against him with her head pressed sideways against his chest. "Why Tim? Why did it have to be Tim? Oh, God…"

The ex-marine felt her whole body shake as he held her close. He had never been one for offering kind words or support to grieving family members but feeling the young woman in his arms reminded him of what he had lost; Shannon, Kelly, Kate, Jenny- and maybe now McGee as well. Yeah, you're right Sarah. I am responsible; it is my fault. And I have absolutely no excuse for it. Just my own hard-assed nature of demanding nothing less than perfection. Well, if that's the case, the one thing that will make this right is putting a sniper bullet through that bastard's head.

Gibbs was abruptly distracted from his thoughts as he felt in cell ring in his pocket. Still holding onto the trembling Sarah, he reached into his pants pocket, pulled it out and flipped it open. "Gibbs."

"We have a hit on the helicopter."

Gibbs paused at the sound of Ziva's voice. He had insisted that she remain behind at NCIS to keep an eye on Abby; the Goth hadn't taken the news of McGee's sudden critical status very well. Ziva had protested at first, but then agreed, saying she would also use the time to try to track Ballack and Russikov's helicopter. Apparently that had paid off.

"Where?"

"On the west side of the ship yard; there's another warehouse there that was leased out to AISSEX four weeks ago. I should have found it sooner; someone like Natalya Russikov has the resources and the knowledge to acquire multiple storage facilities. It should have come up in my original search."

"We have it now." Gibbs said firmly. "Grab your gear and head over there; I'll be there soon."

"Gibbs, that may not be soon enough. I just pulled up a satellite view of the warehouse; local law enforcement has converged all around it."

Gibbs paused, more out of the unexpected revelation of the local police arriving at the scene before him rather than Ziva's ability to pull up a satellite shot with no apparent difficulty. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

"I cannot say for certain. What I can tell you is that there is a helicopter seemingly abandoned outside the warehouse, and that the local police authorities are walking in and out of it with no apparent sign of trouble. Something is obviously going on, yes?"

Gibbs silently cursed his luck at being beaten to a potential crime scene and having all the evidence contaminated. "Get over there as quick as you can Ziva. Make sure Ducky stays with Abby while you're gone. I'll be over as soon as I can."

He abruptly terminated the call and turned to Tony, who had been largely silent for the last few minutes. "DiNozzo, you stay with Sarah. Under no circumstances are you to leave her. Understood?"

"Yes boss."

"And call me if you hear any news about McGee."

"Will do."

Carefully, Gibbs handed the still shaking young woman over to Tony, who immediately guided her over to a chair and let her rest her head on his shoulder.

The team leader abruptly turned around and began walking towards the exit. If there was one thing he was going to make sure of, he thought as he passed through the doors, it was that if someone had been foolish enough to impede on his pursuit of McGee's attacker, they were going to be in for one hell of an ass-chewing.

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