Chapter 4

Gibbs was sitting at his desk, preparing for a normal day, although he had a feeling it wouldn't be a normal day. He wasn't sure why, but he tended to trust his gut more than he should and his gut said this wouldn't be a normal day.

The elevator dinged open and Ziva walked in like normal. She sat down at her desk and logged in to her computer without comment. She simply got started with her day.

He was about to chalk it up as one of those times when his gut feeling was wrong (because that did happen even though he rarely admitted it) when his phone rang.

"Gibbs."

"Boss, there's a problem," Tony said.

"What, DiNozzo?"

"I'm at Tim's place... but he isn't. But his car is. And he's not answering his phone. I'm just about to break into his apartment because he's not answering the door either."

And the day was officially not normal.

"Call back when you get in."

"Will do."

Gibbs hung up and looked at Ziva.

"Tony thinks there's something wrong with McGee. Isn't answering his door or his phone and his car is at his place."

Ziva's eyes widened in concern.

"Are we going over there?"

"After Tony breaks in to check."

Ziva nodded and then waited without doing anything. It wouldn't take Tony long.

Gibbs' phone rang again.

"Boss, you'd better get over here. It doesn't look good."

"McGee?"

"Not here. But something's happened. His place is trashed."

Gibbs hung up.

"Gear up. Let's go," he said.

Ziva stood.

"McGee?" she asked.

"Gone. Place is trashed."

She nodded and followed Gibbs to the elevator.

It was not a normal day.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim woke up with a start. He ached all over. He smelled really bad and he was curled up on the ground behind garbage cans. All in all, he wasn't happy to find that what he vaguely remembered happening the night before had actually happened. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and groaned. He felt horrible. His face really hurt and he felt more than a little ill. Plus, he was a little cold. It wasn't freezing, but it was fall and that meant cooler temperatures.

Even worse, as he took stock of his situation, he realized that he had nothing besides his clothes and the gun he'd taken. He didn't have his phone or his badge or his wallet. He had no money and no way to prove to anyone who he was.

And what if those two guys were still after him? They had been pretty determined. Would they really just give up?

Maybe, I shouldn't have gone to sleep last night.

Oh, well. He wasn't dead, so that did bode well as far as having been found.

So the question was what next. He needed to get some help and he needed to stay away from the people who wanted to kill him. The problem was that he was pretty sure he wasn't thinking quite straight and would he be able to be in a place with people and track in on his would-be killers?

But could he just stay here in this alleyway surrounded by trash? That didn't seem like a good idea, either.

He'd have to get moving.

Slowly, achingly, he pushed himself up to his feet and then, he had to stand still for a bit just to keep the world from spinning around him. His face was throbbing and he just hurt all over. He didn't know why that was in particular but he didn't enjoy it. After a while... was it seconds or minutes or hours? Who knew? Tim felt stable enough to start walking forward.

One step at a time. He looked around at the buildings on either side of him and was surprised there was no activity. Where was he?

Then, he realized that there were doors leading into this alley. He could knock. What were the odds that he'd choose a door concealing his captors?

He walked over to the closest door, reeling like a drunken sailor. He leaned heavily against it and knocked.

And then, he knocked again.

And again.

Nothing.

"Maybe, he's like Gibbs and doesn't lock his door," Tim said aloud.

He tried the knob.

It turned.

The door opened.

He stepped inside.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony looked around Tim's apartment. This was not what he'd expected when he'd come by to offer to buy breakfast. After all the grief they'd had yesterday and what he knew had been Tim's late night, Tony had figured Tim would be all for it. Once he accepted that Tony was sincere at least.

He hadn't expected to find Tim's apartment trashed. However, the more he stood here looking at it, the less he was thinking that it was about trashing the place. There was method to this chaos. Someone had been searching for something. They weren't playing a particularly malicious prank or trying to rob Tim. They wanted something he had. Tony had no idea what it could possibly be, but that's what it looked like to him.

He hadn't touched anything since he didn't have any equipment with him or even gloves, but he could stand here and look.

Then, he heard Gibbs and Ziva coming and he walked over and met them at the door. As soon as he saw Ziva, he held out his hands for gloves. She handed them over without a word, looking at the mess with concern.

"It looks to me like someone was searching for something specific. They didn't take his expensive stuff and they didn't ruin everything. There was a reason for this," he said as he pulled on the gloves.

Gibbs nodded mutely and walked over to a place on the floor where there was some blood.

And Tim's gun.

Tony walked over and knelt down.

"Not enough blood here for a gunshot," he said.

"Nope."

Tony took a sample of the blood and bagged the gun as well. Since it was here, it was likely that the only prints on it belonged to Tim, but it was worth a try.

"Why were you here?" Ziva asked.

"Eh, I decided that Tim might want a good breakfast after what happened yesterday. He had more to do than we did. He's finally been in a good mood the last few days. Figured that I didn't want him getting depressed and irritable again," Tony said, shrugging nonchalantly.

Ziva smiled. "That is very kind of you, Tony. Shocking, but kind."

Tony rolled his eyes and then focused on the work. Quickly, they went through the whole apartment, taking fingerprints and samples. Gibbs called for a BOLO on Tim and when they were done, they headed back to NCIS to start processing everything.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Wow. I don't think that will keep the rain out," Tim said, staring up...two stories to a large hole in the roof.

Daylight was peeking into the house... and that was probably a good thing because there didn't appear to be any other source of light around. He stumbled forward, thinking that he really needed to get his brain in gear, but it kept wandering off without him.

That made him laugh a little to himself as he imagined his brain climbing out of his skull and then wandering around the room.

No. He needed to focus on... something.

Whatever was wrong with him wasn't going to magically get better. Just how hard had that guy hit him? Gently, he fingered his face and winced just with that light touch. Very hard. Something was probably broken.

"And my brain along with it," Tim said aloud.

He forced himself to walk forward, trying to think through what needed to happen. He needed to get help. He needed to contact someone that he knew would be safe. He needed to get to a place that would be safe because there were bad guys after him. Yes, that made sense.

He started walking through the house again. Clearly, it was not being lived in... officially, but maybe there could possibly be a phone? How likely was that? He had no idea, but it was worth looking.

He began to search through a lot of trash. The smell didn't even phase him anymore. He knew he smelled bad, and he knew that this house probably smelled terrible, but he himself smelled so bad that he just couldn't worry about that in particular.

As he searched, he really was having a hard time keeping his mind on his task. He was tired and he wanted to go back to sleep. He was kind of cold. His face still really hurt. But no, he'd keep looking.

He walked into what must have been a kitchen at one time. This was where it seemed likely that someone was squatting on occasion. There were food wrappers and other accouterments that were not old enough to be dating back to when the house had likely been abandoned.

He started opening drawers and cupboards as he walked through it. All he wanted was to find a phone. Why did he think he would? He couldn't even pretend to know, but it was worth trying and that was all that mattered. If it didn't, then, he'd have to risk going out on the street and finding someone who could help him because he needed that.

After some unsteady searching, he opened a drawer by the sink and there was a cellphone. Could it be possible? Could he really have lucked out like this? Why would there be a phone here? Trembling a little bit, he picked it up and then prayed that that it would work.

"Please, please, please."

He pushed the button and it turned on!

"It works!" he whispered, but it was almost dead and it was secured with a password.

A four-number PIN had about 10,000 different possible combinations that could get him into the phone. Well, nothing to do but try.

He tried a combination.

It didn't work.

He tried another combination.

Nothing.

He tried another.

Nope.

He wanted to cry, but just when he was ready to give up, he noticed the Emergency Call label in the corner of the lockscreen. He could call 911! Quickly, he did.

"This is 911. What is your emergency?"

Tim was shocked. It had worked!

"Hello? This is 911. What is your emergency?"

He got his mind in gear. At least a low one.

"Hello, my name is Tim McGee and..."

A slamming door and loud voices startled him and he stopped talking.

"Sir? Sir?"

Quickly, Tim tried to get some real information out so that he might have a chance of getting the help he needed.

"I need help," he said in a low voice, speaking quickly. "They're trying to kill me and..."

The voices were getting closer and they didn't sound like they'd be very welcoming if they found him here. With what might be their phone.

"NCIS Agent Gibbs. Tell him I need help," Tim said.

Then, he hung up, turned off the phone, and put it back in the drawer so that the 911 person couldn't call him back and tip these people off that he was in here. He would be surprised if these were people who genuinely lived in this place. It wasn't fit for habitation. However, that meant that they could be here for any purpose and Tim didn't dare assume that they'd be magnanimous to an intruder.

He hid in a dark, moldy corner behind the fridge and waited, breathing slowly, feeling as tense as he had the night before in the dumpster.

The voices got louder and closer and Tim swallowed anxiously. He still had the gun he'd taken, but he really hoped he didn't have to use it. Quietly, he pulled it out of his pocket and held it tightly.

"What do you think? How much do you think we'll get?"

"Shut up. I don't care if the place is empty. We're not talking about it. You know what the going rate is. That's all that matters."

Tim could hear someone kicking the trash around. Then, the drawer opened.

"No call yet."

"Man, this place sucks. I'm not waiting in this trash heap for long."

Then, the drawer closed and the footsteps receded. Tim let out a long silent sigh of relief.

"Hey! The back door is open!"

Tim tensed again. Would they start searching the house for the intruder?

What if they found him?

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"The blood matches Tim's," Abby said in a subdued voice. "How much was there?"

"Not a lot," Tony said.

"It is unlikely that Tim was seriously injured," Ziva said, encouragingly.

Abby bit her lip. They all knew that was possibly a lie. Fatal injuries could occur without leaving any blood evidence behind. Tim could be dead and his body disposed of for all they knew at this point. What they knew was that he wasn't in his apartment and whatever else had happened, his apartment was a huge mess and he had lost some blood.

"No one heard anything, so he probably wasn't shot," Tony said. "No sound of a fight, either."

"You just don't know who attacked him, why, where he is, or if he's even alive!" Abby said, her voice rising dangerously.

Before any hysterics could start, Gibbs came striding in.

"What do you have, Abbs?" he asked.

"Tim's blood, Gibbs!" Abby said, loudly. "That's what I have."

"What else?" Gibbs asked. "We know that McGee was there."

Abby looked irritated which wasn't normal when it came to Gibbs, but then again, it wasn't normal for Tim to be in danger, either. Even though they weren't dating and hadn't for years, Abby was still oddly possessive of Tim, and she clearly didn't like the idea that Tim could be at risk of serious injury or death.

"I have a partial fingerprint that isn't Tim's," she said. "I don't know if it's enough to get an ID."

"Keep working on it," Gibbs said. He paused to kiss her on the cheek and then they all headed back up to the bullpen. When they got there, Tony sat down and thought about it.

"McGee's badge wasn't there, but his gun was," Tony said. "Why would they take his badge but not his gun?"

"Perhaps McGee dropped the gun," Ziva said, "but he had not yet put down his badge."

"If so, then, he was holding his gun at the time. It wasn't holstered."

"Meaning that he was probably either setting it down at the time or he was aware of a problem," Ziva said.

"Meaning that the trashed apartment happened before he got home," Tony added.

"And it was not fired," Ziva said.

"Meaning that, if he was worried, he didn't get a chance to really do anything about it," Tony said. "Since we don't think he was shot, he was probably hit."

"Hard enough to make him drop his gun," Ziva said.

"Hard enough to make him fall to the floor," Tony said. "Remember that there was blood."

"How could I forget with Abby saying so more than once?"

"But they didn't leave him there," Tony said. "So whatever they wanted..."

"They did not get it," Ziva said. "Perhaps we should go back to his apartment and search again, Gibbs."

Gibbs looked at them both and then nodded and gestured. Maybe it wouldn't pan out, but it was worth checking.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Blanche had always hated her name. It made her sound like a grandma and she was only 29. Plus, there was just no way to shorten it and make it sound better. It was only one syllable already, and her parents hadn't believed in middle names. She could change it, but she never had. What a pain. Thankfully, unlike her previous job as a waitress, her new job didn't require introducing herself very often. She got other people's names frequently but almost never gave her own.

At this point, though, she was not thinking about her own name but about the names she had just been given by someone who had sounded not quite sane.

"Maren, could you help me?" she asked.

"What's up, Blanche?" Maren asked.

"I just got a call from someone asking for help but the person hung up and when I tried to call back, it went straight to voicemail," she said.

"Well, you'd better call it in. You have an address?"

"Yeah, but more than that, the guy told me to tell someone else about it."

"Who?"

"NCIS Agent Gibbs."

"NCIS... that's Navy, right?"

"I... think so?"

Blanche knew that she didn't have all the acronyms down just yet, but she might have heard of NCIS before.

"Okay. You call dispatch and report the call and the location. I'll see if I can figure out who this Gibbs guy is."

Blanche nodded and contacted dispatch, reporting a person asking for help, stating that he was in danger but that she had lost contact and couldn't regain it.

Then, she joined Maren in looking for someone named Agent Gibbs.