One by One, by Tweeter

A/N: This story has taken on a life of its own, I swear. Thanks for the feedback, it's always appreciated. I try to incorporate corrections and suggestions when I can. I've already changed the rating and enabled anonymous comments. A huge thank you to Rinne for stepping in as beta for me!

Chapter 4 – Meanwhile, Back at the Lab

Music blaring in the lab, Abby set about checking the items brought back from the warehouse for prints and other trace evidence. The usually perky technician was grim, knowing how high the stakes were. She'd seen the photos of Tony and shivered at the though of him being abused, but put it out of her mind. It wouldn't do any good for her to start obsessing about what might have happened, or what might still be happening. She could help Tony by find something, some clue, that would tell them where he was being held.

McGee was working on her computer, using sophisticated imaging software to try to find any hint of Tony's location from the photos.

Gibbs strode into the room, coming up behind Abby. "Anything?"

Abby jumped. "GIBBS! Don't do that!"

The senior agent wiped his hand across his face, sighing. "I'm sorry, Abs." He looked tired, Abby knew this was taking a toll on him. While Gibbs would never come right out and say it, he cared a great deal for Tony. He cared about all of them, sure, but Tony had a special place. Tony had a devil-may-care attitude that made everyone smile, even when they were totally pissed at him. He was a natural investigator, possessing a gift for connecting seemingly random clues. Tony and Gibbs had a strong bond, it was mentor/student, father/son, older brother/bratty kid. Whatever it was, it worked, their record of successful investigations was the best in the department.

"Have you had anything to eat?" asked Abby, worriedly. "You look like hell."

Sidestepping her question, Gibbs repeated his query.

"What do we have?"

"Nothing we didn't already know. The blood on the shirt is the same blood type as Tony's, we can do a DNA test to confirm, but I'm pretty sure it's his. There were no prints on the mannequin, the clothes, Tony's wallet, the change… nothing. The only prints were on the note, and those were McGee's."

McGee looked sheepish. "Sorry, Boss."

Gibbs ignored him. "What about the photos, any clues on the room?"

Abby went up to the plasma screen. "McGee, bring up that first photo." He punched in a command and a grainy, image appeared on the screen.

"We zoomed in as close as possible on this little spot, here in the corner." Abby held up the original photo, pointing out the area she was talking about.

"It's faint, but it looks like an airline ticket right there on the side table. See it?"

"No, Abby, I don't."

"It doesn't matter, we can't read it. We still need to examine the other pictures. It's hard, though… hard to look at them." Abby's voice faltered.

Gibbs kissed her head softly. "I know, Abs. We'll find him and we'll bring him home."

"Do you think he's still alive?"

Sighing, Gibbs replied, "I don't know."

He turned and headed back to the squad room. "Let me know if you find anything at all."

"Will do, Boss."

Gibbs turned away from the computer screen, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The words were starting to run into each other, nothing was making sense. It had been 32 hours since they had first made contact with Ari. He probably had Tony for a few hours before that, if he had grabbed the agent when he got home from work.

Gibbs looked over at Tony's empty desk. Temporarily empty. Tony was coming back. This wasn't like Kate. Her desk was clean, emptied of all her personal effects; nobody had used it since her death. No, Gibbs was not going to have two sterile desks in his office. His team was not going to lose anyone else.

Jaw set determinedly, Gibbs turned back to his computer and continued scouring all the information they had on Haswari to see if he could find a link to a location in the area.

"That BASTARD."

Abby jumped at the sound of McGee's yell.

"What?"

Angrily, McGee punched out a series of keystrokes, zooming in on a portion of one of the photos of Tony.

"Look at this. The arrogant son of a bitch!"

Abby looked at the plasma screen, her eyes narrowing.

"Call Gibbs down here."