Demons of the past
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything
Summary: Just why is Gibbs never called Leroy? On a boring day, some people start to wonder about it and start to dig. What they find is more than they were ready to get...
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2- Stuck
Up in the bullpen, all three agents were keeping their heads down as low as possible. Eventhough he had gotten some of his favorite coffee now, Gibbs was in a pretty bad mood. Not unusual for a day like this, but still something they tried to steer clear of. Kate noticed her e-mail alert blinking on the screen and opened the new message. It was from Abby. "Got something new on what we talked about in the lab. Meet me in the elevator in 5. Bring the boys. Abby." The message said and she deleted it immediately.
Getting her colleagues into the elevator was the problem. She couldn´t just tell them because Gibbs was waching his agents from the corner of his eye. She pretended to enter something into her computer and sent a text message to both her colleagues. Only about half a minute later, both looked at her without letting their boss notice and nodded slightly. She got up. "I need to check with Abby about the phone. There seems to be a glitch in this bill. She can´t have possibly called two numbers at once, can she?"
Gibbs looked at her and then nodded. As she walked towards the elevator, she heard Tony getting up, mentioning that he would go check with Abby for additional information on a contact, while McGee excused himself to follow the call of nature. She wasn´t sure if he noticed that all of them got into the elevator, but the doors closed without incident. They went down to the lab where Abby jumped in with them. They pulled the emergency stop between the two stories and looked at her.
Abby grinned. "After you left, I got curious about that name thing and called up a friend of mine. We were in the same lab group at college and he still owes me something for getting him through his final. He´s working at the pentagon now."
"Wow, never knew you had important friends like that, Abbs." Tony said and raised an eyebrow. "What does that have to do with Gibbs?"
"Let me finish, sunnyboy. I asked him to run a background on our boss-man and see if he has maybe changed the priority of his first names. Making the second given name first or something. And he didn´t. So if you were correct, everyone should be calling him Leroy, because that´s what´s registered on his record. Jethro just registered as J. on there -pretty strange. Oh, and Dan told me that he had trouble getting into the record. There was a pretty high security level on it." She finished her report and looked around. "Any ideas to that?"
Kate thought for a moment. "When I was at the Secret Service, they used to tell us that records are only blocked if the person has been in some sort of conflict with the law -either as witness or suspect. Other reasons might be a high position in an agency, but I don´t think Senior Special Agent is high enough for that."
"I´ve had a case of a guy who had a blocked record. It turned out that he had been resettled after witnessing a murder, but that was back in New York and a different story. That is really strange, you know?" Tony said and opened his mouth to go on when his cell phone rang. He checked the ID and swallowed hard. "Yes, boss?" He held the cell away from his ear and all of them could hear the voice on the other end rather clearly.
"If you don´t get out of that elevator within the next 10 seconds, we will spend the rest of this day in the gym and I can promise you that there will be only one person walking out without help. And you can bet that this person will be me." He sounded very pissed and all of them knew it meant trouble.
McGee switched the emergency stop off, but the elevator didn´t move an inch. "Uhm...that´s not good." He said and tried again, but still, the light stayed off. "I believe we´re stuck."
Tony sighed and bumped his head against the wall. After that he took his cell phone out again. "Boss, the elevator is stuck." He simply said and pulled a face when a loud voice could be heard again.
"I said you got 10 seconds. I don´t care how you get up here. NOW!" Gibbs yelled and they looked at each other with a look of horror in their eyes.
Kate looked around. "How about we try the emergency hatch and get on top? There´s supposed to be a ladder we can take." She offered for a first idea, but McGee shook his head.
"Power is out -we wouldn´t get the door to open. Someone would have to pull it open from the other side and I don´t believe that Gibbs will do us that favor." He said and sat down on the floor. "I guess we´re dead meat then." He said and looked rather pale.
Abby sat down as well. "I haven´t been in the gym for like forever. I´ll be dead within a second." She told them and sighed. "And I left my caf-pow down in the lab."
"Great...we´re stuck in the elevator with Gibbs waiting for us up in the bullpen and there´s no way out." Tony chimed in. "Does this thing have ventilation?"
They tried the call button to get someone to help them, but since Gibbs knew where they were, they hoped that help would arrive soon. Sure enough, it didn´t. "It´s almost 6 pm...we´ve been in here for almost two hours. He´s going to kill us." McGee said after a while. They had tried to play a game of Truth or Dare, but after Tony had dared Kate to tell them about Panama City and received a rather angry look, they had given up on that.
"You know, I think he´s doing that on purpose because he´s pissed off." Kate offered and looked up to the ceiling. She pulled out her cell and dialed Ducky´s number in the lab, but he didn´t answer it. "Great...Ducky has gone home already."
Tony stared at her. "He´s gone...Gibbs gave him a ride today because Ducky´s old car gave up last weekend..." He stated dryly and saw horror on their faces. "Anyone got some food? I´m actually starving here."
"That´s all you ever think about, isn´t it, Tony?" Kate asked and grinned. "You won´t starve from spending a night in the elevator. Well, I´m not planning to stay here for the whole night. I´ll try to climb up there. Maybe someone will hear us and get help." She got up and opened the hatch that lead to the top of the elevator. Within a second she had pulled herself up and disappeared from their view.
"Kate? You okay up there?" Abby asked and got worried since there was no answer. "Tony, can you lift me up a bit?" She looked at him.
"I´ll go up first, Abby. I can help you from up there." McGee jumped in and pulled himself up into the darkness. "Okay, I´m up and..." He suddenly stopped and there was silence again.
Abby looked at Tony. "What in this world is going on?" She asked him, but he looked equally puzzled. She stretched her arms up and he lifted her until she could reach the top and managed to pull herself out. Tony followed only a moment later. His eyes took a moment to get used to the darkness and he saw his three colleagues standing right on top of the elevator. He was about to ask what was wrong when he noted another presence standing next to Kate.
Kate felt herself blush and was grateful for the semi-darkness that surrounded them. She stared at Gibbs, who held something in his hand. It was small and white, seeming to shine a bit in the darkness. It took her only a moment to realize what it was and felt her hands shaking. "Well now, since you´ve had to sit still for such a long time, why don´t we head out for the gym and get some exercise to loosen you up again?" Gibbs said in a calm voice.
Tony swallowed hard. He knew that tone -it usually meant nothing good. He looked at Kate and she too had realized that the small thing in Gibbs´ hand was a fuse from the elevator´s circuit. None of them talked as they climbed up the ladder to the half open door that lead into the bullpen. That trick had been one of the worst he ever pulled on them until now and they knew they were in for something.