It was just before 10am at the NCIS offices. The team had been there since dawn, going back through every bit of information they had to try and find a lead. There just wasn't anything to go on. No one had gotten much sleep, and the food they'd brought in for breakfast had gone uneaten. Tony was pacing, everyone was tense.
A few minutes passed and then Tony's computer beeped. "Here he is," Tony said.
"Bring it up on the plasma," Gibbs ordered.
E-mail text appeared, larger than life, as Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, McGee and Abby gathered around to see what Trey had in store for them.
A smiley-face icon appeared – the same smiley-face with a halo that had preceded Trey's last message. "Hello Tony," the e-mail read. "I thought maybe this time, you'd like to watch." The halo on the smiley-face turned into devil horns, and the smiley face changed into an evil wink. The icon faded into a video screen. The picture that popped up was an odd angle on a large room – a room that was bare except for what looked like a computer station, a large rug, and a couch. A lone figure came into view, moving to the webcam and focusing it better on the couch and rug area. There appeared to be no audio.
"Trey," Tony said, stating the obvious to no one in particular.
"McGee!" Gibbs ordered angrily. "Find this guy!"
"On it," McGee said, as he started running a trace from his computer.
Trey walked out of frame and came back with Jess, who was somewhat disheveled and had her wrists duct taped together. She was barefoot, wearing an ill-fitting black dress. She was fully conscious and seemed aware of her surroundings, but she was behaving in a completely docile manner. Trey had a hand around the back of her neck and was guiding her to the couch. He pushed her down and she sat, staring straight ahead and not moving. Trey released her wrists and ran his hands through her hair and down her neck, whispering to her as he did so.
"What the…?" Tony started to say. "What's she wearing? What the hell's going on?"
"He's trying to recreate the night of the crime," Ziva said, as she watched the image. "She's in a black dress, no shawl, no shoes, no stockings, no …" Gibbs turned to Ziva, who let the sentence end without finishing.
Trey looked up and smiled at the camera. Then, he sat down next to Jess, grabbed her face between his hands and roughly kissed her, first on the lips and then on the neck. He looked back at the camera and grinned, licking his lips. Tony was beginning to feel sick. Trey turned back to Jess and forcefully pushed her down on the couch. She fell where he pushed her, but didn't make any move to help align herself on the sofa or to try and get away. Trey was confused for a second, and then lifted her legs up and tossed them on the couch. He leaned over her and started to stroke her face and arms. She remained motionless. He became angry – presumably at her lack of activity – and swiftly backhanded her across the face. Her face whipped towards the back of the couch. Even without the audio, both Tony and Gibbs flinched with the motion. Jess remained still, but it was clear that it was taking a great deal of control for her to do so.
Trey began to yell. He was in profile to the camera, so it wasn't automatically clear what he was saying. He was clearly enraged.
"What's he saying?" Tony said, tensely. "What the hell is he saying to her?"
Abby watched the screen intently, trying to read Trey's lips. "He's saying … 'fight back, fight back, bitch!'" Abby said. Upon saying the last word, she looked at Tony. "Sorry …" she said in a whisper.
"He's trying to recreate the crime," Gibbs said. "But in the original attack, Jess fought back. You said the ER doctors had never seen anyone fight back like she had. If she doesn't fight back, it's not the same."
"He either won't – or, more likely, can't – rape her if she doesn't … participate," Ziva added.
Tony stared at the screen. "If you knew her better, you'd know how hard that is for her…" Tony said, almost in a whisper. "To just lie there."
"I've only known her for two days, and I know how hard it is for her to just lie there," Ziva said, her voice laced with a hint of admiration.
By this time, Trey was wandering in and out of frame, ranting and yelling at Jess. He grabbed her by the hair and shook her by the shoulders, trying for a reaction. She was obviously becoming more and more on edge – she was flexing her hands and taking deep, calming breaths when Trey couldn't see. But she held her ground and stayed limp and unresponsive. As Trey was walking behind the couch, he tripped, on the rug, maybe, or on one of the cords going to the computer station. This was apparently the last straw. He walked to the webcam and angrily yanked it out of the wall. The screen went dark in an instant.
Tony's knees buckled. Only Abby's quick thinking got a chair under him before he went down.
"Th – thanks, Abs," Tony said, shakily.
"Get Ducky," Gibbs said, quietly, to Abby. Then he put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "You okay, DiNozzo?"
Tony took a couple of breaths and tried to respond, but wasn't having much luck. By the time Abby arrived with Ducky, Tony was close to hyperventilating, still unable to speak. Ducky went to his side.
"There, there, my boy," Ducky said, quietly and calmly. The others looked on anxiously, except for McGee, who was still working on the trace. "Concentrate on your breathing, Tony," the doctor continued softly. "With me … in … out … slowly now … in … out." Tony's breathing slowly came back to normal.
"Sorry, Boss," Tony said, somewhat sheepishly. "I don't know what happened. Just the … the shock of seeing Jess like that, and then the picture going off all of a sudden … I …"
"It's okay, Tony," Gibbs said, cutting him off and putting his hand on Tony's back. "Just … get your bearings." Gibbs looked at the doctor. "Duck?" he said, his eyebrows going up and his eyes shifting to indicate Tony.
"A bit of shock, coupled with fatigue," Ducky said. "If I thought it would be heeded, I would prescribe a sedative and send him home to bed."
"NO," Tony said, forcefully. He stood a bit shakily, but quickly recovered. "No," he said, more evenly, looking at Gibbs.
"No," Ducky said, absently. "I thought not."
Just then, McGee's voice broke in and startled them all. "Got it!" he exclaimed.
Everyone gathered around McGee's computer to see three flashing rectangles, outlined in red.
"I can't seem to isolate it to one specific location – it's a really dirty signal, static everywhere," McGee said.
"McGee," Gibbs said. "Just … the location, please?"
"Yes, Boss," McGee said, focusing on the computer screen. "It's one of these three buildings by the Beltway. It's either this warehouse, the quarry office next door, or … looks like an old restaurant."
"The restaurant," said Tony. "She ended up at a diner. If he's playing out the original crime, he'll go for the restaurant."
"And he'll probably make her walk barefoot through the quarry to get there," Ziva said, with loathing.
"Good work, McGee," Gibbs said.
Just then, a red beacon began beeping in the lower right-hand corner of McGee's screen.
"What's that?" Ducky pointed.
"It's a tracking signal," Abby said. "He knows we've found him."
Gibbs looked at the screen. "Let's go," he said.
NCISNCISNCISNCISNCISNCIS
Twenty minutes later, Gibbs and Tony were moving silently into the abandoned restaurant. McGee was covering the side entrance; Ziva was coming in the back.
As they came through the door, they could see Jess standing in the center of the space. She was alone and blindfolded, her hands duct-taped behind her. She was in the same black dress, and it was evident that what Ziva had predicted was true. She had walked, barefoot, to the building; she had scratches and bruises on her shins and knees, and her feet were covered with dirt and dried blood. There was also duct tape across Jess' mouth. She was having trouble breathing through just her nose; they could sense her growing panic. Trey was nowhere in sight.
"I have to get that tape off her mouth, Boss," Tony said quietly. "She can't breathe."
At the sound of his voice, Jess' face turned to where she imagined they were. She had visible bruises on her face, neck and arms, and a small trickle of blood was at the corner of her mouth, from the backhanded slap they had witnessed earlier. Tony breathed in sharply when he saw her face.
Gibbs looked around. There was still no sign of Trey. McGee and Ziva had made it to the main room of the building without having seen him.
"You pull the tape off, and then get down," Gibbs said softly. "We can't do more until we know where he is. We'll cover you." Gibbs exchanged glances with McGee and Ziva.
Tony moved swiftly to Jess. He pulled the blindfold down and gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "This is gonna hurt." He pulled the tape off her mouth quickly; she took in a gulp of air and said, "Above you!" just as the ceiling broke through and Trey slammed down on top of them. Tony tried to shield Jess as they collapsed under the weight of Trey and the ceiling. Tony was knocked unconscious, and Jess could feel pain in her shoulder as it made contact with a table on the way down. Trey kicked Tony's body behind him and towards the restaurant counter, where Tony's head impacted with one of the metal stools.
By the time the dust cleared, Trey had pulled Jess up with his arm around her neck, and he was holding a gun to her head. She was covered in sawdust and insulation, and had a shard of a plastic florescent light cover embedded in her thigh. It was bleeding steadily. Trey looked down at Tony, then at Ziva, McGee and, finally, Gibbs.
"I'll kill them both," he said, evenly and with no emotion.
"Well," Gibbs corrected, "you'll kill one of them. Look around – you'll never get a chance to take the second shot. Your only chance to live is to drop the gun."
"I live, I go back to jail," Trey said. "You know what they do to you in jail?" he asked, focusing on Gibbs and not noticing that Tony was slowly coming to behind him.
"They do to you what you did to her," Ziva snapped.
Trey turned to look at her and smiled a mock-apologetic smile. "Sorry about your head," Trey said, in a tone of voice that indicated he wasn't sorry at all. He looked back at Jess, who was losing strength fast. "You should have just kept your mouth shut." Then he looked Gibbs square in the eye. "And you," he said, moving his arm to point the gun at Tony, while never taking his eyes off Gibbs, "you can go to hell."
"You first," Tony said, as he hit the back of Trey's knees with a piece of lumber, throwing Trey off balance. McGee took him down with a single shot as Gibbs moved to catch Jess, who was crumpling to the floor. Ziva made her way towards Tony.
"'You first'," Tony berated himself. He was on his knees on the floor, looking at Gibbs and Jess and feeling dizzy, nauseous, and about to pass out. "I couldn't come up with anything more original than 'you first'." Then he slumped to the floor, unconscious. McGee felt for a pulse on Trey and confirmed he was dead. Ziva checked on Tony and called for an ambulance.
Gibbs pulled out his knife and easily released Jess' hands, then gently helped her lean against a booth. He took off the blindfold that had fallen around her neck and used it to put pressure on her leg wound. She gasped in pain when he pressed down to stem the flow of blood.
"He just quoted 'Lethal Weapon 3'," she said in a shallow whisper, looking down at Tony and then back up at Gibbs. "That's going to bug him for a year." With that, she passed out as well, leaving Gibbs, Ziva and McGee to secure the scene and wait for back-up.
