Author's Note: Happy birthday to me, so you're getting an early update! (12/26)

Chapter 3

Abby walked into her lab feeling like a zombie. Or at least a partial zombie. Only part of her felt dead, so she couldn't be a whole zombie. Her left cheek wasn't sagging, she'd checked in the mirror, but it felt like it was sagging. It also felt swollen, which it wasn't. Dentists sucked.

She walked over to the refrigerators and put her lunch inside, then continued into her office. Dumping her stuff, she sat down at her desk.

Glancing quickly through her e-mails, she saw one from the evidence garage that was marked urgent. She scanned it and saw that Tony had apparently requested that a bag of garbage with a gun and a wallet in it be sent over. She hated coming in late. It had already been an hour since that e-mail had been sent, and she prided herself on getting things done post haste. Especially for Tony. Unless Gibbs got there first. Gibbs definitely had priority.

She went down to the evidence locker and grabbed the evidence. As Michael signed her out, he gave her a sympathetic look and said, "Sorry, Abby, I know how this kind of thing upsets you."

She blinked at him and shrugged. "It was just a dentist's appointment, Mikey. I can handle it," she said. He gaped at her, and she wondered what his problem was. Maybe a phobia of dentists? She should get Tony to give him that hypnotist's number. He'd sure helped Kate. Upstairs she turned on her music, fired up her machines and started laying the garbage out on her tables. It was a mixed bag. Cigarette packages, apple cores, newspapers and soda cans that should have been recycled, goo that was not immediately identifiable. It was all pretty standard garbage. She turned to the gun and the wallet which had been packaged separately. Opening the box that held the wallet, she blinked at it. There was something wrong with this picture. She'd seen this wallet before, more than once, in bars and at delis during lunch. She flipped it open and stared at the smirking face on the ID. If this was a joke, it wasn't funny.

Stripping off her gloves, she went back to her computer and reread the e-mail. In her haste earlier, she'd misread it; now she stared in shock for several seconds. Metro PD had sent over Anthony DiNozzo's gun and wallet, not a gun and wallet at Anthony DiNozzo's request. She grabbed her phone and dialed with sharp jabs of her finger. The ringing in her ear was echoed by a ringing from the next room and she looked up to see that Gibbs had entered the lab.

"Gibbs!" she exclaimed, and she hurried out. "What's going on? Why do I have Tony's gun and wallet as evidence? Where's Tony?"

"Missing," Gibbs said.

"Missing how?" Abby asked. "Missing when? I don't understand."

Gibbs handed her a Caf-Pow and said, "He seems to have been kidnapped for ransom."

"Is there a note?"

"Not yet, just a phone call."

"Do we have a recording?"

"They didn't call here, Abby, they called his father."

Abby's jaw set. Everything she'd ever heard about Tony's father made her despise the man for throwing away a perfectly good Tony. "So, no recording and no help, I'm guessing."

"Not so far. Do you have anything?"

"Not yet, but I'll get right on it." She set to work feverishly.

Gibbs left Abby working intently on what little evidence they had and went back upstairs. He looked over at Ziva who was still on the phone. While waiting, he turned to McGee. "Start a trace on DiNozzo's cell phone," he said.

"Already done. It must be off because I'm not getting anything."

"Let me know if anything comes of it," Gibbs ordered. "And start going over Tony's computer, see if there's any kind of clue to what's happening on there." McGee nodded and got up to go to Tony's desk just as Ziva got off the phone. Gibbs turned to her. "You didn't tell Abby when she came in?"

"I did not know she was here," Ziva replied, looking startled.

"Well, she found out because she got Tony's wallet and gun as evidence." Ziva's eyes widened in dismay. "Exactly." The elevator doors opened to admit Fornell and Sacks onto their floor. Gibbs watched them approach with a neutral expression. Neither McGee nor Ziva was able to manage the feat, both gazed at the younger FBI agent through narrowed eyes. They all knew Tony would be less than thrilled to know that Sacks was on this case.

Fornell walked up to Gibbs and said, "New York FBI reports that the elder DiNozzo's house appears to be deserted. The neighbors say that Mr. DiNozzo and wife number six left hurriedly about twenty minutes before my guys got there."

"But didn't know where they were going?" Gibbs predicted.

"Not a clue," Fornell said.

"Do you think they decided to pay the ransom without consulting law enforcement?" McGee asked, looking up from DiNozzo's computer.

"I wish I could believe that," Gibbs said.

McGee's computer chimed, and he hurried over to it. "Someone's using Tony's cell phone," he said.

"Where?"

"It looks like somewhere in Glover Archibald Park," McGee replied. "I should have the GPS coordinates in . . . got it."

"Can you track it if it moves?"

McGee did something arcane with his multitude of devices, pulled something off its charger and said, "Yeah Boss."

"Gear up and let's go!" Gibbs said. Ziva geared up too, and since that was what he'd intended, he said nothing. Fornell and Sacks joined them in the elevator, and Gibbs didn't say anything to that either. If they could keep up, they could come.

He drove, which had Ziva muttering about what the others thought of her driving, and McGee clutching at the ceiling handles in the back seat. Fornell kept up somehow, though Sacks looked a little green when he got out of the passenger side.

They followed McGee through the park. Fornell seemed impatient, but Sacks seemed to get the technology in a way older agents never would. Finally they were close enough to surround the target. Gibbs sincerely doubted that the mixed ring of federal agents closing in on the phone's user were in fact going to capture one of the actual kidnappers. It was far more likely that the phone had been dumped as the wallet and gun had been, and just hadn't been found by a civic-minded citizen. Still, any information was more than they'd had before.

McGee nodded and gestured silently towards a copse of trees that was fairly large. They drew closer and closer, then Gibbs and Fornell burst from cover. "Freeze, federal agents!"

There was a small clearing in the middle of the copse and the two people who were entwined together froze, staring at the men who had intruded on them. Gibbs glowered at the couple. The snort Fornell let out did not improve his mood. "Get your asses up!" Gibbs growled. He could see Tony's phone sitting out on a pile of pink clothing. Pulling on a rubber glove, he grabbed the phone before one of them could. "Get some clothes on, now!"

The two shook out their clothes and the girl said, "That's my phone."

"Where did you get it?"

"I bought it!"

"From whom?"

"None of your business!"

Gibbs clenched his teeth. "McGee, Ziva, take them in," he snarled and stomped out. "And bag this," he added, holding the phone out to McGee who fumbled a bag into place so that he could drop it in. He walked a few feet away and glared out across the park.

His phone rang and he picked it up. "Gibbs."

"How do I get to you?" demanded the elder DiNozzo.

Gibbs blinked. "Where are you?"

"Dulles."

With an extreme effort, Gibbs kept his voice level. "Did it ever occur to you that they would be calling your home?"

"They didn't call the last time. They sent it by messenger service."

"To your home?" Gibbs asked, pointedly. How could so stupid a man have produced Tony?

The senior DiNozzo was silent a moment, then he cleared his throat. "Well, we're at Dulles now. How do I get to you?"

"Tell the cab to take you to the Navy Yards. I'll call ahead and they'll let you in."

"Fine." And he hung up before Gibbs could ask what they'd sent. It had to be something serious to get Leonard DiNozzo out of New York when neither awards nor his son's near-fatal illness had achieved the feat.

"What's up?" Fornell asked, appearing behind him. Their subordinates between them were managing the pair of young lovers.

"I know where Tony's father was going," Gibbs said.

"Where?"

"Here. He just called asking how to get to NCIS headquarters."

"You're kidding!" Fornell stared at him and Gibbs gave him a disgusted look. "Okay, of course you're not kidding, but that's insane. He left the place where the kidnappers were contacting him to come here? Doesn't he know anything?"

"According to Tony, he knows a thing or two about offshore corporations," Gibbs replied. "Let's move."

"Why'd he come?"

"He got something, from the kidnappers presumably. I don't know what, but if it got that man off his –" Gibbs broke off and calmed himself. "I want to know what it is."

Fornell gave him a curious look, but he didn't say anything else all the way back to the cars. Gibbs fully expected Fornell to raise a stink about who got to question the couple and where, but he must have been as eager to get hold of DiNozzo's father as Gibbs was, because he split them up and sent the girl, Misty Rogers, with the NCIS group. She rode in the back with Ziva, her hands cuffed in front of her, tears streaming down her face in an unsuccessful bid for sympathy. None of them spoke for quite a while, and it seemed to grate on the girl. "I didn't do anything wrong," she said finally, glaring at Gibbs, who glanced up at the rearview mirror to see.

"Possession of stolen property is a crime, Misty," Ziva said.

"I don't have anything that was stolen," she said defensively. Silently, McGee held up the cell phone in its evidence bag. "That wasn't stolen. That was a gift, from Frankie."

"You said you bought it," Ziva pointed out.

"I . . . I just meant that someone bought it," Misty replied. "If it's stolen, it's got nothing to do with me."

"You had it, so it's got something to do with you," Gibbs said mildly.

"Whose is it, anyway?" The girl's voice had a shrill, irritating tone. "I mean, five cops don't usually bust in on people like that over a stolen cell phone."

"When it belongs to a missing federal agent, they do," Gibbs replied.

She blinked. "Frankie promised me a nice phone weeks ago, and he finally gave it to me this morning. I'm going to kill him!"

"How old are you?" Gibbs asked, exasperated.

"Sixteen!" she declared defiantly. He stared at her via the rearview mirror, and a moment later she grimaced. "Fourteen."

"Does Frankie have a last name?"

"Parsons," she said, full of righteous indignation. "His number is (240) 555-3719, and he lives at 15412 Goldenoak."

"McGee, get –"

"I'll have him picked up. On it, Boss."

"Misty, tell Ziva how to contact your mother," Gibbs said. She started to object, glaring at him in the mirror, but he just raised an eyebrow. By the time they reached the Navy Yards, McGee had the local police picking up Frankie Parsons, and Misty's mother was already waiting. He let McGee handle the angry mother, sent Ziva down to check on Abby, and went with Fornell to the conference room where Mr. and Mrs. DiNozzo waited.

In all the years he had worked with DiNozzo, Gibbs hadn't seen so much as wallet shot of either of the younger man's parents, so he had no idea what Tony's father looked like until he walked into the conference room. The man had his back to the door when Gibbs opened it. He turned at the sound of the latch and Gibbs found himself presented with a fair approximation of what Tony might look like in twenty years and forty pounds. Mrs. DiNozzo was sitting calmly in a chair

"Which one of you is Special Agent Gibbs?" he demanded.

"I am," Gibbs replied, and Tony's father gave him a measuring look.

"What kind of federal agent can't keep track of his underlings?"

Gibbs felt his temper surge and he just turned to Fornell. "Tobias?" The FBI agent nodded, and Gibbs walked out of the room.