Chapter 11

"Boss!" McGee said, hurrying over as they got out of the elevator. "I've found Denise Rimbauer."

Gibbs stopped short, ready to reverse course once he had an address. "Where is she?" he demanded when McGee didn't immediately pop up with the information.

"Mercy General," McGee said, and Gibbs turned to go. "She's in a coma, Boss. She was found shot in the head early Monday morning. Abby and I actually found her at the same time. She was running the casings we found at the scene of Alkire's death and I was tracking the name. She was shot with the weapon we found in the warehouse."

"Any other hits on the casings?"

"A few. Abby –"

"I didn't ask Abby, I asked you."

"Three shootings in the greater metropolitan area," McGee said promptly. "Including Rimbauer, and over the past three months. Four shootings in Pennsylvania, over the previous six months. Before that, nothing."

"Any suspects in any of those shootings?"

"No leads, Boss. The seven shootings took place in six different counties, and the departments hadn't made the connections yet."

"What about the gun?"

"Purchased in '96 by a man named Ronald Chesney, it was stolen from his widow approximately nine –"

"Nine months ago," Gibbs finished for him. "Damn it!" He glanced over at Fornell, but before he could speak, he saw Jenny standing on mezzanine. She clearly wanted to talk to him, and the DiNozzos weren't anywhere in evidence so he made a quick calculation and sighed. "Fornell, what next?"

"You're asking me?" Fornell asked, giving him a startled look.

"I need to go talk to my director," he said. "And then I want to go check on Rimbauer. What's your next move?"

"I've got a couple of phone calls to make. If you're out when I'm done, I'll go with you to see Rimbauer."

Gibbs nodded and went up the stairs. Jenny turned away as he approached and led him towards her office, which he was glad to find was free of DiNozzos. She held the door for him and shut it behind. "I'm impressed that you haven't murdered that man, Jethro," she said.

"It wouldn't help me find DiNozzo, now would it?" Gibbs asked.

"No, it wouldn't, but it would feel good." She glared in the direction of the conference room. "By the way, what did you say to DiNozzo on the phone that's got him so riled up?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I told him he was late, which is true." He glanced at the clock. "He's missed two days of work without leave."

Jenny gave him a peculiar look. "I think I'll grant him an exception," she said. "That all?" Gibbs nodded. "For a man who seems to care less about his son's health than what his son's situation will look like in the eyes of the world, he's certainly bent on having you censured for speaking harshly to him."

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "He thinks of Tony as an extension of himself – look what he named him."

"So if you're rude to Tony, you're being rude to him?" she asked.

"Is this all you wanted, Jenny? I have work to do."

"I'd like an update. What have you learned that isn't on paper? Everything."

Much as he begrudged the time it would take, he knew Jenny. She could move heaven and earth from her position, and she would if need be. However, she needed up to date information for that to be productive. He filled her in as quickly as he could and hurried back downstairs to join Fornell.

"Gibbs?" Ziva said as he passed her desk, and he looked down at her. "Some of my contacts know of an American man calling himself just Peter who is an arms merchant of sorts."

"Of sorts?" Gibbs repeated, not sure what it meant.

"He was described as a dilettante. I do not know if he is the man we are looking for, but I thought I would float the name and see if I found any connections."

"What else do they know about him?"

"Only that he was described by a former associate as psychotic," she said with a worried look. "It may not be the man."

"But it may. Squeeze every detail you can out of this former associate."

He heard her protesting as he strode toward the elevator but he didn't pause to find out why. She'd resolve it or she wouldn't. He'd seen that Fornell was ready to go, and he wasn't waiting.

McGee was chasing through the reports on all the shootings that had been connected to the gun they had in evidence on the off chance that he'd catch something the PDs hadn't. When he found a partial fingerprint in one of the files, he ran it down to Abby instantly, but it matched up quickly with the victim of the crime. Abby started babbling angrily about the inept forensics technicians who had failed to identify the print, but he just sat at the nearby table and kept going through the files. Maybe one of those inept technicians had left evidence they could actually use.

Each shooting followed a similar pattern. No witnesses, there was no significant physical evidence that didn't point to the victim him or herself. And they were all shot in the head from the front. Only Denise Rimbauer had lived, and her continued survival was chancy. For four of the shootings, there was no obvious motive. The other four . . . one followed an illegal arms deal, one was connected to armed robbery at a jewelry store, a third had followed a bank robbery, and the last was Denise Rimbauer. In each of these cases, the victim was identified as a participant in the earlier crime.

In four of the shootings, the person killed was an accomplice, which struck him as significant. In the case of illegal arms dealing, the gun shop which had bought the weapons reported a man named Peter being involved in the transaction, but no one had ever seen him. The only people they'd met with were the man who had later been killed and a woman no one could describe as anything other than ordinary. There was a sketch included, and McGee shook his head. He could think of half a dozen women who could be identified from it, including Ziva, so that was no help.

He handed it across to Abby anyway to do facial recognition on and waited for the inevitable multiple matches.

Tony felt something in his right ear, and he tried automatically to brush it away. His right arm wouldn't move, it was held between his side and what felt like a leg. It didn't make sense in his beleaguered mind. A firm hand took hold of his left wrist and pressed it back against a soft surface. A gentle voice spoke close to his left ear. "Quiet, Tony, I'm just taking your temperature."

He finally got his eyes opened. Light stabbed them, but he found he was looking very closely at a shock of curly hair and a brown eye. Peter. Reluctantly, he stopped trying to remove the object from his ear, and Peter released his wrist and sat back. "That's better, Tony, isn't it?" he asked.

Tony blinked at him. He coughed as minimally as he could, trying to avoid the wracking pain true coughing caused in his chest. A beep sounded in his ear and he winced. Peter removed the thermometer and read it. "You didn't eat your soup," he said noncommittally.

"Lola practically spat in it," Tony said, and he couldn't believe how petulant he sounded. "I wasn't hungry anyway."

"You can't get better if you don't eat, Tony," Peter said, stroking Tony's cheek. "When did you last have your cough syrup?"

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. "Not sure." He had to pause for a fit of coughing, and this time he didn't manage to get away with faking himself out. He was shaking by the end of it, and clutching the blankets. "Only took it once," he managed to gasp out.

"Well, then, it's time for some more," Peter said. "Lola, see if you can get some antibiotics from one of your friendly druggists."

As she agreed and left the room, Tony wondered how it was that he had failed to notice her presence up till then. Peter held some syrup out to him on a spoon Tony swallowed, feeling ridiculously helpless. Breathing shallowly, he managed to speak without coughing. "Why don't I think you mean legitimate pharmacies?" he asked.

"Oh, some of them are," Peter said. "More or less." He pressed a cold cloth to Tony's forehead, then picked up a tray, resting it on his lap. "Now, I've got some fresh soup, and Lola has never touched the spoon or the bowl. If you're worried that it's poisoned, I brought an extra spoon for a taste test, so you won't have to worry about my saliva either." Tony looked at him blankly. Apparently taking that for assent, he scooped up some soup and tried to feed Tony.

Tony started to protest that he could feed himself, but in his incredulity took in a deeper breath than was wise. He started to cough and wound up curled into a ball on his side before the paroxysms subsided. He had his back to Peter, but he could feel the other man stroking his back gently. He took a careful breath and said, "I can feed myself."

"Very well, but I'm going to sit right here and make sure."

So Tony ate most of a bowl of chicken soup under Peter's watchful eye. His stomach woke up and declared its independence from his appetite the minute the soup hit, and he managed to get most of it down before he started falling asleep again. Peter took the tray away and put aside, coming back to sit next to Tony on the bed. He took Tony's hand and smoothed the hair away from his brow.

"Do you have any idea how creepy you are?" Tony asked, his mouth losing all connection to the common sense areas of his brain.

"Creepy, Tony?" Peter said chidingly. "I'm just concerned about your health and welfare."

"I want to go home," Tony replied pathetically, and he couldn't believe he was being so frank. "Does that cough syrup have codeine?"

"It does," Peter replied. "Is that a problem?"

Tony blinked. It was a problem only in that pain medications tended to make Tony say whatever came into his head, and that was really not a good idea right now. "Just wondering," Tony said. Another fit of coughing took him, and he rolled on his side again. Peter began stroking his back again. Tony was reasonably sure it was meant to be soothing, but he didn't find it soothing to be lying naked in a bed, coughing his lungs out, while being cared for by a man who had kidnapped him and whose plans were . . . he shuddered slightly.

"Let's get these blankets tucked up nice and tight. When I came in you'd kicked them off entirely." Tony swallowed convulsively, and his abused throat protested the movement vehemently. "I've got to go now," Peter said, and he kissed Tony on the back of the head. "If you wake up and you need something, just wave towards the TV. Someone will be along to look after you." After resting his hand briefly on Tony's head, Peter left the room. Tony tried to think about his situation, tried to plan some kind of escape, but before he could think past the fact that he was alone, he fell back into a fretful sleep, dreaming of Peter chasing him from room to room of his apartment, making sly innuendos but never quite catching him. They were both naked, and Tony's imagination had endowed Peter alarmingly well.