Chapter 19

Tony's father started to ask Gibbs a question when Tony seemed to have drifted off, but Gibbs shook his head. He stood up and walked to the door, beckoning the man towards him. "What?" he asked when DiNozzo had joined him.

"Is he still delirious?" DiNozzo asked. To Gibbs he sounded as if he hoped for a positive response.

Gibbs shook his head. He didn't know what to make of Tony's claims. He needed to know more of what had happened to make any kind of judgment. One thing he knew, however. "No, he was completely coherent. He's not delirious."

"But that means that this man, this Peter, is after him still."

"That was a possibility anyway," Gibbs said, and DiNozzo's eyes widened. "Why do you think we're keeping guards on you and your wife? If they don't get everything they ask for, kidnappers often try again."

DiNozzo blanched slightly. "But this sexual angle, what –"

Gibbs shook his head, and DiNozzo broke off. "We can figure that out later." He opened the door and, as he'd expected, found McGee loitering in the hall. "Get this transcribed, and then get it to Fornell," he said, handing him the tape from the micro cassette recorder. "And scare up some lunch."

"Yes, Boss," McGee said.

Gibbs walked over and sat back down, picking up his file. He'd wait to call Jenny till they had more complete information.

McGee brought hot sandwiches from a nearby deli. Gibbs wasn't surprised when Tony started to stir the moment the odors entered the room. Trust DiNozzo to be aware of food. On the other hand, they had no clear idea how much he'd gotten to eat during the three days he'd been missing. Tony put out a hand and hit the button to raise the head of the bed till he was only reclining slightly. "Did you bring me one, McGoo?" he asked.

McGee shook his head. "Not a sandwich," he replied, and Tony's face fell. McGee, however, wasn't finished. "I brought you some soup. Feraresse's has some of the best chicken soup in the world." He put a little cup on the tray table and opened it, handing Tony a spoon.

Tony leaned forward and took a small sip of the soup. "I forgive you for the lack of a sandwich," he said after tasting it. McGee grinned. "This time," he added with an attempt at intimidation, but McGee just rolled his eyes.

"Thanks, McGee," Gibbs said, and the young man took his own sandwich and left.

There was a moment of relative quiet while they all started eating, then Tony cleared his throat. "So, where were we?" he asked.

"Eating, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

"I don't know how long I'm going to stay awake. I can eat and talk."

"Eat first, then talk," Gibbs replied firmly.

"He makes good sense, son," said DiNozzo senior.

Tony looked put upon as he focused his attention on eating, but Gibbs didn't care. The boy needed to eat first, even if he fell asleep afterwards. Gibbs wasn't sure why DiNozzo senior was agreeing with him, but he was reasonably sure it wouldn't last. Long before Gibbs would have expected it, Tony pushed the bowl away. "Good as it is, I can't eat any more," he said.

Gibbs closed up the soup and put it on a side table. He gauged Tony's condition and said, "Go back to sleep."

"Boss!" Tony's voice was perilously close to a whine, a sure sign of exhaustion, and Gibbs wasn't having it.

He leaned closer. "Go to sleep, DiNozzo," he said, giving him a tap on the back of the head. DiNozzo's eyes sought his before they drooped shut.

When he sat up he found another pair of DiNozzo eyes on him. DiNozzo senior didn't say anything, he just looked at him with an expression of puzzlement. Gibbs shrugged and leaned back in his chair, getting back to work.

Tony awoke in total darkness. There was no sound at all, no beeping, no sigh of air conditioning, no noise of breathing other than his own. He lay on a soft surface, uncovered and naked. He raised his right hand to his forehead and felt the clasp of the cuff around his wrist and the weight of the chain as it rattled in response to his movement.

"No!" he breathed. He sat up sharply.

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs' voice seemed distant, but Tony blinked around him. He was no longer in darkness. He had . . . he'd . . . he shook his head at the hospital room. "Tony?" A hand landed on his shoulder, and Tony turned his head.

"Gibbs?" he murmured. "What happened . . . it was dark."

"You were dreaming, Tony," Gibbs said.

Tony rubbed his face and leaned back against the pillows. "Sorry. I didn't . . ." He sighed and glanced over, expecting his father to be looking at him contemptuously. He wasn't there. "Where's my dad?"

"With Joyce," Gibbs said. "They're having dinner."

Tony felt himself relax slightly. "How angry is he, really? About the money?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I haven't seen any sign that he is angry," he said.

"Well, it's early days, yet," Tony replied. "And I'm still helpless in the hospital. There's time." Gibbs didn't respond. For that, Tony was grateful. McGee and even Ziva might have tried to convince him he was wrong, but Gibbs knew better. "Do you have that recorder?" Tony asked.

"I do," Gibbs said, pulling it out. "So, what happened after they made the video?"

Tony grimaced. "They put me back in the stupid little room," he said. "After taking my pants off again. Oh, and I hit Butch."

"You hit him?"

"I was a little pissed," Tony said.

"Any retaliation?"

Tony shook his head. "No, Peter said something about me having a right to get some of my own back and stopped Butch from doing anything." Gibbs gazed at him for a long moment, and Tony wondered what was going on behind his eyes. "Then they cuffed me, shoved me in that room, and Peter gave me an ice pack."

"An ice pack?" Gibbs repeated.

"Yeah, I thought it was weird at the time, but I figured I needed to make him like me so they wouldn't kill me. We bantered a bit about keeping me looking my best, and then he left."

"Bantered?"

"You know, he said something about saving bloody face shots for later, I said I'd rather not." He shrugged. "Banter."

"Right. What then?"

"I was alone for hours, then they brought in dinner on one of those room service tables. It was set for two, and . . ." Tony's stomach turned over at the memory. "And Peter and I had dinner together. He left me naked and cuffed, and we ate with spoons. It was very strange. He told me he liked me better than Butch and Lola, and that he'd spent more time watching me than watching my father, and when we were done with the food, he didn't go away. He kept trying to make conversation." Gibbs was watching him, eyes narrowed and unreadable. "Seriously, Boss. It was the weirdest thing."

"I believe you, DiNozzo," Gibbs said in his calm voice, and Tony sighed with relief.

"It was beyond creepy," he added with a shudder.

"Sounds like it." Gibbs' voice demonstrated the sympathy he didn't express verbally. "Go on."

"When he left, he and Butch gave me a brandy with some kind of sedative in it. I . . ." He bit his lip. "I didn't just drink it right off, but once Butch had wrestled me to the ground, it seemed kind of pointless to refuse." Gibbs shrugged with understanding, and Tony made a face. "I drank it down and passed out very quickly. Next thing I knew, I was gagged and restrained within an inch of my life in a car trunk." Gibbs looked up sharply and their eyes met, and Tony could tell that the memory of Lt. Commander Wilkerson's ordeal was in his mind. "It was . . . bad. I was already having trouble breathing when I woke up, and it just got worse from there."

"How long were you in the trunk?"

"I don't know, exactly. I couldn't reach the taillights or the emergency release, but I could reach the back seats, just barely. I pounded until Peter opened one of them." Tony leaned his head back against the pillows. Gibbs looked appalled. "He said I couldn't have been in the trunk more than four hours and basically called me a wuss, told me that a normally healthy adult shouldn't be having real problems yet, so I explained why I was different." The memory of himself stuffed into a trunk, bound so tightly that he could barely move and pleading for air, made him tremble with anger. "Peter agreed to leave the gag out and hold the seat open far enough to let in a bit of fresh air, but he told me he'd shoot me if I shouted." Tony made a face. "Not that I could have if I tried. I couldn't get a deep breath without coughing my lungs out. Butch kept saying that it would be easier to just kill me. That they could shoot me and roll my body down the hill where we were."

"Did you see where you were?" Gibbs asked.

"Not a lot. Just that there wasn't much traffic, there were a lot of trees and the sun was really bright after being shut up in the trunk." Gibbs nodded. "So, I have no idea how long the drive was after that. It was . . ." He shuddered. "I tried to look out when it became clear we were stopping, but Peter held the seat until we were in the garage of the house. Butch dragged me out of the trunk and dumped me on the floor because I couldn't stand. I still couldn't figure out why they were keeping me alive, but then Peter said something about my father expecting to talk to me later. After a while, Peter took me through this underground tunnel from the garage into the house – for weather I guess," he added when Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "We went through the basement, and that's when I started to have real suspicions that Peter wanted more than money out of me."

"Why?"

Tony pursed his lips. "Because of something he said. I started resisting, sort of. I really didn't think I could face the stairs out of the basement, and there was a box of baseball supplies down there, and I just wanted to rest, and maybe dig in that box for a bat." Gibbs snorted and Tony gave him a weak grin. "Well, when I stopped moving and asked him why I should bother if he was just going to kill me in the end, he –"

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs exclaimed, sounding exasperated.

Tony grimaced. "Anyway, he told me he wasn't going to kill me, that he had other plans for me." Tony put his hands over his face. "He said that, mind you, with his hand on my cheek, like I was a girl he was trying to reassure or something. Then he pushed me ahead of him and up the stairs. I . . . I started coughing on the stairs, and Peter had to steady me, and he didn't let go right away."

"Where was he touching you?"

"On my back, but he was . . . it was like he was caressing." Tony scowled. "Man, this sucks! I so don't want this going down in the record anywhere."

That Gibbs understood Tony's feelings was evident in his voice if not in his words. "Go on, DiNozzo."

"He suggested that I might want a shower and cuffed me to one of those old people rails in a bathtub. I took the stupid shower, but then I wound up sitting there for what seemed like hours, damp and freezing. He came back and called me 'Tony dear' and asked how I was doing. When he saw that I was shivering, he wrapped a thick robe around me and cuffed me again, with my hands in front." Tony realized that he was rubbing the bandages on his wrists and stopped. "So, he took me into a room with an attached bath, a bed, a bedside table, a couple of chairs, and these really strange white walls that looked almost like glass. I –" Tony broke off, swallowing. "It was a panic room, Boss, but he'd fixed it so I couldn't open it from the inside." Gibbs' eyes were wide. "I sat down because I really couldn't stand up anymore, but when I saw . . ." Tony swallowed convulsively. "You remember that bastard who was so into the fifties that he chained women to walls and tried to train them to be good wives?" Gibbs nodded, brows knitting. "He had a chain like those, attached to the wall by the bed. I . . . they had to taser me to get me into it."

"He chained you to the wall?"

Tony nodded. "Naked, chained to a wall, in a bedroom where everything was attached to the floor or too lightweight to be any threat to anyone. There was cable, and he promised me DVDs, too." Tony paused to gulp down the lump of panic rising in his throat, and threatening to choke off his words. "Boss, he said he was going to keep me. He said the only reason he took this job was because when he went to take a look at me, he . . ." Tony couldn't finish that sentence. "He said he was going to find a body and burn it and leave it somewhere to be found as Tony DiNozzo so no one would be looking for me."

"What about the ransom?" Gibbs asked.

Tony's stomach flipped over. "He said it was required to provide an explanation for my disappearance. Boss, he was serious, he meant it and he . . ." Tony shivered. "He kept doing things like running his fingers through my hair and stroking my face. Lola and Butch both knew about it. She said I had too much attitude to last long. Boss, if he let me go before he got the ransom, he's not done. He just didn't want me to die before he could . . . could . . ."

A nurse came bustling in and Tony realized that his heart monitor was beeping wildly. She pushed him gently back onto the bed and shot a glare at Gibbs. "I think you should wait outside, sir," she said.

"No!" Tony exclaimed. "No, I don't want . . . he needs to stay."

"Not if he's stressing you out," she replied.

"It's not him that's causing the stress. If he wasn't here, I'd be . . ." Tony stopped, he didn't want to verbalize that he'd be a basket case. "Just stay, Boss," he said to Gibbs instead.

"Not going anywhere, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

Tony was panting now. Fear had shortened his breath when the nurse had ordered Gibbs out of the room, and he was having trouble recovering. He lay back, his right hand pressed to his chest, deeply embarrassed by his reaction. Nevertheless, the mere idea of Gibbs leaving made him anxious. The nurse made few checks and then left. Tony tried to think of something casual to say to play off his utter humiliation, but nothing came.

"You think you could do a sketch of them?" Gibbs asked when Tony had calmed down, and he nodded.

"Where did you find Butch?" Tony asked.

Gibbs paused for a millisecond, then came across with the goods. "He was in the trunk of the car you were dropped off in."

"Did they leave any evidence?"

Gibbs sighed. "Abby reported it as a complete lack of evidence."

Tony grimaced unhappily. He'd been afraid of that. "So, what about the other woman?" he asked. "Any leads on who she is?"

Gibbs reached into his file again and pulled out a photograph. Tony took it and looked at it. "That's her. I didn't see her for long, and she was moving, but I'm pretty sure that's her."

"Denise Rimbauer," Gibbs said. "Shot in the head the night after the kidnapping. She's in a coma."

Tony gulped. "Do we know why?"

"She talked a lot," Gibbs said. "To a lot of people."

"Four of them, huh?" Tony said. He leaned his head back and started drifting without even realizing it.

Author's Note: Ferraresse's is the name of a deli near where I worked when I wrote this. I can't actually attest to their chicken soup, but though I love their BLTs, that's not really invalid food. :D