Chapter 22

Gibbs was waiting for Tim's arrival. He'd already sent Tony and Ziva down to talk to Abby, hoping that there wouldn't be any reason to worry, but he also wanted to be able to confront Tim on his own. In the past, Tim had told him things he wasn't willing to tell Tony and Ziva, feeling a need to protect them. Hopefully, this wouldn't be a case where there was any need for it, whether real or perceived.

The elevator dinged and Tim got off. Gibbs stood as soon as he saw Tim. Tim looked at him and then nodded and got back on the elevator. Gibbs suppressed a smile and walked over to join him. He sent the elevator back down but stopped it only seconds after the door closed.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"I can't tell you, Boss," Tim said.

"Why not?"

"Because the person I was talking to could get into big trouble if anyone ever knew that he'd agreed to help me." Tim paused and then he smiled a little. "And you have a rule about secrets. The best thing is to keep it to yourself. That's what I'm doing. He asked that I not tell anyone and I'm not telling anyone. My guards know where I went, but I even asked them not to report it."

"What help?"

"We can't issue a BOLO for Marc Logan, but we need some way of tracking him," Tim said. His eyes darkened for a moment, and Gibbs wondered what he was thinking about. "This person promised to try. He isn't making any guarantees, but he's going to try to help me get some information. As soon as I get to my desk, I'm going to send him the file we have and hope that it's enough."

"How many different people are you getting help from?" Gibbs asked.

He was surprised when Tim actually smiled sheepishly.

"Not counting you guys? Three. Unless you're talking about more than finding Levi. Then, the number goes up."

Gibbs rolled his eyes a little, but he was surprised at how widely Tim was casting the net in his efforts to find Carew. The effort Tim was expending was a little concerning. The longer Carew was missing, the less likely it was that they'd find him alive.

"What if he's dead when you find him?" Gibbs asked, deciding to address it explicitly, rather than hope for the best.

"I'll be disappointed," Tim said, raising an eyebrow. He clearly wasn't sure why Gibbs was asking.

"Just disappointed?"

"What are you trying to get at, Boss?" Tim asked.

"You know how unlikely it is that he's still alive after this long?"

"No," Tim said, sounding almost stern. "I don't know that and neither do you. You're comparing this to normal situations and it's not a normal situation. I am not giving up on this until we know one way or another, and yes, if Levi is dead when we find him, I'll probably be upset. I don't care that you won't be, that you're probably hoping for it. I don't need you to prepare me for that possibility. I already know it exists."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you care so much about him, Tim? Don't give me that crap about him needing help. It's not about that for you. It's not even about you promising to help him if he needed it. This goes beyond him trying to change. What is it? Because the things you're doing now are beyond a person needing help. This is more like what you did for us."

There was a slight smile. "Are you jealous, Boss?"

"McGee!" he said, more than a little irritated.

"Are you ready to really hear what I have to say? Can you open your mind enough to understand me or are you asking just to contradict me again?"

Gibbs was annoyed but at the same time, he could see that this was something Tim would refuse to explain unless he felt that Gibbs would let him. This wasn't about making an argument. This was something Tim felt so deeply that he wasn't willing to share it with anyone he didn't trust to accept it.

"I'm listening, McGee," he said more calmly.

Tim nodded and sighed.

"All the reasons I've given you are why I'm doing it, but you're right. There's more. There's another reason and it's the most important one as far as I'm concerned. It's the reason that makes the others superfluous. I would help Levi even without those other things, even if he wasn't trying to change. I would still want to help him. There's something I owe him that I can't repay, just like he feels he owes me something he can't repay. I just haven't told him how I feel."

"What's that?"

"He kept me from turning into him or, worse, into someone like Marc Logan, willing to kill for no reason. Every time I think about it, I remember what he said to me."

"About what?"

"When I broke for the first time. I was going to kill my handler, get revenge for everything she had done to me, and I wanted to do it and I was going to do it. He stopped me when there was no earthly reason why he should. If all he really cared about was stopping them, it wouldn't have mattered who killed her. It could have been me and I would have done it. I almost did, but he would not allow it. And I can still hear his voice, the words he whispered in my ear when I was falling apart at the seams."

"What did he say?"

"'You don't have to become me.'"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow in a silent question. This was the lynchpin of what was driving Tim, and he wanted the full explanation. Tim met his gaze without flinching. What he was about to say could not be contradicted, Gibbs saw. Tim would not accept contradiction. It would be like spitting in his face if someone tried.

Gibbs just gestured and Tim nodded again.

"I didn't get it back then. And then, I didn't really think about it all that much, but the last year or so, I have. I've thought about it a lot. When I see my wife in the kitchen because she insists that I need a square meal." Tim smiled. "When I get up in the morning and see her sleeping. When I go running with my dog. The life I have right now, Boss, is one that I have because Levi Carew refused to let me make a decision I could never have recovered from. It's been hard enough just knowing that I helped track down people and watched them killed. If I had deliberately shot my handler... I couldn't have made it. I couldn't be the person I've always been if I had killed her. Levi Carew saved my soul that day because he didn't want me to be the kind of person he felt he had to become. He told me once that he'd never wished that someone had done the same thing for him, but that was because no one did it to him. He did it to himself, deliberately. He knows how it feels and I could have become him. I could have become worse than him. He didn't allow it and...I feel that I have to do what I can to help him get the life he wants to have now. I have to. Not because anyone is forcing me, but because it's the only way I can truly show my gratitude for what he did. And I will do anything that I have to do to save him if I can."

Gibbs wanted to say that Tim didn't owe Carew anything, that the fact that Carew showed one moment of humanity in the midst of breaking Tim down didn't absolve him of everything else he'd done. He wanted to shake some sense into Tim, tell him that he would never have been like Carew, that he should just let Carew go and live his life without thinking about him.

He wanted to say all that, but he didn't. He understood that Tim wouldn't listen to what he had to say, and Gibbs could even acknowledge that it wasn't his life. It was Tim's life and that was the important thing. Tim had trusted him enough to tell him how he felt, and now, Gibbs knew that he had two choices: to break that trust by doing exactly what Tim had feared he would or support Tim even if he didn't necessarily agree with him.

"Okay," Gibbs said.

That was all, but he saw the relief in Tim's eyes.

"What now?" Gibbs asked.

"Now, you let me get to my desk so I can send Logan's file to...the person I'm sending it to," Tim said with a bit of a smile.

Gibbs smiled, too, and then turned the elevator back on. It went back up to the bullpen and he watched as Tim hurried over to his desk and started working. In a way, even though he hated that they were making all this effort for Carew, he was glad to see Tim working normally and acting normally. He wasn't really suffering. He was worried, but not tormented as he'd been far too often. All in all, even if he disagreed with Tim, he was glad with the way things were going in general.

Now, it was just a matter of seeing if they could make any of the information they'd gathered turn into something substantial.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

They'd left him alone for long enough that he could get to the farm again.

He was back to walking along the track beside the canal. Was he feeling wind? He smiled and looked at the trees lining the canal. They waved back and forth. Yes, there was a breeze. A cool breeze.

In the past, he'd wondered why it was a farm he'd chosen for his escape. He didn't remember consciously choosing it. His father had used a forest trail, winding amongst the trees, but he had always used a farm. Wide open. Lots of space around. And the pleasant sound of water flowing in the canal.

How close was he to the end he sought? He'd never made it there before. He didn't know what it should look like.

He did know who he hoped was there, though.

He continued along the path, knowing he was getting closer.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Well?" Tim asked, almost as soon as he stepped into Abby's lab.

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"You're a little eager for someone who was late to work today," he said.

Tim smiled. "I had a meeting."

"With whom?"

"Can't share that, unfortunately. It's one of the requirements, but I promise that there were no deals beyond that I wouldn't say anything. It might not pan out, but it's another avenue."

"Are you sure that this is safe, Tim?" Ziva asked, seeming very concerned. "I do not like you getting yourself into something without help."

"I promise, Ziva," Tim said, smiling. "Cross my heart and hope to die. This isn't a trick. It's just an anonymous source and it has to stay that way. So have you found anything about Jorgenson?"

Abby tried to look annoyed, but she couldn't. She grinned.

"He hasn't been hiding his movements at all. I had to call in some favors since we're not exactly doing this kosher-like."

"I appreciate it," Tim said.

"You'd better," Abby said, severely. "So Jorgenson's address is in New Jersey, but lately, he's been using his credit card pretty far from home."

"Where?" Tony asked. "Here?"

"Well, here, but also another place."

"Where?" Tim asked, eagerly. Maybe the NSA wouldn't be necessary at all.

"A gas station."

"Which one, Abby?" Tim asked.

He could see that she was trying to get him frustrated, but he just wanted her to share her information. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Abby, get on with it," Gibbs said from behind him.

Tim was grateful because Abby would always listen to Gibbs, but she didn't always want to listen to Tim.

"Okay, okay. Boston."

"Massachusetts?" Tim asked. "That's a long way to have transported..."

"No. South Boston. It's in Virginia." She brought it up on a digital map.

"It is not far from where the cabin was," Ziva said, leaning forward.

"Not very far at all," Abby said. She put up a dot on South Boston and then put another dot on the Carew address. The distance was maybe twenty or thirty miles.

"How often has he been getting gas there?" Tim asked.

"Four times in the last month. Considering he lives in New Jersey, that's a lot of times to be buying gas in a tiny town in Virginia."

"What about before that?" Tim asked, curious now.

"Why before that?" Abby asked. "Even if there was advance planning, would he need to be down there?"

"I don't know. Just a thought," Tim said.

"A thought about what, Probie?" Tony asked. "I don't like it when you start thinking without sharing."

Tim smiled, but it didn't last long. This wasn't a happy memory and he hesitated even bringing it up.

"Well, when Jorgenson was trying to get control of me...before... People said he wasn't smart enough to do that on his own, that he probably had someone else doing the planning for him."

"You think it was Logan?" Tony asked, skeptically. "That's a reach."

"If he wants something and Jorgenson could get back into politics, wouldn't he be the one to use as Logan's way back in?"

"It is possible," Ziva said, "but would Jorgenson be aware of Logan's history?"

"Who knows?" Tim said. "We already know he's willing to do some pretty underhanded stuff himself. But regardless, Jorgenson has been near Levi's cabin in the time frame that we're looking at. Is there any legitimate reason he could be down there? Family? Vacation property?"

"Not that I've found," Abby said.

"He could just like the area, though," Tony said. "You know that."

"I do, but it's quite a coincidence, don't you think, Boss?" Tim asked, smiling a little as he intentionally brought Gibbs into it.

"Too much of a coincidence," Gibbs agreed, although he seemed almost reluctant. "What do you want to do?"

"Abby, could you see if he's made any other trips down there? People tend to follow routine, right? If he's used the same gas station for the last four times..."

"Maybe he's been a valued customer?" Abby asked, smiling.

"It's worth a shot, right?"

"If you say it is, then it is, Tim. How far back do you want to go?"

"Couple of years?" Tim suggested.

"Okay, but that might take longer."

"That's fine."

"You want to go down there?" Tony asked.

"Not yet. And when we do, I'll want it to be someone other than me. Jorgenson would know me on sight, and I don't think he'd fail to come to the correct conclusion, no matter how strange it might seem," Tim said.

"Well, Lauren Sutton said that Logan wasn't the one she'd seen, but she was willing to try and build some kind of sketch. Maybe we could get her down here," Tony suggested. "Might help to get a look at who else we might need to watch for."

"Good idea," Tim said. "You and Ziva should get her here, since she's already met you both."

They both nodded and headed out. Tim was about to see if Gibbs had any thoughts, when his phone rang. He saw it was Daniel's number and he quickly answered.

"Agent McGee."

"Tim, I may have something for you."

"What?"

"Give me a few hours, and I'll call you back, but if this pans out, I might have a location."

"What?" Tim said again, now with more than a little surprise.

"That's a definite maybe, Tim. I just wanted to let you know that I've definitely got a lead. I just have to see where it leads."

"Can you give me a hint?"

"Sure. Turns out that Logan may have had a girlfriend way back when."

"Oh. That's...not even something I'd considered."

"Me, neither. For obvious reasons. I'll get back to you."

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know."

"You're welcome. Bye."

Tim hung up and then turned and saw both Abby and Gibbs looking at him expectantly.

"Well?" Abby asked. "What was it?"

"A possible lead. Daniel thinks that he might be able to track down an old girlfriend of Logan's."

"Wow. When will you know?"

"When he tells me," Tim said with a smile.

Abby rolled her eyes, but then, she looked at Gibbs.

"Hey, Gibbs. You're not doing anything, right?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"You can help me dig into the ancient past! You'll fit right in!"

Tim laughed and then tried to stifle it when Gibbs glanced at him.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Tim said and made good his escape.

When he was out of the lab, he stopped smiling, though. He'd heard something in Daniel's voice that he recognized...from himself. It wasn't a pleasant sound. It was an edge that said this was really affecting him. Tim knew also that Daniel wouldn't want to be out of it, but he could tell that he'd still not really got over the trauma of being a hunted man.

Tim knew the feeling well, and he just hoped he could avoid that same sensation for as long as possible.

But for now, there was always work to do.