Chapter 16

Gibbs blinked. "Okay, that's it," he said. "We're done. I'm calling the op."

"No, Boss!" Tony exclaimed. "We can't, we don't have enough."

"We have plenty, and we have avenues to pursue to get more." He finished his meal and started the car.

"I can handle it, Boss."

"You don't have to handle it."

"I don't want you to stop the operation because I didn't like watching –" DiNozzo broke off and looked out the windshield.

"That's not why," Gibbs said, and Tony gave him a disbelieving look. Gibbs shrugged. "It's too dangerous, DiNozzo. The gains aren't commensurate to the risks."

"Okay, Boss," Tony said, but the way he thumped his head against the headrest of his chair made it clear that he wasn't happy. Gibbs didn't know what to say, so he just kept driving. Finally, they were walking out of the elevator.

Kate jumped up from her desk and came running over. "Tony, are you okay?"

"Peachy," DiNozzo said.

"Tony, you –" Kate started, but Gibbs could see DiNozzo's temper fraying.

"Is Ducky here?" Gibbs interjected.

"No," she said.

"DiNozzo, with me," he ordered, and he headed up the stairs to the director's office. DiNozzo followed him silently.

"Agent Gibbs, Agent DiNozzo, please, sit down," Morrow said. Gibbs closed the door behind him and sat down. He hoped the director had not failed to notice the stiffness with which DiNozzo was moving.

"I'm calling the op, director," he said immediately, not wanting to mince words. "It's gotten too dangerous for DiNozzo, and I can't continue it without him."

"Please explain your reasoning, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs pursed his lips. "Sullivan keeps escalating, and he used the excuse of this radio snafu to basically torture DiNozzo for two hours, physically and mentally."

DiNozzo let out a startled exclamation. "I was just tied to a chair."

"You were blindfolded, gagged and tied to a chair in a position you have yet to describe to me, half naked in a room that was deliberately heated to the point where you were perspiring, and you were there for about two hours. Is that accurate?"

DiNozzo grimaced, but he nodded. "Yeah, Boss."

Morrow leaned forward. "What position, if I may ask?"

DiNozzo shrugged, and the movement caused him to wince. "My arms were cuffed behind me, then attached to the chair back somehow. It was solid, I couldn't even shake it."

"I can see damage to the sides of your mouth from the gag," Morrow said, and DiNozzo rubbed the corners of his mouth self-consciously. "Was it tied that tightly?"

"It wasn't tied, sir," DiNozzo said. "It was . . . it was a bit, essentially, buckled behind my head."

"I see."

Gibbs saw that DiNozzo wasn't going to say anything more. "And then he was moved into a room that was deliberately cooled to mess with his head, then threatened with violent sexual assault."

"The demonstration?" Morrow asked, and Gibbs nodded. "How bad was it?" he asked, turning to DiNozzo.

Gibbs glanced at his agent's face and saw that DiNozzo looked particularly blank. Gibbs cleared his throat. "He described it as being raped by proxy."

DiNozzo turned his head sharply to look at him, then bit his lip. "It was . . . disturbing, sir," he said to Morrow.

"I can see that."

"Furthermore, director, we have evidence of multiple crimes that can be directly attributed to Sullivan, and we now have people we can get information from, some of whom probably won't be that hard to convince to talk."

"Hogan?" DiNozzo asked.

"Him, and I doubt Simon would hold out for long."

"Do we arrest him now?" Morrow asked.

"The sooner the better," Gibbs said. "Pick up the others, too, and have someone go get our stuff from the hotel."

DiNozzo nodded. "I can –"

"Not you, DiNozzo," Gibbs said to him. Turning to Director Morrow, he added, "I want him taken to the hospital and checked out."

"I agree."

"I'm good," DiNozzo said. "I don't need –"

"It's not a discussion, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "You're injured, you're already targeted by most of these guys, you're not going."

"I'll have someone drive him over," Morrow said.

"I don't need to be driven," DiNozzo complained. "If you're going to cut me out of the arrest phase, fine, but I'm okay to drive."

"Agent McGee?" Gibbs suggested.

"I think that's an excellent idea," Morrow said.

Before a half hour had passed, Tony found himself on the way to Bethesda in the custody of someone who wasn't even a real field agent. "Are you okay?" McGee asked.

"I'm fine, that's why they want me to go to the hospital," Tony said.

"Oh," McGee said uncomfortably. "I didn't . . . I meant . . ."

Tony sighed. "Sorry, kid. I'm just a little on edge."

"I don't blame you. Agent Todd couldn't figure out what was happening, but it seemed pretty obvious to me."

"Why didn't you tell her?"

"I couldn't imagine saying any of that to her. She's so . . ."

"Yeah," Tony said with a snort. "She is."

"You find her intimidating, too?" McGee said, sounding startled.

Since that hadn't been what Tony thought he was going to say, he shrugged, clenching his teeth against the pain of his strained shoulders. "Sometimes."

McGee pulled up outside Bethesda's emergency room. "I'm supposed to leave you here and go back to help with the computer searches," he said. "Is this okay?

"Sure, I can take it from here," Tony said. He got out. "See ya, kid."

McGee drove off and Tony considered for about thirty seconds the option of calling a cab and just going home. He shook his head. As Gibbs might say, the rewards were not commensurate to the risks. Sighing, he went inside and checked himself in. There followed a lot of poking and prodding, the question of whether he needed a rape kit – no, he did not. The nurses made tut-tut noises over his bite marks, and if he didn't feel up to flirting with them, that was just icing on the cake of his day.

It was about eight a.m. when they finally released him. He called Gibbs. "What did the doctor say?" Gibbs asked.

"That I should take a few days off, go home and get some rest. I figured I could just come in and –"

"Nope. Go home. You haven't slept in twenty-four hours, get some sleep, come in tomorrow."

"Gibbs, I can –"

"That's an order, DiNozzo." And being Gibbs, he didn't wait for a response, he just hung up.

Tony found a cab and went back to his place. He unlocked the door and walked into blessed solitude. Locking the door behind him, he went and took a long, steamy shower. When he finally felt clean, he fell into bed and slept like a rock for eight solid hours.

He looked over at the clock and read the numbers. Four in the afternoon. He'd slept the day away. He reached over and picked up the phone to call Gibbs. He got voice mail, so he tried Kate instead. She answered. "Tony, how are you?"

"Fine," he said, though he ached all over and all he wanted to do was go back to bed. "How's it going?"

"Hogan spilled enough on Sullivan to keep him in prison for years," Kate said. "And he's not the only one. Gibbs is in with Sullivan now."

Tony would have given a lot to see that. "So, I'm just going to get cleaned up and come –"

"Gibbs left orders that you not come in until tomorrow at the earliest, Tony," Kate said. "You need some rest."

"And he doesn't want Sullivan to see me."

"That could be part of it," Kate agreed, thinking of the sheer fury Gibbs had been quietly demonstrating all day.

Kate heard Tony's sigh, but abruptly, Gibbs strode up out of nowhere and snatched the phone out of her hand. "DiNozzo, I thought I told you to rest," Gibbs said. He listened for about a second, then said, "Well, watch a movie or something. I don't want to see you here till tomorrow." And then he hung up before Tony could possibly have responded, slamming the phone down on her desk. So . . . the fury was mostly quiet.

Kate looked up at her boss. "You know he's going to come in anyway, don't you?"

"Well, then I'll just have McGee drive him home again." Gibbs said in a bad tempered tone. "Have we figured out yet what happened with those radios?"

Kate grimaced. "Yes. The tech who was given the task of putting the product together was told that it was for an undercover operation and made the assumption that it was a sting, and that no more than the first few boxes would be tested."

Gibbs glowered at her for what felt like several minutes. "He didn't ask any questions?"

"No, apparently. He says, furthermore, that he wouldn't want to give good radios to bad guys anyway."

"Did you point out to him that the undercover operatives he was supporting could have been killed based on his blunder?" Gibbs asked.

Kate nodded. "I did, and I also spoke to his supervisor."

Gibbs pressed his lips together firmly. "Have you got any new information on Steinman?"

She shook her head. "I'm still looking, Gibbs."

"Stop looking and start finding!" Gibbs snapped and walked away towards the coffee machine. Kate took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then got back to work.


After hanging up the phone, Tony rolled out of bed and went to the kitchen. He stuffed a breakfast burrito in the microwave and leaned against the counter, waiting for it to cook. When it was done, he grabbed it and cursed the hot contents that tried to ooze out and burn him. He dumped the 'great for commuting' burrito onto a plate and wandered into the living room, eating while he studied his wall of digital entertainment. He grabbed half a dozen DVDs and stuck them into the player, but he couldn't settle to any one movie.

He left the plate on the counter and went in to get dressed. What could Gibbs do if he showed up, anyway? It's not like he could arrest him for coming in to work.

Locking the door behind him, he headed downstairs to his car in the parking garage. The day was gloomy, and rain looked likely before night really fell. He dug in his pocket for his keys as he walked between his car and the Volvo belonging to his elderly neighbor, Mr. Morton.

A screeching sound echoed through the garage, startling him, and he whirled. A large white van was coming around the corner and Tony redoubled his efforts to find his keys. He got them out and got the car unlocked before four men wearing ski masks came boiling out the side door towards him. He dove towards the driver's seat, though it wasn't going to do him much good since the van was blocking his car in.

Something hit him in the back and clung, and he abruptly felt electricity shooting through his body. His balance already too far forward, he fell to his knees, cracking his head on the window handle. The electricity stopped, but his body wouldn't respond to his commands right away. Hands grabbed him and dragged him into the van, and the vehicle took off so fast that he could feel all the men around him grabbing for handholds. Once they were stable, they flipped him on his stomach, tied his hands and feet, and then blindfolded and gagged him. He was getting tired of that, particularly of the last two. These weren't BDSM gear, though, these were strips of cloth.

He lay on the floor of the van, recovering from the taser blast and wondering what could possibly be coming next.


When three hours had passed and DiNozzo still hadn't come in, Gibbs quietly called his home number. He knew DiNozzo, he knew his inability to butt out and his inability to sit still. That DiNozzo hadn't shown had to indicate that he was worse off than they'd suspected. There was no answer to his home phone, so Gibbs tried his cell. When there was no answer there, he knit his brows.

"McGee?" he snapped.

"Yes, Boss . . . I mean, Gibbs," McGee said.

"Can you track DiNozzo's cell phone?"

"If it's on, and if it's either in use or has a GPS chip."

"Find out," Gibbs said, then he headed down to the lab for Abby's promised report.

"Gibbs!" Abby exclaimed, looking up with a grin and turning her music off. "I have a plethora of fingerprints from that meeting room and the viewing room, and isn't that the creepiest thing ever? Imagine, total strangers could have gone in and looked at Tony half naked and all tied up and gagged, and he wouldn't have known or been able to do anything about it if he did. I can't –"

"Abby, I'm assuming you have more than fingerprints, or you wouldn't have called me."

Abby blinked at him, and he could see her realizing that she'd been babbling again. "Right. I have about six more people for you to go out and talk to." Their names, photos and bios popped up on the screen, in tiny print that made it very difficult to read. He didn't recognize any of them.

"Abby, can you print out the information? I –"

"Already done," she said, and he scooped the papers out of the printer bin. "How's Tony?"

"I'm not sure," he said as he left her lab.

"What do you mean you're not sure?" she called after him, but he just hit the elevator button. "Gibbs?!" she exclaimed, coming to the doorway. "What do you mean you're not sure?"

He shrugged. "He's not answering his phone."

"Either of his phones?" He shook his head. "That's not a good sign."

The elevator doors opened, so he gave her another shrug and went inside, hitting the button for the squad room. She gazed at him worriedly as long as she could, leaning sideways as the doors slid shut. Gibbs stepped forward as soon as the elevator doors opened again, startling a couple of agents who were waiting to go down. "McGee!" he said as he entered the bullpen.

"His phone is either off or his GPS chip is disabled," McGee said anxiously.

"Tony, turn his phone off?" Kate said, giving Gibbs a mildly alarmed look.

Gibbs walked to his desk and dialed DiNozzo's home number again. Four rings then a cheery voice telling him to leave a message. "Kate, you're with me. McGee, keep trying and get Abby to help. Let me know if you find anything."

He strode towards the elevator, not waiting for Kate to gather her things, but she joined him before the doors closed. "Where are we going, Gibbs?" she asked.

"DiNozzo's apartment. He might be more hurt than he let on."

Kate nodded slowly. "But you don't think that's what it is," she said, and it wasn't a question.

He grimaced. "Someone walked in on him while he was blindfolded. He heard a couple of words, recognized the voice, but couldn't place it."

"And you think that person may have recognized him?" Kate hazarded.

"It's a possibility."

"That's not good," she said.

"No."