Chapter 17
They didn't drive all that far, maybe ten or fifteen minutes worth, and they bumped up over some kind of lip before they came to a stop. The guys got out, leaving Tony where he was, on his side in the cold van. Once he was alone, he worked the blindfold off and tried for the gag, but it was tied too tightly. The knots on his hands and feet were also too tight, and they tightened when he struggled, so he quit that quickly and tried listening.
For several minutes, all he heard was indistinct thumps and clanks, then there was a rush of air moving. It sounded like one of those massive heaters used in warehouses. He was glad of the possibility of heat. The cold was making his muscles stiffen and ache. Being tied like this wasn't helping with the strain his shoulders had already suffered.
"When's he getting here?" A male voice, Tony thought, he didn't recognize it.
"I haven't called him yet." Another man, this one closer to the van. Tony wondered who 'he' was.
"You'd better call. We don't want to be caught with him."
Tony thought he knew who that 'him' was.
"He's not due back at work for a day or two, nobody will miss him anytime soon."
"Yeah, well, I don't want any mistakes. Look what happened to Mr. S."
They went quiet after that, moving away or talking more quietly. Tony figured this had to be that elusive voice he'd heard while blindfolded, but try as he might, he still couldn't place it. It sounded, though, like he'd be finding out fairly soon.
Kate watched Gibbs pull out a key to DiNozzo's front door and wondered how close to the two men were. The way Tony talked, he and Gibbs were miles apart, and that was the way they seemed at the office. Gibbs didn't have a key to her place, though.
Inside, everything seemed cleaner than Kate would have expected for a man of DiNozzo's stated habits and attitudes. And despite his claims of being cut off from the family fortune, some of it had found its way to him, she was sure. The furniture was expensive, and he had the latest top of the line video equipment. As Gibbs headed towards what had to be the bedroom and bathroom, she went into the kitchen and looked around. Plate on the counter, left for later, otherwise pretty spotless. Maybe he had a cleaning service. She continued out into the dining area and saw the answering machine. It had a light flashing – one message. She could not imagine Tony leaving a message on the machine.
"Gibbs, he's got a message."
"Play it," Gibbs said, emerging into the front room.
Kate pushed the button and a baritone voice filled the room. "Tony, hey, it's Michael." He sounded slightly anxious and uncertain. "I thought I'd give you a heads up. My father called me earlier, and all he did was ask questions about you, and it seemed really off to me. Give me a call. There are things I should tell you that I don't want to leave on an answering machine." There was another beep and then a time stamp of less than a half hour ago.
"No last name?" Gibbs growled.
Kate pushed the button again and got a breezy feminine voice. Hurriedly, she bypassed the other saved messages and got back to the guy again. "No last name, but his phone number's on the caller ID," she said.
Gibbs walked over, pulling his cell phone out. He dialed quickly and stood for a second or two, radiating tension. She could hear the ringing faintly, and then the voice when the call was answered. "May I speak to Michael?" Gibbs said. "I see, this is Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS. I work with Tony DiNozzo." He paused, clearly listening. Kate couldn't hear the words, but the tone got louder as if the caller were agitated. "I don't know," Gibbs said. "All I know for certain is that I can't reach him. You left a message on DiNozzo's machine . . . yes, I listened." Gibbs nodded a couple of times. "Look, I don't care. Would DiNozzo be likely to recognize your father's voice, and do you think your father would be a threat to his safety?" Gibbs eyes grew cold as ice as he listened to the answer. "Just who is your father, Michael?"
Tony heard another vehicle arriving, and the echoes of the doors opening and closing told him that it was definitely a warehouse. He wasn't sure what he hoped. If this was the 'he' that they were waiting for, it might just bring him a few steps closer to death.
About five minutes later, the side door of the van opened again, and Tony looked up. "Damn it, what happened to the blindfold?" demanded the man he saw. He was a beefy guy with a regulation haircut and Tony memorized his face. No knowing if he'd need the knowledge, but he'd be pissed later if he did and he hadn't made the effort.
"It hardly matters." The voice sharpened Tony's attention. It was the man whose voice he'd heard the previous day, when he was with Sullivan. This didn't bode well. "Either way he leaves here, he won't be a threat to you." Tony considered that statement. No, it didn't bode well at all. He still couldn't picture a face, but apparently that exercise wouldn't be necessary for much longer. The beefy guy grabbed him and dragged him out of the van, throwing him over his shoulder. Tony wondered uneasily about the guy's strength. He wasn't a small man.
Craning his neck proved too painful to sustain for long, so the result was that all he saw for several moments was beefy's butt. Then beefy thumped him down on a straight back chair. Not good for the tailbone or the back as he smacked against the slats of the chair. Then beefy moved out of the way and Tony stared at the man who was sitting opposite him.
"Senator Webber?" he breathed, finally putting a face to the voice and stunned by the result.
"Anthony, you're not looking well," Webber said, leaning forward. "I noticed a great many bruises on your torso when I saw you yesterday, and you're looking slightly peaked."
"Lying tied up on the floor of a van doesn't particularly agree with me," Tony said hollowly. Senator Webber? He was having trouble wrapping his mind around that idea. Webber's son Michael and Tony had been unlikely friends at the Rhode Island Military Academy, and on some of the all too frequent occasions when his father had been out of town or simply too busy for Tony to come home during school vacations, Tony had stayed with the Webbers. He hadn't seen all that much of the senator, but enough to recognize him now – and to know his voice. "What's going on here?"
"You didn't recognize my voice yesterday, did you?" Webber asked, knitting his brows.
"I probably would have put it together eventually," Tony said, "but, no, I didn't."
"Fair enough. I had to go back and check Michael's yearbooks to be sure it was you."
Tony was shaking internally. If they hadn't ended the op, Webber might just have gone back to Sullivan and told him who he was. "So, now what?" Tony asked, gesturing vaguely with his bound feet.
"Now we discuss our mutual dilemma," Webber said genially.
"Mutual dilemma?" Tony repeated, feeling very stupid. His brain needed a jump start. It had stalled out in neutral upon seeing Webber.
"Yes. You have to be thinking, do you inform against the man who was so very kind to you in your youth, or do you join him and reap the benefits?"
Tony blinked at him. "Join you in what?" he asked.
Webber went on as if Tony hadn't spoken. "And of course my dilemma is, do I count on the silence of a boy of whom I am fond, or do I have him killed, which would grieve me terribly?"
"Senator Webber," Tony said, "I don't –"
"You may, of course, call me John, Anthony," Webber said.
"Only my father calls me Anthony," Tony said. Then his brain shoved random facts at him and he found himself babbling. "Actually, Ducky calls me Anthony, but he's British and extremely formal and polite almost all the time. Calls his assistant Mr. Palmer and everything. He even calls Abby Abigail, which she hates – and gets away with it – but that's Ducky for you." Tony finally managed to rein in his mouth.
Webber tilted his head and smiled. "I gather the gist of that is that you'd rather I call you Tony than Anthony?" Tony nodded, not trusting himself to speak. How the hell was he getting out of this without making a commitment that might just make him a traitor? "Very well, Tony. I would very much like you to join me. We are alike, in a sense, you and I."
"We are?" Tony asked.
"You have been abandoned by your father, and I have been abandoned by my son."
"Michael?" Tony said, startled. "He never said anything like that to me."
"It was neither as obvious nor as clear an abandonment as your father's, Tony," Webber said heavily. "He simply refused to work for me, refused even to participate in my campaigns once he became old enough to have an opinion."
Tony had known for years that Michael didn't like his father. It was one of the things that had drawn them to each other in school, and which had kept them friends despite their differing interests. Michael had always been an egghead, and Tony . . . well, Tony wasn't. Abandonment seemed like a big word, though. Tony knew that Michael still visited his father.
"You wouldn't have done that, would you?" Webber asked.
"Could we have this conversation without me tied up?" Tony asked hopefully.
Webber glanced at the beefy guy. "I recommend against it, Senator," he said. "I've never heard even the slightest rumor about him being dirty, and he's on the premier team. I wouldn't risk untying him till we're sure of him."
Webber turned back to Tony. "I'm sorry, Tony. You heard the man."
"I still don't know what I'd be joining you in, John," Tony said.
"That's true enough." Webber gave him a sober look. "You know we're at war, of course, Tony?" he asked. Tony resisted the urge to say 'duh' and simply nodded. "And do you know what the inevitable consequence of war is?"
"Death," Tony said, having dealt with some of those consequences up close and personal. Nothing like finding out that a man you had successfully proved to be innocent of a crime had died on the battlefield. "And maiming."
Webber nodded, his expression grave. "Those, certainly, but in war there is always money to be made."
"Money?" Tony repeated blankly.
"Yes, son, money. If you keep your head and look at the conflict logically, there is much money to be made. Sullivan saw that, and he will be very hard to replace. He was uniquely positioned for smuggling."
Tony nodded slowly. "He would be," he said. Logistics would provide a dandy cover. And now they had the proof they'd needed. How was he going to get out of this so he could tell someone?
McGee walked into Abby's lab. "Hey, Abby, I've run out of ideas for –"
"Shhh!" Abby said peremptorily, and McGee fell silent, confused. A moment later he understood why she'd shut him up.
". . . was uniquely positioned for smuggling," said a masculine voice.
"He would be." That was Tony, sounding tense and noncommittal.
"What is this?" he hissed.
"Tony's wearing that belt. We didn't take the wire off it when he went to the hospital, so he's still got it."
"So he has to be within transmission radius of the Navy Yard," McGee said excitedly. "We've got to tell –"
"No," Abby said. "He's within transmission radius of one of the cars." She pointed to the telltale on the screen that indicated the source of the data transmission.
"But with a man inside NCIS, we'd have an easier time," said the unfamiliar voice. "You could let us know if there were any suspicions, you could warn us of raids. We already know you're good at pretense."
"I can see the benefits," Tony said.
"He's not going over, is he?" McGee asked, his voice squeaking. He wouldn't believe it of DiNozzo, but terror could do strange things to a – Abby smacked him on the back of the head.
"Of course he's not!" she exclaimed. "But if he doesn't drag it out, they'll kill him now."
"Right," McGee said. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number he'd only recently dared to program in.
Several rings passed and then a gruff voice answered, offering him voicemail. McGee disconnected and dialed Kate's number instead. "What is it, McGee?" she asked, sounding impatient.
"Tony's still wearing his wire, and we're picking it up from a car. Which car did you sign out?"
"Number forty-three," she said, and McGee leaned over to look at the screen.
"That means you and Gibbs are within five miles of his location."
"What's happening?"
"A man is trying to subvert him to . . . to . . . to what, Abby?"
Abby seized the phone and put it on speaker. "Senator Webber is trying to get him to join him in treason."
"Can you tell where he is exactly?"
"No," Abby said.
"Maybe," McGee said a moment later, and Abby turned to him, eyes wide. "If we got another car out there, we might be able to triangulate the location of the broadcast."
"He's right," Abby said eagerly. "I'd better call the director."
"You do that, I'll tell Gibbs."
Kate turned to Gibbs who was hanging up his phone. "Abby and McGee have a line on Tony's location."
Gibbs' eyes widened. "Where is he?"
"Within five miles of us right now," she said. "But they need to get another car out here to triangulate or something."
Gibbs' phone beeped and he looked down at it. He hit a button and held the phone up to his ear. "McGee?" he snapped. "Can you take a reading from our present position, then let us move and take a reading from there?" Kate watched Gibbs' face. A grim satisfaction came over it. "Good. We're on our way down to the car now." He strode forward as he spoke, shutting his phone and pocketing it.
Kate followed after hastily, but she waited till they were in the elevator before she spoke. "I guess Tony's wearing his wire, still, and they're picking it up through the transmitter in our car."
"Which means we should be able to hear it, too," Gibbs said.
Kate nodded, though she hadn't actually been thinking of that. "He's with Senator Webber. I think he's the –"
"Senior senator from New York," Gibbs said, interrupting her. "And the father of a friend from high school that DiNozzo's apparently still in touch with."
"Really?" Kate said.
Gibbs nodded, reflecting on the story that Michael Webber had told him with definite alarm. If the young lawyer was to be trusted, and Gibbs' gut told him he was, his father had previously shown an unhealthy interest in DiNozzo.
