Chapter 18
"Of course you can see the benefits, Tony," Webber said. "You're a smart young man. I've always thought that your father simply didn't know how to handle you." There wasn't a lot Tony could say to that. "I sometimes wish he hadn't been so insistent on your taking the internship I offered you the year after graduation."
Tony blinked at him. "His insistence might have sealed it, sir, but I had already decided against it," he said.
"Sir?" Webber repeated. "I thought you were calling me John."
Tony shrugged, but hissed from the pain the movement caused him. "It's a little diff –"
"Tony, what's wrong?" Webber asked, leaning forward, his eyes crinkled with worry.
"Um . . ." Tony wasn't sure what to say.
"Do your shoulders hurt?"
"A bit," Tony said.
"Untie him, please," Webber ordered beefy.
"Sir, I must protest. He's not safe."
"If you must, you may tie them in front of him, but I don't want him in pain that we can avoid."
One of the other men came forward at beefy's gesture, and while beefy held a gun on Tony, the other man untied his hands and retied them in front. It was a relief on his abused muscles and tendons, but it wasn't much of an advance.
"What's it going to take to convince you, Stuart?" Webber asked.
"If you accept his assurance, Senator, I will have no choice but to accept it as well," beefy said, and Tony knew what that meant. Beefy would keep a close eye on him, prepared to kill him if there was the slightest hint that Tony was going to the authorities.
"What sort of money are we talking about?" Tony asked.
Kate looked up at Gibbs, eyes wide. "You don't think he –"
"I think he's keeping himself alive till we find him," Gibbs snapped, looking irritated, and Kate nodded. She should have thought of that.
"Well, we're selling weapons to anyone who's interested in buying," said the voice that had to be Senator Webber.
Kate listened to the pause before Tony responded, wondering what he was thinking. "Afghani insurgents?" he asked finally.
"And Iraqi," Webber said. "And Hezbollah, as I said, anyone who's interested. We had an excellent deal go down in Somalia last year."
"Either they kill him or he agrees," Gibbs muttered. "And if they find the wire, he's dead." He came to a sudden, screeching stop, causing Kate to jolt forward against her seatbelt. He grabbed his phone and dialed. "McGee, we're about five miles away from DiNozzo's complex. Is it enough?"
Tony cleared his throat. "Yes, but what kind of money am I looking at? I have expensive tastes, and you know my father."
"I wondered about that," Webber said, his voice amused. "You see, Stuart, it's not a question of looking dirty. Why would we want a man who looked dirty? There would be eyeballs on him all the time. A man who looks clean but who has a reasonable explanation for extra money is much better."
Tony chuckled. "And I am good at pretense," he said.
Gibbs tossed his phone to her, and that was all the warning she got that he was going to move. He took off like a bat out of hell, turning right at the next intersection. Kate put the phone to her ear and found that McGee was still talking. ". . . not as narrow an area as you might like, but I'll keep –"
"It's me, McGee," Kate said.
"Oh. Right, you're on the move." He was silent for a moment. "Have him turn left on Wilson."
"Gibbs, left on Wilson," Kate said. He cut another car off getting into the turn lane and squeezed through the light. She continued to pass McGee's directions on to Gibbs and finally they came to a stop outside of a business park with several offices and a couple of warehouses. By this time, they had picked up a tail with sirens wailing, and Kate could hear the siren on the wire feed.
Gibbs snatched the phone back. "Has anyone looked at the names on the warehouses yet?"
The officer from the car behind them walked forward to stand by Gibbs' window. From the feed, Kate heard something about sirens. She leaned across Gibbs to press the down button for the window. She put her badge out and spoke in a hurried undertone. "NCIS, we have an emergency. Please continue to act like this is a routine traffic stop."
"Um . . ." the officer said.
". . . and look," came an unfamiliar voice on the feed.
"Please, a man's life may be at stake," she said.
The officer stood up and flipped his citation book open. "Do you know how fast you were going?" he asked.
Gibbs snapped the phone shut. "Yes, and it was necessary," he said. "And I'm drafting you for a raid."
Kate heard that but her focus was on the feed. "Just a cop pulling someone over," said a voice in reply.
"Then go get us some coffee," said Senator Webber.
"Gibbs, they can see us from where they are," she said.
"I know," Gibbs said, holding out his driver's license. "Finish your ticket, Officer Hobart, then meet us around on Jackson."
Hobart nodded, took the license, then walked back to his car. He was there for several minutes, and though she knew full well that it was standard procedure that they didn't dare deviate from, she fretted anxiously.
"I'm not much of a coffee drinker," Tony said on the feed. "Got any cola?"
"In this weather?" Webber asked.
"Could you please untie me?" Tony asked.
"I think we can trust him now, Stuart," Webber said.
"Senator –" Stuart said, but Webber interrupted him.
"You were going to trust my judgment, right?"
"Sir, I'd like a little more information. He's got a lot on us, we have nothing on him. He should show us the same faith that we've exhibited."
Kate hoped Tony was up to manufacturing some useful peccadilloes that would be sufficiently dirty for Stuart but not believable enough to anyone else that he would have to defend himself against future charges. Meanwhile, Hobart was coming back. He ripped a sheet off his pad, handed it to Gibbs, then said, "Drive safely, sir, and have a nice day."
Gibbs nodded, handed her the ticket receipt and drove off as Hobart headed back to his car. She looked down at it in bemusement. None of the blanks were filled in, but across the whole thing in heavy print there was a note that read, "Back up meeting us at Jackson and Bartlett."
"But they don't know what's going on?"
"Hobart didn't," Gibbs said. "But dispatch probably called NCIS and got the skinny."
Kate blinked. "Right." She heaved a sigh of relief that it wasn't going to be just the two of them plus Hobart.
"Look," Tony said, sounding a little defensive, and Kate realized she'd lost track of his conversation. "I told you what I've been doing, but I'm not giving you names."
"Trust, my boy," Webber said.
Tony moistened his lips. "Sir, I am trusting you – with my own activities – but I can't extend trust for my business associates," he said, hoping it would make sense to the senator and his heavy. Webber leaned forward, a remonstrative look on his face, and Tony knew what he was going to say. "I'm sorry, John. It's difficult, you're a senator and I'm a government employee." Webber sat back, smiling, apparently satisfied.
Stuart shook his head. "I don't see that it's enough, Senator. Nebulous stories about kickbacks and bribery don't come to the same level."
Tony pressed his lips together. "I don't even know the names of all the people here," he said. "Not to mention anyone else apart from Sullivan, who is under arrest and currently in custody."
"Didn't he offer enough?" Stuart asked.
"He didn't get a chance," Tony replied. "Gibbs was there, calling all the shots, and he's a boy scout."
"If Gibbs hadn't been there, would you have slept with him?" Webber asked, and Tony, who had been looking at Stuart, turned back to the senator with wide eyes. Webber stood up and walked around behind Tony. "I'm just curious, my boy," he said. "Are you entirely straight, or do you stray to the other side of the playground?"
Tony had no idea how to play this. It was a little stunning to be asked a question like that by a friend's father. Hands landed on his shoulders, thumbs stroking his back in a friendly and familiar way. "Um . . ." he said intelligently.
"He's straight," Stuart said. "You should see his face."
"Are you straight, Tony?" Webber asked, squeezing Tony's shoulders.
"Um . . . pretty much," Tony said. He didn't think he could play the gay card very well with his friend's father. He hoped it wasn't a deal breaker, because getting shot right now would really screw up his whole week.
"Maybe I can change your mind," Webber said, releasing Tony's shoulders and walking back towards his chair. "Now, if –"
"Stu, Stu!" yelled a voice from the loft, and the senator broke off. "I think we're –"
All hell broke loose before the unseen man could finish his sentence. Doors all around flew open and there were yells in familiar and unfamiliar voices, far more unfamiliar ones yelling, "Police, freeze!" Tony threw himself to the ground to avoid being caught in crossfire, and to make it harder for anyone to use him as a shield. After several moments and more gunshots than he could count, he felt a hand scrabbling at his collar, a gun to the back of his neck, the barrel burning hot against his skin.
"Freeze!" Kate ordered. Tony could have cheered if his situation had been less dire.
Stuart spoke from far too close to Tony. "I could kill him before you –"
"Don't even think about it," said a grim voice behind them, and Tony felt Stuart turn to look at Gibbs. A second later, his hand left Tony's neck and the gun fell to the floor next to him.
Tony shifted onto his side to relieve some of the pressure on his arms, scrabbling slightly in an effort to sit up. Strong hands grasped his shoulders and helped him upright. "How'd you guys find me so fast?" he asked, a little bewildered.
Gibbs snorted. "You forgot to turn in your wire," he said, reaching down to untie Tony's hands.
"I did what?" Tony said blankly.
"Wire?" Stuart exclaimed from where a cop was cuffing him. "Son of a –"
"Let's go," said the police officer.
Tony watched them lead his erstwhile captors away, rubbing his wrists. "How much got caught?"
"I don't know exactly, but enough," Gibbs said. He was untying Tony's feet. "Are you hurt?"
"Not much more than I was," Tony said with a sigh. "A few more bruises, nothing else. I really don't need to go back to the hospital." Gibbs gave him a noncommittal look that Tony read as fat chance, and he sighed again.
"What's wrong, Tony?" Kate asked. "You managed to string him on long enough to get plenty of evidence. I mean, we'll have to corroborate it all, but the kidnapping's pretty cut and dried."
Tony shrugged, closing his eyes. Kate didn't need to know what had just been broken in this warehouse. She wouldn't understand, and even if she did, it would be a chink in his armor, and he couldn't afford that. Not with someone like Kate, who'd decided he was a pervert and jackass on their first meeting. People were always looking at him like he was a jerk when he rode her, but he only gave as good as he got.
He wondered how Michael would react to Tony's being instrumental in his father's arrest. Even as much as he disliked and disapproved of his father, that could still become a barrier between them, and Michael was one of the few people who actually knew anything about him.
"How well did you know him?" Gibbs asked softly, and Tony looked up to find that everyone else had moved farther away.
"Apparently not very," Tony said, trying for flippant. It came out shell-shocked, and he didn't know what he could do about that. "I mean, not only is he a complete mercenary bastard, he hit on me."
"He did what?" Gibbs exclaimed.
"He hit on me," Tony said again. "Gibbs, I think I could count on the fingers of one hand all the guys who have ever hit on me before this op." He shuddered. "Am I now irresistible to gay men? Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, but I'm not, and I don't want . . ." He shook his head. "What the hell is going on?"
Gibbs pressed his lips together and was silent for a long moment, and Tony figured he wasn't going to say anything. Finally, he sat back and said, "Marino and Sullivan are, first and foremost, rapists. Not your typical gay men." Tony gulped. True as that was, he didn't really like the implication either. To his mind, being attractive to gay rapists was not better than being attractive to gay men in general. "And Webber . . ."
"Ugh!" Tony said, shuddering again.
"He saw you in a highly sexualized environment, packaged as –"
"Yeah," Tony interjected. "I get it."
Gibbs shrugged. "And he was already interested, according to his son."
Tony grimaced and looked away. "I wondered about that internship," he said, but then he processed the last part of Gibbs' comment. "His son?" he said, turning back. "You spoke to Michael?"
"He left a message on your answering machine. I called him back."
"Agent Gibbs?" Tony looked up to see Aaron Garner approaching. He was pulling on latex gloves. "We need to clear the scene."
"Right." Gibbs slipped his arm around Tony's shoulders. "Up you come."
It was harder to get up than Tony had expected. The cold had seeped into his bones, stiffening all his strained muscles and tendons. He felt creaky and elderly, which was ridiculous. He was thirty-one years old, not eighty-one.
"Yeah, DiNozzo, you don't need to go to the hospital."
Tony nodded, pulling free of Gibbs. "A few hours of sleep and I'll be fine," he said.
Gibbs refrained from laughing at his agent's ludicrous claim. He doubted even DiNozzo knew just how not fine he was. He'd have to keep an eye on him, since the chances of anyone convincing him to see a shrink just now were slim to none. Once again he wished he could shoot that idiot woman, now because her stupidity would rob DiNozzo of help he might very well need. Nevertheless, he let DiNozzo totter to the car without help, knowing how important it was to his pride.
