Chapter 6

"DiNozzo! Over here!" Gibbs shouted from the sandbar. The search parties had resumed at first light, and Gibbs and Tony had made their way back to the place at which they had ended the night before.

"What is it, Boss?" Tony asked. He splashed across the river to the clump of bushes where Gibbs was crouched.

"Someone spent the night here. Look at all these broken branches. There's also blood here."

Tony looked. "That's a small space for McGee, though, Boss. He would've had to scrunch up quite a bit. If he was here last night, why didn't he see us?"

"I don't know. He moved on a few hours ago. Did you find any sign of him coming out of the river over there?"

Tony shook his head. He was no great tracker, but the bank was soft and there were definitely no signs of any place that Tim had come out.

"He must be walking in the river. Why is he still going downstream?"

"Maybe he's following whoever stole the cargo."

"I doubt it. McGee wouldn't risk it, and why would he try to cover up where he was going?"

"I don't know, Boss. If this is McGee we're following, I have no idea why he'd be avoiding detection."

"Well, he's still limping," Gibbs observed from the tracks Tim had left. "We should be able to catch up with him fairly easily. Let's go."

Tony nodded and pulled out his radio. "Ziva, you read me?"

The radio crackled and Ziva's voice came back. "That's yet another Americanism that makes no sense, Tony. How can you read something that is spoken?"

"It's what we say," Tony replied. "We've found more traces of McGee. We should catch him up in a few hours."

"Good. There's no sign of the cargo so far. Henson says that whoever took it must have seen the plane go down and not reported it. Otherwise, they wouldn't have known where to come. And I say that they probably took down the plane themselves. Someone randomly coming on the scene would not know what was in the plane."

"Definitely true. Right we'll check in later on. 10-4. Is that in your vocabulary?"

"Certainly, Tony. Those are simply numbers. I am well familiar with them," Ziva said and turned off the radio.

Tony sighed good-naturedly to himself. Sometimes, he wondered if Ziva just pretended to not understand English idioms. He looked up and saw that Gibbs was halfway across the river. Quickly, he ran to catch up.

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Ziva looked up from her perusal of the latest crime scene photos and saw a couple of the rangers who had been searching upstream of where Gibbs and Tony had found the batteries. They seemed to be excited about something.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Officer David, we found Agent McGee's radio and his wallet!" one of them said.

"Where?"

"About half a mile from here. The radio was on a cliff and the wallet was just a little downstream from there."

"Show me," she ordered tersely. "Henson! I'm going to check out the place where McGee must have fallen," she called across the clearing.

Henson barely looked up from his examination of a set of remains that had yet to be removed from the site. "Fine. Let me know what you find."

Ziva stalked off after the over-excited rangers.

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He fell down for the umpteenth time and an agonized curse slipped from his lips. He wasn't sure he could get up this time. He'd been walking for hours through this river, but it felt like he was making no progress at all. He was hungry and thirsty and he still had no clue who he was. There was a jabbing pain in his side that throbbed in synchronization with the pain in his head and just off-time from the throbbing in his legs. Even taking a breath was pure agony. Now that he had passed the bulk of the rapids, the river had deepened. He was walking in water that usually came up above his knees. Only the realization that the camera he was carrying would be getting wet forced him to struggle back to his feet. For a long while he simply stood in the water, feeling it rush by. The rocky bottom offered little in the way of traction, and he just didn't have the stability needed to take confident steps. He sighed and then winced.

I'm so tired. I'm so tired, he thought. He looked about 100 feet down the river. There was a large rock right in the middle. I'll walk to that and then rest.

A painful twenty minutes later, he neared the rock, hardly noticing that the water was getting deeper. He took one more step and fell as the riverbed suddenly angled downward. The water went over his head and he panicked, thrashing wildly to get out of the dip. Flailing with no regard for his pain, his feet finally found purchase on the ground and his head emerged above the water. Casting aside any concern for leaving tracks, he made his way to the riverbank and collapsed just beyond the water's edge. Utterly spent, he buried his aching head in his arms and began to cry tears as much from fear as from pain.

"I can't do this anymore," he said aloud. "I just can't." He sobbed until he had no more tears left and then fell into an exhausted sleep.

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Even in his exhaustion, he dreamed. They were full of the same images in his previous dreams, but there were more people. A man leaning over a body, covered in blood and talking to the corpse. He backed away from the image and turned to see a much younger man, dressed in scrubs giving goo-goo eyes to a young woman who was grinning flirtatiously at him.

He looked around and saw a set of doors. He ran toward them and was immediately in a plane, surrounded by the same men he'd seen before and one of the women. He seemed to be separate from them. Was he a prisoner? Was this the same plane from the crash?

The scene shifted again to the crates in the woods. A horde of people surrounded them. They all had guns and began shooting at each other. The first to hit the ground was the same woman he'd seen dead before. She disappeared just after she fell. More and more people were killed and then, it was just him and four men. The others stared at each other and then turned to him and raised their guns once more.

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He awoke to the sound of voices. Immediately, he was alert and tried to make his body move. He had no idea how long he'd been sleeping, but he knew he couldn't be found. He opened his eyes and forced himself to sit up. His muscles screamed in protest and it was all he could do not to do the same. He couldn't suppress a loud moan.

"I think I heard something, Boss. Over this way."

Oh no, he thought. He stood and began to limp away as quickly as he could. It was no use going into the river... unless... if he tried to swim with the current, maybe he could get to the other side and away from them. It was as good a plan as any. He turned to the river and splashed loudly into the center where the current was the strongest. Of course, he slipped and went under the water. The current was faster now.

"McGee!" he heard as he broke the surface again.

The voice was closer now. He couldn't resist turning his head back to see who was coming. The two men reached the riverbank and he saw the same two men from his dreams and who had been following him. He panicked and tried to stand and run away. They had seen him!

"McGee! Wait!"

He turned away from the men and looked down the river. There seemed to be an edge to the water. Another waterfall. Now completely freaked out, he had no idea what would be worse: letting these men catch him or going over what was probably his second waterfall in the last three days. He floundered toward the far bank, weakly fighting the current that was carrying him downstream. Behind him, he heard the splashing of the men coming after him. That stirred him to struggle harder against the current. The water was getting deeper and faster. It was up to his chest now and it was difficult to move through it.

"McGee!"

They were closing in on him. He couldn't move fast enough. Panting heavily, he could hear them getting closer and closer. Then, once again, he stepped into a hole and slipped under the water with a strangled yelp. He couldn't get his feet on the ground and he felt himself being taken closer and closer to the edge. Suddenly, strong hands grabbed him by the arms and dragged him out of the water.

"No! No!" he shouted as soon as he broke the surface. "Leave me alone! Let me go!"

The men ignored his protests and pulled him painfully to the bank. Once they reached the shore, they set him down on the ground. He wanted to run, but all his strength left him as he stared in terror at these two unfamiliar/familiar men.

"McGee, what's wrong with you?"

He tried to pull away from them and back away. He wasn't thinking clearly and he couldn't seem to calm down. He saw their guns. Neither one was drawing... yet.

"McGee, are you okay?" The younger one leaned over him. His gun was within reach. Using every scrap of strength he had left, he lunged at the man and grabbed his gun. He pointed it at them.

"Don't kill me," he whimpered weakly.

The two men looked at each other with concern, their hands up.

"What are you talking about, McGee?" the younger man asked, a grin on his face. "If we were going to kill you, we would have done it a long time ago."

That was not comforting. He simply stared in alarm and cocked the gun. The smile faded from the younger man's face.

He tried to stand and back away from them, all the while waving the gun back and forth between them. He managed to get to his feet, but running was absolutely out of the question. He took one step backwards and cried out in pain. Both men took a step toward him, but he recovered and waved the gun again. "No, don't touch me."

"What are you going to do now, McGee?"

It suddenly occurred to him that they meant him. McGee must be his name... for all it was worth, which wasn't much.

Black spots flashed in his eyes. He was fading; he could feel it. He struggled to stay conscious. "Who are you and why are you following me?" he demanded. He swayed a little, but remained upright.

The men looked at each other again. "Why wouldn't we be following you? You're part of our team. What happened to you, McGee?" the older one asked.

The radio at the older one's waist began to crackle. "Gibbs? Gibbs, are you there?"

Gibbs. That name he had remembered. "You are Gibbs?" he whispered, in confusion.

"Yes, McGee."

It was getting very hard to focus, the two men kept blurring and shifting in his view. "Then, who am I?" he asked plaintively. Then, the gun slipped from his hands and he sank to the ground.