Disclaimer: See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.
Rented Apartment of "Jay Massani," Washington, D.C./September 15, 2010, 2014 Romeo
It was a little under ten minutes short of an hour since the death of Stan Merdetzky when the door of a small, indistinct apartment opened, and Vince Hauser carried Timothy McGee in. After shutting the door with his foot, the SEAL carried the NCIS agent to a chair at a small table and set him down in it. McGee was taking in the bland, undecorated, and unpersonalized look of the place when Hauser set the black carrying bag from the BP on the table. He zipped it open and removed his laptop from it, opening it and placing it before McGee. It was on, and the battery indicator was blinking its death rattle. McGee watched as Hauser pulled out a chord, plugged one end into the side of the laptop, and walked to an outlet where he plugged the other end.
The laptop's screen suddenly became brighter, and the battery indicator showed its charging animation.
"Alright Agent McGee," Hauser said before turning and walking into the kitchen. The set-up was similar to McGee's apartment, only the kitchen counter that separated the living room from said kitchen had a row of cabinets over it, creating a long rectangular frame/window/thing to see through. "You start looking for info on Hanson and Margott, I'll fix us up some refreshments." The sound of a pot being removed from a cupboard rattled, and McGee could see Hauser stand to retrieve to a red and white can from an upper cupboard. The can was more white than red, so he figured it'd be a Campbell's soup of some kind.
McGee looked to the screen before him and simply sat there. He didn't want to do this. Doing this would give Hauser everything he needed to find and kill two men. Men who deserved some kind of punishment, sure, but not to die. For a moment, McGee steeled himself for the consequences of his choice: he wouldn't do it. He didn't care how bad Hauser beat him, Timothy McGee was not going to help him kill two men…two more men.
But then a thought hit him. And when it did, McGee knew he had a chance. So he set his fingers to work, "searching" for information as a pretense for actually delivering it.
NCIS Headquarters, Washington, D.C./September 15, 2010, 2018 Romeo
In the basement forensics lab of the NCIS Headquarters, Abby Scuito sat at her desk in the office area between her main lab and her firearms testing chamber. She was attempting to focus on her report for her findings in the evidence secured at the BP where McGee had been attacked. The key word being "attempting," as she was far too worried to effectively do something as mundane as paperwork.
With a sigh, she stood and walked to the small area behind her desk where she kept personal things. From this collection of personal things, she lifted Bert the Hippo, her favorite stuffed animal, and practically attempted to squeeze it to death with the hug she gave it. The look on her face didn't even twitch in anything resembling a smile, grin, or even smirk at the trademark noise Bert made.
"Oh, Timmy," she mumbled. "You've gotta be okay…you've just gotta be…oh please, just send me a sign that you are. Anything, please."
It's been said that God works in mysterious ways, and whether that's the case or life is just much more clichéd and melodramatic than we give it credit for, her workstation gave an alerting tone. Abby's head jerked upright, and she only stood there for a moment before approaching it. She'd hoped it was the program she had set up to watch for increased searches for Hanson and Margott, but it wasn't. It was just an e-mail from….
Abby stared at the screen for a moment before opening it and reading the e-mail. It was an IP address. Her face never changed as she found the location of said address, and she knew what it meant.
"That's my geek!" she cheered, not even noticing the tears in her eyes.
Merdetzky Crime Scene, McLean, Virginia/September 15, 2010, 2021 Romeo
"Hanson's fine, Boss," Gibbs heard from Tony over the phone. "I'm here with the FBI guys, we'll be sure to keep any eye out."
"Call me if something happens," Gibbs replied before closing his phone. He then turned his attention to Fornell. "That body up the street turn up anything?"
"No," Fornell replied, his own eyes watching the processing of the scene. "The entry wound has characteristics of a contact wound, and the closest thing anyone reported to a gunshot was some loud snapping noise they heard while watching TV. Figured it was a kid pulling off a branch."
Gibbs nodded. "He was using a suppressor."
"Bingo."
Gibbs thought for a moment before saying, "Ziva,"
"Yes Gibbs?" the not-really-a-probie asked as she looked up from her sketching.
"Why drop someone randomly on the street like that, risk drawing attention to himself?"
Ziva once again put on her professional killer hat (one she much rather preferred to leave in the closet) and thought it over.
"Maybe he was getting rid of attention? Perhaps….oh, what was his name-"
"Chilton," Fornell supplied.
"Yes, thank you. Perhaps Chilton saw something he shouldn't have?"
"What would he see from all the way up the street?" Fornell asked.
"Hauser's car, maybe? If he has McGee bound in the trunk and he was banging on it, Chilton may have come to investigate, and Hauser eliminated him so as to not take any chances."
Gibbs's phone ringing brought the conversation to a halt. "Gibbs."
"Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!" Abby's excited voice screamed through the phone, making Gibbs hold it away from his ear for a moment. "I got something, I found Timmy!"
Gibbs snapped at Ziva and made a "come on" gesture as he turned and started walking out of the house. "Where?"
"He sent me an e-mail, Gibbs! All it had was the IP address, but I traced and confirmed it!"
After Abby read off the address, Gibbs hung up. When he and Ziva reached the Charger, he made her pause in confusion when he went around the hood to the passenger side.
"Gibbs?"
"You're driving, let's go."
That was that, and so they went.
Rented Apartment of "Jay Massani," Washington, D.C./September 15, 2010, 2023 Romeo
The keyboard of Hauser's laptop was silent as the SEAL himself sat down on the side of the small table to McGee's right, a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup in one hand and a plate with a good old fashioned Spammich in the other.
"You're not gonna wanna eat anything solid with a broken orbital bone, trust me," he said, dismissing the lack of typing as McGee thinking on what to search for next. Just a little pause in the process, so to speak. "Pressure from biting through it'll shoot up your face and make it hurt like hell. Soup's your best bet, so enjoy it."
He took a large bite of his sandwich, and chewed it as he looked off into space. It took a moment for him to realize just how long the pause in McGee's typing was taking. He looked back and studied the agent, but he didn't need to waste the effort: McGee's stature showed it wasn't a pause in the work. It was just not doing it.
The agent didn't look at the SEAL as he took a tentative spoonful of soup. Hauser's chewing had all but stopped, and he finally swallowed before asking, "You find anything at all on 'em yet?"
"Nope," McGee said, again not looking at Hauser as he took another spoonful. Hauser noted the tone of his voice: it almost sounded chipper. Maybe spiteful, antagonistic. Defiant, even. As much of those qualities as a man in obvious pain could be in, anyway.
"What have you been looking for?" Hauser asked.
"Nothing," McGee replied without a moment's hesitation. He was on his third spoonful, and he was doing his damndest not to look at Hauser.
The SEAL set his jaw in annoyance, then looked at his plate as he set his sandwich back on it. He then stood, casually taking McGee's bowl as well as his own plate and then putting them on the counter. He walked back to the table, and didn't even break his stride when he threw his fist into the large bruise over McGee's left eye.
McGee had enough awareness outside the pain to know he was now on the floor, the chair he'd been in moments earlier laying on its back beside him. He rolled onto his own back and stared at the ceiling.
What's with the dots? he wondered vaguely. Indeed, the black flakes in the left side of his vision were no longer the only oddity. The left half of his vision now seemed fuzzier than the right, as if it'd taken a milky layer of frosted glass over it. And there were countless small black dots cascading down his vision, like a waterfall with no top or bottom.
For the first time that night, a realization which surprised him, he wondered what it'd be like if his left eye no longer functioned at all.
He had no time to put any serious thought into it though, as suddenly Hauser was over him, USP in his right hand. Then there was the pain as the cold metal barrel of the handgun was applied to the bruise of his broken eye socket, and constant pressure applied.
"Agent McGee, you're truly a man of your convictions, and I respect that," Hauser said over McGee's screams of pain, frustration in his voice for the first time since the beating at the BP. "But I don't give a shit for whatever personal ethics are guiding you. I don't care how much sleep or humanity you lose from this, I don't care how scarred you are from this, you are going to help me find these men. In case you haven't noticed, I take my missions very seriously, and I will do whatever I have to do to finish them. Right now, you're the fastest and easiest way to get it done, but I will not hesitate to blow your brains out right here and right now if you do not cooperate, even if it means doing it the long way. There's just as many cons as pros to havin' you around, and I could get rid of them all with only a few pounds of pressure.
"So please, Agent McGee, for my sake and your boss's sake, get this search done. The sooner you get it done, the sooner this'll all be over with, and the sooner you can be back with your boss and your partner and your girlfriend and whoever else the fuck is waiting for you. Once I'm done, I'm gone. You will never see me again, and you can go on with your life as well as you can."
"There…" McGee started, his voice shrill and his breathing shaky and uneven. "There is no rest of my life! Once I help you, I'm just a liability, and there's nothing stopping you from killing me!"
"Believe it or not, Agent McGee, there is," Hauser said, finally taking the gun away from the swelling bruise. "I like you Agent McGee. You and I, we're of the same ilk: we're both willing to do whatever's necessary for whatever it is we believe. You're willing to let me beat you blind and into unemployment to save these men. And I'm willing to kill and maim anyone I have to to get these men, these men who've killed the best people I've ever known. Even if it means throwing my life away in a slammer."
McGee closed his eyes and swallowed against a wave of pain and nausea. "That last bit doesn't reassure me very well."
"Look at it this way, Agent McGee: I'm on a mission. And until I finish that mission, you're just an asset that I can use to finish my mission as soon as possible. And I have no qualms about disposing of an asset if it becomes a liability, or endangers my mission. But if you're still with me when I finish my mission, then you're home free. 'Cause then I got no reason to kill you."
"I'd testify against you," McGee wheezed. "When they caught you."
"Well number one, they're not going to catch me. You don't do deniable operations for fifteen years without learning to disappear and never be found unless you want to be. Number two: you wouldn't need to testify. If they did catch me I'd plead guilty to every charge."
Hauser stood, reholstered his weapon, and righted McGee's chair before lifting the agent back into it.
"Remember, you've got family and friends who wanna see you in good health again someday," Hauser said as he replaced the soup bowl and the sandwich plate. "Don't take that away from them forever because of two shitbags who aren't even worth the sweat in my jock strap."
Hauser went back into the kitchen, where he pulled a small bottle of Gatorade out of the fridge and a bottle of aspirin out of one of the cupboards. When he came back to the dining area, McGee was slowly typing, a look of utter emptiness on his face. The typing was slow and clunky, and stopped completely when Hauser put the two small bottles he held onto the table beside the laptop.
Hauser took his seat and resumed his dinner as McGee tried to open the aspirin with shaking hands. When it was clear he couldn't do it, Hauser set his sandwich down and helped, then helped him open and drink the Gatorade. After McGee drowned two aspirin pills with the red concoction, he went back to work, his torso feeling as hollow as a balloon.
Outside the Apartment of "Jay Massani," Washington, D.C./September 15, 2010, 2039 Romeo
Gibbs could've sworn to God that the space between cars he saw before the target building was way too damn small for the Charger. He would've bet his badge, gun and every cent of retirement pension that no sane human being on Earth with a soul could manage to park the Charger in that spot if they took the utmost care of a snail's crawl. If by some work of the devil they did manage to get it in, they surely would've dented or even torn off a bumper.
Ziva somehow whipped it in at 105 mph and didn't even scratch the paint.
Despite the hammering in his chest, he was only a second behind Ziva as they leapt from the car and stormed up the stoop into the front door. The first floor looked to be just for mailboxes and broom closets, no actual residences. Their feet were unexpectedly quiet as they bolted up the stairs, running as if the fires of hell were at their feet. Once they reached the second floor, Gibbs looked between the hallway before them and the stairs leading up.
The ISP gave them the building, but not the room. And there were only two agents to search each floor individually. Growling, Gibbs pulled out his phone and hit Abby's speed-dial number.
"Abby, I need you to-"
"Gibbs, I've already been checking on the occupants!" she cut him off. "They all check out except for one on the third floor, room 327. The owner's info comes back to a special CIA account they use to pay for agent expenses when they're overseas. It was hacked to pay for three months worth of rent for the apartment, and the CIA's questioning the guy in charge."
As Abby talked, Gibbs motioned upstairs. 327 he mouthed as he and Ziva began their ascent.
"If Hauser did it and he was able to hack a CIA funding system, why in the hell does he need McGee?"
"They don't think Hauser did it himself," Abby explained. "He's done a lotta work for 'em, Gibbs, and a lotta people owe him favors. The guy in charge of the fund was one of 'em."
Gibbs worried what other favors Hauser had used in his revenge plot…or had yet to cash in.
"Keep me updated, Abbs," Gibbs said before closing the phone. He and Ziva were then at apartment 327 as they took up positions on opposite sides of the door. They drew their SIGs before Gibbs gave the signal. Ziva did her thing and kicked the door open.
"Federal agents, freeze!" Gibbs screamed as he and Ziva burst in, their firearms covering all angles.
The apartment was empty.
For a moment, the two could only stand there before they spread out. This place was small, almost more like a hotel room, Ziva took the bedroom and bathroom (both abysmally small) while Gibbs took the living/dining room and kitchen.
"Clear!" Ziva said as she came back into the main room, sliding her handgun into her holster.
"Clear," Gibbs replied as he came to stand beside the table. On it was a plate covered in crumbs, and a near empty bowl with what looked like soup broth. As he reholstered his gun with one hand, he held the other out and felt the side of the soup bowl with the back of his middle knuckle. "Still warm."
"We just missed them…"
Gibbs turned around and walked back into the main hall, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
"Dammit!" he shouted in rage, his fist piercing the drywall like a knife through paper.