Author's Note: I have to apologize again for the hiatus. My long distance boyfriend, who I never get to see, came to visit for Valentine's Day weekend. Back on track now.
Chapter Seven – Subordinate
Tony and Ziva stood outside room 458 at a DC Marriot Residence Inn, listening through the closed door. They had tailed Thomas Paul, writer of Amira's threatening letters, from Dulles airport all the way here, and had watched as he got the key to this room from the concierge in the lobby. After he'd gotten into the elevator, they'd waited for the next and gone up to the fourth floor to meet him. The door to the hotel room was already closed, and inside, they could hear a radio playing.
With the synchronization of several years of partnership, Tony and Ziva burst in upon the room together, throwing the door open and thrusting themselves through it with weapons drawn. "Federal agents!" shouted Tony, prematurely and unnecessarily. The room appeared to be empty.
While Tony carefully crept around the corner to peer into the tiny bathroom, Ziva examined the furniture, the closed windows, and the floorboards. As far as she could tell, no one had been in to this room for several days, as there were no signs of life, or even of the work of the hotel maintenance staff.
"Our bird's flown," muttered Tony, returning to her side and flopping down on the couch. "Must have seen us in the lobby and taken the elevator up to a different floor."
Ziva shook her head. A stirring of her innards that Gibbs would have called a gut feeling was pressuring her to reconsider. Something wasn't right about this room. For one thing, it didn't look like a proper hotel room. There was no welcome basket of crackers and whatnot, no card on the table indicating how to access the wireless internet. Through the now open bathroom door, she could see that there was no shampoo on the edge of the tub. This room wasn't designed to be rented, and didn't have to be cleaned because of it's regular lack of occupants.
"Ziva," Tony was insisting. "Hey, earth to David. He's not here. We gotta go. Maybe he went all the way up and found the fire escape. If we're really fast, we might be able to pick up his trail."
Shaking her head, Ziva murmured, "We should stay."
Tony stared at her. "You want to be the one to tell Gibbs that we lost his goddaughter's stalker because we need a break from the footwork?"
Ziva's feet, she reflected, were not actually tired. Come to think of it, the phrase "footwork" did not seem to properly apply to a job such as hers, where most of the traveling was done in a motorized vehicle. Dropping this line of irrelevant thought, she glanced around the room, trying to get some sense of what it was this room was regularly used for. Tony, watching her rapt and intent expression, relaxed slightly, and threw his arms up to rest his head upon.
"Okay," he said. "Okay, so we wait. But this had better be a real good hunch. I'm just saying."
Ziva did not answer. She agreed, taking a long shot with this case was nothing short of a very bad idea…but she had to know. She hoped fervently that she knew a gut feeling when she felt one. After all, it might end up being nothing short of bad repercussions from her lunchtime hamburger.
***
The door to Gibbs' hospital room was still slightly open when Abby arrived. Walking in and reaching to close it behind her, she found him sitting bolt upright on the cot, his brows furrowed, his fingers white as he clenched his hands together and stared balefully at the wall across from him. Of course, she didn't have to wonder why his mood was so foul. Abby had been there when McGee had made the call to Gibbs to inform him that Thomas Paul had just arrived in DC. She'd been almost ready to believe that they weren't going to have any more trouble from the anti-Iraqi terrorist group that had successfully hunted them down and paid the price for it only a few days before, and thought that maybe Gibbs had begun to relax too. Then again, the idea of Gibbs being relaxed was such a new one to Abby that she had only entertained the concept very briefly. To be honest, she wasn't sure he really could. One day, she decided, she'd recommend a really good masseuse. That is, she would after she found a really good masseuse. A massage sounded like such a great idea right about now…
"Hi, Gibbs," murmured Abby, approaching her furious-faced boss/lover with appropriate caution. "Has, um…has Ducky been in to see you? He said he would, after he handed some stuff over to Palmer."
Gibbs didn't reply. Abby, swallowing a sigh, tried again.
"I bet Tony and Ziva are there right now at that hotel, apprehending our perpetrator. I brought my cell phone and I left it on…I feel kinda like a rebel having my phone on in the hospital, it's sexy. Exhilarating. You probably don't care about that. I mean, I brought my cell phone so that Tony could call us when he's got the guy."
"It should be me," muttered Gibbs. Abby spent a couple of seconds processing the significance of that, before it struck home. Gibbs was resentful of being stuck in the hospital. That was such a reasonable and human sentiment that it almost didn't seem to fit him.
"Tony's a really good agent," Abby soothed him. "If anybody can take down a criminal, Tony's our guy. Not that you're not our guy, our wouldn't be our guy, but you can't be, because you're recovering, and-!"
"Yeah," rasped Gibbs angrily, "yeah, I know, Abs."
It suddenly occurred to Abby that Gibbs would not be recovering if it weren't for her. Gibbs would not have had to be in the hospital at all, perhaps, if it hadn't been for her ill-fated attempt at a lover's quarrel. It wasn't that she hadn't considered that before, just that she'd been so overwhelmed with how well he was doing and how quickly he was improving that everything else had seemed really of little importance in comparison. If Tony got hurt now, or Ziva, because Gibbs was laid up and unable to be the perfect team captain that they needed so badly, it would be her fault too.
Gibbs must have seen the sudden unfortunate realization in Abby's face, because he made a valiant attempt at softening his own expression. A little more gently, he mumbled, "Dad was here."
Abby brightened up a bit. "Yeah? I'm so glad he came. I was afraid that he might not be able to come, when Ducky called him…but I guess dads sort of have this 'fix everything' mentality. I mean, it's kind of important to have, when you become a dad, to know that you're gonna…" she trailed off, remembering that the subject of fatherhood and fatherly responsibilities might not be an excellent one to use to cheer Gibbs up.
He, however, didn't really seem to be listening. Nodding absently at her, he was staring past her, still at the space on the wall that had apparently already received a great deal of scrutiny from him. "He shouldn't have come," said Gibbs.
Abby wanted to hug him, and so she did, but much more gently and contentiously this time, avoiding the damaged patch of his chest. He let her embrace him, even went so far as to put his arms around her and his hands against her back, but there was no comforting pressure, no relieved relaxation of his body against hers. Gibbs was far too agitated to be so easily diverted, too distracted by something unvocalized to be able to appreciate the solace Abby was trying to bring him. As she lay there, with her head resting lightly against his chest, Abby tried not to worry about Jackson Gibbs, or about Ducky's admonishing words to her about not damaging the slowly recuperating familial bond between Gibbs and his father. Gibbs had said that his dad 'shouldn't have come.' What was that for? Was it worry that Jack would be caught in the crossfire?
Abby wanted to believe that was what was troubling Gibbs, but she hadn't spent years as a brilliant detective only to be able to so easily delude herself. All the evidence, the body language, the tone of voice, and the well-known expression in the back of Gibbs' eyes gave Abby plenty of reason to believe that he was suffering from his least favorite type of problem; the personal kind.