Author's Note: Alright, here you guys and gals go! The chapter you've all been waiting for! McGee is finally kidnapped! Poor McGee! Sorry in advance if I did any characters Out of Character. I'm still learning! Thank you for your patience. The speed shoud pick up a little bit more from here. I hope that you enjoy! Please feel free to leave a review (or two) :D Enjoy the chapter!
Missing McGee
Chapter 13: A Dog Day
It was nearly ten o' clock, and by now the squad room had been deserted except for two figures who were working diligently at their desks. McGee was busy typing away, while Gibbs was reading through Tony and Ziva's reports. Gibbs paused and looked at McGee, whose face was practically glued to his computer screen, and whose fingers were still typing.
Gibbs focused on the reports in front of him once again and didn't look up again until he had finished reading through them and was ready to head for home. He hadn't realized what time it was until he glanced down at his watch. It was precisely eleven o' clock pm. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that McGee was still typing away at his computer.
"Big surprise there," he thought as he started packing up. As much as he didn't feel like doing so, he decided to ask McGee if he had finished and was planning on heading home soon.
"Are you almost done there, McGee?"
There was no response from the younger agent except for the constant noise of fingers tapping away at a computer keyboard.
Gibbs tried again. "McGee! Are you almost done? Have you finished yet? Have you found a clue yet?"
Again, there was no response. Gibbs sighed and decided to ignore McGee's ignorance with as much patience he could muster. If McGee wanted to stay up late working, and if he wanted to ignore his question of concern, then that was his choice. There was nothing he could do to change his mind. That was one thing that Gibbs liked about McGee- he was stubborn, just like he was, and he did not give up easily.
"I'm heading home, McGee. I don't care what time you leave, but you had better have a lead for me on Monday, or else I will make you stay here until you can find one. Do you hear me?"
No response.
"Fine, then. I'm going home. You're in charge of locking the place up. Goodnight, McGee." Gibbs finished and walked to the elevator.
"G'night, Boss," McGee mumbled underneath his breath, barely loud enough for Gibbs to hear it. Gibbs did hear him, though, but chose to ignore him instead.
Everything was silent in the squad room once again. McGee glanced at his computer's clock, which read 11:15 pm, and then continued his search on his computer for possible motives behind the murderer's mind. He spent the rest of the hour typing and revising his list of possible motives, then edited it and reviewed it once through before he started typing his list that compared and contrasted the differences between the two deceased naval cadets.
When the clock read 12:05, McGee finally stopped typing and looked back on his work. He had writer two long, lengthy and detailed lists regarding the differences between the two cadets and possible motives behind their deaths. Now came the hard part. Finding the identity of the murderer based upon those various possible motives and the numerous similarities between the two naval cadets. This was going to take forever to complete.
McGee decided to let his computer do all the work this time. He would program his computer to run various scans for the identities of possible murderers. For some strange reason, McGee felt like it would be better for him to let the computer do the work this time around, instead of doing it manually. He had a funny feeling- a gut feeling- that a clue would show up before Monday arrived, and he suspected that by the time he returned on Monday his computer would have identified the name of the murderer. Technology was getting so much more complex these days.
After he had started running the automatic search for the murderer's identity, McGee decided to send off an e-mail to the man that he had met earlier that day- Chris.
"Who knows?" McGee thought. "Maybe he can give me some helpful information. It's just an idea, and I want to stay in touch with him anyways."
Five minutes later, McGee clicked the send option on his computer and was about to shut everything down when his computer "dinged". This notified McGee that the search had found something, or rather, someone.
The search had been running for less than ten more minutes when the name popped up.
"Bruce Parkston…" McGee read aloud to himself. Who knew? Maybe this was the name of the murderer. He wouldn't know for certain until he compared this name to the other two that could possibly come up. He would just have to wait and see. McGee let his computer run for a few minutes more, waiting to see if any more names were selected.
When no more names were found, McGee pulled up everything he could possibly find about Bruce and saved it on a file in an attempt to make his work easier on Monday. He saved the search results that had come up so far onto the same file as well, and just in case, he downloaded everything a hard drive as well.
Seeing that his work at the office was done, McGee shut everything down then headed to the elevator. He knew that his computer would finish the search overnight, and list the names for him when he returned on Monday.
When McGee arrived in the garage, he went straight to his car and got right in. He was ready to go home. It had been a long, grueling, tiresome day. And a bad one, on top of that.
By the time McGee arrived at his apartment building, it was way past midnight; it was almost one o' clock in the morning.
As opened the door in the stairwell that was on his floor, he noticed that something seemed wrong… he couldn't figure out what it was exactly, yet, but it was a gut feeling. He only hoped that it wasn't anything too serious…
When McGee approached his front door, he knew for certain that something was definitely wrong. For starters, Jethro wasn't barking. Normally, whenever he returned from work, Jethro would run up to the door and start up a barking frenzy. Then when McGee would enter inside and walk through the front door, Jethro would run a circle around his legs and jump up on him, placing his hind paws on his shoulder and start licking his face. McGee loved his dog. He felt so lucky to own such a special German Shepard.
But Jethro wasn't barking. Something was definitely wrong. As McGee stood in the hallway, he contemplated calling Gibbs, but decided against it. It was 1:40 am in the morning, and McGee was pretty certain that Gibbs wouldn't want to be woken up at 1:40 am. Especially considering the fact that he had left the office at 11pm. He would only have gotten two hours' worth of sleep, and McGee figured that whatever was wrong probably wasn't worth waking Gibbs up over.
Now if something was truly wrong, perhaps if there were burglars in his home, then McGee would call Gibbs, along with the local police department. But for now, he didn't want to risk waking up Gibbs and calling him over to his apartment at 1:40 in the morning for nothing. He would have to face this alone.
McGee reached for his house key in his bag. While he was retrieving it, he snuck a glance at the bottom of the hallway floor that led into his suite. There was no light coming out from the crack between his door and the floor, another warning sign that something was wrong. McGee would always leave a coffee table light on when he left for work, so that he wouldn't come home to complete darkness.
"I know I'm going to regret this later…" McGee mumbled underneath his breath as he zipped up his backpack pocket after retrieving his house key.
McGee was smart- he wasn't stupid, and he knew that something was wrong inside, but he didn't know exactly what it was. For all he knew, it could be something minor, or it could be something major or even worse. Maybe Jethro was sick… or maybe there were intruders inside. McGee didn't know what he was going up against, but he wasn't going unprepared. He braced himself for the worst.
Taking out his gun and cocking it on safety, McGee put his key in the doorknob and twisted it until he heard it unlock. Then, taking in a deep breath, McGee swung the door open with a strong force and quickly stepped against the side wall of the hallway, in case anyone was trying to sneak up on him.
He waited for about ten seconds, and when no one leapt out at him from behind, he cautiously took a few steps forward until he was in his entryway. Still holding his gun up in front of him, in a defensive/ offensive stance, he glanced around the room slowly. It was hard to see, because the room was so dark.
"Federal Agent!" McGee yelled loud enough for anyone in his suite to hear, but not loud enough to wake his neighbors. "Freeze!" he added.
"Show yourself! I've got a fully loaded weapon here, and I'm not afraid to use it! Now, if there's anyone here, then I'll give you three seconds to show yourselves and surrender. Do you hear me? Show yourself now!" he yelled.
It was completely silent except for the nervous breaths that came from McGee. He highly suspected that there was someone in the suite, he just didn't know where to look first.
"Think, think! What would Gibbs do?" McGee thought and questioned himself. He was still thinking when he thought he heard a faint, muffled whine coming from his bedroom.
"Jethro?" McGee asked, in his state of mind having totally forgotten about his dog.
"Jethro? Are you there? Where are you, boy?"
McGee was suddenly silent when he heard a more distinct, muffled whine that came from his bedroom again. This time it was followed by a low growl, then a muffled yelp.
"Jethro!" McGee yelled, worried for his canine companion's wellbeing. He could only follow the sounds of his dog's whines that led into his bedroom. He feared the worst. What happened? Was Jethro alright? Why was he whining? And growling? Jethro never growled unless he was concerned for his master's safety. For the fourth time that morning, McGee concluded that there was definitely something wrong. It was no longer a matter of if there was something wrong; it was a matter of how severe it was.
As McGee slowly advanced around his hallway corner that lead to his bedroom, he heard another growl from Jethro, only it was louder and more distinct that it had been last time. Again, immediately following his growl, McGee heard Jethro yelp seemingly in pain. The sound of his dog's injured cry made his blood boil.
When McGee was turned and faced his bedroom, he observed that his door had been left wide open, and that Jethro was seemingly nowhere to be seen. That spelled trouble, with a capital T.
Just as he was about to enter his room, McGee heard Jethro growl loudly once again, but this time, he heard a voice harshly whisper, "Shut up, you stupid mutt!", and then the sound of Jethro whining in pain and fear for his master once again.
McGee could stand it no longer. His last shred of patience had disappeared when he heard Jethro whine for a third time and another muffled yelp!
"Federal Agent! Freeze!" McGee yelled.
The man that had been waiting in the shadows against McGee's closest bedroom wall jumped in surprise. McGee raised his weapon and took aim, aiming directly at the intruder that stood before him. He cocked the safety off his gun and shouted,
"Freeze! Drop your weapons! Now raise your hands up! Good. Now what did you do to my dog?" he demanded, angry at the man for trespassing and intruding into his home. What made him mad the most, though, was not being able to see Jethro. McGee was concerned for his dog, more than he was concerned about his general safety.
The man in front of him didn't answer; he remained silent instead.
"I'm only going to ask this one more time- where is my dog, and what did you do to him?" McGee demanded in a tone that was ten times more threatening than it had been a moment ago.
"He's over there," the intruder replied, gesturing towards the corner that was behind him. McGee took his eyes off of the intruder for a minute and glanced at Jethro.
Jethro was lying in a heap in the corner, breathing slowly and heavily. From the looks of it, he had been drugged. That wasn't what concerned McGee the most, though. A small patch of blood had matted on the side of his golden and black furry pelt. It was near the ribs, McGee noted, before he realized that he had unintentionally lowered his weapon.
It was too late. There was a sickening "crack!", and the last thing McGee felt before he fell into unconsciousness was a heavy blow to the back of his head. He jerked once as he fell, then looked towards Jethro one last time with concern as his gaze met with his dog's gaze.
A look of mutual worry and concern for each other passed between the two, and then McGee blacked out as he felt something ram viciously into his head once again.
"Gibbs is going to be so pissed…" was the last thing he thought before he fell into the inky blackness that clouded his vision.
Author's Note:Oh no! Poor mcGee! And poor Jethro! Don't worry, don't worry! Jethro will be fine! I promise! I believe in happy endings, and I would not be able to bear it if Jethro did not have a happy ending. Trust me, everything will be fine! Please let me know what you think. Thanks!