Chapter 3
Tim woke to pain and confusion. Why was this happening to him? A sudden blow to his stomach brought him to full awareness. A voice intruded on his mental turmoil.
"You're such a weakling, Tim. No wonder they still call you Probie. Anyone else would have been able to escape by now."
"It's just a nickname," he whispered weakly.
The man punched him again. "What did I tell you about speaking out of turn, Probie?"
Tim was silent hoping to stop the pain. It didn't work. With another punch, the man said, "I asked you a question!"
"I don't speak unless spoken to."
"That's right. Any questions?"
"Why are you doing this?"
This time the man punched him in the face. "You are not allowed to ask questions. You only answer them."
During the time that followed, the man either taunted Tim for his weakness, forcing him to agree, or simply beat him without reason or mercy. This lasted for the next two days, but for Tim it seemed unending. The pain he felt at every moment, even during the brief periods in which he was allowed to rest, became all that he knew. It felt like the man was doing it for the fun of hearing him scream. However, Monday came, and the procedure changed. The man took Tim down from the wall and dropped him to the floor. The release from the constant pain was so sudden that Tim actually forgot what it meant at first. Just as he was beginning to relax a little, he heard a voice right next to his ear. He tried to back away, but he couldn't. He couldn't get away from that voice.
"Now, it's time to have fun. You're all mine. No one knows where you are. No one cares about you."
"Where's McGee?" Gibbs asked when he saw McGee's desk. It didn't look quite right to him. There were elements out of place, but he couldn't put his finger on what was missing besides McGee himself. Then, he noticed the garbage can was dented and dirty. Tim's chair showed signs of being dirty as well. That wasn't like Tim to leave his area in such disarray.
"Still showering probably," Tony joked. However, seeing Gibbs' expression, he continued more seriously, "I haven't seen him since Friday, boss. He was still working on the Dobson files."
"Call him. I want to know why he's not here."
Ziva interjected, "Did you check your email? Maybe he sent another sick note."
Gibbs leaned over and checked. "Nothing. Call him."
As Tony took out his phone and dialed Tim's number, he heard someone calling his name. "Hey, DiNozzo! You got a package. Actually, you all got one. From the same place," Jack, the mail carrier, called out from the elevators.
"From whom?" Tony asked, sounding a little wary. The last anonymous package he had opened had nearly killed him.
"It says it's from some video store. It's marked urgent."
"I'm not opening it." He listened to the rings on the other end of the line. "He's not answering, boss."
"It passed the scans," the mail man insisted.
"So did the last one, Jack. I'm not opening it."
"What do you want me to do with it, then? Agent Gibbs?"
Gibbs was silent, considering for a moment. Then, he extended his hand for his package and opened it. Tony managed not to flinch while Ziva smirked a little at his expression. There was no powder this time, just a video with "Where's McGee?" written on it. They all went silent. He went to the VCR and shoved the video inside.
The image was of an empty room. No one was on the screen, but there was a voice, distorted to the point that it was impossible to tell even whether it was male or female. "Hello, NCIS. I have a movie for you to watch. It's sure to engage your attention."
The camera swung around, out of focus, to a figure seated in a chair. Slowly, the image sharpened to reveal McGee blindfolded, tied to a chair. It went blank briefly, but then the team watched without expression as the beating started, although Tony winced when Tim was hung from the hook and started screaming. It went on for what seemed like forever. There was no other pause to indicate that there was any time lapse between the beatings. Gibbs reached over and fast forwarded to the end of the tape. The voice was back.
"Just try to find him. We'll be in touch." Then, the video ended.
Gibbs turned around to look at Ziva and Tony. Even Ziva's face showed a measure of shock. Before he could say anything, Abby ran into the room in a panic.
"Gibbs! I just got a video that had McGee's name on it! I put it in and watched it, and it was of McGee getting beat up! I didn't know what else to do so I kept watching. It was terrible, and I don't know what to do. Gibbs, what do I do? Why did they send this without any sort of demand? You have to watch it!"
Gibbs grabbed Abby by the shoulders and shook her gently. She finally stopped talking. "We already saw it, Abbs. They sent us a copy, too."
"Who did this?"
"I don't know. Is there anything you can do in your lab?"
Now focused, Abby broke away from Gibbs and started pacing back and forth in front of Ziva and Tony.
"I can try to remove the distortion on the voice. Maybe I can isolate some details about the room he's being... held in. I'll get started." She took the tape and dashed away to her lab.
"I'll contact the post office and see if we can track where the packages were dropped off," Ziva said.
"Check on the name of the video store as well. It's probably fake, but see if you can track it down. Tony, you come with me to McGee's apartment. Let's see if we can figure out how long he's been gone."
"Right, boss."
As they rode over to Tim's apartment, both were silent. If this was as real as it looked, it was serious. They pulled up and saw Tim's car in the parking lot.
"He made it home at least," Tony observed.
They climbed the steps to the apartment, but the door was closed and locked. The door mat had been pushed out of the way. Tony bent down and picked the lock. The apartment was chaos. The shelves had been pushed over; the books were strewn across the floor. Every drawer and cupboard were opened, the contents shuffled around. Tim's typewriter had been knocked to the floor and broken.
"What were they looking for?"
Gibbs knelt on the floor and looked up at Tony. So far he hadn't said a word. He held up what he had found there.
"McGee's gun. The safety's off and it's cocked," Tony said.
"He knew something was wrong, right when he got home. It must have been Friday night," Gibbs said, finally speaking.
"How do you know?"
Gibbs pointed at McGee's bag, its contents dumped on the floor as well. It was still muddy, although by now the mud had dried and flaked onto the floor. The floor was dirty where he must have walked into the room, but the dirt only went a few feet.
"McGee would never have left his stuff muddy like that," Tony agreed. Then, he looked a little to Gibbs' left. "That looks like blood."
Gibbs turned and saw the spot. Wordlessly, he took a sample for testing.
Tony started walking through the apartment. "It must have happened fast. I don't see any bullet holes and no police bulletins have gone out. We would have known. He saw something out of place? Maybe someone? He drew his gun, and they snuck up on him and coshed him on the head or something like that."
Together, they began to dust for fingerprints and search for any remnant left by McGee's kidnapers. The only fingerprints were Tim's and there seemed to be no evidence of a struggle.
"Who would go after McGee? What does he have that they want? It couldn't be for this last case. And I don't think anyone besides Ziva and I could hate him for his book," Tony wondered aloud.
Gibbs, who had reverted back to silence during their examination of the apartment, stood and looked around. It seemed wrong that McGee's place should be trashed like that. For all his faults, McGee was so organized with what he did that this seemed capricious and cruel.
"Boss? What do you think? What were they looking for?"
Suddenly, Gibbs realized that there was no rhyme or reason to how the apartment had been trashed. "Nothing."
"Nothing? Why trash his place then?"
"I don't know, but as you said, there's no reason to take McGee. At least, no reason related to his personal life. It must have been work related. They just trashed it to confuse us."
"The old gut kicking in?"
Gibbs didn't respond. His phone rang.
"Gibbs."
"Gibbs, get back here right away."
"What is it, Abby?"
"I think I found something on the tape. It's a web site or something. I'm trying to clear it up right now. I'll have it done by the time you get back."
"Right." He hung up. "Abby thinks she might have found something on the tape."
"Great."
When they got back, Ziva was watching as Abby began typing in the web address. She turned around, triumphant, "I told you I'd have it done by the time you got back."
"What's the site?"
"I don't know. It's a personal homepage. It's loading now."
The site was nothing but a blank page with a link which read, "Where's McGee?". Abby looked at the others and then shrugged and clicked. It forwarded them to a live video feed. McGee was laying on the ground gasping in pain. His face was bloody and his clothes were torn. They watched as a man wearing a mask knelt by McGee and leaned over and whispered something in his ear.
"Is there any sound Abby?" Gibbs asked.
"Yeah, let me enhance it a bit."
"–no one cares about you."
They watched as the man stood and walked out of the shot. McGee backed away from the sound. Blindfolded, he simply pushed himself backward until he hit the wall. Then, there was a sound of metal scraping on the floor and the man was back, dragging a tub filled with water. When he had it centered in the frame, he straightened and walked back to McGee, standing over him.
He said, derisively, "This is the best you can do, Probie? You're pathetic. No wonder they make fun of you all the time. You're more worthless than DiNozzo says. They all think of you that way at NCIS; you know that don't you?"
McGee didn't answer. The man kicked him hard. "I asked you a question."
"No."
The man kicked him again. "I don't like being contradicted."
"They don't think I'm worthless."
Again, he kicked Tim. "Wrong, Probie. Everything you do is wrong. You can't do anything right. You investigate a murder and fail to stop the killer from murdering your only witness. You kill an undercover police officer. You send your boss to a slumber party instead of the person you're tracking. You chase a subject and fall down a hill instead of catching him. That doesn't sound like a successful track record to me."
"I did things right," McGee whispered.
"I told you not to contradict me." The man dragged McGee over to the tub and shoved his head into the water. As Tim started to struggle against the hands holding him down, the man looked right into the camera. Since he was masked, the observers couldn't see his expression, but every one of them knew he was smiling. Then, he pulled Tim up and asked, "Do they think you're worthless?"
"No," Tim gasped.
"Wrong answer." Down he went again. When he pulled him up, he asked, "Well?"
"No," he said, but more faintly. He was dunked again. This went on for awhile longer until finally, when the man pulled him up, McGee shouted, "Yes! Yes, yes, please!"
Tony heard Ziva sigh. He tore his gaze from the screen and raised his eyebrows at her.
"That's it," she said. "Whatever this man wants from McGee, he's going to get it."
Everyone turned to Ziva, now. "Why do you say that?" Abby asked.
"His interrogator got him to agree. It doesn't matter what he agreed to. McGee will start to believe that if he does what the man asks him, he won't be punished. McGee's not strong enough to withstand even this rudimentary torture. Eventually, he'll break down."
"Maybe we should find him before that happens then," Gibbs remarked.
"What do you suggest? The post office tracked the packages to a drop-off box. I checked on the video store. It doesn't exist. Abby has only got this website. Did you find anything at McGee's apartment?" At Tony's silence, she continued, "Unless we can figure out what they want, I don't see that we have any leads. This," she gestured at the screen, " is a dead end. They're only doing this to distract us."
"I don't give up that easily," Gibbs said. "We've just started and I don't want to hear any of that from you again. Find out how this guy knew all those things about McGee. He must have access to this office somehow." He walked out.
At the stares from Tony and Abby, Ziva said, "What? You know I'm right. It's not wrong to put things in perspective."
Abby simply turned back to the video still playing on the screen. McGee was now lying on the floor coughing and gasping for breath. He lay limply, not moving much. The man was not present. Instead of watching though, she went back to the video running the distorted voice, trying to distill the original tones. She ignored the presence of the two agents behind her, focusing intently on her work. Tony just looked once more at the image of McGee on the floor. For a moment, his face was full of anguish. That man could have been quoting things he'd said to McGee more than once. Then, he covered his feelings, and he and Ziva headed back up to their desks.
Once they got there, Gibbs looked up. "Ziva, I want you to watch both the video and the site. Look for anything in their procedure that might indicate a place of origin."
"They're not experts; I can tell you that right away. Cruel, yes. But an expert interrogator would have broken McGee in five minutes. This man knows how to cause pain, but only crudely."
"Fine, get going on it and tell me when you know more. Tony, get the security tapes for the last few weeks and see if anyone was hanging around our desks more than usual. Someone has been listening to too many conversations."
Ziva went back down to Abby's lab and took over a monitor for her analysis. Abby ignored her. Tony was watching the security videos. Every so often he glanced over at McGee's desk. This type of thing was usually his job. It was ironic that they needed the person they were trying to find so much right now. Gibbs went up to Jenny's office.
"Any leads so far?"
"Not really. We've only known he was missing for a few hours. We know he's alive right now, but not where he is."
All business, Jenny said, "Need I remind you, Agent Gibbs, that McGee knows enough about our system here to pose a very serious threat to national security."
"I'm aware of that, Director. However, we can't stop him from divulging that information unless we find him."
"I'm as concerned about McGee as you are, Jethro, but there are other cases going on right now. Criminals don't wait until it's convenient."
"Then, I guess we'd better find him as quickly as possible, hadn't we?"
"Did the other crew find anything useful at McGee's apartment?"
"Nothing that DiNozzo and I hadn't already discovered. No fingerprints besides McGee's. Nothing seems to have been taken, not even his laptop. They weren't robbing him. Whatever they want, it wasn't at McGee's apartment."
"Then, it wasn't personal."
"Most likely not."
"Then, they wanted something from here."
"Probably."
"What?"
"I don't know yet. We'll find out."
Jenny's voice finally softened. "No arguments this time, Jethro. Do what you need to."
"Thanks, Jen." Gibbs left.