Chapter Fourteen

"Well, that's just … I'm confused."

Gibbs sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Yeah. That was kind of how I felt when Vance told me."

"So after all these years, me thinking Stefano got away with trying to kill me, it wasn't even him?"

"According to the director of the FBI, no. It wasn't."

"Huh." Tony stood up from the edge of the bed and walked toward the bathroom. "Ya know, I remember thinking, when they told me, that it didn't seem right. It didn't seem like something Stefano would do. Ben Rossi makes a lot more sense."

"You knew DelMar pretty well, then?"

"Better than he knew me, I guess." Tony pulled this clothes out of the closet and walked back into the room. "Or not. I never would have made him for CI material. He worshipped Mikey."

Gibbs raised his eyebrows at Tony's casual and familiar use of Macaluso's first name, but he didn't call attention to it. "So what happened that day? What could have scared DelMar enough to go to the FBI?"

Tony put the clothes on the bed and looked down at them. Neither of them had thought to tell McGee what to bring, and it was obvious from the expression on his face that Tony was trying to figure out how he was going to change into the jeans and Navy sweatshirt by himself. Gibbs pushed away from the wall and walked toward him. "Drop 'em."

Tony looked up and blinked in confusion. "Um … what?"

"Pants. Drop 'em."

Tony coughed and turned back to the clothes. "I've been getting myself dressed since I was three, Gibbs. I think I can handle this."

The tone of voice was one that Gibbs hadn't heard from Tony often, but it was enough to make him raise his hands and back away. Tony needed to know that he didn't think he was incompetent. Offering to help him change his pants probably wasn't the best way to accomplish that.

Neither was standing there watching him try to do it himself.

"I'll wait in the hall." He turned to do just that, but a quiet, frustrated sigh stopped him.

"No."

Gibbs turned back with a question in his eyes. Tony held the jeans out to him, and he took them. "You're right." Gibbs stepped forward as Tony stepped out of his scrub pants. "Just remind me to headslap the hell out of McGee for this."

In an effort to distract Tony from what he obviously saw as an humiliating weakness, Gibbs turned back to the conversation they'd been having before. "So, DelMar. What scared him so much?"

Tony put his right hand on Gibbs' shoulder for balance as he stepped into the jeans. "Well, we did watch Mikey murder someone that day. That might have done it." He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "It sure as hell freaked me out."

Gibbs fastened the button before he stepped back. "Who'd he kill?"

It took three attempts, but Tony managed to get the zipper up by himself. "The guy who told him I was a cop."

"Why'd he do that?"

Tony picked the sweatshirt up, looked back and forth between it and his shoulder, and sighed. Gibbs stepped forward without a word, took the sweatshirt, and pulled it over Tony's head. Tony smiled shyly in thanks as he pushed his right arm into the sleeve.

"It's a long story."

"Sounds like." Gibbs nodded his head in silent acknowledgement of Tony's gratitude. "You'll have to tell me some day."

Tony had told him some of the story before. He'd told him that the six-month op had been blown all to hell less than twelve hours before the bust, and that he'd spent the better part of two weeks in the hospital because of it. He'd never provided any specifics, and Gibbs had never pushed him for them. But the events of the past two days had made it evident that there were potentially dozens of people out there who'd be more than happy to see DiNozzo dead, and Gibbs wanted to know all of their names.

"Yeah." Tony's agreement was reluctant, but it was clear that he understood where Gibbs was coming from. "I will." He looked down at his left arm, which was still strapped tightly to his chest, and at the sleeve that dangled loose at his side. "I hate this," he said, waving the sleeve in the air. "I'm used to having two arms. This has me all off-balance."

Gibbs shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You still have two arms," he pointed out. "You just can't use one of them."

"I know." He dropped the sleeve and shot Gibbs a frustrated expression. "That's what I hate about it."

Tim slammed the phone down again. "I've tried everywhere. His apartment, his mom's house, his girlfriend's place, his dad, his sister … He's not using his credit cards, he's not using his phone, and apparently, he's not driving his car. The BOLO hasn't had any hits. I can't find him." He pushed himself out of his chair in frustration and walked to Ziva's desk. "Have you had any luck?"

"I have not." She looked up at him. "Perhaps he has gone to dirt?"

"Ground. Gone to ground." He rolled his shoulders in an effort to relieve the tension between them. "But whatever you call it, he shouldn't be able to do it this well. There's nothing in his past that indicates he has the skills to just disappear."

"The BOLO has only been out for seven hours, and it was overnight."

Tim shook his head. "He hasn't been seen or heard from, or made a phone call or touched his bank account, since he left here yesterday morning."

"You believe he has help, yes?"

Tim nodded. "Just like he did here on Monday night. The more I think about it, the more obvious it is. He couldn't have been the other man who attacked Tony in the parking lot, because one – he's not tall enough, and two – he was at the front gate the whole time. Both video and witnesses put him out there. But he had to have been involved. The chances of someone calling in a fake security breach at the exact second Tony got on the elevator to leave, it's just … well, it's so unlikely it's close to impossible."

"Yet Duncan is our suspect."

"He's a person of interest." He perched himself on the edge of her desk.

"A subtle way of saying he is a suspect."

"He's not the one in the video, but he is our only lead to him. He knows who that man is."

Ziva looked distracted, as though a new angle had just occurred to her. "There are security cameras here in the squad room?"

Tim nodded. "Oh, yeah. They're all over the building."

"Do they have microphones?"

Tim tilted his head slightly. "I don't know. It would make sense, but they're all up so high, I don't know if it would do any good." He pointed at the camera that had the clearest shot of Tony's desk; it was in the corner above the stairs to Vance's office. "The video of the parking lot didn't have any audio on it. Why?"

"How did he know that Tony was leaving for the night?" Ziva stood up and walked toward Tony's desk. "He would have seen him getting on the elevator, but he could have been going anywhere. Had they called in the diversion too early, the attack would have been discovered. I do not believe they would have taken that chance."

As she spoke, she knelt down and started inspecting the cabinets behind the desk closely.

"You think they heard him say it?" He stood up and walked to Tony's desk, too. "They had a mic on him?"

She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and reached into the small space between the two file cabinets. When she held her hand up for Tim to see, there was a small wireless microphone in it. "I would say that is a certainty." She stood up and walked toward the elevator. "I will get this to Abby. And I will come back with an electronic surveillance detector."

Tim watched after her, shaking his head as she walked away. There had been a microphone in their squad room for who-knew-how-long, broadcasting their every word to who-knew-where, and none of them had known. "Unbelievable."

"Hey, McGee?"

It had been so long since Forn/ell had spoken that Tim had forgotten he was there. He was standing in front of the plasma next to Gibbs' desk, looking at the pieces of the investigation that they had assembled after the revelation that DelMar wasn't involved.

"Yeah?"

"What are these numbers?" As he spoke, he pointed at the scan of the handwritten note that Ducky had brought up to them.

It was a list of Tony's injuries, and next to each of them, Ducky had written which of Gibbs' tools were most likely used to inflict them. Tim hadn't been surprised to find out that the screwdriver missing from the set he had given Gibbs was the one removed from Tony's leg at the hospital. Ziva's hammer matched several of the bruises on his chest and back. Though no one would ever tell her, the cuts on Tony's arms had been made with one of the chisels Abby had given Gibbs, and the cuts on his chest were the exact same width as the blade on Ducky's plane. The most upsetting part was finding out that Tony's gift, the antique handsaw that he almost hadn't given, was used to carve Gibbs' name into his back.

There was no way anyone outside the five of them would have known where those tools had come from or who had given them to him, but it was one hell of a coincidence.

At the bottom of that note, Ducky had written four numbers – three, six, nine, and five . They were what Fornell was asking about.

"That's how many wounds Tony had." He stepped forward and explained in more detail. "Ducky thought they might have been a pattern, because they were grouped together. Three on his right arm, six on the right side of his chest, nine on the left side, and five on his left arm." He shrugged. "He thought they might mean something, but if they do, I'll be damned if I know what it is. I've tried dates, addresses, I've even fed them into a computer program that runs every combination possible against anything that might be relevant … I've got nothing."

"Do you have pictures?" Fornell seemed strangely interested in something the McGee had all but dismissed as relevant. "Of the actual groupings?"

"Pictures of Tony's arms and chest?" Fornell nodded. "Yeah. Of course I do." He walked over to his desk, shuffled through the pictures Dr. Marquardt had given them until he found the four Fornell wanted, and handed them to him. "I don't know that they'll do you much good."

Fornell tilted his head and shrugged. "Ya never know. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will see something that you don't."

Getting out of the hospital and into the Challenger took more out of him than Tony thought it should have, but he wasn't going to complain about it. He was too glad just to be out. He spent the first half of the drive to Ducky's with his eyes closed and his head leaned back, but he couldn't rest. His mind was running faster than it had in two days, and without the morphine messing with his head, he could keep up with it.

Unfortunately, his thoughts kept taking him to the same place, over and over again, and that was a place with more questions than answers.

And he hated that.

"So." He spoke hesitantly, but he opened his eyes and turned his head toward Gibbs as he did it. "Do McGee and Fornell have any other suspects?"

Gibbs didn't take his eyes off the road, but he did tighten his fingers around the steering wheel. "If they do, they haven't told me about it."

"Edgar's the only witness?" He'd had the feeling, since Gibbs had told him, that he shouldn't have been surprised to find out Edgar Collins had seen them that night. He just couldn't figure out why he thought that.

Gibbs nodded. "Fornell sent his guys back out to canvas the entire neighborhood. No one else saw anything."

He took a deep breath before he spoke again. "I don't like that, Boss. That's too much pressure for Edgar to handle. Plus, the defense attorney will …"

"I know." Gibbs' voice was tight and controlled. "But he's the only witness we've got."

Silence descended around them, and Tony turned to look out the window. He knew what he wanted to say, and he knew why. He just didn't know how. He took another deep, shaky breath and decided to dive in.

"No," he said softly. "He's not."

"Okay, then." If it was possible, Gibbs' voice was even tighter than it had been. "He's the only witness we've got who can actually remember what he saw."

"He has dementia. Who's to say that what he remembers is what really happened?"

"And you were drugged and bashed your head a time or two. You can't remember anything."

Gibbs was getting angrier by the second. Tony knew what he wanted to ask for, knew what needed to be done, but he would have to handle Gibbs carefully if he was going to get it. He moved his gaze from the side of the road to the windshield, and he lowered his voice even further.

"What if I can?"

Gibbs shook his head. "Tried that. Your lungs damn near seized up, and you could barely breathe. Remember?"

"Muscle spasms," he answered. "The potassium helped, and moving around is going to keep it from happening again."

Gibbs shook his head again, but he stayed silent.

"I've got something in here, Boss. I have to. A sound, or a smell, or …"

"The taste of your own blood?"

Tony flinched away slightly and swallowed hard. Damn, Gibbs was pissed. "Maybe. The point is, there has to be something that will jump start it. Even in the hospital, even as bad as it sucked, I got something, didn't I?"

"Yeah. You got until they shoved that needle in your neck and stopped you from ever remembering the next three hours." Gibbs sighed deeply, and it looked like he loosened his grip on the wheel. "You know how that stuff works. It's not blocking memories that exist. It stopped your mind from creating memories in the first place."

Gibbs' voice had lost a little of its edge, and Tony sat up a bit straighter in his seat. If he was starting to get Gibbs to consider what he was saying, then he needed to push a bit more.

"But that's not always true. We've had drugged victims remember things before. A lot of my memories of what happened the night of the Atlas case came back, too."

"Yeah?" Gibbs glanced over at him and raised his eyebrows. "You remember what happened between calling me in the parking lot and waking up in the sewer?"

Tony looked down at his feet. "Well, no."

Gibbs smiled tightly and turned his eyes back to the road.

"But I was unconscious when Vanessa dragged me to the sewer. Monday night, I wasn't."

Gibbs pulled to a stop at a red light, and he looked at Tony in open disbelief. "How do you know that?"

"Because." He turned his gaze back out the side window light turned green, and Gibbs pulled forward. He closed his eyes for just a second and pretended he didn't feel the shudder that went through him. "What's the point of torturing someone who can't feel it?"

Gibbs nodded, and Tony wondered if he'd seen the tremor that he'd tried to hide. He probably had. Gibbs saw everything.

"How do you feel, Tony?"

He forced a fake smile onto his face and turned away from the window. "Oh, ya know. I'm fine. Shoulder's a little sore, but other than that, I'm just …"

"DiNozzo."

He sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. He was demanding that Gibbs be honest with him, wasn't he? Why couldn't he do the same in return? What was he gaining by lying, other than making himself feel worse than he already did?

"I'm scared." He dropped his hand into his lap and looked back out the windshield. "I'm scared, and I'm weak, and I'm wobbly, and I hate it. I don't know who this guy is. I wouldn't know him if he was standing right next to me. And I can't live like that. And if I can fix it, if I can figure out who he is and make this all go away, then I have to try."

Gibbs stopped at another red light and turned toward him. Tony made himself look him straight in the eye.

"I need to do this, Boss."

Gibbs nodded once, in both understanding and agreement. "Okay."

"Why did he say three?" Fornell looked down at the photos once more, and then back up at Tim.

Tim sat back down at his desk and reached for the phone. It was time to call Duncan's mother again. "Because there are three, probably."

"No, there's not." Fornell walked toward him, and Tim put the phone down. "Look. On his left arm, he's got five, and they're all on his bicep. On his right arm, he's got three, yeah, but one of them is on his forearm."

"Two different groups." Tim stood and took the pictures from Fornell's hand. "Not a three. A one and a two."

"Right. So it's not 3-6-9-5. It's 1-2-6-9-5."

"Why didn't I notice that?"

Fornell gave him a look that would have melted butter, but he softened it into a smile. "Maybe because you haven't slept in two days?"

Tim sighed and nodded his head. "So what does that give us? I still don't know what it means."

"No, but I think I do." Fornell took the pictures back and moved to Gibbs' desk quickly. "I've seen it before. Recently, too. Give me a minute to check it out."

"Abby will call us when she has answers about the microphone." Ziva announced her return as she walked around the partition. "She also believes she is close to matching the handwriting on the note left on Tony's door."

"Why didn't you stay with her?" He stood and tailed her to her desk, but she kept walking. "Ziva?"

"The FBI just sent us the composite sketch that Edgar Collins gave them. I was told that it is vital that we see it immediately. I am going to get it."

Tim stood in the center of the bullpen with his arms at his sides, just watching the activity going on around him. Everyone was doing something. Fornell was on the phone with someone, asking about the numbers. Ziva was getting the composite. Abby was in her lab, running more DNA tests and trying to match handwriting. Even Ducky and Palmer, still down in autopsy, were going back over Marco Santori's body, trying to find some clue that they might have missed. And there he was, watching them work, adding absolutely nothing of value to the investigation.

Maybe it was time for him to take that nap after all.

He headed back to his desk to do exactly that, but just as he reached it, his phone started to ring. Hoping that it might be someone calling him back about Robert Duncan, he picked it up quickly.

"McGee."

"Agent McGee! You've got to help them!"

"What?" The voice sounded familiar, but it was panicked. It took his mind a few seconds to process who, exactly, had called him. "Who is … Duncan? Is this you?"

"Yes! Listen to me! You've got to …!"

Tim's heart skipped more than one beat. After all of his searching, the man he most needed to talk to was on the other end of the phone. There might be hope for the investigation yet.

"No, Duncan, you listen to me. We know that you were involved in the attack on DiNozzo, and we need to …"

"Yes, I was. I admit it. I'll admit to anything you want, but you've got to stop him. He's going to kill them!"

"McGee!" Fornell was suddenly standing in front of his desk, waving the pictures of Tony's wounds around. "I know what these numbers are. We've gotta move."

"McGee, Agent Fornell." Ziva walked briskly around the corner, and she had something in her hands, too. "You must see this."

"Timmy!" And then Abby was standing there, bouncing up and down in excitement. "I matched it! I know who wrote the note!"

"Listen to me! He's following them to Gibbs' house."

"Why are they going to Gibbs' house?" He was getting overwhelmed with all the information flying at him, but he forced himself to concentrate on Duncan. "And how do you know that?"

"I don't know. All I know is that they are, and he called me, and he's going to kill them. It was a joke. He told me it was a joke. He just wanted to mess with him, show him that he wasn't a screw up. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. He wasn't supposed to get hurt. I'm on my way there now, but he's right behind me, and …"

"It's a badge number, McGee. An FBI badge number. And it belonged to …"

"Edgar Collins could not have described him so perfectly. As far as we knew, he'd never seen him before."

"I found it in the security logs, but it wasn't Duncan's. It was …"

They were all speaking at once, and Tim held his hand up to stop them.

"Who?!"

Four voices answered in unison, three in front of him and one through the phone.

"Bruce Rivers!"

Gibbs was sitting on the bottom of the stairs, watching Tony closely for any sign of distress. Tony, for his part, was standing stock still in the middle of the basement, right under where he and Ducky had found him. The crime scene had been released overnight, and Fornell's cleaners had a done a decent job getting rid of the blood. But at least in Gibbs' eyes, there was still a faint stain where the majority of it had pooled.

He didn't know if it was real, or if he was imagining it, but he knew that he'd probably always see it.

"You getting anything?"

Tony had his eyes closed, and he was holding his right arm out to his side. It was painful to watch, but Gibbs had no intention of stopping him. If this was what Tony needed, then this was what they would do.

Tony shook his head slowly. "It smells like …" He stopped for a few seconds and sniffed the air. "Bleach."

Gibbs nodded slowly. "Yeah. I noticed that. Think it's going to interfere?"

Tony dropped his arm, opened his eyes, and turned toward him. "I don't know. I mean, the real smell is still there. It's just … it's deeper. Like it's buried."

"What's the real smell?" Gibbs stood and walked toward him. The longer they were in the basement, the more he thought Tony had a real shot at remembering something that could help. As soon as they'd walked into the house, Tony had frozen in the doorway and muttered, 'Not real.' It had taken a few seconds to get him grounded in reality again, but Tony finally said that he remembered thinking he was imagining being in the house that night.

Gibbs' famous gut was telling him they needed to leave, that something was about to go terribly wrong, but he couldn't deny that, at least on the surface, Tony's idea seemed to be working. If nothing else, it was giving Tony back some sense of control, and he needed that.

Tony smiled. "Sawdust." He snorted out a short laugh, then continued. "Bourbon." He closed his eyes again and let his mind focus on the scents he usually associated with the basement. "Musty, but clean. Wood stain. Eight years of memories. It smells like you. And …"

He trailed off, but Gibbs picked up on what he wasn't saying. Remembering what Ducky had said to him in the hospital, he offered a suggestion of his own.

"Safety."

"Yeah." Tony opened his eyes, but he looked down at his feet almost immediately. "Kinda lame, huh?"

He shook his head. "No. I want it to smell like that." He smiled, but only for a second. "I want my kids to feel safe here." He reached out and put his hand on Tony's shoulder. "I want you to feel safe here."

Tony lifted his head, looked him in the eye, and nodded. "I do."

It was one of the things that had bothered him the most since he'd first come down the stairs on Monday night. They'd invaded his home, yes, but they'd done more than that. They'd hurt Tony, badly, in the one place he should have felt the safest. Should have been the safest. They'd tried to destroy the sanctuary that he'd created, both for himself and for the people he cared about. And he was still afraid that they'd manage to do it.

"You sure?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure." He must have seen the hesitance in Gibbs' eyes, because he kept going. "They can't take this away, Boss. I won't let them."

He squeezed Tony's arm just once, then let go. "Okay, so why don't we try …?"

A loud banging from upstairs cut him off, and they both looked up toward the sound. The pounding continued, and Gibbs recognized it as someone insistently knocking on his front door. He rolled his eyes. Everyone who knew anything about him knew that the door was unlocked, which meant this was someone he didn't know well.

"Stay here," he said as he turned. "I'll be right back."

He didn't like leaving Tony alone, but it was the best choice he had. It would have taken a long time to get Tony back up the stairs, and if it was just the mailman or a nosy neighbor, he'd exhaust himself for nothing. Besides, he'd only be gone for a minute. Just long enough to get rid of whoever that was trying to beat his door in.

He put his hand on the gun at his waist as he opened the door, and then he stopped in surprise when he saw who was standing on the other side. He recognized him immediately, but he had no idea why the man McGee had gotten fired for incompetence was standing on his doorstep.

"Duncan? What the hell …?"

"You've got to leave." The man's face was red, as though he'd just run a long distance, though Gibbs could see his car outside. He was frantic, nervous, bouncing from one foot to the other as he took a few steps into the house. "You can't stay here. It's not safe."

"Get out of my …"

"He's coming. He's right behind me! Is DiNozzo here? You've got to get him and …"

If the gunshot surprised him, the suddenly lifeless body that toppled into his foyer surprised him even more. And the man who was standing on the sidewalk, holding the gun that shot had been fired from, left him absolutely floored.

"Rivers! What the hell are you doing?"

Rivers stepped around Duncan's body, sparing only a glance at the blood that was seeping out from what remained of the man's throat and spreading all over the hardwood floor.

"It was him," he said simply. "Duncan. He's the one who attacked Tony in the parking lot."

"What? No, he wasn't. He couldn't have."

"But he helped." Rivers was wearing a damned annoying smile that Gibbs wanted nothing more than to slap off his face. He was sure it was meant to be ingratiating, but it was grating. "He set Tony up. He helped them get into the Yard, and he told them when he was heading to his car."

He supposed he should have been able to think a bit more clearly, but there was a dead man bleeding all over his floor, and the one lead that they might have had to who tried to kill Tony was gone.

"So you just killed our best witness?" The smile fell from Rivers' face, and his eyes narrowed. "You stupid son of a …"

"I was protecting Tony." His voice had gone from irritating to low and tight. "Isn't that what you want? Is that what you always want? Protect Tony at all costs?"

"Not like that!" Gibbs' phone started to ring, and he pulled it out of his pocket. "Put that damn gun away before I shoot you." He glanced down at the screen and flipped the phone open.

"McGee …"

White-hot pain exploded in the back of his head, and everything went black.

Tony heard the sound of raised voices from upstairs, but he didn't get alarmed until the he heard the gunshot.

"No."

He started toward the stairs, but he realized quickly that he'd be no use against anyone with only one arm. He pulled his shirt up, undid the straps securing his left arm to his chest, and let it fall to his side. Pain shot down his arm and into his shoulder, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it.

The voices upstairs had grown even louder, and Gibbs was cussing. He had to get up there.

It cost him precious seconds to push his arm into his sleeve, and he bit off a cry of pain as he straightened muscles that hadn't moved in thirty-six hours, but he managed. He moved to the stairs and started up as quickly as he could. He had to hold the railing to keep from toppling over, but he forced himself to keep climbing.

The voices from upstairs had stopped. The house was silent. He had just reached the landing when a familiar face appeared in the doorway.

"Hey there, Golden Boy."

He'd been wrong about needing smells to help him remember what had happened Monday night. He'd needed a sounds. Specifically, he'd needed to hear that voice speak those two words.

"Bruce. You …"

He saw the gun in Rivers' hand as he raised it, and he felt it when it came down against the side of his face. He knew he was falling, but there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The last sound he heard was his own voice screaming as his left shoulder slammed into the concrete floor.