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Chapter Sixteen
Gibbs stood in the corridor, supervising as Tony shepherded all of the techs and assistants to one room and proceeded to take their prints. He smiled secretly as he watched. The kid was friendly and efficient, flirting with every female in the room and joking with most of the males. As an assembled group, the techs were every bit stereotypical nerds; whiny, neurotic, uncoordinated and just plain annoying. Gibbs, not for the first time, tanked his lucky stars he had Abby. There was no way he'd be able to work with any one of these techs on a regular basis. He doubted any of them would last long working under him at NCIS anyway. Tony didn't seem to have any problems interacting with them and he finished within a few minutes. He grinned cheerily at Gibbs on the way out, returning to Abby in the other lab.
Standing in the doorway, Gibbs stared at the seven other occupants of the room. None would meet his gaze. His concentration was broken by a sharp rap on the glass window. Turning, Gibbs saw Vernski, the bumbling police captain, standing in the hallway. Vernski twitched his index finger, indicating for Gibbs to join him outside. Gibbs gave a final glare to the techs before striding out to talk to the captain. A glance through the window of Abby's temporary home told him she and Tony were hard at work.
"Agent Gibbs," Vernski began.
"That's Special Agent Gibbs," Gibbs interrupted, his patience quickly depleting.
"Yes, yes. Anyway, I've come down here to speak to you about your involvement in these cases. I had my assistant call you, but she couldn't get through; maybe she rang the wrong number…"
Gibbs gave his cell phone a cursory glance. Damn thing had stopped working for some reason, the screen was all black. He'd been meaning to ask Abby to fix it or reboot it or something.
"Anyway, as we discussed earlier," Vernski continued. "I'm happy for ou to share the lead on this investigation with DiNozzo. But I was hoping as part of this arrangement, in the spirit of cooperation, you would release a statement to the press."
Gibbs gave Vernski an evil look, radiating annoyance from all of his being. Oblivious, Vernksi kept talking.
"Ordinarily DiNozzo handles the media duties, but with the black eye and Becker out of commission, you're the best we've got. Although, come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt the public morale to have a federal agent in the public view."
"I'd prefer to discuss the circumstances surrounding DiNozzo's black eye," Gibbs replied, eyeing the man.
Vernski laughed. "Agent Gibbs, I'm sure you understand. The men working for me are young lads, they play rough sometimes. From what I heard, it was an accident; all in fun."
Gibbs's hand clenched into a fist as he resisted the urge to punch the man in the face. It was only the thought of both the subsequent paperwork and the lecture he'd receive from Tom Morrow that stopped him from doing so.
"I've got real work to do," he snarled, turning back to the room of techs.
"But the press conference??" Vernski called after him.
Gibbs froze, but it had nothing to do with Vernski. There were only six people in the room. A quick scan told him who was missing – the young, shifty eyed man.
"Where is he?" Gibbs shouted to the room.
The remaining techies offered no assistance, cowering in fear and grappling for their inhalers. Gibbs flew out of the room, barging straight into Abby's lab. It was empty, the techno music reverberating off the walls. Two computers flashed impatiently, a single face flashing on each monitor above the words: MATCH FOUND. Jake Anders.
Gibbs cursed Vernski, his eyes darting around the room in search of alternate exits. Anders may have slipped out of the room while he was distracted with the police captain, but there was no way a lab assistant/serial rapist/murderer, a trained police officer and a lab technician in knee-high platform boots could have left via the hallway without somebody noticing.
A window presented the first possible escape route, but it was small and highly unlikely that three people, even under coercion, could have slipped out within the small time frame. The other possibility was the alternate door to the lab.
Pistol in hand, Gibbs crept toward it, easing the door open. It led to a small passageway and … a stairwell. Gibbs smirked to himself. The building was six stories high and the forensics lab was one level underground. Seven flights of stairs. Six floors, all filled with armed, trained police officers, most of them already at work. Anders was trapped.
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"So what's the great plan, Jakie?" Tony asked, walking in front of Jake and a loaded 9mm up the third flight of stairs. "I mean, the game's over. By now, everyone has noticed you're missing and they'll have assumed you're guilty – which you are. Gibbs in particular – you know him; tall guy, silver hair, likes to stare at people – is going to be very pissed. He's not the kind of guy you want to get on the bad side of, you know what I mean Jakie?"
"Neither am I, smart guy. Just remember who's holding the gun here," Jake said, prodding Tony with the tip of the pistol.
"Oh, how could I." Tony muttered, trying not to flinch at the touch of the cold metal.
Following behind Tony and Jake, the latter's fingernails digging into her still-tender wrists as he dragged her along, Abby bit her lip. She was determined not to cry. Jake wouldn't approve of her making any noise and she didn't want to provoke any violent reactions. He was seriously unstable.
Taking advantage of the distraction provided by Tony, she reached into the pocket of her skirt where her cell phone sat. Fingers operating on auto-pilot, she hit the call button on speed-dial number one. Gibbs.
The call failed and the phone beeped loudly in protest. Abby jerked her hand out of her pocket as Jake's head snapped around, sending the phone bouncing down the stairs behind her until it fell through a gap.
"Who'd you call?" Jake shouted, pulling Abby roughly up the step toward him. "Who'd you call bitch?!"
Two flights below, Gibbs heard voices floating down the stairwell and hastened his climb. Something black flew past his head, shattering on the landing beside him. Gibbs recognized a cracked skull-and-crossbones decal. Abby's phone. He launched into a sprint.
Abby refused to speak, frozen in fear of the gun-wielding maniac clenching her by both wrists. Jake swore, slapping her hard across the face. As his friend fell to her knees on the concrete step, gasping in shock and pain, Tony saw red, letting go of any rational thought. He lunged, grabbing Jake by he shoulders and shoving him backward. Together they fell, rolling and bouncing down the stairs until both of their heads connected with the metal landing of the first floor.
Eyes closed and dazed, Tony heard the sharp click of the safety being released and winced…
TBC