"There's no clear shot of the plates," Abby said with frustration as replayed the video. "And no prints, other than Tony's, on his stuff."
"This is so frustrating," Ziva said with her fingertips on her temples as she paced the lab.
"Assuming that Gibbs' disappearance has something to do with Tony's," McGee started, "We need to try and figure out where he was before he was so easily taken from his apartment. Yesterday evening, as we were leaving work, he asked if I wanted to grab a beer with him."
"He may have gone to the bar, then," Ziva said. "Perhaps he met someone there, or was followed."
"There's one place I know he usually goes to," Tim mentioned. "We can check there and see if anyone recalls seeing him."
"I think I've got someone you'd be interested in talking to, Agent McGee," they turned to Director Vance's voice as he entered the lab with a young man who looked a bit familiar to them. "He says he worked the morning shift at the cafe."
"I uh..." he stammered, "Someone gave me a note to give to Agent Gibbs," he told them. "I didn't realize when he got into the van, that it wasn't someone he knew..."
"Do you remember what this guy looked like?" McGee asked. The man nodded...
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"He was tortured before death, Agent Gibbs," Griswald told Gibbs as he watched them carry DiNozzo away. "Electrocuted, drugged; who knows what else...and then he was strangled to death."
"Much like his victims," Gibbs' eye twitched.
"Wrong," he replied, flatly. "My brother worked for me. He took one for the team."
"And you let him," Gibbs began to understand. "You let him take the fall for you."
"He was supposed to serve time. Not die."
"That's not my fault, or my agent's."
"Someone on the inside did this to him. Not another inmate," he told him with frustration slightly showing through.
"You think the guards..."
"He was electrocuted, Gibbs. How the hell is an inmate going to manage that? Acquire the necessary tools to do the amount of damage that was done..."
"It's possible," Gibbs told him. "But you're right. Sounds like an inside job. So what do you want me to do about it?"
"Give me a name," he relied flatly.
Gibbs opened his mouth a moment before replying, "I don't have a name. I don't know those people. I investigate crimes and send them away. I don't do lunch with the warden!"
"Well, you should have investigated this!" Griswald slammed his fist into the wall right beside Gibbs' head. But Gibbs showed no sign of reaction to it.
"You should've asked."
"I'm asking you now!" he said through gritted teeth. Gibbs glared at him for a moment.
"You've taken my best agent and myself...how the hell am I supposed to investigate anything?"
"Your best agent and yourself, fucked up the first time. I'm not interested in your personal look into the matter. Call your director; tell him to figure it out..."
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"We matched the sketch taken from the barista's description of the suspect, to a Randall Ashaw," McGee told Vance as he put the photo on the big screen in the bullpen.
"He is an ex-Navy Lieutenant," Ziva added, "Dishonorably discharged in February of last year for distribution."
"I already put out a BOLO," Tim told him.
"Was Sciuto able to find an angle on the license plate of that van yet?" Vance asked.
"No, Sir," Tim shook his head, "But she's trying to access street cams in the area they were driving through, right now."
"And you've tried to locate Gibbs' GPS signal in his phone?" he asked.
"Yes, Sir...I've been monitoring it since we lost contact with him. But it's been turned off this whole time."
In that moment, Vance's cell began to ring, and he fished it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. "Unknown caller," he said, and signaled to McGee to record and set up a trace. "This is Vance," he said as he answered.
"Leon," Gibbs voice sounded from the other line.
Vance's brows raised, "We've been wondering what happened to you, Agent Gibbs."
"Why weren't we told about the Griswald murder?"
"Griswald murder?" he furrowed his brow.
"Alex Griswald. Baskerville Correctional."
"I'm not always made aware of every prison fight, Gibbs."
"Well, ya need to be made aware of this one, Leon. See if there was an investigation, and check the possibility that it might've been an inside job."
"Where are you?"
"Not completely sure on that."
"Is DiNozzo with you?"
"He's here, yeah...It's really important, Leon, that you find the truth about what happened."
"Care to elaborate why that is?" Vance asked after maneuvering to look at McGee's screen, seeing that the line was being bounced all over the place.
"Because Tony's life is depending on it," he told him. Vance straightened. "Do me a favor; tell Ziva I'm sorry about Ari. Tell Abby to stop lookin', 'cause there's nothin' there. She needs to be helping you on this case now. And tell Tim it's fifteen minutes since my last cup of coffee. He better have some waiting for me when I get back... You've got six hours, Leon." The line disconnected.
"Couldn't get it," McGee told him.
"Voice-over IP, I know," Vance replied. "I think Gibbs was sending a message," he told them. "Ziva, he told me to tell you sorry about Ari. That mean anything to you?"
Her brow furrowed, "I do not see how it applies here," she answered.
Vance turned to McGee, "He said it's been fifteen minutes since his last cup of coffee. Told me to tell you that, specifically. And he told me to tell Abby to stop looking, because there's nothing there."
"He could've meant there were no plates on the van?" McGee suggested.
"Or that whomever is holding them now, is not the same man who abducted them," Ziva added.
"I need you to dig up the case on Alex Griswald. I'm gonna go make a phone call to Baskerville Correctional."
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"What now?" Gibbs asked as he shifted against the discomfort of his bindings in the chair.
"Now we wait," Griswald replied.
"And then?"
Griswald walked away from Gibbs toward a locked cabinet on the wall. "That depends on whether they figure it out or not."
"They'll figure it out," Gibbs confirmed.
"Well, once they do, they'll need to give me a name."
"They'll make sure that whoever did it, is put away."
"I won't require the justice system in this case, Agent Gibbs. I want a name. What happens from that point is my business."
Gibbs shook his head, "They're not gonna do that. They can't."
"They'll have to," he said, calmly. "If they want you and your agent returned in one piece."
Gibbs held in any emotional reaction he felt at the possibility of what else they could do to Tony. "You really think they're going to negotiate with you?"
"You're going to have to convince them, or your agent will be slowly killed and you'll only be kept alive long enough to witness it."
"Why the hell don't you just let him go?" he asked, angrily. "You got the only answers I can give you! You don't need him anymore!"
"On the contrary, Gibbs, he's my insurance."
"Your insurance?" Gibbs squinted in confused frustration.
"What's happening to him, happened to my brother. And you, Gibbs...you get to feel how I felt, knowing what had happened to him..."
"Wouldn't you have wanted to save him?" Gibbs asked in a more quiet voice.
"I wasn't given that chance. But that's what I've been giving you."
"But I'm not getting a fair chance, Griswald. I can't control what they do out there, when I'm tied up in here."
"You'll have the chance to help them," he said. "In the meantime, however, I don't believe Agent DiNozzo is enjoying his...position." He motioned for one of his masked men to come, and was handed one of the radio devices. "After my employees finished cleaning him up, they injected a high dose of PCP into his blood. For the first few moments, he probably felt relief. But I can assure you that that is no longer the case," he grinned as he turned the device on and held it up for Gibbs to hear.
At first, there was simple static. But as it began to clear, he could hear the obvious labored breathing of his senior agent, coupled with choked back, quiet sobbing.
"If he continues on like this, he'll run out of air soon," Griswald said as he clicked off the device and handed it back to his employee.
"Let me go to him," Gibbs asked as calmly as he was able. After a long moment, Griswald nodded to his employer, who then released his restraints and led him back to the cell.
He took a few steps in the dark before they turned on the light, and he hurried to the metallic chest in the middle of the room...
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Tony hated the box more than anything else that had happened in this place; Hated the fact that he was powerless to stop them from putting him in there. But probably most of all, he hated the uncertainty of whether or not he would ever get out of it again.
He wasn't sure what they'd injected him with, and frankly hadn't been too concerned at that point... But then he started to hear static from the radio device inside the box-lid. And through the static, he started to hear things...voices...
"No one's coming to get you..." the voice was a whisper. "They killed him. They killed Gibbs...he's not coming for you, Tony. No one's coming to save you..." The voices didn't stop, and were soon multiplied until he couldn't even understand what they were saying anymore...
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Gibbs looked down at Tony, whose eyes were squeezed tightly closed; face scrunched up with a painful expression. "Tony," Gibbs said softly, as he lay a hand on Tony's shoulder.
Tony opened his eyes, slowly turning his head to look up at his Boss through the bright, grazing rays of light that filled the once-dark void of his cell. "Am I dead?" Tony asked in barely a whisper.
Gibbs looked at him with narrowed eyes and shook his head, "No, Tony. You're not dead."
Tony closed his eyes again and hid his face, "Then...why can I see you? They told me you're dead..."
"Who told you that, Tony?"
"The voices..." he whispered. Gibbs felt a chill up his spine.
"They gave you PCP. Whatever you heard, whether they were bullshitting you over the radio, or it was in your head, it's not real. I'm not dead." Tony seemed to still be struggling. "You wanna get outta this box? Lemme help you."
Tony turned his head to look at him again, then slowly reached his hand up to Gibbs'. As he helped him out, and Tony's hands held onto Gibbs' shoulders, feeling he was real caused him to realize that it was the truth. "'m glad you're not dead, Boss," his voice cracked.
Gibbs smirked, "Me too, I guess." He stood there for a moment, allowing Tony to gain whatever balance he could. His eyes wandered to the crudely stitched-up holes on his chest and stomach, and he clenched his jaw as he recalled what they'd done to him...
Tony caught Gibbs looking, and he looked down at himself. But instead of stitches, to Tony, he saw something else...each insect-looking creature began to crawl over his skin, and he immediately backed away, swiping at them. But they wouldn't come off...and suddenly they were all over him, and he couldn't stop it... "What are these things!" he yelled, backing all the way into the corner.
"DiNozzo!" Gibbs went after him.
"Get 'em off me! They won't come off!" he started to dig into his own skin, desperately trying to rid of the creatures. He could feel their legs squirming all over his body...crawling up onto his face... And he gauged his nails down the front of his face, leaving red, bloody streaks in their path, until he felt strong hands around his wrists, pulling them away. He realized, then, that Gibbs was talking to him...trying to tell him something... "Please, Boss, they won't come off!"
"Tony, listen to me!" he pressed him up against the wall to stop him from harming himself any further. "There's nothin' on you! It's the PCP makin' you think that! What you saw on your chest was the stitches. That's all. Are you listening to me?"
"B-but I can...f-feel them on me..."
"It's not real, Tony. Look at me," he watched as Tony's green, anguished eyes met his. "You're okay." He slowly loosened his grip on his wrists, and Tony's hands instinctively grabbed Gibbs' arms in effort to hold himself up. "You're okay, Tony," he repeated, taking Tony's face in his hands. "You hear me?"
"Yeah, I hear ya, Boss," he said, shakily. Feeling that Tony was barely able to stay upright, he helped him to slowly ease down to the floor and sat close beside him to make sure he wouldn't end up hurting himself again. "Can't feel anything..." Tony mumbled as he looked at his bloodied fingernails.
"Enjoy it while it lasts," Gibbs told him, then pushed Tony's hands out of the agent's view.
After a few steadying breaths, Tony looked at Gibbs, "Are we gonna get outta here?" his voice was like that of a child. Gibbs looked at him for a moment, then nodded, though he didn't truly know the answer...
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tbc...