First of all I would like to thank all of you who put this story on Story Alert, it's really nice! And thanks to divine529 for taking the time to beta…

Disclaimer: the usual

Chapter 6: Thinking aloud

After just a few hours in Nick's company, Gibbs could see why he and Tony so easily connected back then. He had the same spirit hanging around him and the whole atmosphere in the bullpen had changed thanks to his presence; it was somewhat more hopeful and absolutely more defiant than a few hours ago. If somebody wanted Tony back save and sound more than his team, it would be this man.

Nick was talking to Ziva now and Gibbs watched her facial expressions. It was slightly amused as she was typing every detail that Nick pulled out of his memory, which was quite a lot considering most of the events took place nine years ago.

Nick was being his charming self, slightly flirting, but tasteful and unconscious and his stories were highlighted with a dazzling smile now and then.

God, she wished she could have been there, living the exciting tales he told her about; their quest against the DeMarco's, bringing down the organization from opposite sides of the line.

"Done with filling in the gaps?", Gibbs asked after another hour.

"I believe so, Agent Gibbs. Is there anything else I can do?", Nick asked.

"Ziva, you can take him down to Abby's. She's probably boiling with anticipation."

In the elevator Ziva couldn't help herself.

"Was there a reason behind your codename?", she asked curiously as she pressed the button.

"Tony gave it to me. When he enrolled his plan to ensnare DeMarco he told me we had to use false names. It was more fun and safer that way. So we formed our own little league. I was Andrew Foulkes and he was Percy Blakeney.", he explained.

Ziva gave him a quizzical look. Apparently Nick had thought his explanation would suffice, but Ziva had no clue what he was talking about.

"Sir Percival Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel? Never heard of it? Strange.", Nick asked and continued his explanation, "It is a movie based on the novel with the same title. Tony showed me the black and white version. It made me see him in a different light. You should see it. I'm actually quite surprised he never showed it to you."

"How different?", Ziva asked with great interest. Although she was his partner and trusted him completely during difficult cases, Tony wasn't very talkative about his personal life. Of course, you had the long series of conquests of which he boosted frequently. Personally she doubted if all of them were real and not a mere fiction to tease Tim. But other than that, Tony didn't really answer direct questions about his life outside NCIS, he usually redirected the question with a no-good answer or a joke.

"The story is about an English gentlemen who portrays himself to the outside world and his wife as a brainless fop and a fool with no other interests than fashion and sports, but he is in fact the leader of a league who rescues innocents from the guillotine.", Nick told her, 'It's quite a nice movie, filled with daring escapes and a happy end."

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He absolutely hated the waking up part. Those few moments of ignorant bliss weren't long enough. He was back in his cell. Jeremy obviously didn't bother lying him on the mattress again, so the cold concrete floor had woke him up. He was shivering. Dragging himself to the mattress, he flinched and grabbed his left side.

'Just look', he told himself, 'and you'll probably feel a lot better knowing what the damage is.' Carefully he unbuttoned the remainders of his shirt which, much to his dismay, was stuck due to the dried blood.

"Damn!", he cursed aloud, when he removed his shirt, ripping his wounds in the process. 'This isn't better at all!' Several hopefully shallow cuts decorated his side, bleeding slowly on the mattress.

He stretched out and tried to relax a bit. His pounding head didn't help however, nor did his throbbing jaw.

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"Hello, I'm …" , Nick began.

"Yes, yes, living undead, something like that, whatever. Do you know how to unlock this?"

Abby pointed impatiently at her computer. Not quite as shocked by this abruptness as she expected, Nick drew near and gazed several seconds at the screen.

"What did you try already?"

"We ran several decrypting programs but none of them are sufficient enough.", McGee answered nervously.

"Tony never lets you take your guard down." It wasn't a question.

McGee nodded.

"Glad the world's still turning then. Okay, let me try a few passwords."

Nick held his fingers inches from the keyboard, obviously searching his memory, before typing. Then he glanced aside.

"How many times?"

McGee looked behind, but Nick was without a doubt staring at him.

"How many times what?", McGee asked after he made sure the question was directed at him.

"How many times did he glue you to something?"

McGee coughed while answering. Ziva tried hard not to laugh and Abby bit her lip and stared at the ceiling until the awkward moment passed.

"No worries, McGee, that just means he likes you.", Nick commented and smiled reassuring but it slowly faded. Now focusing on the task ahead, he typed several words, concentrating hard and sometimes closing his eyes to recreate the past Tony and his puzzling mind.

After a few tries a large ACCES GRANTED appeared on screen. Ziva, Abby and McGee realized they all were holding their breaths so now they sighted with relief.

"Tadaa.", Nick simply declared and stepped aside, out of the way of an excited Abby.

"It all there! Well, everything considering your disappearing act. If you weren't the reason Tony went missing, I would hug you right now."

"Abby, that not really fair and…", McGee shrugged apologizing to Nick.

"Well, you give him a hug then!", Abby interrupted.

"She's right, you know." Nick said to McGee, "About the reason part, I mean, not the hugging, no offense, McGee."

"Non taken"

"Will you all stop fooling around, so we can focus on finding DiNozzo.", Gibbs grunted while entering.

"Gibbs! He cracked it!", Abby blabbed out.

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After what seemed like a minute or so the door to his cell burst open and Jeremy stormed inside pointing a gun.

"Up."

"Longer sentences are probably difficult.", Tony said and when he reluctantly tried to stand, the room started to spin for a second or two until he steadied himself.

The gun was pushed against his ribs and he suppressed a scream, not wanting to give Jeremy any satisfaction just yet.

Now he could see how small the other room where he was questioned actually was; the journey to the center only took a couple of steps. The unknown man was already standing besides the chair and looked extremely agitated.

After he was certain Tony was strapped secure he launched his attack.

"Look, you miserable basterd, none of the files you were carrying contained any information regarding Peruch, so where is he?", he asked while pulling Tony's head back, revealing his bare neck.

A knife glinted in the scarce light. Tony could feel the edge pressed against his skin, feeling it move as he tried to control his breathing while the adrenaline rushed through his veins.

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"Okay, time for a recap. McGee."

Tim took the remote and clicked at the screen.

"Yesterday, I mean two days ago", he corrected himself after glancing at his watch, "Tony disappeared presumably from the parking lot at the back of his apartment. Our witness, the car thief, isn't very reliable, but he's quite sure he stole the car just before four o'clock because of a certain radio show he was listening too."

"At that time Fornell and I picked up Raphael DeMarco.", Gibbs interrupted.

"We can assume that he and two or three other guys are involved. My best guess is this man.", Nick showed a photograph. "Jeremy Sutters, he hasn't show up to work since last week, according to his angry boss. He was the power behind the brains nine years ago so he wouldn't have picked up Tony by himself."

"So, bad guy #3 is still an enigma, any ideas?", Abby asked.

"Ziva and I selected a few suspects we still have to check out, but I have this feeling #3 isn't one of them.", Nick answered.

"Okay, what about locations?"

"These are the locations of a number of know holding places and a few abandoned buildings near NCIS, Tony's and DeMarco's apartment. This mounts up to 39 possible places, but it still leaves out hundreds of locations.", McGee continued.

"I asked Fornell to keep taps on DeMarco. No strange behavior so far, went to his lawyer, then to diner and now home."

"What about Frank Millers? How did they get to him if he never left his house?", Ziva wondered aloud.

"Abby, anything on the disks?"

"Like a thousand files. I'm scanning them as we speak; it's been running for several hours so far, searching for certain keywords. It's faster this way, but I might miss something vital. Seeing the pics taken from his house and this data, I can tell for absolute certainty that he wasn't working strictly legal, to put it politely.", Abby explained while walking up and down in front of the screen.

"So maybe, by some freakish coincidence DeMarco or guy #3 contacted Millers for a job and somehow found out about his connection to Tony?", she continued unsure.

"That actually makes sense.", Nick agreed.

"No, it doesn't, we're missing the essence: why did DeMarco believe you were still alive?", Ziva interrupted and looked at Nick.

"That something I've been asking myself repeatedly these past few hours. I honestly have no idea."

"So, somehow DeMarco finds out and then contacts Millers? That makes no sense at all. He didn't know where you were or under what name, so he probably hired a private detective."

"Go on, McGee.", Gibbs said encouragingly.

"But those are expensive, certainly for assignments like these. Is there someone from the old days who did stuff like that for the family?", McGee asked Nick.

"Could be, there was this one man, I think, can't remember his name. He almost detected Tony's cover once. I think he was a lawyer too…"