End of weekend. :) Hope you enjoy the chapter.
As always, thank you so much for the reviews and alerts. Blessing and hugs to all!
"Ducky, seriously, how long do we have to stay here?" Tony complained. Thanks to some pain killers Ducky had administered, he felt much better, but he and McGee were beginning to get bored watching Jimmy and Ducky work while they had nothing to do.
"Anthony, surely you haven't forgotten Jethro's order that you belong to me today." Ducky reminded, grinning slightly as he spoke.
"Yeah, but if you let us go back to work, we could get this thing solved and Gibbs would might let us go home and recuperate." McGee chimed in.
"Nice." Tony mouthed. McGee nodded.
Ducky chucked. "I assume the painkillers I gave you are going into effect."
"Yup," Tony replied, "I feel one hundred and ten percent better."
Ducky turned from his work. "If you wish you may go work quietly at your desks, no reason for you to be sitting down here. However," he admonished, "no strenuous activity, no field work until I say so and that will definitely not be this week."
"Of course not." Tony said quickly while Tim nodded. Seconds later the doors of autopsy swished open and they were gone.
"Oh, Jethro has his hands full with those two." Ducky mumbled watching them go.
"What was that Dr. Mallard?" Jimmy asked.
"Oh nothing, Mr. Palmer. Now, what's say we get back to inventory?"
When Gibbs got back to the squad room, he met Ziva getting off the elevator, looking extremely annoyed.
"What did she say?" Gibbs asked already knowing the answer.
"Nothing and I couldn't force her there." She said exasperated. Gibbs smirked. "She said she called her lawyer on the phone and she didn't have any idea who would be shooting into a federal building. She was obviously lying." Ziva finished shortly.
"See if you can trace the call." Gibbs said going to his desk to pick up his ringing phone. "Yeah, Gibbs."
"Hey Gibbs, it's Abby. I got the results back on the phone." She said, the normal perkiness absent from her voice.
"I'll be down there in-."
"Ummm-."
"What?"
"You-you don't have to come down, it's nothing spectacular. It's just a run-of-the-mill burn phone. He could have bought it a thousand places and it's impossible to trace. There are no finger prints, nothing distinctive. Sorry." She said regretfully.
"That's fine, Abby." He sighed. "Ziva's tracing the phone Mrs. Baird called. She'll send you the results so you can check them."
Unfortunately Ziva's trace revealed much the same story. Burn phone, which hadn't been used enough to pin a trace on. She had just sent information to Abby for her to double check and see if the Goth could find anything else when she looked up to see McGee and Tony walking from the elevators. They rounded the corner before Gibbs noticed them. His eyes narrowed.
"What are you two doing up here?"
"Ducky said we could work at our desks as long as we didn't push it." Tony said, a little uneasy under Gibbs' scrutiny. After a moment, Gibbs turned back to his computer without saying anything.
"What did Abby find out about the bullet?" McGee asked sitting down.
"Hitman with kills all over the globe." Gibbs answered without looking up. "The bullet was flagged so, we're working with the CIA-."
"Oh boy, the CIA." Tony said sarcastically. "They're probably using us for bait to lure this guy out and then…sorry, Boss." He apologized upon receiving a glare from the older man. Gibbs started a few more seconds before continuing.
"CIA's working on getting the files released to us. When we get them we'll be going over them with a fine toothed comb to get a handle on this guy. Until then find me everything you can about Josie Baird. Why does this guy would want her?"
Gibbs' cell phone started making a strange noise. He glared at it until it stopped, then picked it up. He opened it, shut it and then held the device out toward McGee.
"Text message, McGee, get it."
McGee grabbed the phone and opened it one-handed.
"Texts are actually really easy to open, Boss. All you have to do is-." He cut himself off when Gibbs stood up menacingly. "I'll just open it and hand the phone to you." He finished quickly pulling up the message and giving the phone back to Gibbs.
Something unpleasant will happen every 2 hours until she is released. More instructions will follow.
"What does it say?" Ziva asked.
"We have two hours to let her go." Gibbs read.
"Or what?" McGee asked.
"There won't be an "or what"." He growled picking up his phone and dialing. "I want to know who he is in two hours."
"We need those files now!" Gibbs suddenly barked into the phone. "We have two hours before he tries something again and I want to know more about him than he likes to make cryptic phone calls and spring old ladies from jail."
"They're on their way, Gibbs." Came Agent Shelby's the terse reply. "Hard copies should be in your evidence garage any minute."
Gibbs slammed the phone down without answering.
"Evidence garage, Ziva." He said curtly, walking out to the bullpen. She hurried to follow.
"Wow, he's in bad mood." McGee commented. Tony nodded.
"Yeah, dead ends, no leads, mysterious killers and rambling agents do that to him."
"I wasn't rambling, Tony." McGee defended.
"You were trying to teach Gibbs to open a text message." Tony grinned. "Will you never learn?"
He chuckled when McGee turned back to his computer grumbling. He was hoping Gibbs would be gone long enough that he and Tony could find something to dampen the anger that was heavy in the air and pacify the source of that anger. No such luck. Gibbs and Ziva quickly reappeared with one box apiece.
"That's it?" McGee asked frowning.
"Yes." Ziva said shaking her head as she divided the files among the agents.
"We don't have time to go through much more." Gibbs reminded.
"What did they find on Mrs. Baird?" Tony asked.
"Just basic stuff." Gibbs said holding up a thin folder.
"Gibbs!" Hearing his name from above caused him to look up to see Vance leaning against the rail overlooking their area. "I need to see you." Vance said beckoning. Gibbs headed up the stairs, leaving his three agents pouring though files that detailed flawless hits from around the world and yet without even a hint of an identity.
Tony glanced over at McGee who looked a little pale. His own pain medicine hadn't worn off so he couldn't imagine McGee's would have had a chance to either. Still he looked slightly sick…
"You ok, Probie?" He asked sincerely.
McGee looked at him.
"Tony, we have engaged a world class assassin." He said quietly. Tony forced a smile.
"Chill out, McPanic. What are you worried about, we work with a world class assassin." He ignored the glare Ziva sent him.
McGee shook his head. Tony could tell the younger man was overwhelmed. He knew that the two of them processed things differently. When Tony was looking for information, he shifted through and only retained what was pertaining to the case. Tim however, kept it all. His mind saved it so he could access it in the future, like a computer. After cramming it with information and trying to find the slightest connection in their limited time frame, he figured Tim was on information overload. Tony walked to his desk and plopped down on the corner.
"McGee, you've gotta calm down." He said reaching out to put his hand on his partner's shoulder to ground him. "We'll find him; nobody can be a ghost forever."
"Mmmm, that's not true. I mean there are murders that are still unsolved, even to this day. In the 50's-."
"Ok, I'm not going to sit here and listen to the history of unsolved murders." Tony said getting up, while Ziva chuckled.
"Tony," McGee argued, standing up to follow him, "you have been looking at the same information I have. This guy is suspected of killing dozens of people leaving no physical evidence."
"So what?" Tony shrugged.
"So what? These aren't just people." Tim said now pacing and Tony could tell he was just getting worked up. "These are some of the mostly highly guarded people in the world and he got to them like it was nothing."
"He is very good." Ziva said almost admiringly, still studying a profile.
"Not helping Ziva." Tony shot over.
"What's going on?" Gibbs asked appearing out of nowhere.
"Not much." Tony said, going back to sit down. "McGee was just in the middle of a panic attack." McGee glared at him.
"He shot through the window, Tony. I don't think it's wrong to be…concerned."
"Concerned? You were totally freaking out." Tony smirked. McGee started to argue before a headslap cut him off.
"You'll be fine, McGee." Gibbs said, going to his desk to pick up a folder.
"That's what I told him, Boss." Tony chimed in.
"As long as we can catch him in two hours." Gibbs added. "Find out what you can on Mrs. Baird, McGee." Gibbs said dropping the folder on McGee's desk and turning to leave the bullpen again.
"I thought the CIA said they didn't have anything on her?" McGee called out after him.
"They did. I want what you can find." Gibbs answered. McGee frowned and slowly headed back to his seat.
"Translation," Tony said interrupting his thoughts, "he trusts you more, with one arm tied behind your back, than a team of CIA agents"
"I wouldn't trust the CIA as far as I could throw them with a ten-foot pole." Ziva said decidedly.
Tony stared at her, mouth open. Tim smiled weakly.
"That's two different saying, Ziva." He corrected. "You don't trust them as far as you could throw them and you wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole."
"Ahh."
"We have got to get her an idiom dictionary." Tony commented looking at McGee. "And people think immersion is the best way to learn." He muttered.
McGee turned back to his work, but smiled when he saw a paper wad, out of the corner of his eye, whizzing in Tony's direction.
Wow, this was hard to upload. The site seemed determined to make it as difficult as possible.
I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. I hope to post again soon, but my sister is coming in this week so who knows. I have the next several chapters outlined so now I just have to fill in space and edit. (Which actually takes longer for me than anything. I probably have 4 drafts of each chapter.)
Thanks so much for reading!
P.S. the site has been giving me fits trying to login and upload, so