Drowning

Chapter 26

Gibbs strode purposefully out of the lift and into the bullpen, Abby trotting along beside him. If someone had stopped him to ask how he was feeling physically, he would not have been able to tell them. One of Gibbs' team was missing, which meant he had to compartmentalise and put to one side any lingering, personal physical discomfort. It did occur to him that the director might tell him that he was not fit to lead the investigation into Tony's disappearance, but only if she saw him, and only if she had a death wish. Abby and Gibbs found Ziva sitting at her desk. She stood up as they approached.

'Here are Dianne Partington's clothes,' she said, indicating the plastic bag on her desk. 'McGee has begun to take her statement in the Conference Room.'

'Abby..' said Gibbs, but Abby was already on her way to her lab with the bag.

'Call you as soon as I find something,' Abby called over her shoulder. She was relieved to have something to do – anything to take her mind away from imagining the worst.

'Gibbs, what can I do?' asked Ziva. 'I cannot just sit here any longer.'

Gibbs recognized his agent's frustration and knew he had to channel it productively.

'Check out Dinozzo's car,' he told her. 'See if you can find something that explains why the hell it took him so long to get to the Partington house.'

With that, Gibbs went off in the direction of the Conference Room as Ziva marched purposefully towards the garage.

………………………………………….

McGee carefully took notes as Dianne answered his questions. He knew Gibbs would want to know every detail. He could not afford to miss something that might lead them to Tony. McGee had been very impressed by Dianne. He would not have blamed her if she had wanted to stay at home with her parents after such a harrowing ordeal, but she was proving to be plucky and observant.

'He always provided very good food,' Dianne was saying. 'It was usually vegetarian and very wholesome. Tofu, lentils, wholegrain breads, yoghurt. He always brought me the food, left while I ate it, and collected the dishes later. He never ate in front of me, and he once commented that he didn't know how I could eat it when he couldn't even bear the smell of some of it. I'm certain that someone else was doing the food preparation.'

'How were you able to eat?' asked McGee. 'Did he untie your hands?'

'My hands weren't bound,' said Dianne. 'There was a cuff on my ankle attached to a long chain that was secured to the wall. I was able to use the toilet and walk around a little while he wasn't there. I was also able to lay down and sleep when my watch told me it was night-time. There was a blanket and pillow for me to use.'

The door to the Conference Room opened and Gibbs entered. Nodding a greeting to Dianne, Gibbs sat down and raised a questioning eyebrow at McGee who immediately filled his boss in on what had been revealed to that point. Dianne had been running by the stream in the reserve, following a route she had often taken. When she had stopped and crouched down to tie her shoelace, she had been overpowered from behind by a large man who had bundled her into a van, bound her ankles and wrists, gagged and blindfolded her and driven her to the location she was to be held at. The journey had taken between ten and fifteen minutes. When they had reached their destination, she had been assisted out and led down some stairs to a room where she was held for the duration of her captivity. She had been treated very well, except for suffering deprivation of her liberty.

'Did you ever see his face?' Gibbs asked Dianne.

'No. He always kept the balaclava on when he visited me,' she told him. 'I took it as a good sign. I figured he wanted to make sure I wouldn't be able to describe him after I was released.'

Gibbs nodded slightly, as impressed by her as McGee was. She just might provide them with enough clues that would lead them to Tony.

'What about other people?' asked Gibbs. 'Did he have an accomplice?'

'Hard to say,' said Dianne, furrowing her brow. 'I've already told Agent McGee that I'm certain someone else was providing the food, and I did hear a woman's voice, but I never saw anyone else. Whenever I heard the woman, she sounded quite angry with the kidnapper.'

'Did you ever hear them address each other?' asked Gibbs.

'No,' said Dianne, shaking her head. 'Do you have any idea who he is?'

'We have our suspicions,' Gibbs told her. 'Did Agent Dinozzo seem to recognize the kidnapper when he arrived at your parents' house?'

'No,' she replied, shivering involuntarily at the memory of earlier that day. 'But he still had the balaclava on.'

Silence descended over the trio for a few moments before McGee spoke up.

'Dianne, can you tell us anything distinctive about the smell, or sounds or items in the place you were held?' asked the younger agent. 'Anything at all.'

'Oh, I know how important it is to remember the little things,' said Dianne, rubbing her temples. 'You're thinking he's taken Agent Dinozzo to where he held me. Okay, okay. Let's see.'

Gibbs and McGee watched as Dianne closed her eyes, obviously concentrating hard, before snapping her fingers excitedly.

'It smelt quite beautiful,' she told them. 'Which is kind of weird given that it was obviously some kind of cellar, but it smelt really nice. I can't place what it smelt like, but it was kind of like a perfume.'

'That's really good,' said McGee, encouragingly. 'What else?'

'During the daylight hours I often heard a faint bell sound,' continued Dianne. 'Like a tinkling sound. I'm afraid I can't remember anything else.' she added regretfully.

'It's okay,' McGee told her, casting a worried glance at Gibbs who appeared to be deep in thought.

'Agent Gibbs,' said Dianne, addressing the older agent directly, causing him to meet her gaze. 'I'm so sorry about Agent Dinozzo. I feel really bad that he let himself be taken in place of me.'

'His job is to protect others,' Gibbs told her, the words getting a little stuck in his throat. 'He would have calculated the odds and decided that he stood a better chance than you.' And he's far too reckless with his own life and has grown up thinking he's dispensable thought Gibbs. And when we do find him, he's going to receive the biggest lecture of all time about not putting himself in danger and engaging brain before mouth.

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Once the interview with Dianne was over, the naval officer insisted that she was okay to hang around for at least a few hours in case they had more questions for her. She, Gibbs and McGee arrived back in the bull pen in time to see Ziva return from the garage. The Mossad agent held a bag in each hand.

'I discovered these on the back seat of Tony's car,' she announced. 'I believe they tell us why he took so long to get to the Partington residence this morning.'

'What am I missing?' asked Abby, breathlessly as she rushed into the bullpen holding something enclosed in an evidence bag.

'This,' said Ziva, as she placed the larger bag on Gibbs' desk, 'contains several items of clothing. None of it belongs to Tony, unless his taste in clothes has seriously deteriorated.'

Gibbs reached into the bag and held up a sweater that was instantly recognizable as his own.

'These are my clothes,' he told Ziva, his expression unreadable.

'Oh my God! Gibbs, that is SO sweet!' exclaimed Abby. 'Tony must have taken a detour past your place to pick up some clothes for you!'

Gibbs, finding he couldn't quite verbalise anything intelligible at that moment, pointed to the smaller bag in Ziva's hand.

Glad for the distraction after her gaff, Ziva removed the items that were in the other bag and placed them on the desk.

'It is new deck of Tarot Cards,' she told them. 'And a silk scarf.'

'These are a gift for someone,' said Abby, tearing up slightly at the thought of Tony purchasing such a lovely present. 'There's no way he'd buy them for himself.'

McGee reached forward suddenly, grabbed the bag the gift had come from and delved inside it. Triumphantly he withdrew a slip of paper.

'These were bought from 'Fortune's Fool' this morning,' he told the group.

Gibbs shook his head slightly at this new revelation. Had Tony even been thinking straight that morning? Since when had he started organizing clothes and buying gifts for people during work hours? Even though part of him was touched by Tony's consideration of others, he wanted to scream at him for not getting his priorities straight.

'What have you got, Abby?' he demanded of the forensic scientist who was gazing at the beautiful scarf with teary eyes.

'This is your t-shirt,' she told Dianne, indicating the clothing in the evidence bag. 'I detected no fibers of other evidence that might tell me where you were being held, but it has a very distinctive smell about it, and don't worry – I'm not talking about body odor. I'm going to open the bag a little and I want you all to take a whiff.'

As Abby opened the bag, a distinctive fragrance emerged.

'That's what the room smelt like,' Dianne said. 'Like a perfume but not quite.'

'It's sandalwood,' said Abby. 'And it's what 'Fortune's Fool' smells like.'

Just as Gibbs was about to give the order for the team to gear up and get to Vay's, he was interrupted by the arrival of Jenny Shepherd. Her face was grim.

'I thought you'd be interested in the telephone call I just received,' she told Gibbs. 'NCIS has just received a ransom demand of one million dollars for the safe return of Agent Dinozzo.'