[Phoomph-Eight]
The main floor of the NCIS building was covered with high tension and emotion just as thick as the fog outside. There was a buzz though out all the employees about the attack on Special Agent DiNozzo. People stayed clear from the squad room and the agents that occupied it. The smell of strong coffee seemed to fill the entire floor and the loud taps of fingers flying across a keyboard was the background music for all the other agents. There was a loud ding from the main elevator followed by the soft scrap of the metal doors opening.
Officer Ziva David emerged from elevator and made her way to her desk. She placed her backpack on top of her clean desk while unzipping it in the process. The usually soft zip was amplifier by the quite, and caused a pair of crystal blue eyes to stare at her.
"What took you so long Officer David?" Agent Gibbs bellowed to the Israeli. McGee's fingers stopped momentarily to look up at the returning agent before going back to his computer.
"People drive ten miles under the limit in the fog." She explained with frustration as she pulled out the camera.
Gibbs stood up from his desk and walked over to the plasma screen between McGee and DiNozzo's desk. "Pull up the pictures."
Ziva placed the camera's memory card into her computer and waited a brief moment as they downloaded to her hard drive before hitting a few keys. She grabbed the clicker and walked over to Gibbs. The first few pictures were of the crime scene, but after a few clicks the screen was filled with a deep red line that perfectly went around a neck just below the Adams apple. The typing of the keys suddenly came to a halt as McGee stared opened mouthed at the image. His chair squeaked he stood up and moved in front of the screen with the others. Other agents around the room stopped what they were doing and looked from afar at the plasma.
As Ziva clicked from picture to picture the whole floor was silent. Ziva looked down at Tony's desk unable to look at the images again; she didn't want the ones in her mind to enhance with more detail. McGee was frozen with shock and paled slightly at the sight his brain unable to compute with the knowledge that this was indeed real. Gibbs on the other hand, turned red with anger at the bastard who did this to his agent. But beneath that Gibbs was just like McGee. Each picture gave more detail on the injury and each one was a painful reminder that he almost died. There was a thick ligature mark of the cord; it was a horizontal dark red line that wrapped around Tony's neck just below his Adam's apple. Just above the ligature mark there were impressions that looked like commas and semi-circles of fingernails trying to get under the cord along with scratches in every direction.
Agent Gibbs turned away from the plasma when the last picture appeared. It was a full body shot of his senior field agent. "McGee tell me you have ID this dirt bag. McGee!"
The special agent snapped his head to the side, tearing his eyes from the image to face his boss. "Um...the resolution of the video went as high as it could. These web cameras aren't meant to zoom in for facial details. I checked any surrounding traffic cams and non are pointed at Tony."
"So you're telling me no?" Gibbs moved closer to the younger man, he was pissed and McGee was the unlucky person to be the first to get caught in his path. He seemed to momentarily lose his voice from the icy glare and he just shook his head and mouthed no. "Did you find anything when you went back farther in the night?"
"Um, um, I have not found anything yet. There is a big time frame, and a lot of people...and--"
"Did you bother asking Abby when her friends' band was playing?" When he didn't get a quick answer from McGee he turned around and headed back to his desk.
McGee scrambled towards the back elevator without any other instruction. When Gibbs was seated in his chair, he turned to Ziva who was still next to Tony's desk. "Officer David, tell me that you got something."
Ziva turned around and looked at Gibbs for a moment before headed to her desk to grab a blue folder. "Here is Tony's medical statement." She handed Gibbs one of the blue folder, then opened the other one and began reading it. "Brad Erickson, twenty seven years old, he has been with DC Police for five years and is a third generation law officer. Never been arrested or has anything on his record that is questionable."
"A stand up guy." Gibbs commented.
"Who is he; I thought there weren't any hot leads?"
"He was the Officer that found DiNozzo." The desk phone that was on Agent Gibbs desk started to ring the in-house tone. He picked it up and right when the phone left the receiver loud bass music filled the speaker letting him know who it was.
"They got something!" Gibbs threw the phone back into it's holder after it spent ten seconds agents his ear. He stood up and moved towards the back elevator not waiting for the Israeli, who threw the file back on her desk and quickly catch up with Gibbs.
As they hurried off to Abby's lab, Director Vance silently watched from above. Although he was unable to see the image straight from the plasma screen, he knew the details from the retractions from the three agents, and how it caused the whole floor to stand still. Even though he didn't really care for Agent DiNozzo, and vies-versa, he wished Gibbs would find that man and bring him to justice because no one hurts one of his agents under his watch and gets away with it.
"What do you got?" Gibbs thunderous voice boomed over the loud music in Abby's lab as Ziva and himself barged into the lab.
Abby grabbed her stereo's remote control and turned down the music before answering. "We think we found the guy." Abby said joyfully.
"What do you mean, you think?" Gibbs said with great edge to his voice as he was close to explode with rage.
"There is no clear shot of his face, but from the web cam feed of the attack the built, height and the hair looks about the same." McGee informed the team as he pulled up the video on the plasma.
"From all the street cameras that we could get, he is watching Tony every second." Abby added.
"And not one camera got a shot of his face?" Ziva said with skepticism that his man knew to avoid traffic cameras.
"Not one." The forensic scientist said.
"Any thing on his DNA or finger prints?" The former Marine demanded.
"He's not in the system." McGee answered as he tensed up for the explosion.
"Get the tapes of every News Station that was there and you find me his. And get me a damn name!" Gibbs shouted as he left the lab.
"I will get you the list of all the stations." Ziva said as she turned to leave, but she barely made it to the door when she was stopped.
"Ziva," Abby called out. "How was Tony?"
Ziva locked eyes with McGee for a brief second before answering. "He's fine Abby. He will be back soon and milking it as long as he can." She forced a smile before heading out the door. However, Ziva's answer did nothing for Abby and she turned and faced McGee with a look in her eyes that demanded answers.
"Abby Tony's fine. You saw him." McGee tried to reassure.
"Then what was that look you too shared?"
"It was nothing--"
"You're lying McGee." Abby put on her best Gibbs stare, she demanded answers and wasn't planning on settling.
McGee let out a breath of defect when he couldn't take her look anymore. "The pictures Ziva took of Tony's injuries--"
"I want to see them."
"No you don't. I wish I didn't see them."
"That bad?" Abby's voice fell.
"But he's fine Abs, Gibbs would have told you if it wasn't. Come on, we need to ID this guy." Abby nodded her head as she turned her music back up. But in her mind she was going to see those pictures herself.
[Phoomph]
The doors to autopsy slid open when the sensors were set off. Ducky, who was seated at his desk, turned his heat at the sound of the doors.
"Ah, Jethro what I can I help you with?" The old M.E. smiled at his visitor.
"Tony's medical statement and pictures." Gibbs cut to the quick as he handed him the folder.
Ducky opened the folder and was greeted with a close up picture Tony's neck. "Oh my."
"I want to know how close we came from losing him."
"Well just from these photo's here, I'd say very close, but you already knew that. So real the question is why did you come down?" Ducky studied the other man who was pacing in thought, and even though Gibbs did not say a word he knew what he wasn't saying. "He's going to fight."
Gibbs let out a deep sigh, as his brow wrinkled with frustration and Ducky knew he hit the nail on the head. "Eight years and he still doesn't get it." The agent almost growled.
"It's just the way he was brought up." Ducky almost smiled. Every time the young lad was injured they went though the same talk. Though sometimes the M.E. couldn't help but think of Jethro instead of the young agent during these talks, they were so much alike. "Some things take years to fix."
"He's not going to have many more if he keeps this up."
[Phoomph]
It was past lunch when Brad headed over to the station to being paper work on the attack. He moved over to his desk that was located in the center of the main building. The place was empty, compared to the day before; a lot of officers always took the day after the festival off just to rest. So most of the young officers were the ones holding the fort, and being his day off he wasn't surprised when most of the uniforms gave him questioning looks. He booted up his computer and shifted though the mounds of paper on his desk waiting for the ridiculously slow computer to warm up. His was opening up a file and started to type the basic information when the Officer that assisted him last night came up to his desk.
"Hey Brad, how is that Fed doing?" Brad looked up to see Steve Thomas, he was one out of two people on the force that called him by the first name, and he to them.
"He is one lucky son of a bitch, I can tell you that." He said as he turned is attention back to his computer.
"Hey where were you this morning? Captain wanted to talk to you."
"I was at the hospital until his boss got back."
Steve tiled his head, looking at Brad with a questioning side glance. "Why, it's not our case?"
"I know but I offered to--"
"Erickson! My office now!" An older overweight man dressed in an un-tasteful suit yelled from an office across the room.
Brad stood up with a sigh and spoke low to Steve with annoyance. "Why dose he sounds pissed? What could I possibly have done to have him act this why?"
Steve just laughed as he slapped him on the shoulder as Brad walked to the office. "You should have taken some of that Fed's luck."
Three hours later there was a buzz going around the office, Brad was so focused on his paper work that he cared less on what was going around. He got a headache from the twenty minute dress down from his boss about calling in the Navy Cops about the attack. The fact that the victim was an NCIS agent didn't seem to faze the fat man. So there was nothing more than Brad wanted to do then to get the paper work finished so he could go home. But he knew that wasn't going to happen when Steve came up to him.
"Thought you might be interesting in this, a man was murdered in an alley right behind a 7-11 in downtown."
Brad pushed away from his desk and swiveled his chair to the side, facing the other officer, who sat down at the corner of the desk pushing some papers near the edge. "Why would that interest me, I'm no homicide detective." He said as he crossed his arms.
"Well seeing how this man was found strangled to death with a cord a good twelve hours after that Fed was attacked. I thought you would be some what interested."
Brad's arms fell down to his lap and he leaned closer to Steve. "When did this just happen?"
"Detective Camacho just left with his gang."
Brad swung back to his desk, picking up the receiver in the motion. He pulled out a business card from his pocked and started to dial the number. "What's the address?"
"Its behind the 7-11 on 17th Street Northwest." Steve answered with a bit of confusion, like Brad told him he wasn't a detective so he didn't understand why all of a sudden he was so worried about it.
Brad however did not notice the man's puzzlement for he was already talking on the phone. "Special Agent Gibbs? This is Brad; we have a case here that might be related. No, but a man strangled to death in an ally behind the 7-11 on 17th Street Northwest. Yes crime scene is intact the team just left. No problem." Brad put the phone back in its cradle and glanced up at Steve who had a confused look.
"You know the Captain is not going to like it when those Feds take over the case again. He's going to tear you a new one when he finds out that you tipped them off, again."
"Only if you tell him."
[Phoomph]
"Gear up." Gibbs tore though the squad room with a direct course to his desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out his gun putting it on his right side. McGee and Ziva stood up from their desks and followed Gibbs lead. The two agents grabbed their backpacks and raced to meet Gibbs by the elevator.
"Did Abby get an ID on the guy?" McGee asked as they stepped into the opening elevator.
"A man was strangled to death; Metro thinks it was done by our guy." Gibbs replied as the doors slid shuts.
When the NCIS team arrived at the crime scene, there were police and news vans scattered across the ally way behind the 7-Eleven. Gibbs was the first one to get out of the van and went straight to the person in charge, while McGee and Ziva slowly trailed behind. However one look at the zoo, the two agents stopped just shy of the police tape.
"I do not think the police is going to hand over this case nicely?" Ziva pointed out given the facial expressions of their boss and the detective arguing with him.
"I think you're right. But didn't Gibbs say that metro thought they were related?"
"It was Officer Brad who called it in," Ducky chimed in from behind. The two agents turned around to see the ME and his assistant Jimmy Palmer walking towards them. "These officers here mostly don't know about Anthony or the relations."
"Officer Brad? I didn't know Gibbs had a contact in Metro's PD?" McGee said being pretty confused.
"No my dear boy," Ducky smiled. "He is the officer that saved Tony."
"Gibbs had me do a background check on him. He's sneaky clean."
"Squeaky." McGee corrected the Mossad Officer. Even though no one showed it or said it, they all knew how weird it sounded for a correction to come from someone not Tony.
The team waited quietly by the yellow tape waiting for Gibbs to give the all clear. They were surprised on how low key their boss was handling the turf war, this could help them find Tony's attacker and he wouldn't hold back just because there was news cameras. However a few minutes later, the detective backed away from Gibbs and shouting that NCIS was now in charged. Gibbs turned to his team and let out a high pitched whistle signaling the green light. McGee lifted up the yellow police tape and allowed the other three to across under before he went. As they got closer to the body everyone had the silent relation on how close Tony was from being this dead victim.
"Ziva shoot and sketch, McGee see if that 7-Eleven had any outside cameras and get copies of it any from inside and talk to witness who found the body. Duck time of death?"
The medical examiner was silent for a moment as he looked over the body. White flashes from the camera illuminated the body as Ziva took pictures. Ducky moved to the neck of the victim and studied the blood around it for a moment.
"See how this blood is dry on the outside," Gibbs bent down on the opposite side of the body and looked closely at where the ME was pointing to. "But if it is punctured," Ducky pushed on a bubble of blood with his gloved covered finger and small about of blood seeped out.
"Hasn't been dead for longer than an hour and a half." Gibbs finished as he wrote down the information on his pad of paper.
"It looks like the murder weapon is this plastic strap," Ducky said as he removed the strap from around the victims neck "that might be from that container of cardboard boxes." The two agents looked over to the back door of the 7-Eleven and noticed an overflowed bin of cardboard boxes with plastic straps sticking up all over.
"That would cut into the attacker's hands, yes?" Ziva threw in noticing the sharp thin sides of the plastic as she placed it in an evidence bag.
"If he was barehanded, he mostly would have." Ducky supported Ziva's observation "Of course I won't confirm cause of death until I get this poor lad on my table."
"You always do, Duck." Gibbs stood up letting Ducky and Palmer get the body ready for transfer. As he got up he turned a little bit to the left and saw McGee appear back on the ally walking towards the crime scene.
"The witness works at the 7-Eleven. He was taking some boxes to the trash using that back entrance," McGee pointed to a door next to the stack of boxes and trash. "That is when he saw the body, which was about one twenty. He also remember seeing the man in the store with a woman."
"Get back to the office and see of you can get an ID on that woman. Ziva I want all the information on our victim." Gibbs ordered as he walked away from the group.
"Where are you going?" Ziva called out to her boss. However the sound of a car door shutting and an engine starting was the only answer she was going to get.