Gibbs stared at his phone, replaying the conversation in his head. He'd had strange moments with his team, but this had to be one of the strangest. Now he'd have to wait for one of his men to let him in on the secret and waiting was one thing Jethro Gibbs did not do well.
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Tony held on for dear life as the van raced down the highway. "McGee, when did you start taking driving lessons from Ziva?" When his attempted joke fell flat, he turned his attention to the case. "What did you mean, the tarot twins murder? What case are you talking about?"
"A serial killer that was targeting twin boys on military bases almost twenty years ago. He left a tarot card – that tarot card – at the scene of every abduction. Has to be a copycat, though, he's still in prison, well actually a hospital for the criminally insane."
He gaped at the younger man. "And you know this how? Researching for your next book or something?"
"Something." Any further details were interrupted as McGee's phone beeped. He glanced at it before handing it off to DiNozzo. "Tell Gibbs this is where we're headed. There's not much time left."
"What is going to happen? How much time are we talking?"
McGee looked thoughtful for a moment before he answered. "He grabbed the boys sometime before lunch, but not too much earlier." He glanced down at his watch as DiNozzo interrupted him.
"How do you figure that?" There was something about the young agent's intensity that stopped the jokes running through his head.
"Lunch was still in their pack, but they'd had a snack. If we go by the estimate that they were taken sometime between ten and noon, then we've probably got less than an hour to find them intact."
"Intact? What do you mean, intact?" Tony had a sinking feeling that he knew what it meant, but hoped he was wrong. When Tony looked over and saw the expression on the face of the other man, he knew he wasn't. Dreading the night ahead, he called Gibbs.
"Talk to me, DiNozzo."
"Boss, McGee found evidence that suggests the boys may have been taken off the base. We're following up and headed to the mountain at Fountainhead Regional Park to check it out."
"What evidence?"
"The same tarot card found at the scene of some abductions and murders about twenty years ago. All those victims were twins, Boss."
"Shit. So why the mountain?"
"Why the mountain?" DiNozzo repeated the question for McGee's benefit. McGee answered loudly enough to be heard both in the cab and over the phone.
"Tunnels and mines, it's what he always did. If the copycat knew enough details to duplicate it to this point, we've got to believe that he would go the rest of the way."
"Makes sense."
Tony nodded to McGee, realizing that the younger man couldn't hear their team leader over the roar of the engine before he continued to update Gibbs. "If he's right, then McGee says that we've got about an hour to find those kids before the unsub starts to hurt them. We're coming up on the parking lot for the hiking trails now."
"We're on our way. If you have to choose, the priority is the kids, not the perp."
"Got it, Boss." Of course his last comment was met by a dial tone, but Tony was used to it. He turned to McGee as the van came to a stop and grabbed his arm. "You sure the hell better be right about this, Probie, or the Boss is gonna kill us both."
McGee's voice was unusually strained as he shook DiNozzo loose and climbed out of the cab. "Would you rather I suspected this but kept working a search grid back on the base?" He didn't wait for an answer as he opened the back of the van and began grabbing gear.
The space blankets, water and flashlights were not a surprise. Even the rope wasn't that much of a shock, but DiNozzo raised an eyebrow when McGee pulled out a scoped rifle and handed it over to him. "What will he be packing?"
"That they never determined for sure. It was at least a 45 cal or a 9 mil" With a final glance at the miniature map displayed on the screen of his phone, McGee set off towards what appeared to be the entrance to a cave or tunnel. His pace was brisk enough to be surprising to the other man, but Tony's long legs enabled him to match it without straining himself. He wasn't sure how long the non-athletic computer specialist could keep up this pace, but in a little more than an hour it probably would be a mute point.
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A convoy of vehicles left the base, the drivers hard pressed to keep up with Gibbs in a borrowed jeep. After a brief and intense discussion the large group of searchers had been divided into two groups, half remaining to continue the search of the base. Gibbs glared at the reflection in his rear-view mirror. The truck carrying the majority of his borrowed searchers was falling behind, the large vehicle no match for the jeep on the curvy road. His gut was telling him he was going to need those searchers sooner than later. He just hoped that their slowness wasn't going to cost either the lives of his men or the two young boys they were determined to find.