6 Fly this thing faster

"Jethro, what a relief. The director said he would send you. When will you be here?"

"Three hours, more or less. Where are you?"

"At the base hospital. It's bad, Jethro. It was meant to be a killing blow, and if he'd lain in the street another five minutes, it would have been. They've put out a call for emergency blood donations. Of course everyone in the office and many of the MPs wanted to come in, but they're needed elsewhere. I donated myself, but I'm not the right blood type. Fortunately Tony has quite a common blood type, and there's also O negative as well."

"Duck. What about the investigation?"

"All the usual things seem to be in train. They're nice young people in the office, Jethro. Smart enough, I suppose. It's the base hospital I'm worried about. I'm not sure they're up to the job."

"Why didn't they airlift him somewhere else?"

"Too dangerous. You can't ligate a celiac artery, even for the time it would take to transport."

This is just so much Martian to Gibbs. "Where's Ziva?"

"At the office, on the phones. They wouldn't let her out in the field. A wise choice, I suppose. And close to the hospital."

"Maybe she should be at home waiting for a ransom call."

"They don't have a landline. No one here has one. It takes months to get one installed. Professor Charles said they waited…"

"Ducky."

"You should call her, Jethro."

"I'll talk to her when I get there. Abby and McGee are with me. You call one of us if something happens."

"Of course. A ransom call? Would that be good or bad?"

"Either. But it would be something to go on."

He hangs up. Abby and McGee are on their computers, occasionally muttering about the insufficiencies of the Gulfstream's wifi. "Whaddaya got, McGee?"

"All the text messages and emails sent by Rota NCIS are being copied to me directly."

"Any hits on the BOLO?"

"Yes, too many, actually. Apparently there are over a hundred red four-door Smart Cars registered in the area, not counting 15 registered to a car rental agency. There are nearly twice as many two-door red Smart Cars. Also about 30 Mitsubishis that are easily mistaken for a Smart Car. They did find one about a mile from the school without plates, but it's dusty."

DiNozzo with a dusty car? But what were the odds of him driving a Smart Car? "Have them tow it anyway."

"Will do."

"Abby?"

"The canvass of the crime scene didn't turn up much. Blood, which they collected for testing, but it's probably Tony's." Abby swallows, hard. "Um…oh, Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs! They have the knife." She frowns. "But it was handled at the scene by the ambo guys. And who knows who else."

"Where is it now?"

"I…it doesn't say."

"Well, find out, and make sure that no one else handles it before we get there."

"His personal effects are at the office. They'll hold them for us too." Abby frowns. "Tony's sidearm is with his stuff. What kind of bad guy doesn't take the gun?"

"One who's taking the cannoli," McGee says. "Sorry, boss, it was just—anyway, a pro who knows that the weapon will tie him to the crime too easily."

"Or someone who doesn't know the gun is there." Gibbs tries to picture the encounter in his mind: DiNozzo just getting out of the car, approached by…a young Spanish man? What are the odds that DiNozzo doesn't even reach for his weapon, knowing what he knows about the spate of carjackings, the likelihood that professionals are behind it? Maybe SAIC DiNozzo's too much of a politician these days and doesn't want to start off a possibly innocent encounter with a local by drawing his weapon. But his daughter is in the car. So, not a young Spanish man, but someone that wouldn't immediately alarm DiNozzo.

The simple scenario keeps branching out in his mind, he knows too little about the scene and the people and all the little details that could speak to a quiet, listening mind, and his gut won't tell him which is the right choice. Another random carjacking, with circumstances unexpectedly upping the violence. But the random carjacking of the NCIS SAIC, who's just found a chop shop? Gibbs still doesn't believe in coincidences.

So: revenge disguised as another random carjacking, by someone angry at having his business disturbed. Or revenge for some other transgression, because even those who love Anthony DiNozzo would admit he's nobody's idea of an angel.

Gibbs remembers, unwillingly, a trip on another Gulfstream—an older one—from Gitmo, and DiNozzo's joy at being on it. Kate Todd and Paula Cassidy had been there too. Both dead now. Gibbs's last words to DiNozzo had been: So go.

"McGee. Knock on that door and tell that pilot to fly this thing faster."

"Yes, Boss."