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The Gibbs Says Uncle Affair

by Gale Force

Part 4.

Special agent Jethro Gibbs sat in the break room at NCIS Headquarters, sipping coffee and reading a Wooden Boats magazine. As he turned a page, his cell phone buzzed. Gibbs reached for it and flipped it open. His forehead creased in curiosity as he saw his caller was Abby. She was in Norfolk attending a conference...why was she calling him?

Well, only one way to find out.

"Hello, Abby."

"Gibbs! Gibbs!"

Gibbs dropped the magazine and stood up, instantly alerted by the sound of tears, imperfectly held back, in Abby's voice.

"Abby, what's the matter?"

"It's Ducky! He's gone. He's disappeared!"

Gibbs blue eyes hardened into ice-cold chips. "Where are you, Abby?"

"I'm at the hotel! The Oceana! Ducky and I went to a basketball game this afternoon, and got back to the hotel about two hours ago. We were going out to dinner at seven, but he never came to my room. So I knocked on his door, no answer. I had the maid open up, and he's not in his room Gibbs! And all his stuff is gone. It's like he was never there!"

"Okay, Abby, hold tight. I'll get the team together and we'll be there in a couple of hours."

"Okay. Okay. Please hurry, Gibbs."

"You know I will, Abbs."

Abby disconnected. Gibbs ran a hand through his close-cropped hair as his mind worked through various computations. Finally, he dialed another number.

"The Mallard residence."

"Miss Rodriguez. Special Agent Gibbs here."

"Yes, Agent Gibbs?" said Ducky's home health care provider, who looked after Ducky's mother when he was at work.

"How's Mrs. Mallard today."

"She's much the same as usual, Agent Gibbs. Is something wrong?"

Gibbs grimaced. He didn't want to panic the woman unnecessarily. "Something's come up here, and it looks like Ducky will be delayed in Norfolk for a couple of days. I'm going to send over a couple of agents to relieve you. There names will be...Terence and Sapkowski. Make sure they show you identification, okay?"

"Very well, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs disconnected, then dialed another number, as he headed for the door and out into the hallway. "Yes, I want you to send agents Terence and Sapkowski out to the home of Dr. Mallard. You have the address. Simply precautionary. They're to stay there until Dr. Mallard returns or I say otherwise, understood?"

He flipped the phone closed just as he reached and strode into the office. "Get your gear, people, we're going to Norfolk." He grabbed up the stuff at his own desk.

"What for, boss?" asked DiNozzo, turning a smirking face away from Agent David.

Gibbs stopped for a second, and looked at his people. "It's Ducky. He's disappeared."

DiNozzo, McGee and David exchanged glances, and then very grimly they grabbed up their gear and followed Gibbs out of the room.

It was a long drive down to Norfolk. Usually DiNozzo would be chattering away, with a counterpoint by Ziva David and an occasional interjection by McGee, until Gibbs silenced them with a look or a retort, but not this time.

They all sat in silence, except for McGee, who had called up Abby so that she might not feel alone until they reached her. She was talking to him a mile a minute, venting, while he broke in on occasion to give her their distance from Norfolk. Ziva and Tony sat buckled up, their eyes closed so they might not see Gibbs' driving - for once they weren't complaining as he held the pedal to the metal, but they didn't want to see it - alone with their thoughts on what might have happened to Ducky.

****

Abby had not bothered to call the local police - that would be for Gibbs to decide once he arrived. What she did not realize was that the maid – who had witnessed her concern and reaction, and who had met Ducky and knew he had that room and was not scheduled to check out for another two days – had called the local news station, in response to their daily plea for "News of the Weird" news. A man disappearing from a hotel room, and leaving it behind as if he'd never been...did they think that qualified, she'd asked?

They did, and a reporter was soon dispatched. A reporter who was in tight with one of the security guards at the Oceana. The hotel had security footage of check-ins at the front desk – the tapes were kept for 30 days before being wiped and re-used. They were quickly able to find the footage of Ducky and Abby checking in - thanks to the maid's description of Abby's striking appearance, and a freeze-frame of Ducky's face was soon printed out. They left Abby alone -feeling that any news on her would detract from the story. Of course if she'd been sharing a room with the old man, that would have been a different - but the reporter had some ethics.

The reporter quickly returned to his desk with photo and notes and went to work. He'd have it completed in time to make the News of the Weird that very night....

****

Abby had been camped out in front of Ducky's door in a chair. She had jumped up when McGee informed them they had arrived in the parking lot, and now hugged Gibbs as the team arrived at the door.

"This is it, Gibbs," she told him. "He's been in this room for two days. His clothes were on hangers in the closet, he'd always laid on the bed with two pillows behind his back to watch TV during the day. Or read, knowing Ducky. I was in here before we left before the game this afternoon and I saw the way he'd arranged those pillows. And now look! The bed's made. His clothes are gone. His suitcases are gone!"

"Take it easy, Abbs," Gibbs said softly. "We'll find him." He looked at his team. "What are you waiting for? Get to work. Turn that room upside down. I'm taking Abbs over to the coffee house. Report to me there."

The Rendition Coffee House was located right beside the hotel. Gibbs sat opposite Abby in one of the booths, and ordered coffee for them both from the waitress.

"Okay, Abbs. Tell me about today. From the very beginning."

Abby took a deep breath, and began. When she got to the basketball game, she told about their meeting with the unknown Russian.

"At least, he sounded like he was Russian," she said. "His accent, I mean. He called Ducky Ducky, and hugged him, and said he wanted to talk to him. Ducky gave him his card. And the guy limped away. I asked Ducky who he was, and Ducky said he didn't know. He just said that the guy seemed like he was in trouble. I got that impression too."

Gibbs nodded, thoughtfully. "I'll want you to draw a sketch of him, Abby."

"Okay."

"Now, how about the conference? Anything strange happening there?"

"No. Same old same old. Some good speakers, some bad speakers. Lots of new information."

"And Ducky didn't meet anyone there? Know any of the speakers?"

Abby shook her head. "Not that I know of. He knew a couple by reputation, I think..but none to speak to."

Gibbs nodded again.

At that point, Ziva arrived, and slid in next to Abby, who scooched over to accommodate her.

"Nothing, Gibbs," she said. "There's no trace of Ducky at all in that room. No toiletries in the bathroom, nothing left in the closet or the dresser...no blood..or other fluids... found anywhere, either. No indentations in the carpet that would indicate a struggle, no chips on the furniture...nothing."

"It's like Cabin B-13," commented Tony DiNozzo, arriving at this moment. "Husband and a wife taking a cruise. Husband goes out one day, returns to find their cabin completely empty except for his clothes, and everyone on board the ship denied ever seeing her. Turns out that she'd been found to have the bubonic plague, and since they didn't want to have a panic on their hands, the ship's crew just made her disappear."

Gibbs glared up at him.

"Shutting up, boss," said Tony.

"There was one place they couldn't get into," said McGee, coming up on the heels of this line. "All hotels have safes in the closet. I had the night manager open up Ducky's safe, and found this."

He held up Ducky's ID for the conference.

Tony thought about pointing out to Abby that that proved that Ducky wasn't trying to gaslight her, but he thought better of it. Where the hell was Ducky!

"All right," said Gibbs. "McGee, get us rooms at the hotel. Tony, talk to everyone who has a room on that floor. I want to know everything about them. Ziva will help. McGee and I will talk to the hotel staff. Abby, I want you to stay in your room and work on your sketch of the Russian you met this afternoon. Tomorrow you and I will go to the conference and talk to the people who's lectures you attended. All right, people, let's move."

The team strode out purposefully, all except Abby and Gibbs.

"Come on, Abby," Gibbs said gently. "If someone had wanted to hurt Ducky, they would have left him in his hotel room after they'd done it. Whatever's going on, they're not going to hurt him. And we'll find him before they do anything else to him."

Abby took a deep breath. "You're right, Gibbs. You're right. Well, I'll get to work on my sketch."

Gibbs escorted her back to the hotel and saw her safely into her room. Then he headed for the manager's office, wishing that he felt as confident as he had just sounded.