WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER

Chapter 5

Gibbs shook his head as he watched his SFA at the Command Center computer, talking to that teacher. With each of their personalities, the two of them were either going to get along fabulously, or kill each other. Knowing DiNozzo as he does, Gibbs is betting on killing each other.

"McGee!" he barked, secretly enjoying the way his junior agent jumped.

McGee swallowed nervously. "Yeah, boss?"

Gibbs motioned him over with a finger. "Pay a visit to the Admiral," he said with a note of sarcasm. "Tell him to get his pompous ass down here, ASAP."

"But boss," gulped McGee. "The Admiral said…."

Gibbs pinned McGee with a stare. "He does not have a choice, McGee. However you gotta' get him here - hogtied, dragged by his hair, I don't care - you just get him here. Arrest him if you have to!" he ordered.

"Uh, on what charges, boss?" McGee asked as Gibbs started walking away.

Gibbs swung back around angrily. "Reckless endangerment of three minors, hindering a federal investigation, being a first-rate jackass, I don't care! Make something up!… GO!" he yelled, making a shooing motion when McGee just stood there, confused that his boss was asking him to trump up charges on a Navy officer…not just an officer, a vice admiral for Pete's sake!

Seeing the frustration and anger on his boss' face, Tim nodded. "Getting the admiral here any way possible. On it, boss." With that, he took off.

****************NCIS**********NCIS*****************

After looking around for a few minutes, Janine Michaels found Agent Gibbs. She had no problem admitting that the man down-right scared her. She felt sorry for Gracie, basically trapped in the elevator with him. "Ex… excuse me, Agent Gibbs?" she asked tentatively. She almost jumped out of her skin when the man turned around.

"Miss Michaels. What can I do for you?" he asked politely.

Janine fidgeted. "Uh, well, the… the parents of the rest of our students are here, wanting to take their kids home. The, uh, the school called them when they found out we wouldn't be able to go back in." She never did well making decisions like this, but having to ask this man? She'd be lucky if she didn't throw up afterward.

Gibbs nodded. "Ok. And?"

"Oh…," Janine was surprised Agent Gibbs was being so agreeable. She got a little more confident. "Well, I wanted to check with you first before I let anyone go, I didn't know if it was ok."

Gibbs took a look around the scene, knew keeping the disabled children here was of no use. "Fine with me."

If she had been chewing gum, Janine would have swallowed it. "It is?"

With a half-smile, Gibbs gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Tell 'em to go home."

"Ok, I will," Janine said, still a little dazed. "Thank you, Agent Gibbs."

"Welcome, Miss Michaels." Watching her start to walk toward the kids, he got her attention once again. "Miss Michaels…" The young woman turned, and he gestured toward her arm, the one with the fingerprint bruises. "You doin' ok?"

With a sincere smile, Janine nodded. "Yes, I'm fine," she answered, and walked away.

******************NCIS**********NCIS*******************

Wanting an update on how the bomb squad was doing, Gibbs headed back over to the Command Center, rolling his eyes as it sounded like DiNozzo was regaling the occupants of the elevator with one of his trumped-up stories. He heard Ziva calling him, so he turned as she walked up with a gentleman looking very polished in his Marine dress uniform, a colonel, by the looks of it.

"Col. Ferragamo, this is Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the NCIS agent in charge. Gibbs, this is…."

"Col. Ferragamo," Gibbs said pleasantly, shaking the man's hand.

The man quickly gave Gibbs the once-over, liked what he saw. "I'm not here as a colonel, Agent Gibbs. I was told my son, Dante, is one of the children stuck in the elevator." He was very tense, his words short.

Gibbs gave a short nod. "Yes sir, he is, along with two other classmates, and his teacher."

"Miss Gracie's in there with him?" Colonel Ferragamo visibly relaxed. "I have the utmost faith in Gracie Lind, Agent Gibbs," he explained. "She's done more for Dante in the year he's been with her than all his other teachers put together." He looked Gibbs in the eye. "There's no one else I'd trust more with him, in this situation."

Gibbs returned the colonel's stare. He could see the truth in the man's eyes - he truly entrusted his son to that teacher. "Ok. But you'll have to be colonel, Colonel. Parents stay back behind the tape," he said lightly, walking the few feet back to the Command Center, Col. Ferragamo in step with him.

His eyes straight ahead, Col. Ferragamo asked Gibbs, "Military?"

Gibbs smiled. "Ooo-Rah, colonel."

"Ah, fellow Marine," Col. Ferragamo said. "Thought so. Officer?"

"No, sir," Gibbs said easily. "I work for a living."

The colonel smiled. "Gunny then." As serious as the situation his son was in, Col. Ferragamo felt much better, knowing a former marine was on the case.

*****************NCIS***********NCIS*******************

Fifteen minutes earlier…..

Tony straightened his suit jacket and tie, smoothed down his hair, looking around sheepishly when he remembered that he cold see Miss Lind, but she couldn't see him. He sat down at the computer hooked up to the elevator. "Miss Lind?" Tony saw that she'd managed to eke out a space to sit, though it didn't look very comfortable.

"Ooo, a new voice," she said happily to the kids, big smile on her face.

"No deddin'," the little girl, Adina, Tony remembered, said, seriously.

Gracie looked skeptical. "We-e-e-elllll," she hedged, "no yelling yet."

Tony smiled. "I don't yell at pretty women, and well, there's two of you sitting right there, so….."

Gracie rolled her eyes. "Oh Lordy, a sweet talker." She looked down at Adina. "I'd rather take my chances with the yeller."

Adina looked confused. She knew that this new voice just called her pretty, but Miss Gracie didn't seem happy. "'Wee todder?"

"Me and my big mouth," the young woman said quietly, hearing the agent chuckle. To Adina she explained, "a sweet talker is someone who… uh…" She wasn't sure how to explain it in pre-school terms. "Well, they say nice things about everybody, but sometimes what they say isn't always true."

The little girl looked at her teacher, getting the explanation - sort of, but confused. "'Ee tay Neeny pitty….."

Gracie gulped. "That part is true," she reassured the little girl.

"That's true," Tony said quickly, at the same time as Gracie.

"Well, we can't keep calling you 'sweet talker,' so what do we call you? I assume you're also with NCIS?" Gracie asked.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, at your service," Tony offered. "But, since we may be here together for a while, you can just call me Tony."

Gracie gave a half-hearted wave to the camera. "Hi, Tony. And since it appears we're stuck here together, you can call me Gracie." She put a hand on the little girl's head. "This is Adina - we call her Deeny." The little girl waved with a big smile.

Tony chuckled. "Hi Adina. Is it ok if I call you Deeny, too?" He saw her nod vigorously, and couldn't stop the laugh when she raised both hands, palms up, as if saying 'what are you asking for?' and said, "'Ih mah nay," simply. "I know it's your name, kiddo, but I didn't know if only special friends could use it." Again, with the hands up. "You fen," the little girl told him, and right then, Anthony Domenic DiNozzo, self-proclaimed love 'em - n' - leave 'em womanizer, lost his heart to a dark-haired, pony-tailed, wide-eyed five year old.

"'Ey, Agent Tony," Gracie called. "You still there?"

Hurriedly clearing his throat, hoping he sounded normal, he answered that he was.

Gracie nodded. She knew that Adina had just brought another grown man to his knees - happened all the time! "Ok, just checkin'. This big guy, here," she pointed to the left, "is my 'go-to' guy, Kyle." Kyle waved shyly. He didn't like talking in front of strangers because he knew they couldn't understand him very well.

"Hey Kyle," Tony said. "You look like a sports guy to me. You like sports?"

Kyle nodded. When Tony asked which ones, he all but whispered, with his head down, "bay bah, eh fuh bah."

Gracie began, "He said bay…"

"Baseball and football, I heard him," Tony answered lightly, letting the boy know he'd understood him, hoping to put him at ease.

With a raised eyebrow, Gracie looked at him, then turned to the boy in the wheelchair. "This is Dante. He's sleeping off a seizure right now, so he can't say 'hello.'"

"He doin' alright?" Tony asked, concerned.

Gracie nodded. "Oh yeah. This is pretty much his m.o. Seize and sleep."

Watching the FBI's bomb squad getting ready to enter the building with their dogs, Tony got serious. "Gracie, you might hear a lot of noise in a few minutes, but it's nothing to worry about. It's just the bomb squad…."

" The WHAT?" the teacher yelled, causing Adina and Kyle to jump. "Sorry guys," she sputtered. "Don't say anything more over the intercom. Call my cell." She nodded her head at the kids, letting Tony know that she didn't want the kids to hear.

Understanding, Tony turned off the mike and dialed the number Gracie recited to him.

Answering almost before it rang, Gracie turned her head away from the kids and whispered, "what the hell do you mean, the bomb squad? I thought this was just a broken elevator?" She gave him a nasty look in the monitor.

Tony swore under his breath, realizing no one had told her what was going on. "Look, Miss…. Gracie," he began. "I'm sorry you found out this way…."

"Save the apologies," Gracie rasped angrily. "Just tell me what the hell is going on. And don't even try to tell me 'it's classified,' cuz if anyone ever needed to know the situation, it's me." She dropped her head into her hand. A bomb. Fan-freakin'-tastic, she thought.

"We're not even sure there really is a bomb at this point," Tony began to explain. "The school received a call, a bomb threat, about the same time the fire alarm went off." He saw Gracie close her eyes dejectedly. "Hey, Gracie….look at me," he demanded, sighing when he saw her turn back and face the camera. Though she gave the appearance of being calm and collected, he could see the fear in her pretty, deep blue eyes. She raised an expectant eyebrow at him. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, there's never any bomb, but we like to make sure. Even more so now, with you and the three kids trap…. stuck," he corrected quickly - didn't want her picturing themselves as trapped, "in an elevator." He saw her nod sadly. "Most of the guys out here, they have kids of their own, they'll give their all for those kids in there with you…just like you do," he said softly.

Her head still down, Gracie raised her eyes, looking directly into the camera. "What about the other one percent?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Tony felt her stare hit him right through the screen. "We won't even think about that until we have to," he stated positively, hoping to give her some confidence. "For right now, until we know differently, this is just a threat." He watched her absorb what he'd said. "Think about your students, Gracie….you have to keep calm for them, ok?" She nodded without a word, but Tony could see her getting her emotions back under control. "We're going to get you outta' there, Gracie. I promise."

At that moment, Gibbs walked up with Col. Ferragamo. He was concerned with what he'd just heard. "Don't make promises you're not sure you can keep, DiNozzo," he reminded the young agent softly, so he wouldn't be heard in the elevator.

Looking from Gibbs to the elevator video feed, then back to Gibbs, Tony declared, with a determination in his eye that Gibbs had only seen once before - when they rescued Ziva - "I'll keep this one."

A/N - Hope you enjoyed this chapter - we got a little of everything from Tony in there, eh? Well, you know what it's time for…. It's time for you to REVIEW! Like, it, loathe it, have ideas to make it better, have ideas you'd like to see happen, you gotta' let me know! And REVIEWS make me want to write more, so if you want more of this story, you need to REVIEW! *** A big 'thank you' to all the readers who've already reviewed, alerted, and favorited. You're all in my will!

A/N 2 - All the standard disclaimers about not owning any part of or receiving compensation from the creators/production team/team of NCIS, CBS, etc., still apply.