A/N: I know I keep saying this... I will get back to updating on a more regular schedule. Real life keeps getting in the way lol
Gibbs returned to the bullpen to find Cooper waiting by his desk with an excited expression on his face.
"I found it!"
"You found where the video is coming from?"
"Yep!" He exclaimed happily. "It took me longer than I expected because some of the channels the feed was bounced through are secure and I had to find my way around the security before-" He caught himself up, a scared look on his face as he realised he'd just admitted to hacking into secure channels. Gibbs gestured for him to continue. He didn't care how Cooper had managed to do it; he'd deal with the consequences later.
"I finally found the source" Cooper finished quietly.
"Where?"
"Norfolk Naval Station. That's as close as I can get."
...
"Palmer."
The sound of Gibbs' voice right behind him startled the young ME's assistant. He jumped and spun around. There was a look on the team leader's face that he recognised from when Abby's lab nerd had tried to frame DiNozzo. Involuntarily he shuddered. Gibbs was intimidating at the best of times; but this was enough to scare the devil himself.
"I need to know anything you've found out from the tape. Anything at all."
"Um... the walls where they're being held are concrete. It's hard to tell from the images, but I doubt they have windows; everything is too dark. It's not much, sorry Agent Gibbs-"
He stopped himself. Gibbs had broken into a rare smile.
"You may have just saved their lives."
Gibbs turned and almost bolted out of the lab, leaving a slightly bewildered Palmer behind him.
...
"Ziva!"
She turned at the sound of her name, her pack already slung over one shoulder.
"Palmer says they're being held in concrete rooms. Let's go."
They took the elevator, Gibbs being careful to avoid Vance's notice. They had a possible traitor inside NCIS; he wasn't entrusting the rescue of his team to anyone else.
Once they'd made it out of the NCIS parking lot, Ziva finally spoke.
"Do we really have enough information to be heading out like this, Gibbs? How do you know we are not on a wild turkey chase?"
He assumed she meant wild goose chase, but didn't bother to correct her. "Would you rather sit at headquarters and watch them get beaten some more?"
He saw her wince out of the corner of his eye at that. After a moment of strained silence, he relented.
"Had a case once, few years ago. A Navy chaplain was kidnapping women. We found one of them in an unused munitions locker."
"And you think the Novikovs have hidden them the same way?"
"Makes sense."
They reached Norfolk in record time owing to Gibbs' more than usually reckless driving, showing their credentials at the gate and going straight to the base commander's quarters to enlist his help.
...
"Let me get this straight. A Russian criminal ring has kidnapped four of your team, held them hostage and systematically tortured them, all to get at you." The captain's tone was disbelieving at best
"Yes sir."
"And you believe that this has occurred on my base; a secure naval facility."
That did it. While this pencil pusher was stalling, his team, his family were suffering. Gibbs had had dealings with the captain before. It was time to remind him of it.
"Not that secure."
He watched with grim satisfaction as the captain flushed, knowing that he must have been remembering some of the more glaring breaches of security that his team had investigated.
"Every moment you waste brings my team closer to death, captain." He took a step closer to the naval officer. "I'm sure SecNav would be interested to know why we didn't find them in time."
He saw the captain swallow convulsively before picking up the phone on his desk and requesting a detail of Marines.
"You'd better know what you're doing, Agent Gibbs."
Neither the two agents, nor any member of the detail, saw the captain's aide pull out a cell phone and make a quiet call.
...
Anatoly slammed the phone down so hard it broke in two, cursing loudly in his native tongue.
"Trouble?"
He turned to find Svetlana watching him. He nodded, a sharp, furious jerk of the head.
"That was Petr." He gave the name the Russian pronunciation. "Agent Gibbs is on the way here, with Marines." He moved to grab his meagre belongings off the floor. "We need to get out of here, now."
She held up a hand, stopping him. There was a strange light in her eyes, more pronounced than the fanatical gleam that she'd had since they'd taken the first prisoner.
"I have a better idea. Kill them all. I want Gibbs to suffer, the way he made me and my mother suffer."
Anatoly's lips curved in a feral smile. She'd been restraining him all week, preventing him from inflicting enough damage to kill their captors. Now, he'd get to finish what he'd started.
...
McGee dropped to the ground, panting hoarsely, shivering from the pain and the physical exertion. He couldn't allow himself to relax, not even for an instant. Forcing himself to continue with his self assigned task, he turned his attention back to his mangled hands.
The thumbs of both his hands protruded at strange and unnatural angles. It had taken time, and all the willpower he possessed to stop himself from gagging at the snap and crunching sound of his own thumb being forced out of its socket, but he'd done it. Now, if he was to have any chance of getting free of the cell, he'd have to get at least one of his thumbs back where it belonged.
Steeling himself, he placed the palm of his injured right hand against his left thumb, pushing with all the strength he could muster, twisting the digit, trying to find the angle that would allow the thumb to slide back into the socket. The pain was excruciating. Both his broken wrist and his dislocated thumb protested.
And then suddenly, the pain stopped. With an audible 'click', the base of the thumb slipped over the edge of the socket. Disbelieving, he flexed his thumb. It was sore, but he could move it.
A sound from outside attracted his attention. Quickly, he gave up trying to reset his other thumb. One hand would have to do. The door was flung open and his usual tormentor entered, this time without his hood. McGee saw his look of shock as the man took in this unchained state and attempted to rush him.
The man hit him an almost casual blow with the steel pipe, catching him in the midriff and robbing him of breath.
"Brave, aren't you?" he sneered. "Let's see how brave you really are." He grabbed McGee's hair, forcing his head up, forcing him to look at the screen.
"Time to watch your girlfriend die, little man."
He saw the chain go around her neck, saw her struggle, horrified. When she collapsed and went limp, he started to scream. He couldn't help himself. He was still screaming as the steel pipe connected with the back of his head, knocking him to the ground.
Blackness.