MTF 13
The hatch's door handle and lock were searing hot. Gibbs and Tim knew from personal experience that that meant fire. Both men had been caught up in the explosion at the Navy been caught in that explosion, Gibbs had felt the fire rip through the lab as he and Abby had escaped, while Tim had been impaled on a piece of the glass from the shattered skylight. Gibbs also knew from his experience in Kuwait as a Marine and Tim knew from being buried in the debris from the Conrad Gala attack.
"HOT!" Tim hissed out in shock and pain, as he pulled his scalded fingers away. Tobias and Gibbs made quick work of getting the burns kit out of the first aid kit.
"This is going to hurt son, I am not going to lie," Tobias told his son truthfully, as he poured the tea tree oil over the red, now seared pads of his fingertips before soaking a cotton gauze in the oil and dressing his four fingers with the soaking cotton.
With Tim's burn temporarily taken care of, Gibbs and Kelly, began taking off their warm layers and Tobias joined in, realising what Gibbs had planned to do. Tim kept his on, mostly because Gibbs was worried about his body temperature dropping and him going into shock between the burn and the flighty PTSD panic attacks Tim seemed to be fighting.
With the door padded up, Gibbs instructed. "On three Tobias, one, two and pull." Much to their relief, there was no flames or fire on the other side. Gibbs was surprised with how little debris there was. Sure, the storm cellar was charred and burnt out, but the flames had been fully extinguished, but they could see the extensive damage to the house. Whatever the accelerant had been, it hadn't left much behind.
They could hear voices up on the next floor, but they sounded distant, like they were miles away and they were softening. So soft, that they couldn't determine who the voices were and opted not to call out for fear of being discovered by the wrong people.
"Man, Gibbs is going to be pissed. Look at the cabin. It's ruined." Ellie's voice declared in a hiss to Dorney and Vance. "Can I please go home to Oklahoma while you two tell him?"
"No one will be taking leave, Agent Bishop." Vance declared, as he pointed out a tattoo of an anchor on some red, unburnt flesh from victim number four. "Finding the four of them is our number one priority."
"Are we sure that the four of them didn't leave on foot?" Dorney asked, looking around the once beautiful cabin. "We know that both Tim's SUV and yours that Gibbs and Fornell were using, are fully burnt out. I am just spit balling, but did they leave on foot?"
"We have experienced tracking teams of Marines searching in every possible direction, with more manpower enroute." Vance answered Gibbs' newest agent. "The FBI have offered us manpower of their own. They want Fornell found as much as we want our people found."
The crime scene was noisy and with people milling around everywhere, it was hard to hear what was going on around them. Jimmy and Ducky were busy, partially examining and cataloging each body, looking for any identifying marks or tattoos that could help them ID the victims faster. So far they had only catalogued five bodies, it was a slow and tedious process, but as Ducky had told them. They didn't want to rush and risk making a mistake.
With all four of them finally out of the tunnel and sitting in the storm cellar, on the floor. Most of it charred and burnt out, including the staircase and access door, leaving them no way to reach up into the main house and go for recon. Tim was grateful to be out of the tunnel more than the other three. Gibbs and Tobias had managed to make a small pile of debris, for Kelly to elevate her ankle, as Gibbs manouvered himself to sit in a position that didn't put too much strain on his back.
Tim clicked his fingers to garner the other three's attention, before pointing to his father and making a boost signal with both hands. Gibbs shook his head no, the edge of the doorway to the ground floor of the house looked flimsy and unstable and he didn't want Tim hurt further.
Tim shook his head vehemently in disagreement. "Let me go, Gibbs." Tim begged him. "I am faster and stealthier than Dad. You have an injured back and Kelly can't walk. We need help."
"Gibbs is right, son. It is too dangerous." Tobias agreed with his best friend. It was risky and he didn't want to see his son injured, or worse. His heart still hadn't recovered from seeing Tim in a hospital bed after that incident with Ziva and Hadassar. "What about if we climb back down the tunnel and make noise to draw attention to the cellar and see if anyone responds?"
"I am not going back in that tunnel." Tim declared, immediately. "I'd rather be captured and tortured." Kelly comforted Tim, wordlessly. She could see the stress and the worry in his face and she could feel his heart racing beneath her fingers on his wrist. She was sure that if she leant against his chest, his heart would be trying to beat right out of his chest. She was worried for her boyfriend's mental state after this ordeal and wondered if the nightmares he had experienced after the Gala attack would return.
"Yeah, I'm with Tim." She murmured, giving her father a pointed look. She didn't need to verbalise her worries or concerns; she knew her father could read her like a book and would pick up on her true concerns.
"I'm not letting you go, Tim. I will go." Gibbs relented with a sigh. He knew it was their only way out. He didn't think that Tim could mentally handle another trip through the tunnel and truthfully, he didn't think his back could handle it either. He didn't want to risk Tim doing the recon, they were after Tim. It would be like serving him up on a silver platter if he did. Plus, he thought about the future, he was sure that Tim and Kelly could go the distance together and that when the time was right, Tim would pop the question to her. He couldn't bear to see Kelly's heartbreak if something happened to him.
"No, Gibbs, no." Tim argued.
"Absolutely not!" Tobias added, simultaneously.
"No Dad!" Cried Kelly. She had already lost her mother, she wasn't ready to lose her father too, if he was captured.
"It has to be me." Gibbs explained softly. "They want you, they're after you, Tim. Kelly, you are not an agent, not trained, not to mention you have a possibly broken ankle. Tobias and I both have agent training, but I am sure that the armed men are mercenaries, guns for hire. I was a Marine and once a Marine, always a Marine. I could take them on, if I need to. Tim, you know I am right about this. Back me up."
Tim sighed; he knew that his boss made good points. Valid points, but it didn't ease the guilt that it should be him because they wouldn't be in this mess if someone hadn't of sent them after him. Unfortunately, they all knew better than to argue with Gibbs when he was in this mindset.
Tobias and Gibbs had helped Tim hoist himself up on to where the door was that allowed him entry into the main floor of the cabin. The voices were a lot louder and more profound than they had been in the storm cellar. "I think it's our guys." Tim hissed in a small whisper down below, giving them a thumbs up.
As he tried the door, he realised that the door was soaked wet and partially burnt. He hoped that he would be able to open it, because otherwise, his attempts would have been futile. The door was locked, and Tim remembered that they had locked the door behind them when they had fled into the storm cellar. He listened carefully at the door, trying to ascertain who's voices he could hear. He looked around at his limited resources to see what he had that he could use to pick the lock with.
He didn't have their emergency pack; he had left it down in the cellar in the hope that if he was captured the three of them would still have their supplies with them. He looked around, there was nothing. Then he remembered a case, a long while back. Back when he was not yet on Agent Gibbs' team, back when he had been assisting Agent Chris Pacci on a cold case and the seasoned agent had taught him to pick a locked door, using a plastic card from his wallet.
Reaching into the front pocket of his jeans for his wallet, Tim retrieved the plastic card with the black magnetic strip, that had been blank. It was the override key for the elevator in their apartment building and he had once used it as a prop to torment Kelly's ex-boyfriend in to thinking that it was a hotel room key. Back when he and Kelly had been just friends. It was actually the night that he and Kelly had shared their first passionate kiss, even if it was under the guise of deceiving Ethan, her ex-boyfriend. As he slowly and methodically slipped the card, into the latch, he maneuvered the card around and wriggling and jiggling it about until he felt the latch shift. While giving it a slight tug, he managed to get the door unlocked and he was proud of himself for recalling such a skill, almost fourteen years after he had been taught how to do it. He gave Gibbs the signal, and the three of them moved out of sight, in case he was captured as soon as he got the door open and slipped through. As soon as he was sure that they were well hidden, he slipped through the door and into the house.
He was shocked at the state of the house. It was a fully burnt-out shell and there had been barely any floors or walls to speak of. there was debris everywhere. It smelt like the distinct aroma of accelerant, burnt flesh and ash, a smell that Tim knew he would never forget as long as he lived. An aroma that he hoped he would never smell again, as long as he lived. Tim took a further step into what was once the long hallway by the mudroom and stumbled. Looking down, he had stumbled over a dead body. The body had been charred and burnt. There was no skin left on it and Tim fought hard not to vomit at the sight, combined with the sensory smell from the traumatic attack on the gala.
Taking another cautious step towards the main room of the house, this time his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the house. The floor beneath him wet, as he stepped over the next body, also charred and blackened. The fire that had taken hold of the cabin had clearly been hot and ferocious. The voices he could hear were getting closer and closer and hope soared in his chest. He thought he had heard Ellie's voice and he prayed that his brain wasn't playing tricks on him.
Taking another step and another step closer, he stayed as close as possible to the partially destroyed wall of the hallway alcove that he was in. He had promised Gibbs that he would try his best to remain unseen. Taking another step closer, he had to stop. The overwhelming smell of burnt and decayed flesh filtered into his nostrils and he breathed through the temptation to vomit.
Taking another tentative step closer, his last step before the main room became visible, Tim braced himself for what he would see. He sent up a silent prayer that he would find his team, or at least a local LEO. He would even settle for a well meaning neighbour. Peeking around the corner, hunched low to the ground, Tim saw Ducky and Jimmy leaning over a body and his heart leapt into his throat. He wanted to call out, but he took an extra second to survey the scene before him.
Ducky and Jimmy were collecting evidence, assessing and cataloguing the body they were leaning over, Ellie was on the opposite side of the room, her bright blonde hair standing out against the blackened ruins of the room. Dorney was next to her, handing her an evidence bag, while Leon Vance was standing nearby with a yellow crime scene number in his hand, cradling his cell phone between his cheek and shoulder as he spoke indecipherably into it.
Tim saw a couple of others he recognised from the office before he let it confirm in his mind that this was definitely the good guys and not whoever had sent the mercenaries. "Help!" Tim called out the best he could, over the noise of the generator. "Help!"
Suddenly, everyone looked at him. "TIM!" Leon called out, recovering his voice too. He saw Ellie and Dorney look up him, relief written all over their face. "TIM! Are you ok?" he asked, rushing to the Senior Field Agent's aide.
"Gibbs and Kelly are hurt, Tobias is ok." Tim breathed out loud, before feeling like he was going to collapse in pure exhaustion and relief. "They're in the storm cellar."
"Let me look at you, my dear boy." Ducky begged, coming to Tim's side as he dropped his NCIS medical bag nearby. He urged Tim to sit, but Tim's legs gave out from underneath him in exhaustion and relief.
Ducky quickly went to work, leaving Jimmy to continue cataloguing the bodies without him. Immediately, Ducky had his stethoscope out and, in his ears, urging Tim to let him check the man out. "Go to Gibbs and Kelly first." Tim begged him, "They're injured worse than me."
"Relax Tim, we will get them out." Leon reassured him, as he called for a rescue team into his phone and made his way to the storm cellar. Seeing no one in the cellar he called out. "Gibbs! Kelly! Tobias! It's Leon, we have Tim. He is safe. Come out, we're going to help you."
Slowly one by one, they ventured from their hiding spots. "That you, Leon?" Gibbs asked, squinting slightly at the floodlights that were set up in the hallway and shining directly into the storm cellar, blinding him.
"Sitrep, Gibbs?" He called back, as he and Tobias helped his daughter hobble out of her hiding spot on one foot. Leon breathed a sigh of relief out loud, when he saw the three of them, relatively uninjured. Tim had said that Gibbs and Kelly were injured.
"Kelly's probably got a broken ankle, possibly her foot too and I have twinged my back, Tobias is ok." Gibbs called back, as the Marines and some of his fellow agents came in and began shoring up the fragile structure of the floor, to rescue them from the storm cellar.
"Check Tim, his hands are burnt up pretty bad." Tobias called out, worried about his son.
"Ducky is with him." Leon replied, trying to put their minds at ease. "He is in good hands, just relax."
The Marines and fellow agents forming the rescue team got to work, Tobias and Gibbs hoisted Kelly onto Tobias' back, piggy-backing her, as he climbed up the ladder, they had slid down for the two of them to climb up. When Tobias was three rungs up on the ladder, two Marines took her off Tobias' back and pulled her to the ground floor safely. Before Balboa and Callahan pulled Tobias free next. Gibbs managed two rungs, before Leon and Dorney pulled him the rest of the way up. "You guys, ok?" Leon asked the two men. The Marines had carried Kelly through the destroyed cabin and out the front of the destroyed cabin and onto the front lawn, where the Marines were just finished setting up a makeshift first aid station in a canvas tent.
"Tim!" She called out to him, as soon as she saw him. Ducky was uncovering the burns on his hands that had been haphazardly treated and covered by Gibbs from his field first aid kit.
When Tim finally looked back up from his blistered hands, he was relieved to see Kelly on the stretcher beside him. "Babe?" He asked and Kelly gave him a weak smile.
Soon there was a flurry of activity and the four of them were together again, along with Leon, Ducky and Sarah Porter. They were surrounded by armed marines and Gibbs privately thought to himself that Sarah Porter must have mobilized a whole platoon of Marines to aid in their search and rescue. "Thank goodness that you are all relatively unharmed." Leon Vance sighed out loud. His heart had been racing since he had seen Tim appear at the entrance of what was once the hallway. "How the hell did you guys make it out of the inferno?"
"My cabin is old." Gibbs chuckled out loud. "That cabin belonged to my grandfather and great-grandfather, they used it during prohibition to make and transport bootleg whiskey to the local underground. There's a tunnel underneath the storm cellar that comes out at Hanging Rock."
"We were headed that way when the fire took hold." Tobias chimed in. "Must have been an explosion of some kind. The reverberations rattled through the tunnel."
"I can confirm that we found a rudimentary bomb detonator and blasting caps in the debris. The bomb squad has been in and done a full sweep." Leon confirmed with a nod from Sarah, while she fussed over Tobias and looked over their son. "We are still identifying the bodies, as they're pulled from the scene. Kasie is in the makeshift lab, working as a fast as she can with three assistants. We found have found twenty-two, so far. A lot of the bodies are burnt beyond a DNA analysis and will require dental identification."
"Is there any way to determine if Abby or Edwardo Allouez are any of the bodies?" Gibbs asked and he heard Tim suck in a sharp breath. Gibbs winced at Tim's sharp breath. He knew that the man would be angry to learn that Abby was behind the attacks. All three of them knew what Edwardo Allouez was capable of and even he had a hard time understanding why Abby would take up with a man like him.
"No, no there's not." Leon admitted feeling defeated. He knew that Gibbs and Tom wouldn't accept this answer. Tim looked lost in his thoughts. There was a crinkle on his forehead above his eyebrows. Leon knew that was his contemplation face, Gibbs and Tobias knew it too, so did Kelly.
"Abby is in over her head, she needs our help." Tim declared, looking around at the people gathered. Dorney and Ellie had joined them, and the Marines had fallen back. "She needs to be helped, she doesn't know what Edwardo Allouez is really capable of, I mean look around. Does anyone here think that Abby is capable of and would be ok with killing twenty-two people? She needs our help; we are responsible for her."
Coming to sit beside her son, leaving Tobias' side, Sarah put her arm around him gently. "Tim, you are not responsible for Abby. You are not responsible for her thoughts, her choices or her actions."
Tobias Fornell glared at his friend Jethro Gibbs with a fiery look on his face. He knew that this part of Tim stemmed back to a time when Tim always held responsible for Abby, by Gibbs. Back to the beginning when they all first met and Abby would force him to accompany her places and when he refused, she would go to Gibbs and Gibbs would intimidate him into doing her bidding. As soon as she realised she could make Tim do whatever she wanted to with the threat of Gibbs, she used it as a way to control and manipulate him. "Your mother is right Tim." Tobias said.
"Tim honey, you are only responsible for yourself, Kelly as your girlfriend, your father and I as your parents, your three sisters - Sarah, Emily and Megan, Penny, Gibbs as Kelly's dad and your team leader, Dorney and Ellie as your fellow team members, Leon as your boss and even though the two of you haven't been close of late, Tony and Tali. That is, it. You are not responsible for Abby." Sarah took a breath and realised that her son was beginning to take everything she had said on board, but he still looked ready to object. "Honey, look around you. Kelly is hurt, Gibbs is hurt, I have been worried sick and everyone else is exhausted. You need to let someone else take control."
"John McGee has a lot to answer for." Tobias swore, letting his frustration colour his voice, coming to stand beside Gibbs. "I know that because of the way you were raised, always having to look after your sister, Sarah and take care of everything. You feel like you have to help everyone who needs help, even if they don't want you to. But it is ok to let go and say no, it's not my problem. No one is going to think any less of you."
"Sarah and Tobias are right, Tim." Gibbs added, taking half a step closer to Tim. "I know that you have a white knight complex. You have this need to "save" people by fixing their problems. You might feel good about yourself when you're helping someone, but you expend so much energy trying to help people that you are going to end up burning out. Abby doesn't want to be saved, Tim. You need to let go of her and her problems. She is not your responsibility."
"It's ok to be selfish, Tim." Kelly added, rubbing his arm in comfort. "You can't let yourself give everything to her or you will have nothing left to give to yourself, never mind your friends and your family. You're a good man Tim and I know you want to help. But part of helping is knowing when to step in and knowing when to step back. It's time to step back, Tim."
"Your family, Gibbs and Kelly are right, Tim." Leon added, as Ellie took a step closer to rub Tim's other arm. "Let me, Ellie and Dorney take the reins. It's our job, you're on vacation remember?"
Tim nodded slowly, message received low and clear from his parents, Gibbs, Leon and his girlfriend. Kelly's words had made him take stock of the situation. If he gave everything to everyone, there would be nothing left for him. Nothing left for her. She hadn't said that, of course, but he had heard it, nonetheless. He only wanted to give Kelly everything he had. Kelly was amazing to him. He was very much in love with her and at Christmas, he had tried to convey the message that he was serious about Kelly and when the time came, he wanted to make Kelly his wife. "For you?" He said, as he looked Kelly in the eyes. He smiled that smile, the one he reserved, just for her and kissed her lips. "I will step back. You're right, babe. You're all right, I don't owe Abby anything."
The Marines allowed their medics in, ready to treat their injuries, under Ducky's supervision. Kelly had her shoe and sock removed and as she predicted, her ankle and foot had swelled up and they had stabilized her foot with an air splint. She would be transported to Georgetown University Hospital. She would also be moved by wheelchair or carried as Ducky didn't want her weight-bearing on her foot until it had been x-rayed.
Gibbs was still standing upright, just moving very slowly and gingerly. He had admitted that the pain was worse when he was sitting or lying down. The medics that had assessed him were sure that it was just a muscle strain, but he would also go to hospital as a precaution.
Tim had his burns assessed, treated and wrapped. They would need to be seen to by a burns specialist and treated accordingly. Ducky instructed the medics to monitor Tim closely, because having nasty burns like that, could also have side effects that weren't pleasant, such as an increased heart rate, dehydration and either a drop or raise in blood pressure. Not to mention that he wanted the burns to be kept clean to limit the risk of an infection.
Tobias was looked over too, at Ducky's insistence and the medics did a thorough job of checking him over. He was cleaned up and had some scraps and abrasions on his elbows and knees, but compared to the other three, his injuries were minor. He would accompany the other three to hospital and act as a liaison between Leon and Sarah, and the injured parties. Ducky would accompany them, as medical proxy for the injured parties.
Leon and Sarah Porter were organizing transport and a protection detail back in DC to take over. It was decided that the marines would provide the protection as NCIS would take control of the scene and the bodies. To ensure the safe transport of the injured parties, Sarah organised for them to be taken to a small, privately owned airstrip six miles from their location and they would be flown on the SecNav's private jet, the Gulfstream, back to DC, alongside their guards.
They would land at the FBI's airstrip, just outside of DC and the FBI would assist the Marines with the transport and the protection detail, while the jet returned for the rest of NCIS and herself, as well as the bodies. While the C130 they had flown in on would transport the evidence and the rest of the Marines back to the Navy Yard.
Leon planned to leave the local LEO's to patrol and secure the scene, until such time as they release it. Both Leon and Sarah, as well as the NCIS agents were certain that Abby and Edwardo were done with the scene, and they would not be returning to it.