Fic: Ten Years On - 4/5
Dec. 31st, 2008 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xantheficTen Years On
By Xanthe
Part Four
The Glover house was only a few blocks away. There was no reply when they knocked on the door. Tony drew his gun and pointed it at the lock, but McGee pushed his hand away.
“Don’t be an idiot, Probie,” Tony hissed. “We both know we don’t have time to wait for a warrant and I’m not going to spend five minutes picking the damn lock when I can just shoot it off.”
“I know.” McGee nodded. “Stand back,” he said, drawing his own gun and pointing it at the lock on the front door. Tony raised an eyebrow.
“Breaking the rules, Director?” he asked.
“Director’s prerogative – but if we’re going to break the rules I’m going to be the one doing it and I’ll take the blame for it,” McGee said tersely. He blew the lock off the door and Tony pushed the broken door to one side and strode into the house, gun drawn.
The place seemed like a normal suburban house. There were some child’s toys still in there, but it had only been a month since Nathan’s mom had taken him away so that was to be expected. They moved swiftly around the place, guns drawn and raised, covering each other as they entered each room. The place was a mess, with empty beer cans and pizza boxes everywhere, but they found nothing more sinister than that.
“Maybe we got this wrong,” McGee sighed.
“Wait – there’s a basement.” Tony pointed at a door tucked almost out of sight at the end of the hallway, the one place they hadn’t yet looked. “Like Gibbs’s old place – where he built all those boats he never intended to sail.”
They moved toward the door, moving cautiously but fast, in sync with each other, each knowing what move the other would make. It had been a long time since he’d worked out in the field with Tony and McGee realised just how much he’d missed it. They made a good team; long years of working together and their own personal friendship had meshed them into a perfect working unit. Tony was right – they had been the best. They still were.
They got to the door and Tony tried it with his hand to find that it was locked. He stood back and McGee ran forward and slammed his foot into it, putting all his pent-up, nervous anxiety behind the kick; he was gratified when the door splintered and swung open. He stepped inside and then paused.
“Oh my god,” he breathed.
“What is it?” Tony pushed past him, and then stopped. “Oh shit,” he muttered, gazing around.
The basement area was a shrine. One entire wall was decorated with pictures of a little blond boy. Whoever had been with him in some of the pictures had clearly been cut out, savagely, with a knife rather than a pair of scissors, McGee thought.
“I’ve seen this kid around my house. It must be Nathan,” Tony muttered. “And I’m guessing it’s his mom who’s been cut out of the photographs.”
McGee walked down the stairs, into the basement, and then his blood turned cold as he saw a stack of yellow paper piled up on a workbench shoved against the far wall. He pointed at it and Morris nodded.
“Looks like the same paper those notes were written on,” McGee said. “We need to get it to forensics to confirm that. Morris get an NCIS van over here.” She nodded and began talking into her cell phone.
“Doesn’t prove anything though,” Tony said. “Just because Glover wrote the notes doesn’t mean that he kidnapped my family.”
That was the first time he’d used the word ‘family’. McGee suspected it was the first time he’d ever used it about Louis and Gibbs but that was exactly what they were to him and he was pleased that Tony was finally waking up to that fact.
“No…but this might,” Morris said softly, pointing to a box of newspaper clippings she had found. “Glover was cutting out anything to do with gays - gay rights, gay marriage, and these…” She pointed at another box of papers, with an expression of distaste. “There are brochures from far-right crazy organisations,” she said, flicking through them. “They think gays should be strung up and left out to die, and given who Glover’s wife ran off with, I’d guess those were views he had a lot of sympathy with.”
“I still don’t understand why he’d kidnap Louis and Gibbs,” Tony muttered, rifling through the material. “Fuck, this stuff is insane.” He held up a pamphlet with the lurid title: “Corrupting America’s Youth”. “Oh shit,” he said as he looked through the rest of the papers. “Most of this stuff is about how gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to look after kids – which must be his personal issue at the moment, after what happened with his wife. This one thinks all children should be forcibly removed from any kind of gay parenting environment. I can see why he’d be all over that idea.”
“He was already angry, and he’s been getting angrier since his wife left him,” McGee said, glancing around. “He’s been reading this material, brooding on his son – the courts think his son is better off living with a lesbian couple than with him, and that makes him feel impotent, emasculated – just like he feels about the fact that his wife left him for her female lover in the first place.”
McGee paced around, trying to get into Glover’s head and figure out his thought process. “So he’s stoking himself up, getting more and more upset about it, and he remembers something Louis said about you and Gibbs, so he starts sending those notes…and it feels good. It feels like he has some control back in his life. He can’t find his little boy, but he can do this. Now he has a target, someone to focus on…he’s taking his revenge on a group of people who he thinks have hurt him just by existing. And you and Gibbs – and even Louis - represent a whole group of people to him – you’re not individuals any more.”
“That means he’s dehumanised you,” Morris said. “And that’s making it a hell of a lot easier for a man – a *father*- to take a little boy hostage. I don’t like where this is going.”
“But even so, at the moment it’s just a revenge fantasy - something must have pushed him over the edge,” Tony said. “What the hell made him snap? What was the trigger? What made him go over to my house last night, shoot Gibbs, and take off with him and Louis in his car?”
“The gay marriage thing,” McGee said, clicking his fingers.
“What gay marriage thing?” Tony frowned, and McGee remembered he’d been too drunk yesterday, and too caught up in Jonssen, to pay any attention to what was going on in the rest of the world, even if he was remotely interested in this particular piece of news - which McGee guessed he probably wasn’t. He couldn’t exactly see either Tony or Gibbs as gay rights activists, or the kind of people who were hankering to get married; Gibbs had a positive antipathy towards marriage in any case, which was hardly surprising given his track record.
“I saw it on the news yesterday – gay marriage is now legal in Virginia,” McGee told Tony. “It just got passed. Glover must have seen it too and it sent him into some kind of a frenzy. He’s a psycho, he’s furious, and he wants revenge on someone…”
“No,” Morris interrupted. “That’s not it. Or at least – that’s only partly it. He wants revenge, yes, but he also wants someone to listen to him because he doesn’t feel that anyone cares about him. Nobody cares about his feelings, or his loss, or about how unfair it is – how plain *wrong* it is that the law has given custody of *his* son to a lesbian mother and her lover rather than to a solid upstanding citizen like him – because that’s how he sees himself. He wants people to hear him, to understand…”
“Oh shit. He’s going to make a big statement,” Tony said, straightening up from where he’d been crouching, looking through the material. “He’s going to do something big, something people will have to listen to…” His jaw locked into a tight line. “He’s going to kill them,” he said quietly. “He’s going to kill Louis and Gibbs and then he’s going to kill himself. That's his statement."
“I think DiNozzo’s right. Glover is determined that he *will* be heard – any way he can,” Morris said. “Even if it means dying in the process. This is his way of getting everyone’s attention.”
“But to kill a child – a child the same age as his own son…” McGee shook his head. “Would he really do that?”
“Yes,” Tony said, in a hard tone of voice. “Read some of this shit, McGee.” He shoved a pamphlet at him. “He’d view it as liberating Louis – he honestly thinks death is better than living with me and Gibbs, with us…corrupting him.” His jaw tightened again, so hard and so taut that McGee thought it looked as if it might snap. “We have to find them, McGee – we have to find them before that happens,” he said urgently.
“We will, Tony,” McGee replied. “We will. Morris, get Banks on the phone – let’s see if we can figure out where Glover has taken them.”
She speed dialled and then put the phone on speaker so they could all hear.
“Banks, this is Director McGee – what do you have on Glover?” he asked tersely.
“Sir…I haven’t had long to do much digging but…” McGee could hear Banks’s fingers typing fast in the background.
“You’ve had long enough to find something!” McGee snapped. “Come on – do your damn job!”
“Yes, sir.” Banks sounded petrified of him, McGee thought, and he was surprised by how much that pleased him. “His name is Paul Glover, he’s forty, and he’s currently unemployed, but he used to be in the Marine Corps.”
McGee and Tony exchanged glances.
“Explains how he got in there and managed to take Gibbs down. Nobody but a marine would be able to do that,” Tony commented. “And if it had been a fair fight, without Louis around, then Gibbs would have kicked his ass – I’m sure about that.”
“Maybe – this guy is twenty years younger than Gibbs though,” McGee pointed out.
“Yeah – but Gibbs is Gibbs,” Tony reminded him.
“Agreed.” McGee nodded, because there was no arguing with that. He’d never seen Gibbs beaten in a fight – ever. “What else do you have on him, Banks? Why did he leave the Corps?”
“General discharge – not an honourable discharge,” Banks replied and then there was a long pause.
“Details!” McGee snapped.
“Just getting them, sir…oh…okay, nothing too specific but it seems he was a little over-zealous in his treatment of prisoners, and he had a habit of losing it on the battlefield and going on the rampage. His CO tried to contain him but in the end he was too dangerous to keep around.”
“I know the feeling,” McGee muttered, glancing at Tony, who gave him a surprised look in return. Maybe he didn’t even realise how much of a pain in the butt he was.
“He has a fascination with weaponry and a couple of assault charges on his record,” Banks added. “Oh…and there’s a history of domestic violence against the wife. She’s taken out an injunction against him to prevent him from coming within ten miles of her or the child – and she’s asked for her current address not to be released to him.”
“That explains his frustration,” Morris said. “He can’t get at them – his real targets – but he could get to Louis and Gibbs.”
“You said a fascination with weaponry?” Tony asked.
“Yes,” Banks replied. “Guns, knives, explosives – his CO said he was borderline obsessive about it – and that also made him raise some questions about Glover’s mental stability.”
“Anything else, Banks?” McGee demanded irritably. “Anything that might actually help us figure out where this guy is?”
“Uh…no…um…I mean, but I can keep looking…”
“Do it,” McGee snapped, and then he severed the connection with an angry flick of his hand.
“Being a bit hard on the poor probie there weren’t you, Director?” Tony said softly.
“He annoys me,” McGee replied, remembering how the previous day Banks had sat back and let Carter and Morris deal with Tony on their own, rather than taking his share of their boss’s anger.
“He’s okay,” Tony said quietly. “He’s young. He’s still learning.”
Morris rolled her eyes. “He always cuts the probie more slack than the rest of us,” she muttered to McGee.
“Hey – he’s just a probie,” Tony said with a shrug. “And you know me - I’ve always had a soft spot for probies,” he added, with a hint of a grin in McGee’s direction.
McGee snorted, but that did make him think that maybe he’d been a bit hard on Banks. There was just something about the kid – he was so young and so painfully eager a lot of the time – maybe he just reminded him too much of the way he’d once been. At that moment Banks called back.
“I’ve found something!” he said. “Glover has a cabin.”
“Where?” McGee looked at Tony – this might be their first real lead on where Glover had taken Gibbs and Louis.
“Big Stone Gap. It's, uh, quite a long drive from your current location,” Banks said. “I’m sending the details over to Morris’s cell right now.”
“Big Stone Gap? He’ll be there by now,” Tony said, running for the stairs. “We’re hours behind him.”
“Wait…Tony – I’m going to call in a helicopter to take us there,” McGee said.
“You can do that?” Tony frowned.
“No – but I can call in a favour from a friend who can,” McGee replied.
“You have those kinds of friends?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “See, I knew I should have taken the job as Director.”
“Again with the not being asked thing, Tony!” McGee said, but he shot him a tight grin anyway, knowing that Tony was using banter to handle the situation because right now he was going crazy inside.
McGee put in his call and they went back outside to get into Tony’s car and drive the short distance to where they could pick up the helicopter. Outside, an NCIS van was just pulling up – and, a second later, a car screeched to a halt behind it and Agent Carter got out and ran towards them.
“Sir, Agent DiNozzo – I have something,” he said breathlessly.
McGee figured it must be important as he’d driven out here to tell them in person.
“Is this about Louis and Gibbs?” Tony demanded. “Are we on the wrong track?” He glanced at McGee. “Does Jonssen have them after all?”
“No – it’s not about that. It’s Jonssen – he’s here.”
Tony went very still and McGee gave a mental sigh. Any mention of Jonssen and Tony gave his usual Pavlovian response.
“Where?” Tony asked, his eyes darkening.
“I’ve been working on Stackton and he finally let something slip. He didn’t mean to but I found out he knows that Jonssen’s mother’s ill.”
“Jonssen’s mother’s ill?” McGee asked, looking at Tony in surprise.
“Yeah. She’s got terminal cancer,” Tony replied impatiently. “Nobody knows how long she’s got left but it can’t be long.”
“And when the hell were you going to tell me this?” McGee demanded.
Tony shot him a hard look. “When you needed to know.”
“So you’ve had someone watching her in case Jonssen came to say goodbye? For how long?” McGee asked.
Tony’s jaw twitched. “Six months,” he muttered.
“Six months? You’ve been watching her for six months? How the hell…? An undercover operation like that, around the clock, would cost NCIS a fortune but all your agents are accounted for and you haven’t submitted any additional expenses to me,” McGee said.
“I paid someone,” Tony snapped. “Privately. I knew you wouldn’t sanction an expensive long-term op like this but I have the cash lying around so I used it. There’s nothing wrong with that."
McGee's eyes narrowed. "When all this is over, you and I are going to have a long talk about your methods, Special Agent DiNozzo."
"When all this is over I'll be happy to, Director McGee," Tony replied grimly. "Go on, Carter.”
Carter nodded. “There was something about the expression in Stackton’s eyes – just a flash but I knew this was the thing he was hiding. So I called that guy you’ve been paying to keep an eye on Jonssen’s mother…”
“Hang on – *you* knew about this guy?” McGee asked. Carter grimaced.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you didn’t think of mentioning to me that your boss was running his own secret undercover op all this time?” McGee demanded.
“Uh…” Carter gave Tony an agonised look.
“Give him a break – you’d have covered for Gibbs over something like this if he’d asked you,” Tony said. “Carter – stop worrying that McGee will fire you because if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on I’ll shoot you and then you won’t have to worry about your job.”
Carter winced. “I couldn’t reach the guy on the phone so I went over to his apartment.”
“Was he there?” McGee asked.
“No,” Tony said, shaking his head. “Or at least he was – but he was dead, wasn’t he, Carter?”
“Yes – I found the body. He hasn’t been dead long. A couple of days - no more. Professional hit. One shot, clean between the eyes.“
“Stackton killed him,” McGee said.
“Ya think, McGee?” Tony growled. “Yes, Stackton killed him. I knew that son of a bitch was hiding something – and Jonssen wasn’t paying him all that money for nothing. Jonssen’s mother went into a hospice a month ago so she must be near the end. Jonssen found out she was being watched and sent Stackton to kill the guy I was paying to do the watching, which means…”
“That Jonssen is back in the country and wants to visit his mom before she dies. He might even be there right now,” Carter said. “He knows it won’t be long before you find out about your watcher being killed – he has to get in and out of there before that happens.”
“How did Jonssen get back into the country without me knowing about it?” Tony asked, frowning.
“Well, like you said, he’s a wealthy man – he has resources,” McGee told him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Morris answer her cell phone.
“Unless…this thing with Gibbs and Louis – are we sure we have the right guy?” Tony asked. “Is it Glover – or is it Jonssen, trying to keep me distracted?”
“I think the two are completely unrelated,” McGee said firmly.
“A coincidence?” Tony raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“No. Just bad timing. My gut tells me that Glover is our guy. What does yours tell you?” McGee asked. He knew this was pivotal – Louis and Gibbs’s lives were at stake – they couldn’t afford to get this wrong. Tony stared at him, his eyes savagely dark. McGee saw him struggling with himself, *wanting* it to be Jonssen, but eventually he sighed and shook his head.
“My gut says it’s Glover too,” he said eventually. McGee gave him a curt nod, surprised but pleased because where Jonssen was concerned Tony’s gut wasn’t always very reliable.
“It is Glover,” Morris interjected, pointing to her cell phone. “That was Banks. He says that a guy has been calling the local newsrooms saying he’s got two hostages, a man and a child, and he wants to make a statement. They dismissed him as a psycho initially but he’s persistent. He’s asked for camera crews – the whole works. Says he’s going to make the entire country hear what he has to say. It’s Glover, sir – and the place he wants the camera crews to go to is the cabin.”
“That’s our answer then,” McGee said tersely. “Morris – get me a news blackout on this. I don’t want the media anywhere near this. Tell them he’s a crank – someone we know about. Tell them he’s always making these kinds of calls and there's no story there.”
“On it, Boss!” she said, turning away.
McGee turned back to Tony, who was talking to Carter in fast, urgent tones. McGee could see that familiar darkness in Tony’s eyes, now that Jonssen was within reach. This man that he'd hunted so desperately for four years, this man who had killed Abby and destroyed Tony's life, was back. And this time they could probably link him to the murder of Tony's undercover operative, and, if they finally had a chance to interrogate him, a whole lot of other crimes as well – god knows Tony had a dossier three feet thick on Jonssen. As McGee watched Tony he had a sudden flare of suspicion; he could see what was going through Tony’s mind but he couldn’t actually *believe* that he was really going to do it.
“Tony!” McGee said sharply. He grabbed Tony’s arm and pulled him away, up the driveway, out of earshot. “I don’t damn well believe you,” he said in a low, angry tone. “You are not seriously going to chase after Jonssen when Gibbs and Louis are being held hostage out there by some madman!”
Tony gazed at him darkly, his eyes a black pit of obsessive revenge, bleak and savage. Tony's revenge was so close that he could almost smell it, and McGee could see just how badly he wanted it.
“Damn it, Tony,” McGee said in a low voice. “You don’t deserve Louis or Gibbs –either of them. You don’t deserve any of us. Hell, you’ve been with Gibbs for three years now – that’s longer than you were with Abby. It’s longer than you’ve ever been with anyone. I don’t pretend to know or understand what’s between you and Gibbs but you’ve got someone in your life now who clearly loves and cares about you, and you’ve got the sweetest kid in the world, a little boy everyone adores, and you keep chasing after the past, after Abby and after Jonssen. Well Abby wouldn’t care about Jonssen! She’d care about Gibbs, and about Louis, and, poor deluded girl that she was, she’d care about you and what you've been doing to yourself these past few years. She’d care about the depression, and the drinking, and the anger, and the obsessive desire for revenge! And let me tell you this – no matter how much she loved you, she’d put a bullet through you herself if she knew that you were going to chase after the guy who killed her instead of going to rescue her son.”
“Are you finished?” Tony asked grimly. “Thank you, Director. Your opinion of me has been duly noted. Now, I have to go.”
He turned on his heel and walked back towards Carter with fast, angry strides. McGee watched him go in disbelief, and then hurried after him. This was insanity! He had to stop it. If they got Louis home alive then he didn’t want to be the one to tell him that his father had opted to chase after his own revenge instead of rescuing his son. McGee doubted that even Gibbs would stick around Tony after this – it was just too big and too unforgiveable.
“Carter – take whoever you need and go to the hospice. Do NOT go alone,” McGee heard Tony say, and he felt a wave of relief flood through him. Maybe Tony hadn’t totally lost touch with his priorities after all. “Keep in touch – let me know what goes down.”
Carter nodded eagerly, looking delighted to be trusted with this mission, knowing how close it was to his boss’s heart.
“And Carter – bring him down,” Tony ordered grimly. “Get Jonssen, and bring him back to NCIS for me – alive.” Carter nodded and ran back to his car.
Tony turned and saw McGee. “I didn’t even think about it,” he snapped.
“Yes you did,” McGee replied. “For a moment you did.”
Tony stared at him, and then nodded. "You're right – I did,” he said softly. “But just for a split second and I knew I wouldn't do it. I’m not that far gone, Tim, and you’re right – this is Louis and Gibbs. You think I’d walk away and leave them with some psycho just for the sake of my own revenge?”
“You itch to go after Jonssen. He’s so close you can almost taste it,” McGee pointed out.
“Yes. That’s true.” Tony nodded. “But the living are more important than the dead.”
“I’m glad you finally realise that,” McGee muttered, “because it’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for years.”
“Yeah, Probie. I know.” Tony shook his head. “Now let’s get moving. Morris – you’re with us.”
The cabin turned out to be little more than a hut on the side of a hill. McGee set up base in a neighbouring cabin, further down the hill, and began assembling the teams he knew he'd need to handle this. Tony paced around like a caged tiger the entire time, his large frame moving around restlessly.
"Morris – keep those cameras out," McGee ordered, noticing that despite their "no media" embargo, a couple of camera crews had decided to investigate anyway.
Tony came over. "Have you got eyes and ears in the damn cabin yet, McGee?" he asked for the hundredth time. McGee nodded at the bank of screens his technical unit had set up; they were still displaying snow at the moment.
"I've got a team on it, Tony. You know how these things work. We have to take it slow and quiet getting a camera through the wall so Glover doesn't hear us. The minute we get something in there, you'll see it."
"It's been hours. Glover has to be getting restless. He wants his news teams," Tony muttered, still pacing.
"If that's what he wants, then that's what we'll give him," McGee replied. "But not yet. First we find out all we can about the layout of that place, and where he's got Louis and Gibbs – then I go in there and talk to him."
"Why you?" Tony asked.
"Because I'm in charge," McGee replied tersely. Tony's jaw tightened.
"I've handled plenty of hostage negotiations," he pointed out. "I know how to work them."
"So have I and ditto," McGee said.
"I'm good," Tony pressed.
"I know – but how many of those previous negotiations were for your son and your… well, whatever Gibbs is to you?" McGee asked. "This can't be you, Tony – it has to be someone with a clear head – no personal involvement."
"You have a personal involvement too," Tony pointed out. McGee stood there for a moment, and then nodded.
"I know," he said softly. "But I can keep a clear head – you can't."
Tony conceded the point with a grunt, and then glanced out of the open door. "Damn it – more news crews have just arrived," he said. "Why can't they keep the hell away?"
"Because they know there's a story here," McGee replied sensibly.
"Gibbs will go crazy if they make *him* the story," Tony muttered.
"You know, if he gets out of there alive then I really don't give a damn how pissed off about it he is,” McGee said. Tony's jaw tightened again, and McGee could have kicked himself. He hadn't meant to be insensitive; he was still trying to get his head around the fact Tony and Gibbs were in a relationship and had forgotten that he wasn’t just talking to Tony about their ex-boss – he was talking to him about someone he was sleeping with, someone he loved. McGee wished he hadn’t just raised the possibility that Gibbs might *not* make it out alive.
At that moment, several large, black vans showed up, with "FBI" written on the side. Tony glanced at McGee who glanced back at him, both men surprised. A tall, graceful black man got out of the lead van and walked over to them.
“Agent Sacks?” Tony frowned, going to greet the man. “I didn’t know we were expecting the FBI.”
“Neither did I,” McGee said.
“Heard about your problem – thought you could use a little help,” Sacks told them. “And that’s Assistant Director Sacks to you, Special Agent DiNozzo.”
Tony grinned. “FBI must be desperate for directors,” he said. “Just like NCIS.” He cast a glance at McGee who rolled his eyes at him.
“Remind me again why you didn’t make it past Special Agent?” Sacks asked. “Oh yeah – I remember – it must be the amount of times they had to send me over to investigate you over the years.”
“You never made anything stick,” Tony grinned.
“Only because you’re one hell of a lucky bastard, DiNozzo,” Sacks retorted.
“Seriously,” Tony said quietly. “Thanks for showing up today. I’m grateful, Ron.”
“FBI, NCIS – whatever – when push comes to shove these are *our* people,” Sacks replied firmly. “And nobody hurts our people. We Feds have to stick together. Now, Director McGee, you’re in charge - where do you want us?”
McGee was glad they weren’t going to have a pissing contest about who was going to run this operation – it was hard enough fending off Tony, without taking on the FBI as well.
“Well, we’ve been having problems keeping the media at bay,” he said. Sacks nodded.
“On it!” He strode back to his vans and barked out some orders.
“Seeing you with him reminds me of how Fornell and Gibbs used to be with each other,” McGee murmured to Tony. Then his attention was drawn to the screens they had set up as one of them flickered into life.
“We have a visual inside the cabin, sir!” one of his technical agents told him. Tony was there in an instant, gazing intently at the picture as if his life depended on it.
The cabin consisted mainly of one big room with a door leading to a tiny bathroom to one side. It was sparsely furnished. They could just about make out a galley kitchen and…
“There!” Tony prodded his finger at the screen, pointing at what looked like a bundle of rags leaning against the far wall of the cabin. McGee nodded.
“Get us in closer,” he ordered. The technical unit set about working on it. The spy cameras they had these days were sophisticated, and the cabin was made of wood so it hadn't been too difficult to get one of them positioned in the wall. Now one of his technicians moved it around and refocused to get a better visual. The picture zoomed, went further out of focus and then snapped back into focus, and McGee found himself looking at two faces he knew very well.
Gibbs was lying back against the wall. There was a dark stain on his shirt, and McGee felt two surges of relief both for the fact that he was still alive, and that it hadn’t been Louis’s blood they’d found back in the house. Gibbs could handle a gunshot wound – god knows he'd had enough in his time. His arms were tied behind his back, and his legs were tied together. There were several dark bruises on his jaw and he had a cut above one eye. Louis was nestled against him, a tiny figure beside him. McGee’s relief that the child was unharmed was swallowed immediately by a wave of anger.
“Fuck it – he’s got Louis tied up too,” Tony growled, his words echoing McGee’s thoughts. It was so wrong to see a small boy tied like that, hands behind his back, feet together. McGee felt Tony’s entire body stiffen beside him, suffused with a raw fury. The little boy wasn’t moving much but he was at least still alive. He was dressed in a pair of Spider-man pyjamas, nothing on his feet, and he was shivering as he pressed against Gibbs. Gibbs was doing his best to shield the boy and keep him warm with his own body heat, while at the same time he was warily watching someone else, who moved in and out of camera shot.
“Get us a visual on the bastard,” Tony said. There was a pause, and then the camera closed in on a tall, broad man, with a shaven head. He was moving around the cabin, working on something, busy laying…
“Explosives,” McGee muttered.
“Lots of them,” Tony said, pointing at the screen, where McGee could see that Glover was busy rigging up the entire cabin with enough C4 to sink a ship. “At least now we know what he’s going to do.” McGee glanced at him. “He’s going to make his statement to the media, and then he’s going to blow that entire cabin and everyone in it to kingdom come to drive the point home,” Tony told him.
“Over my dead body,” McGee replied.
“You have a plan?” Tony asked, never taking his eyes off the screen, where the camera was now focussed back on Gibbs and Louis again. Gibbs was talking to Louis in what looked like calming tones, trying to keep the boy still.
“Yeah. I have a plan.” McGee turned to the technical unit. “Can you get us audio?” he asked.
“Just coming through now,” came back the reply, and a second later Louis’s voice sounded in the room.
“My feet are cold,” he said. His voice was so familiar and sounded so close that McGee wanted to reach out and scoop him up.
“I know, Lou. Don’t think about it. Think about something else,” Gibbs replied softly, still watching their captor warily as he worked. “Think about something nice. How about that puppy you saw at the mall last week?”
“She was very soft,” Louis said in a tremulous voice. “She licked my nose. She liked me.”
“I bet she did,” Gibbs replied.
“Could we get a puppy?” Louis asked.
Tony gave a little grunt of amusement. “God, not that again,” he muttered.
“Sure,” Gibbs said. “We’ll get you a puppy.”
“Daddy said I couldn’t have a puppy,” Louis pointed out.
McGee glanced at Tony. “What? So I’m not a dog person,” Tony said with a defensive shrug.
“Your dad will let you have a puppy if I tell him to,” Gibbs said tersely. McGee had no doubt at all that that was true. He still couldn’t completely get his head around the idea of how Tony and Gibbs’s relationship worked, but he suspected that if anyone had the ultimate say in what went on in the Gibbs/DiNozzo household it was Gibbs.
Gibbs glanced around the cabin and then paused, and moved his head so that he was looking straight at the camera.
“I used to have a dog once,” he said firmly. “Just one dog – no more than one, but he was from a dangerous breed. Unstable. It helped to talk to him when he was barking at me though – I could sometimes calm him down that way. But sometimes the slightest thing would set him off and he’d go really crazy; when he did, nothing seemed to get through to him. You’d look in his eyes and know he’d do whatever he was planning – that dog didn’t bluff.”
“He’s talking to us,” Tony said. “He’s seen the camera.”
“Yeah.” McGee nodded, because Gibbs’s powers of observation were the sharpest of anyone he'd ever known. There was no way they'd have got that camera in there without him seeing it. "He's giving us intel on Glover."
“Can we go home now?” Louis asked. “I don’t like it here.”
“I know, Lou,” Gibbs said softly, moving his head down so that he could kiss Louis’s hair. “We’ll go home soon.”
“When?”
“When your dad gets here,” Gibbs replied, looking up, straight at the camera again. Tony’s hands curled into fists.
“Are you sure Daddy is coming?” Louis asked.
“Yes I am. I told you he was, didn’t I?” Gibbs replied.
“Just…sometimes he says he’s gonna come and do stuff with us and he doesn’t,” Louis said. Tony’s eyes flashed and McGee winced. That had to have hurt.
“He’ll come this time,” Gibbs said firmly. “I promise. He just needs some time to find us.”
“Are we lost then?” Louis asked, and the kid sounded petrified. “Is that why he can’t find us?” McGee remembered Louis’s story about being lost in the mall that time; it was one of the child's worst fears.
“No,” Gibbs told him. “We’re not lost. How can you be lost when I’m here with you, huh Louis?”
That seemed to satisfy Louis and he rested his head against Gibbs’s chest.
“My wrists hurt,” he whispered, and Tony muttered something angrily under his breath, his fists furling and unfurling in rage.
“I know,” Gibbs replied soothingly. “Won’t be much longer now though, Louis.”
“I’m scared of Nathan’s dad,” Louis said softly. “I’m scared he’s going to hit you again, Boss.”
“It’s okay – it doesn’t hurt, Lou. Look, if he gets angry again, I want you to just roll out of the way and let him hit me, okay?” Gibbs said. “Don’t try and help me like you did last time because you could get hurt.”
“But I don’t like him hitting you…” Louis began.
“That’s an order, Louis,” Gibbs told him sternly. “You remember what I told you about following orders?” Louis nodded unhappily. “You remember I said that that’s what good marines do – they follow orders, even when they’re not happy about it.”
“Okay,” Louis whispered. He moved his head and must have jolted Gibbs’s wounded arm because he took a sharp intake of breath. “You need a band-aid on your arm, Boss,” Louis said.
“Yeah. I know,” Gibbs said. “Don’t worry – your dad will bring a whole box of them when he shows up.”
“Why’s he always late?” Louis said, gazing over towards the door as if he expected Tony to just walk right in.
“Well you know your dad, he’s kind of busy,” Gibbs said wearily.
“Why?” Louis asked.
“He’s got important stuff to do,” Gibbs replied vaguely.
“What stuff?” Louis asked.
“Damned if I know,” Gibbs muttered, glaring at the camera. “So what are you going to call this puppy, Louis?” he asked, in what was clearly a blatant attempt to change the subject.
“Beanie,” Louis said promptly, without even thinking about it.
“Interesting name,” Gibbs said, shifting slightly and peering to his right. “You know, I think if we’re going to get a puppy it should be soon – really soon - because otherwise it might be too late, and the shop will have sold out.”
Tony turned to McGee. “He’s right. We know enough. We have to move,” he said.
“Hang on – I’m still setting something up,” McGee said, turning back to his technical unit to see where they were at with it. At that moment Sacks and Morris both returned to the cabin.
“You got visual?” Sacks said, looking at the screen, and then a little vein in his forehead pulsed angrily when he saw Louis and Gibbs. “Bastard,” he muttered. “Nobody should do that to a little kid. You okay, DiNozzo?”
Tony didn’t say a word – the expression on his face said it all. McGee finished briefing his technical team, and then took off his jacket and threw it onto a nearby chair and ripped off his tie. He reached for a Kevlar vest from a stack on the floor and put it on. Morris and Sacks followed suit while Tony stayed, watching the screen darkly, an unfathomable expression in his green eyes. There was a sudden movement on the screen and Glover came into view again. He loomed over Gibbs.
“Tell the kid to shut up,” he hissed.
“He’s just a kid,” Gibbs replied. “And he’s scared – he’s talking because he’s scared.”
“Shut him up or I’ll shut him up for you,” Glover snapped. Louis looked petrified, and he buried his face as far under Gibbs’s arm as it would go.
“What’s the plan, Glover?” Gibbs asked quietly. “You’ve done a good job with the explosives – what happens next?”
Glover moved his hand and there was a cracking sound as the butt end of a pistol slammed into Gibbs’s jaw. Tony winced. Louis let out a little sob, and Glover’s hand went back again. Gibbs pushed Louis away from him with his body, and twisted to one side to draw Glover’s attention away from the child and towards him.
“You disgust me,” Glover hissed at Gibbs, and then he delivered another blow to Gibbs’s jaw, making his head slam back and hit the wall behind him. “Scum like you shouldn’t be allowed near kids. Scum like you shouldn’t pretend to be normal, or to try and do the things that normal people do. You shouldn’t be allowed to marry, and look after kids, and walk around as if it’s okay to be what you are. The law shouldn’t give you rights and allow scum like you to corrupt our kids. You make me sick.”
Gibbs didn’t say a word. He just rested his head back against the wall and gazed at the man from one open and one half-closed eye. Louis was scrunched into a little ball beside him, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head resting on them, his eyes tightly shut, his entire body shaking. The brave little kid was following orders, McGee thought to himself, just like they all did whenever Gibbs handed them out.
“I told you that you’d burn,” Glover said. “I sent a note, warning you. Now I’m going to make that happen – and the world is going to watch.”
Then suddenly he turned, and looked straight at the camera.
“I know you’re watching,” he said. “Now get me my news crew up here – because there’s a lot I want to say, and if you don't send them up right now I'll put a bullet through the kid’s kneecap. You've got five minutes.”
End of Part Four
Ten Years On - Part Five
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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on Dec. 31st, 2008 08:41 pm (UTC)I liked the Tony-Sacks relationship echoing the Gibbs-Fornell one, a sort of handing over the baton from one generation to the next.
I was glad to see Gibbs and Louis as well as could be expected, given the circumstances. I was also glad to see that Gibbs knew the camera, and therefore help, was there. Not so pleased to see that the other ex-marine was just as observant! ::boo!:: Still, the good guys will win, right? McGee's got a plan?
Laura.
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on Dec. 31st, 2008 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on Dec. 31st, 2008 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
on Dec. 31st, 2008 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
on Jan. 1st, 2009 03:55 pm (UTC)... can't really picture Lionel as a marine, though... ;-)
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on Jan. 1st, 2009 09:35 pm (UTC)And do you know what? I'm glad there is someone else out there who has those "weird" mental gymnastics done.
;-) Sometimes I think my one own braincell and the borrowed one (yes, I know, it's not enough to be smart) playing odd games with me. ;-)
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on Jan. 1st, 2009 09:50 pm (UTC)Hee, that's my youngest girl's nickname -- and she adores puppies.
Tell you what I think after I finish the fic. :)
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on Jan. 2nd, 2009 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
on Jan. 2nd, 2009 05:38 am (UTC)Oh and there's no way I ever thought Tony would go after his revenge, given the threat to his family! Of course not! But it was great to get that extra angst. He just needed to come to the realisation of who is more important to him.
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on Jan. 2nd, 2009 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
on Jan. 2nd, 2009 01:56 pm (UTC)Scum right here
on Jan. 2nd, 2009 05:26 pm (UTC)*hugs my boys*
Re: Scum right here
on Jan. 2nd, 2009 08:18 pm (UTC)Re: Scum right here
on Jan. 4th, 2009 01:51 am (UTC)The idea that some people wld consider me an unfit parent...argh.
no subject
on Jan. 2nd, 2009 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on Jan. 2nd, 2009 08:19 pm (UTC)