NCIS: Live For Ten (1/9)

[brihana25]

All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Live For Ten



Chapter One
"Don't you have anything better to do?"

He ignored both the voice and the question it asked, just as he'd done a dozen times before. It earned him another sigh in response.

"Seriously, Tony. She'll be back next week. Are you planning to sit there and stare at her desk the whole time she's gone?"

"I'm thinking, Probie."

"No, you're obsessing. There's a difference."

Tony DiNozzo steepled his fingers and pressed them against his lips. "Where'd she go?" he asked quietly.

Tim McGee sighed once more and stood, glancing around the squad room as he crossed to Tony's desk. "You know where she went," he said. "She's in Tel Aviv."

"But why?" He asked the question without looking up. "Of all the places in the world she could go on vacation, why there? Who's she meeting?" His thoughts drifted back to the dark-haired man in the picture he'd found on her desk before she left. "Who is he?"

"Who is who?" Tim settled himself on the corner of Tony's desk and looked down at him. "She went to see her father."

"We don't know that for sure." He leaned back in his chair and glanced at Tim before looking back at Ziva David's empty desk. "Sure, Eli lives in Tel Aviv, but she never said she was going to see him."

"Why else would she go?" Tim shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "And why do you care so much?"

He didn't answer at first, just sat with his fingers on his lips, staring straight ahead. "You believe in gut feelings, McCynic?"

"With Gibbs for a boss? Are you serious? Of course I do."

"You ever get one you can't explain?"

Tim shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, sometimes. Why?"

"Because I'm having one right now," Tony said. He looked up at Tim; the expression on his face was uncharacteristically serious. "And I don't like it."

"What do you mean?" He could hear the confusion in Tim's voice, and he couldn't blame him for it. He didn't really understand it himself. "What kind of feeling?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what it is. I just can't shake it."

"You're overreacting, Tony."

"Something's going on," he said softly. "Ziva's hiding something from us, and take it from me, that never ends well." He shook his head at the memory of his own experience with keeping secrets from his team and how much he'd lost because of it. "Something bad's gonna happen."

Tim huffed in frustration and pushed himself to his feet. "You've been spending too much time with Abby."

"Abby's usually right about the bad stuff."

Tim walked back to his desk and sat down. "Ziva's not hiding anything. She's just trying to have a private life. She's allowed to do that, ya know."

"But what if she's …?"

"Will you just stop?" Tim said. "You've got a report to write. And if you don't get it done soon, Gibbs is gonna be pissed." He turned back to his keyboard, and it was obvious that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.

"Maybe you're right, McGee." He conceded the point with a shrug; anything was possible. "But I'm still worried about her."

"You're just bored," Tim said quickly. "You're jumping at ghosts."

Tim's voice had no trace of its usual irritated edge. Its absence was enough to make Tony glance across at him. Tim was looking back with an expression of understanding and concern.

Tony blinked and thought over what he'd said in the past few minutes, and his eyes widened slightly. He'd been talking openly, candidly and carelessly. He'd almost gone too far, come too close to admitting too many things that he'd never have said out loud if he'd been paying more attention. But Tim was offering him an out - a "get out of uncomfortable subject free" card - and he was going to take it.

He straightened in his chair and reached for his own keyboard. "Yeah, you're right." He forced himself to lighten the tone of his voice, to inject some levity back into the tension between them. "I've been stuck with you all day. Who wouldn't be bored?"

"Hey!" Tim objected. "You started this conversation. I just wanted you to write your report."

"I am."

"You are what, DiNozzo?" a gruff voice behind him asked.

"Writing my report, Boss!"

Tony and Tim exchanged a quick questioning glance. Neither of them knew how long he'd been behind them, or how much he'd heard, so they were going to pretend that they hadn't said anything worth overhearing in the first place.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs rounded the partition to the left of Tony's desk and looked down at the monitor. "Your computer type in invisible ink?"

Tony shook his head rapidly and started typing. "Just gathering my thoughts."

"Good idea," Tim said. "You can't really afford to lose track of the few you have."

Tony shot him a sidelong glare with no real heat behind it, Tim smiled, and Gibbs smirked at them both as he walked to his desk. Tony took a deep breath and forced himself to concentrate on the report he was supposed to be writing. He looked down at the handwritten notes in front of him, flipping through them as he skimmed them one more time.

The case hadn't been an easy one to solve, but that was par for the course around the Navy Yard. For four days, the Major Case Response Team had chased shadows in circles as they tried to figure out who'd tortured and killed Lance Corporal Rob Brewer and PFC Michael Strauss. Every time they turned around, they'd hit another wall. The first had been the fact that their initial suspect was the star witness in a federal murder case against a mobster named Rick Azari. That had brought FBI agent Tobias Fornell, and his incompetent sidekick Bruce Rivers, into the picture.

And that had just been the beginning.

The corners of Tony's mouth curled up in a half smile, and he shook his head when he saw Agent Rivers' name. 'Poor guy,' he thought. 'I know what it's like to lose a witness. I should take him out for a beer.'

The case had been a difficult one to solve, especially since they'd ended up having to work with the FBI on it, but the wrap-up couldn't have been simpler. Abby had managed to link Azari to the Marines' murders forensically, and Jack Kale - the FBI's witness - had killed him for it. The new murder case against Kale had been filed, the FBI had started cleaning up the messes they'd made, and for NCIS, it was all over except the paperwork.

Tony settled into transferring his notes to his computer, but he couldn't shake the feeling of dread and foreboding that had been hanging over him all day. He wanted to believe that Tim was right and he was imagining things, but it felt too real. He didn't even know for sure that it had anything to do with Ziva; he just knew it had started about the same time she'd left.

He felt like someone was standing behind him, staring at his back. The sensation was so strong that it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He shuddered involuntarily, but covered it by pretending to roll his shoulders instead. A quick glance across at his boss's desk told him that Gibbs had seen it, so Tony flashed him a quick smile before looking back down at his keyboard.

He started typing, but he'd only gotten a few words down before he felt the invisible eyes boring into him again. The skin on his back crawled, and the more he tried to ignore the feeling, the stronger it got. He turned his head quickly and looked back over his shoulder, but of course there was nothing behind him but his filing cabinets.

"Problem, DiNozzo?"

"No," Tony lied. He turned back around and gave Gibbs another quick, insincere smile. "Everything's fine."

Tim coughed, and Tony looked over at him. Tim's eyes were wide, his eyebrows low and his forehead crinkled in concern. He shot a glance of his own at Gibbs, and Tony knew he was being told to come clean. It was just like Tim had said earlier - Gibbs was an expert on gut feelings. No one would understand what was bothering him at that moment better than Gibbs would.

Tony shook his head almost imperceptibly, and Tim's expression changed to one of disbelief and frustration. It wasn't that he didn't want to let Gibbs in on what he was feeling, because he did. He just wanted a clearer idea of exactly what it was before he said anything about it.

"What the hell is going on with you two?"

Tony didn't know why he'd thought that his and Tim's silent conversation had gone unnoticed, because of course it hadn't.

"Nothing, Boss," they answered in unison.

"Then quit making moony eyes at each other and get to work," Gibbs snapped. As they returned their attention to their respective computers, he rolled his eyes and went back to his.

Tony's slow tapping on his keyboard was a sharp contrast to Tim's rapid typing, and a few moments passed with nothing but those sounds in the air. Suddenly, Tony's fingers stopped moving, and he picked up his pile of notes and started rifling through them.

He scanned the pages quickly; he knew exactly what he was looking for, and he knew he wouldn't find it. He'd read the notes a dozen times in the past four days, and he was the one who'd written them in the first place. As he finished reading them over, the feeling of impending doom almost doubled, and he muttered to himself under his breath.

"It's not over."

"What's that, DiNozzo?"

"The case," he said. The feeling of dread that he'd felt before was screaming at him, demanding to be acknowledged, but he pushed past it. "It's not over."

"How's it not over?" Tim asked. "Our suspect's dead."

"I know he is," Tony said. "But being our prime suspect doesn't mean he was the killer, does it?"

Gibbs looked more than slightly surprised. "We had him on forensics. Weren't you paying attention?" he asked. "The rope that Brewer and Strauss were tied up with came from his basement."

"I know that, too. There's no doubt he ordered it." Tony locked eyes with Gibbs from across the Bullpen. "But when's the last time you heard of a boss who did his own dirty work?"

"Azari's organization isn't the same one he took over from Alonzo Torres twenty-five years ago." Tim looked back and forth between the notes in his hand and the picture of Rick Azari on the plasma screen in front of him. "One of the first things he did, in addition to murdering five of Torres' top officers, was increase the number of soldiers he had. They're not as big as the Gambinos or the Bananos, but they're not small, either."

Immediately after Tony's realization, Gibbs had started them on digging up as much intel as they could find on Rick Azari and his associates. They'd already collected a basic history of Azari's crime family during the Brewer and Strauss investigation, but they needed more than that to go on. While Tim and Tony were working, Gibbs had gone up to Director Vance's office to inform him that they were keeping the case open. It hadn't taken him long, just a few minutes, to get the go-ahead from Vance, and now they were standing next to Gibbs' desk reviewing the information they'd gathered.

"The organizational chart that we got from the FBI gives us the names of four officers and half a dozen capos, any one of whom could have been involved in murdering Brewer and Strauss. They also estimate about two dozen or so soldiers that function just as low-level muscle, but they have very few names."

"After twenty-five years?" Gibbs leaned forward in his chair and rested his arms on his desk. "That's all Tobias has?"

"That's all I could get to," Tim clarified. "Azari was killed with an FBI agent's weapon. Every piece of information they had on him has been locked down. At least three agents have been disciplined because of it."

"I know," Gibbs said. "Fornell almost got suspended. What does that have to do with this?"

"They're reviewing the conduct of their own agents; they've tightened security, all but eliminated access to their files on him, and buried everything as deep as they can."

"Then hack it."

"I did, Boss," Tim said with a nervous smile. "I still can't access it. And even if I could, it probably wouldn't be relevant anymore. Things have been changing rapidly within the organization over the past few days, and the FBI is scrambling to catch up. Most of what little information I have been able to find is outdated."

"Azari's death left a power vacuum," Tony said. "People are coming and going like crazy right now, and there's a lot of confusion. His two top lieutenants - both considered potential successors - were found dead late last week, shot in the head."

"Someone's taking over," Gibbs observed. "So who is it?"

"Don't know for sure, but we have a pretty good idea." Tony took the control for the plasma out of Tim's hand and brought up a blurry screencap from a ZNN report. "Stefano DelMar."

The face on the screen was one that Gibbs recognized immediately. "I met him," he said. "Azari's bodyguard."

"Bodyguard and personal secretary," Tony said. "And, at the moment, de facto boss and functional head of the organization."

"ZNN's been reporting on him all weekend," Tim added. "Metro, and some 'underworld sources' quoted by ZNN, believe that he ordered the killings of Azari's lieutenants, if he didn't kill them himself. But they don't have much more than that. It doesn't look like DelMar was even on their radar before now, not Metro or the FBI. No one seems to know anything about him."

"And what do we know about him?" Gibbs asked.

Tony cocked his head and gave a tight smile. "A hell of a lot more than they do."

He clicked the control again, and DelMar's driver's license came up on the screen. "Stefano DelMar, twenty-eight years old. He got his start in organized crime in Baltimore when he was sixteen, as an errand boy. The organization he worked for got busted up two years later, and within a year, he moved on to Azari. He'd always been a minor player, just a soldier." Tony paused to take a deep breath. "But he really liked his job, and he was brutal. Azari made him his bodyguard two years later, and his secretary two years after that. He's smart, knows how to avoid the spotlight. He was Azari's right-hand-man for five years, and the FBI barely has a file on him. He's only been arrested once, and that never made it to trial. He was a minor, so the record is sealed."

"So unseal it," Gibbs ordered.

Tony shook his head. "No need. The charge was First Degree assault."

"That's the equivalent of attempted murder in Maryland," Gibbs said. He leaned back slightly in his chair. "How'd he avoid trial?"

"Copped a plea," Tony answered. He didn't look at either Tim or Gibbs; his eyes were locked on the picture of Stefano DelMar. "They dropped the charges when he promised he'd turn State's Witness and testify against his boss. The second the DA held up his end of the bargain, DelMar ran out on them. He never testified."

Tim lowered his eyebrows in confusion and looked back and forth between the plasma and Tony. "How did you find all of this? I've been digging for hours, and I couldn't find anything."

"I keep telling you, McGee. Smarter, not harder."

Tony could feel Gibbs looking at him, so he turned his head slightly. The knowing look on Gibbs' face, the hard set of his jaw and narrowed eyes, told Tony that he knew exactly where the information was coming from.

"Why didn't they pursue him?" Gibbs asked.

Tony shrugged. "They got the convictions they were after without him. They'd just brought down an entire network of people who'd been murdering with impunity for decades, and in the grand scheme of things …" He sighed as he repeated the same words he'd been told a dozen times. "One punk kid whose worst crime is beating up an undercover cop just isn't worth worrying about."

"They underestimated him, huh?" Gibbs asked. Tony's only answer was a slight shrug. "Lot of that going around with this guy, it seems. So who was the boss?"

Tony couldn't keep looking at Gibbs, couldn't watch the understanding in his eyes turn to anger, so he looked over at Tim. As obvious as it was that Gibbs knew for certain what Tony was about to say, it was equally as obvious that Tim had no idea.

"Mike Macaluso."

Partial recognition dawned on Tim's face; he knew he'd heard the name before, but he wasn't sure where.

"And the cop?"

Gibbs definitely knew who Stefano DelMar was now. At least, he'd heard about him before. Tony kept eye contact with Tim, not just because he didn't want to face Gibbs but also because he wanted to see how Tim reacted to what he was about to hear.

"The one he tried to kill? The one he beat half to death with a metal pipe? The one he put in the hospital for a week and a half?" Tony swallowed hard as Tim looked up at him in horror. "Who was that?"

Tony nodded and closed his eyes. "Yeah," he said. He lifted his head and gave his boss a smile that he knew looked as fake as it felt. "That would be me."

Chapter Two
"A metal pipe?" The look on Tim's face matched the tone of his voice - a rather impressive blend of shock, horror, and disbelief. "He tried to kill you?"

"Did a little more than try, McGee," Gibbs said tightly. He pushed himself to his feet and walked toward Tony, not stopping until he was standing right in front of him, only inches away. "Came damn close to doing it."

"Why?"

Tony forced himself to both meet Gibbs' eye and stand straight under the older man's scrutiny. They stood that way for several seconds, with Tim looking back and forth between them, until Tony finally glanced at him over Gibbs' shoulder.

"I told you, they get a little pissed when they find out you're a cop."

Gibbs was still watching him with narrowed eyes, and Tony had to put real effort into turning back to face him. He could feel himself withering under the hardened gaze, shrinking back from the anger in Gibbs' eyes.

"When were you going to tell me?" Gibbs demanded. He leaned forward and somehow managed, despite his shorter stature, to tower over Tony, who took an instinctive step back.

"Tell you what?"

"That the suspect you're pushing me to investigate wants you dead."

"Wanted," Tony said. He straightened his back and pushed his shoulders back in an effort to reassert his confidence. "Ten years ago. And I just did."

"You should have told me sooner."

Tony glanced at Tim, looking for backup. A sharp nod told him he had it. "I didn't know sooner. I don't spend my whole weekend watching ZNN like McAnchorman over there."

"Hey!"

"I had no idea that Stefano worked for Azari until ten minutes ago."

"How'd you find out?"

"McGee told me."

Gibbs shook his head. "We're turning this back over to the FBI." He stepped around Tony and headed toward the stairs to Vance's office.

Tony caught the look of worry and surprise on Tim's face, so he winked and smiled at him quickly in an attempt to put him back at ease. Then he turned around to continue his discussion, such as it was, with Gibbs.

"Why?" he asked of his boss' retreating back. "Why turn it over?"

Gibbs spun without slowing his steps and walked back to Tony, who - through an act of pure will - didn't back down again.

"What part of 'wants you dead' are you not getting here?"

"The part where it happened more than ten years ago, and he was a pissed off seventeen-year-old kid. Besides …" Tony grinned, something that only he would dare to do when Gibbs was that angry. "If we start handing over investigations every time a suspect wants to kill one of us, we're going to end up with a really small caseload."

"He's got a point, Boss." Tim's voice came from behind him, not far from his shoulder. "That does seem to happen to us a lot."

Gibbs' eyes moved from Tony to Tim and back again. He didn't look as irate as he had only moments before, but it was clear that he wasn't ready to back down completely yet. "Assault on a federal officer is FBI jurisdiction."

"I wasn't a federal officer," Tony said with a shake of his head. "I was just a cop." Gibbs started to bristle at the 'just a cop' part, so he pushed forward. "If I'm right, Boss, then he tortured and murdered two United States Marines, and that is our jurisdiction. Rob Brewer and Michael Strauss are our responsibility. Do you really trust the FBI to get them the justice they deserve?"

He could see Gibbs' mind turning, but he wasn't worried. He knew he had him. "You know that he knows who I am, right?"

Tony nodded his head slowly.

"And if he's been digging around, trying to figure me out …"

"He has been," Tony said with a nod. "Guarantee it."

"Then he already knows about you, Tony," Tim said.

"Yep." Tony cocked his head slightly and looked Gibbs straight in the eye. "Feel a lot better having you two watching my six than a dozen of Fornell's clowns."

Gibbs took another step forward, invading Tony's personal space even more than before, trying one last time to make him back down. Tony lifted his chin and stood his ground.

"He contacts you, you tell me."

Tony nodded wordlessly.

"You hear anything, think anything, imagine anything, you have a freakin' bad dream about him, you tell me. Got it?"

"Got it, Boss."

Gibbs stepped back a bit, but raised his finger and pointed directly at Tony. "And you're hands-off. You stay out of this investigation."

Tony held his hands up in a clear sign of surrender, but he couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips.

Gibbs swung his arm around and pointed at Tony's desk. "Sit." Tony did as he was told; Gibbs followed him to his chair. He gathered Tony's notes into a pile and scooped them up, then picked up Tony's cell phone and dropped it into his hands. "Play that."

Tim had moved toward Tony's desk with them, but as soon as Gibbs straightened up, he hurried back to his own. Gibbs stalked toward him and dropped Tony's notes in front of him. "McGee!"

Tony stifled a giggle when Tim jumped. Gibbs was standing a foot from him; there was no reason for him to yell. But then again, that was just one of those things that made Gibbs … Gibbs.

Gibbs tapped the stack of notes lightly with one finger and lowered his voice. "I'm going down to see Abby. I'll be back in half an hour. I want something by then."

"On it, Boss."

"Don't ask Tony for help."

"I wasn't planning …."

"And don't let him give you any."

Tony straightened in his chair; he hadn't thought of that. There were things that Gibbs and McGee needed to know, questions that he already knew the answers to. If they didn't ask him, they'd be wasting their time. "But, Boss, if I know …"

"Shut up, DiNozzo."

"Shutting up, Boss."

There was a grin on Gibbs' face as he turned away and headed for the elevator. Tony was fairly sure that he wasn't supposed to see it, so he pretended he didn't. Finally letting himself relax for the first time in over three hours, he leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk, and flipped his phone open.

There were worse ways to end a day than getting paid to play Tetris.

Tony heaved a sigh as he walked across the parking lot. He was leaving early; Gibbs and Tim would be working for at least another hour.

It was his own fault, and he knew it. All he'd had to do was sit at his desk and play games on his phone until Gibbs said it was time to go home. All he'd had to do was stay as far away from the investigation as he could, both to keep himself out of danger if DelMar found out about him and to keep from being suspected of influencing the evidence. All he'd had to do was keep his damn mouth shut. For four hours. While Gibbs and Tim asked each other questions that he knew the answers to.

He was amazed Gibbs hadn't thrown him out sooner.

So he was leaving early, and all that was left to do was go home and sleep. When he came back in the morning, he'd be more careful. No matter how much he knew about whatever Gibbs and Tim were looking for, he wouldn't tell them. He had to admit that he had more than a passing interest in the outcome of the investigation, and he wanted to be there when the magic happened. If that meant he had to chew on his own tie to keep from talking, then that was what he'd do.

It wouldn't be the first time.

He switched his holster from his right hand to his left, pulled his keys out of his pocket, and pushed the button that unlocked his doors. When he heard the telltale beep from his car, he smiled to himself.

Yeah, he could do it.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't realize he wasn't alone until he heard rapid footsteps behind him and saw the blur of something flying over his head and past his face. He didn't even have time to wonder what it was before it was pulled tight against his neck from behind, cutting off his air. His keys and holster flew from his hands as he raised them to his throat. He tried to grab the rope and pull it away, but it was too tight, and he couldn't slip his fingers behind it.

His keys and gun were useless, clanking and clattering on the ground at his feet. Acting on instinct, he stepped back with his right foot while leaning forward, but because he couldn't get his hands between the rope and his body, that only made the pressure on his neck worse. He changed tack quickly and tried to spin around to grab the hands that held the ends of the rope.

His attacker pulled harder, and Tony stumbled back. For a second, he hoped that he could throw the man off-balance enough to land them both on the ground, but it didn't work. The attacker saw it coming and compensated for the shift in Tony's weight, then stepped forward and pushed his chest against Tony's back. Not only did that keep Tony on his feet, but the closer proximity gave him extra leverage, and he pulled the rope even tighter.

Tony finally tried to call out for help, but the sound that left him was little more than a barely audible squeak. His lips were numb, his arms sluggish and heavy, his neck hurt like hell, and his chest was already burning from lack of oxygen. His last hope rested on convincing his attacker that he'd passed out which, despite his past protestations to the contrary, he was dangerously close to doing. He let his arms fall to his sides and rolled his eyes as far back as he could before closing them, forcing his muscles to relax, and falling bonelessly against the man's chest.

"That wasn't so hard," a vaguely familiar voice said from somewhere to his left.

The rope around his neck was loosened, though not removed completely, and Tony gasped as deep a breath as he could manage. He'd just opened his eyes to fight his way free when he saw the shadow of a second man move into his peripheral vision and felt the sting of a needle being inserted into the side of his neck just below his ear.

"Crap," he whispered as his eyes rolled back into his head for real. His original attacker stepped back and allowed him to crash to the ground.

'Gibbs is gonna kill me.'

Then his head slammed into the ground, and everything went dark.

His mind woke up before his body did, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. He recognized the smell of his own car almost immediately, which would have brought him some comfort if not for the fact that he was laying - rather uncomfortably - face-down on the back seat. His head was pounding, though whether that came from whatever they'd drugged him with or lack of oxygen or bouncing off of the parking lot, he didn't know. The skin on his neck burned, but there was no rope wrapped around it, and for that much he supposed he should be grateful. Neither his hands nor his feet were tied, but as they simply refused to respond to his brain's commands to move, it really didn't matter.

He didn't know how long he lay like that, listening to the sound of the road beneath his ear, his eyes open to only slits, and unable to see the faces of the two men who sat in the front seats of his prized Mustang. It seemed like hours, though it had to have been only minutes, before the car pulled to a stop and the ignition was turned off.

Both doors opened, but only the driver's side door closed again. The passenger's seat was pulled forward and folded down, then two sets of rough hands grabbed his arms and ankles and dragged him into a semi-seated position, half-in and half-out of the car. Those same hands grasped his wrists tightly, yanked him to his feet, and took his weight so he'd stay that way. He was more hanging between them than standing - his arms were draped across their shoulders, and their holds on his wrists were the only reason he was upright.

"Aren't you going to look?" the voice he'd heard in the parking lot asked him. "Don't you want to know where you are?"

Tony raised his head slowly; it was a lot heavier than he remembered it being, and it was harder than it should have been to lift it. He blinked his eyes in confusion. He had to be hallucinating. What he was seeing couldn't possibly be real.

There was no way they were standing in front of Gibbs' house.

Then they were moving, dragging him between them, while he stared at the door that he knew they couldn't be walking toward. He heard snippets of words floating around him, words like 'drunk' and 'home' and 'buddy.' He had no idea who they were talking to. There was no point in lying to each other or to him, so that meant there had to be someone else there, right? He tried to look around so he could see who they were talking to, but he was too slow. By the time he managed to turn his head, they were alone on the front step.

It dawned on him that he hadn't seen either of their faces yet. He wanted to, knew he needed to, but he was so tired. His chin fell back to his chest; the effort required to hold his head up was just too much.

The man on his left, who he'd pegged as the goon with the rope, lifted his foot and kicked open the imaginary door to Gibbs' imaginary house. When they crossed the threshold and rope guy kicked the door shut behind them, he couldn't help but notice how realistic his drugged hallucination was. When the two men dragged him through the living room and toward the kitchen, he started to wonder why it was Gibbs' house that his mind conjured up when he was in trouble and not his own.

When they stood at the top of Gibbs' basement stairs, when they let go of Tony's arms and gave him a shove, when he was tumbling and rolling down the steps and crashing to the concrete floor below … he finally realized that Gibbs' house wasn't as imaginary as he'd thought it was.

"I am truly grateful to you, Jethro."

Gibbs shook his head and smiled without taking his eyes from the road. "You already said that, Duck."

"I know, but I feel I must do so again. I know this might seem odd, with all of my various travels around this world, but I have never truly understood the menace of fruit flies. Had I known that they could be also be called 'potato flies,' perhaps I would have been more careful in choosing my produce at the market."

"It's fine," Gibbs said for the fourth time since they'd left the Navy Yard.

"It will never cease to amaze me how such a tiny creature can become such a large problem that a full-scale fumigation is required to eliminate them. It reminds me of the death of a man whose home was infested by lady beetles. Thousands of them had nested in the walls, and when the poor man died …"

Gibbs sighed as he turned the corner to his house. He'd listened to Ducky's stories a thousand times over, and he'd gotten good at letting him ramble on without actually paying attention to what he was saying. But when he pulled onto his street and saw what was sitting in front of his house, he tuned the older man out completely.

"Jethro?" Ducky had obviously noticed Gibbs' sudden distraction.

"What's he doing here?"

The strangeness of the question drew Ducky's attention to whatever Gibbs was staring at through the windshield. Confusion showed clearly on his face when he turned back around.

"Isn't that …?"

"DiNozzo's car." Gibbs pulled in behind the blue Mustang, turned off his headlights and killed the ignition before reaching for the door handle. "I sent him home two hours ago," he muttered tiredly.

"Perhaps he thought of some tidbit of information that might aid in your investigation."

Gibbs rolled his eyes as he pushed the door open. "He can't be part of this investigation, Duck. He knows that. And if he doesn't back off, he's going to piss me off enough to let the FBI handle it after all."

As they got out of the car and approached the house, Gibbs saw that despite the presence of Tony's Mustang, the windows of his house were dark. The lights weren't on. Something in the pit of his stomach started churning, signaling danger. He pulled his Sig from its holster as he walked toward the house and gestured to Ducky with his other hand.

"Stay behind me," he said softly.

"Surely you don't think that Tony would …"

"Something's wrong." He stepped slowly onto the porch, keeping his gun ready in his right hand and pulling his cell phone out with his left. He dialed Tony's number, and he wasn't surprised when it went to voicemail after three rings. He hung up quickly and dialed again, but just as it started to ring, he noticed that his front door was hanging slightly crooked on its hinges.

Then he heard the muted sound of running feet inside his house.

"Stay out here!" He tossed his cell phone to Ducky, turned back around, raised his foot, and kicked the battered down door open easily.

He entered the dark house with his gun aimed and wished he'd thought to grab the flashlight out of his car. The back door slammed shut just as he flipped the light switch, and he moved in that direction. Something on the kitchen floor caught his eye and stopped him in his tracks. Shoe prints - dark red shoe prints - led from his basement to his back door.

"Duck, step inside," he called out.

Ducky was in the house immediately, and he crossed the living room and dining room quickly. "Jethro?" he asked. "Who was that running? Was it Tony?"

Gibbs shook his head slowly, then looked down at the red marks on the floor. Ducky followed his gaze and bent down for a closer inspection.

"This looks like blood."

Gibbs nodded his head in agreement and moved toward the basement door. He couldn't explain how, but he knew that someone was still down there.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Ducky whispered. "Shouldn't we call for …?"

Gibbs shook his head again and put his finger to his lips silently. He motioned for Ducky to stay where he was, raised his gun in front of him, and stepped through the door. He pressed his back against the wall as he descended the first few steps, leading the way with his gun, until he could see the entire basement.

"Ducky!"

He was already running down the stairs when he heard Ducky's rapid footsteps behind him, no doubt driven by Gibbs calling out his name in the closest thing to panic he'd ever heard. He jumped down the last few steps and bolted across the floor.

"Dear God," Ducky breathed behind him.

Gibbs skidded to a halt just short of the blood that had pooled on the floor and stared in horror at the sight before him.

He'd seen it before - less than a week before. A body hanging, suspended from the rafters by thick rope around the wrists. The blood-splattered remains of a white shirt that hung in tattered strips from the waist of blood-stained jeans. What looked to be dozens of shallow cuts and slices on the arms and chest, all of them oozing more precious blood. A battered face, a knotted gag tied tightly enough to cut the sides of the mouth, and closed eyes. A head that hung forward limply, lifelessly, chin resting against a bruised chest. A screwdriver protruding from the front of the leg.

There were differences, too. They were minor, but his mind processed them just the same. The arms were spread wide, straight out to the side, rather than above the head. The feet that barely brushed the basement floor were bare, but the ankles were tied together rather than hanging free. The deep red mark around the throat was evidence of a forceful strangulation, a level of violence the others hadn't been subjected to.

So few differences, so many things the same, and from the first heartbeat after he'd seen it, he knew who'd done it.

But the biggest difference was the one he couldn't bring himself to verbalize, no matter how hard he tried. His lips opened and closed, but no words came out. He was shaking his head and could feel his whole body start to tremble. He couldn't say it. He couldn't believe it. This was no Marine. This was no Naval officer. This was no anonymous member of the military.

This body, this person, this man, this victim …

"Anthony."

Part Two