An inconvenient arrival

[jethro_gibbs]

Gibbs slammed the door to the Dodge Charger as he watched smoke billow out in rancid plumes from beneath the hood. This was wonderful. Not twenty minutes away from meeting Tony and Ziva to scope out a meeting with a suspected Hamas agent, and this brand new piece of junk agency car breaks down

Comments

[dependably_dark]

Dexter peered up from the newspaper he had found sitting on a table in the lobby (it appeared to be from 1969, so it wasn’t turning out to be all the informative) and blinked calmly.

"Uh, I wouldn't expect him to be too helpful."

He returned his attention back to the three-decade-old want ads.

"It doesn't matter. There's no phone anyway."

[jethro_gibbs]

Gibbs turned slowly around to eye the man with the newspaper. His eyes twitched narrower for a moment and he faintly cocked his head with a scowl. This was not the time for jokes, though the man's appearance offered everything to suggest he wasn't.

"No phone." Only partly a question, more a statement of disbelief as the highly mismatched interior sunk in. His famous gut was already going off, and if he was honest with himself, it had been since he stepped out of the car. Impatience was often one of his traits, but not careless impatience.

He breathed heavily through his nose and turned fully to face the stranger. "Anywhere in this place."

[dependably_dark]

He shook his head slowly. "None. No cell service. No internet. No way to reach outside."

He turned the page. This guy seemed pretty annoyed, so Dexter thought it best to just continue reading his paper, be nonchalant and speak calmly. Obviously, his understanding of human emotion left something to be desired.

"Also, if you step outside again, you will discover your car is gone. Just want you to be prepared for that."

[jethro_gibbs]

There was something off about this guy, and after the day Gibbs had had, he was inclined to disbelieve him just out of spite. But those inclinations never went far, and so Gibbs found himself without any desire to debate. The man's words seemed entirely too truthful. He shoved his cell into the back pocket of his pants. So much for asking the guy if he knew anything about technology.

"And this doesn't bother you." Gibbs ran a hand across the back of his head in frustration, and cast an annoyed glance around the lobby, catching again the bell boy's eye and shooting him a patented kill-look. It didn't phase him, and Gibbs turned back to the man with the paper.

"All strangeness about this place aside--" that bore investigating, but at the moment his first task was to find some channel off communication with his team "--you're telling me someone's stolen my car and I'm going to have to walk to -- where the hell is the nearest place?"