NCIS/Dark Angel: The Search for Sandeman (PG-13), Max/Logan.
He winced a little as he clicked the browser window closed, bringing up Tetris instead, just in time for the woman leaning over his shoulder to see it instead.
Note: The Dark Angel universe takes place fifteen years in the future, in the interest of making my job easier, I'm going to push it back a convenient fifteen years, so it runs concurrently with NCIS. And since I'm already messing with time, let's go ahead and throw out that pesky virus too.
A sly grin formed as his fingers slipped deftly over the keys-years of searching had finally paid off. The information he had been after was virtually impossible to reach, hidden under layers and layers of code, some of it with purpose, some of it little more than random numbers meant to hide its many secrets. It was a little known fact that the database even existed, and certainly, only a handful of people even in the Navy knew exactly what was in their possession. Of course, for him, finding it had child's play.
It was breaking in that had caused more than one little hitch. His cover created problems of its own, on top of everything, as his free time was often used up by working cases that simply couldn't wait, or spent in his rather unfortunately frequent trips to the hospital. Not that there was anything really new about that.
He winced a little as he clicked the browser window closed, bringing up Tetris instead, just in time for the woman leaning over his shoulder to see it instead. He heard Kate snort and then walk off, heels clicking and echoing off the floor as she returned to her own desk. He would miss this place, the people, no doubt about it, but there was no way to stay. He'd stayed too long as it was, and he was fairly certain he'd been found already.
It was only a matter of time before they came for him, but the information was far too important to fall into their hands. He would die first. He glanced over at his partner for a moment before coming to a decision. It was now or never.
-----
Kate was watching him as he lifted the phone, wearing a curious little frown, and he turned away, fingers dancing impatiently on the edge of his desk. "Pick up, pick up," he whispered.
"What's up?"
He grinned a little when he heard the voice. "I've found him," he said simply. "We're leaving tonight."
"Finally," the voice said slyly. "I'm goin' crazy here. There's nothing to do."
"I told you that you could stay in Seattle," he said lightly, but it was an empty suggestion, because he knew she never would have stood for being left behind.
"I leave you alone for a minute and you get in trouble, over a year is pushing it." He grinned, because they both knew it would have been hard to stay apart for more reasons than that.
A slight beeping on his computer had him spinning back around. Kate glanced over again, watching him even more intensely than before, and Gibbs, with his impeccable bad timing, rounded the corner with a cup of fresh coffee. On his computer, a trace warning was flashing ominously.
"He's tracing the call," he whispered, tapping frantically at the keyboard and trying to divert the trace to another location. "Max, don't come for me." He didn't wait for a response, he hung up the phone and grabbed his bag out from under his desk. Kate wasn't the only one watching him now, and he heard them both walk over as he threw the bag over his shoulder and stood up.
"What's going on, Dinozzo?" Gibbs said. "That call sounded important."
"It was," Tony said instantly. "I've got to go. Sorry, boss, but it can't wait."
Gibbs tried to stare him down, and Tony cast a glance over his shoulder, worried he might already be too late. "Is something wrong with your family?"
Tony nodded, already backing away. "You could say that…yeah. I'll be back on Monday." He smiled at them weakly, knowing with some regret that if things went as planned he wouldn't be back at all.
They weren't buying it, not that he blamed them. He gave them more credit than that, but he wasn't up for anymore subterfuge. He was tired of running, too, but he knew he couldn't stop. He anxiously hit the call button on the elevator. The doors opened quick enough, but he backed away when he saw who was exiting.
Agent White smiled at him. "Logan Cale," he said. "You're under arrest."
He felt Gibbs and Kate take up a firm stance behind him and winced. This wasn't going to be pretty, and the bag he was carrying felt a lot heavier, all of the sudden.
"What the hell's going on here?" Gibbs snapped. "This man works for me, Agent Anthony Dinozzo, and I don't appreciate--"
White cut him off, holding up an FBI badge. "You have no idea who you're really dealing with," he said. "Don't interfere."
"Tony," Kate said softly, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.
"This man is a world famous hacker, as it so happens, and we've been looking for him for a very long time," White continued. "Tony Dinozzo does not exist, Logan Cale simply invented him."
Kate let out a startled laugh. "I can assure you, that is in no way the case. There's obviously been some mistake. Tony can barely type, let alone hack anything. Tony, tell them…"
Tony kept his gaze on White, and still wouldn't meet her eyes, or turn to face Gibbs.
"Yeah, Tony," White said sweetly. "Tell them."
"Go to hell," Tony snapped and started to lunge forward.
Gibbs grabbed him from behind and held him back. "What the hell are you doing?" he growled. "We'll work this, we'll explain it…"
"There's nothing to explain," Tony said softly. "It's over." Gibbs released him, startled, and Tony shook his head. "I'll never tell you what you want to know," he said to White.
White grinned. "Of course you won't, but let's not take away the fun of trying." White motioned for his men to grab Tony, and both Kate and Gibbs reached for their weapons, but before anyone could act the office window behind them crashed inwards, and a lithe form in black rolled up through the shards into a crouch.
"452," White hissed, motioning for his men to take her instead. Max smiled slyly as they approached, swinging out with her legs to knock them both off their feet at once.
Kate let out a startled gasp, and White grabbed Tony, pulling him up against him and placing the gun at his temple. "Surrender, 452, or your boyfriend here is dead."
"Is this some new FBI procedure?" Gibbs hissed, his own weapon aimed at White now. Kate followed suit.
"You don't want to get involved in this," White said darkly. "She could kill you in an instant."
"Oddly enough," Gibbs said, casting Max a quick wary glance, "it's not her I'm worried about at the moment. Let him go."
"It's okay," Tony said, meeting Gibbs eyes. He turned back to Max, then, holding her gaze, and almost imperceptibly drawing her attention to his shoulder bag, thrown forgotten against the wall. "Just get out of here, Max, now."
One of White's men was still dazed, having been thrown against the wall, but the other was on his feet, inching towards his own weapon, which had landed a few feet away. Max watched him out of the corner of her eye, but wasn't quite worried about him yet, she was far more concerned with Logan.
She placed her hands out at her sides. "I'll go with you if you let him go," she said. "You only want him to get to me, anyway, its win/win."
"Oh, I have a few reasons to want to keep him around," White said dryly. "And you've got plenty to want to keep him alive, so why don't you do as I say, before I decide he's not worth the trouble."
"That would be a mistake," Gibbs snapped. "You have two guns aimed at you, and if you so much as harm a hair on his head, you're not leaving here alive."
"You have no jurisdiction here," White snapped.
Gibbs' expression actually went a little blank for a moment as he processed the ludicrous statement. "We're in the NCIS building," he said finally. "And the man you're holding works for me. I think that makes this my jurisdiction."
Max watched as White's lackey bent down to retrieve his gun, and finally swung out, knocking him back to the ground with a roundhouse kick and grabbing the gun herself. She hated guns, had no use for them, but White didn't know that and she needed to weigh the odds as much in her favor as she could.
"Three to one," she said coolly. "Let him go, White."
White didn't immediately do as asked. He turned to glare at Gibbs. "If these fugitives escape because of you, your career is over."
"No one is going anywhere," Gibbs assured. "Except for Tony, who you are going to release, and is going to join me over here for a little chat."
Logan winced at that, wondering for one brief moment of pure insanity if he might be safer with White.
White scoffed, but lowered his gun slightly and shoved Logan away. Gibbs reached for him, but Max was quicker, she grabbed the bag with one hand and Logan with the other, and started backing them both away, towards the broken window.
Logan knew what that meant, it was their exit, twenty stories off the ground or not.
"Sorry," he whispered, meeting Gibbs' eyes. He saw understanding dawn in the other man's eyes, saw the grip on his gun falter, and then Max was grabbing his hand, and they were jumping out the window, together and falling; he trusted Max enough to know they'd stop before they hit the ground.
The End
The Continuing Story
Note: Since they have been requested by a few people, and it seems more and more likely that the continuing parts will not be finished and posted somewhere else, I've decided to go ahead and add what I have here. Please note that while I consider the first part a one shot, the rest of the story from this point on is a work in progress and not likely to be finished.
Gibbs watched the door to Tony's apartment slip open.
After he and Kate had watched Tony and Max catch on a rope six feet above the ground, drop, and start running, they hadn't been able to pick up a trail. They'd simply walked into the crowd and disappeared.
"This is it," the landlord said, dusting off his hands and glancing behind him nervously. "What'd he do, anyway?"
"We're just trying to find him to make sure he's alright," Kate said, with a wide fake smile that appeased the man just fine.
McGee, beside her, was practically twitching, so Gibbs pushed him into the apartment first, out of sight of the landlord. The apartment looked exactly the same as the one time Gibbs' had ever been there, almost suspiciously pristine. There were no photographs, and no personal touches of any kind.
"Search it," Gibbs said, sticking the warrant in his pocket. McGee and Kate spread out behind him, neither looking comfortable with the situation. He knew how they felt, but he didn't dare let it show.
Kate ran her hand across the DVD rack, glanced at the TV. She pulled one of the DVDs out and opened it, before frowning, and reaching for another, and another. "Gibbs," she said, "these are all empty."
"Nothing in the fridge, either," McGee said. "Or the cupboards. It's like no one really lives here."
"Oh, he didn't, really," the landlord said, peeking in through the open door.
Gibbs spun to glare at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Spent every waking moment across the hall," the landlord said, pointing at the opposite door, "with that drop dead gorgeous girlfriend of his. Can't say I blame him, though I don't know why they bothered to keep paying me for his apartment too when they were practically living there together."
Kate narrowed her eyes and took a step forward. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
The man shrugged. "You asked for his apartment; on paper, this is it."
Gibbs glared at him as he pushed past him out the door, and pointed to the other apartment. "Open it," he said.
"You got a warrant for this place too?" the landlord asked.
Gibbs pushed into the man's personal space. "No, and you're not going to make me go to the trouble of getting one, are you?"
The man swallowed. "She's late on her rent, anyway," he said, quickly searching for the right key. "She never could make it on time. DiNozzo always ended up paying for her."
The man opened the door and Gibb's pushed inside. This place was quite a contrast to the apartment they'd just been in. Clothes were thrown over the back of the couch, drawers had been pulled open, and there were boxes of cereal lined up on the counter.
Kate and McGee split up again, glancing around, and Gibbs headed towards the fireplace. He could still smell the fire and ash, and he could see charred fragments of paper; this place had been cleaned out efficiently, though it didn't strike him as a professional job.
A professional wouldn't have left anything behind, but mistakes had been made here. There were framed photographs lined up on the mantle, Tony and the girl White had called 452, only Tony's hair was blonder and spiked, and he was wearing glasses. In one, he was in a wheelchair.
"This doesn't make any sense," Kate said from behind him. She was scanning the photographs too.
"The bedroom?" Gibbs asked.
"Cleaned out in a hurry," Kate said. "Do you think this has something to do with one of Tony's undercover stints? Maybe he posed as this Logan Cale, got in some trouble--"
"White has connections," Gibbs asked. "Whatever this is, it's something big, not something that would have been handled by Tony in Baltimore."
"White wasn't really FBI," Kate protested. "For all we know, he's some--"
"That's right," Gibbs said, turning around. "He wasn't FBI, and Morrow told us we had to let him walk anyway, and that's what's worrying me."
"Guys," McGee shouted. "You should come see this."
McGee was down the hall, in the doorway of a small office, looking a little shell-shocked, the way someone that had just won the lottery always did. "What is it?" Kate asked, glancing over his shoulder.
The room was stocked almost wall to wall with computer equipment, and McGee stepped forward as if in a trance, and dropped into the desk chair. "This is just...some of this stuff...I thought it was myth."
"Why don't you see if you can find us something useful on it?" Gibbs snapped.
McGee tugged the keyboard closer to him, and shook his head. "The hard drives been wiped," he said. "Effectively."
Kate's eyes narrowed a bit as she took the room in. "McGee, have you ever heard of someone called Eyes Only?"
McGee glanced back at her with wide eyes. "Are you kidding?" he asked. "The guy's legend. Why?"
"Damn it," Gibbs snapped, before pushing off the wall and heading back down the hall.
McGee watched him go. "What did I say?" he asked.
"I think it's something White said," Kate said softly. "He told us that Tony was some hacker known as Eyes Only."
McGee would have laughed, but it made a strange kind of sense; there weren't many computers like this in the world, and it was just what Eyes Only would need for the kind of hacks he did.
-----
"There's nothing left here," Kate said with a sigh. "We've been here for hours and we've only found more questions."
Gibbs ignored her, as he sorted through the blackened remnants of paper in the fireplace.
"Gibbs," Kate said, again. "We should move onto another lead."
"You got one?" Gibbs asked wryly. He tilted a corner of a page to the side and squinted at it, but it had been burned too badly to be legible.
Kate opened her mouth to respond, but Gibbs held up a hand, silencing her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her carefully across the living room, out of sight of the door. Kate saw the doorknob turn, and then someone slipped inside, closing the door softly behind them.
It was a young man, wearing a leather jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, and he'd pulled the hood up to hide his face. He pushed it back now with a petulant kind of sigh, and walked into the kitchen.
Gibbs reached for his gun and stepped forward, and Kate wasn't sure what tipped the guy off because she didn't hear a sound, but he was spinning in an instant. "Shit," he said. "What the hell are you people doing here?"
Gibbs kept his gun in hand, though he didn't raise it, and McGee appeared at the edge of the hall, holding his own. "Why don't you tell us first?"
The young man crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Well, I live here."
"This apartment is rented under the name Max Guevera," Gibbs said. "You Max Guevera?"
He snorted. "Oh, please," he said. "She just lets me crash here. I'm her brother."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "Funny, you don't look like a Guevera."
He snorted. "You got me," he said, tossing them all a blinding smile. "I'm adopted. Can't get anything past you."
"McGee," Gibbs said, "search him."
He held out his hands. "Hey, I just came to get some dinner and you're going to frisk me?"
"Who are you?" Gibbs demanded.
"Alec Guevera," he said. "What's this about, anyway?"
"We're looking for a friend of ours," Kate said. "Tony DiNozzo, he lives across the hall."
"Never seen him," Alec said.
"The landlord said he was here every day," Gibbs said.
Alec rolled his eyes again. "I think I might have noticed."
"So your sister isn't involved with him?" Kate asked.
"She's got a boyfriend, Logan Cale," Alec said. "He lives here with her."
Gibbs holstered his gun when McGee had finished patting Alec down and nodded an all clear. "Why don't we continue this at our headquarters?"
Alec sighed exaggeratedly, but let McGee lead him to the door, and winked at Kate before he rounded the corner.
------
Gibbs observed Alec through the glass. He'd thrown his boots up on the table, and had tipped his chair back, balanced on two legs. He looked relaxed and bored, and Gibbs was a little worried that it wasn't just an act, but that he honestly wasn't concerned about any of this.
"Tony's landlord identified him, said the same thing he told us, that he was Max's brother and showed up a lot, but there's no record of an Alec Guevera," McGee said, as he entered the room. "There was, however, a Max Guevera." He placed a picture on the table, and it was the same woman that had shown up that morning. "She was a bike messenger in Seattle a couple years ago, and we found her through her motorcycle license."
"And Logan Cale?"
"Also a Seattle resident," McGee said, "but then it gets weird. Logan Cale was shot a couple years ago, and paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors said he would never walk again."
"So it's not Tony," Kate said, letting out a breath.
McGee frowned. "If it's not, it's a twin brother," he said, laying another picture beside the one of Max. It looked like the photos Gibbs had found back in the apartment, like Tony, but oddly different at the same time.
"Whatever's going on," Gibbs said, glancing back at the glass. "It's a good bet he knows more than he's telling."
-----
Gibbs walked into the interrogation room, and Alec didn't even glance at him. "Can we hurry this up?" he asked. "I'm a busy guy. I've got plans."
Gibbs leaned against the mirror and watched him. "There's no record of an Alec Guevera," he said.
"Really?" Alec asked. "Not even one? That's just bad luck."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
"Alec," he said, and watched Gibbs with huge earnest eyes. "I don't have a last name, really; when the Gueveras took me in, I didn't even have a first name. Max picked out Alec, but I won't bore you with the reasons."
On the other side of the glass, Kate glanced at McGee. "Is it just me, or does he remind you of someone?" Kate was a little unnerved when Alec's eyes strayed to her at the question before returning to Gibbs, but she shook it off; he couldn't hear her, the interrogation room was soundproof.
"Somehow I think I could guess," Gibbs said. "I want to know where my guy is."
"I told you, I've got no clue, I've never met him," Alec grinned again, disarmingly. "How long can you keep me here anyway, without charge?"
"Long enough," Gibbs said. "I want answers."
"I don't have them," Alec said, leaning forward. "I'm an innocent bystander in all of this. If Logan is living some kind of secret double life, it's got nothing to do with me. I'm not looking for any trouble."
"You found some anyway," Gibbs said, placing his hands on the table and leaning across to stare Alec down. "Where is he?"
Alec rolled his eyes. "You really think if I had a clue what was going on I would have waltzed in like I did? If I had any part in whatever the hell's going on, I would have done the smart thing and skipped town, which, by the way, is probably what your boy's done."
The door opened and Gibbs glanced up, surprised to see Morrow standing there. "Can I talk to you?"
Gibbs joined him outside, without bothering to look at Alec.
"What are you doing?" Morrow snapped. "That kid hasn't done anything; I get this is personal for you, Gibbs, but you can't just drag every person that crosses your path down here--"
Gibbs crossed his arms. "He's lying to us," he said.
Morrow shook his head. "I just got a call from his father, his very rich father, Raymond Guevera, and he's not happy. He's demanding Alec's release immediately."
Gibbs glanced away, and then back. "Alec Guevera doesn't exist," he said.
"Uh, boss," McGee ran up to him. "He does."
"McGee," Gibbs snapped threateningly.
"I don't know how we..." McGee trailed up. "I swear it wasn't there before, but Director Morrow told me to check again and then he was..."
"McGee," Gibbs said. "What are you talking about?"
"Alec Guevera, twenty years old, adopted son of Raymond and Leona Guevera, who are also listed as parents to Max Guevera. Apparently Raymond Guevera is the CEO of some very large company called Manta Corps, but I can't find any information on it."
"Either charge him with something or let him go," Morrow said. "Before his father starts causing us trouble."
Gibbs ran a hand through his hair as Morrow stalked off. "What did you mean it wasn't there before?" he asked. "People don't just appear in the system."
McGee glanced at him. "Not that we know of," he said, "but if someone could do it, Eyes Only fits the bill."
Gibbs threw the door open and glared in at Alec. "Come on," he said.
Alec grinned and got to his feet. He fixed his jacket as he walked out of interrogation room, and followed Gibbs back into the main offices. Gibbs pushed the call button on the elevator. "I don't suppose it would do any good to say not to leave town," he said tightly.
Alec grinned at him. "Are you kidding? I love this town," he said, as Kate joined them. He smiled a little brighter in her direction. "There's lots of pretty women."
The elevator doors opened and he leaned against the back of the elevator car, still watching Kate. "Oh, and if you're still wondering why I'm familiar," he said, and Kate's eyes widened, "it's because Logan based Tony on me." Alec winked, and then the doors were closing.
Gibbs leapt forward, but too late; the elevator doors slipped closed before he reached them. "Son of a bitch!" he shouted. He turned and pointed at McGee. "Get security on the phone," he said. "I don't want him leaving this building."
McGee ran and picked up the phone quickly. "I said that in the other room," Kate said, sounding thrown.
Gibbs glared at her. "What?"
"I asked McGee if he seemed familiar from the other side of the glass, Gibbs," she said. "There's no way he could have heard me...is there?"
Gibbs glanced back at the elevator. "Right now I'm more concerned with the fact that he's got the answers we're after."
"Why would he give himself away like that?" Kate asked. "We were about to let him walk, and then..."
"Gibbs," McGee said. He walked up to them, looking a little pale. "Reception just called back. The elevator reached the lobby, but there was no one in it."
"Then he got off on another floor," Gibbs said.
McGee shook his head. "It went straight down to the lobby, no stops, but he wasn't in it."
"Well he's here somewhere, McGee," Gibbs shouted. "Find him!"
"Yes, boss," McGee said quickly, before returning to his desk and picking up his phone.
"I've got a really bad feeling about this," Gibbs said.
"What are you thinking?" Kate asked.
"I'm thinking he wanted in this building," Gibbs said. "This was a set-up from the start."
"Gibbs," McGee shouted.
"What, McGee?" he asked, irritated, as he spun to look at him.
That was when he noticed everyone in the office was on their feet, shouting into phones, or at each other. He walked over to McGee. "What the hell is going on?" he asked.
"Everything just shut down," McGee said, as his fingers flew over his keyboard.
Then a message appeared, scrolling across the screen, 'one moment please, I'm just going to delete a few things. Sorry for the inconvenience....well, not really sorry.'
"Stop this," Gibbs said.
McGee kept typing. "I'm trying, but...this is some kind of preprogrammed virus, and--" McGee trailed off as the scrolling message disappeared.
"Good job," Gibbs said, as the system rebooted.
"It wasn't me," McGee said. "I think it just finished whatever it was doing."
"Find out what it deleted," Gibbs demanded.
McGee swallowed. "Yeah, I've got a theory about that." He quickly checked through a few things, and then placed his head in his hands.
"What is it, McGee?" Gibbs demanded.
"Tony," he said, looking up. "Every reference, every report, everything; he's been completely erased. It's like he was never here."
Three hours later, with still no trace found, it was a little like Alec had never been there, either.
-----
California was warm, for September, and she was overdressed.
She was still used to Seattle weather even after years away. Her wardrobe consisted of sweaters and jeans and sneakers, and she stood out amongst all of the skirts and sandals; and standing out, with her, was never a good idea. Beside her, though he wore the same basics as her, Logan seemed to be blending in just fine.
His hair was still shorter and darker than she thought she would ever be used to, and he had his contacts in again, but appearance didn't seem to matter because these days, he held himself like an officer and not a journalist, still observing, but on his guard. People stepped aside so he could get by, and rarely caught his eyes, unless it was to throw him a flirtatious smile, like that nurse leaning against the building was doing, Max thought bitterly, the bitch.
Max hit him when he smiled back and he glanced at her with a kind of 'what?' expression. She knew he didn't even notice he was doing it, and it's one thing she misses; Logan used to be oblivious, but as Tony he'd had to notice everything, including pretty girls. This job, Logan had told her, isn't just about finding what we're looking for, it's about helping people.
And Logan was always for saving the world, he'd just been a little more proactive about it as of late.
"I didn't do anything," he said, and smirked. It still caught her off guard, that blinding smile that wasn't uncertain at all; times like this she wondered if she was supposed to call him Tony.
She just rolled her eyes instead and stepped through the sliding glass doors. She had an aversion to hospitals that went back to when she was a kid at Manticore, because there, hospitals had hurt as often as they healed, and her brief stay at Seattle's Harbor Lights had done nothing to change her views.
"Room 148," Logan said, as he caught pace beside her and started leading her away.
She had a bad feeling about this place, and not just because it was a hospital. Logan had been tracking down leads to find Sandeman going on three years now, and now that they were finally close, she was terrified. Terrified he wouldn't know anything, maybe, or maybe that he would know everything and she still won't have what she's searching for.
"You with me, Max?" Logan whispered. They were going up the stairwell now, and Logan was smiling at another nurse passing them on the steps. She noticed he was a lot quicker to smile these days, a little brighter, too, kind of sad in a way no one would notice if they didn't know him. It's what Tony would have done, it's what Alec would have done, too, for that matter, and Logan can't shed identities the way she and Alec were trained to, some things stick.
She still wasn't sure how she felt about that.
"I'm with you," she said, a little anxiously. She didn't know what she was expecting to gain here, or if whatever answers she was given would do anything to help her at all; but it all came down to this--years of searching, of running, and they'd finally found him.
Sandeman, M, was scribbled in pencil on the chart hanging beside the door.
"Sandeman, S-A-N-D-E-M-A-N. I'm his son, I'm family, and I'd like to know what room he's in."
"White," Max said, her eyes going wide as she caught sight of his back, standing at reception. She grabbed Logan by the hand and opened the door, but Logan tugged out of her grip long enough to grab the chart off the door, before letting her pull him inside.
"This isn't good," Logan said, as he walked across the room to the window and judged the drop. He stuck the chart inside of his jacket and pulled a gun back out instead, before glancing back at the door, holding it loosely in front of him with both hands. "This really isn't good."
Max glanced away from him, and locked eyes on the only hospital bed in the room. There was no one in it. "Where is he?" she asked.
Logan glanced back, and frowned down on it. There was an IV hooked up to the bed, the needle tip resting on the ruffled sheets, leaving a small circle of still wet blood beneath it. "He must have known White was coming," Logan said.
Max narrowed her eyes at the bed, and stepped forward. She pulled the sheets down, and there was a journal sitting there, 'for my special one' had been written on the cover in blood. "I think maybe he knew we were coming too," she whispered.
Logan glanced at it. "Max, we've got to get out of here."
They could hear White's angry voice getting closer to the door. "Too late," she said.
Logan sighed and opened the window. "At least we're only on the second story this time," he said, and Max grabbed the journal and shoved him through.
They heard White shout, and glanced back only long enough to see him climbing out after them before they kept running towards the parking lot. There was a brand new black Lincoln sitting in front of the hospital, and Otto was sitting in it, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
Max ran up beside him, and elbowed him in the face. He barely had a chance to moan and she'd opened the door and thrown him onto the street. Logan climbed into the passenger seat just as one of White's bullets blasted the window, and Max hit the gas.
Logan glanced through the back window, and saw White standing angrily beside the unconscious Otto, yelling something at them, probably spouting empty promises about how he was going to have his revenge. He turned back around.
"Put on your seatbelt," Max told him.
He grabbed for it, but shot her an annoyed glance. "Trust me, I've gotten used to crazy drivers." He glanced back again. "And hey, what about Bessie?"
Max snorted. "Face it, Logan, that car's had it."
-----
"I want to know how the hell he got out of here," Gibbs demanded.
McGee nodded. "Abby is sorting through all of the surveillance tapes," he said, "and Kate is talking to security again, but they all claim that they never left their posts until the lockdown had been released, and that no one had gotten by them."
"So am I to assume he's hiding under a desk somewhere?" Gibbs snapped.
McGee winced. "Well, once the lockdown was released, people were everywhere trying to get home; but, Gibbs, this place was searched three times before the lockdown was lifted, and he wasn't anywhere. Considering how his sister Max left with Tony yesterday, I'm wondering if maybe he didn't slip out the same way."
"Oh, but he didn't," Abby said, darting from the elevator to stand in front of them with a wide grin. "That would have been too easy, and I'm thinking our boy here is a thrill seeker."
"Jumping out of a twenty story window would be too easy?" McGee asked, nonplussed.
Abby grinned. "Follow me," she said, before spinning and heading towards the elevator. "Kate is waiting for us, and you are not going to believe this."
Once the elevator opened at her lab, Abby sprinted over to her computer, lifted a Caf-Pow with one hand and brought up an image on the screen with the other. Alec was sitting at a desk, wearing a dark suit and small square-framed glasses. "Okay, now I've scanned through hours of footage watching him, not that it was that much of a hardship, mind you, and--"
"Abby," Gibbs said warningly.
"Well, he's gorgeous, Gibbs," Abby said. "I mean perfect; you didn't notice?"
Gibbs crossed his arms. "Can't say I did."
"I did," Kate said, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Abby.
"Can we get to the reason why you dragged us all down here?" Gibbs snapped.
"Right," Abby said, spinning on her heel and pointing to the computer screen. "Two minutes after you had the building locked down, Mr. Guevera showed up in records, and slipped right into a cubicle."
"You're kidding," Kate said. "There's no way that would work--"
"Well, yeah, if he was just pretending to work here, it wouldn't have," Abby said.
Gibbs pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Don't tell me," he said.
"He's been working here three weeks," Abby said. "Meet Richard Lassen, the newest addition to our little home away from home. Alison Breece, his supervisor, said he was the most promising new recruit in years."
"We give extensive background checks before hiring anyone," McGee said in disbelief. "There's no way that he--"
"He completely checked out," Abby said. "I went through his background check myself, and it was flawless. If this is all forged, it's good, I mean like really good." Abby pointed back to the screen, as she tapped the keyboard so it would start to play. "Watch him closely, he slips the CD in, and all the computers go blank. This is where the virus came from. I had them disconnect that computer and give it a detail, but he takes the disc out with him."
"How the hell did he get out? I had men at every door--" Gibbs snapped.
"You didn't have a picture of him to pass around," Abby said, "only a description, and he had an NCIS ID. There was no reason for them to hold or even suspect him." She nodded to the screen. A pair of security personnel were checking everyone out in records, they glanced at Alec's ID and moved right by. Abby lifted her eyebrows, in admiration. "Then he walked right out at the end of the day along with everyone else."
Abby shook her head. "He was toying with us, Gibbs."
Gibbs' eyes narrowed in at the back of Alec's neck. He pointed at the screen. "Freeze it." He squinted a little. "What's on his neck? I didn't see that before."
"He had a leather jacket on before," Kate said thoughtfully. "The collar was up."
"I'll see if I can enhance it," Abby said, as she highlighted the area and then enlarged. She ran an enhancement filter, and slowly, the image started to clear. "Good catch, Gibbs," Abby said.
"It's some kind of tattoo," McGee said, leaning forward, and Abby nodded.
"It's a barcode," Abby said, grinning. "Wicked."
-----
"How did he find us?" Logan asked.
Max shrugged, and slouched a little more against the wall. "So what kind of car do you want?"
He glanced at her. "We're not stealing a car."
She rolled her eyes. "It's for a good cause, and yours is back at the hospital, and we have to leave White's here. It's too easily tracked. He probably has a locator on it."
"Oh, I'd say that's a fairly safe bet," Logan said, "but we can call a Taxi."
"A Taxi?" Max said, disbelievingly. "Logan, please."
Logan crossed his arms. "I'm a Federal Officer now, it wouldn't be right."
"You're not really," she said. "Tony isn't real, Logan, and so that badge isn't either."
He glanced away, the way he always did when she brought this up. Max has often suspected Logan wished he really were Tony.
"I'm stealing us a car," she said, and glanced around. She spotted a sleek red car parked at the far end of the lot, and started after it with a Cheshire-like smile.
Logan grabbed for his cell phone, and quickly dialed.
"Yeah?"
"Alec," Logan said. "How did it go?"
"Are you kidding?" Alec asked. "It was flawless. I'm a damn fine actor, if I do say so myself, which I kind of have to. You and Max don't fawn over me enough."
"And the virus?" he asked. "Did it work?"
"You're completely out of the system," Alec said.
"That's not what I meant," Logan said. "White obviously got his hands on the same information I did."
"No kidding?" Alec said. "He showed up? Damn. That man is like a cockroach."
"Was it erased?" Logan demanded.
"Yeah, wiped clean, I swear," Alec said. "If White got his hands on that information, it was before I had a chance to delete it. The virus you gave me made the NCIS informant net vulnerable, right? Maybe White got lucky, maybe they got in right before me and got their hands on the information before I could delete it."
"No, there wouldn't have been time," Logan said. "I think White has an informant of his own, someone that doesn't have to break into the database to get inside."
"If that were true," Alec said, "then they would have known where Sandeman was years ago."
"No, they had it, but they didn't know they had it," he said, frowning. "Not until they found me, and I led them right to it."
"So you didn't find him?" Alec asked. "The Sandman, or whatever?"
Logan pulled out the journal Max had grabbed, and the medical chart. "No," he said. "And it looks like we're running out of time."
"White is onto you again?" Alec asked. "Do you need me to come get you guys?"
"We've lost White for now. It's just that...Sandeman," Logan stopped for a moment, and took a breath. "He's dying, Alec. He'll be dead in a couple of weeks."
"I should be there," Alec said.
Logan snorted. "You just want to come to California."
"Can't let you two have all the fun," he said.
"I need you to stay where you are," Logan said. "I want you to keep an eye on Gibbs."
"That guy scares the hell out of me," Alec said. "I don't know how you managed to work for him for two years. I thought Normal was a hard ass."
"Normal called you 'Golden Boy' and 'Rock Star' and let you get away with murder," Logan said wryly.
"Well, yeah, but he was a bastard to the rest of them," Alec said. "It was traumatizing to watch."
"Just watch them," Logan said. "Keep them out of trouble, and while you're at it, try not to get in trouble yourself. And if you can, run a check on the phone records. See if you can trace White back to anyone inside of NCIS."
"Got it," Alec said, and hung up.
The red car skid to a halt two inches in front of him, and Max leaned across to open the passenger side door. "Get in," she told him, grinning widely. "Just how far do you think a dying old man can get?"
"You're taking this set back rather well," Logan said, as he dropped down beside her.
"I've learned not to get my hopes up," she said. "Was that Alec?"
"Yes," Logan said. "It's taken care of."
"Wow, you mean he didn't screw it up?" she asked, giving a wry grin as her foot sunk down a bit more, and took the car up past eighty.
"You don't give him enough credit," Logan said. "When Alec puts his mind to it, he's good."
"Yeah, but it's getting his mind on something other than girls and fast cars that's the problem," Max said.
"Then I'm lucky to have you around, too," Logan said. Max shot him a pleased grin, and he moved in for the kill. "You're only distracted by the fast cars."
Note: The Dark Angel universe takes place fifteen years in the future, in the interest of making my job easier, I'm going to push it back a convenient fifteen years, so it runs concurrently with NCIS. And since I'm already messing with time, let's go ahead and throw out that pesky virus too.
A sly grin formed as his fingers slipped deftly over the keys-years of searching had finally paid off. The information he had been after was virtually impossible to reach, hidden under layers and layers of code, some of it with purpose, some of it little more than random numbers meant to hide its many secrets. It was a little known fact that the database even existed, and certainly, only a handful of people even in the Navy knew exactly what was in their possession. Of course, for him, finding it had child's play.
It was breaking in that had caused more than one little hitch. His cover created problems of its own, on top of everything, as his free time was often used up by working cases that simply couldn't wait, or spent in his rather unfortunately frequent trips to the hospital. Not that there was anything really new about that.
He winced a little as he clicked the browser window closed, bringing up Tetris instead, just in time for the woman leaning over his shoulder to see it instead. He heard Kate snort and then walk off, heels clicking and echoing off the floor as she returned to her own desk. He would miss this place, the people, no doubt about it, but there was no way to stay. He'd stayed too long as it was, and he was fairly certain he'd been found already.
It was only a matter of time before they came for him, but the information was far too important to fall into their hands. He would die first. He glanced over at his partner for a moment before coming to a decision. It was now or never.
-----
Kate was watching him as he lifted the phone, wearing a curious little frown, and he turned away, fingers dancing impatiently on the edge of his desk. "Pick up, pick up," he whispered.
"What's up?"
He grinned a little when he heard the voice. "I've found him," he said simply. "We're leaving tonight."
"Finally," the voice said slyly. "I'm goin' crazy here. There's nothing to do."
"I told you that you could stay in Seattle," he said lightly, but it was an empty suggestion, because he knew she never would have stood for being left behind.
"I leave you alone for a minute and you get in trouble, over a year is pushing it." He grinned, because they both knew it would have been hard to stay apart for more reasons than that.
A slight beeping on his computer had him spinning back around. Kate glanced over again, watching him even more intensely than before, and Gibbs, with his impeccable bad timing, rounded the corner with a cup of fresh coffee. On his computer, a trace warning was flashing ominously.
"He's tracing the call," he whispered, tapping frantically at the keyboard and trying to divert the trace to another location. "Max, don't come for me." He didn't wait for a response, he hung up the phone and grabbed his bag out from under his desk. Kate wasn't the only one watching him now, and he heard them both walk over as he threw the bag over his shoulder and stood up.
"What's going on, Dinozzo?" Gibbs said. "That call sounded important."
"It was," Tony said instantly. "I've got to go. Sorry, boss, but it can't wait."
Gibbs tried to stare him down, and Tony cast a glance over his shoulder, worried he might already be too late. "Is something wrong with your family?"
Tony nodded, already backing away. "You could say that…yeah. I'll be back on Monday." He smiled at them weakly, knowing with some regret that if things went as planned he wouldn't be back at all.
They weren't buying it, not that he blamed them. He gave them more credit than that, but he wasn't up for anymore subterfuge. He was tired of running, too, but he knew he couldn't stop. He anxiously hit the call button on the elevator. The doors opened quick enough, but he backed away when he saw who was exiting.
Agent White smiled at him. "Logan Cale," he said. "You're under arrest."
He felt Gibbs and Kate take up a firm stance behind him and winced. This wasn't going to be pretty, and the bag he was carrying felt a lot heavier, all of the sudden.
"What the hell's going on here?" Gibbs snapped. "This man works for me, Agent Anthony Dinozzo, and I don't appreciate--"
White cut him off, holding up an FBI badge. "You have no idea who you're really dealing with," he said. "Don't interfere."
"Tony," Kate said softly, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.
"This man is a world famous hacker, as it so happens, and we've been looking for him for a very long time," White continued. "Tony Dinozzo does not exist, Logan Cale simply invented him."
Kate let out a startled laugh. "I can assure you, that is in no way the case. There's obviously been some mistake. Tony can barely type, let alone hack anything. Tony, tell them…"
Tony kept his gaze on White, and still wouldn't meet her eyes, or turn to face Gibbs.
"Yeah, Tony," White said sweetly. "Tell them."
"Go to hell," Tony snapped and started to lunge forward.
Gibbs grabbed him from behind and held him back. "What the hell are you doing?" he growled. "We'll work this, we'll explain it…"
"There's nothing to explain," Tony said softly. "It's over." Gibbs released him, startled, and Tony shook his head. "I'll never tell you what you want to know," he said to White.
White grinned. "Of course you won't, but let's not take away the fun of trying." White motioned for his men to grab Tony, and both Kate and Gibbs reached for their weapons, but before anyone could act the office window behind them crashed inwards, and a lithe form in black rolled up through the shards into a crouch.
"452," White hissed, motioning for his men to take her instead. Max smiled slyly as they approached, swinging out with her legs to knock them both off their feet at once.
Kate let out a startled gasp, and White grabbed Tony, pulling him up against him and placing the gun at his temple. "Surrender, 452, or your boyfriend here is dead."
"Is this some new FBI procedure?" Gibbs hissed, his own weapon aimed at White now. Kate followed suit.
"You don't want to get involved in this," White said darkly. "She could kill you in an instant."
"Oddly enough," Gibbs said, casting Max a quick wary glance, "it's not her I'm worried about at the moment. Let him go."
"It's okay," Tony said, meeting Gibbs eyes. He turned back to Max, then, holding her gaze, and almost imperceptibly drawing her attention to his shoulder bag, thrown forgotten against the wall. "Just get out of here, Max, now."
One of White's men was still dazed, having been thrown against the wall, but the other was on his feet, inching towards his own weapon, which had landed a few feet away. Max watched him out of the corner of her eye, but wasn't quite worried about him yet, she was far more concerned with Logan.
She placed her hands out at her sides. "I'll go with you if you let him go," she said. "You only want him to get to me, anyway, its win/win."
"Oh, I have a few reasons to want to keep him around," White said dryly. "And you've got plenty to want to keep him alive, so why don't you do as I say, before I decide he's not worth the trouble."
"That would be a mistake," Gibbs snapped. "You have two guns aimed at you, and if you so much as harm a hair on his head, you're not leaving here alive."
"You have no jurisdiction here," White snapped.
Gibbs' expression actually went a little blank for a moment as he processed the ludicrous statement. "We're in the NCIS building," he said finally. "And the man you're holding works for me. I think that makes this my jurisdiction."
Max watched as White's lackey bent down to retrieve his gun, and finally swung out, knocking him back to the ground with a roundhouse kick and grabbing the gun herself. She hated guns, had no use for them, but White didn't know that and she needed to weigh the odds as much in her favor as she could.
"Three to one," she said coolly. "Let him go, White."
White didn't immediately do as asked. He turned to glare at Gibbs. "If these fugitives escape because of you, your career is over."
"No one is going anywhere," Gibbs assured. "Except for Tony, who you are going to release, and is going to join me over here for a little chat."
Logan winced at that, wondering for one brief moment of pure insanity if he might be safer with White.
White scoffed, but lowered his gun slightly and shoved Logan away. Gibbs reached for him, but Max was quicker, she grabbed the bag with one hand and Logan with the other, and started backing them both away, towards the broken window.
Logan knew what that meant, it was their exit, twenty stories off the ground or not.
"Sorry," he whispered, meeting Gibbs' eyes. He saw understanding dawn in the other man's eyes, saw the grip on his gun falter, and then Max was grabbing his hand, and they were jumping out the window, together and falling; he trusted Max enough to know they'd stop before they hit the ground.
The End
The Continuing Story
Note: Since they have been requested by a few people, and it seems more and more likely that the continuing parts will not be finished and posted somewhere else, I've decided to go ahead and add what I have here. Please note that while I consider the first part a one shot, the rest of the story from this point on is a work in progress and not likely to be finished.
Gibbs watched the door to Tony's apartment slip open.
After he and Kate had watched Tony and Max catch on a rope six feet above the ground, drop, and start running, they hadn't been able to pick up a trail. They'd simply walked into the crowd and disappeared.
"This is it," the landlord said, dusting off his hands and glancing behind him nervously. "What'd he do, anyway?"
"We're just trying to find him to make sure he's alright," Kate said, with a wide fake smile that appeased the man just fine.
McGee, beside her, was practically twitching, so Gibbs pushed him into the apartment first, out of sight of the landlord. The apartment looked exactly the same as the one time Gibbs' had ever been there, almost suspiciously pristine. There were no photographs, and no personal touches of any kind.
"Search it," Gibbs said, sticking the warrant in his pocket. McGee and Kate spread out behind him, neither looking comfortable with the situation. He knew how they felt, but he didn't dare let it show.
Kate ran her hand across the DVD rack, glanced at the TV. She pulled one of the DVDs out and opened it, before frowning, and reaching for another, and another. "Gibbs," she said, "these are all empty."
"Nothing in the fridge, either," McGee said. "Or the cupboards. It's like no one really lives here."
"Oh, he didn't, really," the landlord said, peeking in through the open door.
Gibbs spun to glare at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Spent every waking moment across the hall," the landlord said, pointing at the opposite door, "with that drop dead gorgeous girlfriend of his. Can't say I blame him, though I don't know why they bothered to keep paying me for his apartment too when they were practically living there together."
Kate narrowed her eyes and took a step forward. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
The man shrugged. "You asked for his apartment; on paper, this is it."
Gibbs glared at him as he pushed past him out the door, and pointed to the other apartment. "Open it," he said.
"You got a warrant for this place too?" the landlord asked.
Gibbs pushed into the man's personal space. "No, and you're not going to make me go to the trouble of getting one, are you?"
The man swallowed. "She's late on her rent, anyway," he said, quickly searching for the right key. "She never could make it on time. DiNozzo always ended up paying for her."
The man opened the door and Gibb's pushed inside. This place was quite a contrast to the apartment they'd just been in. Clothes were thrown over the back of the couch, drawers had been pulled open, and there were boxes of cereal lined up on the counter.
Kate and McGee split up again, glancing around, and Gibbs headed towards the fireplace. He could still smell the fire and ash, and he could see charred fragments of paper; this place had been cleaned out efficiently, though it didn't strike him as a professional job.
A professional wouldn't have left anything behind, but mistakes had been made here. There were framed photographs lined up on the mantle, Tony and the girl White had called 452, only Tony's hair was blonder and spiked, and he was wearing glasses. In one, he was in a wheelchair.
"This doesn't make any sense," Kate said from behind him. She was scanning the photographs too.
"The bedroom?" Gibbs asked.
"Cleaned out in a hurry," Kate said. "Do you think this has something to do with one of Tony's undercover stints? Maybe he posed as this Logan Cale, got in some trouble--"
"White has connections," Gibbs asked. "Whatever this is, it's something big, not something that would have been handled by Tony in Baltimore."
"White wasn't really FBI," Kate protested. "For all we know, he's some--"
"That's right," Gibbs said, turning around. "He wasn't FBI, and Morrow told us we had to let him walk anyway, and that's what's worrying me."
"Guys," McGee shouted. "You should come see this."
McGee was down the hall, in the doorway of a small office, looking a little shell-shocked, the way someone that had just won the lottery always did. "What is it?" Kate asked, glancing over his shoulder.
The room was stocked almost wall to wall with computer equipment, and McGee stepped forward as if in a trance, and dropped into the desk chair. "This is just...some of this stuff...I thought it was myth."
"Why don't you see if you can find us something useful on it?" Gibbs snapped.
McGee tugged the keyboard closer to him, and shook his head. "The hard drives been wiped," he said. "Effectively."
Kate's eyes narrowed a bit as she took the room in. "McGee, have you ever heard of someone called Eyes Only?"
McGee glanced back at her with wide eyes. "Are you kidding?" he asked. "The guy's legend. Why?"
"Damn it," Gibbs snapped, before pushing off the wall and heading back down the hall.
McGee watched him go. "What did I say?" he asked.
"I think it's something White said," Kate said softly. "He told us that Tony was some hacker known as Eyes Only."
McGee would have laughed, but it made a strange kind of sense; there weren't many computers like this in the world, and it was just what Eyes Only would need for the kind of hacks he did.
-----
"There's nothing left here," Kate said with a sigh. "We've been here for hours and we've only found more questions."
Gibbs ignored her, as he sorted through the blackened remnants of paper in the fireplace.
"Gibbs," Kate said, again. "We should move onto another lead."
"You got one?" Gibbs asked wryly. He tilted a corner of a page to the side and squinted at it, but it had been burned too badly to be legible.
Kate opened her mouth to respond, but Gibbs held up a hand, silencing her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her carefully across the living room, out of sight of the door. Kate saw the doorknob turn, and then someone slipped inside, closing the door softly behind them.
It was a young man, wearing a leather jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, and he'd pulled the hood up to hide his face. He pushed it back now with a petulant kind of sigh, and walked into the kitchen.
Gibbs reached for his gun and stepped forward, and Kate wasn't sure what tipped the guy off because she didn't hear a sound, but he was spinning in an instant. "Shit," he said. "What the hell are you people doing here?"
Gibbs kept his gun in hand, though he didn't raise it, and McGee appeared at the edge of the hall, holding his own. "Why don't you tell us first?"
The young man crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Well, I live here."
"This apartment is rented under the name Max Guevera," Gibbs said. "You Max Guevera?"
He snorted. "Oh, please," he said. "She just lets me crash here. I'm her brother."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "Funny, you don't look like a Guevera."
He snorted. "You got me," he said, tossing them all a blinding smile. "I'm adopted. Can't get anything past you."
"McGee," Gibbs said, "search him."
He held out his hands. "Hey, I just came to get some dinner and you're going to frisk me?"
"Who are you?" Gibbs demanded.
"Alec Guevera," he said. "What's this about, anyway?"
"We're looking for a friend of ours," Kate said. "Tony DiNozzo, he lives across the hall."
"Never seen him," Alec said.
"The landlord said he was here every day," Gibbs said.
Alec rolled his eyes again. "I think I might have noticed."
"So your sister isn't involved with him?" Kate asked.
"She's got a boyfriend, Logan Cale," Alec said. "He lives here with her."
Gibbs holstered his gun when McGee had finished patting Alec down and nodded an all clear. "Why don't we continue this at our headquarters?"
Alec sighed exaggeratedly, but let McGee lead him to the door, and winked at Kate before he rounded the corner.
------
Gibbs observed Alec through the glass. He'd thrown his boots up on the table, and had tipped his chair back, balanced on two legs. He looked relaxed and bored, and Gibbs was a little worried that it wasn't just an act, but that he honestly wasn't concerned about any of this.
"Tony's landlord identified him, said the same thing he told us, that he was Max's brother and showed up a lot, but there's no record of an Alec Guevera," McGee said, as he entered the room. "There was, however, a Max Guevera." He placed a picture on the table, and it was the same woman that had shown up that morning. "She was a bike messenger in Seattle a couple years ago, and we found her through her motorcycle license."
"And Logan Cale?"
"Also a Seattle resident," McGee said, "but then it gets weird. Logan Cale was shot a couple years ago, and paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors said he would never walk again."
"So it's not Tony," Kate said, letting out a breath.
McGee frowned. "If it's not, it's a twin brother," he said, laying another picture beside the one of Max. It looked like the photos Gibbs had found back in the apartment, like Tony, but oddly different at the same time.
"Whatever's going on," Gibbs said, glancing back at the glass. "It's a good bet he knows more than he's telling."
-----
Gibbs walked into the interrogation room, and Alec didn't even glance at him. "Can we hurry this up?" he asked. "I'm a busy guy. I've got plans."
Gibbs leaned against the mirror and watched him. "There's no record of an Alec Guevera," he said.
"Really?" Alec asked. "Not even one? That's just bad luck."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
"Alec," he said, and watched Gibbs with huge earnest eyes. "I don't have a last name, really; when the Gueveras took me in, I didn't even have a first name. Max picked out Alec, but I won't bore you with the reasons."
On the other side of the glass, Kate glanced at McGee. "Is it just me, or does he remind you of someone?" Kate was a little unnerved when Alec's eyes strayed to her at the question before returning to Gibbs, but she shook it off; he couldn't hear her, the interrogation room was soundproof.
"Somehow I think I could guess," Gibbs said. "I want to know where my guy is."
"I told you, I've got no clue, I've never met him," Alec grinned again, disarmingly. "How long can you keep me here anyway, without charge?"
"Long enough," Gibbs said. "I want answers."
"I don't have them," Alec said, leaning forward. "I'm an innocent bystander in all of this. If Logan is living some kind of secret double life, it's got nothing to do with me. I'm not looking for any trouble."
"You found some anyway," Gibbs said, placing his hands on the table and leaning across to stare Alec down. "Where is he?"
Alec rolled his eyes. "You really think if I had a clue what was going on I would have waltzed in like I did? If I had any part in whatever the hell's going on, I would have done the smart thing and skipped town, which, by the way, is probably what your boy's done."
The door opened and Gibbs glanced up, surprised to see Morrow standing there. "Can I talk to you?"
Gibbs joined him outside, without bothering to look at Alec.
"What are you doing?" Morrow snapped. "That kid hasn't done anything; I get this is personal for you, Gibbs, but you can't just drag every person that crosses your path down here--"
Gibbs crossed his arms. "He's lying to us," he said.
Morrow shook his head. "I just got a call from his father, his very rich father, Raymond Guevera, and he's not happy. He's demanding Alec's release immediately."
Gibbs glanced away, and then back. "Alec Guevera doesn't exist," he said.
"Uh, boss," McGee ran up to him. "He does."
"McGee," Gibbs snapped threateningly.
"I don't know how we..." McGee trailed up. "I swear it wasn't there before, but Director Morrow told me to check again and then he was..."
"McGee," Gibbs said. "What are you talking about?"
"Alec Guevera, twenty years old, adopted son of Raymond and Leona Guevera, who are also listed as parents to Max Guevera. Apparently Raymond Guevera is the CEO of some very large company called Manta Corps, but I can't find any information on it."
"Either charge him with something or let him go," Morrow said. "Before his father starts causing us trouble."
Gibbs ran a hand through his hair as Morrow stalked off. "What did you mean it wasn't there before?" he asked. "People don't just appear in the system."
McGee glanced at him. "Not that we know of," he said, "but if someone could do it, Eyes Only fits the bill."
Gibbs threw the door open and glared in at Alec. "Come on," he said.
Alec grinned and got to his feet. He fixed his jacket as he walked out of interrogation room, and followed Gibbs back into the main offices. Gibbs pushed the call button on the elevator. "I don't suppose it would do any good to say not to leave town," he said tightly.
Alec grinned at him. "Are you kidding? I love this town," he said, as Kate joined them. He smiled a little brighter in her direction. "There's lots of pretty women."
The elevator doors opened and he leaned against the back of the elevator car, still watching Kate. "Oh, and if you're still wondering why I'm familiar," he said, and Kate's eyes widened, "it's because Logan based Tony on me." Alec winked, and then the doors were closing.
Gibbs leapt forward, but too late; the elevator doors slipped closed before he reached them. "Son of a bitch!" he shouted. He turned and pointed at McGee. "Get security on the phone," he said. "I don't want him leaving this building."
McGee ran and picked up the phone quickly. "I said that in the other room," Kate said, sounding thrown.
Gibbs glared at her. "What?"
"I asked McGee if he seemed familiar from the other side of the glass, Gibbs," she said. "There's no way he could have heard me...is there?"
Gibbs glanced back at the elevator. "Right now I'm more concerned with the fact that he's got the answers we're after."
"Why would he give himself away like that?" Kate asked. "We were about to let him walk, and then..."
"Gibbs," McGee said. He walked up to them, looking a little pale. "Reception just called back. The elevator reached the lobby, but there was no one in it."
"Then he got off on another floor," Gibbs said.
McGee shook his head. "It went straight down to the lobby, no stops, but he wasn't in it."
"Well he's here somewhere, McGee," Gibbs shouted. "Find him!"
"Yes, boss," McGee said quickly, before returning to his desk and picking up his phone.
"I've got a really bad feeling about this," Gibbs said.
"What are you thinking?" Kate asked.
"I'm thinking he wanted in this building," Gibbs said. "This was a set-up from the start."
"Gibbs," McGee shouted.
"What, McGee?" he asked, irritated, as he spun to look at him.
That was when he noticed everyone in the office was on their feet, shouting into phones, or at each other. He walked over to McGee. "What the hell is going on?" he asked.
"Everything just shut down," McGee said, as his fingers flew over his keyboard.
Then a message appeared, scrolling across the screen, 'one moment please, I'm just going to delete a few things. Sorry for the inconvenience....well, not really sorry.'
"Stop this," Gibbs said.
McGee kept typing. "I'm trying, but...this is some kind of preprogrammed virus, and--" McGee trailed off as the scrolling message disappeared.
"Good job," Gibbs said, as the system rebooted.
"It wasn't me," McGee said. "I think it just finished whatever it was doing."
"Find out what it deleted," Gibbs demanded.
McGee swallowed. "Yeah, I've got a theory about that." He quickly checked through a few things, and then placed his head in his hands.
"What is it, McGee?" Gibbs demanded.
"Tony," he said, looking up. "Every reference, every report, everything; he's been completely erased. It's like he was never here."
Three hours later, with still no trace found, it was a little like Alec had never been there, either.
-----
California was warm, for September, and she was overdressed.
She was still used to Seattle weather even after years away. Her wardrobe consisted of sweaters and jeans and sneakers, and she stood out amongst all of the skirts and sandals; and standing out, with her, was never a good idea. Beside her, though he wore the same basics as her, Logan seemed to be blending in just fine.
His hair was still shorter and darker than she thought she would ever be used to, and he had his contacts in again, but appearance didn't seem to matter because these days, he held himself like an officer and not a journalist, still observing, but on his guard. People stepped aside so he could get by, and rarely caught his eyes, unless it was to throw him a flirtatious smile, like that nurse leaning against the building was doing, Max thought bitterly, the bitch.
Max hit him when he smiled back and he glanced at her with a kind of 'what?' expression. She knew he didn't even notice he was doing it, and it's one thing she misses; Logan used to be oblivious, but as Tony he'd had to notice everything, including pretty girls. This job, Logan had told her, isn't just about finding what we're looking for, it's about helping people.
And Logan was always for saving the world, he'd just been a little more proactive about it as of late.
"I didn't do anything," he said, and smirked. It still caught her off guard, that blinding smile that wasn't uncertain at all; times like this she wondered if she was supposed to call him Tony.
She just rolled her eyes instead and stepped through the sliding glass doors. She had an aversion to hospitals that went back to when she was a kid at Manticore, because there, hospitals had hurt as often as they healed, and her brief stay at Seattle's Harbor Lights had done nothing to change her views.
"Room 148," Logan said, as he caught pace beside her and started leading her away.
She had a bad feeling about this place, and not just because it was a hospital. Logan had been tracking down leads to find Sandeman going on three years now, and now that they were finally close, she was terrified. Terrified he wouldn't know anything, maybe, or maybe that he would know everything and she still won't have what she's searching for.
"You with me, Max?" Logan whispered. They were going up the stairwell now, and Logan was smiling at another nurse passing them on the steps. She noticed he was a lot quicker to smile these days, a little brighter, too, kind of sad in a way no one would notice if they didn't know him. It's what Tony would have done, it's what Alec would have done, too, for that matter, and Logan can't shed identities the way she and Alec were trained to, some things stick.
She still wasn't sure how she felt about that.
"I'm with you," she said, a little anxiously. She didn't know what she was expecting to gain here, or if whatever answers she was given would do anything to help her at all; but it all came down to this--years of searching, of running, and they'd finally found him.
Sandeman, M, was scribbled in pencil on the chart hanging beside the door.
"Sandeman, S-A-N-D-E-M-A-N. I'm his son, I'm family, and I'd like to know what room he's in."
"White," Max said, her eyes going wide as she caught sight of his back, standing at reception. She grabbed Logan by the hand and opened the door, but Logan tugged out of her grip long enough to grab the chart off the door, before letting her pull him inside.
"This isn't good," Logan said, as he walked across the room to the window and judged the drop. He stuck the chart inside of his jacket and pulled a gun back out instead, before glancing back at the door, holding it loosely in front of him with both hands. "This really isn't good."
Max glanced away from him, and locked eyes on the only hospital bed in the room. There was no one in it. "Where is he?" she asked.
Logan glanced back, and frowned down on it. There was an IV hooked up to the bed, the needle tip resting on the ruffled sheets, leaving a small circle of still wet blood beneath it. "He must have known White was coming," Logan said.
Max narrowed her eyes at the bed, and stepped forward. She pulled the sheets down, and there was a journal sitting there, 'for my special one' had been written on the cover in blood. "I think maybe he knew we were coming too," she whispered.
Logan glanced at it. "Max, we've got to get out of here."
They could hear White's angry voice getting closer to the door. "Too late," she said.
Logan sighed and opened the window. "At least we're only on the second story this time," he said, and Max grabbed the journal and shoved him through.
They heard White shout, and glanced back only long enough to see him climbing out after them before they kept running towards the parking lot. There was a brand new black Lincoln sitting in front of the hospital, and Otto was sitting in it, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
Max ran up beside him, and elbowed him in the face. He barely had a chance to moan and she'd opened the door and thrown him onto the street. Logan climbed into the passenger seat just as one of White's bullets blasted the window, and Max hit the gas.
Logan glanced through the back window, and saw White standing angrily beside the unconscious Otto, yelling something at them, probably spouting empty promises about how he was going to have his revenge. He turned back around.
"Put on your seatbelt," Max told him.
He grabbed for it, but shot her an annoyed glance. "Trust me, I've gotten used to crazy drivers." He glanced back again. "And hey, what about Bessie?"
Max snorted. "Face it, Logan, that car's had it."
-----
"I want to know how the hell he got out of here," Gibbs demanded.
McGee nodded. "Abby is sorting through all of the surveillance tapes," he said, "and Kate is talking to security again, but they all claim that they never left their posts until the lockdown had been released, and that no one had gotten by them."
"So am I to assume he's hiding under a desk somewhere?" Gibbs snapped.
McGee winced. "Well, once the lockdown was released, people were everywhere trying to get home; but, Gibbs, this place was searched three times before the lockdown was lifted, and he wasn't anywhere. Considering how his sister Max left with Tony yesterday, I'm wondering if maybe he didn't slip out the same way."
"Oh, but he didn't," Abby said, darting from the elevator to stand in front of them with a wide grin. "That would have been too easy, and I'm thinking our boy here is a thrill seeker."
"Jumping out of a twenty story window would be too easy?" McGee asked, nonplussed.
Abby grinned. "Follow me," she said, before spinning and heading towards the elevator. "Kate is waiting for us, and you are not going to believe this."
Once the elevator opened at her lab, Abby sprinted over to her computer, lifted a Caf-Pow with one hand and brought up an image on the screen with the other. Alec was sitting at a desk, wearing a dark suit and small square-framed glasses. "Okay, now I've scanned through hours of footage watching him, not that it was that much of a hardship, mind you, and--"
"Abby," Gibbs said warningly.
"Well, he's gorgeous, Gibbs," Abby said. "I mean perfect; you didn't notice?"
Gibbs crossed his arms. "Can't say I did."
"I did," Kate said, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Abby.
"Can we get to the reason why you dragged us all down here?" Gibbs snapped.
"Right," Abby said, spinning on her heel and pointing to the computer screen. "Two minutes after you had the building locked down, Mr. Guevera showed up in records, and slipped right into a cubicle."
"You're kidding," Kate said. "There's no way that would work--"
"Well, yeah, if he was just pretending to work here, it wouldn't have," Abby said.
Gibbs pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Don't tell me," he said.
"He's been working here three weeks," Abby said. "Meet Richard Lassen, the newest addition to our little home away from home. Alison Breece, his supervisor, said he was the most promising new recruit in years."
"We give extensive background checks before hiring anyone," McGee said in disbelief. "There's no way that he--"
"He completely checked out," Abby said. "I went through his background check myself, and it was flawless. If this is all forged, it's good, I mean like really good." Abby pointed back to the screen, as she tapped the keyboard so it would start to play. "Watch him closely, he slips the CD in, and all the computers go blank. This is where the virus came from. I had them disconnect that computer and give it a detail, but he takes the disc out with him."
"How the hell did he get out? I had men at every door--" Gibbs snapped.
"You didn't have a picture of him to pass around," Abby said, "only a description, and he had an NCIS ID. There was no reason for them to hold or even suspect him." She nodded to the screen. A pair of security personnel were checking everyone out in records, they glanced at Alec's ID and moved right by. Abby lifted her eyebrows, in admiration. "Then he walked right out at the end of the day along with everyone else."
Abby shook her head. "He was toying with us, Gibbs."
Gibbs' eyes narrowed in at the back of Alec's neck. He pointed at the screen. "Freeze it." He squinted a little. "What's on his neck? I didn't see that before."
"He had a leather jacket on before," Kate said thoughtfully. "The collar was up."
"I'll see if I can enhance it," Abby said, as she highlighted the area and then enlarged. She ran an enhancement filter, and slowly, the image started to clear. "Good catch, Gibbs," Abby said.
"It's some kind of tattoo," McGee said, leaning forward, and Abby nodded.
"It's a barcode," Abby said, grinning. "Wicked."
-----
"How did he find us?" Logan asked.
Max shrugged, and slouched a little more against the wall. "So what kind of car do you want?"
He glanced at her. "We're not stealing a car."
She rolled her eyes. "It's for a good cause, and yours is back at the hospital, and we have to leave White's here. It's too easily tracked. He probably has a locator on it."
"Oh, I'd say that's a fairly safe bet," Logan said, "but we can call a Taxi."
"A Taxi?" Max said, disbelievingly. "Logan, please."
Logan crossed his arms. "I'm a Federal Officer now, it wouldn't be right."
"You're not really," she said. "Tony isn't real, Logan, and so that badge isn't either."
He glanced away, the way he always did when she brought this up. Max has often suspected Logan wished he really were Tony.
"I'm stealing us a car," she said, and glanced around. She spotted a sleek red car parked at the far end of the lot, and started after it with a Cheshire-like smile.
Logan grabbed for his cell phone, and quickly dialed.
"Yeah?"
"Alec," Logan said. "How did it go?"
"Are you kidding?" Alec asked. "It was flawless. I'm a damn fine actor, if I do say so myself, which I kind of have to. You and Max don't fawn over me enough."
"And the virus?" he asked. "Did it work?"
"You're completely out of the system," Alec said.
"That's not what I meant," Logan said. "White obviously got his hands on the same information I did."
"No kidding?" Alec said. "He showed up? Damn. That man is like a cockroach."
"Was it erased?" Logan demanded.
"Yeah, wiped clean, I swear," Alec said. "If White got his hands on that information, it was before I had a chance to delete it. The virus you gave me made the NCIS informant net vulnerable, right? Maybe White got lucky, maybe they got in right before me and got their hands on the information before I could delete it."
"No, there wouldn't have been time," Logan said. "I think White has an informant of his own, someone that doesn't have to break into the database to get inside."
"If that were true," Alec said, "then they would have known where Sandeman was years ago."
"No, they had it, but they didn't know they had it," he said, frowning. "Not until they found me, and I led them right to it."
"So you didn't find him?" Alec asked. "The Sandman, or whatever?"
Logan pulled out the journal Max had grabbed, and the medical chart. "No," he said. "And it looks like we're running out of time."
"White is onto you again?" Alec asked. "Do you need me to come get you guys?"
"We've lost White for now. It's just that...Sandeman," Logan stopped for a moment, and took a breath. "He's dying, Alec. He'll be dead in a couple of weeks."
"I should be there," Alec said.
Logan snorted. "You just want to come to California."
"Can't let you two have all the fun," he said.
"I need you to stay where you are," Logan said. "I want you to keep an eye on Gibbs."
"That guy scares the hell out of me," Alec said. "I don't know how you managed to work for him for two years. I thought Normal was a hard ass."
"Normal called you 'Golden Boy' and 'Rock Star' and let you get away with murder," Logan said wryly.
"Well, yeah, but he was a bastard to the rest of them," Alec said. "It was traumatizing to watch."
"Just watch them," Logan said. "Keep them out of trouble, and while you're at it, try not to get in trouble yourself. And if you can, run a check on the phone records. See if you can trace White back to anyone inside of NCIS."
"Got it," Alec said, and hung up.
The red car skid to a halt two inches in front of him, and Max leaned across to open the passenger side door. "Get in," she told him, grinning widely. "Just how far do you think a dying old man can get?"
"You're taking this set back rather well," Logan said, as he dropped down beside her.
"I've learned not to get my hopes up," she said. "Was that Alec?"
"Yes," Logan said. "It's taken care of."
"Wow, you mean he didn't screw it up?" she asked, giving a wry grin as her foot sunk down a bit more, and took the car up past eighty.
"You don't give him enough credit," Logan said. "When Alec puts his mind to it, he's good."
"Yeah, but it's getting his mind on something other than girls and fast cars that's the problem," Max said.
"Then I'm lucky to have you around, too," Logan said. Max shot him a pleased grin, and he moved in for the kill. "You're only distracted by the fast cars."