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ncisficathonTitle: The Blood on His Hands 2/5
Written for:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astral_angel
Prompt: Ari/Kate/Gibbs, an actual threesome, not a triangle. Any rating, though preferably a high R to NC-17. Post Twilight AU where Kate and Ari didn't die.
Archive: Please ask first
Genre: Het
Pairings: Kate/Gibbs/Ari
Rating: NC-17/Adults Only
Disclaimer: The usual. Not mine. Sandbox. Sex. Guh. Move along, nothing to see here.
Word Count: 14,352
Summary: When Kate is abducted off a Georgetown street, Gibbs and Ari must work together to rescue her from a psychopath before something terrible happens.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
8:33 p.m. Eastern time
Washington, D.C.
Kate Todd swiped her card through the reader and punched a four-digit code on the keypad in front of her. Pausing only to wait for each new screen to flash through, she pressed a series of buttons and then waited, somewhat impatiently, for her transaction to be approved. When it finally was, she rolled her eyes at the beeping tone when the ATM played a quick bar of “We’re in the Money,” took her cash, and folded the bills in half before sliding them into her pocket.
Stepping away from the ATM, she turned and looked both ways before crossing the street, then headed toward her friends, who were grouped outside a club about half a block down, waiting for her before going inside. She’d been so distracted all day, running errands for Tony, who’d been out of the hospital for a few days but wasn’t up to doing that much for himself yet, that she’d forgotten to get cash for tonight’s planned outing. Now, the oversight rectified, she was looking forward to a pleasant evening out with her friends. A few adult beverages, a little music, a lot of dancing, and by tomorrow, she should be back to her old, cheerful self again.
A sudden screech and the crunch of metal colliding with metal drew the attention of everyone on the street; an accident had just occurred down at the other end of the block, and two men were climbing out of their cars, one of them obviously inebriated. Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, preparing to call 911 and report the accident. Her eyes on the small device’s keypad, she did not see the figure moving through the shadows toward her.
When one of her friends glanced back, wondering what was taking Kate so long to join them, the only thing left on the empty street was that cell phone, lying open on the sidewalk. Kate was gone.
--
At first, Gibbs wasn’t sure what brought him out of the light doze he was in, lying under his boat’s shell, and then his ears focused on the sound of the newscaster’s voice coming from his television. “..abducted off a Georgetown street less than two hours ago. Witnesses said Todd was rejoining her friends after going to use a First Bank ATM just down the street from the Baseline nightclub when bystanders were distracted by a car accident. Todd was apparently abducted when attention was drawn to the collision. Anyone who has any information regarding this missing woman is encouraged to immediately call the Georgetown Police Department at…”
He was on his feet immediately, staring in shock at the image of a smiling Kate on his television, the word ABDUCTED plastered in screaming capitals across the bottom of the photograph. His brain engaged about two seconds after the newscaster repeated the Georgetown P.D.’s phone number, and he reached for his cell phone. It rang just as he laid his hand on it, and he flipped it open. “Gibbs.”
“Boss, are you watching the news?” Tim’s voice greeted him. “They’re saying –”
“Yeah, I just saw it. Meet me at the scene. Call Abby and get her into her lab.”
“On my way,” Tim replied, hanging up even before Gibbs did. Gibbs headed up the stairs at a run, and was climbing into his truck when his phone rang again.
He flipped it open as he started the engine. “Yeah, Gibbs.”
“Boss, did you just see the news?”
“Yeah, DiNozzo. We’re handling it.”
“I’m on my way down to Georgetown P.D. to get copies of everything they have.” Gibbs heard the sound of Tony’s car starting in the background.
“You get your ass back on the couch,” Gibbs snapped. “You’re not up for this, and I don’t have time to coddle you in the field.”
“Screw that,” Tony snapped back. “Do you know what Kate spent all day today doing? She was running errands and doing stuff for me because I’m laid up and can’t even get down to the freaking cleaners. I’m not sitting on the couch and watching the TV while they re-run a missing person’s report every thirty minutes and just wondering if she’s okay.”
Gibbs was silent for a moment, then finally nodded. “All right,” he said, “but you remember what I said. I don’t have time to coddle you in the field.”
“It’s a damn good thing,” Tony replied, “because that would really piss me off.” He hung up, and Gibbs shook his head as he gunned toward Georgetown as fast as he could drive.
--
Kate struggled through a thick fog to open her eyes, and when she was finally able to do so, looked blearily around at her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see; she was cuffed hand and foot to what felt like a wooden chair, blindfolded, and her head was covered with a burlap sack. There was a gag in her mouth which, thankfully, seemed to be clean.
Her shoes were gone, though fortunately she still retained the rest of her clothing, but she had no way of telling if her identification and money were still in her pocket or not. She sighed, wondering when her captors would come let her in on the situation. Hopefully it would be before she peed on herself or died of boredom.
She strained her ears, listening, but could hear nothing of her surroundings outside the closet, not even a television or movement. She wondered if she was completely alone in whatever building she might be in. Where was she? Did Gibbs know she was missing yet? Surely he did; her friends would have notified the police immediately, even if they didn’t think to call Gibbs themselves.
The big question was: who had her, and why? They didn’t have a current case, though there was no telling what old or cold case this could be related to; Kate couldn’t even begin to make a reasonable guess. All she could do was wait.
What felt like hours later, though it could have been mere minutes, Kate heard at least three sets of footsteps approaching her. She readied her best “I’m not scared of you” face, and when the bag was removed from her head, she gave it to anyone and everyone who might be around her. No words were spoken; she had no warning before she was viciously punched in the nose. She felt the blood gush out, and a moment later heard the distinctive snap-whir of a Polaroid camera. Then the bag was replaced, and the same footsteps receded into the distance.
Shocked and bewildered, Kate’s mind spun. The reason for the photograph was obvious; whoever they were, they were providing proof that they had her and that she was still alive. The reason for the blow, too, was obvious; they wanted whoever received the photograph to think that she was being tortured. But who the hell were they?
With the silence around her providing no insight, Kate had no option but to sit there and wait, and pray that Gibbs would find her before things got any nastier.
--
The photograph was delivered to NCIS by a bicycle courier who insisted that he’d been stopped on the street and given two hundred dollars in cash to deliver an envelope he was handed. He described the man who’d given it to him as Caucasian, medium height, medium weight, brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in blue track pants and a white tee shirt. Anyone on the street, in other words. McGee hacked into the traffic cam system and confirmed the courier’s story; unfortunately the man in question had covered his face with a baseball cap and sunglasses, and kept it turned carefully away from the traffic camera. He was a dead end.
Gibbs stared at the photograph for several long minutes, sitting at his desk, his jaw tense. Kate, in a halter top and white jeans, gagged and blindfolded and handcuffed to a chair in front of a blank wall, her nose dripping blood and with who knew what other injuries. Her clothing was undamaged, which led Gibbs to hope that she’d not been raped, but who knew what might have been done to her in the intervening hours between the time the photograph was taken and the time it was delivered?
There were no fingerprints on the photograph itself, and only the courier’s on the envelope, and the only correspondence included with the photograph had been three words written in black ink on the picture’s wide bottom border: “wait for instructions.”
Gibbs didn’t do waiting well.
It was an hour after sunrise when the promised instructions finally came. Be at the Lincoln Memorial at 10:30 sharp, read the note, brought by another bewildered courier. You will receive further instructions at that time.
With Tim standing next to him, and Tony and the director watching from MTAC, Gibbs went to the Lincoln Memorial. He stood on the steps, looking out over the National Mall, and he waited. At exactly 10:30, a ringing sound came to them from their left. They followed the sound and, behind a pillar, found a plain black cell phone. Gibbs picked it up and flipped it open. “Gibbs.”
“Good morning, Agent Gibbs,” said a slightly accented man’s voice.
“Where’s my agent?” Gibbs demanded.
“Patience, my good Agent,” came the reply. “She is safe. For now.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“I hardly think that’s necessary.”
“Let me talk to her,” Gibbs replied, “or I’ll assume she’s already dead and I’ll hang the phone up right now.”
“Oh, very well. You’ll have to hold on a moment.”
--
The footsteps that came this time were only one set, and Kate harbored some hope that perhaps now she might get some answers – or at least some taunts. Anything, really, would be better than the near-sensory deprivation she was being currently kept in. The bag came off her head and the gag was removed, though the blindfold was not, and something cool and plastic was pressed against her ear. “Say hello to Agent Gibbs,” said a soft voice with a slight Germanic accent.
Aha; the ransom call. Kate kept her lips pressed tightly shut.
“Speak, woman,” the man’s voice said again, and Kate continued to refuse. With a soft sigh, the man spoke again. “You have only yourself to blame for this.” A bare instant later, her already-abused nose took a second whack; this time, she felt the crunch of cartilage and knew it was broken. She could not help herself; the pain made her cry out and gag, and then she heard the man’s voice again. “You see, Agent Gibbs? I told you it was not necessary. Your agent is well-trained, and does not comply with the demands of those she considers terrorists unless forced to. Now that lovely nose is quite broken, and why? Because you demanded to hear her voice. You have now heard it; are you quite pleased?”
--
“What do you want?” Gibbs demanded.
“World peace,” the man replied. “An end to hunger. The deposition of the Ayatollah in Iran. Oh, yes, and every bit of information that you have on Ari Haswari.”
Gibbs was silent for a long time. Finally he managed one word through the undeniable shock. “What?”
“You heard me, Agent Gibbs,” the man responded. “I want Haswari. I know you have been in contact with him. It’s been less than a year since it was he and not I who held the lovely Agent Todd hostage, has it not? I want him, and I want you to tell me everything you know about him.”
“When do you want it?” Gibbs replied.
“Bring it to the Museum of Natural History this afternoon at four-thirty,” the man replied. “Wait near the information desk. You will receive further instructions at that time.” The line went dead, and Gibbs cursed angrily.
--
The man snapped his cell phone shut but Kate ignored him, concentrating on breathing through her mouth and not gagging on the blood and the pain. With a soft tsk, the man left the room, returning again a few minutes later and kneeling down beside her. “That was unnecessary, you know,” he said softly. “I did not wish to harm you. Now this is going to hurt, badly, but if I don’t set it, you’ll end up with an ugly bump, and you don’t want that to spoil your pretty face, do you?” He replaced the gag in her mouth and then put a hand on her shoulder. “Brace yourself.”
When he pulled her nose straight, she screamed into the gag, unable to help herself. He waited a moment before taking it back out. “I will leave this out so that you may breathe,” he said softly. “However, if you attempt to make any noise and draw attention to yourself, I will put it back in and simply take the risk that you might suffocate. Do you understand?”
She nodded. He patted her shoulder. “Good. Now, let’s get this blood cleaned up.”
He cleaned her face carefully with what felt and smelled like baby wipes, and then he uncuffed one of her hands, placing a small bag into it. “Here,” he said. “Hold this against your face. The ice will bring the swelling down.”
She did so, and found that the coldness did, in fact, make her face feel a bit better. Now more confused than ever, she listened as her captor sat down, and wondered whether she risked engaging him in conversation. She bit her lip, finally deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, and almost jumped when he spoke again. “You may speak, if you wish,” he said softly. “I will not harm you again unless you force me to.”
“Why?” she asked finally.
“Why what?” he replied. “Why will I not harm you? Because none of this is your fault. There is no reason for me to harm you. You have nothing that I want, outside of your connection to Haswari.”
“What do you want with him?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“I am afraid that is none of your concern,” he replied. “Besides, the less you know, the safer you are.”
She had to scoff at that, and he laughed softly. “Yes, Agent Todd, I can appreciate the irony. However, it is true. And I assure you that, had you spoken when I asked you to, you would have received no injury more severe than the bloody nose you received earlier.” He clucked at her. “Does it hurt badly?”
“You broke my nose,” Kate replied, acid in her voice, though it came out sounding more like You boke by dose. “What do you think?”
“Ah. Silly question, then.” He stood and left the room. Kate risked raising her blindfold for just a moment, and was disappointed to find herself in an almost featureless room, empty but for the chair she sat in and the other one, where he had been sitting. There was a closet standing open at one end of the room, empty, and at the other end there was a window over which a sheet of plywood had been nailed. She pulled the blindfold down again when she heard his footsteps returning.
“Here,” he said softly, taking the ice pack away and placing two capsules in her hand. “This is Tylenol.”
She sat there holding the capsules for a long moment, and finally extended her hand. “No, thank you.”
He sighed. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “Take the blindfold off and look. You may as well; you’ve already had it off while I’ve been gone.”
She obeyed, lifting the fabric over her head and tossing it onto the floor. Her captor was tall, broad shouldered, and covered from head to foot in unrelieved black. All she could see of him were his mouth and his glittering eyes and the pale skin beneath them, through the holes in his ski mask. She looked down at the capsules in her hand, which were indeed stamped with the Tylenol trademark. Sighing, she popped them in her mouth, swallowing them dry. Then she replaced the ice pack on her face. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re quite welcome,” he replied. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”
She glared at him over the ice pack, and he chuckled. “You do have spirit, don’t you, Agent Todd? This is going to be an amusing experience.”
“I’m so glad you think so,” Kate replied snappishly, peeved when it sounded like I’b so glad you thig so.
“Now, now,” the man replied. “If you’re going to be sarcastic and unpleasant, I’ll replace the gag.”
Kate slumped sullenly in her chair, and the man chuckled and stood. “Well,” he said, “I’ve got quite a few things I must take care of before we can leave this place. I had better get to it.” He patted her shoulder again. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, then chuckled as he left the room.
--
At four-thirty, Gibbs was standing about ten feet away from the information desk at the Museum of Natural History, glaring at an informational sign. Tim was not far away, watching closely, and once again, Tony was back in MTAC, focusing on breathing and not passing out with the director watching.
A teenage girl wearing a backpack walked up to Gibbs. “Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Agent Gibbs?”
He nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“This guy says you have some papers and I’m supposed to get them.”
He blinked, staring at her. “You are?”
She shrugged. “Look, Mister, I don’t care what you’re doing, okay? I just want a new iPod, and this dude said he’d give me a hundred bucks. So just gimme the papers, would you?”
“Did he say anything besides that I should give you the papers?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Gimme the papers and I’ll tell you.”
Suspicious, Gibbs reached into his jacket and handed the girl a manila folder. She stuck it into her backpack without even looking at it. “He said you’ll get your package after he gets his. Same place as this morning, same time tomorrow.” She turned, heading away as quickly as she could.
“Tim,” Gibbs said, and Tim stepped out of his hidden observatory, following the girl. It wasn’t hard; she walked straight up 10th Street to G, turned left, and headed into Metro Center. There she walked straight up to a bank of lockers, opened one, inserted the file and removed an envelope. Tim watched her open the envelope, pocket a handful of bills, and toss the envelope back into the locker before shutting it again. Then she paused, reopened the locker, and stuck the key inside. Shutting it again, she turned to go.
Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in an interrogation room at NCIS, crying and waiting for her father to arrive so that she could be questioned.
When he arrived, the girl’s father turned out to be a fairly high-ranking Senator’s aide, furious and embarrassed beyond belief. “Where was your head?” he exploded at his daughter as she explained her part in the situation. “You know better than that! My God, Cherie, how many espionage movies have you and I watched together? What if they’d been trading state secrets? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have been in?” He paused, staring down at her. “For that matter, do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”
A few hours later, as the sun was setting, Cherie’s father took her home. Assured that Cherie’s name would not come up in any public discussion of the incident – after all, she may have been an idiot, but she was still basically a kid – he had asked Gibbs to keep him informed about the investigation and to let him know if there was anything at all he or the Senator he worked for could do to help.
With no leads – the cell phone that morning had been completely clean, the one the abductor had called from had either been turned off or destroyed, and no one yet had attempted to access the locker Cherie had left the papers in – there was nothing for Gibbs to do but wait and hope.
He sat down at his desk, stared out into the deepening Washington night, and tried very hard not to look at Kate’s empty desk. His thoughts turned to Ari Haswari, the smirking Mossad bastard, and he growled low under his breath. “You’ll pay for this,” he whispered to the double agent’s specter. I swear to God, you will pay for this.”
Chapter One
Chapter Three
Written for:
astral_angelPrompt: Ari/Kate/Gibbs, an actual threesome, not a triangle. Any rating, though preferably a high R to NC-17. Post Twilight AU where Kate and Ari didn't die.
Archive: Please ask first
Genre: Het
Pairings: Kate/Gibbs/Ari
Rating: NC-17/Adults Only
Disclaimer: The usual. Not mine. Sandbox. Sex. Guh. Move along, nothing to see here.
Word Count: 14,352
Summary: When Kate is abducted off a Georgetown street, Gibbs and Ari must work together to rescue her from a psychopath before something terrible happens.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
8:33 p.m. Eastern time
Washington, D.C.
Kate Todd swiped her card through the reader and punched a four-digit code on the keypad in front of her. Pausing only to wait for each new screen to flash through, she pressed a series of buttons and then waited, somewhat impatiently, for her transaction to be approved. When it finally was, she rolled her eyes at the beeping tone when the ATM played a quick bar of “We’re in the Money,” took her cash, and folded the bills in half before sliding them into her pocket.
Stepping away from the ATM, she turned and looked both ways before crossing the street, then headed toward her friends, who were grouped outside a club about half a block down, waiting for her before going inside. She’d been so distracted all day, running errands for Tony, who’d been out of the hospital for a few days but wasn’t up to doing that much for himself yet, that she’d forgotten to get cash for tonight’s planned outing. Now, the oversight rectified, she was looking forward to a pleasant evening out with her friends. A few adult beverages, a little music, a lot of dancing, and by tomorrow, she should be back to her old, cheerful self again.
A sudden screech and the crunch of metal colliding with metal drew the attention of everyone on the street; an accident had just occurred down at the other end of the block, and two men were climbing out of their cars, one of them obviously inebriated. Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, preparing to call 911 and report the accident. Her eyes on the small device’s keypad, she did not see the figure moving through the shadows toward her.
When one of her friends glanced back, wondering what was taking Kate so long to join them, the only thing left on the empty street was that cell phone, lying open on the sidewalk. Kate was gone.
--
At first, Gibbs wasn’t sure what brought him out of the light doze he was in, lying under his boat’s shell, and then his ears focused on the sound of the newscaster’s voice coming from his television. “..abducted off a Georgetown street less than two hours ago. Witnesses said Todd was rejoining her friends after going to use a First Bank ATM just down the street from the Baseline nightclub when bystanders were distracted by a car accident. Todd was apparently abducted when attention was drawn to the collision. Anyone who has any information regarding this missing woman is encouraged to immediately call the Georgetown Police Department at…”
He was on his feet immediately, staring in shock at the image of a smiling Kate on his television, the word ABDUCTED plastered in screaming capitals across the bottom of the photograph. His brain engaged about two seconds after the newscaster repeated the Georgetown P.D.’s phone number, and he reached for his cell phone. It rang just as he laid his hand on it, and he flipped it open. “Gibbs.”
“Boss, are you watching the news?” Tim’s voice greeted him. “They’re saying –”
“Yeah, I just saw it. Meet me at the scene. Call Abby and get her into her lab.”
“On my way,” Tim replied, hanging up even before Gibbs did. Gibbs headed up the stairs at a run, and was climbing into his truck when his phone rang again.
He flipped it open as he started the engine. “Yeah, Gibbs.”
“Boss, did you just see the news?”
“Yeah, DiNozzo. We’re handling it.”
“I’m on my way down to Georgetown P.D. to get copies of everything they have.” Gibbs heard the sound of Tony’s car starting in the background.
“You get your ass back on the couch,” Gibbs snapped. “You’re not up for this, and I don’t have time to coddle you in the field.”
“Screw that,” Tony snapped back. “Do you know what Kate spent all day today doing? She was running errands and doing stuff for me because I’m laid up and can’t even get down to the freaking cleaners. I’m not sitting on the couch and watching the TV while they re-run a missing person’s report every thirty minutes and just wondering if she’s okay.”
Gibbs was silent for a moment, then finally nodded. “All right,” he said, “but you remember what I said. I don’t have time to coddle you in the field.”
“It’s a damn good thing,” Tony replied, “because that would really piss me off.” He hung up, and Gibbs shook his head as he gunned toward Georgetown as fast as he could drive.
--
Kate struggled through a thick fog to open her eyes, and when she was finally able to do so, looked blearily around at her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see; she was cuffed hand and foot to what felt like a wooden chair, blindfolded, and her head was covered with a burlap sack. There was a gag in her mouth which, thankfully, seemed to be clean.
Her shoes were gone, though fortunately she still retained the rest of her clothing, but she had no way of telling if her identification and money were still in her pocket or not. She sighed, wondering when her captors would come let her in on the situation. Hopefully it would be before she peed on herself or died of boredom.
She strained her ears, listening, but could hear nothing of her surroundings outside the closet, not even a television or movement. She wondered if she was completely alone in whatever building she might be in. Where was she? Did Gibbs know she was missing yet? Surely he did; her friends would have notified the police immediately, even if they didn’t think to call Gibbs themselves.
The big question was: who had her, and why? They didn’t have a current case, though there was no telling what old or cold case this could be related to; Kate couldn’t even begin to make a reasonable guess. All she could do was wait.
What felt like hours later, though it could have been mere minutes, Kate heard at least three sets of footsteps approaching her. She readied her best “I’m not scared of you” face, and when the bag was removed from her head, she gave it to anyone and everyone who might be around her. No words were spoken; she had no warning before she was viciously punched in the nose. She felt the blood gush out, and a moment later heard the distinctive snap-whir of a Polaroid camera. Then the bag was replaced, and the same footsteps receded into the distance.
Shocked and bewildered, Kate’s mind spun. The reason for the photograph was obvious; whoever they were, they were providing proof that they had her and that she was still alive. The reason for the blow, too, was obvious; they wanted whoever received the photograph to think that she was being tortured. But who the hell were they?
With the silence around her providing no insight, Kate had no option but to sit there and wait, and pray that Gibbs would find her before things got any nastier.
--
The photograph was delivered to NCIS by a bicycle courier who insisted that he’d been stopped on the street and given two hundred dollars in cash to deliver an envelope he was handed. He described the man who’d given it to him as Caucasian, medium height, medium weight, brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in blue track pants and a white tee shirt. Anyone on the street, in other words. McGee hacked into the traffic cam system and confirmed the courier’s story; unfortunately the man in question had covered his face with a baseball cap and sunglasses, and kept it turned carefully away from the traffic camera. He was a dead end.
Gibbs stared at the photograph for several long minutes, sitting at his desk, his jaw tense. Kate, in a halter top and white jeans, gagged and blindfolded and handcuffed to a chair in front of a blank wall, her nose dripping blood and with who knew what other injuries. Her clothing was undamaged, which led Gibbs to hope that she’d not been raped, but who knew what might have been done to her in the intervening hours between the time the photograph was taken and the time it was delivered?
There were no fingerprints on the photograph itself, and only the courier’s on the envelope, and the only correspondence included with the photograph had been three words written in black ink on the picture’s wide bottom border: “wait for instructions.”
Gibbs didn’t do waiting well.
It was an hour after sunrise when the promised instructions finally came. Be at the Lincoln Memorial at 10:30 sharp, read the note, brought by another bewildered courier. You will receive further instructions at that time.
With Tim standing next to him, and Tony and the director watching from MTAC, Gibbs went to the Lincoln Memorial. He stood on the steps, looking out over the National Mall, and he waited. At exactly 10:30, a ringing sound came to them from their left. They followed the sound and, behind a pillar, found a plain black cell phone. Gibbs picked it up and flipped it open. “Gibbs.”
“Good morning, Agent Gibbs,” said a slightly accented man’s voice.
“Where’s my agent?” Gibbs demanded.
“Patience, my good Agent,” came the reply. “She is safe. For now.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“I hardly think that’s necessary.”
“Let me talk to her,” Gibbs replied, “or I’ll assume she’s already dead and I’ll hang the phone up right now.”
“Oh, very well. You’ll have to hold on a moment.”
--
The footsteps that came this time were only one set, and Kate harbored some hope that perhaps now she might get some answers – or at least some taunts. Anything, really, would be better than the near-sensory deprivation she was being currently kept in. The bag came off her head and the gag was removed, though the blindfold was not, and something cool and plastic was pressed against her ear. “Say hello to Agent Gibbs,” said a soft voice with a slight Germanic accent.
Aha; the ransom call. Kate kept her lips pressed tightly shut.
“Speak, woman,” the man’s voice said again, and Kate continued to refuse. With a soft sigh, the man spoke again. “You have only yourself to blame for this.” A bare instant later, her already-abused nose took a second whack; this time, she felt the crunch of cartilage and knew it was broken. She could not help herself; the pain made her cry out and gag, and then she heard the man’s voice again. “You see, Agent Gibbs? I told you it was not necessary. Your agent is well-trained, and does not comply with the demands of those she considers terrorists unless forced to. Now that lovely nose is quite broken, and why? Because you demanded to hear her voice. You have now heard it; are you quite pleased?”
--
“What do you want?” Gibbs demanded.
“World peace,” the man replied. “An end to hunger. The deposition of the Ayatollah in Iran. Oh, yes, and every bit of information that you have on Ari Haswari.”
Gibbs was silent for a long time. Finally he managed one word through the undeniable shock. “What?”
“You heard me, Agent Gibbs,” the man responded. “I want Haswari. I know you have been in contact with him. It’s been less than a year since it was he and not I who held the lovely Agent Todd hostage, has it not? I want him, and I want you to tell me everything you know about him.”
“When do you want it?” Gibbs replied.
“Bring it to the Museum of Natural History this afternoon at four-thirty,” the man replied. “Wait near the information desk. You will receive further instructions at that time.” The line went dead, and Gibbs cursed angrily.
--
The man snapped his cell phone shut but Kate ignored him, concentrating on breathing through her mouth and not gagging on the blood and the pain. With a soft tsk, the man left the room, returning again a few minutes later and kneeling down beside her. “That was unnecessary, you know,” he said softly. “I did not wish to harm you. Now this is going to hurt, badly, but if I don’t set it, you’ll end up with an ugly bump, and you don’t want that to spoil your pretty face, do you?” He replaced the gag in her mouth and then put a hand on her shoulder. “Brace yourself.”
When he pulled her nose straight, she screamed into the gag, unable to help herself. He waited a moment before taking it back out. “I will leave this out so that you may breathe,” he said softly. “However, if you attempt to make any noise and draw attention to yourself, I will put it back in and simply take the risk that you might suffocate. Do you understand?”
She nodded. He patted her shoulder. “Good. Now, let’s get this blood cleaned up.”
He cleaned her face carefully with what felt and smelled like baby wipes, and then he uncuffed one of her hands, placing a small bag into it. “Here,” he said. “Hold this against your face. The ice will bring the swelling down.”
She did so, and found that the coldness did, in fact, make her face feel a bit better. Now more confused than ever, she listened as her captor sat down, and wondered whether she risked engaging him in conversation. She bit her lip, finally deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, and almost jumped when he spoke again. “You may speak, if you wish,” he said softly. “I will not harm you again unless you force me to.”
“Why?” she asked finally.
“Why what?” he replied. “Why will I not harm you? Because none of this is your fault. There is no reason for me to harm you. You have nothing that I want, outside of your connection to Haswari.”
“What do you want with him?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“I am afraid that is none of your concern,” he replied. “Besides, the less you know, the safer you are.”
She had to scoff at that, and he laughed softly. “Yes, Agent Todd, I can appreciate the irony. However, it is true. And I assure you that, had you spoken when I asked you to, you would have received no injury more severe than the bloody nose you received earlier.” He clucked at her. “Does it hurt badly?”
“You broke my nose,” Kate replied, acid in her voice, though it came out sounding more like You boke by dose. “What do you think?”
“Ah. Silly question, then.” He stood and left the room. Kate risked raising her blindfold for just a moment, and was disappointed to find herself in an almost featureless room, empty but for the chair she sat in and the other one, where he had been sitting. There was a closet standing open at one end of the room, empty, and at the other end there was a window over which a sheet of plywood had been nailed. She pulled the blindfold down again when she heard his footsteps returning.
“Here,” he said softly, taking the ice pack away and placing two capsules in her hand. “This is Tylenol.”
She sat there holding the capsules for a long moment, and finally extended her hand. “No, thank you.”
He sighed. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “Take the blindfold off and look. You may as well; you’ve already had it off while I’ve been gone.”
She obeyed, lifting the fabric over her head and tossing it onto the floor. Her captor was tall, broad shouldered, and covered from head to foot in unrelieved black. All she could see of him were his mouth and his glittering eyes and the pale skin beneath them, through the holes in his ski mask. She looked down at the capsules in her hand, which were indeed stamped with the Tylenol trademark. Sighing, she popped them in her mouth, swallowing them dry. Then she replaced the ice pack on her face. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re quite welcome,” he replied. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”
She glared at him over the ice pack, and he chuckled. “You do have spirit, don’t you, Agent Todd? This is going to be an amusing experience.”
“I’m so glad you think so,” Kate replied snappishly, peeved when it sounded like I’b so glad you thig so.
“Now, now,” the man replied. “If you’re going to be sarcastic and unpleasant, I’ll replace the gag.”
Kate slumped sullenly in her chair, and the man chuckled and stood. “Well,” he said, “I’ve got quite a few things I must take care of before we can leave this place. I had better get to it.” He patted her shoulder again. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, then chuckled as he left the room.
--
At four-thirty, Gibbs was standing about ten feet away from the information desk at the Museum of Natural History, glaring at an informational sign. Tim was not far away, watching closely, and once again, Tony was back in MTAC, focusing on breathing and not passing out with the director watching.
A teenage girl wearing a backpack walked up to Gibbs. “Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Agent Gibbs?”
He nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“This guy says you have some papers and I’m supposed to get them.”
He blinked, staring at her. “You are?”
She shrugged. “Look, Mister, I don’t care what you’re doing, okay? I just want a new iPod, and this dude said he’d give me a hundred bucks. So just gimme the papers, would you?”
“Did he say anything besides that I should give you the papers?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Gimme the papers and I’ll tell you.”
Suspicious, Gibbs reached into his jacket and handed the girl a manila folder. She stuck it into her backpack without even looking at it. “He said you’ll get your package after he gets his. Same place as this morning, same time tomorrow.” She turned, heading away as quickly as she could.
“Tim,” Gibbs said, and Tim stepped out of his hidden observatory, following the girl. It wasn’t hard; she walked straight up 10th Street to G, turned left, and headed into Metro Center. There she walked straight up to a bank of lockers, opened one, inserted the file and removed an envelope. Tim watched her open the envelope, pocket a handful of bills, and toss the envelope back into the locker before shutting it again. Then she paused, reopened the locker, and stuck the key inside. Shutting it again, she turned to go.
Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in an interrogation room at NCIS, crying and waiting for her father to arrive so that she could be questioned.
When he arrived, the girl’s father turned out to be a fairly high-ranking Senator’s aide, furious and embarrassed beyond belief. “Where was your head?” he exploded at his daughter as she explained her part in the situation. “You know better than that! My God, Cherie, how many espionage movies have you and I watched together? What if they’d been trading state secrets? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have been in?” He paused, staring down at her. “For that matter, do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”
A few hours later, as the sun was setting, Cherie’s father took her home. Assured that Cherie’s name would not come up in any public discussion of the incident – after all, she may have been an idiot, but she was still basically a kid – he had asked Gibbs to keep him informed about the investigation and to let him know if there was anything at all he or the Senator he worked for could do to help.
With no leads – the cell phone that morning had been completely clean, the one the abductor had called from had either been turned off or destroyed, and no one yet had attempted to access the locker Cherie had left the papers in – there was nothing for Gibbs to do but wait and hope.
He sat down at his desk, stared out into the deepening Washington night, and tried very hard not to look at Kate’s empty desk. His thoughts turned to Ari Haswari, the smirking Mossad bastard, and he growled low under his breath. “You’ll pay for this,” he whispered to the double agent’s specter. I swear to God, you will pay for this.”
Chapter One
Chapter Three
