Chapter Four

“He’s on a ventilator.”

Ducky’s words echoed between them, the car filling with the words, deafening in the silence. Gibbs drove even faster than usual, the surroundings becoming a blur outside the window. His face was set, white, his thoughts traveling dangerously away from his driving, to Tony.

“They’ve confirmed the pneumonia,” Ducky said. “They’re not giving him great odds.”

“He’s not going to die,” Gibbs snapped, shutting the phone, unable to hear more but at the same time instantly regretting it – he wanted to know more about Tony, wanted to hear every detail.

Gibbs wondered if he was doing the wrong thing in chasing after the bad guys. Perhaps he was. Time was precious, and perhaps he ought to be spending it by Tony’s side, saying the things he should have said long ago. But he couldn’t just sit there, couldn’t sit still beside Tony and wait to see if he would live or die. He had to do something, lest he go crazy.

Civilization turned into the national park, trees and green bushes everywhere, stretching out before them, beautiful in the early morning, had they only taken the time to look. They didn’t, their minds set on their task at hand.

Abby supplied them with the coordinates for where the ambulance helicopter had found them and picked them up; a clearing right next to the river.

“They also found Rosenberg’s car,” Abby said. “It was abandoned at one of the roads leading into the national park. They’re bringing it to me now, but they’ve already found bloody clothes in the trunk.”

“Male or female?” Gibbs asked.

“Male,” Abby said.

Gibbs hung up and kept walking, Ziva beside him and McGee behind him. It took them two hours to reach the spot where the helicopter had collected Ziva and Tony.

Gibbs stared at the cliff over which Tony had fallen. It was easily a thirty foot drop. The water flowed beneath it, not quite rushing down but at the same time far from calm. It was deep in places and shallow in others, and a part of Gibbs knew Tony had been lucky to land in a deep section – he would likely have died if he had struck a shallow point, with rocks sticking up here and there. Not that he might not die anyway.

“The last shot came from over there,” Ziva said, pointing to Gibb’s right. “I did not see anyone when I reached the cliff – perhaps they crossed the river, but it was dark.”

“I would’ve crossed the river,” Gibbs said. “It leaves no traces.”

“Boss!” called McGee from his point a bit higher up on the cliff. “There’s blood here.”

Gibbs hurried up, Ziva running behind him.

The blood had splattered in a way that Gibbs recognized as consistent with a gunshot, possibly to the leg.

“Might be animal blood,” Ziva said.

“Or maybe one of you hit the bastard last night,” Gibbs said. “You did shoot at them?”

“Yes,” Ziva said. “Two of the officers had some sort of night-vision aids. When I spoke to them afterwards – when we were trying to get warm – they said they thought they had heard screaming, but were unsure. It was a bit chaotic.”

Gibbs nodded. “McGee, bag it.”

As they stumbled down the side of the cliff, Gibbs’ imagination ran wild as he saw the night before in his mind’s eye; Ziva running down the side of the mountain, Tony gasping for air, coughing as he broke the surface, his clothes soaked, his body already ill and freezing—

They found traces of blood on the ground, the leaves barely moved since the night before, except where Ziva had ran down the hillside. The others hadn’t been up on the cliff at all, but had trekked through the trees straight to the point where Ziva had gone into the water.

Gibbs caught Ziva staring at the clearing where the helicopter had picked them up. Suddenly feeling the need to tell her she had done well, perhaps mostly because he knew that it might be too late for him to tell Tony the same thing – his heart tightened painfully at the thought – he placed a hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him, dark eyes warm but hurting. They didn’t need words.

“The blood trail ends here,” McGee said, looking across the river. He was a bit further down than Ziva and Gibbs, and Gibbs noted that the water looked shallower there.

“They probably walked for a while in the water,” Gibbs said.

“How far would he be able to walk if he’d been shot?” McGee asked, sounding rather doubtful.

“We are assuming it is Rosenberg that was hit,” Ziva said. “It could be the woman.”

“Reed?” McGee asked. “If she’s not here by her own free will, it seems like a leap to think that Rosenberg would bring her when he came to shoot at you.”

“We do not know if she is here by her own free will or not,” Ziva said.

“She made the phone call,” McGee said. He sighed, and asked again, “How far would he or she be able to walk with a gunshot wound?”

“It depends on where he was shot,” Ziva said. “The blood loss indicates that he was not hit in any major artery.”

“You’d be surprised with what people can survive with and walk around with,” Gibbs said, and he tried not to let his mind return to Tony and the scarred lungs he worked with every day. Gibbs had failed to protect him once – and this time, he had forced Tony out into the woods.

He could hear Ducky’s calm voice in his head – “You did not force him – he has a will of his own. Quite a strong one, too, just like someone else I know.”

“Both of you go over to the other side and find where the trace continues,” Gibbs said. “I’ll take this side.”

They headed off, though McGee looked none too happy about having to wade in the cold water.

Abby’s call was a welcome interruption as Gibbs made his way down the side of the river, eyes roaming for a hint of blood.

“I’ve been going over Rosenberg/Williams computer,” she said, “and I found something.”

“You wouldn’t have called me otherwise, Abs,” Gibbs said.

“Well, that’s true,” Abby said, pondering it for a moment. “Anyway. He has several email accounts.”

“He has several identities, Abby,” Gibbs said. “Why does it matter?”

“It matters,” Abby said, “because he used them to try to get to Callahan. She kept blocking him, but he added her with new addresses. He sounds insane, Gibbs! He wanted her to leave her husband and run away with him.”

“Was this before or after he conned money off her?” Gibbs asked.

“After,” Abby said, “like, just three weeks ago. They hadn’t been chatting in over four months. But all of a sudden, he was back, and he wanted her, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’s threatening to kill her and everything.”

“But what does Reed have to do with it?” Gibbs asked.

“As far as I can see, nothing,” Abby said. “She might’ve just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. They were friends, she happened to be there—”

Gibbs nodded to himself. “Thanks, Abs.”

Thoughtfully, he kept searching for the blood trail’s continuation.

A good hour and a half had passed when McGee’s voice traveled over the radio.

“I think I’ve got it, boss,” said the raspy, static voice.

“Where are you?” Gibbs asked, not bothering to ask if McGee was certain. He would not have said anything unless he had been fairly convinced that the blood was human and fresh, the pattern of the blood consistent with dripping down a leg or arm. Gibbs assumed the injury was in a leg or arm, because in the head, they would have found a body long ago, and in the upper body, he – or she – would not have made it that far.

“Five minutes into the woods from the river,” McGee replied, “Ziva, you can just head straight into the woods and you’ll be coming towards me.”

Ziva had taken the land right by the river while McGee had covered the land a bit further away from it. Ziva waited as Gibbs crossed the river. He tried not to think about just how cold it was, even when he barely stepped in it. His thoughts traveled straight back to Tony.

McGee stood bent over the blood trace he had found, and Gibbs had to agree – it looked like the same kind of dripping that they had found on the other side of the river. It would not surprise Gibbs if the wound had stopped bleeding so much, temporarily, when it had been submerged in cold water for the ten minutes it must have taken to trek to this point.

“It continues over here,” McGee said. “They didn’t bother covering it up.”

“They were too busy getting away,” Gibbs said. “They had no way of knowing if Tony was seriously injured or not, and I’m sure they were even more anxious when they heard the helicopter approaching.”

“And there’s this too,” McGee said, pointing at a golden bracelet with tiny charms hanging off it.

“Reed’s?” asked Ziva.

“If it’s not, then it’s a kinda odd coincidence that it’s just two feet away from the blood trail,” McGee said.

The three continued deeper into the woods, following the trail. It grew easier and easier to spot; the person bleeding must have been moving slower. Here and there, they found more signs of a female – an unused tampon in its plastic casing that had been dropped, a silver earring and a red lipstick.

They found a small clearing where burnt wood told them that someone had started a fire there not long ago. There was a pool of blood soaking the leaves on the ground, and the soil was wet, despite there having been no rain in several days, and the surrounding dirt being dry.

“He – or they – must have stopped here for a while,” Ziva said. “Perhaps she was waiting for him here.”

“If she wasn’t here of her own free will, why would she wait for him?” McGee asked.

“Because she does not know how to survive out here long enough to find her way out,” Ziva said. “He could be her captor, but also her only way out.”

“Or she’s with him,” McGee said.

“We don’t assume anything,” Gibbs said. “If we find either, we treat them as guilty until proven otherwise.”

McGee and Ziva both nodded.

“With this much blood loss, one of them will be less dangerous, at least,” Ziva said.

Then a shot rang out, and she stumbled back, her hand going instinctively to her shoulder. She didn’t scream, but she lay writhing on the ground.

Gibbs had his gun out before McGee even had time to realize what was happening. Gibbs eyes searched the area quickly, gauging the location where the shooter must be hiding to be able to hit Ziva the way she had.

“Hide her,” Gibbs growled to McGee, who reacted instantly and dragged Ziva away, half-carrying her.

Gibbs moved into the bushes too, where he knew it was less likely the shooter would see him. He moved with the stealth one acquires after years of sniper training, with no sound as his feet moved over the ground, eyes trained steadily on the spot where he knew the shooter sat. There had been no rustling of the leaves, no sign of him moving. Gibbs reminded himself that the guy had been a military sniper, that he had the same training as he did, and he might be as good at sneaking quietly as he was.

Never underestimate your opponent, Gibbs reminded himself.

He sneaked around in an extended circle, hoping to catch the guy from behind.

“No, you don’t, Mister Agent,” said a male behind him, and he felt the barrel of a gun in his back.

Gibbs had faced life or death situations before, but there had only been a few occasions when he had wanted so badly to maim and kill the perpetrator. His wife and daughter’s killer was one of them; the CEO who had poisoned Tony was another. Now he felt the same urge returning, increasing tenfold as he thought of his sick senior field agent in Bethesda, fear and worry making him see red with fury.

He kicked back, his boot-clad foot connecting with the man’s lower leg, and he was awarded with a howl of pain. A shot rang off, going wild, not even close to Gibbs, who turned and fired his own gun twice on the perpetrator – once in his shoulder, the other one in his thigh.

He would not allow this bastard to die out here; it was far too painless.

“Marcus Williams, I presume,” Gibbs growled at him. He turned the man over, ignoring the scream of pain that emerged from the man, and placed handcuffs around his wrists. “You are under arrest for the murder of Marie Callahan. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”

When he had finished reading the Miranda rights to the bastard, Gibbs left him. With his shoulder and thigh shot, one leg injured from Gibbs’ kick and the other leg already holding one bullet from the night before – Gibbs saw the amateurish way it had been wrapped in what looked like a shirt – and his wrists handcuffed together, Marcus Williams wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Ziva was pale when Gibbs found her and McGee sitting by a tree trunk behind a bush not far from where she had been shot.

“Did you catch him?” Ziva asked, wincing.

Gibbs nodded.

“I called 911,” McGee said. “They’re dispatching a helicopter. I think they were a bit surprised that we needed one twelve hours after the first one.”

Ziva gave Gibbs a pained smile. “Did you find Reed?”

“No, but if the two of you just stay here – and McGee, I want you to keep that gun – I will go find her,” Gibbs said.

Both his agents nodded. McGee’s hand was pressing against Ziva’s shoulder, her upper body resting against his as he leaned back against a tree trunk. She hissed every time he moved, but there seemed to be little Gibbs could do to help.

He walked past the spot where Rosenberg/Williams was lying, still writhing in pain. Gibbs held back a satisfied smile – Rosenberg’s pain wouldn’t lessen Tony’s illness.

He found Reed about ten minutes later, hiding behind a bush. There were cuts and bruises on her face and her wrists were bound behind her back. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and they seemed far too light for the chilly weather. She shrank back when Gibbs approached and he knew that she had not gone into the national park by free will.

Gibbs approached with the care he would a wild animal.

“Mrs. Reed?” he asked.

She stared at him as though she did not believe her eyes.

“I’m Special Agent Gibbs of NCIS,” Gibbs said, and he showed his badge to her. “I’m here to take you home.”

Fifteen minutes later, when he heard the flapping of helicopter rotor blades, Gibbs led Annie Reed to the waiting medical personnel. They had already placed Ziva on a gurney and McGee had been seated next to her. Gibbs led two of the medics to Marcus Williams, and he didn’t watch as they took care of him, refraining from telling them that they could be rough.

Someone else would have to retrieve his car, Gibbs thought as he sat down in the helicopter, to be taken to Bethesda.

Bile rose in his throat as he thought of Tony – what kind of news waited for him at the hospital?

Tony looked worse than he had three years ago, when the Y. Pestis had been running rampant in his body. Gibbs would have thought it impossible, but apparently it wasn’t. Dark hollows around his eyes and his skin tinted blue, with a sheen of sweat from the raging fever. There was a tube down his throat, the ventilator, helping him breathe, making hissing sounds with each mechanical breath in and out.

Gibbs hardly dared to touch him. It seemed as though a simple squeeze of Tony’s hand might break him, send him over the edge, kill him. It was already Gibbs’ fault that Tony was in the hospital – he didn’t want to be the final weight that did him in.

“You may touch him, you know,” Ducky said over the speakers. He stood outside the large windows that separated the clean room from the rest of the hospital. 

Gibbs did not look at him, but nodded, a short, curt nod.

“I will be staying with Ziva,” Ducky said. “They told me it was a through-and-through, but there was some blood loss and they’ll be keeping her overnight, to see that it doesn’t get infected or cause any other trouble.”

“See to it that she stays,” Gibbs said, his voice rough. “She might want to discharge herself.”

“I will,” Ducky said.

He left, and Gibbs stood alone with Tony, both bathed in the blue light of the lamps overhead. Gibbs hated those blue lamps with a passion; they had never meant anything good for him, and even less so for Tony.

He reached out and hesitantly took Tony’s hand in both his own. This time, a head slap wouldn’t help, and a new phone wouldn’t be appreciated. Tony was unconscious, although Gibbs didn’t remember whether that was because of the illness or because the doctors had drugged him up, and it didn’t matter much to him. All it meant was that Tony’s hand was limp and heavy as he picked it up.

Gibbs squeezed Tony’s hand nonetheless, carefully, afraid to break him. It felt so wrong – Tony wasn’t supposed to be like this. Gibbs had never known anyone else who was so full of life. Tony radiated energy, usually with that gorgeous smile of his, lighting up the day even though Gibbs pretended not to notice.

He wondered just when he had fallen – when had that beaming face, those silly movie references, and the exciting darkness that Tony had just beyond the façade he put up, become what Gibbs looked forward to meeting every morning?

What would Gibbs do without him?

He pulled a chair up to the bed. It was metallic, unlike the wooden chairs in the regular rooms, probably because they were easier to keep clean. Gibbs had been forced to shower and change in the adjacent changing room, and he wore thin blue clothes supplied by the hospital that felt more like plastic than cloth. They weren’t for his protection, but for Tony’s.

He thought about Rosenberg/Williams, who was in the same hospital, chained to a bed, with a police officer standing guard by the door. Gibbs had yet to go down there; he feared he would kill the bastard if he saw him. He had shot at two of his agents – hitting one – and he was the reason why Tony had fallen off the cliff. He deserved nothing less than torture.

The bullets Gibbs had put in his shoulder and leg should provide some pain, although Gibbs felt like he could have kept going for a while longer, especially after seeing Tony.

“We got him at least,” Gibbs muttered. “He shot Ziva – but don’t worry about her, she’s tough.”

He fell silent, feeling silly about talking to someone who couldn’t hear him. Then again, perhaps that was the best time to talk – he could say the things he would never say if Tony was awake.

There were a lot of things to say.

Tony hurt.

He floated in a feverish haze, colors swirling around him, mixing and mismatching, his body angry red and burning. It felt as though he was submerged under water; he couldn’t breathe. There was darkness beyond the colors, and it pulled at him, the pain lessening when he floated there.

But on the other side was light – hurting light, but light nonetheless, white hot pain that he did not want to go near, and yet it beckoned him. Amidst the pain was comfort, warmth that did not hurt. A voice, speaking to him, low words mumbled to him, sending warm pulses through him, taking away some of the aches. He knew that voice, knew who was speaking, and he wanted to go there, to give comfort back, but he couldn’t make himself. It was like a wall, stopping him from returning to his own body.

It didn’t matter. He listened to the words without understanding them, hearing only their tones and the soothing they brought. He knew the words were good, that the person who spoke was good. Someone to trust, someone to stay for. Someone who was worth all the pain.

Tim didn’t quite know what to do with himself. He sat by Ziva’s bed – she had finally fallen asleep, after the doctor prescribed her a light sedative to keep her from getting out of bed and running over to Tony’s room. The doctor had told her that she shouldn’t be aggravating her injury, which had been sewn up and wrapped up in gauze. There had been some tearing of the muscle, and she would likely need physical therapy, but she had been very lucky. A little further down to the right, and she would have been history.

Tim who, unlike his teammates, had managed to avoid injuries in the last twenty-four hours, sat indecisively and watched Ziva sleep. Should he go see Tony? Would Tony want him there? Would it matter what Tony wanted – Ducky had said that he had been sedated, too. Did Tim want to see Tony that way?

He remembered, far too vividly, what Tony had looked like the last time, when he had had the pneumonic plague. He had been to Bethesda only a few times, because he could not stand seeing Tony so sick. Tony hadn’t noticed much; he had mostly slept and coughed. He had lost weight in those weeks – unsurprisingly, considering that Tim had not seen Tony eat once in the time he had been in Bethesda.

Once he came back, Tony had looked like the living dead – and then he had proceeded to save Tim’s life by nearly getting blown up. That had scared Tim; both a fear for his own life, and Tony’s. He had kept Tony on a slight pedestal, not nearly as far up as Gibbs, but still – he had not thought Tony to be mortal. Those weeks around Kate’s death had been a wakeup call for such thoughts.

Perhaps he should go take Annie Reed’s statement. She should be patched up by now, at least enough to talk to an agent such as himself.

He stood, satisfied with having come up with something to do that did not involve thinking of Tony.

Before he left, he bent forward and placed a kiss on Ziva’s temple. He doubted she would ever allow him such a show of emotion when she was awake, which meant that he had to grab the opportunity when she was sedated.

Gibbs slept and stayed in the clean room for as much of the twenty-four hours of the day as the doctors would allow him, leaving only for food, which he couldn’t bring into the clean room, and toilet breaks. The doctors had quickly learned that there was no point in trying to get him to leave at any other time.

When Ziva was discharged after a night’s observation – Ducky told Gibbs she had only slept after sedatives had been administered – she was wheeled to Tony’s room rather than the exit. Her arm was in a sling and she looked annoyed that she was being pushed around in a wheelchair.

The annoyance melted away from her face as soon as she saw Tony. Gibbs had to remind himself that she had not been around when Tony had first been sick – she had become a part of the team a couple of weeks later. She had not seen the damage the Plague had done then.

She was thoroughly cleaned, a nurse helping her redress the wound with fresh, sterile bandages.

“I did not think—” she started when the doors had closed behind her, “I did not imagine this.”

“I don’t think anyone can imagine this,” Gibbs said. “Least of all twice.”

“Was he like this the last time?” Ziva asked.

“They didn’t have to intubate him,” Gibbs said. “But yeah. It was like this.”

He stood, offering his chair for her to sit and she did, looking pale and drawn. Her eyes traveled back and forth over Tony’s still body, taking in the machines that Gibbs had been staring at for the last eighteen hours, since they had come to Bethesda.

“I shouldn’t have made him take that watch,” Ziva said. “I saw that he was unwell and I—”

“I was the one who made him go,” Gibbs interrupted her.

She looked at him, and he saw guilt in her eyes, just as he assumed she saw guilt in his. He bore a heavier load of it, though – he was Tony’s boss, and he had been around the last time. He should have known better.

“McGee spoke to Reed,” Ziva said, her gaze still on Tony, as though expecting him to jump up and laugh and make some obscure film reference at any given moment.

“What did she say?”

“That Rosenberg is insane,” Ziva said. “He killed Callahan because she wouldn’t leave her husband for him, and when Reed happened to be there – she was coming to pick Callahan up for a three-day spa-trip, he then tried to frame Reed. He threatened her with a gun and told her to take the knife, otherwise she’d die too.”

“He cut his hair to look different,” Gibbs said, “and then decided he needed a hostage?”

“He hadn’t planned on her being there when he killed Callahan,” Ziva said, “But yes. Rosenberg got spooked when a car came around out front – we think it was the neighbor who came home – and he decided to take her along with him.”

“Why the national park?” Gibbs asked, frowning.

“He wanted Reed to disappear, so that she would be blamed for Callahan’s murder,” Ziva said. “She thinks he was going to kill her in the woods so that her remains would not be found—”

She broke off suddenly, having caught the same change as Gibbs.

Tony was moving.

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