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Gibbs stared down the sight of his rifle at the drug lord responsible for his wife and child's murder. He wanted so badly to pull the trigger and end the guy's life right here. In another life, he knew he would have, but not today.
Today, he watched the authorities arrest Hernandez. Justice would come in the form of jail this time. Gibbs continued to watch as Hernandez was taking away before packing up his rifle and returning to the US.
Mexican jails weren’t pretty and Gibbs was pretty sure Hernandez wouldn’t be bothering them again. He returned to NCIS and Franks. Neither of them mentioned his little field trip. It was like it hadn’t happened.
Years passed and seasons changed. It was springtime now about fifteen years later. Franks had retired and Gibbs had recruited a young man, Anthony DiNozzo, over to NCIS from the Baltimore PD.
Fornell stood in front of his desk. “Pedro Hernandez has escaped.”
Tony glanced up at that, having been doing his best to ignore the Feeb. “Who’s that?”
“Someone who should have died in prison years ago,” Gibbs retorted bitterly.
“He’s targeting you?”
“Who knows.” Turning to Fornell, Gibbs growled, “Is that all or do you have more bad news to impart?”
Fornell shook his head. “That’s it. You know where to find me if you need anything.”
Gibbs just grunted.
Tony watched Fornell leave before turning to Gibbs, “What’s really going on here, Gibbs?”
“We better figure that out. Treat it like any other case, DiNozzo.”
“Right, boss. Background on the suspect, got it.”
Gibbs nodded, “Going for coffee.”
Tony pulled up the NCIS file on Pedro Hernandez, pausing when he realized that Gibbs was all over this file. No wonder, they’d notified Gibbs. He was the main reason that Hernandez had gone to prison.
After Gibbs’ wife and child were murdered, Gibbs had been the one to find the key piece of evidence that proved Hernandez did it. He was directly responsible for the man going to prison. No doubt, Hernandez would be coming after him now.
The only question was... Was he coming only for revenge for being put in prison or was he coming to finish off the original job? While Gibbs had proven that Hernandez had killed his wife and daughter, they’d never gotten a confession and the question of why had never been answered. Oh, the case file had notes that Shannon had seen something and got on his radar by agreeing to testify against the drug lord, but something about that felt off to Tony and Gibbs as well if his notes were anything to go by.
Tony dug into the original case, taking in all the information available. It seemed Shannon had been the only material witness, but there had been evidence when Gibbs checked the alley where she’d originally witnessed the Marine’s death and even at the car crash. Gibbs had then managed to link Hernandez to a half dozen other murders that would have been advantageous for the drug lord.
Tony made a summary of his findings and placed it on Gibbs’ desk for when he returned. So far he didn’t find anything about what the original job had actually been that Shannon had stumbled upon. He was attempting to pull up background on Hernandez, right now, but given the guy lived in Mexico it wasn’t easy to find useful information on him.
Every time Tony thought he had found a lead, it would dead end. It was driving him bonkers. Tony couldn’t help wondering if Gibbs had any knowledge about the original job as he was the one to find the evidence in the NCIS file.
Tony nodded at Gibbs’ desk when the guy returned with his coffee. He hadn’t brought any coffee for Tony, which was kind of annoying, but also pretty normal. Tony tried to not let it bother him. After all, everyone knew Gibbs was a bastard.
Gibbs glanced through the summary quickly before spearing Tony with his gaze. “Anything new?”
“Not yet, boss. Couldn’t find anything about the original job Shannon and Kelly witnessed. Do you know anything?”
Gibbs shook his head slightly. He’d had a terrible time finding the information he had found. It had bothered him at the time that he couldn’t find any information about the original hit that Shannon and Kelly witnessed, especially when some of the evidence that he did find was so easy to link to Hernandez.
Now, he couldn’t help feeling like that original job was the key to everything. He didn’t even know if the job was completed or interrupted. “Focus on finding out anything you can on the original job, DiNozzo,” Gibbs barked.
“On it, boss.”
After two days of pouring over every bit of information about Hernandez and even what Shannon and Kelly had been doing that had led to them witnessing the hit, neither Tony nor Gibbs could find any information on the original job. With a snarl of frustration, Gibbs ordered, “Go home. We’ll pick this up at 9am tomorrow.”
Tony nodded, immediately packing his things and heading for the stairs. He wanted out of there as soon as possible and didn’t care if that meant he incurred a little extra physical pain. Gibbs hung around the office for another hour or two before finally heading home, himself.
The next day, he got pulled into the director’s office before he’d even made it to the bullpen. So he didn’t notice until the day was halfway over that Tony had never shown up for work. That wasn’t like DiNozzo.
Gibbs immediately climbed into his car and zipped over to Tony’s apartment. The door was ajar. The place trashed.
Blood. There was blood on the floor. Gibbs really hoped that it wasn’t Tony’s. With a sigh, he called it in. As much as he wanted to find Tony himself he knew there was too much here for him to sort through on his own.
Gibbs nodded to Balboa and his team as they joined him in Tony’s apartment. Gibbs had been carefully looking over the scene while he waited for an NCIS team to arrive. So far he hadn’t found anything that told him who took Tony or where Tony would have been taken to.
“You know you can’t work this scene?” Balboa smiled apologetically at Gibbs.
Gibbs shrugged. “Just keep me in the loop,” he ordered as he left Tony’s apartment.
There wasn’t anything more to be found there until Abby had a chance to go through the evidence. Gibbs’ gut said that Hernandez had Tony, but why and where. Tony wasn’t even involved in the original case.
Gibbs considered returning to NCIS, but knew there was nothing to be found there and he would only be besieged by well wishers commiserating over the loss of DiNozzo. No, he would go home for now. Maybe Hernandez had left something there to taunt him.
He wasn’t going to give up on Tony no matter what. Hernandez was his fault and he would make sure the guy went back to jail or worse. He didn’t want to deal with any well wishers who would possibly have already written Tony off in their heads. He knew DiNozzo never gave up without a fight and he would find Tony now, before it was too late. He had to.
Gibbs frowned as he entered his house. He could tell someone had been inside. Just because he left his door unlocked, didn’t mean that he didn’t know when someone else entered his house while he was gone.
The door being unlocked was there to prevent unnecessary damage to his house when idiots wanted to get in. With the alimony he paid to his ex, he couldn’t really afford to be replacing his door every time some criminal decided they were going to pull one over on the great Gibbs. This unfortunately happened more frequently than he thought it should, which is why he’d just taken to leaving his door unlocked. It had never deterred the criminals anyway and then he’d been out a door.
Gibbs checked the master bedroom. He never slept in there, but few criminals realized that and assumed that doing something there would hurt Gibbs the most. In reality, he told people he couldn’t sleep there because of Shannon, but it was really because he didn’t want to become attached to the room that was way too frequently targeted by someone who had decided Gibbs needed to pay.
He blinked in surprise when he realized the master bedroom hadn’t been touched. The first tendril of fear settled in around Gibbs’ heart. Hernandez had been watching him, or had others watching him, enough to know that the master bedroom didn’t matter.
This didn’t bode well for Tony or Gibbs. Gibbs headed back down to the main floor. Nothing had really been done there either.
It wasn’t his sanctuary, so anything done there wouldn’t really bother him. Anyone who visited usually hung out in the living room. However, that left only one place that Hernandez could have done anything, his basement.
Gibbs scowl deepened as he stared at the disaster that used to be his workshop and sanctuary. Someone had purposefully destroyed everything, leaving a very clear message that Tony being kidnapped wasn’t the end of this. Hernandez was definitely after Gibbs.
He called Balboa and left a message about the secondary crime scene and then proceeded to see if anything was missing. His breath caught as he noticed Shannon’s photo. Many an ex-wife had tried to destroy it, but Gibbs forfended it from all harm. Or at least, he tried to.
Not only had the glass protecting the photo been shattered, but an actual message left behind. You have three days. It didn’t say what would happen in three days, but Gibbs knew that couldn’t mean anything good.
On top of that the message had been written on the photo, marring it. Gibbs sighed. He would have to replace that photo again. Fortunately, he had plenty of copies, but first he really needed to find Tony.
Gibbs wasn’t worried about himself or what might happen to him in three days. No, he was worried that in three days, Tony would be dead or worse. Of course, if there were clues as to Tony’s whereabouts in here, Gibbs couldn’t find them either. With a growl, he returned to the living room to wait for Balboa, slamming his fist into the basement doorway in frustration.
Why couldn’t Hernandez have kidnapped him? He was the one who sent Hernandez to prison. He would be a lot happier if he were the one in trouble. He hadn’t been able to protect his girls and now he was in danger of not being able to protect Tony either.
Abby had immediately started a trace on Tony’s phone as soon as she found out he’d been captured, but it must have been turned off or something because they couldn’t get a location on it. Their three days were almost up when they finally found something to go on. Abby had finally managed to get a reading on Tony’s cellphone which was in the same area as some evidence that had been left in Gibbs’ house pointed to.
Gibbs immediately headed for the site, not bothering to wait for backup. He wasn’t going to take a chance on losing DiNozzo. The director cursed and sent Balboa’s team after Gibbs.
Gibbs arrived first, having driven like the speed demon he normally did, to find DiNozzo had mostly rescued himself. “Are you alright?”
“Just peachy. Hernandez is inside.” Tony nodded to the door.
“Secured?” Gibbs asked.
“Yeah. With his own chains.”
“You find out why he kidnapped you?”
“To hurt you and get something he wanted from you in exchange for me.”
“What do I have that he wants?”
“Apparently, Shannon took something from him or he thought she did that would be far more damaging to him than his arrest. He thought you would have it.”
Gibbs frowned, trying to think of what that could be. “I’ll have to look later. Maybe we can pin him for something more this time, but first let’s get you checked out.”
“I’m fine, boss.”
“We’ll let the paramedics be the judge of that.”
Tony rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest. Gibbs gestured Balboa and his team inside and explained to Balboa what Tony had reported. They would still need to take Tony’s statement, but that could wait for now.
Gibbs would be glad to put this entire case behind him for good. Hopefully, he could find whatever Shannon took or was thought to have taken and deal with Hernandez for good. Mostly, he was glad that he hadn’t lost Tony. He wasn’t sure he could have handled the guilt.