Work Text:
The call came in on a boring day when Gibbs was chaffing at having to do his paperwork and constantly leaving for coffee. A Naval Commander in an important position, had his wife and blind daughter kidnapped right from their doorstep.
A ransom note had been delivered to his work computer, which Gibbs sent McGee to keep tabs on. Kate was to question the neighbors with Tony. He let her do all the talking as she looked better in the family area. He just kept track of the camera doorbells some of the neighbors had, to write out the home warrants for the recordings for each that faced the front porch of the family and the area where the fake cop had parked.
He had also made sure to tag and bag the daughter’s backpack she had left on the walkway to the house. Writing out orders on the evidence charge sheet to have it checked for prints and anything else.
Sending the electronic warrant to each company that recorded the doorbell security he wanted, it took nothing more to get the footage he wanted. He had been specific in his timing and got the faker’s pulling up, his plate number, height, race – Caucasian – hair color – light brown which a zoom in on his wrist hair showed it was natural. What of the house he touched, that Tony sent another Temporary Agent out to get his fingerprints off the doorbell on the house in question.
A zoom in from the angle of the house across the street had his face’s reflection in the door’s glass as he waited for the mother to answer the door.
A capture of the face, and a BOLO went out to be on the look out for the kidnapper. His prints in the system from the navy as a failure, gave the name to add to the BOLO. Along with the Motor Vehicles Registration on a White Van in his name and its plate number.
A warrant for the unsub’s phone records showed constant communications with the same Commander that had forced him to leave the navy and that he now was blackmailing.
A warrant for the unsub’s emails was interesting and had Tony calling the bank before the wire for the ransom money could go through.
The Marines on base as well as the FBI’s HRT team were sent to the triangulation cell tower point the unsub was at. Which was an old train station in the middle of DC. At the same time Gibbs and Kate were sent to arrest the Commander for his attempt to steal navy money by staging his family’s kidnapping. A kidnapping neither his wife nor daughter knew anything about.
All laid out in the emails sent back and forth from him and the failure of a navy man.
Fin
9/3/2026