Chapter Eleven:

Gibbs stood in the ICU waiting room, looking out at the nurse’s station, wishing there was something constructive he could be doing. Pulling out his cell phone, he decided he would check in with McGee. Just as he was about to punch in the number, a small, blonde, middle aged nurse hurried over to him.

“Sir, didn’t you read the signs? I need you to turn your cell phone off right now! They have been known to interfere with the equipment here causing hazardous incidents - hazardous incidents which include the sudden switching off or restarting of machines - which could mean disruption of a patient's feeding tube, ventilator, pacemaker or dialysis machine. Surely you wouldn’t want that to happen to your patient,” she said, with quite a bit of steel in her voice.

“Sorry,” Gibbs said sharply. “Just got up here and didn’t see the sign,” pressing the button that shut his phone off. Then, since he had her there, he demanded, “Is there any word on when Anthony DiNozzo will be brought up here?”

“Oh,” she said. “You must be Mr. Gibbs. E.R. called up here to warn, I mean, to tell me that you would be on your way up. We haven’t heard anything yet. We were asked to have a room set up for him so they must be planning to bring him up soon. Listen, I know you’ve had a long, frustrating day but if you are going to be here on a regular basis we might as well get some things straight right now. My name is Karen Olson and I’m the supervisory nurse here. I will keep you updated on anything relevant to Mr. DiNozzo’s health and well-being. I will not, however, be badgered and interrogated on a regular basis. Nor will I allow that to happen to my nurses. Once Mr. DiNozzo is admitted to this floor and settled in, you will be allowed to visit him for five minutes, once an hour. The chairs over there recline, and you are welcome to use them to catch some sleep. If you fall asleep, I will be glad to wake you up so that you don’t miss any opportunity to see Mr. DiNozzo.”

Gibbs looked at her, a little flabbergasted. “Agent,” he said, drawing himself up, not willing to be bested.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Agent DiNozzo,” he said, knowing he was being petulant, but unable to stop himself.

Smiling a little, as if acknowledging a worthy adversary, she said, “Agent DiNozzo.” Then, not to be outdone, she said, “You will also allow me to examine your hand on a daily basis, change the dressings, and not lie to me if you experience any numbness or tingling in it.”

“Deal,” Gibbs snapped, not wanting to do anything which would prevent him from being there for Tony.

“Very good,” she said, and turned on her heels and headed back to the central nurse’s station.

“Humph“ Gibbs grunted, but was surprised to discover that he was smiling for the first time in ages. Hearing a quiet chuckle, he turned and saw Ducky standing in the doorway.

“Looks like you’ve met your match, Jethro,” he said, smiling as he handed over an enormous container of coffee.

“Just don’t want ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’ to make it hard for me to see DiNozzo,” Gibbs answered, as he took an appreciative sip.

Giving Gibbs a paper bag, Ducky said, “I also brought you a sandwich, hoping you would eat it. It won’t do for you to get sick as well.”

Taking the sandwich out of the bag, smelling the bacon wafting up, Gibbs was surprised to discover that he was, in fact, hungry. As he ate the sandwich he told Ducky what Karen had said about them preparing a room for Tony.

“That means he’s in recovery, Jethro, and that is very good news,” Ducky said, clapping Gibbs on the shoulder, as he moved to take a seat. Gibbs followed suit, and together they sat, waiting for Tony to arrive.

While Gibbs and Ducky were waiting for Tony to be brought up to ICU, there was much celebrating going on in Abby’s lab. Minutes ago, the computer had pinged out a signal, announcing matches on the fingerprints from the bat and chair. Abby, Ziva and Tim had rushed over, high fiving each other when they saw the results. IAFIS had identified five sets of prints.

“Send the names to the other computer Abby. Then cross reference the prints and see which prints were found on both the chair and the bat. Ziva, you call up the records for our five suspects. Let’s get to know all about them.”

“Timmy, I love when you get all Gibbsian,” Abby said, as she did a little dance in front of the computer as she waited for the results. “Ah ha, got it. Only one set of prints were found on both items. John David Lynch. Oh, he’s been a bad, bad boy,” Abby said as she looked at the record that had popped up on the screen.

“Hang on Abs. Ziva, what have you got?” he asked as he watched her busily reading files on the other computer.

“The other four set of prints all belong to men with minor records for vagrancy, public drunkenness and petty theft- mostly shop lifting. I would bet they are some of the homeless people who have stayed in the warehouse. Abby is right, John Lynch has a much more interesting criminal history.”

“Go ahead and tell me about him, Abs,” McGee said.

“He’s twenty six years old and served for a year in the navy, before receiving an Other Than Honorable discharge, stemming from charges of vandalism and aggravated assault. He’s been in and out of jail for the last couple of years, mostly for burglary and assault. He’s not a nice guy, Timmy.”

“He is our most likely suspect, Tim,” Ziva said. “Just to be safe, however, I have sent all five records to the printer.”

“Do we have a last known address on Lynch?” McGee asked, watching as Ziva nodded in answer.

Tim looked hard at both Abby and Ziva, swallowed, and then said, “Abby, wipe all traces of these searches off your computer. Ziva and I need to get out of here before Cassie gets back. If Cassie asks where we went, I want you to tell her we said we were going to the hospital to see Tony. Ziva and I will call Gibbs just as soon as we get out of here. Make sure you cover your ass, Abs. There’s no reason for us all to get in trouble.” He went over to the printer and retrieved the material Ziva had sent to it.

Abby threw an arm around a reluctant and stiff Ziva, dragging her over to McGee, and proceeded to wrap her other arm around him. Holding them both in an unwieldy embrace she exclaimed, “Make sure you take care of the boss man and yourselves. I’ll never forgive you if any of you gets hurt.”

Extracting herself and awkwardly patting Abby on the back, Ziva said, “We will try, Abby.”

“You’d better do more than try, missy.” Abby said.

Kissing her on the forehead, McGee said, “Bye Abs,” and he and Ziva headed out of the door.

“Now I have four people to worry about,” Abby said softly to herself, as she picked Bert up off the table and wrapped him in her arms tightly, producing a soft fart.

Leaving Abby’s lab, Ziva and McGee headed to the parking garage. Ziva hurried to the driver’s side of the car and glared at McGee, daring him to argue. He just sighed and slid into the passenger’s seat. He immediately put on his seat belt and then took out his cell phone and punched in Gibbs’ number. Puzzled when he received no answer, he looked over at Ziva.

“He’s not answering. That doesn’t make sense. He said to call when we had a match.”

“Perhaps he is on the other line. He would not know how to use call waiting,” Ziva answered. “Let us drive out of here and we can try him again in a second.” And with that, she slammed the car into reverse and headed up the exit ramp.

Just as they were pulling away, Ziva saw Cassie’s team truck returning. They both knew this meant their head start would soon evaporate. After trying Gibbs again, and getting no answer, Tim asked, “Do you think we should head to the hospital?”

“Look at Lynch’s sheet McGee. Where is his last known address?”

“Damn, it’s all the way over on the northeast side. If we drive all the way over to the hospital and then have to head back north, there’s a chance Cassie could get there before us. It all depends on what she decides to do once Abby gets her the results,” McGee said.

“What would make Gibbs angrier, being left behind or we giving up the lead to another team and risking the chance that Lynch could get away? I saw we head in Lynch’s direction and keep trying to get Gibbs on the phone. What do you think Tim?”

“I think we’re screwed either way, but if we’re going down, I want to know we got the bastard that did that to Tony.”

And with that said, Ziva pulled a sharp u-turn, and headed off in the opposite direction while McGee punched a number on his phone.