Chapter Text
Title - Innocent blood
Chapter - 1/6 - Be careful what you wish for
Author: Ceindreadh
Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen
Pairing/Characters: Ensemble
Rating: FRT-15
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Gibbs was in a meeting with Director Shepherd when the alarm was first raised.
He'd been sitting in a chair, listening to Jen go on about budgets and running an efficient agency and a whole lot of blah about dealing with the press and creating a good impression with the public. Gibbs had been nodding and smiling at what he figured were appropriate points in the conversation, wishing he'd managed to have another coffee before he'd been summoned. Gibbs supposed he couldn't complain; he'd been putting off this meeting for over a week and Jen's secretary had finally caught him just as he was about to finish up for the day. With no outstanding cases to use as an excuse, he had no choice but to let her get whatever she had to say off her chest.
Gibbs stole a glance at the clock and nearly groaned when he realized that it had only been an hour, rather than the two or three hours that it felt like. He shifted uncomfortably, wishing that something, *anything* would happen to interrupt the meeting.
But when the news came in that somebody had been shot in the parking garage, Gibbs knew the truth of the saying "be careful what you wish for"
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Gibbs ordered the first two agents he saw to stand guard over the director. At that stage, he didn't know what they were dealing with, but if there was an intruder in NCIS taking pot shots at agents, he wasn't about to take any chances.
He took the stairs as quickly as possible, not stopping until he reached the garage. "Report!" he barked at the first agent he saw.
Agent Rowe took a deep breath before answering, "I was just heading home. My car's right over there," he glanced over towards the far wall, "And I just came around the corner and there he was, lying bleeding...I called an ambulance, and then paged Doctor Mallard."
"Did you see anything?"
Rowe shook his head, "I cleared the scene. Called security and locked the place down. Nobody's been in or out since I found...him..." He glanced over his shoulder.
Gibbs followed his gaze to where Ducky was crouched over a figure lying in a pool of blood. It wasn't until he'd dismissed Rowe and taken a few steps closer, that he realized it was Ducky's assistant...Jimmy Palmer.
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"Ducky," said Gibbs, crouching down beside the older man. "How bad is it?" Even to Gibbs's less experienced eye, he could see it didn't look pretty. Palmer's entire upper body seemed awash with blood. His face was pale and he barely seemed to be breathing.
Ducky didn't even look up from where he was applying pressure to Jimmy's right shoulder. "There's no exit wound, but he's bleeding all over the place. Gibbs, he said goodbye to me not an hour ago..." He looked up, "And where the hell are those bloody paramedics?"
Gibbs patted Ducky on the shoulder, "They're on the way. Did Jimmy say what happened, who did this?"
"Does he look as if he was able to say anything? He was unconscious when I got here." Ducky grabbed another cloth from the bag beside him and swapped it for the now saturated one he'd been holding to Jimmy's shoulder. "Dammit Jimmy, I am *not* going to lose another assistant because they got in front of a bullet. Do you hear me?"
It was fortunate for all concerned that the paramedic's arrived soon after that.
"Gibbs," called Ducky, as Jimmy was carefully loaded onto the stretcher. "I...I'm traveling with Jimmy to Bethesda." He looked at the blood on his hand with distaste. "Find the bastard who did this, Gibbs, and let me alone in a room with him..."
"We'll find him, Duck. I've got Abby pulling all the security footage of this place from the time Palmer left your office until he was found. Whoever did this, we'll find them."
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"Talk to me, Abby!" demanded Gibbs as he burst into the forensics lab. "I want an ID on every person who went in or out of that parking garage."
Abby spun around in her chair, a dazed expression on her face. "Gibbs, is Jimmy going to be okay? I mean, it was just a flesh wound, right? He's not gonna die, right Gibbs?"
Gibbs sighed, "I don't know Abby, Ducky's gone with him to Bethesda. Right now, the best thing we can do is find whoever did this to him." He indicated the screen, which was running the feed from the security camera at the parking garage gates. "You get anything from this?"
Abby reluctantly turned back to her computer. "Jimmy...Jimmy was found at 20.00, Ducky said he spoke to him at about 19.00." She pulled up a file on her computer and scanned through it, "Only one car signed out from garage C in that space of time. I'm bringing up the photo...now..." She looked up at the screen and her eyes went wide, "Oh no...Tony?"
"DiNozzo," breathed Gibbs.
Abby turned to him, her eyes frantic. "Boss, you don't think...Tony couldn't have done this, he'd never hurt Jimmy, he'd never hurt *anybody*."
"Abby, check the cameras covering all the other exits. Whoever did this must have left on foot."
"Or maybe they walked to one of the other levels and took a car from there!" Abby breathed a sigh of relief, "Boy, Bossman, that was really freaky. I thought for a second I was gonna be putting Tony in the frame again! He'd never have forgiven me a second time." With renewed enthusiasm, she returned to her computer, ring-covered fingers dancing rapidly over the keyboard.
Gibbs squeezed her shoulder gently, before leaving the lab. He stopped in the corridor outside, dialing Tony's cell phone. Hearing a familiar ring tone behind him, Gibbs turned round. The smile of relief died on his lips as he saw McGee and Ziva approach, the former carrying a box of evidence bags. Gibbs didn't even wait for him to put the box down, instead reaching straight in, pushing the bags to one side until he found the one that was ringing. With a sinking heart, Gibbs pulled out a cell phone, knowing even before he flipped it open that the caller id display would read 'Gibbs'.
"Where was this? Where did you find it?"
"Uh, Boss, we were searching for shell casings and this was kicked underneath one of the cars," said Tim, a little hesitantly. "We thought that somebody had probably just dropped it, but I figured we should bag it anyway." He looked at the stricken expression on Gibbs's face. "Is something wrong?"
"GIBBS!" Abby's voice was calling him frantically, and she nearly knocked all three over as she ran out of her lab. "You've got to see this, *now*!"
She practically dragged them into her lab where the picture of Tony in his car was still on her screen.
"What is it Abby?" asked Gibbs.
"I was waiting for my computer to filter out all the footage I needed and I got bored, so I started looking at the shot of Tony and I noticed something, so I enlarged it and..." Abby clicked on her mouse and selected a section of the picture. The camera had been a high angled one, positioned high enough to give a view of the rear seat of Tony's car. Abby clicked and magnified again, and then again, until everybody could see the face of somebody who was crouching behind the driver's seat. The image wasn't completely focused, but everybody could tell who it was.
"Chip!" said Gibbs.
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To be continued