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Part 7 of Tony's Soundtrack
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2020-11-05
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Twilight Time

Summary:

An advisory from the past has it out for the NCIS team. My take on the episode Twilight. Part of my Tony DiNozzo/Ian Edgerton series and follows Sealed With A Kiss.  Again, spoilers for the Season Two episode Twilight. 

Work Text:

Twilight Time





Heavenly shades of night are falling, it's twilight time
Out of the mist your voice is calling, it's twilight time
When purple-colored curtains mark the end of day
I'll hear you, my dear, at twilight time


~ Twilight Time by The Platters




The sky was a pretty color of blue today, almost turquoisey-blue. Being out in the woods and seeing that snake had reminded Tony of going to Ian's cabin outside of Crozet, Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ian had even taught him some of the basics of tracking and Tony had to admit, he'd learned a lot that weekend. They'd have to do it again sometime. Sometime really, really soon.


Suddenly Kate's face appeared in the center of his vision, blocking the bright blue sky. "You okay, Tony?"


"Just peachy-keene, Kate. I love it when a day includes falling down a hill, creepy-crawlies and nearly being blown all to hell. It just makes my week."


From up the hill, Tony heard his master's voice. "QUITE LYING DOWN ON THE JOB, DINOZZO!"


"Yes, Boss!" He would have rolled his eyes, but figured his bright and shiny new headache would make it hurt. Thankfully, Kate held out a hand and Tony was able to pull himself up.


"I thought you said you ran faster than us, Tony."


Tony stood still for a moment to make his brains stop moving in his skull. "Yeah, well, I am faster than you guys. I'm just not faster than a shock wave from a bomb. Besides, I was fast enough to keep from getting splattered." He fought the urge to stick out his tongue. Mainly because Kate would grab it and twist.


Tony staggered up the small hill, thankfully without any help from Kate. That explosion had been strong but his head was clearing. He and Kate both turned when they got to the top of the hill with the others and looked at the spot where the car had been.


"Well, crap." Tony wanted to say so much more but Kate had been on a kick to clean up his language. Not that he really cared but he'd been abused enough for one day and didn't feel like getting a kick in the shins to add to his other bruises. "There goes our evidence."


"McGee! Get on the line to the local fire department and make sure someone's coming to put out this mess, and then I want to know everything there is to know about our victims, down to if they wore boxers or briefs! Find out who called 911 while you're at it. Todd, DiNozzo! Get started on collecting any and all evidence between the road and the blast site. Make sure you get any foot prints or tire prints before everyone and their damn brother is going to be tracking through our crime scene. Go!"


"On it, boss!" Tony started on the right side of the path and Kate started on the left, each looking for any sign of their mad bomber/killer. Tony even thought he saw poison ivy on his side.


Oh yeah, today was not going to be his day.


*****


“You know, Kate, I'm thinking we only need a hooker with a heart of gold, a fat chick and a couple of cute kids and we'd make up the entire cast of a disaster film.” He tipped his head to one side in thought. “Unless you count Abby and McGee as the cute kids. Well, cute but annoyingly precocious.”


Kate looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. Which he might have, considering his brain felt like someone had mistaken it for a piñata at a five-year-old's birthday party. They were waiting on Gibbs to get back to fill him in on what they'd found and were stuck in that in between time where the reports were running, the computers were searching databases and Ducky was cutting, but they had nothing concrete yet and had to wait for one of the machines to blip and tell them who to hunt.


Tony hated that time. So did Gibbs, which was why the man had gone out for coffee. Tony swore that the Starbucks had moved in two blocks down the road knowing Gibbs would buy enough coffee to keep them in business year round. If the man ever had to go cold turkey, the entire country of Columbia would starve to death. Even the cocaine trade wouldn't be able to save them.


“Are you insane?”


Tony thought about that too. “It's a possibility.”


He wasn't joking about that too much. There was this feeling of, for lack of a less dramatic phrase, impending doom. As if Murphy and his stupid Law was tap dancing on his grave. It had started when his beloved 'Vette was stolen and had continued. He'd think he was paranoid as Ian, or he was just missing his lover if Gibbs wasn't insisting on security checks of the office and all their homes and vehicles once a week. He was getting surlier too, which was scary as all fuck.


“Do I even want to know what the hell you're talking about?”


“I feel as if we're in the beginnings of a disaster movie, Kate. We've got the ominous first deaths, the gathering of information and the quiet before the storm. Gibbs is the hero, of course, and you're the plucky heroine. Ducky is the wise older man, hopefully he won't have to sacrifice his life so that the youngsters will live on. I'm the comic relief and back-up hero, so I'm pretty much doomed. Then we've got the geek civilians that must be protected at all costs – McGee and Abby. So I'm thinking all this case needs is a fat chick who will do something remarkable despite her size to save us all a la Shelly Winters, and a hooker with a heart of gold that will take care of the two adorable kids who will be the only survivors along with the hero and heroine.”


Kate gave him an annoyed look. “Okay, one: I don't like being called a heroine. I don't like being called a name that sounds like something people snort. And two: I feel like that implies I need a man to save me, which I don't. I'm perfectly capable of saving myself and you, Tony.”


“Wow. Female empowerment speech. Long while since you last had a date, Kate?”


“No one's going to have time to date in the near future if you don't have some information for me. Somebody run it down for me.” Gibbs came around the corner, throwing one cup of coffee away in the wastebasket while drinking from another at the same time. Tony groaned. It was a chain drinking kind of day. It was probably a good thing Gibbs didn't smoke -- he'd have lung cancer by now.


Tony got up and grabbed the remote for the screen and the ID's of the two DB's were shown. “Ducky came through with dental records. The bodies are those of Lt. Dean Westfall and Lt. Curtis Janssen. Kate is in the process of pulling service records, I'm gathering their LUD's, but Westfall's cell phone service is being a bitch. I'm also getting an audio of the 911 call. Probie is out trying to get their emails from the service provider. He was actually sounding a little huffy with them. It's kinda cute, like seeing a puppy attacking some tough guy's shoelaces.”


Tony actually expected Gibbs to make some sort of crack about how at least McGee was working but Gibbs ignored his opening. “No luck on the remnants of the explosives, no serial numbers, components were made from scratch, or off the shelf so she can't trace them.”


Tony shook his head. “Okay, that's hinky. Someone is going out of their way. Usually bombers like to leave some sort of signature. Maybe the lack of signature is the signature?”


“Ya think, DiNozzo?”


“Right. I've got a contact down in Miami, her boss used to be a big deal on the bomb squad before he turned geek. Maybe he's heard of a bomber with this signature.”


Kate gave him an odd look. “Who do you know down in Miami?”


“Ian's ex, Calliegh.”


“You talk to Ian's ex-girlfriend??”


Both Kate and Gibbs were looking at him as if he was insane now. Then again Kate had been shocked that Gibbs had met Ian and no one came to blows.


“What? They're still friends, and she wanted to make sure that I know that she's just a friend and is over him.” Calliegh had also threatened to shoot something off if he hurt Ian, which was kinda cute. Oh, he didn't doubt she'd do it but thinking of a five-foot-three blonde threatening him over the FBI's Sniper God was amusing, even if the threat had left Tony crossing his legs for three hours after wards.


Gibbs shook his head and opened his mouth to say something when the elevator door opened and McGee all but tumbled out of them in his hurry. “Uh, boss? Got some information on the 911 call. According to the State Police the call was anonymous and untraceable. The actual tape of it is on its way by courier, I'm hoping Abby and I can find something in the background noise or with vocal recognition but I'm, uh, kinda doubting we'll find anything.”


“So we've got an unknown perp, an unknown caller and two bodies that had to be identified with dental records because there was no ID on them and a rental car. Credit cards and cash were left, so it wasn't a robbery. So that means we know diddly squat.”


Gibbs glared at them all and Tony forced himself to look repentant and chastened, no matter how much he wanted to laugh at Gibbs saying diddly.


“Then why don't one of you hot shot agents tell me why we got the call for two dead sailors when they were in civvies and didn't have anything on their person or on their cars to let the LEO's know they were in the god damned NAVY!”


Gibbs ended on a yell and was giving all three of them the hairy eyeball. Tony had to admit he was feeling particularly stupid. He was tempted to smack himself on the back of the head. “Gee, boss, looks like someone wanted to blow up some Navy Cops.”


“Looks like they came pretty damn close.” Gibbs had drank his entire large coffee and threw the cup away. “Get their backgrounds, talk to their commanders and, DiNozzo, get the information on that bomb. I'm going to update the Director. Be ready with an update in an hour.”


With that he left to go up to MTAC. McGee was already on the phone and Kate was logging into the computer. Tony found himself scrambling to call Miami and was praying Calliegh's boss was available to talk.


He was beginning to change his mind. They weren't in a disaster movie, but a slasher flick. And it looked like the bogey man was coming for them.


*****


“Where the fuck is he?”


Kate and McGee traded concerned looks before Kate moved to mollify him. Tony knew he was acting out of character but he didn't care. Gibbs was out of the office, without telling anyone on the team where he was going, while he was being stalked. Tony's hand was itching to smack Gibbs on the back of the head for being such an idiot.


“Tony, I'm sure Gibbs knows what he's doing.”


Tony snorted but didn't say anything. He didn't think Gibbs had enough information to be going out there alone, half cocked. Hell, Tony didn't even have all the information yet. It was still coming in. His thoughts about slasher movies had given him an idea and he'd managed to get in contact with one of Ian's contacts to ask for help. Those contacts had panned out, and Tony's arm was hurting like hell from where Abby had hit him. Evidently this Lord Warhammer – and Tony couldn't help but roll his eyes at the name – was some famous hacker or something. Abby was jealous he'd never told her that Tony knew him, and when he'd pointed out that he knew him through his best friend, who wasn't Abby, she had hit him again.


Tony was really glad he was in a relationship with a guy, because girls were weird.


Warhammer had come through and confirmed Tony's worst nightmare. Ari Aswari was back in town, pulling his own version of Halloween and was out to kill the NCIS team while the other agencies in DC were dicking around, half convinced he was still on their side and the other half not wanting to deal with the situation and admit they'd gotten conned. According to his info, Morrow would be ordering them to stand down and give the Fibbies the information. If it was Ian, Tony wouldn't have a problem with it since Ian would more than likely use a tac rifle as a problem solver


But no, it was going to Fornell, who had been fucking around with Ari before. Meanwhile Warhammer's info said that Ari was looking to make a statement, the kind that left chunks of innocent people scattered around, and that either ground missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles would be involved. And while Tony didn't like the idea of handing over the case to Fornell, if it would keep the team safe he was all for it.


But no, Gibbs had to go off the grid and do his own thing. Once he found out about Ari, Gibbs would go all Captain Ahab on him again and try to catch Michael Meyers while good ol' Mike would try to off them in addition to his other objective.


Tony groaned and pulled at his hair. “Oh god, I'm mixing up my movie metaphors. Please tell me this day can't get any worse.”


“Uhh … Tony … “


“What, McGee!?” He didn't mean to snap but Tony knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.


“We've got more trouble. FBI trouble.”


They all turned to see Fornell enter the bullpen. Tony had never been all that fond of Fornell. He had too many of Gibbs' bad qualities and not enough of his good ones, or at least Tony never saw them. Add in the fact that Fornell didn't like Ian because Ian could choose his own assignments and was a 'psychotic cowboy', or at least that's what Ian quoted. Fornell didn't seem to like the fact that Ian had a lot of commendations and could have had Fornell's job if he'd wanted, not that Ian would ever think about it. Ian would look like a tiger trying to be a house cat if he was stuffed in a suit. So Tony wasn't going to bother pulling punches with Fornell, not today.


“Double D Fornell. To what do we owe the dubious pleasure of your company?”


“Cut the crap, DiNutso. Where's Gibbs?”


Kate stood up and leaned on the front of her desk, acting casual. “He's not here.”


Tony followed her lead and leaned back and kicked his feet up on his desk. “Probably went on a coffee run, Dee Dee. Did you try his cell phone?”


Tony loved calling Fornell, Dee Dee. He could just see the vein in the man's forehead start to throb.


“Tried that already. He's not answering.”


Tony shrugged but he sat back up and put his feet on the floor. “You know Gibbs, he doesn't like to be chained to technology. What's the problem? I mean, it's not as if an old enemy is back in town, trying to blow us up and kill us all.”


Kate started to circle Fornell, as he was glaring at Tony. “And how likely would it be that that same enemy was let back in to the US, despite having connections to both Mossad and Al Qaeda. I mean, you'd have to be a total moron to let someone like Ari Haswari back in town. And not telling Gibbs about it? Yeah, that person has the life expectancy of gnat.”


Fornell's face was twisted in anger. “How the hell did you people find that out?”


Tony stood up and stood toe to toe to Fornell. He wasn't afraid of Gibbs, so he sure as hell wasn't going to back down from Fornell. “We have our ways. It's not like we sit around twiddling our thumbs like your guys. Al Qaeda is making Ari prove himself, by killing Gibbs. And your guys knew about it but you're only now getting off your asses to tell us after having our crime scene blow all to hell this morning.”


He stepped even closer, crowding Fornell. “Now, I get that you and Gibbs have some sort of frienemy thing going on, and while he doesn't always agree with you, Gibbs respects you. Morrow is going to be pulling us off this case but we both know that won't float well with Gibbs. So I'm telling you now, if anyone on my team is killed because of your team's mistakes? There will be no place you can hide.”


Both Kate and Tim's eyes were wide. They weren't used to seeing this side of him. Normally Tony was the laid back, easy going kind of guy. The class clown. But Tony was more than willing to take a page out of Ian's book and pull a cowboy kind of stunt if something happened.


Besides, Tony had always wanted to pull a John McClane. If only so he could give his famous quote.


*****


There were days Tony really hated his job. Oddly enough, those days tended to coincide with the days people were trying to kill him. He carefully took aim and one of the assholes shooting at him went down, tumbling off the fire escape to the ground. He wasn't sure if the man was dead or not, and to tell the truth Tony didn't really care. These assholes wanted to blow up hundreds of dependents waiting for their families to come home. Husbands and wives and children and families. They couldn't let that happen.


Tony's sense of paranoia that had been building was prickling the back of his neck. They were in the warehouse district and there were hundreds of places a perp could hide. At the moment it was just their team searching and they were running out of time.


The radio crackled as McGee came online. “Boss! They fired the drone!”


“Jam it, McGee!”


Tony hit his own radio. “One down on this side, Boss. No visual on anyone else.”


There was someone out there though. Tony could feel it.


“Let's do it, people.”


Gibbs' voice was calm and steady and it calmed Tony down as he made his way to the roof. The next few mintues blurred as Tony concentrated on staying alive. Sounds of a gunfight came from not only the roof but from within the building and he couldn't help but hope the Calvary was on its way.


And there wasn't much Tony wouldn't give to see Ian coming as backup. Unfortunately when he'd called his lover this morning, Ian told him he was wrapping up a sniping case in New York. The shootings in LA had made half the country trigger happy. Tony couldn't help but wonder if this was one of the reasons why Ari had come out of hiding now.


The next few minutes where chaotic. Tony could smell the gunpowder from the various weapons, the sound of them echoing so much he couldn't quite trust his senses. Finally he was able to take out the hostiles on the roof. He checked the areas around and behind the various vents and storage areas before hitting the button on the radio.


“Roof's clear.”


The door to the roof opened and Tony automatically raised his gun only to point it down when he saw it was Gibbs and Kate. Gibbs was looking out towards the water and Tony followed his line of sight. The UAV was still in the air.


Gibbs hit his radio was more force than was needed. “McGee, this thing is still flying!”


“I've got one frequency down, Boss, and one to go!”


Suddenly the sound of gunfire came from the building and McGee was scrambling around the car, trying to keep cover and return fire all at the same time.


“Boss, one of them shot my transmitter!”


“Boss, you know how to fly this thing?” This was so not good. Tony couldn't even come up with a good Airplane joke at the moment.


Gibbs raised his gun. “No, but I know how to crash it.”


Gibbs' gun fired and after a moment the UAV wobbled and then crashed into the water. Tony's shoulder's dropped for a moment in relief and then he straightened back up. They weren't out of this yet.


Gibbs hit the radio again. “McGee, you okay?”


McGee sounded out of breath when he answered. “I got one terrorist inside! I don't know if I got him, but he stopped shooting!”


Tony grimaced and shared a look with Kate as they turned to scan the roof again. There was too many hiding places, there could be ten bad guys in the building below them, waiting for them to come down.


There could be a hundred. Then again Ian's paranoia could be contagious.


“Hold your position. We'll flush him out.”


Tony shook his head. Typical Gibbs. The man was always so certain of himself. It made for a damn good leader but even Tony was shocked by the size of the man's balls at times.


“Okay, boss!”


Then again that certainty made McGee calm down and stop sounding like he was going to piss himself so that was a good thing.


The three of them turned, heading for the stairs off the roof. Tony could hear Gibbs checking his ammo behind him.


“I'm out.”


They stopped in front of the door and Kate checked her gun. “Me too.”


Tony stopped, digging in his jacket pockets for more ammunition. They all carried Sig Sauers and thanks to Ian he was used to carrying more ammo than he needed. Before he could offer though, Kate gave a gasp and then was moving in front of Gibbs.


“Shooter!”


And then Kate was hitting the ground, gravel from the rooftop barely cushioning her fall as time slowed down and Tony heard the Gibbs returning gunfire. Tony swung his gun up and he fired blindly at the rooftop the shot came from. After a moment they paused, and no gunfire was returned. Tony assumed they got the shooter and looked down to check on his friend.


“Kate? You okay?”


There was a groan as Kate slowly sat up. “I just got shot in the chest, Tony. What do you think?”


It was on the tip of Tony's tongue to say something inane and joking. That way he wouldn't have to think about the fact that Kate would have died if they hadn't all been wearing their vests. But then he took a look around and saw the rooftop the way Ian would have seen it, and changed his mind. “I think we need to get the hell out of here until we have some back up. Your Friendly Neighborhood SWAT Team would be good.”


“That's the first good idea you've had all week, DiNozzo.”


Tony rolled his eyes at Kate. Gibbs was still mad that Tony had all but cussed him out when the boss had returned to NCIS. Tony had even dragged out the old 'dead in a ditch' rant.


“Let's go.” Tony gave Kate his hand and helped her off the ground. She had just gained her feet when something warm splattered on his face.


And then he heard the sound of a rifle and realized the warmth on his face was Kate's blood.




*****




TBC in Bang Bang

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