Notes:

First, please, if you expect the story to end with Tony and Gibbs in a relationship and you will be crushed if that doesn't happen, don't read. While I don't have anything against that pairing, I do not favor it in my writing.

Second, this is set in 2004, after Gibbs et al have met McGee, but before he has actually joined the team. It honestly seems a little odd to me that, in this situation, they would have brought McGee in specifically, but having McGee as an option, I couldn't see my way clear to using an OC. I do believe in using the resources canon provides before creating OCs. Besides, McGee is so cute in his 'puppy wanting to be kept' persona.

Third, this story was an experiment in not actually breaking sections between POVs. POV may, in fact, shift within a paragraph, and away again in the next paragraph. The only place you'll find actual section breaks are where there is a time or communication shift between the segments. What I mean by communication shift is that, through much of this story, characters that are separated by a fair distance and not in line of sight of each other are kept in communication by wires/earbuds that allow immediate, interactive speech. Thus, even though Kate is in the parking lot and DiNozzo's in the club, they are in the same scene by virtue of constant communication. To make it a touch simpler, there are only three POVs in the story, Gibbs, DiNozzo and Kate. I think it worked okay, though I've never tried it again. It may be that the peculiar necessity of communication in this story made it work where it might not in another tale. It may be that I tend to pick my POV characters based on who will be separated most of the time, thus making this particular technique irrelevant.

---

Chapter 1

Kate took another swallow of tepid coffee and adjusted the earbud in her ear. The third night of this surveillance, and it seemed finally to be getting somewhere. Tony's contact had invited him to stay at the bar after closing which definitely suggested that his hints had been picked up. She nestled deeper in her coat. Why was it always like this? Tony sitting plush and warm in a high class bar, drinking expensive alcohol and flirting with the waitresses, while she and Gibbs sat outside in a car on a snowy evening?

Tony finished making an obscene and possibly illegal suggestion to a waitress, and the woman laughed instead of slapping his face. "Are you drunk, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked beside her.

In a voice Kate had to struggle to hear, Tony said, "No, Boss, just playing the part."

Gibbs snorted. "Right, DiNozzo. Did you get her phone number?"

"Yeah," Tony said, and Kate rolled her eyes. "But so would Tony Vellucci."

"You have a point there, DiNozzo," Gibbs murmured.

"Closing isn't for another half hour," said Albert Marino, Tony's contact. "You don't have to stay out here. You could move to a private room. You might be more comfortable there."

"No, stay in public as long as possible, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. Kate nodded.

"I'm good out here," Tony said with just enough of a happy lilt in his voice to hint at intoxication. "I like watching people."

"If that's what you want," Marino said, sounding slightly put out. Kate couldn't put her finger on it, but there was an odd vibe about the man. They knew he was gay, that was one of the reasons Tony was in there. A little bait to catch the man's attention and reel him in, and he had certainly dressed for the part. She doubted Tony showed that much chest when he went clubbing as himself. "Mikey," Marino said, "take good care of my friend here."

"Try not to drink any more, DiNozzo," Gibbs said when it was clear that Marino had moved off.

"How stupid do I look?" DiNozzo muttered. "Thanks, Mikey," he said in a normal voice. Kate could imagine him pretending to drink whatever drink he'd been given.

"Do you really want me to answer that, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked. "That outfit is . . . out there."

Kate snickered, but Tony made no response. He could only spend so much time muttering to himself without people wondering about him. She thought he was probably fuming internally about his inability to make any of the snappy comebacks that were undoubtedly coming to mind. Poor Tony, she thought with mock sympathy.

Inside the bar, Tony scowled. He found it irritating when his colleagues took advantage of his position to make fun of him when they knew he couldn't offer a defense. Yes, his clothing was outlandish, but to fill the role he was playing, his fashion sense had to be a bit edgy. The clientele of this place tended toward the trendy, and he was trying to stand out from the herd. That his 'out there' outfit had neither been purchased nor borrowed but created from an unusual combination of his own clothing worn in ways he'd never normally wear it was his own secret and would remain so if he could swing it. Kate teased him enough about his fashion sense as it was.

Marino was finally going for the bait, and it was about time. Tony just wished there was an elegant way to rid himself of his latest drink. He was running out of ideas. He could hold his liquor reasonably well, but since he'd spent a good two hours drinking with Marino and his buds in close quarters, he'd had more than enough to make him feel the slightest bit buzzed. Spilling it would not only be undignified, it would also be far too obvious, and Mikey, taking 'good care' of him, would undoubtedly replace it instantly.

He contemplated switching it out with the drink of someone nearby, but that would be hard to explain if he was caught at it. He knew a guy who'd gotten accused of trying to drug someone when he'd done that. He was relieved when the man next to him hit it off with the woman he'd been making up to and left. His drink was the right color, in the right glass, and it was about a third full to Tony's three-quarters full. Tony made the swap smoothly and hoped no one would notice that the level of his drink had dropped dramatically from one moment to the next.

Mikey came along a few minutes later, cleaning the bar, and he didn't seem to notice anything odd. A third full was also not empty enough to require a fresh drink, another plus.

The bar emptied out, the bouncer having to eject a few people who were too drunk to notice that it was closing time, but finally, Marino came over to Tony's side. Mikey had disappeared into the kitchen, and the bouncers had gone wherever bouncers go when things close down for the night. He and Marino had the bar to themselves. Marino leaned close. "So, you want to meet my associates?" he said.

"You said I'd have to meet them before we could do business," Tony replied, giving Marino a sidelong look. He wasn't their real target. They knew Marino was more a low end distributor than a real mover and shaker. While they were certain they knew who the next step up was, they would have to find real, solid, credible evidence to bring down a decorated Marine colonel.

"Well, I'd be happy to introduce you, but there are a few conditions."

"Conditions?" Tony asked, turning and raising an eyebrow. He'd expected conditions. The question was if he could meet them. His cover wasn't all that deep, and there were limits to the level of criminal behavior an NCIS agent could engage in without specific clearance from above.

Marino was looking at him oddly. Giving the nearly empty drink in front of Tony a glance, he picked it up and took a sniff. "What's this?" he asked.

"The whisky Mikey gave me," Tony said, not sure what all this meant.

Out in the car, Kate gave Gibbs a worried look. The question was off-script and she wasn't sure where it was coming from. Gibbs' eyes had narrowed, but he didn't say anything.

"Hmmph," Marino said, and his manner was making Tony a little nervous. He put the glass down, then turned and seemed to be about to walk behind Tony towards the kitchen, but he stopped abruptly behind him. With unexpected speed, he grabbed Tony's right wrist and cuffed him to what looked like a decorative railing on the bar, the cuffs coming seemingly out of nowhere. In the same moment, he slipped Tony's .38 out of its holster under his arm.

"Hey!" Tony exclaimed. "What's going on here?" He pulled on the cuff. It didn't look like police issue – it was exceptionally shiny, and there appeared to be some kind of an engraved pattern on the metal.

"Mikey!" Marino called, still right behind Tony.

"Cuffing me to the bar and stealing my weapon isn't a great way to start a business relationship," Tony snarled, aware that he had to let Gibbs and Kate know what was going on. He didn't quite know why Marino had done it, though, so he didn't give the danger word. They'd put too much work into this job to let it go easily, besides, SecNav was pushing Morrow for progress daily. Colonel Sullivan was suspected in fraud, embezzlement, graft and the deaths of two young marines, but he had friends in Congress and among the higher ranks that made it imperative to go at him indirectly.

"It's the only way we're going to start a business relationship, Tony," Marino said from close behind him, practically breathing down his neck. The bartender emerged, and he looked back and forth between Tony and Marino with a startled expression. "Did you give it to him?" Marino asked.

"I did." Mikey gave Tony a speculative look. "And I'd swear he drank it."

Marino reached around Tony and picked up the glass. "Is this it?" he asked, speaking almost into Tony's ear. Tony twitched away.

Kate was listening in growing alarm, wishing they had a camera feed on Tony. "Gibbs, what's going on?" she asked.

"You know what I know," he said grimly, his hand over the mike so that he wasn't transmitting to Tony.

"Should we go in?"

"He hasn't called us."

Kate grimaced. Tony had a tendency towards overconfidence, but pointing that out probably wouldn't get her anywhere.

Tony didn't like having Marino this close. He could smash him in the stomach, but he didn't have cuff keys on him, and the bouncers might not be all that far away. He'd better play it cool for now.

Mikey came over and took the glass, giving it a sniff. He glanced suspiciously at Tony. "No. Glenlivet, like always."

"What's going on here?" Tony asked, his voice hard with anger. "Are you going to uncuff me?"

"No, I don't think so, Vellucci," Marino said, handing the .38 off to the bartender as well. Mikey shrugged, took it, and went back into the kitchen. Tony's alarm was increasing, but he still didn't want to call the op. They wouldn't get another chance. "Why didn't you drink what Mikey gave you?" Marino asked.

If Tony were really Tony Vellucci, he'd be demanding release and insisting that there was no way he'd do business with this bastard, but he didn't know if he dared make such a play. If Marino agreed, they'd be worse off than square one. "I didn't want another drink," he said. "Okay? What's the big deal? What was in it?"

"Something that would have made the conditions easier for you," Marino said softly.

"What, you were going to drug me to meet your associates?" Tony asked. "Don't you trust me?"

"Oh, trust is something you earn in this business, Vellucci, and you aren't there yet," Marino said. "But no, it's not a matter of trust. You were never meeting my associates tonight."

"Then what the hell is this about?" Tony demanded, rattling the cuff. "What conditions?"

"You honestly think you can come into my bar, wave your ass around for three nights running, flirt and play hard to get, and not have your ass be one of the conditions?" Marino said, and Tony's eyes widened. He'd already turned down a pass, but Marino hadn't seemed to mind, and he hadn't made another one.

"I wasn't flirting," Tony said. "And all I'm interested in is a business relationship." Fingers on the small of his back made him flinch and turn around. He glared at Marino. "What did you try and give me?"

"Too late now, Vellucci," Marino said with a grin. "You only get one chance for the easy way."

"I'm not asking for your damned drugged drink," Tony snapped. "Let me out of this cuff, give me back my gun, and we can quit this right here."

Gibbs shook his head. They'd put a lot of effort into this op, a lot of resources. Tony hadn't used any of the words or phrases that meant he was getting out, so Gibbs knew he was bluffing, hoping to talk Marino out of the course of action he seemed to have chosen.

"It's too late for that, too," Marino said, and his voice sounded deeper than it had before. Gibbs wondered if he were closer to Tony's microphone. "I've been promising myself a piece of you since you showed up."

"Gibbs!" Kate hissed.

Marino kept talking. "Just relax and think of all the money you're going to make."

"I'm not playing along with this, Marino," Tony said, his voice low and determined.

"I've got three guys in the next room who will make you, and if you don't want to do business after that, well, fine." There was a pause during which Gibbs could only imagine what was going on – and what was going through Tony's mind. "But you aren't getting out of here till I'm done with you, so you might as well play the game."

Gibbs grimaced. Morrow would understand if they ended this right now and went in, guns blazing. Tony was clearly not getting out of there on his own. Still, they had a dirty Marine colonel to catch. Letting on that this was an op would make the man burrow deeper, and they might never find proof of his crimes. Tony clearly wasn't going to call it yet, but Gibbs wasn't prepared to let his agent be raped to catch the bastard, even if Tony were willing to go that far.

tbc