He looked over the pile of dossiers. His cohort had done excellent work on assembling these, but, of course, he'd expected nothing less. There were six: four men and two women. But one of them he didn't even need to see. He knew all he needed to know about that wretched subject.
He opened the first dossier:
Name: Dr. Donald Mallard (known to his friends as "Ducky")
Occupation: NCIS Medical Examiner
Date of Birth: September 19th, 1936
Place of Birth: Glasgow, Scotland
Education: Edinburgh Medical School
Father: Andrew Mallard (1910-1980)
Mother: Victoria Mallard (1912-2010)
Siblings: None
Marriage(s): None
Children: None
"Ducky," he repeated with a grin. The picture was that of a kindly older gentleman who had a grandfatherly look about him. An older man living alone. What could be simpler?
The next one had a picture of a dark-haired woman wearing black make-up and dark clothing. Her bright smile and almost girlish pigtails contradicted her gothic fashion choices, he noted with amusement. And she was another one without special agent training. Another easy one.
Name: Abigail Scuito
Occupation: NCIS Forensics and Ballistics
Date of Birth: March 27th 1975
Place of Birth: Metairie, Louisiana
Education: Louisiana State University
B.S. Sociology, Criminology, and Psychology
Georgia State University
M.S. Forensic Science and Criminology
Father: William Scuito (1952-)
Mother: Rebecca Scuito (1953-)
Siblings: Grace Scuito (1974-);
Bobby Scuito (1980-)
Marriage(s): None
Children: None
He flipped to the next file. This time the picture showed a slim, baby-faced man with wide green eyes. He didn't look old enough to have worked at NCIS for six years. He looked soft, easily breakable. He looked like the kind of man he'd be able to have some fun with.
Name: Timothy McGee
Occupation: NCIS Special Agent
Date of Birth: November 15th, 1977
Place of Birth: Bethesda, Maryland
Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. Computer Science
M.S. Computer Forensics
Johns Hopkins University
B.S. Biomedical Engineering
Father: Richard McGee (1953-)
Mother: Josephine McGee (1955-)
Siblings: Sarah McGee (1985-)
Marriage(s): None
Children: None
The next picture in the pile was that of a good-looking man with chiseled features. He wore a cocky grin on his face which, coupled with the glint in his eyes, gave him an air of being very certain and sure of himself. No doubt he would be the kind to play tough when faced with danger, hiding his fear with sarcasm and jokes.
Name: Anthony DiNozzo, Jr.
Occupation: NCIS Special Agent
Date of Birth: July 8th, 1971
Place of Birth: Long Island, New York
Education: Ohio State University
B.A. Physical Education
Father: Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. (1950-)
Mother: Julianne DiNozzo (1954-1979)
Siblings: None
Marriage(s): None
Children: None
He smirked. Families were not conducive to this line of work. He knew that better than anyone else. When you risked your life every day while working, thoughts of a spouse and children only got in the way...especially when your spouse was involved in the same line of work. He wasn't surprised that so far none of the subjects had any semblance of their own family, except with each other.
The next picture depicted an older man with silver hair and steel-blue eyes that seemed to look directly through you. His mouth was formed into a small frown and, based on the small wrinkles that had begun to form, it looked as though that was his typical expression of choice.
Name: Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Occupation: NCIS Special Agent
Date of Birth: September 2nd, 1955
Father: Jackson Gibbs (1936)
Mother: Margaret Gibbs (1937-1975)
Siblings: None
Marriage(s): Shannon Fielding (1962-1991)
(1980-1992, her death)
Christine Jensen (1959-)
(1994-1996, divorce)
Diane Cornwall (1962-)
(1999-2000, divorce)
Stephanie Flynn (1965-)
(2001-2003, divorce)
Children: Kelly Gibbs (1983-1991)
Included in this file was a detailed account of how Shannon and Kelly Gibbs had been killed when a Mexican drug lord (against whom Shannon had testified) shot the NCIS agent assigned to protect them. Further proof that one could not maintain a good family life when doing this kind of work. Of course his work and their work were not quite the same. In fact, one might say they were the antithesis of each other. But in many ways they were alike. He'd killed many men and he'd no doubt that they (at least the ones who were special agents) had killed many people. That much they shared in common.
He put aside those dossiers and turned his attention to the last one. He need only open it and see the picture to feel the rage bubbling up inside of him. Ziva David. For him that name brought only memories of anger and hatred. He would gladly see her dead and would more gladly be the one to do the deed, to watch her very life drain from her right before his eyes.
But he needed to wait. It was not good enough to simply kill her; that would be letting her off too easily. First, he had to make her know pain, make her understand what true emotional and mental anguish and grief meant.
He placed his hand atop the pile of dossiers. They would do very nicely. By the end, perhaps she would be begging him to kill her and release her from the overwhelming guilt.
Ziva David would suffer just as he had, he would make sure of that.
AN: This story was written for the NFA Community White Elephant Fic Exchange and was inspired by a prompt given to me by EleventhHour.