In Tony's career, he's run into many situations where time is everything. He's familiar with races against the clock and the sense of urgency that comes with it. He knows what it's like to cut it close, to arrive just in time to prevent a catastrophe. He's seen bombs diffused at the literal last second, people pulled from a building moments before its collapse, and he's seen would-be-killers thwarted not an instant too soon.
So really, he should have protested harder when Gibbs insisted that they must delay their mission by two whole days.He insisted the timing was wrong—Do you want to get rescued from that camp or not? The pieces aren't in place yet—but Tony hated the thought of waiting any longer. Saleem was dangerously close to moving his camp, and they were pushing it. Wait too long, and they would be forced to start all over.
The desert wind whips across his face as he drives the jeep over the uneven, bumpy terrain. There is a feeling of anxiety and dread—or Hinkiness, as Abby would put it—settling in his stomach as strong as the sweltering sun itself as it beats down on his shoulders. He and his right hand man do not exchange many words; the sand has a tendency to get into places he would rather it not be. It feels like an eternity before they finally arrive at the destination.
"That does it for Quadrant Whiskey-Four," McGee comments, and Tony anticipates what he knows—hopes—is coming. Any minute now, men with guns should pop out from behind buildings, their sights trained on the two trespassing foreigners.
Any minute now.
A few seconds more.
Just give 'em a sec.
Nothing.
Tony and McGee look around the abandoned camp, and Tony's dread morphs into anger.
"Goddammit!" Tony snarls, whirling on McGee. "We're too late. I knewthis would happen."
McGee sighs in frustration. "Damn. We were so close."
"And now?"
"We still need to search the place. They moved out, but they might've left something behind that tells us where they've gone," McGee reminds Tony, whose face is a picture of angry defeat. "Look, I know you're angry. I am too. But if we're ever going to get this guy…"
"I know, Probie, I know," Tony sighs, running a hand down his face. "Let's go. Watch my six."
Guns drawn, the two agents take off into the nearest building, but find nothing save empty rooms. Shouts of "Clear!" echo through the concrete structures and out into the open air, where they get swallowed up by the wailing wind. They move, building by building, through the camp, finding nothing but abandoned stone rooms and dirt in the first four structures.
The fifth is the game-changer.
The first door they open inside the fifth structure has a heavy bar that locks it from the outside, and Tony wonders if this is the prison structure. McGee slides the bar over and swings the heavy wooden door open on its hinges. The door groans as it reveals the insides of the room it was charged the guarding, and Tony enters with his gun drawn.
His arms lower as he takes in the concrete room he is standing within. It is not as empty as the other rooms they have stumbled across. There are two wooden chairs settled in the center of the dirty floor, and a small table sits off the left side. Sunlight filters in through a semi-circular window on the far wall, and the rays bounce off the ground, illuminating the floor and calling to attention the reddish-brown specks that decorate it. The stench is nearly overwhelming.
It smells of death, and Tony has to steel himself from thinking about all of the men who have been tortured and killed in this room. He finds himself thinking, for the first time, at least Ziva is dead. He never thought he would be grateful for such a thing, but he knows that, had she not been killed at sea, she would have come here, and he does not want to think about even the possibility of Ziva experiencing the horrors that undoubtedly took place in this room.
"Tony. Let's go," McGee prompts, and Tony blinks, once, then twice, and turns on his heel. They exit the torture room and walk down an L-shaped hall way, coming at the end to a T-shaped intersection. They make a left and walk five meters before making another left, down a dark corridor that smells similar to the last.
At the end of the short corridor is a door, one similar to the last. Tony thinks that perhaps they have stumbled upon another torture room, and when McGee slides back the bar and pulls it open, he braces himself.
A strangled cry escapes his mouth, and he knows that no amount of preparation could have braced him for what he saw.
It is not a torture room, it is a holding cell, which is roughly one fourth the size. There is a small, two pane window high on the back wall, and it is the only source of light. The room smells worse than the last. The overwhelming odor of bodily fluids has fermented in the desert heat and collected inside the small, unventilated, cell, and Tony nearly gags.
However, such thoughts hardly occupy his conscience. He is focused, rather, on the prone form lying in the center of the cramped quarters. Ziva's face is clearly visible.
She rests on her back, her head lolled to her right. Her hair is matted and filthy and spread across the dirty ground. Blood soaks the material at her right shoulder. She is not moving.
"No. No, no, nonono…" Tony practically whimpers as he springs into action and crosses the distance between them in two paces. Knees hit the concrete ground and his hands are frantic, first settling on her chest and then her cheek and then her neck for a pulse.
"Is she breathing?" The shaky, almost terrified voice comes from McGee, who has knelt down in a similar manner on the other side of Ziva.
Tony places his ear next to her mouth, apprehension and dread filling every pore of his body. "I… I don't really hear anything…" He cannot stop the panic he feels coming on. "Call someone! Get help!"
"I am!" McGee yells back as he pulls their long-antennae mission cell phone out and dials.
Tony's fingers grope frantically at her neck, feeling to feel the blood beat in her veins so he can know she is alive. His desperate hands find nothing.
"I can't find a pulse!"
"Start CPR. Get her breathing. MedEvac's on the way." McGee does a much better job remaining calm and steady under pressure than Tony does.
Tony's rests his hands on her sternum, shoving thoughts of how damn skinny she is away from his mind. He throws his whole weight into it as he begins chest compressions.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
"She might be in hypovolemic shock… there's a lot of blood. It looks like a stab wound to the shoulder," McGee informs him, which does not help the shaking of Tony's hands.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Pause.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
"Don't make me live without you, Ziva, come on. Wake up," he growls, horrified at the thought of this second chance he'd never anticipated slipping through his fingers like this.
One. Two.
"Wake—"
Three. Four.
"—up!"
Five.
Tony leans down over her and takes her chin in his right hand, plugs her nose with his left, and places his mouth over hers. Thoughts of how her lips taste of dirt and salt and copper—blood—are quickly pushed away. He tries twice to breathe life into her. Nothing happens.
Onetwothreefourfive.
Breath. Breath.
"Breathe, Ziva!" he yells, frustrated and desperate.
Onetwothreefourfive.
Breath. Breath.
"Tony. Stop. I think… Yes. There's a pulse. It's weak but it's there. And her chest is moving," McGee observes, sighing with relief and holding a hand up to the man about to attempt to resuscitate her again. The Probie's eyes are locked on Ziva's chest, which is ever so slightly moving up and down.
Tony nearly chokes on the relief that fills him. He sits back on his heels and moves his hands from her chest. His right wraps around her ghostly fingers, and he wonders if so much emotion has ever before been expressed through such an action. His left hand returns to her face, where he wipes the blood and dirt and sweat off of her cheek ever-so-gently.
"Wake up, Ziva," he begs, his voice choked. "Please wake up. We're going to take you home."
They have come not a moment too soon. Left for dead, she probably would have been so if they had been even a few minutes late. Who knows how long she's laid in this oven of a cell, without food or water and masses of blood leaving her body every hour.
Saleem obviously wanted her to suffer, and if Tony thought he was bloodthirsty before, it was nothing compared to how he feels now.
He does not expect her eyelids to flutter, so when they do, he inhales sharply and strokes her cheek. "There we go. You're safe. You're going to be okay. It's over," he soothes her. Her eyes, however open, remain unfocused. She looks around the room with blank eyes, and Tony wonders what she is seeing. Dehydration-induced hallucinations are his guess, and he hopes that she is seeing anything but this wretched desert prison.
"Tony, we need to carry her out. MedEvac will be here any minute, we need to be outside so we can get on the chopper," McGee prompts. He releases the grip he has on Ziva's hand. "You got her?"
"Yeah, I've got her," Tony affirms, sliding his right arm under her knees and his left under her neck. He murmurs an apology as he jostles her injured shoulder when he lifts her up. McGee tucks her limp head onto Tony's chest.
Ziva just stares blankly ahead as Tony carries her farther away from her filthy, cursed prison.
As they step out into the windy desert afternoon, Tony wonders if this is the first time in nearly four months that Ziva has had a taste of fresh air. He hopes it will improve her still-shallow breathing.
His arms are tiring, and he sighs with relief as he hears the far-off sound of helicopter blades beating the air. It grows louder and louder and what used to be a speck off in the distance grows until it is the size of the buildings around him. He turns his head away to protect his face from the whirlwind of sand the chopper conjures up as it lands thirty feet from where the trio stands. The black door is thrown open and two men with sunglasses and ear protectors jump out, gurney in tow. Tony is woe to let Ziva go, but he eventually relinquishes her to the paramedics. When she is situated—seeing her lying against the white fabric makes her look a hell of a lot worse—the two EMTs roll the gurney back to the chopper and beckon for Tony and McGee, who are holding their shirts up over their noses, to follow.
The door slides shut and what is left of the damaged Three Musketeers takes off into the sky.
A/N: Reviews would be lovely. One more chapter, I believe.