Tony DiNozzo stood frozen in front of the huge plasma that showed a picture of NCIS Special Agent Lara Macy. Even though he was looking at the monitor, his sight was glued to his own plasma screen in his mind that had many more photos on it. His badge was grasped in his right hand as his thumb slowly ran across the all too familiar ridged band of black elastic. McGee was at his desk reading off her personal file, Tony could faintly hear that she had left the LA office under special circumstance and was transferred to the Force Protection Attachment in Marsa.
"You're supposed to feel safer on American soil," Tony found himself saying, even though the deaths of every agent had been on said 'safe' soil.
"It could have happened anywhere, to any of us," Ziva said standing by McGee's desk tapping the tips of her fingers together. "It is the risk we take."
Her accented words sent Tony deeper into his reverie as he recounted the familiar feelings, of every high risk situation he had ever been a part of.
Tony had been with NCIS two years before he had his first dealing with losing a fellow agent, Chris Pacci. DiNozzo swallowed in hopes of pushing down the foul taste of bile that threatened to come up at the memory. It had happened years ago, but the memory of the case still made Tony want to puke. He had been aroused and even been lip locked with the person that shot and slashed opened his friend. Tony swallowed convulsively again. Amanda, Voss, whatever name or gender that sick bastard went by, he only wished had he had been the one to pull the trigger and send the bullet into his brain.
Bullet in the brain.
There were still nights when Tony would wake up with the feeling of her blood on his face. He had never lost a partner to a monster before until he lost Kate Todd. He remembered that day when McGee asked her if she had feelings for Tony. Sure, he thought about dating Kate but every time that thought came up, another one would over power it. A different feeling. The kind of feeling you get when you think about kissing your sister. At the end of those two short years, that is what he lost. Not just a friend or a co-worker but his sister. The day that Ari was finally killed and Kate was buried, Tony swore that she would be the last NCIS agent they would have to bury. And for a few years no one in the agency had died- until that weekend.
Special Agents Jim Nelson and Rick Hall had unknowingly taken what no doubt would have been himself and McGee's places in the grave. Being blown up by a soon-to-be suicide bomber. Tony didn't know if that was worse than being shot, but it didn't matter. Two more agents were murdered. And unlike Chris and Kate's killers who got shot in the forehead, this bastard willingly killed himself. He blew himself up so he could get those 72 virgins or whatever Mohammad promised, and be looked upon by his people as a hero who died taking down three NCIS agents. If only that murderer had died in the first explosion, Paula Cassidy would still be alive. But no, he had to kill Cassidy's two agents, leaving her with survivor's guilt, only to show up at the store with that damn bomb strapped on. Now he had the survivor's guilt. Still, to this day, Tony ran though different scenarios in his brain trying to think if there had been a better way, a way that didn't end with Paula throwing herself at the suicide bomber and being blown into pieces, yet none would suffice.
To make everything worse, a year later the Director of NCIS was killed in a gun fight that was entirely preventable and entirely Tony's own fault. He was assigned to protect her. Ziva should have pushed harder on the issue, but he was cruising the streets of Los Angeles while Jenny Shepard was being turned to Swiss cheese. Jenny's death was the last straw. The one that broke his proverbial back. Tony found himself drinking, not only to help numb his guilt and the sorrow that came with her death, but also for those other five agents.
However, in retrospect, Jenny's death was just the crack that allowed him to break when the following summer revealed Ziva's alleged death. No amount of liqueur would work to ease the pain of her death, but traveling to South Africa to avenge her death was the only thing to do. Thankfully, by a miracle by God they had all been wrong and she was still alive to be saved, just barely.
So later when Special Agent Jack Patterson was shot and killed, he had so much practice that for Tony, putting the black elastic band over his badge, well, it almost seemed normal. And that realization made him sick once more. Becoming callused over the dead sailors or their families over the years was one thing, however it should never be normal to bury another NCIS agent, regardless if you knew them or not.
A week ago they had received the report that the missing NCIS agent from Los Angeles Office of Special Projects was killed in a gun fight minutes after being found. After seeing that report Tony found himself driving to Kate's grave. Agent Dominic Vaile's death was so much like Kate's but at the same time so totally different, that it left him conflicted inside. Both were the first ones in their team to be killed and both killings happened on a roof top. Agent Vaile was shot during a gun fight while Kate was killed shortly after one. However Kate was killed only to get at Gibbs, while Agent Vaile jumped in front of the bullets to save another agent. So even though he never knew Dominic Vaile, Tony knew his death all too well. He couldn't help thinking that his death could have just as easily been Ziva's as well. Not all captives escape with their lives.
Tony was suddenly jolted back to reality when Gibbs came into the bullpen and blocked Agent Macy's photo momentarily. "So now what?" he heard Ziva say behind him.
"We assess," McGee simply stated.
Tony could feel the strong emotion of anger as he spoke, "Figure out who killed another female NCIS agent," though as he said it, he knew that there were actually more male agents who were killed. But besides Chris, the other four men were agents he barely knew. On the other hand, Kate, Paula and Jenny, the three female agents, they had been apart of his life.
"And we uphold justice to the full extent of the law," McGee said to Ziva.
But with Special Agent Lara Macy now murdered, that made it nine agents in seven years. There was no law extensive enough to administer proper justice in his mind. He said grimly, "Or do whatever it takes."
A/N: I realized thanks to ComfySweats that I totally forgot about Langer and Lee. However I like my story to much to try and change it to fit them in it and then the story would be called "And That Makes Eleven" and it doesn't sound good So please forgive me if there are any Langer or Lee fans out there…their deaths did have a impact on the show, just like the other nine.