Chapter One
Scene Opens with Tony and Ziva walking onto a porch, guns drawn, flashlights in opposite hands. Time is around midnight. Ziva is behind Tony, slightly to the right.
Anthony DiNozzo and Ziva David walked up to the door at the rear of the house. No lights showed from any rooms, though the back door was slightly ajar. Tony reached out with this left hand and pushed the door open "Malchus Fayak Hatem, Agents DiNozzo and David with NCIS, you're under arrest for the murder of Lance Corporal Dean Houston." Tony turned to his right to let Ziva pass him through the door.
Out of the darkness and silence came the flash of automatic gun fire. Most bullets wizzed past or struck the door frame but three struck his left side. Unable to withstand the painful assault, Tony fell backward onto the porch.
"Tony!" screamed Ziva. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911.
Putting the phone on speaker and setting it next to Tony while she waited for the call to connect, she heard more gunfire from the front of the house as Gibbs crashed through the front door.
"Gibbs! Man-down, Tony's hurt." Ziva yelled out then turned her back to the door, squatted down and shined her flashlight on her partner. Seeing the gun shot wounds and blood flowing far to quickly, she put her gun and her flashlight down and started to remove her jacket, desperate to find anything to press to the wound and stop the flow of blood. "Gibbs, I need help!" she yelled again, then resorted to a steady diatribe of "Don't you die on me, Tony," and "Why isn't 911 connecting the call?" while she tried to stop the bleeding.
With her attention focused on saving her partner, she didn't hear a man come up behind her.
"Gibbs, in the kit…ooooph." Ziva struggled hard, pulling downward on the man's hand, trying free her mouth from the chloroform soaked rag. The combined pressure of his other arm over her throat, compressing her esophagus made escape an improbability, even with her training. He took a large step backward and pulled her head up which served to keep her off-center and unable to use her legs as leverage. Weakening but still fighting like a wild cat, she managed to twist her body enough to get an elbow shot to the man's testicles.
"Uhhn," the man gasp, bending over at the waist but still held his captive tight. "Bitch, you are going pay for that. It is merely one more in your list of sins, kuffar."
Deprived of oxygen for too long, Ziva succumbed to the chloroform, her body turning limp. The man held on as long as he could but there was another confrontation requiring his attention. He dropped Ziva to the porch, heedless of where and how she landed.
.o0o.
Gibbs, hearing Ziva's shout, stopped checking his target. It was too late anyway, he'd managed to shoot the guy three times through the heart. "Ziva, where are you?" he called as he ran down the short hallway and in to the kitchen.
Pffft. The zing of the dart traveling at high speed sounded mere nanoseconds before he felt the sting.
Gibbs reached up to the left side of his neck to pull the dart out. Disoriented in the darkness and distracted by the dart, he didn't see his a second attacker raise a can of pepper spray. Receiving a full shot of spray to his face, Gibbs turned but too late. His knees buckled but he managed to pull the dart out. He wiped his face and struggled to keep his footing, desperately trying to get to his fallen team members.
Pffft.
A second dart found its home, striking frighteningly close to his spine; the combined dosage close to the requirement needed to take down a mid- to large-sized animal. Definitely more than a human, even one with Gibbs' amazing constitution, could fight off. Gibbs fell hard. His left arm, still raised from removing the first dart, shielded his face from direct contact with the floor.
"Bullseye," Malchus said with a laugh and fake shot from his gun-shaped fist. He lifted his arm to his mouth and blew on his finger in mock salute to the fallen.
"Zarak, get the rope, tie these two, and find her phone," he said to his accomplice, reaching into the man's pocket, pilfering the object. "George! We're leaving," he called out to his brother. No response. Malchus kicked Gibbs in the thigh for good measure and then headed down the hallway toward the front room.
"No!" he cried out in agony. "You killed my brother, no, not George." Malchus paused to brush the hair from his brother's eyes. He clenched his brother's hand to his chest and hung his head, sobbing. After a few moments, Malchus lightly placed his brother's hand back on George's chest and reached out to close his eyes.
"Be well, my brother. They will pay for this, you can be certain of that, for I am Malchus Fayak Hatem. I am determined, I am superior, and I am King. I swear I will make them pay." Malchus rose, leaned down and kissed his brother's forehead, and then headed back down the hall into the kitchen.
Sirens sounded from outside, faint but growing closer.
"Damn it, I don't have time for my plan. I'll have to take the boss, too." He went back to the kitchen and signaled to his accomplice to grab Gibbs. Then he leaned down to lift Ziva, saying, "You'll both fit in the trunk. I don't think you will mind… much."
He laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound.