I don't own anything. Scorpia and Scorpia Rising are elements of the Alex Rider book series.
What happened before:
Scorpia Rising I: An old nemesis of Tony hires the criminal organization Scorpia to kill him. They send the hit man Caroline after him but the NCIS team can uncover the identity of the organization's members and only Caroline, her younger sister Katarina and their boss Dr. Medici could flee.
Scorpia Rising II: On 09/11/12 the National Museum at Washington DC is attacked by a plane and Tony gets wounded and hospitalized. Only moments before the hospital blows up by a bomb attack, he gets rescued by Caroline and Katarina and he learns that they are working for a new organization, also called Scorpia Rising, who is responsible for those attacks. The NCIS team finds out again the plans of Scorpia and the sisters help them with killing its leaders. Tony is freed but the sisters managed to disappear once more.
Scorpia Rising III: In the morning of their wedding, Ziva gets abducted from her father to Israel and Tony decides to ask the sisters for help. Together they enter Israel and with the help of a terroristic group, they are able to free Ziva and Tony has to shoot Eli David to escape. Four months later, Ziva is pregnant and Tony gets arrested by FBI for the murder of Eli David. Fornell wants to bring him to a safe house because the murder of the Mossad director by an NCIS agent off-duty is the reason for growing tensions between Israel and the USA. When Mossad agents try to kill them, Tony can fleet with the help of Katarina.
Scorpia Rising IV: Tony and Katarina are on the run in Malibu, Sacramento and San Francisco. She gets arrested on Hawaii and Caroline helps Tony to make an agreement with the Hawaii special unit 5-0. Officer Danny Williams accompanies Tony to the CIA headquarters on the East Coast so that he can help clarifying the circumstances under which he has killed Director David. The plane gets kidnapped but Caroline manages an emergency landing. Ziva who hides in a Safe house of FBI is attacked by Mossad agents but Caroline rescues her. About six months later, Caroline is in Mexico and a friend asks her to help him torture a Mossad spy inside NCIS who he has kidnapped from Washington DC. He hopes that he can blackmail the governments with the information he gets.
Characters:
Caroline is 29/30 years old and has studied computer science in Great Britain. She became known to the team as a member of the Italian organization Scorpia and after the second known destruction she continues working as contract killer. She has two daughters, four year old Scarlet and four month old Carey.
Katarina is 26/27 years old and Caroline's younger but more aggressive sister. She has studied Physics at Cambridge. She becomes a member of Scorpia in Scorpia Rising II but then works together with her sister as assassin. She had wanted to marry her fiancée Edoardo about one year before Scorpia Rising III but he got shot during their wedding ceremony.
Edoardo was Katarina's deceased fiancée. His brothers took revenge for his death and Katarina starts a relation with Federico in Scorpia Rising III. He and his younger brother Alessio died in Scorpia Rising IV.
Yassen was Caroline's boyfriend and father of Scarlet. He died in front of them both due to a car bomb. His younger brother works as high member of the Sanchez cartel in South Mexico and he asks Caroline to torture a spy for him.
Chapter 1
"What exactly did he want?" Katarina asked and looked up when her sister closed the door behind her. Her eyes got slowly used to the dark, there was only a small lamp in the corner turned on, the one of the ceiling was broken and the blinds at the windows were lowered because of the extreme heat outside. Caroline sat down next to Katarina on the floor who was just rocking a baby silently in her arms.
"How's my little Carey today?" the older sister asked smilingly and Katarina gave the little child carefully into the arms of its mother. "What's about Scarlet?" she asked while the baby tried grabbing her finger.
"She's sleeping…who was this guy?"
"He's a Mossad spy of DC's NCIS. When he was willing to talk, I left again. It seems like the Israeli government is planning something bigger."
"They say that new peace treaties are in negotiation?"
"Since when do the governments tell the truth, especially the American government?" Caroline answered.
Katarina hesitated for a moment. "How was he?"
"He didn't talk much. It was just about the formal things. I wonder why he abducted an Israeli spy. He said he wanted to blackmail the governments but politics has always been the interest of his brother…"
"You miss Yassen, don't you?" Katarina asked and her eyes showed that she knew exactly what her sister felt like. It was only two years ago that her fiancée she had wanted to marry, was shot.
Caroline stood up. "Carey doze off. I'll bring her to bed and prepare dinner," she declared and walked off to another room.
Katarina sighed and turned on TV.
CNN Mexico was on and they were again reporting from the up-heating situation in the US. And since North Korea has quit the ceasefire treaty with the South and officially thought about a preventive attack toward the USA, the situation grew more and more critical. The USA, knowing that they couldn't face their new enemies on their own, was obviously talking to befriended countries, although nothing was official yet.
Katarina stood up and followed her sister to the tiny kitchen. "The situation is getting worse in the States," she declared and started preparing the table.
"Have you heard something from Italy lately?" the older sister asked while turning on the cooker.
"France is still helping the Italian army but when the tensions between Israel and America are becoming more offensive, I'm not sure what Europe will do."
"Probably stay out of all this, I guess. Only send the support the UNO wants to give," she answered while concentrating on cutting potatoes.
There was a long silence until Katarina decided to wake Scarlet for dinner.
"Hey guys, have you seen Jake?" Special Agent Joanna Lindsey asked and looked over at the two agents standing in front of their TV.
"No, why?" McGee asked and turned to her.
"He never is late, but today he just didn't show up. And it's already ten."
"Perhaps he had an accident?" he suggested but Lindsey shook her head.
"I called him several times, at home and his phone. I really get worried, I could usually call him any time," she answered. With a thinking look on her face, she turned back to her agents.
Tony shrugged his shoulders and noticed Gibbs coming from the elevator with a new cup of coffee in his hands. "I just got a call. There's been a shooting at Agent Jake Ryan's house. He's disappeared and some worried neighbors called the police," he said shortly and grabbed his jacket.
"Why haven't I been informed?" Agent Lindsey turned back to them.
"I don't know. Vance has just called me," Gibbs said while noticing at the same moment that their director has approached.
"Because you stay here, Agent Lindsey. As does your team. I don't want you to investigate the abduction of one of your team members and friends."
"Abduction?"
"This is what the police has figured out. Gibbs, you'll proof that theory," he said and walked straight back to his office again.
Lindsey raised an eyebrow and turned back to Gibbs: "Please find him. He was a good agent." The boss didn't even nod but went to the elevator. The two agents looked at each other and grabbed their rucksacks to follow them.
Arriving at the crime scene, they noticed a lot of police cars and cops running around. They went closer and noticed why. Right on the doorstep was lying the body of a man, his skin was dark and he had black hair.
"His name is Juan Hernandez Santiago," a police officer said pointing at the corpse. "He works for the Sanchez cartel in South Mexico. Do you think this has something to do with drug traffic?"
"No idea yet," Gibbs answered and stepped over the body to enter the house.
The officer followed and explained: "We take along that he entered the house and Mr. Ryan notices so. He's fast and kills him immediately. But Hernandez' colleague shoots back as soon as his friend is down and Ryan has to retreat to the living room.
There he hides behind that sofa and gets grazed by a bullet, we made a fast match with the blood drops. He manages to shoot another bad guy, the one over there where your pathologist is. But more men come in and disarm Ryan. He is dragged over the floor as you can see at the blood that is spread all over the floor."
Gibbs nodded and looked at the two agents. They silently started making photos and outlines. "Ducky?" Gibbs asked and walked over to the pathologist.
"As the police officer said, this man was shot three times into the chest. They're not aimed and he tried to evade them so I assume they're self-defense shots."
"Ryan had only worked here for a few months. He never had anything to do with South American drug traffic."
"Perhaps not during his time as NCIS agent. What has he done before?" Ducky asked curiously.
"What have you found out?" Gibbs asked when he came back from Abby's lab.
"Jake Ryan, age thirty-four. He was born in Paris but went to an international school. He moved to America at age twenty-four where he starts at the Chicago Police Academy. He became NCIS agent and moved to Washington five months ago. He has never worked at a drug traffic case but funnily I can't find any contacts of who he had formerly worked with," Tony explained and handed over the pointer at McGee.
"I have done some more research. He may be on the list of graduates from the Police Academy but I can't find a photo of him in his senior year. I called the director of the academy and when he looked his records up, it seemed as if Jake Ryan has never existed there."
"I came to the same conclusion. But I also tried to call his school in Paris. They have no record either about him," Tony said with a worried face.
Gibbs nodded. "It seems as if Jake Ryan was born only to work at the NCIS. Have you tried to run his data through facial recognition software?"
"No, I'll go down to help Abby," McGee said and left. When Gibbs returned to his desk, he noticed Agent Lindsey staring over at them. "You think what I think?" he asked.
She slowly shook her head. "He couldn't have been a spy. He was a nice guy, although quite aggressive from time to time."
"Whoever he was, we need to find out where he is now."
Abby and McGee turned around when they heard Gibbs entering the lab. "What have you got?"
"We didn't find any matches in the data bank. But I finished examining the two other guy's clothes. It seems as we have found out where Agent Ryan might be now."
"Where?" the boss asked demanding.
"Both guys had flight tickets in their pockets, both also still had the return tickets. And Ducky's autopsy proofed as well that they have travelling by plane only a few hours ago," the forensic scientist said.
"Where?" Gibbs nearly shouted.
"They both came from Mexico City."
"Great. McGee, tell Tony to pack some things. We're flying to Mexico."
"But…you sure? Tony shouldn't leave Ziva and their little Kathleen alone…" Abby said.
"She can watch alone after the baby and it's only a few days until we locate Ryan. Ziva isn't in maternity leave for nothing," Gibbs answered and already headed toward Autopsy.
Please review what you think about that start and I would really appreciate it if you told me a bit of what you're expecting from this story and what I should do better than in the previous parts. ;)