DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS
Well, someone had sex last night.
Ziva David silently groaned as she watched Tony DiNozzo strut toward the desk across from hers, a huge smiled plastered on his angular face. The corners of her mouth twisted. She could predict what was coming. He'd plop into his seat, shoot her that boyish grin, and begin boasting about the "hot babe" he was with last night and how she "had the most memorable night of her life . . . courtesy of Anthony DiNozzo."
She propped an elbow on her desk, rested her head on her hand, and stared at Tony as he dropped some sort of packet on his desk, fell into his seat and looked her way with a toothy grin.
"All right, Tony. Just give me all the details so I can move on with my life."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh come on. The goofier-than-normal grin, the extra spring in your step. You had sex last night, and I know you're just dying to brag about it."
"Much as I wish that were true, that's not the reason I'm psyched this morning."
Ziva feigned shock. "My goodness. There's something else that can make you this happy besides sex?"
"Well, what I did is almost as good as sex." He picked up the packet and held it up for her.
She leaned forward in her chair. The green and gold cover bore the logo of Northern Virginia Community College.
"College? Didn't you graduate from college ten years ago? Why would you want to go back . . ." Her eyes widened with realization. "Ah, I get it. You're looking to recapture your youth by taking some sort of elective class so you can try to pick up co-eds."
"Actually, that's not a bad idea. But this has nothing to do with co-eds." He shot out of his chair and bounded over to her desk. "Check out the class I signed up for."
Tony slapped the packet in her hand. She opened it, then drew her head back in amazement.
"The Legacy of Die Hard?"
"Yeah." Tony nodded excitedly. "Can you believe it? An entire class on the greatest action movie ever made. You should see the stuff they're gonna cover. Influence on other action movies, why they used Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' as the main theme, the masterful use of one-liners. 'Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs.' Or 'All things being equal, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.' And, of course, the classic, "Yippie-Ki-Ay, Mother -"
"Yes, I get it." She snapped the packet closed. "You're telling me that a college, an institution of higher learning, is going to waste time and money on a class revolving around a movie?"
Tony's jaw fell open. "'A movie?' You're calling Die Hard a movie? Why don't you just call the Mona Lisa a painting? Or the Grand Canyon a big hole? David, we're talking about Die Hard. This movie changed the way all action movies are made. The hero getting messed up, the hero using his head instead of relying completely on firepower. If you'd actually seen Die Hard, you'd be able to appreciate that fact."
"Actually, I did see Die Hard."
"Get outta here," Tony scoffed. "Really?"
"Yes, I really did see Die Hard. What, do I look like someone who'd watch something like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants or some other . . . um, uh . . . oh, what do they call those movies with weepy, whiny women?"
"Chick flicks."
"Yes! Chick flicks!" She pointed at Tony. "Do I look like someone who would watch chick flicks?"
"Now that I think about it, no you don't." He placed his palms on her desk and leaned forward. "So tell me. Was that one of the greatest movies of all time or what?"
Ziva bobbed her head from side-to-side. "It was rather entertaining."
"'Rather entertaining?'" Tony sputtered. He blinked and shook his head. "For cryin' out loud. All the explosions, all the gunfights, all the punching and kicking. I thought you Mossad types would love that sort of stuff."
"You obviously overlooked all the inaccuracies in the movie. Like firing MP-5s and Steyr AUGs on full automatic for seven or eight seconds. If you did that in real life, you'd burn through all the rounds in about two seconds."
"Well, most people go to the movies to escape real-life."
"Most novelists are able to have accurate descriptions of weapons in their books. I don't understand why Hollywood can't do the same. All the millions and millions to produce these movies and they can't get someone to pick up a phone, call a police station or a military base and ask a simple question about how a submachine gun works."
Tony scowled at her. He snatched the pamphlet from her hands, folded it in half and pointed it at her. "Leave it to you, David, to try and take all the fun out of a college class on Die Hard."
Ziva leaned back in her chair and shot him a wry grin. It was so easy to get a rise out of him.
Grumbling under his breath, Tony started back to his desk. He only managed three steps before an authoritive voice cut through the air of NCIS headquarters.
"Saddle up, people. We've got a case."
Agent Jethro Gibbs marched between the rows of desks, his ever present Styrofoam cup of coffee in his right hand.
"Where are we off to, Boss?" Tony asked.
"Camp Lejeune. A Marine Recon unit on a training exercise came across a body on the beach." Gibbs stopped in front of Tony and stared at the packet in his hand. Tony responded with an innocent smile.
Gibbs snatched the packet and looked it over. "Going back to school, DiNozzo?" He opened up the packet, quickly studied it, and gave a curt nod. "The Legacy of Die Hard. Well, I'm sure you can put this to good use if we ever run into well-dressed terrorists who take over a skyscraper."
He chucked the packet onto Tony's and headed for the elevator. "Let's go. We've got a long drive ahead of us."
Tony stared at Gibbs and shook his head. "Nobody appreciates fine film-making anymore."
Ziva laughed to herself as she grabbed her gear.
XXXXX
Ziva's blue NCIS jacket rippled in the wind as she, Gibbs, Tony and McGee made their way across the beach. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the tangy scent of salt air. A smile crept across her face as she turned to the surf, watching the frothy white waves roll over the beach. What she wouldn't give to get out of her work clothes, put on a bathing suit and go for a swim. Or maybe just take a nice, relaxing stroll along the surf. If she could find a nice guy to do it with, even better.
An image suddenly popped into her mind. She pictured herself in a loose-fitting sun dress walking along the beach. And a man was with her, holding her hand. She looked up into his face.
It was Tony!
Ziva shuddered. Where the hell did that come from? Okay, Tony was handsome, but as far as a relationship? No chance. She preferred men who acted their age.
She shook her head, suppressing her fantasies about a wonderful day at the beach, focusing all her mental energy on the task at hand.
Yellow tape cordoned off a section of the beach covered in shrubbery. A few Marine MPs stood sentry around the tape. One of them headed over to Gibbs, a stocky man with a silver oak leaf pinned to his field cap.
"Agent Gibbs?"
"That's me."
"Lieutenant Colonel Walling, head of base security. Thank you for coming."
Gibbs introduced the rest of the NCIS team to the Colonel, who led them over to another Marine, a lanky young man with a deeply tanned face.
"This is Lieutenant Hernandez. He led the Recon unit that discovered the body."
"Sir." Hernandez nodded to Gibbs.
"Lieutenant. So, what can you tell us?"
The Colonel led them under the tape as Hernandez spoke. "We were doing an insertion exercise by Zodiac. Hit the beach at Zero-One-Six this morning. Belly crawled our way up to this patch of ground, and that's when I saw it."
Ziva looked down and spotted the "it" Hernandez referred to. She kept her face stiff. Revulsion slithered through her inside. Her stomach churned.
She'd seen bodies in various stages of mutilation before, be it from guns, bombs, fire, even one time a power saw. But this! This had to be one of the worst.
For a moment, she couldn't believe "it" had actually been a human being. She was reminded of those nature documentaries she occasionally watched, the ones that showed some animal that had been eaten by a lion or cheetah, its torso split open, bloody ribs protruding from its body.
This one looked much worse.
The arms, legs and face appeared stripped of flesh. The right leg was missing below the knee. The left hand was also gone.
"Damn," Tony whispered. "Somebody did a number on this guy."
"Did you happen to see anyone else around when you landed, Lieutenant?" asked Gibbs.
Hernandez shook his head. "No, Sir. Me and my guys were the only ones here."
"What about before the exercise?"
"My CO and I were here two days ago scouting the beach when we were trying to decide on a landing site. We didn't see anything unusual then."
Gibbs stared hard at the corpse, then nodded. He turned to the rest of the team. "McGee. Get some shots. Everyone else, spread out and see what you can find."
McGee stepped up to the body. He clutched the camera, looking rather green, his wide eyes locked on the pile of bloody flesh and bones that used to be a person. Ziva felt a pang of sympathy for him. McGee certainly was no virgin when it came to bodies, but she couldn't imagine he'd ever seen one this bad.
I've never seen one this bad.
She turned away from the corpse, her keen eyes scanning the ground. She found several shrubs trampled. McGee would need to snap pictures of them when he finished photographing the body.
"I got something." Tony knelt down and carefully picked up a small object. "Shell casing." He removed a baggie from his jacket pocket and dropped the spent round into it.
"I see another one." Ziva pointed to a shrub near Tony. He picked up that casing and put it in another baggie. A minute later he found a third casing.
"Think it was the killer?" Colonel Walling looked to Gibbs. "Or maybe our corpse fought back before he became a corpse?"
"Too early to tell." Gibbs eyed her and Tony. "Any sign of a weapon?"
"Not yet, Boss," Tony replied, checking out the shrubbery surrounding him.
Gibbs looked to Hernandez. "Lieutenant. Any of your Marines find a weapon here?"
"No, Sir. The body was the only thing we came across."
Ziva continued to look around, placing yellow numbered markers beside disturbed vegetation for McGee to photograph later. She took a quick glance back at the body, again fighting off her nausea. Who would mutilate a body like that? And how did they do it? Did the killer shoot this person before ripping him apart?
Chainsaw? Probably not. There'd be more blood spatter on the ground. What else could have been used? It'd have to be something strong to cut through human bone like that.
She came to a clearing and halted. Her brow furrowed as she stared at the patch of sand.
"Gibbs."
"Yeah, Ziva."
"I think you'll want to see this."
"What?" Gibbs tromped over, stopping next to her.
They both stared in silence at the four footprints in the sand.
Four footprints that were definitely not human.
TO BE CONTINUED