Pre – series.
Prologue
June 2002. Israel
Ziva David was in Mossad's training center. She was there to welcome a few new trainees. What was special about them was that they were not Israelis but Greeks. She was there to act as an interpreter though the Greek Cyber war and Intelligence Command assured them that at least 4 of the 12 non commissioned officers spoke pretty good Hebrew, all of them spoke excellent English and other languages. Standing under a tent wandered what those Greeks would be like. The idea she had for the Greeks from her brief visits in the Greek Islands was of funny, smiling and hospitable people especially if you spoke their language. But she never ever had to cooperate with their National Intelligence Service or any other kind of intelligence or law enforcement agency. From the little she had heard from other officers, they didn't have much respect for the Greek government or their agencies because of known failures due to impotency of people or political planning. But that was their opinion. She always reserved the right to form her opinion through her own observation and collection of information.
Suddenly the sound of a horn of mini bus and the voice of the chief instructor pulled her from her thoughts. She ran towards the car. She stood left of the chief instructor ready to offer her services. From the bus started to come out the greek NCO's. Six men and six women. All of them were tall (at least taller than her even the women) and muscular. The NCO in charge saluted the head instructor and in almost perfect Hebrew reported himself and his team for duty.
The same night Ziva found herself impressed from the first day of their young trainees. Although they were all about her age 23 – 24 years old they all had already served once at least 8 months in Afghanistan, they all had graduated from Greece Non Commissioned Officer's College and the Ranger and S.E.A.L program of their Armed Forces. They were all extremely well trained and very good shooters. Her as trainee for almost ten months now had excelled in all the training courses of the program without much competition from the other trainees. Now she could see that especially that damn silent sergeant major of them (what was his name? Kosta, Kosti something like that) would give her a run for her money.
November 2002. Israel
Ziva was frustrated. Damn, he is frustrating, she thought. Before that crazy Greek came to the center she was the undisputed favorite for the first place in the graduation of the course. Now that Greek was very close to her and he was threatening her dominance. She had beaten in the Krav Maga lessons all of her opponents Greek and Israeli, She was the best runner of all and her scores in the shooting range were out of the charts: almost 99%.
And there he was with his whole funny behavior and not even caring for the competition. He had also beaten every opponent he had but every time very carefully not to injure anyone especially the women, his stamina was better then hers though she had faster pace than him and in the shooting range showed her his shooting prowess with something unbelievable. They had put a ring in a steady position on the range instead of a target. He shot the bullet through the ring from a distance of 25 meters. After that others tried but almost everyone missed or hit the ring from the outer part. When her turn came she shot the ring and bullet got through the ring but he was the winner because her bullet had grazed the ring while his didn't. He had said it was the traditional targeting challenge of the guerilla fighters of his country during the Turkish occupation of the Greek lands.
That's it she thought. I'm going to talk to him I need to know why he does what he does. When we fought together he could have beat me but he didn't what is that makes him so good when he doesn't need to win.
With that thought she went to find him. As usual, he was almost hidden in an empty storage near the recreation area of the training center. He had that damn laptop in his lap and he was reading. He was so deep in his reading that he didn't understand she was near him. Ziva stood above him and watched him. He was so relaxed when reading. He watched him for a while. Seeing that he didn't felt or that he was ignoring her she cleared her throat. Kostas looked up
Hi Ziva. Can I help you?
Yes, I would like to talk with you.
About what?
About everything that has to do with you and this training and your behavior and I 'm confused and…she stopped not knowing what more to say
Kostas got up from the floor where he was sitting and got out of the storage room. He took the path that was heading to the beach. Ziva stood speechless for some seconds and then followed him.
When they reached the beach Kostas sat to the golden sand and waited for Ziva to come, staring the sea. Ziva sat beside him and looked at him.
Still staring the sea said:
So Ziva talk, Say whatever you want to say, ask whatever you wanna ask. I've had enough of that. I want to be your friend because you are a nice girl to be friends with but you're making it hard and that shit they say to never trust anyone? No. That's not me. So talk Ziva.