Chapter 1

It was 9am on a Friday morning. Anthony DiNozzo and Ziva David were sat at their desks at NCIS HQ waiting for a case to come in. The last week was pretty quiet, as they had cases that were not pretty difficult and both couldn't wait for the weekend to begin.

"So Zee-vah…what are you reading?" asked a bored Tony who, to be honest, couldn't care less.

"The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald… something McGee recommended"

"…classic"

Ziva put her book down and stared at him with shocked disbelief "you have read this book? Oh no wait… it's a movie isn't it?"

"Robert Redford, Mia Farrow … brilliant"

Ziva rolls her eyes, then she hear's the beep on Tony's computer telling him he's got an e-mail.

"so you have friends afterall , yes?"

"haha" Tony laughs mockingly but his cockiness is quickly shifted.

Ziva notices Tony's sudden change in attitude. "what's wrong??"

"get Gibbs, now" replied Tony with the upmost urgency.

Ziva did not question him and stood up and started to pace as she called Gibbs on her mobile. But as Tony plugged his iPod earphones into his computer to listen to a message, she just managed to catch a glimpse of the picture he his is looking at, of a pretty redhead with blood running down her cheek… and a gun pointed to her head.

--

"What is it DiNozzo?" asked Gibbs as he responded to Ziva's call "this better be good". McGee was following him, presumably from Abby's lab.

"Well… we have a case… not strictly Navy related but we need to save a girl who is being held hostage"

"say again", this was weird, Gibbs thought, Tony was only ever this serious in the field… it must be something big.

"Well, I received this e-mail 5 minutes ago, the sender is encrypted but it is a video feed… I'll put it on the plasma"

Then it began. On the video was a young girl, she couldn't have been more than 21 years old, she had the nicest red hair and striking green eyes. Her mouth was gagged and he had tears… and blood running down her cheek. And there was a gun pointed at her head, and the man in the balaclava spoke to the camera: "Anthony DiNozzo, I have your daughter and I will have her die a slow, painful death if you do not do as I say. You will completely erase FBI case file 3558868200 from every database in the world, including the hardcopies, you have until sundown tomorrow to confirm that it has been dealt with. I'll be in touch"

The screen goes black. Everyone is silent. No-one knows what to say. All that they could do was stare at each other in disbelief.