A/N: OMG!! We're back!! I don't know how long it will last, but I am back to being able to log into my profile so here is the next chapter! finlaure - Haha, I know what you mean! ENJOY!!!-pj
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Ziva had already been on her way to Abby's and therefore had beat Gibbs and Tony there by several minutes. She'd found Abby, established that she was alright, and then merely grabbed her gear from her trunk and began processing the scene. After Gibbs gave her the okay to do so Abby called the Metro Cops, knowing that at the moment, he couldn't claim jurisdiction. Abby wasn't military and, as far as anyone outside his team was concerned, Tracy was his niece and a civilian.
Ziva was finishing up her sketches as she sidled up next to Tony, who was going through the photos on the camera.
"You okay?" She asked softly, not looking at him.
Tony hesitated before speaking, his eyes remaining glued to the camera and his voice so low it could hardly be heard.
"Shoulda' been here."
Ziva sighed and shook her head, "there is no way you could have known."
This did not seem to be what he wanted to hear.
"Like hell," he snapped and brushed past her toward the living room/dining area at the end of the short hall where Gibbs was comforting Abby and trying to get more information.
"Abbs, just calm down," Gibbs tried, "I need you to focus."
"I am focused Gibbs, but my house was just broken into and my friend abducted so I'm a little wired at the moment." Abby protested his gesture with a shake of her head.
"Hey," he stepped forward, forcing her to look up at him and he lowered his voice to a whisper, "she's important to me too, you know."
Abby's eyes widened and she mentally kicked herself for her outburst. She nodded slightly, "of course Gibbs, I know-"
"And we're going to find her," he finished, not allowing her to complete the roundabout apology, "Now what do you remember?"
She shook her head miserably, "they wore masks and I was out before I even got a good look at them. But I'm going to get down to my lab to start a facial reconstruction as soon as Metro takes my statement," she looked away guiltily, "I'm sorry Gibbs, I-I opened the door without checking. I thought it was Ziva. Girls night."
Gibbs pursed his lips,but squeezed her shoulder reassuringly before turning to acknowledge Tony's hovering presence.
They stepped away slightly from Abby and lowered their voices.
"Metro is almost here but we've already got samples of everything. Ziva's finishing a sketch now," he paused, looking like he wanted to say more.
"Spit it out, DiNozzo," Gibbs had a feeling he knew what it was Tony wasn't saying, because he was thinking the same.
"Do you think they took her back, Boss?" He let his eyes slide up to Gibbs, unsure if he wanted the response to be in the affirmative or not. If it wasn't, then it was just some random kidnapping that the odds were against them to turn out well, if it was the CIA back for more…well, that was almost worse in comparison.
"Don't know yet, Tony," he said, his tone hard-edged, though Tony was sure the aggression wasn't directed at him, "only one way to find out."
He started toward the door and then turned back, "Abby?"
She looked up at him from where she'd folded herself up on the couch.
He knelt so he was eye-to-eye with her.
"Next time, Abby, check before you open the door."
She swallowed hard and nodded, pigtails brushing her shoulders, "don't worry Gibbs. I will. Always."
Gibbs nodded and stood to leave, Tony on his heels.
"Where do you think you're going, DiNozzo?" Gibbs stopped short and spun so that he was face to face with the junior agent.
Tony raised his eyebrow, "with you, Boss," he stated, his voice saying that he thought that should have been obvious.
"No, you're not."
"But Gibbs I-" Tony started.
Gibbs had to know, didn't he? He had to know how much it was killing Tony being here. Knowing Kelly was out there somewhere in trouble and he was just standing there, useless, able to do nothing about it.
"No, DiNozzo, I want you here. At the scene," Gibbs interrupted sharply, "Make sure Metro understands that we're to be kept in the loop on this one. I want copies of everything. I want an agent at every interrogation, following every lead. Understood?"
Tony pursed his lips to keep all the expletives and smart-ass comments that were rushing up his throat inside and merely nodded.
Maybe he didn't know.
Then, a moment before continuing toward the door Gibbs' eyes softened minutely and he dropped his voice.
"I'll bring her back Tony," he said, and Tony liked to think a 'to you' was added silently as understanding passed between them.
Of course he knows, Tony thought as his boss disappeared out the front door, Gibbs always knows.
---
"Hey! I know you can hear me in there!" Kelly sat on the edge of a purple comforter of a queen size bed. She lifted the teddy bear' in her hands closer to her face, "I said I want to speak to the Director. No Deputy Director. No Special Agent In Charge. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency."
The tiny cameras in the bear's eyes focused in slightly but made no other comment and she sighed in disgust, tossing it aside. She stood and folded her arms, turning first to the camera and mike in the lamp on the dresser, and then to the ones on the clock. She took a step forward, seemingly screaming at the inanimate laptop, which she knew to be streaming live video, that sat atop the solid oak desk.
"I've read the file. I know you need me and badly or I wouldn't be here to begin with," back here, she added silently. When she'd woken half an hour ago she'd almost thought she was dreaming again. But then she'd realized it wasn't a dream. She was back. They'd taken her back.
Everything was exactly as she'd left it. The sparsely decorated, but luxuriously furnished room that was meant to put her at ease, had been her playpen as a child and her mathematical domain as she got older, was a cage from which she only wanted freedom. The windows on two walls were glazed so as to only let in a warm, bright light meant to mimick the sun, but she knew it to be well placed lights. Kind of difficult to get direct sunlight from ten floors below ground.
She leaned on the desk, her palms flat, eyes menacing and growled at the screen.
"If you think for one moment I'm going to help you willingly after all you've done, you've got another thing coming. Big time."
At that moment the tall bookshelf on the other side of the room slid out of place and the hidden metal door behind it swished open.
"Kay, I don't remember you having such a temper before you left."
"Bite me Carlson," she snapped, feeling a little bit guilty for it. The agent had always been kind to her, but at the moment he was merely a symbol of her oppressors. One she could probably take in a fight at that, "have you come to take me to the Director?"
Agent Carlson smiled warmly but Kelly did not return it.
"You know we can't do that, Kay."
"Stop calling me that," she advanced toward him and two security agents appeared at his elbows, Kelly instantly recognized them as the ones from Abby's apartment. Even so, she didn't stop moving until she was nose to nose with the other man, "take me to the Director or your people keep dying."
The man's eyes narrowed, "how did you-the file didn't have any of those details."
"It's called deductive reasoning, Gary," she interrupted, the ice in her voice tempered only by the fact that she could still taste the sweetness of chloroform in the back of her throat and didn't want to tempt the guards to give her another dose, "my guess is the Agency was never fooled by my little 'died and gone to heaven' act so you've had eyes and ears on me for a while, which I'm a little curious about since I swept the place for bugs everyday," her glare deepened and the agent fought to keep his face neutral, "and now, all out of the blue I find myself back here? No way you guys would risk my dad blowing up Agency HQ with all of you inside it unless it was important."
Carlson tipped his head to one side, "he wouldn't."
She raised an eyebrow in a way that would have given anyone else Gibbs déjà vu, "wouldn't he?" she gave him a straight stare, "now, which way to the Director?"
For several seconds the man tried to out-glare her, but Kelly remained stubborn and refused to bend. Finally Carlson sighed and stepped to one side, lifting his arm in invitation and pointed to the right.
Kelly brushed past him, sending the security guard a glare as she went by.
---
"Name?"
"Kelly."
The blonde woman behind the check-in desk lifted her eyes from her computer screen. The silver-haired man who was currently leaning far over the counter, a look of pure determination and fury in his eyes definitely did not strike her as a 'Kelly'.
"That's you're name?"
"No. That's who I'm here for. I want her down here," his voice was deceptively soft and sending nervous tremors down her spine, "now."
She pursed her lips, glancing surreptitiously at the guard standing off to one side near the elevators.
"Last name and department?"
"Gibbs and wherever you keep the abductees," he said with feigned nonchalance.
Her eyes flashed up to his again and he raised an eyebrow at her incredulous look, leaning forward.
"Here's a hint, you work for the CIA, not the Lollipop Council," he slammed his open hand on the counter, startling the receptionist and capturing the attention of almost everyone in the lobby, "now either get her in here or I start taking hostages of my own."
---
Kelly was too worked up on anger and adrenalin to sit still and instead was pacing the length of the conference room. She'd sat in too many breifings in this room to ever be comfortabe sitting there again anyway.
"So did it never occur to you guys just to ask for my help?" She asked once he'd finished explaining the current predicament the Agency found itself in.
Director Ellis, a tall, imposing man in his early sixties, shifted in his seat with a gesture reminiscent of a shrug, "You would have said 'no'."
"Damn straight I would have," Kelly snapped back, resisting the urge to lob heavy objects in his smug, presumptious, sneaky, underhanded and overweight direction. Just to be sure, she kept away from the sculptures on the table and the plaques on the shelves.
"Exactly, and we couldn't risk it," he gave her a level stare, "the fate and security of the entire nation could rest on what you're calculations dig up."
Kelly rolled her eyes, "forgive me, director, for not being exactly concerned with the fate of an entire nation when I can't even sleep in the confines of my own home without worrying about bugs and cameras and masked men climbing in my window to carry me off!"
Ellis took a deep breath, "fine. Name your terms."
Kelly suddenly stopped pacing and turned to him, "what?"
"What's it going to take for me to make this right so you will work with us? Name your terms."
Kelly paused a moment and then stepped forward, "I want out of here. I'll work on the information from home."
"Done."
"And I want to read in my team."
"You're team?" Ellis asked, sounding skeptical.
"Yes. Abby Scuito, Tim McGee, Ziva David, Tony DiNozzo, Leroy Jethro Gibbs," she said the last name slowly, allowing the threat the mere mention of his name implied, to shine through, "My team. They're all on the 'need to know' list."
"Not gonna happen. It's called 'need to know' for a reason, Kay. They don't."
"Like hell," she growled, taking another step forward, "you have no idea the amount of time, resources and energy that goes into creating the kind of algorithms you're talking about. The depth of information I'll have to sort and assign is astronomical. I can' t do it alone and I won't work with anyone else. You want me, you get them too. End of discussion."
The Director hesitated, gritting his teeth as he attempted to stare her down. Under other circumstances, it might have worked, but not this time. There was too much at stake this time.
After what felt like an eternity he nodded, "fine. Anything else?"
"Yeah. When I fix this and get your sorry ass from the sling, I want out. For good. No more bugs, no more surveillance. No. More. Kidnapping. You want my help, you hire me as a consultant, just like everybody else. No monopolizing the genius. Deal?"
Ellis stared hard at her for several minutes, his eyes narrow and lips pursed.
Kelly stood up and crossed her arms, "of course, if you know of someone else who can do what I do, as fast and as well as I do it. By all means, call them up."
At this the Director sighed, standing to his full height and straightening his jacket.
"Fine. Its a deal, Kay," he proffered his hand to her where he held a flash drive containing all the pertinent information.
She didn't look away from his face as she pulled it from his fingers, "The name's Kelly."
Then she turned and made her way to the door, not waiting to be dismissed, but paused before turning the door handle.
"And if you don't hold up your end of the deal you just made me, I promise you it will be a bigger problem for you than it will for me."
"Is that a threat?" The director asked, his voice dangerous in it's incredulity.
"Of course not sir, the CIA doesn't make threats," she turned to look at him, "anymore than they kidnap children and exploit them for their own gain."
She left the office and outside she found, hovering in the same position as he'd been in before, one of the guards who'd abducted her from Abby's. Without word or warning, she whirled around on him, sucker punching him in the gut as she passed, sure the only reason she'd gotten the drop was that he was still somewhat distracted talking to the Director's receptionist.
"That's for Abby," she hissed.
Carlson watched as the small girl stepped around the seething guard and raised an eyebrow at her as she passed him, moving swiftly toward the elevator. Unsure of what to say, he didn't speak when he input a six digit code and scanned his iris to let them onto the lift that took them back to ground level.
"Kelly I-"
"Save it," she snapped, "you're just as guilty in all this as he is."
"I was just following orders, Kelly."
She turned to look at him finally as the car slowed to a stop, "that's really no excuse Evan."
The doors opened and they were met with the sound of commotion in the lobby.
"I need some more security down here," the small receptionist mumbled into her phone. In front of the counter stood a very agitated, very loud, Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
"Bring security, hell bring the whole damn ARMY. It's not going to stop me from getting my daughter."
"You should probably just do what he says," Everyone turned as Kelly emerged from a restricted hallway with a smile on her face that looked braver than she felt, "he's just impossible when he gets like this."
"Kelly," Gibbs was already walking toward her, his eyes quickly assessing her to find no obvious sign of injury. Either way, he was glad he'd left his SIG in the car, there was only so much he could take.
"Doesn't rule Twenty one plainly state that the best way to get what you want is never to ask, just take?"
Gibbs half-smiled, "I decided to take the high road this time."
Kelly smiled, "pity."
Gibbs raised his hands to her face, "you alright?"
His concern melted her resolve to keep up the brave face and her smile faltered.
"Dad," the word came out teary and barely audible, but before she had a chance to repeat herself they were wrapped up in each other's arms, holding too tightly. Afraid to let go.
"Get me out of here, please," Kelly whispered in his ear, and not just because everyone in the lobby had turned to look at them and security was coming up the stairs.
He nodded, and turned, pulling her alongside him as the two turned their backs on CIA HQ and headed out into the parking lot, where Gibbs had broken just about every parking law on the books by stopping his car sideways in a fire zone.
"Where's Tony?" She asked softly when they'd climbed into the sedan, trying to distract herself from memories of the place now filling the rearview mirror.
"At NCIS, working leads to find you," Gibbs responded, and Kelly pretend not to notice how often he was glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, as if to assure himself she was really still there. She couldn't really blame him. She was having a hard time believing it herself right now.
Kelly nodded and slumped against the window, allowing her eyes to drift shut.
Upon seeing this, Gibbs resolved to resist the urge to demand she explain what had just happened. He wanted answers and would usually not stop until he'd gotten them.
But the sight of Kelly dozing in the passenger seat calmed some of the pit bull in him, and he allowed the ride back to DC to pass in silence.
TBC