Yeah, I'm going to beat up on Ziva a bit more. Sorry, but not really.

Part 2

Gibbs and Tony each sat at their desks working the Lincoln case. McGee had come in and quickly gone down to Abby's lab to start cracking the Major's home computer drives, while Gibbs worked on getting him access to Lincoln's military computer, located on the Navy Yard just across from NCIS. Lincoln's boss, Admiral McMannaway, the head of Naval Intelligence, was adamant that NCIS not have access to the Major's classified material. Gibbs was still on the phone with McMannaway when the elevator on the catwalk opened. The otherwise quiet morning was soon to become disastrous.


The first thing Ziva became aware of when she came to was pain and the taste of copper in her mouth. Her head throbbed and her left arm hung useless at her side, while her right leg was seeping blood from the bullet wound. Ziva took a few seconds to assess her situation and realize that she was currently being dragged across the catwalk by the collar of a flak vest wired with explosives. She looked up at the face attached to the arm in front of her and Ziva saw the man whose face she dreaded seeing. Ziva quickly began struggling to slow the man down from wherever he was taking her.

Finding her voice, she saw her boss on the phone in the bullpen, and yelled as loudly as she could muster, "Gibbs!"


Gibbs had never heard such panic in Ziva's voice when she called out to him from the balcony. He looked up in time to see a left hook impact her face and her head loll back. He was on his feet, weapon in hand, with Tony following close behind him, before the man had reached the director's outer office doors. Gibbs had seen the explosives and was yelling orders to passing agents as he took the stairs two and three at a time. The formally calm NCIS office erupted into organized chaos as agents rushed to evacuate the building and employ bomb threat protocols.


Cynthia looked up from her paperwork when the door leading from the hallway opened to reveal Officer David unconscious with a bomb vest strapped to her. The man holding her up clearly had the detonator in his left hand.

"Open the door and walk inside," the man said, indicating the Director's office. When Cynthia hesitated to respond, he repeated himself, his voice calm and collected, but carrying a dangerous edge, "Open the door. Now."

Cynthia quickly wiped the shocked look off her face and promptly opened the door to Director Shepard's office. She silently held the door open, as the man entered the room and tossed Ziva to the floor. He pulled Ziva' s Jericho from his belt and pointed it at the people sitting conference table. The Director sat at the far end of the table, surrounded by three new young agents.

"Close the door and lock it," the man said in a low voice to Cynthia. The secretary looked to her boss for guidance. Jenny rose to feet and quickly assessed the situation. She locked eyes with Cynthia and gave a quick nod of her head to silently tell her that she should do as the man said.

As Cynthia moved to the doors, the Director found her voice, "What is the meaning of this?"

"I do not believe it is you who should be asking the questions, Director Shepard. Or may I call you Jenny? I think I shall call you Jenny, since we will be spending the next few hours together." The man cocked his head to side suddenly and raised his voice to be heard in the hallway, "Agent Gibbs, I know you and Agent DiNozzo are just outside the doors. If you value the lives of everyone in this room, you will go back into the hallway and not interrupt us or I will blow us all the way to kingdom come!" His voice returned to a more civil level when he turned back to Jenny, "Now, where were we? Ah, yes, how we are going to be spending the next few hours together."


In the hallway, Gibbs silently motioned for himself and Tony to go back out to the catwalk, where they could talk freely. Tony gave his boss a look that said he wasn't leaving, but he finally relented under one of Gibbs' withering stares and a jerk of his head. Grinding his teeth a bit and clearly telling Gibbs with his body language that he was not happy, Tony finally moved out into the hallway, Gibbs following close behind.

Tony was first to speak, as the doors to the Director's outer office shut, "Boss, we can't just leave. We have no idea what's going on in there or what he's going to do. What the hell happened to Rule #2, 'Never screw over your partner!' That madman's got Ziva in there and she's hurt, we gotta do…." A slap to the back of the head quickly shut DiNozzo up from his ranting and Gibbs moved in on him.

"What do you think we're doing, DiNozzo, having tea and biscuits?" Tony quickly shrank back from Gibbs' intense gaze. "Now, go find McGee, and we'll figure something out. We're not abandoning them. The Director's in there too, you know."

Tony quickly ran a hand through his hair, his anger dissipating. He gave Gibbs a quick, "Got it, boss," before he was on his way to find McGee. As Tony practically jumped down the stairs, Gibbs moved to the railing of the catwalk, and looked over the bullpen. In only a few minutes time, the place had been deserted, save for a few of the more hardened senior agents, who had stuck around to ensure everyone got out of the building and that everything was locked down.

"Gibbs!" One of the other team leaders, Special Agent Sara Harrigan, called up to him, "Everybody's out of the building and the MPs have been called, they're sending over the DC SWAT team and clearing the Navy Yard. Let me know if you need anything else."

"Actually, could you go make sure Abby's left her lab and that Ducky's out? I don't want them here if anything goes wrong."

"Yeah, no problem Gibbs." As soon as he saw Harrigan enter the stairwell to go down to Abby's lab, Gibbs' thoughts turned back to the events at hand. He had no idea how this was going to turn out. While he waited for Tony to return with McGee, he had the brief thought that his gut was still as accurate as ever.


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