Tony had just arrived at Ziva's apartment and saw the disarray it was in. Furniture had been knocked to the ground, and the walls were riddled with bullets. The floor had various patterns of blood, and two men lay dead on the floor. Tony, bag and tag. McGee's doing the sketch.", Gibbs said without looking in Tony's direction. Tony had decided to add another rule to the list of rules he had broken: rule number one. Never screw over your partner.
"Yes, boss.", he said monotonously. He could have prevented this, and Ziva was suffering because of him. They processed the crime scene and Ducky and Palmer took the bodies. Gibbs didn't speak to Tony except to give orders, and McGee stayed silent as he worked the scene. Just when they thought they were finished, an elderly woman's body was discovered in the apartment across the hall. Their day had only just begun, and it would not be easily endured.
Gibbs, Tony, and McGee stepped off the elevator and were met by a distraught Abby waiting for them. "What the hell is going on? All I get is a call that you're processing a scene at Ziva's. Where is she? Is she okay? Can I see her? Is she hurt?" Abby was nearly hyperventilating when she noticed that Ziva didn't step off the elevator with the rest of the team.
"McGee.", Gibbs said as if it were an order.
McGee started walking toward the bullpen right away. "BOLO, on it, boss.", he said.
"Tony what did you find in her phone and credit card records?"
Tony looked even more guilty, and Gibbs waited for the next piece of bad news. "Nothing on either one, boss, but there's a voice mail on my phone from her. I guess she didn't hang up." Gibbs walked past him without a head slap or second glance.
"Well, let's hear it.", Gibbs ordered angrily. Abby was confused but followed the two men over to where the plasma screen was. "Abby, there's evidence coming your way. A lot of it." Abby took the hint and scurried back to her lab, so she could help in any way possible.
McGee took Tony's phone and hooked it up to the speakers on the plasma. The sound filtered through seconds after. They heard Ziva sighing angrily (probably because her call wasn't answered), and she mumbled something in Hebrew. A man said something in another language, and gun shots rang out of the speakers. Everything was silent for a minute, and then the man was speaking again. Some shuffling was heard, and the apartment door opened and closed. It was over, and Ziva was gone with no one the wiser.
"McGee, take DiNozzo to canvas for witnesses, and ask the landlord why the police weren't called."
"Well, uh, boss, Ziva doesn't live in the best part of town, so-" He saw the look on Gibbs' face and changed his sentence. "But, w-we're going to ask a-anyway." He and Tony left, and Gibbs went down to visit Ducky.
"Ah, Jehtro, right on time as always. I've found very little that will tell us where these men have taken Ziva, but I can tell you about the men. They are Russian, if their tattoos are any indication, and they were indeed killed by Ziva's weapon. I can't tell you much more other than that they were expendable and must not have known much about their mission."
"Why do you say that, Duck?" Gibbs was not happy that he still had no leads, but the kidnappers had left no prints, hairs, or other evidence- except the blood Ziva had forced them to leave.
Ducky walked over to one of the bodies and motion to the bullet wounds in the man's chest. "This fellow could have been alive for up to an hour after he was shot, but he was left there to die. That tells me no one was worried about him saying something he shouldn't." He paused and looked at Gibbs. "You'll find her, Jethro.", was all he said.
"Thanks, Duck.", Gibbs said as he walked through the automatic doors. He was going to visit Abby next, and he hoped she would have something for him. "What do you got for me, Abs?", he asked when he entered the room with a caf-pow.
Abby whirled around to him quickly just as various machines began beeping or flashing. He handed her the caf-pow, but she only set it on the table and started talking. "Okay, what I got for you isn't much. The guys were identified in Interpol's database, and they're bad news, Gibbs. Both of them are contract killers and are very good at their job. They are Andrei Klimov and Kodiak Fedorov.", Abby said while looking at the men's pictures on her screen. She turned to Gibbs with a sad look on her face."Tell me she'll be okay, Gibbs. Tell me you'll find her." Abby knew that Gibbs would find Ziva, but she needed to hear it, for someone to say that Ziva would be back at work complaining about Tony by the next day.
"We'll find her, Abs. Good work." He kissed her cheek and walked out of the room to see of McGee and Tony were back.
He walked into the bullpen and saw McGee working feverishly at his computer and Tony was making calls on the phone. "Talk to me.", Gibbs said as he sat at his desk.
McGee pulled a drawing of a man up on the screen. "The landlord wasn't there when it happened, and the security cameras are only for show." He stopped to hand Gibbs a piece of paper with a man's face on it. "This is the man a neighbor said she saw sneaking around the building and then leaving in a black sedan. She also took a picture of the car. We got a hit off the plate and drawing. The man is Jurek Demidov, also a contract killer like our other two. The car belongs to David Ashbury and was reported stolen three days ago."
Gibbs was about to go for a coffee break when Tony spoke from his desk. "Wait, boss, I got an address on both of our bad guys in autopsy. Andrei Klimov owns twenty-two abandoned factories, and Kodiak Fedorov own ten ware houses that shut down at least ten years ago. And, you guessed it, they're all in separate, uninhabited parts of Washington and some go further out than that.", he said angrily.
Gibbs thought for a moment. With the Christmas season drawing near, his team had pulled the short straw to work. They were the only people working. He walked up the stairs and into Vance's office. "We need to talk, Leon.", he said when he walked in without knocking.
Vance would have normally made a comment about Gibbs not knocking or how he was working so late, but there was nothing to joke about that night. "Any leads?", he asked.
"About thirty. Our dead guys have thirty-two ware houses and factories between them, and we only know of one other person involved. DiNozzo and McGee are looking at third man now, but I think there are more."
Vance nodded, because when Gibbs thought something, it was usually right. A knock sounded at the door, and McGee entered. "Boss, the third man Jurek Dermidov has fifteen properties spread out like the other two, so that brings the count up to forty-seven that we know of. How are we going to search them all without any one else on duty?" McGee sounded scared, and Gibbs couldn't blame him.
"You can't call some agents in to help search the properties? This is one of our people, Leon." Gibbs was trying to keep his wits about him, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. One of his people was missing, and he couldn't save her.
"I'll make some calls, but I can't make anyone leave their families five hours before Christmas Eve. I'm sorry, but this will be volunteers only." Gibbs left the room and slammed the door behind him, but Vance was in an understanding mood. He picked up the phone and started making calls, the first being to his wife, because he was not going home anytime soon.
Gibbs went back to Abby's lab to see what she had with Tony and McGee following. They all hoped there would be something to tell them where they should go first. "Abs, find anything?", he asked as they walked into the room.
Abby turned and was about to speak when she saw Tony. "I'm going to skip the 'how' and go straight to the 'what'. Klimov and Fedorov were both in Fairfax two nights ago, but the GPS in their cell phone's stopped transmitting just after that, so that's a good place to start if you don't have anything else. I was also able to translate what was said in the voice mail Ziva left on Tony's phone." Abby didn't want Tony to be there for the beginning of her translation.
Gibbs gave her a look that told her to continue but had a feeling she stopped because of something in it. "Okay." She played the recording. "Where Ziva talks, she said...she said that she should have called Gibbs." Abby wanted to run over and give Tony a hug, because he looked like his guilt was about to strangle him. "After that when the men talk, one is saying 'over there'. I think he was talking about Ziva, and when they're leaving, another one says 'I hope I'm the one who gets to finish her when Serg is done.' Also the note on the door was written in Ukrainian."
"So, the Russians are working with the Ukrainians?", Tony asked. He was sure that Ziva couldn't bring two entire countries together on a man hunt, but she did tend to make serious enemies who held big grudges..
Abby laughed and shook her head. "My guess is since they didn't know the details of their mission, they all assumed she would be easy to catch. They probably planned to leave the note to throw us off their trail. And guess what else!" No one guessed so Abby continued. "Yes, I found a partial finger print in our dead guy's ear. They were all wearing wires, I guess so they could stay in contact when they were separated, but the print I found did not belong to the dead guy. I'm thinking his boss or the leader passed them around, so we have a name. Sergei Novikov!"
"Who is he, Abs?", Gibbs asked impatiently.
Abby smiled as she got back into her old antics a bit. "Glad you asked. He is not a contract killer, but he is a weapons smuggler whose wife was killed ten years ago after he cheated Israel in some big deal. We have the boss man, but you can add eighteen more properties to your list." She sighed a little at the bittersweet moment.
Everyone's wheels were turning. Ten years ago Ziva was a Mossad officer and trained to be a killer, so this was probably a revenge kidnapping. "He'll want to keep her alive for a while.", Gibbs said.
"What?", Tony and McGee asked at the same time.
"If Ziva killed his wife, he's going to want her to suffer. He can't do that after he kills her."
Ziva woke up to find herself tied to a table with her arms bound above her head. The previous events flooded her mind, and she remembered that she had been taken captive by Russians. She had killed two, so there were only three left who had been in her apartment. The room was pitch black, so Ziva listened to her surrounding but heard nothing. That meant they were either too far from other people or in some kind of sound proof room, perhaps underground.
"Ах, вы не спите (Ah, you are awake)", a voice said from somewhere above her. Ziva said nothing, but that must have been the wrong answer, because she was forcefully slapped across her face. "Ты помнишь меня? (Do you remember me)", he asked calmly.
Ziva had no idea who might have taken her, since she made a lot of enemies in her line of work. "Нет, кто ты? (No, who are you)", she asked. This earned her another slap, but she didn't feel the sting. She had been hit much harder in much worse situations.
"Вы будете, а вы помните, Катюша! (you will remember me, and you will remember Katyusha)", he yelled at her.
Ziva remembered the woman, because she remembered the name of every person she killed. She had killed her nearly ten years ago, because her husband was cheap and needed incentive to finish the deal he was to make. "Ваша жена. (Your wife)", she stated in remembrance.
His wife being spoken of by her killer seemed to remind Sergei where he was. He walked to a table and looked at the many instruments he had there. She would not die soon or without pain. "Начнем. (Let us begin)."