Sergei walked over to a camera and pressed the button to start recording. "Ваши друзья должны смотреть на вас страдать. (Your friends should watch you suffer)", he told her.
Ziva was still confused but caught on quickly when he spoke to the camera. Her mind was still hazy. She realized that her abdomen was stinging and made the connection. She had been shot and had lost a lot of blood. "Hello, NCIS. I hope you have not become too fond of Miss David, because you are going to watch her die." Ziva wasn't surprised Sergei spoke English, because most arms dealers did.
"How do you know they will see the video?", she asked to distract him and herself.
"I've hacked into Abby Sciuto's lab, and I'm sure she will alert the others. Are you ready to begin?", he asked as he stepped back to the table.
Abby was running a few more tests on some particulates when her screens went blank. "Hello, NCIS." The message started, but Abby was already calling Gibbs. He answered on the first ring. "Gibbs, hurry. Sergei is on my computers!" Gibbs made it down to the lab in record time with Tony and McGee right behind him.
They all watched Sergei stand over a table. "Ziva, I know you have been tortured before, but I am not trying to get information out of you. I just want to torture you to death. I don't care what you can offer, because my only reason for bringing you here is to kill you slowly and as painfully as possible.", Sergei told her.
"Abby, trace this or something!", Gibbs barked at Abby.
She was typing and trying so many different codes and techniques, but nothing worked. "He's hiding his IP address. I can't find him, Gibbs." She looked at him with tears in her eyes, because she had failed. McGee hugged her and she clung to his shirt until they heard Sergei laughing.
He had sliced Ziva leg across her thigh. "I'm sure that hurt, and yet you didn't move. You don't have to hide your pain, Ziva, because I don't care about your reaction. Just knowing that the people you care about are watching you die is enough for me.", he said as brought the small knife down again. It tore into her other leg and he pulled it from the top of her thigh to her knee.
Ziva stared at the ceiling and cleared her mind. She blocked everything and refused to feel the blood seeping down her leg onto the table she was tied to. "Have you ever been burned by a cigarette before, Ziva? Answer me, or I will be forced to remove your tongue.", he said calmly.
Ziva still had hope that Gibbs would find her, and he was going to torture her anyway, so why would she make it more painful on herself. "No.", she answered.
Sergei seemed unsatisfied with the answer. "Ziva, why are you lying to me? I saw them, they are faded, and someone would only notice if they were close enough or looking for them, but they are there. I will have to take your tongue anyway, for lying."
The team watched Sergei bring his knife into position when Ziva spoke again. "They are not from cigarettes. They are from cigars." The knife froze in the air just above Ziva's mouth, and Abby buried her face in McGee's shoulder again. Gibbs stood without emotion, and Tony stared at the knife poised to cut.
"Who? I saw more on your neck." Sergei wanted to make her relive her pain before he reenacted it. Ziva didn't cry or show any sign of distress as she recounted her past to Sergei and the entire team. "Hm, Agent Gibbs, bring Dr. Mallard and Jimmy Palmer to watch my video. I can see you, so if you don't do it, I will reenact Ziva's past." He turned back to her. "Who?", he asked again.
"I do not know. I was taken hostage, and the man liked cigars. He is dead now, so I can not ask him.", she responded in a sarcastic end. She would normally not have spoken so freely, but Sergei would be dead soon if Gibbs found her.
"Gibbs, should I call Ducky?", McGee asked nervously.
"No, he's bluffing.", Gibbs said confidently. He had to sound confident, but he was scared that Sergei could really see them.
"If he is, then it's just a safety precaution, and he'll never know we did what he said.", Abby interjected.
Tony forced his eyes from the screen. "If he's not, Ziva's going to get hurt!" Tony watched Gibbs think but knew he wouldn't budge as long as it was only a maybe. So, they watched the screen again.
Sergei was looking at something off to the side and smiled, because he had a mic in his ear. He took a cigar from the table and lit it. He smoked it for a small moment and walked to where Ziva was still staring at the ceiling. "It would seem your friends could not follow one little request to spare you from pain.", he said to her. She didn't respond, and her blank expression didn't falter.
Sergei rolled the cigar between his finger and brought it back to his lips. He pulled Ziva's shirt up over her stomach and and pressed the tip of the cigar into the soft skin there. Ziva didn't move when a circle burned its way into her skin from the cigar. The only sign of pain she sowed was the muscles beneath her skin contracting at the touch of intense heat. The team waited for him to stop, but he didn't.
He finally stopped when the cigar no longer burned. "I will light us another." He rolled Ziva onto her stomach, and she thought her bound arms would prevent it. Instead they turned with her, and she lay with her back exposed. Her gun shot wound stung as it pressed into the table, but she hoped it would stop the bleeding. "Agent Gibbs, if you do not call Dr. Mallard now, I will burn my name into her back.", Sergei told the camera as he held a metal rod in his hand for them to see.
Gibbs was angry. He stared at the screen before him and wished he could shoot it. "Tony, call Ducky and Palmer." His voice was low and dangerous. No matter what happened, they all knew Sergei Novikov would not be alive much longer., because all four people were ready to shoot him right then.
Ducky and Palmer arrived shortly after Tony had called but still didn't know why they had been asked to the lab. "Jethro, what is going on here? Tony said it was urgent.", Ducky said when he had reached Gibbs.
Gibbs motioned to the camera before speaking. "He has Ziva and demanded you be here."
"Ducky, he burned her with a cigar!", Abby said through her tears. Everyone was on edge as they watched Sergei smile at something out of the camera's view again.
"Good, Agent Gibbs. You are finally listening." He turned back to Ziva and pressed a button on the wall which caused the table she was on to rotate, so it stood vertically. Ziva realized she hadn't been tied to the chair but to something suspended from the ceiling. Sergei yelled something and a man came into view. He pushed the table away, and Ziva swung a bit in the air, and then the man was gone. "I have something new for us to do."
Vance walked into the room and saw the screen everyone was so entranced by. "Please tell me that's not what I think it is." He said that, but he didn't need an answer to know what it was. "I have fifteen agents here who said they will help with the search if you tell them where to go. That's all I could get."
Gibbs took a breath and knew he would have to leave the screen. He nodded and left the room after telling Tony and McGee to follow him. He hoped their absence wouldn't hurt Ziva, but he had no choice. He walked into the bullpen and saw fifteen agents awaiting their orders. "Alright, we have an odd number, so there will be three teams of four and two of three. If you don't think you can handle the team of three speak now." No one moved, so Gibbs continued. "McGee, did you narrow the search?"
McGee stepped forward when his name was called. "Yes, boss. I narrowed it down to buildings in Fairfax where they would have the privacy to do what they wanted without intrusions or being heard. We're only down to thirty."
No one looked hopeful, but they all looked determined to bring home a fellow agent. "Alright, we'll have five groups, six buildings each. You shoot to kill if you find him. Tony and McGee are passing around a picture of Sergei Novikov. He has men working for him, so call it in if you find the place. Let's break into teams and decide who's going where. When you finish come back and wait for orders." The agents were quickly broken into groups and the buildings were broken down into five lists by how close they were together, so it would be easier to move from one to the next.
The teams moved out of the building and prepared for a very long Christmas Eve. Gibbs, McGee, and Tony drove to their first location. Some had been closer or further than their own, so on the way they heard "clear" coming through in the mics. They reached the first stop on their list and rushed to the building. McGee took the back, while Gibbs and Tony took the front. Gibbs kicked the door in, and they rushed through the building. "Clear.", Gibbs growled into his mic. He heard similar answers from Tony and McGee throughout the building.
They piled back into the car and drove to the next location. Tony wished someone would say they had found Ziva instead of everyone saying they had cleared another building. There were still two men unaccounted for, and they could have forty or fifty more properties to check. They cleared two more buildings and made it to the fourth. Two teams had finished their list without any indication that anyone had been in them in the last ten years, so there were only three teams still looking at their last two or three locations.
Their fourth building only had one door, so Gibbs kicked the door in, and Tony and McGee rushed in with their weapons drawn. Gun shots rang out, and the team returned fire.
Abby wished she were an agent, so she had an excuse to stop watching the screen. She, Ducky, and Palmer were still watching, and Sergei looked at the something behind the camera again. "I see some people have left. I think we will do ten for Agents DiNozzo and McGee and fifteen for Agent Gibbs.", he said to the camera before walking out of view.
"That's thirty-five! Thirty-five what?", Abby asked with a quivering voice.
"I don't know, dear girl, but Ziva can handle it.", Ducky assured her. He didn't feel the confidence that his words held, but he knew Ziva was strong. She had been through so much already, but she would not break easily. Slashes ran up and down her arms and legs, and bruises colored her face and stomach.
Sergei came back into view holding a whip in his hand. Abby gasped, but Ziva only looked at Sergei. She would not show fear, and she would not break. He let the whip unravel, so he was only holding the handle. He pulled his arm back, and Ziva felt it come into contact with her back and wrap around her middle. "Only thirty-four to go.", he said. The lashes continued until Sergei and Ziva were both panting heavily. Ziva's back and shoulders were bloody and raw, but she had refused cry out.
Abby cried for Ziva. She let her tears flow without trying to restrain them. Ducky and Palmer looked at the screen with mixtures of horror and disgust. They all heard the sound at the same time, and the doors were busted open, but by who?