Chapter 7: You're Really Not Going to Like It

Tony was a procrastinator, especially when he needed to do something he didn't want to do. Filling out forms. Cleaning the van. Signing up for inane mandatory seminars. He'd talk about it endlessly and strategize how to best get out of it, and then finally, complaining all the way, he might just do it. Or more likely, get McGee or Ziva to do it.

So no one was expecting him to call Kort right there in Abby's lab. Until he dialed.

The phone was ringing before the team registered that Tony was cold calling his most loathed nemesis. They gaped for a split second that was truly amusing. Tony winked and grinned back at them.

Ziva was the first to recover, as usual. "Are you insane?" she hissed, snatching the phone. "Gibbs will die of old age before Kort goes out of his way to help you!"

She pulled the phone up to her ear and her voice morphed instantly into a warm, professional clip. "Agent Kort, this is Ziva David at NCIS. I would like to speak with you about a situation involving Agent Gibbs. Please call me at this number – it is urgent."

She ended the call and folded her arms, still glaring at him. Tony smothered a laugh. Truth be told he'd almost been concerned when the phone got to the ringing stage and he found himself still actually holding it. He should have known her ninja reflexes wouldn't let him down.

"More waiting," Abby moaned. "This is killing me." Abruptly she turned to McGee. "How fast do you think the CIA loads new satellite imagery into its databases?"

McGee glanced at Tony. "Fast. Might be worth a shot. No telling when Kort will get back to us, or what he'll be willing to share when he does."

Tony looked them over thoughtfully. He knew McGee and Abby were good. But the CIA would know, sooner or later, that files containing information of particular interest to NCIS – namely Gibbs' team – had been breached. Still, Vance insinuated that the agency could take the heat. It made Tony wonder what the director had on the CIA. It must be good. Unless Vance was secretly just as ballsy as Gibbs ever was . . .

McGee and Abby were both looking at him, waiting for him. He nodded. "Do it."

Thirteen minutes later Tony's cell rang. Abby and McGee, engrossed in prying open classified CIA files, continued to hammer away at their keyboards.

Tony glanced at his caller ID and then at Ziva. "Well that was fast. It's him." He opened the phone and placed it on the counter. Ziva leaned forward to hit the speaker button. "This is Ziva David."

"Get out of our satellite cache, David."

In the background of the lab the clacking of keys abruptly stopped.

"Kort," Ziva said. "Thank you for returning my call."

"Get out of our files or this call - and your careers - will be shorter than you want them to be." Kort sounded unconcerned. Bored, even, as if he'd just told an annoying little sister to stop hogging the cornflakes. Then again, he pretty much always sounded like that, and he'd never struck any of them as one for idle threats.

Tony waved hurriedly at Abby and McGee and the keys instantly started up again. The clacking was distinctly frantic.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Ziva said smoothly.

She paused. A few seconds later a wide-eyed Abby gave them a thumbs-up.

Ziva continued, "We are not in your files. I called because we are looking for information on some recent movement in Colombia. We understand you may also have an interest in the area."

A pause on the other end of the line.

"Kort?"

"Meet me at the north end of Clifton Park in an hour," he said, and the line went dead.

Tony reached out and snapped his phone shut.

He knew the CIA was supposed to be sneaky. But he really hadn't expected Kort to surprise him quite this much. He turned to Ziva. "I expected that conversation to involve more begging. For starters. Then I thought we'd move into groveling and bribery and threats."

Ziva nodded thoughtfully, still staring at the phone.

"Where the hell is Clifton Park?" Tony asked the room.

Abby pulled up GoogleEarth, clacked a bit, and winced. "Oh. This is kind of . . . whoever's going to this meeting needs to leave now. Want me to send coordinates to the car?"

Tony nodded. "Ziva, you're with me. You two . . ." Tony trailed off, looking the geeks over more closely. " . . . You two are too pleased with yourselves to have just turned and run from the Big Bad Kort," he said. "You kept the CIA imagery somehow, didn't you?"

McGee and Abby smiled back at him sweetly.

Tony loved his crazy ass team, he really did. "Well, look it over, see what you can get from it." He shook his head as he walked out of the lab, Ziva at his side. "You know, when you think about it those two are a little scary. If they can hack into the CIA in ten minutes . . ."

Ziva nodded seriously, keeping pace with his long legs as they turned away from the elevator and headed briskly up the stairs, taking a shortcut to the parking lot. "Yes. They can easily access our personal computers, accounts, internet history . . . That is why I am always careful to be nice to Abby and McGee."

She smirked at his frown, then grabbed the keys from his hand. "We'll get there faster if I drive."

x

They tore through the fringes of hard-hit working class neighborhoods until finally reaching Clifton Park, which itself had seen better days. Well, Tony hoped it had. There was a sad sort of playground on the south side, dust from the dirt-packed ground and a few rusty metal swing sets and battered see-saws drifting in the warm spring breeze. The park had a scruffy, more-or-less green soccer field in its center, a lumpy brown running track laid around the perimeter.

Ziva parked the car on the north side, where a slight hill led up to a grassier area offering a view of the field. A few beautiful old trees lent shade to a group of benches and picnic tables. Kort was already there, reading a newspaper at one of the tables. Besides a few young kids and their mothers, gathered around the swing sets across the field, the three agents were the only people there.

Ziva gave Tony a look as they climbed out of the car, her eyes saying stay calm. He was telling himself the same thing. Kort rubbed him the wrong way on a good day. But today Gibbs was missing. Tony was short on sleep, overloaded on stress, and trying to bury the worry stalking around the back of his mind – the constant what if. What if Gibbs was hurt? If they couldn't find him? Never found him? What if he was already dead?

Tony took a breath and reminded himself that Kort was a contact they needed. If Gibbs could work with the slimy bastard Tony could damn well grit his teeth and do the same.

Well, not quite the same.

"If anything proves my total and unconditional love for Gibbs," he complained as they set out across the grass, "this is it. This is the big romantic finale. I'm climbing a fire escape with roses in my teeth as we speak."

They reached the table and Tony continued without skipping a beat. "Kort!" He said cheerily, and slid into the bench on the opposite side of the picnic table. "Long time no see. Such a shame. What an interesting meeting place, always fun to explore, and such a nice neighborhood too. Well. We'd love to catch up but," Tony raised his wrist and wriggled his watch. "Tick-tock. And we wouldn't want to keep you from, you know, whatever dictators or arms dealers you're busy cozying up to these days, so let's make this snappy. You know where he is or what?"

Kort folded the paper and laid it down on the table. He looked irritated as he waited for Ziva to settle on the bench beside her partner. Tony grinned, satisfied.

"Everything I am about to say is classified beyond your wildest clearance dreams," Kort finally said. "Repeat it and you'll become authorized targets of the CIA."

Tony and Ziva nodded to the unspoken question. Ziva felt her heartbeat speed up. The warning could only mean one thing.

"I know where he is," Kort said simply. He slipped a manila envelope out of the newspaper's folds and took two satellite photos from it. "Your lackeys may have these images but they don't understand what they're looking at." He slid the top photograph across the table to them, pointing to a tiny pale speck on an almost uniformly black picture. "This is an outpost of the new Calera cartel, located in the northern jungles of Colombia. We call it Camp Six. As you can see it's remote," he said dryly.

Tony and Ziva leaned in to study the photo. Most of the image was dark, they saw now, but it wasn't completely black. Dozens of thin, true black lines twisted through the dark gray of the jungle canopy – the black lines must be streams, or rivers, Tony thought, depending on the photo's scale. Tiny blocks of lighter gray could just be made out, clustered somewhat to the north and east of the camp, and scattered occasionally throughout the rest of the picture.

Kort circled the camp, indicated the gray blocks. "The gray squares are coca or opium plantations. Some fields are planted with marijuana as well."

There didn't seem to be any roads, and the camp itself was not on a waterway. "It is supplied by air?" Ziva asked.

The CIA agent nodded. "Anything needed from the outside world is flown in. Product is flown out. Motorized patrols run through the area on small roads – more like tracks, really," Kort grimaced. "These routes can't be seen from the air due to jungle canopy. We believe Gibbs was flown into Camp Six two days ago." Kort sat back and watched the two agents study the photograph with new intensity. "According to our sources they'll keep him there until their interrogation specialist can be brought in. That will probably happen in the next five to eight days."

Kort took a breath and wished he still smoked. Smoking was made for conversations like this. "I wouldn't bother with one of your heroic rescues if you don't make it to him before the specialist does."

Tony opened his mouth.

"Please don't be so stupid as to ask where I'm getting my information." Kort slid the second photo over the first, never pausing in his narrative. "A close-up of the camp."

Tony felt his eyes go wide. Beside him Ziva cursed in Hebrew. The scale of the first photo was suddenly clear. The "camp" was a small city.

Kort pointed to a dense area on the upper edge of the photo, filled with row after row of tiny squares. "Barracks," he said. "Here," he indicated the lower edge of the photo, "are garages, helicopter hangers, equipment and supply storage."

He pointed to a thick line running along the bottom edge. "Air-strip. The larger buildings next to it are the labs. Along the east side are quarters for well-heeled visitors and the cartel's lieutenants. The rest of it," Kort swept his hand over the less tidy area that sprawled through the western half of the photograph, "are markets and make-shift shelters built by the workers. Field hands and lab rats live there. As you can see the squatters bleed into the fields and jungle to the west. There's wire surrounding everything valuable – labs, hangers, barracks. You can't see the fence itself in this image but the four corners are marked by guard towers." He pointed out fuzzy gray blocks that were apparently towers.

"There are mini camps closer to the fields for plantation workers," Kort continued rapidly. "The fields are guarded by squads of soldiers that rotate into and out of the main camp, some daily, some weekly. Smaller squads patrol on foot and in trucks."

Ziva and Tony looked up at him, questioning.

"The patrols are the elite." Kort answered before they could ask. "Though none of these soldiers are decorative. They engage regularly with rival gangs throughout Colombia and in neighboring countries. They also fight off rebel guerilla forces who want to take over their operations. We support their efforts against the rebels, so cartel fighters have often been trained by ex-US and occasionally Israeli Special Forces personnel. There are fishing villages to the north and ranch land to the south and east. Calera squads deploy there frequently to keep the local population in line."

Ziva's eyes moved rapidly over the photos, committing their smallest details to memory. "So Londono has rebuilt the Calera's paramilitary army," she said. "How effective does your agency judge his soldiers to be?"

Kort folded his hands on the table in front of him and squinted off into the distance. There were a couple of older kids dribbling a soccer ball through the trees now, Tony noticed. He watched them for a second, ensuring they stayed out of hearing range.

"We estimate they have between seven and ten thousand fighters in total, with three to eight hundred based at Camp Six, depending on activity in the area. Substantial reinforcements are under an hour away as long as the airstrip is active."

Ziva nodded grimly. The figures were not unusual for such an organization.

"They are well-trained and have an endless supply of money and equipment from the drug trade. They're ruthlessness," Kort said neutrally. "The local population is terrified of them and rival forces respect them. The government does not interfere with their territory. They've been fighting a civil war in Colombia almost continuously since 1964, so there's no shortage of combat experience. At the moment the reformed Calera cartel is a law unto itself. They hold absolute power in the region."

"So the answer to Ziva's question is 'very effective,'" Tony said. "And of course they are. Right-wing drug-running dirtbags have been trained by CIA-led Special Forces in Colombia for decades. Thanks a lot for that, Kort, by the way. Here's what I'd like to know. Why are you telling us this?" Tony didn't wait for an answer. "Let me guess – you're hoping we'll head down there and get our heads stuck on pikes at the camp gates. I'm not sure though . . ." Tony squinted at the photo and tilted it toward the afternoon sun, "if you'll really be able to get a good look at our mutilated corpses. This picture's a little grainy. What do you think, Ziva?"

Kort rolled his eyes and looked to Ziva as if to the voice of sanity.

She raised her eyebrows. They clearly said I'm waiting for you to answer my partner's imminently reasonable question. Tony propped his chin in his hand and grinned.

Kort shook his head. "The agency can't lend its official support to any operation against this cartel. Londono isn't just running a criminal organization. He's considered the head of one of the larger private paramilitary groups currently fighting Colombia's rebel army. In this he is our ally, albeit a silent one, as well as an ally of the Colombian government. That government has been fighting the same terrorist army for forty years, with the advice of the U.S. military," Kort smiled coldly at Tony, "and the CIA, of course. Ostensibly we need men like Londono if we're ever going to win that war."

"So he gets a free pass for murder, kidnapping, and selling cocaine on the side?" Ziva asked incredulously.

"All sides of this fight are dirty," Kort said tiredly. "There is no way to both win the civil war and stay clean in the drug war. However, Londono is making a lot of people unusually nervous. He's built a veneer of respectability and kept his criminal activity hidden, which only makes him more powerful. We didn't closely monitor the many smaller organizations he now controls until they became part of the larger cartel. He's gaining influence by the day and is extremely reclusive. We don't know enough about him."

Ziva and Tony were silent for a moment, waiting for Kort to continue, before they realized that he was looking at them expectantly.

"And you think Gibbs now has the information you want," Ziva said flatly.

"He's been in their custody for days," Kort said smoothly. "That alone means he knows more about them than any other agent currently working for us. We can get you fairly close to the camp if you are willing to go in after him."

Kort continued to speak, gesturing to the photographs and almost doggedly spilling CIA secrets. Ziva narrowed her eyes. There was an oddness about Kort today that went beyond his suspicious willingness to help, but she couldn't quite put her thumb on it.

"We have a small base not far from the edge of Calera controlled land. We can drop you close to the border – that's about three days on foot from Camp Six – and then pick you up on your way out. The border of Calera land is the closest you can get to the camp by air before you risk getting shot down."

Kort paused and ran a hand over his bald head, rubbing the stubble. "You'll need a guide to and from the camp, which I can also provide," he muttered, "though you're not going to like it."

Tony subtly leaned forward on the bench and looked hard at the other man. Something was off about the other man. He was being way too helpful, of course, but that was because Kort wanted Gibbs to owe him, Tony guessed, and maybe because he wanted whatever Calera secrets Gibbs had become privy to in the last few days, though that bit was dodgy. How much of value could Gibbs possibly know? At best the boss was a prisoner locked up in a bunker somewhere, not sitting in on cartel strategy meetings.

But Kort wasn't responding to any of Tony's insults, and there was something different . . . he was almost subdued, maybe even ragged around the edges. Kort's weirdness bore thinking about, but he also had the information they needed. For the moment they'd just have to trust him.

Tony shuddered. "That's the part we're not going to like," he said. "Your guide. Right. Who is it? You?"

A teenager with a soccer ball tucked under his arm suddenly dropped onto the bench next to Kort. Tony glanced away from the stone faced CIA agent, surprised. He hadn't noticed the boy moving closer. "Get lost, kid," Tony said sharply, already going back to his study of the photos. "This is a private party."

The boy, he couldn't have been more than fourteen, pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt and grinned at Tony. His fine dark hair was shaggy, and a few strands stuck up at the back with static, glinting red in the afternoon sun.

The kid didn't move and Kort, sitting beside him, didn't say anything. Tony and Ziva looked up from the photos to glance between the two of them. The kid's eyes were pale, hard to read, and the smile was weirdly cold in the grinning young face.

That smile was strange. Not real. And the eyes . . . Tony tensed, his cop senses rearing up and alerting him to something off. Something wrong.

Trust Kort to set up a meeting in a park full of junkies. Tony and Ziva both eased hands toward their backup weapons. They'd left their service pistols at NCIS, since they were technically on leave.

The boy tracked the movement. Tony opened his mouth to tell him to beat it, again, but the kid spoke first. "You're Dinozzo," he said. The smile dropped from the kid's face as his eyes flicked to Ziva. He stared at her for a long moment. Really stared. "And David."

He pronounced it right. Da-veed.

"Dinozzo, David," Kort said grimly, "meet Gray. Your guide."