A/N: Here's the next short part. Thanks so much for the reviews and support. Liz, no slow and painful deaths in this chapter for the interrogators and ninjagirl, I'm glad I could get that creepy sort of writing, that's what I was pretty much going for. Enjoy and let me know what you think.


Chapter 7

"Gibbs, why is this happening?" Abby asked Gibbs morosely, during a quiet moment in the lab. Gibbs quickly enveloped her in a fatherly hug, the familiar smells of bourbon and sawdust filling the lab tech's senses.

"Power. Mulroney wants it and he thinks Ziva's his chance to seize it. That's why we're down here, instead of the bullpen. DiNozzo was threatened with obstruction when Ziva was taken to interrogation if we interfered in any way."

"I know, otherwise you'd have busted down that door to interrogation hours ago. But why can't Jenny do something? She's the director of NCIS."

Gibbs pulled the young Goth in tighter, resting his chin on her head. "Not right now, she isn't."


By 3 am Tuesday morning, Special Agent Sara Harrigan's team had gathered in Abby's lab along with the remaining members of Team Gibbs including Abby, Ducky, and even Jimmy Palmer. Tony experienced a moment of déjà vu to a similar clandestine meeting in Ducky's autopsy suite over a year prior. He was just waiting for Jimmy to ask to be called 'Black Lung' again.

Once all parties involved had arrived at Abby's, Gibbs had explained that this op would be strictly off-the-books and voluntary. It was a given that Team Gibbs was all in and soon after seeing Ziva being interrogated, Team Harrigan was in, too.

Junior Agent Debbie Wilson was almost a dead ringer for Ziva. She was a little taller, but had similar hair and olive-skinned complexion. By a little after 7 am, Gibbs had laid out the vague beginnings of a plan, while Ducky and Abby had done their parts to make Wilson look the part. The young agent now sported a full-arm cast, bandaged thigh, complete with leg brace and crutch, courtesy of Ducky. When Abby was done with Debbie, the young woman had enough gory make-up on to look like Ziva had only a day ago, including a bloody looking eye.

When Debbie came out of Abby's office, Agent Eric Farnsworth gave a whistle and commented, "Whew, Debs, you look like shit!" No one laughed and Tony sent the young man a look that could kill. DiNozzo's partner was currently being beaten by the very agency they all worked for and now looked much worse for real than Debbie ever would. Senior Field Agent Oliver Dunham just gave his probie a glare that told the younger man he'd better shut-up and quick.

McGee handed Debbie an earwig and Ziva's cell phone, which she slipped into a pair of Ziva's cargo pants. Gibbs left no details to chance and Tony had retrieved a set of clothing from Ziva's apartment earlier that morning. Debbie carefully put the earwig in and then shook out her long, dark locks, which were now approximately the same length as Ziva's, thanks to a quick haircut by her team leader, Harrigan. Debbie Wilson was now practically a body double for Ziva David.

Sara Harrigan beamed proudly as she surveyed the final effect. A shit-eating grin appeared on her face, as she chewed her ever-present Bubblicious gum. She laughed jovially as she mussed a hand through Gibbs' hair, "Not quite as easy as the haircuts I used to give you in FLETC; Marine high-and-tight is much easier, but it'll do." Gibbs just swatted her hand away from his head, shooting her an irritated look, as the younger woman just laughed. "No gray back then, either. Ha ha ha." One last playful ruffle before turning serious. Each team's members looked at their respective leaders like they were both going senile.

Everyone finished putting on their bullet-proof vests with the exceptions of Tony, Debbie, and Abby, who had the unenviable task of monitoring and recording the goings on in Interrogation Room 2. At the first sign of Ziva signing or making any confessionary statements, Abby was to call Jenny and have the Director interfere somehow. Barring that, Abby could also take out the power to the building, but that was not preferable, since it would likely just mean they would move Ziva further out of reach. If what Gibbs suspected was written on that tempting sheet of paper that had been sitting in front of Ziva for the last seven hours was even half-right, Jenny would be saving both women's careers by preventing Ziva from signing it. As of yet, it didn't seem like Ziva was much tempted by the glimmering promise the sheet offered of an escape from her current circumstances. Gibbs knew time was still of the essence, though, despite Ziva's Mossad training. Being a trained interrogator and withstanding prolonged interrogation were two different things, entirely.

"Let's go!" Gibbs barked once everyone was ready. Each small group (Ducky, Palmer, Dunham; McGee, Farnsworth; Gibbs, Harrigan; and finally, the bait, DiNozzo with Wilson) headed out quietly and at random intervals from Abby's domain, so as not to arouse too much suspicion from the San Diego agents.

When at last Tony and Debbie headed out, Abby morosely turned her attention back to the drama unfolding in the interrogation room. Ziva's groans of pain as flesh impacted flesh were not something Abby would be able to block out in the near future.


Ziva had no idea how long she'd been sequestered in interrogation. Her internal clock told her it was probably Tuesday by now, but she really couldn't even be sure of that. She couldn't remember a time when she'd been more exhausted or in more agony. And every damn time she zoned out or nodded off Lucco's foot or fist would get her attention again. Thankfully, the bastard seemed to be getting tired, as his hits didn't seem to hurt as bad. Either that or she was just getting number. At the very least, he'd stopped abusing her broken arm awhile ago; he probably suspected she'd just pass out if he persisted. As it was, the damned useless thing was sending off waves of pain in time with the beat of her heart.

Smack!

Shit, she had to blink back the stars that appeared before her eyes. She'd zoned out again. Skinny's patience seemed to be wearing thin. Lucco just looked bored. Guess beating a defenseless woman wasn't as much fun as he'd thought it'd be. She chuckled to herself at that; the bastard.

Wait, now Skinny was looking back at the observation window expectantly.

"You may proceed," a voice said ominously over the speaker. Well, that didn't sound very good. And now Lucco was leaving the room, but damn if she couldn't even keep her head up anymore. Her chin dropped to her chest.

Whoa! Cool metal slid along her calf and up her leg. Ziva's heart began beating rapidly against her ribcage. They were cutting her pant leg. Must be to re-bandage her gunshot wound, yeah that was all, nothing to worry about. After all, it was bleeding all down her leg again thanks to Lucco's ministrations. Ziva's eyes shut again.


It was now well after ten in the morning on Tuesday and Lucco had been beating the David woman pretty heavily since the middle of the night. Her face was still recognizable because he'd had to lay off smacking her in the head for fear of her concussion worsening. As it was, the woman could barely put together two words anymore. He'd been surprised by her resilience, though; they hadn't gotten anything remotely useful as a confession out of her. A list of five names, all of which were useless because the U.S. had no jurisdiction, was all they had gotten after hours of interrogation. For the last two hours, they'd been hung up on Caitlin Todd and Ari Haswari.

He'd broken one of her fingers, dislocated and relocated a few of her joints, and cracked a few ribs, among using pressure points and pain holds. He'd left her right arm and hand alone in the hope that she'd sign the damn confession. Aside from when he'd re-broken her arm early on, she hadn't screamed once. Everything he did after that would heal eventually. He took pride that he didn't just mangle people to the point they became disfigured or disabled. But still he couldn't figure out what she was holding onto.

Lucco almost felt bad for the semi-conscious woman handcuffed to the chair. But only almost, she was a terrorist after all. Maybe not like any other terrorist he'd ever interrogated, but a terrorist none the less.

According to her dossier, she was like a triple agent or something: Mossad, NCIS, terrorist. He didn't really understand most of it, but the gist was she was directly responsible for the destruction of the Naval Intelligence building a few days ago, among other things. She and some other guy named 'Nigel' were at fault, but somehow he got away and she got shot and beat to shit in the process of escaping. The details were more his colleague's forte, while he was just the brute force. Normally, they would have preferred a friendlier interrogation method. It was more reliable, but took much longer and they weren't going for intelligence information anyway. For some reason, they were on a time crunch for this case and it had been decided progressively more aggressive methods would be used the longer the interrogation took. Lucco and his partner weren't calling the shots on this one.

Lucco wished David would just confess already. It seemed like all the evidence was there anyhow and her confession was just a formality. She had spirit, which he and his compatriot were in the process of breaking. He had a weird feeling about this one, though, as if they didn't have the whole picture. But someone with pull and influence wanted this confession enough to bring the CIA into another agency's backyard.

He sighed heavily, as he began cutting the other pant leg. He always hated this next part, the screams were always so loud.


A/N: I've got the next part almost ready to go, so it shouldn't be too long before another update. Reviews are always welcome!