"Thought you said you knew where this insurance policy was", Mike stated, as he strolled around the diner. Pausing briefly to watch Jenny raid through yet more boxes of junk. His head tilted slightly in an attempt to get a better view of her.
The woman in question didn't even look up from her task as she replied, "I never said I knew. Decker said I did. And stop looking at my ass."
Mike averted his gaze and continued to wander, muttering "Not much else to look at. Of course it might help if you were to tell me what the hell we're looking for."
Jenny pulled herself to her feet, and swirled around to face him.
"Decker knew that someone was after him, after us, and he knew why."
"Your mystery op."
Jenny gave a brief nod. "Any useful insurance policy would contain names."
"Viggo."
"Real names, targets, dates. Plus operational blueprints. Something that would tell us what went wrong the first time. Photos even."
Waving his arm at the wall behind him Mike pointed out, "You got plenty of those."
Jenny glared at him, but still turned to look at numerous photo frames that covered the wall. Her frown quickly vanished as she flashed back to Paris and how they had used photos then; writing details on them in the pretense that they were dates. She moved towards the wall, her eyes flickering over every photo, before removing one of Decker with Sasha. She looked at the date, 5/3/78.
"These dates are wrong" she said as she continued to remove the photos one by one. Whirling round to face Mike, she asked, "do you have a pen?"
He nodded and handing it over followed her over to one of the few upright tables in the room.
Jenny examined the photos, pointing one out that carried the date 4/7/81, she stated, "Decker's leaving party in 99."
Mike nodded and gestured to another one, of Decker and friends in front of a TV screen. "September 18th 2004," noting Jenny's quizzical stare he pointed at the TV screen, "Hopkins, De la Hoya."
Jenny nodded and smiled slightly, relieved that they were actually getting somewhere, and continued to write down the numbers.
"This is some kind of code."
"It's too long for a cash account."
"Could be a safe deposit box?" At that point Jenny's phone once again interrupted the proceedings, she pulled it out and glared at it. "Ziva. Again."
Mike shook his head, "If you don't answer it they're going to call in the swat team."
Jenny nodded and answered the call.
Leaning against the car door, Tony tilted his head up slightly, trying to catch the warmth of the late-afternoon sun on his face. Ziva stood next to him, fidgeting restlessly, with small but irate sighs escaping from her lips every so often. Tony frowned. She was really beginning to annoy him. After a few more seconds he finally snapped, his tone terse as he asked, "what is it now?"
"I cannot believe this doesn't bother you."
"What doesn't?"
"Why would Gibbs tell us to wait here?"
Tony gave a small shrug. "How am I meant to know?"
"I never said you should know, I meant that you should be curious. It doesn't make sense. Ordering us to find the Director would make sense. This, this does not."
"You mentioned that already."
Ziva rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest, her tone even sharper than before. "I really think that you need to take this more seriously. He obviously has something planned for us."
"You're right, he probably does; but you are overlooking one very big point Ze-vah."
"Which is?"
Tony looked at her, and smirking slipped the sunglasses off of his face, folding them neatly and placing them in the top pocket of his shirt before speaking. "Gibbs is in D.C. over 2000 miles away. Until we go home he can't actually touch us, by which time we will have the Director back safe and sound."
"Maybe we should call her."
"Why would we do that?"
"To ask her where she is! Tony her car has been found next to a dead woman and she is nowhere in sight. Surely, at the very least that warrants a phone call."
"I really don't think interrupting her, again, is the right move."
"Well then look at it this way. Gibbs obviously plans to get back in touch with us. It will work in our favour if we can at least tell him we have spoken to the Director. And we need to tell her about Sasha. She will not be happy if she finds out we did not keep her informed."
Tony's mouth twisted slightly in distaste, knowing Ziva was right.
"Ok", he conceded, "You may have a point. It would make things slightly better for us with Gibbs."
"Especially if we get her location."
Sighing in defeat Tony threw his hands up, "Fine. But this time you get to do all the talking."
"Fine." Ziva grabbed the cell phone she had in her pocket and quickly located Jenny's number, hitting the call button.
It didn't take her long to answer; her voice floating over the speaker, her tone brisk. "This had better be World War Three, Officer David."
Ziva decided to cut straight to the point seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, "Sasha Gordon is dead."
There was a brief pause before Jenny spoke again - and this time her voice was very slightly weaker as she asked, "What happened?"
"L.A.P.D. is still investigating, but it appears that she broke her neck in a fall. Director she was found less than a hundred metres away from your vehicle, where are you?"
"When?"
"Roughly three hours ago. Director we were assigned to protect you. This is not just a coincidence. Now where are you?"
Jenny's voice grew harsh again as she snapped, "I don't appreciate your tone Officer David. And despite what Agent Gibbs may have taught you, coincidences do exist and that is what we have here."
"Ok, but-"
"I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about. I will meet you later to take the red eye flight home."
Ziva stared at her cellas Jenny hung up on her. She looked up at Tony, her eyes narrowing in frustration. Tony gave her a small smirk.
"Well that went well. Told you she was fine."
"She is not fine. She is very obviously lying!"
"Why would she lie?"
"Maybe she was forced?"
"Did she use the duress word?"
"No."
"Well then there you go. If someone had a gun to her head she would've used the duress word."
"Not necessarily. I still think that something is wrong."
Tony snorted, "You would."
Ziva decided to ignore the obvious slur and continued, not paying any attention to the car that had screeched into the car park. "I think we should call McGee, get him to trace her cell phone. That way we can be-"
"Ziva" Tony interrupted her, causing her to glare at him, fully intending to hurt him; that was until she noticed how deathly pale he had went. His voice sounded slightly hoarse as he choked out. "I don't think we're going to need to call McGee."
"Oh! And why not?"
"Turn around."
Frowning Ziva did as she was told, and as she did she could actually feel the colour drain from her face as she watched a miserable McGee and a furious Gibbs head towards them.
Jenny took a deep breath as she processed the news she had just heard. She rubbed irritably at her forehead, trying to force herself to focus on the situation at hand. She swung round to face Mike, who eyed her curiously.
"Good news?"
Shaking her head, Jenny forced her voice to stay steady as she replied. "Not for Sasha."
Mike let out a distasteful sigh before asking "what happened?"
"Broke her neck in a fall. I told Sasha to leave town."
"She probably went back to the house to grab a few things, and this Nikolai or Viggo or whoever he's masquerading as, got to her. We have to assume she talked. That he knows about us."
"And this place."
"And Decker's insurance policy."
Jenny's eyes widened momentarily before falling back into a frown, she snatched up the photos she had spread out on the table and the packet of matches that lay next to them. Walking over to the old wood burning stove in the corner of the room, she bundled the pile inside, throwing a lit match in after them.
Mike watched for a moment before getting to his feet.
"Guess he's going to be on his way." He glanced at his watch, "If we leave now...."
Sitting down, Jenny replied, "You can go. I'm staying. This ends here."
He eyed her for a moment before placing his foot onto a nearby chair, Mike pulled out the gun hidden at his ankle and held it out to her. "You're going to need a clean one." He waited until she took it, and then sat down on the chair across from her.
Jenny gave a small smile. "I meant for you to go."
"I know. But you have a better chance of walking out of here if you have back-up."
"And if he takes out both of us? Who's going to warn Gibbs."
"Won't happen."
"I don't need your death on my conscience."
Mike stared her down. "It won't happen. Anyway Rule 15 says never go anywhere without back up."
Jenny let out a small laugh despite herself. "Thought Rule 15 is always work as a team."
"It's the same thing."
Swallowing heavily Tony tried to remain calm as an irate Gibbs stood almost nose to nose with him. "Didn't expect to see you here, Boss."
Gibbs reply was a near growl. "I know you didn't. Now where is the Director?"
"Um we don't actually know boss."
"When I phoned you over five hours ago, what did I tell you?"
Tony glanced sideways at Ziva, pleading with his eyes for her to step in. Gibbs noticed of course and moved even closer, snarling. "I don't know why you're looking at her to save you, I'll be dealing with her as well. Now answer the question."
"You told us to find the Director."
"And?"
"To glue ourselves to her sides."
"So why didn't you do it?"
"We did call her Boss and she said she was fine."
"Then why is her car a hundred metres away from a dead woman?"
"Coinci…..", Tony trailed off at the sight of the glare he was getting. "We did call her a few minutes ago, and she told us that she was ok."
Gibbs took a small step back, prompting Tony to let out a small sigh of relief; although he remained on edge. Gibbs continued to glare as he asked. "Does she know about Decker's girlfriend?"
"Yes."
"Right. So you have her location?"
Tony shook his head, "No. She uh, wouldn't tell us. She hung up on Ziva, Boss."
Gibbs shook his head, resisting the urge to throttle his lead Agent. Instead he turned to face McGee. "Can we trace her location using her cell?"
McGee jumped to attention. "Yes, but not from here. We'd need to call Abby."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
"Nothing, I'll do it just now." With that McGee got to work. He didn't have to wait long. Abby must have pounced on the phone, as she answered on the first ring.
"McGee! How are you? In fact where are you? Well I know you're in L.A. but where about? Did you find the Director? Is she ok?"
"We're fine Abby, but I need you to run a trace on the Directors cell phone for me, get a location."
"Ok. How's Gibbs?"
McGee risked a glance up at his boss, who was still silently glaring at Tony and Ziva, "He's…....Gibbs."
"Oh good." McGee could almost hear her smile through the phone, "He had me worried running off like that. Oh."
"What?"
"The Director's cell phone is switched off. If you give me another minute though I'll get you her location from her last phone call. So are Tony and Ziva with you?"
"Yes."
"Are they ok?"
"I think I'll need to get back to you on that one"
"Right….Well I have a location. The Director is thirty five miles into the Mojave Desert. I can send you the co-ordinates and you can put them into your cars' Sat-Nav."
"Thanks Abby. I'll see you soon."
"Ok. And McGee?"
"Yeah?"
"Bring her home safe."
McGee didn't answer, just ended the call. He looked over at Gibbs and spoke before his boss even had the chance to ask the question. "The Director's in the Mojave Desert, about thirty five miles in. Abby's sending us the exact co-ordinates."
Gibbs gave him a small nod of thanks. "Right then, lets go. McGee you're in the front with me." He once again sent a glare in Tony and Ziva's direction. "You two - in the back."
Tony thought about suggesting that they follow behind them, but he took one look at Gibbs face and decided just to keep quiet for once. Ziva obviously had the same idea and the two trailed miserably towards Gibbs's rental. Only speeding up when he roared back. "Move it!"
