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Chapter 9. High Hopes.

"Thirty-two bottles of beer on the wall. . ." Abby's tired and worn voice trailed off after she glanced at Tony. If they had been in any other situation, he would have joined in on the classic song. But his mind was consumed with thoughts and worries for Ziva. He was not in the mood for the chant.

But Abby had encouraged him to join in, all the same. When he declined with a distant smirk, she started the song off, hoping he would join and be distracted, if only for a few moments.

But every time he contemplated just singing along with his friend, a faint but piercing shriek would sound from the top floor. Ziva's cries were so rare and so heart-wrenchingly awful, that Tony's mind was forced to turn to the worst as he imagined what would cause such sounds.

"Gibbs is going to find us," Abby murmured sadly and quietly. It was a rare sight: a sad and silent Abby. But if these characteristics were to appear in her, they would appear now.

Tony gave a nod. He wanted to be more cheerful for Abby, to be the funny guy, but his heart just wasn't in it. Not when he heard Ziva's pained cries ringing constantly in his ears. "Yeah. Probie is bound to track us with some computer geek-ness."

"I would've found us by now," she joked, a small smile hinting at her lips.

"My superior detective skills would have tracked us before we even got to this place," Tony joined in on the teasing.

They smiled at one another, taking comfort in humor for a few moments. Their mouths then turned downward when Ziva yelled from the other room.

Tony ground his teeth together, hoping and hoping that they would just leave the woman alone already. Hadn't they done enough? Was torture needed to get a point across?

Either way, Tony hated it. Every bit of it.

After a few more moments, Ziva's distressed voice faintly reached them again. Abby shuddered.

But for Tony, it was the final straw on the camel's back. He got to his feet and marched up the stairs to the locked door. He then smacked the door with his fist, yelling, "Hey! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

Silence enveloped him, causing him to wonder if quoting "Catch That Kid" was a bad move.

Shouts from an Arabic tongue pushed through the door to Tony's and Abby's ears.

"Step back!" a heavily accented voice commanded Tony through the door.

Wary but hopeful, Tony stepped backwards until he was on the second to top step.

After a couple of moments of shuffling feet, the door swung open, and Ziva was thrown onto the ground just inside of the door. The men moved quickly and hastily, slamming and locking the door closed again seconds later.

As much as he wanted to wring his captors' necks, Tony knew it would be best to focus on Ziva.

Her face was swollen and bruised. Blood trickled down the side of her head, as well as cuts along her arms. It was painfully obvious that someone had taken both a knife and a fist to this poor woman. Tony cringed in sorrow and pity at the sight she displayed; she forced his mind to conjure up images of Ziva after her two months in Israel.

"Ziva," Tony breathed, wrapping her in his arms.

Ziva wasn't in a fully coherent state. She flinched when he touched her but calmed when she realized it was Tony. She swallowed back some bile that had accumulated in the back of her throat before speaking. "Hello, Tony."

"Ziva!" Abby squealed, running up the stairs to greet her friend. Once there, she wrapped the Israeli in a painful hug. "We were so worried."

"I am fine," Ziva responded in her reflex reaction.

"Let's go lie down," Tony suggested, beginning to pull Ziva into his arms so that he could carry her down the stairs.

Ziva retracted away from his movements. "I can walk."

"You can hardly stand," he pointed out as she pulled herself onto her feet.

"I can do both," she retorted, shuffling forward to the stairs as she leaned heavily on Tony.

Tony repressed a groan at her antics. All the same, he helped her down the stairs as much as she would let him.

The three gathered together, sitting in the center of the cement floor. Abby pressed Ziva for information on why they wanted to hurt her, but Ziva was too dazed to really answer.

And Tony knew that Azzan wanted information. Information that Ziva may have given, causing her to close her mouth on the subject all together.

The trio was permitted five minutes until they were interrupted again. Because five minutes later, the door was smacked open, revealing three armed guards in the doorway.

"Abigail Sciuto," one demanded with a thick Israeli accent.

Abby wore a brave mask. "What the hell do you want now?" She snapped to her booted feet, angry at them for hurting her friend.

Tony got up, gently laying Ziva on the ground now that she wasn't leaning against him. He moved in front of Abby with a forced smirk. "You can't take anymore of my people."

"'My people?'" Abby questioned in a whisper.

"I'm senior field agent," he reminded her in a hiss.

Abby rolled her eyes as Tony carried on. "Now. Go tell your boss that if he wants to talk with us, he can come down here and talk to me man to man.

"Unless, I am too much of a man for him," he continued, an arrogant grin growing on his face. "Which is completely understandable."

Azzan Gorion came to the doorway, calm and disconnected. "Do you wish me to speak with you, Anthony DiNozzo?"

Tony straightened his back a little and cleared his throat. He felt as if Gibbs had just walked up at an inconvenient time, once again. "That, and a little Chardonnay would be nice."

The corner of Azzan's mouth twitched, threatening to reveal a grin. He slowly began his way down the staircase, taking each stair methodically.

When his boots finally touched down on the basement floor, seven of his guards having marched down behind their master, he looked at Tony, eye to eye. "Then we will talk."

At the snap of Azzan's fingers, a guard slammed his rifle into Tony's abdomen, causing him to double over with a groan.

Ziva regained herself enough to realize what had just happened. She pushed herself onto her blood-dried and bruised arms. "Tony, are you alright?"

Before he could regain his composure and deliver a witty remark, the guard brought his rifle soaring up to between Tony's legs.

Tony's breath fled the scene as he fell to his knees with a small squeak.

"Tony," Ziva muttered anxiously.

"I'm dandy," he rasped. "Just give me a minute."

Abby became frustrated with the entire situation. They had kidnapped her, tortured Ziva, stuffed her in a hole, and then beat Tony. She was done. In an attempt to relieve her frustration, she brought her fist flying into Azzan's face.

The guards raised their guns at Abby as Azzan stumbled backwards at the unexpected blow. He cradled his bleeding nose as he stared at Abby. "Bring her to my office," he ordered his guards in Hebrew.

Three guards descended on her quickly, grabbing her by her arms before dragging her up the stairs. She cursed at them and Azzan all the way up.

Tony and Ziva slowly began coming back to their feet.

Azzan watched them as blood continued to trickle from his nostril. "Tie up Anthony DiNozzo. I have something special planned for the two of them."

Ziva latched onto Tony's arm, but the guards shoved her to the ground easily; her concussion continued to weigh on her heavily.

"Ziva," Tony murmured to her, hoping she would confirm that she was alright. The guards marched him to one of the chairs that was bolted to the floor in the corner of the room. One of the guards walked up, securing him with zip ties.

Ziva groggily pushed herself back onto her forearms, gathering the strength and awareness to stand up again.

Her efforts were unnecessary; a moment later, the guards marched back to Ziva, hoisting her to feet by her bruised arms.

The guard supply was added to, subtracted from, and recycled, but all of them meshed together in Ziva's mind. All she knew was that two more of them came down the stairs with a rather large tub of water.

Tony, still strapped to the bolted chair, was forced to watch as the tub was slammed in front of Ziva. The guards then pushed her in front of the water, threatening to dunk her head in.

Azzan, satisfied with this turn of events, turned away from the four guards left in the room. He turned to Tony with a grin and said, "I recommend you tell me what dear Ziva did not."

Tony looked around Azzan, watching Ziva. His stomach grew uneasy as he imagined what the guards would do if he refused to answer.

Azzan stood in front of Tony and gripped his chin, forcing Tony to look at him. Azzan's breath encircled Tony, further deepening his nausea.

"Tell me about Leroy Jethro Gibbs."


Gibbs sat at his chair, agitated and silent. He had no leads to go on and no team members to decipher them. He was trapped with his own thoughts. As a result, Gibbs merely sat, replaying the tragic turn of events in his mind. What moves he should have made, the precautions he should have taken, everything wrong constantly haunting his mind. If members of his team were to die because of this, Gibbs felt solely responsible.

"Boss, we just got a hit for the Gorion's BOLO," McGee announced as he hastily tapped away at his keyboard.

Gibbs moved away from his chair and quickly marched over to stand behind McGee. He watched, mostly unable to read the programs McGee was using. Although McGee knew that his boss was more or less uneducated when it came to technology, he couldn't help feeling a pressure weigh on him as Gibbs looked over his shoulder.

"Where, McGee?" Gibbs demanded.

After a couple more clicks, McGee responded, "On the corner of Richmond and Seventh. A man fitting Gorion's description bought gas there five minutes ago."

"Anything else?"

More clicks. "The witness is a retired cop. He wrote down the license plate."

"Type it in," Gibbs demanded, waving his hand at the computer. Slight annoyance stirred within him that something like this hadn't been reported sooner.

McGee gave a nod and typed it into the DMV database. Less than a minute later, although it was a good few stressed, anxiety-filled seconds later, the DMV got a match: it was a rent-a-car registered out to one of Azzan Gorion's known aliases.

"We got 'em," Gibbs stated. His gut knew that this would work.

Gibbs already had his gun holstered to his hip, so he marched to the elevator without a backwards glance.

McGee hastily grabbed his own gun, not even having the time to shut down his computer if he wanted to catch up to his employer.

Gibbs stepped into the elevator, McGee sliding through the closing slit after him.

The two were going to find their team. Lives were depending on it.

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