Fallen Angels: Chapter 10

A/N: Writing has been really slow on this one (in case you can't tell from the slower-than-normal posting schedule). I'm definitely open to suggestions, so if you have any, send them my way. And if you don't, I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

NCIS Special Agent Kim Tomblin hated hospitals. She was fortunate enough not to have spent too much time in them as a patient—her longest stay was when she was shot in the arm when she was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, and even then, it was only a week in the field hospital in Iraq—but there was still something about the sterile atmosphere and scent in the air that made her skin crawl.

Even the bright and sunny Bob Wilson Naval Hospital in San Diego—more commonly known as Balboa—which was, overall, a hospital she had happy memories associated with, including a few visits to a Dr. Jeff Cunningham while she was escorting patients in NCIS custody.

This time, though, while she was there to see Jeff, it wasn't for a surprise visit to his office when he didn't realize she was in town. This time, Jeff was the patient, and she was the 'family member' waiting for him to be out of surgery. And she hated waiting more than she hated hospitals.

She sighed as she leaned against one of the many large picture windows showing off Balboa's prime beach real estate, not even seeing the blue-green Pacific Ocean or bright blue sky or clear uncrowded beach, not registering the perfect surf that just begged for her and her surfboard. Well, Jeff's surfboard; she still hadn't gotten around to going and buying one for herself, not with an unused board just lying around on account of the fact that its owner was far too injured to be out surfing.

She hated this. It had been a month, a month of Jeff spending as much time in the hospital as out—as a patient, not a doctor, a distinction that he was significantly less than pleased about—a month of surfing and sun and without the company she usually enjoyed when she was surfing and sunbathing.

Tomblin pulled Jeff's pager from her pocket and checked it again, confirming that she hadn't missed any pages. That was definitely a nice thing about being the 'family member' to a well-liked doctor at the hospital—the orthopedic surgeons had promised to keep her in the loop and said that they would let her know the minute the surgery was over, which would probably still be a few hours. But that still left her sitting around the hospital for a few hours.

She finally pulled away from the window and made a decision; standing around doing nothing wasn't her style, she needed something to do or someone to see, and everyone she knew at the hospital was in the pediatrics department, where Jeff worked.

Unfortunately, they were all doing what the majority of productive members of society were doing during the day—working.

She collapsed into Jeff's chair in the empty office he usually shared with the other two pediatric infectious disease fellows, and took a moment to just sit and try to catch her breath and collect her thoughts.

Easier said than done, especially considering that her new position at NCIS—Special Agent in Charge of Investigations Involving International Terrorism, a position with a long title and vague description—required her to follow Gibbs' Rule Three to the letter: always be accessible. She had barely settled into the chair when her phone started ringing. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she muttered, sure that it was that agent from Homeland Security who hadn't seemed to get the hint that she wasn't interested.

And then she saw the caller ID, and her heart just about stopped in surprise: Stan Burley (work).

It took her a few seconds to register that her late boss' number, while no longer his, was still active. "DiNozzo," she said, forcing a light tone as she mentally told herself that it was time to change her contacts to reflect the change. "Middle East falling apart without me already?"

"Not this time," the new SAC in Bahrain replied, his voice telling her that this wasn't a social call and he wasn't amused, and a glance at her watch telling her why: at eleven hours ahead, if he was calling from his office at that hour, something big had happened. "But I did lose a captain."

"Please tell me you're talking about a Marine, because if you lost a Navy captain—"

"I couldn't be so lucky. I need to know everything about Abdul Hasan Zazi."

It took her a second to recall the Taliban officer she had worked with David Cohen and a Marine Recon team to capture almost nine months before, but she couldn't figure out what that had to do with Navy captains. "I don't think I'm following, DiNozzo."

"Captain Rabb is the JAG who's supposed to be prosecuting."

"And that's who you lost?" As the words were coming out of her mouth, the office door opened again, revealing a brunette Navy lieutenant with a long white coat over her khaki uniform and a puzzled expression on her face. Tomblin gave her a tight smile. "I can't talk about it right now, DiNozzo. I'm on an unsecured cell phone in Jeff's office—"

"You aren't at work?"

"Took a day of sick leave. Jeff's in surgery right now." She closed her eyes and sighed; this was seriously the last thing she needed. "Listen, DiNozzo, there's an NCIS office here in the hospital, and I'm sure the agent has a secured webcam. Give me half an hour to get there and convince him to let me kick him out of his office, and then I'll contact you on the network."

"Talk to you in half an hour, then." She frowned at the beeping sound indicating that the call was disconnected; she was having flashbacks to times working with Agent Gibbs.

She forced a smile on her face as she again turned to the doorway, where Dr. Davis was still watching her with a confused look. "You must be Laurel," Tomblin finally said.

"Yeah," Dr. Laurel Davis replied slowly. "And you are…"

Tomblin smiled inwardly at the thought of pulling out her credentials. NCIS, I have a couple of questions for you regarding your officemate. "Kim Tomblin," she said instead, and almost instantly, recognition crossed Dr. Davis' face.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Jeff's Kim." Her eyes, and then Tomblin's, went to the framed photographs on Jeff's desk; next to the picture of the pediatrician in his summer whites and surrounded by his red-headed niece and nephews—seriously, Mandy, up to three kids already? Kim could still remember when the eldest was born, when her and Jeff were deployed to Iraq—were two pictures of Jeff and Kim together, one in Qatar during R&R leave and one when he surprised her by being there when the U.S.S. Enterprise came to dock, during her year as agent afloat aboard the carrier. "So he's in surgery today?" the pediatric infectious disease fellow continued.

"Yeah," Tomblin replied. "I think the orthopedic surgeons said that they're doing a revision on the hardware in his leg."

"Nobody ever knows what orthopedic surgeons are saying," Dr. Davis said dismissively. "When is he supposed to be done?"

"They actually didn't know," Tomblin informed her. She held up the work BlackBerry. "I'm sorry to duck out, but—"

"Work," Davis said with a slight smile. "I know that feeling. Good luck. And let me know when Jeff gets out of surgery, so I can stop by and say hi." Tomblin agreed before gathering her few things and heading out.

Apparently, when your work was terrorism, you were never off the clock.

True to Kim Tomblin's military training and precision, exactly thirty minutes had passed when a pop-up appeared on DiNozzo's desktop, indicating a new call on the secured network. "Tomblin," he said in surprise when the agent appeared, "you look like hell."

"It's a good thing you already have a girlfriend, DiNozzo, because with sweet talk like that, you'd never be able to pick one up." Despite her light tone, Tomblin did look pretty beat. Her long hair was in its standard ponytail, but her face looked thinner than it had a month before, dark circles etched under her eyes and a pallor to her skin that shouldn't have been present on someone in San Diego. "It's been a hell of a week," she admitted. "My grandfather had a heart attack and is in the VA in Spokane, but I can't be there because I'm here because Jeff's having surgery again today, and to top it off, there was a major bomb threat at Pendleton on Monday that required my physical and awake presence for forty-seven hours." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I'm too old for this shit, DiNozzo."

"How do you think I feel?" he shot back. "How's Cunningham?"

"Be a hell of lot better when he's walking again," she replied. "He gets a little stir-crazy and he's not dealing with inactivity well. And he's pissed because this is the first year, with the exception of his time deployed, since he was at Annapolis that he's not running the Marine Corps Marathon." She shrugged a shoulder. "Upside to that is that I get to take his place. I didn't register because I thought I'd still be in Bahrain. We have a team from the good old days that runs every year to raise money. It'll be good to see them again." She paused for a second. "Speaking of which, do you want to donate to my marathon to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project?"

"Only if you can tell me something I can use about Zazi."

Tomblin frowned again. "Well, that's not fair to the wounded vets," she finally said. "To be honest, it was a fairly small op nine months ago."

"I'll take anything I can get."

"Okay." She took a deep breath. "A fighter squadron flying over Waziristan about a year ago noticed something a bit out of the ordinary. They sent it up the chain and a satellite got dedicated to the region, which pretty much confirmed that someone was up to something. A Recon team operating in the region was sent in to do what Recon does best—reconnaissance—and got a lead on who they believed was Zazi. Since he was on our watch list and we were involved since the satellite got involved and the captain of the Recon team is a friend of mine, he gave me a call. I went out to run point and question Zazi after they brought him in. He didn't talk, and the rules of engagement that are designed to tie our hands and make us look like bumbling idiots state that I can't do anything to change that, so I escorted him to the nearest detainment center. That was it."

"Who was the Recon captain, and how do I talk to him?"

"Name's Captain Chris Hammer. He's actually back at Pendleton right now. I can bring him into NCIS for a video conference." She gave an amused smile. "You might want to remove any shiny objects from your office first, though. He's got the worst ADHD you've ever seen. I still don't know how he manages to remain functional, much less lead a Recon unit."

DiNozzo wondered the same thing, but wasn't in a mood to joke about it. "What'd you charge Zazi with?"

"The usual. War crimes."

"Defense have anything they can use to fight that?"

Tomblin shrugged. "The usual," she echoed. "Nobody ever saw him doing any of the things you claim he did, he's just a man who cares about his village, et cetera, et cetera. If you think the defense strategy involves keeping the prosecutor from the court room, you should probably be talking to the JAG who'll be defending, not me. But if that's the case, you probably have more issues than just Zazi."

DiNozzo knew she was right about that one. "Where does Mossad fit into all of this?"

She shrugged again. "Hell if I know. Something dinged in the Mossad 'I have eyes everywhere' alert and Cohen offered his assistance. I thought he was offering assistance in eliminating the Zazi problem permanently, but when I started with the rules of engagement shit, he said it wasn't an issue. And, of course, I trust Cohen to keep his word about not killing someone about as far as I can throw him—which is probably further than you think—but he followed the rules. He ran point with the boys and helped bring in Zazi and never touched him. And that was it. He never brought it up again."

"What would Mossad want with Zazi?"

"Other than the whole Mossad stance on bringing down all enemies of Israel?" Tomblin asked wryly. "I'm guessing you're a lot closer to a Mossad officer who can answer those questions than I am. They say the key to building strong relationships is communication."

A reminder DiNozzo did not need. "Not when the two people in a relationships are officials of two different countries. Then the lines of communication get a little blurry."