"Where are you guys?" Abby demanded of the shaky, awful video from Sampson's cell phone, as if it would somehow yield answers that saved Tony from more pistol-whipping. She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of the – second times the fifty-three times she'd already watched the short recording – one hundred and sixth time Tony grunted in response to the blow while Ziva struggled ineffectually to help him. Abby paused the video before Ziva could pretend that lacerations to the neck weren't that painful so as not to disturb Tony's semi-consciousness. She squinted, wishing for more pixels. "There's nothing in this room that tells me anything! I can't even analyze the angles of light because I can't tell if it's natural light or…"

"How, exactly, would that help, Abs?"

"Oh, Gibbs!" She threw her arms around his neck, knowing he wouldn't actually want to know about how the light wouldn't mean jack without a reference point, not allowing herself to be distracted by the chill of the Caf-Pow cup he was pressing into her back as he returned the hug. The cold, condensation-dripping… "Right!" She grabbed the cup from his hand and took a long, satisfying sip. "I wish I'd done something to earn that. I mean, I've been thinking about the room and how it looks like it's covered in sheets, so maybe they're in a place with…a lot of sheets? Like a hotel or a house with a ton of bedrooms? Or Bed, Bath and Beyond? Unless, of course, they brought their own sheets, which would…"

Gibbs cut her off, "You didn't find anything on the hotel security footage?"

"Oh, that!" Without setting her Caf-Pow down, she called up footage from one of the hotel elevators on one of her monitors. "I went backwards from when the room was accessed and found this guy. He comes in with a laptop case, gets off at Nozzy-dwarf's floor, leaves about ten minutes later."

"Nozdryov," Gibbs corrected, scowling at the screen.

"Whatever. The guy is hanging out in the lobby at various points during Nozzled-off's stay. Anyway, I'm running facial recognition on him, but no luck so far."

"Probably just a hired thug. Safad's not gonna risk being seen in public."

"Yeah, about that guy…" She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet until Gibbs' glare shifted from indulgent to irritated, which seemed to happen faster than usual. "Well, I did a little research once I heard the name and," she paused to let her frown communicate more than her assessment, "it's not good."

"He's a Hamas terrorist holding my people hostage."

"I know, like I could explain a circumstance in which we'd consider that good." She took a moment to perform some deep breathing exercised to slow her heart and calm her mind. "Iceberg, Gibbs. The Titanic doesn't sink if the only part that hits the hull is the part they see." She bent over to pick up the heavy file folder she'd been keeping under her table. "And I think a few too many of the watertight compartments have been breached."

"Is there some reason…?"

"History Channel, Bossman. April 15th is an easy programming day for them."

"I meant is there some reason I'm just getting this?"

"Gibbs, I just found out I needed to find out everything possible about this Safad guy! I ran a search of the database and the number for the hard-copy file came up and Wilkins owed me a favor, so…" She shrugged guiltily, pointing at the file. "I took a short walk off a long pier that landed me in the basement across the street."

To her surprise and delight, Gibbs smiled. "You tryin' to make up for Ziva not being here?"

"Hmm?" She sucked on her Caf-Pow straw, realizing that she hadn't know just how close she'd come to a caffeine-deficiency emergency, and quickly switched her monitors from the still of Sampson's footage to a neutral screensaver before Gibbs could look up and find a reason to stop smiling. "Do you want to read that file yourself, or do you just want the Abby-cap?"

He held out his hands, but still asked, "What's it say?"

"It's all about an NCIS joint operation, codename Billhook, in Cairo that involved surveillance on a group of terrorists who were planning a multi-target attack in Europe. This Safad guy shows up by name as one of the men who kidnapped two NCIS agents and held them for three days. Special Agent Curtis Lavoie was killed during the mission."

"Who was the other agent?"

Feeling a little silly revealing information she was fairly certain Gibbs had already inferred, she whispered, "Special Agent Jennifer Shepard."

He nodded. "What happened, exactly?"

"Well…Agents Shepard and Lavoie were captured while gathering intelligence on the cell. Lavoie died at some point during the three days they were held captive and the Director was rescued by allies before…well…" Colleagues she had never known dying was hard enough without the hypotheticals. "Long story short, the Director was saved and the bad guys got away, even after a bunch of chasing…case suspended. Safad's name comes up in a bunch of CIA files I didn't use McGee's special program to get a look at, but this is the only link to NCIS I could find."

Gibbs was silent as he paged through the documents in the file. In spite of the limited time she'd had with it, Abby had given it a thorough read-through, but there was no way she could guarantee she had zeroed in on all of the necessary details involving a mission she knew nothing about. It was almost enough to tempt her back to the video, where she could analyze sound, light and time until caffeine could no longer keep her awake. Gibbs eventually looked up. "You said it was a joint op?"

"That's the weird thing, Gibbs. Even though this is our own secure file, the other agency involved in the mission is never mentioned by name, not even any of the operatives involved. Someone called 'Radiant' comes up a bunch of times and rescues Director Shepard, but other than that…" she trailed off, frustrated that she hadn't been able to extrapolate anything from the code-words in the file. What was the point of even keeping files if you couldn't refer back to them for useful information at a later date? Of course, Director Shepard would probably be able to fill in the blanks, but there were likely a lot of other files that she couldn't…not that any of those file would help them rescue Tony and Ziva, but…how many files were there that could require Shepard-ing or Gibbs-ification or Franks-furters? What if they had another case in the near future and couldn't find a senior or retired agent to fill in the blanks?

Abby took a deep breath. They had Director Shepard for now, and that was going to be what they needed. She turned to Gibbs, but he was focused on the ceiling. "Gibbs? Gibbs!"

"Ziva."

"No, I'm Abby, Gibbs."

"I know. And that's good work, Abs." He tucked the file under his arm. "McGee is trying to track the signal through the hotel's network, so coordinate with him while I…"

"Gibbs!"

He turned in the doorway, somewhat annoyed. "What?"

"Be Carpathia. Don't be Californian."

"No one's going down, Abs." He left the lab without making eye contact.

She rewound the soundtrack on her nightmare fuel video. "Tony and I…would very much like to…go home, Jen."

Abby watched it a few more times before saying, "Oh, Ziva. You should know that Gibbs is the one you call for help when things like this happen."