Of Jews and Gentiles: Chapter 10
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! The last chapter was a gift for my roommate; this one is for everyone who has been reviewing and saying "I want to see some Tiva action!" or something along those lines. It's not a whole lot of action, but the story is still young... Anyway, enjoy :)
Thursday morning found Special Agent Tony DiNozzo filled with a mixture of nervous anticipation, excitement, and an odd sense of dread, part of which could be explained by the fact that he had to spend most of the morning up in MTAC with the Middle East analyst of the antiterrorism task force.
He arrived at his desk early in efforts of getting some late paperwork done before Analyst Herschel arrived at 0900. He didn't know if it was his concentration on his reports or her innate ability to sneak up on him, but he nearly jumped out of his skin when his partner appeared suddenly on the other side of the divider. "I expected you to be sleeping in this morning," Officer Ziva David said casually, her loose curls falling over her shoulder as she leaned on the thin wall.
"I told you to stop doing that!" he exclaimed after he managed to collect himself. Her low chuckle did nothing to make him feel better. "I had some paperwork to take care of, and since I have a date with a very hot IDF officer tonight, I thought I should get it done before I have to be in MTAC."
She smiled thinly at the compliment as she made her way around to the front of her desk, leaning on it as she continued to study him thoughtfully. "I wish you wouldn't look at me like that," he said, feigning annoyance. "It reminds me of the Discovery Channel. 'Watch closely as the female stalks her prey,'" he said, adopting a thick Australian accent. "'The unsuspecting creature—'"
"Discovery Channel, Tony?" she interrupted. "I believe you watch too much television."
He shrugged. "Not a whole lot else to do." It had been awhile, but he still couldn't figure out his seeming dry spell. Sure, there were still dates, and still the random one-night stands, but since Jeanne, he found that it didn't have the same appeal. And more often than not lately, he found himself halfway through a date wishing he were eating pizza or Chinese takeout and teasing his partner.
Ziva arched an eyebrow at his words. "I believe you will have to cut down on the television for the next few weeks," she said, her voice slightly lower than usual, a small smile playing on her lips. "I think Major Kenig will keep you too busy—." She was cut off by a sudden hard smack to the back of the head, and spun to face her boss, an indignant reply ready on her tongue.
"Stop teasing your partner," Agent Gibbs scolded, not giving her a chance to speak. "Shouldn't you be in MTAC, DiNozzo?"
"Finishing up some paperwork, Boss," Tony said quickly. "Herschel doesn't arrive until 0900."
Gibbs nodded slightly as he glanced around the bullpen. "Either of you seen McGee?"
"Uh, not yet, Boss—"
"Boss!" DiNozzo's words were cut off by the sudden exclamation by the very agent they were speaking of. "I think I might have something!"
Gibbs waited for a moment, an expectant look on his face. "Well, McGee?" he finally asked.
"Right," the junior agent said, flushing slightly. "Uh, I was going through some of the interviews again, you know, seeing if there was something that we missed the first time around. Not that I don't think Tony and Ziva didn't do a good job—"
"Today, McGee."
"Sorry, Boss. I, uh, couldn't make out Tony's handwriting in his notes from when he talked to Petty Officer Glover, one of Lt. Sault's clerks, so I went in to the Office of the Director of Ocean Engineering this morning to try to catch her this morning. Turns out, what she said to Tony wasn't that important—"
"Thanks, Probie," DiNozzo said dryly.
"But she did remember something that she had forgotten on Saturday when Tony talked to her," McGee continued. "Glover started at the office around the same time as Sault, so she saw when Sault and Shaw started dating. Well, uh, she remembered Lt. Sault complaining to another one of the personnel officers, an Ensign Maryann Craig, who has since been transferred to Pearl Harbor, about some comments her brother made about her relationship to Lt. Shaw. Apparently, Ensign Jacob Sault didn't approve of his sister dating someone who wasn't Jewish. And, Boss, he was a corpsman for a Marine unit before going to college, and he was qualified as a sharpshooter on the rifle."
"It was not Ensign Sault," Ziva interjected. "I had spoken to him. He did not approve of the relationship when it started, but then he got to know Lt. Shaw and he no longer had problems with the two of them dating."
"When did this conversation take place?" Gibbs demanded.
"Sunday evening, after my meeting at the embassy," she stated. "I went by the hospital to speak some more with Lt. Sault and ask about her synagogue, but she was in the midst of making funeral arrangements. Ensign Sault was in the room, so I spoke to him instead. He admitted that he was uncertain of his sister dating someone who was not Jewish. He also admitted to knowing how to fire a rifle and knew that that would make him a suspect. However, since meeting Lt. Shaw, he no longer had reservations about their relationship. In fact, he encouraged them to elope."
"Him saying that after the fact doesn't necessarily make it true," DiNozzo pointed out with a frown.
"No, it does not," she acknowledged. "However, he was staying with the lieutenants while he searched for an apartment near Bethesda for next year, which I doubt he would have done if he did not like Lt. Shaw. He also said that Lts. Shaw and Sault travelled to Columbus last fall for the Penn State-Ohio State football game."
"Ouch," DiNozzo said, flinching visibly at those words. "That was not a good day for the Buckeyes. We were leading until the fourth quarter—"
"Don't care, DiNozzo," Gibbs interrupted, all but glaring at the Mossad liaison. "Why didn't you mention this earlier? Or at least log the interview?"
"I had forgotten," she admitted. "He did not give any information I felt relevant to the case, so by the time I arrived here on Monday, it had fallen from my mind that we had even spoken."
"Slipped your mind," DiNozzo said automatically.
"What?"
"You said 'fallen from my mind'. The expression is 'slipped my mind'." He turned to Gibbs, an almost hopeful expression on his face. "You know, Boss, if you need me to go to Ohio State to interview Ensign Sault again—." He stopped talking when Gibbs' hand made contact with the back of his head.
"Visit your alma mater on your own time, DiNozzo," he said. "I don't think we need to speak to Ensign Sault. Ziva, next time, log your interviews. It'll save McGee some time."
"Sorry, Tim," she apologized.
"No big deal," he replied, waving off her apology.
Gibbs turned his attention to DiNozzo and David, both leaning casually against the fronts of their desks. "Don't you two have people to learn how to become?" he demanded. He took a sip of coffee to hide the smirk on his face as he watched them scatter in opposite directions.
"Your flight just landed," Agent DiNozzo said calmly to Officer David as he descended the stairs from MTAC, glad to be done with that particular aspect of his training. He frowned as Ziva glanced up at him. "And you're looking way too good for someone who just got off a trans-Atlantic flight." Her makeup, the little bit she wore, was still immaculate, her hair falling just so, her skirt and shirt still looking neatly pressed.
"Maybe I perked up in the bathroom at the airport," she countered.
"Freshened, Ziva. Although I guess the other way works too, just not quite in the way that you're thinking." She frowned as she tried to figure out what he was referring to. "How long is it going to take you to get your bags and clear customs before I can pick you up and get you to the embassy?"
"I think I will need another half an hour to forty-five minutes," she replied. She gave him a teasing smile. "But I should think Analyst Dinallo and Major Kenig will want some time to get reacquainted after their six-month absence from each other." He grinned; he liked the way she was thinking.
A quick smack to the back of the head erased his smile. "Thirty minutes," Gibbs stated as he rounded the corner. "Dinallo and Kenig can get reacquainted after she picks up her stuff from the embassy."
"Right, Boss," DiNozzo said quickly. He gave his partner another quick glance before returning his attention to the computer screen.
Half an hour later, DiNozzo was behind the wheel of the Mustang Vance had told him now reflected his new identity's registration, Ziva leaning against the glass in the passenger seat, two suitcases of her clothes in the car's small trunk as they made their way toward the Israeli embassy. He was staying with the flow of traffic, not making any attempts to get there any sooner. Now that the mission was beginning, he was finding that the feeling of nervous anticipation from the morning had changed entirely to nerves. He felt woefully underprepared for his assumed role, and still found himself wondering where this mission was going to be taking him and Ziva. As he often did when he found himself in an uncomfortable position, he started talking.
"Are you sure about the housing arrangements?" he asked. Seeing the confused expression on his partner's face, he continued, "I mean, Dinallo and Kenig have been 'dating' for awhile-if you can call whatever we-they-whoever-have been doing with an ocean between them for two years dating. Wouldn't they be staying together?"
She frowned at his explanation. "Have you ever had a long-distance relationship, Tony?"
"I hooked up with a girl in New York the night before I had to return to Columbus for winter quarter my senior year," he said. "She kept calling me every day for at least a week. Does that count?"
Ziva rolled her eyes. "With a long-distance relationship, there is a certain...awkwardness when meeting face-to-face for the first time in months," she said. "I do not think speeding things at that point is the best thing. I will have the apartment from the embassy, and you will have your apartment."
"Rushing," he corrected before glancing over at her. "You sound like you're speaking from experience."
She rolled her eyes, not about to be baited by him. "The embassy will be closed by the time we arrive, Tony," she said, changing the subject.
It bothered him sometimes-okay, all the time-that she never talked about her personal life, especially with how much she tried to pry into his, but he wasn't about to get into an argument immediately before beginning what could be a very long undercover mission. "Analyst Dinallo doesn't speed," he said instead, shooting her a wide grin. She rolled her eyes and looked away.
After parking in the spot directed to them by the embassy guard, Tony casually walked over to the passenger side of the car, taking Ziva's hand in his as they headed for the entrance. "Tony, what are you doing?" she asked with a frown, staring down at their intertwined fingers and finding herself strangely unwilling to make him let go.
"I haven't seen you in six months, remember?" he said with a grin. "We may still be the the 'awkward' period, but I should think that gives me the right to at least hold your hand."
She smiled, more to herself than him, at his words. Having been at the embassy several times in the past, she knew where the cameras were located, so she decided to give the guards a little show—and throw Tony off in the process. Their hands still linked, she swung herself so they were face to face, and rose up on her toes to kiss him lightly, letting her lips linger on his for a few seconds longer than necessary. "I have not seen you in six months," she countered at his surprised expression. "I should think that gives me the right to kiss you."
He chuckled at hearing his words thrown back at him as they resumed their walk toward the front door. "Here goes nothing," he muttered as he opened the door for her.
The young guard standing just inside the door straightened to attention as the pair entered the embassy. "Rav Seren Kenig? Follow me please, ma'am."
