Tony knew something was wrong as soon as the Jeep pulled up outside the small house. There was a woman in the front yard, sitting very still, with her hands drawn around her knees. The door to the house was open, and the woman was staring vacantly into the dark space.
Gibbs was out of the Jeep before it was fully stopped, Tony right on his heels. He approached the woman.
"Avia?" he asked uncertainly. He knew his contact's wife's name, but wasn't sure if this was her or not. Faiz didn't carry pictures. The woman's eyes snapped to his face, but she said nothing. "Avia, is Faiz here?"
The woman's eyes snapped back to the house and filled with tears. She still made no sound.
"I'm Tony," he tried. "I'm looking for Faiz."
"Tony?" the woman finally spoke. He nodded, relieved to have gotten through to her. He knelt beside her, and she began to speak, very quickly, in a language that Tony couldn't even begin to identify.
"Um, Avia…" he trailed off as the woman sped frantically on, gesturing wildly and occasionally saying his name.
"She says that two men came last night while she was hanging the clothing to dry," Eran said from his elbow. "They entered the house and fought with Faiz, then left."
"Fought how?" Tony asked, eyes never leaving Avia's face.
Eran asked the question, then listened as she spoke again. "Yelling, mostly. She did not hear anything that sounded like violence."
"I'm guessing they used the quiet kind of violence," Tony muttered. "I'm going to go ahead and assume that Gibbs is about to find my contact in there, in a slightly less helpful mood than he may have been at this time yesterday." He stood and began to walk towards the house.
Tony stopped moving when he felt Avia grab at his legs. She rose to her feet, and Tony was slightly shocked to see how small she was. The top of her head didn't even reach the curve of his shoulder. She looked him straight in the eyes and said something else, something that contained his name and the name of her husband more than a few times.
"She says that Faiz gave her something that she was only to give to you," Eran translated. "In case something happened to him."
"What is it?" Tony asked. Avia walked to the door of the house. She paused, glancing down the hallway to the last door, but turned in the first. She returned to the door quickly, thrusting a sheaf of papers at Tony, then retreating outside, saying something to Eran on her way out. He nodded as Tony began to sift through the stack of paper.
Tony stopped on one of the first pages. It was a photograph, and as Tony looked at it, he dropped the other papers to the floor.
It was Ziva.
She was with a group of men, and she appeared to be trying to kick one of them in the face. Tony dropped to his knees, rifling through the other papers. Most were photographs. Ziva stepping from a ship, Ziva meeting someone in an alley, Ziva surrounded by men, Ziva fighting. Ziva on the ground, apparently unconscious. Ziva, slung over one of the men's backs as they hauled her away.
A piece of paper with a handwritten note in English fell to the floor. Tony picked it up, recognizing the blocky writing as that of Faiz.
This is your girl, from your picture. I remember her face. I could not help her. I am sorry.
Tony remembered in flashes: the picture of the team he'd always carried in his wallet, that he'd shown to Faiz, him remarking about the pretty woman he'd been holding in the picture, his own slightly sad smile as he tucked the picture back into his pocket.
Faiz had seen her captured and had taken pictures to give to him. That was probably why he had been killed.
"DiNozzo," Gibbs said from the back room. The room that Avia had looked at when she walked in. Tony rose and walked back to where his boss stood in the doorway.
"Your friend can't help us," he said grimly. "I'm not Ducky, but I'm pretty sure he was strangled."
Tony nodded dully. Faiz was draped backwards over the sofa in the center of the room, his feet hanging a few inches of the floor. His head was, thankfully, on the other side of the couch. He couldn't stare at Tony from that angle, couldn't accuse him of not getting there in time.
"The question is why he was killed," Gibbs said.
Tony shook his head. "Got that one covered, boss," he said, handing Gibbs a selection of the photos and the note that Faiz had written. Gibbs studied them for a moment, reading the note first, then looking at each picture in turn.
"Girl from the picture?" he finally said to Tony. The younger agent responded by opening his wallet and pulling out a small photograph. They were standing in the bullpen, and there was a cake on one of the desks. McGee was wearing one of those pointy birthday hats, trying to look annoyed, but Gibbs could see the pleasure in his eyes even in the tiny picture. Tony's arm was around Ziva's waist, and he saw the sparkle in her eyes. Gibbs even glanced himself in the corner, not quite in the frame, but not totally excluded.
"Been in there since the day Vance broke us up," Tony said, looking away from Gibbs. "I showed Faiz once. He was talking about Avia, wanted to know if I was married. I told him no, that I had a different kind of family. I showed him this."
Gibbs put his hand on Tony's shoulder and squeezed it briefly. "We're gonna find her."
"Yeah," Tony said. "I know." He tucked the photo back into his wallet and returned the wallet to his pocket.
"Let's get back to the hotel," Gibbs said. "We can let the local LEOs know about your friend from there."
"Okay," Tony said, giving Faiz one last look. I'm sorry, he thought.
There were still some papers on the ground in the hallway from where Tony had dropped the original stack. He knelt to the ground to gather them all together. Some had scattered quite far away, and as he reached for the last one, he froze.
A car. Faiz had taken a picture of the men loading Ziva into a car.
And there was a clear picture of every letter on the license plate.
Tony closed his eyes and thanked Faiz, wherever he was now. He'd been able to give them a lead after all.
Look for the next chapter either later today or tomorrow... we find out more about Saima's background. Finally!