Thanks to my wonderful beta Kristen! I am intrigued with the suggestions for who the mole might be - please keep them coming! I'm not sure if Gibbs can speak Spanish or not, but for the purposes of this chapter, he doesn't.
Chapter 21: Postcard 3
Tony DiNozzo was frustrated.
Not 'I've had a bad day' frustrated, but 'I've been coped up in a hotel room in a foreign country for the last twenty days with nothing to do' frustrated.
He had spent a lot of time with Lily. It had taken him a few days to see her as a mother, and he had been as surprised as everyone else when he had continued to flirt with her. She might be a mother, and therefore not fit into the mould of his other 'conquests', but she had something about her.
He wasn't sure what it was. She seemed to enjoy most of his filthy jokes, and she gave as good as she got when he harassed her. Unlike Ziva, she didn't threaten to kill him every five minutes.
One memorable afternoon, he had walked into her hotel room unannounced. He had been stunned to see her crying softly. After a bit of persuasion, she had admitted to missing her son. She couldn't call him because she thought that her father might be able to trace her. They had ended up choosing a postcard from the small collection hidden in her suitcase, and Lily had snuck out one night to mail it.
Lily had snuck out at other times too. Although they were supposed to remain in the hotel to avoid further detection, she seemed to disregard the order and spent more nights away from the hotel than she spent in it. Oddly enough, she was always back before daybreak. She had even told him that if she wasn't, he should call her boss at the CIA and get backup sent out immediately.
She was being very careful to prevent John from finding out about her little jaunts. The MI6 agent had spent the time in the hotel watching everyone like a hawk. Tony supposed it was his normal reaction to being threatened by something unknown.
There had not been a repeat of the argument again. Everyone seemed to have silently agreed to not mention it, but the tension was certainly there. Even Lily had been affected by it. She had organized a 'girls only night' in Gibbs' room, presumably picking the location to annoy the boss. From what Tony had managed to get out of Ziva, the night had involved Lily sharing her secret chocolate stash, several pints of ice cream, and watching Dirty Dancing.
Tony hadn't quite decided if he wanted to be a fly on the wall or if he wanted to run away as far as possible.
"I wanna go home," he groaned.
He was in Gibbs' room, waiting for the daily briefing. Since the shootout, it hadn't changed a bit. Not everyone was present yet; only the NCIS agents were there.
"I'd love to be able to go out in the fresh air," McGee noted, next to him. "I'm fed up with sticking my nose out of a two inch gap in the window."
"We have no leads," Ziva chimed. "Unless we can leave this hotel, we are not going to get any either."
Gibbs looked up from the file he was perusing. "If everyone gave up at the first hurdle, nothing would ever get done," he pointed out. "Something will come up."
Ziva David watched as John stormed into the hotel room.
"Briefing was supposed to start half an hour ago," Gibbs complained.
"Lady at the front desk took forever to find the mail," the Brit shot back. He flung it in Jenny's general direction and slumped down into the nearest chair.
Ziva did not bat an eyelid. John's temper had been getting steadily worse. He seemed to be suffering from cabin fever a lot more than the others were.
In Mossad, she was used to long operations that required patience. She was used to sitting around for long periods of time in cramped quarters with very little to do. She was used to the constant danger.
She was not used to working on an operation with incredibly little intelligence. They had been at a standstill since the firefight and she longed for action. She needed something to do, but, for now at least, she was controlling herself.
Jenny had been helping. Her friend had come up with ideas and games to occupy the two of them. Lily had sometimes joined in, although she was spending a lot of time with Tony.
That was something Ziva disliked.
Tony seemed fond of Lily, and was growing close to her. To Ziva, this was a slap in the face. Lily was the spitting image of Jenny, and she could never imagine Jenny flirting with a man that she herself liked.
She could not understand how Tony was still lusting after Lily. He now knew that she was a mother, and she was definitely older than he was. She was not his type at all! But for some strange reason he liked her.
It was very confusing.
"You've got another postcard," Jenny remarked to her sister, tossing it to the other side of the room.
Lily caught it easily. "Russia," she announced, placing it on the bed and walking out.
"Not Russia," Tony moaned. "It's the middle of November; it's going to be absolutely freezing."
"Maybe he chose Russia to annoy us," Charlie teased.
"Maybe her source is feeding her false information," John suggested.
Tony reached over and snatched up the postcard. He pulled a funny face.
"What?" McGee asked.
"This one's even worse than the last one," Tony smirked.
"Read it."
"Por todo el mundo, "te quiero" es lo mismo
Cada día y cada noche solo tú me das amor
Aquí está mi sol, te lo doy, todo lo que soy
Si te vas, te buscaré en Rusia se."
"In English," Gibbs ordered.
"Come on, boss. Everyone should speak Spanish."
"DiNozzo!"
Ziva decided to end the argument before it got worse.
"For the whole world, "I love you" is the same,
Every day and every night, it is only you who gives me love
Here is my soul; I am giving it to you, everything that I am,
If you leave, I'll search for you in Russia," she translated.
"Tony's right," Jenny piped up. "This one is definitely more sickly sweet than the last one."
Gibbs breathed in the cold morning air. They had been travelling all night, and had finally arrived.
As usual, Lily had booked the first possible flight to get them to their new destination. This time, she had managed to arrange first class tickets. Their seats had been huge and incredibly comfortable. DiNozzo had pushed his chair as far back as it could possibly go, before promptly falling asleep.
Ziva had also chosen to rest her eyes, although she hadn't bothered to put her chair back. McGee had spent most of the journey scrawling in his notebook. Gibbs was beginning to dread the next Gemcity novel.
Lily had decided to do something different. She had persuaded the flight attendant to give her as much bourbon as possible, which meant that she had been blind drunk before they had even entered Russian airspace. Neither sister could hold their liquor well, and Lily had certainly been pushing her limits. He was anxious about what would happen when her hangover kicked in. He made a mental note to ask Jenny to sit with her until she recovered.
The bit that was puzzling him was why she had chosen to drink to excess. She was a professional; she was on a mission, she was working and she wouldn't normally do such a thing. The only thing he could think of was that something was bothering her.
And he doubted it was the leak.
Lily wouldn't let a simple thing like a leak bother her so much. It was something else, something she was hiding.
He was starting to discount the notion that she was the mole. Jenny hadn't picked up any hint of it, and Jenny was the expert. Perhaps, for once, she wasn't playing a game.
It would be a first.
Lily lived to play games. Great big complicated things that sucked everyone else in like a whirlpool. Games that required a lot of thinking to figure out.
He sighed, his breath misting in front of him. He didn't have the time to work it out.
Lily was still half-drunk, and muttering strange things as her sister propped her up. About the only useful thing they had managed to get out of her was the address of the hotel they were going to be staying at.
It turned out to be a small, one storey building. It was painted white, with a strange pointy roof. The structure was set back slightly from the main road, and the overall impression that Gibbs got was one of cleanliness.
He also guessed it was a lot cheaper than anywhere else they had stayed so far. Perhaps the CIA had cut the funding a bit.
He guessed that he was going to be the one booking the rooms this time. Only he and Ziva spoke Russian well enough – he didn't count Lily because she was having a hard enough time staying upright, let alone having a polite conversation – and Ziva was on the other side of Lily.
At least this time he might end up in a room with a working shower.