Gibbs was slowly changing his opinion of the French. All it taken for the hotel management to look the other way had been a few 10,000 euro bricks from the briefcase they'd found on the bed in Smerdyakov's room. Between bribes and threats, Jen had managed to convince the few staff members aware of the situation that NCIS did, in fact, have jurisdiction in the case and that notifying the City or Judicial Police would be unnecessary. Gibbs wondered how many regulations they were violating and how he could use them to blackmail Jen the next time she stepped on his toes during an investigation. The bribery alone would be enough to keep her off his back during a double homicide.

Refocusing on the current job, he watched McGee snapping pictures of the eighth floor hotel room. A chair and cut ropes lay in a blood pool near the window. Smerdyakov had been tied to the chair when they'd entered. Jen, Tony and two paramedics had very quietly taken him to an ambulance via an underground service entrance. They were interrogating him at the hospital while Gibbs and McGee analyzed the crime scene.

He picked up a hammer next to the bed. "Doesn't look like it's been used. Well, maybe for some carpentry work, but not to hit someone."

"Smerdyakov didn't look like he'd been beaten. His wounds were very, uh, precise." McGee scanned through some photos on his digital camera until he arrived at the set taken before the paramedics had arrived. "It looked like the nose and the knees were the only injuries."

"Well, we know she's precise." Gibbs' mind flashed back to a man on his basement floor with a bullet through his forehead. He tried not to think about the things that couldn't be counted against Ziva; she was in enough trouble without an assault of personal demons. If Smerdyakov had been planning to meet with the CIA, this was going to get even worse for her. He sighed and bagged the hammer.

"Uh, boss?"

"What, McGee?"

"It might not have been Ziva."

"We know she was up here." He had to start thinking like them if he was going to figure out how to get her out of trouble. "It was her handwriting on the note Jen got and the concierge saw her exit the elevator with Tushkevich and Poplyovin, so it's a good bet that she was up here with her Russian buddies slicing off our guy's nose not long ago."

McGee held up a long black coat by the collar. "And I think this is Ziva's coat."

"I thought you were arguing on her side while I played devil's advocate."

He looked confused but went with it. "Right, but this might support my, uh, side." He held out his hand, showing where blood had stained the white latex. "The left sleeve is covered."

Gibbs took another look at the blood pool around the chair. "There's a lot of blood in this room. It could have come from anywhere."

"I think it came from a bullet wound. There's a tear in the sleeve that looks like a bullet hole, and there's a slug embedded in the wall," he pointed to a spot almost concealed by a picture frame, "here."

"Okay, keep going."

"Well, from everything we know about the relationships here, Tushkevich isn't hurting his new wife, and Poplyovin isn't pissing off his boss. That leaves Smerdyakov. All of his injuries occurred after he was tied to the chair, right?"

"That's how it looks."

"So what if they surprise him and he overreacts as he tries to defend himself. He fires wildly and hits Ziva. Tushkevich takes it personally and goes nuts. We can tell the CIA…"

"Nothing."

"But won't they wonder when Smerdyakov doesn't show up for his meeting," he searched through the evidence bags until he found one with a piece of hotel stationary in it, "at nine at the Ritz tomorrow? Wow, the CIA team is staying at the Ritz?"

"And we're at the Hilton, McGee, not the Motel 6."

"Right, but I just meant…oh, the CIA. How do we explain this to them?"

"No idea. That's Jen's department, and considering she told the paramedics Smerdyakov's name was Nikolai Gogol, I think she's buying time for us to do something."

Or giving Tushkevich time to escape, a tiny voice in the back of his head murmured. Jen's faith in Ziva was admirable, but misplaced. They didn't have to worry about her; they had to worry about Moussad. Even if Ziva completed her mission successfully, she would remain a traitor in the eyes of the CIA until Moussad produced some tangible proof to clear her. The image of the dead man in his basement surfaced again. She's so screwed.

"Damn."

"What?" McGee turned away from the bullet he was digging out of the wall. Gibbs gave him a grave look. "Thought you said something, boss."

"Nothing you need to worry about, Tim." He put Ziva's coat in a plastic evidence bag. "Just don't tell DiNozzo we think Ziva got shot."

"Again."

Gibbs removed his glove and swatted McGee's head before agreeing. "Yeah, again."

Jenny was finding it difficult to have sympathy for Smerdyakov, despite the fact that his nose had been severed and his knees mutilated. He had blubbered about never being able to walk again all the way from the hotel to the hospital. Waiting for a surgeon in the particularly busy emergency room, she snapped, "I can imagine that being one of Petty Officer Zamansky's last thoughts – right before you started beating him to death with a hammer."

He was in a euphoric trance from the pain medications. "You know about that? You are Americans? Aha! You are on my side I think. I am going to give you Dmitri Tushkevich. He likes to mix lemonade with his vodka in the summer. You know the Molot if you know me and you will want to arrest him. I'll be pressing charges for assault when you do. I hope they don't serve lemonade in prison."

"We're not the CIA. We're only here for you. You murdered a member of the United States Navy and we take that very seriously."

"I really thought she was going to sleep with me. Imagine, she and I. She would have given away her dignity and his love and I still would have turned them in." He giggled like a child. "Such a pretty whore."

Jenny resisted the urge to punch one of the lumpy bandages covering his knees. "Who?"

"You have eyes like angry sapphires. Dmitri's new bride. Ziva. She was going to sleep with me to stop me from telling you all about their little operation. Will they fix my legs with an operation?"

"And what do you know about it?"

"Nothing. I'm not a doctor. Ah, her hair smelled like fresh flowers. I will take that memory with me to the grave." He looked up as Tony opened the door as he entered. "When I was a boy growing up in Siberia, we had a farm with chickens and goats that I used to…"

Jenny ignored Smerdyakov's further ravings and asked, "How's your nose?"

Tony gingerly touched the white splint covering it. "Hurts." He had flirted with one of the nurses until she'd agreed to get him a doctor. "They set the bone. It should be all right in a couple weeks."

"Funny how he has two shattered kneecaps and an amputated nose but you get treated for a broken nose right off."

"Marie, the nurse, I mean, said they're short on surgeons. They did everything they could to stabilize him until the orthopedic guy can get here. They don't seem all that concerned about the whole problem with his nose missing."

"It isn't missing. I told Jethro to catalogue it with the other evidence in the room." She took out her cell phone to see if she had somehow missed a call he still hadn't made. Smerdyakov was telling a dirty story involving the goats. Jenny tuned him out again.

Tony was inspecting his face in a hand mirror that had been on the counter. The dark bruising had spread under both his eyes. He put the mirror back. "Do you think we should have put it on ice and brought it down here with us?"

"No," she stated firmly.

"You think he deserved what he got?"

"After what he did to Petty Officer Zamansky? This is better justice than whatever prison sentence we could have gotten him."

"You sound like Gibbs. Make sure the bad guys get what they deserve." He unconsciously felt his nose and winced.

Jenny was about to say something when a man in a lab coat entered the room, followed by a nurse. "Excuse me, Madame. I am the orthopedic surgeon. Are you here with Monsieur Gogol?"

She had almost forgotten she'd given the paramedics the alias Smerdyakov had used to check in at the hotel. If she maintained the charade here and the CIA found out… Covering up where he'd been found was bad enough, she decided. "His name is actually Konstantin Smerdyakov and he's under arrest."

"May I ask the charge?"

"Murder."

"I see. And how much care will he be receiving?"

"What do you mean?"

"I am merely asking if you expect a murderer to receive the same treatment that you yourself would."

Jenny found the man's cold, calm demeanor unsettling. "Fix whatever you can. We're not concerned about the bill, just about bringing him to trial."

"I see. If you and your friend would step outside for a moment, I will examine the patient." He shut the door behind them as they stepped into the hallway.

She watched through the small window as the doctor and nurse compared the notes on the chart to the x-rays and actual legs. She turned away when they gave Smerdyakov an additional painkiller before they began removing bandages and joined Tony. Recalling what she'd been about to say earlier, she said, "I don't know why she punched you, but you aren't one of the bad guys."

"I told her she was. That's why she hit me."

Jenny blinked. "You told her you don't trust her anymore?"

"Not exactly." He squirmed under her gaze and looked up and down the hall. "I told her I thought she was on Tushkevich's side."

"Oh, Tony…"

"I didn't mean it! I was angry! She tells me she thought I was dead and she loves me then follows that up by telling me she married him and I'm not allowed to know why." He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Then she told me that I was her choice, and I tried to make her prove it. She wouldn't and I told her she was one of the bad guys and she hit me. By the time I, I don't know, accepted that she's stuck on this mission until it's over, she was gone. I didn't get a chance to apologize."

"She did." Jenny reached into her pocket and fingered an envelope Ziva had given her earlier that night, to be delivered to Tony if the worst happened.

"What?"

She withdrew her empty hand from her pocket. Things could still get worse. "She asked me to tell you she was sorry for everything."

"Everything?"

"Her exact words were, 'Tell Tony I'm sorry.' I just assumed she meant for everything."

"How do you do it, Jenny?"

"Do what?"

"Stay so calm and in control?"

"What, you've already forgotten our little car chase?"

"No, I just meant…with Ziva. Even though we all trust her, there have been times when we, I mean me, Gibbs and McGee, have started to doubt her. But you never have."

"That's not true. Gibbs has never lost faith in Ziva, just in the quality of the information she's getting from Tushkevich. McGee can barely wrap his head around the fact that we're living a James Bond movie and you…you're in love. That makes everything crazy."

"Crazy is right," he laughed. "I never expected things to be normal, but there's a guy in there who got his nose cut off. I can't even begin to…" He stopped as the doctor and nurse opened the door of the room.

"He will be taken to surgery immediately," the doctor stated.

Jenny checked her watch. "How long will he be there?"

"Eight hours? Perhaps considerably longer. The damage is extensive. One of you will wait to ensure he remains in custody, I assume."

"We have other business to attend to, but we'll wait until our security guards arrive." She pulled Tony toward the exit so they could converse privately. "I'll call the Embassy and have them send over a few Marines. As soon as he's anesthetized we'll pick up Ziva and Tushkevich at the…"

A long, loud beep suddenly drew staff from all over to the door of Smerdyakov's room. It was full of activity for more than twenty minutes as Jenny and Tony tried to find out what was happening.

One of the ER doctors finally approached them. "You came in with the Russian, right?"

"Yes. What's going on?" Jenny asked.

"He's had a heart attack, perhaps a reaction to the pain medications. I'm afraid he is dead."

She took a deep breath, muttering, "Justice couldn't wait a few days?"

"Excuse me, Madame?"

"Nothing, Doctor. The body will have to be released to NCIS."