"Good morning," Liat greeted them all with a shy smile as she made her way through the Bull Pen. Everyone's eyes immediately scanning her hand to see if there was a new ring adorning it. To their great surprise, there wasn't.
"Good morning." Tony smiled at her with Ziva leaning against the edge of his desk, waiting for Liat to arrive to head to the basement room together. "How was your evening with Officer Abrams?" He flashed her a raised eyebrow teasing.
"It was fine, Tony." Liat gave him a small smile and rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly having gotten used to Tony's sense of humor and charm by now. "Ziva, are you ready?" She asked smoothing her hands down the front of her pants nervously, anxious to stop the questioning.
Ziva smiled with a nod and winked at Tony as she left his desk and led Liat towards the elevators. When they'd disappeared, McGee was the first to speak.
"Did you see a ring? I didn't see one." He whispered with eyes flashing between E.J. and Tony. They both shook their heads 'no.' "Do you think she said 'no?"
"Maybe he just hasn't asked yet." E.J. countered getting to work on checking her emails. "It's only Tuesday afterall. The guy is here for the week. He's got time to make his move."
"Maybe he gave her an empty box." Tony countered with a disgruntled tone thinking about what an ass Ray was to do such a thing to Ziva.
"What?" E.J. asked immediately confused and stopping what she was doing.
"C.I. Ray gave Ziva an empty ring box before he left on some long mission saying he'd propose when he returned. How dumb is that?" He shook his head in clear disgust, yet thankful at the man's stupidity.
"I think I would be severely insulted if someone gave me an empty engagement ring box." E.J. pondered this scenario with obvious distaste in her words.
"She was." Tony nodded remembering the tears Ziva had cried over the dumb man and waiting for him. Reminding him of the tears she'd confessed to crying over another dumb man he knew intimately, and waited on.
"Wow." E.J. shook her head and got back to work.
"Abs, what'cha got?" Gibbs breezed into her lab with a Calf-Pow in hand and Ziva and Liat on his heels. Abby had been working all morning on Ziva's lead to check the sniper's DNA.
"Well, Ziva was right." She smiled happily at her friend with pride to see her back in action again, "When I tested the Gate Street Sniper, that's what I'm calling him because well, he shot at us at the Gate and then you know what happened." She gestured towards Liat and then looked away, "Anyway, his DNA clearly indicates that he is of Persian descent, most notably from the central regions of the former Persian Empire, now known of course as Iran."
"Is that it?" Gibbs asked expecting more from Abby's enthusiastic phone call to 'Get to my lab immediately!'
"No! I ran his DNA again through the database and this time I got a match!" She beamed proudly and confused the others.
"What do you mean?" Gibbs asked shifting his weight on his heels and crossing his arms.
"Well when you first brought him in and had me run his DNA for possible Identification Matches, I of course, ran it through the Still Living files on the database, the ones we most always use." Abby showed them on her monitor, "But after Ziva's theory, I ran it again only this time through those Known Deceased files on the database and got a hit. Well not a perfect hit but it's a hit nonetheless as to even get a hit there has to be some kind of familial match and-"
"Abs…" Gibbs prompted her with a smile interrupting her usual ramblings. "Who did he match?"
"Arash Kazmi." She smiled proudly for figuring it out and then face fell seeing Ziva's fallen look.
"How is that possible?" Ziva asked quietly thinking of the Iranian Leader her father had friended as a child picking olives, made enemies with as an adult over war and attempted to make peace with in D.C. before they both met horrific ends of assassination at the hands of Illan Bodnar.
"According to the DNA match, Kazmi was likely our Gate Street Sniper's father." Abby explained softly watching the torrent of emotions flood through Ziva's face and the pinched look on both Liat and Gibbs.' "I just don't understand why, if Kazmi was this guys' father and Bodnar killed Kazmi, why would our sniper help Bodnar in trying to kill you, Ziva?"
"I don't know, Abby." Ziva answered just as bewildered as this story began to get more and more complex. She thought about what she'd read in the file regarding Ari and started her wheels thinking out loud, "My father raised his son, Ari to be a sniper, his friend and counter-part Kazmi, also it seems raised his son to be a sniper. The sniper obviously has ties to Illan, and Illan had ties to Ari via my father. My father is the common connection here." Ziva shook her head sighing deeply and rubbing her forhead with her fingers, "Why am I not surprised."
"Yes, but what is that connection?" Liat voiced wondering the same thing.
"We need to start a Time Line and Connections Board." Ziva looked at her pointedly and Liat nodded. Physically mapping out exactly who did what and where to see possible connections. "We'll use my room." It was the safest place, out of the prying eyes of others in the office who they didn't want to let know just yet what they were working on. "We'll begin with my father's arrival in D.C and move forward." Ziva knew that was the most relevant point to work outwards from. "Can we get everyone on our team working on this?" Ziva asked looking at Gibbs knowing that McGee and Tony especially would be of great help remembering the details and putting things into place that she couldn't remember not being around for or unconscious.
"I'll go get them." Gibbs nodded with a smile and took off.
"Oooh, we're going old school." Tony smiled entering the room and seeing that Ziva and Liat had already begun taping up photos and sequence cards with connecting strings onto the walls of Ziva's medical room, "I like it!" His enthusiasm was evident as he rubbed his hands together followed by McGee, Gibbs and E.J.
"I could do this just as quickly on the computer, you know?" McGee smiled slightly looking at the spider web starting to grow on the wall.
"I know," Ziva gave him look and then smile, "But I need to physically do this. Put these pieces together. It is just how my brain works. I am tactile person, yes?" She smiled with a questioning raised eyebrow at Tony to see if she'd used that word correctly.
"Yes." Tony smiled widely with a slow nod.
"Okay, so here is what we know thus far from my father's arrival until this morning and Abby's findings. What are we missing?" Ziva and the others looked over the board with searching eyes.
"Well I can tell you one person and event right now you've missed putting up there." Tony turned on his heel and flipped open a file he'd brought down with him, suspecting she might leave this event off the 'map' for personal reasons. He walked to the appropriate spot in the Timeline and taped Ray's photo just before the Death Flowers arrival and poisoning.
"Tony," Ziva immediately sighed shaking her head.
"Ziva, the guy bugged your house and arrived the same day as the Poison Plants." Tony looked at her pointedly.
"Rule #39, Ziver…" Gibbs spoke quietly sipping his coffee.
"What is this Rule #39?" Liat asked in confusion.
"There is no such thing as coincidence." Ziva answered quietly looking back at the photo of Ray. She hadn't trusted Tony's gut on Michael and he had been right. This time, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. "Okay, Ray stays."
"What about Kazmi's wife?" E.J. looked at the photo of the man and then to his new found son. "Do you think she was the mother?" She drew her finger through the air following the line to the sniper son. "Maybe she knows something."
"Only one way to find out." Gibbs sighed. "Without involving Mossad, who do we know with connections in Iran?" He knew that Ziva's gut told her not to involved Mossad yet, and he was going to follow her lead on that. She knew them best after all.
"I can ask Asa." Liat spoke up and all eyes flashed to her, "It would have to be unofficial of course if we are not going to inform Mossad but… he is a Counter-Intelligence Officer for Israel, he has many connections in Iran."
"Do you trust him?" Gibbs asked her honestly, holding her gaze steadily and searching her eyes for the truth.
"With this, I do." She nodded firmly, "He is a good man, Agent Gibbs. He is on our side of this internal war in Mossad and Israel."
"Okay," Gibbs nodded once accepting her opinion, "Can you ask him to come in?"
"He will be here any minute actually to take me to lunch." Liat looked at the clock. "He may even be waiting for me already upstairs. He is usually early."
"McGee." Gibbs nodded and the younger man understood.
"Right away, Boss." McGee took off for upstairs to bring Asa down on his arrival.
"What about our Swedish Mercenary? Roland Ames?" Tony asked quietly pointing the to man who had gunned down both Ziva's father and Director Vance's wife. "He left the money behind to the wife and child. Maybe she can give us something in his history that would further link him back to Bodnar?" After realizing quickly that Bodnar hired Ames, their focus had shifted more towards Bodnar instead of his connection to Ames.
"I have an old contact, from when I worked in London on Counter-Terrorism who may be of some assistance there." Ziva offered pulling back her emotions on her father's killer. A flash of watching him die before her eyes and then kicking his body ran through her mind. "He owes me a favor."
When McGee returned five minutes later with Asa, the man looked slightly stunned to see so many people huddled in the small room staring at the wall litered with photos, string and notes like a large spider web. A smile lit his face the moment his eyes landed on Liat.
"Hello," He greeted them all, "Agent McGee said that you'd like to ask my unofficial help on something."
Liat spoke as the one to know him and the one he'd really be willing to do the favor for as he had no connection to the rest of them but Ziva, who would have been his Boss at Mossad had she accepted the Director's Position.
"Can you help us through unofficial channels find out if Arash Kazmi's wife was the mother to his son?" She used her finger to first point at Kazmi on the wall and then drew her finger down to the son. "He was the sniper I killed." She spoke matter of factly and he nodded, having been in this 'dangerous game' a while too. "She may know something that could help us connect Kazmi's son to Ari Haswari," her finger trailed to the photo of Ziva's brother, and then to their shared father. "Director David's son, Ziva's half-brother, and also a sniper. These two men, and their' two sons, all connected now by Bodnar." She ran her finger along the pattern and Asa studied it carefully.
"I never knew he was your brother." Asa looked at Ziva speaking quietly with arms folded across his chest, strumming his chin in thought. "I knew Hawari was an undercover Mossad officer inside Hamas and that he'd been killed on assignment after going rogue, but I never knew he was Director David's child. That was some secret your father was able to keep." He raised his eyebrows as if impressed by that fact as well as disturbed and Ziva swallowed hard looking away.
"My father had many secrets." Ziva finally spoke meeting his eyes. "My brother was merely one of them."
"Director David ordered his death, did he not?" Asa asked with his tone turning to near disbelief, realizing now that man had ordered the death of his own child.
"Yes." Ziva answered and both McGee and Tony's eyes flashed wide and to each other before back at Ziva and then Gibbs.
"But someone else got to him first." Asa answered thinking about what he remembered from that case file many years ago, "He was killed by a US Federal Agent." Realization slowly dawning on him and eyes looking to Gibbs, "You."
Gibbs only nodded once in response, not saying anything.
Asa's eyes traveled from Gibbs to Ziva standing directly beside him and then back again and then back, "He killed your brother?" As if he couldn't believe she could be so close to the man and not kill him let alone go through all she had to be with these people that she called her family.
"Ari was out of control. He became the monster my father created." She answered quietly, with eyes flashing to his photo where he was still alive and smiling, a handsome face that belied how dangerous and sick he really was.
Asa seemed to accept this answer and went back to looking at the wall, "This man," His finger came down roughly on a photo, "how do you know him? Who is he?"
"His name is Ray Cruz, former CIA Officer." Ziva answered as all eyes had landed on her, "Why?"
"I saw him, yesterday." Asa tapped at Ray's face. "He was walking down the corridor at The Agency. Coming away from the conference room I was going into."
"That's impossible. He no longer works for the CIA after going rogue himself and was just arrested on a long list of other charges related to violating Ziva's privacy." McGee immediately countered with a disturbed look on his face. "He's supposed to be locked up right now in Leavenworth."
"I assure you Agent McGee, I saw this man at the Agency just yesterday and in fact, the more I look at his face…" Asa studied the photo up close, "The more I remember seeing him. Not just at CIA Headquarters yesterday but…I remember this man from Israel."
"What do you mean?" Ziva asked immediately with heart pounding.
"I had a meeting with your father last year, Ziva," Asa looked at her as he remembered, "and when I came outside of his office I remember seeing this man," he pointed again to Ray's photo, "and another foreigner sitting together and talking waiting to speak with your father."
"Can you describe anything about the other man?" Gibbs asked feeling his own heart start to pound and taking over now that Ziva was standing as still as stone, paling by the minute at what she was hearing.
"Mid-forties maybe, bald, unshaven…he had a noticeable British accent and was wearing an eye patch." Asa tried to recall and their eyes widened.
"Kort." Tony said his name like venom, realizing who he was describing that also had CIA ties.
"McGee!" Gibbs directed again without needing to explain and McGee flew into action.
"On it, Boss." McGee flipped open his laptop and started furiously typing away, pulling up a photo of Trent Kort and then swinging it around to show Asa. "Is this the man you saw with Cruz?"
"Yes, that's him." Asa confirmed resolutely, "Who is he?"
"Also CIA." McGee answered him as the others seemed to stunned and processing to answer the poor man.
"Why am I not more surprised that Kort and C.I. Ray, both, were some how involved with Eli David?" Tony voiced with a hand gesture, his face burning red with anger at all three men. His eyes flashing to Ziva and watching as a new round of betrayals washed over her, still staring at Ray's photo and realizing he'd been involved somehow with her father during the time she had been with him.
"Operation Frankenstein." E.J. spoke in barely above a whisper as she remembered her own horrors from that program and dealings with the Port to Port Killer, Cobb. Some potential pieces falling into place, "Kort was the Training Officer of that Program." Her eyes met with Gibbs and watched as his thoughts came around to hers.
"What is Operation Frankenstein?" Asa asked trying to piece things together as well.
"Highly Classified Program to create Super Assassins that went terribly wrong." Gibbs answered him looking at the photos and connections before him with realization dawning. "Eli created his own Frankenstein Program." He added in a near whisper, speaking mostly to himself. "Sonofabitch." He hissed in a rare moment of loss of control and the rest of his team tensed knowing this was bad. This was really, really bad.
