Wanting for Independence: Chapter 36
Tony DiNozzo needed a hot shower, cold beer, decent night of sleep, and food that tasted like it had been prepared sometime in the last week. He needed a case where he had control of what was going on and knew what to do next.
He needed to get back to Bahrain.
"What're we up to today?" Chad Dunham asked as he snapped his phone closed and slid into the chair across the table from the highest-ranked NCIS agent in the region.
"I thought knowing that was your job," DiNozzo replied, the same reply he gave every time Dunham asked that question. It took him a minute to figure out how many times that had been, how many days it had been since Ziva dropped him off at the airport and wished him luck.
Tuesday. It was Tuesday.
After the initial conversation with Mahamud, they had returned the next day to go over names and details in pain-staking detail, trying to get something that they could use and would be worth an all-expense paid trip to the prison everyone loved to hate, and then he stayed up all night drafting emails and talking on the phone to people in the U.S. Attorney's office who clearly didn't know what they were talking about—"So you're saying he wants out of Gitmo?" followed by, "No, he's in Somalia. He wants to get into Gitmo,"—was now an unfortunately familiar exchange, before they got the tentative okay for the prison transfer.
Even though, realistically, they still had 6-8 months of red tape to go through before that could happen, and there was no garuantee that Mahamud would live that long in Somali prison.
They had made their way out of Mogadishu after that in efforts of tracking down the names Mahamud had given and spent the previous night in the finest hotel Baidoa had to offer, which wasn't saying much. DiNozzo's back ached from the mattress, and if last night's dinner was any indication, breakfast wouldn't be anything to write home about.
Which reminded him that he still needed to call Ziva.
"I'll be right back," he promised Dunham as he got up from the table.
"Tell Ziva I said hi," the undercover agent said in response.
Her phone rang twice before she answered. "Good morning, Tony," she said cheerfully. "How is Somalia?"
"I'm not leaving the country without you again," he said as a reply. She chuckled slightly.
"That might be a bit difficult, once the baby is born," she reminded him. "And no, I have not gone into labor yet. But tomorrow is another doctor's appointment, so we shall see."
"Tell him that he's not allowed to come until I'm back home."
"I will try, Tony, but if he takes after his father, he will probably not listen."
"That's probably true," he agreed. "I have more names for you to run," he said, getting down to business. He recited the three names that held the most promise. Ziva read them back to him and promised that she would look into it.
"Come home soon, Tony," she instructed him.
"I'm working on it," he replied. "I love you."
Kim Cunningham was just beginning to think about putting down her work for the night and heading for bed when the master bedroom door opened, Simple's large dog in front of the double amputee. "Oh. Hey," he said, clearly not expecting his guests to be up in the living room around midnight. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to Colleen. "I'm driving Colleen up to Bethesda."
"It's that time?" Jeff asked, putting down his iPad.
"Contractions are three minutes apart and hurt like hell," the psychatrist replied.
"Need me to come?"
"No, we're fine," she replied. "There'll be half a dozen doctors on the labor deck and another handful of pediatricians. And it'll probably still be another ten to twenty hours before anything exciting happens."
"Seriously?" Simple asked his wife.
"That's the way this thing works, babe," she replied. "I'll have Jon keep you updated," she informed Jeff.
"Assuming he doesn't get nervous and wrap his car around a telephone pole."
"I gave him Xanax for that," Colleen replied dismissively. "He'll be the calmest driver you've ever seen."
"Did you seriously drug me?" Simple asked with a frown.
"No," she replied, rolling her eyes. "But if you even think of freaking out, I will." She turned back to Jeff. "Good thing it's the middle of the night. Less traffic to contend with. Okay, we're out of here. Keep an eye open for pictures." She grimaced suddenly, grabbing a doorframe.
"Deep breaths," Simple said uncertainly. She shot him a dirty look.
"Just start the car," she managed tightly. "I'll be out in a minute."
"That looks like fun," Kim said. Colleen managed a wheeze of a chuckle and flipped her off.
"It'll be your turn soon enough," she replied once she was breathing normally again. "Okay. Now I'm out of here for real. Good luck with your case."
"Good luck with your baby. And dealing with your husband."
Colleen gave another chuckle. "Thanks. On both accounts."
Once the door closed behind the psychiatrist, Kim turned to her husband, eyebrows raised. "You're not going to be freaking out on me when I go into labor, are you?"
"Nah," he replied. "I'll probably finish rounds, give the residents a lecture about malaria management in children, then I might meet you up on the labor deck."
"So sensible," Kim said, feigning seriousness with a nod. "That's why I married you."
"I thought it was just poor judgment," Jeff replied.
"There was a little of that, too."
"Uh-huh," he replied, amused. "I guess by this time tomorrow, there'll be a new Simpleton."
"What do you think they're going for for the middle name?" Kim asked. "Cameron or Taylor?"
"Neither," Jeff said with a quick shake of his head. "William."
"Ah. After the general."
"That would be my guess."
"James William is a much better option than either James Cameron or James Taylor."
"I'm thinking that's what they were thinking, too," he said with a nod. "Too bad they can't do anything about the last name."
"Colleen did," Kim pointed out. "But I guess she can't really do much when it comes to the kids."
"Not really," he agreed. "We men came up with that arrangement to keep you women in line."
"Ha," she said dryly, making him grin. "I'm about ready for bed. I don't think there's anything—" As if on cue, her BlackBerry rang, making them both groan.
"I hate that thing," Jeff grumbled as he rose from the couch. "Try to make it to bed at some point."
"I'll try," she muttered as she picked up the phone. He knew she hated it just as much as he did when the phone went off in the middle of the night, just as she hated it when his pager went off at all hours. Difference was, she didn't make nearly as big of a deal of his pager as he did of her BlackBerry. She frowned at the name on the display. "Gardezi," she said when she answered. "You know it's midnight here, right?"
"I know, and I'm sorry," he said, that same tone of excitement in his voice that he had had in Iraq when they knew they were heading into something real, and that tone made her frown again.
He had something.
"I'm about to get on the red eye out to DC," he continued.
"Wait, what?" Cunningham asked. "Why? What about our cases back in San Diego? What did you find?"
"NCIS doesn't have any active cases going on," he pointed out. "They were task force cases. LAPD, CBP, and SDPD have the leads on those." That's right; leading the task force had warped her perception of what NCIS did and didn't do. Taking over cases that didn't have anything to do with the Navy or Marine Corps was under the 'didn't do' column; they advised, but the task force members from local jurisdictions usually took the lead, which left Gardezi, as a junior NCIS field agent, without much to do. "I've been working on those names you gave me and the chemicals you listed. We had a really strange case back in Detroit when I was working with property crimes to prepare for my detective exam. We turned it over to Detroit Homeland Security and I don't think anything came of it from there."
"Gardezi, it's midnight, I'm tired and haven't been sleeping well when I do get the opportunity to sleep. Please, just get to the point and tell me why you'll be coming to join in this boondoggle."
"Sorry, Skip. The point is that I went through those old records from Detroit, even though I had to bribe one of the guys I worked with back then to pull it for me. That guy was dealing with a similar batch of chemicals and his name was pretty close to one that you had on the list. Not exact, but we both know what the U.S. does to Arab names."
"Yeah," she replied absently, working through his words in her head as a piece of hair was worked around her fingers. "So you think this guy and that guy might be the same guy?"
"I think so," he replied. "The case up in Detroit ended with DHS getting close and the guy disappearing into the wind."
"So he's tried this before and wasn't successful." That was never a good thing. "He's going to be determined this time around."
"That's exactly what I was thinking."
"I'll send a car to pick you up at the airport when you land."