Chp. 36

Jake didn't go back to his apartment after ambushing Eli and his bodyguard detail. He didn't go to Section Eight's HQ either. Like every other mission, the team would scatter afterward and return home on their own, by land, sea or air.

So, seven hours after killing Eli David, Jake was sitting in a dive bar on the north side of Baltimore. He'd started with Jack Daniels Black Label, intending to switch to Heineken at some point, but he was now nursing his 5th glass of JD. He decided to finish this one, get a cab and find a hotel for the night.

After losing his gun and mask, he'd made his way to the poor part of D.C. and found a goodwill store, where he'd purchased jeans, a blue denim long sleeve shirt, and brown work boots. He changed in the back, then walked to the bus station, getting a ticket on the next bus to Baltimore.

After finishing his whiskey, the former soldier paid his tab, called a cab using the payphone on the wall and went outside to wait. Fifteen minutes later, his cab arrived and he directed the driver to take him to the nearest hotel. The man behind the wheel drove three blocks, then stopped in front of a two story L-shaped structured with an empty pool out front that looked like the living dead had ravaged the place ten years ago.

The driver, who looked Pakistani to Jake, turned and looked over his shoulder at his passenger. "You are sure you want to be dropped off here, sir?"

Jake nodded. "Yeah, thanks pal." He said, handing a twenty across the seat.

"Ok, but it is your funeral, excuse me for saying so."

Jake opened the door and climbed out without responding. The driver shrugged. Americans never ceased to amaze him.

Jake went into the office, rented a room and went to it. Once the door was shut and locked, he walked to the bed and flopped down it, the exhaustion of the last several days catching up with him, pulled his 1911 from a holster at the small of his back and placed it on the night stand. As he passed out, he hoped tomorrow would be better, but somehow knew it wouldn't.

000

NCIS Director Jenny Sheppard was not happy. This day had been one of the worst in her career, and there was no end in sight. The Deputy Director of Mossad had been killed on his way to see her, evidently, along with his 10 man security detail. There were no leads as to the nationality or group affiliation of the attackers, which just made the NCIS director's job harder. After a fruitless video conference with the directors of both the CIA and FBI, and with one of her best teams still on protection detail, she was at a loss as how to even begin to solve this case. Add to that her Deputy Director Leon Vance was demanding answers due to his friendship with Eli David from their time in Amsterdam together during Vance's first mission with NCIS. Further, her own attachment and debt to Ziva for saving her life during a mission in Cairo years earlier added to her personal feelings of guilt, despite the fact she hadn't cared for the Deputy Director of Mossad as person. The director looked at her phone for the third time in ten minutes, before deciding to put in a reluctant call the agency's human emergency break.

She dialed a number from memory and waited. Hetty Lange answered on the third ring.

"Jennifer, I was wondering when you'd call." Hetty said, all business.

"I'm at a loss, Henrietta. This wasn't terrorism, but other than that I have no answers."

"How can you be certain it wasn't terrorism? I can think of at least a dozen groups that would love to claim they killed Eli David." Hetty was pretty certain the man who killed Eli had been in her house not 48 hours earlier, but she wasn't about to give this information to the Director. The woman would hunt Jacob and his team to the ends of the earth, and Hetty didn't want the deaths of these men on her conscience.

"I…the tactics, I've had people review the tapes, they were too surgical, too clean. The only casualties were Deputy Director David and his security detail."

Hetty noted that the director had forgotten that a man who'd tried to help one of the "terrorist's" disguised as an old man had his nose broken, but other than that she was correct in her assessment.

"I suppose you would like my team to take a look at it with fresh eyes?"

"I think that'd be a good idea, make it a top priority and get back to me as soon as you can."

"Certainly, Jennifer. I'll call you as soon as we have something actionable." Hetty said, breaking the connection without waiting for a reply.

"Tha-" Jenny started, then stared at the phone as it emanated a dial tone. What an eccentric! She thought, shaking her head and hanging up the now dead phone.

000

Ayelet watched Ziva sleep, the same pained expression on her face as so many nights when she had come to them as a child. She knew Jake's reasons for killing Eli, because they were her own and therefore she understood them. But that didn't mean she didn't want to give the man a piece of her mind. She knew that Eli had forced Jake's hand, and left the mercenary with no option other than to do what he did, but Ayelet wished she could have spared Ziva the pain Eli's death caused.

Her heart broke for Ziva, because while Ayelet had no problem with the joy Eli's death brought, she understood Ziva's conflict. Even if her father hadn't been what a father should be, Ziva still loved him and wanted his approval. And now she would never have it. But Ayelet doubted Ziva ever would've had Eli's approval, no matter how she tried. The door opened and she instinctively reached for the small revolver Ziva had given her for protection and pointed it at the door. Gibbs head appeared in the doorframe and she lowered the gun.

He walked over to where she sat and just watched Ziva and the girls sleep for a moment before he asked quietly. "How's she doing?"

Ayelet gave the gunny a stare that rivaled his own patented look and held it long enough to make him uncomfortable before she answered him in an equally quiet but venomous tone. "Her father was murdered by a man who claims to love her. How would you be?"

"It wasn't murder, it was an execution." He answered pointedly.

"No matter what you call it, her father is dead." Ayelet said.

Gibbs was silent for a moment before answering. "No, he's down in the cafeteria drinking stale coffee."

Ayelet nodded after a moment as if to say, touche. It was true, in the older woman's mind Romi was more of a father to Ziva than Eli had ever been, and not just because Romi was in fact Ziva's biological father.

"If you two are going to argue, could you take it outside?" Ziva said, opening her eyes and sitting up.

"I am sorry, Zivaleh, we did not mean to wake you." Ayelet said, gently.

"It's all right." She said, and looked at Gibbs. "Have you heard from Jake?"

He gave her his best you've got to be kidding me look and said, "No."

"What about the investigation?"

"Nothing so far."

What she said next would've surprised him pre-Somalia, but now it made perfect sense. "Any chance we can slow it down?"

000

A/N: So what should happen to Jake and Section Eight? Hmm?