Earlier
"This is so…"
"Boring?" McGee offered, following Ziva into yet another empty compartment.
"There has to be a better word for it," Ziva complained, clearing the room and stepping back out into the corridor. "Boring simply does not seem strong enough for how utterly…"
"Boring?" McGee offered again, glad when Ziva smiled a little at him—and didn't attempt to strangle him with her belt. Or beat him to death with his own shoe. Or she could simply shoot him, but McGee gave her more credit than that. He had to admire the woman's style, even if was always more Glock than Gucci.
"But yeah," McGee said, his hand unconsciously brushing his yet-unaccosted throat. "It is really boring. And I think I might fall asleep while walking, if that's even possible."
Ziva laughed. "You would look like one of those zombies from Tony's horror movies."
McGee started dragging his leg and staggering down the corridor, arms stretched out in front of him. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said.
"McGee," Ziva hissed suddenly, turning back to face him. "Wait."
The agent stopped cold at her businesslike tone. He opened his mouth but closed it with a sharp snap of teeth at her raised hand. She gestured to the intersection of corridors just ahead of them, and he pulled his gun, following her closely.
"… And so I was saying," a voice drifted down the hall, "I can't go out with her. It'd be like dating my sister!"
McGee and Ziva exchanged glances. McGee looked relieved, but Ziva placed the voice immediately and motioned for McGee to stay put. She waited, muscles tensed and ready for action, as the voices drew nearer. She knew she was correct in her identification and felt a little thrill of pleasure at what was to come.
Just as the voices reached the intersection, Ziva stepped out, her small fist doing maximum damage as it connected solidly with Willis' nose, breaking the cartilage and dropping him to his knees. She swept out with a lightning-quick foot and took Lowe's feet out before he even got a hand on his gun. McGee followed her into the corridor and quickly cuffed a swearing Lowe while Ziva stood over Willis.
She looked down at him with rage darkening her pretty brown eyes and kicked him hard. "That," she hissed furiously, "was for saying my partner tried to himself when you knew you were the one responsible."
She drew back again and lashed out viciously. "And that," she ground through clenched teeth, "was for trying to kill my partner."
McGee was trying to think of a way to tell her not to kill Willis without incurring her formidable wrath himself when she dropped to a knee and rolled the man over as if he weighed nothing more than a child. She cuffed him roughly and dragged him to his feet, only to have McGee reach out and grab her arm, dragging her down in a heap beside him.
"Wha—"
Her annoyed cry was cut off by the crack of the gun firing, and Willis dropped stone dead between them. The agents scrambled for cover on opposite sides of the intersection as the gun fired again, the bullet hitting Lowe squarely in the back as he tried to run, hands still cuffed behind him. McGee watched him fall to his knees and could do nothing—and wanted to do nothing—as two more bullets ripped through Lowe's body and he fell dead to the floor.
McGee exchanged a glance with Ziva, who snuck a peek around the wall. There was no answering bullet, and Ziva looked at Tim across the corridor and mouthed, It's Squire.
McGee nodded, steady hands on his gun as he sneaked a peek of his own. Squire was walking calmly down the hall toward them.
"Don't worry," she called, so calm her own mother wouldn't have guessed she had just executed two men. "I'm not going to kill you. That's what they were here to do."
Don't trust her, McGee mouthed to Ziva.
The Mossad officer nodded, dropped to the floor, and slithered into the open, firing once as a bullet sailed over her head in evidence of McGee's good judgment. Squire shrieked in pain, dropping to one knee, the bullet having passed clean through her right thigh. "You bitch!" she cried, dropping the gun, her hands going immediately for the wound.
McGee approached the pretty bleeding blonde, kicking away the gun and quickly assessing the flesh wound. He grabbed her hands as Ziva got up and walked calmly over, the complete lack of rage in her scaring McGee a bit after her rough punishment of Willis. The scars on Tony's wrists popped into his head, and he found himself wishing the two dead assailants hadn't gone down so easily.
But Ziva just looked down into the woman's startling blue eyes and cocked her head.
"Bitch?" she said as the radio crackled from the floor. "Not the word I was thinking of, petty officer."
Gibbs felt a fresh surge of rage that had nothing to do with Tony lying unconscious at his feet. But he simply stared as Fordham got no response on the radio.
The captain's eyes met with North's again, and Fordham tried again. "Lowe? Hannah?"
The radio squawked in his hand, and he almost dropped it at the transmission of Ziva's voice. "Ohhh, I am so sorry. Hannah cannot speak with you right now as she is bleeding rather profusely all over the floor."
Gibbs bit back a grin. Attagirl, Ziver.
Fordham was definitely not amused. "You bitch!" he cried, looking to North as if for help.
Ziva tsked over the connection. "You Americans and that word. Though it is not just the Americans. I have been called that in so many ways: puta in Spanish, sharmotah in Arabic, kalba in Hebrew, orospu in Turkish." She tsked again."Not nice in any language."
"Shut up," Fordham barked. "Goddammit, do any of you people ever just shut up?"
Gibbs smiled, and saw that Benny even had a hint of one on his face despite the dire situation.
"Tell me where you are," Ziva said, "and I will not put another bullet through her pretty little head."
Gibbs watched the blood drain from Fordham's face and thought, Guess we know who Squire's mystery man is. No wonder she never said his name. He said casually, "You might want to do as she says. Agent David is very good at what she does, and she always keeps her word."
Fordham glowered, and North spoke to him from behind Gibbs. "Forget about her, Andrew. We can buy you a hundred girls once we get off this ship with the drugs."
"Shut up," Fordham said, and Gibbs wondered if the man was capable of any other thoughts—and how close he was to losing it completely. Gibbs' eyes slid to Tony's face, the blood pooling under his mouth, and he checked his breathing again. The agent's chest rose and fell evenly, and Gibbs telegraphed his thoughts to the unconscious man: Just keep breathing, DiNozzo. I'll get you out of this.
"Tell me where you are," Ziva repeated. "I will not ask again. And I will not give you a chance to say goodbye. Lowe and Willis can attest to that. Well, they could if they were not dead."
Gibbs felt the gun press harder against his skull as North leaned forward and plucked the radio from the captain's shaking fingers. North keyed the radio as Fordham glared at him. "You shoot her, and I'll return the favor, Agent David. And apparently I've got three times the very human leverage down here."
"Down where?" came the swift reply.
North laughed. "Nice try," he said, and Gibbs heard the sick smile in his voice. "And nice catch on my little slip. It will not happen again."
"Your time is up," Ziva said, steel in her voice. Gibbs was certain he was the only one in the room who heard the slight anxiety in her words. "If you want us to play your little game, you will tell me where you are. If not, kill them. They do not mean nearly as much to me as Ms. Squire so obviously means to you."
"Bubba, give me that radio," Fordham said, his voice taut. "Now. You heard her. She killed Lowe and Willis. She'll kill Hannah if we don't do what she says."
North lifted a shoulder. "Collateral damage," he said.
And those were his last words.
Fordham lifted the gun and shot him right between the eyes.
Benny had been watching the exchange as a viewer takes in an afternoon matinee. The words, the emotions, the action all seemed faraway and contained as if it were simply playing out on a big, lifelike silver screen, and even though he could feel the ties biting into his skin, he felt distanced and safe from their violence.
Until his former friend dropped dead as a side of beef to the floor.
Benny watched the blood pool around the dead man's head, and the young cook suddenly thought of borscht. And then he almost threw up.
His wide, dark eyes flicked back to Tony's unmoving face, the blood leaking from his nose darker than that spreading from Bubba's gaping skull. He wondered why that was and almost threw up again. Jesus, Tony. This is your life? This is the kind of thing you deal with all the time? Day after bloody fucking day? Goddamn, Tony. No wonder you have nightmares. I'm never going to get this mess out of my head.
Benny forced himself to calm down. He imagined Tony calling "Blasphemy!" in reaction to his unspoken thoughts, and it oddly made him feel better. Benny thought back to the many stories Tony had told him about his boss, and he felt Tony's absolute trust in the man flood his own mind.
He watched Gibbs barely flinch at the gunshot and stare down the barrel of the gun suddenly pointing at his face. In that moment, Benny knew the agent would have charged the captain had he and Tony not been in the room, and he felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that this man was on his side.
Fordham's eyes never left Gibbs' as he picked up the radio and spoke. "Agent David? Where are you? I'm coming to meet you."
"And your prisoners?" came Ziva's immediate reply.
"They are free to go," Fordham said calmly. "All I care about is Hannah. And getting her and I off this ship together. Just like we planned."
Ziva made a rude little noise. "How touching," she said dryly. "But what about North? Even if I believed you, somehow I think he will not just let them walk away."
"All they have to do is step over his body," Fordham said, his eyes still on Gibbs' face. "I just shot him."
"And I am, what, just supposed to believe you? A self-proclaimed killer?"
Fordham wiggled the gun in Gibbs' face. "Tell her, Agent Gibbs."
Gibbs glared at the man. "He shot North, Ziva," Gibbs said, his voice calm and assured. "He won't let me go. Or Tony or Benny. Probably just tie us up because he needs us for his plan."
Ziva did not care if Fordham did not let them go—just so long as he decided not to shoot them. And she could only pray the man would not do that, that it did not fit into his "plan."
Gibbs saw Fordham bristle as he called him out on his lie and nailed his motivations. He just continued calmly, "Is McGee with you?"
"McGee is dead," Ziva lied. She added, "Lowe shot in him the back of the head, just like Agent Jardine died."
Gibbs nodded, forcing an appropriately dismayed expression. "I'm sorry to hear that, Agent David. Tim was a fine agent."
"Enough," Fordham barked. "Your location?"
Ziva gave him the compartment number, and Gibbs unwittingly mirrored her fervent hope that Fordham wouldn't put matching bullets in all their heads before leaving the massive storage room.
But apparently Fordham was still sticking with the plan. The coldness in his eyes made Gibbs wonder if killing North hadn't been part of that plan all along. Fordham certainly hadn't hesitated to end the man's life.
Fordham jerked his chin at a pile of rope on the floor. "Tie him up," he said, his eyes flicking to Tony's unmoving body.
Gibbs just glared, even as he felt a surge of relief. If the captain was going to leave, then they still had chance. "And if I refuse?"
Fordham kicked Tony hard in the stomach, sending the agent sprawling onto his back. "Next he gets a bullet to the head. It is part of the plan, after all."
"Then why not just do it now?" Gibbs asked, hoping he was right and that he wasn't killing his agent.
Fordham smiled a puppet-master's smile, the smile of a man who thought he held all the cards. Too bad he didn't know the ace in the hole Gibbs had in Ziva—and an undead McGee. "I know what you do, Agent NCIS. I want the TODs to be as close as possible for the scene I have planned."
Gibbs nodded. "You're going to bring Agent David and Squire down here. Make it look like we all killed each other in the gunfight. With you as the only living witness to pin everything on them, of course."
"Hannah and I will survive," Fordham said tightly. "But you're right. And your Agent David made it easier on me, killing Willis and Lowe."
"Less people means less guns means less angles to get right," Gibbs agreed casually. His eyes narrowed and he smiled. "And Hannah even took a bullet from my agent's gun. That works nicely for you. I hope it was Agent McGee that got her. He really was a good agent."
Fordham scowled, his eyes going hard again. "And if it was Agent David who shot my Hannah," he said, "then I will make sure her death is not quick."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Gibbs asked, his gaze sliding to Benny. "What's he supposed to be doing down here?"
Fordham's lips curled into a sneer. "Stupid North," he spat. He looked at the cook. "He's been watching your emails, trying to make sure DiNozzo didn't find out about his little lie about his sexual orientation. A very good cover, I must say, though."
The captain eyed North's body and then turned his gaze to Tony. He kicked at the cast on Tony's hand absently, and Gibbs felt his blood boil. "And when Agent Rainbow here decided to sweep it all under the rug, well, that was just perfect. But then North saw Agent McGee's email about their revelation and decided you needed to go, too."
"That's a nice speech," Gibbs said, his voice still hard with barely contained fury, "but it still doesn't explain why he's in the middle of a gun battle."
Fordham lifted a shoulder. "Collateral damage," he said, his eyes flashing as he remembered North's words. "Enough talking. Tie him up, tightly. I want to see purple fingers."
Gibbs knelt down, gently gathering Tony's wrists in his hands. He looped the rope around the left, surreptitiously taking the agent's pulse as he did it and finding it slow but steady. He tied the bindings around the cast, not taking nearly as much care in wrapping the rope around the plaster.
He stood and Fordham eyed his handiwork. "Cuff yourself," the captain ordered.
Gibbs complied, snapping his own cuffs onto his wrists in front of him and hoping Fordham wouldn't make him move his hands behind his back. The man just tucked the gun into his waistband and adjusted the cuffs to blood-restricting tightness. He knelt beside Tony, keeping the agent's prone body between himself and Gibbs, and he tugged roughly on the rope binding DiNozzo's hands. Gibbs tried not to wince as the coarse rope bit into the scarred skin on his left wrist.
Fordham walked Gibbs to the length of pipe a few feet from Benny and told him to sit. The captain tied him to the pipe and moved back to where Tony lay, still unmoving. Fordham grabbed him and dragged him across the floor, smearing blood behind him. He secured the agent's limp arms to the pipe in a show of seemingly spectacular overkill considering the man's current state.
Fordham paused at the door. "Don't worry. I won't be long in returning with the rest of the cast for this little scene. 'The play's the thing!' " he said, laughing an unsteady little laugh as he left, shutting the heavy steel door behind him with a clang that echoed through their cavernous prison.
