Chapter Three
It was a hard goodbye, even if Tony only knew everyone for about four days. As the plane flew off the tarmac he wondered if he made the right decision.
But after talking with Gibbs last night and having drinks with Sarah and Derek he's confident in sticking with his decision.
They probably had a few too many last night but of course they had to have a pity party for themselves. And after it, he's glad Derek and Sarah are the two he's stuck with. They all seemed to get along well.
This morning they were going to another meeting with the boss and the Director.
When they walked into the conference room there were three new faces in the room. Each of them meaning business and looking like the sharp edge of a sword. Not to be messed with.
One of those faces he'd seen before. The dangerous beauty with the curly brown hair.
God.
She made him so distracted.
The other two were male, and to be honest Tony didn't take too much notice of them, due to his concentration being on the woman.
He'd never been so drawn to a person he didn't know before.
Interesting.
Interestingly dangerous more like.
"Thank you all for volunteering to stay behind, I know it was not an easy decision to make" Abbott stated "We are prepared for things to move a lot differently in the coming months with regards to the usual posting changes, the ones expected to come into country in the next few weeks will no longer"
"There will be a release on these changes within the next few weeks. Starting with regards to the investigation that was started yesterday, Eli's team went to scene last night and recovered what they could, but I'll let them inform you" Abbott passed the brief over to Eli.
"With the current circumstances we did not want your team entering the scene again just in case there was a follow up attack. My team has gone and collected the evidence they could and brought what they could back here. Ziva?" Eli looked towards the beautiful woman.
Ziva. Zeevah.
Oh, he liked that.
It suited her.
Zeevah.
She took steps to the front of the room.
She stood tall and strong.
"Photos were taken of the scene before anything was moved" she began as a projector screen came to life. Photos began flicking onto the wall.
"Then items of interest were bagged and brought back, and the body was taken to the morgue downstairs"
Man, for a trained killer, she was a very sufficient investigator. Tony wondered what kind of investigating skills they taught their operatives in Mossad.
"Looking at the lacerations to the man's body, I believe this man was tortured before he was hung" Ziva pointed to the close up pictures that began to flick through on the screen.
"All of these lacerations points, are ones we are taught to inflict to cause the most pain, with the least amount of bleeding during torture" she said casually.
Tony was almost frightened at how casually she pointed that information out. But, it didn't in anyway decrease his attraction to her. And thinking about that, he had no idea what was wrong with him. Clearly she was a trained killer, trained to inflict torture. He should be scared for his life.
"And his intestines, these were cut and pulled out while he was alive"
Tony had never seen anything so vicious before. He felt bad for what this marine had been through before he died.
"I am of the belief that someone was trying to get information from this man. That paired with the attack yesterday, someone is targeting the Mossad and U.S partnership" she finished and nodded towards Director David.
She stepped back next to her two Mossad team members. Director David stood back up the front of the room.
"My daughter and her two best agents will be supporting your team throughout this investigation. At all times outside the Mossad compound one of you will have one of my agents. No excuses" David instructed.
My daughter? If Tony didn't have an excuse to shove his thoughts so far down his throat about Ziva yet, he does now.
That would be a messy situation.
Now, he's been in a few messy situations in his time when his downstairs brain got him in trouble, but he liked his life.
And he wants to keep all of his fingers, so he best get rid of his unprofessional thoughts about Ziva. Quick smart.
Tony also noticed that when the Director spoke of Ziva as his daughter, and not as her own name, Ziva looked a little more deadly.
She clearly didn't like him announcing her like that to others on a professional level.
He could only imagine what it was like to be the child of the Director of Mossad. Not only that, but she was a woman in a professional field strongly filled with males. To get to the high level she clearly was without ridicule from others about how she got to that point, would have been non-existent.
He would bet on it that she's even tougher than she looks, specifically because of that.
He doesn't know her and maybe she is the kind of woman who gets where she wants to because of her 'Daddy', but from what he's observed of her so far, he doesn't think that's the case.
The first day he met her she was clearly pissed off about something, and it was probably her father's direction to be on this assignment.
The fact that it had bothered her, told him she was her own woman and would rather be on an assignment away from her father.
While his train of thoughts had gone on about investigating the mysterious woman Ziva, he'd forgot to listen to the current brief one of the other Mossad males was giving.
He lightly shook his head and brought himself back into focus.
The slight shake of his head was missed by most of the room, but Ziva's eyes were on him all of a sudden. She hadn't missed it.
Ninja.
He tried very hard not to look at her and focus on the presentation in front of him. But he couldn't help but look over to her.
He locked eyes with her.
It was like she was assessing him from across the room. Suddenly he felt hot.
He looked away and back to the front.
He'd never felt so sexually intimidated.
He's glad that for today, he wasn't paired up with Ziva. He needs to sort his shit out before that happens. Needs to lose his sexual tension and stop thinking about her.
That, he will sort out later when he's alone.
Today, working with Azriel Kohen had been interesting.
He was a quiet guy, and Tony generally wasn't very quiet. It wasn't exactly a good match. Azriel seemed to only talk with Tony when it was necessary. Tony wondered what Mossad agents did with their free time, as they all seemed so work focused.
Tony wasn't used to working alongside people who were almost robotic. All the cops he'd ever worked with used dark humour to get through a situation and would not stop talking about bullshit throughout an investigation.
He and Azriel worked through the exhibits that had been brought in and Tony thought the day would go on forever.
As he sat down in the mess hall next to Derek and Sarah, he couldn't be happier for some normal human interaction.
"What a long day" he commented.
Derek and Sarah didn't look as exhausted as him.
"Azriel not pull his weight?" Derek asked.
"No, not that. He's a good worker. He just didn't speak a word to me all day and I was struggling with that. I attempted to make small talk but, he wasn't interested" Tony explained, loosening his tie.
Sarah and Derek laughed.
"Sounds like a terrible match for you then" Sarah explained.
"Want to swap Mossad agents tomorrow?" Tony asked.
"I'm not sure, I liked Ziva" Sarah replied. Oh, yes, Tony definitely would like to trade with Sarah because…
No. He needs to stop those thoughts.
"On second thought, you can keep her" Tony replied. This comment got raised eyebrows from both Sarah and Derek.
"Are you telling me you don't want to work with the hot Israeli woman, and want to keep Azriel?" Derek asked, not believing his ears. He knows Tony's a single man. And when they had drinks last night and talked about their lives, he sounded like an 'active' single man.
Tony didn't know what to say, he couldn't tell them he's beyond attracted to the woman.
"She intimidates me" he explained. It wasn't not the truth. Yes, she intimidated him. But that was only one part of the story.
Sarah giggled.
"She's not going to eat you Tony" Sarah continued to laugh.
Eat him… oh he might like that.
Tony shrugged.
"I dunno, there's something about her" he said.
Sarah and Derek continued to laugh at him.
"Ezra is nice, and I promise he's not intimidating" Derek offered "I don't mind some piece and quiet myself if you want to trade tomorrow so you can keep your sanity" he continued.
Tony nodded in thanks.
"I may just take you up on that offer" he replied.
Later when Tony was alone in his apartment, he tried everything he could to rid himself of the thoughts of Ziva.
After a handful of beers, a few naughty thoughts and some personal time, he rested easy without a further thought of her.
Maybe he was just overdue for some release, and he'd picked a beautiful woman to focus those not so behaved thoughts on.