Gibbs followed Director David down the corridor in a until he led him into another small hospital room identical to Ziva's. Eli sank down into a chair and gestured his arm towards another,

"Pease, sit," Gibbs did so and then stared at him expectantly for a few moments,.

"Well, you have something to say?" he asked bluntly causing Eli to chuckle lightly,

"oh yes I have something to say. I have much to say." he paused, leading Gibbs to believe they were gong to lapse back into silence but Eli abruptly asked.

"How much do you know about Leon's past?"

Gibbs raised his eyebrows,"Not much."

"I heard you had his personnel file."

"Well yeah but . . ."

"It wasn't true." Eli finished for him, Gibbs sat back in his seat and fixed his eyes on the other man, assessing him carefully. "Is that what makes you reluctant to trust him."

"I never said I don't trust him." Gibbs said emphatically. Eli nodded and smiled slightly.

"We could go around in circles for some time like this I think it would be best if I get straight to the point and tell you what I know about our mutual friend." he settled himself down in his seat, preparing for the long and complicated story, "I shall start at the beginning, Leon's father was a second generation Somali immigrant, when he finished college he decided to explore his roots and took a teaching job in Baidoa, there he met and married a cleaner in the school and together they had a son named Osman Faud Jibrell." He paused and waited for a reaction, Gibbs raised his eyebrow,

"Jibrell,as in Jibrell from the tape." Eli nodded,

"Osman Faud Jibrell who now goes by the name Leon Vance. The family, along with Vance's Grandmother, left Somalia when Leon was around three or four years old just before the military coup and settled in America. It was less than a year later when his father died him to be raised by his mother and grandmother ." He sighed and ran his eyes over Gibbs' face, looking for any sign of a reaction, "do you have any questions so far?"

"Nope."

"Yes that was the straight forward part, now we make a jump into more murky waters. Now, in the late eighties I was overseeing an operation in the Horn of Africa, more specifically; in Somalia. WE were monitoring several groups as closely as we could but we needed to get someone on the inside and unfortunately they were extremely close-knit it was impossible to get an outsider planted" short pause followed allowing Gibbs to process what had been said, he began to see where this was going. Eli continued, "We did a lot of digging into the backgrounds of the targets and discovered that one main players Aunt had had emigrated to America with a husband and son, a son who conveniently had just joined NCIS."

"So you sent him to Somalia to work for you?" Gibbs interrupted impatiently, Eli raised an eyebrow at this,

"Well it was rather more complicated than that, it took the most delicate diplomacy to put together such a major joint mission between the two agencies at that time but after much discussion, yes Vance was sent to Somalia for a . . . family reunion."

"His cousin didn't suspect anything?" Eli spread his arms out and frowned slightly.

"At the time I thought that Leon had been extremely careful and had played his part beautifully of course now I think that perhaps his family new all along what he was doing there. He worked for us for about two years before we abandoned the mission. The outbreak of the civil war made it too complicated and dangerous for us to operate there anymore. The mission had cost us many men, all of them very good friends of mine I was not pleased with the decision to withdraw." he took a second to stare at Gibbs before continuing. "Leon received a new name, we arranged a fake death for him in order to explain his disappearance to the family as well as a new identity. All records of the mission were covered up it had been by all accounts an . . . Unmitigated disaster. Of course it is clear with hindsight that Leon was a double agent, the losses we suffered damaged my career significantly but I never for a second suspected his treachery." Gibbs sighed and rubbed his chin,

"How'd you find out?"

"I could never let go of it, I spend a lot of time on that investigation. Those men were dangerous and well organised I knew they had to still be operating so I have people monitoring activity in their area. It was Michael who picked them up again and began to suspect they had someone on the outside helping them hide. He discovered the name Jibrell, and then I knew."

"So you sent him to spy on Vance? Through Ziva?" Gibbs spluttered.

"Yes." Eli stared at him, perplexed, "Well of course Ziva doesn't have that much access to Leon but she was an excellent staring point."

"She knew all this?"

"Not at first. You realise she couldn't tell you Gibbs. What if it was not true. What if it was and he found out you all were spying on him? You saw the DVD, he is a dangerous man."

"And you sent your daughter after him!" Gibbs exploded suddenly, "You manipulated her into spying for you, into lying to her team! You deliberately . . ." He stood up as he shouted and watched while Eli's icy cold exterior began to crack and he sprung to his feet,

"She is an Officer of the Mossad, she follows orders, if she is told to observe she does it, if she is told to stay quiet . . ."

"She's your daughter not just another one of your officers, how could you send her to Somalia knowing what Vance was?"

"I did not choose to send her there!" Eli roared at him and Gibbs was momentarily struck silent. Eli swallowed a deep breath and sat back into his chair. "I wanted her to finish Michael's work in America, he was gathering intelligence I told her to return with you but she refused." he waited for Gibbs' reaction but he was met only with silence as he too returned to his seat. "She was worried that Leon already discovered what she was doing and knew that you were investigating her; she was sure he would work it out once you were finished with her."

"We weren't investigating her,"

"oh no?" Eli cocked his head to the side, "I'm sure your faith in her was unwavering, that is what you tried so hard to persuade her to come back with you?" Gibbs stared at him for a few moments before he sighed and rubbed his forehead as guilt began to swell up inside him again, remembering how he had left her on the tarmac, how could he not tell there was something going on? "She knew I had a unit heading to Somalia to search for them, to get a clearer idea of the scale of there organisation, an insisted that she go to. She knew the case well and was determined to catch Leon. I do not know how they knew that they were coming. I said nothing to Leon obviously but still they were waiting for them. He had her captured and tortured, he wanted to know what she had discovered about him. She told them nothing" he finished talking with a hint of pride at his last statement but then he sighed deeply and leant forward in his seat. " I am sure that you think I am a cold and hard hearted man but I can assure you that I love my children, I have made many mistakes but . . . "

"Mistakes? Like sending one to kill another?" Gibbs interjected, wishing to find out the truth once and for all. Eli furrowed his brows and frowned.

"What?" he gasped in what appeared to be genuine shock.

"Ari and Ziva, did you send Ziva to kill Ari in order to gain my trust?" he asked bluntly. Eli was silent for a few moments before he sighed.

"I assume Leon told you that? There was a time when I considered him to be amongst my closest allies and indeed, friends, so when he asked how it was that you, the most had come to allow the daughter of the director of Mossad to be on your team so easily I saw no problem in telling him the truth. He obviously thought this would be an easy way of getting you to forget about Ziva if he could get you to believe it was all an elaborate plan." Gibbs wasn't ready to be fobbed off that easily,

"How did you know?"

"Ziva told me, you see you killed my son-no matter how much he hated and rebelled against me he was still my son. I was going to have you killed for it so she admitted that she had shot him." he let a silence hang in the air while Gibbs considered this until Eli spoke again. "I realise you may not believe that I would never send my daughter to kill her brother. I love all my children but they do not always love me back; do you think for a second that if I had ordered Ziva to murder Ari there is even the slightest chance she would have done it and not killed me instead? She loved her brother, a lot more than she does me. They looked after each other their whole lives; she worshipped him and he adored her. You know they were planning his escape? He was going to leave Mossad and hide and she was going to help him, they had it planned. It is possible she might have ran with him so united were they in there hatred of me. There is no chance she would have taken my word for what Ari was, he had never shown her anything but love until she saw the truth for herself. It broke her heart completely." He stood up and stared out the window for a while until Gibbs broke the silence, he was satisfied with Eli's explanation, Vance's claim had never really convinced him. He knew Ziva, he had been sure she had been honest about that night but to hear it from her father's lips filled with relief and so he moved on to the most pressing matter,

"So, what are you planning to do about Vance?"

"That is where you come in, I need to ask you for some help."

"I'm listening,"

"Obviously, there is nothing I would like more than to tear him to pieces for what he has done to my daughter," Eli clenched his fists tightly, "He and his filthy dogs have destroyed her! She Is broken, she tries to be strong but I can see it in her eyes. Every new male voice she hears she is terrified-it haunts her all day and night what those beasts did to her!" He was shaking with rage as he shouted, spittle sprayed out of his mouth as he erupted suddenly. Gibbs was shocked at the display of raw emotion from him. He had been carefully maintaining a controlled, emotionless façade whilst underneath he seethed with uncontrollable fury at what his child had suffered. "I have watched every DVD we recovered from the hut she was found in, I have seen everything he had her subjected too. He deserves to die like the pitiful dog he is!" he made a heroic effort to pull himself together and turned back to Gibbs, his face still slightly tinged with his red hot anger. "However, I still need to destroy the militant groups he works for and in order to do so we need to find who he is in contact with in Africa. The men we neutralised were only the muscles not the brains. That is where you come in Gibbs, I need you to find that out. I need you to continue what we started."

hello hello! just a wee note to point out i don;t know anytiing abiut vance's past or if it's been explained in the show so i just made this up so if it clashes wildly then I'm sorry but then again thisis my story so what the hell! also, i find it really hard to write Gibbs, (since he actually says about two words per epi and spends the rest of the time intensely staring at things/people) and finally was sick of planning this out so wrote it all in a oner has taken ages i know i should really proof read it but frankly my brain has long since melted andi can't look at this anymore so sorry for my mistakes!