The elevator doors open and McGee, Tony, Gibbs, and Ducky walk out, the shock of what they had just witnessed still evident on their faces.
Abby looked up from her screen, and they saw the tears pouring down her face. Gibbs walked over to her and put his arms around her. "Oh Abbs, you shouldn't have had to watch that by yourself." She turned and hugged him as tightly as she could, her entire body shaking with grief and fear for her friend. After a moment, she pulled herself together, pushed away from Gibbs and turned to the screen. She was all business now.
"Ok, so I analyzed the handwriting on the mailing address. No matches. I ran the prints though AFIS. No matches. I checked the background of the room she was in. No clues." She sighed in frustration, "but I do have some stuff for you guys."
"The video was recorded three days ago. DVDs degrade as time goes by, especially the homemade ones, so I was able to" Gibbs cut her off there. "Good girl, Abby. What else ya got for us?"
Three days. That was a long time. They all hoped she was still alive, that the torture and rape hadn't continued that badly for the past three days… that she could hang in there a little longer.
Abby answered "Well, I ran facial recognition on the" her composure slipped a bit and she faltered for the right word "on the men who… the men on the video. I got a match on all but two, but I think once I clean up the resolution a little, I can get those two also."
She handed Gibbs, Tony, and McGee each a folder. They opened them to find CIA dossiers on each man. "Jesus Abbs, you've been busy." "Well yeah, McGee. What did you think I was going to do, sit around on my ass and let them keep hurting her until she dies? My job is to dig up everything I can on these assholes so that you can track them down and kill them. After you rescue Ziva, that is."
"Ya did good Abbs" said Gibbs
"These guys are Mossad. They're all Mossad." Tony's voice was barely above a whisper as he looked up at the others. "Her dad ordered this?" He shoved the file into his pack and headed for the elevator.
"Where you going, DiNozzo?" asked Gibbs, sharply. Tony whirled around, his eyes blazing. "I may not know where these guys are, but I can sure as hell find out where Director David is. I am going to.."
Gibbs cut him off. "You are going to find her first, DiNozzo. We don't have time to waste on her father right now. He won't help us." He turned to Abby & McGee, trusting that his senior agent would follow his orders, "What did we miss? There's got to be clues."
Tim looked at Abby. "They are likely in Israel. We just need to figure out where. Enhance the video, focus on the window." Abby pulled up the video and zoomed in on the window. They could see part of two buildings in the background. "We can calculate the dimensions and locations of those buildings relative to the one she's in, create a mock up, and start scanning satellite images for matches. But that would take…" Gibbs cut her off again.
"Get on it Abbs."
Then McGee asked "Guys, why did they send it to Tony's house? Why not NCIS? They obviously wanted us to see it."
Tony didn't hesitate. "They wanted to hurt me, McGee. They know Ziva's my partner."
"Yeah, but they could have addressed it to you here. They didn't. Why not?"
"It wasn't mailed. It was hand delivered." Tony slammed his fist down on the table. "If it had been mailed, I would have seen it when I got home last night."
"Ok. So, they used someone in DC to deliver the video. There may be another one coming. Set up surveillance on Tony's house. Hell. Cover mine, McGee's, Abby's, Ducky's, even Palmer's. They won't use the same drop point again." Gibbs looked at Tony silently ordering him to set it in motion. Tony immediately got into action.
Fifteen minutes later, Gibbs got a call "Yeah, Gibbs. On my way" he said as he hung up. He headed to the elevator, Tony and McGee right behind him. "We got another video. It was at McGee's this time. Ducky, I need you with me."
"Abby, Keep working. Find her."
Ziva was in agony. She curled up into a ball on the floor, as close to a ball as she could get anyway. It felt like half her ribs were broken. She guessed that they were finished with her for the day. She prayed that they were.
She had survived, but she was not sure how much more of that she could take. They had told her repeatedly that it would be easier on her if she didn't fight. She knew that, just like she knew that no matter how hard she fought, they were going to rape her anyway. But, she couldn't, wouldn't just lay there and let them take her.
Her father would be pissed. Her training taught her to remain passive during torture, conserve her energy, and wait for an opportunity to escape. Actually, she thought I don't have a father anymore. Then an image of Gibbs floated through her mind. "Hang in there Ziva. We're coming to get you, just don't do anything stupid to get yourself killed before we get there." That was the last thing she thought before finally succumbing to exhaustion.
They left her alone all night, but the pain kept her awake through most of it anyway. She realized that she was in serious trouble when she started to have difficulty breathing. It seemed like it just hurt too damn much to be worth the effort of taking deep enough breaths She fought the feeling, hanging on to the hope that her friends were coming to get her.
In the morning, when Asir slammed open the door, she was already awake and was able to maintain her façade of cool detachment in the face of his obvious rage. She had a chance to think "Oh shit. He caught the message I tried to send." before he was across the room. He was crazed with anger.
"You stupid, fucking BITCH!" he screamed at her, pulling her up to his face. He slammed her face-first against the wall. "Sign language? You had to know we would see it. We would never let that get through to your agent friends."
Suddenly, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach disappeared and she smiled against the wall. A small sound of triumph must have escaped her, because he spun her around. "They didn't get your message, so why are you so happy?"
She continued to smile, tipped her head to the side and said in her best 'Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo' voice. "Hm. Is that so? Well I think you would not be so upset if you had not already sent it to them, now would you?"
This statement hit home, but instead of getting more upset, he became coldly calm. His voice seemed oddly mechanical as he dragged her to a chair and cuffed her to it, her hands behind her back. "We will just have to make sure that it doesn't happen again, won't we now?"
Gibbs, Tony, and Ducky were back in MTAC with the director. Before the video started, Gibbs said quietly "I want every detail you can get out of this. Pay attention. Don't look away. Cry later." He looked at each and every one of them in turn.
"For now, do not think of this as Ziva. This is a crime scene. She needs you to do what you do best. Understood?"
No one answered, but no one needed to. He could see it in their eyes. They would not miss anything this time.
Ziva was in a chair this time. There was a table in front of her. The camera was slightly off center, so that the man who was sitting directly in front of her did not block their view. The first thing they noticed was that her condition appeared to be the same as at the end of the last video.
They hadn't hurt her since then. It was also evident that it was now morning. Gibbs was relieved to see that they had her at a table. That meant that they were planning to question her and that was something that Ziva was trained to handle.
His relief evaporated as he heard what the man, who he recognized as Asir from his voice, said. "I hope your friends appreciated your little message last night. They won't get any more." He reached down beside his chair and picked up a hammer. He laid it down on the table in front of her and her eyes flicked toward it for a moment and then returned to his face. She gave no evidence of the fear that kindled inside her at the sight of the weapon.
She knew that her friends would be watching this later and wanted to make it easier for them by maintaining her composure. "Hold her left hand down on the table." Two men came out from behind the camera. One of them uncuffed her left hand and held her shoulder to the back of her chair. The other guy grabbed her wrist and forced it to the table. Asir stood up.
Ziva looked at the camera and smiled a sad little smile, which said It was worth it. I warned my friends. She closed her eyes and awaited the blow from the hammer. She didn't struggle.
Tony watched the hammer fall methodically on each of her fingers. He could hear the tiny, delicate bones of her hand breaking with each blow. Those were the only sounds he heard at first. Then he began to hear soft whimpers of pain coming from her. He couldn't stand it. Not Ziva. This is not Ziva. This is a crime scene. I need to focus. He leaned forward and looked at the window behind her. Now that the camera was at a different angle, they could see more. There was a structure visible that looked like a water tower.
This video was much shorter. When it ended, Gibbs turned to Ducky first. "What can you tell us, Ducky?"
"Well Jethro, I am concerned that several of the ribs on her left side are obviously broken; they may have caused some internal bleeding. Her respiration seemed shallow; she is evidently having difficulty drawing deep breaths, but I can't say much more for certain without examining her in person." He took a breath. "None of the injuries that she sustained today were life-threatening; in fact, they seem to have caused her more emotional pain than physical."
He turned to McGee, who looked confused. "You see, Ziva has been trained to remain silent during torture. She is quite good at it too, as evidenced by the previous video." He sighed.
"She was crying today though, and I believe that it had more to do with the emotional trauma of knowing that her hand will be crippled forever, than the physical pain of the broken bones." He turned to leave and added
"We can be thankful that they chose her left hand. She is right-handed."
Tony answered "They did it on purpose, Ducky. She used her left hand to send us the message. If the camera had been on her right side..." Tony trailed off, not wanting to say what they were all thinking. If the camera had been on her right side, they would have broken her right hand and she would never be able to shoot a gun again.
She would never be able to work as a field agent again.
Gibbs was actually a little pleased that his team was thinking in this direction; it meant that they still expected to get her out alive.
Gibbs turned to Tony, silently asking for his take on the video. "Boss, the new camera angle makes it possible to see more out of the window. There seems to be a water tower, and I can see a part of a fence. Also, we know that its morning, so we know which direction is east." He indicated the rising sun that was silhouetting the water tower.
"Get that to Abby. She can add the new information to the stuff she already has. What, McGee?"
"It might be nothing, boss." When Gibbs continued to stare at him, without saying anything, he blurted "Well, I was just wondering, well, they haven't asked her any questions. Why are they torturing her? What information are they after?" When no one answered, he continued "I mean it seems like Tony was right. They are sending us these videos just to hurt us."
Tony ran a hand through his hair, "She did say it was a trap, boss."
Gibbs stood. "Alright. They're after us, using her as bait. Why?
Thank you for all of the alerts. I'll get the next chapter up very soon! Please, please review!