Disclaimer: See the first chapter, but just to assure you all, I didn't have enough money on my charge card to pay for the necklace I was ogling this morning. Rest assured, I haven't ever had enough to purchase NCIS.

This had a little more JIBBS than I originally intended, but why not? In my reality Vance doesn't exist and Jenny will remain for ever and ever. And this is my reality...

Her Mission, His Mistake

Gibbs shut the door to MTAC behind him with his foot, two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. He recognized Jenny's red hair the instant he hit the door, and he paused for a second just to watch her in action. The video feed from the bugs Dinozzo and Ziva had planted were up on the screen, and Jenny was firing orders back and forth through her head set.

It was moments like these, watching her juggle so many different people and demands, that made Gibbs realize the director's job was good for her. It was full of political BS, but Jenny seemed to excel in smoothing over angered tempers. He smirked softly, finally entering the light as he approached her. She had certainly done a wonder on his.

"Jethro. I was wondering when you were going to get here." Jenny took the coffee with a small smile, a long sip the only indication that she was as exhausted as he felt. Gibbs allowed her to lead him over to the chairs.

"Abby was trying to find some intel on the shipment."

"We know what's in the shipment." The Director furrowed her brow as she took another sip. "Koram is financing and providing supplies for Hacksmani's attempt at a Jihad rematch on American soil."

"But I want to know how. A man of Koram's caliber wouldn't need to purchase C4 from anyone; if he is as good as you and Ziva say, he would have his own internal resources. What would he need with French exports? But since Dinozzo made it inside, we know he was interested in the offer."

"He has to be selling Hacksmani something else." Jenny transitioned to his train of thought smoothly, and Gibbs nodded his head in agreement. "All of Jamal Koram's attacks have been bombs in the past. I just assumed he wasn't planning on venturing into a new genre."

"You know what I say about assumptions, Jen."

"Don't quote Rule 8 at me, Jethro." Jenny stood up abruptly, pacing back and forth in front of the screens. "I should have looked into other options."

"You couldn't have known he was expanding his specialties, Jen." Gibbs rose to stand behind her, neither of them paying any attention to the roaming eyes of the technicians in the room.

"I could have gotten them killed."

"Well, they're in there now, Director. So all you can do is get them out safely. Have we got anything useful from those cameras so far?"

"Bits and pieces." The Director pointed to a minimized screen in the far left. "Ziva planted a bug in Koram's rooms two nights ago, but the lighting is terrible and I can only make out voices. I sent Abby the feed I really need you to watch."

"You couldn't show it to me up here?" They left MTAC hastily, hurrying down the stairs and into the elevator. Gibbs didn't like the idea of two of his people out of his reach, two of his people so deep in cover he couldn't penetrate anything in case of an emergency. Helpless wasn't a feeling Leroy Jethro Gibbs did very well.

"It was grainy at best, and I was hoping Abby could spruce it up a little bit." The elevator started with a lurch, not unusually strong, but strong enough to make Jenny stumble. Gibbs caught her elbow, steadying her, his insightful eyes peering into hers. How had it taken him so long to notice? There were dark circles around her eyes, a tell tale sign of exhaustion, and if her lightheaded spell was any indication, she hadn't eaten in a while, either.

"When was the last time you slept, Jenny?"

"The night the director of the FBI informed me of Hacksmani's intentions." Jenny admitted guiltily. Lying to Gibbs had always been particularly hard for her; he had been her partner, and so much more, for so long. They just naturally fell back into their old patterns of conversations, the partner trust they had relied on so much in the past, and sometimes she forgot that she was the Director and not required to confide anything in a Special Agent.

"They aren't going to come home any faster, no matter how hard you stare at that screen." Gibbs knew arguing with her was fruitless, but the hardened glint in her eyes was foreign to him. As his partner, Jenny had always pursued her missions in a dedicated manner. But never, not in all the years they'd worked together, had he seen that particular glint in her eyes. "What about this case is so different, Jen?"

The elevator doors sprung open before she had a chance to answer, and Abby's voice called out to them from her lab.

"Gibbs? Is that you?"

"Yeah, Abs." Gibbs repressed a smile as he appeared in the entrance to her lab. McGee was slumped over in his chair, a discarded Caf-Pow dangling from his fingers, his head resting on top of the keyboard in front of him. Abby was smiling brightly back at Gibbs, the pleasantly familiar spark of success apparent in her smile.

"I figured you would be here soon. Your psychic meter must have been tingling, Gibbs, because I just cleaned up the video feed the Director sent." Abby double clicked a file on her desktop and a shadowy black hallway filled the screen.

"McGee." Gibbs whispered in the junior agent's ear. A smack to the back of the head, Gibb's style, startled McGee awake quite effectively. He sputtered for a moment, gaping like a fish, before attempting to excuse himself.

"Sorry, boss. I've been on the phone all night trying to get South Africa to release Koram's records, and I swear, I just closed my eyes for a minute…"

"Later." Jenny interrupted sharply. The minute or so she had managed to salvage from this clip earlier had been enough to successfully frighten her. The possibilities of what they might see on this version were endless.

The screen focused on a dim hallway somewhere in Jamal's warehouse headquarters. The timestamp on the video feed put it at 0800 South African time on Day 2 of Tony and Ziva's mission. The screen was empty for a moment or two before a crowd of armed men came into focus.

"Koram." Jenny's finger brushed the screen, her nail spearing the head of the man leading the group. He hadn't changed. Same cocky smile, even while frozen in a candid shot, same ageless face. After Cairo, Jenny would have recognized him anywhere.

The men in the back started to speak in rapid French, in a particularly masculine tone that Jenny would imagine transmitted clearly between all cultures. It was the sleazy tone of voice some men assumed while speaking of a woman, chauvinistic and degrading even from the other side of the screen. The loud, raucous laughter that came next only confirmed her initial suspicions.

Koram stopped suddenly in the front, turning sharply to fire a few biting words in French, before shooting one of the men in the middle of the forehead. Execution style. The rest of the men left the hall in silence, and soon all that remained within range was the body.

"Wow." Abby stated as she closed the feed. "It's not going to win any awards, but it certainly got its point across."

"Abby, can we translate that French?" Gibbs inquired. His instincts drove him to believe that even men like Koram didn't kill their supporters just for the hell of it. The answer to his sudden violent outburst was there, just not currently understandable.

"The man was discussing Ziva, Jethro, or, rather, Madeline. He was wondering how much money Tony would accept for a night with her, and then graphically listing his plans." Jenny's voice was strong, but the exhaustion in her eyes had multiplied tenfold. There was something about this particular case eating her up inside—Gibbs would bet his career on it.

"And Koram?" McGee prompted, oblivious to the torment lurking behind the Director's controlled expression.

"He said that Ziva—that Madeline—belonged to him and any man caught touching her, or thinking about touching her, would answer to him. And that's when he fired."

The implications of Koram's threat stunned the team into silence. Abby had turned even paler, if that was possible, and McGee was staring at the screen as if he expected it to project something new at any moment. Undercover missions always carried a threat along with them, which was obvious, but the danger had just skyrocketed for both Ziva and Tony. Tony's cover may have put him in more danger than busting into the cell as a federal agent. At least then he would've had backup and an arsenal.

Jenny turned to Gibbs, her expression furious, but he could see the fear hiding beneath her mask. "That, Jethro, is why this case is different." She turned on her heel without another word, and he let her go. The Jenny he knew would rather be caught in a tornado without shelter than with tears in her eyes. Gibbs could give her a minute, for composures sake.

"McGee." Gibbs turned to his junior agent, the only remaining agent on his team, in fact. They weren't going to change anything by sitting around here. Tony and Ziva's hands were as dirty as they could possibly get, and in order to succeed they needed to be supported from the home base.

"Yes, boss."

"Keep on those records. Call in every favor you can think of, but I want every file their government has on Koram. Travel records, his mother's maiden name. Everything."

"Boss, that could take days."

"You have 12 hours. Work fast." He turned to Abby now, trying not to smile as she saluted him eagerly. "Do whatever you do down here and find me something new in that tape. Background noise, if it's possible, and hopefully a location."

The Director wasn't surprised to hear Gibbs barge through her door five minutes later. She was standing at the window when he entered, her eyes peering out at the Naval yard, but her mind somewhere else entirely.

"I was Ziva's contact, back in Cairo." Jenny began her story without a prompt from Gibbs. They both knew what he was here for. "NCIS wouldn't authorize the undercover op, so she went in my place, even though it was a U.S naval base Korman had exploded. I was in charge of the op. It took her four months of deep cover to break him, and everyone on the outside could only reach Ureal, the Mossad agent undercover with her."

"Her cover was too deep to risk it?"

"Ziva was too proud to admit she might have needed help." Jenny admitted with a small smile. "It was no secret her own father had ordered her to act as a prostitute until we caught Koram. She did as she was ordered, as any Mossad agent would have, but things went downhill fast. Ureal was executed within the first month, and we had no idea if Ziva's cover had been blown, too. I thought she was dead for three months."

The Director paused a moment to gather her thoughts, trying to weed the frantic emotions of the past from her logical explanation.

"She contacted us by chance, slipping a note into a cargo ship we were sweeping as Korman switched safehouses. My team pulled Ziva out within 72 hours, and we arrested most of his cell, but Koram got away. And Ziva…Ziva was different. Harder."

"A mission like that would have changed anyone, Jen."

"I know. She's never spoken of it, you know. It's the only mission she has ever refused to discuss. She dreamt about it, though." Jenny continued, her voice soft with memories. "She stayed with me in a safe house for a few weeks to make sure her cover hadn't been blown. I'm sure she doesn't remember the nightmares, but I do. Vividly. And I sent her back to do it all over again."

"She isn't an NCIS agent, and she could have refused. If she didn't want to go, she wouldn't have." Gibbs now understood the hidden emotion weighing so heavily on Jenny's mind. It wasn't fear as much as it was guilt--guilt for letting Ziva take her place before, guilt for sending her back now, guilt for not being able to stop the emotional turmoil Ziva was going to endure.

"When she went under, she was twenty one years old and on her first real mission. NCIS was so eager to catch that bastard I didn't even try to warn her of the danger. She went in there blind. Koram killed Ureal right in front of her, just because he had more of a claim to Madeline than Jamal himself did. He owned her, Jethro, and we left her there for three months without a damn thing to do about it."

"She knew what she was getting into this time, Director. I'd imagine Ziva wants to catch this guy more than any of us. Revenge is a powerful motivator. And Agent Dinozzo is with her, watching her back." Gibbs lifted his hands for a moment, instinct driving him to wrap them around Jenny's shoulders and alleviate her worries. But this wasn't Paris, and they weren't partners anymore. In the long run, comforting her wouldn't bring Tony and Ziva back any faster.

"Do you think Tony is going to be able to sit back and watch Ziva go through the same terror again? I know the costs, Jethro, but I also know what pursuing Jamal did to her as a person. As an officer. Can you honestly tell me that Tony is going to sit back and watch it happen? For the good of the mission?"

"No." Gibbs answered truthfully. DiNozzo was a damn good agent, but Ziva was his partner. And Tony wasn't going to leave his partner behind. He'd try and find a way out of it, and most likely die in the process. Like Ureal. Like the man from the video clip. But the difference between Tony and those men was that he knew the risks, he knew why Ureal had died, and he knew Ziva better than almost anyone in Washington. They could get through this. Together.

"Before tonight, I wasn't sure Jamal was as invested in Ziva now as he had been back then. But if he killed one of his own men for simply talking about sleeping with her, Jamal is going to see Jean Bonswa as a threat for Madeline's affections. He's killed to get her before, Jethro, and I don't think he will hesitate again."

"If Ziva is in this for the revenge, she won't turn him down. The chance to get him vulnerable will be too tempting." Gibbs hesitantly followed her musings, not much liking the dark road he saw before him. This case was going to get bad fast. If the tides turned and NCIS had to pull them out fast, the chances of Koram not searching for Madeline this time around were slim to none. He'd killed for her before, and Gibbs was sure he'd stop at nothing to possess her entirely. He didn't doubt Ziva could handle him--he just hoped her emotions wouldn't cripple her judgement and her reflexes.

"Ziva won't break cover before she kills Koram once and for all. That I know. I was counting on her anger to get her through this. But now I'm afraid Koram is so obsessed with Madeline she might use that to extract her revenge even after our mission is accomplished. And if she disappears with him…she won't make it back."Jenny laid her hand flat on the glass as she spoke, picturing the countless hours she had spent looking out the window of Ziva's room in Cairo. The younger agent would have been mortified to know it, but the only think that softened her screams was the presence of someone else in the room. Had being a director changed her so much, Jenny wondered, that she could send her friend back to suffer like that again? Had the politics and the power altered her compassion so drastically?

Jenny and Gibbs paused, the silence deafening and heavy upon their painfully alert brains. There was a large possibility that either Tony or Ziva, or possibly both, might not make it out of this mission alive.

As if I could ever forget about everyone left behind in Washington...just a slight filler chapter to describe the stakes a little more clearly and reinstate the rest of the NCIS family.

But now for the serious stuff: I have two, or three, actually, possible venues for this story to take. 1: more time spent on the undercover mission itself, brief rush through the after period. 2: brief rush through of the mission, a more in depth time spent on the after (emotional inflictions...etc...) or 3: a mix of both--only to be chosen if you want to be here for a while lol.

Lemme know what you choose so I know where to take the story next! Thanks!