Disclaimer in the first chapter, but for the record, all I own is my cable bill and my broken TIVO--which seems to film every other minute.
Her Mission, His Mistake
Ziva shut the door quietly behind her and turned the lock as slowly as possible, hoping to keep from waking Tony. Last night, Jamal had requested they join him for a play in the city. They were both so eager to get out of the warehouse they'd accepted immediately—and proceeded to spend eight hours watching a hideous rendition of Aida in an unrecognizable African language. Ziva had hardly watched the play the whole night; the further Jamal slid his hand up her dress, the redder Tony's face got, and the more nauseated she felt. They'd got back to the warehouse around 0200 Zulu, and Tony hadn't spoken to her since.
She cast a quick glance to the bed and relaxed her shoulders a bit. There was a rumpled wad of covers on one side of the bed, leaving the right side, her side, completely stripped. Tony was probably under there somewhere.
They had both decided Jamal was the paranoid type who would install surveillance in his own rooms, so Ziva and Tony had agreed to masquerade behind closed doors as well. This, as far as Ziva was concerned, earned her too much time in an uncomfortably short nightgown and a night tossing and turning in the cold.
"There you are." Tony's head peaked around from the bathroom and Ziva felt herself returning the smile. His hair was rumpled from sleep and he had a half-awake, loopy grin on his face. She hadn't seen him look that relaxed and at ease since before Jeanne. Which was incredibly ironic, considering the situation, but sleep can do wonders on a troubled mind.
"Good morning. I hope I did not wake you."
"No, I've been up for a while. Where did you go?"
"Just to stretch my arms." Ziva rummaged around in her suitcase for a more suitable set of clothes. Since she'd left the room so early in the morning, Ziva hadn't thought anything of walking around in slightly normal clothes. Well, as normal as Spandex shorts and a running bra could ever be at 5 am. It was like Jenny always said—the true gift in undercover work is mastering the little details as well as the major ones, knowing how to act while in the play, and how to act while waiting for the play to begin again.
"Legs. Stretching your legs." Tony corrected her with a smile, watching as she selected a sundress that was too short and too low cut to actually constitute as a dress.
Tony never thought he'd be the one to say this, because on a normal day he'd give anything to be ordered to watch a beautiful woman parade around in microscopic clothing, but he'd be grateful the day Ziva went back to cargo pants and combat boots. Cargo pants didn't make him want to shoot every man whose eyes followed her down the hall. Cargo pants didn't make jealousy bubble unbidden in his stomach as she dressed for someone else.
"Same difference." Ziva scooted past him and into the bathroom, shooting him a teasing smile as she closed the door behind her. "Could you open that new toothpaste bottle for me, Jean? I think it might be time."
"Yeah." Tony shouted back as he pulled the Colgate bottle from his own bag. When they'd planned this under cover op, McGee had equipped them with a handful of technical gadgets, things Tony and Ziva needed to place around the warehouse so NCIS back in Washington could get enough evidence to storm the cell. But, since Jamal was a paranoid bastard, he'd done exactly as Ziva and the Director had assumed—he'd had them both wanded for weapons and the like, and their bags put through an X-ray machine. Normally, if they'd gone in blind, he would have caught every one of their gadgets. But McGee and Abby had prepared them to fool the system.
They'd already placed three bugs into the three hallways with the highest traffic rate, as well as a bug inside Jamal's room. Hidden inside this toothpaste tube was a tiny flash drive. Once Ziva or Tony inserted it into Jamal's computer, it would infiltrate the system with an invisible virus, giving McGee immediate access to all of his records. The problem was figuring out a way to locate the computer and a way to slip the drive in undetected.
"Damnit." Tony sliced of the top of the toothpaste bottle with the hidden knife he always kept in his belt buckle, spewing blue mess everywhere. He'd opened it over a pile of discarded newspapers on the vanity, but the pressure in the tube had been exacerbated by the flight and it had shot forward with the force of a BB gun. Sparkling blue goop splattered over the back wall, over the carpet, over the chaise.
He wrinkled his nose and made a face as he dug around in the mess for the tiny black case. This was sticky, and disgusting, and he could feel the sugar granules with his fingers. How, exactly, was this stuff cleaning his teeth?
A slight hint of jasmine and mango teased his nose, mingling with the sickening sweet scent of the Colgate. Ziva's shampoo. At least somethings never changed. A second later he could feel her hand on his shoulder and her warm breath on his ear.
"Find it?"
"I think that's it right there." A glint of plastic was noticeable in the middle of the mess, and Tony finally retrieved a Saran-wrapped memory stick. A smear of blue marred the surface, but the stick itself seemed perfectly fine.
"Good." The tip of Ziva's nose ticked his cheek as she whispered directly in his ear, and Tony resisted the urge to turn his head one fraction of an inch and… "Jamal comes back from a meeting at 0700 and I think we can plant it then."
"Do you have a plan?" He whispered back, standing up so he could look her in the eyes. He knew she was Mossad, and he knew she was a super ninja spy, but Tony wasn't going to let her carry anything through until she could tell him, with a straight face, that this was the least dangerous way.
Ziva had to take a step forward so she could whisper in his ear, and, for a second, they were in complete contact. Tony could feel every inch of her through the thin material of her sundress, and he was sure, at this point, she could feel every inch of him, too.
"I always have a plan, my little hairy butt." Ziva's breathy whisper didn't help Tony get a grip with the situation. She tilted her head back a little, enough to look him in the eyes and smile teasingly, but neither of them took a step away.
It had been three days since their kiss, three days since they had felt that drumming in their chests and that fire in their stomachs. They had never broached the topic of 'the kiss'—Tony assumed Ziva had been trying to maintain her cover, and Ziva assumed Tony was trying to maintain his. The kiss had been watched by so many, and had fit perfectly into the manuscript of their cover. Neither of them could be sure what it meant to the other, and hubris and fear kept them from asking.
But now, there was no one watching them. Now, this kiss would be because of the thunder in their veins and the desire in their eyes. Ziva felt her heart quicken as he parted his lips, feeling like an idiotic teenager but loving the rush anyhow. Tony tilted his head close towards hers, stopping for a second to gauge her reaction, but the audible gasp was all the go ahead he needed.
He could feel the shadow of her lips on his when someone began to pound on the door. They froze, so close and yet so far away, before Ziva ran and hand down his cheek and left to answer the door. It is just as well, Ziva mused. This is hardly the time to start up anything. If we are not focused, it could easily get us killed.
"You have got to be kidding me." She heard him mutter as she left the room. A slight smile flickered across her face before Ziva answered the door. It was one of Jamal's personal guards—the red sash separated him from the rest—and he thrust an envelope into her hands without a word.
Ziva opened the envelope as soon as Tony joined her on the bed, Jamal's all too familiar handwriting looping across the page.
"It's in French."
"Why yes, Jean Bonswa, I do believe it is." Ziva teased as she scanned the letter, patting his knee in an attempt to chase away the annoyed expression splayed across his face. Her French was better than her English, after all, so it wasn't hard for her to understand.
"I better go." Ziva announced as she stood and headed towards the door. "Jamal just got back from his meeting and he wishes to speak with me." Ziva pressed the flash drive, which had been tightly curled inside her fist, into Tony's hand. She stared at him intently, hoping he understood what she was trying to explain. It would make more sense to whisper the plan to him, but her nerves hadn't calmed down yet, and she didn't think she could then turn around and see Jamal. Disappointment wasn't an emotion Ziva liked much, seeing how it couldn't be employed for much of anything, and she needed a clear head when she went to see Jamal. It would keep both of them alive longer.
Tony nodded his head, gripping the still warm memory stick, and she smiled slightly as she slipped out the door.
Ziva was finding it very difficult to look sexy and at ease while her nerves were over active and she was vexed beyond reason. She'd been inside Jamal's room for five minutes now, and he seemed to have no plan to tell her why he had summoned her in the first place. She was, at this point, flirting herself into a circle.
"Madeline? Aren't you coming?" Ziva, startled, looked around to find Jamal waiting for her in the doorway. They'd been inside the entry way to his quarters for so long she had barely remembered how many rooms he had inside of here. How, exactly was Tony supposed to find the computer? She'd locked the front door behind her when she came in, securing the bolt a moment too soon so the door was slightly ajar, but there were so many internal rooms to choose from.
"I am sorry, Jamal. Do you mind if I get myself a drink?" She smiled slowly, and watched, satisfied, as he nodded without a hint of suspicion.
"The kitchen is down the hall. Help yourself; I have a bottle of the finest Cognac in the left cupboard. I'll wait for you in the living room." She nodded and headed down the hallway. The living room was actually quite perfect. There was a perfect view of the front door from one specific spot, so she could keep an eye on Tony, but the entertainment station was so large most of the door was blocked.
It was three minutes and four doors later, but Ziva had found the computer in the last door on the left side of the hall. She left the light on in the room when she left, hoping it was enough for Tony. She entered the living room with a bottle of Absolut dangling from her fingertips.
"You need to relearn your alcohols, my dear." Jamal was standing in the living room, a cardboard box on the coffee table. Ziva trailed a finger down his arm and held his hand loosely, leading him to the couch directly in front of the front door. She sat first, in the only place with a clear view of where Tony would soon be, and he easily sat next to her, his vision blocked.
"Ah, but why waste a perfect Cognac?" Ziva smiled as she tipped the bottle to her lips. "I plan on getting too drunk to care if it is Cognac or Bud Light." She forced herself to wink after swallowing, passing the burning down her throat off as no more than a tickle. Ziva was an experienced drinker, that much she knew, but few could take such a large chug of vodka without a kickback. And maybe that's what she needed—the all-American coping method, instead of Mossad's way of handling things.
"As much as I enjoy a beautiful, drunk woman," Jamal began as he lightly took the bottle from her hand and placed it on the table. "I need your opinion about something first. Business before pleasure."
"I am all yours." Ziva heard the slight creak in the floorboards as Tony entered the room, her Mossad senses alert in an instant, but she scooted closer to Jamal on the couch and rested her hand on his knee. He didn't seem to notice as Tony entered the room, nor as Tony slipped down the hallway Ziva had just left.
"I trust you, Madeline." Jamal said simply as she sliced the box open with his knife. "Everyone who works for me is here because I pay them, because they know I will kill them if they leave."
"They know too much." Ziva nodded, wishing she didn't understand as much as she did.
"Yes. But you, Madeline, you are the only one, of all my men, who didn't squeal like a child when the Feds slammed us in Cairo. Most of them were caught by the Feds, as they deserve, and the rest I had killed before I reorganized. But I'm well aware of the fickle nature of my men. I need someone I can trust when this cell gets activated, because this is going to be the biggest mission yet."
"I thought that was why Jean and I were here." Ziva answered, her eyes flicking back and forth between Jamal's face and the now open cardboard box. "Monsieur Bonswa is the leading seller of C4 in Western Europe. I am sure we can accommodate even your insatiable appetite, Jamal."
"The bomb is not my mission, Madeline." He seemed oblivious to the shocked expression splayed across Ziva's face. She hurried to cover it, but the confusion was harder to muffle. Jamal Koram had always used bombs. Always. Jenny hadn't passed any intel that he was getting into anything else, but, then again, they'd been unable to make contact for three days. "I need to raise funds, so I am doing a favor for a friend. I have no interest in this bomb, just Kaman's money."
Kaman. Kaman Hacksmani. Ziva tried to balance the giddy grin spreading up her face and the horror bubbling in her stomach. The bad news was that Jamal was planning something much larger and much more deadly than any of them had imagined. The good thing was that Jenny and everyone else in MTAC was able to hear his confession.
"You have peaked my curiosity, Jamal. What is in the box?" There were a million things running through Ziva's mind. Some form of nuclear weaponry. Some form of biological weaponry. Something, something horrible.
He barely had a chance to tilt the box open when Ziva could see Tony's dark form in her peripheral vision. Apparently, this time, Jamal heard something. He stopped, his hand stilled on the box, and tilted his head. Ziva could see Tony freeze, not sure if it was better to sprint for the door or wait and see if there was anything to worry about.
Except from this angle, Ziva knew there was. Tony was out in the middle of the floor, four feet from the door, too far to dash unnoticed. And Jamal knew he was there. Jamal who was paranoid about his secrecy, Jamal who she'd watched put a bullet in Ureal's skull.
If she didn't think fast, he'd put one in Tony's, too.
...Dun Dun Dun...
So I am a huge fan of reviewer interaction, because this way I the writer know what you the reader actually want to read--I am not yet presumptous enough to assume everyone agrees with my ideas ) Yet.
So, can everyone in favor of Tony and Ziva smut raise their hands? I am not thinking XXX or anything, but what I say and what they do depends on what YOU say.