AN: I said it was very bad manners to not update in a week, and it's been twelve days, so my manners are even worse now. I'm sorry if that's been so long you've forgotten what the story was about – or who the hell I am...

I Thought You Were a Lady

Chapter 7

Sunrise was way too early for Molly the Mole to be up and about, but as she burrowed molishly deeper into her duvet, and her mind wandered around amongst her favourite topics, it was inevitable that the subject of Tony DiNozzo's girl would come up. She still wondered where 'Liz' came into it; maybe an aunt? Dora's mother was Joan... She wove a wonderful tale of Tony being kind to the homely Dora, and calling her his girl as a friendly joke... but Dora getting pregnant by some rotter because Gibbs wasn't looking after her... she'd get to the bottom of it.

She dozed blissfully; the truth of the matter was that Dora Wyndham preferred to describe herself as 'single' rather than 'divorced from a jellyfish', and the photograph had been taken during her protracted, difficult and brave recovery from a stroke. It was something Molly Parker would never take the trouble to know, (and fortunately for her, Dora would never even hear of her;) she simply enjoyed another hour and a half lie in.

NCISNCISNCIS

"Could be he hasn't seen us up here," Amos said hopefully. "Maybe the chopper spooked him."

Fat chance, Tim thought bitterly. My equine fandango just now would have attracted anyone's attention.

"He's not looked up here since you spotted him, McHawkeye, " Tony said reassuringly, knowing what the younger agent was thinking. "He'll hear the horses soon enough, though." He came to a quick decision. "Tim, you and Simon go the long way round, quietly... find a shallow way down the hill so you won't make much noise. Try to come up behind him – my guess is he's making for that cover." He pointed to a patch of scrub and low trees, on the side of a slight hillock. Beyond that, they knew, was the road, and Ray Cardoza wouldn't want to be seen on that at all.

"There's brush like that all the way to the diner," Tony went on. "We don't want him to get in there, it'll be harder to find him. We really want to get him first and warn him, way before he gets there. We've got the mounts that can go down the slope fast," he indicated Doris and Elmer, "we'll make lots of noise and hopefully drive him back towards you. We'll give you a head start."

Tim nodded, and set off with Simon, and Tony's phone chose that moment to buzz.

"Have you seen him? The observers on the hill have him below your position."

"Yeah, Boss, we're on him. It's definitely Cardoza – even from up here we can tell he's a man who's been living rough. Gotta go, we're – "

"DiNozzo!"

"Boss?"

"LEOs report two cars in convoy not ten miles away. One's a Maybach with tinted windows – registered to a Burns company."

"Ah. The big cheese himself has come out of the fridge, then. The other vehicle will be muscle – with guns, yeah?"

"Believe it. We've left three guys inside the diner to protect Liz and everyone, and set up two perimiters. Once they're through the outer one, mile or so away, the locals'll close the road. Ziva 'n Bale 'n me, and some others, we're around the parking lot, although they won't see it. Got people between them and the gas station – although it's not open yet and the pumps are all turned off, don't want a firefight there...Kinda hoping to take 'em down without a shot fired... got the feeling it won't be that easy."

"Look out for yourselves, Boss."

"You too. Get Cardoza." Tony heard the unspoken 'and look out for him too ' as he disconnected, and sighed. Gibbs was thinking of Angelica, as he was – the man was a poor weak excuse for a father, but he was all the kid had. He looked across at Amos and nodded, and the two turned their mounts towards the steep slope. Amos let Tony go off first, knowing that his mule was happier with someone to follow, and both animals sat back on their haunches and picked their way down the steep slope, their riders leaving it up to them.

It went like clockwork; with Amos staying on the path and Tony weaving Doris in and out of the scrub; the dishevelled Cardoza was flushed from hiding like a partridge. He ran back down the trail, with Tony keeping to a gentle trot behind him, and yelling sarcastic advice.

"Yep, Ray, that's the way to do it... tuck your elbows in, come on, lengthen your stride, breathe through your mouth... or you could just stop and listen... don't forget to look where you're going – oh dear, that's a big thing to run into – 's called a horse..." He reined Doris in alongside where Ray Cardoza sat gasping on the ground, having rebounded off Coco's shoulder. "Now will you listen? We're NCIS, and we're actually here to protect you."

"Protect me?" Cardoza hauled himself wearily to his feet. He'd been a handsome man; you could see where Angelica got her latin good looks from, but years of dissolution and living on the tatty fringes of society had aged and ruined him.

"We know who you're running from, and we know why," Tony told him plainly. "You'd do best to give me that stick... it's of no use to you now."

"If I do that, you'll shoot me!"

Behind him, Tim sighed. "We could do that anyway, and take the USB off your corpse. Who d'you prefer, feds or Jack Burns?"

Cardoza shrugged, and unzipped a pocket in his jacket. He reached in and pulled out a small envelope, which he began to hand to Tony.

"No, give it to Agent McGee. He's the tech guy." As Ray did so, Tony went on, "Look there. You dropped something. It fell out at the same time."

"Oh... yeah. Thanks..."

Tim said in surprise, "It's the amethyst!"

"How'd you know about that?"

"Your daughter's a bit mad... says you stole it," Tony said without accusation. He'd always wondered if that were the truth of it.

"You've seen Angelica? No, it wasn't like that! Angie helped me... She dropped it. We were in this coffee shop... she went to the rest room... I saw it on the ground just as some guys came looking for me. I picked it up and ran... been carrying it ever since." He wrapped it carefully back in the scrap of tissue it had fallen out of, and gave them a puzzled look. "Didn't think it was that important... but I wanted to give it back to her some day."

Tony swung down from his saddle, producing his cuffs. "Could be sooner than you think, Ray; the bad guys brought her into this – long story – to use against you, but she's with us now, at the diner." He went to fasten Cardoza's hands behind him, but took a close look at him and secured them in front instead. He reached for the canteen from his saddle, took the lid off and gave it to the fugitive. While he drank, Tony went to his saddlebag and brought out two power bars, and handed them to Cardoza once he'd taken his water bottle back. The man mumbled in surprised thanks.

"That'll hold you for now, you're under arrest for desertion from the US Navy, and who knows what else." He turned to the two ad hoc team members and took a deep breath. "Si, Amos... this is where you take the horses and get the hell out of Dodge again."

"Dammit, Tony -"

"Nothing's changed, Simon. We could be outnumbered. I could do with your help. But I'm not taking it. You know why. Thanks for everything, and get gone."

As Tony spoke, Tim slid down from Jim's back, and handed his reins up to Amos. Tony gave Doris's reins to Simon, because he knew that if he left her loose she'd follow him, not his friends. Si gave him a resigned look, and wheeled his mare without a word.

The two agents set off on foot, with Cardoza between them, and Tony dug out his cell phone. "We've got him, Boss, we're walking in; anything happening? And how d'you want to play this?"

"Come in cautiously, like you didn't know that – they're not here yet, pretty sure they know we are, but we've got them outnumbered. They'll be planning something, just have to think ahead of them." Gibbs disconnected.

Ray Cardoza looked warily at his captors. "What's going on?"

"Well, Ray, let's begin by explaining that it's a good job we found you, because if you'd gone blundering in there without us, it would have been the last thing you ever did..."

Nothing much of what Tony had to tell him as they walked the half mile to the diner surprised Cardoza; he looked about as resigned as Simon had done, until they explained how his daughter had got there, but then he was both shocked and enraged.

"Why didn't you take her away? You'll get her killed – you know what Burns'll do -"

"Ray, she's in this because of you, no-one else. She wanted to be here for your sake, and we'll keep her – and you – safe. As long as you just do as you're told, right?" Cardoza fell into a mutinous silence, which continued until they caught sight of the diner through the trees.

Tony and Tim drew their guns, and moved forward keeping to cover, with a short order to Cardoza to do the same. "The alternative is I cuff you to a tree. Your choice."

"I'll co-operate."

They edged closer; the agents and police around the building were well concealed from the Maybach that screeched into the car park followed by another vehicle with dark windows. The watchers waited until the second car had disgorged all its passengers, who began to walk towards the diner, when Gibbs' voice rang out.

"Federal Agents, armed police! You're surrounded and out-numbered– drop your weapons and get down on the ground!"

The men seemed to make a big show of hesitating, and then began to obey very slowly, and some of the police officers began to emerge from hiding, guns aimed, when two huge Toyota eight seaters hurtled up from the opposite direction to the other two cars, and their occupants jumped out, shooting, before they'd even come to a halt.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Nick Bale hissed, as he threw himself down behind one of the low boundary walls, and his men dived for cover. "Why didn't the observers warn us?"

"Later!" Gibbs hissed back as the air was shattered by the gunfire. The occupants of the cars took cover between them and the opposite wall, while the Maybach remained still and apparently silent, until, at some unseen signal, the gunmen ceased fire. In the stunning silence, a smooth voice emerged from it.

"Now, Agent Gibbs, I believe you're outnumbered. It seems we have a stand-off. I want my information, and the thief who took it."

"Seem to remember you gave it to him," Gibbs said coldly, not a bit surprised that Burns knew his name. "You can't have it, or him." His agents and their prisoner materialised silently at his elbow; Tony and Tim pushed Ray Cardoza down behind the wall and told him to stay down.

"It'd be a shame if innocent people were to be hurt," the smooth voice said, and this time the hail of bullets, aimed high for the time being, was directed at the diner, and only ended when the plate glass front disintegrated into a cascade of diamonds that glinted in the morning sun as they crashed down. The law officers prayed that the civilians and their colleagues inside had all taken up their agreed cover positions long before and stayed there. Again the unnerving silence followed, until a scared and angry voice from inside screamed "Mom! Mom, make them stop!"

The microphone inside the car that had transmitted Jack Burns' voice to the outside world caught Marguerite Bresson's shock. "Angelica! Jack, what's my daughter doing here?"

Nobody thought to turn the mike off. "I don't know! I thought she was in some police station somewhere!"

"But how did she get here? She's supposed to be in DC! Jack, did you do this?"

Angelica yelled, "He wanted to use me to get to Dad!"

"What?"

Marguerite was possibly the only person in the entire underworld who wasn't scared of Burns, and the microphone picked up a furious altercation, of which only a few words were clear, until the criminal big boss was heard saying plaintively, "Maggie, can we talk about this later? There are more urgent things to deal with here."

Gibbs clearly wasn't the only one who thought things weren't going according to plan. "Seems you have a bit of a problem here, Mr. Burns."

Tony thought of the Simpsons, not for the first time, suppressed a grin and concentrated resolutely.

"Not much of one," Burns was back to being urbane. "All right, forget Cardoza. My arm's long... he can spend a while looking over his shoulder until I finally get him. I just want that memory stick. I'll take it and go, and nobody gets hurt."

"And then we just let you drive away?"

Tim and Tony exchanged looks. "Boss," Tony whispered, "He could – "

"- be talking from New York," Tim finished.

"I got it," the Boss whispered back, then raised his voice again. "You just threatened a man's life in front of witnesses, and shot up an innocent woman's property, with your assistant's daughter inside. Don't care how teflon you are, Mr. Burns, those charges'll do for a start."

"Well, then, we could have a fight on our hands. I'll send one of my men over to you, you give him the stick, and we leave. Or you all die, and we take it off Cardoza's body." On the ground behind the wall Ray winced and groaned – it was the second time in half an hour that he'd heard something like that. This guy meant it though.

"Oh, no. You want the stick, you come and get it yourself."

There was silence for a moment. "I'm not stupid, Agent Gibbs."

"That's Special Agent Gibbs. Neither am I. If you're in the car, show me."

The window slid down, and Jack Burns head and shoulders could be seen – a bulky man in a vicuna overcoat, wearing a pleasant smile. They could see Marguerite sitting beyond him, a handsome, middle-aged Mediterranean woman with a perfectly cut cap of black hair. "As you see, I'm not in New York. Now, Special Agent Gibbs... I'm a pragmatist... I knew as soon as that stick was loose somewhere in the hands of an idiot like Cardoza that I was going to have to move to the Caymans. A change of scenery would be nice. But that information, in the hands of someone like your Agent – I'm sorry, Special Agent McGee, would be enough to damage my business diversification in the USA, and I can't have that. I'm prepared to cut my losses and leave without anyone getting hurt, but I need that stick."

Gibbs and Nick Bale stood up from behind the wall, and a lot of guns pointed their way. The wall and their vests gave them some protection, but it was still a crazy thing to do as far as Tony was concerned. So he stood too, because if the Boss was going to be crazy, he wasn't going to do it alone. Without his team, that was. Tim rose silently to flank him on the other side, and they stood with guns raised. "Vests?" Gibbs hissed.

"We'll duck," Tony hissed back.

Gibbs raised eyes to heaven. "Ya'd better be ready to." He turned his attention back to Burns. "Leave..." he said, "You mean in that helicopter that's waiting over the ridge at Appelt? It's never comin'."

Burns swore explosively. He leaned over to say something to his driver, but there was the sudden repeated bark of a high-powered rifle, and the stinger-proof tyres of the Maybach were shredded. Ziva got up, smiling, behind the shrub she'd been lying under, and rested the rifle on the top of it.

"You're not going anywhere," Gibbs said flatly, "with or without the stick." He raised his voice. "You guys! Ya hear anything?"

The gunmen listened, then, like a crowd at a tennis match, they all looked in the same direction. Two helicopters were approaching, flying low.

"One's State Troopers, the other's Marines. Ya want to take them on in a fight, go ahead."

Some of Burns' hired help raised their hands immediately; some hesitated. Burns himself still didn't know when he was beaten. He jumped out of the Maybach and headed towards the nearest Toyota. Marguerite followed, tugging on his arm. "Jack, forget it! We can figure this out – your lawyers will fix it -" His attempts to shake her off failing, he turned and punched his PA of nine years in the face. She staggered back and sprawled on the ground holding her cheek – and her daughter ran out of the diner screaming "Mom!"

The MCRT gritted their collective teeth – this was one thing they hadn't counted on, the officers inside Gunnerson's were supposed to be keeping her in the back room. Burns grabbed her arm before she could kneel beside her mother, and swung her in front of him. Tony started forward, only to be brought to a halt by seeing the Ruger the crime boss pulled from the pocket of his expensive vicuna dug into the girl's side. He stopped, holding his gun out by the trigger guard, away from his body.

Ray Cardoza didn't stop. He launched himself across the parking lot, unleashing a stream of invective that made Tony realise where Angelica had learned her bad language from. "Get the hell away from my daughter, you bastard!" His hands went round Jack Burns' throat, and the man released his hold on Angelica. But as she stumbled away, and Tony grabbed her to drag her to safety again, there was the sound of a shot, and the teenager screamed. Her father toppled to the ground, almost in slow motion, and Burns stood over him, staring almost in surprise at the gun in his hand. He looked at the ring of guns, and his own men laying down their weapons, and made his decision. He brought the Ruger up to aim at Gibbs, and Nick shot him in the head.

Angelica was kneeling beside her father's body, screaming, tugging his arm and crying "Dad, Dad..."

Tony knelt beside her, and after a while, put his hand on her arm. She whirled towards him, her eyes blazing, and he waited for the barrage of swearing to begin. His eyes pleaded back. Don't go back to being that Angelica... She swung back and forth between badass and lost kid for what felt like eternity to him, then flung herself into his arms and sobbed broken-heartedly.

TBC