Shorter chapter, but you'll see why.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Saturday, 19 December 2015

Charles Fields played the part of the gentle giant well. He looked ridiculous sitting on the tiny chair in the NCIS conference room, Ziva thought as she watched the feed on the plasma in the bullpen. He may as well have been sitting on a child-sized chair, given how much of him was spilling over the sides of the seat and towering above the back. But Charlie, as he liked to be known, sat with his knees clamped together and his hands clasped in his lap, and he sank his head down into his shoulders as he waited for Gibbs to start questioning him. Ziva wondered if he was naturally shy, or if it was a deliberate attempt to make himself appear less imposing—and like less trouble—in front of law enforcement.

McGee had told her that when he and Gibbs had arrived at Charlie's door, their suspect had been polite and gave no resistance to their request that he come in for questioning. He had asked what NCIS wanted to talk to him about, but hadn't asked for further details after Gibbs told him it had to do with the death of one of their probationary agents. To Ziva, those reactions made it sound like Charlie was involved. But time—and Gibbs' questioning techniques—would soon tell.

And she wasn't giving up on Eddie Hertzog's involvement just yet. She was waiting by the phone for a call back from the warden at Greenvale Federal Penitentiary for information about whether Charlie and Eddie ran in the same circles. She was willing to put money on a positive reply.

On the plasma screen, Ziva watched Gibbs enter the room. Charlie sat up a little bit without pulling himself to full height. Just enough to show respect. Gibbs nodded at the agent who had been standing guard, and the probie agent left the room as Gibbs took a seat across from Charlie.

"Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, Mr Fields," Gibbs said, and flipped open a file folder in front of him.

"No problem," Charlie said, trying to soften his booming voice. "But I'm not sure I can help you."

Gibbs gave him a pleasant smile. "We'll see. I just want to repeat that you are not under arrest at this time."

Charlie cracked a nervous smile. "That's good."

"But we have evidence that suggests you might be able to help us in our investigation into the death of a probationary agent."

Ziva watched Charlie's reaction closely for signs of deception, or intent to deceive. He lifted his hands, palms up, and spread them as he shrugged.

"I don't think I can, sir."

"Well, let's try," Gibbs said.

"Is that him?"

Ziva jumped and turned at the sound of Tony's voice behind her. She hadn't registered the ding of the elevator that had brought him up to his old floor, or sensed someone moving towards her back. She nodded as he came up beside her.

"Charlie Fields," she said. "Apparently he made the phone call to Bonnie's cell phone before she died."

Tony touched her back briefly. "Does he know Bonnie?"

"We are about to find out."

Tony nodded and looked around the empty bullpen. "Where's your team?"

"We got a warrant to search Fields' house," she told him. "McGee and Quinn are going through it."

"Looking for paring knife?"

Ziva tilted her head to the side. "That would be helpful."

"Do you know a woman by the name of Bonnie Stewart?" Gibbs asked Charlie.

"No, sir," Charlie said, still being very careful with his tone.

Gibbs slid a glossy photo of Bonnie across the table to him. "Never met her?" Gibbs pressed, and tapped the photo. "Never talked to her?"

Charlie only glanced at the photo. "No, sir."

Gibbs left the photo in front of him. "How long have you been out of prison, Mr Fields?"

"Three weeks."

"You were in for assault and battery."

Charlie gave a single nod. "Yes, sir. But I'm trying to find my way now. I don't want any trouble. I just want to get a job and live my life."

"It's a noble goal," Gibbs told him. "Bonnie Stewart had the same goal. She'd just graduated from the federal agent training facility and was going to start here as a probationary agent in the new year."

Charlie didn't have anything to say to that. But his eyes darted around the room. Behind her, Ziva heard Tony grunt, and she nodded. Signs of guilt were beginning to creep in.

"You sure you never met her?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes, sir."

Gibbs took out another photo from his folder and slid it across the table to Charlie. It was a video still from the camera above the payphone where Charlie had placed the call the Bonnie's cell phone. "That photo was taken in Tacoma Park soon before Bonnie died."

Charlie glanced at the photo and quickly away again.

"We've got some real smart forensics people working here, Charlie," Gibbs said. "And those people determined that the man in this photo made a call to Bonnie Stewart's cell phone." He paused for Charlie to react, but the ex-con didn't say anything. "Those same smart forensic people managed to track this man several blocks using traffic cameras until they got a good shot of his face. You want to see it?"

Charlie started shaking his head, but Gibbs wasn't going to pay much attention to his polite declination. He slid another photo over to him that showed a close up of Charlie's face.

"Look familiar?" Gibbs asked.

"No, sir," Tony muttered behind Ziva's shoulder, dropping his voice as low as it would go in imitation.

"No, sir," Charlie said, as softly as could be.

Gibbs cracked a smile. "No? Come on, Charlie. You want to be an upstanding citizen? Start now."

Charlie's lips fused together.

Gibbs sighed dramatically. "All right. I guess you've been inside for a while. It can be hard to recognize yourself when you get out. That's you, Charlie."

"No, sir."

"That's you making a call to Bonnie Stewart right before she died."

"No—"

"It doesn't mean you're in trouble," Gibbs said, playing nice. "It doesn't mean you killed her. We're not suggesting you did. But we are awful interested in why you gave her a call."

Charlie clasped his hands together atop the table and dropped his head. "Sir, it was a wrong number."

Ziva groaned at the same moment Tony did.

"So it is you making that call?" Gibbs confirmed. "Okay, now we're getting somewhere. A wrong number, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why didn't you make another call? After you dialed the wrong number, I mean. When you got Bonnie instead of who you were trying to call, why didn't you make another call to the right number?"

Charlie licked his lips. "I didn't have any more quarters."

Gibbs bobbed his head agreeably. "Okay. So, who were you trying to call?"

"My, uh, my girlfriend."

"Lori?"

Charlie looked fleetingly worried that Gibbs knew his girlfriend's name, but nodded. "Yeah."

"Ball and chain, huh?" Gibbs cracked.

Tony chuckled, and Ziva sent him a glare that shut him up right before her desk phone rang.

"That's not how I think of you at all," Tony told her as she shoved past him with a little more force than necessary.

Ziva ignored him and picked up her phone. "David."

"Agent David, this is Warden Mike Sanders and Greenvale Penitentiary returning you call."

Ziva dropped into her seat and grabbed a pen as her adrenaline kicked in. "Yes, Warden. Thank you for calling."

"I got a message you were asking about a former inmate named Charles Fields and a current one named Eddie Hertzog."

"Yes," Ziva said. "Specifically, I am trying to ascertain whether the two men were in the same circles or gang."

"Well, they were cell mates," Warden Sanders drawled, with a smirk in his voice. "Does that count?"

Ziva's eyes widened and she looked up at Tony so fast that one of the bones in her neck cracked. "They were?"

"Last twelve months."

"And by all accounts, did they get along?"

"Oh, they were thick as thieves," the warden said. "You can take that to the bank."

"What?" Tony mouthed to her, and she broke into a smile.

"Is that all, Agent David?"

"That will do it, Warden. Thank you very much for your time. You may be seeing us out there very soon to talk to Hertzog."

"Can't wait," Sanders deadpanned, and then hung up.

Ziva slammed the receiver down and jumped to her feet. She joined Tony back at the plasma screen as she pulled out her cell phone.

"What's the word, my darling?" Tony cooed.

"Fields and Hertzog were cell mates," she told him, and quickly composed a text message to Gibbs along the same lines. "And close friends." She hit send and looked up at Tony to share a moment of triumph.

Tony looked at her with a small smile of pride. "Well. There you go. Nice work, probie."

She scrunched her nose at him. "Do not call me that."

He grinned and leant down to give her temple a quick kiss, and then they both watched the plasma as Gibbs took out his phone and read the message Ziva had sent. His eyes drifted in the direction of the conference room camera, and Ziva saw a flicker of a smile before he turned his attention back to Charlie.

"You know a guy named Eddie Hertzog?" Gibbs asked.

Charlie sat back in his seat and lifted his head a little bit. He cleared his throat. "Yes. We did time together at Greenvale."

"I hear you two were pretty tight."

Charlie thought about it and then shook his head. "Not so much. We bunked together. Don't make us brothers."

"Eddie had a history with Bonnie Stewart," Gibbs said conversationally. "Did you know that?"

"No."

"Yeah, he stalked her for a while," Gibbs went on. "Made videos of her in her apartment. Followed her around. Contacted her friends and family and told them lies about her. Really did a number on her." He paused, and Ziva braced herself by standing up straighter. She felt Tony lean into her. "He almost killed a woman who was trying to help her get the police to pay attention, too."

Charlie's right leg started to jiggle. "He said something about that," he admitted. "But I never knew anyone's name."

"No? He never told you to find out where Bonnie was, give her a call and give her a fright?"

"No."

"He didn't ask you to pay her a visit when you got out?"

Charlie hesitated. "Sir, am I under arrest?"

"Uh-oh," Tony muttered, right as Ziva's heart fell. They had been getting there, but it seemed that Charlie had been through the system enough times to know that he was on the verge of incriminating himself, and that it was time to shut up and lawyer up.

Gibbs heaved a deep breath and made a decision. He stood up and nodded. "Yes. I'm placing you under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. An agent will take you down to our formal interview room."

Charlie nodded as if it was a foregone conclusion. "Sir, I want a lawyer."

"You'll get one." Gibbs walked over to open the conference room door and then beckoned the agent stationed outside with his finger. A probationary agent came in. "Take Mr Fields down to interview."

As the agent took out his handcuffs and placed them on Charlie, Ziva looked up at Tony.

"Well, it was not a confession," she said. "But for now, it will do."

Tony nodded. "You're not really going to see Eddie, are you?" he asked. "I mean, Gibbs and McGee can do that. Hell, I'll do that. I'd love to do that. Can I do that?"

She shook her head firmly. "No. I will do it. It might rattle him."

"Or it might give him some disgusting little thrill," Tony countered. "And rattle you instead."

"Tony, I am perfectly—"

"I'm just thinking of last night."

Ziva swallowed as the fear she'd felt during her panic attack crept out of the recesses of her mind and gave her a poke. But that was why she wanted to be the one to talk to Eddie. To get some control back. "I will be fine, Tony."

He looked down at her with worry that made her simultaneously love him more and find frustration with how protective he could sometimes be. "I just don't want to feed you to him, Ziva," he said, lowering his voice against any eavesdroppers. "If you're right, and it looks like you could be, he succeeded in getting back at Bonnie. What if he's using this as a way to get back at you?"

Ziva swallowed against the phantom hands she suddenly felt around her throat. "He is in prison, Tony," she said softly. "He cannot hurt me."

"Not physically," Tony said. "Not like before. But he can still get at you."

She took a deep breath and lifted her chin defiantly. "Then I will just have to be more prepared to face him this time than I was before."

Thursday, 4 July 2013

No one answered when Ziva knocked on Tony's apartment door, so she fished out the set of keys he'd given her a few weeks ago and let herself in. There was a stillness and silence to the apartment that she wasn't expecting to find, and she dropped her bag on the floor by the door as quietly as she could.

"Hello?" she called out.

She was expecting Bonnie or Kavita to reply, but all she heard was the hum of the refrigerator. She stepped down into the living room and surveyed the scene quickly. Tony's Afghan blanket had been folded on top of a pillow and left neatly on the couch. There were no drink glasses left on the coffee table, and the remotes for the TV and Blu-ray had been stored together on the side table beside Tony's couch. Frowning, Ziva crossed to Tony's bedroom.

"Bonnie?" she called as she walked in. But no one was there. The single bed was made, and nothing else looked out of place. She peeked in Tony's closet out of curiosity (she couldn't believe how many of his clothes were at her place) and found it almost bare, save for a few suits. "Wow," she whispered to herself, and then kept moving.

His kitchen was as clean and devoid of life as the other rooms had been, and Ziva put her good hand on her hip and frowned. What the hell was going on? Where were Bonnie and Kavita? She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and re-read the text message McGee had sent her this morning. Picks up Bonnie and Kevin, the message read (she assumed 'Kevin' was autocorrect for 'Kavita'). Well, here she was to 'picks' them up (autocorrect hadn't fixed that) and take them back to her house to prepare for going to the police this afternoon, but the friends were nowhere to be seen.

Ziva swore under her breath in Hebrew. She sincerely doubted they would have left on their own, so what if Eddie had found them here? He had been able to find Ziva's new address. What was to say that he hadn't found Tony's and McGee's addresses as well and gone in search of Bonnie? She swore again and started to dial Tony.

"Hey, kitten."

Ziva spun and reached for her gun on reflex. But her arm was caught in her sling, and her gun wasn't on her hip anyway. She'd left home without it today. And judging by the smirk on Eddie Hertzog's face, he was aware that she was unarmed. Well, except for the knife she had concealed at her back. But Eddie didn't know that.

Eddie stood in the doorway between Tony's kitchen and living room, cutting off Ziva's escape route. His face was flushed and sweat beaded on his brow, and he wore a wrinkled blue shirt over ripped jeans. He looked frazzled, to say the least, and even as her adrenaline rose, Ziva couldn't help thinking how out of place he looked in Tony's neat and thoughtfully decorated apartment.

"Where is Bonnie?" she asked him, using what Tony called her 'scary-ass Mossad voice'.

Eddie's hands curled into fists by his thighs, and then relaxed again. "I was going to ask you the same thing," he said.

Ziva slipped her phone back into her pocket and faced Eddie head on. She didn't like his demeanor right now. He seemed far too agitated. If he was going to make a move on her, Ziva would have to be prepared for it—fractured shoulder or not.

"Did you follow me here?" she asked him.

Eddie gave her a cold smile. "I like your car." He took a step towards her, and Ziva held her hand out to stop him.

"Stay where you are," she warned him.

Eddie ignored her. "You screwed up, kitten," he told her. "You wanted to take my girlfriend away from me and hide her away? But you led me right to her."

"She is not your girlfriend," Ziva spat. "And your sense of entitlement is disgusting."

Eddie clutched his chest. "Oh, I'm disgusting? No, I'm the perfect boyfriend," he argued. "I pay attention to these women like no one else ever has. I keep them safe, I buy them presents, I open doors for them and take care of their problems."

Ziva crinkled her nose. "It is unfortunate that you were not born 100 years ago."

Eddie took another step towards her and stabbed a finger through the air at her. "You need to get out of the way of this before I put you out of the way permanently."

"Are you threatening me?"

Eddie's lip curled, but he didn't reply. "Where's Bonnie?" he asked. "Don't make me ask again."

Ziva narrowed her eyes. That was a good question. If she didn't have Bonnie, and if Eddie didn't have her (and Ziva believed he didn't), then where was she? "I do not know," she told him honestly. "Perhaps she saw you coming and ran for the mountains."

Eddie let out a humorless laugh, and then advanced on her for real. "Bitch," he muttered under his breath, and reached out to grab her arm. But Ziva saw it coming. She quickly sidestepped, reached over Eddie's shoulder to grip the back of his shirt, and pulled him down with all the strength she had as she brought her knee up and into his stomach. Eddie let out a satisfying 'oof!' before flinging his arm out wildly to try to grab Ziva's neck. She spun herself out of his reach, grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm behind his back and then kicked his feet out from under him. Once Eddie was face down on the ground, she planted her boot onto his wrist in the small of his back and reached for cell phone again to call 911.

"Stay down," she ordered him, and then allowed herself a smirk of satisfaction. Not bad, considering she was only using one arm. But her moment of pride was premature. Eddie still had one arm free as well, and he used it to push himself up off the ground. He spun around quickly, and Ziva's eyes widened at the transformation in his expression. The smug smirk was gone, replaced with a look of rage and hatred that Ziva had only seen on the faces of the most evil of men.

"Don't you ever tell me what to do," Eddie warned her, and then, before Ziva's reflexes kicked in, he grabbed the phone out of her hand and hurled it against the wall. It shattered to pieces and left a small dent in its wake.

Ziva's adrenaline spiked as she realized this was about to turn into a real fight. The idea of beating the stuffing out of someone as odious as Eddie Hertzog was appealing, but she knew she had to be careful. The last man she had fought, she had killed. She didn't want that to happen here. And there was a good chance it wouldn't, given that she only had one working arm. Of course she would lose the sling and fight through the pain, but she would prefer to have Eddie incapacitated before she destroyed her shoulder completely.

She stood her ground and lifted her chin as Eddie loomed over her. "Calm down," Ziva told him firmly. "Do not—"

But Eddie wasn't listening. "Where's Bonnie?" he yelled, and took two threatening steps towards her. With another step he would be on top of her, and Ziva reacted on instinct and took the step from him. She used her momentum to plant her foot into the centre of his chest, and Eddie stumbled back with a cry and crashed into one of Tony's dining chairs. It bought her a breath of time to dash into the kitchen and make a grab for Tony's landline phone, but she'd only dialed a '9' before Eddie grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her backwards. She growled at the pain and stood all over Eddie's feet as she stumbled back, and she felt a sharp stab in her right shoulder as she tried to throw her immobilized arm backwards to grab at Eddie. Before she'd found her footing, Eddie gripped her elbow like a vice, tightened his fist in her hair and threw her face-first into the fridge. Throbbing pain radiated out from the centre of Ziva's forehead as her face collided with the fridge door and pressure built in her ears, and then she fell hard onto the ground. She tried to brace the fall with her left arm, but it collapsed beneath her and she hit her chin on the tiles. She tasted blood in her mouth.

On the floor, Ziva shook her head as if it would help her regain her bearings. It hurt her head but it had some positive outcome too when she realized she was within arm's reach of the cupboard under the sink. She didn't know about Tony, but she kept things like bleach and Lysol under her kitchen sink. If she was lucky, there might be some kind of solvent in the cupboard that she could throw in Eddie and incapacitate him. Because she was beginning to feel like she didn't have the upper hand in this fight anymore.

She threw her left arm out and managed to get the cupboard open before Eddie grabbed her again. He took her elbow in that same vice-like grip, dug his other hand under her stomach, and then heaved and threw her down the other end of the kitchen as if she was a doll. His strength was utterly unexpected, and it panicked Ziva more than she would have liked. She had taken out men stronger than Eddie before, she reminded herself. She could do it again. She just had to lose the sling, grab her knife and fight through it. She knew how to do that. Fighting through it was the story of her life.

She quickly pushed herself to a sitting position and ripped open the Velcro tab that kept the sling against her body. With that done, she tried to shake the sling off her right arm as she reached behind her with her left hand and attempted to grab the knife tucked into the waistband of her jeans. Her fingers brushed against the handle but she couldn't grip it properly, and her right arm was still tangled in the sling when Eddie came at her again. Sweat now ran down his face and his cheeks were bright red, but Ziva's attention was on the large glass vase he held in his right hand. Ziva momentarily gave up on her knife and leaned back on her elbow as she kicked out with her legs and knocked Eddie to the ground again. He landed hard, but he kept his grip on the vase and recovered fast enough to twist himself forward, get to one knee and bring the vase back behind his head in a wide arc.

"NO!" Ziva yelled, and managed to turn her head just far enough so that when Eddie brought the vase down and smashed it against her head, he missed her face. Or maybe he didn't. Ziva couldn't be sure, because if the whack to the head she'd gotten from the fridge hadn't disoriented her, the vase certainly did. Burning agony exploded through her skull and face, and Ziva suddenly felt incredibly dizzy. Her stomach rolled with nausea, and for a few moments she couldn't catch her breath. It just hurt too much. She opened her eyes but couldn't make out anything more than blurred shapes around her. And it was then that Ziva really began to panic. Eddie was stronger and faster, and was being fuelled by fury. She had a concussion, a broken shoulder and couldn't see straight. She knew she would fight until her last breath, but if Eddie was so inclined, her last breath wouldn't be too long from now.

"Stop," she breathed out, and reached out with her good arm to grab onto Eddie. It didn't matter what part of him she landed on. She would drive her nails into him as hard as she could and maybe buy a little more time.

Eddie slapped her hand away, and it was then that Ziva realized that he was sitting on top of her, straddling her hips and holding her down. "Be quiet!" he hissed at her. "Be still!"

Ziva's panic went up a notch. "Get off me!" she rasped. She tried to buck him off her, but Eddie just seemed to grow larger over her, and his weight got heavier. His bright red face, twisted with anger, loomed in her blurred vision before his hands wrapped around her throat.

"Be quiet!" he ordered her again, and then started to squeeze her neck. "I don't want to hurt you anymore. Just be quiet!" He shook her by the throat.

Ziva heard him, but couldn't make sense of what he said. She fought to suck in a painful breath and grabbed at his wrists with both of her hands. His hands got tighter and he pushed his body down on hers. She felt immobilized as he pressed against her harder and harder, and squeezed her neck tighter and tighter as he yelled at her. She couldn't hear what he was saying anymore. The blood rushing through her ears was deafening, and the throbbing agony in her head scattered her thoughts too much for her to make full sense of what was happening. It was that confusion that allowed her mind to float off to another time of similar brutality. With her next forced gasp of air, Ziva inhaled the desert sand and she smelled the sickly-sweet scent of Caf-Pow mixed with sweat and cigarettes. The hands around her neck got rougher, and Eddie's body holding her down turned into half a dozen hands and rough ropes. Her heart rate tripled and the pain in her head radiated down between her legs. She knew what came next.

Eddie gave her throat another shake, snapping her back into the present. But the shift wasn't any better. The rapes from Saleem were over, but Eddie's was yet to begin. She let out a single, choked sob as despair slammed into her chest and broke her heart again, but she caught herself before she let out another. She made a promise to herself in Somalia that she would not give Saleem her cries. She would not give him that pleasure. And now, she would not let Eddie have them either. He might kill her now—and God, she hoped if he did, that he would do it before she was violated again—but she would not cry out or beg. She would not.

Eddie's hands around her throat finally sapped her strength, and Ziva felt the undeniable warmth of unconsciousness begin to wrap around her. In her final moments of awareness, as she drug her nails into Eddie's wrists as hard as she could, Ziva thought of Tony and her regrets for all the chances they'd squandered. She hoped he would forgive her for dying on his kitchen floor.

Unexpectedly, Eddie let go of her throat, but Ziva's moment of hope was fleeting as he gripped her hair in his fist again. "You should've just told me where she was, kitten," he told her, and then slammed her head back against the tiles.

And Ziva floated into the darkness.

[Posts and then runs and ducks for cover.]