It has been almost 18 months since I last did work on this story. When I said I was busy last time, I really, really meant it. And I'm busier now than I was then. Guess this is just my life now.
Good news is, I have been writing more in the last 18 months than I ever have; bad news is it's split across a multitude of original projects and irons in the fire that aren't leaving anytime. So fanfiction, in general, has been a non-priority, as much as that sucks. But I've finally carved out enough time for fun projects that I managed to finish an update to this story. I hope you enjoy it.
To those of you who will actually come around and read this, thank you for your time.
Disclaimer: The TV show NCIS belongs to CBS.
Gibbs felt himself get kicked in the chest. Felt his hearing go with a final pop followed by a ringing in his ears. He saw flashes of light, saw them as they were stolen away by patches of deep black.
He felt a wave of heat.
Then he blinked. He was on his back, looking up at the ceiling. No lights were on. No fires raged.
But the skylight was cracked. And people were running all around him.
Slowly, he sat up, only to end up back on the floor before he knew what happened. He tried again. Same result. He took a moment then, assessed himself. His ears were still ringing. Hearing still shot. Had his eardrums burst? Would make sense why he couldn't stand.
Something wet was dripping down his head and face. He wiped at it. Hand came back bloody. He was cut. Couldn't tell how bad; head wounds always bled a lot. It, like the burst ear drum, might also explain why his balance was off. He took his time and assessed himself for any other injuries, but didn't find any. No cuts, scraps, broken bones. Nothing he could feel, anyway.
He tried to get up again. Finally, he succeeded, with assistance from his desk.
The Bullpen was a mess. Debris and glass were everywhere, thrown over the floor, the desks. The people. Fellow NCIS and FBI Agents were running around, treating wounded or trying to restore systems that should have still been online. Boltons' guys were doing the same.
And outside—through windows that were now missing, Gibbs saw an orange glow.
Fire.
"Help! I need help here!"
Gibbs heard the voice. The words. They sounded dimmer than they should have. He looked, and saw one of Bolton's gundogs on the floor, bleeding, as an NSA analyst held a cloth to his chest. Gibbs stumbled over, but another NCIS Agent got there before he did, carrying some basic first aid supplies. He reassessed.
There were more wounded, most of them already being attended to by one or two others. Some were attending themselves, holding cloth or pieces of clothing to deep scratches and cuts.
Two had jackets covering their faces.
"Gibbs!"
He slowly turned at the voice and found Vance approaching. The man had a gash under his eye and was missing his suit jacket.
"Gibbs, you with me?" Leon asked, tapping a palm against his shoulder.
His mouth was slow to open, even as his mind supplied an affirmative.
"Gibbs."
"Yes," he finally managed to answer. "What happened?"
"It's bad, Gibbs. Real bad."
Vance moved toward the orange glow, and Gibbs followed. The air got hotter as he did. Smelled horrific. Acrid. Smokey. The director stopped just before a missing window, gazing out. Gibbs joined him.
It was hell in the Navy Yard.
People were running. Not with panic. Purpose. Carrying out emergency procedures as they could, not as they wished. Debris—some flaming, some smoking, some neither—were scattered wherever Gibbs looked. A few pieces looked metallic to Gibbs' eyes. The air was choked with thick, black smoke that glowed orange from a massive fire in a structure to their north. A parking garage, Gibbs thought.
The parking garage of the hospital.
His stomach dropped.
His eyes took in the smoke. The fire. The debris. The scale of it. He thought of the distance between the parking garage and the hospital. The material both were made from. There was brick in the street. Was that the hospital's, or the garage's? Did it make sense for this amount of smoke to come from just the garage? Was anyone wearing scrubs? Coats?
Were McGee and Bishop alive?
"Gibbs."
Had he lost everyone?
"Gibbs!"
Gibbs blinked, looked at Vance. Leon nodded his head to the side, and Gibbs looked. One of Bolton's guys was standing there. White. He was holding a phone out toward him.
"It's for you," White said, voice mirroring the tired shock Gibbs saw in his eyes.
Gibbs took the phone. "Hello?"
"Agent Gibbs," said Death. "I trust you'll be taking my demands seriously from now on."
His eye twitched, gut screaming its demand for blood. Vengeance. Justice. "You… You."
"Careful, Gibbs. What you've witnessed is a warning shot. You don't want to see what it looks like when I shoot to kill."
"I'm going to find you."
"You are permitted to try. Regardless, I believe we're done for the day. Go treat your wounded and dead. You're certain to have many. I will be calling you back tomorrow."
The line clicked, leaving Gibbs with a dial tone.
His hand was shaking as he gave the phone back to White. Not from weakness. Not from fear. From rage. Pure and sweet.
Intoxicating.
Sirens echoed from outside. Fire engines and reinforcements on their way. They were the only sounds that cut through Gibbs' silent fury. Not Leon's words, soundless to Gibbs at the moment. Not the other Agents that came to speak with him with curious looks in their eyes.
None of them. Besides the sirens, Gibbs heard one thing. Felt one thing. A thought, deafening in its certainty.
I'm coming for you, Death.
The man watched.
On the screens before him, he saw the live feeds from what cameras were available in the Navy Yard. The power of the blast had been great, with the nearby hospital suffering damage and numerous staff confirmed to have been injured. Eight had died already, with a ninth and tenth well on their way. More were likely to follow. The NCIS Headquarters was not far, and as such had suffered similar levels of damage and personnel casualties. So far, he could confirm one NCIS Agent had perished, but the remaining wounded were stable.
The message had been sent. Loud and clear.
The head of his security—with the callsign of Tsar—approached. He was a tall, muscular man with short black hair and dark eyes. Missing part of one ear. He'd worked for the man for more than twenty years—longer than any other Operative. Nearly as long as his oldest Assets.
He stopped short of the man. "Sir."
"Yes?" The man asked.
"Preliminary report."
The man spared a glance to the rest of the room. No one was close, but the room was too quiet. Too focused on their tasks.
The man stepped out without a word; Tsar and the rest of his guards followed.
He went to another room, less populated and open. The low-level Operatives inside knew well enough to clear out at his entry. Once they were gone, the man nodded to one of his other guards.
The guard nodded back and set down the briefcase containing the phones for the man. He opened it, then hit a switch on the top cover. A loud, vibrating noise emitted from the briefcase. A security measure designed to jam radio signals and muddy laser mics. The room was secure.
He looked at Tsar again. "Go."
"Sir, there are many possibilities," Tsar said. "More potential vulnerabilities than I anticipated. This web will take time to unravel."
"Then why have you requested my audience?"
"Because I must recommend we alter the recovery method of the Objective, sir."
The man's eye twitched. "Unthinkable. I have set the parameters. Given my instructions. I do not retract such things as my word. Only deal consequences when it is not heeded."
"I know, sir," Tsar said, bowing his head a moment in respect. "But this traitor may have access to very sensitive systems and information. We have seen they've already been able to guide Bol—"
"Don't."
Tsar met the man's gaze with determination. Focus. Bravery. More than the man allowed in any other. "If our traitor knows what systems Surveillance controls, what else do they know? Do they have Archive access? Perhaps even…" Tsar gave their surroundings another, closer look. As if his eyes were a better security measure than the jammer. "They may have authorization to the Key, sir."
That gained the man's attention. "Impossible. Operatives and Assets with Key access are thoroughly vetted."
"It happened once before, sir."
The man's eye twitched again.
"Sir, I require your permission to begin investigations into personnel with Key access. And it is my recommendation that you provide it, sir."
The man worked his jaw, his teeth grinding audibly. He loathed the possibility someone so trusted, already so totally investigated and tested, could be a traitor. Once was bad enough.
"Do it," he said, eventually. "Quietly."
"Of course, sir. For now, that is all I have for you."
The man nodded to the guard near the jammer. The guard returned the gesture and turned off the jammer, though left the briefcase on the table.
"Get back to it," the man said to Tsar. "And retrieve the Region Senior for me; I want another location for the drive to be recovered."
"Of course, Death."
Tsar left the room. The man and the other guards stayed behind. A call was shortly due.
It arrived one minute and twelve seconds later.
He answered on the third ring.
"Bad news and worse news. Which do you want first?"
Ziva looked up at Odette as the other woman re-entered the room. "The bad."
"Half the contacts I reached out to are out. They want no part of this."
"And the other half?"
"In, but half of them are unwilling to commit a raid. They want to be support. Drivers. Intelligence gatherers. Armorers. Only nine are willing to go all the way with us."
Nine. Eleven, plus herself and Odette. A squad against Death himself. "A small unit should never—"
"Be underestimated?" Odette finished with a scoff. "It also shouldn't be overestimated, Ziva. We will need to pick our target very carefully, or we will all die."
The truth in her words hurt to hear. Stung with reality. Ziva nodded. "And the worse news?"
At that, Odette's face grew softer. Filled with sorrow. "Turn on the television."
Her instincts buzzed a warning. Not hostile. Emotional. She turned on Odette's TV in the corner.
Then her heart stopped.
NCIS was on fire.
The footage in the news was from a helicopter, perhaps two or three thousand feet in the air, overlooking the Navy Yard. Smoke clouded the sight of the hospital, and much of the ground between it and NCIS Headquarters. The ground that was visible to the helicopter was covered in debris.
Debris, and people-shaped tarps.
McGee had been in there. He hadn't been out of surgery. Was he one of those tarps? Was Abby? Director Vance? Abby?
Ambulances, fire engines, and other emergency vehicles were everywhere, their tiny personnel moving this way and that. Carrying ladders. Hoses. Stretchers. People.
The camera focused on NCIS itself. Immediately, her mind went back to the time when Dearing had bombed the building. Windows were shattered. The skylights, where she knew the Bullpen was, were broken.
Death had gotten to her home. Again. And, again, she was to blame.
She was always to blame…
The TV turned off, and Odette sat on the coffee table in front of her, placing the remote to the side. "Do you need a moment?"
Ziva blinked, shoving away her beliefs and emotions. "I'm fine."
"I know that look, David—"
"What is our target?"
Odette looked ready to throw her out the door. Call off their agreement and friendship, right there. But she did not. Instead, she let out a slow breath, her eyes promising conversation another time. "Those of us who know of Death believe he has many locations in Washington." She sat down, pulling out a map from a drawer of the coffee table between them, and set it on the table. "The office buildings here, here, and here are connected to shell corporations that don't exist."
"It is Washington. They could belong to the CIA," Ziva said, focusing on the distraction of crafting a plan of attack. "Or NSA, DIA. Any other of the Three Letter Agencies."
"If we were anyone else, we'd think the same. See a building with cameras on it in DC, with no name outside, and it's either government or a government contractor. My people aren't like that. We came from just about each one of the Three Letters. We know what buildings are ours and which ones aren't. These three? They're not on anyone's map."
"Russian Mob?"
"Possible," Odette admitted. "But Russians like to hide behind real companies. And it's a well-kept secret that in Washington, criminals only get to operate because Death lets them. If these buildings aren't Death's, then they're indirectly connected anyway."
That was promising. "Security?"
"Heavy. Cameras. Motion sensors. Outer fence with armed guards on routine patrols."
"And inside?"
"Unknown. Still images taken while employees come and go confirm the front doors are several inches thick."
"Bullet resistant."
"Likely. Their sheer size will make them resistant to vehicle impacts, as well."
Ziva leaned back into her seat, frowning, her brow furrowed in thought. During her career at Mossad, she had infiltrated multiple, highly-secure facilities—but not without solid intel and a staff of supporting personnel and analysts who worked tirelessly to find answers the ground team had. She did not have that here. Nor did she have anything to go off of beyond the basics: the target was a mystery; the target was guarded; the target was important.
She had to make that work. But how?
"Show me some of these pictures you have," she said.
Odette stood up, stepping over to a bookshelf. She grabbed a book, opened it, then removed a series of photographs hidden between the pages. She returned to the table, sliding the pictures to Ziva.
Ziva looked at them. The first was taken at not quite the right moment, with the door opened far enough that the photographer's view was unclear. The next provided a clearer image, confirming that the doors were indeed large and thick enough that Ziva suspected they were rated to withstand even anti-material weapons. A .50 caliber rifle might be a threat, but only if one was given enough time to fire enough rounds into the same door. The third image was of the supports between doors, which appeared to be at least a foot of reinforced concrete. Using a vehicle to burst through the doors wouldn't be possible, with columns that large.
But the third image also gave her something to work with.
"Who is this?" Ziva asked, turning the picture around to and sliding it to Odette. Along with an image of the doors, it also captured a man in a dark suit leaving the building.
"Had one of my people look at the employee badge on his neck," Odette said. "Name is Jacob Davers."
"Did you look at him?"
"Into. And yes. It's an alias; he has no employment history, no criminal record, and the address on his driver's license is a business office."
"What about a birth certificate?"
"Strangely, yes. Born locally, at Inova Fairfax, back in '81."
"And the certificate is all that is associated with this name?"
Odette nodded.
A lever—no, wait, it was a gear—a gear was turning in Ziva's mind. A mystery she had encountered before with Death's organization. None of Death's people she encountered had been identifiable. Some of them had clearly had their records wiped clean. Erased as if they had never existed. Others were like this Jacob Davers, with no records save a birth certificate.
What if there was a reason for that?
"Odette," Ziva said, letting the thought flow. "If you were to recruit someone into a secret organization, how would you do it?"
"Find the best," Odette said. "Find out what they want to join and give it. Or take it, if they refuse. Had to do that once or twice."
"And what if you wanted to ensure no one knew who you recruited?"
"You mean double agents?"
"No."
"Then I don't follow."
"What would you do if you wanted your own recruits? Ones not on anyone's sonar?"
"Radar."
"Not on anyone's radar. What would you do?"
Odette looked thoughtful for a moment. "Find individuals with potential and recruit them early. Train them quietly, completely off the books. Give them everything they require for a comfortable life, but have them rely on me for that life."
"So that they'll do anything for you."
"Exactly."
"What if," Ziva said, "Death does something similar with his organization? Not with all recruits, but with its specialists? Particularly ones that do not need to move to do their job?"
Odette seemed to catch on. "You think Jacob Davers is his real name."
"Why not? If he was recruited early enough—perhaps as a teenager—he would have no history outside his parent's house."
"It wouldn't explain why he would be recruited by an international criminal empire."
"What kind of person would work at an office like that?"
Odette hummed, looking at the picture again. "Looks like a block for pencil-pushers and analysts."
"And hackers."
The other woman nodded. "And hackers." She set the picture down, sighing. "Alright. I'll make some more calls. See if this theory of yours might bear fruit."
"We could just—"
"No. Whatever it is you're about to say, no. We're not going anywhere until I have intel."
Ziva gave no outward reaction to the refusal, but inside she deflated. She needed to be out there, finding Tony. Working to kill Death. They couldn't sit around.
"Look, I get why you're anxious," Odette said. Apparently, Ziva had not hidden her reaction as well as she thought. "But you came to me. That tells me you know we need to do this my way, whether you like it or not. The time to bash down doors will come, but not quite yet. But, if you're feeling like you need to blow some steam…" She reached into her pocket and placed a key on the coffee table. "I added a range in the basement. Not exactly legal, but I know it's safe to use. Have at it."
Odette left the room to make her calls, leaving Ziva alone with her thoughts. Her fears. Her guilt.
It took her less than ten seconds to grab the key.
Gibbs entered the office just as Vance hung up his cell. The Director took a deep breath, let it out. "Five more patients and staff since our last check in."
That made fifteen dead at the hospital. Sixteen total, with their dead Agent—Harris. "Fornell?"
"Out in the Yard, coordinating with the second wave of reinforcements from the FBI."
"McGee and Bishop?"
"They're okay, though Bishop's a little banged up; a light fell on her shoulder when the bomb went off. McGee was in surgery during the blast, deep in the building. Blast knocked out power, but emergency generators came online to keep the operating rooms running."
Gibbs only partially listened after they're okay. "How did this happen?"
"No idea. Working theory out of the FBI is there was some kind of device built into the parking garage. Something Death could activate remotely, without warning."
"One hell of a bomb to hide into the structure."
"Like I said: working theory."
"We need reinforcements, Leon."
"I know. SecNav is on it; he was my last call. Sounds like he's about to raise hell."
"Didn't when he should have."
Leon gave him a look. "I know."
That was all Gibbs needed to know what Vance was thinking. Where was the support earlier, when Bolton came out of nowhere? Where was SacNav when NCIS lost more Agents and personnel in the last day than it had in the last ten years?
Where was anyone, when they were most needed?
"President's giving an address tonight," Vance said, as if Gibbs cared. "We're getting his full support, along with some covert assistance from the Three Letters, courtesy of Bolton."
Gibbs nodded, still not caring. His eyes went to Vance's window, now cracked from the concussive force of the blast across the way. It was just the outer layer, but it still hampered his vision of the smoke-filled Navy Yard outside.
How had he done it? The whole damned city was locked down. On high alert. The Navy Yard especially. No one should have been able to get in without their knowledge. No one should have been able to plant a bomb in their front yard.
They did once, Gibbs thought, grimly. This felt worse.
"Dr. Mallard and Mr. Palmer?"
"They were out at the time," Gibbs said. "Eating."
"Fortunate for them. And Abby? Tali?" Vance asked.
"Traumatized," Gibbs said, bluntly. "Crying on and off. Wanting to leave, but terrified of what's outside."
"And Abby?"
"That is Abby. Tali's a shell. Can't reach her."
"But unharmed?"
"Physically."
Vance sighed, looked around his office. He looked tired—not just physically, but mentally. Emtionally. Spiritually. "Never thought I'd oversee something like this again. Prayed that I didn't. But here we are. In chaos, our front door bashed in and our dead in our living room, while the bastard that did it is five steps ahead of us. Again."
All for something we don't have, Gibbs thought, feeling, for the first time, anger directed at the reason why that was. At the person who left them.
At the daughter he just got back.
"SecNav wants something, Gibbs," Leon said, drawing him out of that anger. That rage. "And you're not gonna like it."
"What?" The question came out with venom. Hostility. Bitterness. Not directed at Leon, but thrown at him all the same.
Vance didn't react to it. "When Death calls again, we're not playing games with him. Not trying to get him to talk."
"What?"
"SecNav wants us to be honest. Tell him we don't have what he's looking for."
The bubbling cauldron of fury in Gibbs' gut stilled for but a moment, shocked and appalled. "He wants us to what?"
"He wants us to buy time. Get Death off our backs for a while so we can regroup."
"He'll take that as another lie. Or he'll go after the only person who sent it to us."
Vance gave him a look.
The cauldron roared back to life. Fiery and hot. Protective once more. "No."
"She left, Gibbs."
"We are not giving her up."
"We're not giving anyone up!" Vance's voice, his face, was angry. Righteous. Offended that Gibbs had even suggested such a thing.
"There's very few directions Death will take us admitting we don't have it, Leon. Ziva's the first choice!"
"We cannot fight this guy right now, Gibbs. Not after he just set fire to our neighbor's house and broke down our door!"
"This is the exact time to fight!" Gibbs said, fiery with his own anger. His own righteousness.
"And how's playing the game worked out for us so far?"
Leon held his glare and met it with his own. Anger meeting anger. Honor meeting honor. As had happened throughout all of history and would carry on long after both of them were dirt in the ground.
"Have I picked a bad time?"
Gibbs broke contact with Vance and turned his glare to the door. Bolton was there, cold and calm, his hands and face slightly bloodied from glass shards that had scrapped his face. His suit was darkened even further from treating the wounded.
"I couldn't help but overhear your shouting," Bolton said, stepping further into the room. "Along with half of your building."
"It's a debate," Vance said.
"I'm certain."
"What do you want?" Gibbs asked.
"To help," Bolton said. "I lost four of my men today without warning. The rest are as angry as you are, and they need a direction to focus that rage or it will tear them apart. It seemed you were going to move in a most… unfortunate direction."
"Admitting we don't have the drive will surprise him. Make him doubt the intel he's receiving from whatever network he has," Vance said. "A surprised opponent rethinks their strategy."
"That may work in the boxing my files say you used to take up, but not with people like Death, Director Vance. He has contingencies for every situation, disaster, attack. Before he makes a move, he's accounted for every action his opponent can make in response. Telling him anything he doesn't know won't delay him; he'll just switch gears."
Gibbs' eye twitched. "You sure know alot about a guy who's never been on our radar until now."
He saw the way Bolton tensed. Relaxed. The way his shoulders dipped as he sighed. "Officially, no Letter agency has heard of Death until recently, but I think you know that story stinks more than a landfill."
"You don't say," Vance drawled.
"Sarcasm. I understand. The truth is, Death has been a thorn in the side of the Intelligence world for decades—longer than even my mentor was in the game. He's our boogie man. Our monster under the bed, there one moment and gone the next."
"Who the hell is he?" Gibbs asked.
The muscle at Bolton's jaw popped outward as he set it. "What I say next, you didn't hear from me."
"Won't talk about it, then."
"I mean it. If it gets out I told you this, my retirement will be early. People like me will come and take me away. I will not be held. I will not be found. Any friends or family I have will never know what happened to me. Any trace of my existence will be wiped clean. It will be as if I never lived. So I say again: what I say next, you didn't hear from me."
The severity in his voice and the look in his eyes stilled some of Gibbs' rage. That was the voice, and those were the eyes, of a man who knew there would be no mercy for him. No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. No happy ending. Yet he took the job anyway.
Why?
"Done," Vance said, after a moment. "Talk."
Bolton nodded once. Swallowed. Let out a breath. "Death's real name is John William Roberts, born Februrary 10th, 1941. Started his military career as a Marine in '59, then became one of the first SEALs, then went on to be recruited for MACV-SOG. CIA had him for a while after 1970 as part of SAD. NSA nabbed him in '75. He had my job."
"Hold up," Vance said. "He's one of you?"
"Not one of us, Director—he's beyond us." Bolton's eyes were entirely serious as he said that. "His exploits are legendary in my very small community. He infiltrated the KGB, Chinese Intelligence, DGI—half a dozen allied nations, too. All without ever being found out. His work gave us access to classified research, think tanks, briefings, storage facilities. He's half the reason the West maintained its technical edge in the Cold War. Most of the reason CIA and NSA have as many cool toys as well; he pushed—and he pushed hard—for us to invest in new technologies. Hell, my C.A.U? Roberts was one of the visionaries behind its creation."
Gibbs' gut tightened. Part of that came from hearing the depth of Roberts' experience, and learning of his level of success in the Intelligence world. The other part was anticipation.
Death had a name.
"What happened?" Vance asked, far calmer than Gibbs would have. Leon was the spy; he knew the game and when to listen.
Bolton shook his head. "Still don't know ourselves. Halfway through the Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan, Roberts vanished from one of his operations, along with all his personnel. NSA sent SAD teams to investigate, but their safe houses were empty. Picked clean. No sign of anyone. Then, the leaks started to happen."
"Leaks?"
"Ones that didn't make the news. Sensitive information started to pop up in corners of the world that no business knowing anything. Files that had never left storage. Informants we thought we secure got made. Same time, we were getting random leads on foreign ops, too."
"He was playing both sides."
"One side: his. It took us years to hear about Death and their organization. Years more to figure out Death was Roberts, and that Roberts had decided it wasn't Russia, China, or America that had the longest reach, but him."
"I'm sure that went over well."
"Let's leave it as Roberts showed us the error of our ways. Since then, he's been the Boogey Man. We erased everything about him, classified what couldn't be explained away. But he's still an open secret in my community. The one target you avoid, or you end up as a star on the wall."
Gibbs' eye twitched as he shook his head. "That was it? You just gave up on catching or killing him?"
Bolton stood up a little straighter, returned the glare Gibbs sent his way. "What is it you think led to that decision, Agent Gibbs? A strongly-worded letter? The things he did, the influence he possessed, the bodies he buried… Some battles can't be won, no matter what you do. Sometimes, you let evil remain, if only to make sure you're still around to do some good. You of all people understand that."
"And sometimes it doesn't matter if you're still alive," Gibbs said, "because some fights need to be left with just one side still standing."
Bolton didn't seem to appreciate that comment. "Why is it you think I'm here, exactly? To make nice with the single greatest threat NSA has ever detected, outside the Soviet Union in the Cold War? I've been on Death's trail for the last two years, trying to get a chance to put a bullet in his brain. That's not a job anyone in my world was jumping at taking."
"So why did you?"
Bolton didn't answer that.
"No matter what, we need a plan," Leon said, taking one step forward between them. Ever the diplomat. "Death just kicked in our door and shot us. We need to do something before he pulls the trigger again."
"We can't give up Ziva," Gibbs said, again.
Bolton nodded. "I agree. Which is why I suggest we go after something of his."
Gibbs' eye twitched. "You know where to find Death's assets?"
Bolton raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. "More like suspect where we could find a weak link. You already had someone who could lead us to it."
"The Russian?"
"He's a legit mob hitman, working on a contract Death gave out on you." He pointed to Gibbs. "It's not unheard of for Death to use the Russian mob for a job; they're one of the best-run criminal organizations on Earth. But from what we can tell, Death doesn't take failure lightly. He's a perfectionist, and expects everyone around him to be the same. Failure to fulfill contracts has… consequences."
"What kind of consequences?" Leon asked.
"The kind that make hardened hitmen terrified," Bolton said. "The kind that make the Russian mob terrified. That's the kind of fear we can exploit."
Gibbs' eye twitched, finger doing the same. His gut told him something wasn't right. That something wouldn't be right. "We're not criminals, Bolton."
"You aren't." Bolton shrugged. "But I get a lot of leeway. Give me the Russian again, and we'll find something to make the mob bleed and come running to us, if only to avoid Death's wrath."
He considered it. Damnit, but he did. His stomach turned over at the thought of what Bolton's guys would do. He'd seen enough of that treatment in his years. Knew it never stuck. Never produced what you wanted. He'd said just as much to Bolton, not long ago.
But Death had ignited a fire in Gibbs that he'd long kept snuffed out.
"Do it," he said. "Give me something of Death's we can exploit."
"Gibbs," Leon said, "I can't allow that."
"Then don't. Put it all on me. Say I threatened you, for all I care." He looked at Vance, and he knew—from the way Leon's eyes looked surprised—that he wasn't doing a good job at hiding the inferno in his chest. "This is a guy that needs to be stopped, Leon. No matter what."
Vance was silent for a second. Then he took a breath, and said with a broken, hollow voice, "okay." He looked at Bolton. "Do it."
Bolton nodded meaningfully and left the room.
"That's my career," Vance said. From anyone else, the words would have sounded self-serving and naive. The realization of a politician that there would be consequences to their actions, after the chaos settled. From Leon, the words were determined. Accepting of what would happen.
He looked at Gibbs, and Gibbs saw the anger in their depths. "You know what this means, right?"
Gibbs nodded. "Yeah."
"There's no coming back from this."
"No."
"We're on a warpath now. And I want you at the head of it."
He knew that. Expected it. Still a grim, angry feeling settled in Gibbs' gut. A cold wave, formed before a storm. A feeling he often felt, but never in this context. He hated it as much as the thing he just advocated for.
It was satisfaction.
"I need you to promise me something, Gibbs."
He waited.
"Make it worth it. Get this bastard. No matter what. Or we may as well have died in that bomb outside."
"We'll get him."
"Good. I have one more call to make. For the sake of plausible deniability, make sure you don't hear it."
He had an idea of who that call would be placed to. He didn't like it, but he understood. He followed in Bolton's footsteps.
"And Gibbs."
He stopped. Turned back.
Vance was looking at him. Violence and rage were in his eyes. More of both than Gibbs had ever seen. "When you get him… make it hurt."
Even as his gut twisted, Gibbs nodded. "It will."
Then he left, intending on a call of his own.
Leon wasn't the only one with favors to call in.
Ziva's thought had born many nuts.
Fruits. Born many fruits.
They'd found that their analyst's real name was Jacob Davers. He lived in a home under his parents' names. Drove a car under his mother's name. Had no phone. No credit cards. No digital footprint and little in the way of a physical one. For all intents and purposes, he looked like a forty-year-old failure who never left his parents.
Only looking at the financials closer showed the truth. How the house was worth seven figures and his parents never made more than sixty thousand in combined income. How the car in his mother's name was a Mercedes. How the home's phone and internet plan cost more than a thousand dollars a month. How it had a top-of-the-line security system installed, yet no record of being a customer of any security company.
Being a loser was Jacob Davers' perfect cover.
Next to her, in the driver's seat, Odette answered a burner phone, listened for a moment, then hung up. "House looks empty, according to my overwatch," she said. "No movement on any floor. Not even a hobbling, elderly parent of our guy."
"What about the basement?" Ziva asked.
"Overwatch doesn't have eyes there; it has no windows."
"He is in the basement, then."
Odette nodded. "Would be my guess, too. Hard to access from the outside, plenty of security upstairs to buy time in case anyone bashes down the front door. We know there are cameras inside and outside the house, too."
"He will have eats on a monitor near his workstation."
"Feeds. And yes, he will. If he's this conscious about security, the basement will have an armored door on a control. Probably another way out, too."
"Tunnel?"
"Likely. The ground is soft here. Wouldn't be difficult to dig one out over a few months."
She nodded. "We will need to kill the power."
"We do, but we'll have only moments to get it done; there are cameras on all sides of the house. He also has a generator around back," Odette said. "Looks like a good one. Kicks on automatically when the main power goes down."
"If it's working."
Odette smiled. "I always liked working with you, David." She called a number. Waited. Then said, "Hit the generator. Subsonics only."
Ziva heard the person on the other end say something about difficulty, though the exact words were lost to the burner phone's poor quality.
"Yes, I know it's not an easy shot," Odette said.
More words that sounded angry.
"It's what we need to do. Get over it." Odette hung up, shaking her head. "Snipers. Always complain in retirement."
"The ones I knew in Israel were just bored."
She and Odette said nothing else as they waited for a call back. It arrived about a minute later. Odette answered, listened to a short statement, then hung up and dialed another number. "Generator is bypassed. Assault team, start your move. Wait for my mark."
From further down the street, Ziva saw three figures—two male, one female—leave a parked car and move down the sidewalk toward the house, leaving their doors closed but for the final few centimeters of space; one of the most foolish ways to give oneself away was to make too much noise. They made their way down the sidewalk at a casual pace, appearing to be friends enjoying each other's company. They were each older than Ziva and younger than Odette. All would have significant experience in matters of death.
"That's your team," Odette said, nodding to the group and dialing a third number. "Go get our guy."
Ziva opened her door once the team was within twenty feet or so, not fully closing her door either. She joined the group at the front. "Target is likely in the basement. Only entrance is through the front door and down the stairs in the center of the house."
"Security measures?" It was one of the men who asked, a man with skin darker than her own. His black hair had yet to grey.
"Unknown," she said. "No eyes on the inside."
"Others on site?" The woman spoke like Ziva did: accented, focused, and danger hidden behind a veil of normalcy. That, along with her red hair and pale skin, told Ziva the woman was an Irish native.
"House above the Target is believed to be empty," Ziva said. "If anyone else is in the basement, we must also handle them. We will also need to move quickly; the generator is down, but once the power is cut and it doesn't engage, the Target will know something is amiss." She nodded to the man closest to her, the last one. "You will accompany me down to the basement; you two shall ensure the house above truly is clear."
"Copy." The final man appeared between the woman and the other man in age, and looked Jordanian. Perhaps Syrian. His dark hair greyed at the temples. "We move on you."
In her pocket, her burner buzzed. She tapped her ear to answer.
"Second team in position," Odette said. "Power is cutting out in five… Four…"
"Three…" Ziva said, matching aloud Odette's count. "Two… One. We are go."
She cut left and across a yard, moving straight for the target house. The other three were right behind her. Ten seconds, and they were at the front door. Ten more, and the other woman had gotten through the deadbolt and swung the door open. Two more, and they were inside.
Right hallway was clear. Ziva advanced to the stairs, the last man behind her. Dimly, she heard the woman and the other man begin to move throughout the floor, clearing rooms.
She went down the stairs, weapon up. It was dark without the power on. Dark was bad, but so was light when there should be none. She trusted her eyes to see as she checked the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Clear, as far as she could see; it descended to darkness within fifteen feet of the corner.
Ziva motioned for the man behind her to move around her. Once he was in place, she stepped into the darkness.
The hall turned left—or was there just a door in front of her? She turned, and under another door, she saw a light moving under the narrow gap between it and the carpet floor. She heard rustling on the other side. The telltale sounds of switches being flipped. Soft cursing.
She gestured for the door. The man moved up on it, footsteps silent on the carpeting, then stopped next to the door, looking back at her. She nodded.
He kicked the door in.
Wood splinters clattered against the hardwood floor of the room just ahead. A man about ten feet away held a flashlight, examining a fusebox. He spun at them when the door opened, and as he did, Ziva caught a glimpse of a computer setup to the left.
One of his hands went for the back of his waistband.
Ziva shot the shoulder attached to that arm.
He screamed and fell, the light clattering to the side. The man with Ziva cleared right, and she cleared left. No one else in the room. Another door next to the one they'd just bashed in. Metal, it seemed. The security door they'd anticipated. She secured the flashlight as her partner rolled the man over and zip-tied his hands, prompting another scream at the same time her partner pulled a Glock from the man's waistband.
"You—ah!" The man screamed a third time. "You need to let me go!"
"Do we?" Ziva asked, clearing the rest of the room with the flashlight, then opening doors when she found their room secure. All of them led to more computers. The power bill of the house must have been extreme.
"You people have no idea who you're messing with when you mess with me."
"Is that so?" Ziva asked, aiming the flashlight at his face. He flinched in the light, tried to blink through it. "I think I know exactly who we're messing with, Jacob Davers."
Jacob looked suspicious and angry at the same time. "Who are you?"
"Someone who has something your boss wants. And so happens to want something from your boss as well." She stalked over to him, crouched next to Jacob's head while her partner kept a knee in his back. "Provided you work for who I hope you do."
He stared up at her through the light.
"Tell me: does the name Death mean anything to you?"
The way his face paled told Ziva it meant a lot.
"A second question, then. Do you know how to get in contact with him?"
He looked like she had asked him if he preferred to be castrated or burned alive.
The Region Senior approached him, phone in hand.
"Sir," the Region Senior said. "There is a situation."
"Clarify," the man said.
"Someone is holding one of our local contractors against his will."
The Senior had his attention. "Circumstances?"
"He was a target, sir."
"From whom?"
The Senior held out the phone, hand over the receiver. "She wants to talk to you, sir. I have a trace running."
The man took the phone. "Go."
"Am I speaking with the man who calls himself Death?"
He placed the voice immediately. The face, and name, behind it. "Ziva David."
"Do I speak with Death?" Target Ziva David asked again.
He looked at the Region Senior, who was looking over a Tech's shoulder. The other man shook his head. "You do," Death said.
"You have someone I want. I have something you want."
"Do you?"
"If you are giving me brief answers to give time for your people to tell you where to find me, I found this wonderful program on your man's phone that scrambles its signal. He tells me you don't know about it. He seems very confident that even you will have difficulty cracking it."
He glanced at the Region Senior again, gaining another shake of his head. She wasn't lying. Impressive. "There is only one thing I desire which I do not have."
"Yes. The flash drive. NCIS does not have it."
"You sent it to them."
"I took it back."
He paused, hearing the truth in her words. He had considered that NCIS had misplaced the drive, but for Target Ziva David to have taken it back…
That presented opportunity.
"Would you like to discuss a trade?"
He hummed. "I'm listening, Ms. David."
I said last time that I was finally getting to the meat and potatoes of the story I'd been planning on and I wasn't lying.
I'm just. Writing. Really. Slowly.
Nonetheless, thank you for reading. Be safe, happy, and healthy.
See you soon.