Hey y'all, sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up. I haven't been able to get to a computer for a while now. Hopefully I will be back to being able to post at least once a week again soon. Thank you for all of your reviews, they mean a lot. Ok, so here is the next chapter…
Everyone stared at the screen in stunned silence, none of them believing what they were seeing. Gibbs froze in his chair, eyes locked on the screen. McGee looked around as though hoping someone would either yell, "April Fools" or someone would begin to explain the impossible situation to him. Tony backed up to the chairs by Gibbs and the Director and sank into one, his mind reeling. Ziva looked from the picture frozen on the screen to the faces of her team members. Director Jenny Shepard looked from the screen to the package that the DVD had come in. The Director was the first to come back to herself, and she stood and turned to face the team, "What do we know about this? Do we have any idea who the person is who is running the show? Do we know what they want? She mentioned that she had met one of you in the past, do any of you know who she is?"
They all shook their heads mutely; none of them were able to recall having met her at any time in the past. Jenny turned to Gibbs, whose gaze was still fixed on the screen. "We need to find out who this woman is, and what she wants with your team. We know her husband has or had a connection to you, so we will start there."
Gibbs finally tore his gaze away from the screen, and focused on the director. He was silent for a second, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before replying to her instructions, "I know how to run my team madam director, I do not need you to tell me how to go about figuring out what is going on."
The Director returned Gibbs' glare twofold, "I know very well that you know how to run your team Agent Gibbs, I was simply trying to help, and seeing as the woman who is threatening you is trying to make you believe that she is holding captive a member of your team who was killed almost three years ago."
Kate had bandaged her wound the best she could with the sheets from the bed. Colleen had helped when she could, with her one good arm. Sometime later in the night, when they had both been asleep, someone had left a bag inside the door with proper bandages, and some other medical supplies. When Kate woke up, she unwrapped the wound, and examined it the best she could, seeing as it was on her back. Baria had told the truth when she had said the wound was shallow. The wound was barely half an inch deep, but it was at least three inches long. Baria had been playing to the camera, and she obviously did not want Kate hurt extremely badly, so she had made it look like she was stabbing Kate, while the blade only went in a little, and sliced sideways instead.
Along with the bandages, the bag had included a tube of super glue. Kate had been dubious about using the super glue to seal the wound, but then she remembered something that Tony had told her, when she had sliced her finger cutting up vegetables for dinner, "That's what super glue was designed for, sealing up cuts." She hadn't believed him at first, but when he had used the super glue to seal the cut, and it had felt better immediately, she had realized how well it worked. Recalling this, she used the super glue to seal the wound, gritting her teeth against the sting. Once the glue had dried, she bandaged it, just incase the glue did not hold. She used the glue on the smaller cuts as well, glad for the relief it brought when the glue finally dried.
With her cuts sealed, and her mind a little clearer now that the pain had lessened, Kate had a bit of time to think before Colleen woke up. She thought back to what Baria had said in the midst of the torture. She shuddered at the thought of the other torture methods that Baria had mentioned, she was not sure what they were, but seeing as sharp had been, in Baria's eyes anyway, was the least interesting, Kate was sure the others were going to be very unpleasant.
Pushing the unpleasant thoughts to the back of her mind, she concentrated on the other things that Baria had said. Kate knew more about Baria than Gibbs and his team did, so she was pretty sure that she had a better idea of what the other woman wanted than the NCIS agents did. She knew why Baria was gunning for Gibbs and the rest of the team, and she knew why she was being used as bait. Kate let her mind wander for a moment, wondering when Baria was going to tell Gibbs and the other members of the team who she was and what she wanted. Baria had said that she would send further instructions when she was sure that they had viewed the video. Kate was sure that Baria would be sending those mentioned instructions within the next hour or so.
Kate was sure that Gibbs and the rest of the team would find a way to figure out what was going on, even without further communications from Baria, but two things had her worried. The first thing that she was concerned about was the fact that Baria had showed her in the last video. There were several questions that stemmed from that fact, the first being, what would the reaction of the team be when they saw the video; would they believe that it was her? If they did, what would they try to do about it? Kate just hoped that none of them would do anything stupid to get to her.
The second thing that was bothering Kate was something that Baria had mentioned in passing, during the creating of the video. Baria had mentioned that one of the members of Gibbs' team had met her in the past. Baria had told them that they probably would not remember meeting her, that it had been a long time ago, and that whoever it was would probably not remember having met her. Again, several more questions stemmed from this first one. Which member of the team had met Baria in the past? Was it Gibbs, Tony, or McGee? Or, Kate considered, was it someone she had not met? She didn't like to think about it, but she knew that with her gone, the team would be one member short, and that they would need to replace her sooner or later, whether they liked it or not. She knew that there was a good chance that the person Baria had talked about was a person that was unknown to Kate.
Kate stood up gingerly and walked slowly to the table, picking up the book she was in the middle of reading. She knew that no matter how long she went over and over the past few days in her head; it was not going to do her any good. She couldn't get out, she knew that from prior experience, and even if she could, she wouldn't do anything that would put Colleen at risk. The last thing thought that crossed her mind before she got lost in the book was, "I hope they don't do anything stupid to get to me."
Tony's mind was having a hard time wrapping itself around the events of the last hour. He was sitting at his desk, staring around the empty bullpen. His eyes scanned the room, not really settling on anything. He laid his head on his folded arms, and closed his eyes. He tried to collect his thoughts, but they were all spinning around in his head, none of them settling long enough for him to latch on to it.
Tony massaged his temples, trying to catch one of the thoughts. The first one that he caught was the memory of Kate's eyes. It was really two thoughts combined into one, the first was the memory of Kate's eyes from the day she had died, open, staring, and clouding over in death. The other memory was more recent. He saw her eyes staring at the camera, scared, trapped, and very much alive. The two memories spun together, and were starting to give Tony a headache. What was really getting to Tony was not knowing; not knowing whether the woman in the video was really Kate, not knowing who the other woman in the video was, and not knowing what to do to find out the answers to his other questions. Tony shook his head, and pushed the thoughts of Kate and the questions about the situation to the back of his mind. Gibbs, Ziva, and McGee had taken the video down to Abby, hoping that she would be able to figure out the answers to one, if not both of the questions that were spinning around in Tony's mind.
Tony considered the other information they had been given in the video. The woman had talked about her husband's obsession with Gibbs and his team. This gave them a place to start. Although they had all encountered their fair share of crazies in their time with NCIS, and even before, there had been considerably less that they had actually considered to be obsessed with any of them, let alone Gibbs in particular.
The other lead they had been given was that one of the members of the team had met this mysterious woman sometime in the past. They had no idea who or when, so it was not much to go on, but it was something, anyway.
Tony couldn't take the silence any longer. He got up and headed for the elevator. He decided that a walk outside was exactly what he needed to clear his mind. After he pressed the button for the ground floor he let his mind wander again, so when the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened, he automatically began to walk out, not apying attention to where he was going, which resulted in him running strait into the person stepping onto the elevator. As he shook his head to clear it again for the umpteenth time today, he realized that the elevator was not even at teh floor that he wanted, and that he had almost knocked Ziva over, yet again.
From the moment that the second video began, Ziva's mind was racing. One thought piled on top of another, so that by the time the video ended, she was beginning to get a headache. When the video ended, Ziva was expecting the usual outburst of ideas and theories that would normally come from this group, so the complete silence took her by surprise. She looked to all of her team mates, only to find them staring at the now blank television screen. She looked back at the black screen, thoughts whirling around in her head again. The importance of what they had just seen was not lost on her, but it took a moment for the true meaning to sink in. Ziva knew that she had seen the woman in the chair before, but it took a moment for it to sink in where.
As soon as Ziva realized where she had seen the woman before, she turned to the computer tech and told him to rewind the video, and to pause it on the image of the face of the woman restrained in the chair.
Ziva had never met the woman in the image, but she had seen a number of pictures of her, and had heard many stories about her from the other members of Gibbs' team. The image paused on the screen was a picture perfect copy of the woman that Ziva had been brought in to replace, Special Agent Katelyn Todd.
Ziva went willingly with Gibbs and McGee to Abby's lab to see what the brilliant Goth could pull from the video that might help them figure out who their tormentor was, or what she wanted. As they made their way to the lab, she let her mind drift to the other woman in the video.
They had no name as of yet, but they did know a bit about the woman, even if she had not told them much. There were a few small things that she had told them that would help them narrow down who they were looking for. The first thing that came to Ziva's mind was the fact that the woman was married, or at least that she had been married in the past. She had also mentioned that her husband had been obsessed with Gibbs, which would help them narrow it down even further.
The biggest piece of information that they had on her was something that she had given to them. She had said that someone from their team had met her in their past. The woman was obviously Middle Eastern, which narrowed down the options. None of the others had recognized her when they were watching the video, but Ziva had a bad feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that she was the one who had met her. The woman had looked familiar to Ziva, though she could not actually recall having ever met her. It troubled Ziva to no end that she could not place the woman anywhere in her past. It meant that if she had indeed met her, it had to have been in the very distant past, when Ziva was just a young girl.
Ziva's mind was brought back to the present when the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened with a ding. Gibbs and McGee stepped out, and turned to look back at her when they realized that she had not followed behind them.
She smiled at them apologetically, "Sorry, I was thinking. My mind was elseways."
McGee glanced at her nervously, softly correcting her, "Its elsewhere, Ziva."
Ziva nodded, and moved past him to join Gibbs on his way into Abby's lab. Had it been Tony, she might have shot back a smart comment, but she knew that Tim was only trying to help.
They found Abby hard at work, the music pounding through the lab per usual. When Gibbs reached out and turned the music, Abby turned to them, her usual smile on her face. She bounced over, and took the disc from Gibbs, "Is this another video? I take it you want me to find anything that I can from it?"
Gibbs nodded, and walked with Abby to her computer, watching her put the video in, and press play before he spoke, "Abbs, before you watch that video, I think you need to know…" He trailed off, not sure what to say, and as he spoke, he pressed the pause button. Abby looked at him, confused. It was not often that Gibbs was unsure of what to say. It worried her, making her think that maybe there were unpleasant things, which she would not want to see on the newest video. "Gibbs, what's up with the tape?"
He looked at her for a second before he answered, "Abbs, there's someone on the video that you might recognize. We aren't sure what exactly is, as you said, up with the video, which is why we brought it to you. I just wanted you to be warned."
She stared at him for a second longer, and then turned back to the computer. "Ok, thanks for the warning I guess, though it would be nice if you could be a little less cryptic next time. Now, let's see what we've got here."
As she started the video, Abby discreetly studied the faces of her co-workers. There was something that none of them wanted to tell her, and she knew it had something to do with the newest communication from Colleen's kidnappers.
She turned back to the video, and watched as the unfamiliar woman delivered her speech. A couple of the phrases jumped out a Abby, as they had done with everyone else. Nothing caught her attention that she thought could help them figure out where Colleen was being held, so she knew that she would have to go back over the video in more depth. Abby winced as she watched the blade of the knife slicing into the skin of the woman restrained to the chair. She might be able to find answers in some of the most gruesome clues, but she hated seeing anyone, even someone she didn't know being hurt.
Abby's mind, which was always whirling, even when she was asleep went completely blank for maybe only the fourth time in her life when the bag was pulled off of the head of the woman in the chair. As soon as the screen went black, she rewound it and paused on the face. She stared at the impossible picture for a minute, and all of a sudden her mind started whirling at top speed again. There were two questions that came above all of the others, who was the woman taunting Gibbs' team, and who was the woman in the chair, because as Kate had been dead for almost three years, it could not truly be her.
Abby jumped when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She spun around to find Gibbs looking at her with concern. "Abbs, I know it's hard to understand—"
She cut him off quickly, "It's not hard to understand at all Gibbs. Someone either used plastic surgery, or maybe computers to make the second woman in the video look like Kate."
Gibbs, Ziva, and McGee stared at Abby for a moment, almost as stunned by her nonchalant reaction to the news that had blown them all away as they had been by the news itself. McGee was the first to talk, "Umm, Abbs, you were paying attention to the video right?"
Abby gave McGee a scathing glance, "Of course I was Timmy. Like I said, it's just a fake. I admit, it's a really good fake, but that's all it is."
Gibbs nodded slowly, the truth of what she had said sinking in. Of course it had to be a fake. Kate had been dead for years, what else could it be but a fake? He was almost ashamed that they had all been so taken in by a fake.