Chapter Seven
She will kill me
Ziva enters the gym, fed up with Scalici. She can't do to him what the Mossad finds so effective, nor can she tear those women apart with her bare hands to get the answers she needs about the poison they used on Tony. Tony's still Critical. Mary Waghoff has slipped away and while Tim has identified the Waghoff car as a six year old blue Nissan and added that detail to the BOLO, there is no guarantee she will not be holed up at some friend's home with a computer. There is little need for Waghoff to set foot on the street again until an unknown number of romance bombs are set off.
Frustrated and angry, she needs to work off the tension that wraps her muscles in iron clamps. Maybe if she can loosen them she can think again.
But she's surprised to find Michelle Palmer has beaten her here. The woman had not been at her desk and the impression she'd gotten from Gibbs was that she hadn't been there for some time and he is crapped; no, pissed. To find Palmer in the gym is a bit of a surprise. In the mood Gibbs is in, she'd best be working on behind-the-head defenses.
She pauses for a moment, watching her partner's technique. The smaller woman is clad in knee length tights and sports bra and is working a kata exercise with one of the padded staffs. The seven foot pole has thick red covering at both ends which still maintains good balance but the woman doesn't display her trained grace.
In the months since they'd begun working out together - she's been teaching the former Law Clerk how to handle herself in the field - Michelle's skills had developed but now her poise and control seem to have deserted her. She's aggressive, but her motions are sharp and rough. There's no follow-through or smoothness. It looks like she's trying to club her imaginary opponent, to stop sharply at every simulated hit, to use brute strength rather than directed power to generate force. Thus, she's as clumsy in her movements as she'd been in her first days.
Ziva wonders, as she watches the unbalanced exercise, what could have caused the woman to regress so.
She goes to the storage wall, takes from it the complimentary staff, blue padded ends to Michelle's red, steps out onto the huge pad and levels the long wooden pole.
"Defend yourself."
x
Michelle whirls to find her armed 'opponent' and swings the staff as though to bat her off her feet, an awkward blow that Ziva blocks easily. Michelle tries to hit with the other end; a shift to her left while moving the staff to her right is all Ziva needs to block it. She counters Palmer's next three strikes as easily before bringing the right end upward, nearly knocking the staff from Michelle's hands. Though Palmer does retain hold of the staff, her upraised arms leave her vulnerable to over twenty devastating attacks which would finish the contest.
"You are gripping the wood too tightly. The staff and your hands and arms must all flow together." It'd been her very first instruction with the weapon and she'd thought the smaller woman had learned that thoroughly. Michelle had actually grown reasonably competent - for a battle against an amateur.
She comes in with a few three-quarter speed strikes that Michelle blocks, but the woman's hitting the stick aside rather than blocking. Though she's loosened her grip slightly, the movements are still sharp and stiff.
x
"Relax your muscles. You must flow in the motions, move smoothly from one attack to the next, not simply snap from one position to another."
She emphasizes the point with four quick strikes from four different directions and Michelle barely keeps hold of the staff. Palmer answers with a hard swing, almost like using a baseball bat and Ziva barely ducks under it in time, but there's no follow through, just a stop and force reverse and Ziva takes advantage of the unbalancing to jab the padded left end into Michelle's ribs.
Michelle answers with a hard vertical cross swipe that does connect but accomplishes less for the force used than a flowing move would. In the woman's eyes Ziva sees something she likes less than the abrupt stiffness.
"In fighting there is no place for anger. The only one your anger defeats is yourself. Now hold your staff level, hands open, let it rest in your right fingers and on your left thumb." Michelle does so, but Ziva sees annoyance, downright resentment. There is no place for that either. The woman was usually a compliant student, but this is beyond her worst days.
"Now bring your right end back, up and around, close your right hand and attack in a downward diagonal from your left to my right." Palmer does so and Ziva had intended to advise her to then swing upward with the left end to come up under her block but what she says instead is "Not so hard."
She'd anticipated a practice movement and had barely blocked the full-on attack.
"You are relearning movement and flow, not-" She has to rapidly block half a dozen attacks from different directions, all delivered at full strength.
She steps out of range, one foot on the mat, the other on the floor. "I said 'easy'," she admonishes. "We are practic-" she barely blocks another rapid set of assaults, the staccato clacks of wood sharp and loud. She ducks under the last one and when Michelle sets herself up again Ziva thrusts with the blue padded end, catches and spins Michelle's staff around like a propeller. The woman's forearms hit, block each other and the staff flies from her grip to bounce to the mat.
Ziva steps further away from the mat. "That is enough."
x
The anger in Michelle's brown eyes is unsettling, unrestrained, a depth of anger she's never seen from the woman.
"Again!" the smaller woman demands and bends to retrieve the staff, but Ziva presses the blue padding of her staff onto the middle of Michelle's.
"That is enough."
Michelle shoves Ziva's staff off hers, wrenches the weapon from the floor and swings it like a stickball bat. Again Ziva evades.
Then she counter-attacks.
x
Michelle had been hitting hard but Ziva knows how to generate true force and five hard clacks sound almost as one. She drives Michelle back onto the mat, driving the woman backward until they're in the middle of the padded area.
Michelle barely blocks the strikes in time but her stiff forcefulness slows her defense, which should flow from one attack to meet the next. Then Michelle counter-attacks, hits harder and harder in her own attacks, grunting with the increased effort, battering at Ziva's stick while the taller woman uses less effort in defense than Michelle puts out in her pounding attack.
Rage and frustration build in Palmer's eyes every time her attempted assaults meet wood rather than flesh.
"I said forget anger. It is not your ally." But Michelle tries to crash the staff down from overhead. Ziva twists her staff, knocks the red padded staff out of position and follows through with a powerful impact to the opposite direction of the woman's grip. The red pads twirl end over end across the room and Michelle is left clutching her stinging hands.
"That is enough," Ziva says, not at all liking the rage that shines in the normally placid woman's brown eyes.
"Again!" She takes a step toward the pole some yards away, Ziva puts the blue pad of her staff against the woman's stomach. Michelle shoves it away from her with too much force, Ziva merely swings it about in a smooth, effortless motion and blocks her again.
"That is enough," Ziva declares with utter finality.
x
Ziva throws her own staff several yards away, behind and far from her angry opponent, turns and walks off the mat. She crosses the gym to the door, touches the handle
BANG two feet to her left makes her shift right and reach for her Sig at its accustomed place at her belt as a long wooden pole clatters to the floor beside her.
Fortunately for Michelle the Sig is upstairs.
This, Ziva sees with more consternation than surprise as she looks at the source of the noise as it rolls to a stop beside her. It's one of the unpadded hardwood poles, seven feet long and designed for Advanced users. The end of the staff is whitened where it has dented the wall beside where she stood, paint and plaster marking the end.
She cannot believe that Michelle had thrown the staff like a javelin.
x
She turns to where Michelle is by the wall holder at the far end of the room. The woman yanks the other unpadded pole from it with vicious force and whirls on her, pole tightly gripped in both fists. "AGAIN!"
Ziva's not sure if she's more disbelieving of the demand, the reckless viciousness of the throw - two feet right and it would have given her a concussion - or the insensate fury in the normally gentle woman. "You do not want to do this."
Michelle advances like an enraged leopard and Ziva must scoop up the bare staff and move away from the wall in time to avoid getting pinned with no room to maneuver. Palmer seems determined to up the scale and she must meet her insensate partner's challenge.
Michelle, staff clenched in white fists, cuts her off and unleashes a rain of blows Ziva can barely keep ahead of, the cracks reverberating off the distant walls. She's driven backward, must maneuver around to be driven back and back into the main body of the gym, back toward the mat.
There's nothing of style, finesse or grace in the onslaught, just a vicious rain of blows so violent that she can barely hold onto her staff, can't attack. She must fight a purely defensive battle to the staccato cracks punctuating the woman's fury.
x
She quickly backs ten feet away, the suddenness of her retreat apparently catching Palmer off guard. "Stop this!"
But she's not far enough out of range, Michelle steps in and swings the staff with an enraged scream. Ziva barely gets her staff in position in time, angling the pole so Palmer's strikes hers with a glancing blow that still stings her hands.
Michelle, gripping the staff in the middle, unleashes a volley of left and right strikes. The only thing which saves Ziva is that Michelle's furious attack is based purely upon power, not cunning or tactics. Ziva can see each attack before it is launched.
But having skill and tactics on her side, Ziva knows, avails her nothing. Michelle's mad assault is all offense, requiring Ziva to defend herself at the cost of counter-attack.
Michelle shrieks, changes her assault from a horizontal onslaught to overhead vertical and Ziva barely gets her staff up in time to block it. But it's the first of many.
The barrage, faster and greater than she expected, driven by murderous rage, drives her down on one knee. Michelle rains down one slam after another, every strike delivered with all the force the smaller woman can muster.
Into Ziva's mind flashes the final Skywalker / Vader conflict, Luke slamming his saber beam over and over into Vader's upraised defense.
She knows that if the screaming woman batters her staff down, she'll beat her to death.
x
Michelle raises the staff high, evidently for her most powerful two fisted strike, probably hoping to break the defending pole in half. Ziva spins her staff, rams it into Michelle's left rib almost hard enough to crack it. Michelle freezes momentarily in intense pain and Ziva slams the end into her solar plexus.
Michelle doubles over with a squeaking cry, drops the staff and crashes to her knees, barely gets her hands out in time to keep from slamming onto her face.
x
While she wheezes, probably trying to remember the rhythm to breathe, Ziva steps to the side and kicks the end of the dropped staff, launches it like a torpedo across the room until it slides with a crack into the far wall.
"That. Is. Enough!" she declares. Michelle looks up, her breath still broken.
x
It has been a very long time since cold fear has chased through Ziva's body, but it chases her now as she backs away from her friend and partner.
In the gasping woman's eyes she sees her own murder.
xxx
"We have each seen that look," Ziva tells the Deputy SAIC in the bullpen. McGee is away from his desk, she neither knows nor cares where, so long as she and Gibbs have a moment of privacy.
John Scalici stews in Holding, Mary Waghoff is still being hunted, Andrea Harper and Janet Vancer are in marathon inquisitions in I 1 & 2. Together with what's happening with Tony, it feels like the cosmos is spinning out of control.
"That was more than fury, there was murder in her eyes. If she could have gotten up, she would have killed me - and I do not believe I could have stopped her short of seriously injuring her."
"I've spoken to her too many times about her temper."
"Gibbs, this is more than an out of control temper. In fact, I do not have an English word to adequately describe this level of rage."
"Where is she now?"
"I do not know. I could have summoned Security, but I decided it would be more prudent to simply withdraw. When I returned ten minutes later, she was gone and the staffs remained where they had fallen. I checked with the front gate before you got back from your meeting with the Director; she has left the Navy Yard."
Gibbs says nothing. His meeting had been to discuss with Jennifer Shepherd the Larsen incident which is presently thought of by all but one witness to be an accident. He had hoped, and Shepherd had concurred, that they would keep the matter within limits and find out from Palmer what's happening.
This incident now makes such discretion impossible.
x
Palmer has, at times, struggled with her temper but, due to the stresses they must operate under each day, together with the strains Jimmy suffers since being forced to kill George Franklin and the subsequent strain upon their marriage, he'd been inclined to give the couple slack to let them work out their problems.
Her slack has just run out.
"Okay, Ziva, I'll handle this." The woman only nods and returns to her desk. He wishes he had Ducky to consult with but that option is closed. At this point he has only one final choice. He pulls out his cell phone, hating to press the speed dial.
/Yes, Jethro./
"Coming up to see you again, Jenn." This is one time an unannounced walk-in will definitely work against them.
xx
"What's wrong, Jethro?" Shepherd mentally braces herself. It's been minutes since she'd received the update on Agent DiNozzo's condition, so his grim expression tightens her stomach.
"We have more problems." He gives her a terse report on Palmer's odd behavior, tying it into DiNozzo's.
"You told me she never reached him in that maze."
"She didn't. But what if-?" His cell phone interrupts. "Yeah, it's Gibbs."
/This is Doctor Kramer from MedStar. I'm sorry to have to tell you that your friend, Mister - sorry, Special Agent DiNozzo, passed away twenty minutes ago. We attempted resuscitation but were not successful./
x
x
x
x
/Special Agent Gibbs, are you still there?/
"Ye-. Yes, Doctor." He needs to take a breath. Several. "I'm here."
/I hope it will be a consolation that he felt no pain. He never recovered consciousness./
"Th-" He has to take a breath. "Thank you, doctor. We'll make..." The spacious office seems so much smaller. "We'll make the necessary arrangements."
He closes the phone before he can say anything more and turns to Shepherd.
Her eyes, her face, her body, everything says there's no need to say the words. But it's not going to be real... It's not going to be real until he says them.
"Tony's gone."
x
How long does the world stop? Thirty seconds? A minute? A minute and a half before it resumes and life becomes real again?
Shepherd reaches out for the intercom, presses the call button. "Cynthia?"
/Yes, Director?/ comes the crisp - unknowing - response.
"Cynthia..." She has to keep her tone steady, keep her whole body steady. "Cynthia, please activate the All Call."
/Yes, Director./ Is there some awareness in her tone, some perception that this message that will momentarily be sent out is more than unusual?
Shepherd looks up at Gibbs, his expression is stone, but she tries to convey her appeal to him. She's not sure if it's received, not sure he wants to receive anything, but in less than ten total seconds /All Call ready, Director./
x
She pushes the Intercom button. "Attention all NCIS Personnel." She has to release the button. It has to be said, but in one second a million images of Anthony DiNozzo blast through her mind - and God help her, he's laughing in every one of them.
"Attention ..." Steady. Force steadiness. Tie it up in chains and padlock it a thousand times if necessary. "It is my sad duty to announce..." One of the padlocks slips. Relock it. "Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo." Slip. Relock. Swallow. Rub away a stinging tear. "Has succumbed to..." To what? "To an attack sustained in the Line of Duty." Her throat swollen, it's so hard to force the words out... but they have to come. "Arrangements will be announced..." Announced when? 'Arrangements' are always... "when they are known."
She releases the button. No formal leave-taking. If anyone's waiting to hear if she'll say more, perhaps they can suggest what to say.
xx
Gibbs leaves the offices, unable to remain any longer. For a man who appreciates the blessings of silence there's too much. But on the upper platform, midway between the MTAC entrances, his path is blocked by two women, Nikki Jardin and Janet Levy who stand hugging each other. Though they're not crying, he sees the grief that suffuses and overflows them.
He stops beside them. Not one for emotional displays, he cannot just pass them by. He can't pass at all.
It's half a minute before either notices him, and they reach out to him.
He can never deny he needs this embrace.
Larger than either woman, his reach holds them, both women's faces nearly hidden by his chest, their arms around him and each other, a tightly held trio of silent grief.
"The last words I said to him..." Nikki Jardin, the one he'd never imagined clinging to anyone, whispers into his chest, her breath fast and hard, "the very last words I ever said to him," she whispers, her voice strained, "were 'Go to Hell, Anthony DiNozzo'."
She breaks, violent sobs against his body and her tears drag Janet Levy down with her. Both women sob into his chest, their tumult shaking him. He'd try to be a strong pillar but his face is wet and he doesn't want to stop it.