Jenny closed the door of the conference room behind her, only to find an even less welcome sight than Nozdryov getting flirtier and touchy-feely as he continued to drink; hopefully he would find Agent Mather a less appealing object of his affection. She paused, taking a moment to decide if it might not be better to take her chances in the conference room. She opted for Gibbs, leaning against the wall with arms behind his back. "Has Abby found anything?"

"She's workin' on it." When he moved away from the wall to follow her to as she strode purposefully toward her office, he revealed a file he had been concealing behind his back. "Looked for you in Interrogation, but no one was there besides the tech guy."

Reading the slight as she was sure it was intended, she replied testily, "Nozdryov is in our custody and we're not letting him go anywhere. What difference does it make where we keep him?"

"He's a wanted arms dealer."

"He's providing us with information."

"Yeah, pretty conveniently if you ask me."

She whirled with her hand on the doorknob of the antechamber and made an effort to keep her voice low. "Safad is using him, probably as some kind of distraction or even just an annoyance. I don't see the harm in our doing the same until we find Ziva and Tony and kill the bastard."

"So that's what this is all about." He held up the file he was carrying. "You're planning to kill Safad like he killed Lavoie?"

Although she recognized the number on the cover at a glance, for a moment she refused to believe what she was seeing. "Where did you get that?"

He shrugged. "It's an official NCIS case. Y'know, I remember when we were looking for Ari, you mentioned…"

"Not here!" she hissed. Grabbing his arm, she shoved him through the door ahead of her. On the way through the outer room, she ordered, "Cynthia, go…go tell whoever's in charge of the secure files that they're fired."

"Maybe you should wait on that one for a few minutes, Cynthia," Gibbs said.

"Shut up, Agent Gibbs." She didn't bother to see if Cynthia had moved beyond mute surprise to action when she slammed her office door. "You had no right to…"

"No, you had no right, Director!" He smashed the file against her conference table. "You knew who this guy was and you said nothing because you couldn't wait to get your revenge on the guy who killed your partner."

"Get off the fucking high horse before you get lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, Jethro." He glared, but didn't challenge her again as she sank into the chair behind her desk. "There's nothing in that file that will help us find Ziva and Tony."

He flipped open the cover and sat at the table. "How can you be sure?"

"Because I've been over it enough times in the past few months to know." Taking a twin folder from the bottom draw of her desk, she dropped it on her blotter with a thud. "When Tushkevich managed to kidnap Ziva a few months ago, Safad and Sahrawi's names came up as the people he was planning to turn her over to."

"He wasn't trying to…"

"He was trying to punish her in the most painful way possible. We've been working with Moussad since then to hunt them down. Sahrawi was recently captured and interrogated in Morocco…"

"That was why you disappeared last week?"

She continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "and he didn't know where Safad was."

"He could have lied."

She felt a smirk creep across her face. "Trust me, he couldn't have. And what would it matter now?"

Gibbs sighed. "Anything you wanna tell me before I read this whole thing?"

"What is there to tell? It was a standard surveillance op that went bad. Curtis died, I lived, Safad and Sahrawi got away."

"And Ziva?"

"We'll find her."

"I meant…"

"Yes, when I told you that she saved my life in Cairo, this was it." He continued to stare at her, but reliving the entire experience was not something she planned to do. Tapping her fingers rhythmically against the cover of her own file, she waited.

Gibbs finally said, "I never met Lavoie, but I knew him by reputation. Good agent."

"Yes. He was."

"Jen…" He was cut off as the door opened.

"Ma'am?"

Jenny caught a glimpse of Gibbs as she looked up, finding it odd that he was no longer attempting to force eye contact.. "Didn't I ask you to go to the secure file room, Cynthia?"

"You did, and I was…I received a call just as I was about to go. You're needed in MTAC, a transmission from Agent Saunders and Major Miner in…"

She shot out of her chair, wondering why placing a call to the team that was supposed to be tracking Safad hadn't been her first priority when Ziva and Tony had been taken. In fact, she couldn't wait to find out exactly how her proximity to Safad was likely so vastly greater than theirs at the moment. Perhaps some justified chewing-outs would help her focus on the situation at hand. "Agent Gibbs, if you think your presence will be an asset…" She waved her hand toward the door in a half-sarcastic gesture. He took his copy of the file with him when he left the room; she replaced her own in her bottom drawer.

"Director?"

"I'm coming, Cynthia."

She trailed Jenny as she left her office. "There's something else you should know. I spoke with Hannah an hour ago."

"Director David's assistant?"

"She was about to get on a plane with Director David and wanted us to have a heads-up. They're coming here."

Jenny paused before leaning forward to scan her eye at the entrance to MTAC. "Did we tell him that Ziva had been captured?"

"Yes, you asked me to inform them of the situation shortly after it occurred."

"Good." Although Jenny couldn't remember issuing such an order, she was glad it had been carried out. "And Cynthia?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Don't bother firing whoever is in charge of the files. Gibbs would have found a way to get it without their help."

"Of course, Director."

Gibbs was laughing when she walked into MTAC. "Maybe you shouldn't have volunteered, Saunders."

One of the men on the large screen gave an exaggerated grimace. "Right, because you've never been tempted to…Director. Agent Gibbs and I were just catching up on…"

"I don't care. Tell me how Faiz Safad managed to slip away from you and kidnap two NCIS agents stateside."

"Well, we…Moussad was…we were following…"

Maj. Miner broke in, "He deked us, Ma'am. Figured out we were on him and had us and Moussad following two separate trails that didn't lead to him. We never even sniffed him in Tripoli, but we were contacting you because we just got word from Officer Arad with his team at a private airfield. It looks like Safad may have flown to West Virginia three days ago, small airport about ten miles north of Charleston. I suggest we get men on the ground and…"

"Get us all the information, Major, and we'll organize from here."

"Should we report too?"

She pursed her lips for a moment. "Negative. Get everyone together and be ready to move in half an hour. Safad is supposed to be contacting us regarding a potential trade site for Sahrawi and one of our agents. I want you there for support."

"Ma'am, are you really planning to…"

"You wouldn't be going there if I was. Is there anything else we need to know?"

"Not that won't be in the files we're emailing you as we speak, Ma'am."

"Good. Agent Saunders, anything you'd like to add?"

"Just that I'm sorry we lost him, Director."

"It happens," she replied without absolution or commiseration before signaling to one of the techs to terminate the connection. The urge she'd felt to scream at them had mysteriously vanished.

Gibbs was watching her again. "West Virginia's only a few hours from here."

"If you're driving, it is." She eyed him. "You don't seem eager to make that drive."

"Timing's off. That first disk had to be filmed before it was delivered to Nozdryov, so within three hours of snatching Tony and Ziva. They couldn't have made it there that fast."

"Were they in the same room on both occasions we saw them?"

He shrugged. "Abby should be able to tell. Doesn't help us much even if they are close."

"But he isn't likely to move them."

"I sure as hell wouldn't beat the crap out of DiNozzo then untie Ziva." He moved toward the door. "It'd make things a whole lot easier if they did, though."

When Jenny sat to gather her thoughts a few moments later, she found the file Gibbs had been carrying sitting on the seat beside her. A quick look at pages fourteen and thirty-one was enough to remind her that sitting in the dark and feeling sorry for herself could wait until she got home to her study, whenever that would be.

Gibbs was standing outside the conference room when she approached a few minutes later, having placed the file in her desk with its copy. "Change your mind about Nozdryov?"

"Interrogation does strike me as a less comfortable…" she trailed off as she opened the door on an empty room. "Agent Mather?"

"Yes, Director?" the man in question replied from the wrong side of the door.

"Where's our guest?"

"Passed out on the…" Mather stepped into the room and looked around, wide-eyed. "Oh, shit."

Before Jenny could give the order, Gibbs was running along the catwalk, issuing orders to lock down the building.