Thanks for all the reviews on that last chapter. I was so happy to see that most everyone enjoyed my little foray into Gibbs' thoughts about Tony. I wondered if I went on too long and thought about cutting most of it out but then I realized I liked it (because those are all things I think about Tony, I just gave them to Gibbs, LOL) so I kept it. Now I'm glad I did. You guys are great!

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Chapter Eight

It was just the moment Gibbs had been waiting for….

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"DiNozzo, time to get up."

Tony blinked blearily, stretching and looking around with a yawn as he tried to remember where he was. Spotting his horse dozing nearby, it all came back - the adventures of riding with the team, saving McGee's life and finally camping out with Gibbs. He also noted that it wasn't light yet.

"Boss? I thought cowboys got up WITH the sun, not before it."

Gibbs turned back to the fire, pouring a cup of coffee into a tin mug and handing it over as Tony kicked off his sleeping bag. He'd kept half an ear on the younger man throughout the night and after the initial coughs he'd heard right after Tony had gone to sleep, had been relieved to note that all had been pretty much quiet after that. It must have been the dry air, but he was still keeping an extra eye (and ear) on his agent.

"Cowboys get up when there's work to be done and we've got work to do, DiNozzo."

"Right, crazy person after Dina. On it, Boss," Tony said, taking a sip of the liquid in the cup and grimacing. "You bring your own brew from home? This stuff tastes like tar….no scratch that, it tastes like really strong tar."

Gibbs didn't reply, but he smiled to himself as he continued packing up their gear. He'd already been up for a while, letting Tony sleep a little longer as he started the coffee and rolled up his own sleeping bag.

By the time the sun was up, both men had their horses saddled and were riding towards Dina's cabin. Taking a quick look at the map before they mounted up, Gibbs had confirmed where to catch the final trail to her place and estimated it would take them another few hours at a quick but not overly exhausting pace for the horses.

"You ready for another long ride?" Gibbs asked with a grin, turning his horse and heading out onto the trail.

With his boss' back to him, Tony flinched as he settled into the saddle. "How are you not sore, Boss? I don't know about you, but my backside is gonna be pissed at me for the next week. Do you go out riding every weekend and not tell us?"

Gibbs' only response was to make his horse go faster and Tony laughed as he followed suit. Now that he was up again, he felt much better. Sure his muscles were still sore, but considering how long it had been since he'd been on a horse, that was no surprise. Sure he'd spent most of the night shivering instead of sleeping (though he'd been careful to not toss and turn, knowing that Gibbs' ears were about ten times better than his eyes), but they were in a desert and deserts were cold at night, right? And sure, his chest still hurt but that had to be due to the dry air and getting over TFTWNQ. All of it was completely and totally normal.

As they rode off, Tony had done a pretty good job of convincing himself that he was just fine.

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"McGee, I cannot see," Ziva nudged her partner slightly, trying to get a view at the small screen flickering with grainy black and white images.

"Oh, sorry Ziva," McGee obediently moved over to let the Mossad agent get a better look. Flashing their badges, they had talked the manager of the art gallery into letting them see his security footage from two days before. A woman had come in asking about Dina's work and though it might be nothing, they were following orders and looking into every lead, no matter how small.

"What time did the manager say she came in again?" McGee asked, looking at the counter at the bottom of the screen.

"Oh-nine-thirty, I believe."

McGee pressed the fast forward button on the machine, the thing so old that it didn't even have a remote. When he saw the time stamp get close to 9:30am he stopped and hit play again. Soon a tall brunette was seen entering the gallery. Rather than taking the time to look at any of the paintings, she immediately sought out the manager.

"Well, that is a bit odd," Ziva noted.

"What?"

"The manager said this woman asked about Dina's work but did not look at it when she came in to the gallery. Three of Dina's paintings are hanging right by the entrance. A woman interested enough in the artist to ask about her would at least stop and admire the work, would she not?"

"Good point."

As the woman and the manager spoke, she turned closer to the camera and gave both agents a clear view of her features. Furrowing his forehead, McGee leaned forward.

"What is it?" Ziva asked as she noted her partner's attentiveness.

"Does she look familiar to you, Ziva?"

"No, I do not believe so. Why? Do you know her, McGee?"

"I'm not sure….," McGee reached forward to pause the machine, then rewound it to the spot with the better view of the woman's face. He paused it there and studied the image. Beside him, Ziva stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought if he was on to something.

"I think I know her Ziva, I just can't think from where."

"A former girlfriend perhaps? I thought only Tony was the type to not remember a lover," Ziva said with a one-sided smile.

"No, not that….and I don't think we've ever arrested her either, but I do think she was from a case. It's like I know her face from…" McGee stopped as he sat up straight, pulling out the satellite phone and dialing frantically.

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"Whoa." Gibbs called out, holding up a closed fist to signal the man behind him to stop his horse as well.

"Boss?" Tony queried.

"Tracks, fresh ones."

"Wouldn't those be Dina's?"

"No, we've been following Dina's. She rode the same route we did. These are a different horse, fresher tracks, coming from that direction." Gibbs pointed off to his right.

"Someone else out for a ride?" Tony asked hopefully.

"Doubt it. From this point the trail gets more treacherous and the only thing at the end of it is Dina's cabin."

Before Gibbs could say anything else, the sat phone in his pocket began ringing insistently.

"Yeah, Gibbs," he answered.

On the other end, McGee took a breath before launching into what he'd just found out.

"Boss, we found the tape and I think I know who's after Dina. It's Elizabeth Sax, also known as Mrs. Jerome Sax."

"Who?"

"The wife of the assassin you killed up there a couple weeks ago."

"His wife? Thought she was some housewife going to soccer games and PTA meetings," Gibbs growled into the phone.

"Yeah well, it looks like that may have been her cover too. There's no doubt about it, Boss, it's her. I had Ziva call Abby and email a picture to us."

"Got it, see what else you can find out." Gibbs snapped the phone shut, his gut practically screaming at him about the rider on the trail to Dina's.

"Tony, we gotta go, now!" With that, he took off at the fastest pace the rocky terrain and steepening trail would allow.

Tony didn't hesitate; he didn't even bother to ask what was happening. Between Gibbs spotting the tracks and getting a call from McGee (who else could it have been?), he knew that something was up.

Twenty minutes later, Gibbs held up his fist again as they got closer to Dina's cabin. Not wanting their quarry to hear their arrival, he signaled for them to dismount and tie up the horses so they could continue on foot.

Walking up silently to his boss, Tony looked around cautiously, still waiting patiently to be told what was happening.

"McGee and Ziva made a positive ID off of the security footage at the art gallery," Gibbs said quietly as Tony approached.

"Who?"

"Elizabeth Sax."

Tony did a double take. "Sax? As in Jerome Sax? As in the guy who we just came up here and stopped from killing Dina in the first place? I thought she claimed that she didn't know her husband was an assassin?

"Maybe she didn't, maybe she did. Right now all I know is that she's headed for Dina's. You head in from the west, I'll take the east."

Gibbs and Tony split off, each going in their assigned directions and keeping their heads down. As Gibbs got closer, he started crawling on the ground, inching his way up the last ridge near the cabin. As he approached he could see smoke from the fireplace, confirming that someone was home.

On the far side of the small clearing, Tony poked his head out from some bushes and spotted Gibbs. Getting the signal to stay where he was, he turned his attention back to the cabin. Only one horse stood in the corral and he recognized it as Dina's. Everything was quiet but that didn't necessarily mean that Dina was fine.

Seeing the same thing that Tony had, Gibbs decided to make his move. Keeping his weapon drawn, he began making his way towards the cabin, ducking behind every bush and rock he could, knowing full well that Tony had his six.

Reaching the porch, Gibbs sidled his way to the window and peeked inside, he was about to open the door cautiously when he felt a rifle barrel being pressed into his back.

"Special Agent Gibbs, I presume?"

Fighting the instinct to spin around and take the rifle away, Gibbs slowly turned. Without knowing where Dina or Tony were, he couldn't take the chance that she wasn't alone.

"Very good, Agent Gibbs. I see you know how to follow orders well." Elizabeth Sax took a step back, keeping the gun trained on her target as she did so. She was dressed for an extended stay in the desert, a hat low on her forehead and her long dark hair up in a ponytail. From the way she held herself, not to mention the gun, she knew exactly what she was doing. The innocent wife was in fact an assassin herself.

Opening the door to the cabin, Elizabeth reached inside. Bound and gagged, Dina Rissi came stumbling out, looking at Gibbs with eyes that both begged for help and forgiveness for dragging him into this mess.

"Now I know you're not alone, you wanna go ahead and tell your man to show his face or shall I put a bullet through her head?" Elizabeth forced Dina to her knees and leveled the gun to the back of her skull.

"So the wife was just playing innocent and they were a couple of married assassins. Funny, that sorta sounds familiar, doesn't it Boss?" Tony's voice came out of the bushes suddenly as he sauntered forward. Keeping his hands up, he smiled at Elizabeth sweetly.

Tony had been too far away to prevent Elizabeth from getting her gun on Gibbs. As he'd stood by, working on what to do next, he'd watched as Dina had been forced to the ground. A pissed off assassin wasn't one to mess with and Tony was sure that if he hadn't showed himself, she would have dropped Dina just as sure as looked at her. He hated giving up the advantage but with him and the boss together, he was sure they'd get Dina out alive.

"Both of you, drop your guns," she indicated with the shotgun and both Tony and Gibbs dropped their guns to the ground slowly. Elizabeth quickly picked them up and put them into her pockets.

"Aw, ain't this sweet. Now I've got the bitch and the two Feds, all I need now is the idiot Sheriff and I'll have everyone who took my husband away from me."

"Oh yeah, real stand-up guy he was. So sorry we killed your murdering husband. Tell me sweetheart, how many people have you two killed over the course over your careers?"

Elizabeth immediately swung her shotgun and leveled it at Tony, her barely contained rage apparent as her finger positively itched on the trigger.

"Do you want me to shoot you now, Fed?"

"Don't see why not. I mean that's what you're gonna do anyway. right? And I say, why bother waiting?" Tony said with a shrug, figuring out the best way to place himself between Dina and the crazy woman with the gun. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Gibbs sizing up the situation and he waited for any signal from his boss.

Gibbs kept his hands up, completely unmoving except for his eyes, which swept back and forth between his senior field agent, the bound and gagged woman on the ground and the woman holding the gun. Confident that Tony would keep the woman occupied, Gibbs worked on a plan and waited for an opportunity, any opportunity, to get the upper hand.

Straight out attacking was out of the question, at least for the moment. Even if he could get the drop on her, Gibbs wasn't sure that she wouldn't get a shot off first. Right now that gun was pointing square at Tony and he wasn't going to take that chance.

"Hey Gibbs? Didn't you say that guy, what was his name….uh, Sucks? Didn't you say he was such a bad shot that he couldn't hit the side of a barn? Yeah that was it. Honey, you're husband probably should have gotten another career years ago. He got shot down….from a helicopter…I mean how the heck does that happen? Did he fail sniping 101 or something?" Tony kept moving as he was talking, gesturing with his hands and strolling around like he was having a chat with an old friend. Within a few steps he was casually standing in front of Dina, but Elizabeth hadn't noticed.

Well trained or not, the assassin wasn't taking Tony's insults too easily. Her hands began to shake as she struggled to stay in control. Breathing heavily and clamping her jaw, she took a couple steps towards the man who had the nerve to disrespect her dead husband.

It was just the moment Gibbs had been waiting for….