Chapter One: One Shot . . . One Kill?

"Why did Lyndi insist on having a press conference?" Tim grumbled as he adjusted the shirt he was wearing. He was currently sitting in one of the plush meeting rooms of his publishing house.

His best friend, Abby Sciuto, shrugged sarcastically. "Perhaps it's because 'Friendly Fire' is walking off the shelves. It's your fastest selling one yet."

"Only because Rock Hollow became popular," Tim muttered as he smoothed out his tie. He stood and looked into one of the wall mirrors. He frowned.

"What's up with you?" Abby asked. "You sound as though you got up on the wrong side of the bed."

Tim sighed and said quietly, "I haven't slept that well since the book launch."

Abby looked sympathetic. "Well, it's not like it's the first time."

Tim threw his hands up in frustration. "But it's not like last time. Last time I was stressing over my writing. This . . . this is different."

"Different how?"

"I don't know," Tim snapped, but upon seeing Abby's look of hurt, apologised. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap. I'm just tired."

Abby walked over to where Tim was standing and motioned for him to sit down. With a heavy sigh, Tim sat and Abby started to massage his shoulders.

"You need to stop worrying," Abby said gently. "Everything will be fine. You'll get through the book launch and then I'll take you out."

Tim groaned in good nature. "Not to that club you like."

Abby laughed. "No, silly. It's the middle of the day. What about that little coffee shop you like so much?"

Tim gave Abby a small smile and nodded. "Sure, sounds great."

"Don't sound so enthusiastic," Abby harrumphed. "I'll even throw in a danish if you promise to be your absolute charming self."

Tim screwed up his face and sighed. "Only because it's you."

"Only because of the danish," Abby amended, grinning. She made her way over to the door. "Come on you. Time to dazzle the crowd."

---

"Okay, okay," Sarah the media officer announced to the gathering crowd of reporters and general public. "Mr Gemcity will make a brief statement and then he'll be available to answer any of your questions."

Tim, Sarah and Lyndi were standing in front of the downtown DC publishing house. Abby was in foyer, along with another couple of workers and a few security guards. There were two more security guards standing either side of the party outside.

Tim smiled and stepped forward to the microphone. He really did hate all this fame and publicity. He was a writer, not a show pony celebrity. Sometimes Tim wondered why he even bothered.

"Firstly, I want to thank you all for coming," Tim started. "Your continual support means a lot to me. L.J. Tibbs is a man supported by a wonderful team of dedicated agents. Sometimes I feel as though I am L.J. Tibbs and you are my team of support."

Mentally, Tim was rolling his eyes. He had prepared his own statement, an honest and from the heart one, but Lyndi, Sarah and a small army of speechwriters had "edited" it for him. Tim ended up with something that was nothing like his original one at all.

"Writing The Continuing Adventures of L.J. Tibbs is a pleasure, not a chore," Tim continued (at least they had gotten that bit right), "and I am so privileged to be able to share my creation with you. I wouldn't have been able to have done without, of course, the help of my publisher Lyndi Crawshaw and Reilly Press."

'There's the token "let's publicise both the publisher and publishing house,"' Tim thought.

"I hope that you will continue to support L.J. Tibbs and his team of dedicated agents in my next book that will be available next fall," Tim finished with a flourish.

He nodded as there was a smattering of applause. Nudging Tim to the side, Sarah stepped up to the microphone and announced, "Mr Gemcity will now take some of your questions. Please, only one at a time and we will endeavour to get through as many as we can. Who's first?"

All the reporters started to talk at once, and it wasn't until Sarah pointed to a young woman that Tim heard his first question.

"Is it true that you based L.J. Tibbs on a real person?" she asked.

Tim shook his head. "L.J. Tibbs is very much my own creation, though I have done plenty of research. Besides, it's not like I'm going to find a NCIS agent on my doorstep, is it?"

The crowd laughed as Sarah pointed to an older man who asked, "What has been your greatest achievement with L.J. Tibbs?"

Tim thought for a moment. "Getting 'Deep Six', my first novel, published was probably my biggest achievement. I've wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little kid, and getting my book published was like a dream come true."

Sarah gestured to another man. "Do you think you'll ever write anything besides The Continuing Adventures of L.J. Tibbs?" he asked.

"Well . . ." Tim paused, staring off into the distance. He blinked twice and shook his head. "I'm concentrating on L.J Tibbs at the moment, but who knows; there might be –"

Tim was cut off abruptly as the glass door next to him shattered with a bang. Someone, maybe a reporter, screamed and all hell broke loose.

---

Two minutes earlier . . .

She had found the perfect building. It didn't happen every time, but with Ziva it happened more often than not.

Quickly, quietly and dressed in black pants and cream jacket, Ziva had entered the abandoned building and had made her way to the rooftop. Efficiently, she pulled bits of a rifle out of the professional shoulder bag she had swung around her body.

She assembled the pieces quickly, removed her expensive cream jacket and lay flat on her stomach. She lined up the barrel of the rifle and looked through the scope. Perfectly in the middle, she could see a young man wearing a shirt and looking completely uncomfortable.

Ziva reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a folded photo. It was a surveillance photograph of the young man in her scope accompanied by a female with an electric taste in clothing. A girlfriend, perhaps?

She glanced down at the photo: Thom E Gemcity aka Timothy McGee. She knew he was a high-profile author, though she hadn't read any of his books, but honestly, she really didn't understand why her client wanted a seemingly mild-mannered author dead.

But it was not her place to understand the intentions of others. She was here to do a job, get paid and move on. She tested the wind speed and position, taking into consideration the effect it would have on bullet's path.

Curiously, Ziva watched the young man through the scope. Although she couldn't hear what he was saying, Ziva was skilled enough in the art of lip reading to know roughly what he was saying. She could tell that the crowd reacted well to him, even if she could see that he wanted to be anywhere but on that stage.

'I know the feeling,' she said to herself.

Abnormally, she was feeling slightly guilty as she aimed the rifle at the exact location that would, coupled with the wind trajectory, end Timothy McGee's life. Usually she was fine, a target was a target, whoever they were. But there was something different about Timothy that Ziva couldn't quite put her finger on.

Perhaps it was the fact that the people who usually hired her were criminals out to get other criminals or people out to assassinate politicians and corrupt businessmen (whom Ziva didn't hold in very high regard) or occasionally, some of the more lenient security agencies would employ her services. Rarely did she ever get the men wanting a hit on their wife or girlfriend or someone wanting their parent's money. She was simply way out of their price range.

She was the best.

But a target was a target no matter who it was. Pushing Timothy's slightly baby-faced face from her mind, Ziva aimed her rifle and pulled back the trigger. She could see Timothy talking, but then he paused.

What happened next, Ziva never did quite understand. Time stopped and through some eerie coincidence his eyes, though nearly impossible, seemed to lock on to her's. Her finger wavered on the trigger as the moment when she would have fired passed. Timothy continued to look out into the distance, as though he knew something was there, but didn't quite know what.

Ziva, through no conscious thought, gazed back at him, taking in his wide green eyes. There was something about them that made her stop and falter. For a moment, she found it hard to breathe. And this, this was enough to make her lose concentration for a split second. Without evening noticing, the rifle moved a couple of millimetres to the right.

Then Timothy blinked, shook his head and returned to his speech as though the moment had never taken place. Taking a couple of seconds to react, Ziva fired.

She missed.

Reeling from the missed shot, Ziva saw the crowd descend into frenzy. Timothy was rushed inside by two burly security guards who had drawn their guns at the gunshot. She could hear sirens in the distance and she knew it was only a matter of minutes until the cops arrived.

How the hell had she missed?

Angry with herself, Ziva sat up, let her gun clatter to the ground and let out a frustrated growl. Ziva David did not miss. She was the best and she liked it that way.

Knowing that the cops were on their way and her chances of getting her target had been shot to hell, Ziva picked up the weapon, dismantled it and shoved it into her shoulder bag. She stood, angrily shrugging on her cream coat. Finally, she leant over and picked up the wasted shell casing.

Stepping lightly, though she felt like stomping, Ziva made her way back across the roof, down the stairs and out the front. As she casually walked away from the building, it was as though she'd never been there.

She wasn't called the Shadow for nothing.