Authors Note:
Thanks to all my faithful readers. Just to let you know, I'll have the entire In the Dark story wrapped up in Chapter Twelve. So, two more chapters to go after this one! They'll be done by the end of the week.
In the Dark
Chapter Ten
Part I
Earth B (Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly in the world of NCIS. Each thinks the other is Ziva and Tony DiNozzo)
Vasily Rodzenko sat in the back of the van, his gun trained on the three Americans. One was a uniformed police officer, and two were business-suited men in their mid-thirties. He had frisked them, and handed their ID wallets to his colleague, Ludmilla Kropotkin. It was she who went through them.
"So what's up, comrade," said the handsome one named Anthony DiNozzo, according to his credentials, which identified him as an NCIS agent. The other one was an NCIS agent too, Timothy McGee.
"You realize you're making a big mistake, Comrade," DiNozzo said again. "You're kidnapping three law enforcement officials…which means the FBI and the CIA and even the ATA will be on your tail. And I can tell you that they are the least of your worries…. my boss will move heaven and earth to find us. And if anything happens to us….well, you won't live to regret it."
Ludmilla Kropotkin wished, not for the first time, that she'd been sent to the United States with an all-women team of agents. These men…they drank too much vodka, and their testosterone was so high that it was practically squirting out of their ears. Their operation at that home had been compromised…there had been no reason to kidnap these three men. And now what were they to do with them?
Killing three law enforcement officials…it was as this DiNozzo said, it would do no good and might make things even worse.
It was time to turn on the charm.
"I must apologize for my colleagues," she said, with a warm smile. "You think we have kidnapped you but this is not so. We have saved your lives."
"How do you work that out?" demanded the police officer.
Ludmilla waved an airy hand. "That home was not safe. It was necessary to plant explosives in order to bring it all down in one piece, as a controlled explosion, you understand, so that no one entering the home would be injured accidently."
"So you kidnapped us to save our lives?" scoffed the cop.
Michael Weatherly gaped at the Russian woman, and he knew that beside him, Timothy McGee was gaping too.
"Now just a damn minute," he said when he was able to suck air into his lungs. "There were two people inside that home when you grabbed us. Where are they?"
Ludmilla froze for a second, then she turned to Vasily and started speaking rapidly to him in Russian. He turned his full attention on her as he responded excitedly. He started waving his hands, including the one in which he was holding the gun.
Michael Weatherly felt as cold as ice. There was a bomb in that home…and Ziva David and Ducky were both there. When was it scheduled to go off?
What could he…?
At that moment Timothy McGee, who had been waiting, hoping that action hero Tony DiNozzo would do something, decided that Tony had gotten too used to Ziva doing all the physical work. He didn't know what to do when he was staring down the barrel of a gun and Ziva wasn't there to save the day. But ZIva and Ducky were in deadly danger…and that guy with the gun wasn't paying any attention… and he had been working out with weights in his quest to lose some weight, and by god he was going to do something.
McGee lunged across the van, grabbing at the gun in the hand of Vasily.
Vasily started punching him.
The police officer also lunged forward, taking his lead from McGee, but quick as a striking snake, Ludmilla had pressed him back into his seat and was standing over him with a dagger in her hand.
McGee was back in his seat with a bloody lip and a gash on his head where Vasily had raked him with the gun's muzzle.
"Thanks, Tony," McGee gritted.
Michael had felt a cold ball of ice drop into his stomach as McGee and then the cop had attacked. But just as he'd nerved himself to join the fray…it had been over. But now that cold ball was replaced with a burning feeling of shame. But it hadn't been his fault. He'd intended to join in..it wasn't his fault he had slow reflexes.
But what was needed here was strategy, anyway.
"Now that we've got that out of our system," Michael said, "let's get back to the business at hand. There are two NCIS agents in that house that you say has a bomb in it. You've got to let me call them and tell them to get out."
Ludmilla waved her hand, in which she still held the dagger. "Yes, call them, quickly. Tell them to leave the house immediately." Then she said something in Russian to Vasily, who in turn pulled a walkie talkie out of his pocket and spoke into it.
They could feel the van slow down and make a right turn as Michael pulled out his cellphone..that was Tony DiNozzo's cellphone, and press Ziva's number.
She answered immediately. "Tony? Where are you?"
"Get out of that house, Ziva," Tony said without preamble. "Now. Get out and take Ducky with you. It's wired to explode."
Michael looked up at the Russian woman. "Where's the bomb?"
"That you do not need to know. The house will explode. Just get your people out of there."
"Ziva, did you hear that? Are you out yet?"
"Yes, Tony, we're all out of the house. We…."
Through the phone, the entire van heard the explosion.
At that moment, the van came to a halt. The radio in Vasily's hand squawked.
"Get out here," Ludmilla directed.
"Oh, come on," said Michael in his best Tony-can-charm-the-birds-out-of-the-trees voice. "You're not going to take us all the way back to the house?"
"No," said Ludmilla shortly.
"Well, you should at least pay for the cab, so we don't need to put it on our expense reports! There's a budget crunch in Washington, you know."
"Get out." Ludmilla said coldly.
The three of them got.
The van in which they had been riding, a white van with Virginia plates, shot forward and disappeared into traffic.
"Did you get the license plate number, McGeek?" said Michael as he started dialing Ziva again.
McGee nodded. "Yes."
"Good."
The police officer took a deep breath. "This is not going to look good on my report."
"Ziva," Michael said into the phone. "Are you alright."
"Yes, Tony," came Ziva's voice. "The house,however, is completely destroyed. What happened to you?"
"McGee and I were kidnapped. At gunpoint. By some Russians."
"Russians?!!!"
"Russians. But while they may have murdered the man in the house, they didn't want to be responsible for killing NCIS agents. Or police officers," he added, with a nod at the cop. "So they let us go."
"Get back to the office and start looking at mug books," came Gibb's voice. He must have grabbed the phone away from Ziva.
"Not necessary, boss," said Michael, proudly. "In all the confusion at the end, I was able to take several photos of them with my cell phone. Missed the driver, but I got the Russian gunman and the Russian gunmoll."
"Email them to Abby. I'll meet you guys at the office."
Michael, McGee and the cop looked at each other. "What's going to get here faster," Michael demanded. "Cop car or taxi?"
"Taxi," said McGee, as he stepped to the curb and raised a hand at a yellow cab heading in their direction. "Hey, taxi!!!"