Tim walked into their room and tossed Ziva softly onto the center of the large bed. Ziva lay back for a second to catch her breath. She felt like she had stitches in her side from laughing so much. Not real stitches mind you, they felt much worse but a stitch? Was that the right word?

Tim started unbuttoning his shirt so he could see the damage for himself when the flashing night on the phone caught his eye.

Quickly he called down to the Hotel Concierge.

"This is Toby Wilkins in Room 409. I believe there is a message for me?"

"Oh yes Sir. A package has been left for you by the conference facilitator regarding your presentation tomorrow."

"Oh…yes. Thank you. I will be down shortly to collect it"

Tim hung up the phone and sighed. He had completely forgotten about his presentation. He was one of the key note speakers for the Conference. He had gone over and over it until he had it memorized and now?

Blank.

The only image he had in his mind right now was the sight of Ziva all tousled and resplendent on the large bed surrounded by soft pillows. She smiled up at him her eyes soft as she patted the bed beside her.

Focus.

Two hundred experts would be staring up at him and expecting a wunderkind to speak. It was the reputation of the real Toby Wilson on the line. A reputation a good man he had spent his life developing. Crap.

Tim sighed. Ziva kneeled up on the bed and sliding her hands up his chest started undoing the rest of the buttons on his shirt.

Tim grabbed her hands halting her movement and gave her a regretful smile.

"Going to have to hold off on that for a moment Damita. I need to collect a package from the Lobby about my big presentation tomorrow."

Ziva pulled a face squishing her nose up and Tim smiled agreeing with her.

"Well I better go and pick it up. And then I'm afraid I'm going to need to spend some time going over everything. It's already late. I will try not to keep you awake. I will set up the laptop on the breakfast table so you can have the lights out on this side."

Tim dropped a soft kiss onto Ziva's hair and moved towards the door.

"Wait! I…I will come with you."

Ziva didn't want to just watch him walk out the door and leave her here. She wiggled her bare feet at him.

"Besides I need to collect my shoes from under the table."

Tim smiled "Ok then. Come on Cinderella"

******************************************************************

Jake sucked noisily on this thick shake and watched the monitors while providing a running commentary for his own amusement.

"Ok exit door one…….flirt, flirt, giggle, laugh……..collect shoes…….pinch butt……bang head on table…...ouch……giggle, laugh, flirt, apologize, …….walk to elevators….touchy feely, poke, grab, flutter eyelashes…………enter elevator………."

"Ok switching camera feeds to main lobby. Pulling up elevators……….ding………"

Jake hummed some Barry Manilow to simulate the elevator environment.

"Her names was Lola…..she was a showgirl….with yellow ribbons in her hair and her dress cut up to there…….."

Jake paused "Ok and doors open. Couple comes out of elevator……………repeat couple comes out of elevator………."

He stared as he watched three elderly spinsters complete with walking frames make their way painfully out of the elevator. No Tim. No Ziva. He started rapidly pushing buttons and his voice got louder as he alerted the rest of the room to his dilemma.

"Bringing up elevator footage on ALL floors. Agents currently AWOL. Barry you're in the lobby have you got them in your sights? They entered the elevator but didn't get off? Where the hell are they? Code Yellow. Repeat Code Yellow. All agents call in all sightings of Agents McGee and Officer David. Last seen entering the elevators on the fourth floor. Intention to descend to the lobby."

"Agent Fornell? You better get down here. Our Toby and Damita are missing"

*******************************************************************

Tim stepped into the elevator still rubbing his head from where he had banged his head on the hallway table. Ziva reached up and ran her fingers through his hair trying to find the bump he claimed was there after she surprised him with pinch on his butt when he bent to collect her shoes.

Tim smiled at the maintenance man standing in the elevator dressed in dirty blue coveralls, with a tool belt strapped around his waist. He was wearing a battered baseball cap low over his eyes and holding a fire extinguisher. The man nodded politely back and Tim turned his attention back to Ziva's fussing as the elevator doors slid closed.

******************************************************************

"Damn it. I knew everything was going too smoothly. Call up their tracking locators and lets see what we have."

Fornell was anxious and he flashed a look across at a grim faced Gibbs. It was bad enough loosing agents of your own, he didn't want to be responsible for loosing Gibbs's. Gibbs glared at the scene on the monitor. This wasn't his Op and Fornell knew what he was doing but the urge to simply dash out those doors was high. But experience told him that a mistake made now could prove to be fatal later. And he needed to be where the decisions were being made.

Jake hammered at his key board and the screen pulled up a map of the hotel with two blinking dots rapidly moving beneath the Hotel.

"Damn it! They have to be in a car to be going that fast."

Tony itched to be on the move and he was almost bouncing on the spot. That was Ziva and Probie in there! McGee would be panicking. Ziva would probably be kicking someone's head in but Tony knew from painful experience that it tended to be the person that was with Ziva that got hurt. So back to McGee. Poor McGee!

"ComeonComeOnComeOnComeOnComeonComeon.."

Fornell turned and began barking out instructions to his team.

"Get on their trail NOW! Lucas and Santiago should already be outside. Jake give them the locations. Call up every available member of Alpha and Beta teams. Advise Richards team to keep a close eye on the real Tony and Damita as we might have something going down."

Gibbs growled in frustration as he watched the blinking dots suddenly separate and head into different parts of the city.

"They have split them up. Smart. Makes it harder"

Gibbs looked around the room. He had thought that Operation Sourdough seemed ridiculously over peopled compared to NCIS's pared down ops but now with two agents missing he wanted every person he could get his hands on.

Gibbs watched the blinking lights that indicated his agents. Something wasn't right.

*******************************************************************

Tim didn't see the fire extinguisher smash down on the back on his knee dropping him to the floor. But he certainly felt the glancing blow of the heavy metal cylinder to the side of his head.

"Ziva!"

Tim buckled with a cry and he sagged down onto his hands and knees, blackness and burgundy carpet rushing up to meet him. He fought to stay conscious through the wave of shock and pain with the tinny strains of Barry Manilow's Copacabana in his ears.

At the Copa, Copacabana
Music and passion
Were always the fashion
At the Copa
They fell in love…..

*******************************************************************

"Agent Fornell? I have Richards on the phone for you."

Fornell snatched the phone out of the man's hand and started speaking urgently into it.

"Look I need you to make sure that you have Toby and Damita…WHAT? Damn it! Ok you know what to do. Look I have the bulk of the team here I will send some over to give you a hand."

Fornell looked across at Gibbs his jaw tight.

"They knew. They haven't taken McGee and Ziva thinking they are the Wilson's. They took them to provide a distraction from what they were really doing. Toby and Damita Wilson and their guard just got run off the road and bundled into a van. I'm sorry Jethro."

Gibbs face was emotionless as he absorbed this information and what it really meant. Those bastards, whoever they were knew Ziva and McGee were Federal Agents. They also had no real reason to keep them alive now that the targets were acquired.

*******************************************************************

Ziva snarled and launched herself at the so called maintenance man and slammed him painfully into the wall of the elevator.

Click

"I wouldn't do that if I were you sweetheart"

Ziva looked up to find the hatch in the ceiling of the elevator open and another man smirking down at her. He had his gun aimed at McGee who was already shakily attempting to collect himself and stand upright.

'Bob' the maintenance man pushed her off him and pulled out his own gun before giving McGee a hard shove in the back with his heavily booted foot causing him to collapse to the floor with a low moan.

"Want to try anything else? Clocks ticking Darling and you're a lot prettier and a lot smaller to cart around than your boyfriend is. We were only expecting one of you anyway. Whadda yah say?"

Ziva glanced down at Tim who was pale but conscious on the floor, the cut to his forehead already bleeding profusely and running down his face.

"I promise, you will die screaming if you hurt him again"

*******************************************************************

Jake snatched up his earphones "I have one of the pursuits now. Punching it through."

Tony jammed his hands under elbows as he listened. He wanted to chase them himself and clench the steering wheel tight in his hands as he chased them down for taking his friends. But Fornell's people were already half way across the city. By the time he had got down to the car park Ziva and McGee could be on the beltway. Or dead.

"Ok it looks like a large laundry truck. Having trouble getting through the …ok Yeah."

Tony could hear the squeal of tires and the honking of horns as the Agent on the other end swore and cursed his way through the traffic and tried to pull up alongside the truck.

"Pull over! Federal Agents!"

"I said pull over now!"

There was a sudden squeal of tearing metal and a harsh thumping sound before the phone went dead.

Tony closed his eyes for a second.

Was it Ziva or McGee in the back of that truck?