Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 18
A/N: Previously in this NCIS story: Dr. Alyse Aachen is still missing (wouldn't be much of a story anymore if she weren't...). Despite the State Department's best intentions at slowing NCIS' investigation, they located Ezra Hardoon, a Mossad undercover operative captured by the American military in Afghanistan a few weeks before Dr. Aachen's abduction. He, unfortunately, didn't know anything about who might be holding Dr. Aachen, but he did know the name of someone who might. As far as the rest of the team (whom we have, admittedly, not seen much of lately): Abby analyzed Kirkan's video of the abduction, but didn't get anything. As there isn't any other forensics in the case, she must currently be working on something for another team. Ducky has been working on 'psychological autopsies' on both Kirkan and Aachen, but hasn't come up with much, with the exception of the fact that Dr. Aachen takes medication for chronic headaches and that Kirkan dedicates his novels to his wife, as well as bases characters after her. Tony and Ziva have been working with contacts in Mossad and throughout the Middle East, a fact that didn't escape Gibbs' attention; he now knows that DiNozzo has been trying to get his own team, as Ziva's director has been threatening to pull her from DC.
A sudden change in his surroundings caused Tony DiNozzo to awaken suddenly. He did a quick inventory of his environment: the mattress was a bit softer than his, the pillow a bit more firm, the only covers a thick down comforter. Ziva's bed; Ziva's apartment. He grinned as the events of the previous evening came back to him in a rush. They stopped by the grocery store to get what he needed to make his sausage and peppers pasta, opened up a bottle of red wine while he cooked, and then there was dinner, and just as Ziva promised him in the elevator, there was 'dessert' before they both fell into an exhausted slumber in her queen-sized bed.
And that was what made him realize what it was that woke him up in the first place: it was quiet. Too quiet. There were no ear-splitting snores that used to make him think he was sleeping with a lumberjack with emphysema instead of a young and beautiful—and deadly—Israeli woman. "Ziva?" he murmured, turning over in bed to face her. She was sleeping on her stomach, her shoulders bare above the comforter, her face turned toward him. Her eyes were still closed, but instead of her usual slack-jawed expression she—and just about everyone else in the world—wore while sleeping, she had a look on her face that was part terror and part agony, and instead of her usual snoring, a sound that would have been described as 'whimpering', had it been coming from anyone other than a trained Mossad assassin, could be heard.
A nightmare.
The things she had seen and done in the course of her life would give anyone nightmares, and this was hardly the first she had had in the last two years, since Tony had begun sleeping with her more often than without her, although they had been coming much less frequently. The first few times it happened, he hadn't known what to do, but even he was capable of catching on after two years.
Knowing how light of a sleeper she was, and knowing that the hand under her pillow was gripping a gun, and not knowing what was going on in her dream, he knew he had to be careful with how he woke her. He lightly brushed her hair back, exposing her face and neck, and leaned over to gently press his lips to the space where her jaw met her neck, right below her ear. She murmured something in a language he didn't understand—Russian?—but didn't stir. "Ziva," he whispered into her ear, keeping his voice light. "Calm down. I'll protect you from the bad guys." She murmured again and tried to turn away, but he held her in place. "Oh, come on," he scoffed as he leaned down to kiss her again, this time on the lips. "It's a bit late to try to get away from me now, don't you think?"
"Tony?" she muttered, finally opening her eyes.
"You were having a nightmare." She frowned, trying to remember.
"I was in Russia," she finally said, still frowning. "It was not long after I…" Her voice trailed off, her head shaking slightly. Suddenly, surprising him, she leaned forward, pressing her lips tightly to his. He was caught off-guard for about half a second before returning the kiss, allowing her to push him back down to the mattress. She pulled away to toss her hair over her shoulder, making him grin up at her.
"I love you," he said honestly. She grinned back at him.
"DiNozzo," she said in a mock-scolding tone as she leaned back down. "You talk too much." He chuckled as her lips met his again briefly before she straightened, the blanket slipping down her back.
And then the phone rang.
"Voicemail," he managed, just about the only intelligible phrase his mind could come up with at the moment.
"It is your phone," Ziva pointed out.
"Let it go to voicemail," he repeated, his hands resting on Ziva's hips. He groaned in frustration as she leaned over to the nightstand and picked up his phone. She never let it go to voicemail. Something about Gibbs' Rule Three. He tried pointing out that Rule Three was 'never be unreachable', not 'always answer the phone', but his protests always fell on deaf ears.
She pressed the 'accept' button the phone and held it to his ear. "DiNozzo," he barked, glaring at Ziva as he did so. He could feel her body shaking slightly with her silent chuckle.
"Did I interrupt something?"
"Actually, Boss, yeah," he snapped. "Some of us have better things to do in the middle of the night than build a damn boat."
"Don't care. Got a call from Stan. He'll be on in MTAC in half an hour." There was a pause. "Better let Ziva drive if you're going to make it on time." Gibbs hung up before DiNozzo could respond. With a heavy sigh, he tossed the phone back to the nightstand and looked over to Ziva, already climbing out of bed.
"I will get you back for that," he muttered darkly. She turned back and let her eyes graze over his body with a leer.
"Looking forward to it," she replied cheerfully. He glared as he forcefully pulled open his dresser drawer.
It was going to be a long morning.
---
"Good morning, DiNozzo," NCIS Special Agent Stan Burley said cheerfully as Tony and Ziva entered MTAC to join Gibbs and McGee. DiNozzo glared at the image on the screen.
"I don't think we can consider it 'morning' yet," he grumbled. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Burley's grin widened.
"Time for you to be impressed with everything I've accomplished while you were sleeping."
"Wasn't actually doing much sleeping, Burley," DiNozzo said, still frustrated at being pulled out of bed at 0230. Burley's grin widened as his eyes traveled from DiNozzo to Ziva and back again, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
"You said you got something for us," Gibbs said bluntly, ignoring the side dialog between his former senior field agent and his current one. Burley smirked once more at DiNozzo before he crossed his arms over the digital camouflage of his blank Marine uniform, leaning back against the desk behind him. The backdrop was an empty concrete wall, not the large picture window of the Bahrain field office, making the DC agents suspect that he was still in Afghanistan.
"We found Hardoon," he said as an opener, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. "Or, rather, we found Kazem Shirazi, at a maximum security center in Herat province, near the border with Iran. We contacted Officer Thal, she grabbed a helo ride from…someone. She didn't share who." Ziva smiled slightly, knowing the resourcefulness that Mossad training taught. Thal would have been able to talk her way onto anybody's helicopter, including the Taliban, if they had them. "Thal and I—and Ellis Pride, the Agency interrogator in these parts—spent the last five hours interviewing him."
"State Department approved that?" Gibbs asked, half in jest. Burley rolled his eyes.
"Hell, no," he said emphatically. "Freiler, my junior field agent, found Hardoon's location without their knowledge. That kid certainly knows his way around a database. If we wanted State's approval on anything, we'd probably be waiting until the next administration."
Gibbs smirked slightly. "You used to be State, Burley."
"And there's a reason why I left," the Bahrain supervisory field agent shot back.
"Does Hardoon know where Dr. Aachen is?" Ziva asked impatiently, cutting off Gibbs and Burley's back-and-forth. Burley shook his head, a remorseful expression taking over on his face.
"He had no clue," he said bluntly. The high hopes of everyone in the room deflated at once, creating an almost palpable change in the atmosphere.
"You called us here at," DiNozzo glanced at his watch, "0300 to tell us that you've learned nothing new?" he asked the man on the screen in disbelief.
"I said he didn't know where Dr. Aachen was," Burley repeated. "I didn't say we didn't learn anything new."
"Burley," Tony said warningly. "It is still far too early to be playing games."
"Give me a break, DiNozzo," Burley shot back. "Being SAC in the Middle East isn't all fun and games. I've spent the last few days dealing with JAGs, MPs, and detainees, and catching sleep when and where I can, which has mostly been during transport from one base to another. I need to enjoy myself whenever I can." Both Tony and Ziva carefully avoided Gibbs' amused glance in their direction. "Thal, Pride, and I spent the morning with Hardoon, going over his story and trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't. It's not that we don't trust Hardoon; we don't trust the guys he was talking to while we've been holding him for almost a month." He didn't sound remorseful at the fact that they had been unintentionally detaining a Mossad officer for that time; it was one of the risks of the job, and they all knew that. "He didn't know anything about Dr. Aachen, Boss. Gibbs." DiNozzo smirked at Burley's slip, but the Bahrain SAC didn't let it distract him for long. "Hardoon never spent any time in Kabul; his operations were mostly in Herat province."
"Rough territory," DiNozzo commented.
"Certainly not for the faint of heart," Burley agreed before he grinned. "Almost as bad as working for Gibbs." He cleared his throat at Gibbs' glare. "So like I was saying, nothing on Aachen, but he did give us quite a lot on possible future Taliban activity. Between us and the Israelis, the terrorists aren't going to be getting away with much any time soon."
"Tell me you have something we can use now, Stan," Gibbs growled.
"We have something we can use now," the special agent replied from his position in Afghanistan. "Hardoon gave us a name. We checked it out before sending our Mossad friends back to Tel Aviv. Niko Zajac, Belarusian all-around thug. He's got his fingers in just about every pie there is—arms dealing, drugs, persons trafficking. Mostly from Eastern Europe and the rest of the former USSR, but he seems to be part of some sort of mentorship program in the crime arena; he spends his free time helping small-time thugs increase their influence. For a price, of course."
"Of course," Gibbs said dryly. "What does this Zajac have to do with Dr. Aachen?"
"Maybe nothing," Burley admitted. "But some of these small-time thugs he's been rumored to be helping includes some Taliban cells around Kabul."
"Explains why they've been more successful lately," DiNozzo commented.
"No kidding," Burley replied dryly.
"You bringing him in for questioning?" Gibbs asked.
"Actually, I was thinking we should leave that for you," Burley replied. "Hardoon heard rumors about Zajac's location; Kim and Freiler confirmed them. He's with his family at their summer vacation home in the Hampton's. Apparently, there are some pre-season 'events' going on this weekend."
"Oh, yeah," DiNozzo said knowingly. "I remember that from growing up in the Hamptons. Everyone comes in for the weekend, rubs elbows, pretend they all like each other when really they're just deciding who they're going to actively hate that summer. Then a couple of months later when the season opens for real, suddenly two or three families—usually new money, new to the area—find themselves shunned and spending their time at their winter estates in Switzerland instead and they have no idea why. Thank God we were too well connected for that." He stopped talking when he realized that everyone was staring at him. "What?"
"We'll send a couple agents to the party and bring him in," Gibbs said. DiNozzo snorted, straightening when he noticed Gibbs' glare. "Something funny, DiNozzo?"
"Well, yeah, Boss," he replied. "You can't just walk into these parties. People try for years to get an invite."
"Actually, DiNozzo, I thought it would be a perfect job for you and Officer David," Burley remarked, loosing the battle with the smirk that was tugging on his lips. "You are familiar with the territory, after all, and from the world on the street, David can go undercover anywhere."
"Been a long time since I've been welcomed in those circles, Burley."
"Then consider this a perfect opportunity to make your grand re-entry."
"Still a matter of getting an invite."
"Shouldn't be too difficult." Again, he was fighting the smirk on his features. "After all, you know the host of this year's party. A Mr. Alessandro DiNozzo."