Consequences of Love and War: Chapter 39
A/N: Yes, I am back from my vacation that wasn't a vacation at all. I learned some valuable lessons during that training in Texas: 1) Texas is hot in October. 2) Body armor is heavy and doesn't breathe at all. 3) The ground is hard. 4) Body armor does nothing to protect arms and legs from said ground when diving to it at the sound of simulated gunfire. 5) If doctors and nurses were really expected to do half of the things they were supposedly training us to do, Al Qaeda and the Taliban would have not only defeated us, but probably also invaded the States a long time ago.
Anyway, since it's been awhile since the last installment, here's a bit of a recap: The whole terrorism/Taliban angle turned out to one big dead end when Dr. Aachen's kidnappers sent a ransom note, followed by a video proving that she was still alive, that the NCIS team determined came from Camp Phoenix. After some searching, Specialist Adam Jenkins, an Army medic at the hospital on base, rose to the top of their suspect list. Unfortunately, the commanding general of the base isn't so thrilled with the idea of NCIS agents storming the base in a search for the missing physician.
Ziva David glanced up at her partner over the tops of two desks. Gibbs had never reappeared after driving Kirkan home, and McGee had disappeared somewhere a few hours after that, leaving them practically alone in the office. "You should stop drinking coffee," she commented, her eyes returning to her computer screen. "You are becoming buggy."
"Antsy," he corrected automatically, not looking over, his attention still focused on balancing a pencil on his nose. His concentration dropped as the writing utensil fell to the ground, his eyes finally meeting hers to see a knowing smirk. "And you did that on purpose."
She didn't bother responding to such an obvious statement, instead getting to what she knew was the source of his antsy-ness, if that was even a word. "There is nothing to worry about. The evidence that we have—"
"Won't be enough," Tony interrupted, earning him another frustrated sigh from Ziva. They had had this discussion several times already, in a couple of different languages. She knew that her solution would get him to shut down, but she was saving it for their conversation with Agent Burley, knowing that it would also make him angry. "Burley gets nervous around Gibbs. There's no way he's going to agree to a plan that would piss off a general who exchanges Christmas gifts with people who sit around the Situation Room table with the President." She blinked and frowned slightly at that statement. "I don't know if they really exchange Christmas gifts," he said at her expression. "I was being facetious."
"I did not know that you knew what 'facetious' meant," she shot back, a slight smile tugging at her lips.
He allowed a quick grin to that before getting back to the subject at hand. "We can't just waltz onto base with our NCIS badges and pick up Dr. Aachen and arrest Specialist Jenkins and whoever he's working with, not if Burley says no. Afghanistan is his jurisdiction."
"You do not know that he was will say no," she pointed out, just as she had done multiple times already. He just snorted and didn't bother saying anything else, which she knew was her cue to drop the subject and get back to work.
They continued to work in silence—well, Ziva worked in silence, while Tony mainlined coffee with sugar and tried to beat his previous high-score at something on his computer called 'Snood'—until the alarm that he had set sometime after their dinner of Chinese take-out went off. "Showtime," he said, standing abruptly, not glancing over at her as he made his way toward the stairs, taking them two at a time toward MTAC.
It was another five minutes before Stan Burley signed onto the video conference, not surprisingly, with Kim Tomblin at his side. "DiNozzo, David," Burley greeted. "Sorry about that. If I'd known that you were staying up for a chat, we would have come in earlier."
"It is okay," Ziva replied with a slight smirk. "You gave Tony an opportunity to get to the thirteenth level of Snood."
"Oh, I love Snood," Tomblin said. "I've probably deleted that from my computer fifty times since college." At the looks from the other three, she shrugged. "It's like a drug. You get addicted and then it consumes all your time so you don't get any work done. Try to quit cold turkey, and you'll probably end up downloading it again, and the cycle repeats itself. What?" she asked at the askance look from Burley. "It's not as if there's anything better to do in the sandbox."
"Remind me to get Freiler to check your computer when we're done here," Burley said before turning back to Tony and Ziva. "Something new?"
DiNozzo quickly summed up what they had on Specialist Adam Jenkins, including Ducky's psychological profile and the specialist's daughter's diagnosis of cystic fibrosis and his wife's concerns. "You've been to Camp Phoenix," he summed up. "Is there somewhere on base where a couple of medics can be holding a physician without anybody finding them?"
"Yeah," Burley said thoughtfully. He leaned forward to his computer as he searched for something. A minute later, the screen split, with Burley and Tomblin on one side and a map of the base on the other. "The back eighth of Concrete City," he said, using the cursor to point to a section of the base.
"Concrete City?" DiNozzo asked.
"Named for the T-walls," Tomblin jumped in. "Fifteen foot concrete walls that protect the huts from mortar attacks. They're arranged to form walkways, like streets in suburbia." She paused, then added, "Tall enough and thick enough that you can't see or hear anything coming from the hut across the 'street', much less a quarter mile away."
"They're doing renovations in the huts in this section, turning them from O-4 housing to O-3 housing, I think," Burley continued. "Nobody's been there since January. Dr. Aachen shares her half of her hut with Marine Captain Nichole Stover and Navy Lieutenant Dayna Backus. The other half is occupied by three Navy O-3's: Amy Major, Emily Lynch, and Jacqueline King, over here." He gestured to a section of the Concrete City probably a third of a mile from the back eighth as the bird flies, but easily over a mile through the streets between T-walls.
"Need to go in there and get her," Tony said abruptly. Burley drew in a breath between clenched teeth before shaking his head.
"Whether she's there or not, we can't," he said. "If we go in there and she's not there, de la Cruz makes a couple phone calls and we're all checking the 'help wanted' section of the classifieds. If we go and find her, he'll look like an idiot, so he'll make a couple phone calls out of spite and to cover his own ass." He sighed and shook his head again. "As much as I love working for the cowboys, you can't forget that I put in my time at State. Sometimes, you have to play the game if you want to cross the finish line."
"Stan, that's a bunch of shit and we all know it," DiNozzo snapped. "We're civilians in this job exactly for that reason—so we won't be intimidated by the chain of command. There is a Navy physician being held on that base who deserves a lot more that your fears for your job."
"I'll pass along everything you told me to General de la Cruz, and the MPs can take it from there."
"Listen, Stan, if you're not willing to do this, we'll come in and do it for you. Just say the word and we're on the next plane to Kabul. Ended up missing my vacation because of this case. It'll be nice to get away."
"It's still NCIS, and NCIS in this area comes back to me, no matter where you usually work."
"What if it is not NCIS?" They all turned to face Ziva with identical looks of confusion on their faces. DiNozzo was the first to understand what she was saying and began shaking his head.
"No," he said bluntly. She turned to face him before turning back to the screen.
"It was the attack on the convoy that led us to consider terrorism in the first place," she continued. "Another attack would be similarly explained. And if a disturbance were to occur near this back eighth, the MPs would have to go investigate." She continued to look straight ahead, avoiding Tony's purposeful glare. "Stan, Kim, I think that it would be best if you did not hear any more of this."
"You're probably right," Burley agreed. "Look forward to hearing about the ramifications. And good luck." He signed off, leaving the striped stand-by screen in his absence.
Ziva slowly removed the headset, still avoiding Tony's eyes. "Do not say it, Tony," she ordered, her voice low. "I do not want to hear it."
"Too bad." His voice was intense, and she could feel the fine tremor of the adrenaline coursing through his body as he turned her head toward his. "Don't go."
"It is not exactly the type of assignment I can pass off to someone else," she snapped in response. She tried to pull away, but his hold didn't give.
"It's dangerous."
"My job usually is."
"I'm serious, Ziva."
"So am I." The two continued to stare at each other unwaveringly, the air holding an electric charge that had nothing to do with the computer equipment filling the room. "Everyone is well-trained—"
"It's an act of war," he said bluntly. "We're talking about foreign intelligence operatives attacking a United States military base. If you're caught—"
"Then we will not be caught," she interrupted. Had their discussion not been so serious, it would have added a bit of much-needed levity, but the line just fell flat.
"They won't be using blanks," he said, unconsciously echoing the warning that Gibbs gave them before the Domino mission a few years before. The only difference was, this time the words were true. "This isn't a training exercise. This isn't a well-orchestrated façade to make a general feel good about himself, not to them. They will assume that this is a terrorist attack and they will shoot first and ask questions later."
"And you think that I do not know that?" Ziva replied, her voice just as intense as his had been. "Why do you think that this is something that I must do myself? I am in a position—"
"If you're going, so am I," he declared. Despite herself, Ziva let out a sarcastic snort.
"Do not be ridiculous," she said, almost mockingly, finally managing to tear herself away as she headed toward the door.
"What?" he asked angrily, following her. "What is so ridiculous about that? What's so ridiculous about involving Burley or Tomblin, either? We've all been working on this case. We're all invested in seeing Dr. Aachen get back safely."
"Because this is outside your area of expertise!" she shot back, spinning to face him again. "You do not have the training that I or the other members of my team have, and you would not be prepared to face the consequences if you fail!"
He stepped back, as if her words were an actual physical force striking him. "You have a contingency plan for if you fail?" he finally asked, his tone incredulous.
"Forget it," she snapped, again turning toward the door.
"Forget it?" he echoed, using the angry-mocking tone that she hated to have used on her. "Forget it? You just admitted that there is a very real chance that you won't succeed and you expect me to forget it?" He closed the distance between them again and reached for her arm, but she was faster, twisting from his grasp before he could make contact. "Where are you going?" he asked as she threw open the door to MTAC.
"Home," she said forcefully. "To my apartment. I suggest that you do the same." She headed for the back stairwell without hesitation, knowing that he wouldn't bother to try to catch up.