A/N: Hey all! So I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the small amount of reviews I received for the last chapter, but thank you to those who did read and review! Here is the next chapter, hope you enjoy it!
Chapter Seventeen
Ziva tapped her fingers on her desk in the bull pen out of boredom; she had been sitting in the same spot for the past two hours waiting for someone to find something. They had made good time from Virginia making it to Gibb's house around 1:00pm. They'd all opted to grab lunch at a diner close to his house since there had never been time for anyone to restock the man's bare kitchen, and then the group had ended up at the agency. It was a Saturday and they were the only people on the floor, and though most times Ziva would have enjoyed the quiet, today she founding it slightly unnerving.
She wanted desperately to be able to busy herself with something that would help them find Tali, but McGee was working on her father's bank accounts and Tony was going through his phone records. Abby was down in the lab running finger prints through AFIS and going through any other evidence that had been collected by CSU. So Ziva was left with nothing to do and it was starting to eat away at her nerves.
She stood and began to pace between the desks. Gibbs watched her intently at first, looking for any signs that she was stressed. He couldn't blame her if she was, but he didn't want her on edge. He left her alone for the first fifteen minutes, but then as his eyes travelled across the bull pen he saw that he was not the only watching her. Tony had stopped his work and was watching his partner, eyes filled with worry, and McGee looked up at the Israeli ever few minutes. Gibbs rubbed a calloused hand over his face, they certainly weren't going to make any headway like this.
"Ziva." She stopped her methodical rhythm between the desks. "Go see if Abby's got anything."
Ziva simply nodded her head and made her way to the back elevator. Once inside she hit the emergency stop button and closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced herself to calm down. She knew worrying every second of the day wasn't going to do anything, but it was extremely hard not to. Tali was her daughter, the only constant thing she'd had in her life for the past fourteen years, and having her suddenly ripped away was killing her. Ziva took a couple more deep breaths before pushing the red button to start the metal box once more. The doors slid open and she smiled as the familiar sound of hard rock/metal, floated out of the lab.
Ziva stood in the door a moment just observing the scene before her. Abby was back in her old clothes, her hair was back up in her customary pigtails, and the make-up covering her tattoos had been removed. She smiled and was about to walk in when Izzy spoke.
"Hey Mom?" She asked from her spot on the metal table behind Abby.
"Hmm?"
"You're gonna find Tali right? I mean you're gonna find something that lets you know who took her and then Dad, and her Mom and Dad, and Gibbs are gonna go find her and bring her back. Right?" Ziva's heart broke for her, obviously she was just as worried as the rest of them were.
Abby turned and enveloped her daughter in a hug, resting her chin on her head. "I will do everything I can to find something that will tell us where she is sweetheart. I know you two were starting to become friends."
"I think she could've been my best friend." She whispered the words so quietly that Ziva almost didn't hear her.
"Don't worry, we'll get her back Iz." Abby responded.
Ziva smiled sadly and waited until she was sure they were done talking before walking into the lab. "Abby? I came to see if you had anything." She called looking around, pretending that she didn't already know where they were in the room.
"Hey Zi." Abby greeted, walking back over to her computer. "I haven't got much yet. I'm running the prints through AFIS and I didn't find anything substantial on the other evidence collected from the room, but they did find a few hairs two short to be Tali's. I entered the DNA into just about every database in existence, which means our chances of finding a match are good, but it could take some time."
"The one thing we don't have much of." Ziva whispered, looking around the room.
Abby frowned. "Don't do that Ziva."
"Do what?" She asked, still not meeting the woman's eyes.
"Don't give up hope this early on in the process." She took Ziva's hand in her own and gave it a gentle squeeze. "We'll find her, don't worry."
Ziva was beginning to tire of people telling her not to worry, and she wrenched her hand out of her grasp and looked back up at Abby, anger flaring in her chocolate brown orbs. "Why is it that I am not allowed to worry? Why is it that I am not allowed to doubt the hope that you all seem to have?"
"Ziva, please…"
"No, Abby you don't understand." She interrupted beginning to pace about the room. "If my father is training her, than she is going through the most trying and rigorous exercises anyone could ever imagine. It came easy to me and my brother because we grew up going on ten mile runs for fun and being set in the middle of the woods to find our way out and get back home like it was a game. Tali… I don't know if she is strong enough for what they are going to put her through and if she is anything like Tony she will have said something to anger my father or one of his men by now and they aren't going to give her much food, which will make her even more weak and…"
"Would you just shut up." Ziva looked over at Izzy, her mouth hung open from stopping her rant midsentence.
"Isabelle Sarah McGee!" Abby exclaimed. "That was way out of line."
"Well I don't care." She retorted defiantly, earning a glare from her mother before turning her gaze on Ziva who just stood there perplexed. "Mrs. Da- no wait I'm just gonna call you Ziva, okay?" Ziva wasn't even able to get in a nod before the girl continued. "Standing here worrying about Tali isn't going to do anything. It's going to take some time yeah, but Tali isn't as weak as you make her out to be."
Ziva snapped out of her stunned stupor at this comment. "I never said that she was a weak person, I just said that the things they're going to put her through are going to be a huge shock to her system." She argued still confused at why she was having this conversation with a fourteen year old.
"If she was strong enough mentally to get through the two days of crap they put her through at school then I think she will be strong and determined enough to survive what these people are dishing out until you guys get there." Izzy said crossing her arms over her chest, seemingly ending the conversation.
Abby looked between the two and knew she had to remove one of them from the situation before the argument started up again. She decided she would have a better chance at ordering Izzy out of the room than the angry Israeli.
"Izzy c'mon lets go see if your Dad has any cash and we can go have some dinner from the vending machines." She shot Ziva an apologetic look as she led Izzy to the door. "Ziva, why don't you stay here and watch the computer? If it finds a match you'll be the first to know."
Ziva nodded and settled into the chair in front of the table once they had left. At first she just stared at the computer screen, willing it to find a match on either fingerprints or DNA, but deep down she knew it wasn't going to help the time go by any quicker. She walked around the lab for a bit, re-familiarizing herself with the room before venturing into Abby's office. She looked through a couple of the drawers and found a crossword book that looked like it had never been touched. She grabbed the book and a pen from the desk and settled back into the chair and began distracting herself with meaningless American trivia.
As the hours ticked by she assumed that both Abby and Izzy had gone back to Gibbs to get some rest or they had decided to give her some space. Either way she was content to have the room to herself, it meant she didn't have eyes watching her constantly to gauge how she appeared to be holding up and that in itself was a great comfort. She was about halfway through the crossword book when her eyes began to droop and she looked up at the clock on the computer; 8:34 pm. She'd been down in the lab for almost five hours and she'd been running on only about two hours of sleep the whole day. Riding all night in a car with Tony snoring wasn't the best environment in which to get a restful sleep.
Ziva yawned and conceded to let herself have a half hour nap. She set her watch to go off at 9:00 pm and went back to Abby's office to find the sleeping bag and pillow she knew the Goth had always kept on hand if they had a case that turned into an overnighter. She laid the sleeping bag out on the floor next to the table and zipped herself in. As soon as her head hit the pillow she was out and when her watch went off half an hour later she was too deep in sleep to even notice. The only thing that was able to wake her from her deep and peaceful slumber was the loud beeping of Abby's computer the next morning.
At first Ziva buried her face in the pillow, wanting the sound to go away so that she could go back to sleep. After about five seconds though, the reason for the annoying sound registered in her mind and she shot off the floor, rubbing the sleep from her eyes so she could read the screen correctly. Not only had the computer matched the sets of finger prints found in the room but it had also matched the DNA from the hair that had been collected as well.
Ziva quickly jotted down the names on a piece of paper and ran up the stairs taking them two at a time until she reached the right floor. She burst into the bull pen only to find McGee and Tony asleep at their desks, and Abby, Izzy, and Gibbs were nowhere in sight. She hurried over to McGee and shook him awake.
"Not now Abbs, m'tryin to sleep." He grumbled turning away from her.
"Wake up McGee, there was a hit on the DNA and fingerprints." She said, shaking him a bit more.
His head shot up at that and Ziva handed him the paper with the names on it as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "I'll cross reference these with your father's bank statements and phone records." He stifled a yawn before typing the names in while Ziva moved over to try and cajole Tony awake.
"Tony, get up." She shook his shoulders but he didn't budge. "Tony, get up!"
The yelling seemed to have worked as he snapped to attention, "M'on it Boss!"
Ziva stifled a laugh with her hand. "Tony, the fingerprints and DNA got hits. McGee is checking the names now."
"I told you so." He muttered blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
She frowned, her eyebrows drawn together. "Told me what?"
"That we'd find her." Tony smiled up at her and she managed a small grin.
"Guys, I think I've got something." McGee called as he stood and brought a few documents up on the plasma.
Ziva and Tony walked over and waited for him to explain what they were looking at.
"So the two guys that came into the room and took her were Yoni Rabin and Akim Machuv. Both have ties to some well-known terrorist groups in the middle east and their ring leader, Aviv Hadar has received huge sums of money from your father over the past few years." McGee pulled up the men's pictures and centered Hadar's.
"So he's the one that's been chasing Tali and Ziva all these years?" Tony ventured.
"His team has been at least." McGee answered. "Hadar also owns a private jet that made a trip two days ago from D.C. to this small airfield in Tub…"
"Tubarjal." Ziva finished.
"You know it?" McGee asked curiously.
"Yes, it is where my father used to take us and leave us to find our way back home. It was about a thirty minute drive from home and Mossad headquarters." She explained and Tony saw that she seemed to be flashing back to her childhood. "Could you pull up a map McGee?"
"Sure." With a few clicks of the remote he pulled up a map of the area on the plasma and began zooming in on different areas. "Here's the airfield, a small town just outside of that then it's pretty much deserted for miles except for…"
"Yes, that's it!" Ziva exclaimed pointing at the abandoned building McGee had stopped on.
Tony seemed skeptical. "Are you sure, Zi?"
"I am absolutely positive." She answered finally tearing her eyes away from the screen to look at him. "My father always told Ari and I that we were never to go into that building. That there were dangerous people there and we shouldn't ever go near it. I am sure that is where he is keeping her."
"Let's get moving then." They all jumped at Gibbs voice and found him standing just inside the bull pen a cup of coffee in his hand.
"Geez, Boss. How long have you been there?" Tony asked, not yet accustomed again to Gibbs knack for appearing out of nowhere.
"Long enough." He stated simply turning and heading toward the elevator. "C'mon there's a plane already waiting at the airport for us."
Tony, Ziva, and McGee gathered up their things and hurried to make it into the elevator before the doors slid closed. Once inside Tony turned to Gibbs frowning. "How'd you know we would find something?"
"Had a hunch." Gibbs answered nonchalantly.
The rest of the ride down the parking garage and then to the airport was fairly quiet. They caught a ride in a cargo aircraft that had been scheduled to leave an hour ago, but after a call from Gibbs and approval from director had been told to hold until they got there. It was already equipped with the weapons they would need and as the plan left the tarmac, Ziva allowed herself a small smile. The hope she had been pushing away for the past two days crept into her and she knew everything was going to be alright, it had to be.
She was sitting beside Tony and about a half hour into the journey her hand found his. He glanced briefly at her, but didn't ask any questions. They'd found where Tali had been taken, but Tony knew that was only step one in their mission to rescue her. Step two was going to be a whole hell of a lot harder.
A/N: Hopefully this extra long chapter will garner some more reviews :) Thanks for reading!
PS: Tuberjal is in Israel and as far as I know those names are Israeli. I just picked the city because it was farther away from the more populated areas and the place where they are keeping Tali needed to be out of the way.