It was no surprise really that Ziva returned to consciousness fighting. She felt strong hands clasp around her ankles and another two at her wrists.
"Ziva stop struggling!" Came a familiar voice. Her eyes flew open and she had to blink several times before the blurry shapes and faces around her focused.
"Tali!" She panted, her eyes taking in the scene. She was still on the floor in her apartment, surrounded now by cops and paramedics. Gibbs was standing by the door talking to her neighbor and Tony was crouching at her head.
"We're gonna find her, Ziva," he said forcefully, loosening his hold on her wrists but not releasing them. "But you need to keep still...the bullet clipped your side and you lost a lot of blood…" His hands automatically tightened again as she ignored him completely and fought to sit up. Gibbs came over, putting a firm hand to her shoulder, and she tried to hide a wince of pain from the movement.
He spoke calmly, steel eyes piercing brown. "We've got one body and McGee and Ducky are on their way to collect the evidence. Abby is waiting in her lab to process everything we can find. I've got a BOLO out on the entire East Coast. We can handle this; you are no good to Talia if you don't get fixed up."
She stopped struggling but took a few shallow, painful, breaths. "There were three men total, heavily armed."
Gibbs nodded, "Your neighbor told us. She saw them from her peephole and called 911."
"Lucky Mrs. Devereaux knows Gibbs is your emergency contact," Tony said, glancing to the fretful older woman standing in the hallway and talking to another officer.
"I killed one and shot another through the left shoulder. They grabbed Talia and...and I passed out. How long -"
Gibbs interrupted, his voice soft and reassuring. "It's only been about thirty minutes, Ziver. We've got a good jump on this. Now you need to just shut up and do what the paramedics tell you. The sooner you're better, the sooner you can help on the case. That's an order." He nodded to Tony, "Stay with her."
"No!" Ziva argued again. "You need help processing-"
Gibbs gave her a slightly exasperated look. "This way you can give Tony a full account of what happened and once you're settled in and taken care of, he will come back to the Yard. Good enough?"
The two men exchanged a look that Ziva knew well, and she could see that they were just placating her. But she was too upset and having a hard time focusing so she simply nodded, closed her eyes, and began the rundown of events as the paramedics lifted her to a stretcher and wheeled her from the room.
"What am I doing back he-"
Stankic didn't even finish the sentence before Gibbs grabbed him by the collar, wrenching him out of the chair and slamming him into the wall. The observation room was empty, the normal hum from the surveillance cameras conspicuously absent.
"Who grabbed our witness?" He yelled.
"Wh...What are you talking about?" Stankic stammered, holding up cuffed hands.
Gibbs registered the genuine surprise in the man's eyes, but it did little to deter his anger. "Three armed men just came after her. I wanna know why."
"I don't know! After our last contact, we never heard ba-"
"What was in the information you gave them on her?"
"N...nothing!" Stankic yelped as Gibbs slammed him against he wall once more. He began speaking quickly. "Her name, physical attributes….information on where she went to school, who her friends were. Her...her address in London, her old school schedule, some old photos…"
Gibbs loosened his grip minutely. "Old photos?"
Stankic nodded desperately, grasping onto the chance to be useful. "Family photos from some old album in her bedroom. We thought maybe our people could find a relative for leverage but our research indicated her family died in a car crash..."
Gibbs shoved away from Stankic, turning quickly to the door. He tried to find a way around the implications in his head as he stood impatiently punching the elevator button. He pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed-dial for Tony, but he was distracted as the doors opened and a figure exiting the elevator ran right into him. He reached out his hands, gripping Abby's arms to keep her from toppling over.
"What is it Abs?" He asked quietly, steering her back into the elevator as he smacked the button for the main floor.
"I got a hit on the shooter that Ziva killed," she whispered, her voice wavering.
"Another Nula Osam?"
Abby's pigtails gently smacked her face as she shook her head.
"No, his name is Tariq al-Fulan…" Gibbs' eyes narrowed and Abby chewed her lip for a moment before continuing. "He's a known member of Hamas."
Gibbs closed his eyes. He wasn't that surprised; not after Stankic's revelation just moments before, but the confirmation still settled in his gut like lead.
Abby's timid voice broke into his thoughts. "Gibbs...Gibbs, I don't think they were after Natalia Argandoña, witness..."
"No," Gibbs said grimly. "No, they were after Talia David, daughter of Mossad Director Eli David."
Tony's voice was the first thing she registered in her slow return to consciousness.
"You sure? Has Vance tried calling...yeah, yeah I'm sure he did…."
He was keeping his voice low - probably to ensure she could not hear him - but she dragged her eyelids open. He was standing by the small window in the otherwise dark room, his back to her, but she could see the tension radiating from his shoulders. "Yeah, got it boss. I'll head back as soon as she's awake."
"I am awake," she offered hoarsely as he snapped the phone closed and turned to her. He didn't have his poker face quite set before doing so, and she saw his moment of panic before the carefully neutral expression settled in place.
"So you are. Feel okay? The nurses doped you up against your wishes, but they were getting a little tired of the constant threats of bodily harm."
"What do we know?"
"You were lucky," he continued, ignoring or purposefully misinterpreting her question. "The bullet went out of its way to miss anything vital. You should be up and around in no time."
"Forget me, what do we know on the case."
Rather than taking the chair, he sat carefully down on the bed next to her. She took that as a bad sign, already trying to sit up straighter.
"Ziva…"
"Tony, I swear to God if you don't tell me right now-"
He silenced her with a look that was eerily Gibbsesque.
"They've identified the dead shooter from the terrorist watch list."
"Nula Osam…"
"No."
"What do you mean no, Tony! Those were not some petty thugs breaking and entering...those were highly trained assassins!"
"I know, I just meant that they're not Osams -"
"Then who?"
Tony took a deep breath and met her angry stare head-on. "The man you killed was Hamas, Ziva."
The word rang loudly in the dark and otherwise quiet room.
"No…" The word forced its way out, taking all the air from her lungs with it.
"Gibbs...Gibbs thinks they grabbed Talia because they found out who she really is..."
She closed her eyes, her own words from just a few days before drowning out what Tony was saying.
The Osams have alliances with Palestinian terrorists; they are watched carefully at Mossad.
"...thinks that Crncevic Junior offered up Talia's ID and location to Hamas in order to strengthen their allegiance and his new position of power." She tuned back into Tony's rundown and began shaking her head.
"But why? Why now? She is not Eli's only daughter and no one has tried to come after me since I was a child!"
Tony hesitated, his mouth agape as his face twisted. Ziva groaned as realization hit her a second later, and she answered her own question.
"Because I can take care of myself and it's widely known that Eli does not value my life...I know…" She raised a shaking hand to her head and tried to focus despite the wretched drugs coursing through her veins. She reached down and ripped the IV line out of her arm.
Tony winced, quickly holding a sheet against the bloody spot. "That was mostly antibiotics, you know. I told them to back off with the morphine."
"What did Eli say?" She continued, ignoring him as she tried to sit up again. He pressed a button and waited as the bed folded in on itself.
"Said he'd be in touch when he knows more. He shut out Gibbs and Vance and isn't returning their calls right now."
"Where's my phone, I need to try-"
"Ziva, we're doing everything we can from here-"
"NO! Don't you see, Tony?" She yelled suddenly. "There's nothing we can do! Nothing we can offer them. They're trying to blackmail Eli, and he will never meet their demands. Not even for Talia!"
She looked around the dark room, trying to find a bag or her clothes. She'd leave in the goddamned hospital gown if it came to it. She gingerly swung her legs over the edge of the bed, hissing through the pain. "Our only hope is finding her before they realize that. I am checking myself out. If you won't drive me, I will call a cab."
"Ziva, you just had surgery; they'll never let you-" He broke off at her expression and just sighed. "At least let me get a doctor to look you over and prescribe some meds, okay? Then I'll take you to work, where Gibbs will promptly kick your ass. Then mine. Then probably yours again."
"I'll take my chances," Ziva sighed, laying back against the bed as he pressed the call button.
Gibbs glanced up at the ding of the elevator, his eyes narrowing when he saw two figures marching into the bullpen. He should have known better than to leave Tony with Ziva; he would always give her what she wanted.
Tony's expression was contrite, but it paled beside the bull-headed determination shining through Ziva's obvious pain. "What do we know?"
He glared at her for several long seconds, before turning to McGee and giving a nod.
"Abby ID'd the man you shot as Tariq al-Fulan," he tapped his computer and a photo appeared on the plasma. "Palestinian, suspected to have been in the country since '03, he was part of a cell that attempted to blow up a power plant outside of Maryland in '05. FBI arrested two other men at the time, but al-Fulan went underground."
"Until last night," Ziva said harshly, taking the clicker from McGee and watching intently as the photo switched over from the DHS bulletin to a picture of a now-dead Tariq on her living room floor. "Anything on the other two shooters?"
"No. We got a blood sample from the one you shot in the shoulder, but no matches yet. We've gone over all the security footage from your building and the street. They had a black Econoline waiting in the alley; plates are stolen."
"BOLO?"
McGee nodded. "Came back about an hour ago. They found the van abandoned down on Fenton and King. Vance sent Coleman's team to process the scene."
"The won't leave any evidence behind," Ziva muttered to herself as she clicked through the photos. "Is Agent Griffiths..." She asked suddenly, landing on the shots from her apartment building hallway.
Gibbs just shook his head. "Killed instantly. Never heard 'em coming."
Ziva sighed, unable to help as a sliver of her repressed emotions broke through. She leaned against McGee's desk and rubbed a hand over her face. "Tali really liked Jon. He was a good agent."
She looked back to Gibbs, who was studying her intently, and made an effort to stand up straight. She wasn't about to give him any reason to send her home, or worse, back to the hospital. "What did Eli have to say?"
Gibbs scowled. "He wouldn't even talk to Vance, let alone me. He had some lackey brief us in MTAC. Said they'd handle it and 'let us know' when Hamas makes their demands.
Ziva chewed on her lip as she stared off into space. "He may actually mean that. I do not think he would let his pride get in the way of sharing information that may help Talia. And he may try to stall, but he will not negotiate with them. Whatever their demands, he will never meet them."
"Then we'll find her before it comes to that, Ziver," Gibbs said softly.
She nodded. "Okay. I am going to get in touch with my contacts-"
"No," Gibbs interrupted. "You are going to go see Ducky so he can tell me how much trouble DiNozzo is in for letting you check yourself out of the hospital. Then, if he says you can manage it, you are going to sit here quietly and type up your incident report."
She gaped at him, her expression turning indignant. "Gibbs, my connections can prove invaluable-"
"Those are my terms. Take 'em or leave 'em."
She glared at him for several seconds more before stalking off to the elevators without another word. Tony watched her go before glancing at Gibbs. "Ziva's got connections everywhere, boss. We may want to take advantage of that."
Gibbs shook his head. "Talia's kidnapping is not a fact I want to advertise, no matter how discreet her sources. Plus most of those ties were made during her Mossad days, and I don't trust anyone right now with a connection to Eli or that entire organization. We'll save it as a last resort, but right now let's try doing our own goddamnded job. Go see if Coleman's team has brought the evidence back to Abby yet."
I'm no medical expert, so just go with the whole TV suspension of disbelief if Ziva's hospital stay seemed a little abrupt. Besides, I don't think it's a huge stretch that she could/would check herself out so quickly with a few stitches in her side...
The real world is about to get in my way a bit, so please be patient and I will update as soon as I can! Thanks for reading :)