Chapter 11

Valentina waited. She was in an interrogation room and she was not nervous. She knew that Fornell could pull her out. But she did not know how long it would take. A man came in and sat down on the chair on the other side of the table. He carried a file and opened it. 'Verena Palmer', he said. 'Now you are Valentina Riddle.' 'I know my story myself', she said sharply. She was not impressed by anything CIA did. He used an interrogation method, she knew it. She was an agent herself. She knew how it worked. 'Great', he said and closed the file. 'There is something in there that has not been added yet', he said. 'Alan Palmer was your half-brother. Eric Palmer is your half-brother.' He made a pause. 'You killed your own half-brother. You know that. How did it feel?' She did not react, she did not show any emotion. That was what she was trained for. To stay hard, unbreakable. Life is tough, she thought. He did not reach her.

'How did it feel to kill your brother?' 'Half-brother', she said coldly. 'However, someone so close related to you. Someone you barely knew and you will never get to know. He was one of our best agents. You killed him. Tell me, have you wanted this?' She was confused. Why should she have wanted the death of her own half-brother? She did not show him her confusion. She did not show him anything, she kept silence. 'Did you hate him? For what your mother did to you? She never wanted you. You are a murderer. Murderer of your own brother. Was it hatred that brought you so far to kill your own brother? Because he grew up with mummy and daddy?', the CIA agent did not get loud, he was trained very well to break a man. Unfortunately Valentina's file was incomplete and did not reveal that she was at least as well trained as him. She did not answer.

Gibbs cursed himself. He had found his daughter and lost her again. He could not believe in such a misfortune. Fornell had been there and now he was already on the way to CIA headquarters where Valentina was kept for interrogation. Gibbs did research on Alan. He could not find anything. He could not even access his mission file. He had to get more information and there was only one way to get it: From the other side. If CIA did not want to corporate he had to ask the Reynosa cartel Alan was undercover in. He stood up. 'Where do you go, boss?', McGee asked. 'I'm going to proof that Valentina was right', he said and walked to the elevator. Somehow his gut instinct told him that Alan was not as innocent as it looked like. Perhaps Valentina had not shot such a wonderful CIA agent. He also saw no reason why Paloma Reynosa should tell him. But he had no choice. He had to make a deal with the devil.

Theresa locked her motorcycle and took off helmet and gloves. She walked to the front door of the house. It was not locked. She opened the door, put gloves and helmet on the cupboard left to her and this time she pulled her weapon. She silently closed the door behind her. She put on the lights in the living room and walked in. A man was sitting on the couch. She pointed her gun at him. He looked up. Theresa came nearer. He carried a gun as well, turned it in his hands. 'You betrayed me', Ari said. Theresa sat down opposite to him. The table was between them. She lowered her gun and Ari pointed his toward her. She looked at him. She is so beautiful, Ari thought. Unfortunately, she has a girlfriend.

'Do you want to kill a federal agent?', she asked. He smiled at her. 'Why didn't you tell them I was a cop?', she asked. 'Why should I?', Ari asked back. 'If I did you would be either killed by them by now or taken into protection program by FBI. Oh, wait a moment…you already are in protection program', he said. She did not reply. 'What do you want from me, Ari?', she asked. 'You let me go and I did not betray you', he answered. 'Well-balanced', she said. He smiled shortly again and lowered his gun, too. He put it on the table. Theresa did so, too. 'Why?', he asked. She did not answer. 'I loved you', he said, looking into her eyes and trying to see any emotion. He could not. His sentence was a lie. He still loved her. She was so pretty, so kind, so nice. He had to think of her so often in the past weeks. It was so weak of him to have fallen in love with an agent. It would not have happened at his time at Mossad. Caitlin had made him weak and she had shown him that he still had feelings. Therefore he had to kill her. She had shown him how weak he was. He had thought by killing her he would kill his own feelings, too. Theresa had shown him, that he has been wrong. 'And I never loved you', she said sharply. 'Are you sure?', he asked. He did not reveal any emotions either. She did not answer. Like Caitlin, he thought. Little, sweet Caitlin. 'You remind me on Caitlin', he said after a while. 'Are you going to shoot me, too?', she asked, in kind of a nice way. Ari wondered if she ever could get angry. She was so calm and self-disciplined. He admired her for that, but she was weak, too. He knew she had a boyfriend. A boyfriend she loved and would never betray. Could he break her? Get her so far to doubt her own feelings?

He decided. He stood up and walked around the table to her. He sat down just in front of her, put his knees on the couch and slightly sat down on her legs. He was taller than she was and she looked up to him. His face came closer to hers. She did not push him away. 'I will never shoot you', he whispered in her ear. He kissed her cheek and put his face right back in front of hers. 'I cannot trust you', she said in a low voice. 'I know', he said. Their faces nearly touched. 'And I can't trust you either', he whispered, put his mouth even closer to hers. 'I already covered you once. What are you asking for?', she questioned. 'A chance', he said. 'A chance to proof you that I am not who you think I am. I am not that evil ex-Mossad, that violent ex-Hamas or that cruel ex-Al Quaeda terrorist anymore. I do have feelings.' 'Show me', she said, directly looking into his dark brown eyes. He kissed her, gently, slowly, far too long. It felt so good, for both of them. They stopped. They looked in each others' eyes. 'That is wrong', she said. 'I know. But do you always do everything right?', he asked. She gently laughed. Then she started to unbutton his shirt. He laughed and put his forehead against her. They both breathed heavily. She put his shirt off and threw it away. Her hands glided around his neck. She started kissing his neck, touched his chest, getting lower. 'What are we doing?', Ari asked. 'I don't know', she said. 'But let's do it before we find out.' He took her pullover and pulled it over her head. Now her hair was electrically charged. He tried to straighten it. It did not work. She laughed. She started opening his trousers. He stood up, put it off and sat down again, this time next to her. He helped her getting out of her jeans as well. He was only in underpants now. He gently pushed her to the couch and turned her so that he could see her back. He started to open her bra with her mouth. 'I think we discussed this before', she said. He managed to open it and kissed her back. She turned around again and threw the bra away. He now lay on her, he was a bit too large for the couch. They did not care. He gently touched her breasts, licked them. They both stripped off their underpants. Theresa turned around to get her trousers. She picked up a condom from her jeans pocket. 'Do you always have one of them with you?', he asked when she turned back to him. 'It's just for the terrorists I betrayed and who come back.' 'Happens to you often?' 'Yeah, but usually they want to kill me', she said and opened the package. He took it and put it on. She smiled and pulled his neck down to her. They started kissing again, wildly.

Valentina still was in interrogation room. She waited. Nobody else was there. Suddenly the door banged open and Fornell came in. 'Wanna get out?', he asked. She stood up and hurried toward him. 'What happened?', she asked. 'We promised to keep an eye on you', Fornell said. 'That means you can got to NCIS yard now but you are not allowed to leave the yard without someone from FBI. This someone will be Dean.' Dean was her boyfriend. 'You are not out of this yet and they want you to be punished for killing their agent. They think you were personally motivated', he said while they walked out of the building. 'I am not. I regret killing my brother', she said angrily. 'I know. I believe you. You had no choice. There was a surveillance camera on the ship. It filmed the scene and I watched it. Just after I saw you shooting him, the video disappeared from the computer. It was deleted from somewhere else. I can't find a copy.' 'What?', she asked and stopped. He stopped, too. 'Someone wants you to be found guilty for killing him.' 'Why did he want to shoot them anyway? He could have just told me he was an agent?' 'Someone must have been watching this video from the surveillance camera and he knew it.' Fornell waited a moment and continued. 'We think Paloma Reynosa knew he was an agent and bought him. When they had arrested him, they would have found out. By now, Paloma Reynosa must have already covered all tracks. We somehow have to proof that he was on their side and that you were right with shooting him. Let's go', he said and they walked out of the CIA building.

Three hours later Gibbs arrived at the airport in Mexico. He was not surprised that he was expected there. A man stepped out of a police car. It was Alejandro Rivera. He looked at him. Gibbs walked toward him. 'Great to see you again', Alejandro said. 'You could have called.' 'Obviously it wasn't necessary. You are well informed', Gibbs said. 'Would you please follow me?', Alejandro said and let him step into the car. 'My sister wants to talk to you.' 'As I expected', Gibbs murmured and stepped into the car. He never looked forward to it. Why didn't he let her die when he had the chance to. He had told Ziva to call the ambulance. It was his fault Paloma was still alive.