CINDERELLA Revisited

Chapter 22

Previously

"When were you going to tell us about the meeting you had today with the SECNAV, Angela DiNozzo, Anthony DiNozzo, Sr, and FBI agents Tobias Fornell and Sacks?"

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As I sat in Vance's office waiting for an explanation I remember earlier coming around the corner into the bull pen and for a moment thinking I was having one of my nightmares. The one with me a little guy again and Anthony, Sr and Angela the bitch sitting relaxed in a luxury pink kitchen nook having imported coffee while I lay, tied wrist and ankle, to a cheap metal cot, watching them have breakfast and trying not to make any sound of the pain I was in from the poisons they were giving me. All in order not to cause any interference in their digestive process while they consumed toast and runny eggs.

Pretty wild weird nightmare but more and similar ones over a period of many nights. Didn't need Dr Cranston to tell me what they meant.

But I knew the nightmarish vision was real when I saw the cunning smug smirk and the dark, stone-faced glare. All too familiar expressions from the repulsive duo staring down at me from the floor above. I know I overreacted or responded too emotionally and improperly to their presence almost causing a lot of people to get hurt. What kind of Probie, much less a veteran Senior Field Agent, lets his prisoner escape and then stands by while others show him up by taking said prisoner down.

Poor McGee getting his face bashed in and Ziva trying to out man me. Gibbs ability to avoid Ziva's flying lethal foot was a miracle move on his part too. No one else seemed to have gotten a glimpse of our visitors as they were ushered into the elevator along with Fornell, Sacks and the SECNAV by Director Vance. So I didn't even have a legitimate excuse to blame on what I did and I couldn't blame my lapse on them anyway, it should not have happened. What if the prisoner had gotten a hold of my gun while I stood transfixed and slack-jawed?

All of them being here at this time probably has nothing to do with me. Still, I am the only commonality and I don't believe coincidences exist. The bitch isn't locked up; no electronic device around her ankle that I could see. Her snarl and growl husband stands stiff-necked and coldly loathsome next to her, Sacks looks over his sly shoulder and I'm standing here with my mouth agape.

So far I've berated myself more than Vance or the SECNAV or even Gibbs could ever do combined. Probably should hand in my resignation now, preempt getting fired or manipulated out of my job like being unfairly stripped of my scholarship or gypped out of my inheritance.

After Herman was rendered unconscious by a self-satisfied Ziva, paramedics transferred him and McGee to the hospital although McGee wanted Ducky to do his exam. Gibbs went with him but not before he let me know by the lack of expression on his face and unblinking hard blue stare how furious he was at my total stupidity because let's face it, one minute I'm blabbing to him like the fool that I am, and the next the light bulb goes out with a whimper.

It would have helped if Gibbs had taken Ziva with him to the hospital as I sat at my desk and endured her solicitations and offer to listen if I needed to talk over a home cooked meal. Abby showed up looking anxious but she didn't approach me and I was relieved. We never had had our talk.

Everything in the office had stopped whirling tornado-like and emotions weren't so stirred up; those who were going to had already made their sarcastic well-deserved barbs about my ineptness, the rest just shrugged bad luck, man.

An hour later, Gibbs and McGee returned. What can I say? McGee's face looked terrible. He'd have two black eyes tomorrow and already had a split lip and broken nose. Gibbs just looked terrible period like coming bad weather, gray and stormy skies. Our esteemed leader Vance was on the phone with him the minute he got back to his desk because he wanted to have a little talk with us, you know, praise us for a job well done...yeah that was it.

The four of us sat silently in Vance's outer office for fifteen minutes. The man was really pissed to keep us waiting that long. I didn't look at any of my co-workers because this was my fault and really, they shouldn't have to be held responsible because I hadn't learned how to cope better with the results of the first twelve of my formative years being spent absolutely hated and shunned like I belonged on that Hawaiian leper colony in a movie I had seen long ago.

Finally we were given the nod to go in. The SECNAV was there and I was surprised the DiNozzo's weren't sitting in comfortable chairs along with Sacks and Fornell in old home week, share the love, pass the bottle.

Vance yelled for ten minutes. Ziva got her share of reprimand but she was too impressed with her own skills to take umbrage at the harsh rebuke even from the SECNAV, and the threat of IA involvement.

I stood up and formerly offered up my gun and my badge, my life. Not right now, maybe later, is what I got from Vance, and like hell you will from Gibbs. And yet, the bigger picture, the big pink elephant in the room as far as I was concerned was never brought up. Vance and the SECNAV were happily confident that we weren't getting sued by the Perkins' family who would probably pay us for taking care of the sediment in the bottom of the moonshine filled container of their family tree.

In the meantime, I waited for the Director to fill us in on the presence of my worst enemies. I accepted that I had acted unprofessionally and had informed him I would take my punishment. What I would not accept any longer was the silence and secrecy involved in having those people here disrupting my life again spreading their rot like a cancer. Steve had said it. Thirty years of his life on standby. That's his thirty and my thirty too many.

Then McGee asked, "What were Angela and Anthony DiNozza, Sr doing here? Gibbs head jerked up and Ziva uttered a silent, what, at that news so obviously they hadn't seen them paraded to the elevator like royalty.

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The Director and the SECNAV made it clear that they weren't trying to cover over anything. Vance had intended for me to stay after everyone else had left. I told them we all needed to know what was going on.

The SECNAV informed us that an assassination attempt was made at an outdoor street market where Angela DiNozzo and her rich boyfriend were leisurely browsing. It's unclear who the death squad was after, her or her boyfriend, but he had his six grandkids with him and one of the kids got hurt in the crossfire, gunshot wound to the leg. He wasn't taking any chances and got her on a plane and out of his Country quicker than her kiss of death could persuade him to let her stay.

"Anyway, she ended up getting in touch with her husband who notified the FBI who met her at the airport. She wants to make a deal. The reluctance on our part has nothing to do with keeping your team out of the loop, Gibbs. She's..."

And here the SECNAV sounded profoundly disgusted. "We're dealing with an insane woman who is fixated on you, Agent DiNozzo, and your kidneys. She offered everything but the kitchen sink to get you on an operating room table with or without your permission. She'll accept that along with immunity once she passes on any information she has, and she wants all charges dropped including that of kidnapping and attempted murder."

Vance looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "It sounds like she may have some vital information but we're not in the habit of offering people up like a sacrificial lamb so we told the FBI where they could take her. We're..."

I had interrupted because I needed to know. "And the man with her?"

"You mean DiNozzo, Sr?" Vance and the SECNAV shared a glance.

"He didn't have a lot to say, Agent DiNozzo..."

I tuned them out after that. I already knew what I knew and nothing had changed. I wasn't disassociating, just thinking in a way long overdue. The meeting may have gone on for ten minutes or ten hundred minutes, I don't know. We were back in the bullpen after that. Gibbs' spidery gut senses were bothering him when he asked me if I was alright so I started joking around a little even agreed to have dinner with Ziva after she stated she was going to the supermarket after work and what would I like?

I told her I would rather eat at that new Cajun restaurant near the wharf, felt like hot and spicy tonight. What a look she got on her face that was only there a moment, gleeful, triumphant, satisfied? Certainly nothing nice. I hated to wipe whatever it was off but it was replaced by her fuming visage not long after at my subterfuge.

"Hey, McGee, Dorneget, Palmer with Breena of course, Ducky, Boss, Susie the mail clerk, Jaime, Rothchild, thanks for your help with Herman by the way, Drew, yeah bring your wife too, McGee call Abby. Everybody, dinner's on me tonight at that new Cajun place.

During the commotion that caused, 'cause when did DiNozzo ever fork over a couple three hundred bucks for somebody else's dinner, and the furious daggers from Ziva, I went to the men's room then slipped out and down the stairs before Ziva could track me down in there, and left.

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Tony got to the Hay-Adams luxury hotel by cab. The FBI wasn't paying this bill though he saw some agents in suits hiding in plain obvious site in the lobby, and they saw him. He took the elevator to the penthouse floor, easy enough and the suits let him through without any hassle. One of them even opened the door for him after listening to instructions in his ear wig, and searching for his weapons which he had left in his desk at work.

Fornell eyed Tony carefully as he met him at the door. DiNozzo appeared a little distracted but calm as he looked around the large suite.

Then again cynical and sarcastic also fit the bill. "Nice. Always the best luxury

accommodations for an attempted murderer and kidnapper. You guy's footing this bill, Fornell?"

"What're you doing here, DiNozzo?" Well, Tony was here to settle some things that needed to be settled, say sixty years-worth of things but Fornell didn't need to know that.

"Where's the bitch?"

Tony strode further into the room and stepped down into the living area where he placed eyes on the man for the first time in years. Anthony DiNozzo, Sr sat on the sofa nearest the fireplace where small pieces of embers burned and blinked reddish in the dying fire. He had a laptop on his knees and something dark and alcoholic he assumed in a glass that tinkled with ice when he raised it to his lips for a sip.

So here they were. Tony didn't know what else showed on his face except loathing but the guy flinched back as though shocked for a moment. Senior finished his drink and placed the empty glass on the coffee table. He closed the lap top and placed it aside then stood and determinedly faced his unwitting adversary for the coming confrontation.

Tony saw not a bad looking face aged and lined handsomely. He was taller so the man was just about six feet but Tony remembered him from his childhood height towering above him to terrorize and demean, snarl and snap.

Anthony DiNozzo, Sr knew the man standing in front of him had a hardened heart that had been lacking in his youth. Not only his heart hardened to steel but his nerves and his will also as Senior peered into the cold frigid eyes and the face so like his own filled with his contempt and unflinching determination for his answers.

Steve, the son he understood and who was most like him, had told him on his last visit to the mansion before everything had spiraled down into hell. "Father, everything bad that has happened in this family is your fault. Everything!"

His son had sounded harsh and upset but more in disappointment than real anger, as though his father in the wrong was a new concept to him. Steve had stood in front of him as he sat at his desk and laughed in self-depreciation as he lined things up on the desk in precision and order from the biggest item to the smallest eraser.

"Without my medication, father, this is what I would do for hours on end, or reread the dictionary, or obsess over the order of the books in the library. Did you know that? And it's your fault I'm this way."

Steve had forced him to face certain facts that he already knew but out in the open appeared so much worse than when he could keep them close to his heart and undetected by others. Steve's voice had gentled when he said, "Let's face it father, you're an old man, and as I see it you need to beg for forgiveness before your time runs out. I'll help you take that first step, if you'd like."

That simple, to help him take steps to beg Tony for forgiveness.

Steve's phone had rung before he could finish whatever he had started to reveal that day and he had been gone in minutes to his strange secretive rendezvous. And come back with his arm in a sling and a gun that looked like it belonged there on his hip.

And now he stood face to face with Tony ready or not to beg forgiveness for the unforgivable. Forgiveness that he did not deserve and did not expect to get.

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I had no clue what the bastard was staring at though his eyes had lost some of the aloofness I was so used to seeing. Yeah, that emotion was probably one of him wanting to punch me in the face for intruding on his cocktail hour but he held back because he knew I could kick his sorry ass with one hand tied behind my back.

I thought I'd be...let's face it, scared, to confront him. A youthful fear held over to my adult middle life that kept me more or less quietly bound and figuratively on the run for years. I'd faced formidable foes, it was time I faced this one. I stared him in the eyes and fought him the way I fought best, with words.

"Your looney wife here has been trying to have me murdered for months now and yet you continue to defend her, bail her out of jail and put her up in a luxury suite. What in the hell is wrong with you? She's insane and belongs in a bed next to or in the same bed as your seriously mentally ill son, who by the way is only there, insane that is, because she put him there."

I thought those fighting words would spark some adverse reaction in him. Hell, I just gave him more reason to start swinging at me than he ever got from me when I was a boy but like all cowards, he lacked the courage to face someone where his win wasn't a slam dunk.

He didn't even blink and his answer surprised me again. "I'm sorry she went this far. I didn't know. She no longer has access to the DiNozzo money and her accounts have been frozen by the FBI. If she has any off shore accounts and she makes any attempts to access them on line, the FBI will be notified by a cybercrime unit somewhere, I think your NCIS. She has been refitted with an electronic ankle bracelet and she is allowed one phone call a week and that is extensively monitored."

I was still standing a few steps into the living area and it seems he just realized he had forgotten his impeccable manners because he suddenly stopped his monologue and asked. "Would you have a seat?"

"No." No matter how much of a petulant child I sounded, I wasn't there for socializing.

"Cold drink, then?" He picked up his used glass and walked to the bar. Again, I was surprised when he filled it with ice and poured in the rest of the already opened can of diet coke and nothing else. Teetotaling after years of overconsumption making him into a sloppy mean abusive drunk? How refreshing.

"No thanks. Is that it?"

He took a sip from his glass as he walked back and stood by the fireplace, reaching out with one hand to feel the heat. All of this stalling and halted information just to let me know he was in charge and he would dictate how this meeting would go or how long it would take? Bastard!

"Well, that's all I know. I surmised that she will be locked up once the FBI gets the information they want from her and it depends on what she has to offer whether it's execution or life in prison, which really frightens her.

"Good!" I snarled my contempt. "Let the bitch stay frightened until the day she gets her reward rotting in hell and as far as I'm concerned you can rot along with her!"

Turning to leave abruptly, I'd already had enough of him. I use to be desperate to reach some kind of closure and I had thought the only way to do that was to get answers from this man. But his answers weren't going to change any part of my life.

He had been nothing but a bully and a tyrant to me and a cruel, selfish, hateful father who had placed all his blame and his inadequacies on a poor defenseless child because of his obsession with a woman who hated his guts, and who had just happened to be my mother.

I started up the steps purposely, headed for the door and out. Fornell had disappeared, probably to call Gibbs who was probably scrounging around in the file cabinet for the notice of termination of employment he would hand me when I got back, along with the head slap from an elephants trunk, and his 'don't expect a recommendation from me, loser!' parting words.

"Steve told me about your grandmother's will being stalled in court. Something else I'm afraid I didn't know about." Well, that was cause to pause and I turned around back down the stairs to confront him.

"Really?! You knew nothing about the bitch's hounding and tormenting of me for years? You broke my damn arm because of something she did and you knew nothing about that?

"My grandmother ran and hid from that woman's persecution and harassment when she was too old to be running, not because she was afraid of that bitch, but because she knew she wouldn't get any help from you when the bitch got her locked up in an insane asylum, so instead she ends up dying alone on the filthy carpet of some ratty hotel room and you knew nothing about that?"

I have to say he didn't flinch though his ruddy complexion grayed considerably and the icy rocks in his glass tinkled once. I hoped childishly he'd have a stroke or massive heart attack while I watched him suffer in happy glee.

"No, nothing." He turned to place the glass on the mantle. "But there's nothing I can do about that now." And he shrugged as though none of it mattered.

I saw red. "You Bastard..."

In the few steps it took to stride across the room, I had grabbed a hand full of his expensive alpaca wool sweater in my one hand and raised my fist to pound into his hated face with the other.

But it was easier than I thought it would be to come to my senses quick enough. I'm getting ready to beat up on an old man, now how does that make me any different from him? I could hear Gibbs, 'that's not you, DiNozzo'. No, that's not me.

I shoved him away from me as someone beneath contempt and backed up ready to make my exit again. I was starting to feel like a drama queen who didn't know when to leave the stage. He had other ideas though as he started to speak again.

"It may seem to you as though I don't care about the things that happened to you and your grandmother in the past. But you and I both know that whether I care now or not is irrelevant, meaningless, because at that time, when it was happening, I didn't care. I will live with that for the rest of my life.

"I could beg for your forgiveness but truthfully, if I were you, I'd spit on any words of regret or penitence coming from me. So, that being said. I can only attempt to try and help fix things now whether you want me to or not.

"To the best of my ability, I promise you that Angela won't bother you again. I will make sure of that if it's the last thing I do on this earth. I've moved out of the mansion and if you'll allow it, there are some personal things there that I would like to have.

"My mother's estate has been released from probate court and all her assets are yours as she wished. My brother Fred had some issues. I guess Angela promised him certain things but I've straightened him and the situation out. He won't be bothering you again, either."

I thought he was finished with his list of 'to do' things to get off his chest but he spoke again after a short pause and even sounded a little hesitant.

"...Is there anything, any questions you may have for me that I could try to answer?"

Okay, I had a question. "Yeah, I have a question, dammit! Where's all the hate and venom you spewed on me whenever you laid eyes on me and the raised fists when I was within ten feet of you?

"Those kinds of emotions don't just disappear, a lifetime of it then poof it's gone? Where'd it go? Now you're old, you make peace with your maker and part of the ten step program is to try and fix your prior mistakes?"

Was that me yelling? God, my emotions were all over the place because, why couldn't he have loved me just a little bit? Yeah, that was my question. Good thing I had sense enough not to say that out loud with the place bugged like I knew it had to be. But I finally saw something on his face that wasn't just a resigned shrug of his shoulders. Regret.

"Anthony, I can't answer that question. There are no excuses I can make. And I can't take back anything I've done in the past. I'm like a man on death row and the final hour has come. I may regret the actions I did to put me there but the inevitability is I still have to pay for my deeds with my life or in my case, my regrets for the rest of my life."

Philosophy, why am I not surprised? I sighed in defeat. I wasn't getting any fighting words from this man. He wasn't going to fight me, try to excuse his actions or give me any reason to hate him more than I already did. Good for him, lets him off the hook for his years of mistreatment and leaves his conscience clear, or so it seemed to me.

"If I had asked for your forgiveness, would you have granted me that, Anthony?" He posed the question to my retreating back.

Loud hand clapping, and even a long low whistle followed by "Bravo, bravo, bravo! I love it. Anthony, you have outdone yourself." Interrupted any answer I might have made.

The bitch had made her presence known.

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Angela the bitch must have been lurking on her bed with a half dozen trendy magazines waiting for just the right time to pounce, rip and slash. I was well and truly surprised by her dramatic entrance into the room because for a time, I had forgotten she even existed. Let's see if it was as easy to rile her up as it used to be.

"Well, well, if it isn't Angela the nasty bitch. I thought I was going to have the pleasure of not seeing your ugly hag of a face this time around but one can only hope. So, how ya been, bitch? Your husband here says you're headed for the gas chamber. Can't be soon enough for..."

Angela didn't have as much control over her emotions as she used to and control was virtually non-existent whenever she had to deal with me, who it seemed she could never get to suffer long or hard enough.

"You son of a bitch! You rotten no good son of a..." The banshee yell before she came at me with her talons unsheathed was expected so I didn't step out of the way of her mad dash on five inch high stilettos determined to excise my cornea's.

One swing of my balled up fist would send the witch flying sans her broom and a kick to her shriveled up chest would probably cave it in to her backbone. Ah, fantasies get behind me.

She came swinging and caught me one on the leg with her foot. Her hand almost made contact with my face but before I could act on my fantasies, the formerly useless husband showed an ounce of backbone and intercepted the hand and dragged the witch off me kicking and screaming filthy words that I don't think Senior had ever heard before coming from her mouth.

"Angela! My god, Angela!" His shock was real. Could it possibly be true? Could he have no idea the extent of this woman's vicious evilness? No idea who he left his children with while he was in la la boozerland?

She was on the couch now with her husband practically sitting in her lap to keep her there. His face was a picture of disturbed, surprised disbelief. I went and stood by the sofa staring at what was once a beautiful woman. She had aged while on the run and being shot at and her champion Anton locked up and the threat of prison her only future. Maybe I could get something out of her the FBI could use.

"You know, bitch. I've still got my kidney's but you'll be minus all your internal organs once the State fries them up like French fries in the electric cooker chair and your poor sap Anton won't be around to shed a stinking sloppy tear over your demise cause he's locked up and doped up to his genius ass in drugs."

I watched as she metamorphosed from banshee to southern belle at the cotillion, confusing to Senior, familiar to me. She banked her madness and her anger deep within and showed the face her husband had only ever seen.

"You may get off of me now, Anthony, dear. I'm alright. You know what kind of boy Anthony was, always causing trouble and provoking me and he hasn't changed, but I'm fine now. Let's sit and talk, like a family. It's long overdue, don't you think?"

She'd truly lost what mind she had left if she thought...

Even Senior was amazed at her flight of her crazy fancy. "Angela, under the circumstances it would be more than ridiculous for you to presume that Anthony here would want to 'sit and talk' to you of all people. You're under arrest for trying to have him killed. The only reason you're not behind bars is because you may or may not have information to sell."

She turned slowly to stare at him and grinned mischievously. "Anthony, really don't be silly. I've thrown him down the stairs more than once and nothing's ever happened to him except for a broken leg and a couple of ribs. You never cared then. Don't you think it's a little late to start now?"

"What...what did you say?" Her husband's voice trembled as he pushed himself as far away from her on the sofa as he could.

"Oh, Anthony, you're such a fool. Don't pretend you didn't want him dead as much as I did. And really, if it wasn't for Janes and the rest of that interfering staff, I'd have killed him myself many times over. Surely you don't think a four year old ends up at the bottom of the basement stairs and almost freezes to death without help?

"Then there was that one time I choked him until he was unconscious then wrapped the drapery cord from his slutty mother's room, where he was always trying to hide, around his neck so it would look like he accidentally hung himself. That was fun." And she laughed delightedly.

Senior stood hurriedly and rushed to the bar to the sound of her obscene laughter, where he poured a good quantity of whiskey into a glass and slugged it down in one gulp. I, for one of the few times in my life, could not think of a single comeback to that doozy of a revelation.

"Fix me a drink, would you Anthony dear, anything on the rocks." She turned to look over her shoulder at her husband, who made no effort to fix her drink as he leaned against the bar and stared off into space.

"That's right, darling. The bar is your friend. You know I liked you much better with a bottle in your hand and a glass with ice in the other. I liked to hear the sound the ice against the glass made when you walked, always knew where you were and when you were coming in case I had a friend visiting."

She sat back on the sofa in her usual casually relaxed way and reached for a small bottle of hand lotion that had fallen in between the cushions, uncapped it and applied a small drop to the back of each hand. Still smiling, she rubbed the lotion in and admired the results.

"I still have beautiful hands don't you think, no red spots or wrinkles like some of my friends. Speaking of hands and alcohol, Anthony, that reminds me of the time little Anthony here got his grubby little hands on a bottle of your favorite cognac and drank some of it and got sick and how angry you were that your precious liquor was wasted remember that?" She giggled at the memory.

"Except he didn't get into it. I went into his room one night before that damn Janes put a guard on his door and woke him up and shoved the bottle down his throat. I forced a lot of it down him too but he kept throwing it up and choking and gagging. Disgusting! You were always so disgusting, nothing like my Antoney and Anton.

"If it weren't for that live-in maid who slept in the room above him coming down because she heard him choking, he'd have followed in your footsteps, Anthony, and drank himself to death. Ha, ha, haaaaa."

Okey dokey.

Senior by the bar fought his battle to drink until comatose and won. With one swipe of his hand, the glasses and liquor bottles went flying. The bar mirror and the glass that struck it so forcefully shattered on impact sending small pieces of glass onto the counter and floor.

The bitch stopped her raucous laughter at that but she watched Senior in tolerate amusement and affection.

"Anthony, my love? Why the tantrum? I was only doing what you were too weak and cowardly to take care of yourself, you know that."

"I never wanted him dead, Angela."

"You may think that now, dear, but you wished he had never been born enough times when he was a child that I just wanted to grant your wish. Now come on. All of that's in the past and..."

"It's not in the past, is it Angela? You're still trying to kill him. Why?"

"Why, for you dear and Gregor. You know that."

Senior rubbed at his face and smeared blood on his chin from a cut on his hand made by the flying glass and didn't bother to wipe it off if he even knew it was there.

I hadn't moved from the spot, my feet were encased in hardened lava. I was remembering the saying, be careful what you wish for. All I'd wanted was an explanation whether other's thought I was entitled to one or not.

But I got more than that, and memories I had been able to suppress because of the intervention and love from total strangers, bubbled up as though the lava had turned molten.

She had tried to kill me numerous times. The bathtub assault when one of her own kids came in and saved me from certain death. It was Steve in his bath towel. The bitch had allowed a sleep over with my brothers as a birthday present. An indoor camping adventure with tent and hotdogs and marshmallows.

I had begged Janes to let me go, a chance to play with my brother's, the only other children in the house. But Janes was leery and cautious. Made me promise the first time I didn't feel comfortable or didn't like something she did than I should just get up and run or scream out loud, someone would hear me. At first everything was okay but then for some reason, I stopped wanting to be there. I remember she said baths first and pj's and then the fun would start.

The boy's bathroom didn't have a lock. I was in the tub and she came in. Without preamble she shoved my head under water and held it there. I was slippery with soap bubbles and strong for my age and had just learned how to swim under water so I wriggled free to gasp at air above me. I was under again and again. Then, there was someone in the tub with me holding me up while still being pushed down from above. There was childish screaming, the water regurgitating and angry. Suddenly I was free. My gasping brother, younger, smaller was holding me up. There was still water but flowing down the drain now, less and less.

Steve, desperate to get out of the tub, to get me out, himself whimpering now and coughing up water crawled out and pulled my arm but he couldn't get me out and I couldn't move. When someone found us hours later, we were shivering, traumatized, and in shock and blue lipped from cold. I was still in the bathtub on my back and Steve was sitting on the cold tile floor still grasping my arm. I had forgotten that.

When I came back from my memory, Angela had risen from the sofa and walked to the bar where she playfully pushed her husband aside to pour her own drink. She placed her hand on his arm intimately a smile playing on her pink tinted lips.

"Once I'm free of this distasteful business, Anthony, let's take a long extended trip together possibly the Orient, so exotic. Or an around the world cruise on that new luxury liner, how does that sound?"

Senior looked floored at her question and it must have finally dawned on him that he wasn't dealing with anything sane. He jerked his arm free from under her hand and stepped back.

"You're going to jail, Angela. The only reason I'm here now putting you up in this suite is because the FBI thought I might have some influence in getting you to open your mouth. I'm tired, Angela, tired and fed up with it all, and sick of you. I'm leaving. They can lock you back up and throw away the key..."

Suddenly and all too predictably she did her chameleon and started to shriek. I had a hard time deciding if I should run for safety or stay put for the theatrics.

"You think you can dismiss me just like that, Anthony? You think you're so smart. Go ahead! Go back to that whore bitch in your filthy bed. You think this is over, you lousy bastard? You think you've won anything here? I'm not going to be locked up or executed. For what, for trying to rid the world of that cave dwelling son of yours, for doing something you were too cowardly to do?"

Senior made the mistake of turning his back and walking away and had a wildcat on his back for his inattention. She attacked him from behind striking him on the head with her full glass spraying booze and ice, and then was up in his face with her hands slapping and nails gouging deeper than age lines would ever go.

I was rooted to the spot dumb and mute with only my eyes moving like watching an Academy Award winning movie or a horror flick, or a kid hiding in the closet watching his parents duke it out. Senior spun around and grabbed both her hands with his and forcibly, but with incredible restraint pulled them down from his face and held them.

"Enough, Angela! Anthony, call your friends have them come and take her away. It's over." He shook her. "Over!"

"You think it's over just because you say it's over? I had to put up with your sniveling and weak crying for years whining and drunk over that trash mother of his even in our marriage bed. Louisa! Louisa!" Her lip curled as she mimicked, and sneered what must have been craw stuck in her gullet for years.

"Well, it's not over. I've got information. Bombs on trains in major cities all to go off at once. It's already set, and I know the date and time. You tell that bastard kid of yours to call his friend's at the FBI or the CIA or whatever ragtag job he has with the rejects and losers that I want five million dollars, my passport and a one way ticket to Switzerland.

"You tell them that now, get them in here, because they don't have much time to lose. Then we'll see when it's over."

Finally, the fog lifted and I was able to unstick my feet when I heard the door quietly open. Not a room full of suits with guns drawn this time, just the Boss, and Fornell looking solemn and determined. Gibbs put a hand on my back and gave it a rub as he passed by and he didn't wave termination papers in my face, but the rub on the back terminated in a gentler than usual head slap.

Ncisncisncis. Ncisncisncis. Ncisncisncis