Kadin Bashandi once prided himself on not wearing his emotions on his sleeve.
His father had been much the same way, with his naturally quiet disposition enhanced by his Mossad training. Control was an asset not to be underestimated, and it had served him well for many years. And it might just save him now, sitting across from the penetrative blue gaze of Special Agent Gibbs.
He knew why'd he been brought here, knew he'd been caught. He could grasp at straws, could plead and beg and twist the story until he sounded contrite, sincere even. But what use was that? Neither of them deserved the satisfaction of catching him in a lie. He would not give them that. And this Gibbs may not know all the details, but she did. Lying would only painfully delay the inevitable.
She knew, or she wouldn't be standing shadowed in that corner, her side facing him, eyes on the wall dead ahead. She had not moved or said a word since they sat him down in this chair. He was repulsed, if not a little intrigued, by her presence, and it made his hands sweat and his stomach feel impossibly heavy.
(Which is why they did not leave her on the other side of the glass. So predictable.)
"That phone call you got, with the tip about my agents," said Gibbs suddenly, sliding a few loose sheets of paper over the surface of the desk without breaking eye contact. "Never happened, did it?" he asked knowingly, his tone soft and yet determined.
Kadin stayed silent.
"File says you grew up in Israel. Right near Eli David and his family."
(How he fucking hated that name, these days.)
"So it must have been so convenient when she just showed up at your doorstep. She had no idea what you were planning. What kind of friend you really were."
"We are not friends. Not anymore," he interjected, before he could stop himself.
"Why?" demanded Gibbs, his tone harsher, as if he was getting somewhere.
"You should ask her," Kadin returned, trying and failing to elicit a flicker of recognition from the woman in the corner.
"Look at her again and the cameras go off, understand?"
Kadin bit back a scowl.
(So fucking American.)
"You also lied about Tali David. Why?"
"I had to lie. She had a protected identity and was on a classified mission for over a year," which was true enough, and that piercing stare was not helping.
"She was already dead and you knew it. There was nothing to protect."
"There are still other operatives, other people connected to her. To tell you the truth would have been to jeopardize the entire operation. I had no choice."
"No choice. You have a grudge with her too?"
"Hardly. One operative is not worth a dozen more. It is not my problem if she died from her own carelessness."
(Still nothing from the corner, and he was almost impressed.)
The silence that gripped was a cold one.
"I think you're a liar, Kadin."
The man in question released a low breath.
"We all are," he countered, the slightest hint of defeat creeping.
"You grew up with their family. Explain to me why one of them ends up dead on your watch and the other close to it."
"I had no quarrel with Tali."
"Just Ziva. Right. So you got her to clean up your mess, and then you were free to kill her."
"She is not dead!"
"But your cousin and all his accomplices are. That piss you off?"
He released a breath, glaring, stomach churning.
"You really have no idea do you?"
Gibbs tilted his head, wondering if it was a mistake to let her hear this.
"So talk."
"Not to you," he challenged, twisting his wrists against his cuffs.
"It's either me or the Israelis, so take your pick."
"No. Her," he demanded, nodding his head in Ziva's direction. Something twitched across her face, but she still did not look in his direction or acknowledge that she had heard.
"Not happening," replied Gibbs, wanting to smack the complacent look right off this guy's face.
"Then fuck off."
"Fine," came a third voice, and she was as surprised as they were to hear how little it shook.
Gibbs looked surprised, even hesitant, but he had no desire to argue with her and tip the balance in his favor. Any display of incongruity between them would give him the upper hand, and that was not something Gibbs would allow. He rose from his chair, the legs sliding out from underneath him, eyeing her with a look he hoped she understood.
She took his seat, slowly, quietly, gripping the table for support.
It wasn't until Gibbs was gone and the door slammed shut that Kadin was forced to meet the gaze of the ghost he wished he'd never met.
One of her eyes was circled by faded brown and purple bruising, the swelling gone but the reminder still ever present. The cut on her cheekbone had mostly healed, but the tender redness was still visible. Her left arm was draped in a sling, the edges of her fingers and parts of the white bandaging peeking out from the opening. But her eyes held that same look of repression and grief, the look she'd had as long as he'd known her.
"I have to know," she began, her voice low and darkly smooth, "that you were truthful about Tali."
He didn't smile, or glare, or do anything at all.
"I wanted you to know how it felt," he replied, almost sadly, as if he'd been waiting for this all along. "To lose someone you love at the hands of a friend."
(The fact that her recurring dream had been some kind of fucked up warning was almost too much to bear.)
"It was you that compromised her identity," she stated, suddenly understanding why he hadn't asked a single question when she returned to his house with blood all over her clothes and no Tali.
"Yes. I hoped they would give her a quick death."
"You did not care either way," she hissed, doing her best not to react the way he so wanted her to.
"Just like you never cared about killing my father."
Ziva swallowed, heart beating a familiar rhythm against her chest.
"I did not know. Not until it was too late."
Ignoring her feeble attempt at defense, he plowed on.
"All those years I waited for you to tell me, to apologize, to confess that you never wanted it to happen. But you never did," he finished, noting how strange it sounded to vocalize the thoughts that had haunted him for so long.
For the smallest of seconds she looked as if she might have relented, but she steeled her features and the moment passed.
"Your father died a traitor's death."
For the first time, he snorted in amusement.
"You would have too, if my cousin had just killed you instead of playing with his food."
(Fuck yourself, she almost spat, until she remembered what that had earned her last time.)
"DiNozzo was not involved. You could have spared him."
Kadin shrugged.
"Collateral damage. And he was so loyal to you, it was touching," he sneered, hoping that Walker would find a way to finish them both once they returned to the States, as they so clearly belonged with each other.
"And your daughter too? Now she has no father."
"She will survive. She is enough like her mother for that."
Something clutched suddenly at her heart, threatening to rip it right out.
"Not –"
"Your sister?" he laughed, humorless. "No. It was you I thought I was in love with, when we were young. Or are you going to pretend you had no idea about that either?"
She grimaced, thinking of just how many years had passed. How much had changed. How the man sitting across from her had looked at her very differently, once.
"I guessed," she replied softly, not knowing what compelled her to admit it.
"Though maybe I'm lucky," he continued, his words seemingly faraway. "Because your brother you supposedly loved, and you told me what you did to him."
No, fuck, this wasn't supposed to come up, if anyone but Gibbs was listening –
"It was a mistake to trust you."
Kadin sucked his teeth, tone scathing.
"So clinical, even now. But you're right. You might have saved yourself, had you never confided in me."
There was a silence, as the truth of his words tempted the hollowness of her insides.
"All this to avenge your father."
"Yes," he answered, detached. Emptiness returning.
"Only to die the same way."
He snapped his head in her direction, a strange apprehension curled around his face, as if she meant she would take out her knife and end it right then and there. But, of course that was not what she meant, though it would simplify the rageregrethurt clawing at her stomach if it was.
The door opened to his right, Gibbs holding it open with a meaningful stare. As slowly as she sat down, Ziva rose to her feet, recognizing the dismissal for what it was.
He wasn't dying today.
(And were they not both already dead to each other?)
Patience was a skill he'd always had trouble with, though it would help him very little here.
Impatience was not what had him pacing back and forth, hands in and out of his pockets indecisively for the past twenty minutes. Impatience was not what had his gut churning and his veins burning. No. Not impatience.
Ziva would call it brooding. Or – ruminating. But she was not out here. She was in there, in that tiny little room with Kadin. Or so he had guessed when Gibbs had emerged and found him in this little stretch of hallway, which so far had kept him hidden from prying eyes.
The silent warning had been enough to keep him sequestered here, waiting, pounding out a pattern into the floor. He continued to let his feet work through his oppressive irritation, having given up on trying to stop. Every time he ceased his movement and tried to breathe calmly and without thought, his mind would find its way back to why he was here, and he would need to start pacing again.
He couldn't shake the weird anxiety or disquiet crawling under the skin.
His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps approaching from around the corner, and instinctively Tony's eyes snapped in that direction, anticipation mounting. He pressed himself into the wall behind him, trying to look as if he'd been standing coolly the entire time, unfazed, intimidating.
Dull voices accompanied the footsteps, and his face hardened into a glare.
McGee was first to notice him.
He stopped, naturally, raising a questioning glance to match the surprise in his shoulders. Kadin, who was right next to him (still cuffed), followed his lead, only the surprise didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Tony," said McGee slowly, unsure as to why his colleague was here instead of the hotel, where Gibbs had ordered him to stay. "Did Gibbs send you here?"
The senior agent didn't answer right away, earning a raised eyebrow from McGee, followed by an uncertain clearing of the throat. He shifted a little in awkward discomfort, glancing between Tony and Kadin, who looked decidedly indifferent.
"You know what Timmy, why don't you get our guest of honor here something to drink? I'm sure he's thirsty after his little interview with the Bossman," remarked Tony lightly, unable to rein in the mockery, even now.
McGee nodded with a frown, reluctantly taking the hint. When he was gone, Kadin finally addressed the man staring him down.
"You have no subtlety, DiNozzo."
"More than your cousin did, at least. Wait. He's dead," added Tony, stepping off the wall so that he was right in Kadin's face.
"What do you want?" spat Kadin, clearly annoyed.
Tony scoffed.
"Like it matters. The CIA is going to bury you."
"Maybe not. They do not mind playing dirty, and I still have value."
Tony's eyes narrowed dangerously, and he lowered his voice. He had too much fire in his veins to back down now, regardless of the truth behind Kadin's words.
"I doubt Eli David sees it that way. He will literally bury you."
"You seem desperate," taunted Kadin, enjoying how easy it was to goad.
"If it was up to me, you'd be dead already."
"Well then I guess lucky for me, your friends have managed to keep the famous Anthony DiNozzo under control," Kadin sneered, angry sarcasm laced into his snide remark.
"I don't think you can talk to me about friends, considering the way you treat yours," replies Tony coolly, trying hard to remember that he was supposed to be stopping himself from losing his shit.
"Does it kill you? That all you are to her is a friend?"
"Now who's desperate?" taunted Tony, a knowingly dark undertone to his voice.
Kadin ignored him.
"Is that why you're here? Jealous that my cousin fucked her before you could?"
Tony's fist connected with the side of his Kadin's face, sending him staggering backwards, unable to balance himself with his cuffed hands.
"Say that again, asshole," yelled Tony loudly, adrenaline surging and eyes blazing with things he had been afraid to release, deep green of his irises somehow darkened.
He took a quick step towards the man leaning against the wall with every intention of blindly causing him more pain, but someone grabbed him roughly around the shoulders and held him back. He struggled at first, his resistant and irate movements proving difficult to restrain. But when he realized he couldn't move, arms wrenched behind him painfully, he turned around to see who stopped him.
Gibbs. Perfect.
He pushed Tony aside and grabbed Kadin by the shirt, pulling him off the wall.
"Let's go," he said firmly, not even looking at the man. He pretended not to notice the blood leaking out of Kadin's nose. Instead he turned to Tony, demeanor resolutely calm and strong.
"Take Ziva back to the car and have McGee meet you there. Don't come back here."
Tony listened, numbly obeying, not knowing what the hell else he was supposed to do. He knew an order when he heard one, despise it though he may, and this was as clear as any. And so he left, a silent and determinedly evasive Ziva following close behind, the anger dissipating into guilt and leaving him feeling even worse than when he'd arrived.
(He smashed his already bandaged hand against the hood of their car once outside, and McGee didn't say a single thing.)
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